Walking Into the Night (14 page)

41

Though I don’t know how or when you found out, I think it only right that I should tell you when I discovered that you knew I’d lied about my education.

I remember how happy I was that day. It was in the spring of 1915; I hadn’t yet begun my visits to the States. I’d worked hard for years to secure contracts to export saltfish to Spain and only that morning I’d received confirmation from my clients in Barcelona that they’d signed the papers and mailed them to me. This was a great relief, as I’d already made investments in order to fulfill my obligations according to the agreement.

God, I was glad! This contract marked a turning point. At last I felt free of the burdens that I had inherited from your father. I told Stefan we should take a break, though it was only just after eleven, and walk down to the harbor, something we both enjoyed, before taking a long lunch at Hotel Iceland. It was no less of a relief to him; he knew about the commitments I had made and, being cautious by nature, thought I’d taken a big gamble.

We’d barely reached the next street corner when I bumped into Svensen from the drugstore. We were on good terms, though we’d never spent much time together; he was a decent fellow, and his elder son had worked on the boats for me in the summers during his school vacations.

“Thanks for your help,” Svensen said as we shook hands.

I assumed he was referring to the place on the boat that I had arranged for his son, but fortunately he continued before I could reveal my misunderstanding.

“No doubt your reference had an influence. He’s been accepted by the college.”

What I discovered after a brief talk with Svensen was that the previous winter he had knocked on our door requesting that I write a letter of reference for his younger son, who had applied for a place at the Commercial College in Copenhagen, as he believed I was a graduate of the school. I was in Spain at the time, due back in a couple of weeks. You promised to relay his request to me, took the directions about where I should send the letter, and assured him that I would gladly provide the reference.

Before we parted he took my hand in a firm grasp and thanked me again. Stefan and I walked down to the harbor. The high spirits that had raised me out of my chair a few minutes earlier had now dissipated, and when we reached the docks all I wanted to do was jump on board one of the ships and sail away.

Could it have been a coincidence that the very day I finally thought I’d saved the company your father had almost bankrupted, I discovered that you knew about the lie which had been intended to make me seem more interesting than I really was? Yet again I had been put in my place. I could work like mad, slave day and night to salvage what your family had ruined, but when it came down to it I was still nothing but a country boy, uneducated, naïve, useful, but not good enough for you. And you wanted to protect me from facing this fact because you knew it would destroy the pretense that our marriage was built on.

Did you think I would never find out? I don’t know. Perhaps you never considered it, perhaps you didn’t care, perhaps you thought it was best for me to find out like this. No matter how hard I try, I can’t understand what you were thinking.

We were never equals, Elisabet. Not even when we made love. Even then it was as if you were placating a child.

42

Across the street, washing flapped on a line strung between two fire escapes on the fourth floor, but he didn’t notice it as he stared out of the window. The street was coming to life but she was asleep. They had been out late last night. Dancing. They had drunk more than usual. She moved restlessly in her sleep but didn’t surface. He watched her for a long time, trying to imagine what she was dreaming.

The war was over. He could already sense the change that was starting to take place in the city. The parties were bigger, the pace faster. And business was booming. Stocks were all the rage. All of a sudden everyone owned stocks, which only seemed to increase in value. At parties people compared how much their portfolios had gone up since last week, since the day before, since this morning. And they didn’t have to lift a finger. Up ten percent. Up twenty percent. And the hemlines raced upward, as well, from ankles to knees.

Yet he didn’t feel drawn to take part in the boom. He kept a casual eye on the latest novelties that were being invented and advertised, but it didn’t occur to him to acquire the agency for these goods and import them to Iceland. It didn’t occur to him to join in the game; he didn’t even try to ponder the cause of his indifference, but went out carousing every evening with Klara, slept late, made no attempt to do anything practical in the midst of all that frantic wheeling and dealing. Sometimes he vanished for two or three hours after lunch. When she asked him where he’d been, the answer was always the same: to the library to look at the papers. He failed to mention that he spent just as much time reading about birds. All kinds of birds. Especially the more exotic species.

The hotel was cheap but clean, a week cost the same as a night at the Waldorf-Astoria. They’d moved here two weeks ago. She suspected he hadn’t paid for the last few weeks at the Waldorf— at least, their hasty departure gave this impression. He had moved their bags one by one, unobtrusively, over several days, and when they walked out of the main entrance for the last time, he joked as usual with the doormen, slipping them tips and asking them to make sure that the weather held fine that day. It was obvious they liked him. He made himself popular everywhere.

His mood hardly ever altered but his eyes could take on a strange look when he’d downed a few drinks. Yesterday evening he’d insisted on introducing her to some Swedes he’d met at a bar, though he knew that she never liked to mix with her countrymen.

“Klara, don’t be like that,” he said. “They might know your uncle. They say they’re from an old Swedish family. From Stockholm, I think they said. They’re amusing chaps.”

“No,” she’d said, “I don’t want to meet them. Why are you doing this? You know I don’t want to.”

“I thought it would amuse you. Your countrymen . . . from an old family like yours. I only suggested it for your sake . . .”

There was a strange expression in his eyes when he said this, as if his thoughts were quite different from his words. She was about to leave when he suddenly put his arms around her.

“Do you hear . . . do you hear what they’re playing?” he said. “Come on, let’s dance!”

She had never seen him lose his temper. He seemed incapable of quarreling, and she knew he would say things he didn’t believe in order to avoid an argument. Which is why she had difficulty believing that he had really been to see Jones just over a week after he had learned of their affair.

“Who told him?” was her initial reaction.

“It doesn’t matter,” answered Kristjan.

She hadn’t seen Jones since it happened; when she had come home that evening her bags were waiting for her down in the entrance hall. She opened her suitcases in Kristjan’s room at the Waldorf-Astoria as soon as she arrived. She was taken aback when she saw how carefully her clothes had been packed. There was no question in her mind that he had done it himself. Shirts and blouses folded in one case, dresses next to them, her cosmetics in a bag in the second, along with her shoes; underwear, scarves, and knick-knacks in the third. Everything so neatly packed and nothing missing except the necklace her uncle had given her when she was confirmed. The doorman carried her cases out to the taxi. She hurried away; Kristjan sensed how relieved she was no longer having to look her lover—her former lover—in the eye.

Kristjan was restless that night, pacing up and down silently. When she went up to him to put her arms round him, he pushed her away. Gently, but still pushing her away. She broke down. She thought she had lost them both.

“You don’t give a damn about me. You’re just worried about what he thinks of you. That’s the only thing that matters to you. You can’t stand it if someone doesn’t like you . . .”

Instead of sitting down beside her, he continued pacing and stopped only to say, as he stood by the window: “Don’t talk that way, Klara dear, don’t talk that way.” But she could see that his mind was elsewhere.

It was then that she finally stopped weeping and whispered, rather than spoke:

“I’m two months late.”

43

She didn’t believe Kristjan had gone to see him until they received the necklace the following day.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? He must have said something. Why do you say he said nothing?”

“He behaved better towards me than I deserved.”

“That’s no answer. He must have said something.”

“He said he’d try to find your necklace.”

“My necklace? You must have talked about more than that.”

It was hot in the office. Jones was standing by the open window. On the table there were piles of papers and documents. Everything seemed in order. He brushed some dust from the windowsill and blew it off his fingers out the window. He was wearing a light suit and yellow tie, his hair slicked back, his face ruddy from the sun. Kristjan took a chair in front of the desk.

“I’m surprised that you’re here. You must know you disgust me. But I’m perfectly calm. Look—”

He held out his hands, backs facing up.

“They’re perfectly steady . . . No sign of trembling or shaking. I just wanted you to see that there’s nothing wrong with me before I tell you that certain people have been in touch with me. So you wouldn’t think this was a momentary rage or some fit that’ll pass. Fred O’Connor—you’re familiar with the name— and William Green. Or was it Grey? Don’t remember, doesn’t matter anyway. They said you’d spoken to them. Needed an agent because you were thinking of doing business in Sweden. Sweden! Christian, you must have a screw loose. Didn’t it occur to you that they would consult me? Didn’t you realize they knew I used to be your agent? I warned them against you. I told them you didn’t pay your debts—don’t say anything, I know that part isn’t true—that you’re dishonest and underhanded. Which you most certainly are.

“I want you to hear this from my lips, because I have no intention of going behind your back. I want you to know that I’m going to use every opportunity to make your life miserable.”

Kristjan sat motionless in his chair but his eyes followed Jones, who was pacing back and forth before the window. Finally he stopped and tried to smile.

“I can’t help it, even though I know you’ve done me a favor when all’s said and done. Imagine if I’d actually married her. I’d be married to a whore. You rescued me, in fact. Yes, maybe I should be grateful to you, Christian Benediktsson—the Icelandic Baron. You’re good together.”

Kristjan rose to his feet.

“There’s a necklace missing that means a lot to her.”

“A necklace?”

Kristjan raised his finger automatically to his own chest.

“Oh . . . from her uncle . . . the Count.”

“Yes, apparently he gave her this necklace as a confirmation present.”

“I bet they were at the country house when he gave it to her?”

“What?”

“I bet her sister Inga had died by then? Gone to float among the lilies?”

“Her name was Lena.”

“Really, changed her name, has she?”

Silence.

“Do you still have it? The necklace?”

Jones turned away from the window, walked over to his desk and looked Kristjan up and down for a moment.

“Are you telling me you don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?”

“Come on. You don’t know?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t know it’s all lies. Make-believe. Her uncle the Count, the country house, the servants, Inga or Lena or whatever she says her name was, the estate owner who courted her— didn’t she tell you about him? It’s a pack of lies from beginning to end. My God, you had no idea!”

The breeze stirred the papers on the desk before him. He laid a paperweight on top of them, but left the window open.

“It’s been a while since I got in touch with a fellow I know at the Swedish Embassy. She’s the daughter of a laborer. Her mother died young. The old man died a few years ago. It’s all lies. She can keep her dreams as far as I’m concerned—that’s what I told myself when I found out. Doesn’t cost me anything . . .”

His secretary knocked at the door and poked her head round.

“They’re here,” she said. “They’re waiting.”

“Christian’s leaving. He’s on his way out.”

The following day a courier arrived with the necklace. It came in a small box with a ribbon round it. The box was white, as was the ribbon. The package was addressed to Kristjan. “Send my regards to the Count,” said the accompanying note.

44

In the summer I move slowly at midday, when it’s hottest. I try to organize my chores so that I’m indoors when the sun is at its highest and stick to the shade if I’m outside. I generally wear a dark suit because the Chief doesn’t like to see me in shirtsleeves during the day. Still, my face is tanned and I won’t deny that sometimes I long to take off my shirt to let the sun get at my body. But that’s not appropriate, unless I pick up a hammer or spade and join the workmen. I sometimes do that, for a change of pace, during the Chief’s absences, when I have more time on my hands; I enjoy sweating in the heat from the physical exertion. And the smell of earth and timber and stone never fails to cheer me up.

I feel best during the late afternoons and early evenings. In fact it’s strange how much I’ve begun to look forward to twilight, when the gardener finishes washing down the terrace around the houses. If neither the Chief nor Miss Davies is home, I’ll grab the chance to sit on a stool out on my balcony and watch the pavement dry. During the last few days the head gardener has given the task to a young man. I’ve not seen him before, but he is nimble and thorough. He’s so absorbed in his duties that he still hasn’t noticed me up here on the balcony. I try not to make a noise, putting my coffee cup carefully down on its saucer, puffing on a cigarette to while away the time in the twilight and watching the smoke curl into the still air like the remnants of a dream. I think about nothing, empty my mind, and never feel better than during these minutes out on the balcony when light and darkness meet and the flowers bow their heads before the coming night.

He keeps his eyes on the ground: short, swarthy, probably from Mexico. Wields the hose with dexterity, keeping up a steady pressure so it’s a pleasure to listen to the splashing of water on stone. I must find out who he is, I tell myself, and make a mental note, because I instinctively like this painstaking boy.

The smell of stone rises up to me as the water evaporates from the terrace. The boy has gone and dusk climbs the tree on the other side of the path, before setting off up the mountainside. I can’t see the ocean from my balcony but I know it’s there. I’m alone. All is calm. And I let my eyelids droop, imagining that the footprints of everyone who has walked on the terrace that day are steaming up to me in the warm evening. I feel as if I can sense what passed through their minds and hearts as they strode past, the girls from the kitchen, the workmen, the delivery boy who brought supplies up the hill in his truck. I can’t see their faces but I can hear their voices; they’re always cheerful and say nothing that might upset my thoughts.

I amuse myself like this as it grows dark, the water dries on the terrace and the earth prepares for sleep. My thoughts are like a mirror-smooth lake, even when I feel that Klara has walked by. I am used to it and no longer react with shock as I did when I first sensed her presence. Nowadays I always whisper something first—tell her stories from when she was little, as I did when she was dying. She listens; yes, I’m sure she’s there, listening. Then she vanishes and I stand up and the night comes to me like an absolution.