Ida Brandt (27 page)

They drank a little until Karl stretched his legs right out in the big chair and Ida brought him a stool, and they heard nothing but the gas hissing.

“It’s nice here,” said Karl.

“Yes.”

Ida lay with her head against his legs, and her voice still trembled a little, but suddenly she became high spirited simply by feeling the tender desire in his fingers against her neck and she looked around, from below, and pointed to the lace pillow, laughing the while, though she did not know why.

“She didn’t take that with her,” she said.

“No,” said Karl, raising her up; but Ida freed herself and took the work from the pillow and started playing with the needles. “Be careful,” said Karl, who had bent down and was blowing at her hair until she came close to him again and stood behind his chair with her chin on his hair. Then, with her eyes closed, she said in a voice so gentle that it was only just audible:

“We’ re going to get married this evening.”

Karl looked up into her eyes, which had opened wide, but his look was different from hers and he had given the same tiny, imperceptible start as before.

“We’ve done that before, love,” he said in a rather louder voice than hers and her chin was lifted from his hair.

“But damn it all, we’ re not drinking anything,” said Karl. They had been silent for a while, and he handed her the glass up above his head; she took it but did not touch it.

“Ah, we’ve got the drawings over there, by Gad.” Karl suddenly caught sight of the parcel on the marble-topped table in the corner.

“What drawings?” Ida asked, scarcely aware of what she had said.

“The ones of Ludvigsbakke,” said Karl, who had risen. “Let’s have a look at the damned things.”

“Good heavens, where have they come from?”

Ida was over there like a shot.

“It’s Kate that has left them around,” said Karl, who had taken the package and pushed the lace pillow aside.

“What a lot,” said Ida. There was sheet after sheet.

“They unrolled the plans and held them down with their elbows while sitting beside each other on the sofa.

“That’s the main building,” said Karl. “Oh, it’s going to be some size.”

“And there are towers on it,” said Ida.

“Yes,” said Karl, nudging her. “All you need to see is a tower.”

It was in the Italian style with towers and flat roofs. Ida lifted the plan up and supported it on the lamp. “But it will be lovely,” she said.

Karl sat and sniffed. “Yes, it will suit the surroundings fine by Gad,” he said and wrinkled his nose. He sat waving one hand in front of the plan while Ida continued to look at the building.

“You know,” she said: “You will be able to see the whole of Brædstrup from that tower.”

“Damn it all, what they want is to see as far as Horsens,” said Karl. He sat nodding in front of the plan. “And there are no terraces, but the fact is that people always build in such a way that it is obvious they don’t really have the money for it after all.”

They went to the next sketch. This was the plan of the first floor. Ida traced the way from room to room with her finger and Karl checked the letters at the bottom of the plan.
That
was the sitting room – two sitting rooms – and
that
was the room for tea.

“And all that is the dining room,” said Ida.

“Thirty-six feet long,” said Karl. “There will be a splendid view from there after dinner.”

He started to find it interesting; he followed the letters and measured the rooms, stretched his fingers over them and nodded. Walls had been broken through, and there was plate glass everywhere.

“Yes, she’s got hold of some designs from abroad,” he said.

Ida had let go of the plan; she had never seen such a house.

“What a lot of space they will have,” she said, looking at all the rooms. “But we won’t recognise it.”

Karl continued to measure and study.

“Yes, the inside’s all right.” He clicked his tongue. “It’s damned good.”

“Yes,” – and almost a little shyly she put her head down on his shoulder – “They have the money.”

Karl nodded and looked up from the plan into the lamp.

“Yes,” he said.

He went on looking in the light from the lamp for a moment:

“It was us who should have had the damned place,” he said then.

Ida suddenly smiled.

“Yes,” and she, too, looked into the light from the lamp.

“Because we were born to it,” said Karl.

“Yes,
you
…”

“You, too, damn it,” said Karl, lowering his voice a little.

He took the next plan. This was of all the bedrooms and bathrooms with tubs and wardrobes. The entire alphabet from A to Z was at the foot of the sketch. Karl sniffed and rubbed his hands.

“Good God,” he said, “she’s furnishing this for when she gets married.”

“And six guest rooms.”

He counted them up:

“With a bathroom to each of them.”

It amused him, almost as though Kate had been studying interior decoration under his direction.”

“It’s English,” he said. “It’s good.” And he scratched his head: “She’s a devil; she’s really got hold of some designs.”

Ida continued to sit with her head against his shoulder, following his hands and looking up into his face: it was as though she was not really able to encompass all those rooms.

“Yes, they are going to have a lovely place.”

“Of course they are going to have a lovely place.” And he shuffled a little in his eagerness: now came the next plan, the stables. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said. “She’s a devil, she really is.”

The stables were also English (as he explained) with stalls for the animals like they had for the great racehorses in England.

Ida admired it in silence – she knew nothing about stables – and while looking out across the lawn, she suddenly said:

“But it’s a good thing that my father is dead.”

Karl laughed as he bent over the sketch.

“No,” he said, “there wouldn’t have been anything for the old man here.”

And he went on laughing at the thought of seeing old Brandt in Kate’s English stables.

Ida had risen and all of a sudden she said, without knowing why it suddenly occurred to her, for a minute previously she had never thought of it:

“Do you know, I’m going to rent a flat now.”

“What do you say?”

“Well, I’m going to rent a flat.”

She had been thinking for a long time that she would really like to have a flat.

“Where?” was all Karl said.

And suddenly, Ida knew where it was to be, in Ole Suhrsgade, for that was so convenient; and she knew what sort of a flat she wanted: four rooms; she had always had this idea, a flat like the one the Kristensens had.

She stood on the other side of the table and leant forward beneath the lamp so that the shadow of her head fell on the sketch of the stables.

“And the furniture is all standing unused out at Horsens.”

She was so enthusiastic that her cheeks flushed.

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” said Karl; he was still sitting with the sketch in his hand. Ida went over to him and pulled his head down to her.

“And then you will always be able to have lunch at home,” she said.

Her voice had the ring that he loved.

“Tell me, chick,” he said, and she looked up into his face: “How long can you stay?”

Ida merely smiled and closed her eyes.

Karl rolled the plans up while Ida went across to the corner sofa with the stereoscope as though she were here for the first time.

“And we’ll have gentleman’s furniture in the big room,” she said.

Karl was sitting on the sofa with the back of his head against the wall.

“No,” he said: “We are going to sleep in the big room.”

They sat in silence for a time while the gas bubbled, and Karl looked across at Ida sitting right under the light until he suddenly said in a low voice:

“It must be horrible to sit there and keep watch.”

And Ida shook her head and said in the same tone:

“No, not now…”

She was silent for a moment.

“For I can sit there and remember everything,” she said.

There was silence again for a moment until Karl went across to her. He did not make use of pet names, but simply sat and stroked her hands, quite tenderly (thinking to himself: this is going to be difficult one day) until she kissed his cheek.

“Are you going now?” he whispered.

She got up and he heard the door quietly open and close.

“Have you put the light out?” he asked when he came into his room.

“Yes,” she whispered.

And the hands she reached out to him were trembling and cold.

“Are you frightened, chick?”

“I’m going soon,” she said, and she continued to be nervous and cold.

She had to go when morning came.

Karl was in a bad mood.

“You need only to take me down to a cab,” said Ida.

And that was all he did, and when Ida was in the cab, she bent her head down and kissed his hand as it lay on the carriage door.

“I was afraid after all,” she whispered.

“There, chick,” said Karl as though to comfort her. For it was as though she was on the verge of tears.

Karl wandered back.

Shortly afterwards he was stretched out at full length in his French bed. He took a couple of final puffs at his cigarette, while staring up rather dubiously at the ceiling.

“But I mustn’t give her any ideas,” he said, nodding his head on his pillow.

Ida was home and went in through the doorway. Porters and doorkeepers were costing her a great deal in tips. Once up in her room she lay down on her bed.

Yes, she would have that flat and then she would never go over there any more. No, she would never go over there again.

The day had started with rain and sleet. The doctors had been there, cold in their white coats, and the professor’s fingers had been white and dead to the knuckles as he rubbed his hands over the patients’ beds.

Daylight should come now, but it did not come.

The porter turned out those who had jobs to do and moved them towards the door, shouting at them as though they were a herd of cattle. And the keys rattled and the doors were shut.

“Why aren’t I going?” said Bertelsen probably for the tenth time, raising his watchful eyes while the tap water ran down over his hands.

“Because your mother’s coming, Bertelsen,” said Ida.

“Now Bertelsen, you’ re clean, you’ re washed now.”

Bertelsen looked at his hands and every chewed nail before, with his head down, going across and settling near the stove, languid and with his eyes half closed until he again said to Ida as she passed:

“Why wasn’t I going?”

Ida repeated:

“I’ve told you, Bertelsen; it’s because your mother’s coming.”

And as Ida went about her tasks, there was no sound but the groaning of two patients from the Hall and the footsteps of the gentleman in Ward A as he walked about on the floor.

There came the rattle of keys in the door to the women’s ward. It was Quam returning.

“It’s rather dull in here,” he said.

“Yes,” said Ida; it was as though she either could not or did not really dare to wake up.

“And it would really be better if they made a din,” said Quam, “for if they become too lethargic, this place begins to look like the confounded underworld itself.”

He sat down on the table beneath the window while Nurse Petersen called to Ida from the kitchen to see whether she could help with the hem on her dress.

“Do you go out in this weather?” asked Quam.

“Oh,” Nurse Petersen was going to the sales. When there was a doctor present, Nurse Petersen always adopted some strange movements with her arms, not unlike a wader flapping its wings. There was a sale on of table linen.

“Oh,” said Ida, kneeling behind the kitchen door to help with the hem, suddenly adding in a high-pitched, excited voice: “In that case you could perhaps keep an eye open for upholstery material.”

Quam raised his head.

“Are you getting married?” he asked.

“No, but I’m going to rent a flat.” She stood up.

Quam got down from the table.

“Yes,” he said: “That’s probably far more sensible.”

He went across past the kitchen door and nodded back towards Bertelsen.

“Are they
his
clothes?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“Good morning.”

Quam went; but Nurse Petersen sat down. She had to know:
where
it was going to be and
when
she had decided.

“Oh, I’ve wanted to for a long time,” said Ida, and she started telling them about the flat and the furniture she was going to have, and the fabrics she would choose, making up all the things she had never thought of and she herself believed she had been thinking of it for a long time.

“And I’m going to have leather upholstery on the furniture in the main room,” she said.

Bertelsen suddenly raised his head.

“What time’s she coming?” he asked.

“Eleven o’ clock, Bertelsen.”

Nurse Petersen had become quite sentimental at the thought of the flat.

“Then you’ll have a whole home of your own,” she said.

Ida smiled at this word and was silent for a moment, though the smile did not leave her.

“Yes,” she said and, silently, stared into the distance.

Nurse Petersen was gone – carrying the news with her for general distribution – and Ida took water to the patients in the main ward and tidied their pillows. Then she sat and crocheted at the table under the window. From the noisy ward there came a subdued groaning, as though the entire building was filled with some secret and subdued complaint.

“When is she coming?” asked Bertelsen again.

“She’ll soon be here, Bertelsen.” And she continued with her work: when she was not talking to anyone about it, it was as though she was edgy and unable really to grasp the ideas relating to her “home”.

There were two hesitant knocks on the door from the corridor and Ida opened it. It was Mrs Bertelsen whose face showed the first signs of tears even on the threshold. “Come in, Mrs Bertelsen,” Ida said, “he’s been expecting you.” And Mrs Bertelsen went across to her son, who did not get up. “Hello, Jakob,” she said in a curious mixture of humility and nervousness, to which he only answered with a grunt. Then he moved across to the table, and his mother went with him. Her face, on which all flesh seemed to have disappeared, and her hat – a summer bonnet covered with some old material – stood out in contrast to the grey wall.