Fair Play Read Free

undeniable space. Like now this business about the frames. Several months earlier, Jonna had decided she wanted to frame some of the pictures by fellow artists that Mari had on her walls. She made some very pretty frames, but when they were ready to hang, Jonna was seized by new ideas and the pictures were left standing around on the floor.
    â€œFor the time being,” Jonna said. “And for that matter, your whole collection needs rehanging, top to bottom. It’s hopelessly conventional.” Mari waited and said nothing. In fact, it felt good having things unfinished, a little as if she had just moved in and didn’t have to take the thing so seriously.
    And over the years, she’d learned not to interfere with Jonna’s plans and their mysterious blend of perfectionism and nonchalance, a mix not everyone can properly appreciate. Some people just shouldn’t be disturbed in their inclinations, whether large or small. A reminder can instantly turn enthusiasm into aversion and spoil everything.
    Pursuing her work in blessed seclusion, free from interference; molding and playing with all sorts of materials, a game that all at once, capriciously, could become irresistible and crowd out all other activity. Enjoying a sudden burst of practical energy and repairing everything broken in the house and in the apartments of her completely impractical friends—mending things or making them beautiful, or simply, to everyone’s relief, discarding them. Periods of nothing but intense reading, night and day. Periods of listening to music to the exclusion of all else. To name just a few.
    And each and every one of these periods was sharply defined by a day or two of extreme unease and boredom, irresolute days in search of a new course. It was always the same; there was no other way. To encroach on those empty days with suggestions or advice was utterly unthinkable.
    Once Mari happened to observe, “You do only what you like.”
    â€œNaturally,” Jonna said, “of course I do.” And she smiled at Mari in mild astonishment.
    And now came the day in November when everything in Mari’s studio was to be rehung, rearranged, renewed, and given a completely new significance—graphics, paintings, photographs, children’s drawings, and all sorts of precious small objects reverently pinned up on the walls, which as time passed had lost all memory and meaning. Mari had assembled hammer, nails, picture hooks, steel wire, a level, and several other tools. Jonna had brought only a tape measure.
    She said, “We’ll start with the wall of honor. Naturally, that will stay strictly symmetrical. But your grandfather and grandmother are too far apart, and for that matter it can rain in on your grandfather through the stovepipe. And your mother’s little wash drawing gets lost; it needs to be higher. That pretty mirror is idiotic, it doesn’t belong, we have to keep it austere. The sword’s okay, if a little pathetic. Here, measure—it’ll be seven, or six and a half. Give me the awl.”
    Mari gave her the awl and saw how the wall regained a balance that was no longer traditional but instead almost provocative.
    â€œNow,” said Jonna. “Now we’ll remove these little curiosities you don’t really care about. Free up the walls. This will be an exhibition without a lot of knickknacks all over the place. Put them in one of your seashell boxes or send them to some children’s museum.”
    Mari thought quickly about whether she should be offended or relieved, couldn’t decide, and said nothing. Jonna moved on, took pictures down and put them back up, her hammer blows inaugurating a new era.
    â€œI know,” she said, “rejection’s not easy. But you reject words, whole pages, long impossible stories, and it feels good once it’s done. It’s no different rejecting pictures, a picture’s right to hang on a wall. And most of