The Glitter Scene (44 page)

It had lasted a week maybe, then she left on her own, gone on her way. Of course she could not have stayed there with the guys, had to get organized, earn her own money, a life
.

And of course she had to do something about Janos too. That was obvious. It was not that she thought about it all the time—just the opposite, it almost surprised her at first how easy it was not to think about it. In the apartment with the boys, the parties, the beer, Bengt and Magnus. In the city by the sea, all the people and places, the cars, buses, all the sounds. Different kinds of weather, sunshine, rain and thunder. It evaporated; sometimes she had to, when she was feeling lonely, take Janos’s passport out of her bag (she had not taken it from him, she was the one who was carrying everything in the woods) and look at it in order to understand that it was real, it had happened
,
something
had happened. The rock in her hand, her on her knees with the rock: an image that remained exactly that, an image, like in the beginning with Liz Maalamaa, in Portugal, forced its way out. There, before the crying, in order to later vaporize again
.

His name and date of birth and place of birth and similar facts that are usually listed in passports were listed in his. The only thing that was not new information was the first name, Janos. Otherwise she gradually remembered only someone who had clowned about with her in that nothing-language, eventually kissing her right in front of all of the other youths there on the strawberry fields,
in the middle of Finland, dry hot days, crawling around on their knees in earthy rows, of course gradually hating strawberries too
.

But she had nightmares of course. In the beginning, in the apartment, with the boys. But on the other hand there had always been people there, “the mascot,” she had liked it, “our princess, so sweet,” the one no one was allowed to touch, and as soon as she opened her eyes from sleeping she had been in a story like that
.

She had told Bengt and Magnus that she had lost her friend by the side of the road where they found her on the way from somewhere and picked her up in their car. They had not asked any questions, of course, Bengt and Magnus, only tried to say “forget about him,” they probably thought that Janos had run off on his own, gotten a ride in some other car and not woken her while she was sleeping on the rock by the side of the road
.

But then when she left the boys in the apartment she had said that she needed to find him. And maybe they thought that it was a bit beautiful too, the sweet girl who had not forgotten her friend—had to find him. Bengt, the Boy in the woods whom she met in the woods anew in October 1989, had said that anyway. Something along those lines, at least. Made it clear that he had liked her
.

Had to find Janos. She called around a little bit, went to the police station in the city by the sea of course and asked about him, but no one knew anything, nothing happened
.

She had not shown them the passport, not to anyone, but she had his full name from there that she could give to the police. But as said, nothing more about that, nothing had happened, no informations, and then she had just
about immediately gotten a job in home care and gotten an apartment and at the same time thrown that passport away. Tabula rasa
.

Time passed and quickly, gradually, all of that had become unreal. Like the time she had gotten a ride in the car from the boys, in the apartment, like being in a wood, that to
.

And she did not want to be in a wood, she was not like that. Not at all. She wanted to live normally, ordinary. And in time, the nightmares disappeared, and Janos, everything with Janos, the reality, the small reality that had existed for her, was pushed away completely, while at the same time Janos, “Poland,” became a story to turn to. With her mother, for example, whom she of course got in touch with and called, not regularly but every now and then. “Greetings from Poland,” for many years, in different ways, from the city by the sea, and from other places where she lived
.

And with Maj-Gun later, when she returned to the District when her mother was suddenly just dead. Though Maj-Gun had seen through her. “You weren’t in Poland, were you.” And when she lied about being pregnant when she suddenly, in her childhood home with all of the rug rags everywhere, had gotten such a terrible pain in her stomach
,
there must be life
it had also hurt inside her wordlessly, then Maj-Gun unraveled that lie as well. As if Maj-Gun, the only one, who had been able to see the rug rags, the only one who would have been able to understand the question: “Where is the loom?”

That Maj-Gun, who no longer existed. Or maybe she never existed. Majjunn Majjunn, like a sound only, from childhood, left in your mouth
.

As if they had been in the same room. But they were not. Not in the same room
.

“Hell, Susette, what are you doing with a revolver in your sauna bag?” Maj-Gun who should have seen that “need for protection.”

But Maj-Gun had been preoccupied, her talk. Talked, talked about Love. Told her stories, you were pulled along
.

No. Impossible. With Liz Maalamaa, in the bed, that story did not exist there, that rag, that fragment, forever, nowhere
.

“But don’t you understand, Susette? Love like a transformation. Like when the princess kisses the frog, the spell is broken. Or the white cat in the folk song that says to the prince, ‘Cut my throat and I will become a princess,’ and the prince does and she becomes one.”

Bengt. The Boy in the woods one morning in October. Where he had suddenly been and taken her hand as they left the woods. He had not seen through her, he had not seen anything really. And still: “The whole time I thought you were familiar in some way,” he had said, but meant, then a long time ago, in the apartment, when she was the mascot for a while. “That we would meet again.” He had not forgotten anything. And still you could see it in him: he had forgotten everything. “Completely washed up,” as Solveig had said, and strange too, there in the woods where she had initially recognized him as something all his own, separate: as the one who had been there, one of them, when she had once come from a wood, and given her a ride, “from somewhere to somewhere”—when she had realized that it was Bengt, Solveig’s brother, then she had not been surprised at all. But he looked exactly the way Solveig had described, “completely washed up,”
no entrance there to anything at all. If anything, then a reminder: “Once I was in a wood.” When she had met him in the woods again it had been in a terrible moment, just enough to understand that she had to get out of the woods, had been close to ending up there again, but out out of here and now
.

So there on the path she had pulled her hand out of his. They did not know each other at all, had never known. Not she him, not he her. He had shown up, of course, at her apartment, it had not even been a surprise, and she was forced to let him in of course. One time he and his friend helped her, she could not deny him that. But there had not been any “story.” He had his drawings on the wall, the Winter Garden, an exhibition, scribbly sketches, screaming meanings, like Screaming Toys, shut her ears to them when she looked at them so she avoided seeing them. And she wished he would leave even if she could not throw him out. But that story he spoke about, a coincidence that was like a stroke of luck, like winning the lottery, so to speak, “everything has gone to hell but I’m lucky at games,” he had said as well, also all sorts of idiotic things he spoke about while drunk and he was often drunk, almost all of the time. The Winter Garden. His sketches on the walls. A language. He liked speaking it
. Kapu kai.
Cuckoo
.

But she thought it would pass, and she was not there all the time, with him in the apartment. Had her job with Solveig, which she of course naturally had not said anything about her brother hanging out in her apartment. She could however remember something that Solveig said about her brother: “a dreamer who goes out of control.” And agree. Her personally, Susette, like Solveig, they
were parallel, as it were, neither of them in a dream, “a wood.”

And Tom Maalamaa, an old love, had started calling too. Life was moving slowly, somewhere. On the avenues. Being nothing, and new
.

So, the Boy in the woods. It had been like that. And blood. She could not remember for the life of her what it was like, would never be able to, that was true. The cousin’s house, blood. The fragments. “His eyes.” “Once I was in a wood.”

•

All of what she was not in his eyes, all of what she was not, which she could not be. Someone who came like an old promise that suddenly had to be fulfilled, “We can build here, it is mine, settle down.” Good Lord. That in him—but later too, the great sorrowfulness, unavoidable. “Are you thinking about leaving?” Maybe the question had not even been asked, but it was so obvious, so hurtful. In his eyes, are you leaving me or the cat? But she was not something lost, or found, for him a thread to sort out. The mascot. It was he who she had been. Otherwise: a rag. Like one of them, an old layer of fabric hanging over a loom, which she sees one last time, flaming inside her eyes now, 2006, here in the woods at the house in the darker part
.

“Sinking sinking like a Venice.” Remember this now too, about the house in the darker part. Bengt who had said it, about the house, once. Fluttering through her head. How true
.

The blood, the sea, the cliffs, the terrace of the boathouse. “All walls coming down.” The morning in her head, the impossibility. Maj-Gun in the boathouse. Maj-Gun Maalamaa!

Who had beaten her to life. And when she had woken she had been alive, to life, and away from here! The sea, the cliffs, nevermore there. She had left, dragged herself over the cliffs, through the pine grove in the snow, back to the cousin’s house, into the room where he was lying on the floor in his own blood in pools but only to the hallway where the telephone was, she had phoned from there. First Solveig, that was true. But Solveig in Torpesonia had not been home, it had been some Allison on the phone. She would be in touch with Solveig first the following morning, but then from somewhere else. About the cousin’s house. “I think something terrible has happened.”

But then she, Susette, had personally already been in another place. Saved to life—because after she tried to get hold of Solveig in the cousin’s house she reflected and started crying and called the only person she knew who would be able to save her, that was Tom Maalamaa. And asked him to come even though she could not explain where she was. But she had walked on that road later, forward forward in the snow, and he eventually found his way to it
.

That was how it had been, these shreds of something else—“Liz. Mama. I like you so much.” This, pulsating, quiet, and everything else, all rags, like blood in their bodies, in the bed, Portugal, between them
.

Rug rags. Could not be made clearer. Because clearer than this it does not get
.

And immediately in the next moment: true? Was all of this true? “Liz, is it true?” But Liz Maalamaa had caressed her head
.

“Little child, little child. Only I would be able to protect.”

And the tears had come, started for real there
.

But also: a cry of jubilation. Because then, there, with Liz Maalamaa, always there: she had not needed to think, ask about the loom, the rug rags. Nothing, at all
.

“If you later come to wander in the valley of the shadow of death no harm will befall you, my little Susette. I want to give you the silver shoes, the finest I have.”

And that night she had passed away, Liz Maalamaa. It had been a calm and dignified end. And the funeral—everything. Calm, dignified, an end
.

A heart attack in her sleep, Liz Maalamaa’s doctor, who came and determined the cause of death, had said. The doctor filled out the death certificate, no autopsy was needed
.

So it is clear that life had not bounded away in happiness. The Sorrow, “a life-long depression,” it was still there. “But you can live with this.”

But no one would need to be left behind anymore, be alone
.

•

Loom, against a background of flames, 2006. At the house in the darker part, the Boundary Woods, the basement, a window, but the flames in her eyes have gone out now. She has seen the loom. She cannot get there. She is so small, frozen in the woods. Sirens, ambulances, fire trucks, alarms, Spanish wolfhounds howling in the background.

And the loom, magnificent, covered in old silk fabric, rags, scraps that had never been cut but remained lying there. In an old swimming pool, a house that was decomposing,
sinking sinking
like a Venice regardless of how she, little Susette, standing in other parts of the world,
all parts of the world, on heavy floors, admiring views, views everywhere.

The loom. Disappeared. The darkness. She no longer sees it.

Kiss kiss kiss
.

Because it was something else, the whole time,
kiss kiss kiss, something white and soft
.

And now she remembers everything. “Kiss kiss kiss,” something Maj-Gun should have said. Earlier in the day. Because she was the only one who could have seen. But Maj-Gun, that Maj-Gun, no longer existed.
After the Scarsdale Diet, anything is possible
. Had become one of those, like all the rest.

“Janos isn’t dead, Susette. I’ve met him—”

But information, what the hell was she doing, Susette now, with all the information? And Maj-Gun had also stopped, stood there with the silver shoes in the middle of everything.

Been cut off. The conversation. All connections.

Rug rags. They did not exist, do not exist anymore.

But Maj-Gun, it was not Maj-Gun’s fault. Like at a disco a long time ago. Lambada, in the middle of the dance floor, smoke, among rags. Alone.