The next night Ella Milana dreamed about the library.
The library floor was covered with grass. Ella was hurrying between the stacks looking for something. She stopped at the M shelf. There wasn’t a single book with her name on it.
She burst into tears. She’d never felt so terribly sad.
“Look on the E shelf,” someone whispered from above. “But if you see Dostoevsky, please don’t tell him I’m here. I had a ritual burning of his clothes, because they were cancerous, and he’s quite cross with me. He also accused me of lying, and what’s more, he’s right.”
Ella looked up and saw a long-necked cat sitting on top of the shelf. Much higher up there were bright-winged fairies hovering, guarding the library.
“Be careful not to step on those,” the cat said, looking down at something. “You don’t want to make them angry.”
Ella looked down at her feet and saw small, shadowy shapes scuttling here and there.
She walked forward carefully so she wouldn’t step on anyone and, following the cat’s advice, found a row of books under E written by Ella Amanda Milana.
She ran her fingers excitedly along the spines of the books, greedily reading the titles of the novels. They were enigmatic, fascinating, brilliant titles. Some were just one word, others were extremely long. She sobbed with happiness.
The cat appeared on the top shelf again.
“Hurry!” it hissed. “The gates are open. Listen! Oh, listen! Listen to that rumble, that thundering clatter. They’re coming. And everything, everything’s still left undone!”
Ella plucked one of the books from the shelf and wondered at its weight. The cat laughed.
“Heavy as a stone, isn’t it? But they make the pages out of crushed stones, of course. Hey, why don’t you open it?”
Ella opened the book and was horrified to see that the pages were empty. She took down another book, and another.
“They’re all empty,” the cat said tauntingly. “You’d better hurry up. I’d start writing if I were you. Do you want to know how to write novels? I’ll tell you the secret: start on page one and keep going, in order, until you come to the last page. Then stop.”
“Just write! What will I write with?” Ella shouted. “I don’t have a pen! All my pens are in my pocket and I’m not wearing any clothes!”
It was true—she wasn’t wearing anything but socks, and even they were mismatched.
The cat scoffed. “Everybody comes to the library naked. That’s why they come here—to dress themselves in books. And if you don’t have a pen, maybe you can ask him.”
The cat cast a dread glance over Ella’s shoulder. Ella realized that there was someone standing behind her. Breathing down her neck. The breather was having difficulty staying in rhythm.
Ella noticed a book on the shelf titled A Guide to Smooth Breathing. It looked as if she had written it.
She picked up the book and tried to turn around, but she couldn’t move. It was too cold. Someone or something had put its cold hand against her skin. The stinging cold on her back seeped through to her internal organs. It hurt.
The cat meowed and leaped out of sight. Snow started to fall.
Torrential rain began on the first of October and lasted for three and a half weeks. The school parking lot turned into a little lake where frogs splashed. Children flocked around the parking lot shrieking something about a water sprite and a long-lost boot and ran around splashing in the water.
Ella Milana didn’t want to take time off from work. She drove to the school every morning in her late father’s borrowed Triumph, walked into the teacher’s lounge in her father’s boots, changed into her own shoes, taught her classes, and went home, which was now partly hers, apparently—that’s what she’d been told.
Her mother focused on small daily chores and melted into tears now and then.
Ella didn’t cry, but her thoughts tortured her. She was constantly aware that while the rest of the world went about its business, her father, Paavo Emil Milana, was lying in a hole in the ground not half a kilometre from the school. There must be beetles and millipedes wriggling into his ears and mouth and nostrils all the time. She was particularly tortured by the thought that basically anyone at all could dig him up and drag him someplace, prop him in his seat in the coffee shop.
How strange to leave a member of your family lying in a shallow hole and go on with your daily activities!
One morning in the middle of a grammar lesson, in the middle of a sentence, Ella started thinking: if a person has a soul, was her father’s soul gradually escaping, like air out of a leaky tire? She didn’t particularly believe in the soul or in God, but the thought kept coming back to worry her.
She was offered condolences in the teachers’ lounge. Her students didn’t offer condolences; they were just still, silent, and troubled. When Ella tried to lighten the mood, it only made the situation worse.
“What’s the matter?” she shouted, unable to resist. “Did somebody die?”
The principal asked her to come and talk to him.
“Listen, students are afraid to come to your class. And it’s understandable. Death is a serious thing for young people, and when their teacher starts using gallows humour about her own father’s death, it’s going to upset some of them. I think it would be best for you to be more frank with them in your next class, and tell them you’re sorry. That way we can keep this unfortunate complaint off your record.”
The next day Ella Milana taught a class the nature of which became clear to her only as she picked up the chalk and started writing on the blackboard. Afterwards she admitted that it might have been an overreaction, but she never did regret it.
She wrote a sentence, turned back towards the class, smiled, and said:
“Let’s have a surprise quiz. Please diagram this sentence and identify the parts of speech. You have ten minutes.”
The sentence was: OUR TEACHER’S FATHER LIES DEAD IN A HOLE THAT WAS DUG IN THE GRAVEYARD HALF A KILOMETRE FROM THE SCHOOL AND THERE ARE BEETLES LIVING IN HIS EARS.
After class Ella went to tell the principal that she was going to the doctor because she wasn’t feeling well. She mentioned in passing that she’d been invited to join the Rabbit Back Literature Society as a full member.
The principal glanced blankly at the “Laura White File” and nodded to indicate that he’d understood.
Ella Milana’s substitute position was supposed to last until December. She explained to the doctor that she was suffering from depression, forgetfulness, and bouts of crying. The doctor wrote a prescription and gave her a sick leave slip for the rest of her contract.
She wadded up the prescription and shoved it in the Triumph’s ashtray.
PART TWO
7
On the second Saturday in December a party held at the home of Laura White ended with a tragedy of great import for Finnish literature. It all happened in front of dozens of witnesses, as world-famous children’s author Laura White was descending from the second floor to join her guests, and yet, following the incident no one was able to report precisely what had happened.
Usually when something shocking occurs, people start to report having had premonitions or dreams of the event. They speak in low voices with furtive eyes of how they knew all along, knew in their bones that something bad was about to happen. That winter evening at Laura White’s house, however, all seemed cheerfully optimistic, blissfully unaware. It was one of those evenings that ends as you whistle your way homeward to fall asleep with a smile on your face. There was a lot of laughter. People talked, made jokes, touched each other the way children do, innocent and uninhibited. Kisses were even exchanged. Joy and expectation sparkled through the crowd.
Look at that woman! She hasn’t danced in ages, but she’s dancing now, beaming at her partner with a big, bright smile! And what is he doing? He’s glowing like a lantern. He can’t remember when he’s felt such a flush of happiness!
And that woman over there. A reserved
bureaucrat by day, you can usually find her in the back office at Rabbit Back Pensioners’ Services. Now she’s nibbling at the tea biscuits on the buffet, happy as a child.
And who are those two? They’ve been dating half-heartedly for a couple of months but it’s only here that they’ve seen each other in their best clothes, in the most flattering light, and it’s given a whole new shape to their relationship.
Go mingle, talk with people. They’ll smile at you, you’ll feel welcomed, accepted! Tell a joke, and they’ll laugh. Chat with them jovially and they’ll love you! This is the kind of party that lasts forever because no one wants to be the first person to leave! No one wants to abandon this sweet, light-hearted, intoxicating merriment!
Thinking back, no one could call to mind a single bad omen. The sky didn’t turn blood-red, comets shone absent, not one bird flew into the window. Even the dogs, so ubiquitous in Rabbit Back, failed to howl.
Everyone thought the party would continue happy, exciting, delightful until morning, perhaps even longer.
There was a well-known theatre critic among the guests. Two months later she commented on the incident in the Now section of the Helsinki newspaper, in an article that asked critics to describe their most startling real-life experiences. According to this critic, the unfortunate incident at Laura White’s party was “an utterly abrupt, crass, unbelievable ending to the whole thing—an absolutely inappropriate, laughably overdramatic plot twist!”
EXCERPT FROM ESKO HARTAVALA’S ARTICLE
“THE LAURA WHITE INCIDENT”,
FINLAND ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY, JUNE 2005
The Rabbit Back Literature Society celebratory gathering had attracted cultural types from far and wide, the farthest flung, it was said, coming all the way from Japan.
Nearly all of them were unknown to author Martti Winter, and he didn’t want to know them.
The Rabbit Back Popular Orchestra was playing in a corner of the drawing-room—the pensive bass flirting with the dreamy saxophone and piano. Caterers wandered about offering wine, cognac, and hors d’oeuvres.
In addition to the drawing-room there were other downstairs rooms full of guests. Some stood in groups, laughing loudly, others stood in corners gossiping. The ones who had never been to Laura White’s house before admired the paintings gleaming on the walls and the dark-hued furnishings.
No one ventured upstairs. It was understood to be the private quarters of the lady of the house. Some of the downstairs rooms were locked as well.
“Where is Ms White, anyway?” someone behind Martti Winter asked.
He turned and saw that it was Ella Milana speaking. She was fiddling with the straps of her gown, which were clearly too thin and too tight.
Winter knew very well that everyone was there because Ella Milana, the petite young teacher who stood before him, had been made a member of the Rabbit Back Literature Society. The place was swarming with envious amateur authors, their envy barely checked by their instinctive deference. She was the long-awaited Tenth Member.
These amateur authors were themselves envied, for of the hundreds of amateur authors in the district, they were the ones who’d been honoured with an invitation to the party. The majority had received prizes in writing competitions within the last few years or had stories in the literary supplement that were considered above average.
Martti Winter touched Ella Milana’s arm with his fingertips. Her arm was thin, her skin dry and hot.
“She must still be upstairs, in her room, probably,” he said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get to meet her when the time comes. Then you’ll be officially introduced and so on.”
People crowded around them. Three loud-voiced women stood closest. Winter had learned and forgotten their names. A youngish man bounced around among them, a writer for Rabbit Tracks. Or was he from some Helsinki paper? Winter had heard that there would be someone from Finland Illustrated at the party.
Winter was about to move aside when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He remembered the journalist’s name now: Esko Hartavala.
Hartavala said he had read Winter’s most recent novel, Mr Butterfly. He enquired whether Winter had ever felt the same temptation as the novel’s main character to dress in women’s clothes. “I don’t mean to offend. I only ask because the inner thoughts of the main character are described so incredibly intensely, in such an achingly personal voice, that it’s hard to believe anyone could have invented him entirely out of whole cloth.”
The journalist rested one hand on Winter’s shoulder and waved the other excitedly in the air. The waving hand held a cigarette, the ash of which dropped onto the front of Winter’s jacket.
“I would be happy to take credit for all of the wonderful experiences I describe in my novels, but my life isn’t quite that rich. Unfortunately we authors are sometimes forced to use other people’s lives, too.”
“Sounds rather beastly,” the journalist laughed. “Or maybe writers are like vultures. Some people feel we journalists are.” He mimicked a bird of prey and grinned.
Winter wondered whether they were having a conversation or conducting an interview. He stretched his lips in an expression reminiscent of a hungry crocodile and lifted the journalist’s hand from his shoulder.
He then flicked the ashes from his jacket one by one.
“I confess that gathering material can sometimes have the flavour of a hunt,” he said. “Even the best cook can’t make chicken soup out of his own feet. There aren’t so terribly many ingredients in anyone’s life, less meat than there is on a sparrow. The average person could come up with at most two good novels. Many who think very highly of themselves can’t manage more than a couple of anecdotes.”
The journalist made a sound. Winter patted his arm, smiled warmly, and said, “It is sad, I know. In any case, if you want to write a bit more than that, your own experiences aren’t enough. By the time you get to the third novel you’re going to have to throw in a few pinches of someone else’s life.”
The journalist nodded and moved away, looking for an easier conversation.
“Why do I feel like I was a great disappointment to that poor fellow?” Winter wondered aloud, causing a burst of laughter around him.
One of the women laughed particularly loudly, shuffled a few steps towards him and touched his lips with her fingertips. “Maybe you frightened him. Tell me, am I in any danger of being used if I come too close, oh great and terrifying author?”
A dense cloud of perfume wafted around her.
“Go ahead and try,” Winter said, somewhat wearily. “Open up to me. Reveal something interesting about yourself, and I’ll use it when I need it. If I need it. Altered for my own purposes.”
“How will you alter me?”
“Well… I might turn those curls of yours black and make you fatter or thinner by ten kilos or so, whatever comes to me. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll change one of your eyes, perhaps this left one, into a glass eye.”
The woman’s mouth dropped open. “Huh?”
Winter smiled.
“Or I might give you a wooden leg, or some kind of disease. How does syphilitic brain damage sound? Or maybe I’ll have you broken in two in an auto accident.”
She gave a shrill laugh. “You are truly awful!” she said. “I’m not telling you anything now, or I might end up in your next novel.”
Winter gave a slight bow.
“That is your right. It would no doubt put you in much less danger of being used. But I may nevertheless steal your way of moving, the expressions on your face! Perhaps I’ll even take that way you have of smiling with your mouth open, your little tongue peeking out now and then between your teeth to see what’s happening in the world. And those freckles that start on the bridge of your nose and continue all the way down between your breasts, that’s a detail that might come in handy in a piece I’m writing at the moment.”
The woman smiled, frightened. “You’ll eat me alive.”
She grabbed a companion by the arm and starte
d lisping like a little girl. “Oh, won’t you please be a nice man-eating lion and let me go if I tell you a juicy story about my friend here?”
Winter looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I don’t bargain with my material.”
*
Martti Winter had recently had a birthday. He’d turned forty-three. For his birthday celebration, he’d ordered a large chocolate cake covered in marzipan roses. He hadn’t told anyone about his birthday. He ate the cake himself.
The baker said that it was a cake for twenty. It had lasted Winter two days and one night.
Winter didn’t smoke. He was a sober man nowadays—drinking was too much trouble. Alcohol didn’t suit him. Drunkenness had lost its charm. He’d given up sex with other people for the same reasons.
His new habit, eating, replaced both drinking and sex. He weighed well over 150 kilos.
When people talked about the famous author, their comments generally went something like, “What of it? Why not enjoy life, right? If you like good food, why not eat your fill?”
Martti Winter was no gourmand. He didn’t have expensive tastes, didn’t like Chinese food or care to hear about French cuisine. He hated shellfish, caviar, and complicated seafood dishes. He never drank wine with dinner. He liked to eat simple, uncomplicated foods: chocolate, pastries, ground beef, French fries, macaroni, chocolate mousse and sausage.
He found his way to the buffet table and started to eat a cream pastry topped with three green cherries and flakes of chocolate. The filling was marzipan.
He remembered that the woman with the freckles was an amateur actor in Rabbit Back. She was the fourth hanger-on he’d fended off that evening. There was a time when he’d positively collected actresses. There was something quite special about them—they seemed more complete and clear than other women and at the same time unreal. But it had been a long time since he’d had it in him to really react to a woman’s sexual signals.
The Rabbit Back Literature Society Page 5
