We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [42]
Christmas and New Year came around again. Isager had escaped our torments the previous year because he'd been bedridden, fighting for his life, but he'd won, and now it was time for more seasonal fun. We suspected we'd never be rid of Isager, but we couldn't forget those classroom flames, the day Niels Peter used his sweater to obstruct the stovepipe, and it caught fire. Having seen the flames bursting out, we knew that once fire had taken hold, nobody could stop it.
This too was Niels Peter's idea. How had the big fire of 1815 started? Had men with torches set fire to the thatched roofs at night? No: a candle had been knocked over in a house in Prinsegade. That was all it took! And the blaze had jumped from house to house, until every third house in town was reduced to ashes. The glow could be seen all the way from Odense.
Albert's grandmother Kirstine still spoke about the fire with terror in her voice.
"Granny, tell us about the Great Fire!" Albert pestered her, when she came to visit. So as she sat by the stove, Granny would tell the story of Barbara Pedersdatter, the maid who'd been hackling flax on Karlsen's threshing floor in Prinsegade with the tallow dip lit, but then had taken it into her head, the silly girl, to read a letter from her sweetheart because he'd landed her in trouble and she was keen to know what he intended to do, given that it was all his fault. But in the process of opening the letter, the befuddled girl had knocked the candle over and the tow caught fire and soon it wasn't just Barbara Pedersdatter but the whole town that was in trouble. "Whoosh," Granny said, and flung her hands in the air to indicate how the hungry flames shot out through the thatched roof. She'd seen that fire and she'd never forget it.
"You pray to God that you'll never have to live through what we did," she'd say, as she finished telling the tale.
But Albert prayed to God that fire would be unleashed again.
It was New Year's Eve and we did what we always did: we ate our traditional dinner of boiled cod with mustard sauce, and then ran out into the dark winter's night, banging on doors and wreaking havoc. We smashed fences and threw clay pots. We caught a dog and tied a bit of old rope around it and hung it upside-down from a tree until its howls attracted the attention of its owner, whom we then bombarded with more clay pots.
And now, having stuffed straw into our sweaters, we were waiting for it to get dark enough to surround Isager's house. There was still light coming from the inside, so we threw a couple of clay pots through the windows into the drawing room. We heard his fat wife squeal and, shortly afterward, more noises came from the hallway. Then Isager appeared in the doorway, a stick in his hand.
"Louts," he yelled.
"You can shout as much as you like," we called back, and aimed a few more clay pots in his direction. One hit him on the shoulder and sent its foul, stinking contents running down his black tailcoat. His yelling ended in a strangled cough as if he was about to throw up. Another pot flew past him into the hallway. Josef and Johan stood looking out the window, laughing at their father. They were never allowed to go out mischief-making on New Year's Eve, so this was their revenge. But they had no idea what was to come, because we hadn't told them.
We legged it down Skolegade with Isager chasing after us, his stick raised, ready to attack. The sound of smashing glass now came from the other side of the house: Niels Peter and Albert Madsen had broken a bedroom window and thrown burning straw inside. The fire had started.
"Come out now or we'll burn your house down."
We turned into Tværgade and raced up Prinsegade. We could still hear Isager shouting. We were back at the schoolhouse by this time; we'd tricked him by running in a circle. We felt the wind grow stronger. The day before it had begun to thaw, and most of the snow in the streets was melting, warmed by the mild western wind that always sucked winter away from