“Oh, Maj-Gun. I remember you in the newsstand. Starling darling. How cuckoo so to speak.” She never forgets, she adds, with delight. As if it were a thousand years ago—“And how did it go again? Just because you’re a count—”
Maj-Gun thinks, hardened. She had reeled Susette in, on the square. Did not know what she was going to do with her. “It turned out wrong.”
“The Angels of Death,” “I’m fascinated by the Death inside her.” Tom Maalamaa, the rectory, their childhood. Then—rug rags…
She does not answer. What should she say? Cuckoo?
“Maj-Gun you could. Say everything so well. Starl—”
And then there is not much more, Susette suddenly grows quiet, they have started walking.
“My deepest condolences,” Susette says later, serious again.
“Me too,” Maj-Gun replies. “So Susette,” she has gotten ready, because the bad conscience has hit her again and hindered other thoughts, “you remember—how I could carry on. But I just wanted to say. That she, Liz, my aunt, was actually quite okay.”
“You’ve gotten thinner. Red suits you. I’m going to sell the apartment—”
But then they were already at the gate, had left the cemetery behind them.
And her brother there, Tom Maalamaa by his dark car in the parking lot. Regardless of how stupid it looked when he leaned against it, Maj-Gun is not able to contain herself; in the middle of everything she runs away from Susette, up to her brother, and practically throws her arms around his neck. “Congrats congrats, she told me,” whispered this, as if for that reason, that is, in other words, what the hug looks like.
“Hey, hey, Sis, careful…” But in reality, something else. Maybe like this: that both siblings, Maj-Gun, Tom, suddenly know something else too. Two children from the rectory, siblings, ruffled hair, uncomfortable wrinkled brows in the sun, pulled from inside the house, a summer day. Recently pulled from their activities inside the house. “Out into the fresh air, out out!”
After Hamba Hamba, the docklands in Borneo, hey Harlot there aren’t any harbors here, Hamba Hamba, anyway, clap clap, the Girl from Borneo—
Like a farewell, an end to childhood, farewell to this: that childhood, it stops here.
And Liz Maalamaa, the mask, it belonged here. Death, the Angel of Death, all of it. But still, is Maj-Gun the only one?—maybe, leads over into something else—
At the same time, a feeling, inexpressible: away, do not look back, pushes her face against Tom’s throat so long that it almost becomes cuckoo.
“Are you coming with us?” Susette is suddenly asking, is standing behind them.
“Nah,” Maj-Gun jumps back, shakes her head.
“I’m going with…” Whom is she going with? She will certainly get a ride from one of the other relatives and friends and so on to the reception in the fellowship hall.
“See you.”
“See you.”
And Maj-Gun is standing alone in a pretty much empty parking lot.
On the other hand. In a way too: idiot. Everyone has already left. But of course there is always, as her aunt Liz used to say, “the apostle’s horses.”
The apostle’s horses. Comfortable shoes. Missionary boots. You certainly get around that way too. Half a mile to the reception, the fellowship hall, she has started walking.
A few weeks later Maj-Gun travels to Portugal where she gives birth in September. She calls Solveig. Solveig comes, with her daughter Irene. She cannot keep the child. Solveig gets the child.
Come and see my gallery. A white wall in Portugal.
And then she studies law and is accepted into law school.
THE GLITTER SCENE, 2006
(The new songs)
The new songs had no humility. They pushed past the veil and opened a window into the darkness and climbed through it with a knife in their teeth. The songs could be about rape and murder, killing your dad and fucking your mom, and then sailing off on a crystal ship to a thousand girls and thrills, or going for a moonlight drive. They were beautiful songs, full of places and textures—flesh, velvet, concrete, city towers, desert sand, snakes, violence, wet glands, childhood, the pure wings of night insects. Anything you could think of was there, and you could move through it as if it were an endless series of rooms and passages full of visions and adventures. And even if it was about killing and dying—that was just another place to go.
The Glitter Scene, “Ready to be gone”
Ulla Bäckström has now opened the door to the Glitter Scene, the drapery, which is like a curtain, has been pulled to the side.
She is standing on the edge, white skirts, swaying.
In the wind, her hair, her teased hair, insects glittering.
In the wind, glittering in the glow from the Winter Garden, the darkness, the fire, the wind
THE SILVER PARTY SHOES
To the Winter Garden (Liz Maalamaa’s things): the Silver Party Shoes, made of strass, with a brooch. Purchased in Rio de Janeiro, 1952. She loved the shoes. Her party shoes. Liked dancing too. Sometimes.
Come and see my gallery. A white wall in Portugal. Liz Maalamaa’s gallery. Everything she held dear on the wall. Photographs, a brother, a family on a farm, a map of China. Portraits of her idols, black-and-white pictures, with autographs. Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardner.
A postcard, two swans among other swans. Dick and Duck. And the godchildren, her brother’s children, several photos. Maj-Gun on a boat. Majjunn, as Liz Maalamaa always called her niece, in a sun hat, dress, laughing, looks happy. A child’s drawing. A woman with a mask. Represented her, the children’s aunt Liz. “To Liz from Majjunn.” The dogs of course. Handsome, Ransome: she had two. Expensive lapdogs, the first one died almost right away from a congenital condition, the other died ten years later after securing a happy life and old age under the aunt’s jacket.
The silver shoes on a podium. They are a memory, not even particularly worn. Liz Maalamaa, who comes from simple circumstances, is careful about dealing with things carefully.
TO ROSENGÅRDEN 2
(Tom Maalamaa, 2006)
THERE IS A CAR on its way into Rosengården 2. It has stopped at the gate, the chauffeur rolls down the window, punches in a code on the keypad, the right number, they are expected guests, okay okay, green light, the gate opens. Entrance road, November 2006, dark car, strong headlights that light up the deep, dark fall night.
“Courage.” Tom Maalamaa is the one who is driving, his wife is sitting next to him, just the two of them. Both children who are still living at home are home, with the aupairgirl Gertrude. In the new service residence on the other side of the city by the sea, a suburb, the diplomats’ area. They have recently arrived, just a few weeks ago, back in their homeland again. They are going to stay for a while, maybe even a few years; this appointment. The family has not lived in the house for many days, yet the husband, who is otherwise always a pillar of patience with his wife and the family in general, despite the fact that he has a lot on his mind when it comes to his job, had time to get irritated about the fact that the unpacking was taking so long, going at a snail’s pace, mess everywhere.
So it is nice to get out a bit, away, on an invitation. Maybe Tom Maalamaa says “courage” to his wife in the car for exactly that reason. His wife does not always like going out, spending time with other people, acquaintances, strangers, “keeping up appearances” or, like now, meeting some of his friends from way back when, during his time at university. Peter and Nellevi, both architects, whom it will be really nice to meet up with after so many years, now, here in the homeland where Tom Maalamaa with family has not lived in seventeen years. Even if it cannot be seen on her, the wife, that is. Susette Maalamaa never complains; that she can feel uncomfortable in the company of others is something only he, Tom, her husband, knows. Or feels, because they have not spoken about it very much.