The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories Read online

  When the Italian got up, she followed him. He went out into the school yard to smoke. It was very dark in the yard, but she could see his face in the light from the festival-room windows. They were alone.

  “You are not strong,” Johanna said. “You’re nothing. Leave my sister. No money, no home, we can’t help. Go away.”

  He started speaking Italian, rapidly. When he stopped talking, she went up close to him and said, “You are a thief. I know. I will go to the police.”

  Lucio Marandino froze. He tried to say something.

  “I will go to the police,” Johanna shouted.

  Then he pulled out a dictionary, gave Johanna his matches, and while she lit one match after another the Italian looked up the words he needed. Finally he said, “Proof. You have no proof.”

  “But I know,” she said.

  “You have no proof.”

  Then Johanna took out the purse and held it out to him. “Count it,” she said. He counted the money and stuffed it into his pocket without the slightest trace of shame.

  She said, “Now you go away.”

  For a moment he stood and glared at her. Johanna glared back and thought, Go ahead, hate me. I can take it. You won’t get the better of me.

  The Italian walked off across the school yard, and she went back to the party.

  Thereafter they continued to live in their new country, and their fortunes improved. Johanna wrote home every month. “Our lives are good. We have no important news to report.”

  Translated by Thomas Teal

  AN EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

  WHEN WE arrived and Jonny caught sight of the big cars parked outside Grandma’s building, he said right away that he should have worn a dark suit.

  “Don’t be silly, sweetheart,” I said. “Relax. Grandma isn’t like that. People pop in and out in corduroy trousers and all sorts of stuff. She likes bohemians.”

  “But that’s just it,” he said. “I’m no bohemian, I’m ordinary. I’ve no right to wear corduroys to an eightieth birthday party. And I’ve never even met her before.”

  I said, “We’ll unwrap it before we go in, it’s more polite. Grandma doesn’t like opening parcels, except at Christmas.”

  Choosing the present hadn’t been easy. Grandma rang up and said, “Dear child, make sure you bring your young man so I can have a look at him, but don’t go buying some expensive and unnecessary gift. At my age, I’ve got pretty much everything I want, plus better taste than most of my progeny. And I don’t want to leave a load of rubbish for others to clean up after I’m gone. Just pick out something simple and affectionate. And don’t go bringing art into it—you’ll only mess it up.”

  We racked our brains. Grandma thinks of herself as so broad-minded and easygoing, but in fact she’s forever burdening the family with modest requests which, in all their simplicity, can be a real pain. It would have been easy, for example, to choose her a stylish bowl in thick glass, but no, that would have been too bourgeois and not at all affectionate.

  Of course, I’d told Jonny all about Grandma and her paintings, and he was really impressed. We have one of her early sketches at home, a drawing of San Gimignano, where she went on her first grant-funded trip, before she became famous for painting trees. She often talked about San Gimignano and I always loved hearing her talk about how happy she was in that little Italian town with all its towers; how strong and free she felt when she used to wake up at dawn to work, and a signorina would push her vegetable cart through the streets and Grandma would open her window and point at what she wanted and they would understand each other perfectly and laugh, and it was hot and everything was incredibly cheap, and then Grandma would set off with her easel . . .

  It’s a story Jonny likes, too. And then, would you believe it, the other day Jonny went off on his own and found a picture of San Gimignano in a little secondhand shop! So that’s our present. They said in the shop it was an early nineteenth-century lithograph. We didn’t think it was that special, but anyway.

  “Jonny,” I said. “Let’s go in now. Just be yourself, act natural, that’s what she likes.”

  There was a long line of well-wishers queuing in the doorway of Grandma’s studio. A couple of young cousins were scampering in and out, taking everyone’s coats, and we were gradually swept into the large, airy room, beautifully decorated by Grandma’s acolytes. I fixed my sights on her and steered us forward, giving Jonny’s arm a quick squeeze to calm him. In the background some low music was playing—not classical, but something specially chosen, bearing Grandma’s personal stamp. We walked towards her. She had dressed with her usual studied nonchalance; her white hair lightly arranged in casual curls around her watchful, gracious face and clear, teasing eyes.

  “This is Jonny,” I said. “Jonny, Grandma.”

  “How nice of you to come,” Grandma said. “So this is Jonny. Finnish-speaking, I believe?” She smiled at him benignly. “How will you cope in an ossified old family where no one speaks anything but Swedish? And how are things, are you two married or not? All done and dusted?”

  “Done but not dusted,” said Jonny boldly. Grandma laughed and I knew she liked him.

  “Well, where’s your present?”

  She stared at the picture of San Gimignano for a long time, remarked that we’d gone to a great deal of trouble, and flashed a quick smile. “I drew that same view,” she said, “but better.” Then, with a little gesture that was dismissive but also showed a secret understanding, she moved on.

  The large table on which Grandma posed her models dominated the room. It was covered with her brocade from Barcelona and richly spread with everything from olives to cream cakes. Young family members ran about with vases they’d filled with water earlier that morning, while people stood about in groups having frenetic conversations and everyone was served a glass of champagne. Grandma sailed above all this like in a painting by Chagall, dispensing a sort of general benediction as she moved about the room dropping small pronouncements here and there. But I noticed she took care not to introduce anyone by name. Not the slightest suggestion of failing memory—just introduce yourselves, dear friends. Oh, to be as free as Grandma!

  A mass of screaming children persisted in running back and forth across the studio, but this didn’t seem to irritate Grandma in the least. She just let the mothers take charge of whoever it was they had brought into the world. Jonny and I sat down at a crowded table only to realize a moment too late that we’d chosen badly. This was a table for what Grandma calls the intellectuals, who associate exclusively with one another. I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Despairing of something to say, and after a long silence, I finally turned to a gentleman with a goatee and remarked that the evening light in the studio was unusually beautiful. To my relief, he started talking about the significance of light and then moved on to the theory of perception. It took me ages to work out that he was an art critic.

  Luckily all he seemed to want was a listener, so I nodded thoughtfully and said yes of course, and how true, and occasionally glanced at Jonny, who was sitting across from me looking miserable. He’d got stuck beside one of those geniuses who never say a word to help you out. Even so, I was quite proud of having brought my Jonny into a family with artistic roots, who really knew how to carry off a party on this scale.

  Eventually he extricated himself and came over and hissed in my ear, “Can we go home now?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Soon.”

  It was then that they came in, three gentlemen of uncertain appearance. They looked somehow disheveled—or, more accurately, stained or smudged. They certainly weren’t bohemians. They did have long hair, but in a more middle-aged way. They made a grand entrance, bowing low to Grandma and kissing her hand. She led them to an empty table at the far end near the window and made sure each got a glass of champagne. Pretty soon one of them dropped his glass on the floor. He was in a state about it, but Grandma just smiled, though I knew how much she treasured those glasses—a weddin
g present, I think. Coffee and cake were being brought in now, but these new gentlemen continued to be served champagne. Not the rest of us.

  I noticed Jonny was cleverly moving along the wall by carefully studying everything hanging on it, till in the end he reached the new gentlemen’s table. Of course he didn’t understand that this was a table set aside for the not-entirely-respectable; dear, sweet Jonny. But he did seem to be enjoying himself at last.

  One of the three went over and lifted a whole bottle of whiskey from the liquor table and, as he carried it back, made a deep bow to Grandma, whose smile seemed to be wearing a little thin.

  My art critic had moved a bit farther off but was still delivering an animated lecture about the theory of perception. I got up quietly and snuck over to Jonny, because it depressed me listening to stuff I didn’t really understand or care about. One of the gentlemen, with a droopy gray mustache, lifted his glass and said, “And so he writes crap about you, Juksu.”

  “Absolutely,” said Juksu. “And only three inches.”

  “You measured it?”

  “Of course, I took out my ruler and I measured. Exactly three inches. Like buying pea soup in a plastic bag, so you know what you’re getting. And no picture. But these newcomers, they get a picture, by God.”

  The third man said, “The trouble is, he’s so old; he just panders to the young.”

  “Yes, it’s hell.”

  “But you can’t have everything in life,” said the man with the mustache.

  “No.”

  They talked on, calmly and thoughtfully. They sounded like men who were used to talking together but could no longer be bothered with actual discussions. They made statements. They never referred to things like perception but seemed more interested in rising rents or an unfair review of some painting, though of course what could you expect . . . But when Grandma passed by on one of her charming circuits of the room, they grew lively and gallant. Jonny said not a word, but I could see he was fascinated. None of them paid us much attention, though they made sure our glasses were always full and made a space for me closer to the table. Their conversation was soothing, and we sat as if on an island sanctuary. None of them asked us about ourselves; they let us be anonymous.

  The party around us floated into the distance. The room had grown dim; the children had vanished. Suddenly someone turned on the overhead light and someone else carried in pirogi. The man called Juksu stood up. So did the rest of us, and somehow we all came out into the hall together. After a lot of bowing and scraping and sincere expressions of affection for Grandma, we took the elevator down. But Grandma managed to whisper to me, “Don’t buy them drinks. There are three of them and you can’t afford it.” Though I think she saw that Juksu had her whiskey bottle hidden inside his coat.

  It was cold when we came out on the street. And very quiet. No cars or people and that remarkable half-light that comes with spring evenings. After a fairly long silence we introduced ourselves. They were Keke and Juksu and the one with the mustache was Vilhelm.

  “Well, let’s get going,” said Vilhelm. “We’ll head into town. But not to the usual place.”

  “No,” said Keke. “Not there. They’re not nice anymore. Let’s go sit down somewhere and then we’ll see.” Then he turned to me and said, in a very kind voice, “How long have you two been living together?”

  “Two months,” I said. “Well, two and a half, nearly.”

  “And it’s going well?”

  “Oh yes, really well.”

  Vilhelm said, “Let’s go to our spot. Where the newspapers are.”

  This was outside the covered market down by the harbor. We each took a newspaper to sit on out of a recycling bin and settled in a line along the edge of the quay. The square was empty.

  “Now let’s have a little drink,” said Juksu to Jonny. “But we’ll have to do without glasses, if your wife will excuse us. You don’t say much. Everything okay?”

  “Just fine,” said Jonny.

  I had a feeling I ought to go and let him stay there with the three of them. I turned to Vilhelm and said politely, “It’s really nice here. I like people who don’t take life so seriously.”

  “You’re very young,” said Vilhelm. “But you have a wonderful grandmother.”

  We had a drink together and then suddenly Jonny spoke up excitedly. “I was listening to what you were saying, that we can’t expect to have everything in life, but still you have to expect something, I mean expect something incredible, from yourself and from other people . . . You have to set your sights high because it always turns out a little lower, if you know what I mean—like with a bow and arrow . . .”

  “That’s it exactly,” said Keke reassuringly. “You’re absolutely right. Look, here they come. I like boats.”

  We took another swig from the bottle as we watched the fishing boats slowly approach the quay. Two drunks wandered up. “Hi, Keke,” said one of them. “Oh sorry, you’ve got company. Got any cigarettes?”

  Keke gave each of them a cigarette and they walked on. Up in the spring sky the dome of the cathedral rested like a white dream over the empty square. Helsinki was indescribably beautiful, I’d never realized before how beautiful it was.

  “The Nikolai Church,” said Juksu. “They have to change everything. So now they call it the Great Church. It’s idiotic, it doesn’t mean anything.” He let the empty bottle slide into the water and said as a kind of afterthought that they can’t even write decent poetry anymore.

  By now the night was as dark as it ever gets in May, but we still didn’t need any lights.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “What do they mean by perception?”

  “Observation,” said Vilhelm. “You see something and suddenly you recognize some old idea or, better yet, some new idea.”

  “Yes,” said Keke. “A new idea.”

  I was feeling cold and suddenly angry and said eightieth birthday parties were a really stupid idea.

  “My dear,” said Vilhelm. “It was a proper party, and a beautiful one in its way, but now it’s over. Now there’s just us sitting here trying to think.”

  “What about?” said Juksu.

  “About ourselves. About everything.”

  “What do you suppose Grandma’s thinking about?”

  “No one knows.”

  Vilhelm went on. “For instance, about this business of maybe fifty a week. They run themselves ragged. And still they only have time for the young ones, the bastards.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The art critics. Fifty shows a week.”

  “And no one asks anymore,” Keke said. “We’re over and done with. We were critiqued long ago.” He thought for a moment. “My bum’s getting cold. Let’s make a move.”

  As we walked farther along the quayside, he asked me what I wanted from life.

  I hesitated. Then I said, “Love. Security, maybe?”

  “Of course,” he said. “That’s right. In a way—for you at least.”

  “And travel,” I added. “I’ve got this real passion to travel.”

  Keke was quiet for a while and then he said, “Passion. As you can see, I’ve lived quite a long time, which is to say I’ve been working for quite a long time, which is the same thing. And you know what? In the whole silly business, the only thing that really matters is passion. It comes and it goes. At first it just comes to you free of charge, and you don’t understand, and you waste it. And then it becomes a thing to nurture.”

  It was awfully cold. He was walking too slowly, and I was freezing.

  Then he said, “You lose sight of the picture. I think we’re out of cigarettes.”

  “Not a bit of it,” said Juksu. “Philip Morris—Grandma shoved them in my pocket. She knows what it’s like.”

  Keke went over to the other two men. They lit their cigarettes and walked on as slowly as before.

  Jonny and I followed them. I whispered, “Are you tired of this? You want to go home?”

  “Ssh,
” he said. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

  “His clay,” Vilhelm was saying. “It went to an amateur. Some pushy little nobody. He hadn’t been dead two days when this creep comes along and buys the clay from his widow for nothing. And he was old; just imagine that clay.”

  “Hang on a minute, Jonny,” I said. “I’ve got sand in my shoes.” But Jonny went on ahead with the others.

  When he came back he told me excitedly how clay becomes more and more a living thing over time and how you always use the same clay for every sculpture and you can’t ever let it dry out, and new clay just isn’t the same, it’s not alive . . .

  I asked him which of them was the actual sculptor, but he didn’t know.

  “They were just talking about seeing a picture,” he said, “so I don’t know.” But he was very excited and asked if we had anything at home, anything we could offer them. After all, it wasn’t that late. “And anyway,” Jonny said, “this isn’t a chance we’ll ever have again. I really want to.”

  I knew we didn’t have much in the house, and Jonny knew it too, perfectly well. Some anchovies, bread and butter and cheese, but only one bottle of red wine.

  “That’s enough,” said Jonny. “You and I can just pretend to drink. They’ll stay for a while, long enough, don’t you think? And it’s only just around the corner.”

  “Okay, let’s do it,” I said, and he laughed.

  Brunnspark was beautiful: everything growing and bursting into leaf. Suddenly I wasn’t tired anymore; all I knew was that Jonny was happy.

  We all stopped in front of a large bird-cherry tree that was already in full bloom, shining chalk-white in the spring night. As I looked at the tree, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t loved Jonny the way I could have loved him, totally.

  Keke looked at me and said, “That’s only a gift; it doesn’t mean anything.”