Behind the window lay the deserted vestibule. On a table covered with green felt lay a large roll of paper and, as usual, on the table was a large roll of paper on which the news bulletins were lettered before being pasted up in the windows facing the street. On the wall to the left hung some photographs of deceased members of the staff. And in a room deep in the interior sat the copy editor, wearing his customary gray suit. He was busy at the telephone.
Vuldum turned toward Jastrau.
“Isn’t it a nice homelike setting? And this is what the novelists call the hectic, pulsating atmosphere of a newspaper editorial office. Why, it’s more like a quiet interior by Vermeer. Can’t you just picture it? The door here like a dark frame? The subdued light in the vestibule? The table with its green felt in the foreground? And then, the room farther in a little darker? The perspective might have been done by Velásquez—one room behind the other. And there, in the farthest background, sitting in the half-darkened room under a green lampshade, is this fellow with the light shining on his face—a contemporary, smooth-shaven face. He sits bent over his work, the telephone receiver next to his ear. What’s so hectic about it? Yes, I’d like to know, because I can’t see it, no matter how much these modern writers make of it. I feel I’d like to just quietly walk in.”
“Now don’t let yourself be so carried away that you forget you’ve invited me out for a drink,” Jastrau said.
“No, how can you think such a thing?” Vuldum laid his hand earnestly on Jastrau’s shoulder. “Do you think I can forget that I’m honored with the company of a married man whose apartment has been commandeered by the Communists?”
Jastrau gave a start. Had Vuldum seen through his distressing story? It would be a fine thing for him to repeat up here at the office in the morning. Now he would have to be careful that the whiskey did not loosen his tongue.
“Well—hardly commandeered it,” he said weakly.
“Let’s not hurry. Remember, I’ve asked you out for only one highball.”
They went on down the darkened stairway.
But when they got down to the brightly illuminated cablegram office, the revolving door from the street was suddenly set in motion, and they saw someone coming in.
Through the revolving glass panels which refracted the light at crazy angles, they made out a tall stoop-shouldered figure. They caught a glimpse of a derby pulled low over the man’s forehead, giving him somewhat the appearance of a competent butcher’s helper. And that was enough to tell them who it was.
“The old man,” whispered Vuldum.
A schoolboy’s smile lit up each of their faces, though it was becoming to neither of them. Vuldum’s features were too harried and Jastrau’s were too pudgy. The effect was rather comic, like adult actors cast in the role of schoolchildren. The smiles did not suit the jaded expression in their eyes, but their lips, so to speak, were stuck with them. They did not, however, stand like a couple of youngsters with arms at their sides, each holding his sailor hat in his hand. It was a strange performance.
The man coming in was Editor-in-Chief Iversen.
As he entered, he raised his hat slightly so that a subhuman cranium and occiput came into view. His hair was gray. A big, drooping mustache hid his mouth, but never his smile, nor could it conceal the long line of his chin, so that anyone viewing Editor Iversen from the side could not help being impressed by his bulldog jaw.
The tired, disillusioned eyes rested on them momentarily. Looking into the eyes was like looking down through soap bubbles into a cup of murky water. It took a long time for the eyes to come to life. But then the old man playfully lifted an index finger, his expression became animated so that he looked twenty years younger, and he said in a slow drawl: “Well, here we have the whole literary department—in one fell swoop. I trust you’re not up to any mischief.”
Vuldum wanted to raise his hand in a gesture, but all that happened was that his right arm gave a little jerk. He bowed correctly. Jastrau unconsciously took up a sheltered position a little behind him.
“Well, what can one do about it?” the editor continued after a moment’s pause, staring straight ahead with a blankly philosophical expression.
Just then a dark-haired man in a black coat came hurrying by. He did not, however, neglect to shout a loud greeting, “Good evening, Herr Iversen.” His voice reached into the farthest corners of the hall. The tiled floor resounded with the echo of his greeting and his hurried footsteps. Duty, duty! Heels striking against the tiles.
“And there goes the radio section,” said the editor pensively, staring after the newcomer as he disappeared into the elevator. “Well, what can one do about it? That’s the future—the radio. At least, so folks say.”
He shook his head mournfully and cast a sympathetic glance at Vuldum and Jastrau, as if sincerely regretting that it would soon be all up with both of them.
“Yes, what is there to do about it?”
With this concluding remark he smiled and nodded good-bye, then disappeared up the dark stairway.
Jastrau felt crushed. It was as if a big fist had with one stroke swept all his work into the bottomless rubbish pit of history. But then suddenly Vuldum put his hand under his arm and drew him along through the revolving door. The cool air from the dark, open square struck their faces. Vuldum shivered in his big, light-gray overcoat, and laughed.
“Yes—we two poor immortals. A drink is going to do us good.”
The Bar des Artistes was only a few doors down the street. It was part of a small hotel. In front of it hung a large oval sign with the words BAR DES ARTISTES painted in the form of an arch like a bridge. Beneath the bridge, representing the water, was a single word: DANCING.
The entrance was unimpressive. The door and the two windows were squeezed off to one side of the more dignified hotel entrance and a big restaurant. At night, the light also shone more brightly from the restaurant windows, for they had transparent curtains, whereas the bar was concealed behind portieres and heavy draperies so that it emitted only a subdued, intimate light, little more than a gentle glow. It was the same as far as the music was concerned. Every night from the restaurant came the sweeping rush of violin music, while behind the dark windowpanes and door of the bar could be heard only the soft tones of a phonograph, muted to the level of a whisper. No one who went there need feel conspicuous. But the bar did not have to make its existence known in a loud voice, and it was not the brightly lighted, music-filled, but deserted, restaurant that accounted for the long row of cars that were always parked on the other side of the street.
For the sake of appearances, Vuldum led Jastrau past the door of the bar—it was not everyone who found it proper to go in directly from the street—and turned in at the hotel entrance, as if they were going to the restaurant. But the hall porter, who nodded familiarly to Vuldum, was in no doubt about their destination. He quickly opened a door that led from the hotel lobby into the bar.
For a moment they were deafened by the hum of many voices and the distant whining of a phonograph playing Hawaiian guitar music. Amidst the reddish glow of the tapestries and the bluish fog of tobacco smoke they suddenly felt as if they had entered an unreal world. Male customers were clustered convivially about the round tables. But not a single woman. In any event, Jastrau saw none in his first look around.
With Vuldum taking the lead, they stepped up to a brass-ornamented bar in back of which gleaming rows of bottles lined the shelves. It was from this center that all undue noise or disturbance was controlled, partly by a clock that was always five minutes fast—one of the bar’s good-natured arrangements—and partly by the manager, a Swede, with a large, amiable, but wily, satyr’s face as plump as the clock was round and as red as the clock face was white, an agreeable combination of high priest and innkeeper, with a girth that inspired such confidence in his customers that they found his flaccid handshake hearty, his casual remarks confiding, and his equivocal smile warm and indicative of the friendly informality so typical among thos
e of his nationality.
He had already, at a distance, nodded to Vuldum, as if it were a pleasure to him personally to have him there as a guest. At the same time, he had almost too obviously cocked his head to one side to size up Jastrau.
He was Scandinavia’s best cocktail mixer, and his name was Lundbom.
It was difficult to make one’s way through the room. Some of the customers raised an arm in a kind of nonpolitical Fascist salute, others waved or lifted their glasses in greeting. Vuldum was obviously well known in the place. “Good evening, old boy.” “Well—so it’s you, Vuldum.” A stout gentleman with a florid prelate’s face, dimples, and a cleft chin made a pompous gesture with one hand and offered them a place at his round table, where he sat shaking dice with a small, balding man, evidently a shop clerk. But Vuldum only nodded in a polite but reserved manner as he went on, his cigarette held carefully in his hand. He had suddenly caught sight of a lady in a shiny black dress who, accompanied by a broad-shouldered man, sat balanced on one of the high stools at the bar. She was the only woman in the room.
Before they settled themselves on a pair of stools next to the couple, Vuldum let his gaze hover intimately over her back and shoulders. Then, as he abstractedly ordered two whiskies and helped himself to a salted almond from the dish that stood on the counter, he tried to catch a glimpse of her profile. He had completely forgotten about Jastrau.
Suddenly, however, he gave a start. The woman had said to him, “Oh, how do you do, Herr Vuldum.” There was a trace of derision in her tone. Vuldum stiffened and with an impolite jerk of his head turned toward Jastrau. At the same time he directed an indignant, questioning look at Lundbom and turned his back on the woman in obvious disapproval. But Lundbom only narrowed his small, crafty eyes and shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“Have you seen anything of Herr Journalist Eriksen today?” he asked Vuldum with a smile, in order to divert his attention.
“No.”
“He was a little high last night—yes, a little high. And when he’s that way, he’s a bit hard to manage.” Lundbom said it with a smile that was a bit confusing because it was obviously meant to be indicative of concern.
But Vuldum was white as a corpse. His red hair gave him a ghostly appearance.
“Well now, my married friend, may I have the honor of drinking to you?” he said, pulling himself together.
Jastrau nodded and drank.
“Listen, Vuldum, why do you always seem to resent the fact that I’m married?”
Vuldum looked at him in a way that seemed to indicate that his thoughts were on the couple next to him.
“I don’t have anything against your being married,” he replied mechanically. “In fact, I admire you for it.”
Jastrau let out a loud, derisive laugh in an attempt to dispel Vuldum’s preoccupation.
“No, my dear Ole,” Vuldum protested, laying his hand meaningfully on Jastrau’s arm. But his eyes retained their preoccupied, ill-natured expression; they were two luminous gray dots. “I honestly admire the way you keep your wife hidden. Why, I’ve never so much as been introduced to her, and you never bring her along to any of Dagbladet’s parties. I admire the way you keep your private and public life separate.”
Jastrau had ears only for the mechanical way in which the words came, not for their meaning.
“I can see you don’t believe me,” Vuldum went on. “But it goes without saying that anyone with such a conservative nature as I—at least, people say that I’m conservative—must admire you for the way you keep your wife shut up. And if you happen to be invaded by Bolsheviks, then you send her home to her parents. But look here—your two Bolsheviks are waiting for you now.”
Even in his sleep he must be spiteful, Jastrau thought.
“Oh, let them wait,” he replied. Why did he have to be reminded of them now? Here he and Vuldum sat together at the bar, each with different thoughts going through the back of his head. It was like a masquerade. Suddenly a saxophone solo broke forth from the phonograph, and Jastrau wanted to rock back and forth on the bar stool in time with the music—to forget, forget, forget—
“This is a good number. It’s Rudy Wiedoeft, the world’s best saxophonist.”
Vuldum put both of his strong hands on the brass edge of the bar and tilted his stool back until it stood balanced on two legs, ostensibly to listen, but also to enable him to make a fleeting inspection of the danger that threatened him from behind.
The lady also turned her head slightly. Jastrau could see that she had black hair. A broad face. And there was something Slavic, something a bit vulgar about it. She was certainly not pretty. But he saw her for only an instant. There was animosity in her expression, and her lips were twisted in what was presumably an expression of scorn. She turned her back on them with a shrug of contempt so naive that Jastrau involuntarily had to laugh.
“Yes, it’s a nice enough saxophone,” remarked Vuldum as if he had noticed nothing, “but it isn’t the kind of music I care for.”
“Well, let’s get back to the subject we were discussing,” Jastrau said. “I’m astonished by your flattery, to say the least.”
Vuldum sat up straighter.
“I feel doubly pleased that my honest conviction is flattering to you in the bargain. It happens to me so very infrequently,” he replied with a dexterity of phrase that made it sound as if he were quoting. But then suddenly he added cynically, without any transition whatsoever, “On the other hand, I’m not glad that your damned saxophone solo made us drink too fast. Now my glass is empty.”
He set the glass down with a bang on the linoleum countertop.
“Two whiskeys,” ordered Jastrau.
Vuldum breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thanks,” he said. “I need it, and I don’t have much money with me. But shouldn’t we also have a cigar? They sell one here that’s called Marsmann, and it’s a passable smoke.”
Jastrau nodded while he thoughtfully took his money out of his vest pocket.
“That’s more than enough,” remarked Vuldum, taking a long look at the brass two-krone pieces in Jastrau’s hand. “We can probably have another whiskey.”
“Yes, so we can,” Jastrau said mechanically. He was too tired to try to remember if the money was supposed to be for something else.
At that moment a meek little man clad in a short Windbreaker walked through the room. He carried a basket of flowers on one arm, and in the other hand he held out discreetly toward the customers three pink roses. There was, indeed, something pink and sanctimonious about his entire affable appearance, and his fixed, artificial smile was a good match for the roses. He looked like a private in the Salvation Army.
He went through the room and came toward them without a word. Only a suggestive movement of the hand that held the flowers. Only a politely regretful bow when he was turned down. A silent soul with flowers for sale.
When Vuldum saw him, his gray eyes suddenly became attentive and followed his movements predaciously. He turned completely around and sat with his back to the bar.
A new phonograph record filled the room with the soft sentimental strains of “Rose Mary.” Several of the customers hummed along with the music. The woman sitting next to them rocked in rhythm with the tune so that her stool creaked, and Lundbom gave the cocktail mixer such an ecstatic shake that the brittle ice could be heard crunching inside it. Everything was roses. But Jastrau felt nervous—more nervous than before—for now Vuldum was bending forward. His sleek red hair hung down over his forehead, and his eyes were expressionless.
And then the inevitable happened.
The flower vendor paid no attention to Vuldum. He had eyes only for the lady, and as he came up to the bar he held out his offering with a supplicatory and humble gallantry toward the broad-shouldered man sitting next to her. And at the same moment Vuldum rose from his stool, supporting himself on its crosspieces so that he stood head and shoulders above everyone else, and in a loud voice, with every word resounding
with a metallic ring, said:
“What makes you think you can come in here and sell flowers. As you can see, there isn’t a lady in the place.”
A silence fell over the entire room. Only the strains of “Rose Mary” kept issuing incessantly from the phonograph.
A moment later the broad-shouldered gentleman stepped away from the bar.
“Come on. Let’s go,” he said to his companion in a voice that trembled.
She sprang down from the stool, he helped her on with her fur piece, and without saying good-bye to Lundbom, who stood speechless with concern over the possible effect of such a scene on his business, they made their way through the crowd and disappeared, while all eyes followed them.
Jastrau had been fearful that the incident might precipitate a real disturbance. He could not bear to think of it. People were so stupid when they began bickering. At the same time, he felt a needless sympathy for the flower-seller, who smiled in bewilderment and seemed to want to bow in all directions at once. How was Jastrau to know that this unassuming man owned a house in the Nørrebro district?
“Look—let me have three roses. How much are they?”
But then came a burst of admonishing laughter from the stout man at the round table: “Oh, now—shame on you Vuldum!” The shop clerk sitting next to him shook his little doll’s head reproachfully.
And at the same time, Lundbom began to launch into a quiet jeremiad in a Swedish accent: “Now I must say, Herr Vuldum, that sort of thing won’t do, damn it all!”
His pronunciation of “damn it all” was perfect Danish. But Vuldum drew himself up haughtily.
“Do you know what kind of a woman that was?”
“No, Herr Vuldum,” replied the corpulent Lundbom, doubling up politely in a bow. “But you seemed to know her.”
“I!” exclaimed Vuldum indignantly. “No—she knew me. And let me tell you something—if you want to keep a decent bar, you can’t have Black Else or any of her girl friends coming here.”
Lundbom lowered his voice to a whisper.
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