Little Siberia

by Antti Tuomainen

  I made an error of judgement, that much is clear, and now I’ll try to correct it.

  I leap up, dive to the side and land on my stomach on the other side of the wall. It’s not the optimal position by a long shot. The pain surging through my chest now feels like a roaring fire as I come thumping to the floor. The force of the landing is only heightened by the weight of the bag over my shoulder. I can’t breathe. The rifle is still in my hand.

  I realise I am on the floor in the dining room. I spin round and end up on my back between the wall and the dining table. I force myself up, first to my knees then to my feet. I instantly have to steady myself against the wall, then raise the rifle. I realise I only have a few moments before I lose consciousness. I press my back against the wall, trying to muster as much support as I can; Karoliina is round the corner, but she’s stopped shooting. Just as I wonder why, I hear her voice.

  ‘The meteorite,’ she says loudly.

  ‘You’ll get the bag,’ I say, trying to gather my strength. ‘Once I get Krista.’

  I move closer to the corner, peer round it. I am as quick as I can possibly be, given the circumstances. I see Krista and Karoliina at the other side of the living room. Karoliina has positioned herself behind Krista. Leonid is on the floor, the pool of blood around his head is almost black. Perhaps it only looks black to my eyes, like everything else will be in a moment. I glance around. The kitchen is at the far side of the dining room. From there there’s a door leading to the hallway. I lower the rifle, take the bag from my shoulder.

  ‘Here’s the bag,’ I say, drop the bag to the floor and kick it into the living room. It requires every ounce of strength in my legs just to make the four-kilo bag move. The bag slides towards Leonid’s torso. ‘If you put down the gun and let Krista go, I’ll allow you to pick it up.’

  Karoliina is quiet for a long while.

  ‘I’ve got a better suggestion,’ she says. ‘Krista and I will fetch the bag together. Then Krista and I will leave together and I’ll let her go once I’m far enough away.’

  Of course, there’s no way I can allow that. And it’s probably not part of Karoliina’s plan either. After all, she just shot Leonid.

  Again I glance into the kitchen, at the doorway at the far end. If I can just make it that far … If one cartridge is enough…

  I manage to pull off my winter shoes and place them so that the tip of the right shoe is visible from the living room.

  ‘All right,’ I say. ‘I’m standing here waiting.’

  ‘Joel, no!’

  Krista’s voice. She has seen close up what happens to people who hang around Karoliina.

  ‘Krista,’ I say as forcefully as I can. ‘We’ll be home soon.’

  ‘We’re going to pick up the bag now,’ says Karoliina. ‘Then you can go home.’

  When I hear them moving, I make my own move. As my sock touches the floor, I realise I don’t have many steps left in me. My movements are unsure. I can’t feel my feet. My upper body feels essentially paralysed, the pain now throbbing, searing. I step along the side of the wall, arrive in the kitchen. I can hear the sound of winter shoes coming from the living room. The floor doesn’t like it; the laminate creaks audibly. Which is a good thing from my perspective. My own steps are quiet, but they are limping. Just before reaching the doorway, I stumble. I gather my strength, reach the doorway. Then I focus on making my next movement as streamlined as possible.

  From the kitchen door I turn into the hallway, which leads directly into the living room. The hallway rug is thick, soft and silent. I stand on the rug as firmly as I can, aim the rifle and wait a few fractions of a second. Then I see Krista’s profile. A few more fractions of a second, then…

  Karoliina’s gun hand comes into view; she is almost right against Krista. First the hand, then the arm, and finally the shoulder. I try to force the trembling from my body. I only need a millisecond more. I concentrate, concentrate … and finally the rifle is steady. The shoulder appears at the other end of the hallway. The rifle gives a blast.

  Karoliina staggers from the force of the shot. There’s power in a hunting rifle, power that I guess is meant to neutralise a large animal. But Karoliina does not keel over. She spins round ninety degrees, the pistol still raised, and shoots. She shoots and hits her target. The bullet hits me in the upper body. I lurch backwards towards the front door, the now-useless rifle falls from my hand. The pistol is still aimed at me. I tried my best, I think, but I lost and now I’m going to die. But that isn’t the worst of it, I think. The worst is that I was unable to help Krista.

  At the end of the hallway is a light growing brighter and brighter. In the living room the sun is rising, I think to myself. I stare at it from the other end of the dark hallway, and it looks like spring and summer all at once, as though something large is opening up behind the figures at the end of the corridor, as though nothing but brightness and warmth are rolling in from afar.

  Before the warmth and brightness fully envelop me, I see something else too. Karoliina is turning towards Krista but doesn’t manage to complete the movement. Krista’s hand moves, her fist is quick, she strikes Karoliina’s chin with a surprisingly clean right-hander. There’s a strong element of payback to the punch. Karoliina topples to the floor as though she has suddenly decided to go to sleep.

  Krista runs towards me. She touches me; her touch is that same growing light and brightness to which I can now give a name. It is love. I want to tell her this, but I cannot speak. And there’s no need. Here we are.

  Just a moment longer.

  Then the light engulfs us both and I finally feel warm again.

  TEN MONTHS LATER

  October is resplendent. The autumnal sunlight is at its most melancholic, its most beautiful. It sets the windows alight, magnificently warms the dark wooden pews, making the space seem taller – and taller still, as though the white panelled ceiling were slowly rising, up and up, until it was very close to the sky, almost touching.

  The old wooden Hurmevaara church is full again. It’s taken some getting used to. Not least because the pews began to fill up again after I came back from sick leave. I began to realise that the swollen congregation was here because of me.

  I climb up to the pulpit. The steps creak – the wooden boards are uneven, worn and smooth. I gaze out into the church. I recognise many of these people by name, but every Sunday there are new faces too. I don’t know what to think about the fact that they all know what happened to me. But precisely because they know, I speak.

  I always speak of how hard it is to do good, how so often when we have good intentions we end up making mistakes, how life is really a complicated affair and never offers easy answers to what we might call the larger questions. I speak from experience.

  And that’s what I talk about today too. About how we can never know how life will turn out, and why that’s a good thing. I have to admit that many of my experiences sound more like thrillers, and that perhaps that is one of the reasons my sermons are so popular, but still … the stories I tell are only a part of what actually happened. When giving my sermon, I always stress that people are free to give their own meaning to what they hear, just as everyone can believe that their own life is guided either by chance or divine intervention. Or neither. That’s what I do too. God and the universe will cope, I think.

  But how should I know?

  I say that too.

  And I end today’s sermon with a thought with which I am particularly occupied at present.

  Do not worry, do not be sad.

  It surprises me too that I’ve started worrying about the future. I have survived stepping on a mine, being stabbed, shot, and lived through countless other unexpected events, and still … But this time I am not worried about myself or my own future.

  Once the service has ended, I shake hands with the congregation, listen to their joys and concerns, the ins and outs of their lives, then help Pirkko and Matias Ihantola to lock up the church. I remind myself that this
little episode was all an egocentric misunderstanding on my part. I imagined Pirkko was interested in me while all the time she was trying to get close to Ihantola. I thank them for helping with this Sunday’s service, which once again was excellent.

  And then I walk home.

  Krista and Samuel are at the kitchen table. Samuel is eating. At least, he’s trying to, and Krista does her best to make sure they get there in the end. I give her a kiss on the cheek, on the lips, and Samuel on the top of his head, otherwise my face would be covered in regurgitated sweet-potato purée. I sit down at the table with a cup of coffee.

  ‘You can take a nap, if you want,’ I say to Krista.

  ‘And what will you two get up to?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, though I have my suspicions.

  Krista looks at me the way she sometimes does. Sometimes she calls me the jigsaw man when we’re lying naked next to each other in bed. It’s an apt description, a very appropriate name for me. My body is etched in scars from head to toe. Whenever I visit a public sauna, people ask what it’s like to wrestle with a bear.

  ‘How did the service go?’ she asks.

  ‘Full house again today.’

  ‘And what did you tell them?’

  ‘How hard it is to do the right thing, and that’s precisely why we should strive to do just that.’

  ‘I love you, Joel,’ she says.

  I look at her.

  ‘I love you too.’

  Krista stands up, takes me and Samuel in her arms, kisses us both. Then she walks upstairs. Samuel is waving his arms around, flailing in his high chair. Samuel is a miracle – our miracle – and blissfully unaware of it. I continue feeding him, trying to drink my coffee. The coffee grows colder; Samuel eventually finishes eating. I wipe him and his surroundings clean. I’m not sure whether there’s more food on the table, my son or the wooden floorboards.

  I lift him from his chair, take him in my arms and pick up a blanket from the living room. We walk out into the yard.

  It’s high noon, calm and sunlit, perhaps the last warm day of the year. Tomorrow’s forecast promises wind and rain, and a thunderstorm in the evening. There’s a hint of the coming storm in the air – everything is still, like being at the foot of a giant wave. From down here, everything feels fine, but above you a white-crested disaster is brewing.

  I don’t know why I think things like this today. Perhaps it’s because of the news I heard this morning. Karoliina’s appeal to the high court might be successful. She could be out of prison in a year, if she really can prove she acted in self-defence. It’s entirely possible. She has convinced everybody that she was acting under duress from Leonid, that she was unaware of what he was planning, and she still maintains she doesn’t know what happened to the meteorite or what the robbery was all about. She has even managed to convince people that it was only once she was in hospital that she heard the meteorite might be that valuable. And all the while she has claimed that her life was being threatened, that she was in danger and that everything she did was merely to save her own life. In this light, Leonid’s death becomes involuntary manslaughter and my shooting her is common assault. I can live with that.

  Far more difficult might be the matter that Karoliina whispered to me when we met during the trial. She passed me in the corridor, accompanied by a police officer. Her head turned a fraction, just enough for me to smell her perfume. I doubt anyone else noticed the comment, let alone heard it. Karoliina said she would be back to pick up the meteorite.

  Which is at the bottom of Lake Hurmevaara.

  I put Samuel down, and he lies wriggling on his blanket, waving his hands, rolling over, trying to crawl. The sun warms the blanket, like a large oven glove just taken from the side of a pot.

  Karoliina knows that I know the whereabouts of the meteorite. Nobody else does. When Tarvainen’s remains were found on the opposite shore in the spring, the rucksack was no longer on his back. Although he had lost so much, people were far more interested in the location of the rucksack than in the rally legend whose best days were firmly behind him.

  Why didn’t I tell anyone which fishing hole Tarvainen had fallen into, indicating the rough location of the meteorite? I think it must have more than a little to do with everything that lump of rock caused: greed and death. But it won’t be at the bottom of the lake forever. One day it will fly again, perhaps once the sun has finally been snuffed out and gravity no longer exerts its force on the Earth, when the planet collides with other planets and smashes into infinitesimal boulders of different sizes or is sucked into a black hole and turns into a point the size of a pinhead, a spot that will simply sleep for billions of years until something else unexpected happens.

  Because things always happen.

  Like now.

  Samuel is doing it again. He never does this when Krista is around. He is on his stomach on his blanket. He raises his head, and suddenly he seems completely focussed. He looks forwards, his eyes unflinching, and—

  He flies.

  He makes surprisingly recognisable sounds: the ignition, the howl of wheels. Then the acceleration, the changing of gears. The motor – my son – pushing himself to the limit. The car reaches its top velocity. Samuel cruises along at full pelt, right ahead.

  He looks as happy as a human being just under six months old can look.

  Driving his race car.

  To the limit.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Before I say thank you to certain important persons and people, I would like to – as I believe they say in English-speaking countries – take stock. Little Siberia is both my third and my eighth book. It is eighth if you count all the way from the beginning (and most people who know their maths do), and yet it is also my third if you count from The Man Who Died, which was published in 2017 in English-speaking countries. The original Finnish version came out in 2016 under the title Mies joka kuoli.

  So why count from TMWD, as I call it when I write to my agent and wish to be seen as someone with their finger on the business pulse? I suppose this has to do with the change I made after my fifth book, The Mine. By that time, I’d written five very dark, very noirish crime novels. I felt I needed a change, that I needed to bring forth an element I had used in a much more subdued manner before. That element was humour.

  The Man Who Died turned out to be a success. I think I can say that. It was even nominated for The Best European Crime Novel of the Year in France and for the Petrona Award and The Last Laugh Award in the UK. Most importantly, quite a few readers seemed to like it. I followed that book with Palm Beach Finland, which made The Times say ‘Tuomainen is the funniest writer in Europe’ so I wouldn’t have to say it myself.

  Anyway. I’m hoping Little Siberia can be seen as part of the same continuum, even though I know it is also quite different. I wanted to try some new things. I thought it would be interesting to write a crime novel with a priest as the main character, and make that story both dark and darkly funny. I wanted to explore some philosophical questions, some life stuff too. I feel now that it was an important book for me to write. I’m happy I wrote it and I’m proud of it too.

  I hope you enjoy(ed) it.

  And, so, even though I write my books alone (by this I mean that I literally sit in a room all by myself and make up the whole thing in my lonely head), I do receive invaluable help and assistance along the way. I have been blessed with some truly excellent company. In geographical order, they are:

  Helsinki

  Jaakko Launimaa edited the original Finnish version. He saved both me and the main character Joel Huhta from gravest perdition. Thank you, Jaakko.

  David Hackston translated this book from Finnish to English. Trust me when I say this: Finnish is the hardest language to translate. And yet David makes it seem like it’s the most natural thing. To say that David is talented is an understatement. He is downright fantastic.

  Stockholm

  I can’t thank my agent, Federico Ambrosini from Salomonsson Agency, en
ough. Same goes for everyone at Salomonsson. You’re the best.

  London

  Karen Sullivan is simply amazing, and I’m happy and incredibly privileged to call her my publisher. She is the hardest-working person in publishing and yet she finds time to be funny and supportive and kind when a writer needs it. Thank you for everything, Karen.

  West Camel keeps things on track with steadfast and precise editing. I’m grateful for the support you’ve given me – and all Orenda’s authors. Thank you so much, West, it’s a delight to work with you.

  Mark Swan has created all my Orenda covers. He is an artist and a wizard. See any of my books for proof. Thank you, Mark.

  UK & US

  Bloggers – thank you. Thank you for reading, for spreading the word, keeping the flame alight. It means so much. Without you, I don't know where we’d be. Well, I do know, and it isn’t pleasant. Thank you for keeping the (reading) light on.

  People I’ve met and keep meeting along the way – thank you for making the 9.00 a.m. panel, for coming up and saying hi, for the kind words and for reading the books. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me. I might write the books alone, but, truth be told, I write them for you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author. In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for ‘Best Finnish Crime Novel of 2011’ and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award. In 2013, the Finnish press crowned Tuomainen the ‘King of Helsinki Noir’ when Dark as My Heart was published. With a piercing and evocative style, Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach Finland was an immense success, with Marcel Berlins (The Times) calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’.