We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [179]
Now he was standing at her door. She took a step back in surprise.
"I just wanted to see how you were getting on," he said. Without waiting for an invitation, he strode over the threshold. For a moment they stood jammed in the small hallway, before continuing into the parlor. "Hello," he said jovially to Knud Erik, and ruffled the boy's blond hair as if they were old friends. Knud Erik, who didn't know him, took a step back, while Klara remained in the doorway.
"He's tired," she said.
"I won't be staying long." Herman sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs. "I hear you're doing well." Klara didn't reply. He looked at her. "Old Madsen isn't a bad match."
She stared harshly. "What are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about? The same thing everyone in town's talking about. We're hearing wedding bells. You and the children provided for: good thinking."
Klara blushed scarlet. She glanced down and chewed her lower lip. When she lifted her head, she avoided looking at her visitor.
"That's just people talking," she said weakly.
Herman eased into the sofa, as though in his own home. "Now take it easy," he said. "A boy needs a father. I understand old men are good with children. All right, so he's not always very careful. But a bit of water never hurt anyone."
"What do you mean?" Her question came out as a whisper. Knud Erik was watching both of them, but Klara had forgotten his presence.
"Well, the boy fell off the boat one day and nearly drowned. But I expect Madsen told you."
Klara was shocked. She turned to Knud Erik. "Is that true, what Herman says? Did you nearly drown?"
Knud Erik looked at the floor and grew red. "It was nothing. I just fell into the water."
Klara opened the door to the hall. "I think you'd better leave," she said to Herman in a voice that had suddenly recovered its strength.
"By all means, if I'm not welcome." Herman heaved his large body up from the sofa. When he reached the doorway he turned. "I'll stop by another day."
Klara slammed the front door behind him. Then she sat down on a chair and folded her hands. Her knuckles grew white, and her face assumed a look of concentration. The boy peered at her anxiously.
After a while she broke the silence. "Why didn't you tell me that you'd fallen into the water?"
"But, Ma, it was nothing."
"Nothing! You could have drowned. Why didn't you tell me?" Knud Erik pressed his lips together. "Did Captain Madsen tell you not to tell me? Answer me!"
He blinked and looked away. A tear slid down his cheek. He swallowed. And then nodded.
When Albert turned up an hour later, Klara received him at the front door with Edith on her hip. "What do you want?" she snapped, without returning his greeting.
She looked at him directly, and the fury in her eyes gave her femininity a hint of something feral. A mother defending her young, he thought, and understood in that instant that he wasn't welcome inside. She'd answered the door only to deny him access to the house. He wouldn't be allowed in to assert his authority; no, he was to stand in the street and be made to feel small.
Knud Erik appeared by her side. "Go back inside," she ordered him. The boy disappeared into the house. Again she turned to Albert and threw her head back as if she meant to butt him.
Albert instinctively took a step backward. "I don't understand..."
"You don't understand what?" Her tone was commanding, as though she was still speaking to the boy.
"I understand that you're angry with me. But I don't understand why."
"You don't understand why? Look at this child, take a good look. Look at me and my child. This child who's never known her father." Her voice grew louder and angrier.
Taking fright, Edith started screaming, and squirmed in her mother's arms to be let down. Then she stretched her arms toward Albert. "Daddy," she cried.
Klara's anger was undiminished. "And you want to turn Knud Erik into a sailor. So he can drown like his father! That's what you want, isn't it?" She sneered at him. "You want him to be like his father, like you, like the whole damned