The Woman Who Borrowed Memories

by Tove Jansson

  Elis was very excited. He kept tapping the barometer for fear of storms and asking about the lighthouses on their islands—were they on real islands, tiny islands?

  “Real fly specks,” said Tom. “Why?”

  Elis answered solemnly that he’d once read a story called “The Isle of Bliss” where the island had been very small.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Tom. “Hurry up; Dad’s waiting.”

  “Come on, jump in!” Axel cried. “We’re off on a holiday, leaving all of our troubles behind!”

  The children jumped aboard. Hanna stood on the dock and waved as the boat set off straight out to sea. It was a mild day, dazzlingly bright with high cumulus clouds mirrored in the sea and no horizon visible. Elis clung to the rail and watched for islands, occasionally turning to grin at Tom; he actually looked as if he was enjoying himself for once. So you’re on holiday, you little shit, Tom thought. For the moment you’ve forgotten that the world’s about to end, and you’re only thinking of yourself. A bitter sense of injustice welled up in him and he decided to be totally indifferent to Elis all the way out and back again.

  The first lighthouse had been built on a very low skerry with a windswept crest of low bushes in the middle. When they landed, gulls rose and circled, screaming. Axel heaved the fresh canisters ashore and dragged them up over the rocks to the lighthouse.

  At first Elis just stood and stared, stiff as a poker, then he dashed off, rushed up into the brushwood, and flung himself back down again. Eider hens flew up from their nests with a great roar, but Elis hardly noticed. He ran back and forth shouting at the top of his lungs and finally threw himself headlong into a crowberry bush.

  “I told you he’s crazy,” said Oswald scornfully. “And you let someone like that run after you all day and night. That’s a fine friend you’ve made!”

  Tom walked slowly up to where Elis was lying looking up at the sky, shamelessly contented.

  Elis said, “I’ve never been on a real island before, one that looks like an island. It’s so small it could be mine.”

  “You’re babbling,” Tom said. “Anyway, it belongs to the eiders too.” Then he walked away.

  When Axel came back ready to move on to the next lighthouse, Elis wouldn’t budge. “I want to stay here,” he said. “I like this island.”

  “But it could take a couple of hours,” Axel objected. “We have to get to some lights a long way out. Much more interesting places, high ground, all kinds of things you’d like.”

  “It’s okay,” said Elis. “You go. I’ll stay here.”

  They couldn’t get him to change his mind. In the end, Axel took Tom aside and said, “You’d better stay here with him till I come back and pick you up. He might fall in the water or do something stupid, and we’re responsible for the boy.”

  Little Mia was shouting, “Want to go to the next lighthouse! Want to go to the next lighthouse!”

  “But Dad,” said Tom, “I could be with him for hours on this tiny pancake of a place!”

  “ ’Course you could,” said his father, pushing off. “Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t like.”

  “Try and find him some old rotting birds!” Oswald shrieked across the water. “Babysitter!”

  It wasn’t till they reached the next lighthouse that Axel realized he still had the lunch bag with him. Hanna would never have done a thing like that, forgotten—but never mind, it could have been worse.

  Then an hour later it did get worse. The fuel line broke, and you can’t fix a thing like that with a flick of the wrist.

  “You know what,” said Elis, sounding almost reverent. “This island’s wonderful. It’s so far away, nothing dangerous can get to it. And the water’s absolutely pure.”

  “That’s what you think,” Tom said. He went farther out on the headland and began throwing small stones in the water. There was absolutely nothing to do but wait and let the time go by and be totally bored. Ha ha, some “Isle of Bliss”! Dark thoughts came and went and came back again: a whole summer of endless torture and responsibility, not a chance of ever being really alone, surrounded by a bunch of stupid burials and rubbish heaps . . . And, as if today’s misery wasn’t bad enough, he’d get to hear about tomorrow’s, when everything in the world would only get worse and worse. It wasn’t fair!

  And here came Elis running up with eyes out on stalks, shouting, “An island forgotten in the deep blue sea! It’s fantastic! It’s so clean! So desolate and deserted!”

  “Fantastic, my foot,” said Tom. “And it’s not exactly deserted, with so many eider chicks hatching this year.” He shrugged his shoulders and added, “Though there won’t be so many broods, the way you carry on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that if you scare an eider hen off her nest, she won’t come back. They’re very sensitive birds.”

  Elis said nothing. It was fun watching him stride deeper into the crowberry thicket, one slow step at a time with his elbows tight against his sides and his thin neck stretched forward. Now, by God, he could feel for himself what it’s like to have someone give you a bad conscience. Tom followed him. Elis was staring down at five chicks, very small, dark, and fluffy, sitting in their nest stock-still.

  “Are they all right?” Elis whispered.

  “Oh, don’t think about it. Think about how you’re on ‘an island forgotten in the deep blue sea,’ isn’t that what you said? It might interest you to know that a little island like this can get forgotten for real. It’s hard to find your way back.”

  Elis just stared.

  “Don’t you believe me? It happens.” Tom sat down and rested his chin in his hand. “I don’t want to scare you, but sometimes they find human skeletons on beaches around here. Best not to think about it. They probably just sat there waiting and waiting and no one ever came.”

  “But he’s got a map with him,” Elis said.

  “Does he? Come to think of it, he left the charts at home . . . and that could be bad.” Tom sighed and glanced quickly at Elis through his fingers. He had a violent urge to giggle. How’s this for one of your catastrophes? And I can make it worse. You wait and see.

  Elis went and sat down behind a rock. The sun wandered on toward afternoon, the blackflies sang, and the seabirds quietly returned to their nests.

  When Tom got hungry, he had a good idea. He went to Elis and told him they had a problem. They had nothing to eat—just like all those poor people all over the world. “Of course, you can eat crowberries,” he said. “But they can give you a really bad stomachache. And, if you’re thirsty there’s a rock pool right behind you, although the water’s so salty and stagnant that even the water lice have died.” He decided to improve on this. “You can strain off their dead bodies through your teeth,” he said, but he knew at once he was overdoing it, getting too personal, losing his touch. Elis gave him a long, sharp look and turned away.

  The seawater was taking on a deeper tone. The hours passed; Axel should have been back long ago. And there was nothing to do but scare Elis. Why had Axel not come? What did he mean by making him uneasy and wasting his whole day this way? It was starting to feel ominous, and he didn’t like it.

  “Elis!” he yelled. “Where are you? Come here a minute!”

  Elis came and looked at him furtively.

  “Listen,” said Tom, “there’s something I should tell you. This weather’s not normal. There’s a storm coming up.”

  “It’s absolutely calm,” said Elis, distrustful.

  “The eye of the storm,” Tom explained. “You know nothing about the sea. It can happen suddenly—bang. Waves can sweep over the whole island.”

  “But what about the lighthouse?”

  “It’s locked. We can’t get in.” Tom couldn’t stop. “And snakes come out at night—”

  “You’re making it up.”

  “Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. What are you going to do?”

  Elis said slowly, “You don’t like me.”

  The wors
t part of all was having nothing to do. Tom took out his sheath knife and went in among the windfalls to cut some twigs for a hut like the ones he used to build for Oswald when they went on expeditions. He whittled and worked until sweat ran down his neck, and it was all completely pointless, but he couldn’t stand Elis looking at him all the time, and it was getting on towards evening and still no boat . . . And now Elis wanted to know if he was making a distress signal.

  “No! Anyway we don’t have any matches.” Tom lifted the roof section of his hut and anchored it in the thicket. It was totally stupid, the whole thing was stupid, and still no boat . . . If there was a problem with one of the beacons—no, in that case he would have turned back right away. It must be something else, something serious . . . And then the whole roof section collapsed and he swung around on Elis, shouting, “How do you know what it’s like when a storm comes up? You’ve never been in a storm! Everything goes dark . . . And you hear a strange sound coming closer and closer—and all the birds go all quiet . . .”

  This was clearly making an impression, so he went on. “Sometimes before a storm the water level rises, but sometimes it falls. Catastrophically! You can see how low it is! Nothing but green slime everywhere. Then the waves come in like a wall and everything gets swept away—everything!”

  “Why are you doing this?” Elis whispered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why don’t you like me?”

  “Well, why do you go on and on at me? I’m sick and tired of all of this; it’s no fun anymore! Go and find somewhere to sleep.”

  “But what about the snakes? I’m scared!”

  “Oh all right, there aren’t any snakes,” Tom burst out impatiently. “There aren’t ever any snakes on these little skerries. I’m worn out! I’ve tried, I’ve tried everything I can think of, but you just don’t get any better. All you do is say weird stuff and you’re making me almost as weird as you are. And Dad hasn’t come, and he should have been here a long time ago!”

  “I’m scared,” said Elis again. “Do something . . . You know how to do stuff!” Suddenly he grabbed hold of Tom’s shirt and kept whining on about how scared he was. “You scared me,” he shouted. “Do something. You know how to do everything!”

  Tom tore himself free so violently that Elis was thrown backwards. He sat there on the moss staring. His big eyes had shrunk to slits and he said slowly in a very low voice, “Yes, absolutely, your father should have been here a long time ago. Why hasn’t he come? I’m sure it’s not because he can’t find us. You only said that to scare me. Something’s happened to him.”

  Elis waited a moment and then went on triumphantly, “Perhaps he’s broken his leg and he’s just lying there. And we’ll wait and wait, but he’ll never come—”

  “Bull!” said Tom, in a rage. “That sort of thing only happens in winter, when there’s ice on the rocks.” Then he suddenly remembered the time they sat waiting last autumn when Dad went out to the lighthouses with Oswald and the gas caught fire and shattered a lens right in his face, half blinding him, and he got them home as best he could, getting directions from Oswald, who just cried and cried . . .

  Elis went on talking, never taking his eyes off Tom’s face. “They don’t know anything back home. It gets to be late. Finally they realize that something’s happened. Does that sound right?”

  “I say you’re a sissy!” Tom yelled. “You’re scared! You’re so scared I can smell it . . .”

  Suddenly, with incredible speed, Elis leaped to his feet and threw himself at Tom, who only had time to see two flashing rows of small teeth behind a desperate grimace before he was hurled to the ground in a grip that was bone-hard and blind with fury. They rolled in under the evergreen thicket where the light had almost gone, and fought under a low ceiling of tangled branches—you damned summer child, you little bastard, if you let go I don’t know what I’ll do to you, I’ll hit you and keep hitting you. The skinny bony body under him seemed tense to the point of bursting; it was clear that defeat was impossible, unthinkable for either one of them. They had to keep going. They fought in total silence, soundlessly, breathlessly. Tom threw Elis aside and they separated, but they couldn’t get up because there was no room under the branches, so they crawled back together and went on fighting, it was all they could do.

  The eider hen sat quite still on her nest; she was the same color as the ground. She did not move even when they caught sight of her and when they very carefully crept out from under the tangle of branches and went off in different directions.

  Now it was night. The western sky was still burning like a rose down at the horizon, but it was definitely night. Tom walked down toward the beach where Axel usually came ashore. His whole body was shaking wildly and he was trying not to think, not think about anything. Let it be peaceful, please, let it be peaceful. All he wanted was to sit on the slope with his clenched fists pressed hard against his eyes and let it be peaceful. After a long time, a memory burst through and he let it come and it came. It was about the time the gas had exploded in the lighthouse. Mom asked, “Axel, what did you do?” Dad said, “I crawled for a bit till I could see again a little and got Oswald into the boat and tried to calm him down. At least there was no wind and that was good. You have to take things as they come.” That’s what he said—you have to take things as they come. And then I said, “Dad can get through anything and he’s never scared.” And Dad said, “You’re wrong. I was never so scared in my life.” That’s just what he said—I was never so scared in my life.

  Now came the midnight hour when the light in the western sky gives over to the dawn breaking from the other side. It was horribly cold. When Tom walked back in the half-light he could just make out Elis silhouetted against the sea, so he said, “He’ll be coming now. He’s been busy with something important, something he couldn’t put off.”

  “You don’t say,” Elis said.

  “I do say. And there’s no wind and that’s good. You have to take things as they come.”

  They stood a moment looking out to sea. Some gulls flew up from the headland and screamed for a while, and then it was quiet again.

  Tom said, “Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll wake you when he comes.”

  Axel came back at daybreak. First they heard the motor like a weak pulse, then it grew stronger, then the boat appeared as a little black speck on the gray morning sea and then they could see the white mustaches thrown up by the bow. Axel rounded the reef, reduced speed, and landed. He saw them standing there waiting and he knew at once. One had an improbably swollen and completely altered nose; the other could barely see out of one eye. Moreover, their clothes were torn.

  “Well, well,” said Axel. “So everything seems to be under control. Engine trouble, broken fuel line. I’m sorry about that, but you have to take things as they come. Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” said Elis.

  “Come on, then. Jump in and we’ll get home. But don’t wake the kids, they’re tired.”

  They sat down near the engine cover, where it was warmer, and Axel covered them with a tarp.

  “Here’s the lunch bag,” said Axel. “Finish the lot or Hanna will be cross. There’s coffee in the thermos.”

  As the boat crossed the bay the sky in the east lightened and turned pink, and the first tiny glowing shard of the new sun appeared over the horizon. It was cold.

  “Don’t go to sleep just yet,” said Axel. “I’ve got something for Elis that he’s going to like. Look. Have you ever seen such a beautiful bird skeleton? You can bury it with pomp and circumstance.”

  “It’s unusually pretty,” said Elis. “And it was very kind of you to bring it to me, but I’m sorry to say I don’t think I want it.”

  And he curled up next to Tom on the floor of the boat and they both fell instantly asleep.

  Translated by Silvester Mazzarella

  A FOREIGN CITY

  MY GRANDSON and his wife had long been trying to persuade me to go south and pay them a visit
. “You need to get away from the cold and the dark,” they said, “and the sooner the better.” Meaning: before it’s too late.

  I don’t particularly like traveling, but I thought it best to accept their friendly offer and get it done. Moreover, they wanted to show off a daughter who’d come into the world a month or so earlier. No, maybe it was a year earlier. Whatever. They explained that the long flight would be too strenuous for me. They thought I should break the journey somewhere, spend the night in a comfortable hotel and continue the next day. Unnecessary. But I let them make the arrangements.

  It was already dark when we landed for my stopover.

  In the arrival lounge I realized I’d left my hat on the plane and tried to go back but they wouldn’t let me through passport control. My legs hurt; I’d been sitting still for too long. I drew a hat on the cover of my ticket but they didn’t understand and just waved me on to the next window, where I handed over all the papers my well-organized son had given me. Most had already been checked and stamped but I showed them all again to be on the safe side. I was disconcerted by this business about my hat, and in any case I hate flying. It gradually got through to me that they wanted to know how much money I had with me, so I pulled out my wallet and let them count it for themselves, then found some more in my pockets. The whole thing took a terribly long time, and by the time it was over nearly all the other passengers had vanished and I was afraid of missing the bus into town. They motioned me to another window, where I’d clearly already been. By now I was nervous and may have seemed impatient. Whatever the reason, they took me behind a counter and went through my suitcase. I had no way of explaining to them that I was only nervous because of my missing hat and my fear of missing the bus. Yes, and my insurmountable hatred of flying—well, I’ve already mentioned that.