We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [39]
We let him get as far as the corner of Nygade before we surrounded him again, forcing him to flee down the street. We wanted to drive him out to the deserted area down by the harbor, where no one came at night. We'd almost got him down to Buegade: by now he was swaying and faltering. From time to time he'd fall into a snowdrift, headfirst. Then we'd wait until he got back on his feet and start again.
He was blubbering.
It was a dreadful thing to hear, but it stirred no pity in us. The snowstorm muffled all other noises, so the only sound was our tormentor's weeping. The tears ran down his cheeks, where they froze to ice. Snow hung in his sideburns, which made them seem longer, and frayed. Sobs, mumblings: was he still cursing us, or was he pleading for his life? We weren't sure, nor did we care. Finally, we had Satan under our thumb.
Isager sought shelter by the wall of one of the tall half-timbered houses at the bottom of Nygade. He tripped over the doorstep, collapsing onto stairs that were half-buried by snow. When he raised himself with his hands, Hans Jørgen hit him on the nose with a rock-hard ball. It was dark, but the snow lit everything up, and we saw the blood drip onto it, first a small stain, then a bigger one. Isager turned his head toward us and brayed with fear, blood dangling from his nose in a snotty strand.
Hans Jørgen launched yet another shot at him, but he missed, and the snowball smashed into the door instead.
A lamp was lit inside, and a light flickered behind the frost flowers on the icy window.
"Who's there?"
We heard scrambling in the hallway.
Then we legged it. In Buegade, Kresten Hansen was coming along, swinging his lamp in the snowstorm. The glowing wick cast a flickering light across his mutilated face. He was a night watchman now. He slept during the day and worked at night to spare the town the sight of his face. He looked horrific. He made way for us, and as we raced past, he dropped his lamp in a snowdrift and darkness descended.
The next day, Isager wasn't there to greet us in the doorway of the school. Silently, we entered the empty, ice-cold classroom. But we felt no relief. It was so strange. We couldn't imagine a world without Isager. Was he dead?
Nothkier, the assistant teacher, arrived and told us Isager was ill. We were all to go home and come back tomorrow. The next day the classroom was empty again, but the stove had been lit. Nothkier arrived and informed us that "Mr. Isager's illness will be a long one" and that in the meantime he'd attend to our education, though our hours of instruction would be reduced, as he also had to teach the girls.
Nothkier was no better at teaching than Isager: he, too, stuck to Balle's Textbook, which made very little sense to us, and Cramer's Arithmetic, which made no sense to anyone including him. But he never hit us. Sometimes he'd ask us whether we understood what he'd had just explained—and relieved, we'd answer no, we didn't. He didn't get angry or call us donkeys or give out "ducats": he just started again from the beginning.
The snow was still there, but we didn't block the stove or pour sand into the inkwells. Fewer of us played truant. It was as though we wanted to reward him.
Isager had pneumonia, it was said, and at home our parents talked about how he'd lost his way in the storm.
"He was probably drunk out of his mind," the men said. The women hushed them.
All the children knew what had happened, including those of us who hadn't been there. But we never said anything, not even to one another. As long as Isager didn't turn up for school, we were happy. Our failure to kill him the way we'd planned barely crossed our minds. Had anyone asked us if we really wanted him dead, we'd probably have replied that we didn't care, so long as we were rid of him.
Christmas came, and with it the holidays. Isager was still bedridden, and this year we spared him the torments we normally