And: she had, as usual, not toned down but toned up and stood there on the walking path right between the church and the main country road that morning-night in front of Susette who had, in any case at first, looked so sleepy—the Killer Rabbit who, in its violent fury, had practically cried out of exasperation. My love, the Boy in the woods, and so on.
At the same time as the Killer Rabbit’s urge to kill was completely intact. And it could be felt: Susette had suddenly been one hundred percent on the alert. Like an animal who has met another animaclass="underline" wide awake, and, in the midst of everything, also scared to death in those big eyes.
So alike. The Angels of Death. The likeness.
“Go away.” Though Susette had done her best to hide her fear. “I don’t know anything about anything.”
Call forth the fear, reinforce the fear. But there had been no time for that. She had attacked immediately.
“Go away!” Susette’s pathetic whining.
“NO!”
And then, just as fleetingly, the situation was over, as dreamlike as it had started. But if a Nightwalker with a dog had not come along on the walking path, Maj-Gun certainly would not have gone away.
A compass through Susette’s eyes. It was night in the world for the Animal Child, the clock had stopped, five in the morning.
Left unfinished. But later.
Susette had suddenly arrived down at the boathouse on the Second Cape, in the middle of her own working day which she seemed to have left, of her own accord, and alone.
Why? You did not understand. You did not understand anything. Parallels. Rags.
But there where Maj-Gun has found herself anyway: just as much to her own genuine surprise, at exactly that moment. The American girl’s hangout, filled with all sorts of junk, nothing nice about it, sleeping. Lying on the floor there, barely enough space, the getawaybag under her head. Some old rag pulled over herself, among the boat motors, fishing equipment, and a large metal anchor. Slept heavily and deeply.
Awakened by a shadow on the veranda. Sat up, dazed with sleep. Susette had not believed her eyes, it had already started snowing then.
Lots of snow. And Susette, a dark figure in all of the whiteness. And Susette, had seen her through the window, eyes met. What a resignation in her. As if: walking toward a destiny.
Rug rags. That was how it was going to be. Death’s Angels.
Is that what had spurred Maj-Gun on?
Susette had opened the door, come inside.
“What are you doing here?”
She was going to the sea, she replied, like Susette in love, Susette and love. And Maj-Gun suddenly assaulted her.
Hit hit hit.
And Susette had fallen and while falling hit her head against the anchor and Maj-Gun rushed out. Into the whirling snow, onto the slippery cliffs. Struggled through the snow, up and away from here and farther.
The cousin’s house. Which she had left a few hours earlier. That was where she had been. But Bengt. Not the Boy in the woods: it had disappeared, right there, when she was in the house together with him.
Because that was suddenly where she decided she was going to go, from the town center. That morning. Had in some way lost her sense of direction after the meeting with Susette on the walking path. Killer Rabbit. Its power inside her. It had not become light. That time of year when it almost never became light.
First around nine o’clock. Then she had already been on her way to the Second Cape. In a car. With a hayseed, in a rascallike mood: wanted to set up a time to meet. Some movie at some movie theater that just had to be seen.
She had also been in the other apartment. Susette’s apartment. Empty. Susette at work; Maj-Gun had an extra key, which she had begged off the Manager. Walked around there in the Lovers’ Nest. Alone. The pictures on the wall, the Winter Garden, the “exhibition.” Bluebluepictures. Many strange words. People float freely from themselves. Otherwise. An appalling mess, but I don’t know anything about anything, at least it had been true in that moment. He had not been there.
Gone on his way. In reality, she would have liked to have gone home and slept. But home, an impossibility. No space. Across the cemetery and the walking path again, and out toward the main country road, the bus stop. Away. Was going to run away, at least fulfill that intention. The bus stop. No buses. But a car. The hayseed, all fathers’ Toyotas, one of those. The window was rolled down, “Need a lift?” And why not?
Where? Have an objective. Mushy. The capes. He drove her there. Small kid who had actually been embarrassed about driving around and around this morning when everyone else was at work, not able to sleep.
Well, long story, cut it off here. Slammed the door shut, ended up on the side of the road heading toward the capes, a few miles from the house, had started walking. In which direction, did not matter. But THEN she had gotten the cousin’s house on her mind for real. The Boy in the woods. Her love, her purpose. Maybe he was there, he was.
Come to the house, cold, ice-cold, beer and cigarettes, syrupy.
She had wanted to say, actually, if she had been in full possession of her senses: “But come away from here now, you can’t live in this shit.”
But still. Her dream of love. The only one. Pure. Hold on to it. Instead spoken like a ghost about the other things. I love you because you killed out of love.
“What’re you babbling about?”
That was the lasting meaning. He had not understood one bit.
But keep on to the bitter end. Her end.
Ha-ha. Realism is here.
What do you do with your dream of love the second after you know that it has been forfeited but you want to hold on to it anyway? Answer: if you are Maj-Gun newsstandess, you tackle it. Programmed to kiss it back to life again.
And it had allowed itself to be kissed, indolent, without resistance, without interest as eroticism is, and what had happened had happened and on the floor, in an old parlor where she was lying, through the window she had seen: the wind, the cloudy sky, the dirty gray of midmorning, the trees.
Had removed herself. He was sleeping then. Not like a child, but sawing wood.
That was the last she had seen of him alive.
The sea, clean, smelled good, wind and freshness, and then such a tiredness in her. To the hangout, through the pine trees, the cape, the openness.
Snowflakes had started falling, so tired in the hangout—snow snow snow. While she slept, dreamed about the hayseeds, the pistol awakening, snow and more snow.
Susette. And the anchor.
Hours later. The whirling snow, the cliffs, bloody. The road again, the house was there, called for help, ambulance, police.
Gone to the house. First. Like a Peeping Tom. Looked in through a window.
What she had seen was indescribable.
She had lost everything, all purpose. Run run away from there. In the snow, the slipperiness, the zero visibility. A thousand miles forward, but on the same road, the same Toyota, the same redneck.
“Do you want to run away with me to the ends of the earth? We’re going now?”
He had shaken his head, hesitantly. Nah. Nah. Time to eat. Homeandeat.
But over now. Here in the room, never think about it again. If she were to think then everything would just start spinning again, an old folk song.