We, the Drowned

  He started keeping lists of the ships he saw go down in his dreams. He also wrote down the names of the dead, when he recognized a face. He wrote all this in the left-hand column in his office account ledger, leaving the right-hand column blank, reserved for the day when his dreams started coming true. He reflected that these must be the strangest accounts ever kept and that he must be the oddest bookkeeper, because he was treating an imaginary world as if, like the real one, it must answer for its accuracy.

  Albert was a strongly built man, with a short beard and a head of hair that age had not thinned. For many years he'd remained unchanged, still exuding the same controlled strength. He didn't cut a youthful figure so much as a timeless one, as though he existed in a place where age didn't exercise its tyranny. But now he started to age visibly. He saw it himself, and he knew that people were talking. He still trimmed his beard and kept his thick hair neatly cut, but his broad shoulders began to droop and all of a sudden he seemed smaller. He kept to himself and made no excuses when he declined invitations. People could think what they liked. He found it especially difficult to be in company with men whose death he'd seen in his visions. How could they live their lives so lightly when such a terrible fate awaited them?

  How could Captain Eriksen stop him in Prinsegade, just as he left his office, and converse about nothing but freight markets and the dredger lying just outside the harbor as it scooped out Klørdybet channel? Didn't he realize his days were numbered?

  Albert greeted him tersely and disappeared toward Havnegade. Then he regretted his brusqueness. Soon people would start saying he had grown strange. Well, never mind about that. What else could he do? Embrace Eriksen and weep for him? Warn him? Yes, but against what? Against the sea, the war?

  "What war?" Eriksen would ask, and then decide—with reason—that Albert was deranged. An unbearable burden had settled on Albert's shoulders. He witnessed calamities and disasters whose origin and nature he could not understand. Would it have been easier if he'd been a man of faith? Would he have found comfort in Jesus? But it wasn't comfort that a man needed. It was the chance to act. And that was why the dreams were like a disease. They attacked the core of his being. They sapped his energy and willpower. For the first time in his life, he perceived himself as helpless, and this sensation corroded his soul, draining him of strength.

  As Christmas approached a severe snowstorm arrived from the northeast, and the water in the harbor started to rise. He went down to watch the crews attach extra moorings. Over a hundred ships were docked in Marstal, and a howling concerto rose over the town from the many riggings raked by the northeasterly wind. There was the slapping and slamming of ropes against wood, and the sound of hulls bashing against each other and the wharf as they waited to be remoored by the crews. The water level continued to rise and the ships rose higher and higher, their menacing twilight shadows looming in the snowfall, like a fleet of Flying Dutchmen come to announce the destruction of the town. But then the water stopped. The only damage done was to Dampskibsbroen, where the waves had smashed up the paving.

  In his ledger, where he continued to keep accounts of the still-living, Albert noted of the breakwater that "the great achievement of our fathers still stood the test." He wrote it in defiance, as if in rebellion against his dreams. The breakwater had prevented the water from rising any farther.

  All the same, he knew that the age of the breakwater was over. Other and stronger enemies were coming, which the breakwater couldn't protect us from.

  SOMETIMES YOU'D SEE poor Anders Nørre hurrying through the streets, pursued by a gang of jeering boys. He walked in rigid strides that kept getting longer, as if he was desperate to escape but too afraid to run. He probably feared that an obvious attempt at flight would trigger something alarming in his pursuers. In any case he didn't stand a chance of outrunning a gang of boys.

  The chase always ended with Anders forced up against a wall, where he'd cower, rubbing his cheek against the rough bricks and moaning softly. Then an impotent rage would take over, and roaring like an animal, he'd turn and chase after the boys, who'd scatter in all directions, like squirrels, shrieking with laughter.

  Mostly the adults would intervene, but not always. There were those who found these incidents amusing.

  It was on one such occasion that Albert Madsen actually got to know Anders Nørre. Anders was older than he was, but apart from the white hair and beard, which bought him no respect from the badly behaved children, he was strangely unmarked by age.

  The day Albert saw him, they'd chased Nørre all the way from Market Square down Skolegade and Tværgade and had finally cornered him up against the garden wall across from Weber's Café in Prinsegade. Albert raised his stick as though to strike them, and shouted menacingly. They fled.

  "Let me walk you home," he said to Anders Nørre.

  Nørre had been standing with his hands covering his ears and his eyes tightly shut. Now he opened them and looked at Albert. He lived just outside the town, on Reberbanen, where he had a little hut. He'd sit there all day long, spinning rope on a wheel, and when the rope was finished, he'd make rope yarn. He'd followed this dreary occupation for as long as anyone could remember. The general opinion was that he was an imbecile.

  Albert took him by the arm, and Anders succumbed willingly.

  "Have you been to church recently, Anders?" Albert asked.

  Anders Nørre nodded. "I go there every Sunday."

  Anders Nørre's reputation for being slow-witted wasn't based on an inability to speak. On the contrary, he had a soft, pleasant voice and always expressed himself clearly and intelligibly, and there were never problems engaging him in conversation. No: it was more the blankness of his face, which seemed incapable of expressing any emotion, and the sad, tedious existence he led. He'd lived with his mother until her death, and it was said that before that, he'd slept in her bed every night, long into adulthood. When she died, the women who laid out the body decided to leave her in her bed until she could be placed in her coffin the next day—and in the morning they'd found Anders Nørre sleeping right next to her, because when bedtime came he'd done what he always did and climbed in with her. At her funeral he showed no signs of grief. In fact the only emotion he ever showed was an overwhelming stubbornness, if you can call that an emotion. If you contradicted him or stopped him from doing something he'd set his mind on, he'd leap up and start shouting nonsense words and waving his arms—not to hit anyone, that much was obvious—but in a kind of desperation. Then he'd storm out of his tiny hut and disappear across the fields. He might be gone for days before reappearing, worn-out and bedraggled.

  But there was sense somewhere inside him, and it wasn't just a little, but in fact quite a lot. The only problem was, it didn't seem to serve any useful purpose. If he was told a man's age and his date of birth, he could instantly calculate the number of days he'd lived, even making allowances for leap years. Someone once asked him how many days had passed since the baby Jesus was placed in his crib, and he'd answered promptly. When he left the church he could recite the minister's sermon word for word, for the benefit of those sailors in town who on Sunday mornings preferred the bench by the harbor to the pew.

  On the first day of spring he'd take off his shoes and socks, and he'd walk around in bare feet until winter returned. In the cold season he'd root around in waste heaps and garbage bins for food. No one would have let him starve to death, but he seemed to prefer this way of life, and for that reason we'd passed sentence on him and judged him an imbecile.

  Albert had always greeted Anders Nørre, but there was nothing unusual in that. Village idiots were public property. We spoke to them in a good-natured and patronizing way, were on first-name terms with them, and patted them on the back. Not that they had the right to behave that way with us.

  On this occasion Albert continued to question him about the Sunday service, and Anders Nørre answered all his questions willingly. His tone of voice didn't for one moment reveal what thoughts or em
otions the service might have stirred in him. Even his ability to solve complex mathematical equations had a soullessness about it. Yet there was a soul somewhere inside him, Albert was convinced of it: the embryo's of a human being whom no one had ever thought to nurture and develop. Now it was probably too late.

  Anders Nørre had dropped Albert's arm, no longer in need of his support. He'd not been injured when the boys attacked him, and if he was upset, his passive features certainly gave no hint of it.

  They passed Market Square, walked up through Markgade, and continued up Reberbanen until they reached Anders Nørre's hut, close to the fields. On the last stretch Nørre entertained his companion with a word-for-word repetition of Pastor Abildgaard's Sunday sermon. Suddenly Albert froze: it seemed that the parrot by his side was addressing him directly with an urgent message.

  He stared into Nørre's face. The old man didn't seem to notice anything. His voice was unchanged, continuing at the same pitch. The difference was in his words. They were unusual. Was Pastor Abildgaard really their author, or were these words coming from a completely different place, and if so, where? From Nørre's soul, which had finally awakened?

  "You were at the height of your powers," the man said. And because Nørre wasn't looking at anyone and his tone remained the same, the words really did seem to be coming from another place, gracing their speaker with the dignity and authority of an oracle.

  "You sensed that the world needed your strength and you rejoiced in that. But then it changed. Your strength vanished and the world withdrew from you, and you felt alone. The world was like a big smile that enticed and beckoned you. But then it changed. Dark and hard times arrived and the smile of the world vanished behind menacing clouds. You were in the midst of a life filled with love. But then it changed. The treasure of your love was taken from you."

  Albert felt his throat tighten. The words affected him strangely. He felt that someone was talking directly to him, and to him alone. He thought, Where there's a mouth, there'll be an ear too. At long last he could relieve himself of the burden of his loneliness. At long last he could share with someone all the things he'd been keeping to himself. Every word Nørre spoke was the truth. His strength had been taken away from him. And so had his enjoyment of life: a life in which he'd found things to love, and had lacked nothing. He could share his anguish with the author of these words. But who was he? Pastor Abildgaard? He refused to believe that. Nørre? That was even more unlikely. Or a third party? In which case, who might that be?

  For a moment he was lost in his own contemplation. Then he became aware of Nørre's voice again. The Sunday sermon was reaching its conclusion. Old familiar themes now emerged, identical from one Sunday to the next: God's mysterious ways, the crucifix on Golgotha, the love of Christ, and this Sunday the word love had been repeated over and over: Christ's thoughts of love, His loving help, redemption through His love. The same convenient trivialities that religion always peddled in response to life's hardship. So it was Abildgaard after all.

  For a brief moment the minister had succeeded in talking straight into Albert's soul. But it wasn't religion that Albert needed. It wasn't sugary words of comfort. What it might be instead, he could not articulate. Perhaps it was just this: a listening ear. But not the minister's.

  What did Abildgaard know of Albert's predicament? Nothing, however much he might preach. How could he be aware of his banishment from the world of the living, his shipwreck on a dark and unknown shore of bones, peopled by the dead?

  Albert shivered like a wet dog. He felt cold. Something inside him was trembling. He entered the hut along with its lone inhabitant. Nothing in Nørre's face revealed whether he welcomed his guest or would prefer to be left alone. As there was no other furniture, Albert sat down on the bed next to him. There was no heating in the hut, and though the winter chill kept the most unpleasant smells at bay, it was still hardly an inviting place.

  "Do you ever dream, Anders?"

  Albert looked at Nørre and tried to catch his eye. But as usual, he got nothing back. Albert leaned forward and looked at the floor. He began as if he was talking to himself or to the invisible ear he had searched for so long.

  "The thing is," he said, "I've been having these strange dreams."

  His sense of relief was palpable. It was the first time he'd mentioned the dreams to anyone, and he could feel the pressure diminishing already.

  "I keep dreaming about death. I see ships go down and men being shot or drowned. People from this town, people I know."

  There was no reaction. What had he been expecting? This was no confession, unless you regarded unburdening yourself to empty space or a blank wall a confession. How could he have hoped for a reaction from this half-wit? He already knew the answer: because he felt that he too was entering the dark land of fools, an unknown territory where the mad moved with familiar ease, but where he was a new arrival. In a way, he was asking for help.

  Albert was overcome by the other man's silence and had no idea how to go on. Yet he sensed that something had happened. Anders Nørre's hands were still lying quietly in his lap and his stare was blank as ever, but now something loomed behind it, something other than endless mechanical calculations.

  "Do you have dreams like that?"

  Albert made his voice as gentle as he could, as if trying to reach the hidden soul of Anders Nørre. But he knew that he was fumbling to find his own.

  For a moment Anders Nørre sat frozen. Then he leapt up with a roar, a thick, inarticulate bellowing. He ran to the door and flung it open. He turned and gave Albert one wild look, then disappeared into the twilight.

  Albert stayed on the bed. Going after Nørre was pointless, he knew. Anders would be off on one of his long trips across the fields, and he wouldn't reappear for a couple of days. As for Albert, he couldn't even rise from the bed. Nørre's reaction had paralyzed him. He really was in a bad way, he thought, if the village idiot ran away from him in horror. Even in the dark country where Anders Nørre moved with familiarity, he was seen as a monster.

  Does he dream the way I do, Albert wondered, or is he like the animals that sense an earthquake long before humans do and howl in fear the night before the earth splits open?

  WHEN THE WAR started, Albert was relieved.

  That's how it is, he told himself. If you dread something enough, even your worst fears coming true brings comfort.

  He didn't know how he'd react once the town's sailors began dying. But for the moment he felt less lonely. Now he could discuss the war with others.

  Denmark had declared herself neutral, but nonetheless, the war had serious consequences for our town. All freight traffic was canceled immediately, and Marstal's fleet went into winter harbor as early as August. It was strange to see the schooners filling the harbor with their forest of masts while the sun was still high in the sky and the children still splashed around in the water, playing among the laid-up ships. In recent years, prosperity had risen to ever greater heights, so the seamen had plenty of money. You could see evidence of that in the bars. The restlessness caused by sudden unemployment and the uncertain future led to a rise in drunkenness.

  Toward October, offers came in for grain freights to north German ports, but no one dared sail. Marine insurance didn't cover losses caused by war, and the Germans had peppered the Baltic Sea with floating mines. The smaller investors couldn't afford to risk their money.

  "At least that's one good thing about this town," Albert wrote. "There are no ruthless shipping magnates who will risk the lives of their crew for a quick profit."

  His own ships were far from Europe when the war broke out, and he kept them there for its duration.

  Everyone feared the mines because everyone had shares in the ships. The North Sea too was filled with them.

  Albert immediately began keeping accounts of ships blown up by mines. For a while the people of Marstal were safe, thanks to their caution, but just three weeks after Germany had declared war on France, two Danish steamers, the
Maryland and the Christian Boberg, were sunk in the North Sea. Only two days later a trawler from Reykjavik was blown up. On September 3, yet another Danish steamer disappeared.

  Albert continued his list until the end of the year. Sometimes a ship's name matched a name from his dreams, and each time that happened, it had the same terrible impact on him. He'd been there and he'd seen it happen. If the left-hand column on the list of his nightly visions was longer than the right-hand one, it was only bes cause the war was still new. There were those who speculated about a quick breakthrough on all fronts and an imminent end to the conflict—talk he dismissed with a shake of his head. For obvious reasons, he couldn't tell us the cause of his certainty.

  "There's still much death to come," he said.

  This unexpected pessimism from a man who had put such faith in the future was seen as the weakness of old age. Albert Madsen had lost his nerve.

  In the end, he kept his opinions to himself.

  A few months after the war broke out we held a collection in aid of the suffering population of Belgium. It was a sign of how remote the war still was that we had compassion to spare for the woes of others. Albert was persuaded to join a committee responsible for preparing a special public exhibition of items related to the town and its seafaring history; the entrance fees would go wholly to the Belgians.

  The exhibition was a success, attracting a great many visitors. On display were old costumes from Ærø, intricate lace and embroidery work, brass candle-scissors, and some beautifully carved cupboards and bureaus. We admired these things, but they didn't stir any nostalgia in us; on the contrary, they proved that the present was better than the past, and the future better still. Our continuing progress was especially evident in the section that documented the development of the shipping trade.