Elisabeth Rynell - To Mervas

A bumblebee awakened by the sun paused and buzzed for a moment outside the open door. Outside, the tarn reflected everything in its gaze: trees, sky, birds. It was an open eye, and the only thing that would make it blink quickly was the wind. It’s always watching, Marta thought, and she felt the burning sensation, the effort it took not to close her eyes, to force her eyes to see.

Marta bent her head and peered up at Lilldolly, but she was in her own world. Her hands were like two small animals curled up on her lap and she looked out the door with calm, heavy eyes. Quickly and clumsily, Marta got up from the table and rushed out of the cabin. When Lilldolly ran after her, she found Marta leaning against a thick willow, vomiting.

“My dear child, what’s happening?” Lilldolly asked. She leaned over Marta and touched her neck and hair.

“What’s going on? Did you get sick?”

Marta eventually stopped throwing up but started sobbing and weeping instead. Lilldolly fetched some water in an old coffee can and wiped Marta’s mouth and face and let her drink from her cupped hand. Marta was on all fours with her hair hanging over her face. She didn’t want to look up. It struck her that she wanted to be nothing but an animal from here on; it would be a relief. She wanted her mouth to be a muzzle and she wanted to keep drinking from the cupped hand. She wanted to be an animal and hold her face toward the ground and never again stand upright with her breasts and belly and eyes exposed. Now she wanted her sounds to be loud, deep, and hollow; she wanted every sound that left her mouth to be a roar or a bellow.

“Dear child,” Lilldolly mumbled, and stroked Marta’s back slowly where she was planted firmly on her hands and knees, shaking with tears. She wouldn’t let herself be pushed into a sitting or lying position. Lilldolly stroked her as if she were an old sheep, groaning from contractions.

“You can stay like that if it feels good. I’m not going to force you to move. You just stay there and finish crying.”

“Oh, oh,” Marta moaned after a while, her tears pushing and pulling inside her. “It’s not me; it’s not me, not me. .”

“That’s right,” Lilldolly said, leaning her cheek against Marta’s head. “It’s not you; of course it’s not.”

“It’s not me,” Marta tried again. “I shouldn’t be the one crying. You should be crying, not me,” she whimpered. “This is about you, Lilldolly.”

“It doesn’t matter who does the crying, dearie. If it’s you or me. It doesn’t matter.”

“But I don’t want to take it away from you, don’t want to take anything away from you with my own troubles and stand here and. . You having to comfort me.”

Marta had to force the words out between her sobs. It was as if she were pushing them through a perforated wall, which made them come out in mangled, deformed threads.

“You’re the one,” she continued without making much sense. “I’m the one who, I mean, you’re the one — who should be comforted.”

“You cry and I’ll tell the story. It’s as it should be. The one who tells the story can’t cry. The one who tells the story has to find her way past the tears if she’s going to get anywhere. You go on crying. You can cry for me.”

“Yes, and you, you. .”

“I’ve had my share of crying, I’ve cried enough for you too.”

“But I can’t, can’t. . I can’t tell you, Lilldolly. I have. . but I can’t, can’t tell you — ”

“No, you do the crying and I’ll do the talking. That’s how it’ll be. Now you’re the one crying.”

Lilldolly’s hands kept working Marta’s back and shoulders while she talked, they pinched and kneaded and stroked and pushed and Marta closed her eyes and let it happen. She was an animal now, she could allow herself to be stroked, she was an old, ugly animal who had nothing left of shame or pride to defend. It didn’t matter that she was sobbing and drooling, that some vomit was stuck in her hair. She could stay here and be without a soul and let her tears stab her apart.

“Let go of your shoulders now,” Lilldolly said. “It feels like you have a sack of taters under your skin. There you go. We agreed that you’d do the crying and I’d do the talking. That’s what we said. But I can’t help but wonder what kind of journey got started. No, don’t answer me, you don’t have to say anything, I understand it was something you had to do. You’ve left everything behind, that’s obvious, you’ve got nothing to return to. God have mercy, what don’t we humans have to do to be at peace. I want you to know that it’s the greatest and most important thing we have to do in life, to find our peace. To stay at peace with life. That was the agreement, the promise we made when we first came into this life. To honor that promise you’re allowed to make whatever journeys and do whatever crazy things you have to do. There’s nothing to stop you from that, nothing at all. You’re allowed to cry, as much as you need to. You can throw up too, go on, throw up as much as you can.”

Lilldolly went on talking while she stroked and kneaded Marta’s body. But with an unexpected twist, she suddenly and decisively flipped her over so she wound up sitting on her behind. For an instant they looked at each other, a little surprised. Then Lilldolly grabbed Marta’s chin and held her face.

“But you can’t hide any longer,” she said. “That’s cheating.”

“And you have to watch,” Marta said absently. She wrenched her face loose and began rubbing it with her palms. She looked up, present again, cleared.

“I’m sorry, you have to forgive me. I don’t want to be like this. Your story was so. . intense. I hadn’t expected it to be such an important story. Such a dangerous story, dangerous for me. I’ll carry it here in my heart, like you said, inside what’s beautiful. I’m happy, you see, I’m happy even though it doesn’t make sense and I’m sitting here like an idiot, like a. .”

Lilldolly started laughing her clucking, sparkling laughter, sounding like a lively creek between rocks and suddenly Marta began laughing too; she couldn’t help herself. She just flowed along with it, floated on the laughter itself. She was sucked into it and twirled around inside it; it was like dancing, swimming, playing in water. All she needed to do was look at Lilldolly and see how her laughter made her jerk and jump and that same bliss moved through her as well.

“Oh dear,” Lilldolly said at last. “Dear, how crazy things can be.”

Afternoon had come and the sun penetrated and warmed everything. It moved through the top layer of the soil, into the tree trunks and the timber of the houses. It also penetrated the birds’ soft down, the fur of animals, the anthills, and the stones. It penetrated your skin, your eyes, placed its sweet, warm sun muzzle in your hand.

Arnold had spread sheepskins on the ground in front of the house and was resting with his hat over his face when Lilldolly and Marta returned.

“Well now,” he said from underneath his hat when he heard them. “I’m getting some company here in the sun. At last.”

Then they lay there, the three of them, and let themselves be covered in sun. Marta fell asleep almost immediately and dreamed of the boy. He was calling her as she ran from room to room in a big building looking for him. She had to find him; there was something she had to tell him, something important. Good news. Once, he ran ahead of her in a stairway, he was young and held something in his hand, a piece of fabric. Later, he stood in front of her in a sunny spot in a big hall and he seemed to hover strangely and was trembling somehow and it took a long while before she realized he’d transformed himself into a giant bumblebee.