As Trains Pass By Page 11

  “Do you think your father will be satisfied with that, Gustav?”

  “Father doesn’t care,” replied the low voice.

  They rose from the table. All the doors in the house were slammed after the boys.

  “Aye, Mrs Bai,” said the captain, “those are Thora’s invading forces.”

  “She is afraid that we might have peace and quiet in the house one day.”

  The captain returned to his maps. Thora rummaged through all kinds of coffee blends behind the coffee maker.

  “Can’t I help you?” said Katinka.

  “Thank you, dear.”

  Thora had acquired red blotches in her cheeks and she put her hands up to her temples: “There’s always rather a lot about dinner time,” she said.

  “But you get too worked up over it, Thora,” said Katinka, who was herself quite flushed.

  “When you have all that nonsense from morning to evening, my dear,” said Thora.

  She was not left in peace at her sewing table. The doors were opening and shutting all the time. The boys had sworn that they were not going to have that “chat over coffee” and every other minute they rushed up and down the stairs from the loft to ask about words.

  Thora held her hand to her forehead and went from English to German.

  The nine-year-old was “practising” in the dining room.

  “Nikolai, must you always practise when I’ve got a headache. Do stop.”

  Nikolai tiptoed quietly away from the piano. Thora always grumbled at her ‘own’ when she had been tormented by these boys who were always hungry.

  Thora sat down on the sofa in the corner and curled up her legs as she had so often done as a girl.

  They talked about people in the town.

  “Yes, they are all new families; the old ones have gone.”

  “Yes, the old ones have gone,” said Katinka. She looked at Thora, who had leant her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes. How sunken those eyes had become.

  “Your brother is about the only one of the old ones left,” said Thora.

  “Oh, there must be a few.”

  Thora laughed: “Good Lord, your poor sister-in-law,” she said. “Is she really on the way again?”

  “Yes, poor thing.”

  They sat for a while. Then Thora opened her eyes and said, “Yes, my dear, we are all here for the propagation of the species.”

  Thora closed her eyes, and the two friends sat in silence.

  “Yes,” Thora said again, “life’s a strange thing.”

  Katinka did not stay to tea. She said she had promised to go home. She needed to get out into the fresh air and to be alone. When she was down in the street, the idea came to her that she might go and visit her old teacher. It was so quiet near the old woman’s home, so unchanged. Katinka turned down the street in which she lived. Tears came to her eyes when she saw the three green lime trees outside the windows. And besides, she had not been far from tears all the time she had spent at Thora’s.

  She mounted the few steps above the green basement entrance and knocked. A scent of roses and summer apples met her when the door opened.

  The old teacher was fiddling about with rose petals spread out on newspaper on the bed, ready to be made into potpourri.

  “And the people from Holmstrup had been there, all the young girls.”

  “They want their berries from the tree,” she says. “It’s just about finished now.”

  Katinka had to go out to look at the tree and “her” roses.

  There had just been three roses for Mrs Bystrøm’s wreath, indeed there really had been only three roses.

  They went inside again. The old teacher went on chatting as she moved to and fro, so that her words were lost between the doors. Katinka sat on the raised area by the window, just now and again saying yes or no. Through the open kitchen door there was a view across the green garden; the birds were chirping so loud as to be heard indoors.

  How quiet it was here, as though there was no other world.

  Katinka looked at the old pictures, faded in their skewed frames; she knew every one of them. The silver coffee pot on the table, the showpiece with its three exquisite cups and saucers and on the consol, before the greying mirror, the fine pieces of bric-a-brac with handkerchiefs spread over them, and the mats on the floor in front of all the doors, and the cats purring on their cushions.

  She knew it all.

  The old teacher went on chattering and going in and out. Katinka was no longer listening. It was beginning to grow dark in this room, shaded by the lime trees and with the old corners half in darkness.

  It was the second time the old teacher mentioned Huus’ name from out in the kitchen. Katinka started. She thought she had said it herself, lost in thought.

  “There’s a Mr Huus out your way,” the teacher said again.

  “Yes, Huus the bailiff,” said Katinka. “Do you know him?”

  The old teacher appeared in the doorway. Indeed she knew him. He was second cousin to her own cousin Karl from Kærsholm.

  “The Kærsholms who were married to two generations of the Lundgaards.”

  And she started talking about Huus and his mother, who was a Lundgaard, one of the Lundgaards from Falster, and about their farm and about his relatives and about cousin Karl from Kærsholm and the whole family as she walked back and forth.

  She lit some candles in the kitchen and occupied herself with the roses on the bed in the bedroom. Katinka sat silently in her corner and heard only his name recurring time and time again.

  It was the first time she had heard his name in all those weeks.

  “But what sort of a person is he?” said the old teacher. She came in, lifted the sleeping cat off the armchair and sat down a little way from the window with her hands folded over the cat on her lap.

  Katinka started to talk, a few unremarkable words, hesitantly, and as though she was thinking of something else. But then she was swept away: talking about him, mentioning his name, being able to mention his name.

  And she told all about Christmas and the blue shawl and New Year’s Eve, when he arrived in the sleigh and the winter’s nights when they had walked some way with him under all those stars.

  “Yes,” said the old teacher from her chair, “they are nice people, the Huus’.”

  Katinka went on talking in a low voice through the dusk, from her corner.

  How he had helped her in the garden when spring came; he had planted the roses for her; there was no limit to what he was able to do.

  “Yes,” said the old teacher, “they are a nice family.”

  And the summer days that came, and the fair. She told about it all.

  The old teacher had started nodding in her chair. She was inclined to become sleepy when she had to listen, and before long she was asleep with her hands folded over her cat.

  Katinka stopped talking and sat in silence. The gas lamps were lit outside, illuminating the sitting room: the pictures on the walls, the old clock and the old teacher sitting with her cat on her lap and her head down on her breast.

  The old teacher awoke and raised her head.

  “Yes,” she said, “he is a nice person.”

  Katinka did not hear what she said. She rose simply in order to leave and to get away. And out in the fresh air, along the roads circling the town, as she walked it was as though her longing increased with every step.

  A couple of days later, she received a letter from Bai. The most remarkable thing here, he wrote, concerns Huus. He went to Copenhagen last week on business, as he said. And what do you think? A few days later he wrote to Kiær asking to be released from his job. He had been given the opportunity of going to Holland and Belgium, he wrote, just fancy, on a scholarship, and he would send a replacement, and this replacement arrived yesterday. Kiær is furious and I’m sorry as well now as we had got so used to the dry old stick.

  The letter lay open on the table in front of Katinka. And she had read it again and again: she
had not known that she was still hoping. But she had thought that it was all nothing but a dream: a miracle must happen. But she had to see him again, and he would not leave.

  But now he had left. He had left and gone away.

  Her nephews were jabbering away around her as they ate their milk sops:

  “Auntie, Auntie Tik.”

  The smallest but one fell off his chair and let out a howl.

  “Oh dear, did Emil fall and hurt himself?” said the little wife.

  Katinka lifted Emil up and wiped his face and, without realising it, returned to her letter.

  Left and gone away.

  But now she wanted to go home, to be in her own surroundings and not among these strangers.

  At least she would be at home.

  It was her last afternoon there. The nursemaid had gone to the plantation with the children.

  Katinka and her sister-in-law were alone in the sitting room. The sister-in-law was brooding over her baby clothes.

  Then, just as they were sitting there, the little woman bent her head over her sewing box and sobbed.

  “Oh Marie,” said Katinka, “my dear Marie, what is it?”

  She rose and went across to her sister-in-law. “What is it, Marie?” she said.

  The little woman continued to sob with her head bent over her workbox.

  Katinka placed her hands on her head and spoke quietly to her. “But, dearest Marie – dear Marie.”

  The little woman looked up: “Yes,” she said, “you are leaving now. And you have been so kind to me.”

  She sobbed and again lowered her head over the workbox. “So kind to me – and here am I, simply always in this mess. Always.”

  Katinka was touched. She knelt down on the floor in front of the little woman and took her hands. “But Marie,” she said, “things will change, you know.”

  “Yes,” and the little woman went on weeping with her head against her, “when I’m old one day, or when I’m dead.”

  Katinka took her sister-in-law’s hands from her face and made to speak.

  But then she saw the other’s child-like face, wet with tears, and the poor little misshapen body, and quietly returned to her seat, while the little woman continued to weep.

  That evening, Katinka went up to the churchyard. She wanted to pay a final visit to her parents’ grave.

  She met Thora, who had brought a wreath up to her mother’s grave; it was to mark her birthday.

  The two friends stood together by the burial place.

  “Aye,” said Thora. “We shall lie down there one day.”

  They parted by Katinka’s parents’ grave.

  “We always meet again in this world,” said Thora.

  Katinka went over to the grave and sat down on the bench beneath the willow. She looked at the dead stone with the lettering on it and she thought she had lost everything in this world including the place where she had been at home as a child.

  What had become of it all? Everything was grey and anguished and miserable, everything.

  She pictured Thora with those restless eyes of hers, and she heard the captain’s remark, “The porcelain is chipped in honour of visitors,” and she saw her little sister-in-law’s face as she wept.

  And here at this spot with its dead stone and the two names on it. This was all she had with which to remember her youth and her home.

  She sat there for a long time. And she considered the life she was to live now, and it was as though it all closed over her, everything, just one single, unimaginable sense of all-engulfing hopelessness.

  She alighted from the carriage onto the platform, and she allowed Bai to kiss her, and Marie took her things, and she had one thought only: to get inside, to get indoors.

  It seemed to her that Huus must be in there waiting for her.

  And she went ahead and opened the door to the sitting room, which stood there clean and elegant; to the bedroom; to the kitchen, where everything was shining; spotless and empty.

  “Good Lord, you do look bad,” were Marie’s first words as she struggled with the luggage.

  And then, while Katinka, pale and weary, slumped down on a chair, she started relating news about the entire district. About what had happened and what had been said. They had had summer visitors over in the inn, people who had brought their own bedstead and everything, and the parsonage had been filled to the rafters with visitors.

  And then there was Huus, who had gone away all of a sudden.

  “Aye, I suspected it. ‘Cos he was down here on his last evening, and it felt to me just as though he was saying goodbye to it all. He sat in the sitting room all alone, and then out in the garden and here on the steps near the pigeons.”

  “When did he leave?” asked Katinka.

  “I suppose it must be about a fortnight ago.”

  A fortnight.

  Katinka rose quietly and went out into the garden. She walked round on the path, over to the roses, down beneath the elder. This was where he had come to say goodbye to her. She visited every spot, every single spot. She shed no tears. She felt it almost as though it was some silent ceremony.

  There came a happy shout from the road. She heard Agnes’ voice in the midst of the crowd. She almost started: she did not want to see them all straight away.

  Agnes rushed across to welcome her almost in the manner of some big dog and nearly knocked her over; and the entire company from the parsonage arrived to be given chocolate, and a table was laid in the garden beneath the elder and they all stayed there until the eight o’clock train came.

  The train chugged off and they had gone again; the noise they made could be heard as they walked along the road. Peter the porter had put the milk churns in place, and Katinka sat on the platform alone.

  “Aye,” said Bai from the window: “Huus sent his love.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Hmm, the days are drawing in. And there’s a damn cold wind. You should come inside.”

  “Yes, I’m coming.”

  Bai closed the window.

  The sound of the party from the parsonage died away. All was quiet and desolate.

  Katinka sat there looking out across the darkening, silent fields. This was where she was to live now.

  Ida had been writing about it in all her letters for the past month. But Mrs Abel had not dared to hope. Ida was so sanguine.

  Now, with the letter in her hand, she sat howling on the wet floor cloth beside the stove.

  Louise had gone for a walk, looking for mushrooms near the doctor’s residence. When she came home, her mother was still rocking to and fro on the chair in the kitchen.

  “What’s wrong?” said Louise. She thought her mother looked very strange as she sat there.

  “Ida, my youngest child,” the widowed mother sobbed and started to howl again.

  “Rubbish,” said Louise. Her mother handed her the letter with a gesture like that of the heroic mother in some tragedy.

  Louise read it dispassionately. “That’s nice,” she said, “for her.”

  “She’s had a whole summer, of course.”

  Louise went inside and started banging on the piano. Then, as she sat there, she also started to wail with her head bent down over the keys.

  “I suppose you’ll send her our congratulations,” she suddenly said amidst all her sobbing.

  “What do you say?”

  “I said I suppose you’ll send our congratulations,” said Louise, drying her eyes. She was starting to adapt to the new situation.

  “Yes, dear,” said the widowed mother in a feeble voice.

  “I can take the telegram down. I’ll go to the parsonage, and you can go to the Jensen’s and the Miller’s.” Louise was organising the campaign. She understood that she was at least the sister-in-law.

  She became quite child-like and shouted “Long live the post office” as she hurried away from the station, swinging her parasol in the air.

  He worked for the post office.

  Her mother we
nt happily from the Jensen’s to the Miller’s and wept at the thought that she was now going to lose her darling child.

  “Joakim Barner – one of the distinguished Barner family,” said the widow. He has a place with the post office.

  The mother was at the parsonage when her elder daughter arrived there.

  “Yes, I felt the need to tell our spiritual adviser myself at such a solemn moment,” said Mrs Abel, again making use of her handkerchief.

  The old minister slapped his stomach in delight. The strawberry liqueur was put on the table together with some biscuits. Mrs Linde sat on the sofa together with Mrs Abel so as to hear how it had “come about”. It had “come about” in a summerhouse down by the shore.

  The old minister toasted the elder daughter Louise.

  “Aye, aye, we know what happens when things start moving. One thing leads to another,” said the old parson.

  “Yes, Mr Linde, but the thought of losing both of them. My younger daughter…” And the widowed lady had an attack of dreadfully tender feelings for her younger daughter.

  That younger daughter was as gentle as a baby foal in view of the occasion.

  “Well, there is a chance she might still turn out quite nice,” said Mrs Linde as she collected the cake plates after they had gone. “They’re all right at bottom, Linde.”

  “Heaven knows what Agnes will say.”

  Agnes was out in the forest with some young friends.

  “Oh well, thank God for that,” she said on arriving home and hearing it.

  “Heaven preserve us, they’re going to crush the poor man to death,” said Agnes standing at the platform gate watching the Abel family, who had gone to meet the son-in-law.

  The little man was being swept around among the members of the Abel family as helpless as a bean in a coffee mill.

  “Hmm,” said Agnes, “one look is enough to tell you there’s not very much to him.”

  She put her arm round Katinka’s waist, and they went out into the garden.

  “Well,” she said as she closed the gate, “they are ‘so happy’ now.”

  They sat down beneath the elder tree. Suddenly Agnes said, “I’m leaving. Next week. I’ve told them at home.”