The Black Cauldron

by William Heinesen

  “Liva is here on very important business,” said Opperman sharply. “She help me with very important matter. I sent message and asked her come here, so it best you leave us alone.”

  He placed a hand on Pjølle’s shoulder and whispered: “You better go, you need cool air, you drink too much, you only disturb.”

  “The rose of life is found,” cooed Pjølle and chucked Liva under the chin.

  “Now,” Opperman was irritated. “Will you please do us the favour I ask, Schibbye.”

  Pjølle ignored him totally and pressed Liva down into the sofa. “A glass,” he said, with a sweep of his hands. “A glass for the rose. Well, Opperman. You’ll give her a drink, won’t you, you … ?”

  Opperman tossed his head resentfully and took out a liqueur glass. Pjølle unscrewed a bottle of Cluny, but Opperman rapped his fingers: “She doesn’t want the strong stuff, you idiot, she wants a little liqueur.”

  He bent over Liva and said mawkishly: “You have little liqueur, Liva, won’t you?”

  Liva nodded and gave Pjølle a warm smile.

  Opperman filled her glass. His hands were trembling. “Cheers, Liva,” he said. “But now … we talk together as you promise me … about the invoices that were lost when you work here … so prices so wrong that Price Control Commission make fuss. Ach. No one make himself heard when he bellow like that.”

  “I’m not bellowing,” said Pjølle. “I’m just so pleased, for I’ve always wanted to have a proper talk to Liva … we’ve not had the chance since she grew up. She’s always been shy. Haven’t you, Liva? We were old friends, Opperman, you realise that? We went to confirmation classes together, and since then she’s always been in my thoughts. Haven’t you, Liva?”

  She nodded and leant back comfortably in the sofa. Her eyes were warm and calm, and she didn’t take them off Pjølle.

  “I’ve got Satan from Hell,” she said quietly.

  “What do you say?” asked Pjølle, frowning and smiling. “I’ll be damned if I didn’t think she said: Like Hell!”

  “She told you to go to Hell.” Opperman darted an embittered glance at him.

  “Rubbish, that wasn’t what you said, was it?” asked Pjølle, pouching his lips like a peevish child. “You’re very fond of me, aren’t you, Liva?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Now you mustn’t disturb us any longer, Schibbye,” said Opperman, now seriously angry. “Understand. This is my house and my assistant who come to me on urgent business, and you sit here and are blind drunk and just interrupt everything. You’ve been here long enough … and your mother ring and I said you not here … but now I ring to your mother and say you here … for she had important telegram.”

  “My dear chap,” said Pjølle, raising a hand. “Be reasonable, Opperman. Now we’ll drink Liva’s health, won’t we. You must let me do that.”

  “All right, one more, and then absolutely no more.”

  Opperman turned away livid with anger. Pjølle calmly seated himself on the arm of the sofa. He filled Liva’s glass with a dry whisky. She emptied it at a single gulp, and he gave a little falsetto hoot: “Good Lord! Our little revivalist lass! What is the world coming to?”

  Liva exchanged glances with him. Her look was happy and confident. He took her hand and raised it to his lips in adoration.

  “Oh, you get her drunk,” said Opperman. He was standing on tenterhooks, wringing his hands. “And she must help me with big calculation. You do us much harm, that is certain. You behave like bad person, Schibbye. Shame on you. You are bad gentleman. You a humbug.”

  He was interrupted by the loud ringing of a telephone; he took it with an expectant look in his eyes. Pjølle ducked down, listening and making roguish eyes at Liva.

  “Oh,” said Opperman. “No, not now. Absolutely. What you say? Dead? Oh, not dead? Nearly? That cannot be. Ugh. That only usual hysteria, nothing else at all. What? The doctor? Well …? Yes, I come. I come, I say.”

  He banged the telephone down, turned to Pjølle and shouted, completely beside himself: “Get out! Get out! My wife dying. Liva wait here. Get out immediately, Schibbye! There no time for nonsense.”

  Pjølle got up. “Is your wife dying, you say?” he asked in amazement, raising his hands to his head.

  “Yes,” groaned Opperman. “And here you are … and …!”

  “Yes, but who could have any idea?”

  Pjølle’s eyes had suddenly lost all sign of life. His lower lip hung limply down.

  “I say it all the time,” Opperman stamped his foot.

  “Well then, you must forgive me.” Pjølle turned towards Liva. “But what about her? What about her? Shall I take her home?”

  “No, Liva come with me,” said Opperman, pushing him impatiently in the back. “She help me. She help the maid. She a good nurse. She also good seamstress, she perhaps sew shroud.”

  Pjølle stared at Opperman in horror. “Good God,” he said and looked down.

  “Yes, it terrible misfortune,” said Opperman while he helped Pjølle on with his overcoat. He wiped his nose, whimpering: “Dreadful. Now I become completely alone.”

  Pjølle shook hands with him in commiseration and gave Liva a melancholy bow.

  Opperman hurried up to the house. In the doorway he met Doctor Tønnesen.

  “Oh, Doctor,” he asked breathlessly. “Bad?”

  “Yes, it’s very bad, Opperman. She’s unconscious. It’s her heart. I’ll get a nurse to come and keep watch with her tonight.”

  “Oh, poor, poor,” said Opperman. His eyes were filled with tears. “Oh, goodbye, Doctor, and many thanks.”

  The doctor gave Opperman a searching look. Yes, they were real tears. He made as though to say something, but changed his mind and disappeared without saying good-bye.

  Opperman fetched Amanda. He allowed the tears to remain in his eyes. “Ah, I not bear see her die,” he said. “I rather go back and lock myself away with my sorrow. Ah.”

  Amanda snarled scornfully, but made no reply.

  When Opperman returned to his office a little later, Liva had fallen asleep. She was snoring lightly and breathing through her mouth, her hair was dishevelled, just above the neckband of her dress a tiny brown birthmark was visible. Trembling, he bent down and kissed her breast; he sucked hard and saw the tiny red-dotted mark that appeared, made another mark beside it, pulled off her shoes and stockings, kissed her wildly and madly on the face and body, even the rough skin on her knees and the hairy legs received their kisses. She complained slightly in her sleep, a long and trusting sigh, and there was a little smile on her lips.

  Then he quickly went over and put out the light.

  At that moment the telephone rang. Blast! He left the receiver on. You couldn’t even be left in peace at home. Though … if it were Amanda or the doctor! He took the receiver and put on a plaintive tone.

  “Yes?”

  It was Inspector Hansen. Was Liva Berghammer there by any chance?

  “Oh, her,” said Opperman. “No, she’s not here.”

  Had she been there?

  Opperman hesitated slightly, it would probably not be a good thing to tell a lie. “Yes, she was here, a few minutes ago, together with Schibbye, but then they went, for … for my wife is dying.”

  “Oh, I see,” said the inspector. “I’m sorry to hear that. But … but Liva Berghammer’s in a bad way, we’re looking for her, she seems to have gone round the bend. What was it I was going to say: You didn’t notice anything peculiar about her? What did she want at your place?”

  “Ask for her old job back,” replied Opperman. “And she got it, too, for Liva is a good worker and very sensible. No, there was nothing unusual about her. Yes, she left with Schibbye. Oh, don’t mention it. Hope she … you … Goodbye.”

  Opperman left the receiver on the table. Damned unfortunate his voice had trembled so much. But perhaps there was nothing particularly strange about that when his wife … !

  He quickly drank a mouthful of liqueur from th
e bottle. Then he stretched out comfortably on the sofa. There was no time to lose now. Liva whimpered and complained in her sleep. “Dear, dear,” he said to calm her. “You are here with me … I love you … I love you … !” With a sigh she laid herself in his arms and whispered: “Yes, that’s right, that’s right.”

  Opperman was in a bit of a whirl. It was as though there were fireflies dancing in the air round him.

  “Now,” he whispered. “You must go now, Liva. Do you hear? No, you must get up now, girl.”

  He bounced up from the sofa and held his head, whistled a brief melody while he considered what to do. Quick. Quick. She must be dressed properly and then get out. Out through the back door in the cellar. “Good Heavens, girl, do be reasonable. Look, here’s a glass of liqueur. Ugh, for heaven’s sake hold it still, woman.”

  Liva laughed, a deep and carefree laugh. Thank God, she was still mad. “Do you know,” she said. “I’ve got Satan. Yes, really, I really almost believe it.” And then there was again that chuckling laugh. “So have you, Pjølle, haven’t you? And you, Simon … Oh, stop putting it on, I know what you’re all like, ’cause you’re all married to me now, you can’t get away from that. What will folk say when they hear about it? All those wise virgins! No, stop it … surely I can be left to lie in my own bed, Magdalena. Or shall we go down to the village again?”

  “Yes,” said Opperman. “We’re off to the village. Come on.”

  Opperman was sweating. He was on the point of weeping with irritation at Liva’s shoes, a pair of cheap, hard shoes which seemed far too small for her feet. They were new. Cheap gilt things from Masa Hansen, bought through Spurgeon Olsen, who had now set himself up as a shoe wholesaler.

  “For heaven’s sake help me a bit,” he grumbled, slapping her with a free hand just above the ankle.

  “Have you got any more of that angelica wine, Magdalena?” asked Liva.

  “Shut up!” Suddenly, Opperman could no longer find the bottle in the dark, a glass fell to the floor and broke. There was a humming sound from the telephone receiver over on the desk. Liva yawned and stretched: “Ah …” But suddenly she pulled herself together and seemed determined to leave. Opperman started in relief. He fetched her coat. Now just down into the cellar, down in the air-raid shelter, and then out…!

  Suddenly Liva started singing:

  All flesh, it is but grass,

  The prophets all did say…

  Opperman nudged her arm hard. “Will you be quiet, woman!”

  “Oh, all those stairs … all those stairs,” laughed Liva, making a couple of superfluous dancing movements on the floor of the air raid shelter, as though she thought they had to go down even further.

  Now they were at the outside door.

  “Be absolutely quiet now,” urged Opperman.

  “Be absolutely quiet now,” repeated Liva in a whisper, tugging at his sleeve and laughing.

  Opperman opened the door gently and looked out. A couple of soldiers walked past. They were singing gently in competition with each other and appeared to be in high spirits. But it would be best to wait until they had gone. Now.

  “Is it now?” asked Liva excitedly.

  “Yes, it’s now. Come on, Liva, now!” He gave her a shove in the back, she bent forward slightly, bit her lip and shivered, tiptoed away, and disappeared.

  What now? She suddenly felt so lonely. “Simon,” she called. “Simon.” No reply. She started to run. Someone came running after her. She screamed aloud with excitement, but at that moment she felt an arm round her shoulder. It was he. “Thank goodness,” she said breathlessly, so filled with a sense of happiness that she became weak and almost on the verge of laughter. “Thank goodness, Simon. I knew you would come. Have you got my lamp?”

  With a long sigh of relief she clung to Magnus’s arm. He uttered a few sounds betokening sympathy, but soon gave up trying to reason with her. He then took her by the arm and quickly led her off towards Inspector Hansen’s house.

  “I haven’t got a lamp,” said Liva.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Magnus sought to comfort her. “Doesn’t matter in the least, Liva, not in the least. It’s a lovely moonlit night, you know.”

  The door in to the inspector’s lobby was standing open. Shouts and excited voices could be heard coming from inside.

  “Terrible. Terrible. I think they’re crucifying him!”

  “What are they doing? Yes, but … surely that’s not possible?”

  Tørnkrona, the tailor, repeated in a choking voice: “Crucifying, I say, crucifying.”

  The man was obviously beside himself, standing there loosening his collar: “Terrible.”

  “Magnussen,” shouted the inspector. “Oh, you’ve found her? Quick, bring her into the sitting room. We’ve got to go straight away … up to the memorial mound. They seem to be committing some sort of a crime up there. Masa can look after her meanwhile. Masa – ring the doctor and ask him to come up to the memorial mound. Yes, the memorial mound, damn it! They’re crucifying someone up there.”

  Magnus ran as fast as he could, while the inspector and the tailor followed some way behind. The sound of hammer blows were coming from up on the memorial mound, together with subdued shouts and a hollow groan like a death rattle. The baker was lying bent forward on the ground beside the wooden cross, and Benedikt and the mad boatbuilder were standing shaking him and trying to force him over on his back. Magnus drove them off him with an embittered oath and bent down over Simon, who lay gasping for breath. Blood was trickling from his right hand, which was firmly fixed to the bar of the cross by a solid nail.

  3

  Mrs. Opperman was given a quiet funeral. This was out of respect for her own wishes. It poured with rain, and black umbrellas and mackintoshes put their monotonous stamp on the little cortège and made it strangely faceless and impersonal, almost like a procession of insects.

  “There’s as it were something symbolical about it,” whispered Mr. Skælling to his wife. “No one knew much about Mrs. Opperman or of the relationship between the two of them. Strange, mysterious, isn’t it?”

  The editor and his wife walked close to each other under their common umbrella.

  Yes, indeed, he thought to himself, it was mysterious, this thing. And this mystery would never be solved. But people would guess and speculate, and new incredible anecdotes would circulate and add to the strange web of popular myths in which the tale of Mrs. Opperman and her illness was already enmeshed.

  Had Mrs. Opperman been mad, “possessed”, as some said? A girl who at one time had helped Amanda in the house was said one evening to have heard her summoning the Devil and talking to him for a long time in Opperman’s presence. Opperman himself had not uttered a word. There was much to suggest that his wife had had periods of mental instability, with attacks of fury and hunger strikes. But as for Opperman, it appeared that he had taken her unpredictability with equanimity. It had never been heard or suggested that he had spoken to her reproachfully, let alone in harsh tones. And never had he spoken of her in anything but warm, sympathetic words.

  One drastic assertion – still coming from this maid, for nothing at all ever came from Amanda – was that Opperman had deliberately ruined his wife’s nerves and made her ill. Among other things he was supposed, before she took to her bed, to have engineered some absolutely dreadful shocks for her.

  Old wives’ tales, presumably, to judge from their curious, clammy and undeniably poignant style. In particular there was one diabolical story which said that one evening when Mrs. Opperman thought she was alone at home he had hidden in the loft, switched off the electricity and, from a half landing, teased a funeral wreath down over his wife’s head. On another occasion, it was said, he had placed a notice of his own death in an English newspaper to which the couple subscribed. Solomon Olsen’s head clerk, Gjowstein, took the same newspaper and was said to possess the issue in question. On certain occasions Opperman was also said to have tried to scare Amanda out of her wits, for e
xample posting a parcel to her containing a bag of wet soil, a hymn book and a shroud.

  Typical of the popular imagination. On the other hand it was quite authentically told that Opperman often gave his wife flowers, fruit, exquisite chocolates and countless expensive books and magazines – Heimdal the bookseller would confirm that.

  Now the cortège stopped by the water-logged grave. The rain could be heard beating down on the opened umbrellas and then splashing down on to the white coffin lid. Pastor Fleisch officiated, but there were no speeches, merely a prayer and a hymn: “Fair is the earth”. It sounded terribly dispirited and umbrella-muffled. And that was all. Nothing but the seething rain. Mrs. Skælling wept quietly into her handkerchief.

  “You know, we must go over and offer him our condolences,” whispered her husband. He was thinking of the big advertisements and the generous gifts to the orphans.

  But in an odd way Opperman had made himself inaccessible. He was kneeling by the grave and had hidden his face in his hands. His hat and umbrella lay in the withered grass at his side.

  Small groups of people stayed under the umbrellas waiting for him to get up, so they could express their sympathy. But he made no attempt to change his position, simply knelt there, deaf to the world like a tortoise in its shell. So there was nothing to be done.

  Mrs. Opperman’s old maid, Amanda, was standing on the other side of the grave, hidden beneath an umbrella of a rather out-of-date design. She, too, stood motionless. Mr. Skælling could not escape the impression that she was keeping an eye on Opperman and that it was she who in some way or other was the cause of his not getting up.

  “He’ll be drenched,” he whispered to his wife. “Heavens above, who would have thought that of Opperman?”

  The gathering dispersed, and people went home in wonderment. Down by the entrance Mr. Skælling and his wife turned round and took one last look at the cemetery. Opperman had still not got up, and the old maid was still at her post.

  “I do feel ever so sorry for him,” exclaimed Mrs. Skælling. “And then there’s something strangely eerie about it, don’t you think so, Nikodemus?”