Affected by time, another time. The time of the folk song.
“The folk song. A repetition in time and space. Such a different way of understanding time.”
But—with the folk song comes realism; it is a shame about Solveig, who is left behind, all alone.
Because: the one who is left behind is left behind. Being in the world, in the cousin’s house, without Doris-light.
The cousin’s mama who has no strength left for anything. She collapses completely in the spring and is taken to the District Hospital by ambulance and when she gets better she moves back to the neighboring county where she originally came from. Never returns to the cousin’s property, to the cousin’s papa: because he does not die of course, has eternal life in him.
And Solveig then, with all of this. Rita in the world, and Bengt who stopped being responsible for his actions a long time ago—a restless one, sometimes here, sometimes there. In the city by the sea, in other places, in other cities and comes and goes in the District. Wanders off, but unlike Rita nothing becomes of him, he deteriorates more and more.
Solveig. Nah, she did not become an astronaut or a nuclear physicist. Eventually she moves in with her boyfriend Torpe Torpeson, whom she has taken over after her sister Rita, to his home at the Outer Marsh, Torpesonia. Is expecting a child with him; that child and another end up as miscarriages before she finally has Irene in 1984.
By that time she has been living in Torpesonia for a long time; has taken over the cleaning business as said, Four Mops and a Dustpan, business is decent, makes a living off it and eventually has an employee, Susette Packlén from the District.
The cousin’s papa dies of natural causes but not until the end of the 1980s; he becomes deathly old. And Bengt—it is an accident of course—falls asleep with a cigarette that sets fire to the cousin’s house and when the fire department arrives, there is nothing that can be done to save him.
And Solveig, it is a turning point for her.
She sets herself free from it, turns her back to it, the old stuff no longer exists for her.
Tears down, builds new, moves in with Irene and eventually Johanna as well.
Closes the cleaning business, starts a real estate business instead.
But from the ashes of the old ruins: finds a Lifeguard’s Medal, an old sign of luck, a talisman.
“But Tobias,” Johanna has started in the greenhouse in the fall of 2004, when Tobias has finished telling the story. A sad story, in a remarkable way a beautiful story, of course, but still, inside Johanna, it has been pounding there, not grown quiet. All of the questions, suddenly millions, wanting to go back to the really old stuff that Tobias has not spoken about. The morning at the marsh, the American girl, Björn who hanged himself.
Rita and Solveig, the twins at the marsh. Were they there? What did they see?
And Doris Flinkenberg, the knocked-about marsh kid, was she not running around in the District then too? And then—the Boy in the woods, Bengt. What did he do?
Don’t push your love too far, Eddie.
Ulla on the field. “There was not one who loved her, but two. They say she died from love. The one who killed her loved her too much.”
Bengt and the American girl Eddie de Wire, on the terrace of the boathouse. Her own father, Bengt.
“But Tobias—” Johanna, with an urgency that could no longer be concealed.
Then Tobias himself suddenly looks up at her and says, “Johanna. To you this isn’t about Project Earth, is it?”
And Johanna nodded, carefully, but could not get a word out anyway, suddenly mute in some way. And Tobias was just about to say something, had taken a few steps forward and then staggered. As if still, tired of his own words, tired of everything, of the age in his body too, all the energy leaves him. The plants he does not have the energy to look after, as if he saw it in that moment too: how they are becoming overgrown, have grown above his head, roses, thick full stems and thorns that tear at the skin on his hands because he has of course forgotten his gloves somewhere again.
A record on the record player, Carmen, it has finished playing. And the uncertainty about what to do next, fumbling, what was he going to say now? Has taken the spray bottle to fill it with water but stumbled and hit the bookshelf next to him, it rocks and damp books from the top shelves come tumbling down. History and Progress and several others, Tobias has to duck in order to avoid getting the books on his head and almost loses his balance so that Johanna has to grab him and help him down on the stool where she had just been sitting and then she gathers up the books on the floor.
Among them too Architecture and Crime, poorly bound, old glue on the sides is falling off—not just the covers, a quick stolen look, loose pages as well.
Drawings, characters in dark lead, blue watercolor. “In the woods a body of water reveals itself. It happened at Bule Marsh.” And a name on the first page of the book, “This book belongs to” with straggling letters and then his name, Bengt.
The Boy in the woods, with the sketchpad. Bengt.
A blue girl on a cliff.
“Sister Blue.” How it sweeps through her head.
Rita. Solveig. Bengt. A crack that became a wound that was opened. A secret that drove them apart.
Solveig. Sister Blue.
Solveig who pretends the Winter Garden does not exist.
Ritsch! The kitchen curtains.
The book in Johanna’s hand. At first she thinks about asking, “Can I borrow it?” but changes her mind and says straight out, “This book was my father’s. Can I take it?”
“What is it Tobias? Put on your gloves, Tobias?”
And right then, before Tobias has a chance to answer, Solveig is suddenly standing in the entrance to the greenhouse.
Sometime later, spring 2005, Tobias becomes ill and does not come to the greenhouse anymore. Falls off his bike, it is slippery, an early morning on his way to the greenhouse, he is lying in bed with a cast on his leg. An accident, he has fallen off his bike before.
But never really recovers again. Develops other problems. His stomach, his heart, and he dies in the month of April 2006.
The greenhouse deteriorates, no one goes there anymore.
JOHANNA IN THE ROOM, IN THE EVENING, NOVEMBER 2006
THE AMERICAN GIRL in a snow globe.
She has taken it out again.
Solveig is not home, she has gone out.
Looks at the snow globe, she is alone in the house, in the darkness in her room, shimmering quiet, the light, the property.
Oh! Turns on the light.
Digs in a drawer and finds the book. Architecture and Crime.
The drawings in the book.
A blue girl on a cliff, above the water, she is screaming.
Ulla Bäckström earlier that day, at the house in the darker part of the woods.
About the Red One in the Winter Garden. She talks about strange things.
A completely different story.
Three siblings who were united by a secret that was supposed to keep them together but it drove them apart and turned them against each other.
Three siblings. Remembers Tobias’s story. The three cursed ones. At a house, the stone foundation.
Rita, Solveig, Bengt.