Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction

by Leena Krohn

  “Are you serious?” I asked with mock lightness. “Will it come after me and throttle me in my sleep? It’s only a pretty flower.”

  “Only! As I recall, we’ve talked before about how plants and their mentalities are underestimated. As a thinking woman, you shouldn’t fall into that trap. I mean it. Datura smells the strongest at night. Its scent alone can give you hallucinations. Datura breaks down the wall between fantasy and reality, making it impossible to tell them apart. I repeat: impossible! The boundary becomes invisible. You could slip onto the wrong side, so to say, completely unawares. If that happens, there’ll be the devil to pay.”

  Then I confessed to him that, from time to time, once or twice a week, I drank tea made from datura leaves for my asthma, or crushed a couple of seeds into powder and then sprinkled them on a sandwich.

  “Kind of like a condiment,” I said with a forced laugh. “But I’ve stopped using it, really.”

  (“Really” meaning that I still, on some nights, out of habit, put a datura leaf in my tea strainer, just one, and mixed the drink with ordinary tea.)

  The Ethnobotanist didn’t laugh.

  “Unwise,” he said sharply. “Very, very unwise. I wouldn’t have thought you’d stray into something like that. You’re a grown woman for heaven’s sake! I’m warning you! The datura’s toxins accumulate in the body. Your vital organs will begin start to shut down. You’ll begin forgetting things. You might even forget to take your next breath. The seeds and root in particular are pure poison. Eating more than just a few seeds is certain death, and the concentration of poison in them can vary wildly. Eating them could lead to undocumented, long-term consequences. But it’s the root that is the most dangerous. Keep away from it!”

  I began to sweat, but he went on with his merciless lecture. “Do you want to lose your awareness of time and place? Do you want to lose your memory? Suffer from mental breakdowns, perhaps chronically?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Tell me, have you already had . . . experiences?”

  I hesitated.

  “I suppose you could say so,” I confessed.

  He waited for me to give him more details, but I remained silent.

  “Can you be more specific? Have you suffered from nausea? Dizziness? A dry mouth and thirst?”

  “You’d think you’re a doctor, not a botanist.”

  “Have you?”

  He waited, unsmiling, for my answer.

  “Well, from time to time.”

  “I knew it,” he said. “Dilated pupils? Lost time? Confusion of time and place? Oversensitivity to light and sound? Palpitations? Overly vivid dreams? Communication with people who aren’t physically there?”

  I remembered my run-in with Emmi D, who was dead, getting lost, my states of agitation and anxiety, my eyesight problems, some conversations that weren’t conversations at all, and I swallowed.

  “I knew it,” he said again, unhappy. “No one can use datura without consequences. You’ve gotten off easy, seeing as you can still carry on a conversation with me. Some people get lost completely in other realities and never return to our shared world. You could have died. Promise me—don’t even look at that flower again. Give it away, or better yet, destroy it. It has too much power over you already.

  He was right. But I still didn’t want to destroy my beautiful flower.

  The Woman Who Was Four

  When someone dies in a movie or on stage, the face of the actor—even smeared with fake blood—doesn’t really differ from the faces of the living. Real death, however, shrinks the face and alters the features. In half an hour, they have become nearly unrecognizable. Their owner seems to have abandoned them, and those left behind by the deathbed cannot help but ask, “Where has she gone?”

  All cadavers resemble one another. All that was personal and characteristic in the face is stripped away. It is only then that one understands that it is not so much a person’s features that shape their face, but rather it is the person’s experiences and memories that give the face its unique, familiar, and beloved appearance. And those elements the departed take with them when they go.

  It was Sylvia, the woman who was four, who led me to these thoughts. No doubt in part because I talked with the woman, if I remember correctly, in the same week I heard about Emmi’s death. I never discovered whether Sylvia was faking it, sick, crazy, eccentric, or “the real thing.”

  I suppose she could also be considered one of the Otherkin. Sylvia was middle-aged and formerly employed in middle management. She had been laid off in the recession, gotten divorced, and then fell deeply into debt. If one were to indulge in a bit of amateur psychology, one might suggest that those experiences played a part in her peculiar situation.

  “I am not just one,” Sylvia said. “I am a group of people with only one body. You’re about to ask who live in me. You know my name. I, the one speaking now, have always lived in this body. But I’m also home to an older gentleman, a girl I call Fanni, and a horrible brat of a boy, a real nuisance. Sometimes I think there are still more people in me, but they stay so quiet that I haven’t noticed them.”

  I remember Saulus saying that people have seven bodies. And now someone was claiming that one body could hold many identities!

  “How long have they lived in you?” I asked, incredulous.

  “One of them has been there since the start, since childhood. The other two moved in later.”

  She talked about herself like she was a house!

  “Would it be possible for me to meet these people?” I asked, curious and disbelieving at the same time. I found the thought fascinating that this person could hold all four seasons, four periods of life.

  “Why not—maybe soon if you’re interested. Oh, look, it’s raining,” Sylvia said, got out of the armchair, and went to the window. “I have to go. Goodbye.”

  But she made no move to leave. She stayed where she stood, silent, before letting out a heavy sigh. I could only see her neck and back, which now seemed hunched. Water trickled hurriedly down the window pane, each drop forking into two or three branches. The stark view outside the window dimmed, the brick wall and dark sky becoming one. The lamp on my desk seemed to lose its intensity, and the woman’s silhouette seemed to dissolve into the gloom.

  “It’s just a shower.”

  I was startled to hear a deep baritone reverberate in the room. I hadn’t heard anyone come in, and no one had. He had been there the whole time, I just hadn’t realized it. Sylvia turned away from the window, and I saw her face again, except that it was not hers, not Sylvia’s.

  “Sylvia left,” a man said. “I’m Antero.”

  Features that had a moment ago looked like the flourishing face of a woman in her prime had become lined and masculine. Her body language had changed entirely. I saw a bent figure, an old man, though one dressed in women’s clothing. I couldn’t get a word out.

  “You’re shocked, afraid even,” he said. “I apologize, you must not be used to this sort of thing.”

  “You could say that,” I admitted in a shaky voice. “Would you like to sit down?”

  I was trying to be polite, though I hoped that this person wouldn’t stay long.

  “Thank you,” he said, and sat in the same armchair that Sylvia had just gotten up from. “I won’t keep you,” he went on, as if having guessed my thoughts. “But I could say a thing or two to help you get over your shock. This is natural, completely natural!”

  I wasn’t convinced by this claim, it sounded utterly ridiculous.

  “The body, if I may be so bold, is a gate, a road wide enough for more than one traveler. In fact, I think that folks are naturally multiple, a family of selves, but our upbringing and schooling trim us down like you’d do to the branches of a tree.”

  “Well! That’s a new theory to me.”

  “Society tries to fix us as one, always the same. But that’s a big lie, and it won’t work even if you try. If you really looked at yourself, you’d know there’s more th
an one of you as well. You’ve got both sexes and all ages in you. The person you think you are is just a small part of all your selves. Most folks just don’t want to admit it.”

  I found the idea objectionable. I admit that I remember many times when I “wasn’t myself,” as one says. But usually those times had to do with shame or guilt. It takes courage to admit that the person who had acted in those situations was me and no one else.

  “I think one has to seek to be whole,” I said. “At times I feel like I’m not the one who did what I did, or at least that it wasn’t at all typical of me. And you often hear people who regret what they’ve done say, ‘I wasn’t myself,’ but that’s different. It doesn’t mean people have distinct selves.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Think about it,” the man said. “This is a fascinating subject, but I can’t stay. Maybe I’ll stop by again for another chat. You have another meeting now.”

  “Do I?” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  “She’s already here,” Antero said. “You have a nice day.”

  His old voice faded as the being in front of me grew young and lithe.

  “What’s that?” asked the girl who was wearing Sylvia’s clothes.

  She pointed at the rock ‘n’ roll fish and went to have a closer look. The fish began mewling in its synthetic voice, and the girl laughed with surprise. She danced around a little and then seemed to get embarrassed.

  “Are you Fanni?” I asked and went to silence the fish.

  “I guess so,” the girl said, a little unsure. “You wanted to meet me? Why?”

  “Just out of curiosity,” I said. “How long have you been . . . or, rather, lived . . . ”

  “In Sylvia? A couple of years,” the girl said, as if talking about a rental apartment. She was about to say something else, but before she could, her face twisted and some kind of spasm shook her whole body. I watched this new metamorphosis in shock. She stomped her foot and was no longer Fanni. It had been a very short visit.

  “What do you think of my acquaintances?” Sylvia asked. “Fanni didn’t want to go.”

  I was bewildered by the blur of events and the sudden switches of people, or at least characters.

  “I haven’t met all of them yet,” I managed to say.

  “Thank goodness for that. You really don’t want to meet the fourth one. An ill-mannered child, a real menace. One day I’ll find a way to evict him.”

  “When you leave and they take your place, where do you go?”

  “Sometimes I just go out like a candle and I’m completely gone. That can happen even if I resist. But sometimes I’m in control and can observe the situation and intervene like I did just now driving Fanni away.”

  “Can I be frank about what I think of your acquaintances?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m not completely convinced. Despite everything, I have trouble believing that all these people I’ve met are different from you, separate individuals.”

  “So you think I’m acting for you? Faking it?”

  I tried to be considerate. “That’s not really what I meant. Perhaps it’s some kind of compulsion, unconscious.”

  “Don’t give me that tired old garbage. I’ve been to six different therapists,” she snapped, so angry that I regretted having said anything. “Dissociative hysteria. Ha! I was just thirteen when my parents took me to the first. That one suspected my poor father of incest, that gentle and warm man who conscientiously paid his ridiculous fees.”

  “That must have been difficult,” I said in an effort to sound compassionate. In fact, I was still terrified and afraid her face would change again.

  To my relief, Sylvia took her coat from the hanger and made to leave. Just her? They all were leaving in the same plaid coat.

  “I don’t think we have anything left to talk about,” she said coldly and turned on her heel.

  When the door had slammed shut, someone tapped on the window, and I heard giggling and light footsteps running. I thought that Penjami had come by, and I climbed up on a stool to see out. Some menace had drawn a bad word in the dust on the window and run off. Whoever it was, they were probably dressed in Sylvia’s coat.

  A Peculiar Flower Shop

  Even when the streets are slippery with ice, summer fields are always with me. Florists’ windows are the joys of my evening walks. I can’t resist stopping at each floral window, and never a week goes by in mid-winter that I don’t come up with a reason to visit a flower shop.

  There are florists whose window arrangements seem to radiate out into the street. Other windows are like caves whose depths are illuminated by blossoms. Like campfires, they warm the people wandering the wintery streets. Each flower, though a captive, is an entire summer in miniature. I could stand by a window like that all evening.

  When I open the door of a flower shop, my breathing deepens and slows. The room is saturated by a seductive aroma, and my eyes answer the calls of cloaked nectar, though the calls are not meant for me. The hieroglyphs that nature paints on the blossoms are signposts to insects looking for food. They are promises of coming pleasure and of the flower’s resurrection, the birth of another new summer.

  The world’s beauty, so cruel and incredible, always has a purpose. It’s never there for entertainment. It is a fighting beauty, always a necessity. How can it also be such a feast for our senses?

  That day, I had intended to buy a poinsettia. Maybe I would take it to my aunt, maybe I’d keep it myself, I hadn’t decided.

  The flower shop was crowded with people buying Christmas baskets decorated with silk bows, spiral candles, and lichen. Plastic elves had been shoved between hyacinths, lilies of the valley, and red tulips. The arrangements were tasteless and the flowers looked a bit wilted. I couldn’t see the usual saleswoman, the people behind the counter complete strangers. I supposed the shop had changed owners.

  “Where’s the other lady?” asked a woman in a black dress who was holding a potted white azalea. She didn’t seem happy either.

  “Oh, she switched careers,” said one of the new salespersons, a short blonde woman whose hair hung down past her shoulders. She didn’t look at the woman who had asked the question. The older of the two women was tying a bouquet of lilies with hurried motions. I guessed they were mother and daughter. The atmosphere in the shop was agitated and unpleasant, but that was to be expected at Christmas time.

  Just as my turn came up, I happened to look up at the top shelf, which was stacked with pots and vases, and saw a pretty little basket woven from birch bark. I was overcome by an intense desire to buy it. I decided I would plant my poinsettia in it.

  “How much is that?” I asked.

  “I can’t remember the price, but I’ll check it for you,” the younger woman said in a bored voice. I was embarrassed to have troubled her at this busy time. She climbed up a step ladder to reach the bark basket. On the way down she slipped and nearly lost her balance.

  “Look out! Don’t step on those,” the older woman said and pointed at something on the floor behind the counter that I couldn’t see.

  “Of course I won’t,” the blond woman snapped. “Don’t order me around!”

  The unexpected severity of her reaction surprised me. Maybe she had just had a bad fright from her slip. It was strange to see her face darken with rage from such a harmless little comment. Her pretty mouth twisted into a malevolent expression. She bared her teeth like a mongrel dog.

  I had a bill ready in my hand. Instead of calming down and taking my money, this strange person ignored me completely and just stared angrily at her colleague, who was perhaps also her mother. Not necessarily the happiest of arrangements, I thought.

  The awkward moment just wouldn’t pass. The daughter’s voice grew louder and higher. She was speaking very quickly now, scolding and cursing, but I couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like she had switched to some unknown tongue.

  The older woman didn’t turn or answer. She was still trying to finish the bouquet, b
ut I could see her hands trembling and her forehead turning red. All of a sudden, the worked up saleswoman jumped behind her mother and hit her hard between the shoulder blades. Then the victim lost her patience, she grunted, turned, and quick as lightning, slapped her assaulter across the cheek. The daughter spat in her mother’s face.

  The azalea lady in the black dress looked shocked.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled. “At Christmas of all times!”

  The women didn’t seem to hear her. They were fighting silently now except for groaning and panting, as if they were in some kind of wrestling match. Without my noticing, they had moved from behind the counter to the middle of the floor, maybe to get more room for their scuffle, which was intensifying. The other customers drew into a tighter and tighter circle. They didn’t say anything, didn’t try to stop what was going on, not even the old azalea lady. Just the opposite, everyone was watching the incident, wide eyed, as if it were a professional bout they had paid to see. I was afraid I’d soon hear applause and cheering, but the audience’s silence remained unbroken.

  Most terrifying of all, it seemed like the flowers had turned towards the sudden flash of violence as if mesmerized. Were the buds swelling and the blossoms becoming more exuberant? Were the colors deepening as if a bright light had been shined on them?

  The women’s heels clattered on the floor as they tried to kick each other. In the heat of their battle, a glass vase filled with flowers was knocked off the window sill and shattered. The women trampled the flowers under their heels. Petals were strewn everywhere like drops of blood. I was overtaken by fear and panic.

  I pushed my way to the door. The crowd gave way slowly and unwillingly. The unusual duel seemed to have captured its full attention. I escaped the store empty handed just as the grunting and clattering of heels was joined by yells and cries. Part of the shop window crashed onto the sidewalk.

  When I got home, I realized I had left a plastic bag in the store. Though it only held a couple of oranges and the daily paper, I was still annoyed.