To Mervas

~ ~ ~

It was evening, already late, when Kosti arrived. Marta was sitting at the table writing in her diary and he just stood there, in the doorway.

“Sorry for barging in,” he said, and his voice sounded large and deep in her ears.

She inhaled.

“I didn’t hear you. I didn’t hear you coming.”

Then they didn’t say a word.

“Shall we. . Shall we say hello?” Kosti asked.

Marta closed the diary and placed her palms on the tabletop to pull herself up. Inside, she was tumbling round and round.

“Are you in pain?” he asked.

“No, no, I was just surprised to see you, my legs. . I see that it’s you, I recognize you. .”

Suddenly, she felt his hands around her waist; he had helped her up, he held her, and she remembered what it was like to be touched, how incredible it felt. They now stood face-to-face, very close; she looked at his neck, the skin had become thin and wrinkled.

“Of course you recognized me,” he said amiably. “I recognized you too.”

“Yes, but that’s not what I meant. I recognized you from seeing you here in Mervas. You stood looking at me early one morning when I lay sleeping in the car.”

He didn’t respond and when she looked up at his face she thought he looked distressed.

“So you saw me even though you were asleep?” he asked, almost teasing.

Marta said nothing. She recognized him now, the way he was, the way he behaved.

“Shouldn’t we say hello?” Kosti said again. “I’ll start. Hi, Mart! Welcome to Mervas!”

“Hi, Kosti,” she whispered.

And they embraced, but not as hard and long as in her dream that first night, but more tentatively, anxiously; they didn’t quite know how to connect. Perhaps they were also embarrassed by all the years that had passed by and made them old. By everything they didn’t know about each other. They remained standing for a while with their hands hanging. Kosti stepped aside and took off his rubber boots and hung his green jacket on a crooked stick driven into the wall. Marta removed her diary from the table and tucked it into her bag under the bed.

“Have you seen Uncle Vanya?” she asked Kosti. “The version they showed on television a long time ago. .”

“Ah, you mean the one with that actress Lena Granhagen, and whoever else was in it. . No, I didn’t. You used to talk about it back then too. About that performance.”

He watched Marta, sort of surprised, and laughed.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it,” she said in a slightly stiff monotone. “Don’t you think that all that’s happening now, that it’s a kind of afterward? As if everything has already happened. That our meeting here is — a kind of afterward. In some way. I can’t explain it; you have to have seen the scene I’m thinking about.”

“But I don’t think that everything has already happened,” Kosti said. “I don’t even like that notion.”

“Are you married?”

He shook his head.

“Have you been married?”

He shook his head again.

“Why not?” she continued. “Why have you never married? Then you have no children either?”

Her voice, which had become hard and shrill, suddenly broke.

“Why the hell didn’t you get married and have children?” she sobbed. “Then it’s all nonsense! Then everything is completely meaningless!”

She tried to get past Kosti and get out of the cabin, but he blocked her way and caught her.

“What are you doing, Mart? Stay here, come on, look at me.”

His grip was fierce, she thought. He was stronger than she was. But she looked down and averted her face, it was contorted with tears that would not spill and she didn’t want him to see it.

“I’ve got to get out,” she whimpered, and tried to wriggle loose.

“Pull yourself together. You can at least look at me!”

She turned her face toward his but kept her gaze down.

“It’s too much. All this is too much.”

He moved his head so he could meet her eyes from below.

“Yes, it is, and that’s exactly why we have to talk and look at each other,” he said. “Not throw words around as if we were splashing water and then running away. Right?”

She took a deep breath and looked at him. “I guess you’re right,” she said quietly. “But I’m not used to it. .”

He laughed.

“No, it’s not easy for me either, to see you after almost twenty-five years. I mean, it’s not easy for either of us.”

The grasp around her upper arms had loosened, but she couldn’t see anything, there was a storm in the darkness, a storm raging through the dark city, she could hear its sounds: sheet metal, glass, wind through the shaft.

“Are you hungry?” she asked with a great distance in her voice, as if she were someone else.

“Yes, finally! Yes, I’ll take out something for us to eat. Let’s set the table and make it nice here. I’ve got a bottle somewhere too. For God’s sake, Marta, calm down a little, will you? We’re not strangers. We’ve come here to see each other wholly of our own free will. Why don’t we try to be a little happy, a little lighthearted?”

She looked at him, at his face, which made her feel at home. A deep feeling inside, she thought, and now she was smiling too, she noticed how the smile tore at her face, how it was pulling it to pieces. She lifted her hand and carefully stroked his cheek.

“You’ve grown a beard,” she said.

“Yes, that’s what happens when you don’t shave.”

He let his fingers lightly brush against her face.

“And you have wrinkles,” he smiled. “Tiny, fine wrinkles.”

It felt as if the touch gave her a face, as if he were drawing it with his fingertips.

“I found your pipe cleaner,” she heard herself say. “Over by the school. I’ve got it in the glove compartment. That’s when I knew you were here; it was before I found the cabin.”

“And my letter? You haven’t thanked me for the letter!”

“Yes, it made me happy. But these things are difficult. Difficult for me. You know, I’ve been so lonely. I don’t know exactly what life has done to me.”

“But I told you that you weren’t all alone.”

“Yes. But perhaps that’s not how it is.”

“If it hadn’t been true, I’d never have contacted you.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Now, Mart, now we’re going to set the table and make everything pleasant. Let’s try to be here for a while, here! Everything isn’t in the past, even though much is. Can you agree with me about that?”

She looked at him. Oh, this was Kosti; this was how he was, now she remembered.

“Let me smell you,” she whispered. “I want to feel your scent.”

He put his arms around her and she pressed her head against his chest and neck and inhaled that nice, grassy smell of his, mixed with whiffs of his pipe tobacco and mosquito repellant. Her eyes burned and then the tears came like a river. She didn’t sob, didn’t make any crying noises, the tears just fell.

“I’m not sad,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to think that I’m sad.”

“No, I know that,” he said. “I’ve cried too.”

“I know,” she said. “I saw you crying.”

“Yes, you saw it when you were asleep, didn’t you?”

He let his lips touch her eyes, first one, and then the other. She saw that he smiled a little.

~ ~ ~

Marta’s voice, whispering out of the half darkness.

“Kosti, Kosti, are you awake? Can I tell you one more thing? About afterward. I want you to understand what I mean by afterward. It’s what comes afterward, after the tears and the screams, after the great infatuation and after the crazy dreams that haunt you. It’s when you make a cup of tea and you know it’s over and you sit at the kitchen table dipping the tea bag in and out of your cup, and the apartment is completely silent, there’s only the light of your lamp and silence and the steam from the tea on your face. It’s afterward, you see, after all your losing battles — and the terrible shame that’s left — the shame of being who you are. It’s after all that, after the tears, when you feel your body soften and give in and a stillness comes over you. You’re sort of a small child and your mother has finally heard you, heard you crying and fussing and screaming and now she has lifted you up and is holding you tightly to her. Yes, you know what I mean, it’s afterward and a sense of calm, a heavy, warm calm spreads through you — ”

Kosti turns in the bunk above her. “But what you’re talking about is death — ”

“No, it’s not about death at all. I’m talking about consolation. About atonement. The consolation afterward.”

“I think I understand, Mart. But I have to sleep now. I’m already almost asleep. But can I also say one more thing, before I fall asleep? It’s strange that it doesn’t feel strange when we touch each other.”

“Yes, it is strange. Good night.”

“Good night, my dear, my own dear — ”

After a moment’s silence, Kosti’s voice comes from the upper bunk.

“Mart? Are you sleeping? Have you fallen asleep?”

“No, I’m awake. Barely awake.”

“Can I tell you something else? One more thing. I want you to understand what I said, what I wrote. It’s important, you see. It’s important that you understand. You weren’t alone, Mart. I was part of it, part of what happened. Even though you feel all alone, even if you felt alone then, I want you at least to try to accept what I’m saying because it was a big thing for me when I understood that. It was incredible. It shook me; my entire life was turned upside down by it. But I knew that I was responsible for what happened, knew that my life also was determined by it, that my fate belonged with yours. I’m not saying that I’ve suffered like you or that I’ve experienced the torment you have. I don’t want to take anything away from you. I only want you to understand that you weren’t entirely alone, not entirely — Can you understand that, Mart? I’ve got to get an answer from you because sometimes I’ve thought that I was simply crazy, just out of my mind.”

“Kosti? Kosti. It’s not so easy. It feels like I’m about to break; I understand what you’re saying, I’ll try to absorb it. But I have to do it little by little, I can’t take it all in at once. Your solitude becomes enmeshed with you. It sticks to you, covers you like skin. But I’m happy. You hear me? I’m happy that you’re here.”

“I’m happy too. Let’s say good night now. Let’s sleep.”

“Good night. Sleep well.”

out of the ashes

I can see through the darkness now. What was blurry is clear. Now I see so clearly in the light of the extinguished lamps. I see her, the woman who was my mother. Now she will be sacrificed. We children are sitting on the floor, completely silent. All we have to do is watch. It’s Daddy, he’s on top of her pushing, and he’s pushing life and death into her womb. It’s as if the lights had not been extinguished but lit. A light beyond words falls on them. Someone has to be sacrificed. Someone always has to be sacrificed in order for the others to see. And darkness settles. That’s also how it is. Darkness settles.

~ ~ ~

In the morning, Marta woke up before Kosti. She was afraid. Without making a sound, she took her clothes and slipped out of the cabin. She dressed outside and drank some water from the bucket. Then, with fear somersaulting inside her, she started walking. She didn’t know where she was going; she walked where her legs carried her.

Down on the slope, the mining tower looked like a big animal, a solid, immobile body drinking its own shadow in the early morning light. She walked in under the structure, between the four heavy legs and under the concrete belly, which had cracked in an intricate pattern of tangled tendrils. She curled up there, on the ground, and tried to breathe. It was as if someone or something had chased her out of her sleep and away from the cabin, along the path and down the hill. She was dizzy. She wanted to hide, but how was she to know what a good hiding place would be when she didn’t know what was pursuing her? Were the woods a good hiding place, or the branches of a tall tree, or the narrow beach? Was the mining tower a good place?

She grabbed tiny concrete shards and sharp gravel from the ground and squeezed her fists tightly around them. It hurt; it was meant to hurt. She pressed the sharp shards against her face. They cut into her skin. She moved her hand around and around against her cheek. Then she began crying. The tears stung on her face and she pushed her forehead as hard as she could against the rough ground. Her whimpering turned into small cries. She was afraid of Kosti. She knew that now.

She struggled to her feet and tasted blood. Together with the tears and dirt, blood ran down her face. Shards and small pieces of gravel stuck in her skin, as if she were a stone wall. The mining tower wasn’t a good hiding place, Kosti could easily find her there. She had to keep walking, had to move on until there were no paths or roads to follow. Fear fluttered inside her like a flame in a strong draft. She didn’t understand why, but she kept thinking that Kosti was an evil force, that he was dangerous to her.

She walked into the woods and the mosquitoes descended on her in huge, hungry swarms. For a while, she tried to ignore them, but it didn’t work. Another, older fear seized her; she was squeezed between the two kinds of fear, paralyzed. Now she was the prey. She sank onto the mossy ground, hiding her face in her folded arms. The mosquitoes bit her where they could, her neck and scalp, her hands. They bit through her clothes; they were everywhere. She lay there trying to endure it, but suddenly she couldn’t take it anymore. Her scream was so loud it astounded her. Then her crying grew quiet and miserable; she was a lump on the ground, her back was shaking.

It didn’t take Kosti more than five minutes to find her. He had been standing by the mining tower, looking out over the vast plains below, when he’d heard the scream. It was a terrible scream. He wasn’t certain that it was human, that it was Marta. But he immediately started running toward it, shaken and frightened. He skirted the edge of the forest; stumbled over branches, fell to the ground, got back on his feet. When he saw Marta, he froze. She heard him and turned toward him. Her eyes shimmered strangely green in her bloodied, soiled face.

“Marta! Mart! What happened?”

She pulled away from him when he got close, and rasped something he couldn’t hear.

“Was it an animal?” he asked, but she shook her head.

She felt so tired she thought she’d never be able to move again. Kosti studied her face carefully.

“You did this to yourself,” he said harshly. “You hurt yourself, you idiot.”

“I fell,” she whispered.

“Don’t even try. I’m not stupid. You did it yourself. Come on, we have to get back home before the damned mosquitoes eat you alive.”

Marta made herself heavy; she wanted to be a boulder, impossible to move.

“Come on now,” Kosti repeated, and tried to catch one of her arms, or a hand.

“You did it,” she said. “It was you.”

He stepped away from her quickly, as if he’d scorched himself on her. He slid his hand across his face, looking at her without speaking. She sat staring ahead at nothing. The only sound between them was the floating, unpleasant hum of the mosquitoes.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have met again,” he said finally, as if speaking to himself. “Maybe it was all a mistake. Perhaps we should part from each other again. That might be best for both of us.”

A whimper from Marta silenced him. She was crying. He hesitated briefly, and then barked at her.

“Say you’re sorry or I won’t touch you. I won’t help you!”

She twitched at the tone of his voice, and from the corner of her eye, she saw that he’d gotten up and was getting ready to leave.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m sorry. Of course it wasn’t you.”

She felt him come close and embrace her; his arms surrounded her like a nest. Carefully, she began rocking in his arms, he didn’t try to stop her, he moved with her, cradled her. When after a while she turned up her face to look at him, his eyes were red and filled with tears.

“This isn’t easy,” he murmured. “But now we really have to go home and take care of your face. There are tiny shards everywhere in those cuts. Foolish woman! I hope you have tweezers with you, because I don’t.”

“I think I have some in my toiletry bag.”

“Good girl. Come on, let’s go.”

He held her up as they walked. As soon as they got out on the road, the cloud of mosquitoes was dissolved by the wind.

“I feel like saying something mean,” he said after they had walked for a while.

“Go ahead.”

“I was just thinking that when we return to the cabin, it will really be afterward for you. Then we’re going to truly confront what comes afterward.”

She tried to smile, but her face was stiff and hurt so much that it turned into a grimace instead.

“You’re not being nice,” she said.

“Neither are you.”

~ ~ ~

It was a lovely evening with warm, sweet-smelling air, and the sun’s golden light shimmered over the forest. The blackbird was singing, but Kosti and Marta stayed inside. She was stretched out on the bottom bunk with a wet cloth on her forehead, listening to Kosti. He sat at the table with the pipe in his mouth and a cup in front of him. With her eyes closed, she was listening to his voice, to the nuances of his tone.

“So you could actually say that it’s there, in Zimbabwe, that I’ve lived my life. The periods that I’ve been back in Sweden have mostly been like stopovers. I’ve come home to prepare for the next trip, or I’ve been back to arrange things so I could stay away longer. I don’t know why, that’s just how it turned out. Perhaps because I never got married and started a family.”

“And there was no woman in the picture?”

“Yes, there was someone. For almost ten years. She was Danish. Worked down there as well. An archaeologist. Well, that’s another story, I’ll have to tell you about Gina some other time. What I want to tell you about happened long after she and I parted. It was three, four years ago. I was at an excavation in an area south of Bulawayo, by the Matobo Hills, not far from Bambata, you know, the cave dwelling. It was me and another Swedish archaeologist. He was from around here. His name was Gustav, Gustav Jonsson. He was several years older than I. We lived together for almost six months in one of those bungalows left over from colonial times, a wonderful stone house with a dining room, a library, and a couple of studies and bedrooms. It was very British and very elegant. But the house was completely isolated, a couple of miles from the nearest village and hours from the closest city. So we spent a lot of time together, Gustav Jonsson and I, long workdays of digging at the excavation site, ten miles from the house, long dark evenings and nights in the house. After dinner, we often sat talking on the porch, in the dark. I really appreciated that I’d had the good fortune of sharing living quarters with an older colleague this time. Mostly I work with people in their twenties and early thirties. Nothing wrong with that, but I think I needed the stability of being around someone older. I was sort of lost, lost in my own issues. I didn’t feel wise or experienced at all. Just to hear someone say: ‘Well, when I was your age. .’ I really needed that.”

He interrupted himself and glanced at Marta.

“Are you listening? Or have you fallen asleep? I can’t see your face under that cloth.”

“I’m awake. I’m listening.”

“Anyway. One night Gustav and I stayed up late, sharing a bottle of brandy. He began telling stories from up north, where he grew up. He told me about an old shut-down mine in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the wilderness, and about a small mining town that had emptied when the mining ceased. There wasn’t a single house left there now, and no people. Just some concrete blocks, a valley contaminated by copper, and the remnants of a stone wall. He told me there’d been countless stories about this mine when he was growing up. It was still active back then and there were stories about the place that were older than the actual mine.”

He was quiet for a moment and fiddled with his pipe, packing the tobacco and trying to light it even though it sizzled and crackled with moisture.

“It was said,” he continued, “that deep inside the mountain, underneath the mine, there was a hidden entrance to an underground tunnel. It was allegedly twenty, thirty miles long, possibly even longer. No one knew how old the tunnel was, but there were naturally plenty of stories about how it had been created. It was said that it had been built during the reign of Queen Christina, when they were mining for silver up on Nasa Mountain. That it was the Sámi who had made it in order to save their gods and goddesses, to keep their shamans and their elf drums away from the Swedish authorities. Some people claimed that even though the Sámi had built the tunnel, they hadn’t done it on their own; it had been done with the help of magic. More realistically inclined individuals argued that it was a natural tunnel, that an underground river had passed through the mountain a long time ago. According to all the stories, the tunnel was supposed to lead to an incredibly beautiful island. It was surrounded by wide, wild torrents and could only be reached in one way: through this tunnel. It was said that on this island, gods and goddesses still wandered around, and there was a herd of shining white reindeer. Hundreds of elf drums were also hidden on the island, but the shamans that had escaped with them had obviously been dead for a long time. Well. . as you may understand, Mart, it was an incredible story. I sat there listening and shivered with excitement. But when he’d finished talking, Gustav simply laughed and said that this is what he’d heard in the cottages in his childhood. I’m sure we could hear stories like this in the village today too, even though they probably wouldn’t share them with us. I’d gotten goose bumps hearing Gustav’s story and wanted to know if anyone had ever found the tunnel. Oh no, he said, of course no one’s found it. Even though people claim this and that, everyone always knew it was nothing but a fairy tale. But I still wanted to know more. I wanted to know where that closed mine was located, what its name was. Gustav just shook his head. ‘It’s called Mervas,’ he said, ‘but I don’t even think there’s a road there anymore.’ ”

Kosti grew silent and Marta removed the cloth from her forehead. She lifted her head and looked at him.

“So was there a tunnel?” she asked quietly.

At first, Kosti didn’t respond. He looked at her with an expression that was guarded but also begged understanding.

“Yes,” he said at last. “There was a tunnel. There is a tunnel.”

She lay down again with the cloth in her closed fist and looked at the bottom of the bed above her.

“It took me nearly a year to find the entrance to it,” Kosti said in a low voice. “It’s a tunnel through the mountain. It’s been carved out by running water, of course. But it’s enormous. It’s beautiful. I walked in it for days and it just went on and on. It was like in a dream. And you know what, I found something down there. Something small. I’d like to show it to you, if you want to see it.”

“That was one of the first things I thought when I first arrived here, in Mervas,” Marta said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I didn’t want to descend those stairs, didn’t want to go down into the darkness where the water gleamed at the bottom. But as soon as I got here, I knew I had to do it. I had to.”

“I understand,” Kosti said.

“It’s a fairy tale. Say it. Tell me it’s a fairy tale. Tell me now.”

“It is a fairy tale, Mart. Of course it’s a fairy tale. It’s our fairy tale. Yours and mine.”

She inhaled.

“Then you can show me,” she said. “Show me what you found down there.”

Kosti rooted around in his pack for a while. Marta sat up. She followed his movements, the excitement he couldn’t contain.

“Listen,” he said to her, “why don’t we go out on the steps for a little bit? Just for a while. We’ll have more light out there.”

They sat down next to each other at the top of the steps. He kept the object hidden in his hands.

“Here,” he whispered, and let her see. “You see what it is?”

She did see. It was a Sámi silver brooch with small hanging charms around the edges. It was tarnished black, but completely intact.

“You see what it is?” he repeated.

Marta took the brooch carefully in her hand and examined it. She let her finger move over the protrusion in the middle and over the etched patterns.

“It’s old,” she said, without looking up.

“Yes, it’s old,” he agreed. “Of course it’s old. And it’s remained dry, it hasn’t been in the water, it’s remained dry down there in the tunnel ever since someone, whoever it could’ve been, dropped it. When I found it, I thought it was a greeting of sorts, that it was a message.”

“From them?”

“Yes, sure, from them. But also a message about you. From you. That’s what was so strange about it. That’s what was so important. It was when I’d found this piece of jewelry that I turned around and started walking back. I knew I had to show it to you. I knew I couldn’t keep going alone. I had to find the end of this story together with you. And I’ll tell you something, although it was probably my imagination. I thought I smelled something in the air down there. Just as I’d bent down and was looking at the brooch, there was a breeze, a faint gust of air — it smelled of sun, yes, it smelled of sun and daylight, as if the end of the tunnel was close, as if it was possible to get out, to get out of it — ”

Marta put the brooch on her lap. She took Kosti’s hand and raised it to her mouth to kiss it. She kissed the dry skin of his palm, kissed all the lines and grooves. She hid her face in his hand, filled it with the moisture of her breath. She wanted to keep her face there, enveloped by his hand, inside him, protected. And she felt his body leaning over hers, felt him crouch over her.

“I’ve prepared everything,” he said gently. “All you have to do is trust me.”

“You know what I’m thinking,” she said, and looked up. “I’m thinking we’re already there, standing at the opening to the island, blinded by all the light streaming over us.”

“So you’ll come with me?”

She took his hand in hers again, studied and touched it. “Haven’t you realized? I’ll never let go of this hand again.”

He grasped her face and stared at her, elated and eager again.

“You must promise me to be careful with your face, as careful with it as I would be. No more shards, promise me.”

“No more shards.”

He traced his finger lightly over the cuts on her cheek. “Good.”

“Just tell me you’ve waited for me too.”

“I’ve waited for you. You know that. I asked you to come.”

“And I did,” she said. “I came.”