Monika Fagerholm - The Glitter Scene

“See you.”

“See you.”

And Maj-Gun is standing alone in a pretty much empty parking lot.

On the other hand. In a way too: idiot. Everyone has already left. But of course there is always, as her aunt Liz used to say, “the apostle’s horses.”

The apostle’s horses. Comfortable shoes. Missionary boots. You certainly get around that way too. Half a mile to the reception, the fellowship hall, she has started walking.

A few weeks later Maj-Gun travels to Portugal where she gives birth in September. She calls Solveig. Solveig comes, with her daughter Irene. She cannot keep the child. Solveig gets the child.

Come and see my gallery . A white wall in Portugal.

And then she studies law and is accepted into law school.

To the Winter Garden (Liz Maalamaa’s things): the Silver Party Shoes, made of strass, with a brooch. Purchased in Rio de Janeiro, 1952. She loved the shoes. Her party shoes. Liked dancing too. Sometimes.

Come and see my gallery . A white wall in Portugal. Liz Maalamaa’s gallery. Everything she held dear on the wall. Photographs, a brother, a family on a farm, a map of China. Portraits of her idols, black-and-white pictures, with autographs. Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardner.

A postcard, two swans among other swans. Dick and Duck. And the godchildren, her brother’s children, several photos. Maj-Gun on a boat. Majjunn, as Liz Maalamaa always called her niece, in a sun hat, dress, laughing, looks happy. A child’s drawing. A woman with a mask. Represented her, the children’s aunt Liz. “To Liz from Majjunn.” The dogs of course. Handsome, Ransome: she had two. Expensive lapdogs, the first one died almost right away from a congenital condition, the other died ten years later after securing a happy life and old age under the aunt’s jacket.

The silver shoes on a podium. They are a memory, not even particularly worn. Liz Maalamaa, who comes from simple circumstances, is careful about dealing with things carefully.

THERE IS A CAR on its way into Rosengården 2. It has stopped at the gate, the chauffeur rolls down the window, punches in a code on the keypad, the right number, they are expected guests, okay okay, green light, the gate opens. Entrance road, November 2006, dark car, strong headlights that light up the deep, dark fall night.

“Courage.” Tom Maalamaa is the one who is driving, his wife is sitting next to him, just the two of them. Both children who are still living at home are home, with the aupairgirl Gertrude. In the new service residence on the other side of the city by the sea, a suburb, the diplomats’ area. They have recently arrived, just a few weeks ago, back in their homeland again. They are going to stay for a while, maybe even a few years; this appointment. The family has not lived in the house for many days, yet the husband, who is otherwise always a pillar of patience with his wife and the family in general, despite the fact that he has a lot on his mind when it comes to his job, had time to get irritated about the fact that the unpacking was taking so long, going at a snail’s pace, mess everywhere.

So it is nice to get out a bit, away, on an invitation. Maybe Tom Maalamaa says “courage” to his wife in the car for exactly that reason. His wife does not always like going out, spending time with other people, acquaintances, strangers, “keeping up appearances” or, like now, meeting some of his friends from way back when, during his time at university. Peter and Nellevi, both architects, whom it will be really nice to meet up with after so many years, now, here in the homeland where Tom Maalamaa with family has not lived in seventeen years. Even if it cannot be seen on her, the wife, that is. Susette Maalamaa never complains; that she can feel uncomfortable in the company of others is something only he, Tom, her husband, knows. Or feels, because they have not spoken about it very much.

Actually, Tom Maalamaa thinks in the car in Rosengården about his wife Susette, that there is a lot he does not know about her. But that is okay, as it should be. There are mysteries, air between people, especially the ones who are closest to you. He has a habit of saying that to his wife sometimes. She agrees, nods, smiles, looks at him, her beautiful eyes. Which he cannot “read”; her look. Still, even though it was many, many years ago, he can remember the time she came to him in his tiny bachelor pad in the center of the city by the sea. It was that year, 1989, when they met again after having been together for a short period as teenagers when they were both living in the District. That fall, somewhat earlier, he had, after many years, run into her anew at a disco in the city by the sea. Actually that time he had only seen her at a distance but it stirred something old in him to life. Strongly.

He called her a few times that fall and they had seen each other, fleetingly, at a café. She had been evasive, distant, and he already had time to think: disappointment. But then in November, that same fall, November 1989, one night, a telephone call from her: “You have to come.” And he had come, he had found her, picked her up. So still, because she was the one who had called, because of that attraction in her, in the end it was still she who had come to him.

Moving. Those eyes, of course. But also something else. There was, in other words, in all of her something appealing , in general. Had been there from the beginning, as a teenager. And at the same time, when you thought about it, with that word, determined it in that way in your head, it still turned out wrong. It was still something else.

Which maybe was something that could not be expressed in words, and it had always existed between them.

She and he, Susette and Tom: what had really started as a game during childhood, and not even an innocent game, one she really had not wanted to get involved in. But a game he had played with his sister Maj-Gun, in the rectory. A restless childhood, not on the outside, but maybe exactly for that reason, in peace and quiet, a certain frustration. They were two children who had, in some way, not really done themselves justice; there were growing pains of course, because it passed later. But there are children who are not in step, not with other children or with their childhood in general. In step with their childhood the way they expect it to be: often intelligent children, sensible—because only intelligent and sensitive children clearly sense such expectations from their surroundings. Especially unspoken expectations, and they can, these children, if they are keen, receptive, be petrified by them. Not difficult children, but calm ones: children without all that energetic spring inside them that would make it possible for them to rush away from all thoughts, feelings, revelations.