HELLO MY NAME IS LARS LARSEN Knud, Hans, mother, I and Inge at my confirmation Painter and Decorator and Butcher Larsen I think mother bought the house very cheap. It was absolutely impossible to sell because of a terrible smell of camphor, which I can still smell today. Mother bought the house from the local quack. People from all over the country came to see him to be cured of all the infirmities that the Danish hospital service had given up trying to cure. Or perhaps people simply thought he was better. His name was Baun and somehow we were probably a bit proud. Proud to be living in the very house where the quack had cured thousands of people from both Denmark and abroad. Even people from America, the magazines said. He was not allowed to charge money for his work as the authorities probably considered it to be some sort of quackery. But people were allowed to give a bit of money if they had been pleased with the treatment. A lot of people must have been pleased. Before we took over his old camphor-scented consultation, he had built one of the biggest and most grand villas in town. All we could do was to make the best of it. And so I did. I write “I” because there was nobody else to do it. Inge was living in Bjerringbro and Knud and Hans were working and in the army respectively. Both of them were actually stationed, one in Gasa and one in Cyprus. As for mother, she was unable to walk anymore. I tore off all the old wallpaper and put up a new and pleasant-smelling one. Cleaned and painted the floors, skirtings, windows and ceilings. We could even afford a new carpet in the living room. It did help with the camphor smell, although we never got quite rid of it. 24
Download PDF file
Cookie policy