by Peter Høeg
And really, such a sense of pride is not surprising; in fact, in a way, it came as an enormous relief, because he felt he was on his way. And what did he think he was on the way to? Well, naturally, he was on his way to becoming what he and most of the other boys at the academy dreamed of becoming, what they had promised themselves and their mothers they would become: a great man. Every time Carsten heard the headmaster or Meph or Gnasher or Vilhelm Andersen say, “You are the standard-bearers of Democracy and Danish Culture and the Spirit of the People,” he felt he had taken yet another step in the right direction, and it was because he wanted to hear these words as often as possible that he had become a model of diligence and anonymity.
In spite of everything, however, something of the outside world did infiltrate Carsten’s life during these years. For instance, concerts were held at the school, usually chamber music evenings at which the headmaster invariably welcomed guests by saying that Our School is an island in the sea of time, and on this occasion the winds have blown our way Mr. Opera Singer this or Mrs. Pianist that, and our very own music master will wield the violin bow. On the subject of these evenings, the Boy from the Assembly Hall wrote in the school magazine that what the seas of time washed up onto the academy’s shore consisted mainly of wreckage from the foundering of bourgeois culture, and he recommended an alternative to all his readers: the movie house in Sorø, where three or four films could be seen on any one weekend. After giving it a try, Carsten kept going back to it, as did many of his schoolmates. And what they found in Sorø’s movie house was love.
The word that covers Carsten’s attitude—and that of his contemporaries—to love is “chaste.” All the talk of boarding-school years being the jolly days of French postcards and wild school dances and booze and condoms and eighteen flushed-faced boys whacking one another off in a twelve-foot-square bathroom is, in all probability, a myth—at any rate, it was not true of Sorø. No one here spoke of love. Or, rather, of course they spoke of love—the entire bourgeois culture is, in some sense, one long, mumbled discourse on love—but they spoke of it in terms of Ingemann’s poems and love of one’s country and the countryside around Sorø, which seemed made to be loved. But the love that is filtered through Ingemann and one’s country and the Sorø countryside is watered down a little, so if we ask what the boys really knew about love, the answer has to be: Very, very little. Now, of course one does not need to know anything about love; personally I am inclined to believe that intuition will take you a long way—if, that is, you have permission. But that—having permission—is exactly what it boils down to, because at Sorø permission was never really given. This was obviously partly because of certain prohibitions and regulations stating that girls were not accepted into the school; and that those dances to which girls from the town were invited had to finish at a decent hour; and that the drinking of alcohol was not allowed; and that study periods had to be observed; and so on and so forth, but all of this falls short. The most important rules were unwritten and unspoken and perhaps quite simply unperceived, and these rules were implemented by the boys themselves and had to do with not referring to love other than through jokes that left behind more confusion than clarity, and bearing love’s burden with a smile, or at any rate not letting it show.
Carsten always went alone to the movie house, as did his schoolmates; and even if, now and again, he walked down there with someone, he always left by himself—to be alone with the storm of emotion, both splendid and embarrassing, that he was convinced was unique to him. It was the same emotion he experienced when he read, again preferably in absolute privacy, those contemporary authors whose works were not studied at the school—apart, that is, from Jakob Paludan’s novel Jørgen Stein, a veritable textbook on sexual and social impotence that both teachers and students regarded as presenting an exceptionally accurate picture of adolescence. Carsten knew that other literature on the subject also existed. Several times in Copenhagen he had seen the magazine Sex and Society at the newsstands. However, Amalie’s guests and most other people described this magazine as pornographic trash, so he had never read it. And in any case, it would probably not have said a great deal to him. Carsten and his contemporaries read what they read and felt what they felt, not because there were no other books or feelings, but because what affected them most deeply was H. C. Branner and films based on Kipling’s stories and Karen Blixen’s tales and Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, all of which pointed the way back toward the chivalrous romance of earlier times.
Now, this romanticism was widespread throughout Denmark, so do not make the mistake of imagining that it was a dream that Carsten dreamed in such an out-of-the-way place as Sorø. I have mentioned it precisely because it corresponds to the yearning felt by so many Danes this spring, when the academy decides to hold a Midsummer celebration, just like the Midsummer celebrations of Ingemann’s day; the spring when one of Amalie’s friends, the Copenhagen chief of police, and the Danish police and Parliament and the Supreme Court all conspire to turn a blind eye and thumb their nose at the Constitution and arrest Danish Communists and Communist members of Parliament. I do not mention this last event here because Carsten would consider it important—not right away. In fact, he is not even aware that it has taken place, but later—later—it will be of some relevance to him, which is why it is included here.
There are many reasons why the academy—that is to say, the headmaster—made the decision to hold a celebration. One reason was the occupation. The Midsummer festival would provide an opportunity to celebrate being Danish, by coming together, standing shoulder to shoulder, singing Danish songs, and feeling the Spirit of the People. Another reason may possibly have been that, with this celebration, an attempt would be made to revive an ancient tradition. During these years a passion for tradition prevailed among both students and teachers—a grand desire to go back in time, far back, to the days when uniforms did not have pockets and everyone could still feel the Spirit of 1848, and values were clear and distinct and not, as now, increasingly blurred.
And this, too, the headmaster mentions in his speech. He speaks to the entire academy, which has assembled on the banks of Sorø Lake, just before the boat trip that is to be the high point of the evening. And he says, “This evening, Ingemann’s spirit hovers over these waters. This evening we are reaching back to the classical peaks of Danish Culture.” Then all the rowboats push off. They are decorated with greenery and flowers and colored lanterns, and their crews have brought along guitars and lutes and books of Latin and Danish songs and a passionate longing to commit suicide or to die like Shelley in the waves of the Ligurian Sea. The moon rises over the shining lake and out on the water; the boys sing college songs from the last century in which they assure themselves that the future is theirs, and praise Woman and Wine—which, in the main, they know of only from hearsay.
Before the headmaster’s speech and the boat trip there has been a smørrebrød supper and—possibly because nostalgia has run away with him—the headmaster has ordered the serving of a punch made from fruit wine. Carsten has drunk some of this wine, and even though the punch is weak, even though it is what Ingemann would probably have called children’s punch and left untouched, still it has its effect on Carsten. This effect is such that, having drunk his first and then his second glass, he, who is not given much to speaking, feels called upon to propose a toast to er … to er … to the Ladies, and everyone heartily salutes the handful of schoolmasters’ wives and the six day girls, who cannot join the boat trip because Father wouldn’t like it, but must be back home in an hour’s time. Drunk with joy because his toast has gone down well, Carsten drinks four more glasses in rapid succession, and by the last glass it seems to him that someone has lifted off the detachable top of his skull and that a cross between a firework and a plume of feathers is now sprouting out of his glowing head. It is in order to savor this headgear in peace that—after the headmaster’s speech—he gets into a boat, pushes off from the shore, and glides out onto the lake
alone. But this gesture also has something to do with his and his schoolmates’ need to experience any kind of emotional moment in solitude, and as Carsten glides out onto the lake under the moon there is an air of great and impossible loneliness about him.
Across the lake comes the sound of voices singing in harmony and of soulful solos accompanied by a lute, and of faint shouts along the shores of the lake, where bonfires are now being lit. Then Carsten sails past a reedy islet. On the islet sits a young girl with fair hair and eyes that even in the moonlight are an undeniable, striking blue. Because Carsten is so close to her before he so much as notices her, he does not have time to react in any of the predictable ways. He does not have time to be shy or rush off or say good evening or act as if he has not seen her or sink into the ground or jump into the water. Instead he falls straight into a sort of coma of benumbed ecstasy, in which state he first of all rows slowly around the islet once and then again, while gazing intently upon the girl in total silence.
Of course the girl is Maria Jensen, and between her and Carsten at this moment there lies both a few feet of dark water and an abyss. This abyss is created by his coming from a rich family while she comes from a poor family, and from his having learned to beware of girls like her and from her having learned to beware of men in general. It also comes from his having gone to school for so many years more than she, and from the distance between Christianshavn and Strand Drive, and from his having learned—not least at the academy—to despise anyone of his own age who is not cultivated, and from her having learned—to be on the safe side—to hit first and talk later. And so many other things have gone into its making that there ought to be absolutely no chance of its being bridged—but then, as he is starting to row around the islet for the third time, Maria says, “Hey, chum, got any room for a girl to stretch her Marlene Dietrichs?”
Then Carsten surfaces with a plop and pulls up alongside the reeds, and Maria climbs aboard in a skirt that is still sopping wet because she has waded out to the islet, and with cheeks that are hollow with hunger because she has not eaten in a long time. Then they head out into the lake.
A lot of bonfires are now blazing along the lakeshore; wistful chords reach their ears from the other boats, and then Carsten gets to his feet in the boat and sings. He has his work cut out keeping his balance, and in normal circumstances he would never have had the courage to sing on his own—and in no circumstances, no circumstances whatsoever, in front of a girl. But he is still in a sort of trance, and he has been drinking punch, and he has been picked for the school choir—which has made two tours of South Jutland —and so now he sings that lovely verse of Ingemann’s:
“In the depths of the soul a sea does lurk
Frozen hard by the world’s chill squalls”
and the distant lute takes up his key and accompanies him as he continues with:
“And hidden in tomblike silence and murk
That which no earthly sun can recall”
and now the crews of the other boats have also fallen silent to listen.
Then Maria’s big moment has come and, sitting in the stern, she lifts up her celebrated soprano and sings that ditty so well known in Christianshavn and Vesterbro and Annebjerg:
“Tahiti is paradise on earth, hm hm,
Thither my thoughts often go…”
And the listeners on the banks say not a word. Once more Maria is onstage—like her father, Adonis—and with her face turned to the big spotlight, the moon, she sings:
“Where birds of paradise build their nests
And love’s magic blossoms grow”
and then they have floated past all the other boats and are heading for the center of the lake.
And floating there—to those watchers on the lakeside who may see them—they are just a boy and a girl in a rowboat on Sorø Lake. But to us they are much more, to us they are, first of all, two different collections of wishes and hopes from two different classes, and it is thanks to these hopes that they now find themselves in the same boat, and that Denmark is as it is. What I believe is that a whole series of factors have made it possible, now, for them to vanish from view together—including that none of the teachers has called them back, even though they have seen them; and that Carsten has been drinking punch and has not been stopped from going out in a boat on his own; and that Maria has had the necessary, boyish daring to wade out to the reedy islet and to talk to a boy in a boat; and that she has run away from Annebjerg because, in her mind, she cannot reconcile her wish to be a little girl with her knowledge that the only way of surviving in this world is to be as tough as a boy; and that she has been able to stay away and at large for more than a month by stealing, as her forefathers did; and that Carsten believes emotions have to be experienced in solitude; and that he, together with the rest of the school, wants to revive Ingemann. And that all of this should be reason enough for the Rich Boy and the Poor Girl, Carsten and Maria, that is, to meet here has something to do with the point in time—that is to say, the spring of 1941.
Carsten rows for a bit, then he lets the boat drift, then rows a bit more, and they talk off and on, then lapse into silence, then exchange a word or two more. While they are gliding along, and the banks are growing distant, although they are still sitting where they have been sitting all the time, they are drawing closer to each other. Carsten tunes in to what lies beyond the girl’s rough manners and her directness and the fact that she blows her snot straight into the water; and she sees past his side part and exaggerated politeness; and with every sweep of the oars both of them are moving further to the other side of their own prejudices—until, finally, they are very, very close to each other.
At no time do they touch, and in the end they have also stopped talking. When Carsten rows the boat in to the bank the faintest hint of dawn can be seen in the east.
Neither of them has anything remotely resembling an appreciation of their situation—and so they do nothing to ensure that they will meet again. They part without knowing each other’s first name.
* * *
A year later, Carsten graduated from the academy, and being thus finished with Sorø he should have left for home. That was what everyone else did, and hence, only a few days after commencement with all its speeches and prizes for diligence and songs, the academy was empty of pupils. But Carsten stayed behind. He said nothing to the watchmaker’s family, even though they were obviously expecting him to leave any day now. He stayed on for a week, strolling every day around Sorø—and the academy in particular—with clouded eyes. He wore the suit that he, like everyone else, had had made for commencement, but only because he was no longer entitled to wear the school uniform. Because naturally he would have preferred his uniform. Carsten was a creature of habit, he thought of himself as a member of the academy; it was impossible for him to picture himself naked, or in a dinner jacket, or in anything other than the shirt and waistcoat and jacket bearing the academy’s Phoenix buttons.
He stayed on at Sorø in an effort to combat the process of dissolution. He stayed on because he hated—more, feared—the thought of things falling apart and proving to be incoherent. He stayed on because he could not absorb the fact that he no longer belonged here—at the school and in its grounds and in the assembly hall and in the big, sunken bath where, once a week, there had been compulsory communal bathing. If there had been anyone in whom he could have confided, he would have said that at Sorø he had learned about Eternal Values and the Significance of the Individual and Human Fellowship—and here he was, discovering that even the fellowship of the academy could be dissolved, from one day to the next, and all the familiar faces fade from view. Next year it would start all over again, with the message being imparted to new faces, and he, Carsten, would be forgotten, even though he had received an A-plus in every subject and the collected works of Voltaire as a prize for diligence. But he did not feel as though there was anyone to whom he could talk; despite being surrounded by crowds of people he felt totally alone. So instead
he had to talk to himself, muttering his muddled thoughts under his breath as he strode around, imagining that he had, as a listener, a girl with fair hair and blue eyes who was far, far out of reach.
He gave no thought to the future, he just could not believe that his Schooldays were over—and his Youth—and that, somewhere, Life and Responsibility were lying, slavering, in wait for him; he knew that he wanted to stay here, in these secure surroundings where he was familiar with the faces and the truths, and where he was close to the Spirit of the People and Culture and that reedy islet on Sorø Lake. When, after five days, the big car that had, in a distant past, driven him to the school arrived, he hid in the academy grounds and watched from a distance as Gladys hunted for him. He heard her call, like an echo from his childhood, but kept well out of the way until she drove off late that night.
The next day, the Girl from Sorø Lake made him leave for Copenhagen. Not that she spoke to him; nor could it be said that she appeared to him—it was more as though she were some sort of siren in reverse and that the memory of her told him that if he wanted to see her again, he would have to make a move, get away from this place, and, in the first instance, go home.
* * *
Carsten took the train to Copenhagen, then crossed the city by streetcar. He noted with dismay and absentminded wonder that the streets were swarming with German soldiers and that several city monuments had been walled in to protect them from explosions. Amalie met him in the grounds of the villa, where she had said goodbye to him, and shook his hand as she had done then. And with this handshake she was trying to say, “I know what we two share, my pet. The years have passed and you have grown tall and broad-shouldered, and you wear a suit now, but everything is the same as it has always been, and that is how it will stay.” Then she left him to his own devices. Not because she had nothing more to say—quite the contrary: more than anything she would have liked to lead him straight to her bedroom, lay him down on the bed, draw him to her, and pull him across the years and the events that lay between them at this very moment. But she controlled herself, she refrained, because her maternal instinct and foresight told her that by leaving him alone now she would stand a better chance, later, of getting through to him and of attaining that goal around which everything had always revolved: their shared dream of the future.
