The Glitter Scene (31 page)

•

They meet in the middle of the square, as if they had arranged to meet in that exact spot. Of course they have not, they barely know each other. “My deepest condolences,” Maj-Gun says in rectory language, a language that resides in her bone marrow but she despises how it automatically pours out of her in that moment.

Because what she sees: “a wild pain.” In that face, in those eyes, in some way the entire posture. Winter jacket is buttoned halfway, no hat in the bitter cold, scarf wound too tightly so that glimpses of thin white skin shine through the knitting—indefensible. No. No façade here, no rosy nights or birthdays, nothing. But—accidents.
The folk song
. Has many verses. Same thing in every one. Pearls on a necklace. An eternal repetition. Over and over again.

“Such a different way of looking at time.” An old cassette tape in an old room, the renter’s room, played and played, a few months back in time. Maj-Gun suddenly hears it NOW, in her head, and so clearly: a whole story rolled out, again.

The Boy in the woods
. Susette in the hangout. And again: “What are you babbling about?” Freeze that picture now. It does not help.

“I love you because you killed for love.”

“What are you babbling about?”

The Boy in the woods. A stranger. She did not know him. Except as someone in a story, her story. No idea who he really was. But he, who he was later: in the room, the cousin’s house, before she had gone to the Second Cape and the boathouse and before a hellish snowstorm had started outside while she was lying, sleeping in the boathouse, dreaming about the hayseeds who were shooting on the square, and before she was awoken by a shadow outside the window, on the veranda.

But her in that house. “What are you babbling about?” She had already wished then that she said what she was first inclined to say, aside from all of the stories, everything: “But dear friend. Regardless of who you are, you can’t stay here in this shithole, the cold, come away now. I’ll lend you money, we’ll buy you a bus card!” But she had not said that. Instead, that other thing.

“What are you babbling about?” He did not say it once but two–three–four times and he was already cuckoo drunk. And she was smoking cigarettes, smoking cigarettes and then, case in point … dot dot dot what had happened had happened, not much else to say about it.

But: the alienation. There is no story. And the terrible: she knew nothing about him. Had never known.

“A wild pain.” But what had happened had happened, cannot unhappen, that is true as well.

•

Like the realism here now, on the square, almost takes the wind out of Maj-Gun despite the fact that maybe it is not visible because Solveig does not say anything. Not, “He fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand,” as the Manager had said, or something similar. Or about the
funeral, which the Manager had also mentioned to Maj-Gun: the cremation, the simple memorial service, no one else present except Solveig, her daughter Irene, and Tobias. A sister, Rita, who was supposed to come but never showed up.

But then, when the Manager told Maj-Gun this she had mainly focused on the angels on the television set: how ugly they were, those angels, Manager, CAN’T we get rid of them?

“Maj-Gun,” Tobias said then, movingly. “Tobias,” Maj-Gun replied. And then, they carried on for a while, “Maj-Gun,” “Tobias,” “Maj-Gun,” “Tobias.”

•

“Have you started working again? Wasn’t it the newsstand?” THAT is what Solveig asks now, as if in passing, the only thing she asks Maj-Gun at all.

Maj-Gun, a shake of the head, a mumble, almost inaudible. That well … she is going to move, probably. Start going to school, probably, study law at the university.

“I’ve heard,” says Solveig. “Tobias told me.” And yes, the angels again, remembers the Manager’s, “my friends, goddaughters.” As said, that connection is so familiar but suddenly, here now with Solveig in front of her, in the middle of the day, truly fresh information, like a scoop.

“Tobias is kind,” Solveig says without any particular feeling, as if it was something she has said a thousand times before. “What would we do without Tobias?”

“Tobias.” How Solveig says it, that self-evidence, that right to ownership.
It was a shame about those girls
—no, it was never hers, Maj-Gun’s, could never be.

The Manager, the Tobias Animal:
that
was hers, that closeness. And, of course, it is some sort of gilded story
about the future, how it would be like that, regardless of where Maj-Gun finds herself in the world, the connection would remain. Letters, phone calls, “How’s it going?” “How are you doing?” and so on. But it is only a story because it does not turn out like that. When Maj-Gun, in about five and a half years from this point in time, becomes a board certified lawyer, she is going to invite Tobias to her graduation party, but he kindly replies by letter that he will not be coming—something to do with school, something that prevents him from coming, insurmountable. But he sends flowers, some kind of orchids, no roses.

And yes, it will also happen later in life that she calls the Manager herself. Late in the evenings, nights, farther in the future, from her rooms. Dials the number, but for the most part it rings emptily. Of course, then she remembers that the Manager sleeps in the bedroom with the door closed or has the music on, and if he is sleeping he sleeps like she sleeps when she sleeps, and it is still for the most part, deep, without dreams. And if someone answers, she becomes mute. Though he must know that she is the one on the other end of the line: “Maj-Gun” he will get out only once after a lot of silence on his end. But then suddenly she does not know what she should say and hangs up and later she stops making these strange phone calls in the middle of the night. And then in reality that story ends, the one about the Animal Child and the Tobias Animal—the story about it from a certain perspective,
the only
closeness that existed.

You cannot step into the same water twice. But you
still
have to go there with your foot, dip, dip, move it around, over and over again.

Which also is, quote, “mankind’s predicament.” Her own exceptional formulation, one of them. For example from all of those appeals for trials she is going to write for work, for the defense, at the law firm—though fewer there than at the Municipal Legal Assistance Bureau in the north.

In and of itself, most of those speeches that she writes she never gives at all—in contrast to her brother Tom Maalamaa, in the service of the international organization,
him
, on well-paid podiums, he can talk. She just sits at home in her rooms and writes them: walks from room to room to room, different kinds of views to look at in order to find inspiration for the task at hand. Thick, fantastic woods, as said, broad views, horizons, perspectives.

Walks there and if she is in that kind of a mood and is thinking, writes as a means of passing the time.

And it is not that bad. A bit lost. Has lost something, but it is not very dramatic, just as it is, and she is not particularly lonely either.

Djeesss
 … nah.
Tass tass
in feng-shuied spaces, on warm wooden flooring, in rag socks.

Because otherwise, during those times: has toned down the “offensive” in herself a long time ago, which she would get criticized for already at the beginning of her college career. “Maj-Gun, you don’t need to attack like a hyena, going right for the jugular.

“There is nothing wrong with strong opinions, a strong belief in right and wrong is the backbone of all legal proceedings, the fertile soil from which the judicial system originates …” blah blah blah ink squiggled in the margins of her notebook, talk talk … while she looks up, smiles, at the lecturer whose name is Markus.

“A hyena does not go for the jugular, Markus,” she says. And djeessus, it sometimes still whistles silently between her teeth.

Sanded away. And in reality, her imbalance during that first period at the university is due to a long period of loneliness and sun and sea, and the child—like a want. Also a physical want. How she milked her breasts, read true stories about surrogate mothers.
True Crimes
. Because nah, there really is not a single experience in life that is just yours.

Come and see my gallery
. Read for her entrance exams, walked around in rooms, whitewashed walls, admired landscapes, views, the sea in different ways, the foam on the waves, the horizon, the patio.

“After the Scarsdale Diet, anything is possible.” It was a lasting expression during her college years, afterward. “My transformation.”

Otherwise: age has been an advantage. Partially the visible, that she had been circa ten years older than most of her classmates. Partially the other, the timelessness.

He became her lover later, for many years, the lecturer, the corporate lawyer Markus.

•

“Solveig,” Maj-Gun suddenly bursts out here on the square in the town center in the month of January 1990, with a sudden urgency that almost makes her stammer. “I don’t know how much you know,” she starts, does not even know how she is going to continue but, regardless of what is has been and is like with everything, after all she,
someone
, has to get something sensible out. “I would like to say something. That I—liked him very much. Your brother.”

Solveig grows stiff, stares at her.

And again, fleeting, such a
need
in Solveig’s eyes.

But she has pulled herself together in the next moment, cuts her off. “It’ll pass, Maj-Gun. You have your whole life in front of you. And I have my girl, Irene. I’m planning on building a new house at the old place.

“There must be life,” Solveig adds, like a conclusion. Which is of course something you just say but suddenly, exactly when she says it, Maj-Gun feels as though she is staring at her roundish belly.

This year I have something kicking in my stomach
.

“You think you’re so important with all of your secrets. Your damned songs. But shall I sing a folk song for you?
” The girl at the cemetery, the lass with the folk song, Doris Flinkenberg, the last time she was there. But it was not Doris who was singing that time, that song, it was Maj-Gun herself, with the mask on.
The Angel of Death Liz Maalamaa:
Maj-Gun who wanted to tease her, get back at her, angry because Doris had not wanted to talk to her during the summer and had gone and tattled on her to the church caretaker who, furthermore, had gone to papa Pastor and told him everything.

“Last year I walked with the boys in the field. This year I have something kicking in my stomach!” Maj-Gun had sung, she had not wanted to hear any of the girl’s secrets at all at that point. “What do you do if you know something terrible, something everyone has known, all of your cousins, everyone but you?”

Doris, who had been so depressed and spoken so strangely, had, in other words, not gotten any response from Maj-Gun at that point, just a ridiculous song that of course did not exactly make her any happier in any
way. But all of her fear of Maj-Gun had, in that moment, fallen away from her anyway; she had just wanted to turn away bam, run away, you could see that, but Maj-Gun had been standing in the way, singing and preventing free passage in the solitary glow of a cemetery lantern in the otherwise compact October darkness.

Until Doris Flinkenberg herself in the middle of Maj-Gun’s stupid song hissed, angrily, almost disgusted: “What the hell do you want from me you damned idiot?”

Then Maj-Gun lost all interest and Doris Flinkenberg left and that was the last Maj-Gun had seen of her because Doris killed herself a few days later. But from there, when Maj-Gun had known that and had all the time in the world to think about Doris and what had been said between them—most of all, everything that had not been said but insinuated in passing,—from there, in any case, a crazy story was born.
The Boy in the woods
, which here, now in the middle of the square with Solveig, ends.

Like all stories end.

Here again, in absolute reality, realism.

Though the song does not stop because of that; Maj-Gun’s own little folk song, it keeps playing in her head and her body, like a mockery.

And Maj-Gun, on the square, fingers like ice cubes: all of the things she is carrying that slip from her hands, fall down on the ground. “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings,” the shirt, the carton of cigarettes, the opened pack of cigarettes among others. Because suddenly she has known, an insight that becomes formulated clearly first somewhat later but it comes to her exactly here and now. She cannot keep the child. She cannot. It was never hers.

“Here, the cigarettes.” Solveig helps her pick things up off the ground.

“And good luck with school!”

They go their separate ways, Maj-Gun and Solveig, each in her own direction on the square.

•

“You look fresh. Pale. But fresh. Have you also started dieting?”

“After the Scarsdale Diet, anything is possible. Strong character and discipline. Starting anything is difficult. Then it becomes a habit.”

And just a few minutes later Maj-Gun is sitting at the table in the cozy kitchen in the Sumatra house, where she lived as a renter for several years up until the beginning of November, stuffing down Danishes that her former landlady Gunilla had purchased expressly for this afternoon when she has a free period from school and Maj-Gun, as agreed, arrived to settle business. Pay the outstanding rent, empty the room, say good-bye. “Oh, sweet Maj-Gun we’re going to miss you, and the kids will miss you too! They’re at school now. Look at what they drew for you as a farewell present!”

A drawing representing a large monster sitting in a recliner: “Good-bye Terrible Animal Child!” it reads under the drawing in straggling middle school handwriting followed by a red heart, and it cannot be helped, Maj-Gun is moved to tears; she likes those kids so much, the kids who would often stand at the door to her room with the desk and the Thinking Chair upstairs despite the fact that their parents, “Gunilla,” “Göran,” often rebuked them with
shhhh, the genius is working, don’t disturb! “Grrr
, Terrible Animal Child, come out and play!” The
Animal Child, that was Maj-Gun’s own name she used with the kids, she had come up with it herself.