“Would you like some help, Fru Riber?” Else said.
A smile expanded the landlady’s full face as she stirred the pan of gravy on the stove. “Tak. You are a joy in the kitchen. Would you like to do the garnish?”
On the kitchen table lay a blue-and-white platter covered with pork, red cabbage, and potatoes. Else pulled over a jar of pickled beets and a plate of sliced cucumbers, and she arranged them in floral patterns on top of the meat.
Else had loved to cook with Mama in their kitchen in Pasadena, overlooking the pretty little rose garden. How she missed Mamaand Dad and her brothers. Ever since the US entered the war, Else hadn’t been able to receive letters from home.
“Is Hemming out there?” Fru Riber glanced to the kitchen door, and graying blond curls bounced around her ears.
“Not yet.”
“He’s been here almost two weeks. How is he behaving?” She gave Else a concerned look.
“He’s very polite.”
“I don’t like how he sits in the living room with you university folk.” Fru Riber stirred the gravy with more vigor than necessary.
Else laid the last cucumber slices in place. Maybe Hemming wanted to listen to the BBC broadcasts to Denmark, which the students turned on after the disapproving landlady retired to her apartment after dinner. “He sits there quietly, whittling wood. I think he likes to be around people.”
At first the shipyard worker’s presence had unnerved Else too. She didn’t know how to talk to him. What did normal people discuss? Certainly not quantum mechanics.
Fru Riber poured gravy into a blue-and-white tureen. “As long as he behaves.”
Else smothered a smile. Fru Riber ought to direct her ire to Ib Malmstrøm, one of the undergraduates who inhabited the top floor, right below Hemming’s garret room. He’d hounded Laila for dates until she’d scared him off with a monologue on matrix mathematics.
Sometimes being an egghead girl came in handy.
With all the food prepared, Fru Riber brought out the platter and Else the gravy tureen.
Only Hemming sat at the table.“God aften,”Else said.
He sprang to his feet, tall and regal as a Danish prince. “God aften.”Then he slouched in his chair, a rugged Viking once more.
Fru Riber set the platter on the table. “Only the three of us tonight. The others are visiting family or on dates.” Her gaze slid to Else.
“That’s nice.” Else took her seat. She needed no reminder that she hadn’t had a date in years.
Fru Riber served Else and Hemming and said the blessing.
Without perky Laila, the burden of conversation fell on Else’s shoulders. She sent a smile diagonally across the table to Hemming. “What do you do at the shipyard?”
He snapped his gaze to her in shock.
True, she’d only exchanged small talk with him, so she raised an encouraging smile.
“I—build ships.” He forked a chunk of meat into his mouth.
“That must be interesting.” She sliced her pork, reminding herself to keep her fork in her left hand when finished in the European fashion. “I know nothing about shipbuilding. Do you have a specific job there? Certain skills?”
He spread his hands before him as if cradling a watermelon, stared at his long fingers, and shrugged.
He was either shy or had a small vocabulary, but Else had words to spare. “You work with your hands, ja?”
“Ja.” He nodded his bearded chin.
“You are amanuel arbejder—a manual laborer as we say in English. Did you know the wordmanuelcomes from the Latin wordmanus, which meanshands?”
Hemming mumbled and chewed, his gaze on her.
