As Trains Pass By Read online

  It was in keeping with her quiet, rather passive nature that words and thoughts with which she was now so familiar as it were should return time and time again, on the road, on her way home.

  And they cocooned her. They turned into dreams that led her far away, into realms of which she was scarcely aware.

  Life had also been quieter at home recently. Huus was not coming so frequently now spring had arrived. He said there was so much to do.

  When he came, his mood varied so much as well. It was often as though he simply failed to notice how pleased Katinka was to see him, and he chatted mostly with Bai although Katinka had had so much to tell him and to ask him about.

  Just now in spring, when there had been so much to arrange and change everywhere.

  But there was something wrong. Perhaps he was not happy working for Kiær on the farm; it was said that he was a little difficult to get on with.

  And indeed, she herself was also occasionally rather low spirited.

  But perhaps that was the result of not getting enough sleep.

  She stayed in the living room in the evening when Bai went to undress. He would then wander around half naked for a long time and then sit on the edge of the bed and talk and talk.

  Katinka found it wearisome that he would never settle down and stop chattering.

  And when she herself finally got to bed and lay there in the darkness beside the soundly sleeping Bai, she was unable to fall asleep and had a sense of malaise that prompted her to get up again and go into the living room. And there she sat, by the window. The night train rushed past and a great silence once more lay over the fields. No sound, not the slightest breeze in the summer night. The first grey light of day came; and a cold, damp air rose from the meadows.

  And it grew lighter and lighter as the larks began to sing.

  Huus had told her how fond he was of watching the arrival of morning.

  He had told her what it was like in the mountains when morning came. It was like a mighty sea of gold and red, he said, with the mountain tops standing there half gold and half pink. And the peaks floated there like islands in a vast ocean.

  And then, bit by bit, he said, it was as though all the mountain tops came on fire.

  And then the sun came.

  And rose.

  And swept the darkness out of the valleys as though with the wave of a great wing.

  He would often talk about that sort of thing now, about all those memories from his travels.

  In general, he talked more now, that is if he talked at all.

  It grew quite light, and Katinka still sat by the window. But she must presumably get some sleep.

  The air was heavy in the bedroom, and Bai lay there and had thrown the blankets off.

  When Huus came of an evening, they would mostly sit in the summer house by the elder tree.

  They watched the eight o’clock train leave. The odd farmer would saunter out onto the platform and greet them as he passed them and drove home.

  Then they went down into the garden. The cherry trees were in blossom. The white petals drifted like some brightly glistening rain through the summer air down on to the lawn.

  They sat still, looking out at the white trees. It was as though the gentle evening silence that had descended upon the wold was enveloping everything. Up in the village a gate could be heard closing. Cattle were lowing over the fields.

  Katinka talked of her home.

  About her friends and her brothers and the old house’s courtyard, where there were so many pigeons.

  “And then, in the new flat with mother… after father’s death.”

  “Yes, that was a happy time.”

  “But then I got married of course.”

  Huus looked out across the soft snow of fruit blossom gently falling on the grass.

  “There was Thora Berg, she was great fun. In the evening when she was coming home from a party with the entire garrison on her heels, throwing sand at all the windows as she went through the town.”

  Katinka sat for a while.

  “She is married now as well,” she said.

  “And they say she has several children.”

  A man passed by on the road outside. “Good evening,” he said over the hedge.

  “Good evening, Kristen Peter.”

  “Good evening,” said Katinka.

  “Hmm,” said Katinka again, “the last time I saw her was at my wedding. All the girls sang at it; they were all up near the organ, in the choir loft. I can still see them, all their faces, all of them. But I wept so much.”

  Huus still said nothing and she could not see his face. He was bending forward as he sat there, studying something down on the ground.

  “That was almost eleven years ago,” said Katinka. “Yes. Time passes.”

  “Yes, when you are happy,” said Huus without stirring.

  Katinka did not hear this at first. Then it was as though the words suddenly struck her.

  “Yes,” she said, starting a little.

  And then, before long: “This is my home now.”

  Again, they sat in silence.

  Bai came out into the garden. He could be heard from far away. He always made such a noise, and before this it had been so quiet in the dusk.

  “I’ll fetch the glasses,” said Katinka.

  “Aye, a lovely evening,” said Bai. “Lovely evening out in the open.”

  Katinka returned with glasses and a bottle.

  “I’ve had a visitor,” said Bai.

  “Who?”

  “Miss Ida. She’s off again now.”

  “What, Ida?”

  “Aye,” Bai laughed: “They’ve given up on Miss Louise by god, and now they are raising all the sails on the lighter vessel. She’s going to stay away all summer.”

  “Aye, well, it’d be nice if one of them was successful.” Bai sat for a while: “Aye, but what the hell. A girl like that has to get married.”

  Bai often lectured on marriage. He was something of a philosopher when it came to that subject.

  “I joined the railways,” he said. “Do you think it was because I wanted to? There was simply no future as a lieutenant. That’s what it’s like, there’s no getting away from it: girls just have to be taken to the altar. Then it works out. We all see that, you know. They get used to living together. They have a house and home, and then the children arrive.”

  “For most people,” Bai concluded with something approaching a sigh.

  They sat in silence; it had grown quite dark beneath the elder tree.

  The end of June arrived.

  “Our lovely lady looks a bit pale about the gills,” said Agnes Linde when she came down to the station.

  “Yes, I don’t think the heat suits me,” said Katinka. It was as though there was something restive about her and she was constantly starting on something and then abandoning it again and then coming and going.

  She liked best to be sitting with Agnes down by the stream. She looked out across the fields and always heard the same things.

  Agnes Linde always adopted a quite different, gentle voice when she spoke about him, “her man”, as she called him.

  Katinka sat looking at her as she sat there with her head bowed and she smiled.

  “And then one snivels,” said Agnes. “Monstrous as it is, this is perhaps the best I can expect.”

  “Yes,” said Katinka, still looking at her.

  When Agnes Linde did not come to her, Katinka went up to the parsonage. She really longed to hear her speak.

  And then she saw Andersen as well. She saw them together, Agnes and him.

  She stood there while they played croquet on the big lawn. She stood and watched them, these two, who loved each other.

  She listened to them inquisitively and watched them almost as though they were some great wonder.

  And one day, she wept as she went home.

  Huus’ visits were so irregular now. Sometimes he would come twice in the course of one day and would hardly s
it down in the garden house before he had to get up on his horse again. And sometimes several days would elapse during which they hardly saw him at the station.

  The hay had been cut and was now in stacks all over the meadows. There was a constant fragrance in the air.

  One evening, Huus was in a good mood and suggested they should have a “day at the big fair”. They could drive there in a carriage and first have a brief rest in the woods and then see all the splendours of the fair.

  Bai thought it a good idea, and the outing was planned. They were to start out early in the morning while it was still cool and they would not come home until that night or the following morning.

  Just the Bais and Huus.

  Katinka was busy all day making preparations.

  She studied her cookery book and made plans during the night and went to town to do her shopping.

  Just as the train was leaving, Huus came to fetch the post.

  “Huus,” she shouted from the carriage window.

  “Where are you going?” he shouted.

  “Shopping. Marie is with me.” And she pulled Marie across and showed her face at the window. “Goodbye.”

  “Hmm,” said Bai. “Katinka’s gone quite crazy. She’s frying and boiling things for that trip as though she was getting us ready to withstand a cholera epidemic.”

  In town they had started erecting tents in the streets and up on the market place the horses for the merry-go-rounds were lined up in rows against the churchyard wall. Katinka went in among the fairground people, who were hammering and banging, and looked at all that was going on. She stared at the crates and gazed in wonder at each piece of canvas that was raised up.

  “Would you mind, miss.”

  She had to jump across both boards and ropes.

  “They are calling me miss,” she said.

  “I just hope the weather holds, Marie,” she said.

  They went out along the streets to the park. There was a caravan there. The men were asleep by the roadside; the wife of one of them was washing stockings in a bowl on the lowered steps. Three pairs of unmentionables were stretched out and flapping on a line.

  Katinka looked inquisitively at the woman and the men at the roadside.

  “Do you want something?” shouted the woman in some foreign accent.

  “Ugh,” shouted Katrina. She was quite afraid and ran a little further away.

  “That was the Strong Woman,” she said.

  They wandered further along the road. At the edge of the park a group of joiners were laying the dance floor. It was cool in there beneath the trees after the sun-drenched road. Katinka sat down on a bench.

  “This is where we are going to dance,” she said.

  “Yes, Huus must be a good dancer,” said Marie. She was a constant and loyal admirer of Huus; a photograph of him framed in velvet stood on her chest of drawers and she had an old visiting card with his name as a bookmark in her hymn book. Peter the porter attended to her more tangible needs.

  Katinka made no reply. She just sat there watching the people at work.

  “Let’s hope the weather holds,” she said to one of them.

  “Yes,” he said, looking up into the trees. He could not see the sky as he wiped his brow with his sleeve, “it all depends on that.”

  Katinka and Marie went back. It was high time. They crossed the square. The evening bells in the church tower could be heard ringing above the din in the market.

  They spent the final day baking. Katinka wore a short-sleeved dress and kneaded so that her hair was covered with flour like that of a miller.

  “No one’s allowed in. No one’s allowed in.” Someone was knocking on the door, which was locked.

  Katinka thought it was Huus.

  “It’s me,” shouted Agnes Linde. “What is going on?”

  She came in and helped with the baking. It was a pound cake that needed to be stirred and stirred for ever. “It’s for Huus,” said Katinka. “He’s got a sweet tooth so I’m making a pound cake for him.”

  Agnes stirred until the dough bobbled. “Aye, menfolk must have their pound cake,” she said.

  Katinka took the tray out. “Have a taste,” she said. “Be careful not to burn your tongue.” Her face was as red as a copper pan straight out of the oven.

  Miss Jensen and Louise came down for the afternoon train. They knocked on the kitchen window and stood talking outside.

  “Good Lord, they must have smelt it,” said Agnes Linde. She dropped her tired arms and sat with the mixing bowl between legs that were spread rather inelegantly.

  Marie took a plate out onto the platform so they could have a taste.

  Louise was overwhelmed with such joy while sitting on the platform bench, that a couple of commission agents in the train saw a significant bit of her beauty.

  When the train had left, those working in the kitchen opened the windows. Louise and little Miss Jensen munched away happily on the bench outside.

  “You have been so fortunate, Mrs Bai – wonderful.”

  “Yes, Mrs Bai is an excellent housewife,” said Miss Jensen.

  “Now we are off again,” said Agnes inside the kitchen. She set about the dough.

  Bai opened the office window above the platform bench.

  “There you are,” he said. “And here am I without anything at all.”

  “Would you like a bit, Mr Bai?” asked Louise. “Do you like sweet things as well?”

  “If anyone deigned to offer me some,” said Bai, adopting his club tone.

  There was a din on the platform, accompanied by squeaks.

  “What is going on?” asked Agnes from the kitchen.

  “We’re feeding the birds,” shouted Louise. She had jumped up on the bench in all her beauty and stood there putting cake into Bai’s mouth.

  “Oh, he’s biting,” she screams.

  It was on such occasions that Mrs Abel would say, “They just go on playing like children, without knowing anything of the world.”

  Louise took the empty plate back. She picked up the crumbs with her finger tips. Louise and Ida were always like that: they never wasted anything.

  She stood at the kitchen window and looked inside.

  “Mother should have known about this,” she said in a sweet voice.

  “Oh, so she hasn’t got wind of it,” said Agnes over the pound cake.

  Louise was given a bag of cakes through the window. “It’s something to take home,” she said as she came out on to the road with little Miss Jensen.

  She and Miss Jensen had eaten the cakes before they were past the wood. Louise threw the paper away.

  “Good heavens, my dear Louise, Miss Linde might see you with those sharp eyes of hers.”

  Miss Jensen picked the paper up. Down in her pocket, she quietly wrapped it round three cakes for Bel-Ami.

  Katinka started to feel tired. She sat on the chopping block with her sleeves rolled up and surveyed her work.

  “But it’s nothing to what we used to do at home, nothing compared to when we did our Christmas baking.”

  She told how they used to bake, her mother and her sisters and the entire household. How she used to make dough into pig shapes and then how they popped when they were dropped in the hot fat.

  And her brothers, how they used to pinch bits so that mother had to wield a wooden spoon to guard the stone jar containing cake mixture.

  And if they were paring almonds they stole so many there would not even be fifty left out of a pound.

  There was a knock on the door. It was Huus.

  “No one is coming in,” said Katinka at the door. “In an hour. Come back in an hour.”

  Huus appeared outside the window. “You can wait in the garden,” said Katinka. She hurried to finish and sent Agnes down to keep Huus company.

  Agnes stayed there for about an hour. Then she left.

  “Mr Huus is too easy to keep company,” she said to Andersen. “All he wants is for you to stay quiet so he can whistle in peace.” />
  “Where is Agnes?” said Katinka when she went down into the garden.

  “I think she left.”

  “But when?”

  “I suppose it was about an hour ago.”

  Huus laughed. “Miss Linde and I are so fond of each other,” he said. “But we don’t exactly have much to say to each other.”

  “We must pack the things,” said Katinka.

  They went indoors and started packing the big basket. They stuffed hay into it to be sure the jars were firmly fixed in place.

  “Tighter,” said Katinka, “tighter.” And she pressed firmly on Huus’ hands.

  She opened the bureau and counted the right number of spoons and forks from the cutlery drawer.

  “And I’m going to take a fan,” she said.

  She started to search. “Oh, it’s in this drawer.”

  It was in the drawer with all the petticoats and the bridal veil. She opened the box containing the old bits of ribbon. “Look,” she said. “All that old rubbish.”

  She plunged her hand down into the box and rummaged around in all kinds of ribbons and decorations. All that old rubbish.

  Again she looked for her fan.

  “Oh, will you just hold my veil?” she said. She put her bridal veil and a fine shawl over Huus’ arm. “There it is,” she said. The fan was at the bottom of the drawer.

  “And your shawl,” she said. It was on one side, packed in tissue paper. She took it out.

  Huus had been holding so tight on the yellowing bridal veil that he left marks on the lace.

  The evening train arrived, and they went out onto the platform.

  “Phew,” said the slim guard in the tight, revealing trousers, “getting the train through during the holidays… half an hour late…”

  “You’re in for trouble,” said Bai.

  Katinka looked down at the carriages. There was a sweaty face at each window.

  “Fancy,” she said, “all these people wanting to travel.” The guard gave a laugh.

  “Well,” he said. “That’s what the railways are for.” He saluted and jumped on to the footboard.