Nexø’s books in Lone’s home, but not because they like him.
“He is a danger to the country,” says Lone’s father, “he is a Russian communist and a mole who undermines natural respect,” but he wants to keep up to date on what the man in the street is reading, so he gets the books sent from Copenhagen. I’ve come to borrow Martin Andersen Nexø’s novel Ditte Menneskebarn, because Jesper hasn’t read that, and maybe Knud Rasmussen’s book about the great sledge journey across Greenland. I want to read them too, but first I’ll take them out to Jesper so he has something different to think about wherever he may be. When my father and I went back from the harbor after the Læsø boat, Jesper wasn’t at home. My mother had not seen him, but he had been in, because his wet clothes hung over a chair and dripped on the floor. He didn’t come home to lunch at twelve o’clock and not to afternoon coffee either. My father went out in the evening saying he was going to Aftenstjernen, but we knew he never went to that place so late.
Lone is disappointed because I only want to borrow books, she keeps hold of my arm longer than necessary and then she goes to fetch them obediently. I don’t go in with her, I stand in the shade of a tree and watch Hans and his mother playing croquet on the lawn. There is a quiet clucking sound from the wooden balls. The grass is lush and green.
“You won,” says the mother. He puts his hands on his hips and smiles at her patronizingly. Then he drops his mallet on the grass and turns to walk up to the house. She watches his back the whole way, then she turns and looks at me and her eyes are swimming and her neck looks pathetic under the pinned-up hairstyle, and I am glad Lone comes out with the books under her arm. On top is a book on butterflies as camouflage, and Hans gives her a shove with his shoulder as they pass each other at the glass door. She drops the books on the stone steps, they slip apart and he bends down and says loudly:
“You’re not allowed to take them!” I’m there in a second, pick up the books and look him straight in the eye.
“I’m borrowing those,” I snarl quietly. I hate his sailor suit and his water-combed hair and I know he knows it. He turns aside without a word. I carry the books openly past their mother and Lone goes with me to the gate and right out on to the road where my bicycle leans against the railings. I tie the books firmly to the carrier and half turn to her saying:
“So long,” before I spin off down the road to Frydenstrand and feel her eyes on my back.
“Where are you going?” she calls. I just wave without looking back. She is begging, but guilty conscience only troubles me for a few meters.
I cycle along. There are hedges and roses along white-painted fences and suits and dresses in the shadows behind, and then come cornflowers in carpets of blue and violets in clumps and poppies at the edges of fields next to the gravel road. At the end of the road the smell of cornfields and cow manure drifts from the north, and I conjure up the steam off the milk through the air and straight ahead I see the sea glinting between the trees near the public swimming pool. I have the sun in my face when I turn at the crossroads by Frydenstrand house and out on to the coast road where a puff of wind brings the stench of fishmeal from the harbor and factory there.
I cycle with Ditte behind me on the carrier and put my hand on it now and then and Lone disappears among the houses and gardens until I’ve forgotten her existence. Dog roses are in bloom on Tordenskjold’s earthworks, they grow and spread a little more every year and the undergrowth hums with honeybees and bumblebees. When I stand on the pedals I can see the sea above the bushes and the waves sliding in to the beach with white crests in long streaks as far as the eye can reach and further still and all the way north to Skagen.
I cycle on and think of my father in the streets in
“He is a danger to the country,” says Lone’s father, “he is a Russian communist and a mole who undermines natural respect,” but he wants to keep up to date on what the man in the street is reading, so he gets the books sent from Copenhagen. I’ve come to borrow Martin Andersen Nexø’s novel Ditte Menneskebarn, because Jesper hasn’t read that, and maybe Knud Rasmussen’s book about the great sledge journey across Greenland. I want to read them too, but first I’ll take them out to Jesper so he has something different to think about wherever he may be. When my father and I went back from the harbor after the Læsø boat, Jesper wasn’t at home. My mother had not seen him, but he had been in, because his wet clothes hung over a chair and dripped on the floor. He didn’t come home to lunch at twelve o’clock and not to afternoon coffee either. My father went out in the evening saying he was going to Aftenstjernen, but we knew he never went to that place so late.
Lone is disappointed because I only want to borrow books, she keeps hold of my arm longer than necessary and then she goes to fetch them obediently. I don’t go in with her, I stand in the shade of a tree and watch Hans and his mother playing croquet on the lawn. There is a quiet clucking sound from the wooden balls. The grass is lush and green.
“You won,” says the mother. He puts his hands on his hips and smiles at her patronizingly. Then he drops his mallet on the grass and turns to walk up to the house. She watches his back the whole way, then she turns and looks at me and her eyes are swimming and her neck looks pathetic under the pinned-up hairstyle, and I am glad Lone comes out with the books under her arm. On top is a book on butterflies as camouflage, and Hans gives her a shove with his shoulder as they pass each other at the glass door. She drops the books on the stone steps, they slip apart and he bends down and says loudly:
“You’re not allowed to take them!” I’m there in a second, pick up the books and look him straight in the eye.
“I’m borrowing those,” I snarl quietly. I hate his sailor suit and his water-combed hair and I know he knows it. He turns aside without a word. I carry the books openly past their mother and Lone goes with me to the gate and right out on to the road where my bicycle leans against the railings. I tie the books firmly to the carrier and half turn to her saying:
“So long,” before I spin off down the road to Frydenstrand and feel her eyes on my back.
“Where are you going?” she calls. I just wave without looking back. She is begging, but guilty conscience only troubles me for a few meters.
I cycle along. There are hedges and roses along white-painted fences and suits and dresses in the shadows behind, and then come cornflowers in carpets of blue and violets in clumps and poppies at the edges of fields next to the gravel road. At the end of the road the smell of cornfields and cow manure drifts from the north, and I conjure up the steam off the milk through the air and straight ahead I see the sea glinting between the trees near the public swimming pool. I have the sun in my face when I turn at the crossroads by Frydenstrand house and out on to the coast road where a puff of wind brings the stench of fishmeal from the harbor and factory there.
I cycle with Ditte behind me on the carrier and put my hand on it now and then and Lone disappears among the houses and gardens until I’ve forgotten her existence. Dog roses are in bloom on Tordenskjold’s earthworks, they grow and spread a little more every year and the undergrowth hums with honeybees and bumblebees. When I stand on the pedals I can see the sea above the bushes and the waves sliding in to the beach with white crests in long streaks as far as the eye can reach and further still and all the way north to Skagen.
I cycle on and think of my father in the streets in
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