The Weight of Water (20 page)

“But you are the nurse. I am a great burden to you.”

“Oh, no,” I said, hastening to assure him that he was welcome. But he shook his head.

“In this country, I have been nothing but a burden. I’ve had no luck and have not made my mark. I owe money to everyone, and
I see no real prospects of a job.”

“You have work with my husband,” I pointed out.

“But I’m not working now, am I? I’m sick. I can’t even pay my rent to you.”

“Don’t be thinking of that now. You should be thinking of getting well,” I said.

“Yes?” he asked, suddenly brightening. “Do you think you will make me well, Mrs. Hontvedt?”

“I will try…,” I said, somewhat embarrassed. “But you are hungry. Let me feed you now.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hontvedt. Please feed me.”

I turned to him as he said this, and he was smiling, and I thought for a moment he might be mocking me, but then I dismissed
the notion. I had been waiting for the soup to come to the boil when he had knocked, and now I stirred it and poured some
into a bowl. I had in addition the flatbrød that I had baked earlier in the day. The soup was a fish chowder and had, if I
may say so, a wonderful aroma, so much so, in fact, that I was compelled to pour myself a bowl.

Louis sipped from his bowl with an inelegant sucking sound, and I thought that he had probably not ever been much on manners.
I observed, as he drank, that his copper beard badly needed trimming, and that while I had been fairly diligent with his laundry,
his lying in bed so many hours of the day had stained his shirt around the neck and under the arms. I was thinking that perhaps,
if I could find some proper cloth, I would make him a new shirt while he was recovering.

“You are a good cook,” he said, looking up from the soup.

“Thank you,” I said, “but fish soup is easy, is it not?”

“I can’t cook myself,” he said. He put his spoon down. “You are lonely here?”

To my surprise, I blushed. I was so rarely ever asked questions of a personal nature.

“No,” I said. “I have my dog, Ringe.”

“Your dog,” he said, observing me. “Is he enough?”

“Well, I have my husband…”

“But he is gone all the day.”

“And I have work. There is always a great deal to do here. You have seen this.”

“Too much work makes for a dull life,” he said, and again smiled to reveal his teeth. He brushed his hair, which had grown
long and somewhat greasy and overhung his forehead, with his fingers. “Do you have a pipe?” he asked.

I was, for the moment, confused by this request. I didn’t know whether John would like me to share his tobacco with this boarder,
but I didn’t quite know how to refuse Louis Wagner.

“My husband sometimes smokes in the evenings,” I said.

Louis tilted his head at me. “But he is not here during the day, is he?”

“There are pipes,” I said uncertainly.

Louis simply smiled at me and waited.

After a time, uncomfortable under his scrutiny, I went to the box where John kept the pipes, handed one to Louis, and watched
as he filled it with tobacco. Outside it was a fair day, with a calm sea. The sun highlighted the salt on the windows so that
it looked like ice crystals.

I had never smoked a pipe without my husband, and never at such an early hour in the morning, but I confess that as I sat
there observing Louis, my own yearning for a smoke grew, so that after a time, I got out my own pipe and, as Louis had just
done, filled it with tobacco. I suppose I had been quite nervous altogether, for the first long draw on my pipe tasted wonderfully
marvelous and calmed my hands.

Louis seemed amused that I was smoking with him. “In Prussia,” he said, “women do not smoke.”

“I am a married woman,” I said. “My husband has taught me to smoke.”

“And what other things has your husband taught you?” Louis asked quickly with a smile.

I hasten to say that I did not like this rejoinder and so did not answer him, but Louis seemed determined to tease me out
of my somber demeanor, and so said to me, “You look too young to be a married woman.”

“Then you have seen not too many married women,” I said.

“I don’t have enough money for a proper woman.”

I colored at my understanding of the possible meaning of this utterance and turned my head away.

“John Hontvedt is very lucky to have such a beautiful wife,” he said, persisting in this inappropriate speech.

“You are being silly,” I said, “and I will not listen to such talk.”

“But it’s true,” he said. “I’ve been looking at the women in this country for eleven years, and none are so beautiful as you.”

I am ashamed to admit, so many years later, that at that moment I was at least partially flattered by this talk. I knew that
Louis Wagner was flirting with me, and that it was improper for him to do so, but though I could scold him, I could not quite
bring myself to banish him from my apartment. After all, I told myself, he meant no harm. And to be truthful, I had never
in my life had a man call me beautiful. I don’t believe that my husband ever said such a thing. I don’t think, in fact, that
he ever even called me pretty. I was not thinking at the time that any of these attentions were in any way dangerous.

“I have made some konfektkake,” I said, wishing to change the subject. “Can I give you a piece?”

“What is the konfektkake?” he asked.

“It’s a Norwegian sweet,” I said. “I think you will like it.”

I put before our boarder a plate of chocolate cake. Louis damped his pipe and laid it on the table. After he had taken his
first bite of cake, I could see immediately that he had a great liking for it, and he ate steadily until nearly all of it
was gone. I was thinking that I had ought to eat the remaining two pieces, as I would not be able to explain to my husband
that evening what had happened to the rest, and so I did. Louis wiped the icing from his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.

“I think that you are seducing me with all this smoke and konfektkake,” he said, grinning and pronouncing the Norwegian badly.

I was shocked by his words. I stood up. “You must go now,” I said quickly.

“Oh, but Mrs. Hontvedt, do not send me away. We are having such a nice time. And I am only teasing you. I can see you have
not been teased much lately. Am I correct?”

“Please go now,” I repeated.

He got up slowly from his chair, but in doing so, arranged himself so that he was standing even closer to me than he had been
before. I did not like actually to back away from him, and besides, I would have had to press against the stove, which I could
not do for fear of burning myself, and so it was that he reached out and put his fingers to my cheek, very gently, and to
my everlasting shame, unbidden tears sprang quite suddenly to my eyes, tears so numerous that I was unable to hide them.

“Mrs. Hontvedt,” he said in an astonished voice.

I reached up and tore his hand away from my cheek. There was no reply I could have made to him that even I myself could have
understood, and as I did not think that he would leave the room, I grabbed my cloak from the hook and ran from the cottage
altogether.

Once begun, the tears would not stop, and so I walked nearly blindly to the end of the island and put my hands into fists
and shook them angrily at the sea.

I did not tell my husband of Louis Wagner’s visit to me, as, in truth, there was not much to tell, but John shortly could
see for himself that his boarder was improving in strength. I never did, after that first morning, invite Wagner into my apartment
when I was alone, but I saw him often enough, as I continued to nurse him, and then later, morning and evening, when he took
his meals with us. Indeed, after he was fully recovered, Wagner took to sitting by the stove in the evenings, so that there
would be Wagner and myself and John and Matthew, and sometimes the men would talk, but most often, they would smoke in silence.
I am happy to report that I never again lost my composure with Louis Wagner, although I must say he continued to place me
under his scrutiny, and if he no longer dared to tease me with words, I did think, from time to time, that he mocked me with
his eyes.

There was only one other occasion when I was seriously to wonder at Louis Wagner’s intentions and, indeed, his sanity. On
a late summer afternoon, while Louis was still recuperating, I heard through the wall that separated our apartment from his
room the most dreadful banging about and muttering, and I suddenly became extremely frightened.

“Louis?” I called, and then again, “Louis?”

But I had no reply, and still the commotion in the next room continued. Quite concerned, I ran outside the house and looked
in at the window of our boarder’s room, which, I am sorry to say, I had not yet adorned with curtains. There I saw a most
astounding sight. Louis Wagner, in a fit of uncommon distress, was thrashing and flailing about, upturning objects on the
shelf, creating a chaos with the bedclothes, and all the time expressing a terrible rage on his face and in a series of unintelligible
sounds. I was too terrified to call to him lest he turn his fury on me, but I was also apprehensive for his own well-being.
And then, seemingly as suddenly as he had begun, Louis Wagner stopped his wild behavior and flopped himself back upon his
bed and began that sort of hysterical laughing that is accompanied by tears, and after a time, he threw his arm across his
eyes, and I think he fell asleep. Reassured that his fit, whatever its origin, had ended, I went back to my kitchen and pondered
this unusual and unnatural outburst.

Gradually, as I have said, Louis Wagner recovered his health and was able to return to work for John. Several times, after
Louis was up and about, John went, as accustomed, to fetch Karen from Appledore, and on these occasions, which were always
on Sunday afternoons, Louis would be dressed in his best shirt, and I must say, that when his hair was washed and combed,
he made a rather fine appearance. Karen, perhaps thinking that Wagner might be a possible suitor, was considerably warmer
with him than she was with me, and I observed that her melancholy seemed to leave her altogether. She made some effort to
fix her face, but this effort was largely unsuccessful in the way that trying to reshape a molded bit of rubber will be a
futile enterprise, as the elasticity of the rubber itself will cause the object immediately to resume its original shape.
One time Karen actually said to me that she thought Louis Wagner a handsome man and that he seemed to be favoring her with
some attention, but as I had actually been there on every occasion they had been together, and had observed Wagner’s demeanor
toward my sister, which was cordial, but not overly so, I privately thought that Karen must be in the thrall of those peculiar
fantasies that visit spinsters in their desperation.

On one such Sunday afternoon as I am describing, Karen came into our house with John. It was, I believe, early in September,
and the weather was mild, but quite dreary, as the sun hadn’t broken through the cloud in several days. Everything on the
island that day was covered with a fine mist, and I fancied I could see the dew on John’s hair as well when he brought my
sister to us.

But my attention was most drawn to the expression on Karen’s face, which seemed a mixture of secret confidence and of pleasure,
and was so fixed upon me that I could not turn away from her. She came directly toward me and smiled, and I was quite at a
loss as to what she meant to convey to me, and when I asked her outright what seemed to be pleasing her so, she said only
that I must be patient, and that perhaps I would find out in good time. Her withholding of her secret made me, I confess,
cross with her, and I vowed to put my sister and her machinations out of my mind, but so determined was Karen to whet my curiosity
that it was nearly impossible to turn away from her or to avoid her glance. She then proceeded to preside, in her rather silly
fashion, over the entire Sunday dinner, speaking of the personages who had been to visit Celia Thaxter, who was Eliza Laighton’s
mother and a poetess of some repute, of the work on the Jacob Poor Hotel, and of a small altercation she herself had had with
her employer, and, in short, speaking of nearly everything but the one thing she wished me to know.

As I am not possessed of extraordinary reserves of patience, and as she meant to keep me guessing an entire week more by not
revealing anything else that afternoon, I found that I could not hold my tongue when she was preparing to leave and was putting
on her cloak.

“Tell me what your secret is, Karen, or I shall die of curiosity/’ I said, knowing that this was precisely the begging sentence
my sister had wanted to hear from me.

“Oh, it is nothing, Maren,” she said airily. “Simply that I have had a letter from Evan.”

“Evan,” I said, catching my breath. “And did you bring this letter with you?”

“I am so sorry, Maren, but I have forgotten it, and have left it back in my room.”

“Then tell me what Evan has written to you.”

She looked at me and smiled in a condescending manner. “Only that he is coming in October.”

“Evan?”

“He is sailing in two weeks and will be here toward the middle of the month. He says he wishes to stay with you and John,
here on Smutty Nose, for a time until he can settle himself.”

Evan! Coming to America! I confess I must have betrayed my excitement by clutching John by the arm. “Do you hear Karen?” I
asked. “Evan will be coming. And in only a month’s time.” I bent and picked up my dog, Ringe, who, having sensed a mood of
enthusiasm in the room, was leaping about wildly.

I may truly say here that the next weeks were the most pleasant I ever had on Smutty Nose. Even Karen I was able to tolerate
with some equanimity, though, irritatingly, she forgot each week to bring Evan’s letter to me. I doubt I have ever been as
industrious as I was in those early autumn days, scrubbing the upstairs bedroom clean, making curtains and a floorcloth, and
as the time grew closer for Evan’s arrival, baking many of the delicacies I knew he loved in Norway and probably thought never
to have again: the rommegot, the krumcake, and the skillingsbolle. John, I believe, was quite happy to see me so content and
purposeful, and I think he did not mind at all that soon we would have another mouth to feed. If the thought of my brother’s
arrival could cause such happiness in his wife, a happiness that was infectious and conveyed itself to all, so that there
was on Smutty Nose an atmosphere of the greatest gaiety and anticipation, then my husband would accept its cause gladly. Even
the weather seemed to cooperate, bestowing upon us a succession of clear days with a lively but manageable sea, so that just
to walk outside that cottage and breathe in the air seemed nearly intoxicating.