Sometimes when she felt tired, she went to the lavvu by herself to rest or to write in her journal. The lavvu wasn’t a simple traditional one, which was what she’d imagined the first night she heard about it, but a wooden structure without windows or chimney that looked like a little cabin or a fort with a cone-shaped roof. She liked to sit in its dim half-light, smelling the wood smoke and hearing the sounds outside as close as if she were out there. She felt protected inside there, childishly safe. She didn’t feel the same anxiety she’d had on the first morning; at any rate it was weaker, sort of diluted. All the roads and paths she walked down with Lilldolly were now being sewn into her life and although these paths might have been made with fast, simple stitches, they attached her to something, they kept her in the world. The fact that Deep Tarn was a place on the edge of things, and that Arnold and Lilldolly were outsiders, seemed significant somehow.
One morning, Marta went with Lilldolly to the tarn the farm had been named after. It looked like a big eye and was situated in the woods not more than a hundred yards from the house. They followed an often-used path along the edge of the water and came to a small cabin at the farthest end of the tarn. Lilldolly explained that she lived there during the summer. Once the goats and the cows had been let out to roam the forest for the summer, she’d stay there, that’s what she’d always done. A short distance from the cabin was the summer barn, a shelter with a roof and three rough walls. Lilldolly would milk the animals there, where they could also escape the gnats. Gnats don’t like roofs, Lilldolly said. Under a roof, their bites are useless.
Together, Marta and Lilldolly started organizing the cabin for the summer. They swept and scoured the floors, aired out rugs and mattresses, cleaned the chimney, and cleared out the woodstove. They placed bunches of budding blueberry branches in glass jars around the hut. Marta felt light and happy, as if she were a child again, puttering about in her playhouse, making it nice. During some summer vacations, Marta and her sister had stayed on farms and at one of them there’d been a playhouse where they could spend as much time as they wanted. It was as if they’d been given their own kingdom to rule, a kingdom where they were the king and queen and their rules were the only ones that applied.
“By midsummer, lilies of the valley will be blossoming here by the tarn,” Lilldolly said when they carried blueberry branches inside the cabin. “Tons of lilies of the valley. Then you have to come and visit and pick some!”
Marta never felt as lightheartedly chatty as Lilldolly. In some way, she was speaking the wrong language, and she felt everything she said sounded artificial and stiff, like a newscaster on television. Arnold and Lilldolly spoke as if they were in love with every word and expression they used; as if they caressed them inside their mouths and shamelessly enjoyed using them.
“My, it’s fun to have company,” Lilldolly now exclaimed. “Even to haul out the sour dung to the potato field! Now, let’s see if we can get the woodstove here going, so we can make some coffee.”
She’d already started a fire that was snapping and crackling behind the stove door and the coffeepot jerked suddenly from the heat on the burner.
“Yes, out here, we’re on our own,” she continued contently. “Just you and me.”
They were sitting on two small stools by a little table attached to the wall right by the stove. Lilldolly took out a piece of the tart-smelling cheese, a vat of butter, and bread cut into triangles. There were cups in the hut and she’d brought sugar in a little bag. They were quiet for a moment while waiting for the coffee. The low door was open toward the water, and on the other wall, the only window in the hut looked out over the forest. It was too early for mosquitoes, and the only sounds came from the birds outside and the low murmur of the woodstove.
Lilldolly settled her searching, vibrant gaze on Marta, carefully studying her, sort of feeling her way across her face little by little.
“This is a good place to talk,” she said. “After all, we haven’t told each other very much over these last few days. You don’t say much, do you? You keep things close to yourself.”
She turned the stool around and dealt with the coffee, pouring it into cups and continuing:
“I can see you’ve got your own story. It’s the story that brought you here, and that will take you up to Mervas. I’m not blind, but I’m not going to question you about it. Anyone has the right to keep as quiet as they like. I’m a curious person, of course, but not so much that you have to tell me. You can keep quiet if you want. If you want to talk about yourself, you’re welcome to. But stories have to come on their own accord, they’re alive like everything else. If they’re going to come out, they’d better come out alive, otherwise there’s no point.”
Marta felt hard and mute during Lilldolly’s speech. When she lifted the coffee cup to her lips, she noticed that her hand was trembling; from the corner of her eye, she saw that Lilldolly had noticed too. She desperately tried to think of something appropriate to say, but there was nothing to say, she found nothing. Somewhere inside her, there was a small rupture, a faint desire to place her life in Lilldolly’s hands, to simply let her receive it.
“But if you don’t want to talk, perhaps I can tell you something? It’s something I’ve never told anyone before, not in its entirety at least. It’s not a secret I want to share with you; it’s just that it so rarely happens that someone I can talk to comes here. I really feel the urge to tell you, if you want me to, if you want to hear it.”
Marta nodded. Of course she wanted Lilldolly to tell her, she wanted it very much. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone told her something important, had it even happened before? Yes, of course it had, but a very long time ago. She now sensed something resembling undernourishment. Her life was arid and gray, lacking in stories, people, and fairy tales. This meager existence had made her thin and weak, sort of translucent.
“Yes, please tell me,” she said at last, smiling uncertainly at Lilldolly. “I mean it. Tell me. It doesn’t happen often to me either. I mean, I’ve lived alone most of my life.”
Lilldolly chuckled, placed a lump of sugar in her mouth and let it dissolve as she sipped her coffee. After this, she put butter and cheese on the bread and chewed and ate for a while. Outside, an osprey shrieked high in the sky, and Marta sat with her hands in her lap letting the stillness envelop her. She had made the right decision setting out on this journey, she thought. She had not been brought off track.
~ ~ ~
Humans are so careless. That’s the worst thing about them. They’re so impatient, so rough. Why are they in such a rush? What drives them? Why are they grabbing things so angrily, always causing harm? They push and pull their poor animals instead of sitting down, listening to them, and talking to them so they can feel at ease. It’s as if everyone is walking around with a constant storm inside; there’s always a headwind inside them, always pouring rain and hail. They trample gentle flowers, tear up moss from the ground in big chunks. They clear-cut the forests as if there were a war going on and everything had to be obliterated. They are so harsh, everywhere and with everything. Children get slapped and banged around. The very earth itself gets skinned and dismembered as if it were a slaughtered animal, nothing but a dead, numb, lifeless body. All this brutal ravaging has made me afraid for life; it has somehow injured and hurt me deep in my heart, at my core. It’s as if everything that’s beautiful, wise, and simple has been stepped upon, stomped upon. You know, everything beautiful in the world goes straight to your heart as surely as the birds come flying here in the spring. Beauty is reflected in the heart, it places its reflection in our hearts as true and as real as you see the forest reflected here on the lake. Of course you think I’m being childish. But I’m old too, I’ve lived a long, long time and have been able to think these things over so many times that I know they’re true. I’ve also experienced how all the mean and ugly things in the world have argued with my heart, pierced it so I’ve had to defend myself with all my might. Yes, I’ve learned, I’ve learned that the only thing worth listening to is the longing, my own longing, my heart, you see. That beautiful call inside me is the only thing worth listening to.