The Garden

by Magnus Florin

  “Which side?”

  “In my side. In my side.”

  Their exhaustion. Linnæus creeps down beside them in the bed, up against them. Their shoulders and necks are warm, their plaits thick, their hair neatly combed. Their noses and knees, their temples, waists. Linnæus in bed with his siblings in order to draw the fever, the sickness, out of their bodies.

  “They’re shellbacks,” says the gardener.

  Linnæus looks at the little statuettes lined up in the middle of the path. They are little trolls, jolly little figures. The gardener carves them out of cork and dresses them in shells he has found. They have faces and anyone who looks at them feels he wants to talk to them. Linnæus wishes he could make something of the kind himself and gives the gardener due praise.

  October now. Linnæus calls the gardener over.

  “I’ve taken on Nietzel. He will be the chief gardener. You will be his assistant.”

  “Very good,” says the gardener.

  “Dietrich Nietzel. He is Georg Clifford’s head gardener at Hartekamp.”

  “Very good,” says the gardener.

  “He has 3,000 species under cultivation there. He is bringing about three hundred plants with him. The cases are on their way and should be here in three days.”

  “Very good,” says the gardener.

  Hybrid. It is hubris. Arrogance. An affront to God’s laws.

  That a hybrid creature should be found among plants, as with animals?

  That out of two separate types of plant a third should emerge, like the mule from the horse and the donkey?

  The likelihood of such potential hybrids’ independent propagation?

  “It is still uncertain,” says Linnæus.

  In the night Linnæus sees from his window twinkling lights, flashes, white reflections, inexplicable, in the leaves of the Indian cress. They are inexplicable because there is no external source of light that could cause such a light-effect.

  On being asked straight out, the gardener says he saw the lights too, but without bothering about them since after all he couldn’t fit them into any context.

  Linnæus is concerned that the business with the Indian cress be properly investigated, so that an explanation is found for what happened.

  Thursday morning. Delivery. There is a rumour about the large menagerie at Hammarby. It is a rumour which started with the gardener’s comments to the coachman and the servant from Hallkved about the large number of animals that had to be looked after in the garden and the dwelling-house. It is a rumour that has spread to Tjocksta, Vallby, Sävja, Krisslinge, Edeby, Söderby and Ängeby in Denmark parish in Vaksala hundred, to several farms in Funbo parish in Rasbo hundred and to Kasby and Marma in Lagga parish in Långhundra hundred.

  A cockatoo, several peacocks, a cassowary, several civet cats, four kinds of parrot, a number of small apes, an agouti, two ant-eaters, a racoon, several goldfish in the pond, and, if the servant and the coachman are not mistaken, several other animals besides of a strange but unknown type.

  Many stories are woven around these animals, in particular the last-mentioned unknown ones.

  Whoever creeps up to the house and peers in through a certain window will be able to see a young orang-utan which always sits stock-still, and which some regard as life-threatening and some suspect is stuffed.

  Close into the house, the whole neighbourhood knows, there can also often be heard hoarse, loud voices, frightening, making the blood run cold, as if they were coming from the throats of ghosts.

  On this Thursday morning the coachman and the servant linger behind longer than usual after handing over the butter and cheese to the gardener. They ask the gardener warily what the truth is about all the stories that are circulating.

  The gardener says that there are three parrots. The cry of “It’s twelve o’clock, Mr. Carl!” that is regularly heard comes from an elderly parrot which expects its lunch at that time. Another parrot is behind the cry of “Come in!”, which takes visitors by surprise when they hear it in the entrance hall.

  But the strangest cry, the gardener says, comes from a parrot which is in the habit of shrieking, in a harsh and piercing voice, “Blow your nose!”, but only to one person, viz. Lövberg, when the parrot comes across him in the garden.

  At this point in the gardener’s testimony, Linnæus had drawn near with the intention of getting a piece of cheese. He heard.

  “Who is Lövberg?”

  The gardener replies:

  “He’s my old assistant, who lives in the shed among the rakes. He sleeps most of the time but works well and sometime you must meet and have a chat together.”

  Linnæus doesn’t go into the garden, but out in it. For him it is not a mollusc, not the inside of an egg, not a cave. It is not a hiding-place.

  It is the water the mollusc lives in, it is the hollow in the sand where the egg is hatched. It is the rock face outside the cave. Everything is visible there and he must see everything.

  One morning Linnæus becomes aware of raised voices coming from the gardener’s shed. He approaches, cautiously, to eavesdrop and hears strange cries.

  “Swine strikes!”

  “Cuckoo sticks!”

  “Inn passes!”

  “Hussar strikes!”

  “Rider passes!”

  Linnæus can make out the voices of the servant, the coachman and the gardener. There are also a few other voices. It’s like a chain. It goes round, it’s fast and unbroken. “Cuckoo sticks!” “Inn passes!” “Rider passes!” “Swine strikes!”

  Linnæus does not understand.

  It is night. Linnæus, unable to sleep, has gone out into the fields. He looks straight up into the sky. There are stars there but no pictures. He presses his chin down against his chest, bends his back, bends his knees, collapses, turns round and comes up again. It was a somersault and Linnæus feels heroic and pitiful.

  Thursday. Cheese and butter. But the coachman comes alone. The servant is not with him.

  “It’s this business with the pastor,” says the coachman.

  He looks distraught.

  “With ..?” asks Linnæus.

  “Rudqvist, the new pastor. Dead. Beaten to death.”

  “And the servant?”

  “They’re looking for Petter. He’s in hiding.”

  “Is he guilty?”

  “The pastor borrowed a horse from the stable, without Petter’s knowledge. Drank a few jars of panacea first.”

  “Snaps?”

  “Yes, coffee with a dash of snaps.”

  “And then?”

  “The pastor rode to Lövsta. Dahlqvist said that he and Bielke played backgammon and had a few nice tots.”

  “Snaps?”

  “Yes, but without getting the worse for wear. Then they rode home. But didn’t get there. In Gunsta they saw him sitting perfectly still on his horse. Then nobody knows. But Petter fled when they came looking for him. Rudqvist’s body was found in Funbo lake, by the bell tower. No sign of the horse.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Rudqvist was drunk and wandered around, fell in the lake. The horse will come back. Petter too.”

  On certain long afternoons Linnæus imagines that he is telling children, in the shadow of an oak, about how he cultivated pearls in the River Fyris, about the stubbornness of the leaf-rolling beetle and about the marvellous herbaceous plants of Arabia Petraea.

  Linnæus is sometimes afflicted by extreme feelings of distrustfulness and thinks that the twenty-eight students wish to destroy him. He confides in the gardener, who counsels:

  “Ask the most foolish of them.”

  Linnæus wonders:

  “But foolishness does not own the truth.”

  He receives the answer:

  “If you find yourself in a circle of cunning men who all wish to have you where they want you, turn to the foolish one who doesn’t have the wit to be treacherous and you will get to know the truth.”

  The gardener:

 
“How can you believe the world was created? It was actually there from the beginning.”

  November, a Thursday morning, after All Saints’ Day. Snowfall. Delivery. The coachman is not there. The servant at the reins. Linnæus comes down to get a bit of cheese.

  “Petter! You’re back!”

  “I know what I have and haven’t done.”

  “Where is the coachman?”

  “Andreas has gone. He’s a wanted man. But he’s not guilty. I can’t believe it.”

  “And the horse?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “What have you done with the cheese? The butter?”

  Linnæus takes the cheese and the butter in his arms.

  “It’s true,” Petter says, “it’s true that Andreas drinks. He’s gloomy. He drinks to cheer himself up. But it’s for the sake of being happy. Not anything else.”

  Linnæus knows nothing about the servant and the coachman and the pastor. Linnæus notes that snow crystals become smaller in very cold weather.

  The 28th of January. It’s Carl’s name-day. Linnæus lectures, happy.

  “We are like electric lights,” he tells the students, “with which God illuminates his theatre.”

  Linnæus is standing in the garden planning the Siberian Garden, around which, to protect against the goats, a stone fence needs to be erected. With single or double courses of stone? It’s worth thinking about.

  The gardener arrives and is informed of the plans. He says the enterprise is pointless as far as the vigorously climbing goats are concerned.

  Best with two courses, Linnæus thinks. The first one well buried in the ground, then large blocks of stone in two columns. Between these, plenty of small stones, supporting them and binding them together.

  “Earth sows,” says the gardener. “That’s what they have at Lövsta. Lots of earth sows.”

  Linnæus does not understand the gardener.

  “Why are you talking to me about pigs?”

  At such a moment there is a tremor in the air between them. Linnæus is Linnæus and the gardener is the gardener, they both know that, and it’s usually straightforward between them. Yet at such a moment something gets in the way.

  But the moment passes. The gardener adds, without a tone of didacticism: sows in the earth are what the locals call pebbles, the smaller stones that are used for infill between the blocks.

  On top of everything the flatter slabs.

  The man in work-clothes comes with a plank on his shoulder, stops and lifts his hat.

  “My name is Kristoffer Hörner, watchmaker. I’m building myself a house over on the slope. I wish to announce myself and my services in case they may be of use. If you have broken timepieces I will put them right for a modest payment. And new ones can be had at a reasonable cost.

  Linnæus is careful to say a polite thank-you for the offer and asks if he may return to it if the need arises.

  The man expresses his thanks, equally politely.

  “Come and see the house one day.”

  February. March. Lectures. There are genera, families and species. But the students are unable to differentiate between these orders and varieties, which are relative. They seek to classify in terms of place of growth, the size of the plant, spots on the flower, the form of the stalk, the colour of the root.

  Linnæus explains to them that the System has to call a halt somewhere.

  “Varieties are insignificant deviations.”

  He explains that a boundary must be set between the fixed System and the variable varieties.

  “Otherwise there would be no end to the discipline.”

  He forbids the students to devote themselves to the varieties.

  The gardener is telling Linnæus a story:

  “There was a man who locked seven goats in a hut. The goats died of hunger in the hut. The old boy didn’t go there until after seven years had passed. Then the old boy fell ill and lay sick for seven years.”

  Linnæus:

  “Why are you talking to me about goats?”

  It’s early April.

  “Here,” says Lövberg to Linnæus, “is the cuckoo on the branch. Here is the hussar on foot with his sabre drawn. Here is the boar hunted by the hound. Here is the mounted horseman, banner held high. Here is the inn with its sign, a wine-glass. Here is the wreath. These are real laurel leaves, not oak leaves. Here is the flower-pot. Here is the fool, watch out for him. Here is the joker, he can have any value whatsoever.”

  Lövberg has laid out the little coloured cards in rows on the ground. Linnæus picks up one of them, examines it. Lövberg, politely:

  “It’s the pot. The flower-pot.”

  Linnæus looks hard at the card. It’s a garden. In the background a pyramid and a low building with Corinthian columns. In front of it stands a lady with a straw hat, and a postillion. A garden urn between them. A barrier of stone in the foreground.

  “The card is very worn,” says Linnæus.

  “We play a lot.”

  “Why do you shout?”

  “Because we’re playing.”

  “Why is the lady there and why is there a stone wall in the way?”

  “We just play.”

  “Where is this garden?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

  Linnæus picks up several cards and turns them over, one after the other. On one of them there is something printed on the back in tiny letters. Linnæus can’t see well enough to read them. He hands over the card to Lövberg and asks him to interpret it.

  “Klinckowström’s, it says.”

  “Who is that?”

  “It’s the manufacturer. In Stockholm. The one who printed the cards.”

  Night. Linnæus, out in the fields, shouts:

  “Aster! Rosie! Velvet!”

  Listens, but nothing happens, no answer.

  “Beauty! Proudie! Missie!”

  The gardener takes Linnæus to a place far away from the garden and shows him some plants. Linnæus recognises them. They are Alopecurus nigricans, creeping meadow foxtail, which loves the salt of the sea.

  But the gardener and Linnæus are on flat meadowland far from the sea.

  “It’s the salt source rising up,” says the gardener.

  Linnæus wets a finger and tastes.

  “Here, underneath us,” says the gardener, “is the bottom of the Baltic.”

  A morning in June. A knock at the door. Linnæus opens it, and there is a youth standing on the stairs.

  In his arms he has a wooden box, the top covered with a cloth. Linnæus recognises one of his students, a native of Roslagen, poor but clean and industrious, if no genius. His name is Ziöberg.

  Ziöberg lifts the cloth and says he has found a plant in his home district that he has never seen before and which he is unable to classify. Linnæus invites Ziöberg in. The plant is lifted up and placed on the table.

  Linnæus studies it and at first suspects that Ziöberg is lying about where he found it and that the plant has instead come here from Japan, Peru, the Cape of Good Hope or some other distant place.

  Ziöberg insists that he picked it himself in his native district.

  “I found it at Södra Gåsskär.”

  Linnæus still suspects that Ziöberg is telling lies. That he has pasted an alien inflorescence into the plant with the intention of setting his teacher a test.

  It emerges, however, after Linnæus has examined the plant with a botanical knife, that such is not the case. No artificial combination has taken place. But Linnæus does not need any lengthy study to describe the plant decisively as a common Linaria, even if it is rather odd in its outward appearance. It’s sufficient, actually, to smell it.

  “A common toadflax. Fly-flower. Good for haemorrhoids.”

  The thread-like, creeping root and the round, foothigh stem and the stalkless, lancet-shaped leaves are entirely consistent with Linaria, as are the taste and the characteristic smell. Linnæus admits that the resultant plant’s tig
ht cluster of flowers near the top is clearly different, but this – he assures Ziöberg emphatically – is to be understood as a trick of nature and nothing more.

  “The habitat can hardly have any more examples to show and no second generation is possible.”

  “Crystals,” Linnæus says to the students, “are stones whose properties are so completely distinct from other stones that we have not yet heard of anyone who has been able to fathom how they are connected. I have therefore been exceedingly troubled and perplexed trying to fit them into their correct place in the System, for either the most precious metals ought to be brought together in one ranking with the basest ones, or they should be spread throughout the System, thus dividing up Nature. I have made minute observations in this matter and thereby sought to base my opinion on such findings as can be established without fear of contradiction. I am now certain that crystals should be assigned to the Salia, although the usual response is that they cannot be assigned there as they neither taste like the salt family nor can they, like salt, be crystallised. Everyone applauded my System until they came to the crystals. Then they said, open-mouthed, that I had gone wrong, that I was clutching at straws. But if one pays heed to my observations, the matter is clear.

  Strong sunshine. Towards midday at the beginning of July. Linnæus is lying in bed with a migraine. It’s not the sloe-wine, nor the cold, strong winds, but a severe disappointment.

  A package comes from Rolander. It’s the cochineals from Surinam. They have been carefully placed by the disciple on a Barbary fig in a pot to send to Linnæus. But Linnæus is on an excursion with the students. The gardener takes delivery of the package from the post-boy, unaware that Linnæus has sent for the insects. He therefore cleans off all the dirt, and in consequence also the rich abundance of insects, the red males, the white females, pulps them between his fingers, tosses them out into the garden with cries of disgust, then puts the plant in a fresh vase.

  In the evening Linnæus is searching for the grubs in the garden.

  The gardener is standing beside him with a lantern in his hands to illuminate the ground. There are waxwings all around them, replete with the little creepy-crawlies from Surinam.

  Linnæus takes to his bed, going over and over in his mind the moment when the gardener greeted him cheerfully: