We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [325]
They sat in silence and let his words sink in. You had to admit he had a point. At two years and seven months, Bluetooth had never known any world but the Nimbus, and now it was gone. The ship had become a kind of home for them too. Only a few of them had ever believed in the Nimbus's inherent luck. What had taken over instead, gradually, was the notion that it was only their own steely determination, the care they took in maintaining the ship, and—above all—their love for Bluetooth that kept the torpedoes and the bombs away.
Suddenly they felt that determination slacken. The war had ended for them now—not because it had been won, but because without their ship they could no longer fight. There was no joy in the realization. They barely knew whether they were winners or losers. They were survivors, and now they wanted out. They were balanced on a knife-edge between disappointment and relief, and when the captain spoke, he spoke for all of them.
"I think we should go home," Knud Erik said.
Go home: that was easier said than done. The crew had more homes than there were corners of the world. "As far as I can see," he went on, "we're roughly halfway between England and Germany. Anyone who feels at home in England rows that way." He pointed westward. "And the rest—"
He was interrupted by Old Funny: "What are you saying? There were no Germans on board the last time I looked."
"We're not going to Germany. We're going home."
"To Denmark?" Sophie asked.
"To Marstal."
The crew split up again, this time according to destination. Old Funny remained in Knud Erik's lifeboat: it seemed he'd given up on vanishing from Marstal and was now ready to go home. Anton, Vilhjelm, and Helge wanted to head back too. Knud Erik looked at Sophie for a moment. Then she nodded. Wally and Absalon too were curious to see the tiny town that had been presented to them as the center of the universe. So why not?
They divided the provisions between the two lifeboats. There were three wool pullovers and three sets of oilskins in each. These were given to the freezing stokers. The boats rocked alongside each other as the crew shook hands across the rails. Bluetooth was passed around and got a hug from every man. He'd just said goodbye to his childhood home. Now he had to say goodbye to half its occupants. He didn't understand and cried for his mother as if she was the only fixed point that remained in the world.
They started rowing, and Old Funny insisted on being lifted out of his wheelchair and settled on the thwart so he could do his bit. He pulled hard at the oar with his one arm but struggled to maintain his balance on the thwart, so Absalon moved closer and supported him with his shoulder.
The other boat soon vanished from sight in the growing darkness.
Dear Knud Erik,
When I believed you had been drowned, I did something I have never liked to think about since.
I became so visible to myself, and that is never comfortable.
It happened one afternoon. I was wandering about aimlessly in the cemetery and suddenly found myself in front of a grave in the northwestern corner. It was Albert's. I had never tended his grave, though he was my benefactor.
Old Thiesen, the gravedigger, was busy painting the castiron fence around it. He had already weeded it, and it was clear that he would soon turn the neglected grave into a fitting memorial to one of the town's great shipowners.
Suddenly everything inside me—my fears, my grief and uncertainty, my eternally hidden and lonely life, my self-reproach, and the heavy burden of the almost impossible task I had set myself—all of it came out in a huge eruption of rage. It was not caused by any particular offense, but sprang from that feeling of helplessness that has dogged me all my life. I grabbed the paint bucket and flung it at the cracked gray-and-white marble column where the dates of Albert's birth and death were engraved. And I screamed the same three words