In The Wake Read Online Free PDF

way from the fjord across the open sea and down past Skagen. Behind the boat the strip of wake lay foaming white and lifeline-like until it disappeared into the darkness. Now my father sat in a corner drinking. I had not seen him drink before. Not like that. We had not seen each other for a long time. He seemed smaller than before, but he was still strong, andI don’t think there was a time in my life when he couldn’t beat me with one arm tied behind his back. But he had never hit me, I had never even had a slap on the cheek except the once when he was trying to teach me to box and I refused to hit him and he became so annoyed that he slammed me on the chest and I fell over and landed on the floor and rolled under the sofa.
    He stared into the glassin his hand, then rose unsteadily and said: “Well, well, Hemningway, so you’re a writer.” He didn’t look at me but past me at something on the wall, or maybe he looked through the wall, and he smiled with his mouth only. I didn’t like that smile. He wanted me outside with him, I realised that, but I didn’t want to go. I was happy where I was, and so he went out alone. He had forgotten the cabin wasa new one with an inside toilet, so he went outside as he had always done, across the lawn to the little outhouse and round the corner to the gap between the wall and the fence along the field. I saw his back in the dusk. Maybe it wasn’t that strong any longer. He leaned heavily against the wall before straightening up, swaying a little, and trying to lean back again. But then his body sailed inthe opposite direction, and he lurched out to steady himself with his hands, clutched the fence and slipped before he had a good enough grip and clung there until he got his balance back. Then slowly he straightened himself and let go of the fence. I didn’t give it a thought until he came in again. That the fence was a barbed wire fence. His arms hung straight down and both palms were coveredwith blood. I was the only one who saw it. The others were chatting and laughing and celebrating my birthday, but between him and me there was a tunnel of silence. He paid no attention to his hands, just looked at the wall behind me and smiled in the same way and said: “Well, well, Hemningway, so you’re a writer. Good for you.”
    I didn’t know what to say. “Yes,” I said, but that wasn’t much, andno-one could hear it anyway. He stopped by his corner, picked up his drink and emptied what was left. When he put it down there were red smears all round the glass.
    “We must have some beers, Hemningway,” he said, and he turned on his heel and almost fell over, and then he walked across to the door, with full concentration, and went out and around the corner. The Tuborg bottles we kept in an outhousecalled the Pigsty because it was used for pigs when we first came here. The outhouse was built of brick and we had put electricity in to keep two fridges going. To get there he had to go around the cabin and across the lawn. He walked close to the wall to support himself in the dark, I watched him through the curtain going past the big window, and then he disappeared from view and then I hearda thud. The others stopped talking for a moment and looked around before going on with their conversation . I sat waiting. After a while he came back with a bag full of bottles. His hands were still bloody and he was bleeding from a fresh cut on his forehead. The new windows tilted straight out, he had not seen them in the dark. The blood ran along his eyebrow down over his cheek and dripped onto his shirt collar. He was still smiling, rather stiffly now, and the room fell silent, everyone looked up, and yet only he and I were there. As he passed me on his way to the kitchen nook, he narrowed his eyes before he glanced sideways down at the chair I sat in and said: “Now then, Hemningway,” and then he stumbled over the rag rug. The bag of bottles hit the bench and there was a sound of glasssmashing.