We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [171]
Little Edith was nowhere to be seen, and he asked after her. Klara told him that she'd already eaten and had been put to bed.
She invited them to sit down at the table. Knud Erik, whose sun-bleached hair had been combed through wet, was the last to pull up his chair. He sat down with an unnatural stiffness and stared into the distance. A big bowl of freshly boiled shrimp stood in the middle of the table. Albert had brought the wine in a basket, wrapped in a damask napkin. He took it out and opened it with a little pop. He'd had trouble deciding whether to pack wineglasses too. He knew that she wouldn't have any, but feared that if he brought his own, she might interpret it as a criticism, an underscoring of the poverty of both her home and her life. In the end, it was his sense of tradition that won the argument. He didn't fancy drinking good wine from an ordinary glass, so he took his best crystal. Old men and their habits indeed. He'd even brought a corkscrew.
He poured the wine into the glasses, glancing at Knud Erik, who was watching him attentively. "I nearly forgot you," he said, and pulled out a bottle of cordial and placed it in front of him.
The boy laughed. "Just like a picnic," he said. He looked at the condensation on the wine bottle and touched it carefully. "It's cold," he said, and his voice was filled with wonder.
Albert Madsen and Klara Friis clinked glasses. She clutched hers as if afraid of dropping it. He glanced at her over the rim of his own. She blushed, unfamiliar with the rituals surrounding the consumption of wine. Her glance flickered confusedly away from the table, then she threw her head back and swigged from the glass, as though its pale contents were medicine, best downed quickly. She grimaced, then reddened again.
"Please, may I taste it?" Knud Erik said.
"It's not for children." His mother gave him a severe look. Albert could see that her rebuke was an attempt to hide her confusion at this meal, which was unlike anything she'd ever taken part in.
"I'm not a child," the boy retorted. "I earn my own money."
"Then you're allowed a taste." Albert winked at Knud Erik's mother and passed his glass to the boy, who took it carefully with both hands before raising it tentatively to his lips, as though already regretting his nerve.
"Just one small sip," his mother ordered him.
Knud Erik grimaced.
"Ugh," he exclaimed. "It tastes sour."
Albert laughed. "I think your mother agrees."
"Yes," she admitted. "I don't think wine is for me."
"It's always like that to start with. Later you'll learn to appreciate it."
"Not me," Knud Erik declared. "I'll never learn to appreciate it."
Albert wished that time could stop right then. He had a family. He was sitting at dinner with a boy who could be his grandchild and a woman who could be his daughter, and he wanted nothing more. He'd put the loneliness of the war years behind him. He almost felt he had a home that consisted of more than just himself and his memories.
He thought of his afternoon in the bath and his preening in front of the mirror. He'd dressed up, putting on a summer jacket and fixing a flower in his buttonhole. Perhaps there was a spark left in him. But if so, it was the last spark: the one that flares suddenly in the embers of a fire that has burned itself out overnight. Finding no nourishment in ashes, it soon fades. For a moment he'd given in to vanity, but it wasn't a woman he needed. It was this: two people he could be something to and who, by mere virtue of their presence, could be something to him.
He twirled the stem of the wineglass and chuckled to himself.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Oh, I'm not sure I even know, I just feel so comfortable here. Put it down to contentment."
"That's good to hear." She got up. "Time for dessert."
She brought in a bowl of rhubarb compote and a jug of cream. Knud Erik followed her, bearing three smaller bowls, which he placed in front of them.
"You're