Oxygen and Aromasia

by Claës Lundin

translated by Bertil Falk

Part 1 and Part 2
appear in this issue.

Chapter 9: Under Skagerrak

part 3 of 3

“Who’s the man with the long hair?” asked the woman outside the Psycheon Palace and pointed at a young man who stood near her.

“I don’t know him,” replied the person she was addressing. “He looks gloomy.”

“His hair is too long,” declared the first woman.

“My dear friend, that’s the latest fashion. That’s how they look in Stockholm.”

“In Stockholm! We’ve never taken our mannners and customs from that place. I say it’s not nice to have such a long hair. Otherwise, he’s quite good-looking.”

“Well, really! Isn’t that Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar? She’s the one over there with the green veil. She’s seen a lot in Stockholm society. I became acquainted with her when I stayed there for a while last year. An excellent dame!”

“It’s possible, but I think Gothenburg may well have as excellent, yes, much more excellent ladies. Gothenburg is capital! It should be paid attention to.”

“Indeed, but what’s that?”

There was a stir in the crowd. Everyone’s eyes were turned towards the telegraph boards that also were under the seabed and many times every hour announced with burning letters the latest occurences in the world. Now these letters of fire notified that the Chinese air-fleet had approached the coast of California, but had been met by powerful American shore batteries, armed with airguns. The whole fleet had been scattered and most of it destroyed.

“That’s what I just said,” an employee of the Pawnshop Joint Stock Bank exclaimed. “Nothing can resist the American airguns. I saw them in action when I made a trip across the Atlantic last week. One single gun as an experiment almost blew up the air observatory by Lake Michigan.”

“Even we have begun manufacturing such guns,” said a gentleman who had heard the bank clerk. “At least of a smaller kind that are able to replace wind when the agricultural engineers find that calm weather is unfavorable for farming.”

“So-o, I hadn’t heard that before,” said a member of the Wheat Shipment Company, which owned extensive fields of the former Svältorna.

“I can assure you that’s it’s so. I’m the one who has imported the invention to Scandinavia. May I hand you my card?”

“Ah, you’re Oxygen Warm-Blasius!” the bank clerk exclaimed after taking a look at the card. “Thus you’re one of the parliamentary candidates of Majorna.”

“Now, I can inform you who the gloomy man with the long hair is,” whispered one of the aforementioned women to her neighbor. “He’s the well-known weather manufacturer Warm-Blasius.”

“If I belonged to that constituency, I would demand that he cut his hair,” declared the other woman. “We don’t need parliamentarians outfitted like Stockholmers.”

“How do you do, li’l Mrs. Sharpman. How are you? I don’t think that there’s a place of entertainment like this in the Baltic Sea. I’ve heard that you’re working for our parliamentary election. I believe on my part, that Miss Ozode’s has the best chance.”

“Certainly not!” Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar explained with strong self-confidence. “Are you one of the voters?”

“No, I belong to the district of Pustervik.”

“But perhaps you have acquaintances and influence in Majorna. I beg you to recommend Warm-Blasius, for I can tell you that...”

The continuation was whispered into the ear of the lady from Gothenburg, whereupon Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar quickly took leave and mixed with another group, where the parliamentary elections were discussed loudly.

In this group, Apollonides was visible and not far from him Miss Rosebud, who tried to captivate the poet with sweet gazes. Several other Stockholmers seemed to be in her company. While Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar solicited votes for Oxygen, Apollonides still was active for the election of Aromasia. In this time, people did not let enjoyment prevent serious conerns. The private and the public benefit were never forgotten.

Neither did Oxygen forget that he had gone to Gothenburg to work for his own campaign, to appear at election meetings, to make his profession of faith known, and to converse with voters. He had to assure them of his good intentions, his patriotism and his invincible preference for the third district of Majorna, for the whole community of Gothenburg, for trade and air traffic and banking, as well as progress in all thinkable directions.

His decision was irrevocably determined and totally established. He loved Aromasia ardently, but he suffered from that love. He suffered especially at the thought that Apollonides, the incorrigible dreamer of the past, would ingratiate himself still more with the young artist and through his efforts to get her elected make himself even more liked by her.

For his part, he wished to show her that love did not prevent him from appearing as her public competitor. Above all, he must prevent her election and by that also prevent her from staying near Apollonides.

If he still tried to imagine that it was the Reversion Party he wanted to oppose and that it was the only reason for him to appear as a rival of Aromasia, he nevertheless, when he thought that he was unnoticed, often was heard exclaiming, “Apollonides is a poetry-machinist at the parliament and as such he cannot often be near Aromasia, and that’s why he tries to get Aromasia to Gothenburg. That’s his purpose, but I’ve seen through him and will thwart his intention.”

It was the same thing that Miss Rosebud thought. She wanted to humiliate Aromasia and draw Apollonides out of her magic circle. If the poet could be snatched away from that dangerous vicinity, his eyes would probably be opened to the felicity that waited for him. And her woman friend Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar willingly helped her, if not only because of their firendship, also for leading the machinations, something that was the strong point of this woman who was energetic but otherwise not enough occupied.

Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar had a good brain and understood complicated designs. She was perservering and indefatigable, but she had been brought up in an obsolete way, which had not been remedied by her marriage. When her husband was alive, she had been prevented from everything that could have aroused her interest in the great and serious things in the world. That was something her husband had reserved to himself while she had been thrown upon what in the past was called “the calm world of the home.”

After her husband’s death she had tried to make up for it by working for the public, as she said and perhaps even believed. But she could not overcome the consequences of many past years of useless life and she got caught in “the small,” cultivated intrigues, promoted gossip and created disorder and misfortune in everything she interfered with. And she meddled in a great deal. In reality, Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar belonged to a past period of history.

Miss Rosebud was, to be sure, a child of her time, but her actions were guided only by a strong passion, and the human passions are always the same, even if everything else on earth has changed. She had to humiliate Aromasia, she had said, and in order to reach that goal, she did whatever it took. She did perhaps not see the safest road to that goal, for passion confused her.

“Maybe we work for your own good when we separate Aromasia and Oxygen,” Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar objected at the beginning of the electoral campaign. “The more they’re separated, the easier the poet will get closer to the artist.”

Miss Rosebud did not like this indiscreet description and wanted by no means that her ally should see too many of her cards. She behaved as if she did not understand Mrs. Sharpman’s objection and stuck to the plan already settled upon. She declared that in the interest of morality, Miss Ozodes had to be punished for her rashness in openly showing devotion to another man during the year of probation with Warm-Blasius.

“This wanton woman cannot get a more righteous punishment than the man she is openly engaged to appearing as her public rival and thereby preventing her from entering the parliament!” added Miss Rosebud.

Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar let her objection fall and said nothing, but she smiled and thought that she clearly understood the reason for her lovestruck ally’s mode of action. Actually, she did not feel any sympathy for that reason and therefore did not care very much whether or not the outcome would be happy for Miss Rosebud. To Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar it was enough to be able to interfere actively in an intrigue that looked like keen participation for the public good. That was why she persistently worked for the election of Oxygen.

But she did not work in consultation with her “ward.” Her attempts to get near him had failed so far. Oxygen did certainly not prevent anyone from helping him to get his wishes fulfilled, but his pride kept him at a distance from his allies. Their aid had surprised him, and their motives seemed suspicious to him. Until this evening he had not yielded for the urgently repeated invitations of Mrs. Sharpman-Fulmar.

Now he promised to see her in the Gardens of Okeanos. After the performance in the Psycheon, he would take part in a small social evening. Mrs. Sharpman had invited some of their political friends of both sexes.

An intense murmur went through the gardens. It was a sign that the performance would begin. The audience was already seated in the big Psycheon Hall. They were not there as listeners or spectators and neither as “smellers” — the word was adopted in the 23rd century — but as perceivers, or to use an ambiguous word, as “feelers.” Everyone had on the heads a strangely formed helmet. From the helmets emanated a large number of wires. They were united at a spot in a cupboard with many strange corners and twists. It stood in the middle of the hall. It was a so-called brain-organ.

On this organ, the world famous African psychician would give a performance.

To be continued...