The Listener

  About seven o’clock the wind died and the snow drifted down over the city, onto streets and roofs and down over her bedroom, which was completely white and very beautiful when she awoke.

  Grey Duchesse

  MANDA CAME FROM A VILLAGE IN ÖSTERBOTTEN and she had second sight. It was not merely that she had prophetic dreams, she also had an unusual capacity to know when death was near and whom it intended to take. She would have preferred to keep her insights to herself, but an implacable inner voice commanded her to tell people what was going to happen. As a result, she quickly found herself shunned and eventually moved to the city where she supported herself embroidering. The whole thing was surprisingly easily arranged. Manda went to the largest ladies-wear shop, showed some work she’d done, and was hired at once. In the beginning, the job was mostly embroidering undergarments and nightdresses but later she moved on to evening gowns. Very soon she was allowed to create designs and choose colours herself, and she was given her own table behind a glass partition.

  Manda seldom spoke. She didn’t smile when she greeted people. That may seem unimportant, but in practice it is frightening. People are used to the smile exchanged on meeting. It is natural to smile whether you like the person or not. Moreover, she didn’t look people in the eye but gazed instead at the floor in the vicinity of their feet.

  Manda’s silence and gravity and her undeniable skill and sense of colour – combined with the glass partition – placed her entirely in a world of her own. Those outside the partition were vaguely and uncomfortably afraid of her, but they saw no trace of arrogance or hostility in this tall, dark woman with the heavy eyebrows. When Manda came into the sewing studio in the morning, she hung up her coat and shawl (she always covered her head), and greeted the others quietly. The room always fell silent when she entered. They watched her cross the floor to her glass cubicle – a few long, hesitant steps. She moved like a long-legged animal. When she had closed the glass door, they shifted their gaze to the black shawl and coat, which was made of some cheap, wrinkled fabric and hung like an abandoned skin on its peg. No one found her clothing comic or touching, it struck them more nearly as threatening.

  While Manda sat there behind her glass wall, she thought about nothing at all. She enjoyed embroidery. And Madame liked her patterns and colours very much. Manda always made a pastel sketch before beginning work. She’d carry it into the office and place it on the desk, a barely discernible outline. Madame approved it, and Manda left the office, leaving the paper behind. Patterns and colours quite naturally change as the work progresses. The sketch was a concession to the ordinary rules, nothing more, and both of them knew it.

  All this time, Manda had no prophetic dreams, because she didn’t know or care about the people around her. The quiet nights were a great rest and relief and made her so happy that she had no need of the days. So she just closed the glass door and embroidered. She stretched out her long, powerful legs, leaned back in her chair, and embroidered with sharp, observant eyes. Her hand plied the needle calmly, and sometimes the pretty cloth spread over her knees would rustle. It was the busy season, and the ladies came and went, but she never saw them. Nothing would have happened had it not been for the duchesse satin gown with the pearls. It was an ordinary thing in pink, an unimaginative order that Manda rescued with broad gores of grey. The lady was displeased and wanted to speak to the embroidress. Manda said she did not want to come. Madame said, “Please, Manda. It’s a large order, and we can’t satisfy her any other way. It’s too much money.”

  “It’s an unlucky dress,” Manda said. “I don’t want to come.” But in the end she went.

  The woman was thin and nervous, and she talked and complained without stopping. She had a bitter face and was beside herself about the grey. Manda looked at her and knew that this woman was going to die very soon and that she wasn’t prepared, and at the same time she heard the inner voice that commanded her to say what she had seen. Manda felt ill. She took a long step towards the door and managed to open it. The three of them stood in a tiny fitting room and it was very hot. The woman turned and grabbed the door and shouted, “I want an explanation. I can’t wear this dress the way it is!”

  “You won’t be wearing your dress, in any event,” Manda said. Her lips were so stiff that she had difficulty talking. “You don’t need this dress because you are going to die very soon.” She walked back through the sewing studio and into her glass cubicle. She took her pastels and drew a new pattern as the spirit took her, with clear strong colours, mustard yellow and yellow-green, aniline blue and cobalt, orange and finally white, reckless colours that screamed loudly at first but then lay down beside one another and glowed. After a few minutes, she forgot the anxious woman who was going to die.

  Madame came in and sat down. “What came over you?” she said. “Why in God’s name did you say such a thing?”

  “I’m very sorry,” Manda answered softly. “I saw it on her and had to tell her. It was badly done.”

  Madame glanced at the coloured sketch. After a while, she stood up and said, with difficulty, “There must be no repetition of such behaviour.”

  “No. Never again,” said Manda.

  The next day – after the woman had died in a car accident – Manda went in behind her glass partition without anyone daring to say good morning. She worked all morning and sent in her finished sketch with the errand girl and got it back approved. She began with the white evening dress and stayed and worked until the others had gone home. Then she put on her coat and shawl and went out into the city. She didn’t go to her room but wandered slowly through the streets, observing everyone she met. She dared to study the faces of everyone she passed, and she could see that many of them would die very soon. Her inner voice shouted continually but the people passed quickly by. They were in a hurry, and there were more and more who were going to die, far too many, and the inner voice grew weaker and weaker. She walked on, continuing to look at everyone, and they passed her and disappeared, hour after hour. In the end, the voice went silent, and everyone looked alike.

  Manda went home. She was very tired. She took up her pastels to draw a new pattern that seemed to her attractive, but suddenly she didn’t know which colours to choose or why in the world they should go together in harmony.

  Proposal for a Preface

  SHE REMOVED THE BEDSPREAD, folded it, put it on a chair, turned on the bed lamp, and turned off the overhead. Then she opened the inner window, took out a bottle of Vichy water, closed the window, replaced the metal cap with a rubber cork, and put the bottle on her nightstand along with two sleeping tablets, her glasses, and three books. Then she drew the curtains and undressed, from the bottom up, laid her clothes on a chair and put on a nightdress and slippers. She brushed her teeth in the sink, wound the clock, saw that it said eleven o’clock, put it on the night table, turned on the radio, turned it off again, sat on the edge of the bed for ten minutes, removed her slippers, and crawled under the covers.

  She put on her glasses and began reading the first chapter of the uppermost book. After four pages, she took the second book, read for a while in the middle, set it aside and opened the third book. Sometimes she read a sentence several times and sometimes she skipped a page or a couple of pages. It was very quiet, only a faint banging in the heat pipes now and then. At twelve thirty, her eyes grew tired and sleep approached, beginning in her legs. Quickly, she put her glasses and the book on the nightstand, turned off the light and turned to the wall. Immediately, and for the first time that night, she began going through everything she had said and left unsaid that day, everything she had done and not done.

  She turned on the light, picked up one of the tablets, opened the bottle, swallowed the pill with Vichy water, turned off the light, and lay back down with her face to the wall.

  Half an hour later, she turned on the light again, put on her glasses, opened her book, and read a chapter towards the end. She put the book and her glasses on the floor, turned out the light and
pulled the covers over her head.

  Twenty minutes later, she turned on the light and got up, opened the inner window, took out a packet of greaseproof paper and unwrapped the bread, sausage and cheese. She ate standing at the window. The snow lay quite deep against the windowpanes. It was snowing outside. When she had finished eating, she swallowed the other tablet with Vichy water but did not close the inner window, because the room was very warm. She lay down and turned out the light.

  An hour later, she turned it on again, took off her nightdress and started walking about the room. She went to the sink, filled an enamel pitcher with water and watered her plants, took a sponge and dried the water that had run out on the windowsill and left the sponge lying by the window. She lay down and turned out the light.

  About an hour later, she got up without turning on the light, turned on the radio, and turned it off again. She heard the lift, and right afterwards the newspaper came through the letterbox. She turned on the light, pulled out the top drawer of her bureau, took out stationery and a pen, and sat down on the bed. Ten minutes later, she put the paper and pen on the floor, went to the window and saw that it had stopped snowing. She turned off the light and lay down in the bed. She heard the lift again, but the heating pipes had stopped banging. Sleep drew near and her body grew heavy, sank as if with an enormous weight, and she stopped thinking and slept.

  Half an hour later, she lit the lamp and looked at the clock. She got up and went to the sink and brushed her teeth. She dressed from the top down and put on water for tea. Then she looked at the clock again and realised she’d read it wrong because she hadn’t been wearing her glasses. She turned off the tea water, went to the sink, filled the enamel jug, and remembered that she’d already watered the plants. It was dark outside. She put on her coat and a hat and gloves, took her purse, and stuffed her keys in her pocket. Then she opened the hall door, stepped out, closed it quietly behind her, walked down the stairs, out the door to the street, and saw it had begun to snow. She walked around the block, and when she came back to the street door she walked around the block a second time and came back and went into the building and up the stairs to begin again from the beginning.

  The Wolf

  THERE HAD BEEN SILENCE for far too long. She gathered herself for a comment, a polite show of interest that might save them for several more minutes. She turned to her guests and asked in English if Mr Shimomura wrote for children too. The interpreter listened earnestly, made a slight bow, which Mr Shimomura repeated. They spoke together softly, quickly, almost whispering, hardly moving their lips. She looked at their hands, which were very small with narrow, light-brown fingers – tiny, beautiful paws. She felt like a large horse.

  “We are sorry,” said the interpreter, also in English. “Mr Shimomura does not write. He never writes. No, no.” He smiled. They both smiled. He bowed his head gently and apologetically and gazed at her steadily. His eyes were absolutely black.

  “Mr Shimomura draws,” the interpreter added. “Mr Shimomura would like to see some dangerous animals. Very savage, if you please.”

  “I understand,” she said. “Animal drawings for children. But we don’t have many dangerous animals. And those we have live further north.”

  The interpreter nodded, smiling. “Yes, yes,” he said. “That is very amiable. Mr Shimomura is pleased.”

  “We have bears,” she said uncertainly, and suddenly couldn’t remember the English word for ‘wolf’. “Like dogs,” she went on. “Large and grey, in the north.”

  They looked at her attentively and waited. She tried to howl like a wolf. Her guests smiled politely and continued staring at her.

  “There are no dangerous animals in the south,” she repeated sullenly. “Only in the north.”

  “Yes, yes,” the interpreter said. They were whispering again. Suddenly she said, “Snakes. We have snakes.” Now she was tired. She raised her voice and said “Snake” one more time, made a creeping, wavy gesture with one hand and hissed.

  Mr Shimomura was no longer smiling. He laughed, soundlessly, his head thrown back. “Anaconda,” he said. “Schlange. Very good.” Then turned off the laugh abruptly. The overweight cat jumped down from its chair and walked out into the middle of the floor.

  “I,” she said, with some growing panic, “I am quite old, and I don’t actually know much about either children or animals.”

  Perhaps she could have asked or felt her way towards the world where he sought and drew his animals. Perhaps she might have discovered something new and important. It was even possible that they were looking for roughly the same thing – the dark, the wild, the shy, and the lost security of being little. She couldn’t know. She lifted the coffee pot and said, “Please?”

  The two of them gave a little dancing bow, rising halfway to their feet in a consummate gesture of grateful refusal.

  The interpreter said, “Mr Shimomura thinks that you write beautifully. He has a present for you.”

  She undid the silk ribbons. Beneath several layers of brittle rice paper lay a thin wooden box that had been pieced together with the utmost precision. Inside was a fan with a painted picture of a foot-stamping warrior showing his teeth.

  “How beautiful!” she said. “Tack. Thank you ever so much, you shouldn’t have! I have always admired these paintings that … And the box is exquisite …”

  “She likes the box,” the interpreter said.

  Mr Shimomura bowed deeply. She used the fan to fan the cat, which laid back its ears and went its way.

  “Fat cat,” said Mr Shimomura in his own English and laughed benevolently.

  “Yes,” she said. “Very fat.”

  The interpreter stood up and said, “This has been very interesting. Now Mr Shimomura would like to see savage animals. Please. We depend on your kindness.”

  He opened the door for her and they walked into the chilly silence, past a row of tall brown cabinets with glass doors. A threadbare fox contemplated the ceiling from the top of one cabinet.

  “Savage?” said Mr Shimomura.

  “No,” she said.

  Mr Shimomura gazed at the fox for a long time. He was very serious. A man in a white coat came hurrying down the corridor. She stepped in his path and said, “Excuse me, but I’ve a foreign gentleman here who’s interested in animals …”

  He stopped and looked at the floor and said, “I see. Animals. And how can I …?”

  “Dangerous native animals,” she explained. “Is there any chance …?”

  “I’m in entomology,” he said.

  “Of course!” she said. “How silly of me. Insects are far too small.”

  He looked at her. “That depends,” he said. “Of course, I don’t know what you’re after …”

  “No,” she said quickly. “In this case we need something completely different.” She smiled and bowed slightly and the man in the white coat continued down the corridor. Mr Shimomura had opened his sketch pad and was studying the fox with his little black eyes wide open. His profile was spare, not sculptural, only a severely drawn line, his nose hardly more than a muzzle. Only his hair spilled out in vital, almost violent profusion, like coarse, black grass. He turned to her and said, “No, no.” He closed his sketchbook and waited.

  They walked up the curved stairway, floor after floor, and into the uppermost hall, which was full of skeletons. Some of them were huge and hung from the ceiling. They were equipped with black teeth and terrible, gaping jaws. Above her was the skeleton of an elephant. Without its trunk and its tusks, it had a resigned, all too human face.

  “No,” said Mr Shimomura.

  “Yes! No!” she shouted. “I’m so sorry …” She walked up to a glass case containing a large, bright yellow crab, put on her glasses and read aloud to hide her confusion and the silence between them. “‘Japanese Giant Spider Crab, Makrocheira kaempferi. Normal habitat: water deep enough that wave action will not hamper its movements.’ You see?” she said. “Japanese.”

  He smiled and bowed. Th
ey went back down the stairs. Deep, she thought. Deep enough that it doesn’t feel the waves. It just walks along with its ten long legs and nothing gets in its way because it’s so enormously huge.

  On the next floor down they saw hundreds of animals that infinite patience and great artistry had captured in characteristic poses. They had the lassitude of death in their pelts and plaster in their jaws, but they strode across moss or sand or rock in the manner of their species, and not a single one of them was a dangerous animal.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Please,” Mr Shimomura reassured her. For one moment his hand touched her arm. In a lovely gesture, his hands expressed the misfortune that cannot be remedied, not even with amiability. They walked on.

  And then they came to the wolf.

  It was as moth-eaten as the fox, but it looked angrier. Mr Shimomura opened his sketchbook and she stood behind a pillar so as not to disturb him.

  They were alone. The great hall was filled with an even, white light from the snow outside. There didn’t seem to be any bears, only a lot of roundish seals with cotton in their eyes and, further along, in glass cases, petrified shadows with long, thin legs – probably deer. He doesn’t like stuffed animals, she thought. And he’s leaving tomorrow. If only my knees weren’t so stiff today.