At the top of one of the walking streets in this Danish capital there`s a square. On one corner, near the bus stop, there are blue and white umbrellas and chairs where tourists rest and watch the other tourists.
My wife, Joyce, and I had just finished ”shopping our way up” from our waterfront hotel and were sitting under one of the umbrellas waiting for the bus for the Copenhagen City Tour. A few feet away two young men had set up a table and were distributing pamphlets, urging people to ”Get out of NATO,”
”Stop Greenpeace” and ”Allow Full Harvesting of Whales.”
Except for one girl, the people were paying them little attention. The girl, red-haired and American-looking, was wearing too much make-up and high heels and she was furious.
”Harvesting?” she shouted. ”You mean murdering whales, is what you mean.”
”We have the right to feed our families,” said one of the men.
”Not if you`ve got to kill their families,” the girl shouted back.
”You`ve almost wiped them out.”
”There are plenty of whales.”
”That`s not true,” said the girl.
”Oh?” said the other. ”And you probably support NATO, too.”
”If it weren`t for NATO, you lummox, we`d all be speaking Russian right now, but we`re talking about the whales . . . ”
A crowd forms
A few people were stopping to watch. The girl was starting to make points when the larger of the two men reached out and tried to push her on her way.
”Get on about your business.”
”Here, now!” came a shout from the side.
An old man, accompanied by a another a foot taller stepped out of the crowd and struck the table with his cane. He was just over 5 feet tall, in his 70s, red-faced and balding, but there was no questioning his authority.
”I am a captain,” he said, with a broad Danish accent. ”You put your hands on the lady again, and you will answer to me.”
The two men with the pamphlets were astonished.
”This has nothing to do with you,” said one.
”The lady is right about the whales,” said the old man, ”and if she called you a lummox, then you are a lummox.”
The girl said, ”Hot Damn,” stepped back, folded her arms and watched.
A crowd was growing. The two younger men seemed to be getting a little apprehensive. ”I don`t know what everybody`s getting so upset about,” said one. ”We are honest fishermen, while this woman . . . ”
The old man whacked the top of the table with his cane again. Besides making a sound like a pistol shot, pamphlets went flying, the girl squealed with glee and a few in the crowd applauded.
While the young men picked up their tracts, the old man delivered a short, angry lecture that Scandinavia was free but that it didn`t change the rules about how a gentleman was supposed to treat a lady. And that the fishermen, should go back to ”whatever backward little country they came from.” Again there was scattered applause.
The young men hurriedly folded their table, picked up their pamphlets and as the captain advanced on them with his cane they left by a side street.
The City Tour bus had pulled up to the stop. Joyce and I got on. A few moments later the captain and his friend followed and sat across the aisle.
As we waited, the captain`s friend touched his arm and pointed toward the door. The girl was standing just outside.
When she saw the captain she leaned in. ”Thank you, sir,” she said. Then, seeing he hadn`t heard, she spoke louder. ”Thank you for defending me,” she said. The captain leaned toward her. ”It`s always a pleasure to serve beauty, my dear.”
The door closed and the bus pulled away. The girl stood on the curb, watching.
”She puts me in mind of our little friend,” the captain said.
”Captain, you say that about every woman,” the friend responded.
I tried to talk with the captain but it didn`t work out. I told him it was a fine thing he had done but he only smiled and looked out the window. Joyce and I chatted a little with his friend. She asked why the captain, who sounded more Danish than Victor Borge, had been talking in English.
A lasting bond
”He does it for me,” the friend said. ” I`m from Down Under. It`s not English the captain`s speaking. It`s Australian.”
The two had shipped together, since long before the captain`s hearing started to go, but they still weren`t above raising a little hell.
”Oh, not like the old days,” he said with a grin. ”We`ve banked our fires for the night, but, we`re not too old to have a go at a windmill . . . now and again.”
The last stop on the line was the harbor, at the statue of Copenhagen`s Little Mermaid. She is a girl in her teens, in dark bronze, looking so alive you expect her to breathe. Resting on a rock at the edge of the harbor, she gazes eternally out to sea.
Joyce and I were walking back toward the bus stop when we saw the old men again. The captain pointed his cane toward the mermaid.
”Doesn`t our little friend remind you of the girl?” he asked . ”Beautiful, she is. Of the sea and still of the land, bonded to each forever.
”She is the pain of parting and the joy of home again. She is mother, wife, daughter. She represents all women and all women represent her.” He was silent for a moment before summing it all up. ”She is Scandinavia.” –
