Monika Fagerholm - The Glitter Scene

Maj-Gun who knows everything, so to speak, and establishes: the one with the other and the third. My statements , and notes, chosen pieces in “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings” that she loves to quote from. Urbanely, as it were, occasionally superior too—and very sure of herself even if often later, almost always , it turns out that she was wrong.

And how wrong Maj-Gun is: it did not start in the newsstand or even with the skateboarding film that did not turn out to be a young adult blockbuster either, which Maj-Gun persisted in claiming when they were going to go out and get some fresh air among their peers after a difficult and strange time in the house in the town center. Nah, simply originates from the beginning of time, that incorrectness, from the cemetery, the Pastor’s Crown Princess, all of that.

Everything with which Maj-Gun had gotten hold of the wrong part of the stick. About her and her mother for example, the flowers on the Graves of the Forgotten, as if there had already been something crazy about it to begin with. Stood and hissed “the Angel of Death” at Susette at the water hydrant in the stone grove when her mother had been out of sight, wearing that silly mask, “Buhuu aren’t you afraid of me?”

But if you then much later, so to speak, when the water had flowed under the bridges and you had more of a will of your own, for example in the newsstand, personally ventured to hint to Maj-Gun about everything she had been wrong about, just something completely normal, even in joking, then Maj-Gun would instantly become grouchy and snap:

“Well! You’re probably lying too.” And of course put you on the defensive. “What do you mean?” Maj-Gun has started tallying. “First, The Sea Captain. Your father. Back in school. When we were little. YOU said that he was a sea captain. AND second…” And then of course you were forced to stop listening, it is not possible to discuss things with Maj-Gun when she is in that kind of a mood, putting her own spin on things, it just gets worse, leads nowhere.

But still, nothing of that NOW, here, in the apartment, not even important. Just the following, so simple. That here for once you have gone to Maj-Gun as one friend to another and been beside yourself about a cat you had just gotten as your own and wanted to share your happiness with her, with someone. But Maj-Gun who, as soon as she has commented on her commonplace knowledge, “rag doll,” has just brushed the cat aside as if what was coming out of her mouth was so much more important.

Humbug. And Susette feels the anger pulsating inside; so angry so angry like she has never been before.

Even if you cannot see it on her, because she does not say anything, does not move a muscle.

But it has become quiet for a few minutes during which Maj-Gun, with her feelers, registers that her joke was not appreciated, maybe she can hear that it is not as funny as she thought it would be. But immediately, in the next moment, she pulled herself together and so to speak discovered the cat anew. Carefully lifted it up in her arms again, burrowing her face into its fur. “Joking aside,” blinking a bit roguely, eyes narrowed through the cat hair, “you can find a lot of almost fat-free recipes in them, for single people too.”

And it is a little bit funny after all, cannot be helped, Susette cannot help but break into a smile. And she softens, the hot fury disappearing almost as quickly as it came over her.

Ventures to ask too: “Something from ‘The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings’?”

“Oh,” Maj-Gun answers, squirming a bit in her seat, but of course she cannot hide that she is happy again, about the appreciation and the attention. “Just something I made up. By myself, so to speak.”

“But now, Susette, for the remaining entertainment,” Maj-Gun continues then, the afternoon that passes, the chocolate swiss roll eaten, the ice cream melted into slush in the bowls on the table, the cat fallen asleep in Susette’s arms, heavy and sweaty on her pajama-covered legs, still in her bedclothes, wearing just her bathrobe. “Shall I tell you about something else? Something about myself and my life? Things are happening there too even though it may not look like it from the outside. But a little bird has whispered in my ear: that I may not be here for very long. It is starting to burn, Susette…

“You know, Susette, as I have a habit of saying. I’m flying away. The two alternatives… money or love, you remember. And now I’m not talking about the former. My aunt Elizabeth and all of her money that I’m going to inherit and that will provide me with the opportunity to live an independent life as a single person with loads of financial freedom so that I can leave this joint… I’ll be able to have a nice apartment too, and certainly be able to get started on the right diet right away, so that my life , oh djeessuss how I’ll be able to say it, my life , like an architectural monument, white and airy and with high ceilings… so that my life—well, it won’t be any story about Fat-Dick and Fat-Sally who found love together, 484 pounds of true love and then they lived happily ever after with only vegetable fat on the table, Susette—ha-ha.” Maj-Gun laughs at her own joke but then she suddenly grows quiet and, “where was I?” Looks around Susette’s cozy little living room as if she had just woken up, a living room that is such a different environment from the newsstand where she otherwise sits and tells her stories, everything sounds so different here. A few seconds’ pause, and then she has found her place again. “Well HERE I was: that, the jump in the lake, Susette.

“The old bitch will never die, believe you me. It never becomes evening there—nah, always morning in that life. Early morning hours, a hysterically bursting dawn particularly in the company of someone with her healthy fluids who would love to lie around in her pajamas and lounge around until the afternoon. And five glasses of water every morning to not feel hungry and she doesn’t feel any hunger, I promise, before her morning aerobics and the long morning walks that occur daily. But—what do you get out of it, Susette? From those kinds of healthy habits? Hallelujah, Susette, you get eternal life.

“But now that wasn’t what I was going to talk about rather it was the other alternative: a small bird has whispered in my ear that the Boy in the woods is back. Love, Susette. That possibility.

“Yes, in other words,” she adds. “I haven’t actually seen him. But I know. There is so much you know that you don’t know. Can you explain it?

“A criminal returns to the scene of the crime. That’s what I mean. I love him. Because he… loved so much he killed— ‘Nobody knew my rose of the world but me.’ It was a tragic story. The American girl who died at Bule Marsh. Do you remember?”

Certainly, of course, an old story from the District, Susette shrugs her shoulders: “And what about it then?”

“Well. HE. Loved her. The American girl. So much that he killed—”

“Sorry, but who are you talking about again?”

“Djeessuss.” Maj-Gun rolls her eyes, opens them wide. “I’m talking about the Boy in the woods of course. Haven’t you heard? Djeessus, Susette. If you weren’t so curled up in your own suffering,” Maj-Gun continues, but not at all as exaggerated as she sounds. “And now I don’t mean you personally but for example you—

“Or me for example. Because that’s how it is with all people. Your head is filled with so many other things, so many other things, your own things, that you aren’t attentive. And then of course you need—protection. To protect yourself, protect each other.