Jonna stood with her back to Mari, looking out the window. “Of course. You’re right. But come here a minute. The harbour is lovely in the fog.”
The harbour really was lovely. Black channels cut through the ice all the way to the distant quays where the big ships lay barely visible.
“So terribly lonely,” Mari said. “But Jonna, try to help me here. Could I write to her about experiencing very simple things…”
“Like what?”
“Well, for example, that spring is coming? Or just buying pretty fruit and arranging it in a bowl… Or a great, stately thunderstorm moving closer…”
“I don’t believe your Linnea likes thunderstorms,” Jonna said. And at that instant a skyrocket rose silently into the air far off across the harbour. The winter sky began to burst with repeated explosions of colour that paused for a few seconds in their beauty before sinking slowly and giving way to new multi-coloured roses, a lavish splendour repeated again and again, softened by the fog and for that reason more mysterious.
Jonna said, “I’ll bet it’s some foreign cruise ship entertaining its passengers. My, they’re far away. Now a white one… That’s really the prettiest because it makes the harbour look so black.”
They waited, but nothing more happened.
“I think I’ll go and work a little more,” Jonna said. “Don’t look so worried. Maybe your Linnea saw the same fireworks and it cheered her up.”
“Not her! She looks out on a dismal courtyard, because her neighbour got the whole view of the harbour…”
“Neighbour?”
“Yes, a woman who just goes on and on about what she should do and what she should wear and what food she should buy and how to file her taxes and so on.”
“Really?” said Jonna. “Remarkable. It seems to me there’s a lot of affection in all that. I begin to suspect that maybe your poor Linnea did get a look at the fireworks after all and that she’s getting along just fine. Write to her, now, and get it out of the way.”
Mari sat down and wrote. When she was done, she went into the studio and asked if she could read it aloud.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Jonna said. “Your juice is on the spice shelf. And take the torch, the light’s out in the attic. Are you going to the post office tomorrow?”
“Yes. Do you want me to pick up your parcels?”
“I’ll get them later; they’re too heavy. But could you pick up some tomatoes and cheese and detergent on the way home? And mustard? I made a list. And put on something warm; they’re saying it’ll be down to ten degrees tomorrow. Now don’t lose the list, and be careful on the street – it’s going to be really icy.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Mari said. “I know, I know.”
On her way across the attic, Mari stopped as usual and gazed out across the harbour. She thought absent-mindedly of Linnea, who knew nothing about love.
Cemeteries
MARI DEVELOPED A SUDDEN INTEREST IN CEMETERIES the year that she and Jonna took their long trip. Wherever they went, she’d find out where the cemetery was and wouldn’t rest until she’d seen it. Jonna was surprised, but resigned herself to this odd mania and supposed it would pass. It was wax museums the last time, but it hadn’t lasted very long. She followed along obediently, up one street and down another through the grave keepers’ quiet, neatly ordered villages, shooting a little film here and there, although she had never cared much for things that stood still. It was very hot.
“Of course it’s very pretty,” said Jonna experimentally. “But the cemeteries at home are much prettier, and you don’t visit them.”
“No,” Mari said, “those are just people we know. These are more distant.” And she changed the subject.
The graves Mari looked for were the forgotten, overgrown graves, and she stood by them for a long time, utterly content among the uncontrollable vegetation playing jungle across the hallowed ground. There was the same absolute feeling of calm on the Ile de Sein, the last sliver of land into the Atlantic, where the gravestones had sunk deep into the sand that continually drifted up and blew away again. They could just barely make out the texts that salt water and wind had tried to wipe away.
“And Pompeii?” Jonna suggested. “The whole city’s a cemetery. Completely empty and anonymous.”
“No,” said Mari, “not empty at all. In Pompeii they’re still there, everywhere.”
They went to Corsica, to Porto Vecchio, and Jonna asked, “How about going on by bus? Then we wouldn’t have to take a hotel for the night.” She looked at Mari for a moment and added, “Well, whatever you want. We’ll do the cemetery.”
Here the stones carried photographs of the dead, stiffly staring photographs surrounded by wax flowers. In the hotel room, Mari tried to define it. “It was horrible… It makes them still there more than ever!”
Jonna was sitting at the table with the map and the bus schedule, making notes, considering, planning, and, when Mari repeated how horrible it was, she threw her notes across the room and burst out, “Horrible and horrible! Leave the dead alone and start behaving like you were alive! Be a travelling companion!”
“Forgive me,” said Mari. “I don’t know what’s come over me.” And Jonna said, “We’ll give it some time. It’ll be okay.”
That evening, Jonna was filming in Porto, on a narrow street at the edge of town. All the windows and doors stood open because of the heat, and the light was red and golden in the sunset. Jonna filmed the children playing on the street, trying to get as much as she could until they suddenly realized what she was doing and went all unnatural, flocking around her and playing the clown.
“This won’t be any good,” she said. “Too bad. The light is so good.”
When Jonna put the Konica in its case, a little boy came up to her with a drawing he’d made and asked if she’d film it for him.
“Of course,” Jonna said, wanting to be nice. “I’ll film you while you draw.”
“No,” said the boy. “Just the picture.” And he held up his drawing. It was done with a thick felt pen on a piece of cardboard ripped from a packing box, perhaps, and the picture was very expressive.
“It’s a grave,” the boy said.
Very true, a distinct grave with a cross, wreaths, and people weeping. More interesting was the underlying cross-section of black earth and a coffin in which a person lay baring his teeth. An altogether gruesome picture. Jonna filmed it.
“Good,” the boy said. “Now, for sure, he’ll never come back up. I just wanted to make sure.”
A woman came out on her steps and called to him. “Come inside,” she said, “and stop this eternal nonsense!” She turned to Jonna and Mari and said, “You have to forgive Tommaso. He draws the same picture every time, and it happened a year ago.”
“Was it his father?” Mari asked.
“No, no, it was his poor brother, his older brother.”
“And they were very close?”
“Not at all,” the woman answered. “Tommaso didn’t like him, not a bit. I just don’t understand the child.”
She shoved the boy into the house. Before he disappeared, he turned and said, “Now, for sure, he’ll never come back up!”
They walked back along the alley, the evening light still very red.
Mari repeated slowly, “Now, for sure, he’ll never come back up…”
“I caught the red light,” Jonna said. “And his eyes above the cardboard. It’ll be good.”
They travelled on to the next town and Jonna spread out the city map to find the cemetery.
“You don’t need to look for it,” Mari said. “I don’t think I want to go.”
“How come?” said Jonna.
Mari replied that she didn’t really know; it just didn’t seem important.
Jonna’s Pupil
ONE AUTUMN, JONNA TOOK A PRIVATE PUPIL, a girl named Mirja. She was a large, unusually cheerless person who wore a cape and an artist’s beret. Jonna declared that Mirja had talent, but that before anything c
ould be done with it the girl would have to learn to respect her materials, which might take time. At the moment, she was leaving printing ink on the plates, digging deep holes in the jars of coloured ink, and tossing cotton waste in with the tarlatan – all unforgivable sins.
“I have to start right from the beginning,” Jonna said. “She knows nothing of the serious facts of graphics; she just makes gifted pictures.”
“How long is she going to be working with you?” Mari asked. “Are we going to feed her, too?”
“No, no, just coffee, maybe a sandwich or two. She’s always hungry. It makes me think of my own student days, when I never got to eat as much as I wanted.”
On the days Mirja came, Jonna couldn’t work with anything but Mirja. Mari kept out of the way and worried. Of course Jonna had a natural gift for teaching, she’d been an enthusiastic teacher at the Art Academy for many years, until she got tired of the whole thing and wanted to be left in peace with her own work. In any case, Mari thought, teaching, a real capacity to teach – that had stuck with her. She liked teaching. And Mari thought she understood the attraction of passing knowledge along in the hope that at least one person will manage to have a reasonable career… Nevertheless, Mari was highly suspicious of Mirja and her arty cape. Occasionally she’d ask how the instruction was coming along. Jonna answered curtly that at any rate her pupil had learned respect for the copper plates and had begun to clean up after herself.
“But you don’t have to get meals for her, I hope.”
“No, no, I told you. Just coffee.”
Once, when Mari went over to Jonna’s on the wrong day to borrow a pair of pliers, she walked right into a coffee break. There were two kinds of salad, Camembert, and small pasties. And the beef that Mari and Jonna were supposed to have the next day had been cut into elegant strips and decorated with parsley. On top of it all, Jonna had lit a candle on the table. They all had coffee. Demonstratively, Mari ate nothing. Mirja was extremely taciturn. After a while, she started drawing on her paper napkin with a charcoal pencil.
“What is that?” Mari asked.
“A sketch.”
“Oh, yes, a sketch,” Mari said. “That reminds me of art school. Everyone would go for coffee around the corner, and they’d sit and scratch something on their cigarette packs and say they’d had an inspiration. Well, well. How nice that some things don’t change.”
Jonna turned to Mirja. “You like the salad? Why don’t you take it home?”
And the salad was packed in a plastic container, and, moreover, Mirja was given half the cheese and a jar of raspberry jam. When she’d gone, Mari said, “Doesn’t she ever smile?”
“No. But she’s making some progress. One has to be patient.”
Mari said, “She’s going to get fat if she goes on like that. Did you see what she put away?”
“Young people are hungry,” said Jonna severely. “And I was just as shy when I was young.”
“Ha!” said Mari. “She’s not shy; she just won’t bother trying to be pleasant. She thinks it’s artistic to be gloomy. Can you show me any of her work?”
“No, not yet. She’s finding her way.”
Time passed, and Mari’s irritation grew. The coffee threesomes had become a recurring, awkward phenomenon, but Mari couldn’t keep from going over to see with her own eyes how shamelessly Jonna was spoiling her protégée. “Mirja, it’s so cold out. Why don’t you have a cap? I’ve told you you need a cap. Borrow mine.” “Mirja, here’s a list of the exhibits you should see.” “Here’s the recipe for that salad. You could make it yourself.” “Here are some books on graphic techniques; you ought to look at them…” It was incomprehensible that Jonna, who could be so chilly and distant, was now suddenly being a perfect wet nurse to a person who, in Mari’s opinion, lacked every ounce of common civility, let alone charm.
Once, unforgivably, when Mari was alone in Jonna’s studio, she turned over an aquatint that Mirja had done. It wasn’t much good.
Autumn wore on. Jonna had set aside her own work and started building bookshelves that she didn’t need. Mirja came regularly and was always equally hungry and dreary. One day Mari discovered that Jonna had begun giving Mirja vitamins, in a nice little bottle on the worktable.
“I see you’re taking very good care of your daughter’s health,” Mari observed. “And you’ve put them in my bottle.”
“Not at all – it’s just a bottle like yours. You had yours this morning. Don’t be childish.”
And Mari went straight out, closed the door very slowly behind her, and stopped coming for coffee.
It was a sad time.
One evening in November, Mari came in and declared that now she wanted to see the worst movie Jonna could find: one with murders, preferably several. Jonna searched her video shelf. “Here’s one that’s pretty awful. I never dared show it to you.”
“Good. Put it on.”
When the movie was over, Mari drew a long breath. “Thank you,” she said. “That feels better. Funny that Johnson would get all sentimental at the last minute; it wasn’t his style at all. That homeless dog didn’t fit.”
“Of course it did. Johnson acts against his own true nature one single time, and you always have to pay for that. It was excellent bringing in an irrational detail. It would have been way too easy to have him simply bully his gang until they get rid of him.”
“He couldn’t help being the boss,” Mari said. “He was a born leader. I suppose it went to his head. But they couldn’t manage a single job without him telling them what to do… And what about afterwards?”
“No idea,” Jonna said. “They just had to do it themselves. Anyway, it’s only a B-movie. Maybe I’ll erase the whole thing.” She turned on the overhead light. “I was thinking of reading this evening. I don’t feel like talking.”
In the overhead light, the studio seemed oddly empty.
“Don’t tell me you’ve cleaned?” Mari said.
“No. Don’t you have anything to read? I’ve pulled out some books you might like. Short stories and stuff.”
The studio really was very empty. And Mirja’s smock was no longer hanging on its peg.
Mari opened one of the books. The evening was serene, no one called, the only sound was snowploughs rumbling along the street.
After a couple of hours, Jonna said, “I think I might take up lithography again. I mean, it’s a possibility.”
“Yes,” Mari said. “A possibility.”
“For that matter,” Jonna went on, “did I ever tell you how when I was young I just marched out of their art school in the middle of the term so I could do my own work?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, anyway, it was a real event in those days. A demonstration!”
“I know.” Mari turned a page in her book. “That teacher you had, your professor? The one who was so overbearing?”
“Mari,” said Jonna, “sometimes you’re really a little too obvious.”
“Do you think? But once in a while a person just needs to say what doesn’t need to be said. Don’t you think?”
And they went back to their reading.
Viktoria
THE ROOM HAD FOUR WINDOWS because the sea was equally beautiful in all directions. Now, as autumn approached, the island was visited by exotic birds on their way south, and it sometimes happened that they tried to fly right through the windows toward the daylight on the other side, the way they might fly between trees. The dead birds always lay with their wings spread wide. Jonna and Mari carried them down to the lee shore, where the landward breeze would carry them away.
Once Jonna said, “Now I understand what Albert meant when he said the lift of a hull is the same line you find in a bird’s wing. When he was building Viktoria.”
It had suddenly grown quite cold on the island. The wind had been rising all morning. Viktoria rode the swell inside the point, anchored on four lines. The way she always did in bad weather, of course, but they seemed to worry about her more eve
ry summer.
Jonna said, “I put new slip irons on her in May.”
“You did. And checked her lines.”
“Anyway, they said the wind would let up by evening.”
But the wind didn’t let up. Weather that keeps people from coming ashore or putting out to sea is good weather if you can pull your boat up on land. But they couldn’t do that. Viktoria was now too heavy for them to pull out of the water. With the natural ease of a well-built boat, she danced on the waves that swept around the point toward her bow as well as on the breakers that washed straight through the lagoon toward her stern. But this was no time for admiration.
Mari said, “They were both called Viktor.”
“What did you say?”
“That both our fathers were named Viktor.”
Jonna wasn’t listening. She said, “Go home and get warm until it’s your turn to stand watch.” And she stayed behind by the endangered boat and tried to think of a way of saving and preserving her. There had to be a way – maybe something very simple.
When it started to get dark, they traded places. Mari came down to the boat and Jonna sat down to draw new devices, possible new ways to bring Viktoria to safety in a storm. Trolleys and spars that couldn’t be built. A winch, just as bad. A system of davits, no better. She made sketch after sketch and then threw them all in the stove. But she went right on trying to think up new unthinkable devices.
Darkness had fallen imperceptibly. Mari could make out almost nothing but the foam on the breakers. To the east, the seas broke over the rocks in a waterfall and crashed on through the lagoon. To the west, the breakers boiled around the point. There, somewhere in the middle, lay Viktoria.
After a while, Mari went back to the cabin.
“Well?” said Jonna.
“It’s remarkable,” Mari said. “Here in the house the storm sounds completely different. It sort of flows together; I mean like a long, humming tone. You tried to get it on a cassette once and it just sounded like an endless crunching…”