Fair Play

by Tove Jansson

  “Electricity,” Mari whispered. “It’s just simple electricity, that’s all…”

  The thunderstorm moved north, as always. When thunderstorms come to the islands, they always come from the south and move north; that’s common knowledge. Farther and farther away until they can barely be heard, and then it’s only the rain.

  Mari’s arms were going numb from holding Helga. The lamp had starting smoking. “It’s over now,” she said. “Now you can go to bed, we’re out of danger. Listen to me, my friend, we’re out of danger now…” It was quite a while before Mari realized that Helga had fallen asleep.

  The next morning, after raining all night, the sea was like glass and the island was washed and green. The cat came and cried for food.

  They drove to the mainland with Helga and set two nets on the way.

  Just before the bus left, Helga turned to Mari and said, “One thing you have to admit. You don’t know much about thunderstorms.”

  “No,” Mari answered. “But I’ll try to find out.”

  They pulled up their nets on the way home. One miserable roach and a little bullhead that they set free. The cat stood waiting on the shore.

  “It’s gone so quiet,” Jonna said. “What did you think? Wasn’t that a good storm?”

  “Very good,” Mari said. “The best we’ve had.”

  Fog

  THEY WERE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA-LANE when the fog rolled in, ice cold and yellow. It came quickly. Jonna drove on for a bit, but pretty soon she turned off the motor.

  “It’s not worth it. We’ll miss the island and wind up in Estonia somewhere.”

  There is no silence like sitting in a fog at sea and listening. Large boats can loom up suddenly, and you don’t hear their bow water in time to start your motor and get out of the way. They ought to use their foghorns…

  I should have brought my compass, Jonna thought. Dead calm, no help from wind direction. No watch, of course. I didn’t even listen to the weather report… And now there she sits, freezing.

  “Row a little,” she said. “It’ll warm you up.”

  Mari put the oars in the locks. She looked miserable with her narrow, anxious neck and damp hair in tufts over her eyes.

  “You’re pulling too hard on the right; we’re going in circles. But maybe it’s just as well.”

  “Jonna,” Mari said, “have you got crispbread in the stern box?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “My mother…” Mari began.

  “I know, I know. Your mother always had crispbread with her when she went out to sea. But the fact is, I don’t have any crispbread in the stern box.”

  “Why are you angry?” Mari asked.

  “I’m not angry. Why would I be angry?”

  A vertical tunnel opened directly above them, leading up to an annoyingly blue summer sky – like flying, except then the tunnel goes straight down.

  Finally a ship’s foghorn, a long way off.

  “Crispbread,” Jonna said. “Crispbread, for heaven’s sake. Your mother was really fussy about crispbread. She broke it in tiny little pieces and put them in a row and spread butter on each little piece. It took forever. And I had to wait and wait for the butter knife, and she did the same thing every single morning and every day and every year she lived with us!”

  Mari said, “You could have had two butter knives.”

  A gigantic shadow rose up from the fog and glided past like a wall of darkness. Jonna yanked the motor to life and raced away and turned it off.

  Gradually the wake died, and it became completely still.

  “Were you scared?” Jonna said.

  “No. I didn’t have time. Incidentally,” Mari went on, “your mother was pretty fussy about baking bread. She was always sending us loaves of her bread and every time she sent them off, she’d call at seven in the morning and talk for an hour. Graham bread. When it got mouldy we used to call it Graham Green.”

  “Ha ha, so amusing,” Jonna said. “And speaking of mothers, your mother used to cheat at poker.”

  “That’s possible. But she was eighty-five years old!”

  “No, she was eighty-eight when she cheated. Don’t deny it.”

  “Okay, fine, she was eighty-eight. But at that age you’ve got the right to do certain things.”

  “Never,” said Jonna solemnly. “At that age a person should have learned to respect her opponent. Your mother cheated shamelessly, and you might as well admit it. She didn’t take me seriously, and you have to in a serious game. Row a little harder on the left.”

  It had grown really cold. The fog drifted over them, through them, as impenetrable as ever. Jonna took the dibbling hooks out of the stern box. They might just as well dibble for cod if the day was ruined anyway. But somehow they didn’t feel like dibbling.

  They just waited.

  “Funny,” Mari said. “Sitting here this way, you start thinking about all sorts of things. What time is it?”

  “We don’t have a watch. Or a compass.”

  “That stuff about our mothers,” Mari went on. “There’s something I’ve never dared ask. Jonna, what did you two fight about, really? Mother might say the wind was blowing from the northwest, and right away you’d say it was straight from the north. Or north-northwest, or south-northeast, you’d go on like that. And I knew that deep down you were fighting about completely different things. Important, dangerous things!”

  “Of course we were,” Jonna said.

  Mari stopped rowing. Very slowly she said, “Really? Don’t you think it’s finally time to let me in on what it was you were fighting about? Be honest. We need to talk about it.”

  “Fine,” Jonna said. “Terrific. Then what you need to know is that your mother, the whole time, year after year, was secretly swiping my tools. She ruined one knife after another – she didn’t know how to sharpen them. And let’s not even talk about chisels! Don’t even talk to me about all the precision tools that you carry with you half your life, tools you get to know and love – and then someone comes along who doesn’t get it, doesn’t respect them, someone who handles your delicate instruments like they were can openers! Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say. Her little ships were wonderful, and beautifully made, but why couldn’t she have bought her own tools? She could have wrecked those to her heart’s content!”

  Mari said, “Yes. That was bad. Very bad.” She starting rowing again, and after a while she raised the oars out of the water to say, “It was your fault she stopped making ships.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She saw that yours were better.”

  “And now you’re angry?”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Mari said and started to row again. “Sometimes you make me crazy.”

  They hadn’t noticed the fog moving off. The heavy summer fog had rolled on north to annoy people on the inner islands, and suddenly the sea was open and blue and they found themselves a long way out toward Estonia. Jonna started the motor. They came back to the island from a totally new direction, and it didn’t look the same.

  Killing George

  WHEN MARI CAME INTO THE FRONT HALL, she heard the printing press working.

  “Are you here again?” Jonna said from inside her studio.

  “I just came for those pens…”

  Jonna lifted her print and studied it severely. “No,” she said. “I know you’ve brought your George. You’ve changed him.”

  “Yes. The whole ending. The whole idea! I’ve got rid of a lot of repetitions, and Stefan isn’t called Sveffe any more. His name is Kalle.”

  “Good heavens,” Jonna said.

  “Maybe I should come back a little later?”

  “No, no, sit down somewhere. I’ll finish this tomorrow.”

  They sat across from each other at the window table. Jonna lit a cigarette and said, “You don’t need to take it from the beginning. I know that part. ‘Miss, another round’, and so on. Anton went out to use the phone. Take it from the turtle.”


  “But you know I have to take it from the beginning or it won’t be whole! Could I read it fast up to where it’s new? That part when they go to the restaurant is out, and no pointless explanations about Anton, he’s just there. By the way, do you really believe in this idea?”

  “Absolutely. But maybe it’s not enough, not really. It may be difficult to finish.”

  “But I’ve come to the end!”

  Jonna said, “Anyway, take it from the turtle.” And Mari put on her glasses.

  ‘Speaking of sad things,’ Kalle said, ‘did you read that piece about the lonely turtle in the paper the other day? Its name is George.’

  ‘No, what about it?’

  ‘The interesting thing about this turtle is that it’s the last of its kind, Galapagos or something. He’s the absolute last one of his particular turtle species, and after him there are no more.’

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ said Bosse.

  ‘Yes. And he walks in a circle, around and around, searching.’

  ‘How do they know he walks in a circle?’

  ‘They have him in a cage,’ Kalle explained. ‘He’s under constant observation. George. He’s searching for a female, you see.’

  ‘And how do they know that?’

  ‘They’re pretty sure about it. Scientists, you know.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Bosse. ‘And your point of course is that Anton’s doing the same thing, phoning and phoning and no one ever answers. Should we go look for him?’

  “Wait a minute,” Jonna said. “This Anton. He’s forever going out to use the phone. The woman never answers. Why does he have to keep calling her? I mean, if she doesn’t answer, she’s just not home. And I think your parallel with the turtle is far-fetched, although you know I have nothing against turtles…”

  “Exactly,” Mari burst out. “Good. You like the turtle, but you don’t like the rest of it! But I told you, I’ve changed the whole ending, totally!”

  “Read on,” Jonna said.

  ‘You know, Bosse, sometimes I get so damned depressed.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, it’s all so pointless.’

  ‘But what can you do about it? That George… How can they know there’s not another one, how can they be sure?’

  ‘They just know,’ Kalle said. ‘They’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘But I don’t think they’ve searched enough. They can’t have had time to search the whole earth, every damned little place, and then try to tell us that… Look, I’m tired of your George.’

  ‘Fine, forget it. I’m sorry I brought him up. Miss, another round.’

  “Stop,” Jonna said. “Are you sure you haven’t made these men a little too simple?”

  “They are simple,” Mari answered. “Now Anton comes in:

  ‘Look,’ said Kalle, ‘we saved your drinks. Now you’ve got two.’

  ‘Nice of you,’ said Anton.

  Bosse said, ‘No answer?’

  ‘No. But I mean to keep trying.’

  “How many times does he call, this Anton?” Jonna asked. “And what does he look like? What does he do, who is he? Never mind. Jump to ‘I don’t know if it’s dreadful or a comfort.’ I like that.”

  Mari read.

  When Anton had gone, Kalle looked Bosse in the eye and said, ‘But anyway, those scientists are really fantastic, aren’t they? I mean, they don’t give up trying to find George a wife. Even though she doesn’t exist. For that matter, wouldn’t it be worse if she did exist but they never found her?’ He emptied his glass gravely and added, ‘I don’t know if it’s dreadful or a comfort.’

  “Here I cut half a page.”

  ‘Bosse, do you know what makes me so tired, so very unhappy? It’s that nothing fits. Listen to me. It’s as if nothing mattered. Like, secretly. You never know why and how things have happened. Nothing fits together. Do you know what I mean?’

  “Bosse said, ‘And why should it fit together? In what way? What did you expect?’

  ‘Some sort of meaning to it all.’

  “Stop,” Jonna said. “You said that earlier. You’re going on and on about it. What is it you’re after? As far as I remember…”

  Mari ripped off her glasses and shouted, “But I’ve changed the whole ending! I told you! Do you want to know what I’ve done? The woman he’s calling doesn’t exist. She doesn’t exist! Anton’s calling his own number! Calling himself, you see? Isn’t that better?”

  “Yes,” Jonna said.

  “Okay. You agree that makes it better. Now he comes back to the table, and Bosse and Kalle can see that something has happened. I’ll read…”

  “Wait a second,” Jonna said. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m killing her,” Mari explained. “That is to say, Anton’s killing her. So he doesn’t have to go on phoning. Bosse and Kalle are upset, of course, and they order more drinks to comfort him…”

  “I don’t think you should use more drinks,” Jonna said. “But that’s a good idea with the woman. What about doing away with George as well? I mean, it’s just a thought.”

  “But you like him,” Mari said. “You said he was good.” She stood up and gathered her papers. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “Yes it will,” Jonna said. “You just need to rewrite it another way. Shall we have some coffee?”

  “No. I don’t think I want any coffee.”

  “Mari. We’ve got Kalle’s melancholy conclusion that nothing matters. We’ve got George who just goes around in circles and doesn’t know it’s hopeless. But then we’ve got Anton who dares to kill a lie. It’s Anton who might be interesting, and you don’t care about him at all. Forget George and think about Anton. Why is he behaving this way? Your engine’s idling and you need to add a little fresh insanity, and now I’m going to make coffee.”

  Jonna filled the teakettle in the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, looking at her own face, she thought with sudden bitterness that it couldn’t go on like this, these short stories that were never finished and just went on and on getting rewritten and discarded and picked up again, all those words that got changed and changed places and I can’t remember how they were yesterday and what’s happened to them today! I’m tired! I’ll go in and tell her, now, right now… For example, I wonder if she could describe me well enough to give people a quick, convincing picture. What could she say? A broad, inhospitable face, lots of wrinkles, brown hair going grey, large nose?

  Jonna took in the coffee and said, “Try to describe what I look like.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just half a cup,” Mari said. “I think I’ll head home.” After a while, she said, “I’d try to describe a kind of patience. And stubbornness. Somehow bring out the fact that you don’t want anything except… well, except what you want. Wait a moment… Your hair has an unusual hint of bronze, especially against the light. Your profile and your short neck make one think of, you know, old Roman emperors who thought they were God himself… Wait. It’s the way you move and the way you walk. And when you slowly turn your face toward me. Your eyes…”

  “One of them’s grey and the other one’s blue,” Jonna said. “And now drink your coffee because you need to stay alert. We’ll take the whole thing from the beginning. Read slowly, we’ve got time. Concentrate on Anton, always Anton. He has to come alive. You can sacrifice even George if you have to. Read slowly. Kalle says, ‘Miss, another round.’ Real slow. We need to pay attention. Every time it seems wrong, we stop. Every time we get something like an idea, we’ll stop. Are you ready? Read.”

  Travels with a Konica

  JONNA MADE MOVIES. She’d acquired an 8mm Konica, and she loved the small device and took it with her everywhere they traveled.

  “Mari,” she said, “I’m tired of static pictures. I want to make pictures that are alive. I want motion, change. You know what I mean: everything happens just once and right now… My film is my sketchbook. Look at that! There comes the commedia dell’a
rte!”

  And there they came, street performers with their plush rug, the child on the ball, the strong man who could swallow fire, the girl juggler. People stopped on the street and moved closer to the show. It was very hot. The light flickered and the shadows were a sharp dark blue.

  Mari stood close beside Jonna with an opened Kodak film in her hand. She was waiting for the camera’s steady whirring to change speed, at which point she had to have a new roll ready instantly. Another important job was keeping Jonna’s field of view open. Mari saw it as a point of honour to keep people from walking in front of the camera.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Jonna said. “They’re just extras. I’ll clip them out.”

  But Mari said, “Let me. It’s my job.”

  Equally important was finding Kodak film. And Mari searched. In the cities, the towns, at bus stops, she kept an eye out for the gold-and-red sign showing that here you could buy Kodak. Agfa seemed to be everywhere.

  “It comes out blue-green,” Mari said. “Wait. I’ll find Kodak.” And she’d search on, all the while afraid that they’d encounter something fantastic – one of those never-to-be-repeated street events that would play out before their eyes just as the film ran out – and then have to wander on trying to forget what they’d lost.

  They travelled from city to city, Jonna, Mari and Konica. Mari grew critical. She began giving instructions and advice and involved herself in questions of composition and lighting and bustled about looking for suitable subjects.