II.
We children always called mother’s aunt “auntie.” We had no other name for her.
She gave us jam and sugar, even though it was bad for our teeth. She said she had a soft spot for the sweet children. It was cruel to deny them a little of the sweets that they loved so much.
And so we loved Auntie very much too.
She was an old maid, and as far back as I can remember she was always old. Her age never changed.
In earlier years she had suffered a lot from toothaches and was always talking about it. That’s why her friend, brewer Rasmussen, jokingly started calling her Auntie Toothache.
In his last years he no longer did brewing, but lived off the interest of his money. He often visited Auntie and was older than she was. He had no teeth at all, just some black stumps. He told us children that he had eaten too much sugar as a child, and that’s what one looks like from doing that.
Auntie must not have eaten any sugar in her childhood because she had the most beautiful white teeth.
Brewer Rasmussen said that she saved on using them—she didn’t sleep with them at night! We children knew it was mean to say that, but Auntie said he hadn’t meant anything by it.
One morning at breakfast she told us a bad dream she had had that night. One of her teeth had fallen out. “That means I am going to lose a true friend,” she said.
“If it was a false tooth,” the brewer chuckled, “then it only means you’ll lose a false friend.”
“You’re a rude old man!” Auntie said as angrily as I have ever seen her, before or since. Later she said that he had only been teasing her. He was the noblest person on earth, and when he died some day, he would become a little angel of God in heaven.
I thought a lot about that transformation and wondered if I would be able to recognize him in his new form.
When Auntie was young, and he was young too, he had proposed to her. But she deliberated over it too long and didn’t make up her mind. Didn’t make up her mind for too long, and so became an old maid, but she was always a loyal friend to him.
And then brewer Rasmussen died.
He was driven to his grave in the most expensive hearse, and a big procession followed, many people with medals and wearing uniforms.
Auntie stood by the window in her black mourning together with all us children, except for my little brother, whom the stork had brought a week ago.
When the hearse and procession had passed and the street was empty, Auntie wanted to go, but I didn’t want to. I was waiting for the angel, brewer Rasmussen. He had become a little winged child of God and had to appear.
“Auntie,” I said, “Don’t you think he’ll be coming now? Or when the stork brings us another little brother, will he bring angel Rasmussen?”
Auntie was completely overwhelmed by my imagination and said, “That child will become a great poet!” She repeated that all through my school years, after my confirmation, and now into my years as a college student.
She was and is the most sympathetic friend to me, both in my pains with my poetry and pains in my teeth. I have bouts of both.
“Just write down all your thoughts,” she said, ”and put them in the drawer. That’s what
The night after this conversation I lay awake in longing and distress, with the want and need to become the great poet that Auntie saw and sensed in me. I was in “poet pain,” but there’s a worse pain, and that’s a toothache. It crushed and squashed me. I became a writhing worm with an herbal hot pad on my cheek and Spanish fly.
“I know all about that,” said Auntie. She had a sad smile on her lips, and her teeth shone so white.
I must start a new section of my story and Auntie’s.
III.
I had moved into my new apartment and had lived there a month. I talked with Auntie about it.
“I live with a quiet family. They don’t pay any attention to me, even if I ring three times. Actually it’s a real madhouse with racket and noises of wind and weather and people. I live right over the entrance portal, and every coach that drives in or out makes the pictures on the wall shake. The gate slams and shakes the house as if it were an earthquake. If I’m lying in bed, the jolts go through all my limbs, but that is supposed to be good for the nerves. If the wind’s blowing, and it’s always windy here in this country, then the long casement window hooks dangle back and forth and slam against the brick wall. The neighbor’s portal bell rings with every gust of wind.
The residents of the building come home in batches from late in the evening until far into the night. The lodger right above me, who gives trombone lessons during the day, comes home last, and he doesn’t go to bed until he has had a little midnight walk around his room with heavy tromping in iron-clad boots.
There are no double windows, but there’s a broken pane that the landlady has pasted paper over. The wind blows through the crack anyway and makes a sound like a humming horsefly. It’s music to put you to sleep. When I finally do fall asleep, I’m soon awakened by the crow of the rooster. The rooster and hens announce from the chicken coop of the man in the cellar that it’ll soon be morning. The little ponies, who don’t have a stable, are tethered in the sandpit below the stairs. They kick at the door and the walls for exercise.
At daybreak, the janitor, who lives in the attic with his family, comes lumbering down the stairs. Wooden shoes clack, the gate slams, the house shakes, and when that’s over, the lodger upstairs begins his exercises. He lifts a heavy iron ball in each hand, but he can’t keep a hold of them. They fall again and again, while at the same time all the children in the building run screaming on their way to school. I go to the window and open it to get some fresh air—it’s refreshing when I can get it—if the lady in the back building isn’t washing gloves in stain remover. That’s
