When she was in the lift staring at herself in the narrow mirror she regretted not having done something about her appearance. She couldn’t decide whether she looked like a hanged cat or something the cat had dragged in, as Else used to say about herself when she stood in front of the hall mirror. Maybe she looked like something in between. A half-strangled cat dragging itself up to the renowned and awe-inspiring Gypsy King. In her melancholy state she had forgotten what it meant to her to be going to tea with Harry Wiener. She had forgotten to look forward to it and fear it, and when she sat in bed with the duvet around her reading The Father, she quite forgot why she was reading the play at all, completely engrossed in the story. Only in the lift did it strike her that the step onto the top floor would also be a decisive step in her career. That word usually made her smile ironically.
Harry Wiener poured out the tea and asked if she took sugar. No, thank you, she replied politely, but maybe a spot of milk. He beat his brow with an exaggerated gesture and rose again. It doesn’t matter, she hastened to say. He stopped and looked at her over his spectacles. Why did she say that when she had just said she liked milk in her tea? He smiled amiably as he said it and she smiled too. If you want milk you shall have it, he said, going inside. She looked at his script, it was already tattered and dog-eared even though rehearsals would not start for another three months.
He made her relax, she didn’t know how, and she couldn’t understand this was the very same feared and admired Harry Wiener she had heard so many stories about. The same Harry Wiener who had made a pass at her in his Mercedes. Good, now we’re about there, he said, placing a small silver jug on the tray. He really seemed to have forgotten everything that evening, but she was glad she had put on Else’s Faroese sweater. It had turned cooler, too. They sat silently listening to the distant rumbling and watching the purple flashes and white forks of lightning over the harbour. Lucca did not know what to say and she was surprised it was not difficult to sit, each in their bamboo chair, saying nothing. Harry Wiener slurped when he drank. That surprised her, considering how cultivated he was. He was at home in himself, and she almost thought he had forgotten her.
I went to see my wife today, he said suddenly in a low voice. She is in hospital, he added. Lucca looked at him expectantly. He looked over at the harbour entrance. I hope she’s awake, he said. She loves thunderstorms… He lit a cigarette. She is dying, he went on. Lucca looked at the script in her lap. It has spread, he added, there’s nothing to be done. Lucca said she was sorry. He looked at her. He hadn’t told her to appeal to her sympathy. He just thought she should know, now they were going to work together. If he should seem distrait. He regarded her for a moment before going on. She asked me to sell the house, he said. He had not thought of doing that before she died. It was a house north of town, he hadn’t been there for months. Yes, it is strange, he said, as if replying to something she had asked him. He looked at his cigarette. But enough of that. What did she think of the play?
She hesitated, then said Strindberg must have had problems with women. He smiled, but not patronisingly. That was true enough, but it was not true to say he hated them. He was afraid of them, which was something else. If anything it was a particularly virulent case of unhappy love, he smiled. Strindberg was a deserted child who as an adult cursed the mother’s womb that had exiled him. Incidentally, all artists were deserted children. He looked at her. ‘Your mother was your friend, but the woman was your enemy…’ he said slowly, as if to emphasise every word. He smiled again. Yes, it was banal, of course, but that’s how it was. That was why the Captain was so bewitched by the power of motherhood. And that is why, said Harry Wiener, he breaks down, because he doesn’t know for certain that he is your father.
Lucca jumped. She had forgotten she was sitting on his balcony only because she was going to play the cavalry captain’s daughter. Harry Wiener took a mouthful of tea. This time he did not slurp. Doubt over paternity is the oppressed woman’s only possible revenge in a patriarchal universe, he said, putting down his cup. But it was not the only cause of the captain’s suffering. He also suffered because, in Strindberg’s universe, life and the ability to pass it on belonged to the women and to them alone. Why do you think he paraphrases Shylock? he asked. For a moment she forgot who Shylock was, but he did not expect her to answer.
‘Hath not a man eyes?’ He leaned forwards in his chair, the bamboo creaked as he stretched out his hands in an appealing gesture. ‘Is he not warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a woman? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh?’ He let his hands drop into his lap and leaned back. Shylock had to argue for his humanity because he was a Jew, an outcast, and the Captain had to do likewise. You could go so far as to say that to Strindberg men were biology’s Jews, its wandering homeless. ‘In the midst of the moonlight…’ he added softly, holding her eyes, ‘… surrounded by ruins on all sides.’
A drop fell on the balcony floor, followed by another. The next moment the whole balcony was spotted with raindrops. The gilding on the Russian church’s onion dome sent a mysterious light on the background of the dark grey sky. Harry Wiener rose and picked up the tray, she carried in the cups, he let her enter before him. She sat down on the sofa, he settled in an armchair. The low lamps in the corners of the room surrounded them with a warm, subdued light. The view was already dim in the misty rain. He had left the door to the balcony open, and Lucca felt the rain like a cool breath in the warm damp air.
While the thunderstorm passed over the city he questioned her about the roles she had played and how she had interpreted them, and he listened to her with the same intensity he had shown in the dressing room after the performance a few weeks previously. While she had been paralysed with shyness when she arrived, now she suddenly noticed she had plenty to say, and heard herself voicing ideas she had never shared with anyone before. She told him how working on the roles had made her feel that the innermost core of her personality was a hollow space in which she could be anyone at all, and how the feeling sometimes terrified her and at other times overwhelmed her with its freedom. Harry Wiener smiled, almost wistfully, she thought. Yes, he said, we are separate, but not so different. That is why we both understand and misunderstand each other.
Again they were silent, looking out at the white vapour of rain above the glinting rooftops. He glanced at his watch and dispelled the enchantment when he rose and said he would have to ask her to leave. She was struck by how direct he could be without seeming rude. Maybe it was simply because he was used to getting his own way. He had an appointment soon with a young dramatist, they were going to discuss his manuscript. But perhaps she knew him? He must be about her age, perhaps slightly older. Andreas Bark was his name. Very promising, one of the really big talents. She had heard of him. Did she have a car? She said she was cycling. Oh, well, we must get hold of a taxi. Of course he would pay. She said that was too much. There you go again, he smiled and handed her a hundred kroner note. He really couldn’t have her catching a cold from sheer modesty.
The bell rang while he was phoning, and he motioned to her to press the door button. Then he came into the hall and shook hands with her. See you in the autumn, he said, and closed the door behind her. She walked down the stairs that wound around the bars of the lift shaft. The lift passed her when she was one floor down and through the window in the door she saw a dark, averted figure slide past.