“I learned from my father what father love is, thereby getting an idea of the divine father love.”
SØREN KIERKEGAARD
“Søren always reproached himself over his relationship to his father.”
REGINE OLSEN
Regina kept walking, moving by instinct rather than by sight. Unfanned, the flame of the Holy Spirit inside of her waned. Unhooked from the source of forgiveness and love, she threw up against the cave walls of her mind a shadow image of her father, her mother, Jonas, and Olga. Their faces were so ugly, their features so exaggerated, that it made her think there was something she’d forgotten to do, something forgiving. But the caricatures of her family gave her a grim, powerful sense of satisfaction, and she settled into her quiet rebellion.
It wasn’t until she reached the door of her teacher’s apartment that the red-roofed town houses, the black street lamps, the ruddy-faced, overheated people, and the panting dogs suddenly veered back into focus. She felt as if she’d been walking through a darkened tunnel without any ceiling or floor. An opalescent, blue-gray mist quivered in the air above her. The sky held a rich, water-bound intensity. She longed for the storm to hit, the rain to fall, and a refreshing sweetness to lighten the heaviness of the air.
Regina could hardly stand to go to her music lesson, though she’d been going twice a week, at the same time and place, for years. She trudged up the narrow staircase and went in. Miss Wad, a gaunt spinster with a rough voice, lifted her watch from the chain around her neck and shook her head. Regina smiled to try to placate her, placed her hands on the yellowing ivory keys of Miss Wad’s piano, and began to play.
The humidity made the middle C stick, and Regina focused her attention on striking the errant key just right. She had to force it to spring upward like the others. She had to stop it from interfering with the music she could hear in her head—the way the music was supposed to sound, but wouldn’t, no matter how hard she pounded the sticking key.
“Regina,” Miss Wad scolded as she paced behind Regina, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath her. “Stop focusing on that sticking key. Focus on the entirety of the music.” Regina tried, but she couldn’t ignore the sticking key. She just couldn’t.
At four o’clock Regina walked out of Miss Wad’s apartment and immediately felt a change in the air. A coolness was descending from above, swirling and mixing with the heat. She hurried down the narrow alleyway, trying to outpace the storm. Just as she reached the place where the street opened into the broad expanse of Nytorv Square, thunder cracked and rain whipped down. The rain startled the heat that had gathered and lingered on the cobblestones throughout the past few days the way a splash of water scatters a sleeping dog, and a blast of hot air rose up around Regina’s face.
Exhilarated, she glanced around the square to make sure no one was watching, and then she stopped and lifted her face to the rain. She basked in the contrast between the hot humid air and the cool water. The rain felt marvelous against her skin. Even the sudden clamminess of her clothes felt refreshing.
An ox tethered to a fountain raised its head in protest. The rain matted its brown hair into pointed dark tufts. The ox flared its nostrils and lowed.
Regina looked up over the muted green, blue, pink, and yellow town houses of the square and saw a jagged line of lightning strike the horizon just as another clap of thunder erupted overhead. She reminded herself that the synchronization of lightning and thunder meant she was standing in a dangerous place, in the very center of the storm, and that she could be hit by lightning at any moment. She forced herself to stand still and let chance determine her fate.
She imagined herself flat on her back, her hair standing on end, and she pictured Fritz Schlegel’s face as he stood over her. “So young,” he would sob, “and so pretty. How I wish I’d proposed. If only she knew how much I wanted to marry her.”
“This is no weather for young ladies to stroll in,” a stern voice said.
Regina spun around with a start and looked up into the face of an old man in a tall, black top hat. He had a coarse, round face and blue eyes with heavy lids. Wearing a velvet cape over a homespun coat, he seemed such an odd mixture of peasant and gentleman that Regina couldn’t help staring. She felt as if she’d seen him before, but these eyes looked down at her as if she were a stranger.
The old man introduced himself as Mr. Michael Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard, she thought. Kierkegaard. He must be the father of that young man with the fork. She had frequently passed Søren Kierkegaard in the streets of Copenhagen over the past year.
She’d passed him so many times, in fact, that it had begun to irritate her that he never engaged her in conversation.
“You must shelter in my home until the worst has passed,” Mr. Kierkegaard said, raising his voice to be heard over the storm. He pointed to a large house next to City Hall that towered like a gravestone over the square.
Regina opened her mouth to say no, but the door of the grand house beckoned her. She was curious to see Søren’s childhood home. It is raining, after all. And the door is just here beside me.
She followed him in. Mr. Kierkegaard led her into a sparsely furnished room in the front of the house and rang a handbell to summon a servant. “I’m sorry. I have no wife or daughter left to fetch you a fresh shawl,” he said.
Her host stood almost too far away from her, as if afraid of something. She couldn’t help wondering if he found her attractive. Several plain wooden chairs stood about, but the old man did not sit, nor did he ask her to. They faced each other across a distance.
Trying to hide her awkwardness, Regina looked around. The house had an empty, neglected feeling. What was wrong? Was it the spartan furniture? The crumpled papers scattered across the bare floor? The truth hit her with a sudden clarity. There was nothing feminine. There were no flowers, no warmth, no light, delicate touches. Regina’s fingers itched in a way they hadn’t during her piano lesson.
“You see,” Mr. Kierkegaard said. “Every woman who enters this house seems to die.”
Maybe it was time to leave.
The old man grinned, wrinkles spreading outward from his mouth. “I think you will be safe, at least for a few minutes,” he said. Then his face hardened again. “God has spared me only two sons.” He spoke with anger, as if God had taken his other children and wife as some sort of punishment. “Of course, it’s probably two more than I deserve.”
Regina stared at him. Something in his tone sounded off. What is it, Lord?
And with the quick, piercing intuition that sometimes transfigured her with its perfect truth, Regina understood that this man was suffering from guilt. She wanted to tell him that whatever his crime was, God’s own Son had already died to atone for it.
Quiet, she told herself. It’s not your place. “I am acquainted with one of your sons, I believe,” she said instead, her warm brown eyes begging, Don’t think of God that way. Please, don’t.
“Which son?” the old man asked. “The smart one, or the one who thinks he is smart?”
“Mr. Søren Kierkegaard,” she said, finessing his question.
“My youngest son is lucky to know such an attractive young lady. I am not sure he deserves such luck.”
“I’m sure that he does,” she said. She was surprised at herself for speaking up for Søren. Her face grew hot.
The old man stared at her. He seemed to be evaluating her relationship with his son. “He’s not here, you know.”
“I didn’t … I wasn’t …”
Mr. Kierkegaard continued to watch her with the unblinking appraisal of a hunting owl.
“Thank you so much for your hospitality, sir, but I must …” Regina looked out the window, desperately willing the rain to stop.
“He moved out,” Mr. Kierkegaard said. The rain made a chattering noise on the windowsill. “I don’t blame him anymore. What father can blame a hot-blooded young man for finding his Christian home oppressive?”
Regina didn’t blame Søren for finding this home oppressive either. She smiled as slightly as she could. She disapproved of a father speaking of his son this way, and she wished him to discern her disapproval through her veil of politeness.
“In the heaths of Jutland, where I grew up, it seemed as if the rain fell on me this hard every day while I tended sheep. I didn’t thank God for it. In fact, I envied the sheep their matted wool.” He eyed her. “Perhaps that is why I became a hosier, supplying people with woolen products.”
A servant as old as Mr. Kierkegaard shuffled through the open door. He was dispatched to fetch a hot drink even though Regina protested that she didn’t need anything. She did not want to be beholden to this man.
“Please, sit down,” he said as if he’d suddenly remembered his manners. “And forgive me for the sparsity of the furniture. You must use your imagination. Furnish the room as lavishly as a fine lady such as yourself requires. Velvet cushions, purple cloths, thrones of gold. Whatever you like.”
Despite her resolve not to like him, Regina couldn’t help being amused.
The warm tea, when it finally came, tasted good. She sneezed, and Søren’s father commanded that the carriage be readied. She protested, but he wouldn’t listen. “What is the use of having a carriage if one cannot use it?” he asked. Regina smiled, genuinely amused, and Mr. Kierkegaard seemed to grow younger before her eyes.
She felt relieved when he finally led her out of the house to the carriage. The rain, with the usual short-lived intensity of a summer storm, had already cleared up. She repeated that she didn’t need a ride, noticing with longing how steam rose from the cobblestones. She wanted to walk away from the uneasiness she’d felt in this home, from the inappropriate comment she’d made in defense of Søren, and to absorb instead the sights and smells of the storm’s cleansing.
Søren’s father insisted. He reminded her that such a mercurial storm could return as quickly as it had departed. He insisted that she wrap a blanket over her dress, as the carriage hood would not protect her completely from any lingering raindrops.
Regina determined to write a thank you note as soon as possible to relieve herself from all obligation to the old man. The servant cracked a whip. She leaned back against the worn leather of the seat, her view obscured by the black sides of the hood just as blinders restricted the vision of the horse that pulled her. The servant sat straight and silent on the open wooden bench in front of her. They passed the forlorn ox, still waiting by the fountain. As the surrey swayed from side to side, Regina let herself be lulled by the steady clip clopping of the horse’s metal shoes against the empty streets. A grayness now clouded the air, but the houses and streets seemed cleaner than before.
Regina closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet, soft smell that followed the rainfall. She wondered what Søren’s childhood had been like in the home she had just left, and she suddenly felt very sorry for him.