Without Roots by Margit Sandemo

Author:Margit Sandemo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jentas A/S
Published: 2019-09-12T08:29:20+00:00

The evening before Mikael was due to leave, the event he had feared the most finally happened: Anette witnessed one of his attacks.

The evening had begun so well. They had been up later than usual, and suddenly Mikael said that he was hungry.

“At this time of night? When everybody else has gone to bed?”

“Let’s just go into the kitchen and make something.”

“We? We can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“No, honestly! There are rules ...”

He leaned forward. “Yes, Anette, there are rules that it would be wise to break. But then, of course, you can’t cook. What are you good at, in fact?”

He provoked her on purpose because he knew her after all. Her cheeks flushed red, but he went on, “Well, then, I’ll make something myself. I’ve done it before.”

Anette had got up. “No, it’s not that. Of course I can make food. I often did that back in France. Come, let me throw something together. At least, I hope I can,” she finished with a giggle.

He smiled: “That would be nice.”

The kitchen was the maid’s domain and the family members would only go there to give orders about the meals of the day. It was a large kitchen with a huge stove and lots of pots and pans hanging on the wall. Anette looked around helplessly.

“I can’t find my way around here at all,” she said, agitated and a little ashamed. “I believe this is the door to the pantry.”

Mikael had brought a candle with him. They both stepped into the pantry.

“There’s plenty of food here,” he said. “Here’s a basket with eggs ...”

“And I’ll cut a bit of the ham that’s hanging here. I can make a French omelette.”

“Splendid! Bread and butter... and cheese, we’ll take that.”

“The fire in the stove has gone out.”

“There are enough embers to get it going again. Let me fix it!”

Shortly afterwards, the kitchen table was laid with delicious food. Anette tried somewhat unsuccessfully to make the omelette she remembered from her childhood. She was agitated like never before.

While they were eating, Mikael said pensively, “This is just so nice and cozy, Anette. Why haven’t we thought of this sooner?”

She stiffened and became tense at once. “It’s not good for the master and the mistress to ... oh, sorry, yes, of course it is nice and cozy!”

“I’ve never felt that I’m part of a master and mistress.”

“Well, you are and you must never forget it!”

“Why not? Maybe this is the error of the matter?”

“What matter?”

“Oh, nothing. Can I have some more beer?”

She poured some beer. “What do you think the maids will say tomorrow when they see that we’ve messed the place up?”

“Surely we’ll clean the place up before we leave?”

“Clean? You must be mad. We can’t do that ...”

He put his hand over hers and squeezed it almost threateningly. “We’ll clean the place and then no more nonsense, understand?”

“Nonsense?” she whispered, but she had turned pale and stopped protesting. She cleared the table without a word and rinsed the things that they had used. But Mikael did most of the work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.