3 emigrants meet at twilight on a subway platform to walk to a Swedish cemetery. Today is Alla Helgons Dag, and they will participate in it together. 1 is Puerto Rican, 1 is a German who watched the wall fall from the east side of Berlin, and 1 is a Native American from southern Alabama. 1 lost his father 9 years ago, 1 lost her job 2 weeks ago, and 1 lost her family name 3 generations ago. There have been many other losses too, of course. And while drifting around thousands of graves alit with candles, inhaling the somber harmony of choirs, the calls to reflect upon the expired lives of family members and friends, the Puerto Rican, German, and Native American thought of their personal losses, for they did not know a single soul in any cemetery in the whole nation of Sweden.
They hadn’t intended or even expected to think of personal losses, only to participate in the cultural experience. The German begins to feel bad. Shouldn’t we try and think of the Swedes? she asks herself. This is their event after all. The Puerto Rican thinks the same thing, and it is easy for him to direct this mind onto something that he is not connected to in any way, for this is precisely what he’d been doing since his father died. But the Native American cannot detect their thoughts, nor had it ever crossed her mind, which is too crowded with amazement. That loss was so ubiquitous, that the grave looks the same here as anywhere and that no matter where you walk this earth, you walk atop the dead. For the German, there was remorse and condolences. For the Puerto Rican, blurry pain and detachment. For the Native American, harmony.
Where am I going with all of this, you ask?
I’m going to the first floor apartment of an Irishman. Because after setting their flickering candles at the feet of three unlit graves, they followed the steps of an Australian friend whom they’d bumped into on the subway platform. For the Australian, this event was merely the prelude to a party. She called an Irish friend who lives just 2 blocks from the cemetery’s back gate. He invited them over for a whiskey, and they walked down a long curvy finger of the cemetery, through the back gate, turned right, went 2 blocks and knocked on a red door. But a man from the outskirts of Dublin did not answer the door. It was his Finnish roommate.
The German, Native American, Puerto Rican, Australian, Irishman and Finn form a circle in the living room with their whiskies. Conversation is slow at first, chit-chatty, until the whisky glasses are refilled with gin and a bowl of chips are brought out, if you want to call them chips. The Irishman did, though they aren’t made from potatoes nor are they of normal size. They’re as big as my hand, thinks the German who puts hers back into the bowl, it must be an Irish decoration. Oh its green kale, exclaims the Finn. I’ve baked kale like this before. These aren’t baked actually, they’re dehydrated, the Irishman says then announces that 2 Swedes are coming over for dinner. Would anyone like to stay for the meal? There’s plenty of food, but its not cooked. Everyone says yes, they’re in no hurry.
The Swedes arrive, the table is set, everyone sits around it except for the Irishman who goes to the kitchen to prepare the food, course by course, and no matter what it is, whether its sushi, seaweed, sliced bread, mole, pizzas, chocolate cake or ice cream, all of it comes out raw. These foods are alive, he says more than once. Oh great, the Australian thinks to herself, living foods on the day of the dead, someone please pass the wine. The German is concerned too, but more about the Irishman’s raw food diet. The Japenese taught her that one must eat warm, long-simmered foods in cold weather in order to keep a proper body temperature. Why start this diet now, with a 5 month Swedish winter ahead? she wonders.
Throughout the night, there is talk of the Japanese, the British and the Hungarians, because the German, Australian and Native American have lived in Tokyo, London and Budapest - respectively. The Swedes are particularly keen on talking about the Danes. The Finn knows that they compete with one another, she’s noticed the same tension between the Swedes and Norwegians too, but she has never understood their sibling rivalry, and that’s exactly what it is. The Native American thinks its natural, the Puerto Rican finds it quite amusing, while the German and Australian have no experience in the matter. They ask several questions about Denmark, trying to understand what its like. Is Copenhagen similar to Portland, they ask? Hm, thats an interesting comparison, the others say, then talk it out. The German and Australian gather all of the varying interpretations and piece together their own images of Copenhagen.
It seems as if the Irishman is listening intently, and he is trying, but he is also thinking of the Blomstedt’s. Earlier the Native American had asked him about James Joyce, then before he could answer, and he was certainly glad that he didn’t have to answer, she suddenly exhaled the word, Blomstedt. That was the name, she recalled. She nearly tripped over the gravestone, because the plot was so small and dark and no one had put a candle there. She wanted to hold her candle till the end of the walk because it was keeping her hands warm, but the little grave seemed so sad. She put her candle down, and that little plot came to life, she told him with bright eyes. Erik and Anna Blomstedt was etched into the stone and nothing else. No dates or prayers or anything. Just Erik and Anna in small letters, Blomstedt in big letters.
The Irishman thought about this while his guests talked of the world, because just that morning he had written a letter to his girlfriend back in Dublin. He wanted her to know that the flowers she sent on his birthday turned green before they died. Instead of turning yellow or brown and dropping its petals one by one, they became green and crisp. For days he wondered if they would bloom and begin to live all over again.
Unfortunately they died just two days later, but he didn’t say anything about that in his letter. He thought about it, but no, I’ve never been one to state the obvious, he decided in the end.
