who got up and went over to you and asked if you'd got a
match. You understood my Italian, but you marked me
down as a foreigner because of my accent. You said you
didn't smoke, but in a couple of moments you'd picked up a
lighter from the neighbouring table and lit my cigarette.
You weren't the type just to refer me to the next table, you
took responsibility yourself, or rather, you had nothing
against lighting my cigarette, you were pleased I'd turned
to you. You showed by the way you did it, that it most
certainly wasn't the first time you'd lit a woman's cigarette.
'When I thanked you, a shadow fell across your face
telling me you were in difficulties of some sort, that you
were close to seeking someone to confide in and that that
other person might as well be me. I turned and went back to
my table, it only took a moment, but I felt your eyes on my
back, although that might have been purely my imagination.
When you'd paid your bill and got up to go, you gave me an
almost sorrowful look and waved, and the way you waved
told me that you thought we'd almost certainly never see
each other again. I'd been sketching you on my pad because
I really liked your face, but you weren't observant enough
to notice you were my model. But still I smiled at you with
an exaggerated openness. I wanted my look to tell you that
our lives are strange; and so you left, but it was as if you took
away with you something that you'd glimpsed in my eyes.
The way you walked out of the pizzeria told me you were
going to the Valle dei Mulini, and of course I could have
been wrong, but as it turned out I wasn't. I thought that if I
got another chance, you were someone I'd like to get to
know better.'
I halted on the narrow footpath and clapped my hands
a couple of times. 'Bravo!' I exclaimed. I felt naked and
exposed and it felt good, it felt good to be seen and known,
it was like coming home. It had been a very long time
indeed since I'd had anyone to come home to.
'First you told me you asked me for a match by chance,' I
said, 'but now you say you realised I had none.'
She laughed at this small contribution. It was a token that
I'd weighed every word she'd uttered. 'Well, it was pure
chance that my lighter was empty, but you were no chance
person, you were like an open book, a book I'd already
begun to read.'
Or she'd been well briefed beforehand, I thought. But I
quickly dismissed the idea.
It was for other reasons I said: 'Have you got other
lighters?'
She didn't know what I meant. 'Do you always go round
with one lighter that works and another that's empty?'
She looked up at me and gave me a little slap. I probably
deserved it.
We walked slowly on. The more two people have to say
to one another, the more slowly they walk. She went on
talking about her watercolours and the exhibition. She told
me now that she'd illustrated a couple of children's books
plus a de luxe edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Over the past
few years she'd also begun to write.
I was taken aback. I was startled that it was only now she
owned up to being a writer, but as she had spoken the last
few words with a certain reticence, I decided to refrain from
comment just then. Many people feel a bit shy about ad-
mitting they're trying to write. Perhaps it was bashfulness
that had prevented her from mentioning it the day before.
I told her I'd come to Amalfi from the Bologna Book
Fair. I studied her carefully, but she gave no special reaction
to my information. I'd have to stop thinking about Luigi.
'So you publish children's books as well?' she asked. I
merely nodded. I placed a hand on her head and stroked
her hair. She made no comment.
By the time we'd got up to the Via Paradiso half an hour
later, we could see that some large, black clouds had begun
rolling in across the valley from the encircling mountains. It
was sultry. We heard the church bells begin to ring down in
Amalfi. A second later the bells of Pontone began to sound
as well, and from the ridge on the other side of the valley,
those of Pogerola. It was noon on Easter Sunday.
We heard the first growl of thunder, and Beate took
my hand. I asked if she wanted to turn back, but she was
absolutely set on continuing. She has an appointment with
people further up the valley, I thought, and knew that I was
imagining things. From the time I'd left Bologna I'd already
stage-managed my own death in twenty or thirty different
ways. But Beate wasn't part of any conspiracy. I'd high
hopes she might be the one to save me from all inventive-
ness. I'd begun to anticipate that she might even be able to
teach me to live like a human being.
We weren't far from the waterfall we'd passed the
previous day, when the skies suddenly opened. Beate
pointed to the ruins of an old paper mill, and we dashed in
to try and find some shelter. We crept as far inside the ruins
of the mill as we could. She was laughing like a small child,
and her laughter echoed dully. There were a mere three or
four square metres of roof above our heads, but the floor we
sat on was dry.
Soon we were caught up in the worst thunderstorm I'd
ever known, or perhaps I should say the best, because we
soon agreed that we liked thunderstorms. They were virile.
The storm lasted more than two hours. The rain tipped
down continuously, but we stayed dry. I said it was back in
the Stone Age and we were cavemen. 'There's neither past
nor future,' I said, 'everything is here and now.' My voice
had assumed a hollow ring. She had nestled into the crook of
my arm, and again she asked what my novel was about. I had
time to tell her now, she insisted. I let her talk me over. I
chose one of the synopses I'd had for sale before Writers'
Aid had collapsed. It was a family tragedy. I had the synopsis
in my head, and now I fleshed it out. In rough terms the
story ran along these lines:
Just after the war, in an old patrician villa in the small Danish
town of Silkeborg, there lived a well-to-do family by the name
of Kj�rgaard. They had just engaged a new servant girl in the
house. Her name was Lotte, and that was her only name because
she was an orphan of not more than sixteen or seventeen years of
age. The girl was said to be extremely beautiful, so it wasn't sur-
prising that the Kj�rgaard's only son couldn't keep his eyes off her
while she was hard at work for his demanding family. He constantly
followed her about the house and, even though he was quite a young
boy, he managed to seduce her in the wash-house one day while
she was boiling clothes. It only happened once, but Lotte became
pregnant.
In the years that followed, a number of different accounts of what
had actually happened in the wash-house that fateful afternoon did
the rounds. It
was whispered that the boy � or Morten, to give him
his proper name � had raped the girl as she stood pounding the
clothes, but the Kj�rgaard family steadfastly maintained that it was
Lotte who'd behaved improperly, and that she was the one who'd
seduced the boy. Enough witnesses could testify to the way she
would giggle and simper and generally behave wantonly in the boy's
presence.
The family now made confidential arrangements for the maid to
take up a new position with a family in a remote part of the country.
But when, a few months later, Lotte gave birth to a son, they made
sure they kept the child as he had the family's noble blood in his
veins. Although the Kj�rgaard clan was well endowed with worldly
wealth, it certainly had no superfluity of heirs, and not a drop of the
eminent family's blood was to go to waste. Lotte protested as best
she could and wept bitterly when the boy was taken away from her
only a few weeks after his birth, but both materially and morally she
was considered unfit to look after the child. And, after all, the boy
had no father.
Naturally, Morten wanted nothing to do with the baby. He was
in any case too young to claim paternity and for their part, his
parents were far too old to adopt the child as one of their own
children. But Morten had an uncle, who'd long been blighted by a
childless marriage, so he and his wife now assumed parental re-
sponsibility for the little boy, who was christened Carsten.
Gradually, as Carsten grew up, he would occasionally wonder at
the age his mother and father must have been when he was born.
His mother must have been nearing fifty, but it never occurred to
him that Stine and Jakob, as they were called, weren't his biological
parents. On his birthdays he always got a card from 'Cousin
Morten', and up to the time of his confirmation, a small Christmas
gift sent by post, but of course it never struck him that his eighteen-
year-elder cousin was really his true father. It was a well-kept family
secret to which he was never privy.
Jakob was captain of a large merchant ship, and when Carsten
was small he was sometimes allowed to accompany his father out
into the wide world. He became deeply attached to both his parents
and, being an only child, they worshipped him above everything
else, but when he was in his last year at school, both Stine and
Jakob died in a matter of a few months. Suddenly Carsten was
alone in the world � and without family, for all four of his grand-
parents were now dead. By this I mean that as Jakob lay dying, he
told his son the old story of the maidservant in the wash-house and
cousin Morten, who in reality was his true father.
By this time Carsten had little contact with his cousin. They
hadn't set eyes on each other for many years, but when Carsten
began to study for his M.A. at the University of Arhus there came
a time when he was completely stuck for money. In his desperation
he approached Morten who obviously knew that Carsten was his
real son, but who also took it for granted that he was the only person
in the world who did, as Stine and Jakob were now dead.
Morten had become a highly respected medical consultant at
Arhus's hospital. He'd married the lovely Malene, the daughter of
a Supreme Court judge in Copenhagen, and they had two nice
daughters who both sang in the church choir, and Morten had no
intention of initiating his cousin into his spotless bourgeois existence
� he knew too much about the boy's chequered family background.
Without letting on what he knew, Carsten asked his cousin
for a loan, or preferably an allowance of five or ten thousand
kroner, because he knew that his cousin was a wealthy man. But
Morten flatly refused Carsten's request; he brushed aside the young
student's humble entreaty for a little help in a tight spot. He poured
him a glass of malt whisky, made some witticisms about the old days
and put five hundred kroner into his hand before packing him off
with a few general platitudes about advancement being the reward of
study. What proved so fateful was that Carsten � who already had
feelings of near hatred for his real father because of his years of
dissimulation � now rounded on his cousin, looked him straight in
the eye and said: 'Don't you think it's disgraceful to refuse your
own son a loan of a few thousand kroner? Perhaps next time I ought
to speak to Malene ...' Morten started, but Carsten had already
turned his back, merely remarking as he left: 'We'll say no more
about it now!'
After several disrupted years of study, Carsten met Kristine who,
from then on, became practically the sole object of his attention. He
only rang Morten and Malene a couple of times in the following
years, and on both occasions it was Morten who answered the
phone. One thing was certain: Carsten would never again ask his
cousin for money. Nevertheless, he received cheques from him once
or twice, and when he and Kristine were married they got a cheque
for five thousand kroner from cousin Morten and Malene, Maren
and Mathilde. This was not enough to mollify Carsten's bitterness
towards his biological father, and by the time they got married he
had decided to adopt Kristine's surname. Her family had accepted
him with open arms.
Carsten loved Kristine, and from the moment he met her he
never wanted anyone else. But where destiny blunders, no human
prudence will avail: Carsten had always had a nasty birthmark on
his neck, and when this suddenly began to bleed, Kristine insisted
he went to a doctor and got it seen to. The local doctor removed the
birthmark and sent it for routine analysis to the hospital at Arhus,
but unfortunately the result of the tissue biopsy was never sent back
to Carsten's doctor. When weeks and months passed without any
word from the doctor or the hospital, neither Carsten nor Kristine
gave the birthmark another thought. The next spring, however,
Carsten fell ill; he was diagnosed with a cancer that was spreading,
and this was immediately linked to a tissue biopsy that had been
sent to the hospital several months earlier.
Much later, the hospital admitted that the sample from Carsten
had been received and analysed and also positively diagnosed as a
malignant melanoma, but the mystery about why Carsten's doctor
hadn't been informed still remained. The official responsibility lay
with the consultant, Morten Kj�rgaard, but apparently he hadn't
had anything to do with the analysis itself, so it seemed likely that
one of the pathology lab technicians had been careless. The local
newspaper carried a short piece about 'the consultant who hadn't
been told' and who therefore 'was robbed of the chance to save his
own cousin'. But it was soon forgotten.
Carsten only lived a few weeks after he became ill. He spent most
of the time at home, and Kristine and her parents nursed him as best
they could, both physically and spiritually. In addition, a nurse �
who was soon visiti
ng daily � provided as much help and support as
they needed. Her name was Lotte. When Lotte learnt just where
the unsightly birthmark had been, she looked at Carsten's date of
birth again. This was just a few days before he died, but from that
moment on she sat continuously by his bedside tenderly holding his
hand until it was all over. Carsten's last words when he opened his
eyes and saw Lotte and Kristinefor the very last time, was: 'We'll
say no more about it now!'
I sat cradling Beate in my arms and spent more than an hour
over the story of Carsten. She didn't say a word, I could
hardly hear her breathing. It was only when I'd finished that
she looked up at me and said that the story was wonderful,
but also terrible as well. She said it was both wonderful and
terrible at the same time. She was a grateful listener. As I'd
got a fully fledged synopsis to work from, it wasn't too
difficult to fill in the story, especially when I was with Beate
amongst the ruins of an old paper mill, constantly being
charged by the power and drama of a huge thunderstorm.
Again she said that it was sure to be a brilliant book and that
she was certain it would come out in Germany too. She said
she was looking forward to reading it.
The thunder and lightning continued, and the rain fell
just as heavily as before, but the story I'd told gave so much
food for thought that I could hardly begin a new one.
Besides, it would have been stretching credulity a bit to be
working on two novels at once.
We sat talking over certain details and aspects of the
plot. I gave Beate the impression that she was offering
me valuable advice and, had I really wanted to write that
novel, I'd certainly have found the points she raised useful.
She nestled closer to me, put one of her hands in mine and
kissed my throat a couple of times. It might have been me
who began kissing more passionately, but she reciprocated.
'Are we being naughty, now?' she whispered, and then she
undressed. In the blue, stormy light she reminded me of a
nude by Magritte. We laid down gently on the stone floor.
We had no choice. We were defenceless against the
elements. It would have been an expression of moral
degeneracy not to have made love in that thunder, in that
storm. It would have been like not hearing nature's voice,
not bowing to nature's will.
We lay in a close embrace until the thunder died down.
The scent of plums and cherries was about her, and no
words were needed. Only when it had stopped raining did
she half sit up and say: 'Let's take a shower!' It was a rather
paradoxical thing to say just as the shower had stopped and
all the water had been used up. But she rose and pulled me
after her. We ran naked to the path, it wasn't cold. Beate led
me in the direction of the waterfall and reminded me of my
promise. A few moments later we were standing under the
waterfall singing. Beate had begun it. She sang 'Tosca's
Prayer', which I thought was a strange choice, so I answered
with the much more apposite 'Tower aria'. But she went on
with 'Tosca's Prayer': Perche, perche, Signore? I appreciated
her familiarity with operatic literature. It didn't surprise me,
but I appreciated it. I don't know why I suddenly began
singing an old nursery rhyme, perhaps it was because I felt so
happy. It hadn't entered my mind since I was a boy, but the
words went: Little Petter Spider, he climbed on to my hat. Then
down came the rain and Petter fell off splat. Then out came the sun
and shone upon my hat. And woke up Petter Spider who climbed
on to my hat.
We ran back to the ruins and got dressed. And by the time
we were back on the path, the sun was shining. We felt no
shame. The only thing that was a bit embarrassing was that
I'd sung the old rhyme about Little Petter Spider. Luckily,
she didn't enquire about what I'd been singing, and perhaps
she hadn't been listening properly, but I rued my thought-
lessness. Once again I was back on the Piazza Maggiore in
Bologna.
We crossed the river and began to climb a steep hillside
The Ringmaster's Daughter Page 20
