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 Animaclass="underline" 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.