by Philip Teir
Now the leaves are falling. As Edith Södergran wrote: we ought to ‘love life’s long hours of illness’; we should no longer close our eyes.
There are far too many of us who have grown weary of keeping alive the ever fainter flame, who have done so much for so many years although nothing got any better. Now is the time to mourn. Only then can we go on.
Aniara is not about hope. It’s about a belief that there is still beauty to be discovered; that there are small, beautiful pockets in the world from which we can draw sustenance. It’s about pushing aside everything we’ve learned about the good forces of civilisation. Right vs left, socialism vs capitalism – they can be contained in a single word: narcissism. It’s the same narcissism that makes us search for an endless stream of impressions, that makes us need constant kicks so as not to become apathetic. It’s the vast, numbing feeling that has struck all of us, that sets in after several hours spent in front of our glaring screens, the constant hunt for something, as we are promised WE WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
We say: put away your phones, smash your screens. Because THIS is what will happen next: an unknown future in which the only thing left is the tiny grain of sand on the glowing, blood-red shore. Learn to see in the dark; learn to move with the aid of all your senses; discover new senses. Rebel against ‘the great absurdity of living’ (Harry Martinson). Rebel against the attempt to ‘reach a crevice / that allows in a glimpse of the glow of hope’. Forget hope. Say yes to despair.
Chris Blackwood
The Aniara Movement
7
EARLY ON A WARM JULY morning, as Erik was taking a walk, he met the woman from the tennis court. She was standing next to a slightly rusty, green woman’s bike, trying to fix the chain. When she was finished and got on the bike, he noticed that the chain was still loose and would most likely come off again.
‘You should tighten that,’ he said.
Erik had been going down the beach more often, having a vague feeling that he was searching for something. He would glance at the tennis court, but he hadn’t caught sight of the woman. He would leave Julia sitting on the terrace, working on her book. She seemed very focused, and the discussions of the past few days hadn’t led anywhere. Instead, they were hardly speaking to each other. He felt inspired to do something new, to make a real effort, but she seemed tired and unreachable, as if she didn’t want to let him get closer.
The woman was tall and slender, almost as tall as Erik, and maybe about forty-five or so. She was wearing dark jeans and a man’s checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up. When she turned to look at him, her expression was impassive and impossible to decipher, neither friendly nor hostile.
‘Does it come off a lot? The chain?’ he said.
‘It comes off every time I want to go somewhere,’ she said. ‘I suppose I ought to do something about it.’
‘I’m Erik,’ he said, offering to shake her hand.
‘Kati,’ she said.
Her voice was a bit raspy and muted, as if issuing from an old transistor radio.
‘I’m sorry that I interrupted your tennis game. Do you often play in the middle of the night?’
She didn’t answer as she fixed her eyes on her bicycle.
‘You just need to pull the wheel backwards a little, and that will tighten the chain. You don’t have a car?’
‘I don’t have a driver’s license. But I usually get by with a bike,’ she said.
He thought to himself that she was the sort of person who was used to attracting attention from men and having most things taken care of for her. She had that kind of look; she was beautiful, with high cheekbones. So what was she doing here alone?
‘Shall I have a look?’
It was an older-model Crescent bicycle, probably from the seventies. He remembered seeing a similar bike from his childhood, although it was a different colour.
‘Do you have an adjustable wrench?’
He grabbed the handlebars, pretending to inspect the bike.
‘Do you think that’s necessary?’ she asked.
‘I could tighten the chain.’
‘There should be some tools in the shed,’ she said.
‘I have a wrench at home if you don’t have one.’
‘I think I do. Shall I fetch it?’
‘I’ll come with you.’
They walked down to the shore, to the big house that stood in the centre of the curving shoreline. Erik followed her to a small shed behind the house. The woman didn’t say a word as she stepped forward to unlock the shed and then stepped inside. It was filled with junk: cushions for patio furniture, a heat lamp, a surfboard, water skis, cross-country skis. Things belonging to a family, thought Erik. That seemed strange because he hadn’t pictured her with a family.
She spent a while searching, and in the meantime he tried not to stare at her, merely casting brief glances at her back as he smiled and tried to look as if he was waiting politely. Finally she found a toolbox in a corner. They took it with them back to the road.
She stood next to him without speaking as he turned the bike upside down and pulled the rear wheel no more than a centimetre back.
‘All right. Now the chain shouldn’t come off as often,’ he said.
She smiled.
‘That’s great. I don’t know why I didn’t do that earlier.’
‘Just let me know if there’s anything else I can help with.’
She gave him another smile, standing next to the bike, as if she was waiting for him to leave before she could cycle away.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘No problem,’ said Erik. ‘I’m just on my way down to the beach.’
The remark sounded stupid, since it was obvious that’s where he was going.
He’d been so immersed in the strange mood that he’d forgotten he was still holding her wrench. He didn’t notice until she cycled off, and he reached the water’s edge. He went back and set it on the steps of her house, and then couldn’t resist peering in a window. It was dark inside, and it looked much the same as any other house, yet something didn’t seem right. The dining table was cluttered, and there were dirty cups scattered about the room.
He stood on the shore and gazed at the horizon, but he could no longer remember why he’d come down here.
When he went back up to the summer house, Alice was lying on a mattress that she’d dragged onto the ground. She was staring at her phone. Anton was sitting on a big rock at the tarn, holding a fishing rod.
‘Caught anything?’ asked Erik.
‘I’m mostly catching water lilies,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘But Mamma says there are fish here. And sometimes I’ve seen them jumping in the water.’
‘How’d you like to get a real casting rod so you can try catching fish in the sea? We could buy one the next time we go into town.’
Anton looked at him, seeming to consider changing rods, but then he raised his eyebrows to show it didn’t make any difference to him. Erik could understand that. Sometimes there was a certain comfort about fishing at a hopeless place, where you didn’t need to worry about catching anything.
Julia was sitting on the terrace, working on her laptop. Erik still hadn’t told her about being sacked from his job, and by now he didn’t feel as if he would.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked.
She didn’t look up, keeping her eyes focused on the computer screen. Erik felt slightly relieved that he didn’t have to think about her, since she was so clearly immersed in her work. He had asked how it was going merely to be nice, but if she didn’t answer, that meant he needn’t be concerned. Instead, he lost himself in thoughts about Kati, wondering who she was, why she was living down on the shore alone, and who owned all those things in the shed.
Julia closed the lid of her laptop.
‘Did you ask me something?’
Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked worried.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked again.
‘Okay,
’ she said. ‘Well, I’m not really sure. I can never plan anything. I just write and write and hope the story will come together and start living its own life. But I think I have the characters worked out now. I think I know who they are.’
‘Well, that’s at least something,’ he said.
‘What have you been doing today?’ she asked.
‘Nothing special.’
‘Are you bored?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because you’re not at work. Is there anything for you to do here? Maybe you should go and have a talk with Chris. Or go back down into the cellar and fix the pipes.’
‘Hmm … I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t really know anything about fixing pipes,’ replied Erik. Julia’s parents would be arriving in a couple of days, which seemed like bad timing to Erik. He had no desire to see them, considering how things were at the moment.
‘I went down to the beach today. You know that woman who lives there?’
‘In that house? The woman who’s so cross?’
‘I don’t know whether she’s cross.’
‘They said she radiates negative energy. Did you talk to her?’
Erik felt himself blushing.
‘I helped her fix the chain on her bicycle. It had hopped off.’
‘Ah. What’s her name?’
‘Kati, I think.’
‘Does she speak Finnish?’
‘I think so,’ he replied.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Julia picked up her manuscript from the table and leafed through it distractedly.
‘I think she has a family,’ he said.
She looked up from the manuscript.
‘She does?’
He didn’t feel like explaining.
The next day he went down to the beach again to take a walk. He’d talked to Chris in the morning because they’d run into each other by accident. Erik had only vague and confused memories of the beach party. He recalled only the gentle warmth around the bonfire, and he thought maybe he should be embarrassed about having lost control, but he didn’t feel like being embarrassed.
He was on his way back when he saw Kati walking her bike down the path towards her house. She propped the bike against the shed in the yard.
‘Is it working okay now?’ he asked.
‘It’s great. Thanks a lot,’ she said.
‘It was nothing. Just let me know if you need help with anything else.’
She picked up two grocery bags. He rushed over to carry them for her.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Are you going to be here all summer?’ asked Erik.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, no reason. I was just wondering whether you have a long holiday.’
‘I’ll probably stay all summer,’ she said. ‘At least until September.’
He walked with her up to the terrace and set the grocery bags next to the door. He wanted to keep talking but didn’t know what to say. He suddenly felt so stupid.
‘I’m off all summer too,’ he said.
‘Are you?’ she said.
‘Yes. In fact …’
He paused for a moment but then decided to say it.
‘I’ve been sacked from my job. So I’ll have to look for another one in the autumn.’
‘That’s too bad,’ she said.
Erik felt as if he wanted to tell her something personal, confide in her.
‘Yes, I suppose it is. But I’m sure things will work out. I haven’t told anyone yet. I haven’t told my wife, I mean.’
She gave him an odd look. That was the wrong thing to say.
‘Sometimes it’s easier to talk to other people,’ he said.
‘I suppose so,’ she said.
For the rest of the afternoon Erik had a feeling that everything was going smoothly. When he drove to the supermarket to buy salmon, when he cooked dinner out in the yard, the warmth he felt for his children as the family ate together, and even when he had a phone call from his brother later in the evening.
Anders was in Vietnam and wanted to borrow money to buy a plane ticket back to Finland.
‘And I wonder if I could stay with you guys for a while, just until I find a place of my own.’
‘But we’re in Mjölkviken right now. Were you thinking of coming out here?’ asked Erik.
‘Do you have room?’
Erik thought he should ask Julia first, but considering how she’d been acting lately, he couldn’t bring himself to do that.
‘There’s plenty of sleeping space up in the attic. Have you had a good trip?’
‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
8
ANDERS NOTICED THE COOL summer air of Finland as soon as he stepped out of the airplane in Vanda. The air was drier than in Asia, the airport was emptier, everything was quieter, and he felt unpleasantly foreign and grubby as he walked through the clean and Nordically gleaming terminal, heading for the exit. While he waited for his suitcases among the weary Finnish families with young children, he had a feeling that he was returning to Finland after several years, even though he’d been away only three months.
The trip had not gone as he’d hoped. He’d spent all his money and suffered a breakdown one night after an evening of heavy drinking. He woke up on the bank of a river, surrounded by street vendors and staring tourists. He didn’t really know why he’d decided to go to Hanoi, but he realised the trip hadn’t had the positive effect he’d wanted. He felt defeated, like an example in some self-help book seeking to illustrate its moral: Don’t run away from your problems by creating geographical distance. Instead you should always first try to work things out for yourself.
Why had he decided to make the trip at all? Anders had been dreaming about it for a long time, yearning to be swallowed up by the Asian heat and feverish activity. He’d known nothing about Hanoi other than what he’d read on the internet, but he did have some idea what to expect: a city with a vibrant pulse and, above all, a totally anonymous place where he would be far away from his family.
During the first weeks he had walked around aimlessly, looking at the street vendors and their big piles of frogs, at all the chickens that seemed to be running around loose. He walked down alleyways and stared right into people’s living rooms, at the blaring TV sets and children clinging to their mother’s skirts.
He’d taken lodging at a hostel for backpackers, thinking it might be a positive way to start off his trip. Anders hadn’t bought a return plane ticket. Instead, he’d dreamed of travelling back to Finland by train, maybe via China and the trans-Siberian railway, but that was a plan he’d put off thinking about until later. His travel funds consisted of two thousand euros, money he’d mostly borrowed, and in his suitcase he’d packed a bunch of books: novels by Thomas Bernhard; Freud’s case studies; a few guidebooks about Vietnam; and Sönder, a novel by the Finland-Swedish writer Henry Parland. Anders had read the book at least ten times, finding in it his own general feeling of rootlessness in life. The novel, from 1930, had a splintered storyline that seemed to reflect life and his own mental landscape. A miscellany of fragmented experiences, nothing concrete that he could ever seize hold of. And that had also become his life’s motto – an acceptance of the splintered structure, instead of believing there was any such thing as a true core.
The area where he was staying had a pleasant urban feel to it, almost as if he were in Barcelona, because just like in Barcelona, the streets were filled with motor scooters. His room was on the third floor, with a shared shower down the hall.
He went out and tried to get his bearings in the city, but each morning he would wake up in the same small room with a feeling that he might as well have stayed home in Finland. He rented a motor scooter and rode merrily through the streets, and for a while it was fun, but eventually he tired of that too. He went to pubs where he sometimes met other Europeans and went along to their after-parties. Sometimes he talked to women, but he rarely felt happy. He had not magically become different, even
though he was on the other side of the world.
Three months later, when he awoke on the riverbank with an excruciating headache, he was forced to phone his brother and ask for money to buy a plane ticket home. He was ashamed to do that, but he was perhaps even more ashamed that he felt homesick.
He’d had nothing to eat except some crisps on the plane, though he’d drunk three tiny bottles of red wine. When he got to the train station in Helsinki, he had to rush for the toilet. The smell that spread was far from pleasant, but it was normal for him to have digestive problems. It was something he’d suffered from all his life.
As he washed his hands, he thought about the dream he’d had on the plane. He dreamt about his family, that they were all home for the Christmas holidays, including Julia and Erik and their kids, and they were watching family videos together. But something happened. Everybody got upset, and the last thing he recalled from the dream was an image of himself racing barefoot through the snow in Ekenäs, along the train tracks. He could still feel the chill inside his body when he awoke in the darkness of the plane.
He was shocked by the sight of his face in the mirror. He looked worn out and bloated. It was not an attractive face. It might have been all right, if he wasn’t so big, but he was at least thirty kilos overweight. He’d pictured losing weight while in Vietnam, but instead he’d tried to make himself feel better by eating too much, while he also smoked and drank. He’d put on at least five kilos.
The clear, bright July sun in Finland seemed to be jeering at him, as if it had expected him to come back, only to show him that he was the same, miserable person he was when he left.
The next day Erik was waiting for him at the small train station in Bennäs. It was the first week of July.
‘Did you come via Ekenäs? Did you stop to see Mamma and Pappa?’ asked Erik.
Anders paused before replying. He was exhausted and hungry, and he hadn’t yet had the energy nor the desire to phone his parents.