The author transcribed Mrs. Malmikunnas’ words from the dictaphone to paper and read them through carefully. For the first time, he had something real to write about. The problem was just how to convey the woman’s life to the reader, who in the end would decide whether it was worth reading and whether the author had succeeded in transferring the life he had bought into printed form as something vibrant and interesting.
The author remembered from his childhood how difficult it was to carry a dead dragonfly home in one piece from his grandmother’s house.
He had been sitting in the back seat of the small car between his siblings, holding the dragonfly cupped in his hands, protecting its delicate, transparent wings. He had got out of the car awkwardly and walked carefully up the stairs to his attic room. Only then had he dared to open his hands. A small piece of one wing had broken off. Life can’t be moved from one place to another completely unharmed.
It was in this frame of mind that he wrote a letter to the seller.
Dear Mrs. Malmikunnas,
I thank you for the life which I did not have before our meeting. This is a big opportunity for me, and I hope I will be worthy of your sacrifice. I just wrote everything down on paper from the dictaphone, and now I will start writing the book itself.
I am afraid, but not afraid. I am at the same time king and subject. That is what writing is. A king rules lands and territories. A subject bows to the earth and notices the tender shoot rising from the ground. When writing, you have to be general and specific at the same time.
Perhaps it would be good at this juncture for me to enlighten you a little about why I wanted your life in particular. The writer’s profession is very old. Before printed literature, there were oral stories, tales told around the evening fire. The best teller was the best author of that time, even though the profession itself did not exist. And what is a good teller like then? Someone like you. When I was listening to you there behind the conference center, I realized that was exactly how I wanted to do my telling, if I could. This is difficult to explain, but I can pick out a good teller like a bird-watcher might recognize a rare breed after hearing just a short snippet of the song of the bird in question. My choice was also made easier by the fact that you were serious the whole time. You didn’t try to entertain me, so I was entertained. A good teller never tries anything.
So, I have to start the book. This is of course made more difficult because you will read it one day. At our meeting, I got the impression that you would not like for me to add anything extra to your account.
Unfortunately, I cannot promise this, because the bare truth, no matter how genuine or personal it might be, is unpleasant to read. Now, do not misunderstand. I will try to illustrate with an example.
The whooper swan, the Finnish national bird. Imagine that one is sitting on the bank of South Harbour in Helsinki. We see it from afar, from the terrace of the Palace Hotel. Behind the swan is a cruise ship bound for Sweden. We see a picture of a beautiful swan sitting on the bank. Our own thoughts move to the swan—we might even imagine ourselves being the swan for a moment. Up to this point, everything is true, clear and beautiful. This picture is one produced by a human, from there on the terrace of the Palace.
But then there are also other truths.
For example, the swan’s truth. It may not necessarily feel like a national bird, especially when we remember that it was persecuted until the 1940s. It might think, here I sit, but how long will I be allowed to sit in peace? When will I have to fly some inordinate distance to somewhere there is more food? Again those people with their shouting and taking pictures of each other with their cameras. I wouldn’t take pictures of them if I had a camera. I would take pictures of rocky isles and headlands, late in the evening and early in the morning. There is a seagull wheeling about. I know what can splash down on me out of its other end. My days are unpredictable.
And then there is still the bias related to our eyesight. We are looking at all this from the terrace of the Palace and can’t tell that in fact the swan is sitting on the railing of the third deck of the cruise ship and headed on an overnight trip to Stockholm.
In short, the whooper swan needs to be depicted from at least three different perspectives: from far away, from close up and from the bird’s own perspective. A picture created in this way is called a story, and, as we see, there are many truths within the story.
We will meet once again in one month. By that time, I will have accomplished something, but it is better for me not to show you the unfinished work. This I can promise, that everything you told me will be included in the story in one way or another.
I will probably start with Helena, even though you only told a little about her and were hiding something big.
Best wishes, A
A week later, the author received a postcard from Salme Malmikunnas with a lake scene on one side and the following text on the other:
Dear Author,
I am not a whooper swan. Weave your story with that in mind, and do justice to my life and my children. I don’t care so much about honor.
Salme