The Prophets of Eternal Fjord (65 page)

He follows the soldiers. On Vimmelskaftet the traffic is busier, and on Amager Torv mad confusion prevails once again. People lug whatever they have been able to take with them from their homes. A woman carries a birdcage, its occupant, a parrot, clearly dead or unconscious. Another drags her children; a third is on her knees praying, her little boy kicking her furiously. A gentleman endeavours to sell his furniture, which stands in a disorganized pile in the middle of the street. A chiffonier! he cries despairingly, clawing at Falck's shoulder. The man stands raving, Look, fine little drawers and cupboards, press here and
voila
, a secret compart­ment! He breaks into shrill laughter. Only five rigsdalers. No thank you, says Falck. Four rigsdalers? He wrenches away. A dressing table! the man shouts out behind him, an embroidered footstool! A bargain! You'll come to regret it, sir, mark my words!

The gutters of the fine commercial houses on the right of the square are alight; furniture and other contents rain down from the windows. There are many horse-drawn carts, some fully laden, though guarded by soldiers with raised sabres; the horses rear up and are unmanageable. Falck notes that most vehicles proceed along Naboløs, presumably towards Købmagergade and Nørreport. He sees some tumult on the side of the street that is burning, where a few fire pumps squirt feeble jets on to the facades of buildings whose insides are disintegrating in flame. A group of traders and small shopkeepers appropriate the pumps and drag them over to the other side of the street, where they proceed to douse their own houses and businesses as yet unreached by the blaze.

Falck catches sight of the Crown Prince on the square. An officer stands calmly addressing him; he points his sabre towards the houses. The Crown Prince nods and says something in reply, gesticulating as he speaks. The officer salutes. A house in Store Kannikestræde collapses, a cloud of dust and smoke propelled into the air. The Crown Prince seems to notice something on the cobblestones; he bends down and picks it up. A coin. He holds it up in front of him, as pleased as a little boy, and turns it between his fingers. It glints in the light of the burning buildings. He stops a young woman with two children in tow and presents it to her. She stares at him in terror; he makes a dismissive gesture of his hand as though to say, My dear woman, it is nothing, then returns to his officer to resume their discussion. Everywhere, people are falling over them­selves when they realize the identity of the tall man in uniform; a fine gentleman approaches in a series of bows, a wheedling smile turning the corners of his mouth. But the Crown Prince does not heed him. He has seen a man who at the last moment managed to avoid being run down by a carriage; he darts forward and helps him to his feet. He speaks to him with a look of concern, brushes the dirt from his coat. His escorts stand back and observe, exchange weary looks. The addled victim assures his rescuer that he is unharmed. The Crown Prince takes his hand and shakes it. And with that he proceeds away, calmly and with what to Falck seems to be a contented smile, in the direction of Østergade.

Falck has dismissed all thought of the Duke of Augustenborg and his promise to Mr Friedrich and plunges into the work of extinguishing the blaze, or rather into the saving of the northern side of Vimmelskaftet, which so far has been spared. Dousing the buildings that have yet to succumb and leaving those that are ablaze to their inevitable fate has shown to be a good strategy. Falck appropriates a leather bucket and runs down to the canal, where an able seaman hands him a full one in return for his empty. He scuttles back to Vimmelskaftet with its contents sloshing and empties it into the tank of one of the pumps, then hurries back with it to the canal. Though this shuttle service between the canal and the square is quite without system, he feels it is meaningful. Hundreds of men and older boys are involved in this transport of water, criss-crossing in all directions, each and every one with his own idea as to what must be done, and yet their efforts are all too slow, the buckets are too few, and the pumps are empty most of the time. Then some tipcarts appear with great stacks of buckets; the crowd erupts into a cheer and within a moment the buckets are in use. The fire gains ground on the southern side of Vimmelskaftet, the wind nudging it along, step by step, but the northern side would seem to be safe. The hours pass. It is well into the night. Falck is beyond exhaustion; his legs carry him and he follows as though in some all-too-lifelike dream. Around him the city burns; he is in its midst, emptying every fifth bucket over himself before returning to the flaming street. Barrels of fresh water are rolled forth and turned upright, their lids are broken up and people flock to quench their thirst. The mood has turned from panic and confusion to cheerful discipline; it is clear that the work of extinguishing is running well, despite every difficulty. But the fire blazes throughout Læderstræde and out to the canal; it lights up the sky and its sparks rain down upon the throngs and burn holes in their clothes. Everywhere there are rats fleeing from burning or flooded basements; they rise up on their hind legs, sniffing the air to take stock, before scurrying across the street in the direction of the churchyard. A brood of old wives, apparently gripped by gambling fever, storm the lottery outlet and snatch what tickets they can find. Others plunder coffee and aquavit. Some of the thieves are caught, beaten with sticks and thrown into the canal. A hackney carriage appears out of nowhere on Vimmelskaftet. Falck hears the driver offer transport for the sum of twenty-five rigsdalers. People snort with outrage and shower him with oaths, yet he insists on his price. The horse rears up; someone grasps its bridle and is lifted into the air. The rabble are upon the vehicle in an instant, thrashing out at the driver, who attempts to defend himself with his whip, only then to leap to the pavement and flee up a side street. The horse rears again; it drags the men along who endeavour to hold it back. After a moment it comes to a halt and is still. A blow is delivered to its forehead and when it collapses to the ground they unhitch it from the harness and use the carriage to carry water.

The fire stops when it reaches the almshouse opposite the Helligånds ­kirke, popularly called the Cloister. The female residents, women of the nobility who have come down in the world, sink to their knees on the cobbles and pray. Falck watches incredulously as the blaze yields, sparing the Cloister, while the houses around it go up in flame and are laid to ruin. Dear Lord, Falck says to himself, forgive my miserable sins. I have doubted! Later, the fire seizes the building's basement and the place burns down like all the others in the row.

Shop signs ignite, gilded or painted script advertising
Gentlemen's Clothing
,
Watch-maker
,
Portrait-painter
and
Apothecary
bubbles and sizzles away. The copper plates of the book printers' shops, their edifying mono­graphs, travel descriptions with coloured illustrations of bushmen, unicorns and Cyclops, romantic tales, broadsheet verse and royal decrees melt in the storerooms and curl into small blobs of metal; oil paintings flare and are gone; cabinets of curiosities collected over a hundred and fifty years combust in seconds or else are dispatched through windows and smashed to pieces on the cobblestones; wardrobes of gilded gowns, embroidered, saffron-tainted blouses, brocade slippers perfumed by the feet of fine ladies, cotton undergarments with foul-smelling stains of perspiration, menstruation towels hung out to dry, horsehair wigs, leather coats, ladies' bustles, all succumb to the flames; libraries of magnificent hand-written, pre-Gutenberg editions feed the blaze still further; anatom­ical preparations and prepared corpses go up in smoke; brooches of gold, silver buckles and thousands of items of jewellery melt and are reduced to droplets of precious metal under collapsed timber; boiling tar drips from the roofs; documents whirl to the skies in flame and descend to earth as flakes of soot; window panes are transformed into a caramel mass that seeps from the frames; stairways collapse with a rhythmically syncopated groan; bottles of distilled alcohol burst like small bubbles of fire on the shelves of the apothecaries; barrels of ethyl spirit spontaneously combust, sending cold, blue balls of flame out through the windows of the basements. The building that houses the synagogue on Læderstræde crumbles to the ground; outside the street is impassable. The fire jumps across Hyskenstræde. It sweeps across the city and continues west.

Back on Nytorv, Falck encounters inmates of the debtors' prison bound together at the wrists in a long chain, on their way to the gaol at Christianshavn. They look pale and starved; they blink their eyes and stare, horrified and incredulous, at the burning buildings.

The Rådhus is not aflame, but now as he stands by the fountain in the middle of the square he can see that its fate is sealed. The blaze roars from the windows of Rådhusstræde, and the easterly wind, which seems almost to have increased, sends showers of sparks, near-invisible in the sunlight, across the square to the buildings on the other side. Those who live in the direction of the wind gradually realize that the flames will not stop until they reach the ramparts. The streets are cluttered with stacks of furniture, some alight, some destroyed by water from the fire pumps or because they have been roughly evacuated through windows. But there are all manner of horse-drawn vehicles; it seems the drivers of the hackney carriages have finally mustered some public spirit; even peas­ants from distant villages, Dragør, Sundbyerne, Kastrup, have come to help and transport goods and belongings without payment. Most prob­ably it has dawned on them that they are quite as dependent upon the city as those who live in it. Long columns of vehicles laden with furniture and other items are on their way out to the ramparts or else to Amager.

In front of the Missionskollegium he finds the Duke where he left him. The same mood of exodus as everywhere else. He sees desks and chairs from the schoolroom have been carried out, furniture from the teachers' residences and offices. He recognizes several items. The doors of the main entrance have been removed and leaned up against the wall. Documents are scattered over the steps and in the street, papers dancing in the air, some of them stuck in gutters and cornices. Falck stares at them. Somewhere among them is his name, letters he has sent, letters he is ashamed to have written, ashamed that others have read, letters written to him, his despicable diary. He wonders if Friedrich had the chance to read it all. Perhaps he put it aside to read on Saturday or Sunday, perhaps it has been brought to safety elsewhere in the city. Bundled leather files are put on to a cart. They are marked with journal numbers. He helps hand them up to the man on the cart, who piles them high and secures them with straps before driving off with them. People shake their heads. Such labour, and all for the sake of papers! Can it be true that the scrib­blings of priests are more important than so much else? Falck watches the cart as it disappears from sight along Frederiksberggade. Friedrich is nowhere to be seen.

He leaves the Duke once more and goes back to Gammel Torv. He wants to see the magical moment when the fire will jump. He ought to hurry out of the city and ensure the safety of the portrait. But he cannot tear himself away. The clock in the tower of the Rådhus issues a few hesitant chimes. The striking train is in need of winding, but the whole building has been evacuated and this is perhaps its final hour. Three o'clock. It occurs to him that it is mid-afternoon. But what day? Saturday? He has no idea what to do. What is his duty as a citizen? To bring the Duke to safety or to attend to the living? He is indebted to the engraver and moreover is fond of him and would like to do him a service. If he leaves the city with the portrait, he will have done something good and another person will be grateful to him. If he remains to join in the work of saving the city, his efforts will probably make little difference. But the civic spirit is important, too. This is my city, he thinks to himself.

He sits at the railing of the fountain. It is still working, splashing away without regard. People scurry about: a platoon of soldiers marches purposefully in one direction, then a command is barked and they turn and march in another. A fine gentleman stands and stares forlornly at a burning carriage; a girl attempts to jump over the iron railing, her dress gets stuck and he is afforded a glimpse of becoming ankle; a wife fries pancakes over an open fire. He buys one and sits munching it. The easiest thing is to do nothing, he muses.

Musical instruments are being thrown from a high window on the corner of Vestergade. He sees them hit the cobbles and hears them shatter into pieces, a stifled acoustic disintegration that identifies each instrument by turn. Drums, French horn, violins, timpani, even a small and delicate spinet goes the same way. The madness ceases. People gather at the debris, pick up some of the items in their hands, pluck a string, blow into a horn. Then someone shouts: a thin male at the window above. Falck sees his glaring eyes, the twist of his face. He holds a bottle in one hand and steadies himself against the window sill with the other. His upper body leans perilously towards the pavement below. People in the street cry out to him: In the name of Jesus, man! They reach up their arms towards him. Don't jump, dear friend, come down from there! The man grimaces; he utters something that is drowned out by the noise, then throws his bottle into the sky; it descends in an arc and explodes against the cobbles. He is gone from the window. The gutters of the house have begun to burn. Shortly afterwards he appears in the doorway, playing a violin. It sounds unlike proper music, more a kind of melodious twitch.

He approaches the fountain where Falck is seated. Falck notices some­thing familiar about him and is himself recognized immediately. The young man's face lights up.

Your Reverence. Long time no see.

You? Falck exclaims, recoiling.

Your humble servant, he says, with a courteous bow.