The Black Cauldron

by William Heinesen

  Fresh weeping and lamentations. “I admit it … it’s disgraceful of me … but I’m so afraid, so afraid … and besides, I get so terribly seasick that I can’t move a hand … my nerves would give way before I ever got there … I wouldn’t be a scrap of use … I’d only be a nuisance to her …”

  Jens Ferdinand got up calmly and said with a sigh: “You don’t need to get so worked up, Sigrun. Of course I’ll go.”

  He emptied his glass and put the bottle back in the cupboard.

  Sigrun gave way to lamentations again. He could not be bothered listening to her, lit a cigarette and took his cap.

  “It’s thoughtless of you to go off now,” came the voice behind him. “You know what my nerves are like. Where on earth are you going?”

  “To find out when the boat leaves.”

  “It goes tomorrow morning. I know that for a fact. There’s nothing to enquire about. Jens Ferdinand!” She tugged hard at his sleeve: “Would you give me a drink. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever asked you for one.”

  He turned round in amazement: “All right, of course you can have one.”

  Sigrun downed the strong liquor without blinking, and then asked for another glass.

  She sat down in the easy chair. Her brother began pacing back and forth.

  “So it was God’s will that Johan and Liva shouldn’t have each other,” wailed Sigrun. “So I suppose it was all for the best. I don’t think they’d ever have been happy. He wouldn’t have been able to take her sectarianism. Do you know, Jens Ferdinand: I think he would have been hard on her. He could lose his temper so, when the mood took him. And she’d have deserved it, for just fancy, being in with that crowd. He’d never have put up with that, at any rate. Can you imagine a man like Johan sitting across there in that greasy bakery and … no, impossible. And in any case, she wasn’t the one for him … even if she was quite pretty, of course … she wasn’t the one for him at all … for Johan was quite a stylish chap … yes he was, Jens Ferdinand. There was something masterful about him. He was used to giving orders and being obeyed. Our splendid Johan. And then Liva from Angelica Cottage!”

  Sigrun was battling with tears. But then she overcame them and went on: “… And then that Magdalena. She’s nothing but a real tart. Just fancy, she was out at a dance the very evening she arrived, quite a lot of people saw her. And then Thomea, the one with the hairy face. Just think … that peculiar Icelander she’s been running around with … aye, it’s incredible, isn’t it? Imagine them carrying on like that! … But he’s dropped her in any case, and now Mrs. Lundegaard from the hotel’s going to have a baby with him … . And then … Consul Tarnowius’s daughter’s lost hers. It happened the night they heard her husband had been killed in the war. And now they say that she’s going to be hooked up with Captain Gilgud himself … just imagine … she’s seventeen, and he’s fifty-six. And then, you know fat Astrid – her old sergeant’s been killed, and now she’s going to have a kid with another NCO. And Rita, the fair-haired girl who used to sell tickets in the cinema – she’s been raped by a sailor, and now they say he’s really in for it … for now they suddenly say its not allowed. What do you say to that? Now it’s not allowed … after going on for three years without anyone lifting a finger to stop it … virtually undisturbed, out in the open.”

  Jens Ferdinand half listened to his sister’s nervous torrent of words. He filled their glasses and secretly returned to his voluptuous dreams of loneliness.

  The little golden beetle is still faithfully stumbling on its way under the gaze of a sun that is bright like clear water, but towards evening it becomes darker and darker and dusty like a Spanish pepper, until finally it disappears beneath a cloudless horizon.

  Then the night comes, and with it the planet Jupiter, which is 1400 times as big as the earth and enveloped in a gigantic ocean of clouds. And while the shining, wandering tiny little beetle glistens gingerly in the starlight, a distant, dark sun plays on the heaving ocean of clouds covering Jupiter; not a cloud of water vapour or ice crystals, but of carbon dioxide and reeking ammonia … and yet it, too, has its day and night over the inconceivable expanse of its wilderness … aye, Orion and the Pleiades shine over its heaving ocean of poison just as we know them here on Earth; all the constellations shine and twinkle with their familiar features on this vast, alien Niflheim, which is more dead than death …

  “And Pjølle Schibbye’s having a divorce,” he heard Sigrun’s distant and irrelevant voice. “They’ve both been having it off with someone else, but she’s been the worst by far, for she …”

  “Do you know what the oceans on Jupiter consist of?” he interrupted her in fury. “Ammonia water. It has a penetrating smell like salt of hartshorn … stables … old, rotten urine.”

  “What do you mean? What are you getting at?”

  He thrust his fists down into his jacket pockets and flapped his arms in deep inner tumult. “What do I mean? I’ll tell you exactly what I mean: I mean that the whole of this vast, gigantic planet stinks like one vast piss-sodden eiderdown.”

  “Jens Ferdinand!”

  “Goodbye,” he said suddenly, and slammed the door as he left.

  Jens Ferdinand wandered haphazardly out into the raw, stormy day. The gusts of wind were whipping up fans of darkness across the grey fjord, and along the edge of each fan there was an aura of white and grey, like clouds of dust being brushed up. Not even the harbour pool was calm, and the ships and boats were dragging at their anchor chains, while the water was splashing irascibly and tirelessly in over the quays. Enormous armies of grey storm clouds came pouring in from the sea. For a moment a crystal white ray of sunshine awoke in the grey mass and turned the sky into a landscape of mountains and bluish ravines… the curtain was drawn aside to reveal a tempestuous Jupiter landscape of demented, cruel beauty. But the next moment the tumultuous vision was extinguished. It was nothing for human eyes, a vision reserved for gods and giants…

  But this sombre day had still not emptied the cups of its anger; there was still more dread hidden in its depths. In the early afternoon two destroyers arrived in the fjord together with three badly damaged freighters, the remains of a convoy that had been dispersed. One of the steamers had a catastrophic list and looked like a petrified cry for help. Military ambulances and lorries stood waiting on the cordoned-off quayside. Stretchers were quickly taken aboard and carried slowly back to shore with their sad freight. The wounded were taken first, and then it was the turn of the dead bodies – there was no hurry as far as they were concerned. There were something like thirty bodies. Men in the flower of their youth, congealed youthful blood that would never pound through the veins again. There was a silent, oppressive flurry of activity in the hospital; they had to find room for these unknown victims of the great imperialist madness; the operating theatre was prepared, and the doctor prepared for a long and difficult night.

  “Make sure there are plenty of cigarettes,” he said brusquely. “British sailors insist on dying with a cigarette between their lips.”

  Jens Ferdinand opened the door to his room, and Myklebust and Thygesen entered with a slight bow. The two foreigners, ultra polite and modest, stood rubbing their hands while they looked around the little room, the walls of which were decorated with coloured sketches for advertisements and lively caricatures. Jens Ferdinand had chanced to meet the curious pair out at the Seaweed Pool, and they had invited him aboard their funny old Viking ship that lay anchored down there. They needed to fetch some things they had left on board, including Thygesen’s guitar. They had had a couple of drinks, and then Jens Ferdinand had invited them home so he could show them his merry-go-round. Thygesen was carrying his guitar under his arm.

  “You’re a real caricaturist,” said Myklebust. “Let’s see whether we know any of them. Oh yes, there are Solomon Olsen and his son as large as life. And Mr. Opperman. Hey, look here, Thyge, never in all my life have I seen anything as malicious as this. Consul Opperman in his négligé and wearing a
pair of knickers. And … good heavens, what is this distinguished chap up to?”

  “It’s Consul Tarnowius kissing Captain Gilgud’s bum; I can see that all right,” commented Thygesen without mincing his words.

  “Aye, the man’s not without talent,” said Myklebust. “It reminds me a bit of Gulbransson and Blix and that crowd. He could have got somewhere, I’m sure he could. Nihilism, eh?”

  He stopped in front of the drawing of a bar behind which the bar-tender, in the shape of Pjølle Schibbye, was mixing a cocktail for his mother. Mrs. Schibbye was the only guest in the pub, but on the other hand she filled the entire room with her octopus-like body. “Human blood”, it said on the cocktail shaker. And here was Nikodemus Skælling, the editor … stark naked in the middle of a duckpond, covering up his private parts with both hands, while out in the shallow water there was a notice saying The Ocean of the Spirit.

  Jens Ferdinand had set his merry-go-round in motion. It was an ingenious little machine, driven by clockwork. A kind of puppet theatre or circus. The Black Cauldron was written above the little cardboard proscenium, which was decorated with grinning satyr masks.

  But the piece being performed was anything but funny.

  The background represented a grey ocean, dotted with mines and periscopes, and the air above the horizon was plastered over with a formidable collection of aeroplanes. In the left foreground there was a quayside with a group of figures in party dress sitting around a table weighed down with bottles and glasses and small flags. And now a ship came sailing in, loaded with money bags and gold bullion, and as it passed the bridge the party-goers rose excitedly and waved hurrah with their arms. And the ship sailed on.

  The scene was repeated and was in danger of becoming a little tedious, but then, suddenly, something else happened; the typographer pressed a button; an explosion was heard, and the ship disappeared without trace out at sea. At the same time the party-goers on the quayside had been replaced by a group of women and children, dressed in black, standing uneasily and raising their arms in despair.

  But before long it all reverted to the first act with its party and welcoming scene …

  “Aye, you’ve made a good job of that,” commented Myklebust. “But the action’s a little on the simple side, isn’t it? It reminds me of those hard-boiled socialist satirical magazines from before the war. Are you a socialist, Hermansen? Yes, of course you are; ugh, so’s Thyge, I think, he just doesn’t say anything; he only sings. But I’m certainly not, by God. I’m a nationalist, a patriot.”

  He nudged Jens Ferdinand and whispered meaningfully: “I had to get out, you see. They were after me, to shoot me or send me to Germany … but then I managed to get myself disguised as a priest … oh, well, but that’s a long story … you can hear it another time.”

  Thygesen extracted a bottle of Ainslie from his coat pocket and planted it on the table. Jens Ferdinand fetched glasses and water.

  “Cheers,” said Myklebust hoarsely. The two guests emptied their glasses at a single draught, and Thygesen hurried to fill them again.

  “Another glass of the mahogany, please, Thyge,” said Myklebust. He was sitting bent backwards, with his feet apart and his hands hanging limply down, staring at the merry-go-round. “Yes, but what do you really mean by it?” he asked. “Are you going to have it put on show?”

  “It was originally going to be something with dancing fairies to put in Masa Hansen’s shop window at Christmas,” said Jens Ferdinand. “I usually draw or make something of that kind for people … it makes me a bit of extra money. But then I made this instead. For my own amusement, really.”

  Myklebust nodded. With a quick movement of his arm he took hold of the new glass of mahogany coloured liquid and had a drink without wishing their health. Thygesen did likewise. Their tempo was a bit too fast for Jens Ferdinand; he was already beginning to feel strangely mottled and sandy inside. Thygesen laid a paternal hand on his arm and said gently: “Don’t try to march alongside us, my friend … we are the shock troops.”

  “When the war’s over,” began Myklebust. He sighed without completing the sentence, but he took it up again a little later. “When the war’s over, you, you caricaturist, what’s your name? … you’ll have to come with me to Norway. I’ll bloody well make an artist of you.”

  He returned to his contemplation of the merry-go-round. His baggy eyes were quite bloodshot. He gave a deep sigh and murmured: “The Black Cauldron, aye, indeed. I suppose it symbolises the Cauldron here, eh? Or the North Sea? Or … well, I suppose the whole world, the entire present age, doesn’t it? Aye, the Lord protect our coming in and going out. Cheers. Now they’re killing thousands of Polish and Jewish prisoners in the German gas chambers. Don’t call it barbaric – that’s not the word. Don’t call it Hell, for that doesn’t cover it, either. When all’s said and done, Hell encompasses a moral dogma. No, our age hasn’t got a bloody term to cover the sins that are being committed today. It’s brand new, the whole lot of it. It’s never before been seen. Scientific cannibalism. Natural catastrophes set in motion by small-minded folk, shoemakers and tailors and greengrocers … decent folk, fundamentally, who would shed a tear if they saw their mangy dog get its tail jammed in a door.”

  Shaking his head, he got up and sought Jens Ferdinand’s glance with his heavy eyes, adding: “Decent little people, then. Not ignorant. Not barbaric. Not stupid. But superstitious and afraid. Related to dogs that bite you out of fear. In some Wagnerian hall with Victorian furnishing there’s a benighted, phobic painter’s mate holding Jove’s lightning, the unfailing lightning of modern technology, in his nervous and anything but chivalrous hand. While with his other hand he blesses the little children whom mothers bring to him in countless numbers. To Hell with him. Tread the vermin underfoot. Squash the earwig flat …”

  Myklebust got up lurching and thumped the table so that the merry-go-round jumped and came to a standstill: “Kick the dog to death, it’s got rabies. Hitlerism must be crushed.”

  Myklebust had shouted until he was hoarse. He settled down heavily again and leant forward. “The future will fashion new words, terrible words for the nameless sins against humanity that are being perpetrated. Cheers. Sing something, Thyge, there’s a good chap.”

  Thygesen had lit himself a cigarette; he took the guitar, rocked to and fro with his head and sang, this time in a high falsetto:

  Now the bridge is falling down,

  Now strikes the clock eleven,

  The emperor stands in his shining lofty hall,

  As white as chalk,

  As black as coal.

  Go forth, oh warrior bold,

  With death thou aye must reckon,

  He who comes the last of all,

  Ends in the deep black cauldron.

  Thygesen produced a few plopping final notes and clicked his tongue loudly.

  Myklebust had got up again; he threw his hands deprecatingly in the air: “Not that, Thyge. We’ll have no defeatism as long as I’m here. We’re going to win. We want nothing less than the total annihilation of these monsters. We want to see Norway and Denmark free. Sing a patriotic song, for God’s sake, Thyge. Or one of your hymns. Sing a hymn, Thyge. Something to comfort us, something to comfort us.”

  Thygesen sighed, emptied his glass, cleared his voice a couple of times, sighed again, struck a deep, warm chord and finally broke into song:

  The cheerless night is waning fast

  And glorious day is dawning bright …

  During the afternoon the black showers of sleet merged to produce driving snow; the wind grew in intensity, and in the evening the south easterly gale thundered through the pitch black streets and plastered doors and windows with cakes of wet, salt snow.

  At about nine o’clock there was a loud knocking on the door of Angelica Cottage. Magdalena, who was the only one still up, had difficulty in getting the door open. A small, heavily cloaked figure was standing outside; it was difficult to see whether it was a man or a woman. Whoever it was, w
as out of breath and spoke in a choking voice, as though in distress. Magdalena managed to drag the strange visitor inside, and to her amazement she saw that it was Pontus the watchmaker.

  Pontus unwound an enormous shaggy scarf from round his neck and with some difficulty loosened the ear flaps of his fur cap, which had been tied under his chin. His face was glowing red, and cakes of melting snow were dripping from his beard and eyebrows. He was gasping for breath, and it was some time before he could make himself understood. Magdalena was full of anxious misgivings; her heart was beating violently; she sat down and hid her face in her hands, but suddenly Pontus exploded with laughter, and came across and shook her.

  “Eleven thousand pounds,” he said. “Look, girl. My God, but that’s nothing to look miserable about. Frederik’s telegraphed that the Admiral has sold fish for eleven thousand pounds. Don’t you understand what that means? It’s top price. Absolutely top price. It couldn’t be better. It’s a record, my dear. And then he says: ’Love to Magdalena’. Aye, congratulations, Magdalena, my heartiest congratulations.”

  He shook her hand convulsively and showed his black teeth in something half way between smiling and weeping. “I had to come up to tell you; I couldn’t be on my own with the great news, and Frederik has no other relatives, and I’ve none myself. I had to have someone to share my joy with. And you need a bit of encouraging news up here, considering what you’ve had to go through recently. But now you’ll see, Magdalena, things are going to be brighter.”

  “So we can expect the ship back … well, when?” asked Magdalena.

  “Hey, steady on, my dear,” said Pontus, rubbing his wet nose. “The Admiral’s not coming back on this trip. For I’ve hired it for at least another two trips and I’m having it provisioned in Aberdeen and sailing direct to Iceland without landing here on the way. Understand? We must make the most of the time. Time is money.”