The Rabbit Back Literature Society

by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen

  He bolts out of the dark house into the brightness of the veranda, and as he stops to regain his vision Ingrid runs down the road that leads across Hare Glen. She falls, scrambles onto her feet again, and continues her unsteady escape.

  The sound of birds and insects surrounds Martti as he stands in front of Laura White’s house wondering what to do. Shadows slip through the brightness of the garden; the weather is changing. Clouds are piling up in dark heaps that meld at the edges to form a stormy alliance.

  Ingrid just stole something from Ms White’s house—he saw it with his own eyes.

  Of all the people in the world, his Ingrid has gone and stolen something from Laura White.

  Laura White is particularly strict about her books. They’re allowed to read her books, but they have to ask permission first, and under no circumstances can they take the books home with them.

  She has books in her collection that are so rare that no one else anywhere has them, not even the largest libraries in America. Once she got so excited talking about her books and talked so quickly that none of the children could understand her. It frightened them to see an adult dash about and babble like that.

  It’s a play that Aleksis Kivi apparently wrote in 1873, if not earlier, and I found it on a shelf where I used to keep a catechism. The process is very exciting, although I don’t really know what causes it.

  She eventually got a severe headache and withdrew upstairs to rest.

  When Ingrid wanted to borrow one of her books that wasn’t even in the Rabbit Back library, Laura said no. The reasons she gave for this were left to occupy their minds for a long time. They were almost certain she wasn’t joking.

  I’m sorry, Ingrid dear, but it’s an unconditional rule of mine. Books attract bacteria when you handle them. Every book has its own quite unique strain of bacteria, which changes slightly whenever a new person reads it. I’m sure you understand.

  She looked at her hands and grew more serious.

  I’m sure you all know the sign in the library encouraging you to inform the librarian if there are any infectious diseases at home. They understand what bacteria can do to a book. Books owned by different people should under no circumstances be kept on the same shelf, otherwise entire bacteria strains could be mixed. And books can’t stand up to just anything.

  Libraries are rather dangerous places, by the way, although they do serve a noble purpose. Always wash your hands when you read a library book, and keep library books separate from your own books.

  The bacteria question has troubled them for a long time. They want to ask her if she’s serious, but they’re afraid to. Once when they asked her about her childhood, she answered a few questions gladly, then suddenly raised her hands to her temples and slumped half-unconscious onto the sofa.

  Oh, children, she whispered, covered in a cold sweat, my head is splitting. You’ll have to be quite silent for a little while. But don’t leave. Come closer. Take hold of my hand. I’m sure this will pass in a moment. Martti, my love, can you put your cool hand on my forehead? It helps. Don’t be afraid. I’m in a little pain right now, but everything will be all right again soon.

  They’ve witnessed these attacks of hers four or five times. They’ve never spoken about them, not even among themselves.

  There’s a bicycle leaning against a tree. It’s Toivo’s bike, the kind with a long seat. Martti gets on the bike and follows Ingrid down the road, which meanders across Hare Glen like a gravel snake. Ingrid isn’t at home or in her father’s workshop.

  Martti rides to the shore and pushes his way through the thick willows to their secret fishing spot. He can see their footprints in the sand, their shared fishing rod leaning against a birch tree. On the bark of the tree are initials, inside a heart. Martti carved his own into the tree and then Ingrid added hers, and the heart.

  This is where Martti touched her bare breast after she had read an adult book called Lady Chatterley’s Lover and wanted to write something like it. I have to know what it feels like, otherwise I won’t be able to write about it, she said—it was five days ago now. She took off her shirt right in front of him, the midday sun casting steep shadows on her skin.

  Ingrid’s breast was small and the skin felt like warm rubber as he first prodded it and then squeezed it warily.

  She’s not here now.

  Martti climbs up the hill to the water tower, too—Ingrid’s magic place. The hill is a grass-covered cone with a fenced, level place on top. On the platform is a booth with a steel door that’s always locked.

  Ingrid likes to make up crazy stories about the booth: inside are trolls in chains, mad witches, ghosts and demons, imprisoned children, Russian prisoners of war. They come here to eat lunch when the weather is fine, share some liquorice from the kiosk on the shore. In windy weather they come up to the platform to send model planes flying in every direction.

  They also tried kissing here last winter when they were supposed to write something about love for Laura White. After the kiss, Martti pressed his lips against the iron railing, and bled profusely when he tore them away again.

  He doesn’t see her here now.

  He finally finds her in the east playground. A drizzle of rain is falling. Ingrid is sitting on a swing, half turned away from him, thrashing her legs. As Martti comes down the grassy hillside he sees what she’s stolen from the house.

  She’s looking through a book and another one is lying on the grass, a cloth-covered notebook, the kind Laura White has given to all of them, telling them to take better care of them than they would their own soul. Martti has one, too, in a blue cover with gold letters that say: RABBIT BACK LITERATURE SOCIETY.

  One of the notebooks was more green than blue. That one was for the proud, quiet boy, the best one, the one who died last winter, whom they decided never to talk about again.

  All nine of them were at the secret meeting: Martti, Ingrid, Silja, Helinä, Oona, Elias, Toivo, Anna-Maija and Aura.

  Laura White said that writers shouldn’t talk to outsiders about their own affairs except through their writing. She didn’t even tell the parents of the living members of the Society about the boy’s death. The children knew that when people don’t talk about something, it gradually ceases to be true. Within a few months they had succeeded in wiping the boy almost out of existence. It had been easy, because none of them knew how he died. They didn’t want to know.

  The dead boy’s notebook was on the grass at Ingrid’s feet. Martti didn’t understand how she’d got it.

  The dead boy had made notes in his book all the time and wouldn’t show it to anyone except Laura White. He must have collected at least a thousand ideas for books in it, a thousand wonderful ideas. Every one of them would have given anything for just one glimpse into that green notebook.

  Elias had once tried to take it by force. The boy flew into a terrible fit of rage and Elias was so afraid that he peed his pants.

  Did you see his eyes when I tried to take his notebook away from him? I’m sure he would have killed me if I hadn’t given up.

  Suddenly Martti understands that his duty is to protect the Society. Ingrid is delirious with fever, and angry—she might do anything at all. Martti imagines the parents breaking into Laura White’s house just as one of them is reading a story and tearing their children away.

  Our child will not remain in a club where children are suddenly dying without warning. There are other hobbies besides writing. We’ll buy a violin or an accordion and pay for some music lessons!

  He raises his arm and is about to shout to Ingrid, then he slips, falls with a thud onto his back, and slides into a patch of thistles. The sky rushes open and rain starts to drum against the ground. As Martti struggles back to his feet he sees the red dress with the books running far off down the tree-lined road that leads to the library.

  When Ingrid comes out of the library, Martti is hiding behind a tree. He watches as she stands in front of the building, damp and shivering.

  Martti remembers
what Laura White said about the library: The building is quite pretty, almost worthy of all the books inside it.

  The authoress’s words also reached the ears of Tuomo Lindgren, the owner of the stone works. A couple of nights earlier, Martti had gone to the kiosk to buy his mother some cigarettes. Lindgren was there, bragging drunkenly to his friends that he would “knock Ms White’s socks off, make her eyes bulge right out of her head”.

  Hell, I’ve got my own stone works, after all. I’ve got the cash to do whatever I want, and I’m the kind of guy who, if I think something up, even God isn’t going to stop me! I never read a book in my life, and I never plan to, but hey, if Miss Fancypants Author wants something to look at, I’m the man to do it, and you can bet it’ll get done. Do you know how much it costs to ship those damn marble blocks all the way from Italy? Do you? I do, because I just went to the bank to pay a pretty big bill for marble, and it didn’t even phase me. Ha!

  Ingrid is standing in front of the building and her hands are empty.

  She’s left Laura White’s books in the library.

  Martti runs to her, his shoes splashing in the rain. Her shoulders burn under his fingers. “Ingrid! Ingrid! The books! The notebook! Why did you do it?”

  Ingrid’s eyes glisten strangely. She sighs, goes limp and slumps to her knees.

  “I guess I don’t feel very well,” she mumbles. “But I’m not sick. I just need to rest for a while.”

  Martti leaves her and runs into the library.

  He can see a book cart near the check-out desk. When he squints he can just make out the green-covered notebook among the others. It’s the most important one. He has to act fast.

  He glances behind him and sees that Ingrid is no longer on her knees—she’s lying prone on the ground, her face in a puddle.

  It’s impossible to run in two directions at the same time. He knows that. But grabbing the book will only take a couple of seconds—he can do it and still help Ingrid up before she drowns.

  He dashes towards the cart, then stops like he’s hit a wall.

  A long, grey face adorned with thick glasses appears in front of him.

  Birgit Ström, the old librarian, is a friendly person, and she of all people knows to hold the young members of the Rabbit Back Literature Society in high esteem. On the other hand, she is merciless to anyone she sees as a threat to the welfare of the books.

  Martti remembers a story he heard in town: The mayor himself once tried to walk into the library with an Eskimo pie in his hand. Birgit Ström craned forward from behind her desk, grabbed the ice cream, dropped it into the wastebin and welcomed the mayor to her “house of civilizing literature”.

  “I see our budding author is quite wet,” Birgit Ström says, reaching her long arm out in front of him as if she were about to give him a hug. “Perhaps the bard should take a look at himself. Look how he’s dripping on the floor! Drip, drip, drip. As we all know, books definitely do not like water. Perhaps our young writer should come back when he’s a bit drier. Someone has already run through here all wet and left puddles on the floor. What a shame.”

  Martti stares at the librarian’s breasts, which hang down like long beanbags. He spins around and runs out to help the sputtering Ingrid out of the puddle. Then he takes her home.

  Martti searches the library for the notebook for four days. He goes through the stacks systematically, one book at a time. Sometimes he has to start over when he realizes he hasn’t been thorough enough. Hopelessness and exhaustion creep up on him and he even considers asking the librarian for assistance.

  But he rejects the idea, because if he did, the entire future of the Society might be in danger.

  He spends all day Thursday and Friday searching, going home only to eat. Birgit Ström observes him and assumes he’s performing some task given to him by Laura White, since he doesn’t say anything.

  Then the weekend comes and the library is closed. He returns on Monday and Tuesday, and late on Tuesday afternoon, when he’s up to the letter J, he sees the notebook, with RABBIT BACK LITERATURE SOCIETY printed on its spine, peeking out from between two thick books. Martti can barely repress a squeal.

  He checks to make sure Birgit Ström isn’t in visual range and pulls the notebook off the shelf. Its cover is stuck to the book next to it. When he peels the books apart it makes a nasty sound and some of the green fabric from the notebook’s cover remains stuck to its neighbour.

  He looks to right and left, and up to the higher levels as well, where a golden light makes the dust motes dance, then stuffs the notebook under his shirt and walks out of the library.

  The memory breaks off at this point. The boy with the book stops, leans forward on the axis of time, grows three decades older, and is sitting in a blue room wearing a blindfold.

  Martti Winter finishes speaking. He lets the moment rest. There are no more words. “May I have some more soda?” he asks from within the darkness, which he has come to strangely enjoy. “And put a crystal of yellow in it.”

  A bottle materializes in his hand and he drinks from it.

  “What happened then?” the girl’s voice says.

  “I didn’t open the notebook,” Winter hears himself say. “I didn’t dare. I knew that if it was going to be opened, the whole Society ought to do it together. The book should either never be opened, or we should open it together and destroy it. That’s what I thought. I went

  to tell Toivo and Elias that we needed to have a meeting. I sent Toivo to tell Oona, Helinä and Silja. Elias told Aura and Anna-Maija. I told everyone that they shouldn’t disturb Ingrid because she was home with a fever.

  We met on top of the hill where the water tower is. It was getting dark, and the members had to make up all kinds of excuses for being out so late.

  The sun was setting and the light shone only on our hilltop. All the rest of Rabbit Back was already covered in darkness. I told the others that I had the dead boy’s notebook, but I didn’t tell them where I’d got it. They didn’t need to know that Ingrid had stolen something from Laura White’s house.

  They were all amazed, excited and afraid. I’m sure I was more afraid than they were, although I acted like a cool-headed leader. I insisted that not a word should be breathed about the notebook or our secret meeting to anyone who wasn’t there. Not to Laura White, not to our parents, not to Ingrid. I’d brought Ingrid a big box of liquorice as a sort of secret recompense for what I was planning to do.

  Ingrid said later that the last thing she remembered about that day was our argument at the dead rat’s grave, and I saw no reason to tell her what went on while she was in her fever.

  I made my comrades swear. Everyone spit on the same spot on the ground. Then we mixed the spit together and each one put their finger in it and put some of the common spit in their mouths. It sounds stupid and revolting now, but we all took the ritual very seriously. Even Elias didn’t joke about it.

  I said that I thought the notebook should be destroyed to protect the Society and that there would be no discussion about it, but that we ought to discuss whether we should read it before we destroyed it.

  We knew that the most gifted writer in the Society had diligently filled up his notebook. We knew the kinds of stories he had read to us. He wasn’t any older than us, but his stories were so great that all we understood about them was that they were extremely good and very deep. When we listened to him read them, we were all overcome with sacred reverence, even though we hated the boy himself.

  We all understood that the notebook contained ideas for at least a thousand books.

  I asked who wanted to read it, but no one dared to look at me.

  Then I asked who wanted to go home and forget the whole thing, and no one said anything.

  I got an idea and I said, Fine, this is what we’ll do. Does anybody have a watch? Someone did. Good. I told them I would leave the notebook here on the hilltop overnight and go home. Each one of us would have an hour to come and read the dead boy’s notebook, or not to
come if they didn’t want to. I would come last, at sunrise, and destroy the notebook. I could burn it in the sauna oven at home, since my mother would be heating it up the next day.

  And that’s what we did. The notebook was left on the top of the hill. When day was breaking, I woke up on Church Hill, where I had been sleeping in some bushes, and went to get the notebook from the water tower, as we had agreed.

  So I didn’t know for sure whether the others had read the notebook or not, and we agreed that it was something we could never ask about in The Game. But I could see in their eyes later that they had read it, every one of them. I don’t remember anything else about the book itself, but I do remember that it had amazing things in it, things that I couldn’t even really understand at the time.

  And every night, to this day, I still dream about that notebook. I tried for a long time to forget about it. I regretted reading it. In the end I did succeed in forgetting its contents. I don’t remember what was in it, at least not when I’m awake, although I’ve tried a few times. But every night I dream that I’m reading the notebook that the dead genius wrote, the book Ingrid stole, that I and the others read by the water tower that night. And every time I dream about it, I wake up with at least one or two ideas.

  All of my ideas come from that notebook. A couple of times I’ve thought an idea was my own, and tried to start writing about it, but then Silja Saaristo would manage to publish a novel about it first, and then Elias would write something about it, and I’d know I’d been mistaken. I don’t have any ideas of my own. Maybe none of us do. All we have are the thousand ideas that we stole from the dead boy.

  And that’s where I get the ideas for my books.

  30

  THE GAME ENDED when Martti Winter, the great author, fell asleep in his chair, knocked out by the yellow.

  Ella put her feet up on her chair, wrapped her arms around her legs, thought for a moment, and said, “I accept your answer.”

  They sat in the blueness for five minutes, silent and unmoving. Then the great author shifted in his seat, smacked his lips, and woke up enough to sigh, “And to top it off, I couldn’t destroy the notebook. I wrapped it in oilcloth and buried it in the garden. Which may explain why it’s come here.”