The question of where she was going and what she did when she got there was another topic of discussion. Rikard puffed on the cigarette in its Polish holder and stated his opinion that she was visiting a lover. Dreymann dismissed that as nonsense.
"Look at her," he protested. "She's not a day over sixteen—seventeen at most."
Rikard responded that the girls started early in Newfoundland, and looked around as if he wouldn't mind being interrogated on how he'd come by this special knowledge.
Dreymann said he thought that the girl was going to piano lessons.
"On a rock?" Rikard mocked him.
At least they knew who she was: the daughter of Mr. Smith, a tall, broad man who went about dressed in plus fours and tartan socks. He lived in a large green-painted wood villa set on a small hill behind the town. Mr. Smith shipped fish—which made him the most important man in Little Bay.
He'd come on board from time to time, and he talked to no one but Bager, though he glanced at Knud Erik occasionally.
Then one day, after Mr. Smith's usual visit to the skipper's cabin and his usual departure of the ship without a word to the crew, Bager came on deck and approached Knud Erik. Clasping his hands behind his back, he leaned forward and spoke quietly to him, as if afraid of being overheard. "Miss Smith would like a visit from you. Tomorrow at four. I'm granting you shore leave."
Knud Erik said nothing.
Bager leaned even closer. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you? A man from Mr. Smith's office will come for you." Knud Erik nodded. "Good," the skipper said, and turned to leave. Suddenly he stopped, as if he'd almost forgotten to deliver another message. "Watch that little madam." He gave Knud Erik a warning look. Then he spun on his heel and left quickly, like a man who'd just got an unpleasant duty out of the way.
The others hadn't noticed the exchange, so there were no comments. Knud Erik was completely dumbstruck. He wasn't generally afraid of girls. After all, he'd often taken care of his little sister. It wasn't until Marie caught Anton's eye that he realized that a girl could be something other than a friend. Still, he couldn't imagine what this girl wanted and was worried that her interest in him would somehow brand him as "girly." He'd stand out from the rest of the crew, and if there was one thing he didn't want, it was that.
Knud Erik was picked up the following day shortly before four o'clock. Rikard and Algot stared and called out after him. All the way up to the villa, his escort ignored him, as if he too found the whole business embarrassing and would prefer not to be involved with it at all. When they reached the house, he abandoned Knud Erik without a word.
Knud Erik stepped onto the veranda and knocked cautiously on the door. An elderly woman in a long, old-fashioned woolen dress opened the door and led him through a large hall into the drawing room. So far no one had spoken to him. She closed the door behind her and Knud Erik found himself alone. Tea was waiting on a small table set with a cloth by the window. Next to the cups and the silver teapot was a china plate of cookies. He remained right inside the door, not sure whether he should sit down on one of the upholstered chairs. Still nothing happened, and he started to wander around the room. He took a cookie from the plate, and at that very moment the door behind him sprang open. Flustered, he turned around and hid the cookie behind his back. It was the girl from the rowboat, but she was no longer wearing her sweater and men's trousers. Instead, she wore a dress. This instantly unsettled him. So did her face, which looked far more vivid than before. True, he'd only seen her from a distance, and now he was seeing her close up for the first time. But that didn't account for her eyes being so much darker and her wide mouth being so red, which made it look even bigger. He had to look down: the impression she made was almost too strong. As she came over to him he noticed that she was taller than he was. But then again, she was older.
She offered him her hand. "Miss Sophie," she said.
"Knud Erik Friis," he said, unsure if he should have added a mister or if that title was exclusively reserved for men like her father, the mighty Mr. Smith.
"Sit down, please," she said in English, and gestured.
Knud Erik obeyed. He was still hiding the cookie. Sitting down with one hand behind his back was awkward, so he furtively placed it on the chair as he lowered himself into it, and felt it crunch underneath him. He was so embarrassed that he couldn't concentrate on a word Miss Sophie was saying to him. Not that he understood it: it was all in English. He felt completely out of place, sitting on a crushed cookie and drinking tea with this girl, who was taller than he was and had strange colors on her face, while a flow of incomprehensible words poured from her mouth—words to which she apparently expected him to reply.
He stared at the amber-colored tea, which he didn't like, nodding earnestly from time to time. Well, that would have to suffice as his contribution to the conversation. It was the best he could do. Suddenly he heard her laugh out loud.
"You're just sitting there, nodding. But you don't understand a word I'm saying."
He gave her an amazed look.
"Yes, I can speak Danish." She kept laughing with her big mouth. "My mother was Danish. But she died a long time ago." She said this in a casual tone, as if she didn't attribute much importance to it. She leaned toward him.
"Are you shy?" she asked.
"Of course not."
He suddenly felt defiant, and without his being aware of it, this dissolved his bashfulness. He was angry now. She'd made him feel like a little boy. On the ship he felt like a man, and he wanted his newly acquired dignity acknowledged here too. Besides, she spoke Danish. He was back on familiar territory. Miss Sophie simply needed to be treated like Marie.
"You know we talk about you on the Kristina," he said. "We don't know what you're doing. Some of us think you go to piano lessons. But one fellow says you have a boyfriend you visit every day on the rock."
Miss Sophie gave him a teasing look. "A boyfriend. Well, I might have. And what do you think?" Knud Erik didn't reply. Miss Sophie went on. "No, I don't have a boyfriend out on the rock. I have a dream place. Do you know what a dream place is?"
He shook his head.
"It's a place where you dream. There's a narrow sandy beach just beyond the harbor. That's where I sit and look out across the water. And then I dream. About passenger steamers, airplanes, and zeppelins, about big cities and streets filled with cars and shop fronts along every sidewalk, about movie theaters and restaurants." She reeled off this list without taking a breath, as if she was releasing longings saved up over a long time. "Do you have a dream?"
"Yes," Knud Erik said. "I dream of sailing south around Cape Horn."
"Cape Horn," Miss Sophie said, surprised, and then laughed. "Of course, you're a sailor. But why Cape Horn? It's cold, it's always windy, and ships sink there."
"That may be," Knud Erik said. "But you're not a real sailor unless you've sailed south around Cape Horn."
"Says who?"
"Everyone."
"Are you scared of drowning?" Miss Sophie asked.
Knud Erik hesitated for a moment. Could this odd girl with the face that was at once so strange and so pretty really make him tell her everything?
"Yes," he replied honestly. "I'm very scared of drowning."
"Have you ever come close?" Miss Sophie stared intensely at him from her deep, dark eyes: two lights beaming out of a mineshaft.
"Yes, once."
"How was it?"
He didn't feel like replying to this. "My best friend's just drowned. He went down with the Ane Marie, which was headed for here," he said instead.
She looked down, as if she needed some time to compose herself. When she met his eyes again, she smiled encouragingly. "You'll probably drown one day too."
She said this in a completely ordinary tone, as if she was announcing that dinner would be served shortly. It was a ridiculous thing to say. What did she mean? Did she think she could foresee the future? Again he felt her gaze on him. She was scrutinizing him as if explo
ring the effect of her words.
Knud Erik looked away. The trust between them was broken. His's grief at Vilhjelm's death overwhelmed him again and he flared up. "Are you putting a curse on me?"
"Have you ever visited a big city?" she asked, and he detected hesitation in her voice.
"I've been to Copenhagen."
"I don't believe that's exactly a big city. Don't you ever dream about London and Paris, about Shanghai and New York?"
Knud Erik shook his head. "I dream about Cape Horn," he said stubbornly.
"What a shame. In that case we can't elope together. I don't want to go to Cape Horn, it's cold and horrible. Ugh, how boring you are." She started laughing. Then she leaned forward and cradled his head in her hands. "Still, you'll get a kiss before you leave."
She looked into his eyes. For a moment he thought about freeing himself, but then he realized that it would be childish to resist. He had to take it like the man he'd turned into these past few months. He stared back, and something strange happened to him. A shiver went through him, not of fear, but of something else, something unfamiliar. A quiet trembling ran through his body in expectation of something big and joyful. He closed his eyes to receive the kiss and be transported to some place where he instinctively knew no ship could bring him.
He felt her lips against his, their soft fullness pressing against his, with a slightly sticky sensation that made him wish that they need never let go of each other again. His hands, which had been lying on the chair's armrests, slipped up her back, and as they did he felt a crackle of electricity. Then he got hold of her exposed neck beneath the short hair and gently caressed its soft curve. He opened his mouth slightly. He wished she would do the same so their breath could meet, and he could inhale her air into his lungs and breathe through the element that was her. It was like drowning while still being able to breathe. Now he opened himself to another element and let it fill him. He sensed how she followed him and let her lips part slightly. They breathed through each other's mouths and drew air from each other's lungs. Kissing Miss Sophie, he kissed the world. It kissed him back and he was filled with its sweet breath.
Then she pulled back from him, placed one hand on her chest, and laughed. "You really know how to kiss." She handed him a napkin from the table. "Here, you'd better wipe off the lipstick."
He held up his hand to stop her as if she was about to take something valuable from him. "No, come here."
She laughed again. She took hold of his shoulder and wiped his mouth with the napkin. "We can't have you leaving Mr. Smith's house with lipstick all over your face." She gave him a critical look. "Has anyone ever told you how handsome you are?" Her voice was teasing. She got up and took his hand. Then she led him to the door to the hall. "We'll say goodbye here."
"Will we see each other again?" he asked, and realized instantly how this question had exposed him.
She held out her hand and winked at him. "Have a good trip to Cape Horn."
She didn't appear the next day. Late in the afternoon he kept going to the rail to scout across the sea. Ever since he left Mr. Smith's house he'd been agitated. He didn't think that he could be in love. This was different, more like when the Kristina heeled unexpectedly and you had to grab hold of the nearest fixed point on the swaying deck.
He thought of her with irritation—no, with more than that: with anger and a fierce desire for vengeance. She'd humiliated him, wiping his mouth with a napkin as if he were a child. He barely dared recall their kiss. Words couldn't contain all the contradictory feelings the memory stirred in him. He'd felt both tiny and huge, as if endlessly transforming. The kiss had sown a longing, and the longing hurt; it bruised his self-esteem.
The others noticed his restless pacing by the rail. "Looking for something in particular?" Dreymann asked. The other seamen laughed, even Helmer, the little shit. They'd been bursting with questions when he returned from the villa, but he'd been dismissive and kept his answers to the minimum.
"What was she like?" Rikard asked, wriggling the naked mermaid on his arm.
"She was nice enough" was all he said. "We drank tea and ate cookies."
"Didn't you do anything else?" The crew studied his face.
"Look at those pretty brown eyes." Rikard sneered at him. "Do you know why your eyes are brown?"
Knud Erik shook his head defenselessly, sensing something crude coming.
"It's because you were kicked so hard up the behind when you were a kid that the shit went the wrong way."
They were making a fool of him, and it was her fault.
And then she didn't even show up!
One by one the days passed, all filled identically with the loading of the salt cod beneath a sky of unchanging gray cloud. Still she didn't appear. He hung around on the deck, unable to stop thinking about her.
The others kept teasing him, and he reddened every time. They referred to her as "Knud Erik's girlfriend."
"Have you had your kiss today?" Rikard would ask.
Or, worse: "Surely she's not bored with you already?"
By now the salt cod was piled almost as high as the hatch coaming: they'd nearly finished loading it, and soon they'd be off to Portugal and he'd never see Miss Sophie again. Out of sheer desperation he decided to do something rash. He'd return, alone, to the big green-painted villa. He'd stand outside the door on the veranda. And when she opened the door, he'd turn his back on her. Or perhaps even spit on the ground. Or something, anything, to show that she meant nothing to him. That he had his own world, and she couldn't rock it.
It was the day before their departure and they were getting the sails ready. With no idea of how he might escape to visit her, his agitation was turning to full-blown panic. If he didn't get to see her one last time, his whole world would come crashing down. Unable to stand it any longer, he leapt over the rail and onto the wharf, then started running toward the green villa. He heard Dreymann call out behind him, but he didn't turn.
Though the villa was visible from the Kristina, it was a long way to run and it was mostly uphill. He was out of breath when he got there, but he didn't stop until he reached the front door of the house. He knocked hard, then rested his hands on his thighs for support as he struggled to get his breath back.
He was still in that position when the door was opened.
He'd fantasized about this. With burning cheeks, he'd imagined their last meeting, the one that would set him free. But it wasn't Miss Sophie. It was the older woman who'd shown him into the house on his first visit.
She stared at him expectantly, as if she thought he must have an important message for the owner of the house, the mighty Mr. Smith.
"Miss Sophie," he gasped, still incapable of standing up and breathing normally after his long sprint.
Shaking her head, she said some words in English. He caught only the last two: "...not here."
But the shake of her head conveyed her meaning. If he hadn't been in this wretched state, he'd surely have attacked her, as if it was her fault that the object of his longing wasn't there.
"Where?" he panted, still breathless.
The woman gave him a disapproving look and seemed to consider whether she should even dignify the confused boy's question with an answer. "St. John's," she said finally, and gave him another look, in which he thought he detected both malice and pity, though he couldn't see how that worked.
His heart sank. St. John's was the biggest town in Newfoundland, a frequent port of call for Marstal schooners. That much he knew. He also knew that the Kristina wasn't going there.
Miss Sophie had left. That was why she hadn't appeared for her daily rowing trips. She was somewhere else on this endless earth, and they'd never see each other again. Something that had vaguely begun, heading in all directions, was already over.
Bager was waiting for him.
"What's the matter with you, boy?" he said and whacked Knud Erik across the back of his head.
"How far away is St. John's?" Knud Erik asked, ignoring
the blow.
"What the hell's got into you?" the skipper exclaimed, and whacked him again. "One hundred and eighty miles, but we're not chasing skirt in St. John's. We're going to Setúbal with salt cod for the Catholics."
The whacks weren't hard. Taps, really. An amused tone had crept into Bager's voice. He looked as if he was enjoying himself. "Foolish boy," he said. "You think you're setting the course now? I told Mr. Smith. Keep that girl under control, I said. She drives people mad. Spoiled little missy."
The barometer had dropped the next morning when they left Little Bay and headed out through the Bay of Notre Dame. Showers of rain came and went, but the sea was calm. Late in the afternoon they came's in sight of the lighthouse at Fogo. They'd follow the coast down tog ward St. John's until they could put out into the Atlantic.
That night a southeasterly storm rose, and they started drifting toward the rocky shore. During the day Knud Erik had observed the tall, dark cliffs through the downpour. Now they moved closer, invisibly, in the impenetrable darkness of the night, and only the distant thunder of the surf warned of their proximity. Everyone below was roused and ordered to put on their oilskins so they could get up on deck immediately if needed.
The searching beam of the Cape Bonavista lighthouse swung across the turbulence, briefly ghosting the sails before sweeping across the shifting veil of densely falling rain. They were close to the coast and the ship was reefed until they were left with only the fore staysail. With all her power lost, the Kristina was reduced to pitching in the storm-lashed waves as she fought the gale.
The flicker from the lighthouse came and went like a star that has come too close to the sea, swallowed by waves one minute and struggling free the next. Clouds appeared through the darkness, big-bellied sharks chasing across the sky. Dawn broke and supplanted the beam of the lighthouse. But the storm continued to rage.
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