by Tove Jansson
One day Jonna was sitting on the granite slope polishing an oval wooden box. She claimed it was an African wood, but she’d forgotten the name.
“Will there be a lid?” Mari asked.
“Of course.”
“Have you always worked in wood? I don’t mean woodcuts or wood engravings, but for real?”
Jonna put down the wooden box. “For real,” she repeated. “That’s brilliant. Try to understand, I’m playing. And I mean to go on playing. Do you have a problem with that, maybe?”
The cat came in, sat down, and stared at them.
“Fish,” Mari said. “We ought to take in the net.”
“And what happens if I do nothing but play? Until I die! What would you say to that?”
The cat meowed angrily.
“And ambition,” Mari said. “What are you going to do about your goals?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“But what if you can’t help it?”
“I can help it. Don’t you understand; there isn’t time any more. It’s all I do, just observe, observe to distraction, pictures that don’t mean shit until I draw them, and redraw them. I’ve had enough for one life, my only life! And anyway, I don’t see them any more. Admit I’m right!”
“Yes,” Mari said. “You’re right.”
The sky had clouded over and there was rain in the air. The cat meowed again.
“Fish,” Mari said. “The cat food’s all gone.”
“We can leave it overnight.”
“No. What if the wind picks up? Nothing but seaweed, and it’ll catch on the bottom. And you know, it’s Uncle Torsten’s last net.”
“Okay, okay,” Jonna said. “Your Uncle Torsten’s sacred net that he made when he was ninety.”
“Over ninety. We laid it wrong. I know we laid it too close to shore, the bottom there’s too rocky.”
The cat followed them down to the shore. Jonna rowed and Mari sat in the stern to take up the net. The float had drifted far out behind the point. The wind was rising.
“We’re not getting anywhere,” Jonna said. “Can’t you tell? We’re standing still. Your uncle and his blessed net…”
“Be quiet. It was the last thing he did. A little more out, no, no, turn! Backwater a little, backwater… Now I’ve got it.” Mari pulled in line and got hold of the net peg. “Just like I thought, it’s hooked on the bottom. Go upwind… Back around. Don’t row! Backwater! This is hopeless. And it’s his last net.”
“Oh, fine,” Jonna said. “Wonderful. It won’t come up, and if it won’t come up then it won’t come up. I’ll backwater around, all the way around! What do you want?”
Mari was holding the net with both hands and could feel it breaking and tearing apart on the rocks on the seabed. What she’d already gathered slid off the net peg into the bottom of the boat in one big tangle and Jonna shouted, “Let go, let it go!” and the whole thing went back over the gunwale until the net peg stuck up its tail and disappeared. Jonna rowed in against the wind and crashed the bow up on the granite. The cat sat waiting and meowed. They didn’t tie up; just climbed out and sat on the thwarts. The sea had turned black to the south. It had begun to blow hard.
“Forget it,” said Jonna. “Forget it. Don’t grieve for a net, grieve for everything else that’s broken and can’t ever be mended. Your uncle liked making nets; it was what he knew, it was calming and familiar. Going into that loft you’ve talked about. I’m sure it helped him shut everything out, and everyone. He wasn’t thinking about fish, not a bit, and not about you getting the net as a present. He was just at peace, doing work that was his and only his. You know I’m right. He didn’t have goals any more.”
“To hell with goals,” Mari said. “What I’m talking about is desire, about having to.”
“Having to what?”
“I think you know.”
“And then what? Those pictures. They drown. They drown and get lost among millions of other pictures. And most of them are completely unnecessary – and, what’s more, pretentious.” Jonna added a little more quietly, “I mean other people’s. Most of them.”
The storm came nearer, a huge alien backdrop making its steady way across the water, never before seen in such splendour and maybe never to be repeated. The sky moved toward them in a finely drawn curtain of local thunder showers, each with its own delicate drapery. The light turned subterranean and yellow, the shallows had gone Bengali green. Very soon, it would all be nothing but grey rain.
“Take care of the boat,” Jonna shouted, jumping ashore. She ran up to the cottage.
Mari tied up Viktoria, two lines on the north side and two on the south. She walked up to the top of the island and saw that the curtain of rain was coming closer, albeit slowly. Jonna would have plenty of time to make her crucial first sketch.
One Time in June
BACK NEAR THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, Mari’s mother had helped start the Girl Scouts in Sweden. The girls admired her, of course, but from one very small Scout named Helga she got absolute, unqualified adoration. Helga was as quiet as a mouse and afraid of practically everything. Mari’s mother could see that Helga would never under any circumstances become a good scout, and she therefore tried as quietly as possible to protect the child from the simple hardships that might only increase her terror.
Helga’s greatest phobia was thunderstorms. When the thunder rolled nearer, Mari’s mother would find the unfortunate child and try to calm her with whatever explanations she could come up with – sudden temperature changes, electrical charges, updraughts and downdraughts. It is not certain that Helga understood, but it did make her feel better.
Helga had a camera that she carried wherever her beloved Scout leader took her. She pasted the photographs into a scrapbook that she never showed to anyone. It was her secret treasure, a barricade against a dangerous world. On the first page, she’d pasted in a little lock of hair under cellophane. After a great deal of planning and anxiety, she had clipped off the uttermost tip of her Scout leader’s majestic braid.
Remarkably, Helga never looked up her idol after her scouting years, never even sent the inevitable Christmas cards that give the recipient an annual rush of holiday sentimentality or, more often, a twinge of bad conscience. On the other hand, Helga did continue with the Scrapbook, pasting in, as time went by, wedding and birth announcements and everything else that concerned her Friend. The chapter she’d entitled “First and Foremost an Artist” dealt with her participation in art exhibitions and included newspaper reviews, several reproductions and a couple of interviews. The family surrounding her Friend received only that narrow margin of interest that could not be avoided. The Scrapbook ended with an obituary and a poem in which Helga attempted to express all the feelings she had never uttered.
Many years later, Helga happened to see a notice in her morning paper. The early works of several artists were to be auctioned off, and there was a list of names. Helga bought a collection of drawings and watercolours Mari’s mother had done during her earliest years as a student. She framed them nicely, hung them, photographed them, and put the pictures in the Scrapbook, which was now complete and perfect.
That summer, for some reason, this perfection came to feel like a burden. Helga decided to shift her protracted responsibility to another altar, and so she wrote to Mari. The material she’d collected was too valuable to send by post, she would have to deliver it in person, and the sooner the better.
Mari read the letter and walked around the island for a while, slowly. When she came back, Jonna said, “We can always sleep in the tent. And it will only be for a couple of days?”
“Yes. I’m sure it’ll be only a couple of days.”
Brunström’s island taxi put Helga ashore on a June evening. She greeted them quietly and solemnly as if at a funeral. Helga was still short, but she had grown in girth. Her face bore an expression of reserved obstinacy. They walked up to the cottage, where a fish soup stood ready on the stove, and had a hard time getting a con
versation started. Helga did not want to unpack. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow is Her birthday.”
In the tent, Jonna observed that Helga had brought an awful lot of luggage.
“Yes,” Mari said. “Let’s read for a while.”
The cat came in to go to bed.
The next morning, Helga’s Scrapbook lay in the middle of the table. The cover was decorated with a scout emblem in gold. She had lit a candle that burned with an invisible flame in the sunlight.
“Now you should sit down,” Helga said. “Mari, here is the book of her life.” And she began her narrative. Solemnly, in detail, she told of all the expectations and disappointments she’d experienced in the course of her long, patient effort to give Mari’s mother her rightful place in the sacred garden of memory. The photographs were overexposed and faded. Shadowy, barely visible figures did things that evidently mattered to them. But Helga described and explained everything that had occurred.
“Mari, turn to page twenty-three. Did you know that your mother took first prize in block lettering in 1904? I’ll read from the school’s annual report… Did you know that she was an accomplished marksman? Page twenty-nine. First prize in Stockholm 1908 and second prize in Sundsvall 1907. And did you know that in 1913 she left scouting? And why?”
“I know, “Mari answered. “It had become over-organised and she was tired of it all.”
“No, no. She wasn’t tired. She surrendered her mantle in order to devote herself entirely to Art. Turn to page forty-five…”
“Excuse me,” Jonna said. “I think I’ll go out for a while and feed the cat. Wouldn’t you like some coffee?”
“No, thank you,” Helga said. “This is too important.”
A little while later, Mari came rushing out of the cottage. “Did you hear that?” she cried. “The sacred garden of memory! Did you know that my mother had the second-longest hair in Sweden in 1908! That little lock of hair in cellophane makes me sick. She has no right to it!”
“Stop,” Jonna said. “You know what I think? I think you should ask her if you can’t read the rest of that book by yourself, alone. Say it nicely, don’t sound annoyed. Tell her it’s personal and important for you, and then you can go out to the end of the point and she can’t tell if you’re reading it or not.”
“Of course I’ll read it!” Mari burst out. “I can’t not! And why is it any business of yours anyway?”
Jonna said, “Two people on an island can manage, even when things get bad. But three is worse. Mari, she’s not trying to steal your mother. Listen to what I’m saying.”
Mari took Helga’s scrapbook out to the end of the point. It was fine, warm weather with a light breeze from the water.
When Jonna went back to the cottage, Helga had unpacked. All the drawings and watercolours Mari’s mother had done as a student were lined up against the walls.
“Don’t say anything,” Helga said. “It’s a surprise. Wait till Mari comes back.”
They waited a long time.
Finally Jonna went out and rang the big ship’s bell that was only used when danger threatened. Mari came running, threw open the door, and stood stock-still. The sun glistened on all the pretty gold frames. Helga watched her intently.
Eventually Jonna said, carefully, “Of course she was very young.”
“Yes,” said Helga. “Yes, she was. It’s a precious heritage to pass along.”
They took down their maps from the walls and put up Mari’s mother instead.
“Now we really ought to have a drink,” Jonna said. “Don’t you think, Mari?”
“Yes. A strong one. But we don’t have anything.”
And just then the whole cabin shook from a long series of explosions. One watercolour fell to the floor and the glass broke.
“Is it the Russians?” Helga whispered.
“Very likely,” Mari said. “We’re not so very far from the other side…”
Jonna cut her off. “Now don’t be mean! Helga, it’s just the military having a little target practice. Nothing to worry about. Do you want to go out and watch?”
Helga shook her head; she was pale.
Out on the slope, Mari said, “She’s afraid.”
“Don’t look so pleased. Do we have enough cat food for a week?”
“No, we don’t. But the cat won’t eat a minnow as long as this is going on.”
“There they go again.”
“Oh, I know it by heart,” Mari said. “‘The Defence Department has issued the following warning: ‘Heavy artillery exercise with live ammunition to commence such and such a time and date in such and such an area, danger in five-kilometre sector, height 2000 metres, local populations take heed, blah blah.’ And she was leaving tomorrow!”
“I know, I know,” Jonna burst out. “It’s my fault. I was supposed to get new batteries for the radio and I forgot.”
A little tug toiled slowly out to sea towing a gigantic target. White pillars of water rose where shells landed.
“They’re not very good shots,” Mari observed. “Look, that last one almost hit the boat. They need a longer towline.”
The target eventually disappeared out to sea behind the point, and now the shells sailed right over the island. They could hear them whistling overhead and ducked each time. It was hard not to.
“Childish,” Mari said. “I think they’re actually having fun.”
“Not at all. You don’t understand. They have to learn to shoot. That’s more important than all the fishermen in the world and all the summer people in their little rowboats. It’s serious stuff. To put it simply, the military is there to defend us and we ought to do all we can to help and understand. They usually bring in eight hundred men for these manoeuvres. That tells you something.”
“Ha,” Mari said. “What it tells me is that right now nine hundred eiders are sitting on their eggs!”
And suddenly, with the obviousness of the unexpected, a pillar of water rose just at the edge of their beach, very tall and white. A shell struck the granite and a rain of shrapnel flew across the vegetable garden. They went into the cottage.
“Now listen to me,” Jonna said. “We have to take this the right way. Those boys are very young and they aren’t very good shots. The target moves behind the island. Okay, so they shoot over the island, but judging distance is very difficult in the beginning. We have to understand that.” She put out the coffee cups and moved Helga’s scrapbook to one side.
“Give it to me!” Helga shouted. And Mari said, “You can save it in the cellar, and maybe you’d better go down there yourself. Things up here will probably just get worse and worse.”
“You’re not a bit like your mother!” Helga exclaimed.
“No. I’m not. You ought to know that, since you knew her inside out!”
“Now that’s enough,” Jonna said. “Put the scrapbook under the mattress and settle down.”
The artillery continued until evening, then went quiet. Mari went out with a can of paint and painted white rings around each shell hole. “Something to show people,” she explained. “It’ll make an impression.”
“On whom?”
“Maybe little boys from Viken…”
“Mari, you haven’t been especially nice today.”
“No. I know.”
“Can’t you just let it go?”
“She doesn’t own her.”
“Well,” said Jonna, “the worst part, actually, is that those pictures from her student days don’t do your mother justice. To put it mildly.”
And so the week went on as best it might. At night, the coastal forces trained with searchlights, sweeping the sea. The cold, clinical light rotated regularly through the cabin windows, and no curtains could shut it out. Helga wept.
“Mari, you’ll have to move into the cottage,” Jonna said. “It’ll make her feel better.”
“Can’t you?”
“No. I’ll stay in the tent with the cat. This is something you’re going to have to deal with yourse
lf, for once.”
Mari dragged her mattress up to the cottage and turned toward the wall to sleep.
It was the last night of artillery manoeuvres, and there was a thunderstorm with hard rain and wind. Helga leaped out of bed and shook Mari awake. “Now they’re shooting right at us!” she shouted. “Should we go down to the cellar?”
“No, no, they’re not shooting, that’s thunder. It’s just God shooting at us.” Mari lit the lamp and saw that Helga was now seriously frightened. She had never seen a face so terrified. The thunderstorm was directly overhead, the lighting and thunderclaps came simultaneously and the military’s blue searchlights were obliterated by the red doomsday illumination of the storm. Fantastic, actually.
“They’re not shooting,” Mari repeated. “It’s just thunder. Go to bed.”
“Ball lightning!” Helga cried. “They come in and roll into you, they find you, they roll into you!”
Mari took Helga by the shoulders and shook her. “Quiet!” she said. “Be quiet! Go to bed. Look, I’m closing the damper. Now they can’t come in. Look here, put on these rubber boots. Then you’ll be safe. Absolutely.”
Helga pulled on the rubber boots.
“And now, now I want to explain to you that thunder is a very simple phenomenon… It’s all a question of…”
And suddenly Mari couldn’t remember exactly how her mother used to explain the thunder away and make it seem natural. She said, a little vaguely, “Something about updraughts…”
Lightning in all four windows, another divine wallop of thunder, and Helga threw herself into Mari’s arms and held on as hard as she could. “Yes, yes,” she said, “updraughts, right? And downdraughts… And what else? Explain it to me!”
