As Trains Pass By Read online

  Then, when it had gone again and the rumbling had died away, all was silent, as though twice as quiet.

  The porter turned out the lights, first the one on the platform and then the one above the door.

  There was no light apart from what came through the two windows, two narrow bridges of light in the vast darkness.

  Mrs Bai went indoors.

  They had a cup of tea, and then Bai read the papers, accompanying them with a toddy or two. He only read the government press. He personally took the Nationaltidende and then he read Kiær’s Dagblad, which he took out of the mail bag.

  He thumped the table, making the toddy glass chink when the opposition was given “a real kick in the teeth”. And he would occasionally read the odd sentence aloud and laugh.

  Mrs Bai listened and said nothing; she was not interested in politics. Besides that, she was going through a period of feeling terribly sleepy in the evenings.

  “I suppose it’s about time,” said Bai.

  He rose and lit a lantern. He did his round to make sure that everything was shut and the track was in order for the night train.

  “You can go to bed, Marie,” said Mrs Bai in the direction of the kitchen. She woke Marie, who was sitting asleep on the wooden chair.

  “Good night, ma’am,” she said drowsily.

  “Good night.”

  Mrs Bai moved the flowers in the living room away from the window ledge and put them down on the floor, where they spent the night standing in a row.

  Bai returned.

  “It’s getting cold at night,” he said.

  “I was thinking of that for the roses. I was seeing to them today.”

  “Aye,” he said, “they’ll have to be covered over now.”

  Bai started to undress in the bedroom. The door was open.

  He was very fond of going to and fro in the evening. From the bedroom to the sitting room in a state of near undress.

  “She does lumber about,” he said. Marie was treading hard on the floor up in the attic.

  Mrs Bai placed white sheets on the furniture and locked the office door.

  “Can I put the light out?” she said.

  And she extinguished the lamp.

  She went into the bedroom, sat down before the mirror and loosened her hair.

  Bai, in his underpants, asked for a pair of scissors.

  “You’re losing a hell of a lot of weight,” he said.

  Katinka pulled the dressing gown around her.

  Bai got into bed and lay there talking. She replied as always in her own quiet way. There was always a quite brief pause before the words came out.

  They had been silent for a while.

  “Hmm, quite a nice person, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, judging by his looks.”

  “What did Agnes Linde say?”

  “She said he looked quite nice, too.”

  “Hmm, the things that girl says!”

  “And God knows what kind of a hand he plays at Hombre.”

  It was not long before Bai was asleep.

  When he was asleep, Bai breathed heavily through his nose.

  Mrs Bai was used to that now.

  She remained sitting in front of the mirror. She took off her dressing gown and looked at her neck.

  Yes, she had really become very thin.

  It was since she had had that cough in the spring.

  Mrs Bai put out the lights and lay down in bed beside Mr Bai.

  II

  The short days had come now.

  Pouring rain and such tedious slush. But always a grey sky and always wet. Even Miss Jensen’s nicest pupils wore clogs as they came to school across the fields.

  At the station, the platform was a lake. The last little leaves from the garden hedge were floating in it. The trains arrived dripping wet; the guards dashed back and forth wrapped in wet cloaks. Wee Bentzen ran around carrying the postbags beneath his umbrella.

  Kiær’s grain trucks were covered with tarpaulin sheets, and the drivers sat there in rain capes.

  Huus, the new bailiff, drove the first wagon to the station himself. There was plenty to see to with freight and clearance.

  “Kiær’s folk are here,” said Bai to his wife.

  Huus was in the habit of taking off his raincoat for half an hour and having a cup of coffee with the Bais.

  While Mrs Bai went to and fro laying the table for coffee, Huus and the farm workers went back and forth on the platform, loading the sacks onto the goods wagons. Katinka saw them running past the windows. They looked so huge in their oilskins.

  Marie, the maid, had a crush on Huus and went on about him all the time while she was at work.

  She never tired of talking of his fine qualities. And she always ended with: “And what a voice he’s got.”

  It was a soft, honest voice, and no one knew why Marie should have fallen for it.

  When Huus had finished outside, they went in for coffee. It was warm and comfortable, and there was the scent of a couple of potted plants still flowering on the window ledge.

  Aye, that’s what I always say,” said Huus, rubbing his hands, “It’s nice and cosy in Mrs Bai’s sitting room.”

  And Huus brought a feeling of cosiness with him, too. There was a quiet sense of contentment about him; he said very little, and he rarely “told” anything. But he joined so easily in the everyday gossip, cheerful, always in a good mood. And it felt good simply to have him there.

  A goods train arrived just at that moment, and Bai had to go out on the platform to attend to it.

  It made no difference when he went and the other two were left alone. They chatted a little or sat quietly. She went across to the window and laughed at Bai as he rushed about in the rain out there.

  Huus saw to Katinka’s flowers and gave her advice as to how to look after them. Katinka went across to him, and they tended them together. He knew every single one of them, whether it was growing or whether it was dormant, and he knew what to do with them.

  Huus was interested in all small things of this kind, in the pigeons and the new strawberry patch that had been planted during the autumn.

  Katinka asked his advice, and they went around looking at this and looking at that.

  Bai had never been interested in that kind of thing. But with Huus it was as though there was always something new to learn, something to be asked about and something to arrange.

  In that way they always had plenty to talk about, quietly and slowly, as was the manner with both of them.

  Indeed, there was almost always something waiting for Huus – even if he came virtually every day, as he did just at this time when Rugaard Farm was selling its grain.

  Miss Ida Abel also often had a reason for going to the station. She would struggle down the road with a letter she wanted to catch the midday post.

  “Heaven help us, what dreadful weather, lieutenant.”

  “A cup of coffee, miss? A little internal moisture to help you cope. Huus is inside with my wife.”

  “Are the folk from Rugaard here?”

  “Yes, they’ve come with some grain.”

  Ida had had no idea they were there.

  From the elevated ground at the corner of the farm, the “chicks” could keep an eye on the entire area.

  Ida spent her mornings there.

  She started to take the curlers out of her hair.

  “Where are you going?”

  Louise had toothache and was countering it with a spice bag.

  “To the station with a letter.”

  “Mother,” whined Louise, “now Ida’s off again. Hmm, if you think you’ll get anywhere down there…”

  “What has it to do with you?” Ida slammed the bedroom door in the face of her fellow chick.

  “Good lord, do you really want to make a fool of yourself? But you can put your own boots on. I’m telling you that, Ida.”

  “Mother, tell Ida to put her own boots on, she always puts mine on to go to the station.” />
  “Pooh,” says Ida, who had now finished with the curling tongs.

  “And my gloves – for heaven’s sake!” Louise snatches a pair of gloves out of Ida’s hands. And once more a couple of doors are slammed.

  “What was all that about, children?” says Mrs Abel. She enters from the kitchen with wet hands. She has been peeling potatoes.

  “Ida’s pinching my clothes.” Louise is weeping with fury.

  Mrs Abel, quietly tidies up after her younger daughter and returns to her potatoes.

  “My dear Mrs Bai,” says Ida, “I will not come inside. Good day, Mr Huus, I look so awful… I’m just looking in. Good day.”

  Miss Abel came in. She had a low-cut dress beneath her rain cape.

  “It’s when Christmas is approaching there is such a dreadful lot to be done. Oh, would you excuse me, Mr Huus, if I push past you and join you on the sofa. It’s nice to sit down,” she said.

  But she did not sit there for long. There were too many things she had to admire. Miss Ida Abel was so full of youthful enthusiasm.

  “Oh what a sweet little rug!”

  “Oh, Mr Huus, do you mind?” She had to get past him again.

  She felt the rug.

  “Mother always says I flutter all over the place,” said Ida.

  Mrs Abel sometimes called her daughters her little doves, but the name failed to catch on. There was something about Louise that absolutely excluded the concept of a dove.

  And the “chicks” continued to be the term used.

  After Miss Abel’s arrival, it was not long before Mr Huus took his leave.

  There was not room for so many in a sitting room when Miss Ida was there, he said.

  Christmas was approaching.

  Huus went to Randers on business once a week. He always had some errand to do for Mrs Bai. Bai must not be told. The two of them would whisper about it for a long time in the sitting room when Huus had come back on the train.

  Katinka thought it must have been many years since she had looked forward to Christmas as much as she did this year.

  The weather helped as well.

  There was a light, tingling frost and snow on the ground.

  When Huus had been in Randers he stayed for tea at the station. He came with the eight o’clock train. Mrs Bai was often still sitting in the dark.

  “Will you play something for me?” he said.

  “Oh, I only know a few pieces.”

  “But if I would like to hear them?” He sat on a chair in a corner beside the sofa.

  Katinka played her five pieces; they all resembled each other. She would otherwise never think of playing for anyone. But Huus sat so quietly over in his corner that his presence was simply not noticed. And besides, he had no musical sense whatever.

  When she had played, they would sit for a time without saying anything until Marie came in with the lamp and the tea things.

  After tea, Bai took Huus with him into the office.

  “Men must occasionally be left on their own as well,” he said.

  When he and Huus were alone, Bai told all sorts of stories about women.

  He had also figured in them once, when they were all in the training school.

  “And Copenhagen had its women in those days. Oh well. Things have gone downhill since.”

  “They say they all go to Russia now. All right, that might well be, I suppose.”

  “But things have gone downhill.”

  “If you’d known Kamilla – Kamilla Andersen – fine girl – wonderful girl. She came to a sad end – she damn well went and threw herself out of a window.”

  “Ambitious girl.” Bai winked. Huus pretended he understood Kamilla’s ambition.

  “Very ambitious girl… Knew her well. Brilliant.”

  Bai talked all the time. Huus smoked his cigar and did not look particularly interested.

  “And,” said Bai, “I ask the young people, you know, in the summer holidays, in the parsonage gardens, ‘What sort of women do you get nowadays?’ I ask them. Are they any good?”

  “Little girls, my friend. Little girls.”

  “Aye, they say they go to Russia, and that might well be, damn it.”

  Huus expressed no opinion as to where they went. He looked at the clock.

  “It’s getting on,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  But Huus had to go. The walk would take him three quarters of an hour after all.

  They went in to join Mrs Bai in the sitting room.

  “Should we not walk some of the way with Huus?” she said. “The weather is so beautiful.”

  “Good idea, damn it. Give us a bit of exercise.”

  They went with him.

  Katinka took Bai’s arm. She had Huus on the other side. The snow creaked beneath their feet as they walked along the road.

  “What a lot of stars there are this year,” said Katinka.

  “Yes, a lot more than last year, Tik.” Bai was always animated when he had been in his own room.

  “Yes, I think there are,” said Katinka.

  “It’s curious weather,” said Huus.

  “Yes,” this came from Bai: “All this cold before Christmas.”

  “And it is going to last over New Year.”

  “Do you think so?”

  Then they fell silent, and when they spoke again it was more or less a repeat of the same conversation.

  At the turn of the road, the Bais said good night.

  Mrs Bai hummed a tune as she walked along. When they reached home, she remained in the doorway while Bai fetched the lantern and went across to see to the track for the night train.

  He came back. “Well,” he said.

  Katinka breathed out in the air, slowly.

  “I do so like this cold weather,” she said, drawing her hand through her own breath as it rose in the air.

  They went inside.

  Bai lay in bed, smoking a cigar butt. Then he said,

  “Aye, Huus is a damn nice chap but he’s a dry old stick.”

  Mrs Bai was sitting in front of the looking glass. She laughed.

  But Bai told Kiær in confidence that he didn’t believe Huus knew a damn thing about women. “I try to bring him out a bit, you know, in the evenings when he’s down at our house, but by Gad I don’t think he knows much about women.”

  “Well, old chap,” said Kiær, and they slapped each other’s shoulders and laughed happily. “We can’t all be connoisseurs, you know.”

  “No – fortunately. And as for Huus, I’m damn sure he isn’t.”

  They were called in for coffee.

  The last days before Christmas were a busy time at the station. There were so many things to be fetched and dispatched. No one wanted to wait for the postman.

  The Misses Abel sent small cards with best wishes and enquired about parcels.

  Miss Jensen brought a box of cigars with a whole stick of sealing wax spread decoratively on the string around it

  “My own handiwork, Mrs Bai,” said Miss Jensen. The handiwork was for her sister.

  Mrs Bai said, “Mrs Abel was at Randers yesterday, you know.”

  “The interest on her annuity was due for payment yesterday,” said Miss Jensen tartly.

  “She was so laden with parcels when she came home.”

  “I can well believe that.”

  “I suppose you are going to the Abels for Christmas Eve?”

  “No. We live next door, Mrs Bai, but the Abels always have plenty to do thinking of themselves. I always used to go to the Lindes, in the parsonage. No, the Abels,” said Miss Jensen, “It’s not everyone who is one’s…”

  Mrs Bai asked Miss Jensen if she would perhaps make do with them.

  She brought herself to tell Bai when he came home from the tracks that evening.

  “Mathias,” she said, she called him Mathias when about to make some dubious communication, “I have had to invite little Miss Jensen here for Christmas Eve. She can’t go to the Lindes.”
r />   “That’s all right as far as I’m concerned.” Bai hated “the little wig stand” as he called her. “You are welcome to your collection of waifs and strays.”

  Bai walked to and fro.

  “Isn’t she going to the Abels?” he said.

  “That’s just the problem, they haven’t invited her, Mathias.”

  “Oh, that was probably wise of them, damn it,” said Bai, throwing his boots off. “Oh well, if it makes you happy.”

  Mrs Bai was pleased she had managed to say it.

  Miss Jensen came at half past five, bringing with her a splint basket and the pug.

  She apologized for Bel-Ami.

  “He’s at the Abels otherwise – I always leave him with the Abels. But this evening, you see, I didn’t want… but he’ll not do any harm… he’s a very quiet animal.”

  Bel-Ami was placed on a rug in the bedroom. And there he stayed. He suffered from sleeping sickness and was no trouble apart from the fact that he snored.

  “He is a good sleeper,” said Miss Jensen, taking cuffs and a collar out of the splint basket.

  Bel-Ami was only difficult when he was to go home. He had certainly lost all taste for exercise.

  At every tenth step he would stand still and howl with his tail between his legs.

  When no one was looking, Miss Jensen would pick him up and carry him.

  They dined at six o’clock. The “tree” stood in a corner. Wee Bentzen had his hair done in a quiff and was wearing his confirmation suit.

  He ate like a horse.

  Bai filled the glasses and chinked with Miss Jensen and Wee Bentzen .

  “Well, cheers, Miss Jensen.”

  “Cheers, Bentzen my boy. It’s only Christmas once a year,” he said. He poured more into the boy’s glass.

  Wee Bentzen blushed and his complexion was that of a lobster.

  “We’re drinking like they did in heathen times,” said Miss Jensen.

  The door was open to the office. The telegraph ticked ceaselessly.

  Colleagues were telegraphing Christmas wishes to each other. Bai went back and forth to answer them.

  “Give them my best wishes,” said Katinka.

  “Greetings from Mundstrup,” said Bai from the apparatus.

  “Yes,” said Miss Jensen, “that is what I say to my pupils: I often tell them that our age has overcome the bounds of space.”