The Storm Sister
Page 36
‘Dear Lord, forgive me for the terrible lies the letters contain. I think the worst one is that’ – Anna swallowed hard – ‘I am happy. I am not. Not at all. But I know I do not deserve sympathy or forgiveness for any of it.’
Then she had felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Warum so traurig, mein Kind?’
She looked up, startled, to see an old pastor smiling down at her. ‘Kein Deutsch, nur Norwegisch,’ she had managed to say, as Jens had taught her.
‘Ah!’ said the pastor. ‘I know a little of the Norwegian language.’
Even though she tried her best to speak to him, his Norwegian was as limited as her German, and Anna had realised that Jens would have to speak to him about their marriage and then convince the pastor of their faith.
The highlight of her day was their supper together as she listened to Jens talk about the Conservatory: the other students who hailed from all over Europe, the rows of Blüthner practice pianos and the wonderful tutors, many of whom were also musicians in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Tonight it had been the Stradivarius violin he’d been allowed to play which he’d rhapsodised about.
‘The difference in the quality of the sound is rather like that of a barmaid humming to a soprano singing an aria,’ he enthused. ‘It’s all so wonderful! Not only do I get to play every day, on the piano as well as my violin, but the classes I take in Musical Composition, Harmony and Musical Analysis are teaching me so much. And in Music History, I’ve already studied works by Chopin and Liszt that I had never even heard of! Soon I will be playing Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2 in a student concert at the Gewandhaus hall.’
‘I’m so glad you’re happy,’ she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘Is there anyone you could ask if there might be a chance for me to sing?’
‘Anna, I know you keep asking me,’ Jens replied in between bites of his food, ‘but I tell you that if you do not learn any German, it will be difficult for you to do anything in this town.’
‘Surely there is someone who can just hear me? I know the Italian words to “Violetta’s Aria”, and I can learn the German words later.’
‘Hush, my love.’ Jens reached out and took her hand. ‘I will try again to make some enquiries for you.’
After supper, there was always the discomfiting bedtime routine. She would change into her nightgown in the water closet, then hurry under the covers, where Jens already lay. He would wrap his arms around her and she would relax against his chest, drinking in his musky smell. He would kiss her then and she would feel her body respond to him, just as his did to her, both of them wanting more . . . But then she would pull away from him and he would sigh heavily.
‘I just can’t,’ she’d whispered into the darkness one night. ‘You know we must be married first.’
‘I know, my darling. Of course we will be married eventually, but before then, surely we can—’
‘No, Jens! I just . . . cannot. You know I have found a church where we can wed soon, but you must speak to the pastor to make the arrangements.’
‘Anna, I simply do not have time to spare. My studies require my full attention. Besides, many at the Conservatory have new ideas. There are radicals amongst the students who believe the Church is simply there to control the people. They look to a more enlightened view, such as that of Goethe in his play Faust. The story deals with all aspects of the spiritual and metaphysical. I have been lent a copy to read by a friend, and this weekend I will take you to Auerbachs Keller, the bar that Goethe himself frequented and where he was inspired by a mural to write his classic.’
Anna had never heard of Goethe and his apparently illuminating work. All she knew was that she had to be married in the eyes of God before she could be in a physical union with Jens.
Christmas arrived, reminding Anna that she and Jens had been in Leipzig for three months. She had wanted to go to the Christmette, the midnight mass at the church, and Pastor Meyer had even given her a leaflet of traditional German hymns. She had been humming ‘Stille Nacht’ to herself, excited at the prospect of singing with other people again. But Jens had insisted they should spend Christmas Eve at the home of Frederick, one of his fellow music students.
Clutching a mug of hot Glühwein, Anna sat silently next to Jens at the table, listening to the guttural German and hardly understanding a word of it. Jens, who was already drunk, made no attempt to translate for her. Others played instruments after dinner, but Jens never once suggested she should sing.
As they walked home through the frosty night, Anna heard the bells chime midnight, announcing the start of Christmas Day. The sound of carol singing came from the church as they passed it, and she glanced up at Jens, his face red from alcohol and the cheer of the evening. Sending up a silent prayer for her family celebrating without her in Heddal, she wished with all her heart that she were there too.
Throughout January and February, Anna thought she might go mad with boredom. Her daily routine, which had seemed bearable to begin with due to its novelty, now seemed insufferably dull. The snow had come to Leipzig and it was sometimes so cold that her fingers and toes went numb. She spent the days fetching up buckets of coal for the fire, washing clothes in the freezing scullery, or making pitiful attempts to make sense of the words in Faust, which Jens had told her to study to improve her German.
‘I am so very stupid!’ she berated herself one afternoon, slapping the book closed and bursting into tears of frustration, something she now did with alarming regularity.
Jens became ever more deeply involved with the Conservatory and its students, often arriving home after a concert at midnight smelling of beer and tobacco smoke. She would feign sleep as his arms reached out for her and tentatively caressed her body through her nightgown. She’d hear him swear under his breath at her lack of response, and as her heart beat against her chest, he’d roll over with a grunt and begin to snore. Only then could she sigh with relief and go to sleep herself.
Nowadays, she mostly ate supper alone, surveying the other residents of the lodging house from under her eyelashes. Many of them changed weekly, and Anna presumed they were travelling salesmen of some kind. However, there was one elderly gentleman who seemed to be a permanent resident like her, and took supper alone each evening. His nose was always buried in a book and he was finely dressed in an old-fashioned manner.
The gentleman became an object of fascination as she ate; Anna spent hours wondering what his story was, and why he had chosen to spend his sunset years here. Sometimes, when it was only the two of them for supper, he would nod and say ‘Guten Abend’ as he walked in and ‘Gute Nacht’ as he walked out. She decided he reminded her rather of Herr Bayer, with his head of thick white hair, bushy moustache and courteous airs.
‘If I am even missing Herr Bayer, then I really must be miserable,’ she muttered to herself one evening as she left the dining room.
A few nights later, the gentleman stood up and walked across the room with his ever-present book in his hand. ‘Gute Nacht.’ He nodded to her as he approached the door to leave the room. Then in afterthought, he turned back to her.
‘Sprechen sie Deutsch?’
‘Nein, Norwegisch.’
‘You are from Norway?’ he said in surprise.
‘Yes,’ she replied, delighted he had answered her fluently in her native language.
‘I am a Dane, you see, but my mother was from Christiania. She taught me the language when I was young.’
After the long weeks of being unable to communicate properly with anyone but Jens since she had arrived, Anna wanted to hug him. ‘Then I am delighted to meet you, sir.’
She watched the man pause in thought by the door and survey her. ‘You say you don’t speak any German?’
‘No more than a few words.’
‘Then how on earth do you manage in this town?’
‘To be honest, sir, I don’t.’
‘Your husband, he is working here in Leipzig?’
‘No, he attends the Conservatory.’
‘I am Anna Halvorsen.’
‘And I am Stefan Hougaard.’ He gave her a small bow. ‘And pleased to make your acquaintance. You do not work then, Fru Halvorsen?’
‘No, sir, I do not. Although I hope soon to gain employment as a singer.’
‘Well, in the meantime, perhaps I can assist you with the task of studying German? Or at least, give you a better grasp of the basics,’ he suggested. ‘We could meet here after breakfast if you wish, under the full glare of our landlady, so that your husband would not feel as though anything improper was occurring.’
‘That is most kind of you, sir, and indeed, I would be very grateful for your help. But I warn you, I am a slow student and not good with my letters, even in my own language.’
‘Well then, we shall just have to work hard together, won’t we? So, tomorrow morning at ten?’
‘Yes. I will be here.’
Anna went to bed that night feeling far more cheerful, even though Jens was yet again absent from her side, saying he was rehearsing for a concert. Simply being able to converse with another human being had been a joy and anything she could do to add a little variety to her days had to be a good thing. And if she could learn at least a little German, perhaps there would be a chance of singing in public again . . .
As the first blossoms began to appear on the trees, Anna spent her mornings downstairs, trying to teach her stubborn brain to memorise and repeat the words Herr Hougaard taught her. After the first few days, he insisted he should accompany her out on the street when she was making her daily trip to the market. He would stand a short distance away and listen carefully as she followed his instructions and bade the vendor a good morning, then requested her goods and paid for them before saying goodbye. These missions unnerved her at first, and often she would stumble over the phrases she had learnt, but slowly, her confidence began to grow.
Anna’s forays into the city with Herr Hougaard began to expand as she improved over the following weeks, culminating in her ordering lunch for both of them at a restaurant, which she insisted on paying for as a thank you.
She still knew little about him, only that his wife had died some years ago, leaving him a widower. He had moved from the country to the city so that he could enjoy all the benefits of the cultural scene in Leipzig without having to care for himself domestically.
‘What more do I need than a full stomach, clean sheets and clothes washed regularly, and a magnificent concert just a few minutes’ walk away to stir my senses?’ he had said with a broad smile.
Herr Hougaard had been surprised that Jens had not asked her to watch the many concerts he told her he performed in. He’d said they didn’t have the money to spare, but Herr Hougaard said they were often free. In fact, Anna was seeing less and less of her ‘husband’, and just recently, there had been occasions when he hadn’t come home at all. She thought one morning, as she opened the window to let in the spring air before walking downstairs for her daily lesson, that if it wasn’t for Herr Hougaard, she may well have thrown herself under a tram months ago.
It was on one of their trips into the city centre at lunchtime that Anna was startled to spot Jens sitting in the window of the Thüringer Hof, one of the best restaurants in Leipzig. It was the place where the local aristocracy gathered in their fine clothes, their carriages lined up outside, with horses waiting patiently to take them home after a sumptuous lunch. Just as her life in Christiania had once been, Anna thought ruefully.
She strained to look between the carriages at Jens’ dining partner. It was clearly a woman, by the bright scarlet hat with a feather in it that was bobbing as the figure talked. Inching closer, much to Herr Hougaard’s amusement, she saw the woman had dark hair and what her mother would call a Roman profile, which in essence meant a big nose.
‘What on earth are you staring at, Anna?’ Herr Hougaard walked up behind her. ‘You look like The Little Match Girl in my very own Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Will you wish to go and press your nose against the window, as she did?’ he chuckled.
‘No.’ Anna tore her eyes away as Jens and the woman leant in close to talk. ‘I thought it was someone I knew.’
That night, Anna forced herself to stay awake until Jens returned home, well after midnight. These days, he threw his clothes off in the water closet and slid into bed in the dark, so as not to disturb her. But of course he did. Every night.
‘What are you still doing awake?’ he asked her, obviously surprised to see the oil lamp still alight as he entered the room.
‘I thought I’d wait up for you. I feel we hardly see each other any more.’
‘I know,’ Jens sighed as he collapsed into bed next to her and Anna knew he’d been drinking again. ‘Sadly, this is the life of a music student at the famous Leipzig Conservatory. I barely have time in the day to eat!’
‘Even at luncheon?’ The words had fallen off her tongue before she could stop them.
Jens turned to her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw you taking lunch in town today.’
‘Really? Then why did you not come in and say hello?’
‘Because I was hardly dressed for such a place. And you were deep in conversation with a woman.’
‘Ah, yes, Baroness von Gottfried. She is a great benefactor of the Conservatory and its students. She came to a concert last week where four of us young composers were actually given the chance to perform one of our own short pieces. It’s the composition I’ve been working on, remember?’
No, she didn’t remember, but then Jens was never here to tell her anything any more.
‘I see.’ She swallowed hard, a wave of indignation welling up inside her as she wondered why, if he’d been premiering a new work, he hadn’t invited her to watch.
‘The baroness invited me for lunch to discuss possible plans for having my compositions heard on a wider scale. She has many contacts in all the great cities of Europe. Paris, Florence, Copenhagen . . .’ Jens smiled dreamily and put his hands behind his head. ‘Can you imagine, Anna? Having my music played in the great concert halls of the world? That would show Herr Hennum now, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, undoubtedly it would give you great pleasure.’
‘What is the matter, Anna?’ asked Jens, reacting to the ice in her voice. ‘Come now, spit it out. You have something to say to me.’
‘Yes, I do!’ Anna could contain her anger no longer. ‘From one week to another, I hardly see you, and yet now you tell me that you are giving concerts to which I, your betrothed, and to all the world your wife, am not even invited. You come home after midnight most evenings and, occasionally, not at all! And I sit here, waiting for you like some faithful dog, with no friends, nothing to do but chores and no prospect of continuing my own singing career! Then to crown it all, I see you at one of the best restaurants, taking lunch with another woman. There! That’s what I have to say.’
Once it was clear that Anna had finished her outburst, Jens stood up from the bed. ‘And now, Anna, I will tell you what I have to say: can you imagine how it is for me to lie in bed every night next to the woman I love, to be so close to her beautiful body but not be allowed to touch beyond a caress or a kiss? My God, in some ways, what small allowance you deign to make me only adds to my frustration! I lie here night after night dreaming of making love to you, to the point where I cannot rest. It is better for me and my sanity if I am not lying with you, longing for you, but instead arriving home as late and as drunk as possible so I will sink into oblivion. Yes!’ Jens folded his arms defiantly. ‘This . . . life that we are living together is neither one thing nor the other. You are my wife, but not my wife. You are withdrawn and sullen . . . and you give every impression that you would like nothing better than to go home. Anna, please remember, it was your decision to come here. Why do you not leave? It is obvious to all you are not happy. That I make you unhappy!’
‘No, that part is not, you are right.’ Jens’ expression softened. ‘But why do you think I do not wish to see the pastor yet?’
‘Because you do not wish to marry me?’
‘Anna’ – he gave an exasperated chuckle – ‘you know how desperate I am to be a real husband to you. But I don’t think you realise what such an event costs. You would need a dress, attendants, a wedding feast . . . it’s what any bride deserves. And what I wish you to have. But there are simply no funds for such an event. We live hand to mouth as it is.’
All the fire went out of Anna as she finally understood. ‘Oh . . . but Jens, I don’t need any of these things. I just want to be married to you.’
‘Well, if you speak the truth, then we will marry immediately. Sadly, it won’t be anything like the wedding you would have imagined as a child, though.’
‘I know.’ Anna swallowed hard at the thought that none of her family would be there. Not Mor and Far or Knut and Sigrid. Pastor Erslev would not preside over the ceremony and she would not wear the village wedding crown. ‘But I do not care.’
Jens sat back down on the bed and kissed her tenderly. ‘We will meet with your pastor and set a date.’
32
The marriage ceremony at the Thomaskirche was brief, simple and private, with Anna wearing a plain white dress she had bought with Frøken Olsdatter’s money for the occasion and white flowers in her hair. Pastor Meyer smiled genially as he spoke the vows that would bind them to each other for the rest of their lives.