The Girl in a Swing Read online

while she personally wasn't bothered, it might perhaps look

  better if I let her go through the door first.) At home, my

  private collection was becoming what an American friend

  and customer, one Mr Chuck B. Thegze, pleasantly described

  as a 'zinger'. (I remember that it was about this time that I

  bought the Reinicke milkmaid, with her sprigged skirt and

  pannier of flowers. Her fingers were damaged and the cow

  had lost a horn, but I wasn't concerned to send her to

  Sutcliffe's for restoration. She suited me very well as she

  was.) Not only did I feel myself to be in the right occupation

  and the right world, but I had achieved a certain individual

  standing - and that well beyond Berkshire. My personal enthusiasms

  and specialities were beginning to be known and

  respected - even consulted. Professional dealers are not admissible

  to the English Ceramic Circle, but nevertheless there

  were few of its members who were not aware of my detailed

  knowledge of the eighteenth-century pottery trade with the

  American colonies, just as there were few in the field of contemporary

  ceramics who did not know that I carried probably

  the best-chosen stock of Royal Copenhagen and Bing

  & Gr0ndahl in southern England.

  63

  I

  To sell the world one's own personal joy and to live by

  it - who cares whether modestly, passably or well? - surely

  there can be no greater fulfilment. Cecil Sharp never became

  a rich man. He didn't need to: he achieved something for

  which almost all his countrymen, directly or indirectly, are

  richer. So did Peter Scott. It seems strange, now, to think

  that there was a time, within living memory, when municipal

  parks did not contain his beautiful geese and ducks. (We

  can call them his.)

  I now had quite a circle of acquaintance in Kdbenhavn and

  looked forward to my regular visits there. Speaking Danish

  helped, of course. I had gone back to it, and was now

  reasonably fluent in that noble descendant of old Scandinavian

  and Low and High German. I no longer needed to stay in

  hotels, for there were plenty of friends ready to put me up,

  of whom my favourites were Jarl and Jytte Borgen. Jarl was

  a publisher - principally of books on the visual arts - and

  from my point of view their flat on Gammel Kongevej was

  most conveniently situated.

  Sitting at the window this still July evening, with the wind

  at last gone from the garden, I see myself once more - was

  it really less than three months ago? - finishing breakfast at

  Jarl's, surrounded by his collection of modern paintings, and

  thinking, over the toast and marmalade, that what I need,

  if I am to work off a sizeable load of business correspondence

  before the three days' expedition to Fyn arranged by Jytte

  to start that very afternoon, is a shorthand-typist who can

  cope with German and English as well as Danish. My forwarded

  post from England had brought four or five letters requiring

  prompt replies. Two were offering me first refusal of

  pieces I was fairly sure I could sell at a good profit, while

  another, from my solicitor, Brian Lucas, concerned some land

  out at Highclere which had belonged to my father, but which

  I had decided to sell in order to raise more capital. I also

  had letters from collectors in Munich and in Cleveland,

  Ohio, which, since they had arrived on the day of my departure

  from England, I had brought with me to answer as

  soon as possible. Then there was a dealer in Arhus with

  whom I had been advised to get in touch - and quite a bit

  64

  besides. The best way to cope with all this would be to dictate

  the lot to some competent woman who could have the

  letters ready on our return.

  I consulted Jarl, who said he was sure it could be arranged

  and began telephoning various friends. I left him at it and

  went out with Jytte to the shops. When we got back he said,

  'All right, Alan, I think I am fixing your problem with this

  nice fellow we know, Erik Hansen, who is a farms exporter.

  He says you are coming down to his office and there is this

  girl who will do each letter for you in all the languages, if

  you are not working too fast. She is a German girl who works

  for him and very good, he says. German and Danish no problem,

  English quite not so bad. Then when we come back on

  Friday, the letters can be easily ready.' (Jarl enjoyed talking

  English as much as I enjoyed talking Danish.)

  I thanked him warmly, promised Jytte to be back for

  lunch, got my letters and papers together and set out for the

  address he gave me. It wasn't far - an office in the Panoptikon,

  on the corner of Vesterbrogade and Bernstorffsgade and

  I went on foot for pleasure, as one often does in a foreign

  city. Having walked the length of Gammel Kongevej and almost

  into Vesterport, I climbed the steps and stopped for a

  few minutes to lean on the concrete parapet and look up the

  shining length of Sankt J0rgens S0 and Peblinge S0 rippling

  in the sunshine. There were flocks of white seagulls, and a

  light north-east wind was breaking the surface into small

  waves which slapped the shelving embankment below me.

  Two little girls were feeding some ducks. If I'd had a bit of

  bread I'd have joined them, for I was light-hearted and in no

  particular hurry on this sunny May morning. Strolling on up

  Stenosgade into Vesterbrogade, I felt at peace with the

  world. For years, I reflected, I had been in no doubt what I

  / wanted to do with my life, but had not known whether I

  /� could bring it off. Now, at last, I could be sure that I had

  ' made more than a good start, and the future looked bright.

  It was in this frame of mind that I arrived at the Panoptikon

  and went up in the lift.

  Mr Hansen, grey-haired, stout and cheerful, made himself

  most agreeable and we chatted for some time in a mixture of

  65

  Danish and English. Like most Danes he was dressed, by

  English standards, extremely casually for a day at the office,

  and contrived to give the impression that he had just been

  to one party, would shortly be off to another and meanwhile

  was in no particular hurry about anything so boring as work.

  Indeed, it was I who finally suggested that perhaps I ought to

  be getting on with my dictation.

  'Oer yes,' said Mr Hansen. 'Well, you'll find Fraulein Geutner

  absolutely excellent. You have much in English?'

  'Some. I suppose four or five letters.'

  'Well, perhaps a little slower with these, but she is good.

  Better than me, for as you will have noticed I am jolly terrible

  -'

  'No, no, of course you're not -'

  'Well, I have been to London a few times, but I don't think

  she has. Lige meget!'

  'Jeg er overbevist om at hun er glimrende, hr Hansen. It's

  really very kind of you. Now, about paying her - or paying

  you-'

  'Quite out of the question; of course not.'

&nb
sp; 'But really, I must pay either you or her -'

  'Certainly you must not. It's the least we can do to help

  an Englishman and a friend of Jarl.'

  I made a mental note to bring him a couple of bottles of

  claret when I called for the letters. Fraulein Geutner would

  have to have something, too: what, exactly? Scent? A silk

  scarf? Drat the man, why couldn't he just bill me by the

  hour? Then I would have been free to say if I didn't like

  what I got, and could have bought some more time if it

  turned out that I needed it. Probably half the letters would

  have to be done again: punctuation, spelling. As likely as

  not, what I'd get the first time round would amount to so

  many rough copies. Then, suppose Fraulein G. was middleaged

  and plain? If her languages and work were so good, this

  seemed probable. Perhaps the best thing would be just to slip

  her some kroner in an envelope? I'd better consult Jytte:

  she'd know best. Courtesy is like a skipping-rope. Everybody

  has his own way of playing with it, and it's splendid until you

  get your ankles - or someone else's - tangled up.

  66

  While I was thinking all this, Mr Hansen was conducting

  me down a passage and into another room. I had been expecting

  that he would either call Fraulein Geutner into his

  own office or take me to hers, but apparently he had a different

  idea, for this was either a waiting-room or else kept

  for some specialized part of the no-doubt-complicated business

  of exporting farms. It had a plain, fairly thick, dark-red

  carpet, two chintz-covered armchairs, a desk with a nickelplated

  cigarette box and two telephones on it, a hard chair

  at the desk, a wall-cupboard, some bookshelves a quarter

  full of directories and books about agriculture and livestockfarming,

  a table covered with some rather old-looking magazines

  and a small, brightly lit tank of tropical fish. It made my

  teeth feel apprehensive.

  'You can be not disturbed here,' said Mr Hansen. 'Please

  let me know if you want anything; and don't forget to be

  looking in for a drink before you go. She'll be along in a moment.'

  And with this he left me.

  I sat down at the desk and began looking through my various

  letters and arranging them by languages. About a minute

  later there was a tap at the door. I called out 'Kom ind!' and

  then, for good measure, 'Herein!'

  WHAT were my first thoughts, and what did I feel when she

  entered the room? In retrospect one attributes to oneself all

  manner of feelings, which in reality are accretions of hindsight,

  part of our natural desire to dramatize (even to ourselves),

  to announce the theme forte con brio. Nevertheless,

  I know that I did indeed feel, at the time, an impact hard

  to describe - a kind of leaping of my consciousness to a new

  level, a swift change both in the quality of my awareness and

  the nature of the moment that was passing; as when a scent

  or a melody startlingly make one not merely remember, but

  actually return to the sensation of being five years old - or in

  67

  Seville long ago - or plunging into deep water for the first

  time. The instant before, I had been about my day's business,

  sitting in Mr Hansen's spare office with a sheaf of letters in

  front of me. Now I was no longer doing merely this. That

  was still there, but somewhere a long way below me. Silently,

  some never-before-experienced lens had slid into place and

  I, with eyes as it were blinking uncertainly in brilliant light,

  was looking through it at a reality which I had never before

  been able to perceive. This was no longer the day, or the

  place, which I had supposed.

  Beautiful? Yes, she was beautiful. I must, since then, have

  heard fifty people say that she was beautiful. But I had

  already seen beautiful women, perceiving their beauty detachedly,

  with both eyes and mind; sometimes praising it, as

  a tone-deaf man at a concert may, for the sake of usage and

  good manners, and not altogether without sincerity, praise

  the music. Not merely were her face and figure physically

  beautiful. Her carriage, movement, air were arrestingly graceful

  and elegant. Yet even these could not of themselves have

  brought about that fracture of the day's continuity which I

  am trying to recall. An overwhelming femininity seemed to

  radiate from her, surrounding her like an invisible nimbus. Of

  what was it composed? Of a certain elusive quality of detachment

  and beyondness, so that in some strange way I

  felt myself, even though I had risen to my feet, to be looking

  up at her; of a floating, quick-glancing self-possession, like

  that of a dancer; of mischief and gaiety, and of amusement,

  too, in her consciousness of the effect she knew she had on

  others (or at all events on men). But yet another constituent

  there was - disturbing and ambivalent; a suggestion of something

  gypsy-like, even pagan - unscrupulous and ruthless which

  would not shrink or hold back where others might

  feel themselves bound by the dictates of conventional, civilized

  life. In such a respect, as much as in grace and dignity,

  might a captive leopard's beauty transcend the boring

  ugliness of the sweaty, tobacco-chewing, black-finger-nailed

  captors surrounding it. Certainly they have the whip-hand,

  but they had better beware, for the marvel they have trapped

  and mean to exploit is lethal. The sharp-clawed, instinctive

  68

  creature does not share their avaricious, purblind world, does

  not feel as they do, knows nothing of prudence or weighing

  the cost. There is no telling what it knows. Partly it seems

  unaware of and indifferent to them, pacing its cage. Partly

  it is most terribly vigilant and aware of their intrusion upon

  its deadly, cunning innocence.

  Yet at this moment all these things were like so many

  bursting stars of a rocket, here and gone, flashing before

  me and leaving me dazzled; uncertain, after the burst, of

  numbers and colours, and conscious only of a style that disconcerted

  me, seeming as it did to confer upon me, as an

  immense and gracious favour, this typist girl s presence. It

  was like Miranda the other way round - I had never before

  seen a real woman.

  I have not the least recollection of what she was wearing.

  She spoke first, and in English. 'You are Mr Desland?'

  'Er - yes, that's right. And you're Fraulein Geutner? Sehr

  nett, dass Sie mir mil diesen Briefen helfen wollen.'

  'Not at all. Mit Vergnugen.'

  'Bitte, setzen Sie sich.'

  Common coins; clods of earth; mouthfuls of water; slices

  of bread; sounds made by tongues, no different from myriads

  of everyday words, and as fitting as any for greeting. The

  neon tetras flickered and darted in the tank, and I watched

  them, trying to collect my thoughts.

  "Which would you like to do first, Fraulein Geutner? The

  English ones? Will they be more difficult for you?'


  She crossed her legs and opened her book on her knee.

  'Es ist mir egal.' And with this there went a smile, not at

  me, but down-glancing, as though to herself or to some invisible

  companion, suggesting that the kind of communication

  I was speaking about was unimportant in the light of

  some other kind, of which she herself would have the arranging

  and which would be taking place in some region beyond

  my control. Bathetically, I found myself thinking of Groucho

  Marx - 'I'm a man and you're a woman. I can't think of a

  better arrangement.' But it was partly beyond her own control,

  too. She was no more flirting than roses flirt with bees.

  I struggle to bear in mind that I did not yet know that this

  69

  was Kathe. I was not thinking, that morning, in terms of

  relating this experience to myself or to anything which I intended

  to do. It was as though, while out and about, I had

  come across some wonderful bird or flower not only unknown

  to me, but so arresting as to put the day's dull business

  in the shade. Thus, I still remember clearly the time

  and place where (at the age of twelve) I first saw a morning

  glory in full bloom on a trellis, and I remember nothing else

  of that particular day. Similarly, I remember the first occasion

  when I saw a peacock spread its tail. Such experiences are

  self-sufficient, and in memory blot out our simultaneous

  chores, our grubbing for pennies and daily bread. And yet and

  yet these analogies fall short. When, as a boy, Elgar obtained

  the score of Beethoven's First Symphony from the

  public library and, as he himself has told us, comprehended

  the scherzo with a kind of wondering incredulity, there was

  much besides that he did not as yet comprehend, and it concerned

  himself. The experience, though jewel-like, was not

  inorganic.

  I dictated my letters in a somewhat distracted manner. Although

  my thoughts were not running on notions of Fraulein

  Geutner outside the office, I nevertheless remained bewildered

  by an obscure sense of the incongruity of what we were

  doing with all that I have tried to describe. Was it Diirer

  who made a drawing of Mary Magdalen in the garden, addressing,

  with a puzzled air, a figure who is certainly dressed

  as a gardener and carries a spade and hoe? I do not mean

  to be irreverent. This is the nearest I can get to explaining

  my state of mind. Fraulein Geutner was taking shorthand.

  Something numinous was present, but I did not know what.

  The time came at length when I held the door open, saying

  something like 'Vielen Dank. I'll call on Friday and perhaps

  we might meet again then, just to have a quick look through

  them, if you won't be too busy?'

  She smiled again, this time directly at me. 'I shall not be

  too busy.' But she was not, or so it seemed, speaking of the

  letters. It was as though she had said, 'I'm not too busy to

  see those who can feel and acknowledge what I am.'

  I returned to Mr Hansen, as invited. He, of course, asked

  70

  whether all had gone well. I replied that I felt sure it had,

  and that no doubt I would become pleasantly certain when

  I saw the letters. Then, vaguely seeking, I suppose, for some

  light -to be thrown on what had taken me by surprise, I

  added, 'Very attractive girl.'

  'Yes, nice girl, isn't she?' he answered. 'Quite brightens up

  the place, really. What would you like - sherry? Or I have

  gin, or some Scotch whisky?'

  'Good heavens,' I thought, 'it's not possible! He doesn't

  know!' Yet obviously there was nothing to do but leave it

  at that. Leave what at what, anyway?

  The jaunt to Fyn, in perfect May weather, was beautiful.

  The Store Baelt was smooth and blue, and the Kors0r ferryboat

  crossed it like a clockwork toy in a child's bath. I have

  always thought St Knud's cathedral at Odense among the

  most splendid medieval buildings in northern Europe. In its

  pure Gothic brickwork there is a severe formality which

  seems to express - by anticipation, as it were - the latent

  Protestant ideal. It has an admirable restraint, and a kind of

  no-nonsense quality which has never failed to move me. I

  have sometimes tried to imagine what might have happened

  if Knud (who is buried under the altar) had lived to carry

  out his intention of disputing with William the Conqueror