Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction

by Leena Krohn

  And I couldn’t, not even my own voice. That made me unhappy.

  The Master of Sound put a finger to his lips and flashed a mysterious smile. He gestured for me to come closer. He seemed to have something to show me. He began rummaging through his backpack.

  His mouth opened again. I followed the movement of his lips, and I thought I could read the words: “Here it is!”

  The Master of Sound lifted up a canister, similar to the one he had shown me at the office, though much larger. I understood that it was the new model of the Sound Swallower that he had promised to come show me long ago. Now it was finished. Now it worked. You didn’t even have to lift it to your ear—it worked from a distance. The Sound Swallower had devoured the clamor of the city. Maybe all its residents were now living in the same silence.

  My face must have reflected disbelief and confusion. With graceful gestures, the Master of Sound led me to understand that he had something else in his backpack to show me. He plunged his hand into the bag again and brought out a long object wrapped in tissue paper.

  “Is it a new device?” I tried to ask.

  Maybe the Master of Sound heard my question or read it on my lips, because he nodded. He slowly formed a new word on his lips. I thought I saw him say: “Im-age Swal-low-er.”

  But when he had opened the package, I was confused. It wasn’t a device at all, it was a flower.

  He was holding my flower, the first one, the one I knew was unknown. I was certain that it wasn’t just the same species, but exactly the same specimen. It glowed with the same light as back then, every panther spot was in place, every speck of pollen where they were once before. How had he gotten a hold of the flower across a distance of so many years? How had it stayed fresh after all this time?

  I tried to ask him, but he put a finger to his lips again. Then he made a gesture that encompassed the entire view before us and pointed at the flower of my childhood. He lifted it to my eyes so all I could see was the flower’s deep blossom.

  What light came streaming from the flower! It filled my eyes, my head, spread throughout the park like a radiant cloud eradicating all shadows and outlines, even the flower’s own colors. It absorbed the trees, the streams of cars and people, the apartment buildings, department stores, factories and cathedrals, even the sea and the spring. Nothing was spared.

  Now I was deaf and blind, but someone touched my hand in the milky silence, and led me forward, perhaps down the same steps I had ascended to the stage. Though I had lost my most important senses, I wasn’t sorry or afraid. I felt that whoever was leading me wasn’t the Master of Sound, but the flower itself. Its leaf rested in my hand like another hand and took me towards the ultimate secret of existence, and I was willing to trade all that had come before in exchange for it.

  This state was pierced by a scream that made my ears pop open again. A girl’s crying restored the lost city. Its sounds rushed back, and once again I heard life’s counterpoint. The fog cleared around me. The girl was the same as the one who had sped up and down the path on a scooter just a moment ago. She had fallen right in front of me and hurt her knee on the gravel. A thin trickle of blood ran down her tanned shin.

  I meant to help the sobbing girl up and ask, “Are you alright?” I wanted to, but I hesitated and missed my chance. She had already stopped crying with a short hiccup, gotten back up on her scooter, and soldiered bravely on. I wasn’t needed.

  I looked around, trying to find the hand that had led me and the Master of Sound. I wanted an explanation, I wanted the flower for myself, but it was too late. The Master of Sound had taken it with him.

  THE PELICAN’S

  NEW CLOTHES

  A story from the city

  1976

  As long as dreams last

  They are not dreams

  Translated by Bethany Fox

  The Paving Stones

  Underneath the paving stones

  The sands of the shore

  First Sight

  In the city there were jobs that Emil had never heard of, like pyjama-folder, kitchen porter, milling-machine operator and stock handler. Since they had moved, his mother had been folding pyjamas in a large laundry from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she also worked as a cleaner in an office block, and on those days Emil had to eat shepherd’s pie or macaroni in the cafe. It wasn’t a very cosy place, either: orange fishing nets hung at the windows and the legs of the tubular-framed chairs scraped across the floor, setting his teeth on edge. But it was cheap and close to home.

  He liked macaroni more, but that Thursday they only had shepherd’s pie. The rain had stopped and the cafe smelt of wet dog, beer and cigarettes. Emil sat at a table by the window waiting for his food, and watched a wasp that was crawling on a leaf of the plastic geraniums.

  “A miserable summer,” said someone at the next table.

  A man was sitting by himself on a narrow sofa next to the wall, reading a newspaper. His chin was long and jutting, and he was very pale. There was also something unusual about the paper: it was upside-down.

  The waitress brought the pie and for a moment Emil’s view was obscured. But he couldn’t help staring. The man was wearing a clean suit and tie. He had thrown his raincoat over the chair-back.

  But was he really a man? He certainly wasn’t a woman, in fact he didn’t seem like a person at all. He was rustling the paper and appeared to be examining it enthusiastically, but it was still the wrong way up.

  Emil put his paper napkin to his mouth. He was terrified, but he had the urge to laugh. It wasn’t a person, it was some kind of large bird, one of those white ones which had such strange beaks . . .

  That was it: a pelican!

  Emil glanced around. Was it possible that no one else saw what he saw? The tired-looking waitress wiped the tables with a dishcloth and moved chairs with a clatter. People were laughing and swearing at the corner table; a fake voice uncoiled from the jukebox:

  I’m not a girl so slender,

  But a woman sweet and tender.

  The pelican turned another page and stirred his coffee. He didn’t seem to be drinking much of it; it must already have been quite cold. In order to gulp the coffee the bird had to raise his beak towards the ceiling, and then the pouch of skin that hung from the lower part of his beak expanded with a creaking noise. The bird signalled to the waitress with his broad, tweed-covered wing and asked for the bill. His voice was low and slightly croaky, but the waitress handed him his change indifferently, without paying any attention to her customer’s odd voice or outward appearance.

  The creature put a felt hat on his head, which was covered by a yellow wig, threw the raincoat over his non-existent shoulders and strolled to the door. On his feet were khaki suede shoes, but he must have had them made specially, because no shops would sell shoes for webbed feet.

  Emil got up at once, intending to follow him, but the waitress’s irritable voice stopped him. “Oi! Where’s the fire? What about the bill?”

  The men at the corner table stopped their conversation and turned to look. At that very moment the song on the jukebox ended. In the silence, which echoed as if in a church, Emil, blushing bright red, fished in his back pocket for his wallet and drew out of it his only note.

  The waitress turned to count out his change, but Emil was already outside. He ran along Mill Road, afraid that he would lose the bird forever. He stopped suddenly: he was about to collide with him. There he stood, bent slightly forward in front of a shop window, examining the men’s accessories that were displayed at the front. Soon his swaying back disappeared through the shop door, and Emil was left pretending to examine the gloves, ties and expensive shirts.

  When the pelican reappeared he looked quite satisfied, and a green and red checked scarf was wound around and around his long neck. It was a gaudy, eye-catching piece of clothing, and besides that it clashed with the rest of the bird’s outfit. Emil thought that he was conspicuous enough without it, but maybe
he liked bright colours.

  The pelican turned back the way he had come, strolled past the cafe, crossed at the junction, walking carefully across the zebra crossing, and continued his journey across the car park, straight into the courtyard of Emil’s block. He opened the door of number six and went inside.

  Emil counted to ten and then followed the bird. The stairs were empty but the pointer above the lift doors was moving. It stopped at number eight, the top floor. Did the bird really live in Emil’s building or was he just visiting someone?

  At home, Emil looked up “pelican” in the encyclopaedia. It said that pelicans were large, solidly-built birds that lived in flocks. They had long, broad wings, short tails, webbed feet and long beaks. From their lower jaws and throats hung a large, elastic skin bag, which they used when fishing. They were widespread in hot and temperate zones and lived in both fresh and salt water areas. Occasionally they also strayed into the North.

  The front door opened.

  “Hey, guess what happened today!”

  But his mother looked exhausted and there was impatience in her voice. “Give me a chance to get my coat off.”

  Emil went silently to his room. After a little while his mother came to the door in her dressing-gown; she was on her way to the shower.

  “Did you get something to eat?”

  “Shepherd’s pie. And guess what, there was this man there . . . ”

  “What about the change?”

  Startled, Emil began to dig around in his pockets, though he remembered immediately.

  “There wasn’t any.”

  There was a silence. His mother waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

  “There wasn’t any? But I gave you a tenner and it was only shepherd’s pie.”

  “I forgot it. I didn’t have time . . . ”

  “What do you mean forgot? What did you do with the rest of the money?”

  It was always about money since they had moved here and his father had stayed there, at home. This place was not a home, it was just a place to live. And now he would have to explain that he hadn’t had time to wait for the change, that he had forgotten it completely. And what reason would he give? That there was a bird, a pelican, drinking coffee in the cafe? How could he tell her that?

  Pelicans don’t drink coffee.

  “I forgot the change, because there was this man there like I said.”

  “What man? What does that have to do with the money?”

  “Just that he was so odd and I had to go after him to see where he was going.”

  “I don’t understand.” His mother sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “What do you mean, had to? Were you running around after strange people?”

  “But he wasn’t a person, he was a bird.”

  “Look, what on earth are you on about? Are you ill?” Emil’s mother felt his forehead and glanced at him suspiciously. “Are you making this up for fun?”

  “I’m not making anything up, Mum, believe me. He was a bird, a pelican. And he lives in this building, in number six, on the eighth floor. He has a skin bag under his chin just like in the encyclopaedia.”

  “What?” His mother started to laugh. “Do you mean Mr. Henderson? And you ran all around town after him and left the money in the cafe? Well, tomorrow you’ll go straight back there to get it, that’s for sure.”

  His mother went to the bathroom and turned on the taps. Emil followed her.

  “What Mr. Harrison?”

  “Henderson. Mrs. Greatorex is renting her flat to him for the summer, because she’s abroad visiting her daughter. A very polite gentlemen, Mrs. Greatorex told me. I’ve seen him myself. Maybe he is a little unprepossessing, with his double chin and everything. But you shouldn’t go staring at people for that—much less run after them, a big boy like you. Don’t talk such rubbish.”

  “It wasn’t any Mr. Henderson,” Emil insisted. “It was obviously a bird, a pelican.”

  “Are you mad?” his mother snapped. “Can’t you tell the difference between a bird and a person? Now be quiet, and stop being rude about decent people.” His mother turned off the hot tap and pushed him into the hall.

  How could people be so blind? Emil lay on his bed and tears flowed onto the picture of the pelican. He didn’t care that the book was getting wet and the shiny paper was beginning to crinkle, although he had been given the book by his father for his twelfth birthday, and up until now had touched it only with clean, dry fingers. It was a pelican, he knew it, and he would make everyone else believe it too.

  Some Thoughts About Dreams

  Emil woke up. He had fallen asleep on top of the encyclopaedia, and evening had come. He wasn’t thinking about the pelican any more, he was thinking about home, the other one, the only real one, that he had left behind in Mogham. In his dreams he had been back at Brook Farm, in Mogham, as he was almost every night. He opened familiar doors and went from one room to the next searching for something, but he could never find it, or even remember what it was. Or he would dream that he woke up and it was already midnight, and he would grope his way through the shadowy cottage to his parents’ room. There he would stand, just listening, listening . . . He didn’t dare touch them, because he was afraid that his father would growl: “That boy again.” They lay there, so close that he could feel their breath against his cheek, but they weren’t really there at all. But in other dreams they weren’t even breathing, they just lay like statues, they were statues.

  In his dreams they always lay side by side, but in real life that never happened any more. Someone else slept in the room by his father’s side, and he and his mother had come here. To stay.

  They should have been happy that they had managed to get a council flat. After all, there was a shortage of housing in the city, and there were many who never got their own four walls, but ended up skulking in the corners of their family or friends’ flats, or had to live their whole lives in guesthouses or under boats. They were certainly lucky, since they had a two-room flat with central heating, a tumble dryer and double glazing. They hadn’t had that in Mogham; instead, there had been a wood fire and a washing line, and in winter the windows had dripped with condensation. They had had a well and a lake, not a public swimming pool. The well and the lake.

  Emil sighed and put his pyjamas on. He didn’t want to think about Brook Farm in Mogham, he wanted to go there. And it was possible, too, in his dreams.

  The bright squares of light in the enormous blocks where people’s lives were stacked one above the other went out, one by one. Emil drew the curtains and turned out his own light.

  When he was little he had been afraid of the dark, and avoided sleeping. Not any more. You couldn’t run from it forever anyway, it always caught you in the end. Fish slept at night too, even swifts high in the air; ants and hedgehogs slept all winter. So-called reality and wakefulness couldn’t be borne for even twenty-four hours at a stretch. Sleep, proper sleep before dreams came, took everything away, every single thing, but it was an enormous relief. The lights went away, the colours and the sounds, the house that he carried with him went away, the fields around it, the gloomy woods behind it all disappeared. There was no mother and father any more, no books or objects.

  What came in their place? Nothing, nothing at all, but that was the best thing you could have. It was as if a crushing weight had been lifted from his back, and that weight was reality: people, houses and things, woods and fields, the bright, glittering river, and now this city, heavy as iron or steel. They were all loaded onto his back during the day, the whole world, and it was heavy.

  The night took everything, even his own body. And nevertheless, perhaps the following night he would delay the arrival of sleep once more, because the relief of nothingness was so easily forgotten.

  But once he had come that far, to the door of deep slumber, no call could make him turn back willingly. Night was the most tempting of all shades, silence was the only sound he heard. For him there was only one scent in existence, and it couldn
’t be sensed with the nose; only one taste, but the tongue was unnecessary.

  And then came the dreams. Everything came back, but in a slightly different form. He didn’t need eyes, he didn’t need light: he saw anyway.

  It was strange.

  Meeting

  When Emil woke up, his mother had already gone to work. On the table were a pot of yoghurt, some boiled eggs and an empty paper bag, on which was written REMEMBER TO GO TO THE CAFE.

  Emil felt embarrassed as he walked back through the door, but he knew it had to be done. The same men from the day before were sitting at the corner table drinking lager. The same waitress was wiping the tables with a similar-looking cloth, and she looked just as tired as on the day before, although it was only morning.

  The waitress recognised him immediately and guessed what he had come about. It all went unexpectedly easily.

  “We were in a bit of a hurry yesterday, were we darling?” she said, and laughed. Laughing, she was almost beautiful, but Emil didn’t like being called darling. “Seven pounds twenty, if you please. We’d get rich pretty quick here if all the customers were like you.” And she went to clear the empty bottles from the corner table. Emil left, relieved.

  The wind was cold, as if it were already autumn, and on the other side of the street flapped a familiar scarf.

  The pelican! He had almost forgotten about him.

  He was strolling along on his short legs with a rolling gait, looking ridiculous in his felt hat, like any animal dressed up in human gear. But not one of the crowd of people who filled the pavements and shops, who were buying food and doing business in the post offices, banks and offices, not one of them paid the slightest bit of attention to him, as if a bright reddish beak and a lower-jaw-pouch were everyday sights in the bustle of the city centre.