Her mother, glitter, at the disco: Susette small again, during her childhood. Her mother who suddenly, in the middle of picking flowers on the way to the cemetery, looks at her daughter and does not say what she says in reality, “What beautiful flowers you have in your bouquet, Susette,” but:
“What a beautiful little Angel of Death, my Susette.”
And it IS true: the essence of a development. The normalcy that disappeared and was obliterated. And she, Susette, could not say when it happened, just a peculiar transition from the one to the other.
The rug rags that suddenly piled up in the kitchen in the house: garments, garments, old garments and towels and worn-out sheets, you cut and cut but could not keep up. “It’s not easy living in a house of sorrow.” Her mother’s words, at the rug rag bucket, and later: all the death that was suddenly everywhere but rug rags were to be collected and cut up and wrapped in spools that would be placed back into the bags for weaving even though the weaver had been dead for a long time already. Her father who, while he was still alive, had built houses out of balsa, a fragile structure. Measured and cut out teensy pieces from paper-thin wood with a small saw, glued the pieces together carefully, and Susette had liked watching. One of her father’s hobbies in the living room in the evenings in the house during the time when everything was still normal and ordinary. That house, it had been standing there on the living room table later—
And buried in rags, crushed by the weight of rug rags too.
“Where is the weaver, Mom? And the loom, where is it?”
Gone from door to door, she and her mother, in the picturesque suburbs below the square where ordinary families lived in beautiful single-family homes, a lot of family noise and dogs and cats and neat gardens; apple trees, plum trees, and cherry trees in the gardens. Her mother and her, pushing a wheelbarrow in front of them over the cobblestones, over asphalt and on sandy paths. Rung doorbells, knocked and asked for, begged for, silk velvet rag scraps, everything that could be woven into rugs instead of being thrown out. And Susette who had been ashamed, gradually anyway: when everyone knew that the rug weaver in the Outer Marsh was dead and there was no other loom anywhere. Transported plastic bags home and washed garments, or not washed them, started cutting right away, long scraps that were called loom lengths, to roll up onto the spools later. But still, away from everyone’s eyes, easier to be there, in the house, the kitchen. The mother and Susette, just the two of them, each with scissors, each sitting on a stool at the bucket… and Susette who left her first love because of the grief, the death, her mother—or not left exactly, just walked away from the rectory once and then never went back. Her father’s death, which got in the way then; maybe she thought he, the boyfriend, would arrive as her savior, take her away from the house, her mother, all of it. On the other hand, furthermore, she had not thought that way at alclass="underline" she knew of course Tom Maalamaa was not like that.
Her mother with the better scissors, the textile scissors, her dearest possession, you might think. Were kept stored in their own case in a kitchen drawer and were not to be used for anything other than cutting fabric so that the edges would not become dulled, her mother had been very careful about that. Her mother who had asked Susette to sharpen the scissors before using them, her eyes were so bad.
So no, you could not have lived there. Understandable. Gone away and stayed away too long, and Maj-Gun on the telephone: “Your mother. They buried her. Mydeepestcondolences. When are you coming home?”
“Calm down now,” Maj-Gun said again, when Susette had returned, her hand on Susette’s shoulder. “I understand completely.”
“Understandable.” The mess in the house when Susette returned after having been gone for three years. Her mother who had been a “collector” due to the war, that generation. And in the mess, Maj-Gun who had stood and said exactly that: “It’s the war, she told me. Understandable.” All the old rags in the plastic bags along the walls, everywhere, cut, uncut—and when Susette became better they had gotten the house in order. Thrown things out, dragged out black plastic bags filled with clothes, rags, glass jars for flowers, plastic yogurt containers for the flowers… which her mother had collected.
And so, still, in the midst of everything, in the middle of the cleaning, sat down there again. At the rag bucket in the kitchen, with the scissors.
“Your mother. She was for real.
“She didn’t give in.
“Such a cute little Angel of Death.
“We cut rug rags… we talked about you.
“Silk velvet rag scraps—”
Each on her own stool, Maj-Gun’s stories later, cloth in long strips that whirled down into the plastic bucket between them.
Who was Maj-Gun?
Still, so easy to blame it on Maj-Gun. Her silliness, stupid talk. Maj-Gun had been friendly too, for real. Comforted, in her own way, as best she could. And not held Susette responsible for her lies. Lied, could not stop lying, had to have another story, coherence, there has to be life.
“Poland.” And a stomachache.
“… the black Madonnas, the incomprehensible language…”
“You were never really there. And certainly not pregnant? Take it easy now, Susette. I understand completely.”
Still, Maj-Gun, who was she? Majjunn, like a sound in your mouth?
“Hell, Susette, what are you doing with a revolver in your sauna bag?”
And suddenly, something she had forgotten, even though it was not more than a week ago. Maj-Gun had been standing in the kitchen in her apartment with the pistol in her hand. “Djeessuss, Susette.” As if she had not known up or down, what she could have said otherwise.
Then put the pistol to her heart.
“Maj-Gun!” Susette shouted. “It could be loaded!”
How Maj-Gun looked at her then. “Take the pistol and put it away, Susette.”
Snip, nothing.
As if nothing had happened.
CAN you actually go on after this as if nothing happened?
Answer. Yes. You can.
Maj-Gun in her childhood, the Pastor’s Crown Princess, at the cemetery. Stood and pointed at the Confession Grove.
“There it is. Shall I show you the way?”
“I’m fascinated by the Death in her.” Her first boyfriend, Tom Maalamaa, had spoken that way once at the cemetery. To his sister Maj-Gun: the two siblings, who otherwise were always at each other’s throats, could, you had discovered, have certain very close moments just the two of them. Like that time in the cemetery back when Tom Maalamaa was her boyfriend and she had been on her way into his room where his sister also was: they had not noticed her at first and Susette had stood in the doorway and heard them talking to each other like that, certainly not about her but it still felt that way.
Two children at the cemetery, with masks, Liz Maalamaa.
Answer again. Yes. You can. Because those were just images, scenes.
All of that darkness, the death, nourished by guilt from longing, fear of yourself, not from Maj-Gun but from herself.
The whole time with Maj-Gun, as if that was exactly the point with Maj-Gun. How she calls forth those things in you. Intensifies them until they roar in your head and dunk dunk become more real than the original scenes, what actually happened.