We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [43]
We'd broken the windows on both sides of the house, and Isager had left the door open behind him when he chased us, so now the wind rushed straight through the building, blowing through the burning straw in the bedroom. Flames began to lick the walls. We'd never seen fire like this before, and the sight of it sent shivers down our spines: so this was what a hungry fire looked like! Wilder and fiercer than we'd ever imagined, it shot straight through the roof and lit the house like a thousand tallow candles. Then it burst out of every opening.
Isager screamed, and we saw his fat wife stumble through the door. She slipped on the stairs and plonked down on her fat bottom. She stayed there, sobbing loudly and plaintively, like a child.
Isager ran over to her and thumped her with the stick, as if the calamity that had befallen them was her fault. Meanwhile Josef and Johan watched the scene as if it was no concern of theirs. Jørgen Albertsen, from the house across the street, came running.
Our group, which continued to grow, stood on the other side of Kirkestræde. We wanted to cheer loudly, but we knew it was definitely not a wise move, so we just whispered the Snaily Snaily rhyme, glancing furtively at one another and giggling.
Our tormentor had got his comeuppance.
The adults raced over with buckets full of water, but that made no difference at all, because the west wind was blowing in earnest now. And it wasn't just through Isager's house that it stormed like the devil, setting alight curtains, wallpaper, furniture, and the loft; no, it carried on. Flames jumped on the wind's back and rode it from Isager's house to Mr. Dreymann's house, from Mr. Dreymann's house to Mr. Kroman's.
Little Anders wasn't chanting the Snaily Snaily rhyme anymore: he was screaming. It was his house that had caught fire. He watched his mother rush out with the soup tureen of tin-glazed English earthenware, which was the finest thing they owned. Soon all of one side of Skolegade was ablaze. The snow began to fall again, but this had to be Satan's snow, for it fell black rather than white.
The fire didn't stop until it reached the corner of Tværgade. Here the streets were wider apart, and the houses on the other side had tiled roofs. But from the near side, glowing embers rained down on the cobbles, and anyone who ventured there came away with burn holes in their clothing. Meanwhile, all along Skolegade, smoke and flames whipped into the sky, like the lashing tail of a fiery dragon.
Finally, the fire engine arrived. The horses were neighing with fright; they'd never seen a real fire either. The heat prevented them from entering Skolegade, so the fire brigade left the engine on the corner by Tværgade and tried to stop the flames rampaging through the town. Meanwhile efforts to extinguish the fire in Skolegade had ground to a halt, though Levin Kroman had shouted at us to join in, and we had. But the heat was too intense. We couldn't get near the Isager house and could only press ourselves against the houses on the opposite side of the street, clutching our buckets, while we watched the mighty sea of flames through stinging eyes.
It never crossed our minds that we were the cause of this unimaginable thing. No: the fire itself was the cause. It had a force, a consuming purpose all its own. It had nothing to do with us.
Our hour had finally come. All our bitterness, fear, and hatred—passions too huge to stay contained in the narrow chests of children—had fueled this fire, whose flames had the awesome capacity to purge us of everything hateful or unnecessary. Entire houses had been turned into sooty carcasses by those flames, and tomorrow that would be a sad and terrible sight to see. But tonight it was a stupendous spectacle. That's what we felt: nothing more.
But a western wind always heralds rain. High above the flames the storm clouds burst, and a torrent of rain tipped down and drowned both the fire dragon and our joyful excitement.
The next morning we wandered around and inspected the remains