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Milorad Pejić
THE HOUSE OF H. LUNDBOHM*
Hjalmar, to your house from your life, everything
is unchanged, the superhuman mounds of snow
and birchwood up to the porch, the bustle of dogs
under the light bulb where they are waiting for
their master to return from travel. The slowness
of the worm hole in your case made it to open for
me, unannounced, without inquiring about our
acquaintance: “This is the room, and here are
the slippers and towel...” How else would I explain
that where I come from I did not live in poverty
but that something else, in which we are equal,
brings me to you: the same disappointment?
Everything in your home is untouched, Hjalmar:
the still wet inkwell, the smoke of ashtrays,
the accounts, as if you went to lie down for a while
in one of the forbidden chambers. Somewhere from
black telephones you are doling out your hospitality.
Long into the night I listen to the door locks and lamps
from distant servants’ attics, and when everything
shuts down and everyone subsides, I get up alone
and go on tiptoe to silently turn the key in the door.
Kiruna, September 1993
* Hjalmar Lundbohm (1855-1926), a mine manager and
founder of the city of Kiruna, an experimental mini-model of
an ideally organized society.