“She’s gone. Ended things,” his sister willingly and helpfully prompted loudly after a hasty destructive look at her brother Tom—Tom in the sense of TOM, seen as a world, in that subjective perception of reality that no one other than the two siblings in this family shared.
A world where the Happy Harlot in the middle of the DAY OF DESIRE, which had been great and wonderful (in any case, it should be mentioned, like a hypothesis), has been transformed into the Disgust, a world where it was “a shame about,” there… there… and Maj-Gun had almost stammered internally out of anger and here here here Tom Tom you’ll get for this.
“And to be honest,” his sister added in a steady voice, “you can have some understanding for it. I love you over the plains. Love’s representative, a bit pale in that perspective.” This too like a silent reference to something that only the brother and the sister in the family shared: then, a long time ago, before Tom Maalamaa started hanging out with his first girlfriend, he had certainly enjoyed himself when his sister Maj-Gun, when talking about that mother with the big-eyed girl Susette at the cemetery, had grown quiet at the mere thought of the name, “CAN you be called that, Tom?” Asked humorously, rhetorically so to speak, and added, “nah I don’t think so. Newsstand toppler. Susette. I love you over the plains—”
“We are SEPARATED,” Tom Maalamaa, with poorly restrained anger, personally declared out loud at the dinner table, though somewhat paler in the face. In and of itself, possibly, not entirely wrong either because in reality his sister did not know the details surrounding the breakup of his relationship—that Susette Packlén’s father was ill, dying, both of them knew that, probably papa Pastor too, who looked after the members of his congregation but that was work, nothing to touch upon with great seriousness during these pleasant Sunday dinners when the whole family had the opportunity to get together in peace and quiet for once.
So it could just as well have been Tom Maalamaa himself who had slowed things down, because in some way, the Weakling that was hiding under the Ponderer’s cowl that he had invisibly put on and that did not suit him very well, significantly less well fitting than those woolen mantles of quality he would use later in life… that Weakling was not prepared for illness, death. Unthinkable, for a thousand reasons, also because quite simply if it affected someone else more, then that person’s rules applied, there would be another main character in the story, so to speak. Following that sweet girl who says nothing to the very darkest, Death’s landscape, no, that had not occurred to him. But he was afraid of death too, in that blunt, naked way that healthy youths, who are not dragging themselves out into war and dying the hero’s death, are—the difficult, lengthy illnesses, death as violent but relentless decomposition, death as a physical utterance too, and handling the dead body, the whole coffin hell, quite simply, should be handled by deaconesses, mothers, wives, girlfriends—that was their role in life, which would come to show itself in practice later.
But it was not exactly something you wanted to endure. Your fear. That kind of “disgust.” And then the contemplation came in situations exactly like that and it existed so that it would come to you in situations exactly like this, with messages like the following: that you were young and had your future ahead of you, a boy with prospects, a purpose in life. Do something, for, like, humanity. And Gustav Mahler, but regulated, not like it had surged at the worst moments in your room with your girlfriend, in order to soften the anxiety in the presence of a disownment—because, say what you want to about Tom, maybe he was empty but not stupid. His sister in her capacity as the Happy Harlot as a happy appellation, not fresh, but hamba hamba, in the openness of childhood, without boundaries, who was not let into his room, but was left outside, pounding on the door.
“Well, well, let’s not quarrel, children.” Mama Inga-Britta finally jumped in and as always, when she stepped in, it became calm around the dinner table, even a relatively nice mood again.
“I have the church’s calling,” Maj-Gun explains to the Manager in the apartment on Boxing Day 1989, that she had carefully whined at the dinner table on that Sunday. That is in other words what she says: not about Tom Maalamaa and Susette Packlén and her father, or about the Happy Harlot and so on—or about her own shortcomings with her brother, in general, the metaphysical violence in them, that does not belong there. Brave but determined, this whine, she points that out here to the Manager now, since there were drawbacks to coming with a similarly brave announcement in this Pastor’s family, which was Old Testament–minded.
“The woman in the congregation is silent,” the Pastor, who was gentle despite his religious indomitability and strictness, which unfortunately unfortunately still had to come before everything, sorrowfully determined in the presence of his daughter but looked at her with an endless gentleness and started speaking about the work of the deaconship as a true challenge to her… um… femininity. At that point he had some difficulty again because she was just a teenager after all, almost genderless in her own eyes too. That DESIRE in her from the DAY OF DESIRE, for example the Girl from Borneo, was not Woman’s Dawning Sexuality that would gradually lead to a balanced marital sensuality that could then be stimulated further with sex tips from all the magazines and regular childbirth but that was mankind’s happy horrible amoral physicality, wonderful on the one hand, but no show-off, also terrible and dangerous as a-moral is, but crossing all boundaries: wanted to enjoy enjoy, caress, play… feel… her life, her life force without all the boundaries. Without gender, a life force unpersonified and so on, but no more about that now—there is also something here with the Manager now, the mood, during all of these days, which makes it so that it is important not to travel forward with too many words, move carefully, with caution.
But papa Pastor had, in other words, become a bit shy in regard to femininity, which implied certain things, not to mention at the dinner table, as it were. Maybe he was also thinking about the fact that his beloved daughter was in the process of growing up, going out into life, away from him. “Deaconship.” He got hold of himself again… which had been such a… um… challenge and source of happiness for his dear sister Liz and his dear wife: dear dear Shadow Inga-Britta who always smiled so pleasantly—it was true!—at all of the amusing phrases at the dinner table, considerately poured more brown gravy over new pieces of steak on everyone’s plates. With rowanberry jelly, mmmm, made from berries she picked herself.
The Manager, when he hears that, listens amused but quickly gets a rascallike glint in his eyes, familiar from other places, it strikes Maj-Gun. Of course the newsstand, and in some way, despite everything that has happened, how wonderful, what a happy recognition. And then says in a sober tone of voice that maybe we should have a small bit of snuff. “I knew your father when he lived here in the District.” He chuckles. “We were brothers in the Lions Club,” and ho ho ho, “at that man’s house, who is one of the nicest people I’ve met, there was a lot of open-mindedness. Oh, Maj-Gun, you’re a good storyteller, so lively, self-willed, enticing. But, unfortunately, your father, he probably isn’t fundamentally inclined at all.”
He was right of course, but in some way, what Maj-Gun could get irritated about at the newsstand, especially with Susette Packlén, was when someone did not believe her, when she was questioned about her stories that she liked to tell when there was an audience, does not bother her now.
Rather it was a bit nice not to be steered onto the right road but still, within this framework, I am not without space, can it be like that, with the Manager, that, here?
And the feeling, like a seed, the beginning of one, do you even dare say it—a rose, so powerful inside you. Back to reality again, it is not the newsstand, not the other apartment, the rooms in the attics, the rectory—but here?
“Maj-Gun,” the Manager starts, but then he does not really know what to say.
“Well, it was just a story anyway,” says Maj-Gun. “Manager, I like telling stories. And in some way, Manager, there is still a grain of t
ruth to what you say. Or it should be like that. You carry something to its point in order to make it clear. Though sometimes in the newsstand I got the feeling that you can tell, say, whatever, as long as it sounds good, has flow so to speak. But it isn’t like that, Manager. You can’t say just anything.
“I mean, becoming a pastor. It was just a thought… among many others. At the time.
“And, Manager,” she adds after a little while, “we were a family, at the rectory, that liked telling stories… not my brother Tom of course, he would rather hold speeches and lectures. Reason. He can reason, he can. About almost anything. But I don’t want to reason about just anything. I want to say something I believe in.
“But we had quite a lot of fun together sometimes, there at the rectory.” And then, in the midst of all the emotion and warmth inside, she comes to the almost most important thing of all: “And how is Father doing?”
The Manager smiles, says just fine and that he has been worried about her, of course.
“You know what, Manager,” Maj-Gun says, the last thing she says that strange, perplexing evening. “I think I’ve always wanted to become a lawyer too.”
The Manager smiles, tousles her hair, and then they go to bed—and that night, is it not as though he played Carmen, a rose you threw at me, a little bit louder than usual?
FLAMING CARMEN
ON HOLY INNOCENTS’ DAY, the twenty-eighth of December 1989, when Maj-Gun turns thirty, the Manager gives her The Law Book as a present. Bound in red, unbearably heavy and in small print, wrapped in glaring red silk paper with a similar indecently colored bow around it, which Maj-Gun tears apart in an attack of birthday girl happiness that knows no boundaries, as if all of the happy birthdays she has had that have lived their quiet lives inside her flame up in one moment, and she throws her arms around the Manager’s neck.
Remains clinging. A few seconds. An eternity. The Manager carefully but gently loosens Maj-Gun’s hands from his neck.
“Now I finally get to read articles,” Maj-Gun adds but softer, because both of them are a bit embarrassed. “At the newsstand I mean. Maybe the newsstand really is my calling.”
The Manager does not answer, does not look up, he is suddenly completely and entirely occupied with transferring the birthday cake from the cardboard box from the bakery in the town center to a cake plate that is really just an ordinary plate. But he has put a paper doily with edging under it so it will look extra festive: an Enormouscake, with green piping and a sugar bud, a small pink rose on top. And then there is coffee in the kitchen that must not be allowed to boil over and all the cups and saucers need to be set out and the silver spoons that he has six of in a special case, stored in a special cabinet in the living room.
Maj-Gun grows quiet, in other words, sits down on the chair and neither of them says anything for a good while.
I love you sweet child never change! But the Manager, who almost said that a long time ago in the newsstand and almost put his hand out over the counter in an almost irresistible eagerness to pinch Maj-Gun Maalamaa on the cheek. So overwhelmed by who she was, who she is, all her pretty quotes too, from “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings” and otherwise, all her oddities. “I love you don’t ever change!” Or, now, two days ago, that evening when Maj-Gun found out about everything, for example that she had not murdered her friend as she thought and would not be spending the rest of her life in prison, and they had spoken about the future, what would become of her, later: how the Manager, when he had gone to his room on the other side of the wall that night, played Carmen like always, at a low volume, but still a little louder than usual. Or? And, as if in the midst of everything it had been a message to her, Maj-Gun. The rose that you threw at me—a seed that had been planted, the Manager, was it imagined? A seed that had grown during the night and the days that followed. Even if new music played on the record player, in the middle of the day too, Old Men’s Choir Singing in the Fellowship Hall, a choir in which the Manager as well as her own father, papa Pastor, had been members, sung the highest part—her father, “with true pastor’s vibrato in his voice,” as her father had said at the rectory once. Maj-Gun suddenly remembers how her father had said it, rascal-like, as it were, because regardless of how much her father liked singing, he had never really had much of a singing voice but he had, in other words, never made a secret of it either. More than generously admitted to himself, among others, the following: that the Manager had been as right as anything when he soberly claimed in the middle of Maj-Gun’s somewhat free-flying story where the Pastor had the lead role in another way that no, no father certainly had not been strict, not the least bit “Old Testament–minded” at all. Yes, of course, so right, for real. At papa Pastor’s there was, there is, a lot of open-mindedness. And Maj-Gun may have wanted to say that to the Manager too when they were listening to the men’s choir, but drag father into this now, in this mood during these days, full days, where everything that has been said, and not been said, all the silence and all the music have become one peculiar hidden message about the will to and the longing for touch. It is a rose blooming, but Manager, don’t you hear WHAT they’re singing? All possible invisible threads between them, and the Manager has, without a doubt, felt it too because in the middle of everything he cleared his throat and started, in an extra-objective tone of voice, to lament the lack of men in the District who enjoy singing, resulting in that the Men’s Choir, shortly after Maj-Gun’s father quit as vicar in the parish and received a new post in another municipality, had to be put down altogether. “He was a real enthusiast,” the Manager tried to explain further and the social life in the municipality in general owed so much to her father too… but then he suddenly grew quiet in the middle of that thought and that sentence, stopped. But the music, undeniably, roaring about roses, played on on the record player.
I love you over the plains, church bells? Nah, no. Rather, like this: a road like a path that hesitantly reveals itself in the woods, out of a fog that scatters, for a while. But it can disappear, the fog can thicken again, at any moment. So—hold on to it, the road, the image of a road, carve it into yourself like a map before it is gone.
A rose, your rose, which is thrown at you, your Winter Garden. Take the golden ribbons, Maiden, go into the dance—
And here, now, the birthday. The Manager has finally gotten everything on the table, clears his throat. Ceases with all other business as well, sits down, like her, on a chair, on his chair, on the other side of the dining table and neither of them says anything. They just sit there on their respective sides of the table: saucers, coffee cups, the Enormousbirthdaycake like a half coconut, turned upside down, swollen with a pink, wartlike bud on top. The Law Book, the red silk paper fallen under the table, the bow. Maj-Gun looks down between her legs, picks up the bow, the ribbon, winds it around her fingers, damp, shiny. “Just because you’re a count, Manager,” she starts, looks up, around her, in the room. Two hellish angels with golden stars, bodies made out of empty toilet paper rolls, standing on the television set, weak wings painted with water color, Sister Blue, Sister Red, or whatever it was, The Astronaut? The Nuclear Physicist? Guess which one is which? But HOW interesting, Manager, couldn’t care less. “Just because you’re a count, Manager,” she tries again but it does not work, suddenly the sentence has gotten stuck in her head, the words that were grinding inside her. But at the same time, in this attempt and that sentence which artificially starts running out of her mouth, from “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings,” the newsstand, which goes on and goes on, because it is so long, Count, then it changes and is transformed into a seriousness that is—enormous. “Forget it, Manager,” she mumbles because she does not get any farther, “just forg—”
“Maj-Gun,” the Manager says then, almost pleading.
And Maj-Gun looks up at him lightning quick, meets his gaze, a bird in my hand? “Shall I tell you something?” she asks quickly, heatedly suddenly with an urgency that surprises even her.
The Manager brig
htens, another story, and you can see he is also relieved. “I like your stor—”
“Something I read, in the newsstand, once.” Maj-Gun cuts him off. “Magazines, informations, Manager, everything was there. About this and the other, quotes, ideas, this and that from here and from there. Something about reincarnation, Manager—
“About people who were convinced they had a life before this one. Famous people everyone had been prior to this life, princesses and the right-hand man of kings, Vincent van Gogh and the like.
“You know what, Manager?” Maj-Gun grows quiet for a moment before continuing, more carefully, hesitating. “I think… about myself… that I—was a relatively lonely person in my previous life.
“Someone who—was in the Lions Club and who liked spending time outdoors, for example. Picking rowanberries with the Nature Friends, collecting plants in a herbarium, catching butterflies. At least in theory, seen as an idea: you could never get away forever, not to mention that the days were long, and you were often tired. But someone who watched the news every evening, quarter past six, eight thirty, both broadcasts. And listened a lot to—music, opera music, for example.
“Had management as my great interest. On the side of course, in addition to the daily tasks during the day, at school.
“Later then… yes, he met someone. Someone who, let us say, might have been from… the Lions Club. Another lion, one of those newcomers. Certain people… other people I mean.” And when Maj-Gun speaks now she is not speaking in a rascal-like way, but hesitantly, her voice filled with seriousness. “Other people who don’t devote themselves to that sort of activity under the guise of friendship and charity, think that only they have interesting lives. They are the only ones who have creativity and personality and a thousand and one wines to taste before they die, a lot of quality in their daily lives and jogging… They, these people, are wrong, of course.
The Glitter Scene Page 21