"...that is all ye need to know"

       The night after the conversation with the Inspector would not end. It stretched into an endless procession of thoughts, memories, fragments of phrases that assembled themselves into a new, monstrous picture. Snufkin lay in the darkness, watching the tent flap grow pale in the rising moon’s rays, then darken, then lighten once more at the first bird calls. Only the unobtrusive murmur of the river remained constant. Moomintroll appeared when the sun had already risen above the Lonely Mountains. Snufkin heard him thumping across the wooden bridge, scratching at the tent wall, calling his name. He must answer something, before the little fellow took silence for an invitation to enter. “Coming, I’ll be out.” He hurried to pull on his coat. The other one, with his way of life, must’ve had a lot of scars, and Moomintroll might realise this was not the same Mumrik if he had ever gone swimming with that Snufkin in the sea or at the hot springs. He had once mentioned something about hot springs in the mountains. With a heavy head, Snufkin stepped out to meet the new, mockingly beautiful day and made straight for the river to wash. “Good morning! I was thinking the other day…” Moomintroll began cheerfully, trotting alongside his friend, hiding white flowers behind his back. But suddenly he faltered. “Snufkin, are you ill? You look unwell.” “No, not at all, just tired. Bad dreams…” The river water was cool. Snufkin gazed at his reflection. Ripples fractured his face into fragments, made it alien, unfamiliar. He passed a hand over the surface, and the reflection scattered into a thousand glints. Setting aside his hat, he cupped handfuls of water over his face, his crown, down his neck. With the Inspector yesterday, he had held himself together, and the familiar occupation of weaving a tale had helped. But the night had overwhelmed him. A hunter of bandits, not a bandit… “The other day I noticed,” Moomintroll began again, though less resolute now, “that the flowers on your hat had quite wilted, so I ran out early this morning to get you fresh ones.” And he extended Snufkin’s hat, crowned with a wreath of fragrant white star-shaped blossoms. “Here. Jasmine.” He named the flower with a strange, tender intonation. Almost like… an address? A personal name? The word clearly held some special significance for him and… and the other Snufkin? The one who would never return to Moominvalley. Who had carried the correct countersign for this password to his grave. Snufkin’s mind raced. Jasmine, something familiar, something recent… Ah, yes, yesterday the Inspector had mentioned Jasmine Hill, where they had prospected for gold, and the bandits, and the stranger who had stopped them. But how did that connect with Moomintroll and the other one? If that had been him, and he had wished to remain unrecognised, then… “I don’t know what you mean,” Snufkin replied with exaggeratedly false, jocular intonation, accepting the hat from the pearly-grey paws. It worked. Moomintroll giggled, spun on his heels. But immediately he turned back. His eyes shone. “I never told anyone it was you! Though I wanted to, terribly! It’s such a shame that the others don’t know how much you do for them.” Each word drove like a nail into Snufkin’s conception of himself, with which he had been totally content. This joy, this gratitude, was not meant for him. But until yesterday, he had believed himself entitled to it. By various laws, he might be classified as a con man, a swindler (as if he had no right to take something in compensation for his efforts and ingenuity in bending the reality!). But he thought of himself as an artist, a colleague of writers, actors, and painters. He took pride in clean work, pride in adhering to his own standards. He took nothing from children, never stripped the poor of their last possessions, and always tried to depart without shattering the illusion he had woven, so that his ‘clients’ might retain happy memories and not regret the loss of some trinket or modest sum. But when he encountered outright scoundrels, he fleeced them without compunction and made certain they understood they had been deceived. Let them experience what it was like to be on the receiving end of the treatment they dealt out to others. Perhaps it would give them pause for thought. And then one day, with brazen simplicity, employing nothing more than bar-room chatter and a pinch of sleeping powder, he had relieved one fool of his surplus cash—a fool who had been boasting of robbing a shop. That fool, it turned out, had relatives, serious toughs, with long arms and short patience. He needed to lie low, and quickly, but had no safe place in mind in that region. Nor any time to spare. He fled into the wilderness, without gear, without supplies. Snufkin… no, that wasn’t right; he wasn’t called that then. That detail, together with brotherhood, had been a pure invention. He had no name at all, really; he adopted whatever suited the circumstances, changing tags like gloves. So: he had no fondness for uninhabited places, and when he spotted a campfire in the night steppe with a solitary traveller beside it, guitar in hand, he risked joining him. He regretted his decision upon drawing nearer and noticing that the traveller had a rifle lying nearby and a pistol holster at his belt, and altogether the most villainous appearance. Though the stranger turned out to be a mumrik as well. He did not introduce himself, engaged in no small talk, simply strummed the same tune over and over. But neither did he drive the newcomer away, and even shared his tea. So the artist risked another venture: he muttered, as if to himself, how he wished he might find some quiet place where the inhabitants did not automatically take all strangers for agents of hell. The villain-face gave a snort, muttered through clenched teeth that no such place existed. But after a few minutes' silence, he added that a quiet place was not to be found but made. Find some godforsaken back of beyond; ignore accusations of consorting with the devil; do no harm, quite the contrary; tolerate small moomintrolls tagging along all day long—here his gaze flickered momentarily northward, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile. But the artist knew how to observe and draw conclusions, to sniff out the slightest opportunity for a… project. He asked whether his companion happened to be heading that way. “Nope,” the other replied. “First I’ve got to pay someone a visit, explain that they’ve overstepped the mark.” Inspiration struck in full force: the bandit was clearly describing a specific, real quiet place to the north, many days' or even weeks' journey away, far from main roads; and the artist knew that any locality housing at least one moomintroll family would most likely be called Moomin-something. It could be found. And since the bandit plainly intended to put pressure on someone, it would suffice to warn his intended victims, so they might prepare to receive him, summon help, and have him locked up for a long stretch—or… well, anything could happen; sometimes the enraged inhabitants of remote settlements did not wait for officialdom but took justice into their own hands. Then the artist could take over his refuge, already warmed, already welcoming, and pass himself off as him, since they were of the same species and more or less alike. The moomintrolls would hardly notice the substitution, for few creatures could distinguish members of another species by appearance. The persona of the taciturn, aloof outsider was the perfect cover against nosy locals. And incidentally, the artist would save those as-yet-unknown moomintrolls from such a dangerous neighbour; he was certainly a better sort than that bandit. The herbal tea had fortified him; the artist pleaded urgent business and departed into the night praire, heading well to the right of the direction in which the bandit had glanced while speaking of those who had “overstepped.” After half an hour, he turned left, and two hours later reached a small, miserable village. He scrawled a note: “Beware! At dawn a mumrik with a gun will come your way,” wrapped it round a stone, and threw it through the window of the most decent house, where by all logic the most esteemed and/or wealthiest creature should dwell. Then he fled, but not far, just to the nearest high hill with a tall tree. He had to verify that his plan had worked as intended; leaving a free bandit behind him, furious at being set up, would be short-sighted. And a good thing he had decided to watch. At first, he even feared the bandit was too dangerous, that he would overcome the dozen armed and forewarned villagers. The man managed to drop nearly ten before he was hit himself, and then finished off when he ran out of ammunition. The artist hastened onward to claim the vacated place. First, however, he doubled back to retrieve the guitar and backpack with tent and camping odds and ends that the bandit had left at his campsite; then he made for the nearest sizeable town, where he used honestly stolen funds to purchase attire like his predecessor’s—an ochre-yellow long coat, a red silk scarf, a wide-brimmed hat (a black crow’s feather for it he found along the way), dark brown trousers (but full-length, not cropped). Then to a bookshop, to peruse maps and locate the right region. He found it. Direction, name, absence of main roads—all matched. The future refuge was called Moominvalley. Much to do, in short. Perhaps subconsciously he had feared to sit quietly and ponder how those poor villagers had come by so much weaponry. He had not investigated and had walked straight into his own trap: he had constructed for himself a comforting world in which he was innocent, a noble hero entitled to claim paradise from a villain who would get his just deserts. Later he had ignored the warning bells whenever the inhabitants of Moominvalley mentioned some past good deed of Snufkin’s. And yesterday, with a few words, the Inspector had shattered that illusion. Snufkin the First had been no criminal but a hunter of criminals. And he had fallen to their hands while the villagers cowered in their cellars. Another victims of an overconfident reality-bender’s mistake. *** …The fireweed and currant-leaf tea had brewed. Some sandwiches remained from yesterday’s picnic, but he could not swallow a bite. Moomin sat beside him on the log, also drinking tea. Snufkin had long started keeping a second cup and bowl with spoon in his tent, in case his friend should join him at the campfire. Snufkin had long grown accustomed to answering to that name and even applying it to himself in his innermost thoughts. Though he had only learned his predecessor’s name almost at the threshold of Moominvalley. *** …A single mountain road led into the valley, between cliffs and precipices. Occasionally, ruined railway viaducts and tunnel mouths flickered into view from side canyons, but weather and rockfalls had done their work thoroughly. Excellent—the place was genuinely remote and peaceful. So far, the artist had encountered not a soul on the road, and he decided to stop by the wayside (where there was a wayside at all), rest, gather his thoughts and strategies, and pick out on his guitar the very tune the bandit had played by the campfire. The artist had a good ear for music and could manage various instruments—what might one not learn in such a tricky trade as the creation of realities! Soon the simple little melody rippled like a forest stream, its quiet echo trailing among the cliffs. Suddenly, an icy breath touched his back, though no wind stirred in this nook among the rocks. The artist turned. Along a path invisible behind the stones, a groke had crept almost to his side. Quite a small one, scarcely taller than himself, and pale, almost white. Well, this is the end. Some refuge I’ve found, he thought. “Snufkin,” the creature suddenly said, distinctly. The artist froze, dumbfounded, losing any chance of escape. Grokes cannot speak, they only howl, moan, sigh. And what was that word, in what language? “You’ve come back. At last. Everyone’s waiting for you. Moomin’s waiting. Go on, quickly.” And then she began humming to herself, retreating and circling in an awkward semblance of a dance. With every swish of her skirts, a glossy film of ice formed on the stones, but overall… The cold she radiated was quite ordinary, not the deadly frost that instantly sheaths one’s flesh in ice-needles, as described in certain books and travellers' tales. “He’s back,” she repeated between the droning sounds in which the artist, with some difficulty, recognised the tune he had just been playing. “Snufkin’s back.” Ah, so that was a name! His name! He must remember it. The new Snufkin smiled at this first successful phase and decided to test the depth and nature of this acquaintance. “Yes, I’m back. But don’t tell anyone just yet, will you?” The groke did not miss a step or a beat. “All right. Won’t tell. Ah, he’s back. A good fellow’s come back.” Well, of course, what would a bandit consort with, if not a monster? Much later, the new Snufkin would come to know this anomalously harmless creature better, but even then he would ignore her opinion of his predecessor. For now, he smiled and continued on his way. He descended into the valley after sunset, beneath an enormous cheese-yellow moon, and in its light he easily spotted the silver-grey pelt of a small moomintroll running towards the river. Was that the one Snufkin the First had mentioned? He should follow and hope for a suitable moment for his “return”. No, not yet a suitable moment. The child went to a steep river bank where an elderly hemulen stood clutching a brass instrument of some sort. A French horn, perhaps. The little Moomintroll was trying to prevent him from throwing it into the water, but the hemulen explained in a lifeless voice (Snufkin had crept closer in the shadow of the bushes, and his hearing had never failed him) that he couldn’t bear even to look at a broken thing; he’d played with it, and now he was done. He didn’t blame the moomintroll child for the damage, but the little one behaved as though he were guilty, and after the hemulen left, he even dived into the river. Snufkin (he repeated the name to himself over and over, settling into the role) waited to see if he might need to come to rescue, but the boy swam well. And found nothing. As if he would! Rivers flow, mind you. Spotting an opportunity for a graceful gesture, Snufkin ran downstream to the next sandbar and, without much trouble, fished out the unfortunate French horn. Which wasn’t broken at all. Some foolish songbird had simply laid an egg in its bell. Snufkin breathed on the chilled egg, trusted to the forces of nature, and returned the lost item to the grieving mother. An effective detail for the scene of his ‘return’. He would use it the following day. The next day, he watched the little Moomintroll dash about the valley with a scheme to earn money for a new French horn. But chopping and hauling wood was too much for such a small creature. The new Snufkin secretly tried to help, slipping him fruit he’d saved as gifts, splitting firewood while the little one was off drinking from the stream, and observing whom the boy would thank for the assistance, whether he’d call out any particular name. The moomintroll didn’t; he was surprised, but his gratitude had no address. And he worked himself to the point of collapse. Snufkin had to drag him home, leaving on the doorstep a branch of a tropical medicinal plant idling in his belongings for some time already. Altogether, an unpromising day for emerging from the bushes. But it gave him time to find his predecessor’s campsite: a barely visible rectangle where last year’s grass had been shaded from the sun, a black circle of ash, a pile of fish bones under a bush. Time to figure out how to pitch the tent, and to rest. Because towards morning, Snufkin woke to familiar voices. The young moomintroll and the hemulen were hurrying into the mountains, whence came a strange sound, part trumpet, part howl. Was that the groke? What a musical creature she was. And then an idea struck Snufkin: was it by music that the groke had recognised him? Perhaps the moomintroll, too, would remember the tune, immediately think of his friend, and imagination would blur any differences from the original? Carrying the horn to the hemulen’s house, Snufkin settled on a stump by the river and played the title melody over and over, until it sounded exactly as that bandit in the praire had played it. A considerable time passed before he heard the rustle of grass and a muffled exclamation near the tent, and then, directly behind him, a joyful child’s voice cried out his—now his—name. Snufkin let the strings fall silent, gathered his courage. Now he’d see whether this peaceful corner would be his refuge for the season, or whether he must flee further. “Hello, Moomin,” he said, turning. “Long time no see.” Without a moment’s hesitation, the boy flung himself at him with arms outstretched. He clasped him round the shoulders, buried his velvet muzzle in Snufkin’s cheek and neck, nearly knocked him off the stump in his enthusiasm. Not a shadow of doubt, not a flicker of caution. Snufkin was genuinely moved. The idea of lying low here had been a good one. An excellent idea, indeed. Clean air, benevolent and naïve inhabitants, problems that a mumrik seasoned in the outer world could solve with ease, building a store of trust, feeling himself truly to be the person they saw. A good friend. The best friend, if Moomin was anything to go by. Certainly better than that previous criminal. True, Moomin sometimes mentioned various incidents, but only in passing, without detail. The first Snufkin would hardly have sat with him for hours, rods in hand, catching nothing by the river or on the pier at the beach. Improvising sonatas for guitar and mouth organ. Climbing into the mountains together, or visiting the belfry at night to investigate mysterious phenomena. Dropping in to sample Moominmamma’s divine cooking, to listen to Moominpappa’s amusing tales. (Fancy that, a fellow fantasist, though utterly impractical!) In autumn, Snufkin had even taken fright, realising he had grown too attached to Moominvalley. Genuinely attached, perhaps. He had nothing to compare it with. He had even tried to slip away without saying goodbye at the first opportunity when the superstitious nature of the backwoods inhabitants had manifested itself. Leave a bat with a broken wing in your tent, and you’re promptly accused of conspiring with vampires and unanimously requested to leave the valley. By everyone except the moomintrolls. Especially one little boy, who had readily tumbled off a cliff and thrust his finger into a hypothetical vampire’s mouth, just to prove it was an ordinary bat and his friend could stay in the valley. No one had ever risked so much for Snufkin. No one had ever danced around him with such joy, grabbing his hands and pulling him along. No one had ever run after him through the snow across the whole valley, only to fall to their knees in exhaustion and hold out a gift. The Amulet of Reunion. Just a dark red wooden bead on a cord, with notches in its sides—but why did it look so much like a heart? For several moments, Snufkin could not speak. His eyes stung, and he surrendered. Yes, he liked it here; he wanted to return. Not to hide from the outer world, but for the sake of the inner himself. In every sense. He had returned. Only to learn that he had no moral right to have robbed the other of his life, of his place in the valley, of his place in hearts. *** “What will you do today?” Moomin asked quietly, peering into his face. Today, each attentive, trusting, caring glance left a burn, but Snufkin forced himself not to look away. “I wanted to invite you to the beach with us, but perhaps I shouldn’t. You’d better rest in the shade.” “Yes, perhaps,” Snufkin agreed. “I’ll sit with my rod at the pool under the great willow. You go to the beach. Don’t waste such a beautiful day.” Moomin hummed something inarticulate, swayed back and forth. “I suppose. But let me walk you to the willow, it’s rather far. And I’ll look in on you at lunchtime, bring you some cold lemonade from home, all right? And Mamma was planning to make mushroom griddle-cakes.” “Surely,” Snufkin protested in jest, “I don’t look incapable of walking half a mile along the bank or catching myself a fish for dinner?” Oh, that last remark had been ill-considered. He needed to be alone, to collect his thoughts… if that were even possible. “Actually, today you do,” Moomin replied timidly, almost an apology. “I mean, for walking… that is, you certainly look as though you couldn’t. And as for fish, I can’t remember the last time you caught even a gudgeon! I mean, I remember ages ago, at the very beginning, you could pull in a whole bucket of bream in half an hour, but now your fishing really is just a hobby, not a way of getting food.” Snufkin remembered the conversation about the difference between amusement and procuring one’s daily bread. That had happened on his watch. But the bucket of bream… His imagination, however, worked of its own accord. “Yes, there was that,” he smiled ruefully, hating his own ability to spin a lie at any moment. “Until I inadvertently offended the deity of the fish kingdom on one of my southern journeys. Now not a single fish, not even the smallest hungriest minnow, will come anywhere near my hook.” “You’re fibbing!” Moomin exclaimed, even leaping up from the log. An ordinary expression, almost an interjection, but today it struck like a blow to the gut. “You couldn’t offend anyone or cause harm, you’re too good. You’re the kindest creature in the world! For freeing the Mameluke alone, every fish in the world ought to leap out of the water straight into your bucket!” And to demonstrate what every fish ought to do, he flopped across Snufkin’s lap like a swallow diving. Only this swallow-fish was rather large and well-fed, and all the praise, utterly undeserved, utterly false, was heavier still, and Snufkin toppled backwards off the log. Naturally, Moomin sprang up with apologies and rushed to help him rise, threatening to escort him to the willow—or better yet, to Moominhouse, and to summon the Hemulen who acted as the valley’s doctor… With great difficulty Snufkin dissuaded him from such drastic measures, but the escort proved unavoidable. Moomin wouldn’t even let him carry the bucket with sandwiches or his guitar, trusting him only with the fishing rod, and once they reached the willow, asked him several times whether he truly needed no help, or at least company. “Wasn’t it you who freed the Mameluke?” Snufkin enquired, to divert attention from himself. The Inspector had told him about the monster fish yesterday, though somewhat differently. “Well, yes, we all freed him,” the boy said, embarrassed, “but you were the one who explained it was the right thing to do.” At last, glancing back all along, he followed the path to the sea. Out of habit, Snufkin cast his line, wedged the rod among the willow roots, and slumped against the cool, rough trunk in exhaustion. Sunbeams pierced the leafy canopy, falling on the water like golden coins. Beautiful. Unbearably beautiful. But it was an illusion, a play of light and nothing more; beneath lay the invisible truth: the depths, the mud, hiding the remains of weeds and fish. Beauty is truth, the poet Keats had written ages ago, far from here; he had lied, of course. He had been a surgeon’s assistant, he must have known what truth looked like. It was for the other Snufkin that sweet, innocent Moomin ought to feel this admiration; for the other that he ought to share snout nuzzles and bring lemonade. Instead, the artist found himself in a false reality, like all the ‘clients’—the victims—of one who had no real name of his own, only lies. The amulet on its cord beneath his coat—only the day before yesterday, Snufkin had genuinely believed he deserved it, that he was better than the other. Kinder, wiser, more useful. Ha. How much of this love had been cultivated by the real Snufkin and had fallen to the impostor gratis? Half? Two-thirds? All of it? The most dreadful part was that he could not leave now. Yes, because of him someone far worthier and better had died, and every day with Moomin would remind him of it. But if he fled from conscience and pain, he would also shatter that small, pure heart. The fragrance of freshly broken jasmine flowers in the hot air was suffocating. Even dead, one bounty hunter had trapped one con artist in a prison with no exit. Why had the first Snufkin been so terse?! Why couldn’t he have said outright what he was?! None of this would have happened then! But the false Snufkin already knew the answer: his predecessor had seen him for what he was, a shady type, not to be trusted. Why share plans with such a one? Why speak of the small, true friend who awaited him? “Damn you,” he cursed himself silently. “Forgive me, please. You win. I will come here every year. I will do everything you would have done. I will be Moomin’s friend. I will be what you were to them. I have no right, and no choice, either. I’ll look after them all, I promise. Forgive me.” At midday, Moomin would come running with lemonade and griddle-cakes, as promised, and they would eat together, laugh together, Moomin acting out what he and his friends had done on the beach; Snufkin would play his guitar; perhaps afterwards they would nap in the grass, and at sunset they would say “see you tomorrow” and part, one to the house, one to the tent, and fill out every day in that way until the snow blanket wrapped the valley. Then Snufkin would promise to return on the first day of spring—and he would return, whatever it cost him, to hear another’s name again, to fall into embraces meant for another, to remember every day, looking into those childish eyes, what he had done. He would never become the real Snufkin, the original. But he would try. And if it took playing a role for the rest of his life, well, then he would play it. So that the young Moomin might smile. So that the police inspector might be proud. So that those who had loved Snufkin the First might never learn the truth. This was his punishment. And his redemption.