Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 9

Eric's been moving house. Hence the long silence between part 8 (13th July 2009) and part 9 of this tale. So:

The gallant knight left the picnic hamper where it stood in the corner forthwith, where the contents would go off in the sun. He didn't even choose to mention it! But I knew that somewhere inside him it would be standing there going off all day long.

I cannot in all honesty say that their trip to Visby was one unmitigated success. To keep myself amused, I began to set up a little artistic project there in the bedroom. I only listened with one ear to their conversation. He was speaking about how it was now time that old-fashioned architecture came into vogue once more and she about the fantastic acoustics of the Anthroposophists' brick meeting hall in Järna. Poor old Sofia, how she had to exert herself to say interesting things about houses. I know Sofia: she'd prefer not to have to say anything at all, since every word uttered is one more risk taken. It could just be the wrong one. Something she said could be misinterpreted as being an opinion. No, now I'm being unfair but I think I could be forgiven in the circumstances. I cannot control myself: I even think that Sofia would like there to be a phrasebook covering the Language of Normality. She believes every word she reads in books. She considers that the only things which are not true are her own ideas. She imagines that at the banquet in Heaven, where we shall all ultimately meet up beyond time, there will be a special table reserved for Philosophers, and that these will never become her drinking partners. For that reason, she doesn't even want to listen to them, let alone actually say something back.

She would like to sit on one of those small, finely crafted chairs at the table for Humble Women, where the candles match the serviettes and with a smile discuss whether it isn't dreadful for the King and Queen not to have private lives.

And sometimes she will sneak a peep over at the largest table of all, where God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost, served Mary in her humility, embarrassed at also having received a golden crown, talk to one another in a quite incomprehensible manner.

Maybe she is right; maybe I do think I'm God. Maybe I really am? Maybe we all are? Or ought to be. Forgive me: that's the way I am. My thoughts and feelings are uncontrollable, I know. That is why I'm sitting here in my loneliness.

A quaint little legend came to mind as I sat there bored with their conversation: once upon a time in History there was somebody, let's say a man, as a woman would just complicate the story; anyway, there was this man who thought he had found the Truth. He swathed himself in a cloak and found a knoll from which people were wont to preach. People flocked from far and wide to listen to him and his heart swelled with pride. He looked out over the multitude and said: "This is the unbearable truth you shall have to live with: never believe anything anyone says you must believe in."

And since they believed him, they turned and went their way, leaving him alone. He had expected a different reception, a group of disciples, discussing with fervour and respect.
Longtime he walked alone, filled with bitterness. Some while later he contemptuously clomb the knoll anew and preached in a voice filled with fulmination: "God consists of three potatoes and seven turnips which have been combined in an ingenious manner."

This gave rise to lively discussion and gave him a group of devotees who eagerly proceeded to interpret his utterances.

Was that a boring little truism, of no further use to anyone? I should have said something grand instead. That life is a tree or maybe a stream. That camels can get through the eye of a needle, if only they shut their eyes tight and imagine they are fleas.

But to get back to Sofia and Andreas. While I was painting, they paid their visit to the pavement café and then wandered around all the narrow streets in that fairy-tale city of Visby.
And as often happens in romantic films, fate looked down clemently upon Andreas. All of a sudden he caught sight of a notice saying: ROOMS TO LET.

When I tuned in on him, I discovered a great number of conflicting thoughts struggling for precedence within him. The thing was that there was only the tiniest shadow of ire. That was that picnic basket which you may perhpas remember. And all that chit-chat about Sofia's sister.

He wanted under no circumstances to become angry, but he was. And Sofia's anxiety to please had begun to make him unsure. He got just that tiny bit annoyed at her way of listening to everything he said as if these were words of wisdom, uttered by the King himself. He felt her to be evasive, like a phantom.

When he caught sight of that notice, a forbidden thought entered his mind: he wanted to rent a room for the night, even if they would only be there for a couple of hours. He would be the one paying.

The extravagance amused him, but what was worse, he also discovered that the thought of paying for what shall we call it, an hour of dalliance, a silly expression if there ever was one, the thought of buying such an hour made him grow all excited. And irritated as he already was, there was a certain aggression in this excitement. That frightened him, but the original thought would not be put off or gainsaid.

He was hoping there would be no free rooms. He was hoping Sofia would say a firm no to the plan.

But of course she did not, and even offered to pay her share. When she didn't get her way, she said she'd invite him to a slap-up meal later that evening. With our money! And there was me who had to buy new paints, especially crimson.

Anyway, things were at least hotting up a bit. I could see the little room in the pension in front of me as clear as day: white walls, a low ceiling, small greyish-green bedside tables, one sole chair and then one huge double bed under a gorgeous flower-patterned bedspread.

Sofia is sitting on the chair, pale and stiff as a schoolgirl. Andreas is standing at the other side of the bed, not knowing how to conceal his aggression; then his gaze falls on an old photo in a frame of a trotting-horse pulling a sulky. The picture is taken from the side, the eyes of the animal stare exaltedly, his nostrils are flaired, the muscles and tendons can be seen traced on the smooth body. And for the most fleeting of moments, Andreas imagines that his penis is the tautly reined head of the horse.

Andreas, you're such a romantic, not to mention a frustrated one.

Look at Sofia now, she's not at all on the same wavelength. She can't bear the thought that it's you who's paid for this little fling.

But what's she doing now? She's getting undressed. Compliantly and a little primly, as for a medical examination.

Aren't you going to stop now? It'll only end up being a fiasco.

But Sofia, who is filled with the thoughts she ought to feel, and cannot bear the thought of Andreas being frustrated, and who, if you'll forgive the expression, is driven most by the urge to be a real woman, takes those few steps up to the bed and lays herself on it in an inviting manner, her blond hair a golden swathe across the pillow, her graceful body quite still. She tends to close her eyes on such occasions and pretend she has swooned, that she has been swimming naked somewhere in a magic forest and that the first man to come by is a dashing robber baron, not a shitten woodcutter with scab and seven children. Sorry, there I go again.

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 8

After the meal, Sofia asked whether I couldn't get out the Tarot pack. Telling fortunes with Tarot cards is a pastime of mine for the simple reason that I am fascinated by the beautiful designs, plus the power I feel which is without obligation. I have to admit that I make rather loose associations around the cards in order to awaken admiration, fear or hope in those whose fortunes I'm telling, especially if the person in question is new to the game.

It goes without saying that Andreas only agreed in order to be polite. Words such as "superstition", "mustiness" and "old hat" swelled up in his indignant mind. But present too was a tiny particle of nervous curiosity. Perhaps I should have mentioned to him that Alexander the Great had his fortune told from goats' livers. But it is always easier to laugh at the eminently human hope that good fortune may follow a plan, rather than laugh at our contemporary hopes on the same theme.

I spread the cards out across the table and let him pick three; one for the past, one for the present and one for the future. He picked three cards from the Major Arcana: the Hermit, the Sun, and the Tower. The fact he got the Sun for the present was a great relief to me, since a pair of twins are depicted there, standing under the shining orb of the sun. I saw him start inwardly at the sight of the man falling from the lightning-struck tower, amidst flames and rubble.

Before I said anything, I indulged in that moment of unease deep inside him.

"The past," I whispered, "was a time of ripening, spiritual clarity and wisdom. That is good; there is a time for wisdom. But to be true, wisdom must constantly be crumbling away, its place taken by something new. Uncertainty is the only certainty. The only truth lies embedded in those steps taken from one place to the next. The staff you lean on is that of questioning, the lantern sheds the light of hope; and you must light it yourself."

I knew he was thinking: Do I really want to become an architect? This exhilarated me. But the question which most preoccupied him was: How will me and Sofia get along?

"The Sun," I said, "is a card representing power, but the twins are there to add: duality must be acknowledged. You cannot have the one without embracing the other. Power is only self-evident at source. Human feeling, however, must live in a force-field between two poles, otherwise it cannot flourish."

He was now wondering what all of this implied, but was too proud to ask. He sat there, smiling politely. "Aha," was all he said.

"Finally, the Tower," I whispered ominously, "need not be such a negative card." I looked him straight in the eye. "Within us we have many unnecessary bulwarks constructed as protection against an enemy that perhaps no longer exists. A fall is necessary before we can rise again and see the world through new eyes. Strength can be a weakness, and weakness a strength. There is a law which states that all shall fall."

Here, I could see that I was having an influence on him. For the first time the forbidden desire to yield to me awoke in him. It amazed and disconcerted him. Immediately, he covered it up with contempt. But Sofia had already picked this up and grown afraid.

I withdrew immediately, sat alone and enjoyed my progress, letting him and Sofia go for an evening walk and kindle romantic feelings, while I sat and listened in on them. As they were sitting in each others' arms down by the the sea shore, he came with the suggestion that they could go on a trip the next day. Just him and her. Poor old Sofia didn't have an easy time of it.

"You know how difficult it is to be parted from Carmilla," was what she said. "It can have dreadful consequences."

"You mean she might go and drown herself, or something?" he muttered.

"No, no, not at all. Carmilla is obsessed with staying alive. That's what makes everything so impossible. She feels she ought to get everything, and be everywhere, and live everybody's lives for them. She has no humility. Sometimes I even begin to wonder if she doesn't think she's God," sighed my poor sister. That vexed me a little. Humility is a fine word to bandy about, but what does it really mean? Has it maybe something to do with sour grapes?

"But surely you can't go on living together all your lives?" he asked. "You can't simply go and give up normal life for her sake." And he put his arm around her.

At this point Sofia went quiet and looked out over the dark sea. Poor Sofia became so uncomfortable that she didn't even enjoy the kiss he gave her. I could just imagine her disappointment at the fact that this appeared to be no more than a thorough examination of her oral cavity. My dear little sister Sofia, give your twin sister an answer in her thirst for knowledge: what is normal life?

This morning, as soon as I was awake, I knew what had gone and happened. Sofia was up and the bedroom door was shut. I knew she had locked it while I was asleep. On the floor lay my paints and brushes and on the bedside table the Tarot pack, so I'd have something to occupy myself with. There is only one little skylight into the bedroom to let the light in. I called out to her as best I could with my hoarse voice. She came and stood outside the door.

"Andreas and me are going on a trip," she said. "I don't care what happens. I must be able to have a bit of fun now and again."

"Love is not 'fun'" I hissed, pressed against the door. "Use any other word you like!"

"You know we don't agree about that," she said. "What if everyone were like you?"

And with those well-thought-out and highly original words, she left me. Rage was pounding inside me, but with the years I have learnt to control myself a little. The best I could do in my captivity was to home in on them so as to at least be able to share him; even if their tLte-B-tLte would hardly be any more exciting than an American love story.

One thing that did begin to become just a little interesting was the fact that it was now easy for me to tune in on him, even at a distance. In this fashion, I already knew that he had begun to grow a little irritated with her. A little frustrated, a little desperate. Everything had begun to feel less sacred. He no longer felt himself to be quite the instrument of God and Love. They were just two people now: a man and a woman. And as a tribute to Man and Woman, he had packed a picnic hamper, since the Man had intended to have a little trip to a deserted beach along with the Woman.

But when Sofia came up to him in her childish flowery dress, she wanted to go in to Visby instead. She wanted to eat saffron pancakes at a pavement café in the sun, and she wanted to look round the shops.

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 7

He was quite visibly startled when I returned. He said he had to go home and make a few phone calls.

"See you this evening," he said and gave Sofia a quick, hungry hug. She pressed herself against him. I could really feel how my eyes were staring now. He could see it too. He could see that I was lusting after him. His eyes avoided mine and I watched him disappear down the hill almost jogging pace.

I was holding the hat full of cherries; the fruit had already stained the light-coloured straw. If she were to put it on, she would get a row of red stains across her forehead, like a crown of thorns. It would not become her.

She sighed deeply and looked at me in despair. Sometimes she would like to kill me, but she doesn't realise it herself, she thinks it is a sign of her approaching period or something else beyond your control. Personally, I feel it quite normal for her to feel in that way, and I don't really care. The urge to kill is something you have to live with. Most of the time, it comes to nothing anyway, since such an act would confront you with a painful dilemma. But fantasies have never hurt anyone.

*

That evening, I stood in the garden and looked out over the sea, which had a darkly shadowed golden colour like an old icon. To my left towered the high cliffs, orangey brown in the subdued light and crowned with scraggy trees.

Provoked by a light breeze, the garden sent its tongues of fragrance wafting over me. Still gasping after the heat of the day it conveyed messages from honeysuckle, rose and the ancient fertile god of the garden who, of an evening, lives in every nook.

But when Andreas arrived, he didn't even bother to stop to sniff the air, simply greeted me hurriedly and rushed on into the house with his bouquet, a house which is made of stone and painted pink, half-covered with ivy and a white climbing rose. All because he could see Sofia through the window. She was inside putting the final touches to the dinner which I happened to have made in passing. I like making food, something which no one would actually believe.

I went in to them with a heavy heart; maybe I should have curled up behind a bush and gone to sleep, right there in the garden. But I was so eager to be in there, now that the candles were lit. Sofia showed him the house before dinner.

I always take some of my paintings with me to hang up in those impersonal places we go to; here too. I had an inkling that they would appeal to Andreas. Besides, most of them were self-portraits of one kind or another. What he did say was: "You're really good!"

While words came into his mind such as: over-wrought, claustrophobic, fuzzy, melodramatic, pathos-ridden. I was beginning to be able to tune in to him quite nicely now. I was standing there behind him and could see his sunburned neck which caused my blood to zing in my tongue, my lips, while he said: "They have an intensity of expression," at the same time thinking: Why does she only paint herself, when the whole world's out there just waiting to be looked at?
Sofia had put away my portrait of him. But I wonder whether he would have recognised himself.
And so came the time to go to table and eat.

On the table stood the bouquet which Andreas had brought.

"Look how funny!" I happened to say, "exactly the same flowers as we've got here in the garden!"

Which was, of course, a daft thing to say, but it just slipped out. Sofia gave me a tired and sad look, the sort you give a troublesome pet. Andreas simply said sourly that I myself had been witness to the fact that it wasn't our flowerbeds he had pillaged.

And so the strained atmosphere returned, but as luck would have it we served the wine. From that point on, I could enter Andreas' thoughts whenever I wished and could know what he was thinking about me: if I remain polite and kind to that hopeless person, then I can perhaps get her to relax and regard me as a friend.

Smiling gallantly, her showered me with questions. Looking back on it, I don't think he remembered any of my replies since all his energy was absorbed by being lovable and interested.

Sofia began to look a little more cheerful. She knew that a continued relationship was out of the question unless he accepted me too. The only way to do this was for him to pretend he liked me and for me to pretend I believed him. And keep myself under control. I can be quite co-operative if I really must. As long as my natural temperament doesn't get the better of me.

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 6

I borrowed Sofia's hat to put the cherries in, as I had thought we should have a bowlful of them to take home with us. I often want things. It's a kind of instinct. If I really had power, I would conquer whole countries and heedlessly colonise islands where there were spices and gold and precious stones. As it is now, I limited myself during our holiday to collecting fossils warmed in the sun, and just now, borrowing Sofia's hat for the sweet, round drops of blood with which Nature has decorated a mysterious tree whose sight made my body surge with the thrill of childhood.

Andreas didn't like the fact I'd borrowed her hat, perhaps he was afraid she'd get sunstroke without it. Or maybe he saw from my expression and my movements that I was thinking about something else while I plucked the ripe berries from the branches.

We returned, conversing politely. I had begun listening in on him a little. His head was, unfortunately, brim full of one wish alone, and that was to get rid of me. Nonetheless, he smiled courteously in my direction and put polite and insipid questions which I answered in a whisper.

What would be their next move? Sofia had no other choice but to take me into account.

I went to the toilet to give them a chance to talk. I looked at my eyes in the mirror. It always surprises me how staring they are, as if wanting to see everything.

I once heard the story of a German Jewess and an SS soldier. It was a woman I knew; she's old now, but has very open eyes giving you the feeling you are being confronted with something to do with the sea, if you can imagine the sea as a thinking being. Even then, as a young woman, she had these open eyes. And the SS soldier had told her: "You mustn't stare at me like that."

She had said: "I'm not staring, that's the way my eyes are."

Then he went up to her and cuffed her twice, once for each eye. That was his way of saying that there's a solution to everything.

I wondered whether it was my staring eyes that frightened Andreas so. He perhaps wondered what I could see. He perhaps wondered what those eyes had seen in their day. Or what they wanted to see.

Sofia, of course, has quite normal eyes, sparkling and, in a way, soothing. A gaze you can rest under without feeling challenged. They are holiday eyes, oasis eyes. A kind of infinite acceptance can be found in them, placid, safe indulgence: you carry on playing, children, I'll just sit here and be myself.

I tuned in again on her and Andreas. "Shall we meet up this evening?" he asked, meaning the two of them, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Donald and Daffy Duck. Sorry.

But Sofia knew what she had to take into account.

"You are welcome to come and eat dinner with us," she said and described how to get to the house we are renting.

What huge disappointment was seething within him; but what else could he do but accept? He was bemused, frustrated and almost becoming angry. Feeling guilty about his bad feelings, since Sofia and him hardly knew one another and of course she had her responsibilities towards her travelling companion.

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 5

I was still trembling as I walked up the gentle rise to the outdoor café. I am so sensitive that I have to be a little nasty at times, otherwise I would wallow in my feelings. Sofia is much more even-tempered, she doesn't even think about death. As for me, I think about death all the time, without a break. The slow fire in our bodies, causing the heat of the skin. Only loathsome, unacceptable Death really loves us. And I can see everything dancing, how life dances amidst all of this, vainly, before it is handed over. Is there any better way of dancing than body to body, flesh to flesh. Then you can almost love death.

They were sitting at one of the first tables. Sofia and the young man.

What were they talking about? Well, that in the olden days, all buttons were made of mother-of-pearl. This was an excuse for Sofia to finger his shirt, which gave him such a feeling a well-being that he shut his eyes quite involuntarily, inhaled sharply and shuddered slightly, right there where he was sitting. I saw this and it felt like a cat's hard but affectionate head were pounding against my sex.

Then he caught sight of me. A look of vexation crossed his face; I saw it. Immediately, instinctively, he had judged me, without even knowing who I was. Despair, rage and hatred were aroused within me; these three marauders of the joys of life, three harpies in my innards, so familiar that I only needed to sense their approach, as when passing someone else's garden you spot three sorts of weeds. That's what keeps you going.

He'll change, given time, I thought to myself. Now Sofia had spotted me too. She had already seen from the look on his face that I had arrived.

"This is my sister, Carmilla," she said in a flat voice. "We're here together."

He looked as if someone had spilt something on his trousers.

"Hello, " he said. "Andreas."

"I know," I said, or whispered, rather.

"Carmilla's got such problems with her voice just now," Sofia explained. "Normally, she's got the voice of an angel."

"I see," said Andreas.

A tense atmosphere already. It was getting worse every minute as we made attempts at polite conversation. But I'm used to that sort of thing by now. To give them a chance to say a few words in private - every one of which I would, of course, pick up - I excused myself in order to go and get something to drink.
I watched them from over by the counter inside. Sofia did, of course, know what was going on, but he was quite innocent of the situation.

"Carmilla is very gifted," Sofia felt herself obliged to say.

"Yes, she does seem rather special," he managed to utter.

"We're very close," said Sofia.

"I don't have any sisters and brothers myself," he said, as if this were something positive.

"We always travel together," said Sofia. "We just can't cope without one other. Especially Carmilla, she becomes so anxious."

Well, that's quite true, actually. She thinks it's only me who has anxieties, she feels a little melancholy at the very most, and even then preferably when thinking about something rather remote; children in other countries and gap in the ozone layer. The fact that we all have gaps in the ozone layers within us, and that life is leaking out without our being able to stop it, is something which doesn't worry Sofia. No, if she worries at all, it's about the fates of others. But she would never go as far as to do anything about it, she just goes on talking. I doubt if she even contributes to the Fund for the Prevention of the Extinction of Whales, something which she gets all worked up about. Sometimes I wish that by some heavenly miracle a dead whale would flop down into our garden and lie there and rot.

But that was by the by. The state of the world is often a mere passage in love stories. If we could choose - purely hypothetically, of course - between saving the world and being totally affirmed in one's love, I wonder how many of us would choose to save the world. We would rather throw ourselves into someone's arms, a warm bosom, and only cast a hasty glance, if at all, at the apocalypse which was taking place outside our window.

The atmosphere at the table was still strained when I returned with some gaudy red soft drinks.

"I've heard," I said, "that there are wild cherries in the woods. What if we were to take a walk over there?"

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 4

Sofia has a gentle, melodious voice, like the little bird she in fact is. But she can't sing. Not as if I could, either. Not as if I could.

I let her go her off. In any case, I need time to get dressed and get ready. This time, I really do want to look my best, wearing my brightest clothes. I want to get dressed up and do myself up for his sake, as a tribute to the power of love within me. I want to deck myself in colour and fragrance, the way you decorate a room, or a shrine. Sofia says I'm not natural. My hair is dyed, my face painted. Round my neck hang precious stones, feathers and talismans. I know I sometimes overdo it, but the hoarser my voice, the greater the urge to dress up.

My hands trembled while I made myself look beautiful. I checked Sofia, she was sitting there together with Andreas. I looked at him. You could see that he hadn't slept a wink all night; oh, those delicious shadows under his eyes where a night of worry had left their mark. He was pale, as if struck by the word of God, and the whole of his body was begging: bless me with Thy touch.

They talked about taking a walk in the woods, where the wild cherry trees grew.

My tongue, the tips of my fingers and my sex all ached with longing for his body, his warmth, his essence. I could hardly control myself, but I knew I would have to. It was Sofia he wanted.

Everything had been so much simpler when we were small. No, it wasn't easy. We were always told we shouldn't disturb, or not to be a nuisance to others, and on no account were we allowed to have tantrums. We also learnt that well-brought up folk ate what they were served, learnt to forgive people who hurt us, and to lend others their toys even if they got broken in the process.

Sofia found it easy to conform, but I could never learn how you were supposed to behave in furnished rooms. So I was given a corner to myself with paints and paper. It was me who invented all those pictures. All those brightly coloured paintings and the songs were mine too, me who had so many treasures to guard.

Sofia and me used to play a fantasy game, pretending we had moved to the woods and were building a house for ourselves out there without anyone else's help. And if we did have to be in contact with Civilisation, it would be Sofia who went and fetched things, since she was good at being liked.

But we had never reckoned with life becoming what it has. With architectural students coming by, with us unable to keep away from them. Every time it's just as painful.

Perhaps she's right; perhaps I ought to keep away. I could experience him through her. But I get into such a strange mood when I'm not allowed to be present. And she knows this too.

So I stepped outside and the wind blew straight into my face and glued my thin dress against my body. Heat waves don't make life any easier for me.

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 3

This is, perhaps, a suitable time to expand a little on my views on men. There is often quite a contrast between mine and those of Sofia. She wants daily routine, whilst I want a party. My mode is that of excess. Fruit in my mouth, sap dripping, flesh without words, or words become flesh. I want banquets, thundering music, charged conversations, the spell of desire. There was a time when I wanted something superhuman, I dreamt of extraterrestrials, love, you understand, was something so rare for me that I believed it only existed on other planets. You could say that I just didn't believe that love was human. This meant that if I discovered a man who seemed to be filled with love, I would believe that he had come from another planet, the same one as I come from. Let us call it the Planet of Dreams for simplicity's sake. But the trouble with imaginary extraterrestrials like us is that we don't all come from the same planets, but from vastly different and widely scattered celestial bodies, all with their special and almost unchangeable customs.

If I didn't have Sofia, I don't know how I'd cope. It's her who does the shopping and drops in on our aunts. As for me, I paint pictures, listen to music, read books, philosophise and pine.

I've heard that it's not at all unusual for sisters to be very different. They divide up their characteristics, so to speak, just like a married couple: one is jealous, the other longs for freedom. One is silent, the other talkative. One flirtatious, the other aloof.

Back to the outdoor café. By the way, did I mention that they were eating waffles? How did I know? Sofia has that charming habit of getting a drop of cream at the corner of her mouth, just like a kitten.

Now he at last popped the question he had hardly dared utter, since he was already so deeply under the spell of Sofia that he could not the bear the thought of any pitfalls. You could see from the expression on his face how this encounter had pierced him to the core. He was the sort of person who could, without even knowing it, go around longing for something absolute. And for such people, an unexpected crush can feel like the sudden presence of God exists at last and is looking down on them with his gleaming eye. The only eye which emits light instead of absorbing it.
Seen and approved by God, a vessel for His power and determination, that is how people in love can feel.

In short: he asked her, full of fear and trembling, whether she would be spending her holidays alone.

And Sofia, that chunk of hypocrisy, says nothing and simply mutters something about that she has come here to get over a painful separation. And says it so mysteriously, so full of suffering, that he does not ask anything more.

But Sofia, you must have noticed that I am awake? Or were you so absorbed by him that you'd forgotten to check?

The little monkey! She's now gone and made a new date with him. Same time, same place, tomorrow morning!

And so she came home, cheeks aglow.
I had already got up and, despite my pounding headache, I had begun to paint one of my glowing portraits. Of him.

"Carmilla," she said, "can you manage to keep your distance just this once. Please! He means so much to me!"

"You know it won't work," is all I can say.

Just now, this morning, Sofia tried to sneak off while I was still asleep. But I woke up and saw her standing there, full of anticipation in her childish blue summer frock, a straw hat on her head.

"Does he actually know how old we are?" I asked her.

"Carmilla" she said again, admonishment in her voice, "just you keep out of it, at least for a while."

"Perhaps he'd like me," I say. "He seemed different to all the rest."

"Dare we take the risk?" she said. "You know how it always turns out."

"Yes," I reply. "But I don't know whether that depends on me or you."

"Anyway, you can hardly manage to speak nowadays," she ended. "You should lie down and rest."

True enough; my voice which used to be so beautiful is hardly more than a desperate whisper. Perhaps I have a lump in my throat.

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 2

As you can well understand, I too have such a feeling. I therefore felt great sympathy with the young man, who also happened to be good-looking. And when it comes to the crunch, he wasn't all that young. He had just gone and admitted that he was thirty-four.

When I first homed in on them, he was sitting there talking about himself. He was the kind of young man who had tried all sorts of different jobs and training schemes, and was at present reading architecture.

"Can you picture the house of your dreams?" asked Sofia.

A good move there: avoiding having to reveal the fact she knew nothing about architecture. That she, in fact, thinks it is the dreariest of subjects. Without trying to be too nasty, I feel I ought to slip in the odd explanation about Sofia: she is interested in cosy evenings at home, watching videos and buying clothes. Now and again, she reads a book, preferably one with a happy ending. Her favourite colour is forget-me-not blue. She works in a day-nursery and her usual reply when someone asks her about her job is: "You feel so inadequate."

That was what she said to him too, and a sceptical look crossed his face. I could see what he was thinking by the look in his eyes. That her mere presence was enough to heal any wounds.

That is, then, Sofia's main asset: looking a certain way. Something similar to what geishas have to learn. Like them, she can also force herself to make conversation about any topic under the sun, even subjects she finds pretty dull. If she had met an agronomist, she would have asked him: "Can you picture the agriculture of your dreams?" and if it was a therapist, she would have said: "Can you picture the therapy of your dreams?"

If you were to ask Sofia what her own dreams were, the reply would be: finding a man to live a normal life with.

I have to say this: Sofia is merely a decoy. In the guise of a motionless swan she rests on the mirror-like surface of the water.

Back to the outdoor café and the ageless young man. Did I mention that his mouth was attractive? A mouth that can make you wild with desire, awakening that sinking feeling of painful covetousness inside you; lust that surges through you like a small earthquake? And his eyes, they had the gaze of someone who had been waiting for years. The languishing eyes of someone who has pined since the creation of the universe. Or rather, eyes which, on account of purely hereditary factors, happen to be of a certain shape, have a certain lustre. But what does lust care about that; it dreams its dreams all over the place.

As for Sofia, she was sitting with her head cocked to one side, looking cool in the heat, the heat wave. It was me who was sweating away here in this hot little house, knocked out by the thunderstorm in my head.

The young man, whose name was Andreas, revealed to Sofia that the house of his dreams stood out on a naze. With many windows, masses of weatherboarding and whitewashed stone. A house which breathed and sang, quiet but full of surprises.

"Well how strange!" exclaimed Sofia. "Just the sort of house I've always dreamt of!"

And she added the furnishings, the earthenware pottery, the bouquets of flowers, the stylish furniture and the ornaments, each with their individual stamp. All straight out of Femina weekly.

He smiled and told her about the Renaissance architect Alberti; something about a house of perfect proportions which in some way or other had been inspired by the spirit of God and thus had become a living being. Something about people as houses, and houses as people; I'm not entirely sure he himself quite understood what he was talking about, but Sofia's look of interest did not leave her face for one instant. In her time, she has listened to detailed descriptions of football matches, the plots of films, the history of Gnosticism, the pros and cons of Sweden joining the EU, evidence for the existence or non-existence of God, a review of idiosyncrasies of Finnish grammar, and how you should boil eggs in the proper manner; but Sofia has a very poor memory, which is often the case with those who have a one-track mind.

"A little habit of mine," said Andreas, "is to imagine people's homes and what they look like. Homes of the people I pass in the street - I imagine all those things with which such people can surround themselves. Here, a terraced house, there, a dreary bachelor flat, or a boudoir with red plush curtains."

I was beginning to think that this young man was really interesting.

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt: "An Uninhabitable House" - 1

Inger Edelfeldt published a long short-story or short novella called An Uninhabitable House in her 1993 collection of stories called Den förunderliga kameleonten (The Wondrous Chameleon). I am posting my 1996 translation of this work in serial form; part one today. I translated the story, set on Gotland, about a decade before I myself visited the island. As you will see, the story hinges on the fact that two sisters, Carmilla (the narrator) and Sofia share the same soul or consciousness.

AN UNINHABITABLE HOUSE

by Inger Edelfeldt

My sister and I were conjoined when we were tiny. We had grown in such a way that they could manage to separate us neatly without any great harm being done. The only part of us which remained a little unusual was that we appeared to be sharing the same soul, or consciousness or whatever they call it nowadays. In short: I am completely aware of everything she is thinking and vice-versa. I can even see out through her eyes and hear what she is hearing when we are apart. It's a little like a dream or seeing something in my mind's eye, but I always know when I have tuned in to her wavelength. She cannot escape. Nor can I, for that matter. On the other hand, we cannot influence each other's actions to any great extent, and have to make do with simply registering what the other is thinking and feeling. Sometimes I also pay short visits to the minds of strangers. It's quite simple really, once you get the hang of it.

It's me, Carmilla, who is writing this down; my sister, Sofia, is the more extroverted of the two.

It's about this young man; the young man who Sofia met in the café this morning, while I was still lying asleep at home with a migraine. I mean to say, I intended going to sleep but was in fact lying awake following what was going on. I couldn't actually go there myself, on account of my headache and the heat.

Anyway, Sofia and me have just gone and rented a house on Gotland, in Fridhem near Högklint. We never stay at one and the same place for any length of time. The air here is supposed to be good for you; they're supposed to have had a spa here once. Perhaps the sea air can cure all sorts of diseases, was what we thought.

"Carmilla, I'm going off to the outdoor café to drink some coffee while you're having your rest," said Sofia, and I thought I would be able to sleep undisturbed by worry, since there were only families with children and German tourists out there.

How wrong you can sometimes be! I woke up out of my daydreams to the image of a young man with a most attractive appearance. Sofia had, it seemed, already found an admirer, which is nothing new. You should have seen Sofia! She looked so young, even though she's over thirty. Or perhaps even older than that. Nothing appears to have left its mark on her. She has that sort of pristine beauty which makes men read a lifetime's worth of suppressed desires in her figure. They imagine themselves standing by some mysterious pool in the forest, bathed in gentle, attentive silence, they can smell the fragrance of a new white blossom in the twilight. Ah yes, they seem to hear a clear mating call, as from a herd of white, hornless soulfully staring cattle! There I go again, I really must try to get a grip on myself, I'm not really the type to start making fun of other people's desires. In short: she is to them the personification of truth, the answer to longing so childish and grand that they do not normally wish to acknowledge that it lurks within them. As in all those ballads of Swedish yore: Jungfrun gick till källan... the virgin went down to the well... Hon dansade en sommar... she danced one summer... Kristallen den fina, o crystal so delicate...

I could see all of this reflected in the eyes of the young man. And I saw a good deal else, too, as I lay there beneath the leaden crown of my migraine. I saw that he was one of those types of young men who think that they are old. Who have grown weary of acting the eternally scruffy student. People who bear a burden, almost as if they are pregnant with it, and wonder what they are to do with it, whom they can load it off onto. On his brow were those types of wrinkles you see on the forehead of a young man who believes he is bearing the whole of History within him. Feels himself to be prehistoric: his thoughts rooted somewhere at the birth of the universe. At the other end of his thoughts, this side of History, he now hovers, anchored by the long lifeline of thinking, like an astronaut floating outside his capsule. That isn't anything to joke about either. But it is a little odd, nevertheless; where does this feeling of having been around since the beginning of time come from? Could it be that something inside you continues from life to life. Or is it simply the sum total all the books you have read, all the paintings and films you have seen and all the music you have heard which gives you that feeling of psychic pregnancy?

[to be continued]

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens

"Short stories don't sell"

The rubric of this post is an old prejudice that British publishers have never quite abandoned. Once upon a time, every respectable magazine in Britain and the USA would have its weekly short story, a piece of fiction intended to bring contrast to the mundanity of the news.

But in Britain today, as far as I can see, there is little appetite for new, contemporary short stories of a literary type in publications that are sold in mainstream bookshops. Even for stories written in English. And publishers tend to shy away from collections of stories by one author, unless this author already has a monumental reputation.

When you look at webpages such as this one, you can be impressed by the number of publications listed. But you should beware of long lists where apples, pears, plums and doughnuts are all lumped together with little discrimination. So translations, already at a disadvantage, are bound to suffer. On that list there are serious publications such as London Magazine, Chapman and Stand. But some publications have a drum to beat or axe to grind, and if you subtract those, you are left with far fewer. When you read that Your Cat Magazine and Your Dog Magazine publish stories, you begin to wonder what the level of literary sophistication is. I get the feeling that the Story Website is keener to get on board as many people as possible, as opposed to fostering the short story as a subtle literary genre, in the footsteps of Katherine Mansfield, Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, and so on.

And Nordic translations. The Norwegian author Frode Grytten (whose work I will be discussing in another post) is one Nordic author whose translations into English reflect this rather depressing trend. Grytten has published many short stories (collected in one volume) in Norway, plus one crime novel. His novel was snapped up immediately in the current British crime wave; but only one of his 103 stories has appeared in English, and this was, curiously, from a book of interconnected stories, rather than a self-standing one.

Do contemporary Nordic short story authors have a "valid entry visa" to the UK? Are they not kept away from our shores by a vicious circle: never heard of him, therefore not interested.

Until the fad of publishing short stories in general magazines, or ones devoted exclusively to short stories, returns to Britain, will all the Nordic authors writing short stories, in effect, be shut out of Britain? What is the solution? How can short stories from Europe as a whole be popularised in Britain, so that they are regarded as normal works of literature, not things exclusively for the Readers' Digest or for sci-fi aficionados? Should the Arts Council do more in this area?

Surely, our age of haste and short attention spans means that commuters could read short stories just as happily as thick novels. Not everyone wants to have to carry around electronic equipment to read a book on the train or bus, when you could buy a book of stories that does not rely on the presence of electricity. You may be able to cram a hundred books into a reading device, but you can't read a hundred books at once, and a book of 25 short stories would also give the same pleasure as it did to people in previous epochs.

Jaan Kross: "Uncle" - excerpt

Jaan Kross (1920-2007) was undoubtedly one of the most significant Estonian authors of the 20th century. His numerous novels have been translated into many languages, including English. Kross even wrote around a dozen short stories.

My chief work-in-progress at present is the forthcoming story anthology The Dedalus Book of Estonian Literature for the Dedalus publishing house in Sawtry, UK. This will contain 15 stories by various Estonian authors from the 1890s to the present day, plus an excerpt from Karl Ristikivi's novel Night of Souls, as described elsewhere on this blogsite.

Here is a short excerpt from the draft translation of a Kross story called Uncle (1989), which will be included in the anthology. The main part of the story tells of Estonia just after the Soviets have occupied the country for the second time in 1945, but reaches back in the excerpt here to the German occupation in 1941, when the Germans were picking all the goodies out of Estonian libraries and museums, to send to the Reich as war booty. The excerpt deals with the way the Estonians sought to confuse the German efforts at theft, by muddling the numbers on the crates of, in this instance, books.

The rest of the story tells the fates of Hilda Meigas and her husband, two fairly ordinary Estonians caught up in the maelström of the war and postwar Soviet life. By 1945 Hilda is working as a village schoolteacher, the schoolhouse being what was once Mardimäe manor house, because she was disgraced in Soviet eyes when her late husband changed sides and fought for the Germans. But here we go back to 1941, to a description of book storage as one method of preserving the national heritage.

Nazi Reichskommissar Karl Sigismund Litzmann was running Estonia in 1941. His surname, if not his actions, caused much hilarity in Estonia, as "lits" is the Estonian for "whore". The style of this excerpt is typical of Jaan Kross.

*

The chain led back to the spring of 1941, that is to say when the order had arrived in Tartu from a certain adviser to Herr Litzmann at the General Commission in Tallinn to swiftly pack together and transport, in part to Tallinn, in part to country manor houses, such-and-such valuable collections housed in the University Library. Those items most valuable from a German cultural (and, consequently, global cultural) point of view were to go to Tallinn, those of lesser importance to the stone cellars of suitable manor houses throughout the Province of Tartumaa.

The order to set to work the appropriate librarians plus those assistants they had come from the Vice-Chancellor of the university. Carpenters had begun (swearing as always) knocking together crates, heads of department (anxious as always) bustling about and directing operations, bibliographers (critical and whispering as always) making book inventories and packers-cum-bearers (sweating and sniffing as always) lugging piles of books and manuscripts down creaking flights of stairs. Each, of course, according to his nature. Perfunctorily and smoothly, assiduously and laboriously, thoughtlessly and twitteringly, inquisitively and mutteringly. Some hurried, others dawdled, some made sure the order was carried out to the letter while others again tried to find the easiest way of wriggling out of it. For there were two, even three attitudes for the order and as many reasons for carrying it out.

Some wished to do everything correctly. More rapidly or more slowly but above all, correctly. Others were indifferent to results as long as they got the mark notes and penni coins at the end of the day to pay for the items printed on their ration coupons. A third group which formed after much cursing and whispering among themselves, a group which grew even larger after the thin cigarettes and dishwater coffee of the lunch break, well, this third group began to hatch their own plans. Why should the most valuable items be packed in the first place? To save them from air raids? All well and good. But not only for that reason. To also send them out of Estonia at the first opportunity! And why the hell should they have any interest in that? To rescue them from the impending battles in Tartu. Fine. But encouraging their theft?! No! The order the librarians had received was a monolithic order from a monolithic robot. Like the majority of orders at the time. Any attempt to sabotage it could in itself prove deadly. But a deadliness which may, in fact have spurred on rather than scared off. Lord knows. The order came from Berlin to Tallinn and Tallinn to Tartu like a vehicle speeding along on caterpillar tracks. Armoured, targeted and utterly merciless. Like most orders at that time. Resistance to the order shot up like so much grass (weeds, they would have said in the other camp). Victorious grass. Whose existence always presented the risk of a thickening of the blood, but which thrives and grow rank over everything. The result: the contents, numbers and addresses of the crates became all of a jumble.

Where what ended up, whether in Germany, Tallinn, Haapsalu or in the manor houses of the Province of Tartumaa, no one there ever found out for sure. Even now, in August '45, no one had a complete overview. But one thing was clear: some of the crates, about two or three lorry loads, had ended up at Mardimäe Manor in the cellars of the present schoolhouse. And now that the order had been given to return evacuated books to Tartu, these too had to be returned. Lorries drove out, to that end, from locations in Tartu, including the University, to seven or eight places that week. So the chain split off in seven or eight different directions. It was therefore pretty unlikely that anything had been left to chance.

Translated from Estonian by Eric Dickens

On translating Jac. Ahrenberg, author, architect, and cosmopolitan

Jac. Ahrenberg (1847-1914) was a Finland-Swede avant la lettre. The term finlandssvensk was only used after the language reform of 1906, when the status of the Swedish language was weakened within the Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of the Russian Empire. By that time, Ahrenberg had written many of his novels and stories.

However, his major achievement was, in the opinion of many, the series of six volumes of biographical sketches about people he had known personally, entitled, fairly predictably Människor som jag har känt (People I Have Known; 1904-1914). Here Ahrenberg writes in lively and by no means old-fashioned style about many of the people he met in Viborg, Helsinki and elsewhere. His descriptions are gems of clarity and insight, sometimes funny, sometimes wistful, sometimes tragic in tone. The people he knew ranged from Finnish generals in high positions in the Russian Empire to painters such as Fanny Churberg and Albert Edelfelt, a cardinal, a composer, and so on. Plus the now notorious Count Gobineau, then French Ambassador to Stockholm, whose theories about ethnicity and development have been frowned upon for decades, associated with ultra-rightist thinking.

As an architect - his main profession - Ahrenberg designed the city hall and a girls' school in Oulu, the post office in Viborg, churches in Hangö and Kajaani, a wing of what was then the Governor's Palace in Helsinki, and the synagogue, also in the Finnish capital. He acted as art adviser to various important people.

*

But what makes Ahrenberg fascinating, beyond what he wrote about, was the language he used. He was brought up in Viborg, not only when it was still a part of Finland, but also a cosmopolitan city rather than the almost exclusively Russian-speaking backwater it has now become. So Ahrenberg's use of Swedish was not entirely pure, by Stockholm standards, or even those of Helsinki. In those days, everyday life could involve using or hearing Finnish, Swedish, Russian and German. Whatever your mother-tongue was, it became affected-infected by the other languages.

As the Swedish scholar studying at Åbo Akademi Julia Tidigs has pointed out, the fact that Ahrenberg allowed himself to use local colloquialisms here and there in his writings, plus foreign phrases and other non-standard language items, led publishers' editor to "normalise" his spelling and usage in subsequent editions of his works. Use of language also has a bearing on the translator.

His central story dealing with language is Utan modersmål (No Mother-Tongue; 1890) where the narrator meets a shabby man, a former schoolmate, who now speaks a muddled mixture of German, Russian and Swedish, and his clumsy use of language has cost him his fiancée. As Tidigs clearly recognises, language is more than stringing words together. Language is part of our identity. So using Russian and Finnish phrases in Swedish and German introduces a sociological, even ethnic, dimension. The very fact a word is translated or not points to the status of the language in the context of the novel or story.

When translating that story myself into English, I had to tackle a macaronic use of language that was all part of the plot. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. When the hapless Fritz Nikolaievich von Dravershausen Kaporien - his name exemplifying his mixed background - proposes, he says: "Vill du vara mitt hustru". This grammatical gender disaster ruins his chances. But the translator into English has a problem: English has no noun genders. Instead, I substituted the archaïc "mine wife". Also, when Fritz expresses regret, Ahrenberg has him say "tjuvärr", i.e. "sorry" in Swedish, but with a Russian accent. I tried with "unfawtunately". And so on.

*

I came across the works of Jac. Ahrenberg quite by accident in the mid-1990s at UEA, Norwich. I was staying at the BCLT, and one day, browsing in the university library, I found books by him. This was ironically thanks to the fact that Scandinavian Studies had been closed down at Newcastle University, and all the books shipped down to UEA. Nowadays, UEA has lost all its Scandinavian connections as well. So I have bought my own set of Ahrenberg's books, in case those at UEA suffer the skip treatment.

*

Julia Tidigs wrote a fascinating pro gradu (roughly: MA) dissertation in 2003 and posted me a copy in 2007. This deals in detail with the language aspects of the Ahrenberg novel Familjen på Haapakoski. Inspired by what I read there, I included a section on Ahrenberg in my talk last year at the Nordic Translation Conference in London. At the end of April 2009, Tidigs herself will be giving a talk on Ahrenberg and Karelia at the SASS conference in Wisconsin, entitled: "Beyond the Margins of Finland-Swedish Literature - Jac. Ahrenberg and the Karelian People".

In a world where multilingualism is the norm rather than the exception, and people move from country to country as part of their career, Jac. Ahrenberg is still as topical as ever. When I've checked through my translation of the story Utan modersmål again, I will post it up here.

Friedebert Tuglas - excerpts

Friedebert Tuglas (1886-1971) was a major 20th century Estonian author, and something of an unwilling cosmopolitan. Born in the countryside, he embraced left-wing politics when Estonia was still part of the Russian Empire, and fell foul of the Czarist authorities. After a short time in gaol in 1905, he fled abroad and would not return to Estonia until the Russian Revolution in 1917.

But this long sojourn abroad was the making of him as an author. Many of his best stories, written in what I have termed Gothic Symbolist style, were written either in Finland or Paris. Indeed, Tuglas spent time living with the Ålander family in Åggelby (Oulunkylä) outside Helsinki and lived with a painters colony, including Estonian painters, at Önningeby, Åland. Later in life, he travelled extensive in Europe and the Maghreb, this time voluntarily.

As far as I know, there are only two collections of Tuglas' work translated into English. In 1982, the translator Oleg Mutt, who had lived in New York as a child, but was now trapped in Soviet Estonia, translated five stories and a novella as Riders in the Sky. In 2007, a collection of a further eight stories, an essay and a novella were published with the Central European University Press in Budapest, in my own English translation: The Poet and the Idiot and other stories.

As the former book has been out of print for many years, and the distribution of the latter book in Britain has been sporadic, I shall here give a few excerpts from my own translations (I am the copyright holder) from some of these works.

The first story is about the desperate plight of a petty thief, Rannus, trying escape prison:

Freedom and Death

[...]

3

Daybreak. In the green sky a faint mist could be seen wafting in large patches, here and there pinks and reds were beginning to spread across the clouds. In the chilly sunrise stood the dark green trunks of trees, as if coated with the greenish mists of the dawn.

The sky grew more and more flushed. And all at once sunrays fell on the clouds. Light wispy ones hovered like towers above the still, dark blue curve of the sea, from which mist rose in long swathes like watery hair.

Then black columns of smoke rose from the factory chimneys into the clean air, and then hooters blew, long and low, like the first heavy stroke of the bow against the double-bass of the day, throwing into the air watery grey spirals of steam.

The day was awakening once more, a new day with people, horses and waggons on all the roads, with strings of carts, trains and ships. A new day over the factories, railway stations and ports, over the blazing chimneys, the thundering rails and the blood-red cranes in the soot-filled harbours.

How Rannus had longed for this day! How much he had imagined his freedom! He had imagined himself emerging in a meadow outside the city, surrounded by dew and a frolicking herd of horses. Or on the beach, where the gentle waves rolled onto the sand between the fishing boats. Or even in the dark of the forest, with cold stars winking through the treetops.

Instead of all this he was still in the prison grounds. In several hours he had done no more that wander around in the prison cellar. And there were bars across the windows and a guard on the rampart – he was almost as much a prisoner as before. In prison, where he would have to stay and to die – within sight of boundless freedom!

He sat is the mouth of the passage, took hold of one bar and started to file another, taking advantage of the growing noise from the street. He had a small three-faceted file used to sharpen saws. But the bars were thick and he would have to file through at least four of them. It was not going to be that easy to escape from here, and the work would take the whole day!

He filed away and at the same time watched everything happening outside. He watched the guard pacing the rampart. He knew this guard, he was number 13. He could imagine his mood from his posture. He followed him walking there and empathised with his boredom, as he put his hand across his mouth and yawned.

As if the filing tired him, or he could not for some reason carry on, so he sat cross-legged like a Turk at the mouth of the passage and watched life before him. It was a long time since he had observed it: those people, vehicles and trees out there on the boulevard!

For him, someone used to tedium and stillness, the bustle out on the street seem to go on for ever and was wearying to him. Weeks and months between four walls with the same routine and the same people had passed unnoticed. How long the hours seemed now!

He noticed of the smallest things and became like a sleuth. He guessed at the nature of passers-by and their professions. He carried on his investigations into them even when they were out of sight. He attributed jobs, friends, wives and children to them. And he sat at the table which had been laid, eating lunch with them.

Then he turned his eyes to the street again. He saw large numbers of horses moving along: chestnut, mouse grey and fawn ones. Waggoners, brewery dray horse drivers in leather aprons on with carts stacked up with beer barrels, and a whole string of carts, where blood red girders made an ear-splitting din.

*

The next excerpts are from my personal favourite among the stories, one based on a folk tale and embroidered to create a tragic story about the neurasthenic pharmacist Jürgens:

The Golden Hoop

1.

Jürgens stepped out through the cemetery portal. He stopped by the gates as if unsure in which direction to proceed.

The evening street was deserted. No one stirred. All was still. Only the faint patter of rain on the sickly foliage of the avenue could be heard. Dusk had fallen.

At the gate two beggars were sitting. On the one side a blind woman, a shawl around her lemon-yellow face, deep depressions where her eyes should have been. On the other, an old man with no legs whatsoever sitting in a low-sided crate like a trough with small wooden wheels underneath. In the hands of the old man, which touched the ground, were a couple of leather- covered wooden rings with whose assistance he could move along.

Jürgens thrust his hand into his pocket as if about to give the beggars something. But he found his gloves and started pulling them on. The gloves were damp. He brought both hands up to his face simultaneously: the gloves smelt of carbolic.

It could be smelt everywhere. The pharmacy had poisoned him through and through. If he had a soul, even that would smell of medicaments.

With great effort he succeeded in sliding the gloves on over his emaciated fingers. He then turned up the collar of his overcoat and started walking. The ground was wet and soft. The drizzle seemed denser than before. Along both sides of the avenue stood houses of one or two storeys. It was almost completely dark now, yet no lights could be seen in any of the windows.

Along the way stood one or two undertaker's and stonemason's. In the window tiny children's coffins glinted along with the one or two silver tassels, wire wreaths, or an angel holding a palm branch.

The doors of the shops were still open, though inside it was dark and not a soul could be seen.
At the bend in the street Jürgens glanced back: both beggars sat motionless in the rain, the old man had sunk back down onto his hands. He resembled a sitting dog.

The pavement consisted of large round flagstones and Jürgens stumbled at nearly every step. This only increased his sullen mood.

He felt that an injustice had been done to him, bringing him needlessly to this wretched place where he had no reason to come.

Naturally, the death of his mother had shaken him. He had admittedly left home twenty years before and had not seen her for the last seven. And he had rarely had the time to spare her a thought. But she had been his mother, after all.

Now it was all over. Death had crossed out the past, as if with a black stroke of the pen.

He had received word of her illness when it was already too late. He found a short letter from his sister, an empty house and his mother's grave. He sent a postcard to his sister, bought a wreath for his mother's grave and intended staying no longer than it took him to sell the house or at least rent it out at a good price.

This thought brought his feelings on an even keel again. Death - it was inevitable, yet always made him anxious. He was not used to such thoughts, nor did he wish to become so. Life was, after all, something quite different.

He turned into the street which led down to the town. A small dark man zig-zagged from the one pavement to the other and lit the gas lanterns with a long pole. From some way off the clatter of a cart could be heard. And this clattering finally woke Jürgens.

His fate and that of his sister came to mind: himself standing behind the counter of the pharmacy from morn till night for twenty years in the stale air of medicaments, and she in a small faraway provincial town supporting her alcoholic husband and with her brood of children constantly growing. Such had been their lives.

One or two times a year they had written to their mother and to one another. He wrote about his salary increases, she about her latest child; and their mother wrote that everything was as it always had been.

Perhaps they too had once had other ambitions in life. But life had not fulfilled its promise. And Jürgens had finally accepted life for what it was.

No, life had not been easy. And he had begun foolishly. He had gone to the big city like so many others from the provinces and had found pleasure in his smart suit of clothes and cavorted with the women there.

But thank heavens that was soon over. He just did not have the passion, at least not for sin.
Women - they required money, health and time. And he did not possess too much of any of these.

First of all he had discovered the value of money and time. And his yellowish consumptive face did not speak of the constitution of a lady-killer.

Then he understood what he needed to lead was a quiet life. A man had commitments and these commitments brought in the money. Everything beyond this was sheer futility.

He had buried himself in the dust of the pharmacy.

(...)

But once again the ringing of the golden hoop woke him. He saw it approaching, waiting for him round the next bend in the road. It seemed to be tired and resting on a rock by the roadside just as he was. One last effort and he would reach it.

His feet were cut, but he took no notice. He was deathly weary but kept on running!

The day drew to a close. He had run in one huge circle. The meadows were growing blue. He turned back in the direction of the town. Its windows gleamed.

He still could hear the sound of the hoop, faintly as if through a mist. There was no one around him any more. He limped at a half-run under the trees. The street seemed full of blue mist. Somewhere the hour struck. He felt a great weariness, as if he had been running for many years.
Then suddenly he realised he was back in a familiar street. Yes, here was the house of his parents.

He reached the gate and stood listening: somewhere in the distance the hoop still tinkled, but its ringing was becoming fainter and fainter, then sounding as if it were right above his head, quivered and stopped as if dissolving into the evening.

He stepped into the garden.

Through the line of tall trees on the other side of the street the low sun threw a broad swathe of light. The whole garden was full of its yellow glow.

He stopped in the middle of the garden and looked around him.

It seemed as if something had changed during the day:

The grass had grown long, wilted and was rotting in places. The trees which had been blossoming that morning were already full of apples which fell now and again all by themselves, bursting open and decaying in the lush grass. The whole garden was full of the odour of rotting trees and mouldering grass.

It was all so strange!

The door to the room stood wide open as before. He stepped inside. The room was empty. But in through the lace curtains streamed a melancholy light. Everything was yellow, too yellow!

And in the yellow light everything seemed that much more sad and abandoned. The simple furniture had aged, the portraits on the walls had grown old, as if they were living people.

He stayed a few moments in the room. All was silent. All was so ghastly! And full of fear, he flung open the door to the other room and leapt inside.

3.

The room was black as pitch. It felt icy cold as the grave.

Jürgens was aghast. Then he remembered: he had left a candle on the table.

Groping he found the candlestick, but the candle had burnt down and the wax had congealed long ago.

He called for Malle but no one answered. He called out a second time, a third, but all was silent.
Muttering angrily to himself, he stumbled through into the kitchen. A couple of times, cobwebs touched his face, he waved around haphazardly trying to brush them aside.

He reached the kitchen, but here it was cold, as if no one had made a fire there in the hearth in ages. From the cold stove he could smell clay. In the darkness the narrow rectangle of the low window shone.

Jürgens listened. All was silent.

Fumbling his way forward, he approached the bed. His knees knocked against the bed board, he stretched out his hand and groped about among the heap of rags.

His fingers touched a human throat, but it was icy cold. He pulled the bedclothes aside and placed his palm on the old woman's chest but it did not stir.

The old woman was dead.

*

The following two excerpts are in a totally different vein. This comes from a commedia dell'arte story that Tuglas wrote in the 1920s, when established as the editor of a literary magazine. This story is the reverse of Virginia Woolf's Orlando - but preceded that novel by three years! Here the Androgyne starts out as a little girl and ages by the hour, ultimately becoming a cruel prince:

The Day of the Androgyne

1

And so: a summer’s morning, sunrise!

In the gardens the clumps of trees were stretching towards the radiant clouds. The rosebushes were bending to the ground, spreading their dew, their cool fragrance. The twitter of the tiniest birds could be heard in the trees and the rosebushes.

The Androgyne stirred at the warbling of a lark that was circling above the pavilion. Now the birdsong could be heard from one side, now from the other through the open windows, like a tiny wake-up call.

But the Androgyne did not open its eyes. It was still unawakened, unborn, still only an inkling of life, the first chord of being. All that it could hear was the twittering of the bird and perceive a quivering of light through its eyelids.

It marvelled, through its sleep, at the fact that it was waking here today in this room, this bed. Who had it been yesterday, where had it been yesterday? It had forgotten. What was the past? – pollen dispersed on the wind.

Only the lark trilled.

Who to wake up as today? The thought was dreamt. To be a young hunter clothed in green, a grey-headed old man or a wandering gypsy with his bells –? To be a shepherdess in green pastures, a swarthy Moor in a palm forest, or a soldier in a distant desert –?

All possibilities were open to the unawakened, unborn Androgyne.

Whether even to be at all this day –? To remain in a state of non-existence like an embryo in its sweet dreams –? To see visions, compared with which ordinary dreams were worldly and real –?
To doze in non-existence for a day, several days – centuries, and wake up in another era – or even on another planet –?

Someone unawakened and unborn has more opportunities than ever!

A thought shadow arose and fell. Only the billowing. Only the trill of the lark.
A pink light quivered through the eyelids of the Androgyne, spread in oval wise, in rings, mixed with the song of the lark. An inkling of light and sound awoke in an apprehension of being.

The moist fragrance of the soil wafted in, along with the smell of roses. From this sensation of soil a branch formed, leaves, a bud, the bud opened up into a bloom. A bumble bee flew around the bloom, landed on it, entered the calyx. It was a sweet thought of the earth!

An instant of deep sleep followed, dark, empty of sensations, like pitch-black night. Then the Androgyne awoke suddenly and opened its eyes. It was in a new world, in which all previous ones were forgotten.

(...)

She burst into laughter and jumped up like a panther. Treading carelessly over the cushions, the tea service and the Moors, she went off in the direction of the pavilion. Her movements were abrupt and manly, the outlines of her face hard as that of an eagle. She vanished in the dark of the pavilion.

Presently, Lord Byron rose. He watched the hermaphrodite figure and on his lips a cynical smile formed.

At the same moment, through the pillars of the Temple of Amor, the sound of a dulcian, a clarino and a theorbo could be heard. And at that same moment Pantalone emerged, accompanied by Brighella who was dressed like a shepherdess.

Pantalone danced with boundless enticement, while Brighella was unstoppable. She fled dancing through the pâcquerette rosebushes, on her face an expression of true love.

Simultaneously, life had returned to all the rest.

Flavio, Cinthio and Prospero came out dancing, along with Narzissa, Ironetta and Brambilla, some in masks, some without. Daphnis and Chloë were dancing with Arcadian grace and Lovelace and Clarissa were dancing with one another, an epistolary distance apart. From the cool of the trees came Leandro and Ardelia, dancing languidly, each on their own.

The turbans of the Turks were like winding instruments, serpents and rankets. The Moors leapt about striking huge gongs, in their hands fans and parasols. Even Pan joined in the dance, oblivious of his age and dress uniform.

The whole area was transformed into a dance floor. The groups came together in pantomime around Pantalone and Brighella, while developing their own individual themes. Here, a majestic sarabande was worked out, there, a solemn chaconne, elsewhere a subtle musette or a stormy bourrée. Even the music varied, covering various themes, coming from different places.

Only Pantalone was self-assured and unyielding. The tempo of his dancing increased to insanity. He brought into play all his material and manly charms, showing off his money pouch and other pouches. All in vain! This drove him into a frenzy and there was sheer madness in his dancing.
He harried Brighella from one edge of the lawn to the other and danced with the most fantastic leaps. Brighella fled with nimble pirouettes, feigning fear and despair.

Pantalone became ever more insistent, ever more obsessive in his movements. And Brighella fled in the direction of the temple of Amor – not knowing whether to submit or seek sanctuary.

But at that instant, on the threshold of the temple portal appeared the Androgyne, radiant as the young Apollo, surrounded by shouting and hand-clapping Moors.

He was wearing a short purple cloak and a Spanish hat with feathers. His carmine coat had a golden belt and his silver hose had been knit in such a wonderful way as to afford his legs a godly slenderness.

***

Translated from Estonian by Eric Dickens

Inger Edelfeldt - "For Marie-Claire"

Inger Edelfeldt is many-sided in her creative endeavours. She not only writes novels and short-stories for adults and young people, but also illustrates her own books, designs the covers, and has produced books of comic strips. She began writing in the 1980s with longer prose until, in 1984, came a book of short-stories I fiskens mage. From then onwards her reputation grew and she has now published around a dozen novels and story collections.

Her heroines and heroes are often outsiders, who do not quite fit in. Some are fay, some a little nervous, some childlike, some wilful. Small girls feature, as do pubescent ones.

Inger Edelfeldt has been translated in at least two issues of Swedish Book Review, 2004:2 and 2008:1. In the former issue, she is introduced to English readers perhaps for the first time by Sarah Death, who also translated an excerpt from her then latest novel Skuggorna i spegeln (The Shadows in the Mirror). In 2008, Sarah Death again translated some of Edelfeldt's work where the author herself on the illustrations to her own fairy-tale.

In 2003, one of Edelfeldt's stories Zilver appeared in Dutch translation, published in Groningen, Netherlands. In 2006, a selection of 13 of Inger Edelfeldt's stories (including the one below) was published in the same Wilde Aardbeien series that has recently featured collections of contemporary Icelandic and Faroese poetry.

*

Below is my own translation, dating back originally to 1995, of Inger Edelfeldt's story For Marie-Claire, from the collection "Rit", a translation which has never been published before. To avoid spoiling this tragi-comic story, I shall leave the readers to find out for themselves what is going on. The "sentimental song" referred to was sung by Peter Sarstedt, hence the title.


FOR MARIE-CLAIRE

by Inger Edelfeldt

I left the cake till last, as I had seen that there was a cake shop not far from the flat. I stumbled in with all my carrier bags. I was nervous, even though I had decided not to be. My left eyelid kept quivering, it had been doing so all day. I had seen my reflection in several shop windows, several mirrors: unshaven, pale and staring manically. Me who had thought that I would sail high on the waves of defiance, that grand defiance you can feel at times; a pride which is a protest against all pride. I had already felt it while planning all this. I had been acting the silly coward all day; each time I went in somewhere to buy something I needed, I had taken a deep breath, as if about to dive. But shop assistants are a blasé breed, or perhaps simply diplomatic. Everything had gone smoothly, no need to justify myself. Just friendliness or indifference on their part, while my eyelid was stubbornly, but invisibly I hoped, signalling danger. "You can wrap them all up" was what I said, and so they did. And inside my head there was a voice which kept on saying: It's a free country, it's a free country. Me, who can usually put on such an act. That's what they're always telling me: "You're so damned funny. You could be just about anything you wanted".

It was, in fact, easier when I used to steal the stuff. Easier than buying it. I stole quite a lot from Anneli when we were together. She always told me she was so careless, kept losing things. But she liked to go out and buy new ones. That's what I wanted this time, too. That everything would be newly bought. Clean and bright.

The first thing I saw when I entered the cake shop was a huge wedding cake. I stared at it while I was waiting for someone to serve me. Right on top, there was a little bridal couple made of plastic, standing perfectly straight as if suffering from vertigo. Him in black, her in white. Immediately, a film sequence ran through my head: the bridal couple, life-size now, but still made of plastic, striding across the threshold of their home, turning their expressionless plastic faces towards one another, peeling off their clothes with jerky movements and grabbing at one another: click, scrape, moan, like two tortoises mating.

"It's made of plaster of Paris" said the girl behind the counter, all of a sudden. "But we do real ones to order".

She was a sweet girl and her voice was sort of ironically mature for her years as it is in people who understand more than they are letting on. I liked her immediately. I began to mutter something about how convenient it was that there was such a good cake shop just round the corner from the flat I had just moved into. She flirted with me and that gave me a kick. I kept on babbling. My eyelid was quivering incessantly, but she didn't appear to believe she was standing in front of a lunatic. I bought a cream cake and then I stayed on and drank a cup of coffee, even though I didn't really have time to. There were hardly any customers and we had a little chat. She had also worked in a hospital. Though what did that matter. Sometimes nothing matters apart from Marie-Claire. What you are working with, what's happening out there in the world, whether there's any food in the fridge. All the bloody same. But now, it seemed as if I were afraid, afraid to go up to the flat and carry out my plan. So I sat on. I was in a cold sweat. The girl was sweet, as I mentioned, and seemed level-headed enough, but after a while the only thing I saw was the colour of her lipstick. And it was getting very late. They were coming at seven, and I knew how long preparations would take.

*

Mine is a one-room flat; first a long corridor, then a large bathroom, then the asymmetrical room, making the kitchenette smaller than the bathroom. On that occasion, the whole flat had the suffocating smell of paint, because Leffe and Maria had helped me to do some decorating only a couple of days previously. The room still had a spartan look: an IKEA bed, an IKEA bookcase, a 1950s table and a couple of old chairs which my parents had parted with during the rush to move. A newly acquired antique wall mirror which Leffe and Maria had teased me about on a number of occasions. We did, after all, have our code of honour: style is something you should ignore. Be "yourself". (Whoever that may be.)

I knew I wouldn't be able to cope without Leffe and Maria. Our nightly conversations, our manic defiance, our in-jokes, our stratagems. But then there are all those things you cannot share; then there's Marie-Claire, damnable, wonderful Marie-Claire, who puts everyone else in the shade. I can lie there in the dark and imagine a voice saying to me – the voice of a judge, I am in some kind of court – a voice saying to me: What is it you're up to? And then I answer: I don't know, and in those words lies great relish, I don't mean "randiness", even though there's some of that present, too; no, it's something grander, like inviting someone to crush me to death, and still being able to smile about it. God knows if it isn't some kind of court-martial. God knows if they're not thinking of shooting me. And I shine, shine like some great big, stupid, happy, beautiful, mysterious butterfly, the second before the shot rings out.

Sometimes, I look at photographs of myself. I look long and intently, partly because of the fact that I am an egocentric person but also because I want to catch a glimpse of something, some sign, in that little boy in the pram, the sandbox, out there in the fields, on the football pitch, at school. And sure enough, there is something odd about his looks, his features. As if some chord were sounding deep inside, all the time. There is something deep inside him; a sweet parasite, languid and lovely.

I am mesmerised, obsessed. I don't know whether obsession is interesting to others, can be explained to them. Instead, I ought to achieve something there in the outside world, conquer something, alter something, become something. But Marie-Claire commands my undivided attention; what I do out there, I do no more than half-heartedly.

Anneli often asked me where I would go off to. She could see my eyes suddenly grow vacant and distant, as if I were on drugs. She wanted to get me back to reality at any price. Sometimes I was just about to tell her where I had gone, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so. Suddenly, there was a large pebble in my mouth. And with that pebble in my mouth, all I could say was: "Give me the muesli" or "Let's play Monopoly". And I felt so bloody tragic. But in a way, I enjoy that as well. Hang me high, I shall flutter like a banner in the breeze.

I was twelve, perhaps only eleven, at the time. It was autumn, the air as keen as a knife, but hot as a summer's day. That was when it all began. It must have been a Saturday or Sunday, as I was home in the middle of the day. I took the transistor, a bag of salted licorice and a bundle of comics out into the garden and read some Spiderman story or other, but I felt drowsy and preferred to let my eyes fall shut and listen to the radio.

And that's when I first heard the song, and from the very first bar, I knew it was magical, intended for me, in a way I did not understand. It was quite a sentimental song, an old hit from the sixties or seventies. I didn't really understand all the lyrics, what did go in were the words: Look into my eyes Marie-Claire, and tell me just who you are. Much later, I finally gathered that the song was about a poor girl who had made it in life, knew all the right people of the jet set or the like, and the singer is reminding her of her humble origins. Now, she is perhaps an exclusive call-girl, or a film star, I really don't know. Anyway, I didn't understand all of that at the time.

What happened was, that I was filled with a strange sensation, like the flavour of an unusually succulent sweet, a flavour which spread throughout my body. It was as if the whole of my body were tasting the flavour of that divine sweet with hundreds of thousands more taste buds than I ever knew I had. That sensation coincided with a picture in my head: I knew exactly what the Marie-Claire of the song looked like. She was dressed in white, in a kind of wedding dress made of a soft white material. She was truly ladylike, with glistening lips and heavy eyelashes and those type of earrings which glitter. Her scents were perfumes so expensive that my mother would not have dared use them. She wore red nail varnish. She did nothing, was someone people simply gazed at. Marie-Claire lounged in a hammock in the Indian summer staring up into the azure of the heavens. She was languid and beautiful and enveloped in a kind of aura of ease, as when you lie in a bubble bath. I was panting as if I had been running. I didn't understand a thing, I swear: someone had aimed a magic pistol from another planet at me, so there was no point in trying to grasp anything. I was a young boy with a comic and a packet of fish-shaped salted licorice lying on my chest, and yet at the same time I was a voluptuous woman in a white dress. Everything was charged, the heavens, the trees, the earth, everything shimmered. The wind was blowing, coming from a foreign country. I wanted to laugh, or cry, but I could raise neither laughter nor tears: this was something else, and I simply didn't know what.

Then I remember standing in front of the mirror in my mother's room, that same day, or some other. I couldn't make myself up, but I had a go. And the taste of that divine sweet returned.

The clothes, the small phials of perfume, a pair of white lace gloves.

But I was the kind of child who wanted explanations for everything. I liked to think of myself as Newton under the apple tree, I knew all the theories as to why dinosaurs had become extinct, and I tried to work out my own explanations for such phenomena as ghosts, God, reincarnation, flying saucers and the like. I was what my mother would call "a little chatterbox". It goes without saying that I began to wonder about Marie-Claire. I realised that she had long been a part of me, a number of things I had done and felt were, so to speak, small pebbles leading all the way into her boudoir. So when she exploded like sun at the centre of a firework display that Indian summer's day, she had been on her way for a good while. But where had she come from? I looked everywhere for explanations, even in the Problem Pages of my mum's weeklies. I had eyes like a hawk. Gradually, I gathered that Marie-Claire's sisters, just like flying saucers and elves, appeared here and there and had become the objects of both ridicule and rigorous scientific research. But no one could fathom the mystery; no one could fence in rapture.

And she has followed me through the years. Me, who am I? An insufferable charmer, as Anneli once claimed. A troublemaker on occasions, someone pretty clever. Vacillating about my future. What no one sees is the shadow side, my double nature, the creature within me which I myself can sense, even in everyday matters in a gesture, an intonation I suddenly recognise as hers. I often look at my own face in the mirror.

It was not until I met Anneli that I began to wish that Marie-Claire would hop it. She stood between me and Anneli, I knew right away that I wouldn't be able to tell her anything. When we moved in together I tried to show her the door; Marie-Claire, that is. But she kept on coming back when I was on my own, and would seize hold of me like a fit of the shivers. Anneli travelled away, and with the curtains drawn I would spend days with M-C. She liked Edith Piaf, she thought it s-o-o-o w-o-o-onderful to smoke cigarettes in long holders. She adored pretending to be dumb, and had dreams and desires which made me want to say: stop it now!

Such a limitless person, Marie-Claire. Drop her out of an aeroplane and she'd sail down like an angel in white skirts. Now, she's on her way off to the fountain and turns round with a laugh before stepping into the water. And all the rest she does, and I hardly dare think about. But I'm not trying to be ironic about her, though I do wonder what I'm going to do with her. Now she's gone and made the decision that I'm going to go through with today's plans; or is it me who've decided? Anyway, here I am with my two carrier bags, the table laid for three. My eyelid is still quivering, since I didn't sleep a wink last night, and everything's kind of quivering inside me too, invisibly, in my muscles.

I know that I'm not ridiculous, that I'm not vulgar. I know how I'm dressed and that I'm not overdoing it. One day, I shall drive off with Marie-Claire to a little pension in some godforsaken hole in the country where no one cares a damn what I do, and then she'll be able to sunbathe. I shall be able to sunbathe. At Anneli's place there was a little balcony, and I/she lay there a couple of times on a blanket drinking Campari. But I didn't dare sit up, since the balcony wasn't shielded from the neighbours. I didn't even dare to sit up!

I know exactly how to make up my face to give it her expression. She looks less innocent now than she did at first. I don't know what she'll look like as I grow older. That's something I'd rather not think about. Those big eyes, they almost frighten me. The red hunger of the mouth, the smooth skin. If I want to keep her at bay, I let my stubble grow.

This time, I'm even shaving my armpits. This time, I want to do everything properly; the underwear, the stockings, the black flowing dress, the cutaway.

Then I loosen the pony tail and pin it up my hair with the combs. I used to do waves, but they look rather frumpish. Marie-Claire is no frump. No one is allowed to regard her as such.

And while I am doing all this, and squeezing her feet into her shoes, straightening the neck band and can feel the cool weight of the necklace against the skin, the sharp nip of the clips on the ear lobes, all the while I stand in front of the mirror and look helplessly into those big dark eyes, and when I put the salmon paté on the table and light the candles, I feel my anxiety growing.

She's afraid now; she who is so brave – or should I say foolhardy? Who wants to hitch lifts on strange roads, tempting fate. In fact, she's standing here in a small flat with its IKEA furniture and is growing more and more afraid. She drinks a glass of wine, slumps down into an armchair. Looks at the clock. At the mirror, once more.

Now there are footsteps on the stairs, and now a rustling sound can be heard outside (flowers?), now there is a ring at the door. And in my head everything short-circuits totally. For three leaden seconds I am completely and utterly paralysed. Then I breathe in. I rip off those tight shoes and sneak down the corridor and have a peep through the spy hole in the door. There they stand, Marie and Leffe, looking quite ordinary as always, holding a bunch of tulips. It appears they have heard me approaching, or sense that I am standing there.

"Open up!" says Maria and giggles. "What ever are you doing?" And I feel, with painful intensity, how much they mean to me, how I love them both, there outside the door in their frayed clothes.

There I stand, dumb as a fish, on my side of the door and I know I cannot open it, not under any circumstances. There they are on the outside, and behind them the stairs to the yard and the streets and the squares and the shops and real life where people are drinking coffee and dunking their biscuits and buying toys for their kids and going to work or demonstrating or acting in street theatre groups, or whatever. And here, on this side of the door is standing Marie-Claire, smelling of Patchouli, understanding nothing and wanting to scream out loud. She has come so far. Right up to a shut door.

Now Leffe has begun to drum rhythmically on the doorframe and the whole door shudders with a sound like thunder. I know it's just a joke, but it's driving me round the bend. I've got to say something now and so, after two attempts, I manage to get the words up out of my throat: "Stop it out there!"

He stops. "Why don't you open up?"

"Can't find the sodding key. It's not in the lock. I must have put
it somewhere."

"Gerraway with you, you're just having us on."

"Honest. I just can't find it!" (For God's sake don't let them look
through the keyhole!)

"Have you looked in the rubbish bin?"

"I'll go and have another look. You can ... go for a walk, or
something."

"You're just no good at living alone, are you", chuckles Leffe, "just can't cope with being a bachelor."

I rush back into the room, tear Marie-Claire's clothes off and hide them right at the back of the wardrobe. Then I rush into the bathroom and lather my whole face till it smarts, my eyes sting like hell; get rid of her. And that damned nail varnish, it takes ages to clean my nails. By this time Leffe and Maria have begun whistling "I Bergkungens sal" out there on the stairs.

The smell of perfume, how shall I get rid of that? I pour on masses of after-shave and hope the smells will cancel one another out. Now she's nearly gone; I roll down the sleeves of my jumper all the way, so they won't see that I've shaved my arms. She's gone, and I am trembling like an aspen leaf in the breeze. I gulp down several mouthfuls of wine and sit down for a minute before getting up to open the door. If this was a film, I think to myself, the whole audience would have been pissing themselves by now. I try to see the funny side of it all. But she is something deadly serious, like a religion. Someone has to love her, or I'll die. When I was seventeen, I went to the school welfare officer and sat there with the most unctuous smile I could muster on my face. She looked friendly but pale, she looked as if she knew exactly in what sized portions everything had to doled out.

"Well, here we are then," I said.

"And what's worrying you?" she said.

"I'm a charmer," I said. "I can wiggle my ears."

"You don't have to for my sake," she said. "You can do that when ever you like."

She had a photo of her husband and children on her notice board. They looked terribly normal as if you could buy them at the Co-op. Next to the photo, there was a pre-printed card on which was written: Love me most when least I deserve it: that is when I need love most. I hate pre-printed cards: the whole world is pre-printed. You have to be pre-printed to be happy. Dear Lord, let me be pre-printed in thy sight, amen.

"Is there a girl?" she said.

I had a fit of the giggles.

So she looks at me and waits a short while, and then says: "Perhaps there's a boy?"

Then I had another fit of the giggles. Whereupon she looked at me even more intensely and said: "If you just keep on laughing at everything I say, then I won't be able to help you, will I?"

"No, no", I said, "I understand that, but it's not actually me it's about." Then she became as silent as the grave and in that silence I burst into tears, and I have never experienced anything so desolately humiliating in all my life as crying in front of that dumb cow. She looked at me as if I were one great big gift-wrapped box of chocolates. "That's very good," she said. That's very good!

And I knew I would never be able to let her into the mysteries of my secret.

Leffe bangs on the door again and yells: "Shall we call a locksmith?"

I cast one last searching glance in the mirror, my face looks naked and tired. Everything is under control, even though my eyelid is still quivering. I walk across the hallway and open the door.

"Hi," is what I say to my two best friends.

Maria hands me the tulips, white tulips. Marie-Claire's white tulips.

"Where was the key, then?" she enquires.

"You're never going to believe this, but it was in the teapot."

They both roar with laughter. They enter the flat and we eat and drink and chat, and I think to myself: thank the good Lord that I've got you two. Leffe really is Leffe and Maria really Maria. It feels secure sitting here with them and it simply doesn't matter what we talk about, the main thing is the sound of their voices and the fact they're here. Like a fire to warm yourself by.

But when I glance in the mirror again, I can still see Marie-Claire there, her eyes and her mouth which is pleading for life to be boundless, one boundless mystery, a rite, a feast, a sacrifice, an offence against the law. She is trapped on the other side of the looking-glass, in her looking-glass world.

And I am so dog-tired, I just want to go to bed and sleep, between them perhaps, Leffe and Maria, just like a little child.

*

Translated from Swedish by Eric Dickens