The Listener by Tove Jansson Read Free Book Online Page A

had graced her for a few moments. She giggled and started digging in her purse. He mixed sweet vermouth and ice water without asking what she wanted. For himself, he poured some lemon juice.
    Everything was ebbing away. The ice cubes tinkled in her glass as she shook it slowly and searched for words. She said what she had already written – that his lastbook was the finest thing he’d ever done, and he replied that he was pleased to hear her say so, that he was very glad she liked it. Now the ball was in her court again. She clinked her ice cubes and said with enormous effort, “There are things that can be treated so many different ways, like this question of purity, which is so essential. I mean, whatever happens and however things evolve, you know, towards absolute freedom – people getting freer and freer, doing whatever they want and saying and showing whatever they want – but I don’t think it’s right. It’s not pretty. And words are important.”
    “You’re right,” he said. “Words are important.” He was very attentive. Actually he had terribly small eyes and his lashes were perfectly black. She went on hurriedly. “What you describe in your books is a thing that has almost been lost. It belongs in another century! I mean, isn’t it true that people talk to death things that are so fragile and fine that they shouldn’t be talked about at all?”
    He looked thoughtful and she added vehemently, “I mean, it gets all turned around. It turns people off, and isn’t that a shame?”
    “That’s an interesting thought,” he said slowly and as if from a great distance. He had stood up and now he asked if she’d like to have some music. She said bluntly, “Yes.” He asked what kind of music and she said it didn’t matter. “But I have everything,” he said. “Whatever in the world you’d like. You have only to say.”
    At that moment, all she could remember was Beethoven and the Beatles, so she said curtly, “You decide. The way you decided my drink.”
    A clear, chilly, gentle music streamed forth and filled the room, thoughtful and impassive. The decision not to speak altered her face, which shrivelled and grew childish. She was no longer trying to please.
    “Now you’re tired of me,” he said. “It was wrong of me, pouring you vermouth. May I offer you a whisky or Cognac instead, or is there something else you’d like?”
    “No, no, not at all,” she answered quickly, half suffocated by remorse and confusion. Why doesn’t he talk the way he writes? He’s friendly, but it’s the wrong kind of friendliness. It doesn’t mean anything. That’s the way you comfort someone who doesn’t count, someone who’s behaved badly and isn’t even really grown up.
    “Is that skin from Africa?” she said.
    “India, maybe,” he said. Now he’s withdrawing again, that was wrong. You don’t make small talk with a writer, you talk about essentials. I’ve only been thinking of myself, not about him at all. They both began speaking at once, at exactly the same instant. They stopped and looked at each other.
    “I beg your pardon,” he said. “You were saying …?”
    “No, it was nothing.”
    “No, please go on …”
    “I was just thinking,” she said. “What does a person do, what does an author do if he’s misunderstood and gets depressed and can no longer write? It must be dreadful to get bad reviews, and how many people are there who understood what it’s like, and how important it is not to …” His face closed and she went silent with shame, a shame she could not understand or control,and the music had reached its finale and so it stopped as well.
    It could all have been indescribably awful, but now the author extended his hand and touched hers, one short second, and asked respectfully which of his books she had read. She drew a deep breath and looked straight at him with that special sadness that only adoration can produce. “All of them,” she said. “Every book you’ve