The Listener by Tove Jansson

storm let go of her she fell headlong and felt as if she’d broken. She crept on, reached the bed and crept in under the covers and drew them around her, tight against the wall with her knees drawn up to her chest. Now she heard the storm again and noticed she was cold and realised that something important had happened toher, something that had seemed significant and simple. But she couldn’t remember what it was.
    The telephone rang for a long time before she realised what it was and lifted the receiver in the dark.
    “It’s me,” she said. “No, I wasn’t asleep.” She listened attentively, staring at the ceiling, which was no longer a ceiling. The window frames had become a black and arbitrary geometry. She lay beneath a grillwork of broken beams, and above them was a firmament of dark light that rose higher and higher in unbroken eddies of snow. “Don’t explain,” she said. “Don’t say the same thing over and over again, it doesn’t matter.” She straightened her body in the bed. Slowly, disdainfully, she stretched out her legs and thought, It’s not a bit hard to be strong. “It doesn’t matter,” she said again. “If you’ve had an insight and then lost it, don’t worry about it. You’ll remember it in the morning.” She put her arm under her head and turned on her side. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course I’m frightened. Do that. Call me in the morning.” They said good night. She hung up the phone and fell asleep.
    About seven o’clock the wind died and the snow drifted down over the city, onto streets and roofs and down over her bedroom, which was completely white and very beautiful when she awoke.

Grey Duchesse
    M ANDA CAME FROM A VILLAGE IN Ö STERBOTTEN and she had second sight. It was not merely that she had prophetic dreams, she also had an unusual capacity to know when death was near and whom it intended to take. She would have preferred to keep her insights to herself, but an implacable inner voice commanded her to tell people what was going to happen. As a result, she quickly found herself shunned and eventually moved to the city where she supported herself embroidering. The whole thing was surprisingly easily arranged. Manda went to the largest ladies-wear shop, showed some work she’d done, and was hired at once. In the beginning, the job was mostly embroidering undergarments and nightdresses but later she moved on to evening gowns. Very soon she was allowed to create designs and choose colours herself, and she was given her own table behind a glass partition.
    Manda seldom spoke. She didn’t smile when she greeted people. That may seem unimportant, but in practice it is frightening. People are used to the smile exchanged onmeeting. It is natural to smile whether you like the person or not. Moreover, she didn’t look people in the eye but gazed instead at the floor in the vicinity of their feet.
    Manda’s silence and gravity and her undeniable skill and sense of colour – combined with the glass partition – placed her entirely in a world of her own. Those outside the partition were vaguely and uncomfortably afraid of her, but they saw no trace of arrogance or hostility in this tall, dark woman with the heavy eyebrows. When Manda came into the sewing studio in the morning, she hung up her coat and shawl (she always covered her head), and greeted the others quietly. The room always fell silent when she entered. They watched her cross the floor to her glass cubicle – a few long, hesitant steps. She moved like a long-legged animal. When she had closed the glass door, they shifted their gaze to the black shawl and coat, which was made of some cheap, wrinkled fabric and hung like an abandoned skin on its peg. No one found her clothing comic or touching, it struck them more nearly as threatening.
    While Manda sat there behind her glass wall, she thought about nothing at all. She enjoyed embroidery. And Madame liked her patterns and colours very much. Manda always made a