Memories of Elsewere: The Secret Square, by James Carson
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In these times when many of us are staying very close to home, we have invited Elsewhere contributors to reflect on those places that we cannot reach and yet which occupy our minds…
By James Carson
About ten years ago, I was sitting at my desk, and longing for an end to the working week. As a distraction from boredom, I lost myself in my computer’s wallpaper.
Wallpaper is a very personal preference. Some people choose images of their family, others prefer football or food, the Crab Nebula or Justin Bieber. I’m more inclined towards places that stir old memories, or locations that can make new ones.
In those days, my wallpaper of choice featured a small, cobblestoned square, enclosed by lovely old buildings painted in lemon and terracotta. In the foreground, a jaunty little flag hung from a sturdy stone wall, emblazoned with a single word: Bibliotek.
The image had a magnetic quality, something that beckoned me into the space, and away from the tedium of office life. I had no idea where it was, but I allowed myself the fantasy of visiting this place. I could imagine savouring the atmospheric light and the stillness of the square, exploring the public library, and capturing the scene with my own photographs.
A few years later, I took a trip to Stockholm. Civilised, organised, full of interest, Sweden’s capital city was instantly appealing. The Gamla Stan – Stockholm’s impossibly handsome old town – seduced me with its treasury of architecture and alluring alleyways.
It was here, with great anticipation, that I turned a corner and entered a place that, until then, had been just a photograph on my computer screen. A bit of internet sleuthing had helped me locate it, and now here I was in the square called Tyska Stallplan.
It was oddly exhilarating. But the pleasure of finally achieving a longstanding ambition quickly melted away.
The morning light had failed to penetrate the square. Alone in the gloom, I saw that one of the buildings was smothered in plastic sheeting, and the wall at the rear of the square was adulterated by graffiti. The little library flag was missing, and so was the library.
What to make of this? Had I been deceived by a skilful photographer’s sleight of hand? Was anticipation really the better part of pleasure?
The truth is I’d forgotten that over time all places undergo subtle and substantial change.
A little more digging unearthed the story of this modest space. Beneath the cobbles of Tyska Stallplan are the vaults of the Blackfriars Monastery. It was built in the fourteenth century, scarcely a hundred years after the name of Stockholm first appeared in any historical record. The Dominican friary proved its resilience through pestilence, fire, and siege. But its luck ran out during the Swedish reformation, when King Gustav Vasa had it destroyed. The outline of the monastery walls can still be seen in the layout of the cobblestones.
By the eighteenth century, the square was surrounded by stables. These, along with a nearby German school, gave Tyska Stallplan the name it retains to this day: German Stable Square.
As for the public library, its fate was sealed by declining numbers of visitors. The collection was moved to a more central location in 2013.
Nowhere stays the same. The picture on my computer screen captured a fleeting moment in the life of this age-old place. Since my visit, the scene will have shifted again, the plastic sheeting removed, the graffiti washed away. As winter turns to spring, it won’t be long until the bare trees on Tyska Stallplan are again in full leaf.
A virus with a diameter of one ten thousandth of a millimetre has changed our way of life, including our freedom to travel. But even when things return to normal, few travellers will be beating a path to this ordinary little square in Stockholm. That’s understandable. Yet, just because places like Tyska Stallplan go unnoticed, they needn’t be disregarded.
For those willing to take a closer look, this secret square has a tale to tell.
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James Carson is a writer from Glasgow. His work has appeared in various magazines, including From Glasgow to Saturn, The Skinny and ExBerliner, and his stories have also been selected for anthologies such as Streets of Berlin, Tip Tap Flat and A Sense of Place.