Moominvalley in November (7 page)

CHAPTER 9
Mymble

M
YMBLE
was walking through the forest and she thought: it's nice being a mymble. I feel absolutely splendid from top to toe.

She liked her long legs and her red boots. On top of her head sat her haughty mymble hair-do, glossy and tight and a soft reddish-yellow like a little onion. She went through swamps and up hills and through the deep hollows that the rain had transformed into under-water landscapes, she walked quickly and sometimes she broke into a run just to feel how light and thin she was.

Mymble had got an urge to go and see her little sister, Little My, whom the Moomin family had adopted some time ago. She imagined that Little My was just as down-to-earth and bad-tempered as ever and that she could still squeeze into a sewing-basket.

When Mymble arrived Grandpa-Grumble was sitting on the bridge fishing with a home-made contraption. He was wearing his dressing-gown, gaiters and hat, and holding an umbrella. Mymble had never seen him close to, and she scrutinized him carefully and with a certain curiosity. He was surprisingly small.

'I know who you are all right,' he said. 'And I am Grandpa-Grumble and nobody else! And I know you have parties on the sly because I can see the lights on in your windows all night!'

'If you believe that, you'd believe anything,' Mymble answered unconcerned. 'Have you seen Little My?'

Grandpa-Grumble pulled his contraption out of the water. It was empty.

'Where's Little My?' Mymble asked.

'Don't shout!' Grandpa-Grumble yelled. 'There's nothing wrong with my ears, and the fish may get scared and swim away!'

'They did that long ago,' said Mymble, and ran off. Grandpa-Grumble sneezed and crept further in under his umbrella. His brook had always been full of fish. He looked down into the brown water rushing under the bridge in a glistening swollen mass, carrying with it thousands of floating, half-drowned objects which sped past and disappeared, all the time passing and disappearing... Grandpa-Grumble's eyes started to ache and he shut them in order to be able to see his own brook again, a clear brook with a sandy bottom and full of darting shiny fish...

There's something wrong here, he thought anxiously. The bridge is all right, it's the right one. But I'm what's quite new... His thoughts drifted away and he fell asleep.

*

Fillyjonk sat on the veranda with blankets over her legs and looking as though she owned the whole valley and wasn't very pleased about it.

'Hallo,' said Mymble. She could see at once that the house was empty.

'Good morning,' Fillyjonk replied with the chilly charm she used for mymbles. 'They've all gone away. Without a word. One should feel grateful that the door wasn't locked!'

'They never lock their doors,' Mymble said.

'Yes they do,' Fillyjonk whispered and leant forward confidentially. 'They have locked doors. The clothes-cup-board upstairs is locked! Of course, that's where they keep their valuables, things they're afraid of losing!'

Mymble looked at Fillyjonk, her anxious eyes and her hair all in tight curls with a hair-grip in each and her feather-boa. Fillyjonk hadn't changed. The Hemulen came up the garden-path, he was raking leaves into a basket.

'Hallo,' said the Hemulen. 'So you're here too, are you?'

'Who's that?' Mymble asked.

'I brought a present with me,' Fillyjonk said behind her.

'Toft,' the Hemulen explained, 'he's helping me a bit in the garden.'

'A very fine china vase for Moominmamma! 'said Fillyjonk shrilly.

'Really,' said Mymble. 'And you're raking leaves.'

'I'm making the place look nice,' the Hemulen added.

Suddenly Fillyjonk shouted: 'You mustn't touch old leaves! They're dangerous! They're full of putrefaction!' She dashed to the front of the veranda with the blankets trailing behind her. 'Bacteria!' she screamed. 'Worms! Maggots! Creepy-crawlies! Don't touch them!'

The Hemulen went on raking. He screwed up his stubborn, innocent face and repeated loudly: 'I'm making the place look nice, for Moominpappa.'

'I know what I'm talking about,' said Fillyjonk menacingly, and came closer. Mymble watched them. Old leaves? she thought. People are odd... She went into the house and up to the attic. It was very cold there. The guest room facing south was just the same as it had always been, the white washstand, the faded picture of a storm ages ago, the blue eiderdown. The water-jug was empty and there was a dead spider at the bottom of it. Fillyjonk's suitcase was in the middle of the room and there was a pink nightdress lying on the bed.

Mymble took the suitcase and the nightdress into the guest room facing north and shut the door. The guest room facing south was hers, just as certainly as there was an old comb of hers underneath the lace doiley on the washstand. She lifted the doiley and the comb was there. Mymble sat down by the window, undid her lovely long hair and began to comb it. Down below, the morning quarrel continued noiselessly outside the closed windows.

Mymble combed and combed. Her hair crackled with small electric sparks and became glossier and glossier. She stared out of the window absent-mindedly at the garden, which the autumn had changed and turned into a strange and deserted landscape. The trees were like grey stage decorations, screens standing one behind the other in the wet mist, all quite bare. The noiseless quarrel in front of the veranda continued. They were waving their paws about, running this way and that and looking as unreal as the trees. Except Toft, he was standing quite still, staring at the ground.

*

A broad shadow came down the valley, more rain was coming. And there was Snufkin walking over the bridge. It must be him because no one else wore such green clothes. He stopped at the lilac-bushes and looked. Then he came closer, but now he was walking differently, much more slowly. Mymble opened the window.

The Hemulen flung the rake away. 'Huh! Organize indeed!' he said.

Fillyjonk said into the air: 'It was different in Moominmamma's day.'

Toft stood looking at her boots, he could see that they were too tight. The rain had come. The last sorrowful leaf relinquished its hold and floated down to the veranda, the rain got heavier and heavier.

'Hallo,' said Snufkin.

They looked at each other.

'It seems to be raining,' said Fillyjonk nervously. 'No one is at home.'

The Hemulen said: 'So nice that you're here.' Snufkin made a vague gesture, tentatively, and crept in under the shadow of his hat. He turned round and went back to the river. The Hemulen and Fillyjonk followed him. They stood a little way away and waited while he put up his tent next to the bridge, and they watched him creep inside.

'It's nice that you're here,' the Hemulen said again.

They stayed there for a while and waited in the rain.

'He's gone to sleep,' the Hemulen whispered. 'He's tired.'

Mymble saw them coming back to the house. She shut the window and carefully put her hair up in a beautiful little tight knot.

There's nothing as lovely as being comfortable and nothing is so simple. Mymble didn't feel sorry for those people she met and then forgot, and she tried not to get mixed up in what they were doing. She regarded them and their mess with amused surprise.

The eiderdown was blue. Moominmamma had collected the down for six years and now the eiderdown lay in the guest room facing south inside its cover of crotcheted lace waiting for someone to be comfortable. Mymble decided to have a hot-water bottle at her feet, she knew where they were kept in this house. She would wash her hair in rain-water every fifth day. She would take a little nap at dusk. In the evening the kitchen would be warm from the cooking.

You can lie on a bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, or wade through a swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It's very easy to enjoy yourself.

The November day moved slowly towards twilight. Mymble crept in under the eiderdown, stretched her long legs until they cracked and curled her toes round the hot-water bottle. It was raining outside. In a couple of hours she would feel hungry enough to eat Fillyjonk's dinner and perhaps she would feel like talking. But at the moment she didn't need to do anything except sink down in the warmth, the whole world was a single great big eiderdown which encircled a mymble and everything else was outside.

Mymble never dreamed, she slept when she felt like it and woke up when there was anything to make it worthwhile waking up.