“Another record, Lundbom.”
“No, it’s too late now. We have to close soon.”
“Another whiskey.”
“All right—although it’s late.”
“Ah, you’re a man of feeling.”
“Hm, do you think so?” Lundbom nodded and smiled bashfully.
“You shall have something to remember me by, Lundbom, because I’m going to die soon,” Jastrau ranted as he leaned in over the bar.
Lundbom nodded again and shoved the fresh glass of whiskey toward him.
“Yes, by Jove, you’re going to have a souvenir,” Jastrau muttered, and fumbled through his pockets. He found nothing. Yes—the fire insurance policy. Down in one corner was that address. In Kryger’s handwriting. Ach! Berlin-Wilmersdorf.
Jastrau took out his fountain pen and wrote across the face of the policy:
Inscribed to Herr Arvid Lundbom
Scandinavia’s foremost cocktail mixer
The master with the fine hand
from
Ole Jastrau
“There you are, you amiable old thief!” he exclaimed, handing Lundbom the policy.
“Thanks, thanks. I’ll take care of it for you.”
“It’s all yours,” Jastrau said in an offhand manner. “And now I’d like to pay up,” he added, taking the folded hundred-krone note from his pocket.
Berlin-Wilmersdorf.
And he dangled his feet so that the toes of his shoes beat out a reckless, rhythmic tattoo against the polished mahogany front of the bar: Professor J. Geberhardt. Landauerstrasse 4. Berlin-Wilmersdorf.
Lundbom’s pudgy hand shoved some bills across the linoleum bar counter. Money again. Jastrau could still travel. Still. Still. He went on tapping with his toes: Wilmersdorf, Berlin, Wilmersdorf, Berlin—
“It isn’t time to go to bed, is it?” a lilting voice said near his ear, and he sensed Bogensen’s huge figure behind him.
“No, no—far from it,” Jastrau sang back as he sat with his elbows on the bar.
“Are you going along to the Golden Age?”
Jastrau breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. Now, as far as he was concerned, the hotel room with its blue-gray, closely-patterned wallpaper flowers, red plush chair, and sinister white ceiling could lie in wait for him—and wait and wait.
“Is Kjær going?” he asked, turning on his stool.
But the eternal Kjær sat drunk and as if petrified at his table. Just then a waiter laid the bill down in front of him. Kjær stared at it with glazed eyes. “That—that’s right,” he muttered. “Six, seventy-five—eighty-eight—ninety-two. Right.” He fumbled in his breast pocket for his fountain pen, failed to connect with it, then failed again. The waiter came to his help, tried the pen to see if there was ink in it, then placed it in Kjær’s hand.
And with the helpless ineptitude of a somnambulist, Kjær signed the bill, put too much force into the full stop after his name, dropped the pen, and pitched forward onto the table with his full weight as if his walking stick had slipped out from under him.
The following day, the bill would, as usual, be presented to his lawyer.
“We’re going,” Bogensen said in a tone of reluctance.
And leaning amiably against each other, Jastrau and Bogensen strolled out to a taxi.
“It seems to me that Kjær drinks too much,” Bogensen remarked in a subdued lilting tone of reproach as they drove through the sultry summer night. White figures floated by on the dark sidewalks, restless and happy, as if Copenhagen was unable to sleep, and toward the north there was a faint light in the heavens as if the heat had breached the sky and made an exit for itself.
“He’s made up his mind about how he wants to live,” Jastrau said with an apathetic grin, and leaned back in the seat.
“But you aren’t drunk, are you?”
“I don’t think I’m sober. But the night is heavy with a delicate fragrance.”
“We’ll never go home,” he hummed as he inhaled the cool air stirred up by the speed of the cab.
Bogensen remained silent until they caught sight of the dark treetops in Frederiksberg Park. They loomed up black against the light night sky. Then he suddenly sat up with a jerk.
“Do you think I’ll ever get the money?” he asked.
“What money?”
“For the book I sold to Vuldum.”
“Ha—no.” And Jastrau was propelled over against the thick-set, pudgy Bogensen as the taxi turned into the park and drove up to the lighted entrance of the Golden Age Club. “Ha—sure, you’ll get it.”
As the door opened, they immediately heard the sound of jazz music, subdued and yet gay, and Jastrau was conscious of a feeling of suppleness in his legs. He uttered a loud laugh.
“We’ll never go home,” he repeated.
But once inside the room the feeling of exuberance vanished immediately, and so overwhelming was the impression of emptiness and lack of activity that they felt their spirits ebb. Two lonely couples were moving tediously about the dance floor, and alongside the yellow walls, which reflected a hopeless boredom, sat unaccompanied women with weary, dejected expressions on their faces. Now and then they shifted their positions morosely and adjusted their clothing to no avail. Mannequins in a window that nobody passed. Only the music attempted to keep up the pretense that all was as it should be; but it seemed purposeless with its full tonal volume so lacking in bubble and dash. During the chorus, a couple of pitifully thin female voices were timidly raised in the empty, unanimated room, as they chirped a cheerful:
Forget your sorrow
Until tomorrow—
The formally attired waiters stood conspicuously posted in doorways and alcoves like so many corpses.
“I guess it’s pretty dead here tonight,” Bogensen said to one of them in his Funen accent.
The waiter sighed as only a waiter can. All the disgust in the world was reflected in his conventional face.
But Jastrau stalked briskly through the room, for behind him was nothing but a hotel chamber with small-patterned flowered wallpaper and nothing else—nothing except heart palpitations when he lay in bed and stared up at the strange, whitewashed ceiling.
They got a table and ordered smørrebrød, and Bogensen sank into his chair with a moan.
“And they call this a place of entertainment,” he sighed.
They sat looking idly at the women. “A row of masks hung on the wall,” Jastrau said peevishly, and Bogensen’s huge body quivered as he broke into a snicker.
A woman with flaxen-yellow hair and a look of venerable distinction about her mouth nodded.
“Do you know her?” Bogensen asked.
“No, but I can imagine what she’ll say. That she washes her hair in champagne, and all that sort of thing.”
“But that’s a nice head of hair she has.”
“There—you can see for yourself. And that’s the first thing you’ll say to her, and then we’ll have things started,” Jastrau said sullenly. He recognized the atmosphere of the place and realized suddenly that he would not even be able to get drunk tonight. And behind him waited the hotel room. “The priest was damn well right. It’s through repetition that one gets to know hell.”
“What priest?”
“Oh, a priest.”
“You’re beginning to get pretty grim, my friend,” Bogensen said with his characteristic lilt.
Just then the music stopped, and they could hear that there was, at least, one jovial group present—a few ladies and gentlemen sitting in a corner.
“They’re either office clerks or pickpockets,” Jastrau remarked sullenly. All the whiskey he had drunk in the last several days was stagnating in him, as stale as pond water, and he felt tormentingly clear-headed, lucid but not sober, abnormal but rational, and in a bad frame of mind.
The smørrebrød helped somewhat.
Then one of the women in the noisy little group got up. With her hands held to her cheeks, she cut diagonally across the floor with uncerta
in steps. Jastrau followed her with his eyes. Did he know her? Midway across the room she let her hands drop, shook her head, and took a deep breath. She was wearing a black dress, and over it hung a string of amber beads.
“She’s had a few too many,” said Bogensen. “Do you know her?”
Jastrau nodded and continued to watch her as with a sudden burst of resolution she hurried over toward the cloakroom. The world-weary waiter helped her navigate.
“She’s pretty.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Couldn’t you get her over here?”
“No. Let’s sit here in peace,” Jastrau replied with a shrug of his shoulders, as the piano player began to pound the keys. A little later a wailing saxophone joined in—a fresh desperate attempt to drug the customers with music.
Bogensen tried in vain to conceal a yawn.
“No, it’s no use,” Jastrau said regretfully. “I can’t get drunk tonight. Sometimes I feel so low that I can’t get drunk. For a moment there in the bar, I had hopes—”
“Then I must always be feeling low,” Bogensen replied calmly.
Jastrau looked at him inquiringly.
“Because I’m never able to get drunk,” Bogensen went on, lifting a snaps glass as his small eyes, set deeply in his fat face, lit up in a smile.
“Unfortunately, we might just as well stay,” Jastrau sighed hopelessly. “But you’re right—the snaps!”
They raised their glasses to each other and drank.
“There she is again,” exclaimed the man from Funen.
Jastrau looked over toward the wall and saw Black Else, who was maneuvering carefully from table to table. Suddenly her eyes met Jastrau’s, and she nodded apathetically. Then she seemed to forget again, and her expression once more became foggy. She smiled out into the room and up at the ceiling, focused her eyes on him again, and started to make her way over to them.
“I know you,” she said, lifting an unsteady finger.
“Sit down here, Frøken,” Bogensen said politely, getting up from his chair in all his bulk.
Black Else held a hand up to her ear and made a face. “Did you say Frøken? I’m married—Fru Kopf.” And she staggered dangerously as she made a little curtsey.
“Fru head,” Bogensen said as his shoulders quivered noiselessly. “Have a seat. It will be a little safer.”
“I know you,” she repeated dully to Jastrau as she sat down. “What are you wrinkling up your forehead for?” she went on in an offended tone as she leaned back limply in the chair. “But who’s that you have with you? A fat one. Does he have money? I’m drunk as the devil. Is he a newspaperman too?”
Jastrau gave a start, and Bogensen laughed.
“Won’t you have a whiskey, frue?”
“Y—es,” she replied. But then she waved her hand so vigorously that she almost toppled over. “But I—I have a highball over there too—over there. But yes,”—she nodded and suppressed a hiccup—“I’d just as soon have one here as well.”
“She’s nice—but sort of tiresome,” said the man from Funen.
“What did you say, fatty?” She put her hand up to her ear. And then she addressed herself listlessly to Jastrau. “Is he a newspaperman like you and Arne?”
“Arne?”
“Yes—that red-headed monkey. You see, I know both of you. I’m not too drunk for that.”
“She means Vuldum,” Jastrau said sullenly to Bogensen. “So you know Vuldum?”
He squinted his eyes and looked at her sharply. Her cheeks were slack and there was a careworn expression about her wide, prominent mouth.
But she did not reply. With a shrill burst of laughter she grabbed the whiskey glass and emptied it in one gulp.
“No now—that will never do,” Bogensen remarked uneasily. “What did you say?”
“No, now listen, frue,” Jastrau said, getting up. “Hadn’t we better ride you home, frue? This will never do.”
“Do you want to go home with me?” she asked, raising her head in an unconsciously business-like manner.
“No, no—we want to give you a ride home,” Bogensen protested. “God forbid,” he added softly.
“Do you think you’re going with us?” She leaned over the table and laughed. “The fat one is not going along—uh-h, no!”
“All right, then he isn’t going along,” Jastrau said in a matter-of-fact but irritated tone, and Bogensen nodded. But there was a sour expression about the small mouth between his round cheeks.
Jastrau was clear-headed, energetic, and extraordinarily alert. He perceived everything in sharp, baleful contours, in a glaring white light that was disillusioning to the highest degree, and when he felt that way he could not get drunk. At such times he acted swiftly and with an exasperating crudeness—exasperating because he made it evident that nothing was worth going to any trouble for.
He got up and led her out.
Next they were sitting in a taxi. She in a gray fur piece. Outside, the park lay in a subdued morning light. All the nuances of pattern and color in the bark of the trees, the gravel paths, and the foliage were visible.
“Istedgade,” she had automatically told the driver.
“Istedgade?” Jastrau repeated in surprise, and turned toward her. But immediately he realized that he could not expect a reasonable answer from her. In the natural light of day, in which the trees and houses became alive, her face took on the appearance of a mask. Small particles of powder threatened to fall away from the wrinkles around her eyes, and the two blemishes near her temples that she had rouged in order to make her face appear narrower made her look ridiculous, as if the artificial flush had been mistakenly applied too far up on her cheeks.
“Istedgade” she muttered. Jastrau began to feel perturbed. He wanted to question her, but he was sitting next to a deaf person. With the speed of the cab, the air began to fan their hot faces as they drove toward Frederiksberg Circle. Perhaps he could bring her to her senses. Why was his heart beating so violently? Frederiksberg Church loomed up like a tent against the sky.
He sat staring straight ahead. Suppose—suppose it turned out that she lived in the house across the street from him? The windows with the drawn curtains. The white reflection of the sunlight upon which all his thoughts had been concentrated, which in itself had become a thought, white and dazzling. Suppose—suppose—?
“So you’ve moved.”
“M-mm.”
Ah yes, then those were the windows, that was the apartment. But why was he afraid? His heart? He smoked too much, he drank too much. The curtains that had shone with a white light far into his being—a white projector beam that had sought him out and come to rest upon him in his—in his grief. What was grief? But if Black Else lived there, then it all took on some significance. It was not a mere coincidence. If only—if only the devil had all symbolism.
Suddenly Black Else broke down and began to sob.
Had the cool morning air brought her to her senses? Jastrau shook himself in exasperation. A nervous fit of weeping brought about by lack of sleep and too much liquor. He would not waste his sympathy on it. Can you waste your sympathy? He knew that sort of crying. It was typical of that kind of woman. That kind of woman, he thought. He was far from being Jesus now. And Black Else whispered, “Oh—I’m so drunk, and I have so many troubles and so much grief. Oh, I could whip you all. What is it you want of me?”
“Now look here, all I want to do is drive you home,” Jastrau said in a grudgingly comforting tone and turned halfway toward her. They were approaching the houses at the broad end of Frederiksberg Allé. They had a soft, blue-gray tone, and their windows had a sleepy look.
“Nonsense!” she said, and shook her head. Her tears, mixed with powder, slid down into the hollowed-out furrows beneath her eyes.
But Jastrau nodded in affirmation of his statement.
“Then you don’t want to come home with me? Aren’t you my friend?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder and began to whimper again.
“I have so many worries. They’d fill a whole novel. You could write it. I’m an entire novel in myself, let me tell you. You have no idea. But oh, I do so want to talk—talk—really talk to someone. Are you coming with me? We can talk to each other. I have a feeling we can. And I do so need to talk to someone.”
Jastrau looked over at her black hair, which was being blown by the breeze. It was the window of the feather-cleaning shop that caught his glance, that cosmic haze of gray feathers swirling around as an advertisement for the establishment. The corner of Stenosgade. Far removed from Jesus. A glimpse of the red Catholic church and school. A spiritual dental clinic. And they turned the corner into Viktoriagade.
“You’re not coming up with me?”
“No, no.”
“So you aren’t coming up. Well, I am drunk. But I would so like to talk to someone. Then tomorrow—you’ll come tomorrow. Promise me. I need to talk to someone so badly. Ask for Fru Kopf. You will, won’t you? You’ll come?”
She raised her painted face and opened her eyes. There was a glazed film over them.
“Oh, I’m so unhappy, and you don’t care!” she exclaimed. “None of you men care about anything.”
“I promise I’ll come tomorrow,” Jastrau replied as convincingly as he could.
And at that moment a dark cloud passed over his soul. They were approaching the house he lived in, and its dreary façade grew bigger and bigger. He could not help looking up for a moment at the windows of his own apartment. In them was reflected the morning sky. God help me, he thought—the windowpanes are mirroring the heavens.
“This is where I live,” Black Else said mechanically.
They drew up at the curb.
Else lurched out and staggered over to the front door.
“Shall I help you?” Jastrau called out from the cab.
But she did not answer. With mechanical, unconscious movements she got the door open and then disappeared. She did not turn around. She did not wave. She was not aware of anything.
And so, it was the windows with the white drawn curtains.
“Drive on, to the Town Hall Square,” Jastrau shouted querulously to the chauffeur. He turned his back on the house he had lived in.
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