The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories Read online

  “I understand,” said the woman, solemnly. “I understand what you mean.” She seemed to be searching for words in the same aimless way that she was always digging around in her purse. Finally she simply repeated, “I understand.”

  He was very tired. They went into the restaurant.

  Now, afterwards, it seems incredible that I didn’t grasp what that meant. When a woman says that she understands, it means quite simply and simplistically that she’s getting away with as little effort as possible. She, this special woman, couldn’t find the words because she had nothing to say. But I, who had spent such a long time fashioning her character and giving her particular qualities, I saw in her silence merely reticent strength, an independence that allowed no one to come too close. It’s incomprehensible.

  Later.

  She’s coming tomorrow, so I won’t be able to work, I will only be aware that she is here in the apartment. But before she comes, there are many things I need to clarify. I need to go through what I’ve written and spell things out in greater detail. But not right now.

  Watch out for repeated words.

  He had hired her to keep house for him. She was to come three times a week to cook, clean, etc. The woman’s name was Anna, so let us call her simply Anna (a name as pale as milk). Why did he do it? It’s unbelievable. Why had he let her in? Was it because she, this woman, Anna, was the only person who knew him? She was therefore important and needed to be kept close? Was that how it happened?

  The first time she came she was wearing a white apron under her coat and carried a bag apparently containing what she would need for her housework. She was very correct and asked to go directly to the kitchen. But since Anna—I will try to use her name, although I prefer to think of her as “the woman”—since Anna had now become the person closest to me personally, I suggested that she look around the apartment. She followed me through my rooms, and as she earnestly and carefully observed the objects I am accustomed to having around me, I saw my rooms through her eyes as if for the first time, and they struck me as oddly empty. She said nothing. How could I know why? She was elusive, guarded, unreachable. It was, of course, for this reason that I could believe in her hidden strength for such a long time, the strength my dream had given her.

  We came into my workroom. Needless to say, I had put away my locomotive art. Only some mechanical drawings lay on the table. She looked at them and then at me, a kind of veiled, conspiratorial glance, and she smiled. For the first time, she smiled, but it was a frightening, intimate smirk. She had not forgotten. No, she had not forgotten my unburdening myself. And she believed that these mechanical drawings were my locomotive illustrations!

  Right then and there I should have sent her away, but I did not. She continued to come, she cleaned and cooked, and the whole time I was afraid of her sudden, quiet smile and that quick conspiratorial glance. Not rapport, not the sharing of an important secret—rather the sharing of something shameful, a shame she could forgive but never take seriously.

  Perhaps all my life I’ve needed someone who is very strong and who tells me what to do.

  It wasn’t she.

  She wasn’t even a passenger.

  Now I’m very tired. I’ll wait.

  So, anyway, she smiled and went to the kitchen. She’s here every third day. I count the days by her, the woman Anna. She owns everything I have ever allowed to slip past my self-restraint, my dignity, my private autonomy.

  One moment. I’m writing too quickly. I’ve lost the thread again.

  So, he tried to put her in her place, but she kept avoiding him, and now and then, as she swept by, she’d give him that horrible smile, that smirk of shameful collusion. But then her eyes looked away again. She never stood behind that smile.

  I had thought that I’d finally found a traveler, a person who traveled in her thoughts, in her dreams, at home in her room, much more than those who perpetually crisscross the globe. I thought she might have understood my great catastrophes that never put anyone at risk but that did get people to notice me, to see that I existed and that it was I who had saved them. I could have shown her my locomotive drawings. But I waited. I no longer trusted her.

  We used to take our meals together, and she would take off her apron to eat with me.

  I was on edge the whole time, perhaps with anticipation, perhaps with fear. I still didn’t know if the woman Anna had brought my dream vision closer—or destroyed it. It was impossible to speak to her, not only because her vocabulary was unusually limited but also because I was never sure if she understood me. And yet I could not keep quiet, I babbled endlessly, helplessly. I was sometimes gripped by an overwhelming need to take back everything I’d said, deny it, erase it, but even stronger was the compulsion to confide still more in her, to give her details, to shower her with everything that had been and could have been my life. I would follow her out to the kitchen and talk and talk about myself, leaning against the counter, at the kitchen table, I could not stop! And when I had finally crucified myself, she would smile and want to go for a walk. She insisted on helping me on with my overcoat and made sure I hadn’t forgotten my scarf. She owned me, she had swallowed me. She was a kind of monster, believe me, a monster. We always walked to the railway terminal, and when the evening train glided in to the platform, she would take my hand and press it conspiratorially, and every time an odd warmth would run through me, violent, as strong as when I was young and saw trains come in and felt that now I’d forget the brakes and drive the locomotive straight in over the platform and the people, straight in!

  Delete later

  I am often very tired lately, though I don’t work more than necessary. Have I managed to explain everything that happened? Or am I being tedious? I need to go over all of this very carefully.

  One mild Sunday in late winter, she suggested that we go to the botanical gardens instead of the railway terminal. Why? Well, because the woman Anna liked greenhouses. We went. And as we stood there in the humid, overheated glass building contemplating the static greenery, she took my hand the same way she was in the habit of doing when a train came in. She pressed my hand and gave me that ghastly smile. We returned home. We walked side by side, and I knew that the woman beside me carried with her everything that was me and that it had no effect on her whatsoever and that she had understood nothing.

  We continued with our daily lives along quiet paths of repetition and accommodation, paths we wore steadily deeper. Try to imagine a track, a furrow that gradually wears its way so deep that one can no longer climb out over the edges, only continue, continue walking, running, dashing in the same direction . . . I began to hate her. Not immediately. But instead of ignoring her, forgetting that she existed, I was conscious of her every second of my waking life, and at night she ravaged my dreams. What was I waiting for? There was no longer anything to wait for, there was nothing for us to share except those meals, during which I usually read, and her abominable walks. Every day I decided to fire the woman Anna, very politely, give her a large sum of money; every day I decided at least to be silent, to say nothing; and every day was a miserable failure. In the end I was driven irrevocably to show her my own work, the careening locomotive.

  “But where is the platform?” she asked. “Isn’t the train in the station?” And I saw, through her terrible, stupid eyes, I saw that the locomotive was standing still. It was not moving. I turned the picture to the wall and went to the window so I wouldn’t have to look at her. The room was silent for several minutes. The she came up to me from behind and put her arms around me. For a moment, her long, hot body was pressed against mine. It was hideous. She said something. I don’t know what she said. I don’t know what happened except that I suddenly ran down the street to the corner where I buy my newspaper.

  Did I mention that spring was on the way?

  I’m not an experienced writer, but I need to finish this story. The woman Anna began calling me by my first name. My nightly dreams changed. It was no longer the locomotive that
haunted me, it was she. As always, I was running across the tracks with the terminal’s massive glass-and-metal skeleton against the night sky above me, and far off I heard trains whistling on their way to distant places, but now she came leaping towards me over the tracks like some black bird. She was hot and smelled of sweat and held her arms wide to catch me, and at the same time I knew that she already had me, had everything that was me stowed away in her belly, undigested and irredeemable. I awoke in unspeakable terror and my first thought was, Is it today she’s coming? Is it today or not until tomorrow . . . ?

  Her days off came to be the most difficult. I could not stop thinking about her for a second, and my hatred seemed almost unbearable. I was bound to her the way a person is linked to a conscience, a shadow, a crime. She was never unfriendly towards me. As I sat at my mechanical drawings, she might put down a plate beside me—she had baked something, made pastries of some kind—or a cup of coffee or some flowers in a glass. She emptied my ashtray and went out into the kitchen and closed the door so quietly that it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

  I began having different dreams. I dreamed that I turned on her and screamed with hate and raised my hands to heaven and chased her with intent to kill. She was the one running away across the tracks, she was the one panting and stumbling and looking back over her shoulder, screaming when she saw me coming after her with hands like claws! And I woke up, sobbing. I was strangling the sheets.

  Anna bought vitamins for me. She didn’t think I looked healthy, thought I was pale and ought to rest or take a trip. She actually said “take a trip.” A little later she added, “Why, we could take a little trip together.” I said nothing and let her prattle on about Majorca and the Canary Islands, group travel, how much she had saved and how she would be no trouble. And if I didn’t want to fly, a trip by train could be just as much fun—we could go north instead, maybe Rovaniemi, where they have such a nice hotel with reindeer hides and a big fireplace . . . She wanted to treat me. She actually wanted to treat me to the trip, and finally she said, “Why, I’ll bet it would be nice for you, since you’re so interested in trains.”

  I think that was the day I decided that she would die.

  I prepared for the trip very carefully, reserved sleeping-car accommodation well in advance, booked rooms at the hotel in Rovaniemi. I walked around as if in a friendly haze, everything dulled and shapeless, and it felt wonderful. The woman Anna was garrulous with pleasure, proclaiming again and again how right it was that the two of us, who had never traveled, should make this journey together. She baked pirogies, she put together a lunch to eat on the train, she was secretive and painfully roguish. I went out into the kitchen looking for matches and saw a bowl of blood on the counter, yes, blood, somewhat coagulated, with foam around the edges. She said it was for blood pancakes—we could eat them cold with lingonberry jam. On the night train. She’d worked it all out.

  That bowl of blood was horrible. I felt ill and left the room, closed the door on her, and I thought, I can’t do it, I can’t stand the sight of it. But we can stand more than we think, and everything must proceed to its logical conclusion. There are times when only ideas and a strong will are equal to the task before us . . .

  Wait, I’m digressing, but I can fix that later. Right now I just need to go on writing as fast as I can, so we came to the railway terminal and I helped her up with all our bags and baskets and bought a carnation she wanted to pin on her coat and magazines and asked if she wanted a Coca-Cola or some juice and all the while the locomotive stood quietly waiting for me and the hands of the platform clock moved ahead in little jerks, every minute a little jerk, and then she cried, “Oh if only there was someone to see us off, someone to wish us a pleasant journey!” And when the train began to glide along the rails, she leaned out, holding the handle of the door, and waved and waved at people she didn’t know and leaned farther and farther out as they slipped back and away and my locomotive was already picking up speed and as the wind began to grab at her I gave the door a shove—the impact ran through me like a flame—and the door swung out and she went with it and vanished in a flicker of black, a fluttering bird. That’s all there was to it.

  I had thought through the whole thing so often and so meticulously that every detail was polished, every possibility taken into account. At first I had the locomotive whistle, a long cry as she fell, but I took that out. Another possibility was to have the woman go into the compartment to organize the baggage and the pillows, presumably waving out the window when the train started to move so she couldn’t see when I jumped off on the other side. But my attention to detail was insurmountable—the doors on that side are locked. Then I decided to go and buy cigarettes at the last minute, a perfectly natural thing to do. She stands in the window uneasily and sees me running and calls out, “Hurry! Hurry! The train’s leaving!” But it’s too late. I slow down, I spread my arms in helpless resignation.

  I could also have waved to her and laughed. But that would have been almost too cruel.

  Translated by Thomas Teal

  A MEMORY FROM THE NEW WORLD

  IN A LARGE American city, Johanna from Finland sat mending underwear in the room she had rented for herself and her two younger sisters. It was a March evening, and outside in the early spring dusk the streetlights came on.

  It had been hard in the beginning. They had missed the silence and couldn’t sleep. None of them got any rest in this foreign city. But they grew accustomed and eventually stopped hearing the traffic. It became like the murmuring of the forest or the rain. Johanna was the first who stopped listening and slept. She had to save her strength, for each new day had to be dealt with as it came along. She was the strongest of them, heavy and well built. It was she who had found jobs and a place to live for all three of them in the new country, and she gave herself credit for that effort. No one knew how hard it had been, least of all Maila and Siiri, who just followed and let things happen. But then they were made of weaker stuff and were born later, when their parents were already worn out. It isn’t easy to ask for work and humble yourself in a foreign language that you don’t know, while the days go by and the money runs out and you know it’s impossible to go home again. Now she and Maila had steady jobs as cleaning women in a factory, and Siiri did the bidding of a housewife in town as a maid. This evening, Johanna was working the night shift.

  As she sat and sewed, her thoughts went far back, all the way to the old country, to her father who’d said, “Johanna, now that you’re going to America, I’m counting on you to take care of your younger sisters and see that they don’t go to the devil. You know better than anyone that they are weak and vacillating, especially Siiri.”

  “Father,” she had answered, “you can rest easy.” And he had nodded and gone back to his work.

  That was the time of the great emigration to America, when many homesteads were abandoned and animals were sold off for less than they were worth. The crossing was ghastly. When Johanna remembered the storm, she saw the family’s Illustrated Bible in her mind’s eye, with its terrifying pictures of the end of the world when sinners and innocents were cast higgledy-piggledy into darkness to be sorted out on Judgment Day. The family Bible had been very important to her. It would have been a comfort to her here in the new world, but of course a book like that must go to the sons, who carry on the family name. Anyway, the worst part of the trip was that people were ill and vomited and couldn’t help themselves. Before it got really bad, she had tried to get Maila and Siiri to sing. Later she settled for holding them by the forehead when they gave in. The stench in the hold grew so strong that she herself was on the verge of letting go, so she wrapped a cloth around her stomach and made it fast with a belt and pretended that she was steering the ship and was responsible for all of them. Then it passed and she grew calm. She was equally calm at Immigration, when their papers weren’t in order and the officials wouldn’t let them enter. She sat there all day like a rock and wouldn’t budge until finally
the Americans gave in. That’s the way it had been. Now she wrote to Father once a month and gave an account of their lives. Father never answered, because he had other things to do.

  When the clothes were mended, Johanna began cooking supper. She closed down her memories and let them rest. Maila was always the first to get home. She was a quiet person and was happiest alone. She had been so even as a child. Now she went in behind the curtain in the corner and changed out of her work clothes into clean ones, then she spread a tablecloth and set the table.

  “Why are you setting only two places?” Johanna asked.

  “Siiri said to tell you she won’t be coming to supper today,” Maila answered.

  “She could have said so this morning. Is she out with him now again?”

  “I don’t know,” Maila said.

  That’s the way she was. She wanted to know nothing, take responsibility for nothing, get involved in nothing.

  “You should try to keep track of what your sister does,” Johanna said when they sat down to eat. “She’s younger than you and prettier, and she can be led astray so easily. She tells me nothing, but it’ll be me who has to clear up any mess she gets into.”