permission, for he could not wait.
“Christian X, King of Denmark and Iceland, makes it known that Magnus Mogensen, carpenter’s apprentice, born 13.3.1889 at Vrangbæk, is hereby given leave to manage his own interests and property before attaining his majority and is permitted to marry shop assistant Marie Aaen, born 25.5.1888 at Bangsbostrand,” runs the document he received. It is in my possession now. It is kept in a black box with his obituary notice, and when I think back and try to see him clearly, I more often remember the young man on the bicycle whom I never saw, hanging over the handlebars with a straight and serious face, than the man who was my father when I was young, or the retired joiner at the Artisans’ Retirement Home at Kløvervej 4.
In the wet light of a July morning Jesper and I stood at the very end of the breakwater watching the boat from Læsø come in between the lighthouses and make fast where the old corn silo divided the harbor into two. There had been wind and rain for several days and now it was Sunday and sunny. It was chilly so early in the day and wet on the concrete and the air was damp and still. But big breakers rolled in from the sea and the boat from Læsø rose high between the lighthouses and listed on the inner side until it settled into the harbor basin. I was glad I was not on board, I would have felt queasy and leaned over the rail to vomit into the green water.
Far out to sea lay a blanket of fog and only the tops of the masts could be seen like pins in a pincushion where the fishing boats were making for home in convoy after days of hard weather on the banks north of Skagen. Jesper would have liked to stay and see them coming in too, they were quite a sight when they cut through the fog and out into the sudden sunshine. But my father was on board the boat from Læsø, and that was why we were up so early even though it was the middle of the summer holidays. We walked in along the arm of the breakwater to the wharfs at the fishing-boat harbor and the ferry harbor and it was warm inside our wellingtons and cold from the knees up, I felt the gooseflesh spreading and it was a feeling I liked.
We walked fast to get there before the gangway was lowered. We had expected to see him from the breakwater, but my father was not one for standing out on deck to wave to us and be seen by everyone, and he made no exception this time. But there weren’t many people in the harbor now. I only saw Hobo-Hans who had slept in a boathouse and two fishermen squatting on a wharf by their boat mending nets, chatting, and smoking cigars. The smoke spiraled up into the blue and their voices carried a long way in the early air. We heard them clearly over the water between the projecting piers and they spoke a Vendelbo dialect so old it sounded like English if I did not listen carefully, and I narrowed my eyes as I walked and imagined I was in a dream in a book in another country on the other side of the sea. That went on for a while and then it was over. I hurried over the concrete paving and Jesper jumped from boulder to boulder in the water on the inner side of the breakwater, and it was deep there, for big boats sailed in every day, and if Jesper fell in he might drown.
“Stop doing that,” I said, “you’d better come up here. We must hurry, or we won’t make it.”
“This is quick enough,” said Jesper, “I’m almost flying,” he shouted and took off on a long leap between two boulders that stuck up high, and he jumped, but one boot got stuck in a lump of tar and stayed there, and he did really fly, and landed head first in the murky water.
It looked odd, one foot in a boot, one foot in a sock, and they hung for a moment before they vanished and a wave rolled in and closed over them and a big bubble leaped out and burst in the mirrored water. And then there was silence.
Complete silence. The fishermen were not talking any longer, they just squatted there looking into the air and
“Christian X, King of Denmark and Iceland, makes it known that Magnus Mogensen, carpenter’s apprentice, born 13.3.1889 at Vrangbæk, is hereby given leave to manage his own interests and property before attaining his majority and is permitted to marry shop assistant Marie Aaen, born 25.5.1888 at Bangsbostrand,” runs the document he received. It is in my possession now. It is kept in a black box with his obituary notice, and when I think back and try to see him clearly, I more often remember the young man on the bicycle whom I never saw, hanging over the handlebars with a straight and serious face, than the man who was my father when I was young, or the retired joiner at the Artisans’ Retirement Home at Kløvervej 4.
In the wet light of a July morning Jesper and I stood at the very end of the breakwater watching the boat from Læsø come in between the lighthouses and make fast where the old corn silo divided the harbor into two. There had been wind and rain for several days and now it was Sunday and sunny. It was chilly so early in the day and wet on the concrete and the air was damp and still. But big breakers rolled in from the sea and the boat from Læsø rose high between the lighthouses and listed on the inner side until it settled into the harbor basin. I was glad I was not on board, I would have felt queasy and leaned over the rail to vomit into the green water.
Far out to sea lay a blanket of fog and only the tops of the masts could be seen like pins in a pincushion where the fishing boats were making for home in convoy after days of hard weather on the banks north of Skagen. Jesper would have liked to stay and see them coming in too, they were quite a sight when they cut through the fog and out into the sudden sunshine. But my father was on board the boat from Læsø, and that was why we were up so early even though it was the middle of the summer holidays. We walked in along the arm of the breakwater to the wharfs at the fishing-boat harbor and the ferry harbor and it was warm inside our wellingtons and cold from the knees up, I felt the gooseflesh spreading and it was a feeling I liked.
We walked fast to get there before the gangway was lowered. We had expected to see him from the breakwater, but my father was not one for standing out on deck to wave to us and be seen by everyone, and he made no exception this time. But there weren’t many people in the harbor now. I only saw Hobo-Hans who had slept in a boathouse and two fishermen squatting on a wharf by their boat mending nets, chatting, and smoking cigars. The smoke spiraled up into the blue and their voices carried a long way in the early air. We heard them clearly over the water between the projecting piers and they spoke a Vendelbo dialect so old it sounded like English if I did not listen carefully, and I narrowed my eyes as I walked and imagined I was in a dream in a book in another country on the other side of the sea. That went on for a while and then it was over. I hurried over the concrete paving and Jesper jumped from boulder to boulder in the water on the inner side of the breakwater, and it was deep there, for big boats sailed in every day, and if Jesper fell in he might drown.
“Stop doing that,” I said, “you’d better come up here. We must hurry, or we won’t make it.”
“This is quick enough,” said Jesper, “I’m almost flying,” he shouted and took off on a long leap between two boulders that stuck up high, and he jumped, but one boot got stuck in a lump of tar and stayed there, and he did really fly, and landed head first in the murky water.
It looked odd, one foot in a boot, one foot in a sock, and they hung for a moment before they vanished and a wave rolled in and closed over them and a big bubble leaped out and burst in the mirrored water. And then there was silence.
Complete silence. The fishermen were not talking any longer, they just squatted there looking into the air and
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