Maybe this particular town was the particular offside tactics of the local
football team, or the runs of its wingers along the touchlines? Such a proposal
had a new, unaccustomed touch to it, but if that was how things were, you had to
accommodate yourself and let the wingers run their messages along the
touchlines. Or was this particular town simply silence, its own lethargic
silence, that seemed to harbour no message at all?
In the nighttime the sea took over, like a huge tide, swallowing the mainland.
Lights went their way in the darkness, a lowered firmament of planets and stars
on straight courses: trawlers on their way to or from fishing-banks, freighters
on permanent routes, tankers, luxury cruisers with illuminated superstructures.
In spite of the fact that the population centre was amply illuminated, it was
the creeping lights out there that caught the attention. Sometimes in the summer
there was thunder and lightning at the opposite side, lightnings illuminating
the cloud screen and transforming the whole of the visible world into a floodlit
amphitheatre; inspiring in the onlooker a feeling that he still lived in a
central arena, lit accordingly.
The night murmured, blinked, pulsed; repose was a state seldom met with in the
nighttime.
The ferries left late in the evening and entered the harbour at dawn. From afar
you could hear and feel the throbbing of the engines, and when the ships were
tied up in the ferry terminal, black oily smoke spread with the wind, announcing
the event for noses as well, far inland if the wind was blowing from the sea.
Half an hour later a convoy of HGVs advanced along the coastal road, in the
summer months stretched by vanloads of tourists. The first thing that faced
these vehicles, if they followed the signposts, was a score of drooping palm,
lining one of the main exit roads. They stood there in splendid isolation,
brandishing their bundles in the interminable westerly winds. When summer was
over the show was taken off; instead of being augmented with flamingos resting
underneath them, girls with palm skirts and flowers in their hair throwing
wreaths to the newly landed. Over the winter the trunks were bundled up and
stored in a greenhouse, leaving them in a deplorable state that could only just
be repaired by the short vegetation period of the summer to come.
Was this exhibition the result of a passing fancy by an eccentric, or was it
rooted in the popular spirit, did it have sanction from collective wishes? The
palms prevailed, year after year, bundled up over the dark months and brought
out when the time was ripe for the May Count and his bride to bring new
vegetative power to the fields. That way they had become incorporated into the
local annual cycle, much like the first swallow. At times winter would assume
Arctic features, not letting the frost out of the ground until April and keeping
driftice around till the first week of May, there would most certainly have been
a more extended season for ice statues at the approach to the town, or for
beasts like walrusses and polar bears. But such an idea was brought up by no
one. The town had palms, twenty of them, or thirty.
They must imply something, Heikki said when he saw them for the first time.
You hit the nail on the head, Harry answered, they are not there for the shade.
They mean something.
But what?
Yearning.
An exceptionally untidy yearning.
Listen here, Heikki. I think it was a hundred years ago, more; a sea captain
brought home oysters and set them out at the mouth of the harbour. Our harbour
had a flourishing oyster colony, for several years.
They would die after five minutes today. (The municipality always had the
dirtiest bathing water in national surveys, still cultivating a deeply rooted,
medieval tradition for bailing filth and droppings over the threshold).
And they grew walnuts, mulberry trees everywhere. In the end it all disappeared
in some wolves' winter. People always tried to stretch soil and water a little
longer than they can sustain. It's yearning. Yearning for Paradise. The palms
signal our yearning for Paradise to the surrounding world.
Up country an open landscape took over. The ditches were deeply cut, fields
pipe-drained and smooth mangled, trees were seldom allowed to grow into heaven.
Scattered in this, like jewels in a crown, farm machinery rentals, maintenance
stations, electricity substations, transformers, mobile masts, evidence of
faultless function and perpetual maintenance of an invisible, all-permeating
utility structure. But never a house that made the eye halt, sending waves of
breathlessly admiring information to the brain. For some reason unknown the
inhabitants of this land didn't put beauty on display, maybe because they were
unable to create beauty. The names of their virtues were: order, function,
maintenance.
It is said of recently erected concert halls that the defects and teething
problems of their interiors disappear as they get impregnated with music. Could
it be that this landscape was in the middle of some stage of a process, where it
was impregnated with order, function and predictability? So that later on, if
surrendered by its inhabitants, it would simply continue in its old footsteps,
following a road far from earthquakes, hurricanes and devastating floods? It
would go on clearing up its roads after winter's snowstorms, cutting the fields
and sowing them anew, weeding along the ditches, trimming the avenues and
disposing of twigs and rotten wood. Yes, things would go on that way, for all
objects visible were laid out for eternal function, in rough outline. There was
a beginning, but no end.
It was a landscape of order. The yearning for safety and predictability had
pushed all other wishes aside, for the time being, or permanently. Harry found
this particular landscape very captivating; it held him captive.
The town originated from a linear village, a rat-tail of houses reflecting the
coastline. That offered space for manoeuvring; the original inhabitants moved
closer together when newcomers asked to be admitted, held elbows close to the
body, branched into two rows, added a third. Still, the space available felt
tight after some time, the sea held the front in check, the scandalously priced
tilled land put a brake on to the rear. Three cures recommended themselves to
relieve growing pains: fill up the sea, build higher and expropriate. None of
this was easy to effect any longer, however. The coastline of the map, the
farmed area of old, the traditional town image were sanctified and inviolable,
someone always felt threatened or outraged by the prospect of change and raised
his fist or voice in defence. The municipal councillor had his standpoint
established: there was no economy to defend the given, not even in order to
protect and preserve origin. One glance at contemporary practice was sufficient
to confirm this standpoint.
And it was hard to deny: the mediocrity, the monotonous functionalism was sought
all along because of its readiness to move out and make way for new mediocrity,
new function. In the long run no one could hang on to the spoiled coastline, the
dead boring town, the field steppe. At intervals the town area snatched a
farming property and cluttered it up with terraced houses and industrial
hangars. Every tenth year there was some landfill erasing the old coastal line,
gaining new land for railway, harbour or traffic. And with recurring frequency
some old town block was demolished and new buildings erected. Common to all
these operations was the fact that they replaced old function, outdated, with
new, updated. That way it never came to breaking tradition nor annihilating
heritage, handled and formed by generations.
What was left to be inherited wasn't material, wasn't things or structure, it
was a perspective on things. This fashion was what lived on, although not
independent of its environment. By marking more and more of the surrounding
things with the stamp, that would eventually allow them to be thrown into the
crucible, or cast off into some sort of world subconscious, this particular way
of viewing the world became transferred to the material world, anchored there,
impossible for its inhabitants to influence. Seeing became a loop, a visual
feedback where something already existing and established saw itself reflected,
feeling confirmed and returning home. In this particular environment no-one ever
saw what might be.
With biology the same: no flower out there was allowed to grow too high or
dazzling, no bird voice to resound too strong or too long. But in the town
backyards sunflowers shot up from beds of fermented cow manure, and the rosette
for the tallest plant was never fastened to an unworthy specimen. The local
racing pigeons were among the nation's best, and at the annual show of domestic
animals the agreement between race descriptions and the animals at display was
as good as could be desired. When Customs commandeered a shipment of illegally
imported animals the local reptile club would stand by with advice and deeds,
and afterwards the local fauna of tropical reptiles would always have increased
by a couple of specimens. At intervals a parrot would escape from its cage, the
hunt for the hookbill could last for months and mobilize half the population.
The owners mourned like the parents of a lost child, letters of condolence
poured in from near and far. In the best case they made for the happy denouement
of the drama; the runaway finally got tired of all the fuss and on some cloudy
morning it sat on its old perch anew, had returned to its harness of its own
free will.
Obviously all this was nature as well, but nature of a particular kind, shifting
with fashions and demands. The draught horse had been devalued, but riding
horses jostled in the annexed farms at the outskirts of town, and with downward
trade outlooks they were turned into sausage meat. For the time being there was
a market for cuddly rabbits and guinea pigs in pet shops, and the arrival of
spring was always announced by horticulturists unfolding acres of the latest
Pelargonium hortorum hybrids. None of this needed to be looked upon as
irreplaceable or particularly in accordance with ancient tradition; the future
might well belong to llamas, flying squirrels and fig cactuses. It was good not
to have to worry about such things, to live one's life and take nature the way
it was offered by the market. Wasted rain forests and soiled tundras were in
more than one way inconceivable phenomena to this community, they lay under its
horizon. As evidence of horrid crimes the colportage from rain forest and tundra
was still appreciated; it filled a niche in commerce, helped to lubricate the
general circulation of goods and capital.
Sometimes elks from northern woods paid a visit and helped themselves to the
windfalls of gardens; after having a good tuck-in they took fright and got in
the way of town busses. Next day there was common hysteria, letters to the
editor drowned the local paper and mothers kept their children home from school.
With such a unanimous collective verdict the fate of the visitors was sealed,
the municipal hunter started thinking about ammunition and gunshot ranges, and
on a fine morning a shot went off in the town park, followed by another one. It
was the moment of truth. The magpies laughed, the gulls in the duckpond took off
and flew over the tree-tops in a dense flock. Again the apples plummeted to the
ground, without being nibbled, buses went according to the time-table, children
went to school, the palms shook their sad crowns. Order reigned anew, according
to unchangeable laws, the same order as in the days of the late Newton.
The municipal councillor could for example say to himself: time has come this
far on its obscure path, and there is no sense in resisting. It mattered little
if he knew all species surrounding him, or the complete world history by heart,
but it was an advantage if he could samba with the municipal finances. Any more
than that had to be kept a secret, no one any longer showed off his knowledge in
the multiplication table. Nor was such an attitude the result of tedious
consideration; you knew how things were in a vague, intuitive way, felt more
than thought, and had your feeling confirmed when the environment nodded
approval of the samba steps. Elks were refused admittance in urban contexts,
oysters shouldn't even try to be admitted, but there was always an empty cage
for a lovebird. There was a price ceiling to the rare beauty, and that ceiling
was low. In his duties he felt no reason to complain about this state of things;
if you knew what was acceptable for the time being you had free hands. As long
as he looked after the continued function he could count on being excused if he
happened to tread on someone's toes.
But from another point of departure he could wonder, namely when the question
was put: Where was this way of looking at things no longer valid, where was it
replaced by a new one, for better or worse? On one hand he knew that existence
had a fractal character; the small cores were embraced by the larger shells and
at the same time carried them within themselves. The small house clusters of the
plain were embryonic population centres, each centre faithfully reproduced all
deformations of the county capital, and the county capital was a bad copy of the
national capital. The nation was a Chinese box, where the small unit was deftly
inserted into the bigger one, one as necessary outer skin, one as necessary
interior bone, and all things got a bit more vacant, blank, the closer you got
to the core. There were no things like folk culture or base organisation, these
concepts were illusions, empty ideology, there was just silent endurance.
When it came to it, this way of looking at existence had a foul taste to him.
The fractal curves were not derivable, they grinned like unalterable scarecrows
in the backyards of existence. In the world for which he had been raised the
possibilities of change, development to higher grades of organisation,
capability, understanding were included as a prospect, and this prospect was
linked up with the population centre, the place where Capital was swinging the
conductor's baton. It was here that the coastline might all of a sudden fold
inwards or bend outwards in a way that didn't reproduce the bends and folds of
the previous, internal, precursory levels. This was how you recognized
Development, the movement proper of time proper; it was novel pattern. The
justification of the Party, his own justification as a politician, based on the
power to recognize and promote the new, better patterns.
And the segment that wasn't Development, but tradition and structure and
constancy and province and historical opposition? He was unable to make out his
relationship to this. On one hand it was the major enemy of Development, on the
other hand it was he himself, his way of being and feeling and thinking, loving
and hating. He was a dual human being, not least because of this. The opposites
could be submitted in pure breed, presumably excluding each other in constant
opposition, then existence became a life-and-death struggle between the
continuous landslide of the centre and the resistance and inertia at the
margins, even within dual man himself. But were things that way when it came to
it? Weren't fringes, margins as a matter of fact present as folded threats where
things were de-veloped, quite close to the hub of the centre? There lived a seed
of disorder next door to the heartpoint of order, a hostile coexistence that
might be the driving force proper.
18 kB, translated 5.10.05, corrected 23.2.06, 27.11.08.