Barbara (7 page)

It was at this point that Barbara’s eyes suddenly began to wander in the direction of Gabriel. She lowered them, glanced at him once more with lightning speed and gave a little giggle. The words seemed to stick in Pastor Poul’s throat: what had happened? Had Gabriel done something or said something. Was he intervening in the recital? Barbara looked determinedly at her sewing and worked quickly.

“It’s a bolster,” she said quietly.

But it was obvious that she was filled with hidden laughter. Gabriel gave her a caustic look.

“It
is
a bolster,” she repeated insistently. Her voice rose into a falsetto and ended in that wheezing sound that was mid-way between a sigh and a laugh.

Pastor Poul had started to feel very uncomfortable indeed. He did not understand a word of it at all. At first, he thought it was he himself who was being laughed at, but then he realised this was not the case. Nevertheless, he did not at all like this mischievous new game between Barbara and Gabriel, which had quite definitely interrupted his own account and made it superfluous.

Suddenly, Gabriel tugged at the sewing. Barbara defended herself a little and rapped his fingers, but she was unable to prevent him from pulling all the white material up on to the table top. Then she suddenly gave in and said in a voice that she tried to make sound angry: “Oh, you fool, Gabriel. Yes,
of course
it’s a shift. One would think you’d never seen a chemise before.”

Gabriel’s fat face was highly expressive of both amusement and insolence.

“Yes, of course,” he replied, “but never
such
a fine one. Who’s going…?”

But Barbara had suddenly flushed scarlet right down to her neck. She had chanced to glance at Pastor Poul, just for a second, and never had she been so quick to look away again. Gabriel sensed that something had happened and suddenly understood where they had got to. Damn! He had bungled things again. Pastor Poul and Barbara were both speechless; he was the only one to be saying anything and yet he understood that at that moment he was less than nothing. It was more than he could stand. He said that he would have to go now.

“Are you going?” asked Barbara.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Gabriel said; he needed to go to the store. He was very busy at the moment.

Pastor Poul had also made signs of making a move. He murmured something to the effect that it was perhaps also time for him to go home. But then Barbara suddenly found the power of speech again and in a loud voice started to talk her way out of her confusion: No, no! Surely he needn’t go. Her mother was just making some coffee for him. She hadn’t been able to have a talk to him yet, as she surely,
most surely
wanted. There was simply so much for her to do in the house. Whatever he did, he mustn’t go yet.

Gabriel was outside in the vestibule; he poked his head inside and pointing in the direction of the sewing, said: “Goodbye. It’s nice to see you doing a chemise fit for a bride.”

Barbara laughed. A little laugh that at the same time was a sigh that caught in her throat: “Oh, you do talk nonsense, Gabriel.”

She went with him to the door and stood out in the rain for a moment and was full of joy. Then she went inside to rejoin Pastor Poul, the new Pastor Poul. And as it was now beginning to turn dusk, she lit some candles.

After this visit, Pastor Poul’s melancholy was transformed into a quiet gaiety. When he came from his visit to Barbara he wandered through the dark town like a man liberated and wanted only to be alone for a time with his joy. There was just a break in the rain. He turned off along a windswept passageway leading down to the water. There he stopped in the shelter of a boathouse to gather his thoughts and try to explain to himself the source of his new-found happiness. But it was not long before he sensed that others had made their way down to the shore with their thoughts. A lone figure appeared out of the darkness. They greeted each other. It was Gabriel.

He was not at all unhappy that it should be Gabriel. Although he had been a considerable nuisance to him during his conversation with Madame Barbara, he had nevertheless been one of the participants in the pleasantest scene he had experienced since arriving in this country. And although he might appear to be something of a rascal, he was nevertheless probably something of a cheerful Scapin to whom it might well be worth chatting.

Gabriel also turned out to be friendly, familiar and blessed with the gift of the gab. They discussed all manner of things concerning Tórshavn and the country, and Gabriel retailed some quite amusing things about many people, making Pastor Poul laugh. But the fact that they avoided discussing a certain person made it increasingly clear to them both that it was she who was at the centre of their thoughts, and when they finally reached this subject, Gabriel’s voice became quite soft and emotional.

“A charming woman, you say. Yes, but then you should have seen her when she was eighteen and quite innocent. Barbara was really sweet in those days.”

“I can imagine that,” said Pastor Poul.

“Aye,” said Gabriel. “It’s a pity that she was so blemished. It’s galling. My God it is.”

“I’ve heard a good deal about her already,” said Pastor Poul. “So there must be something in it, although I find it difficult to make it fit in with her character, which seems to me to be decent and respectable enough and not such as one would expect of a woman like that.”

“Oh, she’s full of… If you knew her properly, you’d think she was terrible… She’s up to her tricks as soon as she sees a stranger.”

“Tricks?” asked Pastor Poul dubiously. He thought of Barbara’s glances, which had been so radiant that she had constantly had to look down. “On the contrary,” he went on, “she seems to me to be so completely natural.”

Gabriel snorted a little. “Those eyes! Oh yes, how fine! Let me tell you something, and by God this is true: I am often ashamed of being related to her. Because at times she lives as though she was nothing but… nothing but… well, a whore.”

“Well, I can’t judge that, of course,” murmured the priest. “I hear that’s what people say. But I thought it was mainly the older people who said that kind of thing about her.”

“But it’s bloody well the young’uns who know first hand what she’s like.”

“Well, as for me,” said the clergyman, “I haven’t had a sense of anything on her part but what is decent and beautiful.”

“Oh, good heavens. She can’t tempt me,” said Gabriel seriously. “I know her too well for that… Everyone knows her tricks and what she gets up to. It’s really only something to laugh at… If I wasn’t related to her.”

“But,” he concluded, “one thing I will say to you: she’s as lecherous as they come.”

“Ha, ha,” thought Pastor Poul after they had parted. “Gabriel here is probably not quite as indifferent as he makes out.” Pastor Poul himself had to admit that he was certainly not unaffected by this conversation. And his new sense of delight at Tórshavn and all this dreary country had not diminished. He was very surprised, for Gabriel had not said anything but what was likely to spoil his sense of pleasure after his visit to Nýggjastova. Yet it seemed to him that this pleasure had now only increased.

During the following period scarcely a day passed without his seeing Barbara, and every new encounter only helped increase his happiness. He did not himself know what to think of it. He could be in no doubt that she was a woman with a bad reputation. He did not need Gabriel to instruct him in this – he could draw his own conclusions. The effect she had on all men was quite obvious. She neither did nor said anything worthy of censure. And yet! It could not be otherwise. Perhaps she simply could not help it. She pleased everyone and no one knew her ways.

So what in heaven’s name could he, a man of the cloth, a man whose task it was to be an example to others – what could he have to do with such a woman? He could already clearly see the trap that fate was setting for him. But he did not fear it.

He already knew that he
ought
to avoid her, but instead he rather sought her out. His heart was thoroughly flattered. His senses were dazzled by the looks from her green eyes and titillated by her scintillating voice. And this black, wet village with its storehouses and hovels, this place that at first had been to him but a source of melancholy, he now saw as through a radiant spectrum.

Never mind, then, that this joy was only on account and that every day that elapsed in this way only increased its cost. He would know how to pay when the time came for settling. He did not doubt that he would be solvent, whatever the price became. He had so far never doubted himself, and he was accustomed to going with all sails set.

The fifth day saw the arrival of the dean, Anders Morsing, by boat from Nes. Pastor Poul had heard that this man had once been betrothed to Barbara but had broken with her before the wedding. This latter fact struck Pastor Poul as being likely enough when he saw him. He was a man with a commanding figure, tall and stern faced. What eye games could he ever have had with Barbara? His eyes were like steel, piercingly blue and determined, so that anyone he spoke to would feel that he was being examined deep down into his conscience. But a little smile at once both grim and sweet played around his mouth.

Pastor Poul felt he had been called to order the moment he saw him. He was suddenly back in the past. The dean sat with the bishop’s letter open in one hand, measuring him up.

“Hmm,” he said. “As you know, a great deal is
expected
of you. Things in this country are not like they are elsewhere. The position
ought
to be that it is the clergy who serve their parishioners as models of piety and Christian living, but the contrary is often the case. I will not name any names, but we – that is to say you and I – have a couple of brethren whom one could only wish were half as pious as their parishioners. And so we hope to see our younger clergy made of different stuff.”

He looked straight at Pastor Poul’s face: “You see, it is scarcely a matter of having devoured so and so many big books or of being familiar with so many of the Christian movements that are to be found all over the place these days – all this skilful whining and subtle pseudo-religiosity. I will say to you once and for all what I have actually already said: that in matters of unshakable faith and true dedication to the Lord we have more to learn from these people than these people can learn from us. I mean mainly the people living out in the villages. You cannot really count the people living here in Tórshavn. For us clergymen at the moment the important thing is not whether one of us can proclaim our message, one louder than another, but quite simply that in our lives and manners we should be worthy of our calling and that we should humbly and faithfully serve, teach and guide our flocks to respect the law and to lead a sober life so that we can in some measure be worthy of the inexplicable confidence they show in us.”

The dean had tapped the table a couple of times; his mouth was serious but smiling, but his eyes were fierce.

“And then,” he went on, “you yourself have eyes to see. You will probably soon discover what needs to be done.”

All Pastor Poul could do was express his full agreement. He tried to find the right words, but found them insubstantial and insignificant.

“And now you can go to your parish at your earliest opportunity,” concluded Dean Anders.

Pastor Poul replied that he would be able to travel with the law speaker, who was preparing to return to his own farm.

“Hmm,” said the dean with a smile: “Then you will be arriving in your benefice in good company. Aye, aye. I have nothing but good to say of Samuel Mikkelsen, but he is rarely in a hurry to get away when he is here on a visit to Tórshavn. Oh well,
you
must see to that. I am sure that you will take care of yourself in
every
way.”

Dean Anders gave him another penetrating look and left.

Pastor Poul was quite overcome. He felt almost as though he had been baptised and confirmed all over again. This dean was like a large, sharp, spiced dram. Oh well, the time had come. In a feeling almost of elation he thought that he would be tearing himself away before long, taking leave of Tórshavn and starting to work. And that would probably not be all that burdensome. He went to the law speaker to arrange the journey with him. It was a Saturday.

Throughout the rest of the day he remembered Dean Anders’ sharp, probing eyes that had thrown their light far down into his conscience and called him to order. But occasionally he also saw Barbara’s radiant greenish yellow eyes, which she constantly had to drop because they knew far too much about a secret that could not be talked about, indeed scarcely thought about, but which nevertheless made her mouth turn up in a sweet, pleased smile that created dimples in her cheeks. That artful and everlasting secret that Barbara had with all men.

The church bells out on Reyn were calling people to divine service. Their gentle tone fluttered above the housetops. But the tower in which they hung was sombre and rickety with age. It shook beneath the movement. The bells heaved and squeaked in the woodwork, and this piteous secondary sound mingled with chimes as light as birdsong and could be heard everywhere in the town.

The gale and the rain had set into a static cold. The dirt in the streets had become hard and sharp, and the puddles had frozen to tinkling ice. The sun shone hazily on this twenty-sixth Sunday after Trinity.

The church was small. There were thirteen pews on either side in addition to a small gallery above the entrance. It was bitterly cold among the bare timber walls. There was no loft; you just looked straight up at the heavy rafters and laths in the roof.

The impoverished people of Tórshavn began to arrive. The women wore black shawls and scarves. They came tight-lipped and with the Kingo hymnbook in their hands. The men followed, a little hesitantly and with a sombre urge to remain in the background. A few individuals among them found their way up to the gallery. They were only the heroes of everyday life – Samuel the Hoist and Niels the Punt. Here in this sacred place the women had better take the lead.