The Red Beech Tree

One of my favorite people in life so far has been Ove Rasmussen who died in 1995. After becoming ill, he left Copenhagen to return home. His mother had died and the family farmhouse was to be rented. North Fyn is flat with sugar beet fields that do nothing to interrupt the flatness, but instead seem to engrave it. I stayed with him one summer when he was sick and remember those long dusks lasting almost until eleven o'clock and the cool night air. We would sit around a table on a small cement terrace that extended from the back door and drink wine as we talked, letting that dimness, not quite dark, soak into us. In the corner of the yard was an old and enormous red beech tree, which Ove called den smukkeste bøg træ i nordfyn - the most beautiful beech tree on North Fyn. From the flat chalky road for half a mile you could see the mound of red leaves since the branches seemed to curl under as they touched the ground. The farm had buildings had been built at the beginning of the 20th century, but they resembled older farms with the house connected to the barns so that they formed a square with a courtyard in the center with an entrance from the road.