So, I began working in the front of the shop. I would have preferred to have stayed in the bakery, hands kneading warm dough, heat swelling out of ovens. The tea shop’s clientele were ladies of a class able to buy baked goods rather than make their own. They were familiar to me, much like the ladies who had come into the boutique in Copenhagen. Friendlier, perhaps. They would praise my appearance and manners and tease that they would marry me to their sons. I wondered what they thought of Dirk and Anna, though I suppose they didn’t see them much. This was a different place than my home. In Gudum, businesses run by eccentrics would not last.
Because I was no longer in the bakery, Dirk hired someone else, a young man named Knud who may have been my age, perhaps a year or two older or younger. He looked ageless. His brown hair was glassy, his eyes layers of colour – a dark outer rim, then brown, hazel, green and blue rings all blending together. He adored Anna. I would hear their laughter barking out of the bakery. Knud had convinced Anna that they shouldn’t smoke in the bakery, and she happily complied, followed him outside. I would see them leaning into each other, all giggles and whispers, smoking behind the shop. I wondered why Dirk didn’t seem to mind.
Knud moved into the other room in the flat above the bakery. Since I wasn’t asked, I wasn’t able to speak to Anna until he was already there. I told her that I wasn’t sure it was right, living in such proximity as an unmarried man and woman. “Not right? What’s not right about it, Marie?”
“Well, you know, it’s –”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know – improper.”
When she laughed it didn’t seem mean-spirited, not completely. “Oh, darling, Knud’s not going to bother you, I promise. He can be a friend to you, if you’ll let him. We’re not bound by dated rules like those in Jutland, or even the nonsense about society and propriety in Copenhagen – and you don’t have to be bound by them either!”
I wasn’t comfortable and showed this with how little I spoke to Knud, how I would straighten my back and leave the room when he entered. I would’ve liked to have addressed him properly, by his last name, but when I asked, he said, “Well, why would I tell you that? You’ll want to call me Mister Something.” He assumed a familiarity I didn’t feel we had. “If I tell you anything, it is this: I am no mister.” I must have looked uneasy at this statement. He took both of my hands in his. “Don’t worry, Miss Jüül. Not everything needs to be proper. And besides, why waste such a gloriously strong fist of a name like Knud?” He winked and laughed at this, and I couldn’t help but sputter a laugh back.
Ten
One afternoon, nearly two months after I’d arrived in Frederiksvaerk, Anna came into the shop smelling of smoke, her hair loose, shirt held together by two buttons near her sternum. She turned over the sign on the door. “We’re closing a couple of hours early today. We’ve an event of sorts tonight. You best go rest up. We’ll want you there tonight and it will go late.”
“An event of sorts?”
“A salon.” She came toward me, touched the hairs at my temples as if to push them out of my face, though it was her hair that was loose, frowzy. “You’ll see.” I was going to ask her if Bertram was coming but thought better of it. I’d received a couple of polite cards from him since I’d arrived. He hoped I was enjoying my work. He would visit soon. His words were as flat and dull as the paper on which he wrote. He certainly hadn’t suggested a longing to see me again. I wouldn’t show interest to see him, either, even with a simple question to his sister.
Knud and I kept different hours, and he was often asleep when I finished my shift. That day was no different, though he had left a piece of meat pie and a bowl of onion soup on the table with a note that said: Eat up, my dear, and have a rest. It will be a late night tonight. We’d not shared food before, nor had Knud displayed any kind of paternal behaviour toward me. No one had, really. Here, it was assumed that I was able to look after myself. Someone – a man – leaving me food and a note seemed both a sweet gesture and an odd one. I ate and I napped, as instructed. I woke to Knud crouched beside my bed, touching my arm. I pushed myself up. “What are you doing in here?”
Knud dropped his hand, stood and laughed. “It’s time to get ready for the salon, beautiful.” He extended an arm as though to help me out of bed. Aside from my brothers, I’d never had a man so close to my bed before. I was thankful that I was wearing my day clothes. I stood up without his help, tried to smooth my skirts out. “You’ll have to change, of course,” Knud said.
“I won’t.” I didn’t like having anyone tell me what I would wear, especially a man I hardly knew, standing beside my bed.
He pursed his lips and put a hand on his hip like a prude, a school marm. “You will. Wear black if you’ve got some. Or a dark colour. You’ll want to look like an intellectual.”
“And you assume I’m not?”
Knud dropped his pose and laughed. “No, I assume you are. Your garments will only accentuate that.” When he left the room, I did as Knud said and buttoned myself into a navy-blue dress, then took that off and pulled on a white blouse with a high lace collar and a blue skirt. I wouldn’t be told what to wear – at least, not all of me would. Partial compliance could hardly be called submission.
When I came out of my room, Knud was still there. He stood and extended his arm, as though he were my date, to escort me to the narrow stairs that led into the shop. He let go of my hand when we got to the stairwell. It was too narrow for two.
Here I was. I had come to this place when I thought I was going to another. I was just a girl, working in a tea shop, with the hand of a man named Knud on the curve of my back as we entered a room.
* * *
Soeberg’s Bakery and Confectionery was cloying with warmth, and a layer of smoke hovered like a garland around those standing. As I looked around for a place to sit, Anna came toward us. “There you are!” She kissed first Knud on both cheeks, then me. I stared at her, dressed in skirts for the first time since we’d met, a man’s shirt tied above her waist with a strip of skin showing, a belt of nothing. “We wondered when you two would finally emerge.” She winked at me, as though we were in on some amusing conspiracy together, and turned, put her hand on a man’s back. “Didn’t we, Bertram?” I felt my throat clench.
Bertram turned to face us, slowly, and glanced first at Knud, his eyes a quick wash of appraisal, then at me. He moved toward me and I took a step back. Bertram put his hand to his forehead, then brought it to his chest before reaching it out to take my hand. “Miss Jüül.”
“We’re back to that, then, are we?”
Bertram let out a sound between a laugh and a cough and looked toward Knud. “To what?”
“Our formal names, Mr. Bruun.”
“Not if you wish otherwise, Miss Jüül.”
“Marie,” I said, and looked past him into the crush of people in the tea shop. Men and women drank wine from small juice glasses, smoked, tipped their heads back in exaggerated laughter. Knud touched my elbow lightly and then moved away from us.
“Marie,” Bertram said quietly, leaning toward me while still facing the room. “Are you enjoying it here?”
“Well, I’m not sure what to expect from a salon, but it looks like the harvest gatherings I used to sneak into as a girl.”
Bertram laughed. “I meant in Frederiksvaerk – but I suppose it does look much like a common gathering.” He shifted and I could feel the fabric of his jacket against my blouse, a feeling that both tickled and nearly soothed me. “Don’t worry, Dirk and Anna will raise the atmosphere, intellectually, or at least, they will try. They’ll either have someone speak about some obscure subject, or they’ll begin a formal debate. In the meantime, I’ll get us something to drink. Wait here.”
Bertram brought back a tray of tiny glasses, each full of wine. I drank one, the taste dense and bitter in my mouth. I wasn’t used to drinking wine, but I followed with
another. Bertram did the same – we stood side by side, staring into our glasses instead of talking. I looked around. “Where’s Knud?” I hardly knew my new roommate and yet I not only wanted to see him then, I wanted him by my side.
Bertram glanced around, though it was clear he didn’t want to find anyone. “So, you’re permitted to reside with a man now. How do you like it?”
Before I could answer, Anna was standing on a table and clapping. “Hello! Hello!” she called. “Welcome, everyone! The more formal part of the evening will commence shortly.” When she said the word formal, she raised her skirts and showed us her legs, pointed a bare foot. “Please gather round.”
She jumped down and I looked where she had been, wondered how the owner of a business could stand, barefoot, on a table. I found another little glass and drank what was in it in a few swallows.
Bertram took the empty glass, his hand on mine for a moment as he did, cleared his throat. “What have you read recently?” I began to answer and then stopped, began again but couldn’t finish because I was laughing. “What is it?” Bertram’s grin seemed hopeful but forced.
“Nothing,” I managed to get out through a laugh. “I’ve read nothing!” I continued to giggle and Bertram watched me. “I’ve read nothing since I arrived!” I leaned up against the wall, dug at my eyes with the heel of my hand so I could pretend that was why they were red, watery.
Bertram moved closer, put himself between the room and me. “Are you okay, Marie?”
I pushed myself away from the wall. “Was this a joke?”
“Pardon?”
“Was this some sort of joke? Pick up a naive girl, convince her to leave Copenhagen – where she had good employment and a respectable place to live – and suggest she move somewhere, I don’t know, freer, more unconventional? Some place I could expand my mind, I suppose. Is this what this supposed salon is going to do?”
“Marie, I –”
“You left me at a tea shop!”
Bertram was so close that he nearly obscured my view of the rest of the room, but I could see Dirk moving toward us.
I lowered my voice to a tense whisper. “I could’ve had a job in a tea shop at home in Gudum!”
“Is everything okay here?” Dirk was beside Bertram, who had backed away from me a bit.
Knud appeared on Bertram’s other side. I looked from one man to the other. They each watched me. “Are you all here to see if I’m all right? If little Jüül is all right?” Three juice glasses of wine and I was dizzy, the words thick on my tongue.
“I think she needs some fresh air,” Dirk said to Bertram, as though I were out of earshot.
Bertram nodded, but it was Knud who moved forward, took my arm. “I’ll take her outside for a bit.”
I pulled my arm out of his hand. “I can make my own way outside, thank you.” I pushed past them. When I got outside, I didn’t stop walking, headed toward the canal. I wanted to be near water, away from Soeberg’s Bakery and Confectionery and Dirk and Anna’s pseudo-intellectual salon. I don’t know how far I’d walked before Bertram caught up with me. The air was humid and warm. “Marie!”
I kept walking without looking at him.
“Marie.” He turned around me so that he was walking backward at almost a jog. “Inger-Marie, Miss Jüül, what do you want me to say?” He stopped in front of me and took both my arms. I tried to find a way around him but he held me tightly, blocked my way. Unlike in Copenhagen, with this man there was no stone wall behind me. Just air and water. “Stop struggling.” I tore my arms out of his hold but didn’t move, stood looking at him until he said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what, exactly?”
“For bringing you here. For dropping you off and not visiting until now.”
“And what is there to be sorry for? You told me you could get me work and you did.”
“I know. But I know this isn’t what you expected.”
“And what is it you think I expected?”
“More than this. And you’re worth more than this, Marie.” Each time he called me by my first name, it hit like a tiny fist in my chest. “I didn’t think you’d come. I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“It was a game, then? A joke?”
“No! No, it wasn’t. I wanted nothing more than you – a smart, beautiful girl from Copenhagen – to come with me.”
“I’m not from Copenhagen.”
“But I had no plans of what to do if you did. What was I supposed to do, ask you to marry me?”
“No! You think that’s what this is about? That I wanted to marry you? I barely know you, and so far, you don’t seem like the best candidate for marriage.”
Bertram dropped his head and pulled at the hair that fell over his face. We were beside the water, beyond a strip of trees that separated the street from the canal. The darkness seemed complete there, long grass licking at my ankles.
“I did what I could,” he said quietly. His voice was low and level. “But, I led you to believe –”
“Believe what?”
“Something other than what was true. I’m back, though. I returned. We can make this –”
“Make it what? Am I supposed to be grateful for your return?” I meant this to come out harder than it did. I felt close to tears, though I told myself I wasn’t upset. I was angry, but not upset. “Are you trying to be noble by just turning up at your sister’s party?”
“Inger-Marie.” He came toward me. I stiffened my body, held it tight. “Miss Jüül.” Somehow this was better. My shoulders dropped. He had moved so close that I could feel his breath on my face. He touched my cheek. I didn’t move. “I’m sorry.” And then his other hand was on my face, the roughness of the skin on his fingers giving way to the smoothness of his palm. He pushed his hand into my hair, catching on strands. As he did, the humidity broke and became drizzle, pocked the mist that blanketed the canal.
I closed my eyes and imagined water rising, spilling its banks until there was no delineation between canal and shore. My body slipping in, weightless, hair streaming away from my face toward the surface, strands twisting like weeds. Bertram kept his mouth close to mine, without kissing, waiting. I fell back, my hands on his jacket. “Whoa.” His arm gripped me, broke my fall. Then we were on the ground, him over me, his hand up under my skirts, pressing heat into my skin. I pulled at his collar, wanted the weight of his warmth. Legs around him, I dug my boots into the back of his legs and tried to find his mouth. Our teeth knocked against each other and I licked a small sting of blood from my lips. When we tried again, both of our mouths felt dry, and I could smell the sour of wine on our breath. An ache began behind my eyes and stars appeared, the ones that came before blackness. The drizzle of rain misted my skin, my clothes damp under me. Bertram moved over me and my body responded as though it weren’t quite my own, pushing up against him with a desperate kind of thirst, despite all the water.
We became only loose mouths, clumsy hands, hip bones knocking against each other. Through the drizzle, the damp, my spinning head, I felt a tear of pain. I called out, pressed my eyes closed, clamped my mouth, then rocked against Bertram as though I were angry, defiant. I did so until we created a sharp, clenching heat. A flare followed by release as warm and soft as firelight. Afterward, I stood, twisted my wet clothes back in place around me, my mouth dry, a throb clenched around my head. My legs were liquid and muscle at once, and I was shivering. The shower had stopped, clouds pushed aside with one quick blast of air from the coast, and the canal filled up with the reflection of stars.
Eleven
More than a month passed and I had not seen Bertram since the night of the salon. If I’d still been living in the residence, I could have sobbed about it, chided myself for being so foolish. Several girls could have tried to convince me it wasn’t my fault, that I’d been charmed, deluded, cajoled. They would have gathered in my room to discuss what had g
one wrong, what I could or should do next, whether there was anything to be done. But I was not in Copenhagen at a ladies’ residence; I was in a cramped flat above a confectionery with a single man. Knud, too, was missing someone he’d last seen that night – a tall, taut Dutch poet named Ruben, he revealed a few days after the salon. “A man?” I asked.
“A man.” He winked. “I think we can agree they’re as delicious as Soeberg’s baked goods, yes, Little Tree?” That was his nickname for me.
I laughed but felt little levity in it. Perhaps I would have concentrated more on the supposed scandal of what Knud had revealed, the incongruity with the world I once knew, if I’d not been so focused on my self-inflicted drama. On what was and was not happening with my body. It was in tears that I went to Knud weeks later. “I haven’t had my monthly since my night with Bertram.”
“Oh, Little Tree. When should it have been?”
“Two weeks ago.”
He crossed the room, knelt in front of the chair where I sat and held my hands. “We’ll make this all right.” He smelled like cinnamon and sugar. Knud told me to wait, that he would figure out what to do. In the meantime, as expected, the pregnancy progressed. This is how I thought of it: the pregnancy, rather than the baby or the child. It was a condition, something physical, something going awry in my body. I knew of the pregnancies and births of farm animals, of how carrying and birthing multiple lambs could endanger, even kill, the ewe. Of calves being born breach while the cows bellowed in pain. I knew this had very little to do with Bertram and me, but so much with my body and how it would adjust.
Knud thought I should tell Bertram, that it was only fair. “Fair to whom?” I asked. What had I expected after our night together – flowers sent, a long letter expressing more than the flat pleasantries of the postcards he’d sent before? Bertram hadn’t visited since the night of the salon, nor had he written. I couldn’t remember the end of the evening, true, didn’t know if any claims or promises had been made, but I was certain none had been fulfilled.
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