Letters from Tove

by Tove Jansson

  The day after tomorrow I’m going out to Pellinge – with Carin! There’s no one there until midsummer, after all, and then she’ll come back in again while I stay to receive the rest of the family. She’s intensely looking forward to revisiting the island where we had such a good time together back then and I think she needs to get away from that Brandö café for a while. She’s moved her stuff there from Fernanda and now devotes herself mainly to cooking for the Weinars, while all the melodramas of that hot-blooded family crash daily around her poor head. She was shattered and very down one day when we were at the swimming baths, and assured me most definitely that she was going to wait not six months but a full year before her wedding. (I don’t think it’s ever going to take place) Wolle’s doing nothing to win her over, control himself or try to adapt – and when he sees fit to be in a bad temper, the whole of Brandö Manor shakes. But Carin is taking on as much work and drawing as she can get. She did a really lovely cover for the anniversary edition of “Seven Brothers”. She’s sticking to it, not giving up even though she has to battle, not only for him but for work and painting and freedom. She hopes she’ll be able to change him. (Can you change someone??)

  Rosa’s got to go to a sanatorium over the summer. The doctors claim the problem is not so much her lungs as her nerves. She doesn’t want to get well, she says. She’s bitter, irritable, with violent mood swings. On top of it all, she’s fallen in love – and it’s her first time. Poor little girl! She asked eagerly after you and sends her greetings – as does Karin.

  Today I was out at Samuli’s with a little picture and had a look at what he’s been painting. Loads of new canvases, mostly of Maya. Nothing completed, but solid and promising. We took a stroll to Taru across the bridge, but it was a quiet walk and the conversation didn’t really take off – except when we got onto art. We’re slipping further and further away from each other, I’m afraid.

  But I’ve grown closer to Tapsa. His strength and sensitivity are things I’ve only gradually discovered, and it’s taken me even longer to realise what he means to me. We often talk about you, and he sends you warm wishes. Turtis, too. (Elvi is unavailable again). Tapsa has had a huge job, illustrated poems of Edith Södergran for Söderströms. He’s made them light, ethereal – nothing of his usual heavy style. They’re very good. – I’ve also got a commission, from the rubber industry this time! 2 big marquetry pieces, made of rubber. I shall take the job to the summer cottage with me. I’ll write to you from there next time. Mama and all the rest send their very best wishes! Everyone who knows you sends greetings, and thinks and says nice things about you. And that makes me feel glad and proud to be your friend. In my thoughts I’m hugging you – hard – and wishing you all the nicest things I can imagine.

  Be happy, Eva!

  Tove.

  P.S. Jukka’s married now. I only got your last letter when I was back in H:fors so I wasn’t able to look up Isa as I’d otherwise have done. – My cousin Meri from Åbo has a job in a bank in H:fors for the summer. I’m in deep water there, because we have to spend time together for the sake of the family, but we don’t get on at all. Seldom was there a less compatible pair of cousins! But now I’m off to Pellinge. Bye!

  Let me know what date my letter reaches you.

  card-free: During the war, Finland introduced ration cards for a series of foodstuffs and other products.

  Villebisin: Old man Ville.

  superintendent: TJ had been appointed the superintendent of an exhibition of Helsinki artists in Mariehamn on the Åland Islands.

  Jullan: Julius (Jullan) Jansson, Viktor Jansson’s brother.

  Espen: The Esplanade in Helsinki.

  Carin: Carin Cleve, TJ’s friend from her time at the Technical School in Stockholm, has many pet names; in the letters she is referred to as Cajsa, Caj, Caja, Cajso, Cajo and Clevan.

  Wolle: Wolle (Woldemar) Weiner, artist, stage designer. TJ sometimes writes “Volle”.

  “Seven Brothers”: 1870 novel by Finnish author Aleksis Kivi.

  Rosa: Rosa Linnala, a fellow student.

  Maya: Maya Vanni, see Letters to Maya Vanni.

  Tapsa: The artist Tapio Tapiovaara, her fellow student at the Ateneum in Helsinki.

  Turtis: The author Arvo Turtiainen.

  Elvi: The author Elvi Sinervo. Both she and Turtiainen were members of the left-wing Kiila group and opposed to the Continuation War.

  BORGÅ STOR-PELLINGE SÖDERBY. 20/6 –41 [Place names later crossed out] TO MISS EVA KONIKOFF. JOSEPH KONIK. C/O SYLVANIA HOTEL. BROAD & LOCUST AT JUNIPER. PHILA.PA. FROM TOVE JANSSON. APPOLLOG. 13 HELSINGFORS. FINLAND.

  Mama and Papa send greetings! As do Impi, Carin, Volle and Rosa. – On Åland I sold two of the things I painted there – one to the museum in Mariehamn. I previously sent you one airmail and one ordinary letter.

  Dearest Eva!

  Now I’m all alone again, and the sun is back and the sea is a mass of white geese. Cajsa and I were up before six and rowed down parallel to the mainland in a heavy swell and with a broken rowlock – one oar shattered and we got lots of blisters on our hands! But I came in smoothly alongside The Lovisa and Clevan was up the ladder like a streak of lightning. Just think, this is my eighteenth year here yet I’ve always let Kallebisin do that manoeuvre – just because Faffan said it was too hard! Stupid.

  Now I’m going out to tidy the plot and make the house look nice for midsummer. The bog myrtle has come up in the marsh and the meadow flowers are finally appearing. Tomorrow the family will be coming out here. I so look forward to seeing them but it was a bitter disappointment that Carin had to leave before they got here. We had such a happy week together – and it pained me to have to send her back to the hell of Brändö. Because it must be hell, from what I can gather. Volle is very erratic and spoilt and curtails her freedom with his envy and egoism, and the atmosphere out there is thick with opposition and family scenes. They have scarcely a single interest in common. I know now that she only sticks to him out of sense of responsibility and regrets the whole thing bitterly. Poor little Cajo. She’s bought her “freedom” with new bonds – but I wonder if it will be long before she breaks those, too. She’s grown stronger than I thought she possibly could.

  Almost every day at this time it’s been rainy or overcast, and the last two days a dense yellow mist rolled in from the sea to settle suffocatingly over us, obliterating everything. It made us quiet and listless, and Carin said it seemed “the will of Fate”, somehow. And she was right, actually. But in the background there was a more palpable unease, a sense of waiting that was worsened by the mist. There have been a lot of rumours going round for a long time – enough to make me shy away at the sight of any other human being in the hope of hanging on to some semblance of calm and some of the pleasure of being out here with Cajo. There’s been alarm in the air everywhere, everybody knows so much, and yet nothing …

  One day when we were busy digging a channel from the bog in the diamond valley, a pilot turned up all out of breath with an express telegram from Volle. When we dashed up to telephone he was in a complete panic and wanted Carin home right away. The ass had rung Ham several times and put all sorts of nonsense into her head, so I had a very anxious letter from her. About Prolle, of course. Oh, these people! Can’t they leave us in peace for this short time we might have for enjoying summer and freedom! Caj was hopping mad with him and stayed put, of course. But the rumours grew and it was as if a big shadow had passed over our summer.

  Abbe took Ragni’s new sailing boat over to her in Köttboda and we were allowed to follow behind in the motor. On the way home the wind really blew up, it was cold and grey. In the middle of the bay a motorboat came towards us, full of earnest Pellinge men, it stopped and brief orders were barked out to us, which we were to pass on. It was like the primitive relays they used for messages hundreds of years ago. Abbe went off the same evening. – I had a letter from Tapsa, he isn’t in town any longer either. A melancholy, yearning sort of letter. Written as if it’s
all over already – about how he’s been fortunate, and is thankful for his life. And grateful to me.

  And now I’m walking around outside and it’s all so exquisitely beautiful that one simply can’t grasp how people can. One finds oneself living with such intensity, every hour of the day, like no summer before. And yet I still believe – when I let reason speak – that it’s nothing. The whole summer will probably be as lovely as it is now. We shall meet again – all of us. Prolle’s coming home on leave, I shall take the boat into town and see Tapsa again. He wanted to come here with us – I felt dreadful having to say no. Why can’t we sometimes throw aside prejudice and stupid discretion and accept whatever pleasure comes our way and try to love each other even better, even more warmly! When we know so little of how long we will be able to keep each other. –

  Cajo and I had a sauna yesterday. I went up the hill on my own to cut a birch switch because Carin was scared of the horses. The sky was coppery red and the sea yellowy grey, and there was a strangely becalmed sense of anticipation everywhere. After the sauna we solemnly lit one of your candles and made tea in the cottage.

  22.6

  Sitting aboard the Lovisa as she heads towards town, fully loaded – perhaps the last trip she will be able to make. It’s been a peculiar day. Ham and Faffan came out yesterday evening to celebrate midsummer, we had a lovely, happy evening unpacking all the goodies they brought with them and inspecting the garden plot, Laxvarpet and all the preparations Cajso and I had made indoors – and a peaceful, sunny morning of “just being” and letting all the glory of summer stream over us. How we’ve learnt to enjoy everything these days! We can’t just take it for granted any more – it has to be seen as a gift.

  Then the news came on the radio down at Kalle’s. Papa just came in and said “Well that’s it then”. Nothing more was said, we just each of us went and got on with packing our own essentials. We left the cottage with its fine array of flowers in every room and the rugs still down, and we finished off by watering everything on the plot. Whoever harvests it in the end they do need it, those poor little things that are just shooting up in earnest. Ham stayed completely calm and went round humming and talking about everyday things. But she was white under the eyes.

  It took us several hours to toil through the woods with all our luggage, stopping for a rest now and then. It was hot, with mosquitoes. And so beautiful. White bog myrtle in all the marshes, new flowers coming into bloom. The elks were grazing on the meadow at Hempeltängen. I had to turn round halfway and dash back for the ration cards, which I’d forgotten.

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  I haven’t really taken it in yet. At Pellinge jetty there were lots of people waiting to lug all their hastily assembled possessions onto the boat. And now here we sit, engaging in small talk and waiting. It’s the first time I haven’t felt glad to come into town from Pellinge.

  But there’s one thing I’m glad about – and that’s you being over in America!

  25 June.

  Hi, Konikova! It’s 7 in the morning and we are sitting in the air-raid shelter feeling sleepy. The evening we returned to town, the first warning sounded; we’d hardly had time to make a cup of tea and get off to sleep. So now we’re back in the old routine of going with Jorma to inspect what stores we have in the building, the group with guard duty and the ugly old clatter of boots beside one’s bed. Ugh. And as a strange background there’s the summer, sunny and glorious.

  The day before yesterday Tapsa rang, just as he was about to climb aboard the bus with the others to go “somewhere”. He was terribly down, could hardly say anything on the phone. – Carin’s going home, having had a series of panicky telegrams and telephone calls from Siri. But she’ll stay as long as she can with Volle, who’s volunteered as a medical orderly, to make their time together as warm and pleasant as possible. Fernanda has already left. Yesterday I was out on Brändö and went for a stroll with Cajso, Volle didn’t want to come. He has no enthusiasm for anything now. It’s hardly surprising Carin generally finds it so tedious out there. [ … ]

  – Out on Brandö they had kittens, black-capped, miniature versions of Mosse. In a fleeting moment of madness, I brought one of them with me in a box, fixed to the handlebars of my bike. It was a real nuisance to get home, because it kept poking its head out and ripping holes in the box. But it proved a true success. Papa, who’s busy with his fountain, abandoned work to crawl around on the floor and play with balls of paper. Impi provided a descant, mewing along in delight, warmed some milk and was very touched. And Ham was also

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  I’d intended borrowing it for two or three days – but it looks, may the muse preserve us, as though it’s going to be longer …

  Gylling’s desk has arrived and I had a sort of nervous shock when I saw the thing, it was so much like a director’s desk in some ghastly office. The man had painted it a dreary dark-mahogany colour instead of light walnut. All my things shrivelled and died beside it. I rushed out and bought all sorts of paint strippers and steel wool etc. to add to your paint remover and methylated spirit and then I scrubbed away at it all midsummer long. So now it looks about 100 years old, covered in spots and patches, the wood all roughed up; Ragni would be absolutely ecstatic about the piece of junk and Gylling would be appalled. Now it fits in with the studio and doesn’t turn me into a director. – Terribly long air-raid warning, this one. There are big bangs outside. –

  27 June.

  4 air-raid warnings before breakfast. It’s all underway in earnest now and one dreads the news. Things are hot where Prolle is. Mama is tired and depressed. Little Mosse lightens the domestic mood a bit. Lasse is still at Jullan’s. I’ve been slaving over the Garm seaside issue to take my mind off things.

  Koni, I miss you! But everything will be all right – it has to.

  Fondest love

  your friend Tove.

  PS Lasse writes from Jullan, sad and lonely, saying he wants to be with us. Faffan thinks he’s better off staying put, but around Åbo is where things are worst! And of course we want to be together.

  Lovisa: The name of the ferry that the Jansson family took to get to the summer cotttage they rented in Pellinge.

  Kallebesin: Old Man Kalle, Kalle Gustafsson.

  Laxvarpet: A bay where TJ’s brother Per Olov and his family later had a house.

  Siri: Carin Cleve’s mother in Stockholm.

  Garm seaside issue: TJ was a contributor to Garm (1924–53), a Finland-Swedish political and literary comic magazine. She first had a drawing published there in 1929. In the 1940s, TJ was its main illustrator, producing both comic drawings and pointedly political ones.

  4/8–41 BORGÅ. STOR-PELLINGE. SÖDERBY

  Dearest Eva!

  I assume you haven’t received any of my letters, as I’ve heard nothing from you – but I can’t help writing sometimes all the same, when I’m particularly longing to have you with me again. Perhaps we’ll each get a pile of letters when the war is over and be able to follow what each other been up to better than if we had exchanged summaries of everything that happened. And how many impressions and events there must be in your case! So many people have phoned to ask if I’ve heard from you it’s made me feel so glad and proud to have people suppose I’m the one with “the latest news”! When can I start writing English to you, my dear old miss? And when can I dare to start dreaming about coming to you – because that is a thought, a resolution, I have not relinquished in any way! Here at Pellinge, where Lasse and I have now been for a week, I sense your presence so vividly. Everywhere I walk I remember the way it was for us in this same place a year ago. Two of the happiest weeks I have ever experienced at Pellinge!

  5th

  Just at present an idiotic blocked nose that I tried to get rid of by going for a swim has turned into a really bad cold – I only crawl out of bed to throw something edible in the pot occasionally but am otherwise reading a humorous tome by Jules Verne, found in pieces (the book, that is) by Lasse in t
he attic. I lie here looking at the birch tree outside my window, which rustles like a thousand silk petticoats – the sea is a greeny-black and the first rain has arrived. It’s been terribly dry and hot here, the grass around the house parched to yellow, the water from the well rank and unpleasant, mould and maggots in everything, enough to drive you mad. And in the forest, on the common, big burnt areas left by those airborne oafs and their firebombs. It’s wonderful to hear the wind and the rain again.

  I can bring you good news: Prolle’s safe from the blasted Russians for the next three months; he’s been sent to some westerly town up north, to do the R.U.K. course. You’ll understand how taken aback I was when they rang from H:fors to say he was passing through! Ham had him for a whole twenty-four hours – and in a few days’ time she’s coming out with Impi and taking the whole of August off! It’s too wonderful to be true. We were worried when we didn’t hear from him for so long, but then we got a letter saying he’d been sent north of Ladoga and was pushing forward to the front line through devastated villages full of dead bodies. It hit Ham terribly hard. She went up onto the roof terrace and refused to come down, or eat. The tension in the family was awful, an atmosphere charged with political differences about to explode. After one clash I brought Lasse back here with me, because I think it’s up to Ham and Faffan to sort this out, if two such different outlooks on life could ever rub along. All I can do is shut up and keep out of the way, but there’s nothing to stop me thinking what I like. It was nice to come out here, like closing a padded door on a busy city street. To take a break from all that naive rumour-mongering, all that political provocation, all those monologues, and from seeing all those people the war makes mean and desperate – I buried myself in the solitude and silence and wished it would last forever. The trip out here was a lively one; in Borgå there was an air-raid warning just as the bus was fully loaded, but the leisurely driver refused to let us leave until the post arrived. When it came about 10 minutes later he calmly started the wood gasifier and we jolted off between the piles of rubble left by the previous bombardment. The bus was seething with nervous anxiety – but we got out of the city before the planes came over. In Pellinge they had already reached the village with their bombs – when we, after waiting a couple of hours in [deleted by the censor], boarded a military transport vessel that took us home, we could hear the thuds in Sauna Cove and see them chasing firewood-sellers’ boats across the bay.