60°10”N, 24°55”E #7
Gronvall spends his days in the company of the lost. The animals are gone, but he keeps their memory alive, stopping the degradation of the shells and bones so that those who come after him will be able to pause at their remnants and see their own time reflected back at them.
In the sea cow, Steller saw the hand of God, a link in the great chain of creation, another part of a beautiful, unchanging system, and perhaps he slit open the sea cow’s belly and cracked open its skull without any sense of guilt or concern.
For Furuhjelm, the sea cow’s bones were a frustrating mystery, its disappearance an ominous twist of fate, but for Gronvall it reflects a possibility born out of loss, and the idea that his own species could drive another to destruction has turned from an inkling to a pattern that repeats itself over and over.
But the traces that Gronvall leaves on the bones are gentle and meticulous.
He repairs hairline fractures in the processus spinosus, casts new vertebrae to replace broken ones and gives the sea cow a new, more curved posture.
Von Nordmann and Bonsdorff set the sea cow’s head in a proud, upward aspect, but it is more likely that it swam with its eyes and head angled downwards.
It was less interested in the sky than in the strips of kelp rising from the ocean floor.
In the museum hall, John Gronvall stands examining the metal wire wound around the ribs, the arches that he has bent into shape to keep the skeleton together.
He checks the joins one last time and finds everything in order.
He takes a step back, inspects the animal and gives a nod of approval upon seeing that his gypsum replacements blend in with the originals so well that the average visitor will never realise that some of these bones were not created in a sea cow’s womb but in the hands of a preparator.
The sea cow is intact once again. Gronvall wonders how he might celebrate its completion and decides to start by smoking a cigarette.
He steps into the courtyard and watches the wagtails bobbing across the lawn.
He wonders where they have built their nests, but the possibilities are endless.
The wagtail isn’t a fussy bird; it will build its nest almost anywhere.
He leans against the museum wall and waits, but the birds don’t reveal the location of their nest and simply dive here and there across the lawn hunting invertebrates that he cannot see.
The janitor opens the door and the birds flutter away.
He comes bringing a message. Gronvall unfolds the telegram, reads it, and a broad smile spreads across his face.
He couldn’t have imagined a better way to celebrate.
A gust of wind catches the sheets of paper, and John holds them against his chest to stop them flying off across the island.
The seagulls let the wind carry them high up into the air, screeching as they rise, and he gathers his sketches and steps into the pump room before the rain starts.
He boils some water, makes a pot of tea and tastes the words in his mouth: Aspsk?r Nature Reserve.
Twenty-seven hectares of land and 342 hectares of protected water.
Their association has taken care of the island for thirty years, but now the birds are protected by the letter of the law, and the brothers’ shifts on guard duty can finally come to an end.
A bolt of lightning strikes the rocks, and the whole island trembles.
John wakes with a start. He rolls over in his bed but still can’t get to sleep, so he gets up, places a chair next to the window and gazes out at the rain lashing down upon the sea.
Lightning illuminates the sky, and all at once he can just discern a dark shape far out at sea, something large and round among the waves.
He waits for the next flash, but when it comes the shape has gone and doesn’t return.
The downpour settles into a drizzle, and the sea is calm once more.
John returns to his bed, and as he sleeps the sea cows surround the island, herds of them, quietly grazing, and John Gronvall smiles.
Here they are safe, with 342 hectares of water to protect them.
The industrial magnate Kreuger keeps the great auk’s egg for himself; the museum only receives it after his death.
He keeps it because, for him, the egg of an extinct bird is not a story of greed and destruction but one of skill and love.
When, at the fine age of 97, Kreuger closes his eyes for the final time, the auk’s egg is at last inducted into the collection at the Museum of Zoology.
A label is added to it indicating that it has been repaired, as the cracks are invisible to the naked eye.
In 2017 the egg collection closes its doors.
The university decides to streamline its activities and eventually gives up its Munkkiniemi campus.
Kreuger’s bespoke cabinets and glass cases are dismantled, and the eggs housed within them are moved to the basement of what is now known as the Natural History Museum, which boasts storage facilities meeting modern standards.
The building that once housed the egg collection is now home to a gym and a massage parlour, but before leaving for the last time, museum manager Stjernberg collects all the papers Gronvall left in the workshop, all the jotters, photographs and grease-stained paper bags with which he created his unique world of colour.
Then he opens the desk drawer and picks up the old cigarette packets on whose unfolded cardboard John Gronvall inscribed his notes about the sea cow’s bones in a beautiful, semi-legible hand.
The sea cow is assembled and displayed in the great hall at the Museum of Zoology.
It is the most splendid of rarities, but in the great seats of scientific learning, researchers focus their efforts on other species, other specimens.
Museum visitors pause in front of the sea cow for a moment, marvel at its large, bony form, but otherwise it is left to slumber in peace for decades until a curious incident is revealed by one of the museum’s assistants in a naturalist magazine a full four decades later.
The assistant is presenting the skeleton of Steller’s Sea Cow to a group of biology students.
As he is describing the animal’s structure, he gently taps one of the spinous processes and is taken aback: the bone responds to his touch and rings against his finger.
He continues his presentation, but he cannot forget the sound made by the vertebra, and once the students have left, he hurries back to the sea cow.
After checking to make sure he is alone, he starts tapping the creature’s bones and realises he was right: spinous processes of different lengths produce a scale of different pitches.
Thus begins a unique hobby. Once the museum is closed for the day, the assistant returns to the sea cow’s skeleton and practises until he is ready.
Eventually, he invites his colleagues to gather around the skeleton.
As they look on in bewilderment, the assistant performs the poco allegretto theme from Brahm’s third symphony, which Yves Montand later borrowed in a wistful song of his own.
He raps and taps the bones, and the conservators and janitors gathered for the occasion listen as the sound of an extinct animal echoes through the hall.