The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson Read Free Book Online Page A

of annoyance that she couldn’t stand to sit and rock. She always sat on the bed-sofa by the door. Perhaps she was the only one who failed to sense how unusually peaceful it was in the big kitchen, despite the different generations going in and out, a peacefulness that put people at ease and made them forget to hurry.
    Madame Nygård mostly hovered around the huge cooking stove or sat on her chair by the hearth with her hands folded lightly across her stomach. Everyone else in the village had torn out these stoves because they took so much space, and now their kitchens were dreary and lacked a heart. But the Nygård kitchen was the way it always had been. And when the daughters and daughters-in-law crocheted, they used her patterns and the colours chosen by her grandmother. The Nygård coverlets sold best. There had once been talk of having a shop in the market town to sell the coverlets, and people turned to Katri Kling as usual for advice. But she said, “No, no middlemen. They take too big a commission. You’ll lose money on the deal. Let people come out here, make it hard for them. Make them search for their coverlets , make them hunt.”
    Katri crocheted like all the others. But she used colours that were too strong – and way too much black.
    It snowed on and on and they heard not a word about ploughing, so Liljeberg continued skiing to town although he didn’t like it. Because he was a nice man, he took on private commissions, provided they were small – medicine, for example, maybe underwear or indoor plant food, yarn if some woman had run out completely. He didn’t have much room in a backpack and a sledge, and he had to give first priority to the mail and fresh food for the storekeeper. People sorted out their orders on the storekeeper’s porch. But Liljeberg refused point blank to go to the library. He told Katri she could borrow books for Mats from Miss Aemelin, who had long shelves full of books. He’d seen them.
    But Katri didn’t want to talk to Anna Aemelin about books. She no longer took off her boots when she brought the mail to the rabbit house; just said hello and an unavoidable word or two and then walked on with her dog. Katri had given up. She understood it was not possible for her to make use of an amiability she didn’t possess, the simple friendliness it would have taken to get closer to Anna Aemelin but which lay unattainably beyond the boundaries that Katri in her self-sufficiency had drawn.
    * * *
     
    Madame Nygård called Anna and asked if she would like to come for coffee. It wasn’t at all far, and one of the boys could come to get her.
    “How kind,” said Anna, who liked Madame Nygård very much. “But it’s grown so terribly cold and, you know, it’s just such an effort to venture out…”
    “Yes, I understand. A person mostly goes out when she has to. Or when she just wants to be outdoors. Let’s wait and see. How are you? Is everything going all right?”
    “Yes, thank you,” said Anna. “Thank you for calling.”
    Madame Nygård was silent for a moment and then added, “Your father often walked through the village. I remember him so well. He had a very beautiful beard.”
    Katri brought mail that same day.
    “Don’t go yet,” Anna pleaded. “Not right away. Miss Kling, you’ve been so helpful. I would very much like to show you Papa’s and Mama’s home.”
    They walked through the house together, from room to room, each with its own untouchable tidiness. Katri saw no great difference between the rooms, all of them a faded blue and vaguely depressing. Anna kept up a running explanation. “Here’s Papa’s chair where he read his newspaper. No one but Papa was allowed to fetch the paper from the shop and he always read them in order, although they arrived so seldom… And here is Mama’s evening lamp – she embroidered the shade herself. This photograph was taken in Hangö…”
    Katri was very quiet except for an occasional gruff comment, and eventually