As Trains Pass By Page 10

  Louise was standing by the big jasmine bush. People were rushing around and hiding behind bushes all over the place.

  “She’s peeping, she’s peeping,” someone shouted as they rushed past the jasmine bush.

  And then there was silence.

  “I’m coming.”

  Katinka went into the summerhouse. She closed the door behind her; she was so tired. And all the words spoken at the table had as it were settled on her like some great pain against which there was no help.

  She sat quietly on her own when the door was opened and closed:

  “Huus!”

  “Katinka. Oh dear Katinka.” It was a voice in despair and in tears, and he grabbed her hands and kissed and kissed them as he knelt at her feet.

  “Yes, my dear. Yes, my dear.”

  Katinka freed her hands and supported herself on his shoulder for a moment as he knelt there: “Yes, Huus, yes.”

  The tears were running down her cheeks. With indescribable tenderness he let his hand glide down through the sobbing woman’s hair.

  “Oh, dearest Huus, time will soothe all this. You… when you…” She removed his hand from her hair and supported herself on the table: “When you leave and we see each other no more.”

  “Not see each other ever again?”

  “No, Huus. It must be so. But I will always remember you, always and forever.”

  She spoke so gently and with a thousand sorrowful caresses in her voice. “Katinka,” said Huus. He raised his face to her, and it was bathed in tears.

  Katinka looked down on his face, where she loved every feature. His eyes, his mouth, his forehead, which she was never to see again; never to be close to him.

  She took a step as though to go. Then she turned round towards Huus, who was standing by the table.

  “Kiss me,” she said, putting her head onto his chest.

  He took her head between his hands and whispered her name all the time between his kisses.

  Out in the garden they were rushing around all over the place. Louise flew through the hazel walk after the new doctor, almost overturning Bai at the end of the path.

  “Aye, we were at the fair,” said Bai. “Nice day. Saw a couple of nice girls in the woods, smart girls in boots. A real breath of fresh air, Kiær, old boy.”

  “So Huus said,” says Kiær.

  “Huus.” Bai stops and lowers his voice. “Huus. What did I say? That man doesn’t know anything at all about women. He just sat there like a skinned chicken watching the ‘nightingales’. It was a sorry sight, Kiær, pitiful to see in a well-built man.”

  Louise turned up on the new doctor’s arm, up by the jasmine bush.

  It was beginning to grow dusk. Couples were drifting around here and there in the garden. A name was called out from down in the hazel walk: “Yes,” came the reply from down by the pond.

  And then, while the Saturday evening bells were ringing, everything grew quieter. Folk moved silently in the direction of the big grassy bank, exchanging brief, quiet remarks.

  Katinka sat beside Agnes. The parson’s daughter always made a fuss of ‘our lovely lady’.

  “Sing a little, Miss Emma,” said Agnes.

  A little lady started to sing while they were sitting around the turf seat. It was the ballad telling how Sir Peter cast a spell of runes on Spange, the narrow bridge his beloved was to cross, in order to capture her affection. All the girls joined in the refrain.

  Agnes rocked the lovely lady gently to and fro as she sang:

  “Fairest words

  Give but brief cheer

  Fairest words

  Can change our bliss to tears

  Fairest words.”

  And all became still again.

  They sang song after song, first a single voice and then others would join in.

  Katinka stayed with Agnes, silent and close to her.

  “Join in the singing, lovely lady,” said Agnes, bending her face down towards Katinka.

  Evening was really upon them now. The bushes round about stood there like great shadows. And after the hot day, the air was fresh with dew and filled with scent.

  One man spoke to Huus, and he replied. Katinka could hear his voice.

  “ ‘Marianna’ is such a nice song,” said Miss Emma.

  “Yes, sing ‘Marianna’.”

  Agnes and Miss Emma sang. “Do stay where you are,” said Agnes to Katinka.

  “Beneath the grassy grave is sleeping

  Our poor Marianna

  Come gather, girls, and join in weeping.

  Our poor Marianna.

  The snake around her heart was twisted

  And peace on earth no more existed.

  Our poor Marianna.”

  “Is our lovely lady cold?”

  “I suppose we had better be going home,” said Katinka.

  She rose. “I think it must be getting late,” she said.

  They had left the garden. She had said goodbye to him.

  She had seen his face, sorrowful and pale as he quickly bowed to her. She had felt his hand as he shook hers, so desperately that it hurt, and heard Bai’s:

  “Bye, Huus. We’ll see you before long.”

  And quickly, as she forced herself to laugh at something she had not heard, she shook hands all round; and Agnes put her arm round her and ran with her up to the garden gate.

  It clicked twice and closed.

  And behind them they were still singing.

  “Let’s go this way,” she said. It was a path across the meadows, along the parsonage garden; they had to go in single file.

  Katinka walked slowly behind Bai.

  “Good night.” The leave-takings floated over to them. Old Linde had gone up onto his mound. He was waving his handkerchief.

  “Good night, parson.”

  “Good night.”

  They went on across the meadow. The parson’s ‘Good night’ had suddenly brought the tears to Katinka’s eyes, and she continued to weep silently. She turned around twice and looked back at Linde standing on his mound.

  “Are you coming?” said Bai.

  They arrived home.

  Bai checked the track and chatted as he fiddled about and finally settled down. And she went around and did all the everyday things, covering the furniture and watering the plants and closing the doors.

  It was all as though through a veil, as though she were dreaming.

  She rose the following day and set about all her customary tasks. The ten o’clock train came and went and she sat at the window looking out across the meadows, which lay there as they had done yesterday.

  She talked; she was asked about everyday things and gave everyday answers. She went into the kitchen to help Marie.

  Windows and doors were open. The bells started ringing from the chapel.

  Marie was in the midst of a long conversation when her mistress said, “I’m going to church.”

  And she was gone before Marie managed to say anything.

  It was almost as though her mistress ran across the sun-drenched meadows.

  V

  A couple of days later, Katinka went “home”.

  One of her brothers had a grocer’s shop in the town where she was born, and she went to stay with him. The other brothers were scattered all over the place.

  Her sister-in-law was a nice little woman who brought a child into the world each year and toddled around half embarrassed and anxious in her everlasting pregnancy. She had become very indolent and rather slow. She was not able to do much apart from giving birth and nursing.

  In the house there was always one of the rooms in which they had not managed to hang the curtains. They all lay there, clean and starched, spread out over all the chairs, waiting. There was always washing to be done for all those little ones; short lines of drying linen and socks were fixed everywhere. Food was never ready in time for meals and there were never enough plates when the family was finally seated at table.

  “Little Mi and mother will share th
is plate,” said the little woman.

  There was a constant banging of doors and every half hour a screech like that of a stuck pig resounded through the house. It was one of the little ones falling down somewhere or other in one of the corners. They were always covered in bumps and bruises.

  “Oh,” said Katinka’s brother. “There we go again.”

  “Aye, what am I to do, Kristoffer?” said the little woman.

  She was always saying, “Aye, what am I to do, Kristoffer?” and looking helpless.

  Katinka gradually introduced some peace and quiet into the house. She needed to have something to do; she needed to know that she was useful, and she went around ever so quietly while everything was seen to.

  Her little sister-in-law sat there relieved and smiling gratefully from her chair in one of the corners. She always sat in the corners, behind a bureau or beside the sofa, with a timid smile on her face.

  Katinka preferred to stay indoors while she was there. The old furniture from her home was all there along with all the other old things. Her father’s masterpiece, the oak cupboard with the carved figures on the doors had stood in the drawing room at home, in the middle of the wall between the windows.

  “It’s Moses and his prophets,” said her father. Katinka thought that “those men” were the most wonderful things in the world.

  And the marble table that had been bought at an auction and on which the “best” things were symmetrically arranged in rows: the silver sugar bowl and the jug and the silver cup that had been given as a mark of special esteem by the guild.

  As she went round tidying the house, Katinka kept finding memories from home – an old, inscribed cup, a yellowing picture, three or four plates.

  The old plates with the blue Chinaman and the garden with the three trees and the little bridge over the brook. What a lot of tales they had told each other about those Chinese figures, at home on Sundays when they were using their best plates.

  Katinka asked if she might keep the old plates.

  “Keep them?” said the little woman. “Oh, heavens above, they are all chipped.” Everything in the house was chipped! “Everything gets spoilt here. But what am I to do?”

  So Katinka preferred to stay indoors, or else she would go up to visit the grave in the churchyard. It was best up there. She often felt like a widow sitting by her husband’s grave. He had died so soon; they had had such a short time together, and now she was alone, quite alone.

  As she sat there, she read the inscription on the gravestone, the names of her mother and father.

  Did they love each other? Her father, who was forever grumbling, sitting there to be waited on. And her mother, who had been completely transformed after his death, as though she had suddenly blossomed out again.

  How little she had really known her parents.

  But how little they knew each other, all these people living and moving alongside each other.

  Katinka leant her head against the trunk of the weeping willow. She was overcome by a sense of bitterness and sadness such as she had never known before.

  She rarely went out into the streets or into town. There were so many new things everywhere, and everything was different from those days. Nothing but new faces and new names, people who were strangers to her.

  She had been over to take a look at the old house. Some back rooms had been built onto the old workshop. And there were new windows and new doors, and their old dovecote had been turned into a gable room.

  Katinka no longer went into the old courtyard.

  She had met Thora Berg in the street.

  “But surely…” yes, it was the same old voice, “that’s Katinka.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good heavens, girl, what are you doing here? And you’ve not changed at all.”

  “Nor have you,” said Katinka. She had tears in her eyes.

  “I? Good Lord, I live here now of course. Since the spring. We were moved here.”

  “Yes, my dear, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. I suppose you don’t have any children?”

  “No.”

  “I thought not. You just thank God for that, my dear. I have four. And five more boarders. No, you don’t get far on the second senior captain’s pay. But what about you? Where do you live, all of you? Still in the same place? Good Lord! When you are in the army you don’t live in the same place for long at a time.”

  Thora continued to talk. Katinka walked beside her and looked at her. It was really the same face, but it had as it were grown more severe in appearance, and then it was yellowish and pointed at the chin.

  “You’re looking at me, my girl,” said Thora. “No, let me tell you, living isn’t all a string of club dances.”

  She said she would come and see her and then take her home with her to the nest.

  “But it’s revision time, you know – and we’re up to our eyes in French verbs.”

  They parted. Katinka stood there and watched her go. She was wearing a short, skimpy velvet jacket over a yellow dress. It was all chosen at random and looked as though it was a little too tight.

  It was not until about a week later that they saw each other again at church.

  “Do I ever get out? Yes, and I’ve been wanting to come and find you every day,” said Thora. “Come and see us on Wednesday. Wednesday about three o’clock. Wednesday’s the day there’s most peace and quiet,” she said.

  Katinka was there that Wednesday.

  Thora was in the kitchen when she arrived, and Katinka waited in the living room. This room was too big for the furniture in it, furniture that Thora had been given on marrying and which was now pale and faded; the pieces stood there and seemed to be stretching out in an effort to reach each other along the wall. By the window there was a modern flower stand containing a rubber plant alongside a cane chair on an embroidered rug. These were the choice items.

  On the table there lay a few collections of poems in faded bindings along with a couple of panoramas of the Rhine, souvenirs from Thora’s honeymoon with her captain.

  On high walls papered in yellow there hung some paintings of flowers in narrow gilt frames. They represented roses and pansies with big drops of dew that looked like glass beads scattered over their leaves. Katinka knew them, Thora had painted them when she was a girl.

  “Yes, one uses all one’s old talents to decorate the place,” said Thora, coming in as Katinka stood there looking at the roses and the glass beads.

  The captain opened the door, dressed in a denim jacket and collar and tie, “Is dinner ready?” he asked.

  “We have a visitor, Dahl,” said Thora. And the door closed. “Dahl is drawing a map, you see,” she said.

  The captain appeared again wearing his off-duty uniform jacket. “How nice, how nice,” he said, starting to walk up and down the floor. When the captain was not drawing maps or commanding his troops, he always had a payment date and a complicated piece of arithmetic in his head. These were left over from his days as a lieutenant and the honeymoon with the two panoramic views of the Rhine.

  Thora sat there and talked and talked. Katinka was struck by how restless her eyes had become, moving first to the door and then to Dahl, talking incessantly the while.

  “It’s quarter past,” said the captain.

  “The boys aren’t here yet,” said Thora.

  “So we can’t have our meal,” said the captain. “You must realise, Mrs Bai, that it is the boys who are the bosses in this house.”

  Thora said nothing. The captain sat down on a chair over by the writing desk. The back fell off it.

  “It’s about time we had that chair repaired,” he said.

  “Yes, Dahl.”

  “We’ve been going to have it done for the past six months, Mrs Bai,” said the captain. He inclined a little in her direction. “That is the customary state of affairs in this house.”

  The boys came charging down the stairs from the attic like wild animals being chased.

  “There they ar
e,” said Thora. They went into the dining room. The captain had offered Katinka his arm; Thora quietly put the fallen chair back in place, supporting it on the wall.

  “Where have you been?” said the captain.

  “We’ve been bathing,” said the boys. They had been smoking for an hour by the roadside and then put their heads into a bowl of water.

  “These are mine,” said Thora. And by mine she meant a nine-year-old boy and three small straight-haired girls.

  The captain had bicarbonate of soda on his food and after each mouthful he wiped his Napoleonic beard, which was waxed and carefully tended to adorn his weary face.

  The captain talked about wage conditions on the railways.

  The boys were five upper-class puppies, pupils in the lower secondary school. They called ‘my four’ the paupers and regularly debagged the nine-year-old but were otherwise quite good-natured.

  They ate like wolves and said they were never full except when they were “at home at the hall”.

  The nine-year-old sat there with big, old-fashioned eyes, looking from the boys to Thora.

  “The porcelain is chipped in honour of visitors,” said the captain. He handed Katinka the cucumber salad in a chipped dish.

  “Oh, it happens so easily, captain,” said Katinka.

  One of the boys continued to ask in a low voice for more potatoes; he had seen there were no more in the dish.

  “There are cucumbers,” said Thora. “Would you like some more, Dahl?”

  “You are not getting anything yourself,” said Katinka. “We have plenty, dear.”

  “My dear Mrs Bai,” said the captain, “It is her pleasure. In this house we know nothing of that luxury called peace and quiet.”

  Thora cut the meat for the smallest of the straight-haired girls.

  “As you can hear, the captain is in such a good mood today,” she said with a laugh. “Isn’t that right, captain?”

  The captain was always in that mood.

  “What did Gustav get for geography?”

  “Could do better,” came the reply in a low voice from a plate.