Letters from Tove

by Tove Jansson

  They were petrified of me, the fools, having gone and mymbled with each other! There was nothing for it but to laugh in my solitude. That pair who couldn’t stand the sight of each other! This will simplify everything considerably.

  Incidentally, most of the spring has been overshadowed by anxiety about my studio, which has been perpetually invaded by buyers. Last autumn the property value stood at 2,250,000 and gradually sank to 1,500,000. I applied for some new places they’re building, without success, put out feelers everywhere, but the studio shortage seems insoluble.

  I’ve been worrying about my tower for so long now that I began to get used to the idea of having to leave it, and even decided this was meant to stop me growing too attached to any one place – the moss really was starting to grow on me. So when I heard in May that it had been sold to a printing works I took it quite calmly. Just had to find out when they’d have the right to put me out onto the street.

  So I rang every day to ask for their final decision; after all, I’d need to get myself a lawyer before I dared go off to the island. I could have risked my furniture being shifted out if I didn’t appeal to the rent tribunal. And I couldn’t do that before I’d had official notice to quit.

  Every time I rang they gave me evasive and procrastinating answers, and after 10 days I started to think they wanted me out of town so they could do as they pleased. You see, 28 May – 8 June I had to be, wanted to be on the island to celebrate Ham’s birthday with her. The pathetic little stretch of time a surrogate for our big trip that never happened.

  Westerlund who owns the whole building and is selling the studio is a nasty piece of work – everybody says so. Through all the delay he waged a war of nerves on me until the evening before I was due to leave, when he admitted the studio hadn’t been sold at all! But if I could put half a million on the table the next day I could keep it and he agreed (after a fair amount of haggling) to bring the price down to 1,200,000. By then I’d been looking for a place for so long that I knew it was worth that, and I’d never get another one that big for that price. And the rent in new buildings is 25–30,000 a month. But at that point I didn’t have a single penny to hand, having just given 100,000 to a friend who was involved in the protest of a bill, and 75,000, the emigration present I’d promised Peo, went on his treatment, and in the headiness of finally having some money (for the F.hamn paintings) I’d spent loads on Ham’s birthday, provisions for the whole summer, lots of new clothes and work materials I needed + paid off all my debts and tax.

  That evening, what with packing to go to the island too, really was a bit nerve-racking! The next morning, once I’d delivered 13 parcels to M/S Pellinge, I dashed to a bank and through some friends managed to get an appointment with the manager. To my surprise he said my name was good for half a million (they’re not making any loans just now) and if I came up with two more rock-solid names I could have the rest as well. But not until after their directors’ meeting on 9 June.

  I rushed to Westerlund and told him it was all fixed. Then the ass demanded a 100,000 down payment, “otherwise he might let the printer have the studio while I was out of town after all!” At the last minute it occurred to me that my old paintings might have their uses after all. And the devil accepted them as a deposit! There was no time to get myself any “solid names”, I’ll have to do that on the morning of the 9th, may the muse help me, because then the boat left for the rose bushes.

  And here we’ve marked Ham’s 70th birthday with shells and leaves decorating the whole house, and a few wild pansies, because the rest aren’t out yet. There was great deliberation about this 1st June. Right up to mid-May I thought I’d be able to treat Ham to a flight to Vienna and then take a little detour to Florence. Since the trip with Uca I’ve sworn I wouldn’t travel anywhere in any form before I’d done it with Ham, and now she’s thinking of retiring it would have been just right. I had the money, too, for once. But then Peo got this lung disease.

  You already know that his emigration fell through because they found a harmless old calcification in one lung. In the very thorough examinations the authorities demanded, he also had to provide sputum samples as a formality. 6 weeks later he had some surprising results: he had bacteria and had tested positive. Since then he’s been at Mjölbollstad Sanatorium in Karis (refused to allow me to fund the trip to Switzerland), being treated with the new wonder drug Rimifon.

  It now looks as if he’ll be restored to health over the summer. And there’s a chance that the Rimifon (which has only just reached Finland) might also shrink or get rid of the old calcification, and thus also the obstacle to his emigration.

  Imagine if he’d been allowed to travel, and was then taken seriously ill in Canada! He still had no symptoms at the time, and no idea there was anything wrong with him. Thanks to the investigations he found out in time. So I think we can only be thankful things went the way they did.

  But Ham didn’t want to go away on a trip, of course, while we still didn’t know how serious his condition might be. Instead she said she wanted to go to the island, with just me, nobody else. It’s all a bit absurd. In the end I persuaded her to invite Faffan along, but he didn’t want to come – he feels hemmed in on such a small island.

  At the last minute, Lasse decided to come too, and Peo took “leave of absence” and came with his family as a surprise on the morning of her actual birthday. I think she had a happy celebration, and things still are happy – a bit of birthday every day. Trips out to the islands, beachcombing, planting things, feeling at ease, relaxing after all our troubles in town. We’ve got to go back there in a few days. I do wish I didn’t have to! Isn’t it funny, Eva, that the worst thing I know; politics, overshadowed the first part of my life. Will business, my second least favourite, dominate the second part? Maybe in order for me to learn something – not to “run away”. I’ve started (for the first time in my life) dreaming about money, and in the mornings I have to get up straight away, otherwise I start worrying about my bank loan. It feels strange … And I’m an employee, too. Everything turns out rather the opposite of what one expected …

  And another strange thing, although I’m from a family line of clergymen, on the quiet I’ve begun to believe. It’s hard not to when you start finding meaning in all sorts of things, and find you do receive help when you’ve been fighting the fight on your own account and then ask to be lent a hand.

  This turned into a long letter. But I had a lot to tell you. Still more – but that will keep for next time. I wish you the best of everything, Eva!

  Oh, and I don’t know anything about Raffo. Wish I had some contact with him. Perhaps I’ll try to get in touch …

  A big hug

  Tove.

  P.S In town. I got the bank loan! Faffan and Vivica put their names to it.

  Mr. Sutton: Charles Sutton, head of syndication at Associated Newspapers Ltd.

  Mary: Mary Mandelin-Dixon, journalist and playwright.

  Since the trip with Uca: See Letter to Atos Wirtanen 3.4.1951.

  Rimifon: Rimiphone, an antibiotic used in the treatment of tuberculosis.

  IN THE SPRING OF 1954, TOVE JANSSON VISITS LONDON TWICE, the first time for a fortnight in March, when she works on her cartoon strips at Associated Newspapers in Fleet Street. She describes her experiences in a letter to Vivica Bandler dated 9.3.1954. A few weeks later, in April, she comes back with Ham. They are finally on their long-planned trip together, first to London, followed by three days in Paris, and then on to the Riviera. The cartoon synopsis she refers to below is “The Family Lives it Up”, later renamed “Moomin on the Riviera”. The trip also appears in literary guise in “Resa till Rivieran” (“A Trip to the Riviera”) in Brev från Klara (Letters from Klara), 1991.

  CAP D’ANTIBES. 7 MAY –54

  Dearest Eva!

  So we finally got away, Ham and I – and the whole trip has been as if my thoughts and dreams were coming true. It’s been tranquil but happy, intense and liberating – and I’m deeply gra
teful. Back home Bitti’s father is dying of lung cancer, but even that isn’t pricking my Conscience in the old way; making me feel I should be somewhere else, consoling, sympathising.

  Just now Ham is the right person for me to be with, not anyone else or anywhere else, and no one expects any work from me. Not even letters, and that makes it a pleasure to write to you, as I know you’re following our journey with as much affection as Bitti.

  Since I got home from that demanding fortnight in Fleet Street it’s been the bank painting in the daytime and the cartoon strips in the evening, and Ham has been slaving like mad too. If one of us wasn’t ill the other was, if nothing else, with anxiety about not getting away.

  I didn’t quite get the wall finished and only got paid 2/3 of my fee, but the problem was solved by Ham’s bank presenting her with a large gift of money for “her contribution to making Finland known”. Wasn’t that fine praise? And someone unexpectedly repaid me an old loan. So here we are, sitting on a little sandy beach surrounded by jagged, grey-white cliffs with big clumps of unfamiliar flowers and bushes, and down in the bottom of the bay there’s a glimpse of Juan les Pins and it’s finally turned warm after several days of gales and torrential rain. Ham’s collecting so many shells and stones that I’ve no idea how we’re going to get them all home with us!

  First we flew to London and spent five days there. For three of them we were completely left to ourselves, walking, looking, feeling free and just “being”. We stayed in a hotel off Piccadilly, and from that sparkling, bustling centre we caught open-topped buses in all directions, from impoverished Whitechapel and the East India Docks via drearily middle-class Victorian Bloomsbury to Hyde Park where the magnolias were in bloom, just travelled on and on, absorbing everything like hungry sponges. In the evenings we fell asleep at 7 o’clock, both equally tired.

  In Petticoat Lane, the English flea market, an Indian chief kissed Ham’s hand and declared (in Swedish) that he loved her, we joined the throng in Zoot and Tussaud, Ham insisted on eating deep-fried lobster and bamboo shoots, and finally we dived in among all the gentlemen of Fleet Street.

  There we drank champagne in the mornings and were chauffeured to and fro, everyone thought Ham was wonderful and they decided I only need produce one cartoon strip while I was away (I’ll do double at the Island afterwards instead). And we each bought a cartoon-strip Dress!

  Somewhat bedraggled, we flew on to Paris and checked into our hotel in rue de la Gaité where Ham and Faffan once had a studio. (Faffan didn’t want to come on the trip, said he’d feel homesick.)

  Their Atelier Impasse was exactly as it had been, Ham said, with its ivy, sculpture fragments and cats; the only change was that bits of abstract painting were visible through the decaying windows. We went to the little eatery where they used to order snails and walked to all the places we both remembered and loved, but only stayed three days. It’s a little melancholy, perhaps, revisiting a city one hasn’t seen for 39 years – especially that city, in the springtime.

  Then we travelled straight down through France, taking the day train because Ham wanted to see the scenery. It was a pretty tiring journey and when we finally got to Nizza, we just tumbled into the nearest hotel. The next day it bucketed down with rain and the town looked oddly forlorn without its classic sunshine and beachgoers. So we decided to look up Eric Fock and his wife Putte who emigrated to Cagnes sur Mer. We had no more detailed address, so it was quite good fun trying to find them. They lived in one of those ancient old towns climbing up the hillside, with a medieval castle on top, where all the streets are sets of steps, with thousands of dogs and cats and centenarian locals whose legs are all crooked from only ever walking vertically. We wandered round in the rain in the maze of little streets, and all of a sudden the Focks appeared, walking towards us! After that we took it easy, with rum toddy and an olive wood fire in their casa (because it was perishing cold) and stayed with them for four days.

  It was through Fock we found the pension where we now are, and will stay until we leave for home, travelling directly back by plane. We worked out that it would actually be cheaper for us to go for a kind of family discount return flight – thereby also saving a lot of time and seasickness.

  Later.

  After a very cold and salty dip with lots of sea urchins underfoot we walked the short stretch to the hotel garden where, as the only guests (the Expensive Season starts in July), we are sitting under a parasol drinking white wine while we wait for our meal. (My, this is high life!) This really is an amazingly cheap pension, considering its location on this fashionable coast, and without Bitti’s brother we’d never have come across the little place, which is squeezed away in a corner and hard to find.

  Le patron is huge and terribly friendly, and decorates our blouses with roses every day. When we first arrived he was distraught that his only double room was being painted and took us a bit deeper into the jungle of almost hysterically blooming foliage. We could stay in a villa whose owner was in Algier, while our room dried.

  I hope it never dries! Through a little green gate in a hedge we emerged into a fabulous garden with palms, nut trees, oranges and a well covered in yellow roses. The whole garden is delightfully overgrown and guarded by a serpent, the only ugly thing here – a horrid little dog with a spiteful character, who we’ve christened The Woodlouse. Whenever he can he sneaks into the house and pees there!

  Our villa is absolutely tiny, like something cut out of a picture book, white with green shutters, with a cypress at each corner. There are wild pelargoniums climbing up onto the roof, which starts at head height, the rooms are whitewashed and the floor is red-tiled. It’s all just as I’ve been envisaging it ever since, as a young girl, I planned this journey with Ham. In the bedroom there’s one big bed with just about room to climb into it, and red curtains.

  When one wakes (we fall asleep at 9 o’clock and wake at 8, always simultaneously) one reaches up a hand and pulls back the curtain to reveal a yellow wall and a little snippet of picture-postcard blue sky, and knows it’s a day for our bay. Then one falls back to sleep. We’re living in absolute egotism, happiness and indolence. Juan les Pins is twenty minutes away but we don’t go there, only for one day when we gaped at the exotically dressed people round the casino, the incredible luxury in the shops and the general air of Preparation for the Season. That’s when the millionaires and those who have saved up for eleven months come here and spend the whole of August (according to our patron) running around the streets naked and paying 6000 francs for a bottle of champagne. The shops and Casino stay open all night and there’s a general pursuit of money and those in possession of it.

  I’ve made the most of the chance and started a strip cartoon synopsis about Moomintroll accidentally straying into this whole show and misunderstanding everything.

  A bit of background: this entire coastal section is completely cut off. Scores of kilometres of “private”, “beware of the dog”, “reserved for (luxury) hotel guests”. We spent a whole morning looking for a little strip of beach before retreating to our own solitary stretch of sand with an indignation verging on Communism.

  I assume it’s the same all the way from the Pyrenees to Ventimiglia, and luck must have been with us on our trip to let us have our own breathing space in paradise defendue.

  How nice to be writing to you only about pleasant subjects again. My thoughts turn to you more often than you think, and I wonder how you are – how the encounters went between you and that unusual man with the bright eyes, who was so wise. Did things develop as positively as they started? Anyway – just write when you really feel like it, the length of the intervals in our correspondence doesn’t matter much.

  Did I tell you Atos was defeated in the parliamentary elections? Now he’s more or less obliged to leave politics and has apparently started writing, for himself. Unfortunately I hardly ever see him, maybe he’s a bit intimidated by, and out of sympathy with, my new “tendency”. But I can wait.

  Farewell then,
dearest friend. Ham sends warmest greetings.

  A big hug from your happy Tove.

  ST LUCIA’S DAY –62. H:FORS.

  Eva, darling,

  A Christmas present from America came tumbling through the letterbox and sent my thoughts to you. Thank you!

  You know what, I strongly suspect nothing can come of our correspondence, which we have restarted so many times. With great Solemnity and Resolve and Explanation!

  Instead, let’s do this: occasionally when the spirit moves us, a little card like this. That doesn’t tie us, it’s a fleeting smile, a signal that we haven’t forgotten, though time and distance fracture our intimate contact.

  Is that all right? I think so.

  I’ve got just enough room to write that Lasse and Nita and little Sophia are in Spain, Ibiza, for the whole winter and spring, that Bitti Fock has had Lasse’s room at Ham’s this autumn and been working at Vivica’s theatre, but is going back to the farm in Sweden after New Year, and that I’m having an exhibition in Tammerfors and am longing for spring!

  Happy New Year, Eva!

  Tove.

  Nita: Nita Lesch, Lars Jansson’s wife.

  Sophia: Sophia Jansson, Nita and Lasse’s daughter.

  TOVE AND EVA REMAINED IN OCCASIONAL CONTACT DURING the late-1950s and at some points also during the 1960s. There are, however, only a few letters from this period.

  29.11.67 [Helsingfors]

  Dearest Eva,

  This galactic picture is a New Year’s greeting from my world to yours, not too dreadfully distant any more, since we were able to meet. That one evening meant a lot to me, the old warmth was still there and what was more, I discovered something new that was extremely stimulating.

  It’s a pity we’re so far away from each other but there’s nothing to be done about it. I don’t think we should try to conquer time and distance through correspondence, it gradually becomes a “must”. But we can still wish each other a Happy New Year and write about what the old one brought with it.