Monika Fagerholm - The Glitter Scene

So that she has them memorized. In any case certain sections. “The memorable ones worth remembering,” she says and she writes down the particularly striking ones in her “Book of Quick-Witted Sayings,” a small notebook with a black wax cover. “You never get a cavity in a clean tooth,” “Test yourself if you’re borderline,” Maj-Gun quotes. Reads out loud, flidderfladder sentences from here and from there, My statements .

And yes, there is even a blank page in the notebook, in other words blank on purpose. “Tom’s world,” Maj-Gun has written at the very top in large letters with a blue ballpoint pen. Holds it up for Susette. “My brother, do you remember?” Knowingly, so to speak, not to mention with a silly, childish emphasis. Susette nods, of course, her first boyfriend, of course she remembers, and what about it? “The human rights lawyer,” Maj-Gun clarifies later, suddenly rather bitter. “That’s what he became later when he graduated from law school. And successful. All the raped women and children, djeessuss.”

But stops herself, something else suddenly catches her attention on the other side of the window on the square in the town center. And in the next moment she sighs, almost devoutly: “Think about what Madonna has done for fashion” because at the same time oneofthose girls from the high school or junior high is crossing the square in tight pants, short leather jacket with shoulder pads, curly hair in a ponytail, bow on her head, and a knickknacknecklace around her neck.

And then she says, in a tone new for the moment, serious, so tender that it is suddenly impossible not to like her: “So many men, so little time, Susette. If I looked like you. With your looks—I wouldn’t be sitting here rotting away.

“I mean,” she adds more obtrusively, after a small pregnant pause, “not how you look now . But the potential . Come along and change. A bait for life. To life, an invitation.”

And then she takes her makeup kit out of her purse that she keeps stored under the counter, takes a hand mirror and lip gloss from it. She has several sticky colors in round plastic cases sealed in small crackling plastic bags that she has carefully, so that there certainly would not be any marks, scraped away from the cover wrapping around certain women’s magazines with a knife before setting them out for sale on the shelves. And starts daubing the sludge on her pale, cracked lips, several shades at once. “Starling darling kiss-ready for the evening enjoyment,” then she hisses and smacks wildly at the pocket mirror that she holds up when she is finished.

“Kiss kiss kiss.”

And calms down a little, looking around roguely. “Or maybe you just need to color your lips because you’re going out for a smoke. A woman of the world, Susette, always leaves lipstick on the end of her cigarette.” Grandly, quoting from “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings.” “SO,” Maj-Gun explains with an eternal poker face because of course she knows that what she is going to say next is sly, “you can see in the ashtray that a Real Woman was here.”

“Stop.” Susette is laughing so hard she almost chokes. But today is the first day of the rest of your life . Maj-Gun sits up straight, there is a customer walking across the square toward the newsstand, and she takes her position on the customer serving stool again, meek as a lamb.

“Look, Susette,” she says just before the door chimes. “Who we have here! Now we’re going to have some fun!” In other words it is that customer, an older gentleman with a lot of lottery tickets. And when he has taken the three steps up to the counter with three quick youthful strides Maj-Gun is sitting ready with a quote she has randomly chosen from “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings” (which, in other words, is the point of the hobby: saying to the first best customer exactly what happens to be on that page in “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings” regardless of whether or not it sounds stupid or crazy).

“Just because you’re a count doesn’t mean you have the right to walk in and out of my life as you please,” Maj-Gun says to the man, with her softest and most beautiful customer service voice.

And he, the man—incidentally the Manager of Susette’s apartment building—stands there speechless for a moment without knowing how to react. Certainly not angry my goodness, just the opposite. Hums something cheerful, suddenly almost embarrassed because he has a hard time hiding what a good mood this girl has put him in, and most of all, for a second you get the feeling that he might like to stick out his chubby hand and pinch Maj-Gun Maalamaa on the cheek.

And it is entertaining, of course, both of them laugh heartily, Susette Packlén and Maj-Gun Maalamaa, when the Manager has gone on his way. “Now I seem to have gotten one of those gaffers on the hook again,” Maj-Gun determines, and adds with a bit more irony: “As you can see, Susette, I really am surrounded by a crowd of admirers,” wiping sticky lip gloss from her mouth with an almost ill-tempered sweep of the back of her hand.

But then she shrugs. “Bother! Forgetabout it. That isn’t love, it’s a hobby. What do you know about love, Susette? And, Susette, what do I know?

“Love is something bigger… Oh, Susette. Now I’m suddenly getting nervous. Come on. I need a smooooooke!”

And she hastily snatches a newspaper to use for holding open the door.

All About Animals in Nature, All About Relationships, A Hundred Years of Psychoanalysis and Personal Development, Everything About Everyday Interactions, Cats’ World, All About Dogs —and of course All About Love .

Susette and love .

Because suddenly the magazine that Maj-Gun has stuck under her arm slips from her grasp there where she is standing in the doorway to the newsstand, in the process of lighting her cigarette with a lighter. Falls to the ground, opens to a column, it is just too fantastic, they both stand there staring.

“Do you see?” Maj-Gun says after a few seconds, in total genuine surprise and for a moment without her usual sweaty excitement. “Your story, Susette. And what it’s called. Oh, oh, oh, Susette. ‘Your Love.’ ”

Susette and love . A black-and-white sketch of a woman’s face illustrates the story, a car, lanterns, a few trees, and broken fog—and behind her face, in the background but in the distance so to speak, a man. With sideburns, wearing a polo, a blazer.

“And what is love?” Maj-Gun continues, once they have come inside. “Sharing the everyday and not forgetting to take turns washing the coffee cups?

“Oh no,” Maj-Gun immediately determines. “That isn’t anything other than ordinary everyday servility . You can have different kinds of arrangements, with or without legal validity .

“Or a marriage between friends. Two bank directors in a mixed Lions Club who found each other through their mutual interest in charity.”

And so, Maj-Gun who dives into her book again, “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings,” her statements.

“More like this…” Skims, skims until she comes to a suitable place. “‘He taught me to walk’… ‘She made me see’ …

“‘It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Love means doing everything for love.’ Even dying, not just for show but PANG truly .

“I am more romantically inclined than you, Susette. In other words, it is just as I suspected—

“I don’t mean it in a bad way, but… now. I see. That we—might be two. That maybe YOU were also created for a greater love.”

“My God, Maj-Gun.” Susette Packlén laughs in a girlfriend sort of way. “Isn’t it enough already?”