We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [196]
"I'll wait for you out here," he said, and smiled cheerfully.
This won't take long, he thought to himself as she disappeared behind the heavy door. But time passed, and she stayed in there. Herman started pacing up and down the sidewalk. Why hadn't they seen her off? He went up the steps and opened the heavy door. A man in uniform blocked his path and asked him what his business was. Herman was taken aback; he hadn't prepared an answer. He looked over the doorman's shoulder, but there was no sign of Klara in the vast lobby. The doorman again demanded that he account for his intrusion. Herman shrugged and went back down the steps.
An hour later she reappeared.
"I'm meeting the commissioner again tonight," she said. Herman's face was one big question mark. "Markussen, I mean. He gave me some excellent advice. I'd like to thank you so very much for your help, Herman."
His jaw dropped. Her tone of voice had changed. She was back to calling him by his first name. Before, she'd briefly addressed him as Mr. Frandsen, and he'd taken it as a sign of respect. But since her audience with Markussen, he'd been demoted to the level of a servant.
She pulled her purse from her handbag. "I'm delighted that you brought me here," she said. "I want to give you something for your trouble."
Out came a hundred-kroner note. His initial impulse was to reject the money. What did she take him for? Did she think he had no pride? Then he reconsidered. He'd done her a favor, after all. And wasted his own time, to boot. A hundred kroner wasn't to be sneezed at. He needed to get drunk. A roll in the hay wouldn't come amiss either. The good reasons for accepting the cash piled up until they tipped the balance. His precious pride forgotten, he didn't thank her, but stuck the note in the inside pocket of his jacket.
"So, what did you and Markussen decide?" he asked with forced casualness.
"The commissioner felt our conversation should remain confidential."
Klara Friis pronounced the last word slowly and carefully, as if making sure that Herman caught every syllable. The word confidential was clearly a new one for her too. Then, for the first time, she smiled.
When she'd entered the building, she'd found it just as forbidding inside as out. The heavy door had barely closed behind her when a uniformed man blocked her path, as if to inform her that she'd confused the front door with the tradesman's entrance. She'd sensed immediately that this was as far as she'd get.
A small man holding a black silk hat came over to her and asked her politely if he could be of assistance.
It was Markussen.
She'd been dreadfully confused. When she mentioned Albert's name and her inheritance, his expression changed from politeness to impatience. He was slim, with white eyebrows and a white, well-groomed mustache. His features were sharp, with a jutting nose and a firm chin, but there was a sunkenness to his face that bore witness to the first onslaughts of old age. His gaze grew inquisitorial. The doorman approached again, as if awaiting the signal to show her the door.
The worst thing was that she seemed unable to stem her own nervous jabbering and take off on her own accord, and thereby preserve the last vestige of her dignity. Instead, she fumbled deeper and deeper into her story, which wasn't so much a story as a load of information's that poured out helter-skelter. When you came right down to it, she had no actual business there. She just needed someone to listen to her.
Suddenly his eyes changed. She could never afterward describe to herself the expression that appeared on his face, though she'd often try, because she felt it contained the key to so much more than Markussen himself. A suddenly awakened curiosity? Yes, that was part of it. Darkness, pain, longing, and regrets? Perhaps.