We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [326]
"Everything must go! Everything must go!"
I had given away my plan—but fortunately Thiesen was the only one who heard me. He understood the words, but not their meaning.
The gravedigger knew my story well. He knew that I had spent many days in the most agonizing uncertainty about your fate. He seized my hands, as if he was trying to protect me, rather than prevent me from causing further damage.
"Calm down, Mrs. Friis. Everything will be all right. I don't think you're quite yourself," he said.
He meant it reassuringly, but the terrible truth was that, in that moment, I had been precisely that: myself. I was being myself more than I ever had been before or would be again. The words came straight from my heart: everything must go. I had revealed the entire purpose of my life. Everything must go. Finally I had said it.
I collapsed, exhausted, on the grass at Thiesen's feet. "I apologize," I said, as he helped me back up. "I'm not myself."
So I encouraged him in his error. I agreed with him. I had to, if I was to go on living among people. "No, I don't think I'm quite myself," I repeated.
Everything must go. Everything has gone, and now I know that this was never what I truly wanted. I walk the streets of this town, which seems to have been hit by a curse, empty of the men who made up half of its inhabitants. And I see more and more women with an expression in their eyes that tells me that it has been so long since they last received a letter that they have finally given up hoping.
We are not in the habit of keeping accounts of the dead in this town. But I do know that far more have not returned from this war than Marstal ever lost in the last war or on the Newfoundland route. And it goes the way it always goes for those who drown. No earth for them to rest in.
I visit the cemetery every day and place flowers and wreaths on the few graves that we do have. Now I am the one who tends Albert's.
I ask you again to forgive me for having once exiled you to the dead.
Your mother
IT TOOK THEM three days to reach the German coast, an endless sandy beach with white dunes behind it. They arrived in the early dawn. The sky was overcast, and a pink rim across the landscape announced the sunrise. The weather had been calm all the way. They maneuvered through the surf, and Absalon and Wally jumped into the water to push the lifeboat ashore. Then they eased Old Funny out of the boat and into his wheelchair. He was heavy to push in the sand. Bluetooth ran alongside. He needed to move his legs after the long period of inactivity. He was clutching his stuffed toy dog, Skipper Woof, who'd also been born at sea, according to the boy. A new life awaited both of them. The up-down, up-down of the waves was a thing of the past. Now they were on boring land, and here they'd stay, for the time being at least.
"Where are the houses?" he asked. He'd never seen a beach before. The only world he knew consisted of the sea and bombed harbors. But some things hadn't changed. He looked around. There was Daddy Absalon, there was Daddy Wally (his special pal), there was Daddy Knud Erik, Daddy Anton, and Daddy Vilhjelm. There was Old Funny in his wheelchair, and there was his mother.
They found a road that led away from the beach. There was no traffic on it. Knud Erik walked with a battered leather suitcase in his hand.
"What's inside it?" Wally asked.
"Money."
"You have German marks?" Wally gave him a look of surprise.
"Something better. Cigarettes."
"You're a man with foresight," Sophie said.
"Only sometimes," he said.
***
They hardly knew where the front line was: whether they were ahead of it or behind it, or whether the Germans were still holding out or had already been overrun. The Russians were far away, but the Americans were pushing forward. They'd landed somewhere in the German Bight and would still have to