Ida Brandt

by Herman Bang

  “Thirty-six feet long,” said Karl. “There will be a splendid view from there after dinner.”

  He started to find it interesting; he followed the letters and measured the rooms, stretched his fingers over them and nodded. Walls had been broken through, and there was plate glass everywhere.

  “Yes, she’s got hold of some designs from abroad,” he said.

  Ida had let go of the plan; she had never seen such a house.

  “What a lot of space they will have,” she said, looking at all the rooms. “But we won’t recognise it.”

  Karl continued to measure and study.

  “Yes, the inside’s all right.” He clicked his tongue. “It’s damned good.”

  “Yes,” – and almost a little shyly she put her head down on his shoulder – “They have the money.”

  Karl nodded and looked up from the plan into the lamp.

  “Yes,” he said.

  He went on looking in the light from the lamp for a moment:

  “It was us who should have had the damned place,” he said then.

  Ida suddenly smiled.

  “Yes,” and she, too, looked into the light from the lamp.

  “Because we were born to it,” said Karl.

  “Yes, you…”

  “You, too, damn it,” said Karl, lowering his voice a little.

  He took the next plan. This was of all the bedrooms and bathrooms with tubs and wardrobes. The entire alphabet from A to Z was at the foot of the sketch. Karl sniffed and rubbed his hands.

  “Good God,” he said, “she’s furnishing this for when she gets married.”

  “And six guest rooms.”

  He counted them up:

  “With a bathroom to each of them.”

  It amused him, almost as though Kate had been studying interior decoration under his direction.”

  “It’s English,” he said. “It’s good.” And he scratched his head: “She’s a devil; she’s really got hold of some designs.”

  Ida continued to sit with her head against his shoulder, following his hands and looking up into his face: it was as though she was not really able to encompass all those rooms.

  “Yes, they are going to have a lovely place.”

  “Of course they are going to have a lovely place.” And he shuffled a little in his eagerness: now came the next plan, the stables. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said. “She’s a devil, she really is.”

  The stables were also English (as he explained) with stalls for the animals like they had for the great racehorses in England.

  Ida admired it in silence – she knew nothing about stables – and while looking out across the lawn, she suddenly said:

  “But it’s a good thing that my father is dead.”

  Karl laughed as he bent over the sketch.

  “No,” he said, “there wouldn’t have been anything for the old man here.”

  And he went on laughing at the thought of seeing old Brandt in Kate’s English stables.

  Ida had risen and all of a sudden she said, without knowing why it suddenly occurred to her, for a minute previously she had never thought of it:

  “Do you know, I’m going to rent a flat now.”

  “What do you say?”

  “Well, I’m going to rent a flat.”

  She had been thinking for a long time that she would really like to have a flat.

  “Where?” was all Karl said.

  And suddenly, Ida knew where it was to be, in Ole Suhrsgade, for that was so convenient; and she knew what sort of a flat she wanted: four rooms; she had always had this idea, a flat like the one the Kristensens had.

  She stood on the other side of the table and leant forward beneath the lamp so that the shadow of her head fell on the sketch of the stables.

  “And the furniture is all standing unused out at Horsens.”

  She was so enthusiastic that her cheeks flushed.

  “Yes, that’s a good idea,” said Karl; he was still sitting with the sketch in his hand. Ida went over to him and pulled his head down to her.

  “And then you will always be able to have lunch at home,” she said.

  Her voice had the ring that he loved.

  “Tell me, chick,” he said, and she looked up into his face: “How long can you stay?”

  Ida merely smiled and closed her eyes.

  Karl rolled the plans up while Ida went across to the corner sofa with the stereoscope as though she were here for the first time.

  “And we’ll have gentleman’s furniture in the big room,” she said.

  Karl was sitting on the sofa with the back of his head against the wall.

  “No,” he said: “We are going to sleep in the big room.”

  They sat in silence for a time while the gas bubbled, and Karl looked across at Ida sitting right under the light until he suddenly said in a low voice:

  “It must be horrible to sit there and keep watch.”

  And Ida shook her head and said in the same tone:

  “No, not now…”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “For I can sit there and remember everything,” she said.

  There was silence again for a moment until Karl went across to her. He did not make use of pet names, but simply sat and stroked her hands, quite tenderly (thinking to himself: this is going to be difficult one day) until she kissed his cheek.

  “Are you going now?” he whispered.

  She got up and he heard the door quietly open and close.

  “Have you put the light out?” he asked when he came into his room.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  And the hands she reached out to him were trembling and cold.

  “Are you frightened, chick?”

  “I’m going soon,” she said, and she continued to be nervous and cold.

  She had to go when morning came.

  Karl was in a bad mood.

  “You need only to take me down to a cab,” said Ida.

  And that was all he did, and when Ida was in the cab, she bent her head down and kissed his hand as it lay on the carriage door.

  “I was afraid after all,” she whispered.

  “There, chick,” said Karl as though to comfort her. For it was as though she was on the verge of tears.

  Karl wandered back.

  Shortly afterwards he was stretched out at full length in his French bed. He took a couple of final puffs at his cigarette, while staring up rather dubiously at the ceiling.

  “But I mustn’t give her any ideas,” he said, nodding his head on his pillow.

  Ida was home and went in through the doorway. Porters and doorkeepers were costing her a great deal in tips. Once up in her room she lay down on her bed.

  Yes, she would have that flat and then she would never go over there any more. No, she would never go over there again.

  The day had started with rain and sleet. The doctors had been there, cold in their white coats, and the professor’s fingers had been white and dead to the knuckles as he rubbed his hands over the patients’ beds.

  Daylight should come now, but it did not come.

  The porter turned out those who had jobs to do and moved them towards the door, shouting at them as though they were a herd of cattle. And the keys rattled and the doors were shut.

  “Why aren’t I going?” said Bertelsen probably for the tenth time, raising his watchful eyes while the tap water ran down over his hands.

  “Because your mother’s coming, Bertelsen,” said Ida.

  “Now Bertelsen, you’ re clean, you’ re washed now.”

  Bertelsen looked at his hands and every chewed nail before, with his head down, going across and settling near the stove, languid and with his eyes half closed until he again said to Ida as she passed:

  “Why wasn’t I going?”

  Ida repeated:

  “I’ve told you, Bertelsen; it’s because your mother’s coming.”

  And as Ida went about her tasks, there was no sound but the groaning o
f two patients from the Hall and the footsteps of the gentleman in Ward A as he walked about on the floor.

  There came the rattle of keys in the door to the women’s ward. It was Quam returning.

  “It’s rather dull in here,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Ida; it was as though she either could not or did not really dare to wake up.

  “And it would really be better if they made a din,” said Quam, “for if they become too lethargic, this place begins to look like the confounded underworld itself.”

  He sat down on the table beneath the window while Nurse Petersen called to Ida from the kitchen to see whether she could help with the hem on her dress.

  “Do you go out in this weather?” asked Quam.

  “Oh,” Nurse Petersen was going to the sales. When there was a doctor present, Nurse Petersen always adopted some strange movements with her arms, not unlike a wader flapping its wings. There was a sale on of table linen.

  “Oh,” said Ida, kneeling behind the kitchen door to help with the hem, suddenly adding in a high-pitched, excited voice: “In that case you could perhaps keep an eye open for upholstery material.”

  Quam raised his head.

  “Are you getting married?” he asked.

  “No, but I’m going to rent a flat.” She stood up.

  Quam got down from the table.

  “Yes,” he said: “That’s probably far more sensible.”

  He went across past the kitchen door and nodded back towards Bertelsen.

  “Are they his clothes?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Good morning.”

  Quam went; but Nurse Petersen sat down. She had to know: where it was going to be and when she had decided.

  “Oh, I’ve wanted to for a long time,” said Ida, and she started telling them about the flat and the furniture she was going to have, and the fabrics she would choose, making up all the things she had never thought of and she herself believed she had been thinking of it for a long time.

  “And I’m going to have leather upholstery on the furniture in the main room,” she said.

  Bertelsen suddenly raised his head.

  “What time’s she coming?” he asked.

  “Eleven o’ clock, Bertelsen.”

  Nurse Petersen had become quite sentimental at the thought of the flat.

  “Then you’ll have a whole home of your own,” she said.

  Ida smiled at this word and was silent for a moment, though the smile did not leave her.

  “Yes,” she said and, silently, stared into the distance.

  Nurse Petersen was gone – carrying the news with her for general distribution – and Ida took water to the patients in the main ward and tidied their pillows. Then she sat and crocheted at the table under the window. From the noisy ward there came a subdued groaning, as though the entire building was filled with some secret and subdued complaint.

  “When is she coming?” asked Bertelsen again.

  “She’ll soon be here, Bertelsen.” And she continued with her work: when she was not talking to anyone about it, it was as though she was edgy and unable really to grasp the ideas relating to her “home”.

  There were two hesitant knocks on the door from the corridor and Ida opened it. It was Mrs Bertelsen whose face showed the first signs of tears even on the threshold. “Come in, Mrs Bertelsen,” Ida said, “he’s been expecting you.” And Mrs Bertelsen went across to her son, who did not get up. “Hello, Jakob,” she said in a curious mixture of humility and nervousness, to which he only answered with a grunt. Then he moved across to the table, and his mother went with him. Her face, on which all flesh seemed to have disappeared, and her hat – a summer bonnet covered with some old material – stood out in contrast to the grey wall.

  Ida left; from the kitchen she could hear Bertelsen constantly talking in something resembling an irritated and suppressed snarl and his mother’s nervous: “Yes Jakob, but, yes Jakob, but…”

  The door to the women’s ward flew open. It was Nurse Kjær, who first looked round the anteroom and then ran out into the kitchen.

  “Good Lord, nurse, when is it going to be?” she said. “You’ re going to rent a flat?”

  She had to hear it all at breakneck speed, and Ida told all about it again although it was as though her own words encircled her as she spoke; and Bertelsen went on talking, louder and more intensely, scarlet-faced, holding both his clenched fists out in front of him, at the same height all the time, as though they were bound by a chain.

  “But Jakob dear, Jakob dear.”

  “You’ll be having quite a doll’s house,” said Nurse Kjær out in the kitchen. “My word, how I’m looking forward to it.”

  Suddenly, nodding her head and in a different tone, she asked:

  “Is she here to say goodbye?”

  “Yes, poor thing.”

  Bertelsen pushed the chair away and got up; through the doorway they could see his mother grasp his arm, but he shook her off.

  “You bloody bitch,” he screamed. From the door to the Hall he continued to pour a stream of abuse at her, while the emaciated mother stood there, motionless in the centre of the ward, trembling a little, like a target in a hail of bullets.

  Then she turned round – Nurse Kjær had gone and quietly closed the door – and Ida went across and took her hands.

  “Yes, Mrs Bertelsen,” she said, “but it will be better out there.”

  Mrs Bertelsen made no reply. What had once been a breast rose just a little, and she started for the hundredth time, for the thousandth time, to tell how it had come over this son in the same way as over his two elder brothers.

  “He was in an office, you know, like his brothers. And everything was well until one day he left his office and came home, just like his brothers: he had left; he’ d got up from his chair; he had put all his pens carefully in place (I saw it myself) and the ruler was in its place and his books had been made up (I saw it myself) before he left and came home, and it was all finished for him like it was for his brothers.”

  She was unable to weep, but it sounded as though she was weeping.

  “Just like his brothers.”

  “But it will probably be better out there,” said Ida again.

  But Mrs Bertelsen merely shook her head, and with an expression in her eyes as though they were blind, she said:

  “And it’s all my fault.”

  These words had been Mrs Bertelsen’s first and last thought ever since the day when the consultant had said to her in anger: “Why on earth do people have children when their husband’s a drunk?”

  “And it’s all my fault…”

  Ida had not heard the door open, but suddenly she turned round and found the gentleman from Ward A standing in the doorway: he was smiling and looking at them both.

  Mrs Bertelsen freed her hands from Ida’s and went towards the door to the corridor.

  “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” asked Ida, and Mrs Bertelsen looked into the main ward, where her son was huddled on the edge of a bed.

  “No; leave him,” she said. And Ida closed the door to the corridor while Mrs Bertelsen turned round at the last moment with her eyes on the door to the main ward and went.

  “Do you want anything, doctor?” Ida asked.

  But the gentleman from Ward A merely stood there with the same smile on his face. (Yes, I’m sure he’s mad after all, thought Ida).

  “No thank you,” he said, though he did not move.

  Dusk fell.

  Throughout the day, the ladies had rattled their keys and had been rushing in and out to ask about the flat, and Ida had replied almost hectically, describing everything, first this and then that.

  Now Nurse Kjær was sitting at the table with Ida for a moment, and, with interruptions, they were discussing the same subject.

  “Hm,” said Nurse Kjær: “Then you’ll get somewhere where you can sleep.”

  Ida nodded. Today, she was constantly catching herself sitting wi
th her eyes closed. Now she opened them. Bertelsen was drifting past the door to the main ward, backwards and forwards like a shadow, and suddenly, far inside her head, she heard Mrs Bertelsen’s voice again, a sound that had pursued her all day.

  “Poor Mrs Bertelsen,” she said.

  They sat in silence for a while. From the noisy ward there came the same dull groaning as had been audible throughout the day like some indeterminate, distant complaint, while Bertelsen continued to glide past the door like a shadow that was being washed away in the darkness.

  “Yes, I wonder what a woman like her does with her life?” said Nurse Kjær, thinking of Mrs Bertelsen.

  And then she was silent for a while again.

  “Oh, she’ll die some day,” she said in reply to her own question.

  The gentleman in Ward A went about as usual. It was as though the subdued groans from below were heard in waves coinciding with his steps.

  “It’s miserable in here today,” said Nurse Kjær, getting up.

  Ida shuddered involuntarily.

  “Yes,” she said: “Let’s get some lights on.”

  Nurse Kjær went, and the patients from the basement came back, and some time later Josefine hurried in with the food, while Ida knocked on Nurse Petersen’s door to wake her.

  Josefine was simply in a bad mood these days. Not so much as a snatch of a melody was heard on the stairs, and now she stood there deep in her own thoughts as she dished the food up.

  “No, nurse,” she said: “You ought never to do anything for a man.”

  “For they’ re dogs, the lot of them,” she declared, and she set about the unpacking.

  When Ida came down to the dining room, Nurse Friis was there alone. She was turning some old black lace into ruches for a silk underskirt. Nurse Friis attached increasing importance to modern, up-to-date underclothing.

  While Ida was drinking her tea, Nurse Friis said:

  “Oh, I hear you’ re going to have your own home; when are the banns going to be read?”

  She started to laugh as she pulled at the ruches.

  “Well, I assume it will be from a pulpit.”

  Nurse Friis hummed as she went on working with the ruches.

  “I must say I hadn’t thought you were so sensible,” she said suddenly, nodding to Ida. Then she said no more. But the cup shook in Ida’s hand.