Barbara (34 page)

As they were walking home, they saw a ship in the offing. It was the
Fortuna
on the first visit of the year from Copenhagen, and Barbara involuntarily caught hold of Andreas' arm.

“Are you in a bad mood, Andreas?” she asked quietly.

“No, my love,” he replied.

But later, after they had passed the Redoubt and could see the town, Tinganes and the Hoist, where people had begun to congregate, she said in a troubled voice, “I'm just thinking that you will be leaving one day.”

“Don't think about that now. That's a long time away. You know perfectly well how little progress I've made on my work. And besides,” he added with a laugh, “I'll take you with me, my love.”

Barbara started and a great radiance came into her eyes, but she immediately became deadly serious and in a voice that almost expressed fear asked, “Do you mean that, Andreas?”

“Of course I mean it.”

He attempted to laugh, but could not quite bring himself to do so.

“I really do mean it, seriously,” he said in a strong voice. “Of course. Of course.”

Barbara still remained serious for a time, but then she suddenly brightened up.

“There's nothing I want more in the world. Copenhagen. And Poul, you know… he will probably… probably… have the marriage annulled, and then I shall be free, completely free. I've always simply longed to get away from here. Don't you think… don't you think I could come to Copenhagen?”

She was inspired, she was glowing with an incredible idea, and she almost danced over the rocky ground of Kragesten.

The peat smoke from all Tórshavn's supper pots was rising straight up in the air in the low evening sunshine, and the turf roofs of the town were shaded dark green in the golden haze. Voices could be heard from the Hoist, and the
Fortuna's
anchor splashed down into the silent waters.

“Aye, if Barbara left the country,” thought Andreas, “I would settle here.”

But Barbara was dancing enthusiastically in front of him like a large, black shadow straight in line with the red sun.

When Andreas visited his uncle a couple of days later, Johan Hendrik suddenly said to him: “Well, Andreas, I suppose you are not thinking of going back to Denmark? What is the situation, actually? I suppose the Exchequer has not laid down any limit to your time?”

“No,” said Andreas hesitantly. “All the resolution says is that I should do it. It says nothing about when.”

“Hmm, that's not so good. But for that matter I suppose they don't hurry about things down in the Exchequer. But…”

“I don't think that's a bad thing. For to be perfectly honest, the work is not progressing very quickly… not as quickly as I had imagined.”

The judge walked around the room, rubbed his thigh, whistled through half-closed lips, drummed a little on the table and was very pensive.

“You could leave on the
Fortuna
now,” he exclaimed suddenly.

“Now!” shouted Andreas.

“Yes. Have you anything against that?” Johan Hendrik gave a wry smile.

“Before I'm finished? I'd better tell you the truth, uncle. I know you are not so harsh in your judgement as other people are. Well… it is shameful to have to admit it, but I have hardly made a start yet.”

Looking away, he added: “That's to say I had started. But all that work was destroyed by… that parson from Vágar.”

The judge's smile twisted into a decidedly satirical grimace. He rubbed his thigh very energetically and then suddenly sat down.

“Tell me, Andreas. Suppose you were finished with your relationship and everything was otherwise as it is now. Would you then look favourably on the idea of leaving?”

Andreas hesitated a moment. His careless self-assurance had quite deserted him, and his big blue eyes adopted a hesitant look. It might seem he had been caught in a trap. But all at once he drew himself up.

“Well,” he said. “I honestly do not know whether you will completely approve of my answer, but there is no point in putting on an act for you. If I could leave, I would have been delighted to do so. But I see no way out of all this. For either I must leave having achieved nothing, and I cannot do that. Or otherwise I must first achieve something, and I cannot do that either… at least not as long as Barbara…”

“But perhaps you might consider leaving her?”

“It would be difficult, but…! I had thought she was more capricious…”

“Ha ha ha ha!” The judge filled his nostrils with snuff, and his face was distorted with a sense of amusement. “Capricious? Ha! You are a couple of young fools. You are each as capricious as the other. You simply cannot be capricious at the same time. Can you not understand that? When you are capricious, she is not. And when she is capricious, you are not. I thought you realised that, damn it. How old are you? Twenty-three?”

The judge suddenly grew very serious: “And she is twenty-nine… twenty-nine. Aye. If she were sensible…! But she is not. No, she is not.”

He put his hand to his chin and started considering. “Fundamentally… fundamentally, Barbara is in various respects… not particularly bright.”

He sneezed and pulled a face. “God preserve us from whatever else might have happened if she had been.”

He paced up and down the floor, suddenly stopped and said: “Suppose she had been able to think!… She would have been awful, wouldn't she Andreas?”

Andreas made no reply. He sat there and hung his head.

“Barbara,” Johan Hendrik went on, “is ruled entirely by her heart.”

He stared darkly into the air. “And it will be a sad story… a sad story the day her heart fades and she has to allow herself to be guided by her reason.”

He shook his head. “Aye, I fundamentally feel sorry for her.”

“I feel so dreadfully sorry for her,” Andreas suddenly exclaimed. “She sacrifices everything for me and doesn't give a thought to herself.”

He had tears in his eyes. “Reputation, repute, is all a matter of indifference to her; she doesn't consider her own advantage at all.”

Johan Henrik hesitated a moment. Then, in a strangely sarcastic and dry voice: “You mustn't weep, Andreas. For she takes other people's advantage even less into consideration. She does what she wants to do. And you are surely intelligent enough to see what damage she does both to others and to herself. Do you never think of the parson from Vágar? He risks being unfrocked for misconduct and desperate behaviour. They say he has not been sober in the pulpit since New Year. And you haven't done an honest day's work since New Year. What are you thinking of?”

Andreas made a helpless, impatient gesture with his body.

“If only I had written that report, I wouldn't have hesitated…”

The judge went over to his bureau, whistling softly as he rummaged in a drawer. “You see, Andreas,” he said, “it is not because you have deserved it. Nor is it because I consider that it would benefit your promotion in industry and useful virtues that I am doing your job for you. But something had to be done. In addition, it gave me great pleasure. Although I would wish it had been you who had this pleasure. But here you are. Here is the report.”

Andreas stared at the elegantly written manuscript that was placed on the table before him.

“So you will leave on the
Fortuna
, won't you?” asked the judge. His eyes were warily trained on his nephew.

“Uncle, you don't think much of me, and there is no reason why you should. But I still have a certain sense of honour.”

Andreas flared up with these last words, and his big eyes flashed. But Johan Hendrik did not bat an eyelid; he simply quickly wiped the tip of his nose and said in a dry voice: “Explain yourself a little. Honour is such a vague concept.”

“Do you think I should adorn myself with borrowed plumes?” asked Andreas, standing up straight.

“Ha, you'll put a few of your own plumes among them. At least the flight feathers. The entire work will have to be rewritten, as I am sure you understand. To begin with, because it has to be written in your own hand. Secondly because the whole thing needs countless improvements, not only with a view to language and expression, in which you will doubtless find me too old-fashioned, but in the actual reasoning, too. For in economic questions and a scientific approach I consider myself to be inferior to you. So, in short, this is only the material I have gathered for you, and you must yourself work out how to interpret it. However, I believe you can do that far better down in Copenhagen than here as things now stand.”

Andreas's pale face was now more helpless than ever. A sheen again began to appear in his eyes.

“Uncle, I appreciate your not thinking too ill of me and doing this for my benefit.”

“That you have a bright head on those shoulders, I still do not doubt,” said Johan Hendrik. “And that is why I… otherwise everything would go haywire.”

“But… Barbara?” asked Andreas mournfully.

“What good do you think you will be able to do if you spend all your time with her?”

“I've told her that I will take her with me when I finally leave…”

Johan Hendrik's red, lined and as it were slightly dusty face suddenly contracted into a stony mask. “Barbara in Copenhagen! Ha, you will be able to get rid of her there at least. I will guarantee she will be in the harlots' prison within a month. Did you really mean that?”

“No.”

“It was foolish, simply stupid of you to say that to her. Does she believe you?”

“I don't know. Yes, probably. But she thinks it is a long way off.”

The judge stamped one foot on the floor and then started to pace up and down. “Weakling, weakling, weakling,” he mumbled, “you confounded weakling. You will get away from her. Understand?”

“Yes,” whispered Andreas. “But it will not be easy. This is breaking my heart.”

Johan Henrik again made one of his grimaces and stood for a moment deep in thought. But then he brightened up and said in a cheerful voice, “All right. We won't mistake our feelings and persuade ourselves that our weakness is nobility.”

“No,” said Andreas. “But this is going to hurt her very deeply.”

Johan Hendrik slowly opened his snuff box. “Listen, Andreas, let us talk this through reasonably.”

He took a pinch of snuff and held it out between the tip of his first finger and his thumb.

“
Nul ne mérite d'être loué de sa bonté s'il n'a pas la force d'être méchant
.”

He took the snuff, pulled a face and sneezed. “Well, that means that no one deserves praise for being good if he has not the strength to be unkind.”

The
Fortuna
was loading in the East Bay. Niels the Punt and the Beach Flea were paddling the big lighter back and forth between the Hoist and the ship. It was mostly jerseys, socks and woollen goods that were being taken aboard, the fruits of a winter's labours and diligence in all the Faroese hearth rooms, heavy hard-knitted things intended to be sold in Copenhagen, Hamburg and Amsterdam for the use of seamen all over the world.

“If I ever leave this country, I am afraid I shan't have the right clothes,” said Barbara dreamily. “What do you think, Andreas? Do you think I shall look good enough?”

She laughed quietly and roguishly and her cheeks took on a red flush. They were sitting alone at the extreme end of Tinganes, close to the spot where a compass has been carved in the cliff floor.

“Clothes? You have more clothes than anyone else here,” said Andreas. “And whatever you don't have you can easily find in Copenhagen. See. The sun is almost directly in the west.” He pointed to the compass.

“Aye, so it's time to break off and all the men will be going home now,” said Barbara idly.

He did not want to contradict her. He knew that the men would not be going home before the
Fortuna
was fully loaded. The weather was good and the wind was coming from the north, and it was the intention that the ship should be under sail late that night. But Barbara still had no idea.

Andreas' carefree heart bled that day from tenderness and shame. She was so happy as she sat with him playing with her glorious new idea, the dazzling lie about her journey to Copenhagen. He simply could not take that from her; he wanted to let her delight in the idea as long as he could; he lacked the courage to see her lonely and betrayed on this shore. Alas, every time he looked at her bright face he wanted to kiss her and weep in her arms – this woman whose happiness he was about to murder.

“Do you think I dance well enough?” she asked.

“You are by nature a better dancer than any other woman I know.”

“I once danced with an admiral. It was down here, in the cellar…”

“Yes, you danced with an admiral, and then you went and married a parson!”

“Oh, you always have to…! That was much, much later. But do you think the way I dance is fashionable?”

“I'll teach you to dance according to fashion. Shall we go in to Uncle Johan Hendrik? Perhaps we could organise a little dance there.”

They rose and walked up between the various Royal Store buildings. The idea of having a dance was a relief to Andreas as well. He would dance his way out of this; it was the only way; otherwise his waxen heart would melt on this beautiful, sad evening. And his uncle, the judge, was to play for it. It was not asking a bit too much of the old boy to expect him to play the music for his own comedy. Andreas had always been afraid of his rectitude and had usually had to look down when confronted with his searching and knowing look. Now he was confused about what to think of his uncle. But in his insecurity he held more closely to him. For his moral respect for him knew no bounds.

Johan Hendrik agreed. It must be possible to arrange a ball. Sieur Arentzen would surely come and play his cello. And there were several young people in Tórshavn who would not say no to a dance.