The Glitter Scene (19 page)

But at the rug rag bucket Susette had not said to Maj-Gun that Maj-Gun’s love was a fantasy-fetus born of a lot of wishful thinking, and she was not planning on saying it now either.

And besides, what did she know about it anyway? She had not been with the girls and had a crush on some Bencku in her youth, or had a crush on anyone at all. During that time she kept company with Maj-Gun’s brother Tom Maalamaa and when she had not been with Tom Maalamaa in his room at the rectory she had been at the hospital with her father who was suddenly dying and when he died she had not been able to be with Tom at the rectory anymore so she and her mother remained alone in the deserted family home in the lush neighborhoods below the town center. Far away from all the ordinary youth life in the District, far away, in some way, from everything.

“The Disgust.” An empty page: “Empty world.” And suddenly again here at the window in Rosengården, an old memory: Tom Maalamaa standing at the window of his room in the rectory that faced the cemetery where his sister Maj-Gun Maalamaa, the self-appointed
Pastor’s Crown Princess
, wanted to hold court, but with little success. “My kingdom,” she said that too. But Liz Maalamaa the Angel of Death mask (not scary, just idiotic) or without the mask, had hung on the metal gate
tjii
this way
tjii
that way … and you had, everyone had, walked past. That cemetery, which a few years later, as teenagers, had been transformed into a place where it was whispered that his sister “received.” “The Disgust,” Tom Maalamaa at the window who said that and Susette standing next to him nodding in silent agreement even if they did not
talk about it with more words than that when they were alone in Tom’s room at the rectory. Behind the closed door, just the two of them, in the music, Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, always “Mahler’s Ninth—”

That you could escape to the music from the Disgust
. “The Disgust.” In these moments in the room at the window with the view that otherwise is so beautiful: trees and hills, the church with its bells ringing on the weekends, six o’clock on Saturday evenings. Isolated words that had been thrown into the air, when the record, “Mahler’s Ninth,” on the record player had ended.

As that relationship with Tom Maalamaa had also, in other words, gradually ended. Nothing dramatic about it either: they parted as friends of course and lost touch with each other as a matter of course. Tom Maalamaa who, according to what his sister Maj-Gun said at the newsstand, had finished high school and moved away from home and started studying law at the university and after finishing his studies became a human rights lawyer for an international charity.

And Susette herself who had finished school after high school in connection with her father’s death and started working at the private Christian nursing home for the elderly and infirm in the town center. She worked there for almost one year: kept watch over the dying ones, which the manager maintained Susette was good at and maybe it was true but suddenly she had enough and quit and gone to the Businesswoman of the Year and begged for a normal summer job instead. Which later, as said, after a few days of working at the ice cream stand in the two-window shack on the square in the town center, had continued at the strawberry fields in another part of the
country, to Janos, the Lithuanian, the second lover, what later became “Poland,” all of that.

But Tom Maalamaa’s voice, how it pushes its way through her memory. Speaking “softly,” says, “the Disgust,” at the window in his steady but soft voice. One spring evening, March–April, big and bright. Tom who is speaking, Susette who is nodding, the quiet understanding around a feeling that they share without needing to formulate it into words.

Afterward, in that other life that was not “Poland,” which she had said to her mother, to Maj-Gun, which had gone on for a while, three years in other words before she returned home again, she had been able to recreate that feeling many times. A feeling that became inseparably glued to the District in particular, the entire district, what had happened to her personally, her mother’s death, everything mixed together. “This Disgust” over everything.

The cemetery, the death, all death, her father’s death. “No, Susette,” her mother had said admonishingly when she let go of everything, “it’s not easy living in a house of sorrow.” And Maj-Gun,
Majjunn
, the Pastor’s Crown Princess, “say the password” … a metal gate
tjii
this way
tjii
that way in the wind … and Maj-Gun older, receiving: Maj-Gun’s bleeding teenage bottom in the sleet between the headstones.

And at the nursing home later, the lonely dying ones on whom Susette, according to the manager, had a favorable effect: to these beds in particular where both nursing home cats were often already lying at the foot—they had a habit of sneaking in just before death came, jumping up onto the beds, had a nose for death.

Sitting there on a chair at the bedsides, holding hands, saying good-bye.

The Disgust. Instead of the beautiful and the normal. Which had been exactly that, no descriptions. Her mother at the cemetery: “What a beautiful bouquet, Susette!” “Listen! They are ringing for the weekend service. Listen how beautiful it is.”

The Disgust. In relation to the District—her youth, her home, everything. In relation to herself with: the memory of it—padding steps, soft and meek, down those corridors. Did not say much, almost mute, but stick thin and with those big eyes, bulging globes that greeted her in the mirrors of the nursing home. Padding over shiny waxed floors: were seasons, summers, springs, falls, going on anywhere?

Looking out through the window, the square, the life, the movement.

“Kitty, kitty come to me.”
Scchhhh hisssss:
the nursing home cats who saw red at the mere sight of her and ran for their lives down the corridors.

The Disgust in relation to time, to herself, to everything.

Which had also been a reason why she remained in the city by the sea, in other cities, in other places, a long time. Sporadically getting in touch with her mother at the house. Called from “Poland,” just a designation, no camouflage for anything tremendous.

Because Janos,
her second love
, the Lithuanian, from the strawberry fields, there had not been much to it. The story had barely started when it ended.

And gradually undeniably, you came up with a way to talk about it and think about it, with the comic points as well. How they had “escaped” from the boardinghouse
in the middle of the summer night where all of the strawberry pickers were lying, sleeping, packed their things, headed off. Out into the woods—but the woods in the center of the country are bigger and more deserted than those in the District could ever be. And getting lost there.

She had found her way out again a day and a half later, suddenly found herself by the side of a road on which cars passed now and then. Hungry and exhausted she set herself up by the side of the road in order to bum a ride: it had not gone very well and she had been so tired she had not been able to stand and had to sit on a rock to rest. She had fallen asleep on the rock and when she woke up there were some boys in a car that had stopped by the side of the road and they asked her if she was feeling all right, if she needed a ride.

And she had been allowed to hang out with them, they gave her food and she slept in the backseat the whole way and when she woke up again they were in the city by the sea and she stayed there with the guys for a while, somewhat older, nice guys, had been their “mascot,” but no one was allowed to touch her, they were very kind.

Everyone had been so nice to her: “mascot.” But then she left and got a job and her own place to live. And stayed in the city awhile, and then traveled to another city, and so on.

Janos, her second love. A few days there, then—the whole time, gone.

But here, now.
My life
. How it is flying by. An opportunity exists. Be nothing and new. The Disgust? Of course it was, of course it is, so beautiful here. The open spaces.

•

But still, Maj-Gun. At the cemetery, one April evening as a teenager, Susette who happened to come by, on her way home from Tom, the Disgust? It had not been like that. Indifferent, almost in a bad mood, told Susette to go away. And Susette had gone away, home. They had not spoken about it either, ever.

Maj-Gun at the rug rag bucket—no, that was something else. Maj-Gun at the newsstand … “I was standing there, reeling in the fear.” But she had not been scared. In the middle of the square, Maj-Gun waving.

As if there was a connection between them. Invisible threads, rags, rug rags. Moss that was growing over their heads, moss like a fungus from the earth, old folk songs.

Maj-Gun with a mask over her face: Liz Maalamaa the Angel of Death.

Oh. Up here in the empty room, it blows away, so beautiful, open.

“Overturn houses?” Nah, standing firmly you know, on the ground.

Tiny love, tiny baby bird under your jacket, tiny seed—

I love you
. And running over plains.

“SUSEEETTTE!”

Solveig’s voice blasting from one of the lower floors, through the house. Have to go.

•

But then
CRASH
. A glass rabbit that splits into a thousand pieces, raining over the hard, stone floor. Susette has left the attic,
polishing rabbits
half a floor down, has returned to her work.

This house: partially open plan living divided over three floors, ceiling height and space and Susette at the
railing on the third floor: high above the ground level where Solveig is polishing the hard floor made of expensive Italian granite way down below, and Susette who is supposed to be dusting, but that strange thieflike merriment in her again.

Susette with polish on her rag is polishing the rabbits, my love, your love, finding a tiny seed, tiny baby bird under your jacket, light heart little sparrow hopping crow hopping sparrow. “Look, Solveig!” Cannot resist rollicking a little. “Look look!” Holding a rabbit in her hand, over the railing, Solveig far down below, Susette pretending to juggle the rabbit, pretending to throw it dangerously up into the air. Look, Solveig! “Gråhara northwest nineteen, Bulleholm northeast thirteen …” starts rattling off the weather forecast from the company car that morning, it echoes through the house, sings the song,
but dearest my little girl don’t tie the bands too hard
, “the folk song has many verses, the same thing happens in every one, over and over again, an eternal repetition, look, Solveig!”

“You’re crazy!” Solveig yells loudly too, through the house. “Crazy idiot!”

And then: “NO! Susette!” because it is in that moment that Susette loses her grip on the little glass piece, slippery from the polish, and it slips out of her hands and they both understand what is going to happen, it cannot be stopped. The rabbit that is falling, falling through the whole house and breaks on the floor into millions of small, hard shards that fly everywhere and Solveig is forced to run run away, is barely able to take cover behind a door.

Then silence, a fall day that has come to a standstill—and Solveig is furious of course.

Is silent the rest of the working day, they leave together in silence. On the avenues, the sun that has been covered by the clouds, Solveig walking a few steps ahead, quick, jerking steps, toward the car, Susette who is sauntering after her.

But then, in the middle of everything, Solveig turns around, and you can see that everything is okay again, the anger has blown over.

“Come on now you damned dreamer and idiot. We have to hurry home.”

“Now I remember her,” Solveig says in the company car as they are leaving Rosengården 2 behind.

“Who?”

“Maj-Gun. Maalamaa. The Pastor’s daughter. Because a long time ago, when I was little. She stole an apple. From Doris Flinkenberg. The biggest apple in the fruit basket that Bengt won at the bazaar in the fellowship hall and gave to her. She was stubborn, Doris, had to have everything, though it was a shame about her.”

Maj-Gun Maalamaa, stuck her hand through the cellophane and took the biggest apple.

“They were both very greedy. She did not give in to Doris.” Solveig laughs.

“Then you remember all sorts of cuckoo. Which Doris?”

“This Doris. On the cassette.”

And the girl she walks in the dance with red golden ribbons on Solveig’s tape player in the car. The folk songs.

•

A few days later Susette picks up a white cat at the Glass House on the Second Cape. The French family that had
been renting the house as a summer residence have left and Susette is there on behalf of the cleaning company to help with the move: air out bedclothes, dust and roll up rugs, and wrap things in silver paper and pack them in moving boxes for transportation back to the winter residence in the city by the sea. But their summer cat, long haired, white, mixed breed, which the diplomats had adopted from the animal shelter in June, has in some way or another been forgotten.

It is sitting on the kitchen stairs of the locked, abandoned house when Susette returns a few days later: as if it had been waiting for her when she, as if led by a sixth sense, suddenly got the inclination to take the bus from the town center out to the Second Cape one Saturday morning. The wonderful white cat. And what a different cat in comparison to other cats Susette Packlén had, up until then, come across in her lifetime: both of the nursing home cats in the ward for the elderly and infirm where she had worked as a teenager, her very first job. Two peevish cats, siblings with shiny coats, who snuck around the corridors, so calm and at home where they spent their days padding from room to room, bed to bed, from dying person to dying person, but got out their claws and hissed at the very sight of her, “little Susette,” which had been the nursing home manager’s nickname for her.

The white cat is hungry, almost emaciated. So it eats, eats when she comes home with it. “Damned animal torturer,” Maj-Gun establishes at the newsstand about the French family in the Glass House when Susette comes to the newsstand to buy more cat food that same night because all of the grocery stores are already closed and she tells Maj-Gun everything in broad strokes.