The Glitter Scene Page 33

  Maj-Gun, at the time she was Maj-Gun at the newsstand, had caught sight of it. Because everything that Maj-Gun had told her had, as it were, been something else, at the same time. Another message, so to speak. A signal. The rug rags. A bucket. Mama. “Don’t be afraid.” “She didn’t give way, your mama.” At the same time both of them had been unaware if it too, what it was that pulled them together.

  Young and insecure and fragile. There was that something in each other they wanted to reach, rug rags, but could not figure out how. So it had turned out wrong, that too. “The loom, where is it?”

  “It’s so nice that you’re together with Tom,” Liz Maalamaa had said in the bedroom.

  “I know Maj-Gun too. We’ve been good friends.”

  “Do you? That makes me so happy. Maj-Gun is a special girl.”

  And Liz Maalamaa had brightened up considerably and despite the fact that they had not spoken about Maj-Gun or Tom, Susette’s fiancé, anymore, whom Susette would live happily ever after with, the fact that Maj-Gun had been mentioned, both of them felt, brought them closer together.

  But otherwise, in the bedroom, which was transformed into a sickroom and to a death room, but soft, normal, when Liz Maalamaa had spoken about her life it, had, in other words, been brief. In occasional images, scenes, some episode from here or from there. The transience, like from an album, come and see my gallery, so beautiful.

  A dog, Handsome. Two swans, Dick and Duck. Young man against a backdrop of flames; an image on a wall in a hotel which, for a few terrible moments, looked that way but which later, afterward, had still been something else, just an armful of roses, in a bowl. “You know, Susette, hotel room art, it can be very anonymous.” And the silver shoes, which she liked dancing in and her husband too. “Life with him wasn’t easy, never easy, but I miss the dancing.” And the movie stars she had loved in her youth, Ingrid Bergman, and China where she had never been but traveled to so much in her fantasies that it had almost become real, “that wall, it is LONG, you know, long walk, I think that sometimes, and God and me and reality… There is a kind of loneliness too, in God, that loneliness is intangible.”

  “I’m staying here. I’m not leaving,” Susette had repeated several times and gotten medicine, food, made the bed with clean, fresh sheets.

  Toward the end, when Liz Maalamaa no longer had the energy to speak, Susette just sat there and held her hand. And the very end, the final days, mama Liz mama, I’m not leaving you, never again alone, she had crawled up into the bed next to Liz Maalamaa and laid down next to her. “My girl.” Liz’s arms around her, pulling her closer.

  And there, in the bed, two bodies pressed against each other, something that could have been called Susette’s story could have been told, that which was not her mother, but the other, which had also happened. Though without words, words are unnecessary, a story that had pulsated between them like blood in their bodies. And from her to the older woman. From Susette Packlén to Liz Maalamaa.

  A story in rags, fragments. Also about what had fallen and would fall outside the actual story, with context, coherence that had to do with coming out of a wood to Tom to here, Liz Maalamaa, Portugal—and farther on in life.

  About being in a forest: “Once I was in a wood…”

  Or, “all walls collapse.” About leaving work in the middle of the day, one day in November, just a few weeks earlier at that point in Portugal, but there in the bed with Liz Maalamaa, already an eternity since then. That morning, a project in the city by the sea that she had come to, an independent one that she did not work on together with Solveig but alone and that was that, an apartment in a high-rise in a suburb of the city by the sea, where Solveig had dropped her off that morning.

  An old woman there as well, in the apartment, who was playing a film and had the radio on at the same time. “All walls crashing down.” A historical moment, in Germany. The wall that had come down in Berlin and now people were moving in hordes, happy, singing, from one side to the other. The woman had recorded newsreels from the day before and was sitting, while the radio was on, playing morning pop songs, watching those clips over and over again, tears running down her cheeks, and said, “a historical moment, all walls are coming down.”

  Under normal circumstances Susette would have asked about it of course. If the older woman knew anyone in Germany, or if she was just happy about the step forward in history.

  But it had not been an ordinary day. She had met Maj-Gun on the walking path in the town center that morning, and Maj-Gun had been angry, an omen that too.

  About the impossibility, of everything. And she had taken the rugs out onto the courtyard, hung them over the rug rack, and there, “all walls coming down” ringing in her ears, she understood what it was. What she had forgotten, kiss kiss kiss, as if Maj-Gun had said it too, had she said it? If not, then she should have.

  And suddenly she heard the folk song. “The folk song has many verses, the same thing happens in every one. Over and over again—”

  The girl at the cemetery who was singing, a song from the company car in the morning. And then Susette had understood: there is no way out of this.

  Susette left the rugs on the rack, and left. Took the bus back to the District and came back home and took the backpack and then the bus again, to the capes, the sea, she was headed there.

  The Winter Garden. Some scribble, pictures on the wall in her apartment, a lot of words there too. Kapu kai. He had been in the cousin’s house, of course, he was there when he was not hanging out in her apartment. She was going to drop off the pistol, she did not need it any longer, she was headed to the sea after all.

  But he was in the way. The Boy in the woods, the boy from the woods. But she did not know him. Another story, had always been. All walls coming down. The cat in his eyes as well.

  And there had, certainly, been blood, blood, there too. She did not remember. It was difficult to remember. Some things just cannot—

  In any case she had not had the pistol or the backpack when she came down to the Second Cape, the cliffs, the sea.

  But wait, Liz, about this blood. The Boy in the woods, the following must be said. Bengt, who he was—and was not.

  “That once, Liz, I was in a wood.” Another wood. In the middle region of the country. Janos, the strawberry-picking fields. Fifteen years old, or sixteen. And she and Janos her second love, “the Pole but actually he was from Lithuania,” had gotten lost in this wood after they had run away from the strawberry fields. His idea, but good ideas and most of all, who had been the originator of them is easily forgotten after a day’s wandering about in the woods and they had started fighting violently, wordlessly, and suddenly in the woods even Susette had become furious.

  He had hit her, she had hit back. That damned unintelligible language, and they had nothing to say to each other anyway. He teased her because she did not know the way out, this was her damned wood, her country. They had not eaten for days, water could be found in the wood, of course, in any case.

  He accused her of all sorts of other things too. A scuffle, naturally Janos had been stronger than her. But she had been angrier: might one have been able to tell, in general, have been able to tell a therapist about such a rage? Which just grew inside you, as a result of all the powerlessness in the world, CRASH, someone who stepped on a house of balsa wood, and it went to pieces, The Angel of Death the Angel of Death, someone who was standing and yelling at you. One’s own mother. And the cats at the hospital who were hissing, and the manager, Little Susette, Sweet Little Susette, the old dying ones will become so sad if you leave now.

  On the other hand. Maybe in hindsight it was a fabrication. Because she had forgotten that moment, would forget, more and more, just here in the bed, with Liz, wordless, let it come out.

  Maybe she took the rock just because it happened to end up under her hand there in the middle of the seventymilewoods in the middle region of the country where east was west and north was south, she had no idea, just that it was twe
lve o’clock somewhere certainly, because the sun was shining that way, as if it were the middle of the day. And Janos had pushed her down on the ground. She took the rock and threw it and it hit him and he sank down to the ground, it was like in a movie, remained lying there.

  Moss, mosquitoes, and hunger thirst in her stomach. And a strong sun, as mentioned, and a damned silence, loneliness.

  She had continued walking.

  “Once I was in a wood…” And though she might have regretted it then already that she had left him behind, it really did not matter, the woods were the same the same everywhere, she still would not be able to find her way back to that place.

  And suddenly she had been out of the wood. Almost laughable, maybe just a few hours later after a day of being lost with her second love: found a road where there were cars. And she had just sat down on a rock, taken a breather, out of relief. And fallen asleep. And when she woke up there had been someone who was shaking her and it was a boy, not Bengt, but Magnus, a friend of Bengt’s who was in the car. She did not recognize him, or them: she realized first several years later when she met Bengt in the woods anew who he actually was.

  Just two guys, maybe in their twenties, who were on their way from somewhere to somewhere like youths are, in a car, loving that vagueness too: “from somewhere to somewhere.”

  She got a ride with them, and they gave her food, she had been so hungry after all. Fallen asleep in the backseat and when she had woken up again she was in the city by the sea. “Our mascot. We can’t leave her here.” And she stayed with them for a few days in an apartment in the city by the sea. There was a lot of partying and a lot of beer and a lot of people coming and going, sometimes the guys went to the docks in order to earn money, you could do that sort of thing back then.

  “Our mascot.” They had been so kind, she had not been Susette but mascot, no one had been allowed to touch her. And as said: no talk of the District, no thought about the District either, just a few youths, she like a little sister-mascot, and the two boys, in an apartment, the city by the sea. And the last thing she wanted to do was tell them who she was, where she came from. Because it had been so obvious: back to her mother, she could not. She had known that already before Janos, before she left for the strawberry fields.

  It had lasted a week maybe, then she left on her own, gone on her way. Of course she could not have stayed there with the guys, had to get organized, earn her own money, a life.

  And of course she had to do something about Janos too. That was obvious. It was not that she thought about it all the time—just the opposite, it almost surprised her at first how easy it was not to think about it. In the apartment with the boys, the parties, the beer, Bengt and Magnus. In the city by the sea, all the people and places, the cars, buses, all the sounds. Different kinds of weather, sunshine, rain and thunder. It evaporated; sometimes she had to, when she was feeling lonely, take Janos’s passport out of her bag (she had not taken it from him, she was the one who was carrying everything in the woods) and look at it in order to understand that it was real, it had happened, something had happened. The rock in her hand, her on her knees with the rock: an image that remained exactly that, an image, like in the beginning with Liz Maalamaa, in Portugal, forced its way out. There, before the crying, in order to later vaporize again.

  His name and date of birth and place of birth and similar facts that are usually listed in passports were listed in his. The only thing that was not new information was the first name, Janos. Otherwise she gradually remembered only someone who had clowned about with her in that nothing-language, eventually kissing her right in front of all of the other youths there on the strawberry fields, in the middle of Finland, dry hot days, crawling around on their knees in earthy rows, of course gradually hating strawberries too.

  But she had nightmares of course. In the beginning, in the apartment, with the boys. But on the other hand there had always been people there, “the mascot,” she had liked it, “our princess, so sweet,” the one no one was allowed to touch, and as soon as she opened her eyes from sleeping she had been in a story like that.

  She had told Bengt and Magnus that she had lost her friend by the side of the road where they found her on the way from somewhere and picked her up in their car. They had not asked any questions, of course, Bengt and Magnus, only tried to say “forget about him,” they probably thought that Janos had run off on his own, gotten a ride in some other car and not woken her while she was sleeping on the rock by the side of the road.

  But then when she left the boys in the apartment she had said that she needed to find him. And maybe they thought that it was a bit beautiful too, the sweet girl who had not forgotten her friend—had to find him. Bengt, the Boy in the woods whom she met in the woods anew in October 1989, had said that anyway. Something along those lines, at least. Made it clear that he had liked her.

  Had to find Janos. She called around a little bit, went to the police station in the city by the sea of course and asked about him, but no one knew anything, nothing happened.

  She had not shown them the passport, not to anyone, but she had his full name from there that she could give to the police. But as said, nothing more about that, nothing had happened, no informations, and then she had just about immediately gotten a job in home care and gotten an apartment and at the same time thrown that passport away. Tabula rasa.

  Time passed and quickly, gradually, all of that had become unreal. Like the time she had gotten a ride in the car from the boys, in the apartment, like being in a wood, that to.

  And she did not want to be in a wood, she was not like that. Not at all. She wanted to live normally, ordinary. And in time, the nightmares disappeared, and Janos, everything with Janos, the reality, the small reality that had existed for her, was pushed away completely, while at the same time Janos, “Poland,” became a story to turn to. With her mother, for example, whom she of course got in touch with and called, not regularly but every now and then. “Greetings from Poland,” for many years, in different ways, from the city by the sea, and from other places where she lived.

  And with Maj-Gun later, when she returned to the District when her mother was suddenly just dead. Though Maj-Gun had seen through her. “You weren’t in Poland, were you.” And when she lied about being pregnant when she suddenly, in her childhood home with all of the rug rags everywhere, had gotten such a terrible pain in her stomach, there must be life it had also hurt inside her wordlessly, then Maj-Gun unraveled that lie as well. As if Maj-Gun, the only one, who had been able to see the rug rags, the only one who would have been able to understand the question: “Where is the loom?”

  That Maj-Gun, who no longer existed. Or maybe she never existed. Majjunn Majjunn, like a sound only, from childhood, left in your mouth.

  As if they had been in the same room. But they were not. Not in the same room.

  “Hell, Susette, what are you doing with a revolver in your sauna bag?” Maj-Gun who should have seen that “need for protection.”

  But Maj-Gun had been preoccupied, her talk. Talked, talked about Love. Told her stories, you were pulled along.

  No. Impossible. With Liz Maalamaa, in the bed, that story did not exist there, that rag, that fragment, forever, nowhere.

  “But don’t you understand, Susette? Love like a transformation. Like when the princess kisses the frog, the spell is broken. Or the white cat in the folk song that says to the prince, ‘Cut my throat and I will become a princess,’ and the prince does and she becomes one.”

  Bengt. The Boy in the woods one morning in October. Where he had suddenly been and taken her hand as they left the woods. He had not seen through her, he had not seen anything really. And still: “The whole time I thought you were familiar in some way,” he had said, but meant, then a long time ago, in the apartment, when she was the mascot for a while. “That we would meet again.” He had not forgotten anything. And still you could see it in him: he had forgotten everything. “Completely washed up,” as Solveig had sai
d, and strange too, there in the woods where she had initially recognized him as something all his own, separate: as the one who had been there, one of them, when she had once come from a wood, and given her a ride, “from somewhere to somewhere”—when she had realized that it was Bengt, Solveig’s brother, then she had not been surprised at all. But he looked exactly the way Solveig had described, “completely washed up,” no entrance there to anything at all. If anything, then a reminder: “Once I was in a wood.” When she had met him in the woods again it had been in a terrible moment, just enough to understand that she had to get out of the woods, had been close to ending up there again, but out out of here and now.

  So there on the path she had pulled her hand out of his. They did not know each other at all, had never known. Not she him, not he her. He had shown up, of course, at her apartment, it had not even been a surprise, and she was forced to let him in of course. One time he and his friend helped her, she could not deny him that. But there had not been any “story.” He had his drawings on the wall, the Winter Garden, an exhibition, scribbly sketches, screaming meanings, like Screaming Toys, shut her ears to them when she looked at them so she avoided seeing them. And she wished he would leave even if she could not throw him out. But that story he spoke about, a coincidence that was like a stroke of luck, like winning the lottery, so to speak, “everything has gone to hell but I’m lucky at games,” he had said as well, also all sorts of idiotic things he spoke about while drunk and he was often drunk, almost all of the time. The Winter Garden. His sketches on the walls. A language. He liked speaking it. Kapu kai. Cuckoo.