And—this is becoming long now, when Tom Maalamaa is driving with his wife down the avenues of Rosengården 2, this November evening 2006, a Thursday.
“Courage,” he says to his wife, takes her hand in his, maybe thinks she is nervous about tonight, his old university friends… or maybe he takes that hand because he has a bad conscience because he has, the entire afternoon, earlier in the evening, up until now, been rather grumpy and cross. About the mess at home, and the new workplace, chaos there too: that is what it is always like arriving in new places, he certainly knows that, should be used to it after so many years. But he had shouted and carried on, and that is why they have been quiet the entire drive from their home to Rosengården 2. For example not spoken about any “dear” old memories that both of them, together, separately, could have from these places, the District, after all they are both from here. Here, where Rosengården 2 now exists, it did not exist back then. This striking, luxurious—almost absurd—development in the middle of what once was a wood where Mama Inga-Britta used to pick mushrooms and cloudberries, lingonberries, rowanberries with the Nature Friends. And possibly somewhat exaggerated this peachy keenness, but “architectural dreams are architectural dreams,” which, for example, is something that Tom Maalamaa under normal circumstances certainly might have said here in the car, with a small bitonality too, though well-balanced because the Bäckströms and certainly many of the others who live here are his friends of course, if not now, then they will be; he has that kind of a job, lives a lot on “contacts.” Still, it is something grotesque, something almost frivolous, amoral. No, not because it would have been showing off—a lot of, as it were, too much of a good thing and Dallas, money&poortaste, but exactly because it is not that, PLUS the money that exists but cannot be seen cannot be seen cannot be seen… the style, all of the good taste, so perfect AND being enclosed, fenced in. Seen as a metaphor the irony of all this had of course not been wasted on him either. These people, these enclosures, these people inside their personally staked-out borders—people just like him, who always have the best, as well as education and class and taste and civilization and the best schools and universities and the power, on their side—how, for example, they can still carry out good deeds there, as he does in the service of mankind. And in contrast to those who have only money, he also has the power of language: can reason well, about almost anything, also their own shortcomings and this grotesqueness which, after all, it is. But with his own quick phrases he can also win people over so that it sounds not only plausible but also something worth striving for. “Here you can say anything as long as it sounds good.” That feeling.
The irony naturally also applies to what he sees in his job: the other, “the other side,” those lacking legal rights. So too, him personally. And in contrast to what his sister Maj-Gun once thought, he takes his job seriously, what he does—the difficulty then is that it always becomes pompous when you are talking about it. He actually does not like hearing his own voice at all, going on and on about justice and equality in the world. But he likes what he gets accomplished, what he does.
Well, philosophers. He, Tom, can get carried away too, like papa Pastor in the church when he gets started and talks, talks. As luck would have it, his wife Susette Packlén does not have a predisposition for philosophizing, either to philosophize or to listen to the outlays of others. So it has therefore always been nice to come home, to her, the kids, the family, and just be something else, turn things off. And sometimes, as said, the two of them go out dancing.
But this day in particular he, in other words, became furious when he came home—or had already been before, at work, but he lost his self-control first at home and quite simply made a racket. And therefore, as a result of just this mess, Tom Maalamaa has, this afternoon, this evening in particular, not had his telephone on and not been able to take the phone calls, the phone calls from his sister Maj-Gun who tried calling many times—and who is now, without his knowledge, right here in the area, exactly right now, this evening, at this point in time. In the Winter Garden, or on the field, or in the woods. The Boundary Woods—below Rosengården 2, its large enclosures, at the edge of the woods, below the Glitter Scene, with her daughter, which he also does not know she has, her name is Johanna.
On the other hand: if he had the opportunity to speak to his sister, then you can ask yourself, would anything have been different as a result of this conversation in particular? Highly unlikely, because his sister Maj-Gun would not have been able to say anything about everything she needs to say to him on the telephone. They would most likely have arranged a meeting, later. Met for example the following day—it is important but too terrible to speak about on the phone—at some café. As soon as possible, but not soon enough. Because then, in any case, everything that will happen this night would already have happened, it would already in all ways be too late.
His sister will know that as well, certainly. Because what she has to say almost takes her breath away, it is so great.
But as said, Tom Maalamaa has not had his telephone on. He usually always has his telephone on. But earlier that day there was something with the telephone lines at work: the new telephone system, the computer integration in it—one big chaos there and chaos when he came home: moving boxes, cardboard boxes everywhere. Of course these urgent phone calls for work are not directly connected to his own separate private telephone but the problems today have certainly affected his attitude toward telephones in general so that he, after a day of working, in one moment of fury and complete frustration, angry at his phone, turned it off at home in his own bathroom.