Monika Fagerholm - The Glitter Scene

“Peter, Nellevi.” Laughter. Naturally your name cannot be Nellevi nor can it be Susette either. A name from a tabloid, a serial Susette and love .

“So nice.”

A daughter. Ulla. Talented. Oh oh oh. “The theater, the dance, the music… a band called Screaming Toys.”

Headstrong. Does not come downstairs.

“ULLAAAA! Ulla is sulking. Temperamental. Artistic temperament—ULLAAA!” resounds through the house. “Peter also has a good singing voice,” the wife, Nellevi, laughs.

ULLLAA! Susette’s ears temporarily become deaf.

“Oh well, to the oysters. When she’s done sulking. Ulla loves oysters.”

“I CAAAAAN HEEEAAR YOU! LAAATER!”

A voice from upstairs. The voice cracks everything. Absurd, immense. Like from the abyss.

“Ulla is talented.”

“Are you cold?”

Tom Maalamaa puts his arm around his wife’s shoulders. Nono.

The living room, the kitchen… beautiful view. You see: the Winter Garden. Like a blaze of light, strong, farther away. Light over the trees as well, part of the road.

The Winter Garden. The Rita Strange Corporation .

In the living room, the sofa.

“We knew each other. From the Rita Strange Corporation. The Winter Garden. Was going to be magnificent. Wasn’t. An idea. Became something else.”

“Architectural dreams.”

“Ho-ho, Tom.” Peter Bäckström laughs. Tom, like himself.

These people, Peter and Nellevi, are also in the “business,” of course, architects, both of them.

But she, Susette, as mentioned, actually, she is not listening. Is not really even there. Twenty-nine years old, never got any older. Rosengården 2, her Rosengården. Recognizes and recognizes.

She gets up.

“The bathroom is upstairs, one floor.”

I know. She mumbles, quietly, to herself. Already on the stairs then.

“The American girl.” A black-and-white poster on the wall in the bathroom.

The girl on a cliff, her hair flowing, flying. She is going to fall.

Black-and-white photography on the poster, matches the decor. White tiles, black trim. THAT was what it was like then. Otherwise she does not look at the picture. An old story. Neither it nor the old theater poster says anything to her.

She steps out. Not back to the others, but up the stairs, landings. The third landing. There they are . The rabbits.

She is here . Has never been anywhere else.

And farther, quickly up the small stairs, to the attic room. The door is slightly ajar, but she sees, before she sneaks in, THE GLITTER SCENE in glittery letters, on a plaque on the door.

And Susette in landscape here again . The same room, the empty room, fall 1989, before everything. The duality NOW, still, full empty full empty, the old new at the same time, everything here: Susette on the Glitter Scene .

And it is windy on the Glitter Scene . The door has been standing open as said, but wedged fast with a small piece of wood, because you notice the draft when you come in. Because of the glass door at the other end, the one that was part of the large window and could not be opened, is open all the way. Cold late fall weather wells into the room.

The girl is standing in the opening. Not far from the edge, many feet of open fall down. All the openness.

The girl, the daughter, Ulla Bäckström, in white, with her back facing the room. A great mane of hair falling over her shoulders, long white skirt flapping around her legs.

Does not notice Susette in the door opening.

Susette who has taken off the silver shoes, left them at the door to the room. And tippytoe, an old thieflike merriment now completely unstoppable, tippytoe tippytoe, sneaks onto the stage carefully, into the room, the greatness.

The empty landscape/the Glitter Scene. A room where there is nothing and everything.

And EVERYTHING. Theater things, books, papers, manuscripts. Musical instruments and clothes, more clothes, ordinary clothes, dress-up clothes, on racks along the walls or in piles on the floor, notes, bags, shoes, and things, things.

Pictures on the wall, art, posters: Screaming Toys .

And: the American girl, the same poster here too. And other posters, theater performances: Singin’ in the Rain, Miss Julie , among others. The same girl, the theater, the dancing, the music , the same name, Ulla Bäckström, on all of them.

But here, still, you might think that at least something would stir something to life inside Susette, a connection, shake her, to something else. The American girl . That old story. Which was Maj-Gun Maalamaa’s story. The one about the Boy in the woods , which she went on about.

Maj-Gun at the newsstand, kiss kiss kiss , red sticky lips, glitter. But nah, does not stir anything. Maj-Gun does not exist. “We are two Angels of Death.” Which she said once. But nah. We . Are nothing. Maj-Gun had stopped existing. They have seen each other today, earlier in the day. The Red One. Another. No connection. Rather Majjunn Majjunn, but for Susette it is something else, has always been: a sound in her head.

I am, in other words, alone here on the Glitter Scene .

So: stirs nothing. Nothing nothing, which might also depend on the multitude, EVERYTHING here. So much, too much, incentive and things, messages, impressions. Takes herself out. Becomes: mute.

Susette does not see them. She is inside the old emptiness but here there is no connection between now and then, the one and the other.

“ULLLAAAAA!”

She hears that. That scream. Is standing in the middle of the room and wishes the father downstairs would stop yelling.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!” The girl at the open glass door in the panorama window suddenly turns around and yells in toward the room, with everything she can muster too. That enormous voice which sounds even more grand and more special up here. Not surprising that she likes screaming up here .

Right in her face. That is how the girl becomes aware of Susette. Has turned around in the middle of everything and, as it turns out, she screams at Susette! About fifteen feet away from her right in her face.

Which is of course comical; the girl, a bit surprised at first, but not so much, starts laughing. “Hi. Who are you? Our guests?” Susette nods and introduces herself and the girl says that she is Ulla Bäckström and runs past Susette to the door at the other end and yells down the stairs one more time: “I just saaaid I waaas coommmiiing!”

Then she closes the door. Takes the wedge out and the two of them are alone up there.

“Ah and then we were rid of him. Dad, he’s great, but he can be so naggy.

“It’s like this some evenings,” the girl continues. “You need to be alone and… think. In a strange mood. Can you keep a secret?”

Ulla Bäckström puts a finger over her lips and peers mischievously at Susette. “You’ll understand. I’m not allowed to have this door open”—the glass door. “Papa confiscated the key when he found out but I confiscated it back, he has no idea. But, it isn’t always like this. Just sometimes. Certain nights. Standing there, in the wind, above everything, thinking. I usually think. About everything that is going on. About everything that is going to end. Mortality. In the midst of everything beautiful. On the edge. Do you understand?”

Susette nods, of course, even though she really is not listening, cannot manage to focus. But the girl in the middle of the room in front of her, still, silencing. Those white clothes, the skirt, the ankle boots with a heel, and in her hair, which is swelling around her face, small metal insects: they are butterflies, in different colors, glittering in the sharp light from the ceiling that falls over her like a spotlight. The Glitter Scene . That is how it is. Of course. And the girl who on the one hand is like from outer space but on the other is fully conscious of the effect she has on people.