Monika Fagerholm - The Glitter Scene

Yes. They do. In some way. But a while ago. The American girl. The Boy in the woods, in a different way. He is a love story. The American girl, in that way. A story that in different ways parallels Maj-Gun’s life, my life , and now she is suddenly sitting there laughing about it too. A story that has not belonged to her, not to the girl either, in the way they are, have been, alike. At some point they have e-mailed, chatted a bit. “Hey, Theater Girl.” The girl who talked about a play she was working on and Maj-Gun who had gotten in touch with her on a site for unsolved crimes where the girl had posted a question about wanting to get in touch with someone who knew something about it.

Maj-Gun had replied, then, with about the same thought she had when she started subscribing to the local paper even though she did not have the energy to read it: no sensible thought. Or: you can’t step into the same river twice, still you have to go there with your foot, dip dip, over and over again, move it around. Or maybe not. Maybe she wrote to the girl only because she felt some sort of protective instinct because the girl probably was not fully aware of what she was doing, what signals she was sending out, by posting a bunch of pictures of herself as the American girl on a cliff, in the moment when she falls and dies. “Here I am singing a song from my upcoming play that is called ‘Don’t Push Your Love Too Far, Eddie,’ the song about the American girl, the final song about her.” Suggestive black-and-white photographs.

And now, in the Winter Garden, Maj-Gun sees that it is her, despite the fact that the girl is older, looks a bit different, has become more woman, so to speak, has different clothes—ordinary clothes, jeans and a shirt. The same girl who was catching snowflakes with her tongue on the square. That morning, and even though it is only afternoon now, after the visit with Susette: eons ago.

Ulla Bäckström from the Glitter Scene, Rosengården 2. “My room, EVERYTHING is there…

“… and my band, Screaming Toys.”

Informations. Everything that Maj-Gun has also known, knows, regarding for example the American girl. Countryman Loman who covered things up. She has known that since her college days: some female classmate who had devoted her time to things like women and crime. Old cases, maybe not unsolved but with something strange about them.

And other strange things. Some of it said, some of it heard, sometimes one plus one becomes two aching in your head, not conscious of it. “Three siblings, a secret that drove them apart. The three cursed ones.”

Also: an eternal memory, impossible to really share with anyone. Except for one who had communicated it, Susette, but in connection with another story, somewhere else.

A girl is standing at the cemetery. She is afraid. Her name is Doris Flinkenberg.

The folk song inside her. “The folk song has many verses, the same thing happens in every one. Over and over again.”

Calling forth the fear. Maj-Gun with the mask, a teenager. Angry. Doris who is afraid, but not of the mask, it is something else. But Maj-Gun never finds out what, more than a few random words, sentences, because Maj-Gun putting the mask on only irritates Doris—she leaves, runs away.

Like the girl here now in the Winter Garden, Ulla Bäckström, is going to leave, run away in just a second. Meet Johanna in the house in the darker part, scare her or call forth an earthquake—and then home home to her fate, the Glitter Scene, the open glass door… Susette in the silver shoes, all of that you do not know about yet that is going to happen in a few hours.

Then it is all too late.

And Maj-Gun sits there with the girl, even though it does not matter. And then she says anyway: “I’m going to tell you another story. Which might make all of the incomprehensible comprehensible. Not the truth about everything, the rooms under the earth. But about two people in a newsstand once.”

The girl yawns. Looks around, says uncertainly, “You have to let go of your childhood. I don’t think… that is interesting for me anymore.”

And adds: “The American girl in a snow globe. I think I gave it to Johanna.”

Discovers the mask, a relic that Maj-Gun sometimes has with her—like “The Book of Quick-Witted Sayings,” there is so much life inside you .

“Buhuu those girls,” Ulla Bäckström shouts at Maj-Gun Maalamaa in the Winter Garden with the mask on, “and lady, here’s another thing.” Laughs suddenly, almost cheekily. “Why are you always asking about Johanna?”

And with these words the girl with the jungle voice is “like from the abyss,” shimmering, with all of the theater the dance the music inside her, gone.

Here for a while, then gone.

And has, of course, swiped the mask too. Ha-ha-ha, Troll Girl. It definitely is no surprise.

But—

The Angel of Death Liz Maalamaa. You cannot always be getting rid of everything, pushing it away.

And when the girl has left: no, Maj-Gun is no longer cutting, she understands, she has to speak with Tom Maalamaa. And only then has she started calling, late afternoon, early evening, and Tom Maalamaa has turned off his phone.

Thrown away rags, put on her clothes. Maj-Gun heads out into the night, the darkness, runs out. Yes: so this, on the one hand. Blueblueblue images in her head now too. The Winter Garden. A blue child who is screaming on a cliff. An old story in images told again. Existed on a wall once, in a room, another room, an apartment where she was for no time. Words on the walls, a language, Kapu kai , the forbidden seas. They had a game. The Winter Garden.

“Three siblings who shared a secret that united them but turned them against each other.”

The Winter Garden, like a place. Rooms under the earth, the truth about everything, the Rita Strange Corporation.

Bengt lying dead in the cousin’s house.

And Solveig, Sister Blue. Who said that morning, “I saved her life once in the swimming school. I was Sister Blue.”

Ulla Bäckström’s words: “The American girl in a snow globe. I think I gave it to Johanna.

“And another thing, lady. Why are you always asking about Johanna?”

Johanna. My child .

Throws away the rags, puts on her clothes, runs out. On the other hand, honestly: that is not why she is running, Maj-Gun Maalamaa. Out of the Winter Garden, leaving it behind her. Stories, tales. What it was like what it was not like, tear to bits: there is also goodness, regardless, and beauty, flowers, blue skies.

Stories, tales are not the body, the blood, the longing, here.

What exists is here.

The Red One on a field. She is there.

Outside the house and inside the house another one with stories, projects. Project Earth, tear to bits, has been torn, old, finished playing its part. A girl pounding with loneliness, with another story, about rhythm and secrets—

Whirls of fear in the girl’s head, until nothing is left. One book, one image in it. Blueblue, that one too.

But tear to bits.

Johanna sees the Red One. Never more afraid, never more certain. Johanna goes out, to the Red One.

The Child, fluorescent . Explosion, transcendence?

Images to take to the Winter Garden: mother, child on a field. Or?

No. Maj-Gun holds her daughter, Johanna, tightly, Johanna holds her mother tightly back.

Explosions? Oh, bother.

Because then, exactly then, flames rise up behind them.

During the embrace, Johanna looks around the field.

“Look, Mom! The Winter Garden is burning!”