When Pastor Abildgaard placed his hand on Anton's head, he shut his eyes tightly behind his glasses. He was in Hell, and yet he didn't want to go to Heaven. He felt homeless.
Regnar came home and threw a glance at his son. "Why the hell are you still here?" he said. "Why haven't you gone to sea? I even bought you a sea bag."
Anton said nothing. He just waited for the mockery to start.
"Is it because of your spectacles?" his father said. "Runs in the family. I'm so nearsighted, I can't see farther than my own beer gut. Only no one's noticed." He chuckled noisily.
"You can't go to sea if you're wearing spectacles," Anton said patiently, as though talking to a child.
"No," his father answered, unperturbed. "Not if you want to waste your life on board some crock of a schooner. But you're going to be a proper sailor. You want to get yourself a job as a machine man on a steamer. Nobody cares about spectacles there."
So Anton was apprenticed to Hans Baldrian Ulriksen, the smith in Ommel. He learned to tell the difference between a sink hammer, a set hammer, a lock hammer, and a shoeing hammer. He knew when a horse needed a wedge shoe and when it needed a ring shoe. He handled hoof irons, hoof jacks, files, and rasps the way he used to handle the dead man's skull and Albert's boots. They started calling him the Horse Friend. He built his own bicycle so he could cycle the three kilometers to Marstal every evening to attend technical college. He found himself a girlfriend, a redhead just like him. Her name was Marie, and she cut her hair herself every week to stop it from getting too long. One day he'd watched her give a boy a bloody nose for making fun of her red hair, and afterward he'd chivalrously explained to her how to clench her fist when she hit, with her thumb on the outside, not the inside. Marie was a caring girl. When teasing Starry Jens, a filthy man who lived by Market Square, she'd throw a brick at his door like everyone else. But she'd wrap it in a rhubarb leaf beforehand, so as not to scratch the paintwork.
And Anton made a discovery. He found that the same strange rush he used to get when, as leader of the Albert Gang, he left the battlefield with the usual bruises and cuts from arrows, clubs, and spears, he could get again now, from shoeing a horse. He felt as if a great sail had filled with wind and unfurled with a snap inside the uncharted darkness of his head. When he first got his glasses, he thought he'd never again feel the triumph of having power over others. But now, power over people had been replaced by power over objects. When he saw the results of his handiwork, he felt a new kind of triumph. He felt like the upholder of the world.
"Precision is the soul of mechanics, and he who masters mechanics masters much more besides," the blacksmith said. He was a well-read man and fond of expressing himself in philosophical terms.
Anton had found a new course to steer.
Finally it was Knud Erik and Vilhjelm's turn to stand in the church and be confirmed. As they opened their mouths to sing, they stared at the black-hulled model ships hanging from the ceiling. That was their future up there. They sang, as generations had done before them, the old hymn dedicated to the sailing profession, which Pastor Abildgaard had loyally taught them: a hymn about their own fragility, and that of a ship's timbers, and the strength of God:
The cruel sea shall be our grave
Be Thou not by our side.
Mid raging wind and crashing wave
And lightning's flashing sword,
Your word can calm the surging tide.
Be with us now on board!
Knud Erik glanced furtively at Vilhjelm. He hadn't expected him to sing. He hadn't so much as opened his mouth during confirmation classes. But now he was singing, and his stammer had vanished, as if somehow the hymn carried him over even the hardest words. He didn't seem aware of it himself, but Knud Erik noticed it, and it changed his view of hymns.
But if God had worked a miracle, it wasn't a permanent one. On the way back from church Vilhjelm stammered just as badly as ever.
We didn't know it, but we were the last. Our children would never stand in the church and sing that hymn, or stand on the deck of a schooner, at the mercy of the elements. They'd travel to every corner of the world, but they'd barely see a sail. Everything was happening for the last time these days. The sails would be set for the last time. The harbor would be packed with ships for the last time. And then Frederik Isaksen's predictions would come true: for us, there would only be the worst voyages, the most inhospitable coasts, and the roughest seas.
But we were young. We didn't know that. For us, everything was happening for the first time.
THE SAILOR
THE FIRST MATE on board the Active didn't tolerate weakness, and when he beat you, he meant it. He'd use a clenched fist, and he'd hit you where it hurt most. But Anker Pinnerup wasn't a strong man. Ravaged by rheumatism and booze, he was a thug with no muscles. In his late forties, he was nearing the age when a sailor goes ashore.
Pinnerup was known as the Old Man, a nickname normally reserved for a ship's captain as a tribute to his skill and experience. In Pinnerup's case it wasn't a compliment, but a reference to his fast-approaching decrepitude. A sharp, clean-shaven chin protruded from his thick gray whiskers like the upended bow of a ship sinking in a sea of waste and dereliction, and this minimal shave was his only concession to personal hygiene. Beneath his filthy, greasy cap a few strands of colorless hair clung to his unwashed scalp. Clamped between his teeth, half-concealed by his beard, was a broken meerschaum pipe that he'd mended with a couple of wooden splints and a piece of twine. Behind his back the able seamen would joke that his patched jacket and trousers reminded them of a red Indian wedding night: Apache on Apache.
When, after serving him coffee for the first time, Knud Erik collected his cup and saucer to wash up, Pinnerup let out a roar and clocked him on the jaw. The cup and saucer were his personal possessions: no one else touched them. And to prove his attachment to his property, he spat in the cup and rubbed at it with his dirty thumb.
"Filthy swine," he cursed. "Monkey brain, snot rag, devil spawn!"
Every other morning, when he was on duty and came to rouse Knud Erik, he'd appear in the fo'c'sle with a thick rope and stand there, gathering his strength, before he began lashing out at the sleeping boy. He always went for his head, but the narrow berth hampered his swipe and diminished the force of his blows. Wakened by the first stroke, Knud Erik would scramble to the bulkhead, where the first mate couldn't reach him. He never uttered a sound: instinct told him that if he gave in to his fear, he'd have a hard job recovering.
One morning Olav, a crewman Knud Erik had known in the Albert Gang, arrived a few minutes before Pinnerup.
"Time to wake up," he whispered, tapping his friend on the shoulder. Knud Erik arranged his eiderdown and pillow so that in the dull light of dawn, they'd look like someone sleeping. The first mate lashed away as usual: when he realized the deception, he seemed to slump. His hand, still clutching the rope, fell limply to his side, and he shuddered as though in a high fever.
"Spawn of the devil," he hissed. "One day I'll get you with the belaying pin."
Then he stormed up the ladder and onto the deck.
When Pinnerup was at the wheel, Knud Erik would inevitably be wakened during the night watch to make coffee or to climb up and rope a sail in the pouring rain. Down below the sea raged, and in the darkness he could dimly make out the foam. Freezing raindrops fell, mingling with the salt on his cheeks. It wasn't impotence or self-pity that made him weep. It was rage and defiance.
At the beginning of his first voyage he'd cried, with his head buried in his bedclothes. He'd cried over his dead father and his rejecting mother, whose coldness he believed was his own fault, and he'd cried over his own nagging feeling of inadequacy. He wasn't sure he'd made the right choice in becoming a sailor. He was paying the price for it now. But he couldn't change his mind and go ashore. The loss of face would be unbearable.
Pinnerup used sleep deprivation as a form of torture. For whole days and nights Knud Erik might get no rest
at all. He was called on incessantly, often in the deepest night, and there were times when he'd have to climb the rigging wearing only his underpants. He'd heard stories about what it was like to be the youngest on board. The inexperienced were sent to work in the topgallant sails, twenty-five meters up. Able seamen never ventured that high. You were sent up to the mainmast to take in the vane sail, wobbling on the footropes, with one hand clutching the hand ropes and the other grasping the canvas. You did it even if you'd never been taught how, or if you suffered from vertigo, or if you were just a clumsy idiot who was a danger to himself. You just got yourself up there and hoped you'd get down again in one piece. Climbing around on the rigging of moored ships in the harbor, for fun, had been a kind of preparation for this, but out here the sea was high and the wind was screaming, for God's sake! Everyone took it for granted that you'd come back alive, but the way you saw it, you'd just become a survivor. Not that anybody noticed.
One time he'd hung up there with the narrow deck far, far below him, frightened out of his skin, every muscle so cramped from the strain that he thought his hands would let go by themselves, just to be free of it. He'd been so terrified that he'd screamed. But no one heard him. Yet it was that scream into nothingness that saved him. It forced the life back to his limbs, the strength to his hands, and the composure to his dizzy head, and brought him safely down.
For Knud Erik, the man who'd sent him up there personified the rule of law at sea. But Pinnerup was also the sea itself: rapacious and dangerous. Unless you toughened up, you'd go under. He stopped worrying about the injustices, the beatings, and the insults. Instead, he allowed himself to be filled with a new sensation: hatred. He hated the first mate. He hated the ship. He hated the sea. It was hatred that kept him on his feet when he staggered across the seesawing deck with the coffeepot in the pitch-dark and scalded his hands. It was hatred that helped him endure the saltwater blisters on his neck and wrists where his permanently wet woolen sweater chafed the unprotected skin, causing huge fluid-filled pustules. It was hatred that kept him silent and stoical when the first mate grabbed him by the neck and twisted his wrist, just where the worst boils were ready to burst.
Hatred was his apprenticeship, and in serving it, he grew up.
It was hard to become a man. But he wanted to. He dug in his heels and made himself stupid, pigheaded, and tough. He became a human battering ram. He'd gain access to life, he realized, only if he kicked its door in.
The skipper of the Active was Hans Boutrop, who came from Søndergade. He was a jolly, rotund man whose considerable girth was no thanks to the fare from the Marstal ships' cookbook, which, had it existed, would have had THRIFT stamped all over it in giant letters. As cabin boy, Knud Erik had to help out in the galley, where the captain taught him to make broth. His recipe, he said, was similar to pork broth but with a crucial difference: no pork was involved. Instead, you flavored it generously with brown sugar and vinegar, which you flung into the boiling water along with a handful of rusks.
On Sundays, if the ship was in port, the galley served pot roast. This festive dish was made in its own special pot, whose wooden lid was blackened with age, and the recipe followed the same principle as all other meat dishes: cook for a solid three hours. Period.
On rare occasions they had a pudding, which was left to set in coffee cups, then tipped out and served on plates in small individual wobbling domes that would fit in the palm of your hand. The crew called them nun's titties. The stringy tinned meat from Argentina they called cable yarn, while salt meat was known as red Indian's ass, and salami was never referred to as anything but Roskilde high road.
Often the smell of cooking and the enclosed atmosphere of the galley made him seasick, and he'd open the door and throw up on deck. In bad weather the waves usually washed the puke away, so no one knew about the half-digested meals he routinely sacrificed. When he wasn't seasick, his appetite for his own food was good, and he continued to be amazed that he could cook.
The fo'c'sle was so small that only two men could get dressed at the same time. Below the floor was the coal for the galley oven, and behind the ladder was the potato crate: when its contents began to rot, it exuded a penetrating stench like fermenting shit. A strange smell also emanated from the box where the anchor chain was stored: it was the odor of dried mud and old anchor weed that the broom couldn't dislodge. But from the rope berth came the good, strong smell of brown tar.
The crew relieved themselves into a beer barrel that had been cut in half. The seat was a rough iron ring that scratched the buttocks, and when the sea was bad and waves crashed onto the deck, you'd sometimes get knocked over as you sat on it. In fine weather Knud Erik would climb out on the bowsprit and shit directly into the bow splash. It reminded him of the flushing china bowl at home in Prinsegade.
Fresh water was for drinking only, so he never washed. The deck was cleaner than he was. Once a week, he and the crewmen would get down on their knees and scrub it with "Marstal soda," a brick rubbed against crunchy wet sand.
As a parting gift, Vilhjelm's father had presented Knud Erik with two leather patches, with straps attached. "They're for your hands," he'd said. Being a man of few words, he'd offered no further explanation—and it wasn't until the Active called at Egernsund to take on a cargo of bricks bound for Copenhagen that Knud Erik learned their purpose. Pinnerup showed him what they were for, strapping the leather patches to his hands and then giving him a slap across the face by way of encouragement.
So he did have some compassion in him after all, Knud Erik thought.
The bricks were brought from the wharf to the ship, then down a chain of men until they reached the first mate in the hull, who passed them into the stows. They came flying from man to man in packs of four, each bundle weighing somewhere between ten and fifteen kilos. The first one Knud Erik caught nearly knocked him over. If it hadn't been for the leather patches, his skin would have been flayed.
He stood panting for a moment, then took a couple of staggering steps toward the docker next to him in line.
"Listen, pal," the docker warned. "Don't break the chain. Your arms won't be able to stand it. If you don't keep the bricks moving, they get too heavy."
He showed Knud Erik how to twist his body and send the bricks on in a single movement. Knud Erik kept the chain going the next time, but whenever a pack passed through his hands, it felt as if his arms were being wrenched off. His limbs were lead weights, and he strained for breath. But he refused to give up. He found himself drawing on a violence he didn't even know he possessed, a force that came not from his paltry boyish muscles, but from some nameless inner place where it had lain dormant for years.
The docker glanced at him from time to time. "You're doing all right," he said, but the pity in his eyes belied his words. He was an older man who sweated profusely, but he knew the routine. He quickly forgot Knud Erik. There was a piecework rate to keep up.
Every time there was a hitch in the delivery, Pinnerup's hoarse voice would shout from the hull, "Is it that damn boy again?"
The crew of the Active had to help with the unloading in Copenhagen as well. They moored in Frederiksholms Kanal; its high granite wharves were a long way up, so it was hard work. The first mate kept well away, sitting on the hatch coaming and watching Knud Erik fall out of rhythm again and again. The difficulty wasn't just passing the heavy pack along, but throwing it upward too. Each time he pushed off, he had to squat deeper. "Lazy swine, Sunday sailor," Pinnerup snarled, and removed the broken meerschaum pipe from his mouth to spit on the deck.
Knud Erik was so used to this kind of thing that he hardly noticed. But one of the dockers put down his pack and went over to the first mate. "We won't put up with this," he said. He pointed to Knud Erik. "The work's too heavy for a boy. Swap places with him and give him a rest."
Pinnerup grinned and pulled his cap down. "So you think you're in charge here?"
"No," the docker said. "I'm the one doing the unloading. But perhaps you'd rat
her do it yourself?" He turned to his mates. "Feller here thinks he doesn't need us."
They swung themselves up on the wharf and sat down. One of them took out a cigarette, lit it, and passed it around. They didn't look in Pinnerup's direction, but started chatting among themselves, dangling their legs over the edge casually. Knud Erik stood there, confused. Something was happening that he didn't understand. These men didn't belong on the ship. They weren't familiar with its hierarchy or its unseen life-or-death struggles. They seemed to be a law unto themselves, with a strength of their own. They appeared to be their own masters.
"So when's break time over?" Pinnerup snorted sarcastically.
"When you take your hands out of your pockets," retorted one of the dockers.
The other laughed in approval.
Pinnerup shrank. Here he was no one.
Suddenly Knud Erik could see him: a ridiculous, filthy man in patched clothes with a broken pipe in his mouth and a clean-shaven chin sticking out of a beard that looked as if it belonged on a graying orangutan. He'd learned to suffer Pinnerup, yet the first mate had taken up his entire field of vision, like bad weather or a force of nature. Now he saw him as if from the top of the mast, a man the size of an ant on the deck. He saw him through the eyes of the dockers.
He climbed up on the wharf, sat down next to them, and dangled his legs just as they did.
That was Pinnerup's cue. He got up and went over to Knud Erik. The dockers sat up watchfully. One of them flicked his cigarette so that it landed at Pinnerup's feet, then jumped down onto the deck and looked him in the eye. Pinnerup's face tightened.
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