Little Siberia

by Antti Tuomainen

  ‘Should I be worried?’

  ‘About what?’ I ask, genuinely confused.

  She pauses before answering.

  ‘In general.’

  ‘Why on earth should you be worried? Like you said, it’s a museum in the middle of nowhere.’

  Krista looks at me.

  ‘Be careful out there,’ she says.

  My attention is drawn to the final two words.

  ‘At the museum?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘There was a break-in last night, in case you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. But what makes you think I need to be careful?’

  Again, a genuine question.

  I’m standing in the middle of the living room. Beneath my feet is a thick rug, but it feels as though the cold is rising from the earth, through the soles of my feet and coursing upwards into my nerves and muscles. Krista takes just slightly too long over her answer.

  ‘There might be other people interested in that meteorite,’ she says. She is trying to sound off the cuff, but she doesn’t quite nail it. ‘I mean, people other than those who broke in last night.’

  She straightens the blanket. It didn’t look crumpled to me. I wait for a moment.

  ‘There were two intruders,’ I say. ‘I told you this morning.’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ she says. ‘So, be careful.’

  ‘I will, I promise,’ I say. ‘You’re right. The thought of a million euros might tempt other people too. It’s a lot of money.’

  Krista turns to look at the television, the screen is reflected in her eyes. The blue of the sky and sea, the green of the jungle.

  ‘You could pay the mortgage many times over with that,’ she says trying to sound light-hearted, again failing. ‘And we could get a little cottage in Provence, like we’ve talked about sometimes.’

  I try to resist the thought forcing its way into my mind. It’s a terrible one.

  This is the thought that I try to resist: there’s a link between Krista’s surprise pregnancy and the attempt to steal the meteorite. Krista is somehow involved in the web surrounding the meteorite. Nobody is forcing this thought upon me, nobody is suggesting this is the case – not even me. But suddenly the thought seems perfectly logical. This is what might have happened: Krista and her lover have met up. They have developed a relationship of trust. The lover tells her about a way to get rich quick. Krista’s interest is piqued, either because she is so entranced by the lover or because she has suddenly discovered a new side to herself.

  No.

  No, I tell myself. This is jealousy in its purest form. And jealousy is craziness. It thrives that way; craziness is like petrol to its black fire. I’d rather think that Krista is expecting quadruplets and each one of them has a different father. That there has been an eighth wonder, a miracle of biology and physiology, and this is the result: four children fathered by four different villagers. Even that sounds more plausible than suspecting my own wife of attempted robbery.

  5

  The Golden Moon Night Club is situated in a long, low-rise building along Hurmevaara’s high street. The building houses three other occupants: a car-parts warehouse, a physiotherapist and a mushroom exporter. As the name suggests, the Golden Moon Night Club is a night club, though it opens its doors first thing in the morning. Happy hour lasts six hours, from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. During the summer months I’ve often passed the beer garden outside during happy hour. The happiness I witnessed was fleeting and somewhat … confused. Then again, who am I to say? As has become painfully clear in recent days, I’m not exactly an expert on happiness.

  The evening show starts after seven. This is generally an ever-changing cavalcade of karaoke, the occasional guest artist and events organised by the locals themselves: music, parties, quiz nights.

  There are a few cars parked out front; I recognise two of them. The Golden Moon isn’t a trendy locale; it isn’t minimalist or open-plan. The lighting and the cramped interior most closely resemble a sauna. Lots of dark wooden panelling, dim, yellow lights, booths with high dividing walls. The bar is opposite the front door; at the far end of the room is a small dance floor and a stage. Booths run along both walls like compartments in a train.

  I step inside, past the fruit and poker machines crammed beside the door.

  The barman is also the local barber. I once asked him if it was hard to combine night shifts at the bar with cutting hair in the mornings. No, the skinny fifty-something man replied; when you’ve spent all night listening to drunkards you’re only too happy to pick up something sharp and hold it near the jugular. I ask him to pour me a pint of local ale. I glance around as I pay him. The air is thick with the smell of electric cigarettes, sweat, alcohol and the hint of a hot dog eaten moments ago. But not with heavy perfume.

  A woman croons through the PA system. The stage is empty.

  Turunmaa and Jokinen are sitting in the penultimate booth, facing into the room. I saw their cars parked outside. I approach their table and am slightly taken aback. It turns out there are four men in the booth. Turunen, Jokinen, Himanka and Räystäinen. Their greetings are lukewarm. I’ve interrupted something; I can see it and feel it.

  ‘Joel,’ Turunmaa says eventually. ‘Pull up a pew.’

  I place my pint on the table and look at each of them in turn. I fetch a wobbly metallic chair from beside the dance floor and sit at the end of the table. At a quick glance, this table now houses half of the bar’s clientele.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at the museum?’ asks Turunmaa.

  The men stare at me.

  ‘I’m on my way there,’ I say. ‘Räystäinen and I just had such a hard workout I thought I needed a beer before my shift.’

  This is true.

  Räystäinen neither confirms nor denies the matter. Jokinen sips his pint, his corpulent figure stretching every item of clothing he wears, from his jeans to the top button of his flannel shirt. Turunmaa is wearing his leather jacket. His face looks like it was carved from stone, his expression impossible to read, always the same. Himanka is rolling a cigarette, his fingers surprisingly nimble. He is beyond elderly but apparently not in every respect. None of them looks like they are about to start a conversation.

  ‘Making a night of it then, are we?’ I ask. ‘Or is there something going on that…?’

  ‘Just having a pint,’ says Turunmaa and looks at the others.

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  We sit in silence.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at the museum?’ asks Himanka. I don’t know what he heard when I explained why I was here only a moment ago.

  I raise my voice. ‘I’m on my way.’

  Himanka nods. His cigarette is ready. He props it between his lips.

  ‘Why did you take on all the night shifts?’ Jokinen asks out of the blue.

  Turunmaa and Räystäinen glance at him. This is what they were talking about before I arrived. I can see it.

  ‘You were all busy. Skype, football, hobbies…’ Time of the month, I think, but decide not to say it out loud.

  ‘That was yesterday,’ says Räystäinen. He looks like he’s going through some kind of internal struggle. His face is taut, his gaze agitated.

  ‘And tonight you’re having a pint,’ I say. ‘I don’t mind being at the museum. Besides, I don’t think I’d get much sleep anyway.’

  ‘What’s keeping you up?’ asks Turunmaa. ‘The break-in?’

  I look at him. The forester with vast tracts of land is unreadable.

  ‘Stress, I suppose,’ I say, trying to steer the conversation away from the break-in.

  ‘What’s stressing you out?’ asks Himanka. So now he can hear.

  ‘It might be something personal,’ Jokinen interrupts; he directs his words at Himanka but he’s clearly speaking to me too.

  Jokinen’s comment is so unexpected, I have no time to prepare for it. I react quickly, move my hand away from the bottom of my pint glass. ‘No, nothing like that,
’ I say, and realise that my tone is a bit too acerbic.

  Jokinen shrugs his shoulders. In his tight shirt it looks as though his whole upper body lurches.

  ‘Wives and mothers-in-law,’ says Turunmaa. ‘They’re the worst.’

  ‘That’s not really my experience,’ I insist.

  ‘Me neither,’ says Turunmaa. ‘Not any more. My wife upped and left, and my mother-in-law died. Everybody got something out of it.’

  ‘That’s not quite what I meant.’

  ‘On guard duty all alone,’ says Turunmaa, bringing us back to the original subject. ‘That’ll cause you stress. You’ve probably been thinking of tactics to get you through the night.’

  ‘Tactics?’

  ‘You can sleep on duty, if you know what you’re doing and how to do it,’ says Himanka. It seems he can always hear when he wants to. The unlit cigarette is between his fingers, and he uses it like a pointer. ‘Quite a few times there were too many men in those trenches. You had to keep watch and sleep at the same time. The Russians could have come over the defence lines at any minute. You learn to sleep with your eyes open. Sometimes they’re shut, but you’re still wide awake. Still, once you’ve been doing it for a few months your head starts to go funny. I forgot my own first name. No matter, mind; in the middle of a war a name’s no help to anyone.’

  I look more closely at Himanka. The skin on his face is like paper, almost translucent. Across the deep wrinkles on his face is a fluffy gauze, almost like a web. It’s about seventy-five years since the end of the trench-warfare campaigns. Assuming Himanka was twenty when he was at the front, he must now be well over ninety, if not closing in on a hundred. That would explain his hearing problems, but not the agility of his fingers or the smoking.

  ‘I wouldn’t compare this to the trenches,’ I say. ‘At least I hope not.’

  ‘You’ll need food,’ Jokinen says.

  ‘We didn’t have food back then,’ says Himanka.

  ‘I could bring you a bite to eat,’ Jokinen says with a nod.

  ‘The soup was nothing but water,’ says Himanka. ‘A few potatoes to feed an entire troop.’

  ‘And if you need a pal,’ Turunmaa interrupts, ‘I’ve got nothing on this evening. Barcelona is playing tomorrow; I’ve got a couple of grand on Messi.’

  ‘I’ll bring you some sandwiches,’ says Jokinen. ‘We’ve just had a delivery of cured meat…’

  ‘After a workout you need rest,’ says Räystäinen. This is the first time he’s spoken. The others fall silent. I don’t know if he’s told them about our workout together, about the nature of that workout or how I almost lashed out with a five-kilo weight. ‘Your muscles need rest to grow properly.’

  ‘What?’ asks Himanka.

  ‘Protein,’ Jokinen nods. ‘I’ve got fresh natural yoghurt, straight from a local dairy. I’ll bring some of that too. They make their own quark…’

  ‘No,’ I say. The word comes out so forcefully that the conversation comes to an abrupt halt.

  The men look at me.

  ‘Thank you … for everything. Everything’s fine. I’m happy to take the night shift.’

  Himanka places his cigarette back between his lips. Turunmaa looks the way he always looks. Räystäinen moves his pint glass across the surface of the table. Jokinen shrugs his shoulders again, takes a gulp of his pint.

  ‘So, it’s just you and a million euros,’ says Turunmaa. ‘All night. You keeping watch, stressed out of your mind and your muscles knackered from the gym.’ There’s no sympathy in his voice. There’s a sense of promise.

  I notice I still haven’t taken a sip of my beer. I pick up the glass. My hand is trembling, and I can’t control it. The trembling seems like a culmination of many things: the weight lifting, this conversation, my general state of mind.

  ‘Are you going to sit at that table in the foyer all night?’ asks Räystäinen, his voice taking me by surprise.

  ‘Why?’ I ask and manage to swallow a drop of cold beer.

  Räystäinen looks at me from beneath his furrowed brow. ‘Sitting is a bad idea after doing back exercises.’

  ‘I’ll walk.’

  ‘At regular intervals?’ asks Turunmaa. ‘Once an hour, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘That would be best,’ Räystäinen nods in agreement. ‘You should stretch your muscles every fifty minutes.’

  ‘It should take you by surprise; it should be regular but irregular,’ says Himanka. He can hear again, and now I realise quite how selective he is with his hearing.

  The conversation has taken a new direction, one that causes me considerable restlessness. It awakens doubts that weren’t there ten minutes ago. I lower my pint to the table, praying that I can find the right words, when I hear rapid footsteps behind me.

  Someone has come in from the back room and is walking across the dance floor in high heels, right behind my back. I can feel a shift in the flow of air. I am about to open my mouth to speak. I breathe in through my nose. And suddenly I cannot say anything.

  The perfume. I would recognise it anywhere.

  The men look at me, clearly waiting for me to say something. I must leave. If those high heels and perfume leave the building, I will have to follow them.

  ‘I think I’ve left my credit card at the bar,’ I say.

  I stand up and look towards the front door. Nobody is walking that way. I turn and look at the men again. I think about their questions, their advice and insinuations.

  ‘There will be no break-in at the museum tonight,’ I say. This time my words sound exactly the way I intend them to. This is a promise.

  The men do not answer. I turn and head towards the bar.

  On the way I bump into the village barber. It seems his stint as barman has come to an end. I approach the counter and see a dark-haired woman reading the evening paper.

  I sit down on a barstool so that I can’t be seen from the main part of the room. I know it’s a risk. If those four see me chasing young women round the village, it’ll only raise more unwanted questions. And plenty of spurious insinuations to boot. There’s that perfume again. I already have an almost full pint, and I’m not planning on ordering more to drink. I look at her.

  Did she really clobber me with a torch?

  Was she lying face down in the snow in front of the cabin?

  She is sitting on a high barstool, her right leg crossed over the left. She seems slim, sinewy. There’s something about her that reminds me of a formerly great athlete now past her prime. She is wearing a red, long-sleeved, tight-fitting sweater. Her long, almost black hair shades her face, and I can’t see whether there are any bruises from the punches that I witnessed. On her legs are a shiny pair of fake-leather trousers and on her feet black ankle boots with high heels. Within arm’s reach on the counter is an opened pack of white Marlboros and a cup of coffee. She is approximately my age. If I’m right, she wants to get her hands on the meteorite, and I am standing in her way.

  She glances up from the paper, looks towards the windows, and only then notices there is someone at the bar. She looks at me. I try to follow her expression, how she reacts to seeing me.

  Her reaction is entirely self-explanatory. ‘Drink?’

  I shake my head, raise my pint glass, which is still half full. ‘No, thanks.’

  And that’s it. She returns to her newspaper. It’s perfectly possible that she doesn’t realise it was me she hit. It’s also possible that she hasn’t hit anyone at all. She might be the one who smashed the glass cabinets, who took the grenade, which someone else subsequently took from her before inadvertently blowing himself to smithereens. Perhaps she doesn’t even know I was the one on night watch.

  But there’s no mistaking that scent. It is the same, right down to the undertones, the way it hangs in the air, the way it envelops me.

  I order a whisky.

  The woman stands up, moves fluidly behind the bar. Her body is slender and there’s definition in her thighs. The whisky slowly fills a shot glass. She
brings it to me and tells me the price. I hand her my bank card and see her face. There might be a bruise beneath all the heavy make-up around the left eye. Her lips might be swollen, though that’s a matter of interpretation. She is wearing a thick layer of red lip gloss. She places my card and receipt on the counter.

  ‘Anything interesting in the paper?’ I ask.

  Now she looks up at me. Her eyes are green, the liberal quantities of mascara bring out their brightness.

  ‘What paper?’ she asks. The question sounds sincere.

  ‘That paper, the one you’re reading,’ I say and point to the tabloid folded on the counter.

  She doesn’t look at the paper but keeps her eyes on me.

  ‘No,’ she replies. She pauses for a few seconds before continuing. ‘I didn’t know priests went to bars.’

  So she does recognise me. She is only a metre away; her voice is soft with a note of tobacco. That might even be a hint of a smile. Before the smile disappears altogether, I reach my hand over the counter.

  ‘I’m Joel.’

  ‘Karoliina.’

  We shake hands. I try to sneak a glance at her hand and check for any scratches. She quickly pulls her hand away again.

  ‘We moved to Hurmevaara just over two years ago,’ I say. ‘I’ve been here a few times for local events. Tonight I thought I’d pop in for a pint. And a whisky too, apparently.’

  ‘Special night tonight?’

  Yes, it is, I think. We meet at last. You hit me over the head, and I know what you want.

  ‘Sleepless night ahead, that’s for sure.’

  She is listening, I can see it.

  ‘I’m keeping guard over the meteorite,’ I add.

  Her expression remains unchanged.

  ‘A lump of rock worth a million euros,’ I say.

  ‘Sounds exciting,’ she replies. ‘Didn’t someone try to break in there?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nod. ‘But the clowns took a grenade instead. There was a million euros right beside it, but these guys wanted an old grenade.’