Excerpts from
A Maritime Inquiry
By Thorkild Hansen
- The 9th of January 1927 was a Sunday? - Yes.
- But then later it became apparent that the new baby, used the "wrong" hand, and that was really serious in those days. That was you. -Yes, that was me, Sunday´s child, but lefthanded!
- And is that still you?
- In a way. In my case fortune and fault have often gone hand in hand; there was always a price to pay for good fortune, and when success finally came, it often seemed to be partially withdrawn again, as though someone regretted giving me so much. But I suppose it is like that for most people. The note cracks, the cards are mixed, happiness seldom complete. Bald fehlt uns der Wein, bald fehlt uns der Becker!
- But 1927, - that was the year Brandes died, and Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, and Stauning had just lost office, and unemployment was over 20%, and it was the worst winter for many years. But for those two young people called Jørgen and Thyra, your father and mother, their happiness must have been complete?
- Yes, that is true. My, wise namesake and neighbour Thorkild Bjørnvig, said the other day, that being wanted is a great privilege for a child. I was and I can strongly recommend it to others! But it is not as common as one would think. My father told me that he spent the first few days after my birth trembling for fear that I might die; if I would just live a week it would be wonderful, two weeks would be a miracle. Fortunately the good fellow saw me turn 50, but by then the age of miracles had suffered more than a couple of setbacks. For my mother my appearance was quite simply the happiest moment of her life, which there is no harm in my saying, since I need take no credit at all and anyway any child would have had the same effect on a person with her unhappy background. Of the four or five people who have loved me, my mother was the one who loved me most, and the only one to love me quite unconditionally.
- For only our parents will do that.
- Yes, we must realise that. We may encounter greater passion´s later in life, but we will only experience unconditional love from those who brought us into this world and never again, never with others, never. From the moment my eyes first saw the light of day I was enveloped in a boundless female love, which of course goes much further back than I can remember, but I know that it was there because it was extremely addictive. From then on the female element has been the most indispensable in my life, it is as simple as that; no other kind of happiness has been able to match that of the experience of women.
- That sounds like a confession. Have you never heard of Oedipus?
Of course. I was waiting for that one. And then there is the mother fixation, and then we either turn into homosexuals or become impotent. My only comment to that is that this pattern has not been evident in my case. I do not even believe that I was looking for any "maternal substitute", no more than would be right and reasonable. I feel like reversing the picture to state that if I were a girl, I would think several times about marrying a man who did not love his mother, just as I myself would hesitate to take any girl who despised her father: I really cannot imagine why it should be wrong for the two sexes to have a little admiration for each other. But they are practically declaring war. This is part of the hapless world we are rushing to create.
- It was your mother who chose your name? -Yes. Was that wrong too? I suppose she felt that a little extra effort was called for with that surname, and I have never been dissatisfied with the result. Thorkild Hansen? It could easily have been much worse!
- Have you never thought of changing your name?
Messing with one´s identity? Never. I think both names are fine. I have come just as far towards the individual with the Christian name, which denotes the personality, as I have towards the banal with the surname, which denotes the community, and that is better than the other way around. We are all products of these two things, but rather be an individual banality than a banal individuality!
- What was your mother like?
- Naturally I thought that she was incredibly beautiful, that will come as no surprise. She was five years older than father and 33 years old when she had me, so she really was getting on a bit. That meant that she had a difficult confinement, but she was not used to having it easy, she grew up in extremely modest circumstances.
- You once said that she had Gypsy blood in her veins!
- Yes, it was said that her father was a Gypsy. But I never found out whether she was half, a quarter or five eighths Gypsy. He was called Andersen, so his Gypsy blood must already have been diluted to some extent. But mother had jet black hair and tanned straight away in the summertime.
- But you had very fair hair, that is clear from the pictures
- Yes, all that sort of thing is very uncertain. Mother thought that I had inherited my love of music and nature from her, and all my, excessive gallivanting could also be an indication. I do not know. I suppose the truth is that the "Gypsy heritage" is probably something else, a kind of shyness, a fear of getting involved, of getting stuck, and the urge to be invisible, to escape.
- Strike and disappear?
- Now you are discriminating, but alright: to live apart as far as possible, soundless, hidden, I get that from her, and that is probably linked to what we touched on at the beginning, that ingrown feeling of not belonging anywhere, but standing outside, being an exile, an emigrant, an outlaw, an outcast, a left-handed person, pretending that he uses his right hand ...
Translated by Vivien Andersen
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