The deck is packed with men saluting, standing neatly in line. The admiral returns their salute, as straight as a ramrod, as always. It is more of an effort now though. His old bones are getting stiff and beginning to protest as he gets older, but he has never listened to them before and he doesn’t plan to start now. His faithful lieutenant, Flint, towers over him, his shoulders almost twice as wide as the admiral’s. But height alone is not enough to make an admiral, as the admiral is well aware. And muscles alone cannot win a man respect. His fingertips tap his forehead. That is what is important. Mind over matter.
He clicks his heels, turns around and walks down the gangplank with Flint.
They are waiting for him down there, the mayor and the sheriff, for some routine formalities. Oh, you’ve been away for so long. It’s good to have you back with us, safe and sound. Yes, yes. A ship on the rocks, a lighthouse keeper found guilty. The admiral is only half listening. He is tired and he feels old. After a while, they let him leave.
“I’ll take you home, sir.”
“Hmm,” says the admiral. “Home.”
He has put this off for as long as possible, but now he has to go there. To his house that is not a home and has not been for a long time.
It is packed with old junk, objects he used to like and would bring to the house from far-off places. But what good are they to him? The house is also much too big, and he cannot find any peace there.
That child, the eyes of that child who is his son and yet – God in Heaven! – not his son at all.
He should start afresh. Maybe get married again, have a woman in the house, so that he no longer has to rattle around the place all by himself. A woman who would hang curtains here and place cushions there and who would bring him something in the evenings, a glass of port or whatnot.
Flint leads over two horses, and the admiral mounts his smoothly. He has to grit his teeth as he swings his leg up, but no one notices.
“Another hurrah for the admiral!” the men call from the high deck. “Hurrah!”
Yes, yes, hurrah, waves the admiral. He is so very tired of the sea.
They turn the horses and ride out of the harbour. A large crowd has gathered. It is not every day that a ship like the Excelsior comes sailing in, his magnificent white Excelsior with her steel bow, which cuts through ice floes like a knife through… blah, blah, blah. He sighs.
A pleasant woman. She does not need to be beautiful. He has had enough of beauty.
*
They ride in silence over the cobbles and out of the town. Suddenly his horse rears up. Someone is standing in the road, right in front of him.
“Whoa, boy. Easy now,” says the admiral, patting the horse’s warm neck. It is a woman, and she is not getting out of the way. Not a beautiful woman, getting on in years, and dressed entirely in grey. She begins to talk.
“I’m so glad to have bumped into you, admiral,” she twitters. “I came as soon as I heard your ship was here. I thought you would want to hear this at once and…”
He doubts that very much. God, he is only just back on land and already it is beginning. He is in no mood to listen to women’s chitter-chatter. He needs to look for one who at least knows how to keep her mouth shut. But the woman is still standing right in front of his horse; he can hardly ride into her and knock her down.
“You have my attention, madam.”
Flint’s horse snorts, right beside her, and she jumps back in fright. The admiral coughs to hide a smile, while giving his lieutenant a look of disapproval.
“I really wouldn’t tell you this if it were just gossip, you know that. But I’ve heard it from various sources, from different people. Even so, I wouldn’t have come to you if I hadn’t seen it myself, with my own two eyes.”
Doesn’t he know her? Isn’t she a schoolteacher? Yes, that’s right. What does she want with him? He just wants to end the conversation, to ride on.
“As any right-minded person knows, those kinds of creatures don’t exist. At least they really shouldn’t. You know that, and so do I.”
The admiral is so taken aback that he almost falls off his horse. What is the woman saying? What exactly is she talking about?
“But if they do exist – and I’m saying ‘if’ – then they most certainly do not belong in our town, among civilized folk. Yes, at the fair, one hears rumours, of course, but it’s only to be expected in places like that – unbelievable freaks, abominations. Anyone who goes to that kind of place, well, they’re just asking for it, that’s my opinion.”
My God, thinks the admiral, it’s starting again. For twelve years, it has been quiet, and now it is starting again. He tugs on the reins, so hard that the horse rears up a little. The woman jumps and takes a few steps back, but she does not leave and she does not shut her mouth either.
“But when it happens on the public road. Right near your house. Your own house, admiral!”
“Madam, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” But he does know, he knows very well and he is trembling with fury as he sits there in his saddle. Has the boy been outside? Has he allowed other people to see him? This has never happened before.
The woman takes a small step closer, but remains at a safe distance from the horse’s legs. “I never wanted to believe it,” she says seriously. “I want you to know that. People gossip all the time, but I never let myself be swayed by such talk.”
“That does you credit, madam.”
“But now, now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. And felt it with my own flesh!”
“Your flesh, madam?” He hears Flint snort beside him. But the admiral does not feel like laughing, not at all.
Solemnly, Miss Amalia pushes up her sleeve and shows him the bandage around her wrist.
*
It is not going to be easy to get rid of her, the admiral realizes. She appears to have all manner of things that she wishes to discuss and would clearly be quite happy to come home with him to do exactly that. That will never happen, of course, he would rather be strung up. But when the woman has finally left, taking her wound and her story with her, when he has assured her that such an encounter will never occur again, on his word of honour as an officer, when she has finally disappeared around the corner, with her respectability and her bonnet and her skirts, the admiral turns to his lieutenant. The man is staring at him, eyebrows raised but, like the good soldier that he is, he asks no questions.
The admiral clears his throat. “Flint,” he says. “What I am about to tell you is in the strictest confidence.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And then I have a job for you.”
Over the roofs of the city, the admiral gazes at the dark forest and the road that winds through it to his house.
His mind is made up.