To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell Read Free Book Online

itself against me and I can’t get away. It is as if the story itself is going to carry me. Out of this. At the same time, it has to move straight through me, like a child who needs to be born and on its way out ruthlessly opens up all the closed inner portals. The mother may burst from pain, but that doesn’t matter. The child has to come out.
    The arrival of Kosti’s letter bothered me. It forced me out on a marsh, and when I try to find my way back to solid ground, I realize that the only way to go is straight through the memories, as if they were planks laid out for me to walk on. In some strange way, I think telling my story will bring me back to solid ground. The problem is that I’ve never enjoyed reminiscing. I have never devoted myself to telling or even cultivating my memories as some people do. I’ve never told anyone about my childhood, not a single person, not even myself. The reason for that is simple. There hasn’t been anything to tell, there hasn’t been a story. There have only been scraps. Bits and pieces.
    Until now, I’ve lived according to my own order and taken refuge in it. I’ve been able to decide that this week I’m going to read this or that book and focus on this thing or the other. Because even though it has been a long time since I worked within my profession, I’ve continued doing a little research on my own. In this way, I’ve been able to live inside my own mind. I’ve looked for books and articles, read dissertations and research reports.
    But for the last few weeks, my thoughts have constantly been elsewhere. Like flocks of birds, they’ve lifted from the pages and flown away. And my thoughts have not been fluffy daydreams or memories of the boy. No, they’ve been busy telling a story, assembling, comparing, sorting, and memorizing. I have been forced to realize there is an order to this also, but a different kind of order than what I’m accustomed to. It has even struck me that there are similarities between the writing I’ve begun and an archaeological excavation. The carefulness. You have to be so incredibly careful with the things you find down there. They may for example be positioned in a specific order in relation to one another that mustn’t be changed. Or they may be fragile and crumble at the slightest touch. A sudden shift of the hand (or the brush, or the pen), and the entire story could literally dissolve into dust.
    You can have what appears to be a disorganized collection of bits and pieces. But the truth is that the position of each shard of vessel, its exact place in relation to the other pieces, is just as much a part of the puzzle as the shard itself. What I think, especially since I began to write, is this: every piece is part of the puzzle, of a story.
    It is quite easy to lie without being a liar. All you need is a slight imbalance. Or the wrong internal order. One little bump in the road can overturn your cart, as the saying goes. One small, insignificant imbalance somewhere in the story may one day topple over and grow into a differentstory. You don’t have be false to lie; I actually think you can make up events and still tell the truth. Lying isn’t so much about a lack of truth but rather a lack of meticulousness and devotion. It is not about disturbing the sensitive balancing act that truth represents, but rather recognizing this frail order and sensing it inside you, just as the tightrope walker senses every muscle and tendon in her body before she steps out on the rope.
    Something I’ve been thinking about is that for long periods of time, I’ve been imagining that Kosti was dead. It’s been a small, hard, tugging notion inside me. He could actually be dead without my knowing it. It’s been frightening to think about this. Like walking around with someone dead inside you. Secretly harboring a dead body.
    Other parts of me have tried to convince me that I’d know