Excerpts from
The Green Eye
By Katrine Marie Guldager
Now you must not think that Iīm telling you about all the branches of the family without any hesitation. No, there are events in my familyīs history that I would rather you not know anything about. There are family members whom I actually feel no kinship for. Indeed, certain peopleīs stories do not merit being passed along any further. Thatīs the way I see it. Some peopleīs lives are catastrophes, there is absolutely nothing to glean from dwelling on a handful of circumstances that they have left behind, and itīs not my mission to be impartial. My fatherīs side of the family has never brought any good into our family. I donīt know why I should mention them, they disinherited him.
My father was radical. He had, in the context of his own milieu, radical political views and he also had difficulties with conforming to the authorities. The older he became, the more frequent were his conflicts with one governmental agency or another. How often have I been listening to his elaborate explanations about this or that matter and how often has he been egging my mother and me to indignation concerning this and that response to this and that matter. I especially remember the episode which in these parts still goes by the name "The War of the Elm Trees."
My father was past 70 when it was ascertained that disease had spread among the elm trees in the cemetery situated, according to his calculations, that is, exactly 1300 yards from here. This elm disease caused my father a great deal of worry since it is known to be very contagious and he was, quite naturally, apprehensive that the infection would spread to the four elm trees that we had. My father loved these elm trees. Consequently, he was anything but satisfied when it was decided by an expert, a landscape architect, if my memory serves me well, to cut down only those trees in the cemetery which had already begun to wither away. In the first place, the trees were so close to one another that the root grafts would quickly carry the infection around to all the trees and therefore the solution was entirely provisional. But it was not this, in fact, that was the greatest source of my fatherīs anxiety. My fatherīs main concern were the elm-bark beetles that had been found, for the more trees that were left standing, the greater could be the dimensions of a coming outbreak and the more elm-bark beetles there would be at the cemetery. This would, undeniably, bring our own trees in jeopardy, since these elm-bark beetles could actually fly. This was what my father wrote to the expert, who might also have been a gardener.
In reply, my father was informed that the elm-bark beetles fly a maximum distance of 1100 yards and besides, it couldnīt be so that he would demand that all the cemeteryīs elm trees be cut down merely in order to protect his four privately owned trees. But this was exactly what my father was demanding inasmuch as the elm disease was ravaging South England at the time, and my father was fighting under the slogan, "Save whatever can be saved!"
When the time came for the already withered trees to be cut down, they were marked with a large red cross. And I know that my father was down at the cemetery that day, because I was there with him. What I still do not know is whether it can be true that my father, in the course of the night, was down there marking out an additional seven extra trees, which consequently were cut down the next day.
The parish council deliberated pressing charges, and seeing as they ultimately desisted from doing so, I believe that this was because there was not a shred of evidence in the case. Almost everybody at that time had the chance to go down and place a mark on the seven elm trees and moreover, there were others besides my father who had good reason for doing so, since the cemetery had many neighbours within the radius of one kilometre, and eight of the neighbours had elm trees.
But actually I think that my father was a little bit let down that there were never any real accusations levelled against him, because he did not enjoy the suspicion that people had about him, and had it come to a trial, he would have had a splendid opportunity of calling attention to the more principled aspects of the case.
Could it be so, this was the question that my father would have put before the court, could it be allowed that other peopleīs trees be brought in danger, only because an expert presumed to know that the elm-bark beetle could fly only 1100 and not 1300 yards? Now what if the elm-bark beetle had a down-wind, couldnīt it then fly further? And what if the 1100 yards represented an average capacity? What, then, if certain members of the species could fly further than that? That these questions could be taken so lightly aroused my fatherīs sense of indignation, especially inasmuch as they involved "other peoplesī trees."
Translated by Dan Marmorstein
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