A story in rags, fragments. Also about what had fallen and would fall outside the actual story, with context, coherence that had to do with coming out of a wood to Tom to here, Liz Maalamaa, Portugal—and farther on in life.
About being in a forest: “Once I was in a wood…”
Or, “all walls collapse.” About leaving work in the middle of the day, one day in November, just a few weeks earlier at that point in Portugal, but there in the bed with Liz Maalamaa, already an eternity since then. That morning, a project in the city by the sea that she had come to, an independent one that she did not work on together with Solveig but alone and that was that, an apartment in a high-rise in a suburb of the city by the sea, where Solveig had dropped her off that morning.
An old woman there as well, in the apartment, who was playing a film and had the radio on at the same time. “All walls crashing down.” A historical moment, in Germany. The wall that had come down in Berlin and now people were moving in hordes, happy, singing, from one side to the other. The woman had recorded newsreels from the day before and was sitting, while the radio was on, playing morning pop songs, watching those clips over and over again, tears running down her cheeks, and said, “a historical moment, all walls are coming down.”
Under normal circumstances Susette would have asked about it of course. If the older woman knew anyone in Germany, or if she was just happy about the step forward in history.
But it had not been an ordinary day. She had met Maj-Gun on the walking path in the town center that morning, and Maj-Gun had been angry, an omen that too.
About the impossibility, of everything. And she had taken the rugs out onto the courtyard, hung them over the rug rack, and there, “all walls coming down” ringing in her ears, she understood what it was. What she had forgotten, kiss kiss kiss, as if Maj-Gun had said it too, had she said it? If not, then she should have.
And suddenly she heard the folk song. “The folk song has many verses, the same thing happens in every one. Over and over again—”
The girl at the cemetery who was singing, a song from the company car in the morning. And then Susette had understood: there is no way out of this.
Susette left the rugs on the rack, and left. Took the bus back to the District and came back home and took the backpack and then the bus again, to the capes, the sea, she was headed there.
The Winter Garden. Some scribble, pictures on the wall in her apartment, a lot of words there too. Kapu kai. He had been in the cousin’s house, of course, he was there when he was not hanging out in her apartment. She was going to drop off the pistol, she did not need it any longer, she was headed to the sea after all.
But he was in the way. The Boy in the woods, the boy from the woods. But she did not know him. Another story, had always been. All walls coming down. The cat in his eyes as well.
And there had, certainly, been blood, blood, there too. She did not remember. It was difficult to remember. Some things just cannot—
In any case she had not had the pistol or the backpack when she came down to the Second Cape, the cliffs, the sea.
But wait, Liz, about this blood. The Boy in the woods, the following must be said. Bengt, who he was—and was not.
“That once, Liz, I was in a wood.” Another wood. In the middle region of the country. Janos, the strawberry-picking fields. Fifteen years old, or sixteen. And she and Janos her second love, “the Pole but actually he was from Lithuania,” had gotten lost in this wood after they had run away from the strawberry fields. His idea, but good ideas and most of all, who had been the originator of them is easily forgotten after a day’s wandering about in the woods and they had started fighting violently, wordlessly, and suddenly in the woods even Susette had become furious.
He had hit her, she had hit back. That damned unintelligible language, and they had nothing to say to each other anyway. He teased her because she did not know the way out, this was her damned wood, her country. They had not eaten for days, water could be found in the wood, of course, in any case.
He accused her of all sorts of other things too. A scuffle, naturally Janos had been stronger than her. But she had been angrier: might one have been able to tell, in general, have been able to tell a therapist about such a rage? Which just grew inside you, as a result of all the powerlessness in the world, CRASH, someone who stepped on a house of balsa wood, and it went to pieces, The Angel of Death the Angel of Death, someone who was standing and yelling at you. One’s own mother. And the cats at the hospital who were hissing, and the manager, Little Susette, Sweet Little Susette, the old dying ones will become so sad if you leave now.
On the other hand. Maybe in hindsight it was a fabrication. Because she had forgotten that moment, would forget, more and more, just here in the bed, with Liz, wordless, let it come out.
Maybe she took the rock just because it happened to end up under her hand there in the middle of the seventymilewoods in the middle region of the country where east was west and north was south, she had no idea, just that it was twelve o’clock somewhere certainly, because the sun was shining that way, as if it were the middle of the day. And Janos had pushed her down on the ground. She took the rock and threw it and it hit him and he sank down to the ground, it was like in a movie, remained lying there.
Moss, mosquitoes, and hunger thirst in her stomach. And a strong sun, as mentioned, and a damned silence, loneliness.
She had continued walking.
“Once I was in a wood…” And though she might have regretted it then already that she had left him behind, it really did not matter, the woods were the same the same everywhere, she still would not be able to find her way back to that place.
And suddenly she had been out of the wood. Almost laughable, maybe just a few hours later after a day of being lost with her second love: found a road where there were cars. And she had just sat down on a rock, taken a breather, out of relief. And fallen asleep. And when she woke up there had been someone who was shaking her and it was a boy, not Bengt, but Magnus, a friend of Bengt’s who was in the car. She did not recognize him, or them: she realized first several years later when she met Bengt in the woods anew who he actually was.
Just two guys, maybe in their twenties, who were on their way from somewhere to somewhere like youths are, in a car, loving that vagueness too: “from somewhere to somewhere.”
She got a ride with them, and they gave her food, she had been so hungry after all. Fallen asleep in the backseat and when she had woken up again she was in the city by the sea. “Our mascot. We can’t leave her here.” And she stayed with them for a few days in an apartment in the city by the sea. There was a lot of partying and a lot of beer and a lot of people coming and going, sometimes the guys went to the docks in order to earn money, you could do that sort of thing back then.
“Our mascot.” They had been so kind, she had not been Susette but mascot, no one had been allowed to touch her. And as said: no talk of the District, no thought about the District either, just a few youths, she like a little sister-mascot, and the two boys, in an apartment, the city by the sea. And the last thing she wanted to do was tell them who she was, where she came from. Because it had been so obvious: back to her mother, she could not. She had known that already before Janos, before she left for the strawberry fields.