Free Travelling Light by Tove Jansson

unlocked the door and stood aside. Stella went down the stairs feeling wildly and inconsolably relieved. At the corner she turned to say goodbye but the door was already closed. “Evening Blues” began to play and then stopped again almost immediately.
    A thick fog had descended over the city, the first spring fog. A good sign. It meant that soon, little by little, the ice would go.

Travelling Light
     
     
    I WISH I COULD DESCRIBE the enormous relief I felt when they finally pulled up the gangway! Only then did I feel safe. Or, more exactly, when the ship had moved far enough from the quay for it to be impossible for anyone to call out… ask for my address, scream that something awful had happened… Believe me, you can’t imagine my giddy sense of freedom. I unbuttoned my overcoat and took out my pipe but my hands were shaking and I couldn’t light it; but I stuck it between my teeth anyway, because that somehow establishes a certain detachment from one’s surroundings. I went as far forward as possible in the bows, from where it was impossible to see the city, and hung over the railing like the most carefree traveller you can imagine. The sky was light blue, the little clouds seemed whimsical, pleasantly capricious…
    Everything was in the past now, gone, of no significance ; nothing mattered any more, no one was important. No telephone, no letters, no doorbell. Of course you have no idea what I’m referring to, but it doesn’t matter anyway; in fact I shall merely assert that everything had been sorted out to the best of my ability, thoroughly taken care of down to the smallest detail. I wrote the letters I had to write – in fact, I’d done that as long ago as the day before, announcing my sudden departure without explanation and without in any way accounting for my behaviour. It was very difficult; it took a whole day. Of course, I left no information about where I was going and indicated no time for my return, since I have no intention of ever coming back. The caretaker’s wife will look after my houseplants; those tired living things – which never look well no matter how much trouble one takes over them – have made me feel very uneasy. Never mind: I shan’t ever have to see them again.
    Perhaps it might interest you to know what I packed? As little as possible! I’ve always dreamed of travelling light, a small weekend bag of the sort one can casually whisk along with oneself as one walks with rapid but unhurried steps through, shall we say, the departure lounge of an airport, passing a mass of nervous people dragging along large heavy cases. This was the first time I’d succeeded in taking the absolute minimum with me, ruthless in the face of family treasures and those little objects one can become so attached to that remind one of… well, of emotional bits of one’s life – no, that least of all! My bag was as light as my happy-go-lucky heart and contained nothing more than one would need for a routine night at a hotel. I left the flat without leaving instructions of any kind, but I did clean it, very thoroughly. I’m very good at cleaning. Then I turned off the electricity, opened the fridge and unplugged the phone. That was the very last thing, the definitive step; now I’d done with them.
    And during all this time the phone never rang once – a good omen. Not one, not a single one of all these, these – but I don’t want to talk about them now, I’m not going to worry about them any more, no, they no longer occupy even a single second of my thoughts. Well, when I’d pulled out the phone plug and checked one last time that I had all the papers I needed in my pocketbook – passport, tickets, travellers’ cheques, pension card – I looked out of the window to make sure that there were some taxis waiting at the stand on the corner, shut the front door and let the keys fall through the letterbox.
    Out of old habit I avoided the lift; I don’t like lifts. On the second floor I tripped