Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction (56 page)

Lisa had spoken the truth: almost all the celebrants had gas-masks, but many of them were otherwise dressed in the latest fashions; most of the men were wearing dinner jackets, and many of the women long evening dresses. The combination was shocking.

The women, too, were dressed mostly in black. In terms of clothing, the occasion recalled a real funeral, as was surely the intention, but the snouted participants only distantly resembled people. Fakelove also saw a couple of completely naked gentlemen. They were wearing nothing but gas masks.

Fakelove remembered Edgar Allen Poe’s poem: They are neither man nor woman – they are neither brute nor human – they are ghouls.

Fakelove began to circle the room unsystematically. Will I see all my lunatics here? he wondered unprofessionally as he looked around him in the cheerless room. Are my narcissists and transvestites here? And the bloke who could not even open his mouth without lying? The hyperactive young miss who could drive anyone mad by bustling and making a noise like a whole class of schoolgirls? The selective mute who would speak only to his dentist? The narcoleptic who fell asleep while trying to tell me of his troubles? The woman who ate and vomited, ate and vomited incessantly? Are the paranoids and the gamophobes, the paedophiles and the paraphiles, celebrating here? The man whom I once diagnosed as a partialist because he worshipped women’s elbows?

But it could not be said that I will meet them face to face, he thought amid the gas-masks.

The rhythm of the music had drawn many couples and single dancers to the centre of the floor. On the concrete floor Fakelove saw deep, narrow channels leading to the floor drains.

Fakelove suddenly realised what the original intention of the channels had been: animal blood had once flowed in them. Understanding that, he thought he sensed the horrible stench of ingrained fear of death, blood and excrement.

How could they celebrate and enjoy themselves here? Fakelove thought again, but at that moment someone tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Well, well, here is the doctor himself,’ one of the gas masks greeted him politely. ‘What fun, that you could come too.’

‘With whom do I have the honour – ,’ Fakelove asked.

‘I am the Friend of the Overweight,’ the man said.

Another snout pushed closer.

‘Is that Fakelove?’ she asked. ‘I’m the Uncertain Bride, do you remember me?’

Oh my goodness, Fakelove thought, I should have got myself a gas mask after all. Now they will all attack me.

‘Are you Fakelove, good evening,’ said a third voice. ‘You didn’t respond to me very nicely, did you?’

‘I don’t happen to remember,’ Fakelove muttered.

Had they all found their way here? Fakelove wondered. All my lunatics and my unhappy ones?

‘I am the Man with Twenty-One Faces,’ the third gas mask said. ‘Or, of course, only part of him. I am sure you remember: chocolate . . . ’

‘I’m sorry,’ Fakelove said. He really wondered at himself. What had made him come to this event? Yes, of course, Lisa. Where was she?

‘I’m afraid I don’t have time. I must . . . ’

Fakelove completely forgot that he had, just a few days ago, so passionately wished to meet the Man with Twenty-One Faces. He forgot that his duty as a citizen and a doctor was to reveal the man’s identity. All he wanted to do was to find Lisa.

Fakelove hurried toward the double door, but found himself in an even denser crowd of people. They were queueing for the buffet. Glancing at the table, Fakelove started. What a strange selection! On the black fabric black foods were set out: black sausage, blood pancakes, black bread, black avocados, dark blue plums, even black or black-dyed caviar.

Someone pushed a tray into his hands; on it were some cardboard mugs. In them, too, there gleamed a dark liquid. Fakelove took a mug and automatically raised it to his lips. A strange, sweet smell he thought, but he had grown thirsty, and he swallowed half the contents.

‘A strange imagination, the party cooks have, really,’ Fakelove said to the gas mask standing beside him.

‘Well, well, but aren’t you Doctor Fakelove?’ asked the mask.

Fakelove muttered something and pushed forward. At a side table Fakelove finally saw a familiar, narrow-shouldered figure, its fair plait gleaming in the disco lighting. Could it be –

Fakelove pushed closer: ‘Hey Lisa, I came to take a look at the end-of-the-world party too.’

‘Hi, Dad,’ said his daughter; the enormous glass lenses of her gas mask flashed yellow and green with the rhythm of the disco lights. ‘Where’s your gas mask? I saw the invitation on your chat pages and thought I’d come for a look.’

‘I didn’t know you followed my chat pages. You might have said.’

‘You don’t know everything, Dad.’

‘This isn’t a suitable place for you.’

‘That’s what you think.’

A terrible thought struck Fakelove. His mouth began to dry. He felt his lips smack as they parted, as he tried to speak. He could feel a sour and bitter and metallic taste on his tongue. What a pity that he had no Fakedew mouthwash with him.

‘Lisa, you cannot mean, really not – tell me, have you been a client of mine?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Lisa! Spare me! How did that occur to you? What pseudonyms did you use?’

‘Big Mistake.’

‘Big . . . Mon Dieu! Did you invent that story yourself? Tell me it cannot be true! That man – Lisa! The awful neighbour . . . That was all made up, wasn’t it? Tell me it was!’

Fakelove wanted to add: ‘Lie, just this once!’

Lisa turned her head away, and Fakelove gulped.

‘And how did I reply to you? I don’t really remember any more.’

‘Don’t you? Do you want to hear, word for word?’

‘Thank you, I’d rather not.’

‘I certainly remember every word of your answer. You wrote, “Wouldn’t it really be better, if . . . ”’

‘Oh my darling, have mercy! Let it be!’

‘”Wouldn’t it be better that you should just get up and go off with your idiot,”’ Lisa continued mercilessly.

Fakelove collapsed completely. He had to sit down. He pressed his sweaty face into his hands and whimpered. ‘And what are you going to do? You aren’t going to follow my advice, are you?’

‘I do not intend to tell you that. Bye bye, Dad! I have a date.’

‘Wait, Lisa, don’t be in such a rush. Not with THAT guy, surely? Is he here too? He can wait. And anyway, I’d really like to meet him. Tell me, Lisa, really, are you still planning to run away?’

‘See you!’

He wanted to ask forgiveness from someone, everyone. He remembered some lines which he had read as a young man: ‘These eyes well with blood, for the crushing burden of sin; for all that wounded the poor heart – and all that wounds it still.’

‘Good day, doctor,’ someone cooed in his ear. ‘I’m Irene, remember?’

Quite right, Fakelove recognised that low, charming, almost seductive voice. In the crush, a woman pressed himself to her. A particularly long gas-mask snout rested between her sweaty, half-naked breasts.

‘Absolutely, Irene, I remember. You’re Håkan’s wife. Our conversation remained unfinished. Is your husband here, too?’

‘Håkan? Definitely,’ Irene said. ‘There he is.’

The woman pointed at a tall figure, dressed in black, by the window. He was deep in conversation with some woman.

‘I suppose I should exchange a couple of words with him,’ Fakelove said, already beginning to take a step toward the window.

‘And there he is too,’ said Håkan’s wife.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Him over there, dancing.’

‘Him too! But that is not possible.’

‘Oh yes, him too. I told you that there are more than one of them, don’t you remember? Over there, too, a Håkan is fetching some soup, can you see, that short, fat man.’

‘Don’t tease me,’ Fakelove said, trying to laugh.

‘I told you he’d been duplicated, didn’t I. You didn’t want to believe me, but now you can see with your own eyes. Let me tell you a secret: everyone here is Håkan, everyone. But none of them is the real Håkan.’

‘Listen, contact me early next week, write to me,’ Fakelove asked. ‘We still have a lot to talk about.’

But suddenly he began to grow dizzy. He sought out a window-seat to sit down. Perhaps it was the horrible smell ingrained in the walls of the slaughterhouse that had caused it. Or perhaps it was the punch; it could be that the mix included something besides alcohol. He recalled the strange taste of the drink, and suddenly he became very afraid. At this kind of party it was apparently habitual to take ecstasy or LSD or psilocybin-related mushrooms or henbane, how did Fakelove know?

Where had Lisa gone? Strangelove should have looked for her again, but instead he remained powerless, staring at the back wall of the high room. Thousands of creatures had been killed in this room. Their carcasses had been hung on iron hooks and their innocent blood had spattered across the walls and floors. Fakelove thought he could see a cleft in the wall. He screwed up his eyes. The concrete wall was so rough and dirty that one did not notice it immediately. But when one looked again, one saw clearly that the cleft began at the ceiling and continued in a tangled line down to the concrete floor, and no doubt into the foundations.

Suddenly Fakelove remembered the Man with Twenty-One Faces. An even darker thought stuck him. Nausea welled up increasingly strongly. He felt quite faint. Why had he not grasped the situation and tried to find out what the man was planning? Surely he had not come to the party with evil intent, with him a syringe, a box of pills, a poison spray?

He had to speak to the Man with Twenty-One Faces. But how would he find him. It was difficult to distinguish even between men and women under the gas mask, in the dazzle of the rotating lights.

While, like a rapid ghastly river,

Through the pale door;

A hideous throng rush out forever,

And laugh – but smile no more.

And where was Lisa? He must warn all the party-goers, the punch must be taken away, and all that horrible black food . . . People must not eat anything here any more.

Fakelove forced himself to stand up and get going. He tried to shout: ‘Attention! May I have a moment’s silence!’

The rumble of the synthesisers concealed his voice, which had also become pathetically puny, and carried no distance. Perhaps his vocal cords had been damaged by the drink.

But above all he must now find Lisa. Fakelove dashed to and fro, opening a door on an unusually long corridor where a couple was in full swing. Finally he thought he saw, near the exit, a pale, glowing plait. Lisa was perhaps already leaving, but another gas-mask was following her. If only it wasn’t that imbecile child-rapist, that criminal . . . He would certainly bring the creep to justice.

‘Lisa! Wait! Let’s go together!’

Fakelove rushed after the slender figure which he supposed to be his daughter. He was already standing on the loading bridge. It had rained, it was still raining, and in the asphalt yard there were large black puddles. Night had come, although he felt he had only been there a moment. It was darker than elsewhere in the city, for the street-lamp by the slaughterhouse had been stoned until it was broken. He was alone; there was not a soul to be seen anywhere.

‘Lisa!’ he shouted hoarsely. Between the low warehouse buildings, an unseen dog growled in a nocturnal fit of rage.

Fakelove was trembling, his socks were wet and too tight for his ankles. He hoped they would not give him an embolism.

He glanced at the puddle at his feet and realised that he was standing up to his ankles in water. Fakelove sneezed. I should go straight home and change my clothes, he thought.

At that moment reflections began to rotate in the water of the puddle, red, yellow, blue, green . . . Where did all the colours come from – in a puddle that was so black a moment ago? And the din – how did it carry out here at such a volume, beating so heavily?

Fakelove looked behind him and saw in the windowless outside wall the same line as he had noticed inside. Was it really so wide? The flashing of the strobe light and the music were now pouring out unhindered. It was opening, still opening. Fakelove could now see the frog-dancers inside; their limbs were twitching as if they were being pulled by invisible strings, they shivered as if with the fever, in thrall to the newest dance, and had not yet noticed anything.

‘My dear people! You lunatics!’ Fakelove hissed. ‘Come out! Schizos! Get out of here now!’

‘They can’t see anything, the fools,’ he whimpered to himself. ‘Run, idiots, before it’s too late.’

Perhaps it already was. There was a sound as if a thick fabric had been ripped The wall divided, or rather pulled apart like a veil. Fakelove heard a new bass which welled up from somewhere much deeper than the sound from the synthesiser, from the foundations of the city, from the cold groundwater. No, still lower and farther: from the earth’s innermost furnace, where stone boiled, from the heart of the planet, where even iron melted.

Vita Nuova

In the kitchen window was an August sunflower. Håkan’s wife had cut it in the garden and put it in a vase. In the midst of reading Håkan found himself gazing at the flower’s floret, the spirals of its heart. He began mentally to count the flower’s stamens. The pattern they formed reminded him of shells twisted into horns and of the fibres of a dead tree, the dodecahedra of snowflakes, the stripes of the tiger and the spots of the leopard, the symmetry of the starfish and the waves of sand-dunes, the ellipses of the planets and the recurrent showers of meteors. As he looked at the flower, he heard the galloping of a horse and the rhythm of human footsteps.

Håkan’s wife peeped into the kitchen and said: ‘Håkan, it’s getting late.’

Håkan learned his numbers when he was just three. At four he could add and subtract three- and four-figure numbers. Soon Håkan began to be interested in timetables; he concentrated on them as other children concentrate on comic books.

By the time he reached school age, Håkan had noticed that almost all flowers have a set number of petals: lilies had 3, buttercups 8, marigolds 13, asters 21 and daisies 34. Håkan also knew flowers with 55 or even 89 petals. Håkan was fascinated by the regularities of these sequences.