Ida Brandt (18 page)

Who
had spent his money?

The porter fetched the four for work in the basement, and the old patients dozed in their beds. In Ward A, the gentleman measured the floor with his feet. Occasionally there came a cry from the “noisy” ward.

Ida went to and fro seeing to the old patients and then she returned to her chair until it grew dusk.

Nurse Kjær stuck her boyish head in from the women’s ward.

“Good evening, nurse.

And suddenly Ida said:

“Oh, Nurse Kjær, could you take over for a moment? I would so much like to go upstairs.”

“Yes,” said Nurse Kjær, closing the door, “just for a moment.”

Ida went out, down the steps, through the garden and hurried across the courtyard to the office. Karl was there alone by the desks beneath the gas lamp, with his legs drawn back under the office chair and his chin on his hands; he was whistling.

When he saw her, he raised his head and smiled at her:

“Good evening.”

She asked about something or other – she did not know what – and she suddenly smiled as he went on talking and all at once stretched in the chair reaching up into the air with his arms.

“Heavens above, what a life,” he said.

And Ida laughed.

She went back across the courtyard. She was no longer troubled and she smiled as she walked. All she was thinking was:

“It’s only reasonable that I should help him.”

And she no longer thought of anything else, simply because she had seen him.

When Ida reached the ward, Nurse Kjær was waiting just inside the door.

“The prof’s there,” she whispered.

Ida jumped and was horrified.

“Where?” she whispered.

“In A.”

There was the sound of keys being gently turned, and Nurse Kjær was back in the women’s ward. Ida went around lighting up, hearing the professor’s voice through the door to Ward A, which was standing ajar. She started to tidy everything up ready for the round, at the same time hearing the porter and the four on the stairs and the keys that were turned in the lock.

“The consultant’s here,” she whispered to the porter, and the four patients, who heard her, crossed over timidly and sat down on the stools beside their beds, while a voice from the women’s ward could suddenly be heard wailing.

Ida was standing in front of the stove when the door to Ward A opened. The professor remained on the threshold, slim and straight, in his long, black coat.

“Yes, just continue, doctor,” he said, closing the door behind him… “Let the patient do as he wishes. And you can turn the gas down at night.”

There was as it were no colour in his voice, and he scarcely opened his lips to speak as though it were a matter of keeping them as tight closed as possible around his white teeth and many secrets.

“Yes, professor.”

He stood for a moment on the threshold to the Hall, while Bertelsen’s eyes glinted as they wandered over his face.

“Nothing new,” he said, moving on silently, in through the door to the women’s ward. But one of the old men lying there in his bed started to complain, as he always did during the professor’s rounds.

Ida went across and knocked on Nurse Petersen’s door to waken her. Dr Quam had come in, but she had not heard him.

“Where’s the professor?” he asked hurriedly.

“He went in to the women’s ward,” replied Ida, who was on her way to the Hall.

Quam was ready to rush across, but he nevertheless stood there for a moment and looked at Ida.

“Is it your birthday again today?” he asked.

Ida laughed:

“No, why?”

“Well you look so cheerful,” he said. He was already half way into the women’s ward. The woman’s cry from before emerged clearly through the open door.

“Nurse Petersen, Nurse Petersen,” Ida shouted.

She turned round; Bertelsen had his hands under the tap again.

“Come on, Bertelsen,” she said, taking him by both wrists and waggling them as though she was shaking hands with him: “You are washed clean now.”

And as she continued to shake the sick man’s wet, red wrists for a moment, she thought with a smile:

“Poor Karl, he tried not to let me see that he was upset.”

They were becoming more and more restless in the women’s ward. Cry after cry, as though the cries were calling to each other and washing up against the closed door.

Nurse Petersen, who had emerged from her bower, put her head into the kitchen.

“Ach, how restless they are,” she said. “But we have a change in the weather.”

Nurse Petersen’s feet were as good as a barometer when there was a change in the weather.

But after tea, Ida ran across to the post office with a registered letter for Mr Karl von Eichbaum.

It was Ida’s last day on day duty.

Nurse Helgesen went through the ward checking; she had a look in her eye all the time as though she were adding something or other to a list.

“Will you take this report across?” she said to Ida.

“Yes,” replied Ida. All the blood drained from her face.

“I have to stay here,” said Nurse Helgesen, sitting down.

So Ida
had
to go across to the office. Her keys seemed to be reluctant to go into all the locks, and she failed to notice the ward sister nodding from her window. It was as though she had been overcome by fear the minute it had been sent yesterday. As soon as she emerged from the entrance to the post office, where she had been so delighted, so happy, as the postman sealed the letter and entered it and gave her a receipt and everything, she had been overcome by dread: suppose he was angry, suppose he was only angry? And she had not slept that night as the thought grew and grew in her mind: that he would be angry. But she ought probably to have written to him, to have said something and explained. But she had not been
able
to write. She had not been able to do it.

But perhaps he was angry now.

She went across the courtyard and in through the entrance and up the stairs. She immediately saw his face by the door; he looked pale. But when he saw her, he turned scarlet.

“I have a report,” she said.

And he bent down towards her.

“It’s simply damned incredible,” he murmured in a voice that was a little broken.

“Thank you.”

Ida drew her breath and made to go, but when they were outside the door – for he had followed her – she said (to help him over it or to comfort him; the thought of saying it had never entered her mind a second before):

“Now we’ll have a cup of coffee on Tuesday.”

It was as though Eichbaum winced. But pursing his lips, he said:

“I’ d rather have tea.”

Ida laughed:

“No,” she said, still in the same hurried voice. “It’s going to be coffee, and we are going to use the old pot.”

And then she ran.

No, no, he was not angry.

Oh no, he had understood her.

Karl von Eichbaum went over to Svendsen’s for lunch. He whistled as he went along the street; but there was nevertheless something, as though he could not really bring himself to think of the money or of the fact that he could now distribute it to plug the worst holes. And he also had something of an unpleasant feeling in his fingers at the mere thought of the envelope containing it.

But when he came to pay, he quickly took one from the bundle of large notes in order to change it.

Jensen, the waiter, stood there, half bowing in front of the envelope.

“Do you wish to pay it all, sir?” he said in a low voice down towards the sofa.

But Mr von Eichbaum did not reply. He had, as though timidly, taken out a card from among the notes. Ida was all that was printed on it and then there was a small picture of Ludvigsbakke in the corner.

Karl von Eichbaum continued to sit there with the card in his hand.

When lunch was over, both Svendsen’s right-hand men, Messrs. Jensen and Sørensen, stood there each leaning on his own doorpost.

“There you see, Sørensen,” (Mr Jensen spoke through his nose, which he considered a mark of distinction in the trade), “that I got the money. That sort of people always find a way out.
We
know that from d’ Angleterre.”

In the days when he was slimmer, Mr Jensen had been the wine waiter in the a-la-carte restaurant in the Hotel d’ Angleterre.

“Aye, we do indeed,” said Sørensen.

Mr Jensen made no reply. He was picking his teeth.

∞∞∞

Ida pretended to be asleep while looking from Nurse Roed in front of the mirror to the alarm clock in front of her bed through eyelids that were only a quarter open. She moved her feet gently up and down beneath the blankets. She could not lie still.

But Nurse Roed had her overcoat on at last and Ida pretended to be just waking up.

“Are you off to your sister’ s?” she said.

“Yes.” That was where Nurse Roed was going. She always went to visit her sister, who was married to a clerk on the railways. They were the only people she knew in town, and in addition there was plenty she could do to help them, looking after their three children.

Ida suddenly had a picture of them, Nurse Roed and Mrs Hansen, as they sat sewing at home on the fourth floor in Rømersgade beneath the lamp in the living room, where the easy chairs – the backs of which were becoming worn – were covered with so many small pieces of embroidery and she suddenly laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” asked Nurse Roed.

“Oh, just something I thought of.”

But suddenly, Ida threw the blankets aside and put her bare feet on the floor.

“Oh,” she said, “wait a moment.” And she ran in her nightdress across to the dresser:

“I have something for the children.” And standing in front of the open dresser so that Nurse Roed should not see the parcels and flowers in it, she tipped some French cakes out of a bag.

“They’ re so good,” she said happily, putting one into Nurse Roed’s mouth before jumping back into her bed.

“You always think of other people,” said Nurse Roed.

But Ida simply laughed.

“No, I think of myself.” And she lay looking up at the ceiling.

She heard Nurse Roed go down the stairs, and she got up again and very quietly turned the key twice as though she were afraid anyone might hear her. Then she started to dress as quickly as she could. There was something about her movements that resembled those of a schoolgirl about to carry out some mad scheme. Oh, there was plenty to do. There was a great deal to be seen to.

She pulled the drawers of the dresser out – they were so heavy from all the great number of things in them – and she took the damask cloth out and the old cups; and the silver coffee pot, which was wrapped in paper, she took out of the middle cupboard. There were also the old plates and the branched candlestick, in which she fixed candles; this was where he was to sit with the cigarettes by his place.

Hm, the last time she had put flowers on the table was for Olivia and the boys. Yes, that was in May. Fancy that it was no longer ago than the twentieth of May.

She lit the lamps and made sure the water was boiling. There must be a rose in his glass…

She went back and forth and she stood in front of the table: Yes, he would surely recognise the old things.

She started to listen while laying the colourful bedspreads on the beds. She looked at her alarm clock. It was not time yet and she sat down by the table, in his place, and waited. Someone was coming now, for she heard the door below: but it was only a porter.

Perhaps something had delayed him; perhaps he would not come. She became so convinced that he would not come as she sat there looking from one thing to the other as though she would at least print in her memory how lovely it was.

And as for the candles, she would let them burn, burn right down until they went out.

But the rose – she quietly took that out of his glass.

She had not heard anyone on the stairs when there came a gentle knock on the door, two knocks, in the way young men knock when on military service, and she opened the door.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said.

Karl von Eichbaum more or less tiptoed in. “I wasn’t seen by anyone at all,” he said.

“But Nurse Helgesen always sits just by her door,” said Ida.

She locked the door – they had automatically both spoken in a half whisper – and Karl took off his coat.

“Well, here we are,” he said as he shook her hand.

“Yes,” said Ida with a laugh: “This is where you are to sit.” She pointed to the big chair.

“It looks like Christmas Eve by Gad,” said Karl, stretching his legs out as he looked at the white table.

“Yes, doesn’t it,” said Ida, who had felt just the same.

“And damn it, there are drinks, too,” said Karl.

Ida poured the coffee in the old cups while Karl simply sat there looking happily at the array and talking about all the old things – the cake dish and the candlesticks. “They took care of their shells at home,” he said.

“Yes, they were on an extension to the table,” said Ida. In her mind she could see the old marble table in Ludvigsbakke with the shells and the fruit bowl from the court auction in Horsens and the two silver cups that were prizes from a couple of agricultural societies.

“But even so, we haven’t any home-made cakes,” she said.

Karl took liberal quantities of what cakes there were, and also of the liqueur. “Yes,” he said, “we helped ourselves to some from Schrøder.” He was thinking of the dented cake tin from Ludvigsbakke. “It’s great fun to go pinching like that.”

“Yes, it was fun,” said Ida, shaking her head, for Karl was looking at her; he always found it so amusing when she did that.

“Did you pinch things at home as well?” asked Karl.

“Yes, quite a lot,” said Ida hurriedly, but suddenly she turned pale.

“How so?” asked Karl.

Ida stared up in the air and then, slowly and quietly, said:

“Because I had to.”

There was silence for a moment.

Then she pulled herself together and raised her glass, and they chinked glasses.

“Cheers,” said Karl. He continued to sit and look at her.

But Ida suddenly became uncomfortable or whatever it was, and she failed to think of anything to say, while Karl, who was perhaps also a little overwhelmed, sat silently, smoking and reading the inscription on the prize coffee pot until he suddenly blurted out: