The Glitter Scene (36 page)

“A childless marriage but God gives and God takes away and that sorrow which lasted so many years only brought the two of them closer together.” Afterward, consequently, some relative from the husband’s side suddenly felt the need to determine this despite the fact that there had not been a single person at the table for the closest mourners who would not have known exactly what the married life between the two, now dead, people in question had been like. If not the “family doctor” himself—a cousin who is enthroned at one end of the relatives’ table instead of at the cousin’s table where he actually should be sitting but has apparently received a better seat due to his respectable age in addition to his task as “physician in ordinary,” which they say in that
family, to that family. He is ninety-four years old but clear as a bell, possibly a bit
loose tongued
in his old age; that is to say less restrained with what he in company as company might happen to allow to come out.

That “doctor” whom even Liz Maalamaa was forced to see many times while her husband was still alive for a neck brace and bandage and grogginess-inducing calming tablets as a result of what, of course, did not exist, something everyone was well aware of—her own cowlike clumsiness that caused her to fall down the stairs all the time. Which is, in other words, what her husband had pointed out in public where still no one had spoken out against him: that his wife so to speak
had to
stumble, fall, or come tumbling from the second floor to the first floor in that beautiful house, which was in everyday language called a “shatoe,” on comfortable sandals where they lived. But “ssshh,” even “the doctor,” just like the entire family, put his finger to her lips. “Ssshhhhhh,” had not even needed any form of extra request to “the doctor,” he was bound to confidentiality in any case and then of course it was decorum too. But then in any case, with great sympathy—because he was no wild animal of course—generously prescribed all of those calming medications that sometimes made the aunt float forward so to speak, under the influence. Not over the ground, but in her head, where a lot of strange things—China, memories from a life as a missionary that had never been lived in reality—started welling forth.

But that is, consequently, when “the doctor” here at the reception after the funeral suddenly starts speaking like that, in small print over the sorrow of childlessness and about some sort of despite-everything-union
between the two partners, that Maj-Gun is going to look at her own father, the dead one’s brother. And notice for once that he has a hard time keeping his own council; his hand that is gripping the coffee cup—fine Chinese porcelain,
a fine china
, they had to drag the most exquisite family china to this exhibition as well—starts shaking unreasonably and you suddenly understand for once that he is not planning on being the country boy from the boardinghouse in the company of these people, which he is in all other places except for in the church where he is so keen to stay on good terms with everyone;
too
good terms, he has just realized now and now in other words, readiness, he has decided for the first and the last time to say things as they are, speak, shout out.

Accordingly, this is when his daughter Maj-Gun quickly jumps in and states that bit about the grove which, despite everything, is so lush in the summer of course in any case. And her father then, when he hears that, how he comes to his senses again and relaxes and places his warm pastor’s hand on his daughter’s hand on the table.

And THAT IS HOW Maj-Gun, after a period of absence, introduces herself to her father, with that line, not as she had imagined in the church during the service. Though before she has the chance to say anything else here in this situation her father will personally say something, wink with one eye and say softly, just to her: “Came too late? Maybe you took the wrong bus?”

A warm smile spreads over his daughter’s face then, and her father’s warm hand in hers, and her warm hand in his—and hands, in general, everyone’s hands will, for a little while, become warm. Even Tom Maalamaa’s paw that is pounding his sister’s back, exaggeratedly brotherly.
“Hey, Sis,” with a painful pluckiness that rhymes poorly with his impeccable exterior. As if he, for one moment, when he sees her again after a long time, finds himself in a childhood where he and Maj-Gun never were, either alone or together, for the same age exists in him as in her and that was always what united them—and divided them—actually.

But Tom, there at the reception, otherwise brown like a gingersnap next to his fiancée, white and pale in the face, in the middle of all the warmth, she is beaming as well. One of those, a few seconds, a complete moment, in reality. “Ahem”: Tom Maalamaa who is going to clear his throat and get up and with his future wife in his wake will walk up to the table where a photograph of Liz Maalamaa is standing next to a tea light and a large pile of telegrams and addresses. Which he consequently starts reading aloud with his fiancée’s help: she, next to him, hands the addresses to him one after the other and then she carefully arranges the read ones in a perfect fan on the table. Susette Packlén, a glorious light around her. Those eyes, like globes, a whole world,
silk velvet rag scraps
—so filled with life and meaning now. The engagement will be made official later in the spring in connection with one, in a line of her brother’s many appointments, that he is also casually sitting and talking about at the table with relatives from the husband’s side of the family without it sounding like boasting.

And what are you supposed to think then, about Susette Packlén? Love.
Susette and love. My life
. That there had ever been another lover. The Boy in the woods. A
newsstand toppler?
But that is just absurd.

A long, LONG time later, many years, hundreds from this point in time, Susette Maalamaa like Maj-Gun Maalamaa will, who otherwise will not have any contact at all over the years, explain it like this:

“Do you know what it was like with him, Bengt? Like being in a wood. Getting lost. I didn’t understand what he was saying. Like with Janos, the Pole, or the Lithuanian, which he actually was. From the strawberry fields. Just went on and went on, I didn’t understand a thing. That’s how it was with that.”

Mrs. Maalamaa, which is what becomes of her later, for many years. Susette Packlén from the District who cleaned for Solveig at Four Mops and a Dustpan, got a white cat for herself for a while, and walked around and did not get anywhere in the District.

Susette at the window
. It is high there, above everything. A window in a room in her own house in the outskirts of the city; there are parts of cities in the world, does not matter in which city, these neighborhoods, exclusive outskirts, by water if there is water, they all look the same. Tom Maalamaa with family will come to live in neighborhoods like these in the cities where the international organizations he works for have their headquarters.

Tom Maalamaa. You will be able to read about him in the paper sometimes, hear him speak from well-paid podiums, see him in pictures. “Improving the world”—unpretentiousness. “The wife in the background.” Can be recognized by her large eyes.
Cute
. Three children. Karl-Olof, Mikael, and Elizabeth Ida. No pets due to the allergies in the family. The aupairgirl, Gertrude.

“This,” Susette will suddenly say at the window in her home in the living room, second floor, view over a bay, “reminds me of Portugal. Death in the hands. I had it then as well.”

•

But STOP, here now, stop. Right here, NOW, still, the inevitable. The cemetery, before the memorial when Liz Maalamaa receives many dear greetings filled with memories from the past, before everything: as if one wanted, through these jumps in time forward backward, to get away from the unavoidable in front of you. The GRAVE. The coffin with the aunt being lowered down, roses falling on the coffin in the hole before the wooden lid is placed on top and wreaths with flowers rain over it.

Two roses, no more. From both godchildren, Maj-Gun’s, Tom’s. Maj-Gun’s a small, simple pink one that the Manager helped her pick out at the flower shop in the town center where they had gone together in public that last day they had been together. The rose, which had already been standing in a vase in fresh, nourishing, lukewarm water, a few delicate slits with the knife in the stem, on the counter in the kitchen in the Manager’s apartment during what had been the last night.

And Tom’s rose: dazzling, huge like a sunflower, dark red, becoming in the way it matches his cashmere scarf.
Pjutt
, drops it, an unnatural gesture, which is exactly why it cannot, with that movement, avoid etching itself onto the retinas of the audience.

But it does not help.
My child my child, I am going to make you so happy
. The dead one, Aunt Maalamaa, gulping on a ship with her goddaughter a long time ago, a will. It has not been fun, as it will turn out.

Because Maj-Gun Maalamaa inherits everything, the entire estate—“the whole kingdom,” including a winter home in Portugal. In her brother Tom Maalamaa’s face who had the entire
coffinhell
to deal with personally in Portugal, which he, in the moment he grows pale beneath his sunburn, hisses at the lawyer’s office when the will is opened and read aloud which, according to the wishes of the deceased, takes place first thing after the funeral—these, the aunt’s final requests, which have been quite a few and had mostly to do with the funeral and the shape of it, meticulous instructions, right down to the china that should be used during the reception,
a fine china
, were neatly written down in a notebook in the nightstand drawer next to the aunt’s bed in Portugal. And Tom and Susette have followed these to a T, with the exception of the seating of the family doctor because, in regard to him, there has in Liz Maalamaa’s notes not been a single mention.

Coffinhell. Tom Maalamaa has given the show away, but only for a few moments, then he pulls his act together again—and forever.

Maj-Gun gets everything, right in front of the noses of the husband’s side of the family too, who have been putting on a show for the aunt since she became a widow. Dick and Duck, amusing maybe, because against the good advice of his relatives’ and his family’s lawyers her husband had refused to sign a prenuptial agreement so everything he owned went to his wife. Properties, stocks, and what in inheritance language is called “loose money,” cash in other words.

The significance of this inheritance for Maj-Gun should not be underestimated. Not due to any malicious pleasure in the presence of the relatives or her brother
who had hidden his greediness well with his smooth walking and talking: things like this pass, are evened out. And besides, those differences of opinion they had during childhood, they really were not that bad: mutual frustration and irritation as said, like
dogs and cats
, which Mama Inga-Britta always used to say.

Not to mention that Maj-Gun is going to give her brother a portion of this “loose money,” including a share of the revenue from the aunt’s home in Portugal when she sells it a few years later.

But Maj-Gun Maalamaa is going to become
respectable
. A word she quickly learns to master during her law studies, which she starts a year and a half after her aunt’s passing and finishes brilliantly and quickly, with family law, inheritance law, and the like as her areas of specialization. And she finds daily use for it during those years after graduation when she works as a family lawyer at a distinguished law firm in the city by the sea.

But financially independent,
djeessuss
. It will provide her with a certain freedom—and space. She will have many rooms, rooms upon rooms upon rooms. Will not have to live in an apartment, never live in an apartment again.

•

“Susette, wait!”

But, still, at the cemetery, the burial: the wooden lid and the flowers, the wreaths, a sea, the ribbons: “wonderful is short,” “a final farewell.” One thing, the most important.

Maj-Gun in a red coat, like a stoplight alone by the grave, she has stayed behind. A few others, a couple, also dawdling on the gravel path. Susette and Tom.

“Wait! Susette!”

Susette obeys, turns around, hesitates.

Tom Maalamaa one step ahead of his fiancée, scarf flapping in the wind, also stops, looks back. Susette says something to him, speaks softly, he shrugs, waves to Maj-Gun “so long”; they are going to see each other at the reception. Removes himself with determined steps, perhaps a bit relieved.

Maj-Gun and Susette. Susette on the gravel path, Maj-Gun who walks up to her. And again:
how long ago
. The newsstand, all the stories, an apartment, a cat. Susette,
to life—an invitation
, shoulder pad wearing, in smoke, at a disco. Susette now: her big eyes, eyelashes covered with mascara, but only a bit, and on her full lips, a little lipstick, coral colored, “discreet.” In nice clothes. Gray winter coat, ankle boots, dark gray suede, heels just the right height, elegant.

Rug rags,
silk velvet rag
—something unexplainable that bound them together. And the District, the marshiness. Maybe it can still, faintly, be discerned, like from under layer upon layer upon layer: the smell of a winter day. Rain that became whirling snow, her wet mittens, fingers frozen anyway, blocks of ice. Wind and tight jeans. That thing inside Susette which made it look like she was always cold. And cowboy boots,
boots
.

The defenselessness. And: Susette in the hangout. One moment, gone.
And nevermore
.

Because now Maj-Gun says: sorry. A few times. And, well, she knows it does not make things better by saying it but is there something she can
do
now?

Susette is silent, picks at the ground with the toe of her boot, globs of snow, earth. Starts, “It turned out … wrong …”

Looks up again, as an introduction to something else, so to speak, longer. Maybe that she, so many years later when they meet again by chance, is going to mention, in passing. How depressed she was, had been. For many years, the Sorrow: over and after her mother—the words she does not have now but will have later. Has had the common sense to get therapy.