ALEXANDRA SALMELA: 56, PRESUMABLY

Excerpt translated from Finnish by Mia Spangenberg (0, 39) and from Slovak by Jakub Minárik (20).

0 Elemental Woman (terminus)

Elemental Woman was on a train travelling through Europe on New Year’s Eve. It was the shittiest end to a year ever, and not just because the engine broke close to Bologna fifteen minutes to midnight. Elemental Woman watched the fireworks go off above the village of San Bernardo. That was it for wonders.

Elemental Woman had certainly hoped and prayed for the best until the very end. She felt like she could see her sweetheart searching for her in the empty, cavernous hall of the station, anxiously looking around as he stood under the monitor listing the train departures, a bouquet in hand or then without a bouquet, and even when she had gotten on the train, when she’d been forced to give up on the aforementioned scenario, Elemental Woman imagined her beloved running along the platform after the international night express, panting and cursing with tears in his eyes, or then without tears in his eyes, and even as the train was chugging past his hometown, Elemental Woman could still picture him running along this platform, too, with a bouquet in one hand (after all?) while he held his phone in the other and panted My love! My treasure! The light of my life! I’ve been thinking things over, and I can’t live without you! Or maybe not. Really all Ele Mental Woman wanted him to say was: Get off at the next station and wait for me. I’ll drive as fast as I can, and this time I won’t follow the stupid route Google Maps offers me like some dumb donkey, I won’t get lost in the middle of a field, and you absolutely will not have to wait for me, all worn out and fed up in front of the station building that’s closed while you smoke the last of your tobacco and hope I slowly burn in hell. That’s why Ele Ment Al Wo kept her coat on and her pack zipped up. She was ready to get off at any station at all, after all she had come to stay, not to go, and she was prepared to wait until her sweetheart came to take her home, they’d have time to watch the fireworks together, they could still fix everything, and if he was in no condition to drive, E Le Ment Al was prepared to trundle along to his place on local trains and buses, or to hitchhike or take a taxi or walk, she was ready to do anything, but no opportunity presented itself. Her sweetheart didn’t show up running on any platform; he didn’t call, swallowing his tears. He didn’t even call. There was nothing else she could do. It was all going to hell.

A new year started. The train just stood there. The electricity cut out. The toilets clogged up. Everything cooling down into the new decade. The only source of light came from the fireworks that went off too late. And a persistently ringing phone. Dad. Dad. Dad and Dad. Not even her kids. Not even her sister. Not even the person who used to be the most important human being in her life, the soulmate E Le Ment A had shoved into the past. And especially not the one and only E Le Ment really wanted to call, the one who made her embark on this desperate journey, the one who was sending her back.

E Le wanted everything else to go back, to the way it was before, or somewhere, at least.

The international night express arrived at its destination five hours late. The day was gray and snowless, and E stood in front of the station, filling the emptiness inside with smoke. Time to stub out the cigarette and board the next train.

And the next day?

The next year?

The next life?

20 MARGHERITA (lovedough)

The fridge was approaching the state of zen with a lump of yeast wonderfully standing out on display. It had to be consumed somehow, even the tiniest wastage must be eliminated. Moreover, one needs to eat something. Margherita kept on chewing a piece of stale pear. She got the urge to bake bread, after all, bread is the essence of life, just like salt and love. One of her friends, a poet, even went as far as to compare love passionately to dough: dough also tends to grow, gaining in volume, indefinitely, forever, however, Margherita took this sceptically and with reservations: she had been familiar both with love and dough and the experience testified to the risk of both going flat. But still – a loaf of bread, round, warm and fragrant… Bread is a miracle. But one needs to wait too long for bread (just like for a miracle and just like for love). Even if she kneaded for dough immediately, it would not rise properly sooner than the next day; the right dough needs time (just like love!), it cannot be accelerated, it cannot be bossed around. And she ran out of pears too, the hunger would be unbearable. And so Margherita decided to bake a pizza (the true Neapolitan style!), under certain circumstances it is faster than baking bread (even if homemade!) and after all, pizza is bread too, so said her Dear and her Dear was initiated into the matter, so to say, from the cradle.

Chef Davide from the video tutorial was cute, talked quickly and smiled a lot as he was kneading dough for ten pizzas (a litre of water needs about 1.6 – 1.7 kilos of extra smooth flour (00), the exact amount can never be estimated in advance, so for starters, it is best to pour a kilo of flour into a traditional wooden wash-tub and pour a litre of water next to it, salt (50 grams) always needs be dissolved in water, yeast (2 grams) must always be crushed into the flour, salt and yeast must never – beware! NEVER!!! come into direct contact), because down there in the South, the families are large and noisy and people like to eat and eat a lot, but for a lonely woman who practically lives off pears, ten pizzas are a relatively big deal, so Margherita cut the amount of the ingredients in half, she reflected for a while (children come home, children 2 pcs, Margherita 1 pc, pizza 5 – 7 pcs), and finally, using a calculator, she reduced Davide’s recipe to a third. Thus: 333 ml of water, approx. 533 – 566 g of flour, 16.66 g of salt and 0.666 g of yeast.

Damn it, really? Zero point six six six gram of yeast? Right, let’s say zero point seven. Margherita’s digital kitchen scale weighs ingredients up to five kilograms, but only to the nearest gram. Despite the fact that the lump of yeast on the weighing platform had already acquired considerable volume according to Margherita’s rough estimate, the display continued to show one round zero.

Margherita ditched the untrustworthy piece of junk and went back to the good old method of measurement – the ballpark figure. She poured about half of the open flour pack ((1 kg – something) : approx. 2) into the bowl, next to the newly-formed hill, she poured a small beer glass (~ 0.33 l) of sort-of lukewarm water, into which she mixed an adequate amount of salt and then began to crumble the yeast into the flour, it was light and smooth, it was a delight to crush it between her fingers, it certainly won’t hurt to add a little more than the proposed zero point six six six of a gram, at least the dough rises better, in addition, only an embarrassingly small knob would remain, too small to be stored again plus the yeast was not exactly fresh, its effect might not necessarily be 100%. Margherita diligently mixed the ingredients, added a few tablespoons of sugar (~ 6.66 g) and three drizzles of olive oil (~ 16.66 g, that is, 18.51 ml, EVO!) (caution! the above-mentioned ingredients are added only after the basic ingredients have already been mixed and ONLY when baking at home, because in a typical domestic oven, it is not possible to reach the required temperature of 430 °C, instead of the traditional 0.5 min (= 30 s), the pizza must be baked for as long as 5-6 min, which is long enough time for the dough to get undesirably dry), she threw the dough mass on the worktop and, since it seemed to be too dense, she added a drop of water and she went on to knead the dough with vigorous moves, as instructed by chef Davide (one more drop) for 20 min, followed by a 20 min rest phase under the wooden wash-tub (= under a metal bowl) and, lo and behold, already in this short time, the dough could puff up quite promisingly. Satisfied, Margherita divided it into three round loaves (could be halved, if necessary) and slipped them under the bowl for six (eight) hours to rise.

Six to eight hours is a relatively long time to lean on the kitchen counter and browse websites with recipes. Something like that was out of the question. In addition, Margherita’s vision has recently deteriorated alarmingly. Margherita stretched her neck and looked out of the window. It wasn’t raining, a situation that could as well be exploited. The dough can handle itself at home, without Margherita’s disturbing presence it may as well rise better. Margherita’s thoughts overflowing with love are sufficiently intense, they can support the fermentation process even remotely. Food prepared with love tastes most delicious, Margherita’s dough will be just like love, in fact, it will be love.

Margherita was walking the outer world thinking of dough and love, picking green sprigs and wildflowers, acknowledging the nesting birds.

The trip stretched out.

The dough waited impatiently on the worktop. Margherita thought she saw a hint of movement under the bowl, some sort of irritated twitch, as if the dough was trying to free itself from the metal dome and get to her, throw itself into her arms. ‘Into my arms’, echoed through Margherita’s head, and she couldn’t wait either, Margherita put the bouquet in the vase, it was a gift for the dough, the atmosphere was charged with electricity, just like on a first date, no, actually, it was like reuniting with an old love, the one whose smell and taste you still remember and now you are anxious, whether you can recognize them at all, whether they have faded beyond recognition. Margherita closed her eyelids. She grabbed the bowl in her trembling hands and began to lift it, slowly, super slowly, thinking of three round, beautifully formed, compact, and elastic loaves. Mmmmm… The fragrance was familiar, well, Margherita’s chest was rising sharply, it smelled a little yeasty, but Margherita could forgive that, Margherita was good at forgiving, she was a tolerant person. Margherita’s lips pouted sensually, the bowl rattled in the sink, metal on metal, Margherita opened her eyes, but they did not manage to detect anything – the dough threw itself at her like a beast.

There was nothing in that act that Margherita had imagined, not a trace of love in it.

The dough was not at all what it should have been, nothing that Margherita had dreamed of, a splendid trio of round elastic loaves, just like, – – — – it should have been,, ,, , with sharply outlined shapes, solid and compact as, ,, so wonderfully smooth and elastic, kind of, ,, not too quiet, devoid of personality, on the contrary – just alive but
it               was
disgusting, it turned out to be the case that immediately inflates and bloats beyond recognition, it becomes a (disgusting) gigantic amorphic something, gruesomely flabby and (disgusting!) without any solid substance, just like Margherita’s fantasies, racing over the edges of the bowl, even making Margherita nauseous, and despite all of its jelly-like (disgusting! disgusting!) wobbliness and repugnant sloppy shapelessness, it actually acted aggressively, attacked and crushed and thrashed and mangled and strangled Margherita, and the more Margherita begged, No, please, stop!, the more greedily it sucked her into itself, so the initial shock turned into fear that drove Margherita to screams of ‘Help, Heelgagghglaghhlgagh’ and then nothing, because the sticky sprawling dough blocked her mouth and all the other cavities and Margareta thought that if – for some inexplicable reason – she had added butter into the dough instead of oil, the larger molecules of its lipids would have enabled her to breathe a little longer now. But these idle thoughts But these idle thoughts, this ‘what if’ wishful thinking, were indeed useless. What’s done is done, and vice versa. Margherita was drowning in the sloppy dough. And in that surreal situation, it suddenly occurred to her that if love is like dough, she certainly has no desire for anything as suffocating.
and decided that if she escapes from this predicament alive, next time she would pay special attention to dividing and the division of dividing and weigh all the ingredients carefully, first of all yeast, and in no way will she resort to improvisations, on the contrary: she would obediently follow the steps in the photo recipe, i.e.

1. a cube of yeast for five slices,
2. one slice for five sticks
3. one stick into five cubes
4. one cube into five strips
5. one strip into five lumps
6. and so on
7. and so on

and it will be no hipster swagger, but just as essential and necessary action as splitting a strand of hair or, in Margherita’s case, rather grinding of a comma, just some kind of fun activity, , , brain exercise, ,,, ,,,, , , ,, , , ,,, the brain needs oxygen and Margherita needs a little rabbit hole to escape from reality, needs to do something with her hands,, splitting yeast into atoms, it frees the brain from excessive deliberation. While spinning in that carousel of illogical thoughts, choking on the dough, Margherita spotted a strand of hair in the dough, her own, unbroken, but with a split end.

39 FREYA (56, presumably)

Freya is a hamster in a wheel. She hurtles onwards like crazy, she creates energy, uses it to type and tap away, she adds and subtracts, she gets stuck but keeps on typing, there’s no end in sight, and Freya just types and types and taps until sometime some day, because Freya can no longer distinguish between morning and evening or between Tuesday and Saturday, there’s a moment when she starts to feel like the incessant tapping has rammed a cavity inside of her into what’s left of Freya is about to collapse. Freya lies on the floor like a heap of bones; she lies there for some time, for several hours or several days, it’s hard to tell when you’ve lost your sense of time. But she does realize she can’t stay there forever and: One-two-three! Freya pushes herself. She hits back. She picks herself up by her bootstraps. She decides to become social.

She goes out here and there, she talks and socializes, she drinks reasonably, so that her light witty tongue won’t grow heavy or too loose, she laughs and is pleased, she‘s oh-so-good at pretending. She’s even able to reach a level of self-irony in which she objectifies herself, and with a smile on her lips she tells the story of her shitty year and her self-therapy, the writing project she’s called 56, Presumably. The point of the project is to provide some backbone and a sturdy framework to her SELF that’s about to fall apart, because Freya has set a strict goal to write – or draft, she says with a laugh – one story every week, a short story, a drabble, a text that mirrors (she says that because she’s forced to, she’s in trouble and on the double she can’t recall the verb TO REFLECT) the mood of every single week of this delightfully peculiar year. Because she wants to map out how her state of mind changes, if it changes. She’s very disorganized, and she couldn’t and wouldn’t want to keep a diary. And she, Freya, has had it with all the shitty autofictive self-help-pseudo-literature out there, she doesn’t see anything in any person’s SELF that’s so important and so valuable that it has to be shared with the whole world, especially not as it is, and she, unlike many acclaimed writers today, Freya laughs, she doesn’t believe that stories can just well up out of your OWN SELF and the SELF’S experiences. Freya notices a slight contradiction in what she’s saying, she’s definitely not consistent, so she makes a clever correction and emphasizes how disgusted she is specifically with first person narrators who wallow in their own egos and how tired she is of multiperspectivity, she doesn’t want gimmicks but honest, banal, straightforward stories, reasonably short ones so you’d actually have the stamina to finish reading them, ones with an omniscient narrator who doesn’t avoid worn methods or verbal platitudes. That’s what she, namely Freya, is writing now. She’s giving every character their very own name, which is her way of alienating them from herself, once and for all, so they’ll become their own independent fictions.

Everyone listening looks pretty confused.

Freya hesitates.

Let’s rewind.

She didn’t get too excited, she’s kept up a sarcastic vibe throughout. So what is it? It’s like poking fun at autofiction, Freya emphasizes. But not really. “Yeah, but…”

?

“Why 56?” someone asks.

Duh.

“So there’s a story for every week in the year,” Freya says.

“Duh,” everyone laughs. “That’s a good one, with the presumably.”

Duh?

…

?

“Well…”

???

!

??????!…

“Ummm…there are only 52 weeks in a year.”

“Oh,” Freya says. A bit surprised. It seems like it’s already well into fall, people are wearing long coats. Freya takes note of that.