by Tove Jansson
Shall we have a story? she asked and went on drawing.
But I didn’t want any other story than this one of my own. But one doesn’t say that sort of thing. So I said: come up and look at the attic.
Mummy dried her Indian ink pen and came with me. We stood in the attic and froze for a while and Mummy said: it’s lonely here, so we went back into the warmth again and she forgot to tell me a story. Then I went to bed.
Next morning the daylight was green, underwater lighting throughout the room. Mummy was asleep. I got up and opened the door and saw that the lamps were on in all the rooms although it was morning and the green light came through the snow which covered the windows all the way up. Now it had happened. The house was a single enormous snowdrift, and the surface of the ground was somewhere high up above the roof. Soon the trees would creep down into the snow until only their tops stuck out, and then the tops would disappear too and everything would level itself off and be flat. I could see it, I knew. Not even praying would stop it.
I became very solemn and quite calm and sat down on the carpet in front of the blazing fire.
Mummy woke up and came in and said: look how funny it is with snow covering the windows, because she didn’t understand how serious it all was. When I had told her what had really happened she became very thoughtful.
In fact, she said after a while, we have gone into hibernation. Nobody can get in any longer and no one can get out!
I looked carefully at her and understood that we were saved. At last we were absolutely safe and protected. This menacing snow had hidden us inside in the warmth for ever and we didn’t have to worry a bit about what went on there outside. I was filled with enormous relief, and I shouted, I love you I LOVE YOU, and took all the cushions and threw them at her and laughed and shouted and Mummy threw them all back and in the end we were lying on the floor just laughing.
Then we began our underground life. We walked around in our nighties and did nothing. Mummy didn’t draw. We were bears with pine needles in our stomachs and anyone who dared come near our winter lair was torn to pieces. We were lavish with the wood, and threw log after log onto the fire until it roared.
Sometimes we growled. We let the dangerous world outside look after itself, it had died, it had fallen out into space. Only Mummy and I were left.
It began in the room at the end. At first it was the nasty scraping sound made by shovels. Then the snow fell down over the windows and grey light came in everywhere. Somebody tramped past outside and came to the next window and let in more light. It was awful.
The scraping sound went along the whole row of windows until the lamps were burning as if at a funeral. Outside snow was falling. The trees were standing in rows and were as black as they had been before and they let the snow fall on them and the fringe of forest on the horizon was still there.
We went and got dressed. Mummy sat down to draw.
A dark man went on shovelling outside the door and all of a sudden I started to cry and I screamed: I’ll bite him! I’ll go outside and bite him!
I shouldn’t do that, Mummy said. He wouldn’t understand. She screwed the top onto the bottle of Indian ink and said: what about going home?
Yes, I said.
So we went home.
German Measles
I HAD GERMAN MEASLES. I lay in bed in my bunk trying to crochet a kettle-holder. The eiderdown was a mountain landscape with small plaster animals wandering up and down and never getting anywhere. In the end I made an earthquake and they lay flat and didn’t have to make an effort any more.
Poppolino sat in his cage on Daddy’s bunk rummaging in his bits of newspaper. He lifted them up one by one and then threw them down again as if they disgusted him, stared at the ceiling and scratched his backside. His eyes looked very yellow in the wintry light.
Suddenly he was scared by his own tail which was sticking out from under the newspapers and thought it was a snake. He screamed and rushed up his tree and flung himself against the bars and shook the cage so that masses of plaster fell off the ceiling. Then he sat still looking like a miserable rat all hunched up. He pulled his long upper lip down and stared straight ahead and let his hands flop as if nothing was worth the effort. Then he fell asleep.
It was a tedious day. I turned towards the cardboard dividing-wall and looked down into the studio through my secret peephole.
Mummy was at the Mint drawing. Daddy stood in front of the modelling stand with his clay rags in his hands. He flung them onto the box of clay and swung the revolving chassis round so that it squeaked. Then he stepped backwards and looked.
He swung the chassis again and stood looking for a long while. Then he went over to the window and looked down into the street. He moved a tin and went into the sitting-room and looked out of that window. Then he went and fetched some water to water the ivy.
I turned over and tried to go to sleep but couldn’t. After a while the modelling stand squeaked again. Then I heard that Daddy had gone back into the sitting-room and was rattling the loose change and nails that he had in the pockets of his overalls. He turned on the wireless and put on the headphones. Then he turned it off again and took the headphones off.
Poppolino woke up and began to scream. He shook the cage and put his face between the bars and screamed as he looked at Daddy in the sittingroom. Daddy climbed up onto his bunk and sat in front of the cage and talked very softly and I couldn’t hear what he said. He opened the door and tried to put Poppolino’s collar on. But Poppolino slunk away and jumped onto the sitting-room sofa and went into the studio. Then all was quiet.
Daddy climbed down again and called Poppolino. He called in his kind and treacly voice that made me very cross. Now they were both in the studio.
Poppolino was sitting on a plaster bust close to the ceiling, gaping. Daddy stood below calling him enticingly. Then it happened again.
Poppolino started swinging on the bust and then sprang. It was a big bust of an alderman and there was a frightful noise as it smashed to smithereens all over the floor. Poppolino clung to the curtains and shrieked with fright and Daddy said nothing. Then something just as big crashed to the floor, but I only heard the noise as I daren’t look any longer.
When all was quiet again I assumed that Poppolino had taken refuge on Daddy’s shoulder and was being consoled. In a while they would go out for a walk in the park. I listened carefully. The Daddy put on Poppolino’s velvet jacket and hat. Daddy talked the whole time he was doing up the buttons and the hat ribbon and Poppolino was saying how rotten and beastly everything was. Now they were out in the hall. The door made a clicking noise as they went out.
I got out of bed and took all my plaster animals and threw them down into the sittingroom. I climbed down the steps and fetched the hammer and bashed them to powder and rubbed the plaster into the carpet with my feet. Then I climbed up and crept into Poppolino’s cage. I sat in his bits of newspaper and breathed German measles on everything as hard as I could.
When they came home again I could tell that they had been to the shop and bought liquorice and herrings. I lay under the bedclothes and heard Daddy put Poppolino back into his cage. He talked away in a cheerful voice and I took it that Poppolino had been given some liquorice. Then Daddy came over to my bunk and tried to give me some liquorice too.
Monkey food! I said. I don’t want to eat the same things as someone who smashes statues.
But it wasn’t a good one, Daddy said. It was good that Poppolino knocked it over. How do you feel now?
I shall soon be dead, I answered, and crept lower down the bed.
Don’t be silly, Daddy said. When I didn’t answer he went into the studio and started working. He was whistling. I heard him walking up and down in front of the modelling stand, whistling and working.
I felt my guilty conscience in my toes, and before it could creep any higher I sat up quickly and started to crochet. I wasn’t going to make a kettle-holder any longer. It would be a pullover for Poppolino.
It’s diffi
cult to tell why or how people cheer up and get the feeling they want to work. It’s not easy to be sure about germs either. Best not to think about it too much but try and put everything right as quickly as possible with a good deed.
Flying
I DREAMED THAT THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE were running in the street. They weren’t shouting but you could hear the sound of their boots on the pavement, many thousands of boots, and there was a red glow in the studio from outside. After a while there weren’t so many of them running and in the end there were only the steps of the last one, who was running in such a way that he fell over and then picked himself up and ran on.
Then everything started shrinking. Every piece of furniture became elongated and narrow and disappeared towards the ceiling. There was something crawling under the rag rugs in the hall. It was also narrow and thin and wriggled in the middle, sometimes very quickly and sometimes very slowly.
I tried to get into the bedroom where Mummy had lit the oil lamp but the door was shut. Then I ran up the steps to the bunk. The door of Poppolino’s cage was open and I could hear him padding round somewhere in the dark and whining, which is something he always does when it is very cold or when he feels lonely.
Now it came up the steps, grey and limping. One of its legs had come off. It was the ghost of the dead crow. I flew into the sitting-room and bumped about on the ceiling like a fly. I could see the sittingroom and the studio underneath me in a deep well that sank deeper and deeper.
I thought more about that dream afterwards, particularly about the flying part, and decided to fly as often as possible.
But it didn’t work and I dreamed about all the wrong things, and in the end I made up my own dreams myself just before I went to sleep or just after I had woken up. I started by thinking up the most awful things I could, which wasn’t particularly difficult. When I had made things as awful as possible I took a run and bounced off the floor and flew away from everything, leaving it all behind me in a deep well. Down there the whole town was burning. Down there Poppolino was padding around in the studio in the dark screaming with loneliness. Down there sat the crow saying: it was your fault that I died. And the Unmentionable Thing crawled under the mat.
But I just went on flying. In the beginning I bumped about on the ceiling like a fly, but then I ventured out of the window. Straight across the street was the farthest I could fly. But if I glided I could go on as long as I wanted, right down to the bottom of the well. There I took another leap and flew up again.
It wasn’t long before they caught sight of me. At first they just stopped and stared, then they started to shout and point and came running from all directions. But before they could reach me I had taken another leap and was up in the air again laughing and waving at them. They tried to jump after me. They ran to fetch step-ladders and fishing-rods but nothing helped. There they were, left behind below me, longing to be able to fly. Then they went slowly home and got on with their work.
Sometimes they had too much work to do and sometimes they just couldn’t work which was horrid for them. I felt sorry for them and made it possible for them all to fly.
Next morning they all woke up with no idea of what had happened and sat up and said: another miserable day begins! They climbed down from their bunks and drank some warm milk and had to eat the skin too. Then they put on their coats and hats and went downstairs and off to their work, dragging their legs and wondering whether they should take the tram. But then they decided to walk in any case because one is allowed to take a tram for seven stops but not really for five, and in any case fresh air is healthy.
One of them came down Wharf Road and a lot of wet snow stuck to her boots. So she stamped a little to get rid of the snow – and sure enough, she flew into the air! Only about six feet, and then came down again and stood wondering what had happened to her. Then she noticed a gentleman running to catch the tram. It rang its bell and was off so he ran even faster and the next moment he was flying too. He took off from the ground and described an arc in the air up to the roof of the tram and there he sat!
Then Mummy began to laugh as hard as she could and immediately understood what had happened and cried ha! ha! ha! and flew onto Victor Ek’s roof in a single beautiful curve. There she caught sight of Daddy in the studio window rattling nails and coins in the pockets of his overall and she shouted: jump out! Come flying with me!
But Daddy daren’t until Mummy flew over and sat on the window-sill. Then he opened the window and took hold of her hand and flew out and said: well I’ll be damned!
By that time the whole of Helsinki was full of amazed people flying. No one did any work. Windows were open all over the place and down in the street the trams and the cars were empty and it stopped snowing and the sun came out.
All the new-born babies were flying and all the very old people and their cats and dogs and guinea-pigs and monkeys – just everybody!
Even the President was out flying!
The roofs were crowded with picnickers undoing their sandwiches and opening bottles and shouting cheers! to one another across the street and everyone was doing precisely what he or she wanted to do.
I stood in the bedroom window watching the whole thing and enjoying myself no end and wondering how long I should let them go on flying. And I thought that if I now made everything normal again it might be dangerous. Imagine what would happen if the following morning they all opened their windows and jumped out! Therefore I decided that they could be allowed to go on flying until the end of the world in Helsinki.
Then I opened my bedroom window and climbed onto the window-ledge together with the crow and Poppolino. Don’t be afraid! I said. And so off we flew.
Christmas
THE SMALLER YOU ARE, the bigger Christmas is. Underneath the Christmas Tree, Christmas is vast. It is a green jungle with red apples and sad, peaceful angels twirling around on cotton thread keeping watch over the entrance to the primaeval forest. In the glass balls the primaeval forest is never-ending; Christmas is a time when you feel absolutely safe, thanks to the Christmas tree.
There outside is the studio which is very big and very cold. The only warm place is close to the stove, with the fire and the shadows on the floor and the pillar-like legs of the statues.
The studio is full of sculpture, large white women who have always been there. They are everywhere, the movements of their arms are vague and shy and they look straight past one because they are uninterested, and sad in quite a different way from my angels. Some of them have clay rags on their heads and the largest one has a clothesline round her tummy. The rags are wet and when one goes past they brush one’s face like cold white birds in the dark. It’s always dark in the evening.
The studio window must never be cleaned because it gives a very beautiful light, it has a hundred little panes, some of them darker than others, and the lanterns outside swing to and fro and draw a window of their own on the wall. There are stout shelves, one under the other, and on each shelf white ladies stand, but they are quite tiny. They face one another and turn away from one another but their movements are just as hesitant and shy as those of the big women. All of them get dusted just before Christmas. But only Mummy is allowed to touch them and the grenades from the 1918 war aren’t dusted at all.
Daddy’s women are sacred. He doesn’t care about them after they are cast in plaster, but for everybody else they are sacred.
Apart from the women, the window and the stove, everything else is in shadow. Against the wall there is a sinister heap of things that mustn’t be examined; armatures, boxes with clay and plaster, moulds, wood, rags and modelling stands, and behind them all creeps the mysterious thing with eyes as black as night.
But the middle of the room is empty. All there is is a single modelling stand with a woman in wet rags, and she is the most sacred thing of all. The stand has three legs and they throw stiff shadows across the blank patch of concrete floor and up towards the ceiling which is so far away that no one can get up there, at le
ast not before the Christmas tree arrives. We have the finest and tallest tree in the town and it’s probably worth a fortune because it has to reach right up to the ceiling and be of the bristly kind. All other sculptors have small and scruffy Christmas trees, not to mention certain painters who hardly have what you could call trees at all. People who live in ordinary flats have their tree on a table with a cloth on it, poor things! They buy their tree as an afterthought.
On the morning agreed upon beforehand we, that is Daddy and I, get up at six o’clock because Christmas trees must be bought in the dark. We walk from Skatudden to the other end of town because the big harbour there is just the right setting for buying a Christmas tree. We generally spend hours choosing, looking at every branch very suspiciously, because they can be stuck in. It’s always cold. Once Daddy got the top of a tree in his eye. The early morning darkness is full of freezing bundles hunting for trees and the snow is scattered with fir twigs. There is a menacing enchantment about the harbour and the market place.
Then the studio is transformed into a primaeval forest where one can make oneself unget-at-able deep in under the Christmas tree. Under the tree one must feel full of love. There are also other places where one can feel full of grief or hate, between the hall doors where the letters drop through the letter-box, for example. The hall door has small red and green glass panes, it is narrow and solemn, and the hall is full of clothes, skis and packing cases, but it is between the two doors that there is just enough room to stand and hate. If one hates in a big space one dies immediately. But if the space is narrow the hate turns inwards again and goes round and round one’s body and never reaches God.
But it’s quite different with Christmas trees, particularly when the glass balls have been hung up. They are store-places for love and that’s why it’s so terribly dangerous to drop them.
