Читать книгу Justine - Iben Mondrup - Страница 11

Beneath a piece of particle board at the fire site is the door to the small earthen cellar. There’s still a package of butter, a chunk of cheese, and an open milk. I wander around and try to comprehend it, find a banana-shaped sneaker, sink down under the apple tree, puke. Never again will I hear Grandpa growl his irritability about this, that, or the other, snap at him, apologize and sympathize and move on.

I inherited his burned house. He wanted it that way.

“It’s mine,” he said. “Hell, I built it. And now it’s yours. Basta. And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that it’s worth millions out here, but you just go on and try to sell it, my girl. You just dare to.”

He died and it still isn’t right. Not on the inside.

Grandpa built the house for Grandma. They had a little apartment in the city and needed some fresh air. All the Amager Allotment Society had was a tool shed. Grandpa worked the earth. Good, slow vegetables, he said. Healthy. And free.

He got the land right before the war, but he only built the house after the war was over. A wooden house. Forty square meters. With mullion windows and a blue door. Ample, he said, big enough. When Grandma died, he moved out there, and after he had emptied the house, he converted the place to a studio. All the furniture and miscellany disappeared. Paintings and siccative and French turpentine moved in.

I did the extension myself. After he died. Now he’s died all over again. The extension became a workshop, which ate up a good part of the garden, though he would’ve been fine with that. He would’ve had a good laugh if he’d known just how much being insured meant. After all, it’s just clean air and a good idea some suit dreamed up, just a swindle, what a humbug, he’d say. You’re responsible for what’s yours. Why invest in misfortune? No. You’ve got to be careful with fire, that confounded woodeater.

I know it. A bitter experience dripping with syrup. If the house burns, you can always build a new one, right, Grandpa? It’s not the easiest thing in the world, and certainly not the cheapest, but in any case you can get it done. That’s how you’d look at it. “Don’t come here blabbing about money,” you would’ve said. You’d do it yourself for nothing, your muscles all supple, just nail some boards and go to town on the rest, and saw, hammer.