Relationships between people are like dense forests. Or maybe it’s the people themselves who are forests, trail after trail opening up within them, trails that are kept hidden from others, opening only by chance to those who happen upon them.
Anna remembers days at the park, the days in the studio when her grandfather was painting her. The portrait may have been the result of her mother’s persistent persuasion, but once he got going he was pleased with it. Well, then, he would say at the door, Shall we go? and he would reach out his hand and Anna would take hold of it with vague thoughts about men, happiness, virility, and maybe even love.
Her grandfather’s hand was sinewy and strong with dark hair growing on it. He smelled of aftershave and oily rags and a hint of turpentine.
After some time painting, they would go to the park, and Anna got to choose her ice cream. They would watch newlywed couples, guessing what their names might be. Seija and Mikko? Amalia and Juhana?
Were you a boy once? Anna asked.
Yes, her grandfather answered.
Before Grandma?
Before Grandma.
And when you met her, you became a man.
Yeah, pretty much. That’s when I became a man.
You fell in love with Grandma.
Yes, I did.
Were there any others before her?
A few.
What about after?
That’s a silly question.
Were there any?
There was one.
Who was it?
The most wonderful girl in the world. Her name was Anna. The kind of girl you take out for ice cream.
Hmph!
That’s just a dream now. It ended when she grew breasts. That’s what happens when grandchildren grow as big as their grandparents—nothing’s left but well-meaning self-consciousness.
Her grandfather smiles.
“I’m going out to take some time off, as your mother calls it.” He says it with a grin, laying stress on each syllable.
He makes taking time off sound like some new kind of coercion, something invented by the most adept overseers of concentration camps.
They share a knowing smile. It helps them keep their pact of disobedience, keeps them out of reach of this methodical woman’s influence. That’s what they used to be like. They would go to the Fazer sweet shop and buy treats in secret, although Anna’s mother had forbidden her to eat sweets before dinner. They were freethinkers, happy-go-lucky, riding around on the tram and making up lives for the people who passed by.
Anna still has that habit.
She picks someone out from a street corner or tram car and imagines that person’s days, their joys and sorrows. It makes the weight of her own days easier to bear, the grief like an ink stain that sometimes trickles through her, Tuesday evenings when the hallway in her building is filled with the smell of fried fish, nothing ever changing.
It’s easy to tell a stranger’s story. It’s harder to stay in your own.
“What’s Matias up to?”
The same question he asked yesterday.
“He’s at the library rendering an account of decades past. Same as yesterday.”
She cherished Matias in her mind. They had their days, too. It was only five months ago that they carried the sofa over the threshold, and all their other things. Sheer madness, after knowing each other for one month! They ordered pizza on their first morning and played old vinyl records—Neil Young, the Beatles. They played “All You Need Is Love” over and over, neither one admitting that they needed reassurance of their happiness. After shifting their furniture distractedly from one corner to another they made love in the armchair, because they couldn’t think of any place to put it.
They put the blown-up photograph—the Aino photograph—in the closet. It was still there.
Anna wanted to take it down to the trash bins.
“You can’t throw this away,” Matias said. “It’s still you in the picture.”
“The old me,” Anna said. “It’s not me anymore.”
“Yes it is,” Matias said in the way he had of seeming to understand the whole world, which sometimes pushed her to the brink of fury. “People carry all their former selves with them.”
In the photo, Anna’s legs are breaking the surface of the lake. She looks serious, more serious than she feels, like the kind of woman who carries her fate proudly, unbowed. Carries it into the water, the cool rooms of the water, and through those rooms into another world. Although the picture is grave, the day when it was taken had been a happy one. He hadn’t turned his gaze away once.
SHE AND MATIAS had a blank spot on the wall. They thought about asking her grandfather for one of his prints—were they at the cabin at Tammilehto or were they here in Helsinki, in the attic of the apartment on Sammonkatu? But they hadn’t yet asked him about it. They had a lot to do, their chores, their Tuesday nights, all the usual things.
Matias knew Anna, and Anna knew Matias. Anyone would have thought them happy, and maybe they were. They had days, nights, morning after morning, camaraderie, meals prepared together, walks on the seashore when the moon was a pale fingerprint on the sky.
But still Anna secretly dreamed of picking up a colored pencil one day and writing her good-byes on the floor. She would only take a few things with her—one of Matias’s socks as evidence that he had existed, one Moomintroll cup.
It’s possible for a person to walk out of your life without saying good-bye, without explaining why. It’s possible to walk out the door and leave other people crying, shouting, lying on the floor for days.
It’s possible to say See you tomorrow even though you know you’ll never see each other again.
ANNA REMEMBERED THE little girl’s neck. She could almost see it, the memory was so strong: Linda stretching out to take hold of her hand before they crossed the street. It was the first time she’d met Linda, who had just turned two at the time. Linda stretched out her hand and Anna could see her neck, a gleaming white strip between the ends of her hair and her shirt collar. That kind of trust. Only someone who’s never yet lost anything can trust so unhesitatingly. Only someone who’s never been betrayed.
“WHAT ABOUT YOU?” her grandfather asks. “What have you been up to?”
He’s trying to think of something to talk about. He was more natural yesterday, when there were other people here.
“I’ve got my thesis to write. It’s not really getting anywhere. I was in the spring graduate study group, but there’s a bit of a hitch.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The theme. It’s too complicated.”
“And the theme is . . . ?”
Anna realizes she’s giving vague answers, as she usually does when someone asks her about her research. “Emancipation, that sort of thing. Women’s lib.”
She obscures the vastness of her theme, the uncertainty it creates—so much to read!—in irony, flashing a smile, exaggerating every syllable: “I’m trying to track down an ancient woman from the misty folds of days gone by while simultaneously attempting to keep up with the new woman.”
Her grandfather whistles. The sound is preposterously old-fashioned, but nevertheless charming. For a split second she can see him at fifteen.
“Impressive,” he says. “All you have to do is take up the question of the existence of God and you’ll be able to completely explain the world.”
“I promise I’ll advance into the theological realm in my conclusion.”
Her grandfather is quiet, waiting for her to continue. Anna lets the silence trickle down the walls. She misses their days together. They should go for a tram ride like they used to. They used to be close, speak the same language. Where has that connection gone?
They could go to Cafe Ursula again, laugh at the dolled-up wo
men, order pastries, and hang around among the passersby. It’s easy for her to see her grandfather as a young man, with his boyish troubles to bear, cherishing his plans. But there’s a chasm between them. Looking at him makes the ink stain start to spread inside her again. She remembers her own troubles and wishes she could turn away.
When is it that family members become mirrors, painful to look at?
Anna decides she’ll be here for a few hours. She’ll keep her grandmother company, and while she does, her grandfather can go where he pleases. Then she’ll walk out the door, meet Saara downtown and still have time to hit the books in the evening. Emancipation is almost a dirty word for her now—the whole thing seems stupid to her at the moment. Why did she choose a feminist angle? Now she can’t change it.
But she’ll write for a few hours this evening.
And before night comes, she and Matias will go for a walk on the shore. He’ll bring his guitar, they’ll drink the rest of the box of wine left over from the party last week. They’ll sit on the rocks, the evening will turn cool, she’ll get a little drunk even though she has to work at the bookstore tomorrow. The ink stain will be just a well-defined area inside her; she’ll draw a line around it and won’t let it spread.
“Well,” she says, gathering all her energy. “Nothing to do now but wait for Grandma to wake up.”
4
SHE WAS RIGHT on time, rang the doorbell at one o’clock sharp, as arranged. Martti had a doctor’s appointment.
What else would he do? Wander on the beach, sit in a cafe, eat a doughnut? He didn’t know. The thought flashed inside him, caused a pain in his chest. This was what his life would be when Elsa was gone. Irresolutely planning out his days.
She was smiling shyly. She looked so much like she did when she was five years old and came to visit.
The nursery had been their granddaughters’ domain. After they were born he and Elsa had got the old toys out of the attic and decorated the room as it had been when Eleonoora was little. The bed, the dollhouse, the toy box, everything.
Their favorite doll was Eleonoora’s old one-eyed Molla. It was worn from play, had been mended, dragged along behind a sled, fed ice cream and strawberries for many summers.
Once Anna had taken Molla home without asking. Elsa had asked her about it the following week.
She had lied about it without blinking, said she didn’t know anything about it.
I called your mother, Elsa said. Molla’s at your house. How do you think she got there?
I don’t know, Anna said. Maybe she walked.
Dolls can’t walk by themselves.
Maybe she can. She might be the kind of doll that can walk!
She convinced herself of her own lie so seamlessly that it made him and Elsa smile.
A child’s reality is made of dreams and play. A lie can weave into the mix imperceptibly. Or maybe that was what reality was like for people in general. Dreams, play, lies.
He let the familiar thought—it sometimes felt like anguish—come to him: what else has my art been, after all?
Anna seemed to have given up play now—she was a woman all of a sudden. Martti had noticed the change last fall when the whole family went out for dinner. She had just come back from Paris, came hurrying around the corner in high-heeled shoes, smiling, tanned.
“Who are you?” he had said. “My granddaughter has disappeared and been replaced by a parisienne!”
Anna had found pleasure in Paris, he was sure of that. At the restaurant she ordered wine, and as she sipped from her glass he thought, It happens anew all the time. There’s always some who are young and convince themselves that this has never happened to anyone before them. They believe that their lives, their own joys and sorrows, are extraordinary. That their own love is stronger than other people’s. They believe it will never be their lot to feel the days weighing on them. And they may be right. The young have the whole world, and they toss it away without a thought because they’re impatient for other, ever newer worlds.
He would have liked to say to Anna: Make a home for yourself in your carefree days. They’re dreams, but you don’t have to wake up yet. Ten years and you’ll start to wake up, five more and you’ll struggle against the awakening, ten more years and you’ll be content with what you have. It’s not a bad thing, far from a misfortune. In fact it’s a new form of happiness, and you’ll cherish it like all your other happy feelings. More and more you’ll have moments when you feel the world is offering itself to you like a gift. But it won’t be the same. You’ll look at the world like a painting, and time will have framed it, the experience of time, and you’ll enjoy it in a different way than you did before.
“I WASN’T ASLEEP.”
Elsa was standing in the bedroom doorway. She’d heard their conversation.
She smiled a little. “Honey,” she said to Anna. “You came. We can make some cardamom buns!”
“Don’t overdo it,” he said.
Elsa scrunched up her nose. “If you keep up that forbidding tone I’ll swim to Seurasaari.”
“All right,” he said. “Make cardamom buns. Make two batches, if you like.”
Anna didn’t look worried anymore.
5
DID YOU BRING the wine?” Grandma asks hopefully as soon as he’s closed the door.
She looks as if she’s shrunken in just one day, dignified and nullified at the same time, like an absurd accessory that’s gone out of style. Her eyes, deep in their sockets, like a starved animal—a raccoon, or a panda. Hair in a wisp.
She called just as Anna was leaving her apartment. She was whispering, and Anna could tell she was keeping the call secret from Grandpa. There’s one more thing that I want, she said. Anna had imagined an escape to a carnival, a joy ride in the car, a train trip to Moscow. But she wanted some wine.
“Syrah—good choice,” she says. “Let’s have a shindig. Let’s go out and sit on the swing.”
“Mom wouldn’t like it if she knew.”
Grandma flutters a dismissive hand in the air.
“That’s to be expected. Mothers become children to their daughters, and daughters turn maternal. When you get to a certain age, you end up doing things behind your children’s backs. But you know what? I intend to drink a few glasses of wine, regardless of what your mother thinks.”
She tilts her head back and lets out a little titter.
“It’ll be a death sentence for me,” Anna hears herself say. It makes her smile.
Grandma is unfazed. “Only if your mother finds out.”
Anna puts her bag down. She can let go of her uneasiness, loosen up. Grandma doesn’t seem tired.
“We can have a proper talk,” Grandma says. “Woman to woman, you know? Like they do in movies. Talk it all out. Since we have so little time left.”
She takes the bottle and disappears momentarily into the kitchen.
Anna looks at the living room and library, lingers for a moment at the door to her mother’s old room.
Molla is in her cradle dreaming endless dreams with one eye closed. When did she lose that eye? Was it torn off?
The dollhouse is in its usual place. It was a stage for hopes and dreams when she was a child. The woman of the house is sitting in front of a teeny tiny piano as if she’s about to play it. Somewhere, maybe in the cradle, out of sight, is a baby doll. The larger child is deep asleep in the nursery next to the doll piano room.
The familiar joy of childhood comes over Anna. She would close the door to the world and get down on her knees, imagining a whole new reality. Sometimes when she stayed at her grandma’s house she would wake up at night and play with the dolls. Night bent the rules, broke the firm boundaries of day, and the dolls seemed alive.
Maria would be sleeping on the mattress, snuffling, Anna careful not to wake her, wanting to pl
ay by herself.
As long as the game was hers and no one knew about it, anything was possible. There was no time. There were no hours. No room, no bed. No rocking horse in the corner. Even she herself wasn’t really there. She melted into the shadows of the miniature rooms and was nothing but will, molding itself to fit the life of the dolls. Sometimes she was the mother’s voice, sometimes the child’s, sometimes the father’s.
The only thing that bothered her was that Molla was too big for this little world. But she still brought Molla along to play sometimes. She would look at the life of the little house through the windows with her one eye. The effect was more fearsome than benevolent—Anna understood that even as a child.
She takes Molla from her bed, rocks her in her arms. The doll smiles, an ancient scar on her lip—it got torn at some time during play and was sewn back together. Nevertheless, Molla is happy and trusting: there’s nothing to be afraid of!
“REMEMBER WHEN YOU stole Molla?” Grandma asks.
Anna gives a start. She didn’t hear her come to the door.
“I remember. I hid her for a week. I don’t know why I was so attached to her.”
“Who knows? Children get attached to the strangest things.”
Anna realizes she’s stroking Molla’s head.
“I love this dollhouse. It’s stayed the same all these years.”
“You can have it. You can have the whole thing as your inheritance when I die. Your mother might make a fuss about it, so it’d be best to write a will. Let’s do that right now, while we have a glass of wine.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t say you’re going to die.”
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