Роберт Фиш - The Gold of Troy

Christensen’s eyes were cold on Krag, as if accusing the man of the crime of surviving when his two brothers had not. “Then?”

“Then I saw Niels starting to raise sail—”

“ Raise sail? In that sea ?”

“There was no choice! He had to try something, didn’t he? Without power he wouldn’t have lasted a minute—” Krag suddenly seemed to realize they still hadn’t lasted. He swallowed. “Anyway, he had barely started when the wind caught the sail and — and the mast snapped.” He spoke hurriedly now, anxious to finish and be done with it. “It threw Niels overboard. He was swept away in an instant. There was no chance to do anything to save him. He was gone almost at once—”

Christensen’s voice was like doom. “And Gustave?”

Krag swallowed once again; he knew Knud Christensen’s feeling for his youngest brother. But it had to be said. “The wind took the boat into a trough, swinging it, tangling Gustave in the shrouds, and then — then it seemed the boat just seemed to open where the mast had split the deck, and — and the next thing she was gone, just like that.” He seemed to be relieved to have finished the painful and thankless job of telling Knud Christensen the story. He sighed and filled his glass, drank gratefully, and then set the glass down carefully on the floor. He came to his feet, still avoiding Christensen’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Knud. Everyone’s sorry.”

“Sorry...” Christensen was staring past Krag through the window at the blackness beyond. The storm seemed to have abated. The sound of the wind had died down. “Everyone is sorry...” It was all his fault if they foundered because the engine failed. They had discussed the need for the new engine, but he had felt the farm requirements came first. His one vote against their two, and he had won. A great victory... He spoke, still staring through the empty window. “They were the only boat lost?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Krag retrieved his sou’wester, pulling it on, moving to the door. “I have to be going...”

“Wait.” Christensen brought his attention from the window to the man at the door. His face was expressionless, carved in granite. “Do you know where the boat went down?”

“Fairly close,” Krag said, pleased to be on more familiar ground. He was sure he understood the reason for the question. “We could see both the light and the harbor entrance. She wouldn’t drift much with her lockers full the way they were, and it’s too deep there for much undersea movement from the waves. As soon as it’s calm I can locate the place well enough for Father Rasmussen to hold a proper service.”

“A proper service,” Knud repeated. “A proper service...” he said once more, and turned without another word to climb the steps toward the bedroom. Krag sighed and went out into the windy night, closing the door softly behind him.

It was not the first service of its kind that Father Rasmussen had held nor, as he sadly knew, would it probably be the last. He stood in his own small dory, bobbing lightly on the calm sea; about him the boats of the other villagers were grouped. The air was bitter cold, but calm. Above, the sky was a deep blue, as if the heavens were compensating, this fine Sunday morning, for the two lives that had been taken in fury a few days before. Everyone standing silent at the rails of their boats was bundled in sweaters. Father Rasmussen wore a heavy pea jacket over a turtleneck sweater. Some of the villagers had managed to get some hothouse flowers; others had brought small wreaths woven from fir boughs in their own homes. As the final sad words of Father Rasmussen’s all-too familiar service ended, they leaned from the rails of their boats and tossed their offerings from gloved fingers into the pulsing sea. There were a few moments’ silence, all eyes following the drifting flowers, the men all aware that but for the grace of God it could be they, themselves, under the sea and the floating wreaths above them; the women thinking how fortunate it was, in a way, that the Christensen boys never did marry, for at least now there were no grieving widows to suffer loneliness and loss. Then there was the sound of Father Rasmussen’s outboard being started, and the other boats followed suit, slowly pulling away, heading back to the village.

Krag moved to his boat’s controls, happy to no longer be standing beside the silent and somehow frightening Knud Christensen. He pressed the starter, revved the boat’s engine, and swung the wheel in the direction of the harbor. And then became aware that Christensen had moved silently to stand at his elbow.

“Jens—”

“Yes?”

“Pull into my dock. I have to get something. Then I want you to take me out again.”

“Of course, Knud.” A personal gift to the dead, Krag thought; something too personal to be offered to the sea before the audience of the villagers. He wondered how long Christensen intended to grieve. “What is it you want to get?”

“My diving gear.”

“ What !” Jens Krag took his eyes from his boat’s way a moment to stare incredulously at the man at his side. “That’s crazy! What do you think you’ll find?”

“My brother.”

“But that’s mad! You couldn’t live five minutes in that water! This is January, for God’s sake!”

Christensen calmly reached over and changed the position of the wheel. The boat obediently changed course, chugging evenly toward the Christensen dock. “When we get there,” Knud said conversationally, quite as if Jens Krag had not spoken at all, “you will wait for me and take me back out to where the boat went down. Do you hear?”

“But — not only is it too cold, but the water’s at least eighty feet deep there!” Jens was almost frantic. “It’s insane, don’t you understand?”

“If you say so. I’ll try to get my gear from the house as quickly as I can,” Christensen said, and moved away from the wheel, walking stolidly to the stern of the boat, hands deep in pockets, staring back at the spot he had marked during the somber ceremony. That service was for you, Niels, he said silently to the waves. Somewhere in this vast sea you are resting, and that service was for you. But Gustave shall rest in Gedser cemetery, beside our mother and father. I know you would both want that. I shall recover his body and see he has a proper burial, that I promise all of you. One brother for the sea is enough. Gustave shall be properly buried on land with the Christensens, in a place where I can go and mourn when I want...

The boat tacked, the engine was cut, the boat coasted with practiced precision into the dock, nudging it quietly. Christensen stepped to the dock, warped the ship’s rope to the bollard there, turned and walked quickly toward the house. Jens Krag stared after him, frowning. The man was patently mad, totally insane! Should he go off and leave him? Go and get men from the village to subdue him, get the doctor to give him a hypodermic, put him in hospital, maybe in restraint, until he regained his senses? Or maybe the man simply wanted to commit suicide, to join his two brothers in the sea. That, of course, was his prerogative, but making Jens Krag his accessory, his accomplice, was vastly unfair!

On the other hand, if Krag should take his boat and leave, he had no doubt that Knud Christensen would find him and make him sorry he had not waited. And his far greater age would not prevent the younger man from beating him unmercifully. There was nothing to do but to obey and wait. But it was truly insane! In that freezing water? My God, they had ice in parts of the Baltic farther north! And at that depth? And he, Krag, could have been a hundred yards or more off in his estimate of where the Kirsten Christensen had gone down! How would he ever explain that when Knud came up empty-handed? If he ever came up...