by Peter Høeg
The last time—or no, I had better stick to what I know for sure and say, the last time to date—when they were all gathered together was at the launching organized by Maria and Carsten. In saying that Carsten and Maria organized it I am already going too far, since, in actual fact, there is no proof that they were the moving forces behind this event, but at any rate there was a boat, that much is sure, and a ceremony was held, and an event that was televised and reported in all the newspapers; and the press gave the impression that all credit was due to Maria and Carsten. This event bore all the characteristics of a truly solemn occasion; in other words, besides the boat that was to be launched down a long ramp, it was graced by the presence of the mayor of Copenhagen and the Prime Minister and a number of famous actors and writers; also present were Carsten and Maria and Madelene and Amalie and Mads, and, indeed, so many people were present that one might even say the Nation itself was in attendance.
If we are to go by the newspaper and television reports, this boat was a gift from Maria and more especially from Carsten, who wished, in this generous fashion, to mark his retirement from a long and strenuous working life during which he had earned a fortune; a fortune in which he now wanted the city of his birth, Copenhagen, and the land of his birth, Denmark, to have some share. And that was just what the mayor said: “May I, on behalf of all the people of Copenhagen and of Denmark, thank you for this glorious gift, this historic Danish ship,” he said. And even at this point something was obviously not quite right, since this ship was not historic—a fact easily verified simply by taking a closer look, although it would seem that Mads was the only one to do so. And what he saw was that this proud ship was a big, flat-bottomed boat; that, if anything, it was some kind of barge, and one which might have sailed the rivers of France or Holland’s canals but which had, most definitely, never been Danish. But now it had been given a slapdash touch-up with a coating of tar that only just concealed the dry rot and blue rot and shipworm holes. Then, when the Prime Minister spoke, the feeling that something was far wrong grew even stronger—at least for Mads—because the minister regarded this ship and its launching as a great cultural event and political manifestation, a salute, in fact, to Denmark’s voyage into the new millennium. And even though we have our problems, the minister said, we have reason to feel satisfied, since things are moving, more or less, in the right direction—with the odd detour here and there, of course—but we are pretty much on track. Then it was Carsten’s turn to speak, and his speech made it clear to Mads that the boat was neither a gift nor a cultural event nor a salute to anything at all, but that it was being launched because Carsten and Maria had decided to leave Denmark, and that they had decided to sail away because, as Carsten said, we met on a boat.
Then Maria smashed a bottle of champagne against the hull of the boat and named it the Spindrift Dolphin, and that flat-bottomed bumboat slid down the ramp to float on the choppy little waves so typical of Sortedam Lake in Østerbro—for it was into the old city moat, that pathetic pond, with its lazy wading birds and unhealthy carp, that the boat was launched. And now Mads elbowed his way through the crowd of well-wishers, making for his mother because he had given up on his father. Having reached her, he tried to stop her by saying, “What kind of a ridiculous, inane affair is this anyway, and why has everyone in your family always had to draw so much attention to themselves, and what makes you think that you can get away from Denmark, from yourselves, and start a new life just by sailing out onto Sortedam Lake in a floating bathtub?” But Maria waved him off. “Beat it!” she said, to her own son, and even he had to get out of the way.
And now Maria and Carsten stepped on board, together with the mayor and the Prime Minister and Amalie and Madelene and a good number of other people; an orchestra played and, as though to order, the moon rose up into the sunset sky. And, in honor of the occasion, an amusing film was projected onto the big, flat cloud that hangs permanently over Copenhagen. Then Mads turned and left as so many children before him have done—although, of course, he is not a child any longer. He walks back to the deserted house by the Lakes and up to his room, and sits down by the window. He can still hear the music and, far off in the distance, his family are sailing in the moonlight and even though they have put to sea on Sortedam Lake he does not feel sure that they are coming back. When he closes his eyes he can see them quite clearly; he notes how Carsten sniffs at what he takes to be a trade wind and how Maria is singing a song about Tahiti for the Prime Minister, and how Madelene lays a hand on the mayor’s thigh—since love will even stretch that far. Somewhere close at hand a calf lows forlornly; and in Charlottenlund on Strand Drive, Dodo the hairless greyhound is howling; and at Bispebjerg crematorium, in a white-hot blaze, Ramses and the Princess are transformed into an anonymous heap of ashes that will end up in a common grave because no one has been able to identify them; and somewhere on some highway Adonis is walking away, not wanting to be a bother to anyone. All of this Mads senses, at this moment, with the kind of clarity that follows a bad hangover or a long illness—not because he is clairvoyant but because he was born to the sensitivity and confusion of this century. And I know what I am talking about, because I am he—from now on, you can call me Mads. And if I persist in writing the history of my family, then it is out of necessity. Those laws and regulations and systems and patterns that my family and every other family in Denmark has violated and conformed to and nudged and writhed under for two hundred years are now in fact in a state of foaming dissolution. That is why my father and my mother and my sister and my grandmother and various friends and acquaintances and several primarily accountable personages can, at such an inane ceremony, launch their longings onto a waterhole in the heart of the city. Ahead lies the future, which I refuse to view as Carl Laurids did: down a gun barrel; or as Anna did: through a magnifying glass. I want to meet it face-to-face, and yet I am certain that if nothing is done, then there will be no future to face up to, since although most things in life are uncertain, the impending disaster and decline look like a safe bet. Which is why I feel like calling for help—don’t we all have a need to call out to something?—and so I have called out to the past.
It marches by me like some sort of procession. Through this room pass Anna’s longing to be a child and Adonis’s impotent charm and Christoffer’s paper creatures and Amalie’s femininity and appalling ambition and Thorvald Bak’s misplaced love and the Count’s fear of time passing and the Old Lady’s fear that it might stand still and the Princess’s motherliness and Maria’s tears and police helmet and Carsten’s willingness to do his duty and Madelene’s lawlessness and Carl Laurids’s cynicism—and naturally I am afraid because sometimes, as they are gliding past me, I get the feeling that these people and their imagery are very like me; now and again the thought strikes me that perhaps I have never really seen other people’s expectations, that I have only ever seen my own, and the loneliest thought in the world is the thought that what we have glimpsed is nothing other than ourselves. But now it is too late to think like that and something must be done, and before we can do anything we will have to form a picture of the twentieth century.
Also by Peter Høeg
Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Borderliners
The Woman and the Ape
Tales of the Night
The Quiet Girl
Peter Høeg is the author of the international bestselling novel Smilla’s Sense of Snow. Born in 1957 in Denmark, he followed various callings—dancer, actor, sailor, fencer, and mountaineer—before turning seriously to writing. His work has been published in thirty-three countries.
THE HISTORY OF DANISH DREAMS. Copyright © 1988 by Peter Høeg and Munskgaard/Rosinante, Copenhagen. Translation copyright © 1995 by Barbara Haveland. All rights reserved. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42801-3
ISBN-10: 0-312-42801-4
Originally published in Denmark as Forestilling Om Det Tyvende Århundrede
First published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First Picador Edition: October 2008
eISBN 9781466850743
First eBook edition: July 2013
