‘Danke.’
Frau Schneider nodded, and retreated from the dining room to give the child some privacy to read it. In the past two weeks, it was Anna’s ghost who had emerged from her room to look disinterestedly at whatever food Frau Schneider put in front of her, and she would take it away untouched. Frau Schneider sighed as she went to the scullery to wash the breakfast plates in the wooden barrel. She’d seen it all before. And although she felt some sympathy for Anna, she was hoping the problem would be resolved by this letter. She had learnt long ago that her residents’ lives, however desperate, could not be her responsibility.
Up in her room, Anna opened the letter with trembling fingers. She had written to Jens weeks ago at the chateau, telling him of the baby. Perhaps this was finally a reply.
Paris
13th September 1877
My darling Anna,
Forgive me for taking so long to write, but I wanted to be settled here before I did so. I am living in an apartment in Paris, and taking composition lessons with Augustus Theron, a renowned professor of music. He is helping me to improve greatly. Baroness von Gottfried has been very generous to act as my benefactor and sponsor, introducing me to everyone who can help. She has even arranged a soirée in November for me to play my work to Paris society.
As I have already told you, I felt it inappropriate to tell her about us, but the truth is, Anna, that I did not wish to worry you when I left. The fact is, my money had run out and if it wasn’t for the baroness’s generosity, we would both be in the gutter now. I left you all I had in Leipzig, and I know you have the coins that Frøken Olsdatter gave you, so I pray you are not suffering.
Anna, I understand you must see my departure and non-return as a terrible betrayal of our love. But please believe that I DO love you. And what I have done I have done for us and our future. When my music begins to be noticed, I will be able to provide for us independently and I will come for you, my love. I swear it on the Bible you hold so dear. And on our union.
Please, I beg you, Anna, wait for me, as you promised. And try to understand what I do is for both of us. It may seem hard, but have faith in me and trust me that this is the best way.
I miss you, my love. So much.
I love you with all my heart.
Your
Jens
Anna let the letter fall to the floor and put her head in her hands, trying to collect her racing thoughts. There was no mention of the baby – had he not received her letter? And how much longer was she meant to wait for him?
This man will break your heart and destroy you . . . Herr Bayer’s words echoed in her mind, eating away her resolve to trust her husband.
Somehow, Anna staggered through the next month. Having no idea when Jens would return, she watched Frøken Olsdatter’s coins diminish, and decided that she must look in the city for some form of work.
For a week, she trudged the streets of Leipzig, enquiring about becoming a waitress or a pot washer, but the second any would-be employer saw her burgeoning belly, they shook their heads and sent her on her way.
‘Frau Schneider, do you perhaps need any help in the kitchen or with the cleaning?’ she asked her landlady one day. ‘Now Herr Hougaard has gone and I wait for my husband to return, I find myself bored. I thought I might make myself useful.’
‘It is not idle work we do here, but if you are sure,’ the landlady replied, eying her carefully, ‘then yes, I could do with some help.’
Frau Schneider started her off in the kitchen, preparing breakfast, which meant Anna had to rise at five thirty in the morning. After washing the pots, she went up to the lodgers’ rooms and changed whatever bedding was necessary. The afternoons were hers, but she was back in the kitchen at five, peeling the potatoes and preparing the supper. Anna thought her situation ironic, given her lack of natural aptitude in the kitchen. It was hard endless graft, and her belly dragged painfully as she walked up and down the stairs, but at least she was so exhausted that she slept through the night.
‘What have I come to?’ she asked herself ruefully as she lay in bed one evening. ‘The toast of Christiania, turned into a scullery maid in a few short months.’ Then she prayed, as she did every night, for her husband to return to her.
‘Dear Lord, please do not let my faith and love in my husband be wrong. And for all those who have doubted him to be right.’
As the chill winds of November began to blow, Anna felt a sudden pain in her stomach in the middle of the night. After fumbling to light the oil lamp beside the bed, she stood up to ease the discomfort and to her horror, saw the sheets were covered in blood. The pains clamped across her belly in regular spasms and she stifled her screams of agony. Too frightened to call out for help and incur the displeasure of Frau Schneider, Anna laboured alone through the long hours and as dawn appeared, she looked down to see a tiny infant lying motionless between her legs.
She noticed there was a piece of skin attached to its navel, which seemed to be also attached to her. She could hold her terror in no longer, and screamed with all the pain, fear and exhaustion she felt. Frau Schneider appeared at the door within seconds, took one look at the carnage on the bed and immediately ran from the room to fetch the midwife.
Anna was roused from an exhausted and feverish sleep by soft hands smoothing back her hair and placing a cloth on her forehead.
‘There, there, Liebe, I’m going to cut the cord and clean you up,’ the voice murmured gently.
‘Is she dying?’ Frau Schneider’s familiar voice cut into Anna’s consciousness. ‘Really, I knew I should have asked her to go the minute I saw she was with child. This is what comes of letting my soft heart rule my head.’
‘No, the young lady will be well, but sadly the babe is stillborn.’
‘Well, that is most tragic, but I’m afraid I must get on.’ With that, Frau Schneider left the room with a cluck of distaste.
An hour later, Anna was tidied up and sitting in clean sheets. The midwife had wrapped her baby in a shawl and handed it to Anna to say goodbye.
‘It was a little girl, dear. Try not to fret. I’m sure there’ll be more babes for you in the future.’
Anna looked down at her daughter’s perfect features, yet already the skin had a bluish hue to it. She kissed the baby tenderly on its tiny forehead, too numb to even cry, then allowed the midwife to remove it from her arms.
33
‘Now that you are stronger I wish to speak with you,’ said Frau Schneider as she removed the untouched breakfast plate from Anna’s lap. The child was still in bed after a week, too feeble to climb out. Frau Schneider had decided enough was enough.
Anna nodded listlessly, knowing full well what the woman would say. And hardly caring if she did get thrown out on the street. She didn’t care about anything any longer.
‘You have had no letter from your husband since early autumn.’
‘No.’
‘Did he say when he would return?’
‘No. Only that he would.’
‘And you still believe him?’
‘Why would he lie to me?’
Frau Schneider gazed at Anna in despair at her naivety. ‘Have you money to pay me for the past week’s rent?’
‘Yes.’
‘And next week? And the week after that?’
‘I have not looked in my tin, Frau Schneider. I will look now.’ Delving under the mattress, Anna retrieved the tin.
Frau Schneider did not need to be told there were few coins left in it. She watched the child open it and saw an expression of fear pass across her blue eyes. Anna took out two coins and handed them to her landlady, then snapped the tin shut.
‘Danke. And what about the midwife’s payment? Can you give me that as well? She handed me the bill when she left. And then, of course, there is the question of your child’s burial. Your babe is still lying in the town mortuary, and unless you wish her to be buried in a pauper’s grave, you must arrange payment for the service and plot of earth in the churchya
rd.’
‘How much will that cost?’
‘I cannot tell you. But I think in truth, it is obvious to us both it is more than you have.’
‘Yes,’ Anna agreed bleakly.
‘Child, I am not a bad woman, but neither am I a saint. I have become fond of you and I know you are a good, God-fearing girl who has fallen low because of a man. And I am not so completely heartless as to throw you out onto the streets after what you have suffered. But we must both be realistic about the situation. This room is the best I have to offer to guests and the amount you have earned from me doing the chores barely covers two nights of the weekly rent. And then there are your other debts . . .’
Frau Schneider looked at Anna for a reaction, but there was not a flicker in her dead eyes. She continued with a sigh. ‘Therefore I suggest that you continue to help me at the boarding house, working full-time until your husband returns – if he does – and I will offer you the maid’s room off the scullery at the back of the house in lieu of wages. You will be fed with the leftovers from breakfast and dinner and, on top of that, I will loan you the money you need to pay the midwife and to give your child a proper Christian burial. There, what do you say?’
Anna could say nothing. Any thoughts she might have were not within reach. She was only physically present because she had no choice, so she nodded her head automatically.
‘Good. Then it is decided. Tomorrow, you will move your possessions into your new room. There is a gentleman who wishes to rent this room for a month.’
Frau Schneider walked towards the door and as her big, capable hand grasped the knob, the woman turned back with a frown.
‘Are you not going to say thank you, child? Many would simply toss you out into the gutter.’
‘Thank you, Frau Schneider,’ Anna parroted dutifully.
The woman muttered something as she opened the door and left, and Anna knew she had not shown enough gratitude. She closed her eyes to block out reality. It was safest to stay in a place where nothing and no one could reach her.
As a bitter wind blew in the beginning of December, Anna went to the Johannis Cemetery and stood alone by the graveside of her daughter.
Solveig Anna Halvorsen.
The God she had always believed in, the love she had sacrificed everything for, and now her baby girl . . . all were gone.
In the next three months, Anna simply existed. She worked from dawn until dusk, as Frau Schneider took full advantage of the financial arrangement that had been struck when Anna was vulnerable. The landlady lounged in her private sitting room as she tasked Anna with more and more chores. At night, she lay on her pallet in the tiny room that stank of decaying food from the scullery and slops from the narrow drain in the back yard, so exhausted that she slept and dreamt of nothing.
There were no dreams left.
When she gathered up the courage to ask how long before her debt would be paid off and she could receive some wages, Frau Schneider had snarled angrily in reply.
‘Ungrateful girl! I care for you by putting a roof over your head and food on the table and yet you still ask for more!’
No, it was Frau Schneider who asked for more, Anna thought that night. Nowadays, it was left to her to do everything in the lodging house and she knew she must set about finding herself another position that at least paid her some meagre wages. As she pulled off her dress and surveyed her grimy face in the looking glass, she realised she looked little better than a gutter rat: half starved, dressed in rags and smelling of filth. It would be almost impossible for an employer to offer her a position in her current state.
She thought of writing to Frøken Olsdatter, or even throwing herself on her parents’ mercy. When she enquired at a pawn shop what they would pay her for the writing instrument Lars had given her, she realised it would not even cover the price of posting a letter to Norway.
Besides, what little she had left of her pride told her she had brought all this terrible misfortune down on her own head and that she deserved no sympathy.
Christmas came and went and the freezing January days slowly drained any ounce of hope and belief that Anna had left within her. The prayers that had once been for salvation had turned to prayers that she would never wake up again.
‘There is no God, it is all a lie . . . everything is a lie,’ she whispered to herself before falling into an exhausted sleep.
One evening in March, she was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for the lodgers’ evening meal when Frau Schneider entered, looking flustered.
‘There is a gentleman here to see you, Anna.’
Anna turned to her with a look of pure relief on her face.
‘No, it is not your husband. I have put the gentleman in my parlour. You will remove your apron, clean your face and come as soon as you have done so.’
With a sinking heart, Anna wondered if it was Herr Bayer coming to mock her. And didn’t care if it was, she thought, walking along the corridor to Frau Schneider’s sitting room. Knocking in trepidation, she was told to enter.
‘Frøken Landvik! Or should I say Fru Halvorsen, as I believe we must address you now. How are you, my little songbird?’
‘I . . .’ Anna stared at the gentleman in utter shock, studying him as though he was an exhibit in the museum of her past life.
‘Come now, child, speak to Herr Grieg,’ Frau Schneider chastised her. ‘She can certainly answer back when she wishes to,’ she commented acidly.
‘Yes, she always was a spirited girl who knew her own mind. But then, that is the artistic temperament, madame,’ Grieg retorted.
‘Artistic temperament?’ Frau Schneider eyed Anna with disdain. ‘I thought that belonged to her absent husband.’
‘This woman’s husband may be a fine musician, but this young lady is the real talent in the family. Have you not heard her sing, madame? She has the most exquisite voice I’ve ever heard, other than that of my dear wife, Nina, of course.’
Anna listened quietly as they continued to talk about her, enjoying the slack-jawed look of shock on Frau Schneider’s face.
‘Well, of course, if I had known, I would have brought her into this parlour and had her sing for our lodgers as I played the piano. I myself am an amateur, but a keen one.’ Frau Schneider indicated the ancient instrument sitting in a corner which Anna had never heard played since the day she’d arrived.
‘I’m sure you underestimate your own abilities, dear madame.’ Edvard Grieg turned his attention to Anna. ‘My poor child,’ he said, switching to Norwegian so that Frau Schneider couldn’t eavesdrop. ‘I have only recently arrived in Leipzig and received your letter. You look half starved. Forgive me, if I had known your circumstances, I would have come sooner.’
‘Herr Grieg, please, do not concern yourself with me. I am well.’
‘It is patently obvious you are not, and it is my pleasure to assist you in any way I can. Do you owe this wretched woman anything?’
‘I do not think so, sir. I have not had wages for the past six months and believe any debts must have been paid off long ago. But she may think otherwise.’
‘My poor, poor child,’ Grieg said, careful to keep his tone light under Frau Schneider’s scrutiny. ‘Now, I will request a glass of water, which you will fetch for me. Then you will go to your room and pack any possessions you have. Bring in the glass, then take your belongings and leave the house. I will meet you at the Bierkeller on the corner of Elsterstraße. In the meantime, I will handle our Frau Schneider.’
‘I was just saying to Anna I have a raging thirst that will not quieten. Frau Halvorsen has offered to get me some water,’ he said in German.
With Frau Schneider’s nod of agreement, Anna left the room and hurried through the scullery to pack her valise as Herr Grieg had instructed her to. She filled a glass with water from a jug, and carried it to the parlour. Leaving her valise outside the door, she took the water inside.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Grieg as she handed him the glass. ‘Now, I’m sure
you have duties to attend to. I will see you before I leave.’ Turning to Frau Schneider, he managed a slight wink at Anna, who retreated hurriedly, then picked up her valise and left the house.
Stunned by the turn of events, Anna waited by the Bierkeller for twenty minutes until the familiar figure of her saviour walked swiftly down the street towards her.
‘Well, Fru Halvorsen, I hope that one day your absent husband will repay me for bargaining your release!’
‘Oh sir! Did she make you pay for it?’
‘No, it was far more trying than that. She insisted I give her a rendition of my Concerto in A Minor on that dreadful instrument of hers. She should use it for firewood to keep her lardy body warm in winter,’ Grieg chuckled as he picked up Anna’s valise. ‘I have promised to call again to serenade her, but I can assure you I will not be fulfilling that obligation. Now, we will hail a carriage from the square to take us to Talstraße, and on the way there, you will tell me all that you have suffered at the hands of the wicked Frau Schneider. It is as if you are Aschenputtel and that woman your wicked stepmother, banishing you to the kitchen to be her skivvy. All that is missing is the two ugly sisters!’
Grieg offered his hand to Anna as she stepped inside the carriage. At that moment, she did indeed feel like a fairy-tale princess being rescued by her prince.
‘We are going to the house of my dear friend, the music publisher Max Abraham,’ Grieg said.
‘Is he expecting me?’
‘No, but dear madame, once he hears of your plight, he will be only too glad to offer you shelter. I have the use of a set of rooms there whenever I wish to be in Leipzig. You shall be quite comfortable until we have settled you elsewhere. I shall sleep on the grand piano if necessary.’
‘Please, sir, I do not wish to cause a problem or any discomfort for you.’
The Storm Sister Page 38