When I get home, Ebbe wants to know how Ester and Halfdan were, but I only give him one-word answers. When he asks me what’s wrong, I tell him I have a toothache. I roll over on my side in bed, with my back to him, touching the little bump on my elbow from the injection. I am preoccupied with the single thought of doing it again. I could not care less about Ebbe or anyone else but Carl.
PART TWO
1
Ebbe has since died, but whenever I try to recall his face, I always see him the way he looked that day I told him there was someone else. We were sitting at the table, eating with Helle. He put down his knife and fork and pushed back his plate. He was pale, and a nerve in his cheek was vibrating slightly, but that was the only sign of any disturbance. Then he got up from his chair, walked over to the bookshelf, took out his pipe and carefully started filling it. Then he paced the floor, puffing violently on the pipe while staring at the ceiling, as if he could find an answer up there. Do you want a divorce? he asked in a flat, calm voice. I don’t know, I said. For the meantime Helle and I can move out for a while. Maybe we’ll come back. Suddenly he put down his pipe and picked up Helle in his arms, which he rarely did. Daddy sad, she said, putting her cheek against his. No, he said, forcing himself to smile, go on and finish eating. He put her back down in her high chair, picked up his pipe again, and resumed pacing. Then he said: I don’t understand why people absolutely have to get married or live together. It forces you to see the same person every day for a generation, and there’s something unnatural about that. Maybe things would be better if we only visited one another. Who’s the other man? he asked, without looking at me. He’s a doctor, I said. I met him at the Tubercular Ball. He sat down again, and I saw how his forehead was bathed in sweat. Then he said, still looking at the ceiling: Do you think he can give you an outlook on life? When Ebbe was upset, he always said stupid things. I don’t know what you mean by that, I said. I don’t think an outlook on life is something people give one another.
When we went to bed, Ebbe held me in his arms for the last time, but he could tell I was distant and distracted. Right, he said. You’re in love with someone else. This is something that happens to people, not even unusual in our circles. Still it feels totally unreal. And it’s crushing me, even though I’m not showing it. That’s one of my problems, that I don’t dare to show how I feel. If I had shown you how much I love you, maybe this would never have happened. Ebbe, I said, gently touching his eyelids, we’ll visit each other, and maybe you’ll get to know Carl. Maybe we can all be friends. No, he said with a sudden vehemence, I never want to lay eyes on that man. I only want to see you and Helle. I propped myself up on my elbow and observed his handsome face with its soft, weak expression. What if I told him the truth? What if I told him I was in love with a clear liquid in a syringe and not with the man who had the syringe? But I didn’t tell him; I never told that to anyone. It was like when I was a small child and a secret was ruined if you told a grownup. I rolled over on my side and went to sleep. The next day Helle and I moved to a boarding house that Carl had found for us.
* * *
It was a boarding house for older, single women. Our room was furnished with cretonne-covered wicker furniture, a rocking chair with a pillow attached to the back, a tall iron bed from the 1880s and a small feminine writing desk, which nearly collapsed when I set my heavy typewriter on it. Even Helle’s little crib seemed too robust in these fragile surroundings, not to mention herself. That first day she played ship with the overturned rocking chair and then she started chewing on a horribly ugly life-sized statue of Christ, which was behind the desk. She was craving calcium at the time. Her piercing child’s voice rang through the convent-like hush with a provocative intensity, and one by one the old ladies turned up at my door, asking for a bit of quiet. I don’t know why I ever was allowed to move in. When I started writing on my typewriter the next day, the whole boarding house was in an uproar, and the manager, who was an old lady herself, came in to ask if all that racket was really necessary. The residents in her boarding house were all people who had retreated from life, she said. Even their families considered them dead. At any rate no one ever visited them; their families were just waiting to inherit whatever bit of money they might have left. I paid attention to what she said, because I wanted to stay. I liked the location and the room, and the view of the two maple trees, between which hung an old ragged hammock whose rope weave was still covered with snow, though it was nearly March. The woman had a sickly, mild face with pretty, gentle eyes, and she picked Helle up and carefully put her on her lap, as if the vibrant girl might break from the least handling. I agreed not to use the typewriter between one and three in the afternoon, when the ladies were resting, and I promised to visit them once in a while, since their families had deserted them. I liked being with the ladies who either were not completely deaf, or whose fate in this end-station had not made them angry and bitter. And there was always one of them who could watch Helle while I saw Carl in the evenings, which I often did. I sat on his ottoman with my arms under my chin and my knees pulled up, watching him while he worked. He had lots of flasks and beakers in wooden stands around the room. He tasted the contents of the beakers and slid his tongue thoughtfully between his lips. Then he wrote his observations in a large notebook. I asked what he was testing. Piss, he said calmly. Yuck, I said. Then he smiled and said, There is nothing as sterile as piss. He had a strange, careful way of walking, as if he were trying to avoid waking someone, and the desk lamp imparted a copper-like glow to his thin hair. The first three times I visited him he gave me a shot every time and let me lie there passively, dreaming away, without bothering me. But the fourth time he said, No; we’d better take a break. It’s not candy, you know. I was so disappointed I got tears in my eyes.
When Ebbe visited me and Helle, he was almost always drunk, and his face was so blank and defenseless that I couldn’t bear to look at him. While I sat looking at the two maple trees, with whose branches the sun and wind drew shifting patterns of shadow on the lawn, I thought that I was not a woman whom any man ought to marry. Ebbe played with Helle a little, and she said: Daddy is nice. Helle doesn’t like Carl. It took a long time before she would let Carl touch her.
I had delivered a short-story collection and lost my desire to write for the time being. All I could think about was how to get Carl to give me another shot of Demerol. I remembered that he had said it was a painkiller. Where could I say it hurt? From an old untreated infection, one of my ears oozed once in a while, so one day when I was lying on his bed while he tiptoed around the room, chatting intermittently with me and with himself, I put my hand on my ear and said, Ow, I have a terrible earache. He came and sat next to me on the bed and asked sympathetically: Does it hurt badly? I grimaced as if I were in pain. Yes, I said, I can’t stand it. I get this once in a while. He moved the lamp so he could look inside my ear. It’s oozing, he said, surprised. Promise me you’ll have an ear doctor look at it. He patted my cheek. Relax, he said. I’ll give you a shot. I smiled thankfully at him, and the fluid went into my blood, lifting me up to the only level where I wanted to exist. Then he went to bed with me, like he always did, when the effect was at its peak. His embrace was strangely brief and violent, with no foreplay, no tenderness; and I didn’t feel anything. Light, gentle, untroubled thoughts glided through my head. I thought warmly about all my friends who I almost never saw anymore, and I fantasized that I was having con- versations with them. How is it possible, Lise said to me re- cently, that you could be in love with him? I said, Who can ever understand someone else’s love? I lay there for a couple of hours, and the effect wore off, so it was more difficult to find that blank, untroubled state. Everything returned to being gray, slimy, ugly and intolerable. When I said goodbye, Carl asked when my divorce would be finalized. Anytime, I said, figuring that once I was married to him it would be even easier to get him to give me shots. Wouldn’t you like to have another baby? he asked as he walked me out, down the stairs. Sure,
I said immediately, because a child would bind Carl to me even more, and I wanted him with me for the rest of my life.
2
In the divorce I was given our apartment, which I moved into together with Helle and Carl. Ebbe moved back in with his mother, and I visited him there sometimes, when he called and asked me to come. He never set foot in our apartment again, for fear of running into Carl. But Lise and Ole visited us, as did Arne and Sinne, who were back together, since her black marketeer was doing time. Back when I was with Ebbe, I thought it was so friendly with all of us visiting one another unannounced, but now it really irritated me. It bothered Carl too, because he was jealous of all my friends. Whenever they came over to visit, he would sit with his shy, quiet smile, rarely saying a word. One day Lise asked me cautiously, Isn’t he a little strange? I replied brusquely that he worked hard during the day and he was tired in the evening. And what about you? she asked. You’ve changed since you met him; you’ve lost weight, and you don’t look so healthy anymore. Listen, I said to her angrily, you never like anyone except the students from Høng, and you think anyone who’s not chatty and extroverted is strange. She was so hurt by what I said that she stayed away from me for a long time.
One evening shortly after Carl and I had gotten married, Arne and Sinne invited us over for a big dinner. Sinne had had half a pig sent from her family’s farm, and they were going to have a party. Carl said he wasn’t going to go, and that he thought I should stay home too. When a person has work that requires concentration, he said, with that apologetic tone that never revealed his true intention, it’s not good to be overloaded with human interactions. These are my friends, I protested. I see no reason why I shouldn’t go to the dinner. Will you stay home, he said gently, if I give you a shot? Bowled over, and for the first time a little frightened, I said, Sure, sure I will. The next morning I felt so miserable that I couldn’t even get up and make coffee for him. The light seared my eyes, and I could barely separate my dry, cracked lips. It felt as if my skin couldn’t bear the pressure of the sheet and the blanket. Everything I cast my eyes on was ugly, hard and sharp. I pushed Helle away from me and snapped at her, which made her cry. What’s wrong, asked Carl. Is it your ear again? Yes, I whined, putting my hand to my ear. Dear God, I thought in desperation, please let him believe me just one last time. Don’t let him leave for work before giving me a shot. Let me see it, he said gently, and he took an ear speculum and a little flashlight down from the top shelf in the closet, where he kept the instruments from the curettage. It looks pretty good, he mumbled, and since you’re going to the ear doctor twice a week, it should be under control. While he looked in my ear, I lay there without blinking to get my eyes to tear up. I’m rather worried, he said, filling the syringe. If this keeps up, there might be no way around an operation. I’ll speak with Falbe Hansen about it. He was the ear doctor Carl had found for me. Why are you giving Mama a needle? asked Helle, who had never seen this before. I’m giving her a vaccine against diphtheria, he said, just like you had. It’s supposed to be in your shoulder, she said. Why are you putting it in her arm? That’s the way you do it with grownups, he said. Limp and distant and peaceful I watched while Carl drank his coffee and spooned out Helle’s oatmeal for her. Lazy and blissful I said goodbye to Carl, but far back in my foggy brain anxiety began gnawing. Operation! There was nothing wrong with my ear. Then I forgot about it again and lay there fantasizing about a novel I was going to write. It was going to be called For the Sake of the Child, and I was writing it in my mind. Long, beautiful sentences flowed through my thoughts as I lay on the divan, looking at my typewriter, powerless to make one single movement towards it. Helle crawled around on me and had to dress herself. I said that she should go upstairs and get Kim, so they could play together outside in the yard. When the effect of the shot wore off, I broke out in sobs and pulled the comforter up to my chin because I was shivering, even though it was the start of summer. This is awful, I said out into the air, I can’t take this. What am I going to do? So I got dressed, with difficulty, because my hands were shaking, and every piece of clothing scratched my skin. I thought of calling Carl, so he could come home and give me another shot. The hours in front of me seemed like years, and I didn’t think I could survive them. Then I got a bad stomachache and I had to go to the toilet. I had gotten diarrhea and I had to run out there every five minutes.
Later in the day I felt a bit better. I even sat in front of my typewriter and started that novel which had been haunting my thoughts for a long time. But the words didn’t come easy and flowing like they usually did, and I had trouble keeping my thoughts on the subject. I kept looking at my watch to see how long it would be until Carl came home.
Around noon, John came over to visit. He was a friend of Carl’s, a tubercular medical student who was living at Rudershøj with my mother-in-law. I didn’t like him, because whenever he visited us, he tended to sit in a corner and stare at me with his big X-ray eyes, as if I represented a difficult problem that he had to solve at all costs. He and Carl usually talked over my head about incomprehensible scientific questions, and I had never been alone with him before. I’d like to talk to you, he said solemnly, if you have a moment. I let him come in, while my heart started thumping with a strange, indefinite fear. John sat on my desk chair, while I sat on the ottoman. When he sat down, he gave the impression of being tall, because his face was large and squarish, his shoulders broad and his body long and stooped. But he had short legs and they didn’t get much longer when he stood up. He and Carl had lived together at Regensen, and they had helped one another write their theses. He sat quietly for a while, wringing his big hands as if he were cold. I looked down at the floor, because I couldn’t stand his penetrating stare. Then he said, I’m worried about Carl, and maybe about you too. Why? I said, on guard. We’re doing fine together. He bent over to catch my gaze, and I looked at him, obstinate and afraid. Has Carl ever told you, he said, about his institutionalization a year ago? Ill at ease, I said, What kind of institutionalization? In a psychiatric ward, he said; he had a psychosis. Why can’t you talk Danish, I said, irritated. What’s a psychosis? It’s a short-lived mental illness, he said, leaning back in the chair. It lasted three months. I forced myself to laugh. I said, Are you telling me that he’s crazy? Crazy people get locked up, because they’re scary. I’m not scared of him. John released me from his unnerving gaze, and he looked out in the yard at the children playing. There’s something wrong, he said. I have a feeling he’s getting sick again. When I asked why, John said that Carl had recently ignored all his work in order to study nothing but ear maladies. At the institute there were textbooks piling up about ear anatomy and ear illnesses, and he was studying them as if he were trying to become an ear doctor. That’s crazy, said John emphatically. Just because you have a little earache once in a while? Anyone else would leave it to an ear doctor and trust that he would do what he could. But he cares about me, I said, and I could feel myself blushing. He cares about me, and he wants to help me get better, that’s all. Then I laughed at his serious mortician’s face. Some friend you are, I said, running over to tell his wife that he’s stark raving mad. I’m not saying that at all, he said irresolutely. I just want you to know that three of his cousins are in a mental institution. I wouldn’t recommend having any children with him. When he says that, I realize that my period is a few days late. Well you know what, I say, I think your warning has come too late; I think I might be pregnant. The thought of it makes me happy, and I ask if John wants a beer or a cup of coffee, because I don’t feel like listening to him anymore. But he doesn’t want anything; he’s going to a lecture. I follow him out to the door, and he sticks out his hand to shake mine, something my friends and I never do. I’m being admitted to Avnstrup in a few days, he says, to have one of my lungs taken out of action. For a person like me, health is not something you take for granted. He hesitates a second more before he leaves. And you, he says, just like Lise did, you don’t look as good as you used to. Are yo
u eating enough? I assure him that I am, and I breathe easy again once he’s finally gone. I decide, even though he didn’t ask me to, not to tell Carl that he was here.
When Carl came home, I told him that I was probably pregnant. He was happy and revealed his plan for us to build a house on the outskirts of the city. I asked if we had enough money for that, and he said that he was expecting a large grant to come through soon. Then we could live in our own house, concentrate on our work, and not see so many people and never go anywhere. I thought that sounded marvelous, because I was starting to feel that it was becoming necessary for us to live without interference from other people. When he asked about my ear, I said that the pain had gone away. John’s visit had frightened me. Then I said, without knowing why, that I always had trouble sleeping when I was pregnant. He thought about it, rubbing his chin. I’ll tell you what, he said. I’ll give you some chloral. It’s a good sedative with no side effects. It tastes awful, but you can just drink it in some milk.
The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency Page 27
