The Palace of the Snow Queen by Barbara Sjoholm

Author:Barbara Sjoholm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2023-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

By this time, it was very late. I said farewell to Jorma and took the tram back to Hakaniemi Square. Then I walked along the half-frozen lake back to the Villa Kivi.

Some years ago when I was in Helsinki to promote a book, my guide had pointed out the Villa Kivi and told me the former summer home of a wealthy manufacturer was now owned by the Finnish Writers Union and that authors could stay there. I’d long cherished a dream of spending a week or two writing in the big pleasure villa on the shores of the lake, surrounded by birches.

The reality had turned out to be somewhat different. The space for authors to stay was a small annex with three tiny bedrooms, a shared bath, and a kitchen. As I found out, it was unusual for a foreign writer like myself to stay there, and for so many days. Most of the time it was empty, but several times, particularly very late at night on weekends, I could hear stumbling footsteps in the foyer. Once, a man rattled my locked doorknob, mumbling something. When this didn’t stop, I said clearly in English, “If you try to come in, I’ll kill you.” Dead silence after that, and whoever it was went into another room and closed the door and locked it.

The man left early in the morning, and it reminded me that all the guests seemed to leave early in the morning, no matter how late they arrived.

In the office of the Villa Kivi the next day, I voiced my suspicion that the authors’ annex was actually a sort of literary flophouse for Finnish male writers who might have had too much to drink and were unable to make their way home. Embarrassed laughter enfolded an admission of “yes, that might be so.” Afterward I knew I was probably safe enough, but having gotten the word one Saturday that the house was to be occupied by Finnish writers from out of town that night, I took myself off to a nearby hotel and luxuriated in a large room with a giant television before returning late Sunday evening after the authors had left.

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