We the Drowned by Carsten Jensen

8/8/2019 We the Drowned by Carsten Jensen

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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT

Boston New York

2010

c a r s t e n j e n s e n

Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder

We, the Drowned


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Copyright 2006 by Carsten Jensen og Gyldendal

Translation copyright 2010 by Charlotte Barslund

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,

215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jensen, Carsten, date.

[Vi, de druknede. English]

We, the drowned / Carsten Jensen ; translated from the Danish

by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder.

p. cm.

Translation of: Vi, de druknede T.p. verso.

isbn 978-0-15-101377-7

i. Barslund, Charlotte. ii. Ryder, Emma. iii. Title.

pt8176.2.

e44

v513 2010

839.8'1374 dc22 2009046568

Translation ofVi, de druknede

This translation has been sponsored by

the Danish Arts Council Committee for Literature.

Book design by Lisa DiercksText set in FF Clifford

Map by Joe McClaren

Printed in the United States of America

doc 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The author is grateful for financial assistance from the following:

Statens Kunstfond

Litteraturrdet

Autorkontoen

Statens Kunstrds LitteraturudvalgPolitikens Fond

J. C. Hempels Fond

Konsul Georg Jorck og hustru Emma Jorcks Fond

Fonden Erik Hoffmeyers Rejselegat


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t h e b o o t s

Many years ago there lived a man called Laurids Madsen, whowent up to Heaven and came down again, thanks to his boots.

He didnt soar as high as the tip of the mast on a full-rigged ship;in fact he got no farther than the main. Once up there, he stood out-side the pearly gates and saw Saint Peter though the guardian of thegateway to the Hereafter merely flashed his bare ass at him.

Laurids Madsen should have been dead. But death didnt want him,and he came back down a changed man.

Until the fame he achieved from this heavenly visit, Laurids Mad-sen was best known for having single-handedly started a war. His fa-

ther, Rasmus, had been lost at sea when Laurids was six years old.When he turned fourteen he shipped aboard the Anna of Marstal, hisnative town on the island of r, but the ship was lost in the Balticonly three months later. The crew was rescued by an American brigand from then on Laurids Madsen dreamt of America.

Hed passed his navigation exam in Flensburg when he was eigh-teen and the same year he was shipwrecked again, this time off thecoast of Norway near Mandal, where he stood on a rock with the

waves slapping on a cold October night, scanning the horizon forsalvation. For the next five years he sailed the seven seas. He wentsouth around Cape Horn and heard penguins scream in the pitch-black night. He saw Valparaiso, the west coast of America, and Syd-ney, where the kangaroos hop and the trees shed bark in winter andnot their leaves. He met a girl with eyes like grapes by the name ofSally Brown, and could tell stories about Foretop Street, La Boca, Bar-

bary Coast, and Tiger Bay. He boasted about his first equator crossing,when hed saluted Neptune and felt the bump as the ship passed theline: his fellow sailors had marked the occasion by forcing him todrink salt water, fish oil, and vinegar; theyd baptized him in tar, lamp


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soot, and glue; shaved him with a rusty razor with dents in its blade;and tended to his cuts with stinging salt and lime. They made him kissthe ocher-colored cheek of the pockmarked Amphitrite and forcedhis nose down her bottle of smelling salts, which theyd filled with

nail clippings.Laurids Madsen had seen the world.So had many others. But he was the only one to return to Marstal

with the peculiar notion that everything there was too small, and toprove his point, he frequently spoke in a foreign tongue he called

American, which hed learned when he sailed with the naval frigateNeversink for a year. Givin nem belong mi Laurids Madsen,he said.

He had three sons and a daughter with Karoline Grube from Nygade:Rasmus, named after his grandfather, and Esben and Albert. The girlsname was Else and she was the oldest. Rasmus, Esben, and Else tookafter their mother, who was short and taciturn, while Albert resem-bled his father: at the age of four he was already as tall as Esben, who

was three years his senior. His favorite pastime was rolling aroundan English cast-iron cannonball, which was far too heavy for him to

lift not that it stopped him from trying. Stubborn-faced, hed bracehis knees and strain. Heave away, my jolly boys! Heave away, my bullies!Laurids shoutedin encouragement, as he watched his youngest son struggling with it.

The cannonball had come crashing through the roof of their housein Korsgade during the English siege of Marstal in 1808, and it hadput Lauridss mother in such a fright that she promptly gave birth tohim right in the middle of the kitchen floor. When little Albert wasntbusy with the cannonball it lived in the kitchen, where Karoline usedit as a mortar for crushing mustard seeds.

It could have been you announcing your arrival, my boy, Lau-ridss father had once said to him, seeing how big you were when

you were born. If the stork had dropped you, you would have gonethrough the roof like an English cannonball. Finggu,Laurids said, holding up his finger.

He wanted to teach the children the American language. Futmeant foot. He pointed to his boot.Maus was mouth.He rubbed his belly when they sat down to eat. He bared his teeth.

Hanggre.


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They all understood he was telling them he was hungry.Ma was misis, Pa papa tru. When Laurids was absent, they said

Mother and Father like normal children, except for Albert. He hada special bond with his father.

The children had many names,pickaninnies, bullies, and hearties. Laihim tumas,Laurids said to Karoline, and pursed his lips as ifhe was about to kiss her.

She blushed and laughed, and then got angry.Dont be such a fool, Laurids, she said.

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We the Drowned by Carsten Jensen