Fiction
Weird calm
Issue 1/1998 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
A selection of poems, translated by Herbert Lomas and Anselm Hollo. Interview by Tarja Roinila
Agnosis IV
Set your altar up in the evening,
in the morning clear it away:
the wandering goes on. Don't persuade yourself
of anything, or anyone else:
fearful forces are epidemic,
no place is sacred
for long.
Again and again
the sacred
starts.
If you happen to be
there don't refuse to see.
(1989)
a light wind
stirring a treetop:
a shoal of fish
in blue abyss
From Hiidentyven (‘Weird calm’, Otava, 1984) More…
The trees
Issue 1/1998 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from Sunnuntaina kahdelta (‘Sunday at two’, Otava, 1997)
Maisa enjoyed her trees without knowing their names, without ever counting how many of them there actually were. The trunks twisted together and then forked again, the branches wound round and stretched past each other, and the tapered leaves rustled in dark, wide fans. In the autumn, when the wind blew and the rain fell, the naked stand of trees flailed in a single damp movement, and in February the branches snapped and cracked invisibly under the snow like a promise that would be fulfilled before long.
Sometimes on summer evenings, when the boy was asleep, she listened to the birds fluttering among the shaded lower branches, to the shrews and field mice dashing between the trunks on their nocturnal journeys and the roots pushing deeper into the soil day by day. When she shut her eyes, she could see the sap pulsing under the bark, and her own arms and legs moved more lightly, her heart beat strongly, and her thoughts welled up. More…
The matchstick
Issue 1/1998 | Archives online, Children's books, Fiction
A fairy-tale, first published in the literary yearbook Svea (Stockholm) in 1879. Introduction by Esa Sironen
The matchstick lay for the first time in its new box on the factory table and thought about what had happened to it so far during its short life. It could still dimly remember how the big aspen tree had grown on the river bank, how it had been felled, sawed, and finally planed into many thousand small splinters of which the match was one. After that, it had been sorted into piles and rows with its friends, dipped in horrible melting pans, put out to dry, dipped again and finally placed in the box. This was not really a remarkable fate, nor a great heroic deed. But the match had acquired a burning desire to do something in the world. Its body was made from the timorous aspen, which is constantly a-quiver because it is afraid that the faint evening breeze might grow into a gale and tear it up by the roots. It so happened, however, that the match’s head had been dipped in stuff that makes one ambitious and want to shine in the world, and so a struggle developed, as it were, between body and head. When the inflammable head, fizzing in silence, cried: ‘Rush out now and do something!’ the cautious body always had an objection ready, and whispered: ‘No, wait a little, ask and find out if it’s time yet!’ More…
Poems
31 March 1998 | Fiction, poetry
Agnosis IV
Set your altar up in the evening,
in the morning clear it away:
the wandering goes on. Don't persuade yourself
of anything, or anyone else:
fearful forces are epidemic,
no place is sacred
for long.
Again and again
the sacred
starts.
If you happen to be there
don't refuse to see.
a light wind
stirring a treetop:
a shoal of fish
in blue abyss
The snake
31 March 1998 | Fiction, Prose
In this horror story by the Finland-Swedish author Kjell Lindblad (born 1951), a man believes he is wandering among art installations in an apartment block – but the reality he is experiencing turns out to be much more sinister. From the collection of short stories Oktober-mars (‘October-March’, Schildts, 1997)
I only noticed the poster on the notice board in the vegetarian restaurant because it was so obviously different from the rest of the colourful items there, with their large headlines offering everything from Atlantic meditation to Zen ping-pong, together with promises of a new and fulfilled life in harmony with the soul and the cosmos. Poster is perhaps an overstatement it was a white sheet of paper with an egg-shaped oval in the middle. Inside the oval there was a horizontal row of seven numbers. For some reason, perhaps because the row of numbers was the only information on the piece of paper, it stuck in my memory and when I got home I had a compulsive desire to find out if it was a phone number. So I dialled the number and a tape-recorded voice that could have belonged to a man but equally well to a woman, said:
‘We bid you welcome. Please don’t write down the address just memorise it….’ More…
A view to a kill
Issue 4/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Klassikko (‘The classic’, WSOY, 1997). Pete drives an old Toyota Corolla without a thought for the small animals that meet their death under its wheels – or anything else, for that matter. Hotakainen describes the inner life of this environmental hazard with accuracy and precision
Pete sat in his Toyota Corolla destroying the environment. He was not aware of this, but the lifestyle he represented endangered all living things. The car’s exhaust fumes spread into the surroundings, its aged engine sweated oil onto the pavement, and malodorous opinions withered the willowherbs by the roadside. Granted that Pete was an environmental hazard, one must nevertheless ask oneself: how many people does one like him provide with employment? He leaves behind him a trail of despondent girlfriends who require the services of human relations workers, popular songwriters, and social service officials; during his lifetime, he spends tens of thousands of marks in automotive shops and service stations, on spare parts and small cups of coffee; he benefits the food industry by being a carefree purchaser of TV dinners and soft drinks. Pete is the perfect consumer, an apolitical idiot who votes with his wallet, the favorite of every government, even though no one seems interested in putting him to work, least of all himself. Every government, regardless of political power struggles, encourages its people to consume. Pete needs no encouragement, he consumes unconsciously, and one might ask: is there anything that he does consciously, the Greens and left-wingers would like him to? Does Pete make smart long-range decisions? Hardly.
One hell of a time
Issue 4/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from Lanthandlerskans son (‘Country shopkeeper’s son’, Söderströms, 1997). Brooklyn Bridge, Christmas Eve: Otto, a Finland-Swede, attempts to start a new life in 1930s America, where swindlers and even gangsters can, he finds, be duped – even Al Capone. Otto’s grandson listens to his story on tape
I have always loved that sight. A city that you see from the air at night, all lit up. It’s’ beautiful – and at the same time so frightening. I don’t really know how to describe it.
Well, it was Christmas Eve. I was wandering around New York. I had eaten at an automat. Do you know what that is? They don’t exist any more, but in the Twenties and Thirties they were common in America. It’s a cafe, but they didn’t have any staff or waiters, instead the walls were full of little glass boxes where the food was on display. You could select what you wanted – sandwiches and pies and salads, anything. Then you put your nickels and dimes in a slot beside the box and the glass opened and’all you had to do was take out the plate. I was fond of the automats. I liked just sitting there and watching other people eat, no one bothered about you, you were left alone and that suited me. When I’d finished eating I went outside again and somehow or other I wandered upon to Brooklyn Bridge. There was a lot of traffic, people were on their way home. Well, just as I was walking there alone in the company of my thoughts I heard someone shouting ‘Help! Help me!’ More…
A perfectly ordinary day
Issue 3/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extract from the novel Kello 4.17 (‘The time was 4.17’, WSOY, 1996). When time loses its meaning, real fear strikes like an iron glove. Aho writes about a man who is different but no outcast
I was lost to myself, if it is possible to be lost if you haven’t gone anywhere. Black birds curved through my mind and it felt as if no one needed me, no one or nothing: my mother bought clothes and make-up and did not seem to care; Uncle Lasse looked after the family business, steam coming out of his head, and kept shopkeepers and shopaholic customers happy; smiling bank managers slapped shy loan applicants encouragingly on the back, the gross national product grew without me having anything to do with it, or because I didn’t; and politics plodded onward as the mud squelched comfortingly. The machine of society hummed and ticked and Finland was as round and fat as a bomb. I looked at it and nothing changed, and on Sundays it was so quiet that you could look out of the window and see the Sahara.
Oedipus Cleverclogs
Issue 3/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from Ammattimies (‘The professional’, Tammi, 1997)
I had just pounded the life out of a couple of Germans when mother appeared at the door of my room, her blonde hair in a bun, in her white nightdress, through which I could clearly see the outline of her figure. She looked at me a little pityingly and suggested that we should go out for a meal at the weekend, just the two of us. I nodded and went back to concentrating on my acts of heroism.
And mother did not break her promise. Although she did not earn much as the junior cook at the children’s home, that did not stop us eating out. She took me to a good restaurant that was right on the harbour, in the shadow of the old steamships. The night before, she had ironed my only white shirt and hung it on a hanger with my terylene trousers. My mother had dressed me in the same outfit on my first day at school. I was decidedly over-dressed that day, but I put a good face on it. Mother’s men must always look their best. More…
In the sand-pit
Issue 3/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Viivoitettu uni (‘A ruled dream’, Tammi, 1996). Introduction by Riina Katajavuori
Driving in the countryside awakens painful memories.
An apple fell into the back seat of our cabriolet
and was eaten. The core was not laid to rest.
It rotted, it vapourised, it disappeared before our very eyes
as we stared at it …. How can driving in the countryside
bring such agony?
How are trees, how are clouds,
how are ladders not
as they are? More…
The unicorn
Issue 3/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
A short story from Koira nimeltä Onni ja muita onnettomuuksia (’A dog called Lucky and other misfortunes’, Tammi, 1997)
Hilma was rattling her bars when Pirjo stepped into the ward. Once again, she was the only one awake. The three other old people were asleep, wheezing heavily through their toothless mouths, making the air thick with their breathing. Clutching the bars of her bed, Hilma clambered up to a sitting position and leaned her sparse hair against the side.
‘How are you doing with the medicine?’ Pirjo asked.
‘A mouse took it,’ Hilma said, fixing her with her eyes.
‘And you’re not at all sleepy,’ Pirjo sighed. More…
The prisoner and the prophet
Issue 2/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Timmermannen (‘The carpenter’, Söderströms, 1996). Introduction by Jyrki Kiiskinen
The greatest message
Reader, love is
a secret, waiting
for wind, not a choice
between loving or not.
As commandment, degraded
to demand, it will soon be
fanatic like a wound,
a form of hate. How
could a secret
become reality
without dying? Every
decree destroys its region. Made a law
goodness turns
into the protecting
skin, with which the good
touches everything. A demand
for understanding, that,
which we call wisdom,
makes of wisdom
an armour, a cold
father around us.
The real communication is
his life. Against evil stands
the tale of a face.
How could such a secret
become real
or die? More…
The miracle of the rose
Issue 2/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
Extracts from the novel Naurava neitsyt (‘The laughing virgin’, WSOY, 1996). The narrator in this first novel by Irja Rane is an elderly headmaster and clergyman in 1930s Germany. In his letters to his son, Mr Klein contemplates the present state of the world, hardly recovered from the previous war, his own incapacity for true intimacy – and tells his son the story of the laughing virgin, a legend he saw come alive. Naurava neitsyt won the Finlandia Prize for Fiction in 1996
28 August
My dear boy,
I received your letter yesterday at dinner. Let me just say that I was delighted to see it! For as I went to table I was not in the conciliatory frame of mind that is suitable in sitting down to enjoy the gifts of God. I was still fretting when Mademoiselle put her head through the serving hatch and said:
‘There is a letter for you, sir.’
‘Have I not said that I must not be disturbed,’ I growled. I was surprised myself at the abruptness of my voice.
‘By your leave, it is from Berlin,’ said Mademoiselle. ‘Perhaps it is from the young gentleman.’
‘Bring it here,’ I said. More…
From life to life
Issue 2/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
Poems from Taivas päivystää (‘Sky on duty’, WSOY, 1996). Introduction by Tero Liukkonen
Flitting from dream to dream. Vanishings.
And you can’t even look.
What you looked with has been taken.
Then there’s more you know.
How helpless you are.
Then you know what Bottom meant
awake from his dream and trying to remember
what he’d lost. Then he did wake.
‘Man’s but a patched fool,’ he said,
‘if he’ll offer to say what methought I had.’
Everything had gone topsy-turvy
but she just went on feeling
she was hanging her head,
she just went on feeling she was searching the lawn
for a four-leaf clover,
and the lawn had covered everything up
and not a soul was troubling her. More...
The guest book
Issue 2/1997 | Archives online, Fiction, Prose
An extract rom the novel Kenen kuvasta kerrot (‘Whose picture are you talking about’, Otava, 1996). Introduction by Pia Ingström
Late at night before going to bed An Lee had turned off all the lights, opened the large bedroom window, breathed the cool air. She had done this often. It made it easier to fall asleep. It was enough to look outside for a moment and to breathe in slowly, and at the same time the bedroom air freshened and changed for the night.
Then she had closed and locked the window, drawn the curtains, and switched on the dim wall light. It might be nice to decorate the space between the double windowpanes with wooden animals, she had thought, not for the first time. They had had some at home, her mother had been a collector of such things. Almost all of them pink and lemon yellow, a whole zoo between the windows, only the panther had been pitch-black, and on one of the elephants the pretty grey color had been scratched and splotchy on one side. More…