by Philip Teir
As they drove home, Helen attempted to be diplomatic. ‘Looks like it needs a bit more than a coat of paint on the outside,’ she said as they entered the motorway and saw the sign for Helsinki. ‘There’s a lot of mould.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Christian.
‘I just do. I could feel it,’ she replied.
For a few minutes Christian didn’t say anything, as if considering whether to drop the subject.
Then he said, ‘Okay. Let’s say that you’re right. There might very well be mould in the house. But I just wonder how you know that. Because of the smell? No one has lived there for years, and that’s the way old houses always smell. Or do you have some special ability to distinguish the smell of mould?’
‘Maybe I have,’ said Helen.
‘All right. But it’s strange how everybody has been talking about mould lately. Nobody did in the seventies. It’s like the subject of lactose intolerance. Suddenly nobody can drink milk. And suddenly all old houses have moisture damage.’
They hadn’t gone back since then, and Helen was afraid the topic might pop up again if Max and Katriina really did sell Råddon.
Helen had found it hard to concentrate on her work ever since Ebba ended up in hospital. She felt weighed down, sad about something that seemed to be slipping away, not just Ebba, but some part of herself, the way she had once been. She thought that there were certain facets of her character that Christian would never understand, but which might be more important than she wanted to admit. They had to do with her whole view of life. Or maybe what she was feeling was a sense that something important was missing, something that she’d had in the past.
She tried all week to put this feeling into words, just for herself. When Friday arrived, Christian said that he was going to the gym and then to a pub with Michael.
‘We’ll probably have a bite to eat, so you don’t have to make any dinner for me.’
‘You’re going out? But you went out last week.’
Christian and Michael had been out twice since the dinner party at their place.
‘So? Does it matter? We’re just having a couple of beers. He told me that he doesn’t know the city very well.’
‘And you do? You haven’t gone out on the town in years.’
‘But I do know a few good pubs. And at work I keep hearing about all the trendy places. I was thinking we’d try that new restaurant near Skillnaden. They’re supposed to have good food.’
‘Okay,’ said Helen.
When she got home she put some fish fingers and chips in the oven and let the kids eat in front of the TV. Then she stretched out on the bed and tried not to think about what Christian and Michael might talk about together. She went into the living room and ate the leftover food from the kids’ plates, looking at her children for a long time as they watched TV.
Christian didn’t come home until four in the morning. She knew what time it was because she woke up when he practically fell into bed. He was awake by eight, but at breakfast he seemed drunk, telling an incoherent story about what he and Michael had done. They’d ended up at a nightclub and then had to wait an hour for a cab. Finally, Helen suggested it might be better if he went back to bed.
Christian didn’t get up again until noon and still seemed tired and sluggish as he sat down at his computer.
‘I was thinking of taking the kids sledging over at the hill,’ she told him as she came into the living room.
Christian was hunched over his mobile. Who was he sending a text message to? Michael?
‘Did you guys have fun last night?’
‘Yeah. It was great.’
‘Is that who you’re texting? Michael?’
‘Uh-huh. We were planning to meet at the gym today.’
‘Oh,’ said Helen. ‘Sounds like you’ve really become good friends.’
‘I don’t know. It’s just the gym.’
She couldn’t believe this was the same Christian who so recently had insisted that they take their own sandwiches on the ferry boat, who always chose the familiar over the unfamiliar, who never really let loose. What was it about Michael that made him suddenly behave this way? Was it some sort of early midlife crisis? Was he trying to make up for those lost years of his childhood?
That evening she asked him if they could make love. They were lying in bed and had just watched a DVD. The kids were already asleep in their own beds. He responded at once, turning over to lie on top of her. He pulled off his shorts and her knickers, and the whole thing was over in less than ten minutes.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That was great.’
‘Yes, it was. We should have sex more often.’
‘Uh-huh. We should.’
For a while neither of them spoke. Helen was just about to doze off when he suddenly started talking.
‘There’s something I’ve been thinking about,’ he said.
‘Mmmm.’
‘The thing is we don’t really know each other. I mean, we do know each other, but we never talked much about our lives before we had children. We met and we had the kids and that’s when our life together began, but we don’t know anything about before. It’s like my whole life before Amanda and Lukas belonged to another person, not to me.’
‘You mean like all the music that you’ve started listening to lately?’
‘Sure … but not just that. Or rather, that too. I had to stop everything I used to do because I thought that was required, that I needed to leave everything behind.’
‘But I’ve never asked you to do that.’
‘I know, I know. I don’t really understand why I did that. But I’ve been talking a lot about this with Michael, and that’s what made me realise that I haven’t really been myself. He didn’t change anything just because he had a child.’
‘No, but his wife is dead. And how do you know he didn’t change?’
‘Because that’s what he says.’
‘Huh. So what do you want to do? Join a rock band? Is that what you mean?’
‘Maybe. For example.’
Neither of them spoke for a while.
‘He seems to know a hell of a lot. He’s got an amazing knowledge of all sorts of things.’
‘Who? Michael?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It sounds like you really admire him.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Christian dismissively. ‘I just meant that he knows a lot.’
Silence settled over them, and Helen almost fell asleep, but she managed to stop herself and refocus her attention on the room and one more thing she wanted to say.
‘Christian?’
‘What?’
‘I think I’ll go up to Kristinestad and visit Grandma.’
‘When?’
‘Soon. Maybe next weekend.’
‘Sure. Go ahead.’
She lay in bed thinking about that. She decided to take a day off from school and drive up to Kristinestad.
thirty-five
EVA WAS SITTING IN THE dark, inside her art installation. It was the thirteenth of March. Over the past few days the weather had turned warmer in London, so that people could sit outside in the sunshine to have their coffee and take long walks along the river without freezing. It was almost possible to feel that life was tolerable, that something was just around the corner and it was worth waiting for.
She had put together her art piece in two weeks. Sarah had given her a big space in the gallery. Eva went over there every morning to ponder and plan. Sometimes she would forget to eat, and Sarah would surprise her with a plate of food. Some days she kept working until she discovered that it was two in the morning and time to go home. The other students worked on their pieces at the school, but Eva had been given permission to construct hers on-site. She used a power hammer and steel wires, and Sarah helped her to measure angles and dimensions. The most time-consuming part was weaving the whole structure of the hut she was building. For that she used some of the branches that she’d brought back from Kris
tinestad. The rest she’d gathered in the nearby woods that she and Russ had located on Google Maps. Then she carted them over to the gallery in three big boxes from IKEA. She decided to have the Bible quote from St Paul’s Cathedral in both Swedish and English. She’d post them on the wall next to some crocheted doilies that were an Österbotten tradition.
Now she was almost finished, she just had to arrange the lighting inside the hut. There was a small TV in the back, showing a film that she’d made with Helen’s help. Clips from movies that Max had taken of the two sisters when they were kids. Eva thought there was something so immediate and aesthetic about Super 8 films with no sound.
Sarah crawled inside and looked around.
‘I like it. It has such a harmonious feeling. Most artists who show their work in our gallery have some sort of ugly but interesting aesthetic. It’s rare that anyone dares embrace beauty in such a natural way.’
Eva was pleased to hear her words of praise. Lately she’d been thinking a lot about the word ‘love’. Maybe it wasn’t bad to make something out of love. Maybe everything didn’t have to be so trendy. There was a reason for not creating a layer of irony between the viewer and the artist.
‘Let me say again that I’m sorry about what happened with Malik. I haven’t seen him in such a bad state in a long time. But that’s how it is when someone’s bipolar. Sooner or later the manic period ends and he hits the wall. Don’t tell anyone, but I think it was because of some girl at your school that he’d fallen in love with. When she rejected him, he flipped out.’
Eva didn’t know what to say. ‘But doesn’t that bother you? I mean, since you’re married and all?’
Sarah laughed. She gave Eva a look that suddenly reminded her of Katriina, the way she simply dismissed the whole issue.
‘We haven’t had a functioning marriage for ten years. I don’t even know if I like the man any more. But I can’t just … Someone has to take care of him. Someone has to make sure he seeks help when he needs it. Usually he manages to lead a more-or-less normal life. As I already told you, his family is really fucked up. It’s hereditary, you know.’
When Eva went home that evening, she took the route past St Paul’s and sat down on the steps. The Occupy encampment had been cleared away at the end of February, and many had given up. Some had moved their tents to nearby Finsbury Square, but the movement as a whole had largely dispersed. Now tourists crowded the square in front of the cathedral, as if nothing had changed, or as if everything was back to normal and life was inexorably continuing on. She thought it was sad. The fact that there was such a thin line between the two options: world-wide revolution or total oblivion. A warm gust of wind seeped through her jumper. She got up and walked home.
june
thirty-six
MAX FELT AS IF HE’D spent his whole adult life waiting for this moment. He straightened his back, squared his shoulders, and looked down at his notes.
He was about to give a speech on the occasion of his younger daughter’s wedding, and he was so excited that he hardly knew where to begin.
He’d given a speech at Helen’s wedding, but that was different. When Eva was born, he’d played a greater role as father. On countless evenings he’d rocked her to sleep, holding her in his arms as he listened to Rachmaninov, whose work he’d been obsessed with during that autumn in the early eighties. How sublime that had been. And the whole time he had imagined Eva all grown up and the day when he would give this speech for her and say these words. As if their entire relationship was defined by this moment when she was leaving him, and he could say: this is how you were. This is what it was like. This is what our life together looked like. This is what I did.
It didn’t matter that he didn’t really know Russ. He seemed nice, and Max thought everything would be fine. Because what was the alternative? Life went on its merry way. People got divorced, others got married.
Now he was standing at the table in the banquet room of Roddstadion, clinking a knife against the side of his wine glass until he had everyone’s attention.
Everything was green outside, the light green of early summer, when all the blossoms hadn’t yet faded, a time of thousands of promises and endless possibilities. It was no wonder that the older he got the more he treasured the springtime – it was tangible proof that life was reborn each year, that there was still time.
Max had written out his speech on a piece of paper that was sweaty and crumpled, but he smoothed it out and placed it on the table in front of him. He had on his reading glasses, but he could probably speak without referring to his notes, since he’d already read the speech so many times.
He cleared his throat, smiled at Eva – she wore a pale yellow dress – smiled at Russ – he’d had a haircut and trimmed his moustache – and then he began:
‘My dear friends. For a Finnish sociologist, it seems unthinkable to give a wedding speech without mentioning Edvard Westermarck. What we most often remember Westermarck for today, aside from his criticism of Freud, is his pioneering work on the history of marriage. There is a deluxe Swedish edition of his text in which we learn a great deal about marriage rituals in large parts of the world. Of course, Westermarck wrote during the late nineteenth century, and the anthropological findings of his day were without a doubt marked by a colonial outlook. Quite a few of the stories are based on Westermarck’s interviews with missionaries. Nonetheless, it might be interesting to take a look at what the good Edvard had to say about marriage as an institution. I’d like to read you a passage from his notes.’
Max again cleared his throat.
‘“Before a young man of the Macusi Indian tribe in British Guiana can take a wife, he must demonstrate that he is a man and is capable of carrying out a man’s work. Without flinching he must endure having his flesh sliced open, or allow himself to be sewn into a hammock filled with fire ants, or display his courage through other similar tests.”’
The wedding guests laughed.
Max made eye contact with Katriina who was drinking from a glass that she now set down on the table. Her smile was strained, almost contemptuous. Max shifted his gaze to look at his sister. The hall was brightly lit, but the birch trees outside the windows cast shadows over the walls. Elisabeth was looking at him as she always had, with a slightly amused expression, as if she was the only person in the world who knew that he was actually playing a role. That it was all theatre.
Eva was translating for Russ, who made an effort to join in the laughter.
Max continued.
‘Dear Russ, you should be glad that you’re getting married in the twenty-first century. If this were the late 1800s, it might not have been as simple. In Siberia the prospective father-inlaw went into the woods and chopped down the tree with the thickest trunk that he could find. The son-in-law was then forced to carry that tree all the way back to town. Only if he managed to do so was he considered a worthy husband.’
More laughter. Max thought that he could risk one more example. And besides, he was just getting warmed up.
‘Now I’m going to quote directly from Westermarck.’
Max picked up the book, an edition from 1923, and began reading aloud.
“‘Among the Wapokomo in British East Africa, young people were prevented from marrying too early because of the requirement that a young man could only marry after he had killed a crocodile and presented the woman with some of the meat to eat. And among various southeast Asian tribes who practised headhunting, it is said that no man was allowed to marry unless he could present at least one human head as a sign of his courage.’”
Max again caught Katriina’s eye. She looked bored as she stared back down at her wine glass.
‘But of course marriage is not about these kinds of tests of strength but about completely different trials. Anybody can prepare a shrunken head or kill a crocodile …’
His audience roared with laughter.
‘What’s really difficult, and what you two will soon discover, is not to lose sight
of each other, to find a way to live through the other person instead of through yourself. This was something that Westermarck also said. Westermarck himself never married, and today it’s generally thought that he was a homosexual. But he focussed attention on one interesting detail: people seldom talk about happy marriages. As he writes: “Those are not the ones on which theatres, biographies and novelists build their dramas.” That said, I am convinced that the two of you have more sense than Eva’s mother and I did. We managed to stay together for a very long time, as all of you know, but shit happens.’
There was no response from his audience or from Katriina. He looked at Helen. She looked horrified. Again he cleared his throat.
‘Russ! We don’t yet know each other very well, but from what I’ve been able to observe, you make my daughter tremendously happy. We’ll just have to ignore the fact that you are from London – a city that Westermarck described, by the way, as a place that needs “its fog in order to conceal the hideous architecture”. Now let’s all drink a toast to the newlyweds!’
Everyone toasted the couple, including Katriina, who was now looking at Max with a different expression, as if she intended to stand up at any minute and say something extremely sarcastic.
Max had taken time off from his job so he could travel to London to see Eva’s art exhibit. He stayed for a week in a much too expensive hotel right near Hyde Park, ate dinner with Eva and Russ when they had time, and took long walks through the city that was in full springtime bloom. One evening he was having dinner alone and almost started talking to two men who sat next to him and were telling each other stories from the Second World War. Max would have liked to join in the conversation. He could have told them that he was from Finland and said something about the Winter War – the two men seemed as though they would have been impressed, and it would have been great to talk to someone his own age. But each time he tried to make eye contact, he failed. So he just sat there listening for an hour or two while the men got more and more boisterous and finally ended up quarrelling. Max left the restaurant with a feeling that London was a place he would need considerably more time to understand. When he went to the British Museum the following day, he was disappointed to discover that the Reading Room where Westermarck had done his research was closed because the museum was installing a new exhibition. He went into the gift shop, thinking that he would buy a small set of bookends in the shape of the god Anubis, but when he stepped over to the cashier, he suddenly remembered that all of his books were packed in boxes. And he no longer had a study.