The Winter War

by Philip Teir

  ‘I don’t know. But you’ll work it out.’

  Max sighed. Katriina knew that he was looking forward to working on his book while she was away. He’d also promised to take the bus up to Österbotten to visit his mother, since he hadn’t seen her since last autumn.

  Katriina kissed him on the forehead.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find a solution,’ she told him.

  She spent the rest of the evening packing. Max went back to his study, emerging only to use the toilet or to get something from the kitchen. Later, Katriina sat at the kitchen table working, and she couldn’t help feeling a certain tenderness towards him when she saw how he went over to the sink to get himself a glass of water, completely immersed in his own thoughts as he stood there for a moment without saying a word. She knew that this was how Max was whenever he was writing a book. She could tell that he was thinking about something, and she knew it would be useless to try to engage him in conversation.

  She would try to be nicer to him when she came back from Manila. Maybe they could do something together, maybe take a trip. If only he could make some progress with that book of his, she thought. Maybe then Max might show an interest in something other than himself.

  eighteen

  AFTER CHRISTMAS, RUSS MOVED INTO a green two-person Occupy London tent outside St Paul’s Cathedral. He had a mobile phone, a laptop, a small mattress, a sleeping bag and a set of winter clothes. Eva first heard about his move when she went back to art school in the New Year. She had sent Russ home on a cheap Ryan Air flight via Riga. After that, she wandered around Helsinki for two days, getting her feet soaking wet because she had brought only party shoes with her. She tried to spend as little time as possible at home because her mother talked nonstop about how stressed she felt and how depressing it was that nobody wanted to celebrate Christmas with them. Eva had visited Helen and Christian in Esbo as well. The whole time she kept thinking about how much she longed for the anonymity of London.

  She decided to go to a clinic in Helsinki. She was surprised at how easy it was to get an appointment, and how quickly everything proceeded after that. A nurse did an ultrasound and told her that she was nine weeks pregnant. Eva was given several pills to take, along with some sort of hormone solution. Soon afterwards, she began to feel sick. She had abdominal pains and started bleeding. There was something other-worldly about the entire experience, something that made her think of sciencefiction films, about horror and splatter movies, even though the foetus was still only a tiny lump, and even though there wasn’t yet any consciousness or individual to speak of – maybe that was exactly why she had such thoughts. Worst of all was that she felt so incredibly sorry for herself. If the father had been anyone but Malik, she might have kept the baby. But now was not a good time for her to be pregnant. She couldn’t finish the art course with her stomach growing; she couldn’t turn up for class with a baby getting bigger and bigger under her sweater. ‘Oh, hi, Teach. This is your child.’ So she chose the only option open to her.

  When she’d left the clinic, she had such a sense of unreality that she had to sit down for a while in the glassed-in seating area outside Tin Tin Tango before she could return to her parents’ flat. It was snowing hard outside the windows as she huddled under a blanket and drank a glass of glögg. The next day she left for London while her parents were both at work. She took the bus from Hesperia Park to the airport and had a glass of wine to celebrate – mourn? – her newfound freedom, having chosen not to have the baby.

  One evening a few days into the New Year she was walking along the Thames feeling lonely. On Christmas Eve she’d spent the last of her money on a takeaway from a Nepali restaurant on the corner and then watched TV all evening. Several days earlier she had gone to Harrods with Natalia to try to get into the Christmas spirit, but instead had ended up feeling depressed as she watched her flatmate buy expensive gifts for all her relatives. At a particularly low moment Eva had pictured herself jumping into the cold river – it was so hypnotic, beautiful and sad at the same time, like a painting done with thick, dark-green brush strokes.

  Under all the self-pity, part of Eva actually appreciated the whole experience, even felt a certain thrill at the misery she was going through, since she knew that sometime in the future she might write it all down, memorialise it, so that it would become part of The Story of Eva. She saw herself as one of those modern, big-city people who might look perfectly ordinary, but – if asked – could recount a fascinating personal history.

  Eva was surprised to hear that Russ had moved into a tent. She hadn’t thought he was political enough to join the Occupy movement. Ben was the one who told her about Russ on the first day of class after the holidays. The morning newspapers were filled with articles about how the City authorities wanted to drive out the demonstrators because they had taken up position in an area that was in part privately owned. Eva had sat on the Tube reading about the whole thing and wondering how long the demonstrators would be able to hold out, how long they’d be willing to stand the cold, the lack of showers, listening to the jeers of the passers-by and never really managing to get anything concrete accomplished. Eventually the media would tire of reporting about Occupy London. At that point, the motivation of the participants would be put to the real test.

  Eva had read about a theology student who quit the university to become an Occupy spokesperson. The radical priest Giles Fraser had declared his support for the demonstrators, saying that he ‘could very well imagine Jesus being born in a tent camp like the one outside the cathedral’. In another article one of the demonstrators pointed out that the apostle Paul, for whom the cathedral was named, had been a tent maker. It actually made sense that Russ would be enticed by the movement, latching on to a specific purpose, in the same way he had apparently become attached to Eva.

  ‘I hear he’s been out there since late December. It must be freezing,’ said Ben. ‘We’ll see how long he lasts. I mean, Russ isn’t exactly the outdoors type. It can get very cold with nothing but a sleeping bag as a blanket.’

  Ben was in the studio, using Adobe Illustrator to make a checked pattern. Eva had come to the college mostly because she needed company. She made herself coffee as she watched what her classmates were doing.

  Eva hadn’t heard from Russ since Max’s birthday party. She hadn’t wanted to phone him because she needed time to think. Malik was also out of the picture for now. After the holidays the students were supposed to spend time working on their own. Eva knew that Malik and his wife had a house in northern England, and that Malik had relatives elsewhere in the world, so she assumed he’d spent Christmas in some exotic place where he wouldn’t have to worry about getting wet feet. But she turned out to be wrong.

  ‘Malik says we’re supposed to meet here next week. He wants everyone to report on how their work is going,’ said Laurie.

  ‘You’ve talked to him?’ asked Eva in surprise. She was sitting in a corner of the room.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Laurie, with a secretive expression that provoked a mixture of contempt and jealousy in Eva. Was Malik now sleeping with Laurie? What did that mean for Eva? Had they talked about her art, just as she and Malik – mostly Malik – had talked about the other students in the class?

  ‘He wants us to put on a show at the end of March. We’re going to have the entire ground floor of Sarah’s gallery,’ Laurie went on.

  ‘You mean that feminist gallery? That’s a shitty venue,’ said Ben. ‘There are plenty of better places in the city.’

  ‘Really? Like where?’

  Ben kept his eyes on the computer screen as he worked.

  ‘Like … I don’t know. But there are lots of places. That gallery is just for lesbian artists who paint pictures of their own sagging breasts.’

  Winter had arrived in London, but it was a raw and damp winter that did nothing for the city’s appearance. The parks were transformed into gloomy plains with naked trees and patches of frostdamaged grass. The sun refused to shine, leaving a sk
y that was as uninspired as the art Eva was trying to create. At night the temperature dropped below freezing.

  Eva was still painting, but the composition seemed all wrong, and she was unable to capture any feeling in the light; the work lacked any sense of depth.

  When the Occupy protests first began in October, many ordinary Londoners had participated at the weekends and after work, helping out by demonstrating or by contributing money and food. But after a few weeks the number of tents decreased by half, until now there were about a hundred remaining. The Occupy movement had opened up a schism within the Church. There were those who thought the movement deserved support, while others wanted the tents to be removed from the vicinity because they might present a health and safety risk. Some people also worried that the demonstrators would scare off visitors to the cathedral – an argument that Eva found especially stupid since tourists thronged the area whatever the weather.

  She read in the newspaper about the long-drawn-out dispute over who actually controlled the land. The Church owned part of it, and the City of London Corporation also owned part. The original plan was to put their tents outside the London Stock Exchange, but that had proved impossible because the City of London was so in thrall to big business.

  Russ didn’t answer his mobile when Eva rang him. She tried in vain for two days and then decided to go over to St Paul’s to find him. This was on a Wednesday, and she had no trouble locating him. He was standing in one of the communal tents, making sandwiches.

  ‘Hi,’ he said as he kept his attention focussed on his task.

  ‘How long have you been living here?’ asked Eva. She was surprised at how happy she was to see him again.

  ‘I don’t know. A few weeks.’

  ‘So how’s it going? Doesn’t it get cold at night?’

  Russ shrugged.

  Eva had a feeling that she had hurt his pride, and that now he was putting on an indifferent front to show how unmoved he was by her presence. He was slicing tomatoes, cucumbers and salami, moving with great care, as if even the smallest details were important for the revolution to occur, as if he were preparing the ground on which the entire revolution rested. Or else he was just trying to look busy so he wouldn’t need to talk.

  The whole Occupy area was littered with anti-capitalism banners, pamphlets and flyers from mobile-phone companies. The wind had scattered them everywhere, spreading them all over the ground.

  Inside the tent an announcement on a sheet of A4 paper promoted a capoeira course that was being organised. Eva picked up a flyer and read about: ‘THE LOBBYING ACTIVITIES OF BIG BUSINESS, THE GREED OF BANKERS AND THE TOTAL ARSE-FUCKED STATE OF OUR PLANET.’

  There was a steady coming and going in the tent. Most people seemed to know each other. Some gathered in small groups to talk, while others sat with computers on their laps. The whole place seemed marked by quiet activity. Eva had the general impression that everything was clean and orderly – at least more so than she’d expected. A woman came in and asked Russ if it would be okay for her to charge her mobile.

  ‘Sure, but pull out the cord when you’re done. Otherwise you’ll be wasting electricity,’ he told her.

  Eva thought that Russ looked thinner, even though it was only a few weeks since she’d seen him. He reached out to take an apple from the pile on the long table where all the food had been set out.

  ‘Would you like one?’ he asked.

  ‘Where does all this food come from?’ she asked.

  ‘Donations. People bring food every day. Ordinary people who want to support us and help out however they can.’

  ‘So what are you actually doing? I mean, how do all of you spend your days?’

  He sighed.

  ‘Do you really want to know? Or are you just being polite? Because you don’t need to pretend that you’re interested.’

  Eva felt hurt. What had she said wrong?

  ‘Of course I’m interested. Are you busy right now, or could we go somewhere else? I’d like to get a cup of coffee.’

  The bells in the cathedral tower chimed twelve thirty. Even though they were inside the tent, she could feel the January wind seeping under the sides and tugging at the canvas, but Russ didn’t seem to notice. He had stopped shaving, which made him look even more gaunt, and he was wearing a corduroy jacket with a grey hoodie underneath. He wore gloves, and she could see that he had on at least three pairs of socks. There was almost a Zen-like calm about him, a self-confidence that he hadn’t previously possessed.

  ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘I had an abortion.’

  She caught a glimpse of something, a slight hesitation in his eyes, but it was gone so swiftly that she barely registered it was there before he began making another sandwich. He turned his head away so that she couldn’t see his face. After a moment he went to the other end of the tent to get a bottle of water. Then he came back to where she was standing.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve got more work to do. The City wants to drive us out of here, as I’m sure you’ve heard. I have to collect 250 names on this petition before the day is over. If you want to help out, you could sign your name here,’ he said, handing her a stack of papers that lay on the table nearby. He gave her a pen, and Eva signed her name.

  When Eva got home she lay down on her bed and listened to Natalia walking around the flat, trying on various outfits before going out to another dinner with some of her clients from work. She’d been away between Christmas and the New Year, and Eva had hardly seen her since she’d returned. She wondered if she should tell Natalia that Russ had joined the Occupy movement. When the protests started back in October, Natalia had reacted strongly. She thought the demonstrators were directing their energy at the wrong people, and she seemed to feel an endless need to defend her own choice of career.

  ‘I never planned to work for the Stock Exchange. But I needed to find a job, and this is London! It’s expensive to live here. And it’s not like it’s my fault that the world is the way it is. I’m just doing my job.’ That’s what she’d said one day when she came home from work after being stopped by a demonstrator who wanted to give her a hug. Apparently it was common for demonstrators to use that particular tactic. Instead of shouting jeers, they tried to humiliate bankers by showing them love. Natalia had reluctantly submitted to being hugged, as if to display her open-mindedness, even though the guy ‘hadn’t taken a shower in at least three weeks’.

  Now Eva heard Natalia knock on her door.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Eva without getting up. It occurred to her that this was exactly the same scene that took place whenever she was at home in Helsinki, except it would be her mother standing outside the door instead of Natalia.

  ‘Just wanted to know if I could borrow some lipstick. I can’t find any the right shade.’

  ‘Sure, that’s fine,’ said Eva, swallowing a lump in her throat.

  Natalia opened the door and came in. She was wearing a dress and trailed a cloud of perfume. She was tall, beautiful, happy. Eva thought she was probably the least neurotic person she’d ever met. Natalia seemed supremely comfortable in her own skin, as if every day she acknowledged with gratitude the pleasure that her body gave her.

  Eva had tried to explain to Natalia that the Occupy protests were primarily of symbolic significance. Even though political decisions were required to regulate the markets, it was the people who worked at the Stock Exchange who were the face of capitalism.

  ‘But they’re talking about the one per cent,’ Natalia had replied. ‘And that’s not us! We don’t earn especially high salaries. If I did, I’d buy my own flat and I wouldn’t need to have a flatmate – no offence intended. The wealthiest people don’t work in some office in the City. They probably don’t work at all.’

  Eva had told Natalia she was right about that, and later they both agreed that the protests would undoubtedly fade away, since the demonstrators didn’t seem to have a list of realistic demands. Eva still had no idea what Natalia actually did at the Londo
n Stock Exchange, but she seemed to go out a lot with people she called her ‘clients’. Right now she was again all dressed up to step into that world.

  ‘Eva, is something wrong?’

  ‘No. What do you mean?’

  Eva shouldn’t have been surprised by the question. Her hair felt lank – when had she last washed it? – and she was lying on the bed, wearing her dressing gown and staring at the ceiling. Her room was a mess.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but you spent Christmas here alone instead of going to be with your family. And when I got back, you hadn’t taken out the rubbish and the fridge was completely empty. When we went to Harrods you seemed depressed. After the holidays, all I found in the kitchen were four empty wine bottles.’

  Eva wanted to say something, she wanted to explain how hard it was to work out what she should be doing – how impossible it was when all her life she’d heard her parents say that she needed to accomplish something, but she’d never understood why. And how insecure she felt about what she was doing. How depressed she felt about life.

  She tried to look as lively as she could. ‘I’m just a little stressed out right now. I’ve got a lot of work on at college.’

  ‘But you’re not doing anything.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘We live in the same flat, so of course I know what you’re doing. I’ve seen you lying in bed all day. And I know it’s none of my business, but you really should eat something besides pistachios.’

  Eva sighed. She would have preferred to sleep the whole month away, but there was something about Natalia’s puppylike loyalty that made Eva feel she needed to reply.

  ‘So what do you think I should do?’ she asked.

  Natalia tilted her charming head to one side.

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘What? Where?’