Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction

by Leena Krohn

  ‘It has been written that smoke will arise out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace: and the sun and the air will be darkened by reason of the smoke out of the pit,’ shouted Ismael into his loudspeaker.

  ‘And in the second century the heretical Montanists lived in constant expectation of the end of time. They were certain that the new Jerusalem would soon descend into Phrygia. Montanus voluntary suffered a martyr’s death when his prophecies were not fulfilled.’

  ‘It has been written that the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment,’ Ismael shouted.

  ‘Have you heard of the Toledo Letter?’ their teacher asked.

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘The Toledo Letter circulated in Europe in the 12th century. In it the Astrologist Corumphiza predicted that the upper and lower planets would reach a conjunction under the sign of Libra in September 1186. This would be followed by horrifying upheavals, he believed. A strong wind would blow, darken the air and pollute it with its poisonous stench. This Corumphiza claimed that sand and dust would cover the cities and that Mecca, Barsara, Baghdad and Babylon would be destroyed completely. But did this happen?’

  ‘I don’t suppose so,’ Håkan guessed.

  ‘Of course not. But despite that, the very same letter circulated through Europe incessantly. And not only for decades, but for centuries: only the dates were changed. People have always been mad.

  ‘In the 1260s, when Europe had been tested by famine, plague and wars, it was also believed that the old world would soon end and the age of the Holy Spirit would follow.’

  ‘ . . . and Satan will fall from the sky like lightning,’ Ismael shouted.

  ‘Some preacher!’ the teacher snorted. ‘In the 15th century the Taborites believed that only they could live through Christ’s second coming. Their original pacifism was soon replaced by bloodlust, and they became a cruel military junta. A sect that left the Taborites, the Adamites, did nothing but kill, until the Taborites put them out of their misery.’

  ‘It has been written that soil will become brimstone and the earth will burn like tar,’ Ismael was practically shrieking.

  ‘That boy can certainly talk. What kind of a Savonarola does he think he is? Do you remember: in the 1490s Savonarola declared Florence the New Jerusalem.’

  ‘Aha,’ Håkan said uncertainly.

  ‘Savonarola was part of the year ten course,’ his teacher said, a little reproachfully. ‘The pope went ballistic, and so Savonarola had to be turned into coal.’

  The moon wandered rapidly into view through the fleeting clouds, and dived again into a nocturnal cloud.

  ‘You’re not afraid, are you?’ the teacher asked.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Håkan said quickly. He raised his cup to his lips to disguise his discomfiture.

  ‘And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest, the seller, the lender, the borrower,’ said Ismael.

  ‘Professor Johan Hilten predicted the end of the world for the year 1651. And then of course there was Partridge.’

  ‘ . . . and the people shall be as the burnings of lime: as thorns cut up shall they be burned in the fire,’ said Ismael.

  ‘What Partridge?’

  ‘The preacher Partridge, who prophesied that the end of the world would come in 1697. The following year he published another tract in which he noted that the world really had ended in 1697, but that no one had noticed it.’

  ‘Perhaps he was right,’ Håkan said. ‘People are not very perspicacious.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said his teacher, laughing. ‘And no one remembers the Millerites any more, farmer Miller’s disciples. Miller predicted the second coming of Christ for 1843, but when the year ended without His appearance, Miller moved the day to the following year. When nothing happened even on the promised day, the disciples wept and wept until dawn.’

  ‘Hear me, my friends, let us all now say yes to God, even though he is about to destroy this visible world in a moment. For hear me, it is the greatest blessing we can have. Let us say yes! All together, yes!’

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’

  Everyone in the square shouted yes, and even many in the café joined the chorus. To his own surprise, Håkan heard his own, slightly shrill voice following the yesses that stumblingly followed one another, rising higher and higher in hysteria, striving more and more passionately.

  ‘Håkan!’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise.’

  His teacher was looking at him impatiently.

  ‘Protect your intelligence,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Håkan said, and hung his head in shame. He felt sweaty, and his stomach began to churn.

  They were both silent for a moment. Would it all continue like this, always, evening after evening? Håkan thought. The chink of coffee cups, the night clouds, the lighted windows of the houses, the star on the radio mast and the murmur of human voices . . .

  ‘Who remembers the Swedenborgians and the Shakers, the Polish and Russian occultists, the Spanish Jesuits? All of them expected the end of the world, too.’

  ‘ . . . and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running into battle,’ shouted Ismael.

  Along the streets that led to the square, the light of the street lamps began to quiver and turn blue. One after another they went out. A deep, collective sigh was heard from the square.

  ‘A power cut,’ said the teacher. ‘What a pity it had to happen during their mass!’

  A candle was brought to their table from inside. In the square, too, candles were lit as if people had been expecting a blackout.

  ‘Perhaps this too was organised,’ the teacher muttered.

  ‘What’s that?’ Håkan asked, turning his head.

  ‘What? I can’t hear anything.’

  ‘That sound,’ Håkan said. ‘Like a humming.’

  ‘It must be coming from their loudspeakers,’ his teacher said. ‘A special effect. Ismael certainly knows his stuff. I think he must have rich sponsors.’

  A gust of wind extinguished their candles. The rustle shifted to the lime tree above their heads.

  ‘Listen, the wind is getting up,’ the teacher said. ‘The weather in August is so unpredictable. It sounds as if Glaber’s evil spirit were kicking up a racket in the tree.’

  ‘It has been written: I took a book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up: and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter,’ Ismael shouted.

  The tablecloths fluttered. A gust of wind blew small branches on to the ground and the plates. Many of the guests got up and left; others moved inside. In the square, the disciples chanted and shouted.

  ‘Well, this should get them going,’ the teacher said angrily, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Isn’t the moon red tonight,’ Håkan said.

  ‘It is caused by atmospheric reflections,’ the teacher said.

  Håkan sniffed the wind.

  ‘Can you smell it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something’s burning. The smell of smoke. The air has turned smoky.’

  ‘Someone is burning rubbish and dead leaves,’ the teacher said.

  ‘My stomach is a little sore,’ Håkan said. ‘I think I should go home.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the coffee, if you’re not used to drinking it.’

  ‘Goodness, look at those flashes,’ Håkan said.

  ‘Sheet lightning,’ the teacher said. ‘You always see it at this time of year.’

  ‘I must go now,’ Håkan said again. He glanced at his watch and got up at the same moment as there was a flash, a stormy gust tore the terrace marquee in two, and a shout of joy and terror rose from the square.

  For the Love of God

  Håkan wrote:

  My dear brother Leo,

  I am approaching you with a selfish request. I ask that I might live with you temporarily, just until I can organise a more permanent residence permit for mysel
f. In order to leave the city, I need an official invitation from you.

  I am speaking only of myself; as you probably know, Lili has left. The situation with us in the city has become unbearable. We Gebris, in particular, are in real trouble.

  I say ‘we Gebris’ although – as you perhaps remember – I am only a Gebri on my father’s side; on my mother’s, I am an Espite. My origin has not until now caused me difficulties, for until recent Espites and Gebris have co-existed peacefully in this city. They have hardly remembered that they belong to different tribes.

  Today the situation is different, as you will no doubt have heard. Now everyone has to know whose side they are on. Here, today, you have to be either Espite or Gebri, preferably of course Espite. The situation for me and those like me is of course the worst of all: to Espites I am a Gebri, to Gebris an Espite.

  Things deteriorated quickly after a popular radio presenter, an Espite by birth, was chosen as mayor. Propaganda began on one local channel, at first so subtle that it could scarcely be called propaganda, latterly increasingly direct incitement.

  Håkan raised his head and listened. Once more he could hear whistles and shrieks from nearby blocks. The Espite patrols were in the habit of giving signals to one another by whistling.

  As you know, the Espites are in the majority, and that does not presage brighter times ahead for the Gebris. The mayor has given it to be understood that the Gebris enjoy privileges at the expense of the Espites. They are more highly educated, it is true, and on average they are also perhaps a little wealthier than the Espites, but the difference is small.

  The children are the worst. They are the most pitiless, unfeeling, cruel, vengeful and murderous. It is said that in some suburbs they are given paramilitary training. Groups of children armed with sticks and stones harass lone Gebris in every part of the city. Blood crimes have no doubt already taken place, but they are not reported in the media. Adults fear children, the minority fears the majority and children fear one another.

  I am certain that the real pogroms are just beginning. I must get out of here as soon as possible, for it may be that in a week or so Gebris will not longer be allowed out of this city.

  I see the future, and it is murder. Believe me, this is no exaggeration.

  Please answer me soon. If you cannot accommodate me yourself, perhaps you know somewhere where I could spend the night. I await your response with impatience.

  Your Håkan

  The general hatred that predominated in the city was mixed with Håkan’s private rage. After Lili left, Håkan’s fury had been almost blind. At night he woke on the point of convulsions. He always hissed as he remembered Lili – and that was not seldom. He might stop in the middle of making his morning coffee or reading the paper, punch the wall with his fist and shout at the top of his voice: ‘The shit! Bitch! Fucking witch!’

  His throat was chronically sore; his voice became hoarse and low simply because of those solitary shouting fits. But among others he swallowed his rage and behaved as politely as always before.

  After a couple of months he noticed that expressions of ill-will began to rain down on him from outside too. They were strangely impersonal, but he encountered them in all sorts of places, and completely unexpectedly. It was as if the hatred that raged in the city – and his own fury – were attracting ever-new hostilities.

  The bank-teller threw his bank-notes down in front of him hissing something incomprehensible between her teeth. Sometimes, very early in the morning, Håkan awoke to hear someone cursing downstairs in the back courtyard, cursing horribly, in a fury, as full of hatred as he was himself. The first time he surmised that it was the newspaper boy, who might have slipped with his bicycle on the ice of the courtyard. The caretaker had probably forgotten once again to sand the yard properly. By the time he heard the voice for the third time, it sounded like his own.

  One Monday after coming home from work, Håkan collapsed on his bed, dead tired. Again he thought of Lili. And then there was a bang, as if someone had let off a pistol in his apartment.

  Håkan sat bolt upright. His knees were shaking, and he noticed that the hairs on the backs of his hands were standing up as if in a thunderstorm. The sound felt as if it had come from the same room, by the window or from the oak bookcase by the window, which he had inherited from his grandmother. But everything looked untouched; the bookcase’s glass doors gleamed clean and whole.

  And then the telephone. It began to ring in the middle of the night, and when Håkan lifted the receiver, violently roused from deep sleep, he found himself in the middle of an impassioned flood of words which appeared to have begun a long time since.

  ‘Who is speaking?’ he asked sternly.

  But the speaker did not appear to hear him at all. Håkan did not understand anything in the stream of words, apart from the curses and the name-calling; it was as if the rest were a foreign language. The words stumbled over each other and rolled onward.

  ‘Who is speaking? Who is there?’

  No answer, just strange-sounding, furious words, and Håkan did not know whether they were intended for him or whether the call was just a wrong number.

  Most unpleasant of all was the speaker’s voice. Even for a woman’s voice, it was unusually high, artificial, as if the speaker were imitating someone else. Håkan thought that the only name for a voice of that kind was ‘demonic’.

  There was still no answer from Leo, and Håkan put his pride to one side and wrote again.

  Dear brother,

  You have not replied to my letter, and I am forced to repeat my request. The situation worsens daily. I promise I will not cause you any kind of trouble, and I am prepared to pay the going rate in rent. I forgot to mention that in my first letter.

  I have thought about you a great deal in recent times. For some reason I dreamed last night that we were still at school and it was a French lesson. Do you remember the song which we learned: ‘Ma chandelle est morte, je n’ai plus de feu. Ouvre-moi ta porte pour l’amour de Dieu.’

  We had to learn it by heart, do you remember? You reeled it off like water, but I always forgot my homework. I have always been bad at languages, as you know, but in my dream I remembered it very well.

  I await your reply,

  Your Håkan

  He waited for a week, and then another. For a while the weather grew milder, but then the frosty nights began. When he thought about Lili, his imagination fell foul of exaggerated metaphors. He remembered the transparent comb jellies that he had admired in the great aquarium at the amusement park. They were not fast, but it was still impossible to trap them, because they fragmented into watery masses. They looked like fragile water-bells, flowers blown from glass or vehicles from another planet. But they were predators that swallowed everything that came near.

  Despite his melancholy memories, the city’s unrest and the general wretchedness of conditions, Håkan still sometimes momentarily, in his own room, alone, experienced short periods of calm. Then he forgot both Lili and the invitation that had still not arrived.

  But as soon as Håkan left his small room – which he knew that soon, as winter progressed, would become almost uninhabitable on account of the cold – fury began its own work. Fury circulated in and gnawed at his innards like another hunger that sought immediate satisfaction.

  It stirred for the first time at his front door, on the uncleaned upper level of the stairwell, where the smells of badly cooked food made with half-rotten ingredients churned. It swelled in the back yard as he sought an open route through the overturned rubbish bins and garbage piles, where he had to kick aside the bodies of poisoned rats.

  When Håkan reached the street, it bubbled in his belly and shook him like a severe attack of nerves, making him grimace painfully whenever a passer-by elbowed him or when his gaze accidentally met the eyes of an oncomer, in which there gleamed the same sharp rage as in his own.

  In the same block there lived a woman for whom Håkan felt a particular loathing. It was
as if his general misanthropy and condensed and become incarnate in that unknown, anonymous person.

  That thin, small woman was the stunted body of Håkan’s fury. Her fine, colourless hair always flowed so greasily along her head that it was difficult to imagine she ever washed it. It looked like the hair of a very old person, although she could hardly be much older than Håkan.

  The shape of her head, too, was strange, as if stretched, despite the fact that it was disproportionately small, like a shrunken head.

  Håkan had seen her pushing a pram a couple of years earlier. But now there was no trace of the child. Sometimes the woman was accompanied by a large, woolly dog on a leash, and Håkan also hated the animal.

  ‘Ugly mutt,’ he felt like saying and spitting, whenever it went by.

  Håkan almost hoped that the child had died, for a person like her could only have a child like herself. If it had not died it would no doubt have been taken away from her, because the woman would be unable to care for a child. She could be seen on the street at any time of the day or night and she clearly did not go to work; she was one of those who was a burden on all taxpayers.

  How Håkan longed to leave the city.

  Leo my dear,

  I dare approach you once more. Perhaps, for one reason or another, you did not receive my two previous messages. But I do not wish to think about the reasons for your lack of response. For you have always been like a brother to me.

  Let me repeat, then, the request I have twice put to you: allow me to live with you, even if only for a day or two. After that I will try to arrange accommodation for myself elsewhere. In order to get a travel permit, I really do need a formal invitation from you. I would be grateful if you could send it as soon as possible, preferably by return of post. I want to make the matter as clear as possible to you: my life is of no value here. I do not know how long I can remain alive here.