And then things fall apart for Doris Flinkenberg for real.
When I find out about this, I am already deep into my own life, have had a child, am living in Torpesonia at Bule Marsh, everything has already happened. I’m in the cousin’s house, the cousin’s papa is in the yard, I’m organizing things. “Good” girl, but with him it’s just a façade. A pile of old newspapers, in an old cabinet, otherwise just filled with disgusting things. A lot of old crosswords there. Doris and the cousin’s mama liked doing crosswords together, of course, in the cousin’s kitchen, during the time when Björn was no longer there and Doris had moved into the room upstairs. But Doris never really had the patience for solving crossword puzzles properly, she got bored and started filling in her own silly words inside the squares. Too long, too many letters in each square, several squares where there was only supposed to be one. The cousin’s mama didn’t get angry at her about that either, just the opposite, it was just a Dorisoddity.
Well, I’m going to see one of those old magazines, one of those old crosswords with Doris’s own letters in it: a newspaper dated from exactly that fall, about a week before Doris died.
It will be listed there clearly in the squares. Helter skelter, too many letters, but still.
And when I have seen that I will never be able to return to the cousin’s house again. I mean, when the cousin’s papa is there.
Wait, I’ll explain more later, about the newspaper and what is listed in the crossword puzzle.
I just want to say two things, now. First, Doris. I hate Doris but Doris is a joker and Doris will, in her own way, save life at the cousin’s house. Will make it possible to go on afterward. Move on. Live on. Doris-light. And when Doris moves to the cousin’s house the cousin’s papa calms down too. Doris and the cousin’s papa will never fight with each other. Nor will they be “close” either. When Björn is gone and Bengt has moved out to the barn and Doris is the only one of the cousins left in the house, the cousin’s papa will shut the door to his room next to the kitchen. Coexistence.
And second: those of us who know what happened that night, with the American girl, and I who know about Björn, about everything—will never say anything to Doris about it.
Maybe we don’t do it for Doris, I don’t, in any case. But for the cousin’s mama. But that is no plan either. Nothing uttered. We just know, we three siblings, and what we know we keep quiet about, forever. Others know too. They’re keeping their mouths shut as well. The baroness, countryman Loman, maybe someone else.
•
But now back to the sunshine day, Doris who’s yelling “Rottenegger” at the cousin’s papa this day in the garden, imitating the cousin’s papa right in front of him when he has sat down in his chair again now and Doris is dancing around it.
He doesn’t get angry, just mutters; when Doris is in a dancing kind of mood it’s impossible for anyone to be angry at her.
The cousin’s mama is running in and out with the rugs. In the midst of all this she comes to me where I’m busy in the kitchen, the counter that needs to shine, whispers in my ear, “It will all work out!”
And winks, and without hesitating even though I don’t know the reason, I wink back. Will work out, in general, so happy.
•
Then evening falls. Björn who has gone to the Second Cape comes back, is drinking beer in the barn. Bengt whom there has been no sign of, no sign of, is with Eddie de Wire, for sure, in the boathouse on the Second Cape.
The cousin’s mama is not aware of these love affairs. She has never been interested in the story between Björn and Bengt and Eddie de Wire: in her eyes Bengt and Björn are her children, are still in some way just children.
And she’s thinking about other things now. Because just about then the cousin’s mama, who still has the summer day inside her, has—and Doris and the cousin’s papa who were joking with each other in the yard!—gone to the cousin’s papa in his room.
Set out for the cousin’s papa: money. Everything she saved in the glass jar, a bit more than she had a while ago, which wasn’t enough, in the laundry room up in the town center, and a little that she has borrowed from Björn too, he had some left over from his paycheck.
“Enough!” she said, triumphant. Then the cousin’s papa smiled his most sneering smile. He has been waiting for this, you see. I who have been in the kitchen and heard everything have suddenly understood this, like a bolt of lightning in my head, now, though one plus one, it should have been sorted a long time ago, already with the dart throwing in the yard. How the cousin’s papa was talking with Rita about the art of playing poker: you have to learn to read your opponent.
And this was in other words the moment the entire day was supposed to lead up to, he has decided, ahead of time. That is why he has been, and is, relatively sober too.
Some rat has been gnawing on his purse strings. Suddenly he had this “bag” in his hand too, held it up in front of Astrid. Has Astrid taken him for a fool? The cousin’s mama stood there for a few long seconds, lost her power of speech, not understood a thing.
The cousin’s papa did not care a bit about what the cousin’s mama has or hasn’t understood: he had a damned rat in his trap, damned Astriid, that is the main thing. Followed after Astrid who backed up, terrorstricken into the kitchen and hit the transistor radio that has been in the house during the cleaning that day and that Björn, this evening, because he has been drinking beer in the barn has not come to get, on the wall.
And thereafter, he went after the cousin’s mama. Rita and Doris disappeared from the yard where they had been waiting for supper, Rita quickly pulled Doris with her into the twins’ cottage—“Come, Doris, we can play cards.” And Doris who has an intuitive timidity for similar situations followed along. I was not able to go with them, I had to stay, I had understood that much inside, stay. It isn’t Astrid’s fault after all.
I ran out to the barn and got Björn.
Björn came to the cousin’s house.
I snuck into the parlor, to the closet.
•
There isn’t so much more to say about that night. The cousin’s papa who went after Astrid, Björn who got in the middle and put a stop to it.
And then he confessed, about the money. He had taken all the money, him and no one else. Grown out of the moped, wants to buy a motorcycle.
No one else’s name was mentioned. As said. I’m in the closet, the parlor, even if you can’t see, you can hear.
The cousin’s papa didn’t believe Björn. Björn went to the barn, got this money. What is left, after what he gave to the cousin’s mama, and what hasn’t been spent on the beer.
I don’t even think he threw it at the cousin’s papa, over the kitchen. Said, simply nothing. Just stood there, it seems, accepted it. An eternity. While the cousin’s papa was really crazy, no game anymore, told Björn who Björn really is. The genes. Bad blood. Björn was someone on whose birth certificate it read “father unknown.” The cousin’s mama’s sobs, crying.
Björn grew still, remained silent, accepted it.
All of the time that had run away from him, all of the unused teenage years. I guess. I don’t know.
•
Björn leaves, stays away.
No one, not even the cousin’s mama, follows him.
I’m in the closet and I’m afraid. Just afraid. I have the pistol. If someone comes I’ll shoot.
That fear is over when I sneak through the house out into the yard a few hours later. I have the pistol with me. I no longer know why I’m holding it in my hand.
•
Movements in the morning-night, many people are in motion. I don’t know that. Nothing about Bule Marsh, the American girl. At least not for the time being. I don’t go there.
A moment, when I have come out. Then it’s like this. If not like another landscape, then another place. Outer space. The surface of the moon. Where I am an astronaut, heavy movements in a space suit, reflective glass over my eyes, and a helmet on my head.
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Then it passes. The day, the morning comes to me. Not normal, but real, in any case. Rita, I need to see Rita. How I had forgotten about Rita, not just this night, but for a long time already. How I almost wanted to get away from her.
Early morning, the sun rising, the glitter of sunshine between the trees—so wonderful, and me here. Dew on the grass, it is late summer, usually tickles in an especially disgusting way when Rita and I run to Bule Marsh from the twins’ cottage. Barefoot, that is also an idea. Hard skin that needs to be toughened, us in our swimsuits, towels wrapped around our bodies, my towel is blue, Rita’s red. It must still be a little after that point in time that I draw near the twins’ cottage.
Suddenly, a brief moment, astronaut again. Or: alienation. Caution. Hesitation. Or maybe just: intuition. I don’t go in right away, peer in through the window on the side facing the field first. That is lucky.
Rita’s bed is empty. She has already gone to Bule Marsh. Without me. But in the middle of the room in a sleeping bag like a stuffed sausage, Doris Flinkenberg. She’s still sleeping.
Doris. Not Doris now. Turn around, carefully. You don’t know with Doris. She’s always, even in her sleep, you’ve seen it in the cousin’s kitchen certain supper evenings, on her guard.
What I don’t know, am not going to see then, is how Doris, maybe awakened by some movement outside the twins’ cottage, wakes up, sees Rita’s bed, and is in a hurry. Rita who promised to wake her and take her with her to the marsh, she was going to get to participate in the training. Doris with hasty steps takes the blue swimsuit and the blue towel that are hanging to dry on the damper of the kitchen stove, my swimming things. And runs out. Doesn’t look around, is thinking only about Bule Marsh, a new experience, swimming practice, Rita—maybe she’ll become a real swimmer, too?
•
A little while later at the twins’ cottage I turn around and start walking. Hesitation again.
But the summer day, here, it is still coming toward me! Bule Marsh, Rita, Miss Andrews!
That is when I notice that I have a pistol in my hand. I try and put it inside the waistband of my pants, hide it. It doesn’t work, it’s too heavy. And otherwise too. I can’t carry a pistol with me, not anywhere.
I go back toward the cousin’s house, I need to take the pistol back.
•
The closer I get to the cousin’s house the more terrorstricken I become. Like a stain among everything that is beautiful, despite everything, in my head.
Björn, the barn, I go there. The barn is empty. Beer bottles.
Then I see, from the barn, the cousin’s mama. She is coming, walking from an outbuilding that is located at the edge of the woods to the left, a ways away from all of the other buildings. I don’t know it then. But she is walking quickly, she is pale, she almost doesn’t see me even though I run out and stand in front of her.
She says with a voice that makes me understand something about the outbuilding that of course I don’t understand then, but terrible, certainly enough, that I should go away, home and not to the outbuilding.
She’s angry too. She is panting. Fury. In any case, I give her the pistol. Suddenly I think something strange. The cousin’s house. “The idiot.”
It’s a strange thought. As luck would have it I don’t say what I am thinking out loud. It isn’t real either. It is a dream.
The pistol. The cousin’s mama looks at me. Then, in that moment, I see all of my idiocy. My landscape, where I am and have always been. In her eyes.
She hisses in anger that I should take it back.
To reality. I run into the house, the parlor, with all my might, I leave the pistol in the closet and run out, and away, away from here, up up to the hill on the First Cape, the house, the stone foundation, that is where I end up.
And there I am, back leaning against the foundation, the whole time, while I am waiting for Rita to come back. Or maybe I’m not waiting for Rita. Maybe I’m not waiting for anyone in particular. It’s the first time I’m completely alone.
It’s terrifying. I haven’t slept, I’m confused, what I experienced is atrocious. And it will continue, a long time. But in that loneliness there is also something else, something special. The summer day. Or, the winter day, or the day, the night—I’m here. My place.
And it is not the Winter Garden that we, some siblings, have been sitting here and “playing.” A game I don’t understand, I don’t have any imagination, I want to be here. I can be here, and alone. The summer day, glittering, here, which is spreading itself out, a panorama. The cousin’s house, the twins’ cottage, the woods, the outbuilding, the barn, the road. I see everything.
Yes. After this we’re going to sit here. Bengt, Rita, me. Three siblings, people look at us for a while in the District a bit strangely. It will pass. I am here.
And we’ll play the Winter Garden. Maybe even more intensely than before, for a while. Bengt when he has gotten over the shock, gets his speech back. But more hot tempered, so that the game falls apart for him, so to speak, despite dreams, buildings, don’t disappear anywhere. And Rita, who will “play” so that there will just be some quotes around it. She’s going to do something else. Maybe not that Winter Garden, Rita Strange, as it turns out. And not much will come of that either really. When the Winter Garden is there, for real. And I know that, the entire time. That it won’t be like that, because I know Rita, I know everything about her. She doesn’t really have—well, she lacks a certain perseverance. She grows tired. And besides, I know that too, you can’t make, build, for real, regardless of how much money and how many opportunities there are, out of opposition, like a revenge.
So in that way, even though I lack imagination, I know that I would have done it better. In a different way. The Winter Garden, on the Second Cape, I mean.
After this morning, this day, when the American girl dies in the woods at the marsh and Björn is also dead—there is already someone who knows, the cousin’s mama, with certainty, I just simply know: something terrible—being up here for a while. Rita and me, Bengt. Playing the Winter Garden.
It may look that way, on the outside. But it’s like this: and that loneliness which also gradually becomes a happiness, a confidence, it also starts here, exactly this morning, right here. I am not going to be there playing along. Even though it might look that way, I am sitting with them because it is easier. It is after all, me and Rita. I will sit there but my thoughts will be somewhere else. And later we will be grown up, a life will come later, and I will also have a lot, things that mean much more. And I will be here, continue to be here. But not my siblings. I am going to be able to leave the game, the Winter Garden, the stone foundation and everything. And then of course the most impossible: leave Rita. In my head.
•
Susette Packlén isn’t going to do anything to the cousin’s papa with the pistol even though it is lying out in the open. She is a colleague, but a friend as well, in some way: we knew each other, for a while. Are parallel so to speak, the same tenacity in both of us. Sun cats. Susette who is dancing on a floor, in one of those beautiful houses in Rosengården 2, in Rosengården, and on the avenues, stupid girl, but playful. She isn’t going to do that with the pistol to the cousin’s papa, which I regret that I had even thought. The cousin’s papa, what is that? That sort of thing passes too.
Bengt who inherits the house. It is a shock, I still thought it would be mine. That the cousin’s papa would have thought about me so much. But that passes too, almost right away—that resentment.
I will come back here, to the cousin’s house, one morning in November 1989. My brother Bengt will be lying in the parlor. Will have blown his head off. That is how it is. I know—he was washed up.
Then I will set fire to the house. There will have to be enough of tomorrows, consequences. It will have to be here and now. And it will come to me, and Johanna too. And Maj-Gun Maalamaa. I like her. Always have. In reality that feeling started early, I was just a child. It was during the time when B
jörn was gone and Doris was suddenly in the house and was taking up everything, had to have everything everything—was so happy and fulfilled, and you couldn’t deny her anything. At the same time, how you disappeared. And the cousin’s mama who disappeared completely. But you were simply, not a child. And yet, everyone saw it, of course, everyone felt it, Doris came with life, light, the future, and everything. As I said, we would have gone under otherwise, without Doris Flinkenberg.
But still. Doris. For example that first fall after everything, before you had really gotten used to everything new, found your place, that state between child that would gradually become a real youth, it would be a relief as well—but then, you got tired and irritated, even though you were supposed to be an adult, restrained, happy despite everything with Doris and for the cousin’s mama (which you were, of course!) but still, there was never really space for that happiness inside you. And Bengt who was gripped by the general giddiness of giving a lot of welcome gifts to Doris who, after all the grief and woe, was allowed to come to the cousin’s house and become a full member there, and the cousin’s papa who also hadn’t become “kind” but “bearable,” we were at a Christmas bazaar at the fellowship hall, the cousin’s mama and all the children, and Bengt won the big fruit basket that was the first prize for the Christmas lottery. And gave, because Doris had become delighted with all of the beautiful fruit, the basket to her immediately. But then there came a girl, the Pastor’s daughter, Maj-Gun Maalamaa in a creepy mask, and quite simply scratsch, stuck her hand through the cellophane that was covering the contents of the basket and took the largest, most beautiful green apple, right in front of Doris Flinkenberg’s nose. Who became angry of course and stamped on the ground and Maj-Gun Maalamaa had to say she was sorry several times, in the kitchen of the fellowship hall, and the Pastor himself furious at her. But we got, all of us children, candy that the Pastor offered us because he was kind, and Maj-Gun accepted the scolding but ha ha ha she finally shouted at last and just ran away, she didn’t regret it. Can’t be helped, but it felt good. And I’ve told Maj-Gun about it too, maybe I’ll tell it one more time, it will be part of this story. That certain things, scenes, at first glance meaningless get their claws into you from the beginning and make it so that you can never doubt them or hesitate about them, like in your heart, as the cousin’s mama would have said.
The Glitter Scene Page 41