We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [184]
He hadn't altered that much. He hadn't surrendered the last of his fighting spirit. He didn't want to sacrifice his own dignity. Yet he knew he had to do it, because the dignity of another was at stake. Klara would have to live longer with a ruined reputation than he would. She had a small boy and an even smaller girl to take care of. She'd still have a life to live, long after he was gone. This was what her visit to him that day was really about. Her reticence abandoned and her self-effacement put aside, she had indeed been a mother defending her young.
They spent Christmas Eve in Prinsegade. The table was set in the dining room with a damask cloth, silver, and china. The Christmas tree stood in the drawing room. Albert had asked Knud Erik to help him decorate it, and the boy had done so, but with his new sullenness. Albert had a hard time getting used to it: he didn't understand it, and he caught himself interpreting it as ingratitude, a reaction that was entirely alien to him: he'd never before believed that the recipients of his gifts owed him anything. The result was that he grew irritated with both himself and Knud Erik, and he scolded the boy several times. He didn't notice that Knud Erik himself was actually ashamed of his own sulkiness and wanted to snap out of it, but couldn't. Albert's sudden reprimands only made it worse.
They carried their bad mood with them to the dinner table. Knud Erik didn't utter a word during the entire meal. Klara had returned to her old, passive self, behaving like a servant who has found herself at the master's table and expects to be sent back to the kitchen at any moment. Albert was gloomy and tense, filled with dark premonitions. His housekeeper waited on them, her face tight with disapproval. When he saw Klara shooting her a furtive glance, Albert knew immediately that his first task as her husband would be to dismiss the servant who'd been with him fifteen years.
Edith climbed onto his lap and started beating the rice pudding with her spoon. "Daddy," she said, and pulled his beard with her other hand. He said nothing. He'd given up trying to correct her.
They rose from the table for the traditional dance around the Christmas tree, but it was too wide for them to link hands around it, and by tacit agreement they avoided trying. Nor did they sing carols. We'll never be a family, Albert thought. We're just the wreckage of other families. She's a widow with two children, and I'm an eccentric hermit who should never have left his cave.
There were few presents under the tree. Klara hadn't bought many, and their new situation had deprived Albert of the joy of giving. He'd bought Klara a pair of leather gloves and Knud Erik a box of tin soldiers. Edith got a doll. There was a tobacco pouch for him. They unwrapped these gifts in silence and thanked one another politely.
When she left to go home to Snaregade, Klara turned in the doorway.
"We need to agree on a date, and you have to talk to Pastor Abildgaard."
They saw more of each other between Christmas and New Year's Day. Albert's sister visited from Svendborg, and later they went to see his friend Emanuel Kroman. Everyone regarded them as a couple now. People took it for granted that a wedding was imminent, but no one was indiscreet enough to inquire about the date.
The oppressive atmosphere between them did not improve, but they eventually agreed on a Saturday in late January. Once the New Year celebration was over, he'd have to pay a visit to the parsonage and make sure their banns were read.
January was relentlessly gray, with temperatures that hovered near the freezing point. Showers of rain and sleet swept through the deserted streets, and the shops kept their lights on all day. The parsonage in Kirkestræde stayed lit too. Albert often passed it in the rain, but he didn't knock on the door. As with Klara's house in Snaregade in the days