“Angina!” A breeze through Maj-Gun’s head, something she once said on the telephone. To Solveig, Susette’s employer, the only conversation in that horrible apartment which, in that moment, and for always, seems like a million years ago. Then it dawns on her, so she does not need to ask anything else about the matter that is for certain. The angels on the television set. Solveig, Rita. “My almost goddaughters, friends for a long time.”
And maybe, a little, Rita, Solveig—and Bengt. Three siblings, the three cursed ones. Something she also always knew but had not thought about in relation to anything in reality, so to speak. Exactly because it still has never been real to her, a story.
The Boy in the woods. “The one who killed out of love.”
“But what are you babbling about?” That is what Bengt said, she will not forget it, when she, on that horrible day, had actually said that to him. What are you babbling about? He quite simply had not understood a word.
But WHERE is Susette Packlén? It was almost ridiculous later, because in the midst of everything Maj-Gun has known the answer to that question too, before she even finished thinking that thought.
“Portugal.” The fiancé. Djeessuss! Djeessuss! Tom Maalamaa who spoke with the Manager, about his fiancée.
But djeessuss too, which cannot be said either, not to the Manager, not to any one at all.
The polo shirt, the blazer, and the disco. Susette and love. Oh God. “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings.” A blank page, “Tom’s world.” Djeessuss.
She remembers herself at the disco. Sitting, squeezed onto the sofa, in an unbearability, though nothing compared to later unbearabilities, but out of whack, Melancholy. Susette dancing on the dance floor. Rag doll. Dance my doll. For a while it had been a bit entertaining. As if that which connected them—rug rags, long strips, loom lengths—made it possible to control her, Susette, as it were. Perhaps stated exaggeratedly, but still. “You are so easy, Susette,” which she had also said once.
Susette who was dancing, disappeared, slipped away on the dance floor. One among the crowd, bodies, bodies, smoke. And then, in that moment, how Maj-Gun had suddenly thought, a pang inside her. A pistol in the bathroom, in a bag. “God, Susette, what are you doing with a revolver in your sauna bag?” The utterly incomprehensible.
That which had become so clear when Susette slipped away, disappeared, on the dance floor.
That Susette was a stranger. That she, Maj-Gun, knew nothing about her.
“I’m fascinated by the Death in her.”
And then, at the disco, she caught sight of her brother. Tom Maalamaa, in the throng at the disco, on the dance floor. Like a fish in water, the blazer, the polo shirt, and those crooked idiotic cones that were running down along his cheeks. Then she immediately got up, careful so that her brother should not see her, and left the disco. Because it had first been, at the sight of her brother in the crowd that she had, there in the throng, squeezed onto the sofa, been gripped by… not shame, but some type of hopelessness in her that was out of step, fat or skinny, it was not important, but so old. And not on her life had she wanted her brother, who immediately would have understood, the only one in the world who would have understood, to see it.
Goatee? she asked him roguishly on the phone when he called a few days later. Rather unexpectedly, and despite the teasing tone, she had been a bit happy, certainly. He had not understood what she was talking about. She said that she had seen him at the disco, he sounded surprised, oh, she had been there. Yes, she said, with a big group of young people, other shop assistants and the like, from newsstands, and they had so much fun, so much so that she only caught a glimpse of him in the crowd, but was so caught up in the music then, the young people, the dance, that she lost sight of him and when she looked for him she could not find him.
She also said, as if in passing but certainly oh so meaningful, that Susette had been there, and he was rather surprised about that too. And she knew her brother well enough that she could tell when he was lying and this time he was telling the truth.
“Hee hee hee… maybe you want her phone number?” she chirped on the phone. “Do you want to get in touch with her? She’s quite lonely.” Because that had been before she brought the cat food to Susette’s apartment and everything had fallen apart for her.
But he took the phone number, Tom Maalamaa. That he had.
And my God, they HAD gotten together, and oh God, everything about Susette—what you did not know about her. Scissors in the cabinet, dried blood—
But the Boy in the woods, Bengt, what was he to her?
“I don’t know anything about anything.” Again, Susette in the hangout. No, unavoidable. It had been real. And when Maj-Gun had hit, not even then had Susette been unsympathetic.
And it IS for real, cannot be talked away, pushed away. “If you weren’t so curled up in your own suffering.” Everything else disappeared in the presence of this attempted murder, a concrete action almost carried out. Susette’s big eyes, the boathouse, the snow. It happened: and she, Maj-Gun, had to remember it, carry it in her consciousness, it always had to be there.
“I was so angry so angry so angry…” she says to the Manager. “Probably jealous too. I thought I was… in love with him…”
“Maj-Gun, I’ve understood that she has had a difficult time,” the Manager says. “But she is going to therapy. Some great sorrow in her past. Unresolved,” the Manager determines and it is probably true, very true, because that is also what Susette, many years later, in the future, will say. “Like being in a forest. Not finding your way out.”
I love you. Running over the plains. All stories, and blood. “Can you imagine killing out of love?” Susette. Duel in the sun. Bengt. Djeessuss. Oh God. Tom. Someone in a polo shirt. Tom Maalamaa came and got her. And behind her it was burning.
“But it’s better now,” says the Manager. “Everything is better now. And now it seems like she and all of us are ready to move on. You too, Maj-Gun—”
Yes. But first. Bengt. She has to say it anyway.
“But Bengt—”
“It’s very tragic,” the Manager says again and though it can seem indifferent there is still nothing sugarcoated about it.
The angels on the TV. Rita, Solveig—and the third one, the brother Bengt.
Pictures on the wall. His pictures, drawings. Blue pictures. “The Exhibition.” The Winter Garden.
“Did you know… him?” Maj-Gun asks carefully.
“Of course. Were very good friends, the three of us. The kids had no real childhood. I knew them since they were little. Tried to help them as best I could. Especially the girls.
“But,” he adds, “it can, well… you know, sound… the way it sounds. But, it wasn’t exactly unexpected, what happened. But, dear Maj-Gun. You need to think about yourself now. You have so much inside. So much life.”
And then he catches his breath, stretches, and asks her about the future, what she is planning on doing now, on becoming “when she grows up.”