Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction

by Leena Krohn

  “That’s good, you have to meet people.”

  But the pelican wasn’t a person. Emil suddenly missed his wise yellow eyes, his peacock dressing-gown and his huge beak.

  Emil stood up. He was ready.

  “I was going to go for a swim.”

  His father practically beamed.

  “Off you go then, don’t let me stop you. This weather won’t last much longer now.” But before Emil had had time to take the potatoes to the kitchen, his father’s voice stopped him again.

  “Emil?”

  “What?”

  “Aren’t you bored here? What with Joe being so busy with his own life, and anyway there’s been so many . . . changes. With Jessie going and dying and all.”

  Emil’s back was towards his father and his voice was steady.

  “I’m not bored.”

  “That’s good,” his father said. “Well, I’m really pleased.”

  “Yes,” said Emil. “I’d better go to the river.”

  He walked along the dirt road at a rapid pace, his towel over his shoulder. The ears of the Hunters’ barley hung down heavily, he picked one and rubbed it in his palm. They were ripe, next week they would be harvested.

  But by then he would be in the city.

  The White Screen

  “Ah, you’ve come back.” The pelican opened the door with a smile. “Welcome back to the city. Are you better?”

  “I wasn’t ill.”

  “Perhaps I am remembering wrong, I beg your pardon.” He was his old self, as polite as ever. And Emil was pleased to see his dressing-gown, the one that was decorated with peacocks, and which made its wearer as bright as a peacock too.

  Emil sat in the armchair and opened his satchel to get the primer out. But the bird raised his hand to stop him.

  “We don’t need that any more. While you have been in your beloved Mogham I have learned to read fluently without assistance. The lessons are over.” As a demonstration, the pelican took a book from the bookshelf and opened it. They must have been Mrs. Greatorex’s books, since the pelican could hardly have had the money for such a library.

  He read:

  “ ‘—come on, kitten. Let’s go home.’

  “The girl spun around angrily. ‘Do you mean to water those damn begonias again?’ she yelled.

  “ ‘But kitten . . . ’

  “ ‘Get your hands off me,’ cried the girl and threw the remains of her drink into the man’s face. There was only a teaspoonful of cocktail and two pieces of ice.

  “ ‘For God’s sake, little one. I’m your man,’ the man cried, drying his face with a handkerchief. ‘Don’t you understand? Your man.’

  “The girl burst into sobs and threw herself into the man’s arms. I stepped past them and left. All cocktail parties are the same, including the dialogue.’ ”

  “A cocktail is some kind of alcohol, then,” the bird said thoughtfully.

  “I suppose so.”

  “I must try it some time. They say that it makes you happy. Have you tried it?”

  “Not spirits, but I’ve had wine. I had a sip once at Christmas.”

  “Did you become happy?”

  “I was already happy. I just thought it was bitter.”

  “I suspect I have been lied to. This girl, as well, in this book . . . Was she supposed to be happy? No, she was angry and wild. And tearful. But how was it? It went well, did it not?”

  Emil had to admit that it did. He closed his satchel again and started to leave, feeling dispirited. He was no longer needed here.

  “Don’t you want some tea? Don’t you want to hear what I have been doing during your absence?” the bird exclaimed unhappily.

  “Of course I do!”

  That was exactly what Emil wanted, and, relieved, he sank back into Mrs. Greatorex’s armchair. The pelican disappeared into the kitchen to arrange the tea-tray.

  As he was pouring the tea into the cups, the bird remarked: “I must say, the other day during my evening stroll I found myself in a strange place. I joined a certain queue, just for the sake of it, and for that pleasure I had to give away a whole five pounds.

  “After that I was let into a dark hall, which was full of chairs just like at the opera. And people sat side by side there too, facing in the same direction. But there was a white screen on the wall, and a jet of light was directed towards it over the top of people’s heads. Other things came with the light, sounds and human forms. The screen turned into a window, from which one could see a great distance and all sorts of things. It was like the opera, but nevertheless it was not the opera.

  “We sat in the dark, but we looked into a bright room. There was a man and a beautiful woman, who were talking together in a completely different way from how I have heard people talking.

  “The woman was holding a long cigarette holder in her hand and was resting on some kind of sofa.

  “ ‘Edward,’ she said languidly, ‘you have betrayed me, you bastard.’

  “ ‘That’s not true,’ the man denied. ‘Don’t believe what poisoned tongues tell you.’

  “ ‘Are you so bold as to claim that this isn’t your handwriting?’

  “And the woman, with a haughty expression, threw some kind of paper in front of the man.

  “ ‘A mistake! A misunderstanding!’ whined the man. ‘I have become the victim of a conspiracy.’

  “He fell at the woman’s feet, wringing his hands.

  “It was terribly pitiable, but I began to be embarrassed to be watching such an intimate family scene, so I rose and left the place. I wasn’t completely sure whether they knew that there was such a number of people watching their private affairs, or whether it really was just a certain kind of opera, about which I know everything these days. Were they doing everything merely for the sake of the watchers? Tell me.”

  “Yes, they were,” Emil confirmed.

  “I guessed as much,” the pelican sighed. “Yesterday I went past the same place once more and I wanted to see what the window would show now. I could not see the couple from the day before, even the room had gone, and the window was open onto a great road. We rushed along it, myself and the other watchers, the whole hall, and strange landscapes slipped past us. It is difficult to comprehend, but we were at the same time both on the road and in the hall, inside in the darkness and outside in the sunlight, moving with dizzying speed and immobile in our seats. We were elsewhere from where we were, and we did other things than what we did; I have never yet experienced such a thing in my life as a bird.

  “Events succeeded each other with breathtaking speed. The window showed people who talked and walked, opened and closed doors, made love and argued in elegant apartments, but in the same moment they were somewhere else as well, they were riding in wide meadows or rocking in a yacht on the ocean waves. And wherever they went, we went with them.

  “I also saw a man who stepped into a flood-lit building and took a shiny object from his pocket. When he pointed it at people like a finger there were loud bangs and many of the people in the room fell to the floor and began to bleed. This was outrageous, but the humans around me sat completely still without trying to help, and I—I am ashamed to admit—followed their example.

  “Besides, there was no longer anyone who might have needed help. The building had disappeared, the man had disappeared and all the bleeding people were gone, only the great road appeared once more before our eyes and we rushed forward, towards who knows what adventures, what happiness or suffering, until the lights came on and that too faded away. The window closed and the red curtains slid in front of it just as in the Opera, as people crowded out of the main door chatting and laughing.

  “I was just pondering the events in the dark hall when you rang the doorbell. I was thinking that what happened there was merely a shadow, pictures and dreams. It was not something that had been born of itself, but rather created and imagined. I was thinking that humans have an irresistible attraction to lies and effigies; I know it myself, I experienced
it immediately from my first day as a human onwards. Reality is not enough for humans, one world is not enough for them, they have to make more and more new ones forever and ever.”

  Glass and Diamonds

  Once, when he was visiting the pelican’s bathroom, Emil noticed that there was a framed photograph hanging above the bathtub. It was a whole-body picture of a girl dressed in a cloud of white tulle and ballet shoes, whose dark hair was pulled back so that her forehead and ears were left bare.

  That same evening the pelican, to Emil’s surprise, steered the conversation round to the beauty of women.

  “The most beautiful thing about human women is their ears,” he said. “Birds don’t have ears at all, just ear-openings, and even they are hidden by feathers. But women have naked and rose-pink ears. It is very beautiful, especially if they know how to use them.

  “I know a certain woman who knows,” he continued dreamily. “She knows how to listen extraordinarily well, and to dance as well. In Swan Lake she was one of the little swans, the best one of all, the most beautiful one of all.”

  “Is it her in the picture above the bathtub?” Emil dared to ask.

  “Yes, that is she,” the pelican admitted, his yellowish eyes disappearing behind his transparent eyelids. “On the stage she is as I am: both a bird and a human. But she is a beautiful bird, a swan, while I on the other hand am heavy and clumsy. Her name is Elizabeth, but her friends call her Liza. Once the Opera’s harp player was looking for her. I saw her in the cafeteria and said ‘Elizabeth, the harp is looking for you.’ And she smiled so beautifully and said: ‘You can call me Liza.’

  “Yesterday I saw her again: she was just coming out of the dressing room door as we finished our rehearsal. ‘Good afternoon, Liza,’ I said. ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Henderson,’ she said, and smiled again. ‘How’s the singing going?’ I told her that it had not gone particularly well that day, because two of the sopranos had become hoarse, and she told me that they had had a dull rehearsal too, because the prima ballerina had been having a tantrum.

  “Then I said: ‘Perhaps we could console ourselves with a cake,’ although for my own part I do not particularly care for cakes. ‘I’m on a diet, of course,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure one cake wouldn’t wreck it.’

  “So I bought her coffee and cake (she chose a fondant fancy) in the Opera café and we talked about this and that. I told her about my life, and it was precisely then that I observed that she knows how to listen, and that she has the most wonderful ears . . . ”

  “Did you tell her about your life as a bird or about your life as a human?”

  “Only as a human. But one day I will tell her about everything, and she will understand. Perhaps I shall ask her to tea next Saturday.”

  Emil didn’t say anything, but personally he wasn’t so sure about the understanding part.

  After that many days passed during which Emil didn’t hear a word about the Opera’s beautiful Elizabeth. But the pelican had begun to dress with more care than previously. He always brushed his paddle-shaped shoes as he was leaving, and his wig shone as well, as he had bought some Brylcreme. He didn’t talk about his family. He seemed distracted but happy.

  After the weekend Elizabeth’s picture had disappeared from the bathroom wall, and the pelican no longer smelled of Brylcreme. Emil never found out what had actually happened, but it was clear that the ballerina really had come to visit.

  The pelican sprawled in Mrs. Greatorex’s armchair, his legs thrown over one of the arms. He sipped red liquid from a long-stemmed glass, an air of fake cheerfulness about him.

  “This is sparkling wine,” the bird explained. “Let us have a toast!”

  “I’d rather have tea.”

  “Tea, tea,” the bird said, “that filthy dishwater. I don’t know what humans like about it. Well, I will not stop you, go ahead and slurp your tea, since you do not understand any better. I will sing you a song about tea. And about glass and diamonds.”

  “Is it new?”

  “Brand new.”

  He tipped the glass in his dark brown hand-feathers, inclined his head, swung his legs and sang:

  So tea and sympathy went cold,

  And as she left she slammed the door;

  She did not know that with her cake

  She’d swallowed down my poisoned scorn.

  I tuck my head beneath my wing;

  The autumn makes my eyes grow dim;

  And stubborn sorrow comes once more

  To taunt me from behind the door.

  I keep awake with all my might

  As day gives in to silken night

  And truths emerge from under dreams

  Like autumn golds from under greens.

  Bleed! maple tree, and shriek! Come rain!

  Wash love’s reminders from the grass.

  Reality to dreams is just

  As gleaming diamond is to glass.

  Reality to dreams is just

  As gleaming diamond is to glass.

  When he had sung the refrain, the bird threw the glass far into the corner so that it shattered into fragments and red wine stained the carpet. He raised his wing to his eyes, and burning tears flowed between his hand-feathers.

  “I don’t know where this water is coming from,” he sobbed into his wing. “But it is salty like the waves of the sea.”

  “Tomorrow I will sing that in the bar and I will get a good price for it. It will certainly be a hit, a real tango success, and people will dance to it pressed against each other, breathing hotly into each other’s ears.”

  Emil sat with his head bowed and stared at the floor. He didn’t know what to say. But whoever has once seen a weeping bird will never forget the sight.

  Elsa

  The lessons and the pelican’s reminiscings had come to an end, but the friendship between him and Emil continued. Emil also met Mr. Wildgoose, the pianist, who really did have warts on his fingers and who seemed sorrowful but good-natured. On those evenings when neither of them had to perform, he came to visit his friend almost like clockwork. He didn’t say much, but he listened to the pelican’s anecdotes, smoked and smiled, looking contented with his lot. If he heard in advance that Emil was going to be there as well, he would bring sweets with him, usually French liquorice. Emil didn’t like liquorice, but he didn’t dare refuse when Mr. Wildgoose pressed them on him, and so he chewed the bitter pieces patiently all night to please the pianist.

  August was drawing to a close, the summer and the summer holidays would soon be gone. Emil hadn’t learned to recognise anyone from the whole building other than the pelican and Elsa, who lived on the same floor as him and his mother. But even then he only knew her name and what she looked like, so that they nodded at one another if they happened to meet on the stairs or in the hall.

  The pelican knew what Elsa looked like as well. “Who is that girl who has such a happy laugh?” he asked one day.

  “That’s Elsa,” Emil said. That was all he knew.

  But one day when Emil was coming back from the shops, Elsa was sitting on the landing in front of her door, looking miserable.

  “I forgot the key,” she said. “And no one’ll be home at ours till the evening, and I can’t find the janitor anywhere.”

  Emil hesitated. He had never asked anyone over before, not even the pelican, because for some reason he felt that his mother wouldn’t like it. But Elsa looked so depressed and cold sitting there; her skirt and cardigan were wet, as it was raining outside, and she had obviously been shopping just like Emil. A shopping bag leaned against her leg and a French stick and a carton of milk stuck out of the top.

  “You could come and wait at ours,” Emil said shyly.

  “I’ll be fine sitting here,” Elsa said hesitantly.

  “Come on now, it’s cold on the stairs and I was going to make cocoa.”

  “Is your mother home?”

  City people rarely talked about ‘your mother’ and “our mother”; instead, most often they said “your ol
d lady.” Emil wasn’t used to that term, and he hoped that maybe Elsa was from somewhere else, since she didn’t speak that way.

  She was from somewhere else, from even further north than Emil. And it turned out that she had only lived in the city for a couple of months and that in the autumn she would go to the same school as Emil, but in the year below.

  “Is it a nice school?”

  “No-oo, I don’t like it. I don’t think school can be nice.”

  They didn’t think of anything else to talk about straight away, and Emil began to fidget in his chair. “Would you like some more cocoa?”

  “No thank you. Hey, what’s that strange-looking man’s name, the one who lives in number 6? I’ve seen you with him sometimes.”

  “That’s the peli—, Mr. Henderson.”

  “He has such an amazing nose. And he’s so short. It always makes me laugh when I meet him in the courtyard, he wobbles about so funnily when he walks.”

  Emil felt offended by this. So that was what the ‘happy laugh’ that the pelican had talked about was.

  “You can’t do anything about the way you look,” he said curtly. He was beginning to get a bit tired of Elsa.

  “Of course not,” the girl agreed hastily. “I didn’t mean anything by that, I just . . . ”

  There was another awkward silence, and Elsa started to talk about leaving.

  “No one’s come back to yours yet. We’d hear it in here if the door opened.”

  “No, but maybe the janitor’s home now.” Elsa collected her things. “Bye then.”

  “Bye.”

  She had gone, and the kitchen became dreary and empty. The taps glittered, the plumbing rumbled downstairs and the fridge hummed into life. Emil sat on the stool with an empty cocoa cup in front of him, empty himself.

  He didn’t go to meet the pelican that day, although he had promised. Actually it was because of what Elsa had said. Or more accurately what she had meant, what Emil thought she had meant. ‘You hang around with all sorts of funny-looking types,’ that was what Elsa had thought. Too short, and with too big noses, bizarre in every way. The pelican had suggested that they go out for a walk that evening, but suddenly Emil didn’t want people to see him in the bird’s company. Above all, he didn’t want Elsa to see them.