by Tove Jansson
I met your papa today when I went up with invitations to the exhibition opening. We talked about you – of course! And he sent his most heartfelt wishes.
The menfolk are still at Pellinge where they seem content and have started catching lots of fish. We’ll have them home in a week – and Impi will take over the housekeeping, which despite a light touch from me and Ham is still quite an irritation. We’re up to our ears in work and hardly move from our desks. In the mornings we feel like something the cat’s dragged in! But thank goodness for work!
I’ve had a number of books from Söderströms now – the most interesting has a particularly “thrilling” title: Black Eroticism. And I did the drawings to match, so people will be rushing to get the book, even though it’s a good one! The publisher, who is a bit short-sighted and very absent-minded, thought he had met me in the market square and treated the poor doppelgänger to some earnest comments on the sales potential of black eroticism. She fled in dumb panic!
At the moment I’m busy with a commission for Stockholm in multicolour print for Folket i Bild’s Christmas number. Storm Petersen from Denmark, Blix from Norway and Högfeldt from Sweden are also part of this Nordic four-leafed clover, each of us contributing a humorous picture. Stenman, the art dealer, went and told them I drew the best comic pictures in Finland, and I’ve been working very nervously for fear of falling too short of that accolade. I finally finished my various drafts this evening, just in time, because Rosa’s coming for a couple of days’ séjour from Kivelä sanatorium tomorrow – and I suspect she’ll want to make the most of her time!
Other than that I’ve backed away from folk as much as possible, filled with a single, overpowering urge, to be left in peace to work. It’s really only Volle and Ada who ring me, both of them feeling alone, but strictly speaking they only interest me indirectly, Volle for Carin’s sake, Ada through you. She’s got a job doing something decorative for Artek now – which doubtless suits her better than free drawing and easel painting. Volle’s had a letter from Carin that has upset him a lot – she writes quite brusquely that he certainly doesn’t mean as much to her for the time being as Siri, who’s making superb efforts to get back to health and needs all the help she can get.
Good Lord, poor Volle could do with help himself, he’s not a well man and Caj is the only one who can help him get there. But when it comes down to it, they’ll have to help themselves! As long as Caja is brave and bold enough to help herself to happiness and finally do exactly what she wants! She’s given up the studio now and started at the Academy and is doing some kind of course with the women’s voluntary defence service. And she’s putting down roots over there.
Sam is taking part in this year’s autumn exhibition at the Kunsthalle, where he’s also on the jury with Lönnberg and Yngve Bäck. So no solo exhibition for the time being.
I sent in seven canvases of which one, a little still life of flowers, was refused. The portrait of Ada really lifted the collection, it actually still has something of what I first saw when I started painting her. And there’s a big spray of flowers in strong colours, new in that the pot is on the floor and I’ve got the interior in the composition so the flowers don’t look so pretentious. A little sketch of the cliffs outside Pellinge and the canvas Carin and I painted at Nyttis. It’s quite muted, a soft greyish-green, motionless, scrubby forest where three Fanny figures are out picking berries in the twilight. Also a natura morte and a summer night with moon and all that stuff, which drove me a little bit crazy because half the picture would insist on being in daylight. It’s damned difficult painting golden yellow cornfields at night! A railway crossing beyond the fields with the melancholy edge-of-town attributes of gasometers, factory chimneys, closed goods waggons, solitary buildings. The girl on the road is luminous white. – The week before submission day was a bit hysterical as usual, the canvases were up and down onto the easel and I was convinced not one of them except Ada would be finished in time. I went and messed up the background of your portrait, so I’ll have to save it for the spring. It’s such a relief to have handed in the pictures, now the critics can chew on them as they will! – Goodnight Eva – now I shall fall irrevocably asleep. I have a storybook to do tomorrow.
26/9
Best wishes from Rosa who is here for five days and seems so fit and well and blooming that I’m starting to be convinced she’s genuinely getting better. Another letter from Tapsa at last. One of his brothers has been wounded – in the face. They’ve had a hard time; scarcely a third of the men have survived. He writes about his despair as he is obliged to accompany one young boy after another right to the end – and not be able to help. He wrote of Nelimarkka: “That was the life of a wonderful young person and one of the best painters, snuffed out entirely needlessly. I love the questing kind of youth that he represented. Nothing is as sacred as young life, yet that is what is being so insanely thrown away – on both sides of the front. I am speaking across borders and each and every one of us here feels the same – in this common suffering we feel no hatred. Nor do we bear hatred when someone carries out a brave feat that is our undoing. We openly acknowledge the bravery. That is why you at home find it hard to understand life here – if you let hatred colour your vision. Cowardly devils can be sadists – but they do not feel comfortable here.”
Evening. – I feel tired today and work is going slowly. Tired of waiting, perhaps … But I’ve got to work hard and earn some money. I’ve just foolishly made a hole in my “fortune” by yielding to my old temptation in a moment of weakness, the blue fox cape. At Steinbock’s, 2,325 marks. It’s beautiful – and as always when I buy myself something, it’s with thoughts of Tapsa’s return and wanting to look smart for it. Do you remember how often you all used to grumble about me looking such a mess!
27
I’ve handed in the last job now – until the next one – in a few days’ time – and I shall try to paint a bit. But today’s Event is that I’ve found some potatoes. We’re going to need coupons for them now, thank goodness. I went to the exhibition opening with Ham, in cape and curls and all that stuff, and grinned and talked like a machine to loads of unimportant people. That was that. They seemed to like my paintings, and they were reasonably positioned. Samu good as usual, but tends to repeat himself in that yellowy-green colour he’s started to adore. We’ve got Rosa coming to dinner today. Ham sends her regards. God how I long to sit and talk to you, out of reach as you are, and to be spared talking rubbish to all those people I’ve no interest in! I’m hugging you, hard.
Tove.
Colombia: Café in Helsinki.
Arno: Arno Ahtaja (formerly Ahlgren), a fellow student from the Ateneum.
the Isthmus: The Karelian Isthmus, retaken by Finland from the Soviet Union in 1941, with heavy casualties on both sides.
a.u.k.: School for Junior Officers.
Stige: Stig Landgren.
Kivelä sanatorium: Presumably Stengård hospital in Helsinki.
Lönnberg: William Lönnberg, teacher at the Ateneum.
Nelimarkka: Eero Jaakko Nelimarkka (1919–41), son of the artist Eero Nelimarkka.
He wrote of Nelimarkka: TJ quotes the letter in the original Finnish (here translated from the Swedish).
H:FORS. THE STUDIO. 22/10 –41 FROM TOVE JANSSON. APOLLOG. 13 H:FORS. FINLAND. TO. MISS EVA KONIKOFF. C/O KONICK. 6100 NTH. 17 ST. PHILADELPHIA PA. U.S.A. 4 SHEETS OF PAPER. CENSOR, PLEASE DON’T DELETE ANYTHING, IT’S ONLY ME! TOVE.
I’ve had 6 of your letters, starting with the one I got on Åland. This is the tenth time I’ve written. Have you received them all?
Dearest Eva!
Your letter written 24/9 was waiting here in the studio when I came to talk to you – having scarcely budged from my drawing job all day except to eat. That’s how it’s been recently – I feel like an Indian ink machine and am starting to think everything around me is drawn; nothing but lines and planes.
It’s so nice to come back after that to my quiet, peaceful studio. The r
ain is pattering on the skylight and I’ve only put the little lamp on so I don’t have to worry about blackout curtains. I pour a glass of Mesimarja and put on my dressing gown and feel glad about the job I’ve done, the solitude and your letter.
It was so lovely to hear from you again!
My poor dearest Konikova, to think of things being so difficult for you over there. The isolation and routine work. Your descriptions give me a pretty clear picture of life over there, the glitter, the toughness, the bustle, the opportunities. But I don’t think you’re one of those who’ll be trampled down – you will break your way through, and one day will be able to shape your life the way you like it, your own work and people you care about. I think you’re doing the right thing in taking yourself off to New York. Perhaps your relatives will be able to pull some strings. But don’t let them tie you up with them! It’s just as well, I’m sure, for you to keep your uncle at a bit of a distance – it must be quite a hard balancing act with him as things stand.
I’m glad you’ve at least got another human being you can talk to, young Madway. And you will find more, Eva! If you learn the language and can leave your loathsome kilometre machine.
No, I wouldn’t be “disappointed in you”, or surprised, if you got married. Why not! You long to have a baby and I’m sure you would make sure it had a fine and wise papa. Of course you’ll find somebody you can be fond of.
It’s so sweet of you in the midst of all your new merry-go-round to still worry about us and take an interest in every detail of what happens to us. It’s not as difficult as you think – although lots of things have run out, we’ve got quite enough to get by. We are doing just fine at home because we’ve had quite a few food parcels from the family in Sweden and thanks to Harriet Linnala’s brains and resourcefulness we’ve loads of potatoes. You eat your American food with a clear conscience, dear heart! Your papa got it wrong about Ham and me and a trip to see the uncles. We didn’t go to Sweden, it was just that she went to Uncle Jullan’s in Åbo to bring Lasse home. It would be simply splendid if you could send the boy stamps or even butterflies! He’s a proper little professor for his 15 years, goes to the public library every morning regular as clockwork and sits there poring over butterfly tomes. At the moment he’s busy on a book that’s going to be about a new and simpler method of examining the poor wretches. He slogs away from morning till night and does the most minutely detailed illustrations. His book for boys is due out for Christmas; we’ve already been given the cover to work on.
Ham’s in the midst of her busiest working weeks now and I sincerely hope things will ease off soon – she looks terribly tired. Sometimes I find time to help, but generally my days brim over with my own work.
Ham doesn’t buckle, though, and she isn’t downhearted. Because Prolle’s still in the R.U.K. where the course is now over and is continuing with practical exercises with his comrades in arms, you see. To that end they’ve been decked out in madly smart fur coats, new underwear, boots, uniform – everything tip-top to show what the country can achieve. They call themselves the mannequin company and have worked their way up out of the bootlegs they were stuffed into, dashing off to the canteen and cinema now they’re free of drill for a few days. In two weeks’ time we’ll have him home for 5 days’ leave – then he’s off to the front. And I don’t think the war’s going to end very soon, not any more …
[ … ] Faffan is working on a grave monument (Lord knows there are enough of them, these days). The mood has lightened – and little by little I’m realising, with relief and some degree of pride, that my efforts to control myself and hold my tongue aren’t blunting me or burning me up as they did at first. I no longer feel the need to explode – I think “internally” and no longer feel it’s so dreadfully important for everybody else to share my views, or even to let them know I don’t share theirs. Sivén who invited me out to dinner at the Royal after I gave him a painting for patching up my teeth brought me together with a couple called Carlander, and there was some discussion. That was when I noticed that I’d learnt something. One of our topics was the Jewish question, which always used to send me into Feuer und Flamme. This time it was the other person who got worked up and gave himself away, while I weighed every word and rejected anything he could argue against. I was so happy to go home knowing I’d given as good as I got and made him less certain.
It’s 11 o’clock now, so Tapsa won’t be coming. I haven’t seen all that much of him, you know! He’s running around on that blessed leg of his (the piece of shrapnel – Finnish - is up in his thigh) to all his friends – in the grip of a fix idé: he wants to find somebody to write a book about the war. Not a war book in the traditional spirit – but “something authentic that will help mankind and make it not all have been in vain”. We were at Hagar Olsson’s one evening, and he alternated between shaking her and getting down on his knees to make her promise to write that book before he goes back – and she was half flattered, half angry and very unsettled. That evening he was drunk for the first time – his friends had been plying him with alcohol since the morning and Hagar finished the job. For the first time I saw how terribly he was suffering after all he had seen, all the faces that would not leave him, how confused he was and how helpless. Good God, what state will he come back in next time! He’s rushing around and talking, talking – talking far too much – and I’m scared. Yet at the same time, as I sit drawing, I feel so very glad to know he’s treading his thousand paths, resuming old discussions, welcome everywhere. Women often ring me when they’re trying to get hold of him – that makes me chuckle to myself. He’s the way I wanted him to be, now; that apologetic doggy look has gone, he doesn’t ask and isn’t so biddable – a bit more self-assured and aware. Now I love him, and now at last the freedom I have always given him feels like a boon – though he hasn’t needed it until now. The first twenty-four hours were ours alone. He was here incognito, came straight to the studio with flowers, an icon, rysskorvirke, sugar, war souvenirs. He was so tired, and lay down for a sleep while I mended his clothes and boiled macaroni for breakfast – I felt I was part of some odd domestic idyll. And happy.
We had a celebration dinner with wine and your candles, Impi had cooked a bird, with corn on the cob and berries. I wore my dark red silk dress and he – the only time – his medal. It seemed such a solemn occasion that we hardly said a word as we sat there chewing on our bones. Just to think that he’s one of only 10 left out of the 200 who left from Kottby in June.
It’s wonderful to see his face light up as he wakes and realises he’s not at the front.
23rd
He sends you his very best regards, as does Ham, and Rosa who’s going to a sanatorium in Sweden. She’s better. I haven’t seen the Sams since they were with me at Lallukka – and other than that I’ve seen nobody but Volle. He’s finally got Carin to promise to come here for 2 weeks after Christmas – I expect we’re in for the final showdown that she hasn’t dared risk until now. I sold Ada Indursky’s picture to the Art Society lottery. Critical reactions have been fine, except those who yap on as usual about my lack of “feeling”.
A big hug. I miss you so much!
Tove
Mesimarja: Arctic raspberry liqueur
His book for boys: Lars Jansson’s debut book Skatten på Tortuga (Treasure on Tortuga)
rysskorvirke: Some kind of Russian food or drink substitute.
TOVE JANSSON MEETS THE ARTIST TAPIO TAPIOVAARA, KNOWN as Tapsa, at the Ateneum. He crops up in her notes in 1937. Tapsa comes, Tapsa goes, she writes in 1939, and that describes the nature of their relationship. In long letters to Eva Konikoff, Tove Jansson writes of dashed hopes, fervent yearning and the betrayals of infidelity. Their love bears the stamp of wartime conditions: brief encounters and painful farewells, always in the knowledge that this could be their last meeting. The relationship also brings the question of independence to a head. He wants children, but Tove Jansson is against the idea. Her intention is to work and make art, and she does n
ot want to bear children who could be sacrificed in a war. In a letter on 1 November 1941 she develops her thoughts on the price of love and sets out a feminist programme. It is all about men’s war, the terms of which she refuses to accept. In notes made in October the same year, she has already formulated her ideas. Her relationship with Tapio Tapiovaara comes to an end in the spring of 1942.
27/10 –41 THE STUDIO. FROM TOVE JANSSON. APOLLLOG. 13. HELSINGFORS. FINLAND. CONTAINS 5 SHEETS OF PAPER. TO. MISS EVA KONIKOFF. C/O KONICK. 6100 NTH. 17 ST. PHILADELPHIA PA. U.S.A. WRITTEN IN SWEDISH.
Dearest Eva!
All my commissions have dried up – as suddenly as tropical rain. Perhaps another shower is on the way, but just at the moment I feel bewildered, like a fish out of water – and appreciate what a help that work has been to me although I moaned about it taking all my days from me.
For what would I have done with them, had they been mine?
I know that now, as so many times before, you would have dropped everything to come to me because something was wrong. That’s why I’m writing to you – the writing is a help in itself. It’s so quiet and dark here and the clock is inexorably ticking away my time, the last three days – and the lift goes endlessly up and down.
Konikova, how strange life is, when it comes to it. It all repeats itself, and everything is just a boomerang that comes back. And it’s hard, hard not to get bitter, hard to see the point, hard not to be scared.
I wrote to you a few days ago – about Tapsa and my celebration – about the way he was running round town to see his friends and talking, talking – about being glad that his ideas and his friends filled his time and stopped him remembering – I knew I was there as a warm, safe background. I wrote about how rarely he came round, always in the mornings – and finally stopped, about how I went up to Socialidemokraatti and Toini Aaltonen confused me with her talk of people I didn’t know, about how I finally went to find him because I was afraid he’d talked himself into trouble. The same evening he rang me and asked me to come with him to see Hagar again. All those unfamiliar and dangerous names were burning their way into me; I was worried and asked him tentatively if he ought not to watch out for himself, if he could blindly trust them. I mean to say, Toini had told me they laugh behind his back at his naivety, his sky-blue idealism “two circuits of Kaisa Park, a bit of idle chat about culture and enlightenment and he’ll believe anything, do anything.”
