My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

in your speech & comportment, madam. That you are of the highest breeding, that is.
Though I have not heard of the Bischen-Baschens, I confess. Per se.’
    â€˜Well, you wouldn’t have done, would you?’ she said, emitting that same odd, triumphant bark I had first heard in the bakery,
which was her version of laughter. ‘Being nothing more than an uneducated strumpet!’
    At which she laughed again, as if the fact that I earned my own living, instead of sponging off a husband as she had done,
in the manner of a parasite, was the most hilarious notion she could imagine.
    And thus it came to pass that Fru Schleswig & I began our new life, at a rate of five kroner per day, in the employ of Fru Emilie Krak, née Bischen-Baschen.
    Tick, tock: time passed, but not much, for it was on the afternoon of the very first day of our employment that I met the
mysterious Professor Krak. Not in the flesh, or indeed in ghost form, but as a darkly lustrous oil portrait labelled Professor Frederik Krak hanging in a back hallway of Fru Krak’s grandiose home. It depicted a dark, sparse-haired man in his early middle years, whose
high temples gave the face below an air of intellectuality, & a certain eccentric flair. But there was something fervent in
the intensity of his gaze – a dash of the fanatic – that caused me to shiver & remember Else’s story of a ghost walking to
the letterbox along the lakeside, wrapped in a black cloak & half-buried in a swirl of sepia mist. I resolved in that moment
that I would go & visit Gudrun Olsen, the Kraks’ former housekeeper, & make enquiries as to the character of Professor Krak,
& what might have transpired those seven years ago to cause the mysterious sitter of this portrait to have been wiped so suddenly
but indecisively from the face of the earth. Had his wife indeed murdered him, as Else had suggested? Or might he be living
still? In either chilling case, my imagination was captured.
    But in the meantime, there was work to be done. Behind her aristocratic Bischen-Baschen exterior, Fru Krak was a lazy, slovenly
female whose house, apart from the front room where visitors might sit & the dining room where they might eat, was in such
a state of slatternliness, dilapidation & neglect that it was difficult to ascertain where to begin, but begin Fru Schleswig
must, & I set about a list of heavy chores upon which she could make an immediate start, while I sorted through the cleaning
materials at our disposal, which were surprisingly numerous, though decayed. Soda crystals, bleach, bicarbonate & sand-soap,
ancient waxes & polishes, half finished bottles of stripping liquids & rusty tins of scouring chemicals: harsh stuffs, which
rubbed one’s hands raw, or would have done, had I not had the inspired idea of keeping mine at all times in my pockets & allowing
Fru Schleswig to tackle the bulk of the harder work, her temperament being more suited to it. Water-closets were far beneath
me, but they were slightly above Fru S, who got stuck into them with relish, shoving her whole arm inside with a wire scouring-brush
& singing sailors’ shanties as she did so. The old swine was a crude being, blessed neither with intelligence, beauty nor
charm. But where would beauty be if it stood alone, without ugliness beside it, as a benchmark?
    As for me, well, a young woman with a feather duster can be an attractive sight, if you happen to catch a glimpse of her in
a mirror as you are passing. As I very often did. The mirrors in Lady Muck’s house were soon as pure & gleaming as the soul
of Christ itself. Now dust is best wiped, as we all know, with a damp cloth. A feather duster, aesthetically pleasing though
it is, when held to the throat like a boa, will only redistribute the problem. There was much dust at Fru Krak’s house, which
had been in decline for many years since the departure of her husband. Whole prairies of it beneath the beds &