And it is windy on the Glitter Scene. The door has been standing open as said, but wedged fast with a small piece of wood, because you notice the draft when you come in. Because of the glass door at the other end, the one that was part of the large window and could not be opened, is open all the way. Cold late fall weather wells into the room.
The girl is standing in the opening. Not far from the edge, many feet of open fall down. All the openness.
The girl, the daughter, Ulla Bäckström, in white, with her back facing the room. A great mane of hair falling over her shoulders, long white skirt flapping around her legs.
Does not notice Susette in the door opening.
Susette who has taken off the silver shoes, left them at the door to the room. And tippytoe, an old thieflike merriment now completely unstoppable, tippytoe tippytoe, sneaks onto the stage carefully, into the room, the greatness.
The empty landscape/the Glitter Scene. A room where there is nothing and everything.
And EVERYTHING. Theater things, books, papers, manuscripts. Musical instruments and clothes, more clothes, ordinary clothes, dress-up clothes, on racks along the walls or in piles on the floor, notes, bags, shoes, and things, things.
Pictures on the wall, art, posters: Screaming Toys.
And: the American girl, the same poster here too. And other posters, theater performances: Singin’ in the Rain, Miss Julie, among others. The same girl, the theater, the dancing, the music, the same name, Ulla Bäckström, on all of them.
But here, still, you might think that at least something would stir something to life inside Susette, a connection, shake her, to something else. The American girl. That old story. Which was Maj-Gun Maalamaa’s story. The one about the Boy in the woods, which she went on about.
Maj-Gun at the newsstand, kiss kiss kiss, red sticky lips, glitter. But nah, does not stir anything. Maj-Gun does not exist. “We are two Angels of Death.” Which she said once. But nah. We. Are nothing. Maj-Gun had stopped existing. They have seen each other today, earlier in the day. The Red One. Another. No connection. Rather Majjunn Majjunn, but for Susette it is something else, has always been: a sound in her head.
I am, in other words, alone here on the Glitter Scene.
So: stirs nothing. Nothing nothing, which might also depend on the multitude, EVERYTHING here. So much, too much, incentive and things, messages, impressions. Takes herself out. Becomes: mute.
Susette does not see them. She is inside the old emptiness but here there is no connection between now and then, the one and the other.
“ULLLAAAAA!”
She hears that. That scream. Is standing in the middle of the room and wishes the father downstairs would stop yelling.
“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!” The girl at the open glass door in the panorama window suddenly turns around and yells in toward the room, with everything she can muster too. That enormous voice which sounds even more grand and more special up here. Not surprising that she likes screaming up here.
Right in her face. That is how the girl becomes aware of Susette. Has turned around in the middle of everything and, as it turns out, she screams at Susette! About fifteen feet away from her right in her face.
Which is of course comical; the girl, a bit surprised at first, but not so much, starts laughing. “Hi. Who are you? Our guests?” Susette nods and introduces herself and the girl says that she is Ulla Bäckström and runs past Susette to the door at the other end and yells down the stairs one more time: “I just saaaid I waaas coommmiiing!”
Then she closes the door. Takes the wedge out and the two of them are alone up there.
“Ah and then we were rid of him. Dad, he’s great, but he can be so naggy.
“It’s like this some evenings,” the girl continues. “You need to be alone and… think. In a strange mood. Can you keep a secret?”
Ulla Bäckström puts a finger over her lips and peers mischievously at Susette. “You’ll understand. I’m not allowed to have this door open”—the glass door. “Papa confiscated the key when he found out but I confiscated it back, he has no idea. But, it isn’t always like this. Just sometimes. Certain nights. Standing there, in the wind, above everything, thinking. I usually think. About everything that is going on. About everything that is going to end. Mortality. In the midst of everything beautiful. On the edge. Do you understand?”
Susette nods, of course, even though she really is not listening, cannot manage to focus. But the girl in the middle of the room in front of her, still, silencing. Those white clothes, the skirt, the ankle boots with a heel, and in her hair, which is swelling around her face, small metal insects: they are butterflies, in different colors, glittering in the sharp light from the ceiling that falls over her like a spotlight. The Glitter Scene. That is how it is. Of course. And the girl who on the one hand is like from outer space but on the other is fully conscious of the effect she has on people.
Stilclass="underline" a child. Like her own children. But Susette is not thinking like that. All of that is gone now, she is tabula rasa, she would not be able to be here otherwise. The emptiness here, her emptiness, and the girl, shining, shimmering, in the middle of it. It is confusing.
“Isn’t it great up here?” The girl looks around her own room. “I have everything here! And look. What I got today. In the Winter Garden.”
It is a mask she is putting on. It is that mask.
That stirs a feeling of recognition. The girl, with the mask on, suddenly hisses, almost humorously, theatrically: “I am the Angel of Death. Liz Maalamaa.”
That is the connection.
Still, Susette is not surprised. Strange, absurd, but like a dream is strange, absurd. And Ulla Bäckström says, “Come,” and pulls Susette with her toward the open glass door. They stand there and look out over the darkness, far away there is an island of bright light, before the sea. “The Winter Garden there. How it is shining. Do you know the Winter Garden?”
Susette does not answer, maybe she knows, she does not remember. Everything is familiar and foreign.
“I am the Angel of Death Liz Maalamaa!” The girl is suddenly standing there screaming out into the open, into the darkness. To the wind, out into everywhere that cannot be seen. Toward that Winter Garden by the sea, even farther out, there, solitary dots of light, a ship, a lighthouse.
Susette Maalamaa does not like the scream, she jumps back, steps back into the room.
“What is it? Do you want to try on the mask?” The girl comes toward her laughing and Susette puts the mask on, it is just a game after all, just a game, kiss kiss kiss, merry, tippytoe, tabula rasa, clings to it. And: nothing else happened, she never became older than twenty-nine. Be nothing, new, that possibility, spinning around around in the avenues, small playful kitty cat.
She is standing in the middle of the room, wearing the mask, the girl is dancing around her.
“The Angel of Death Liz Maalamaa!” the girl calls to Susette. “Here, come and take me! Grab on…”
But do not scream. Quiet now. But the girl has gotten started, does not grow quiet. And the girl walks toward the window, come come come. And calls, but QUIET now.