What were these men doing? What kind of work had to be undertaken at night and in this specific place? Tanks of raw sewage were no place to dig for iron ore.
That shit won’t disappear by itself.
The diggers were rumbling around, mulching the ground. The arc lights pointed towards the woods. The men bustled around the machinery.
I only had my telephone, but it had a camera. I switched off the motor and stepped out of the car. The wind almost ripped the clothes from round me. There were a few hundred metres between me and the men and the diggers. The wire fence around the mine’s property was tall and stretched away in both directions. To the left it ran through an area of forest.
The snow was deep, and walking through it was hard work. By the time I reached the cover of the trees, the snow had pushed its way inside my shoes, trousers and jacket. I was shivering with cold. When I finally arrived at the fence my feet were numb and so were my fingers. After wondering how I was going to get over the fence, I spotted a large boulder sitting just close enough to provide a launch pad. I climbed on top of it and jumped. It was only when I was on the other side that it occurred to me that the fence might be electrified. If it was, however, I would now be lying unconscious in snow a metre deep.
I trudged forward through the snow towards the arc lights and the diggers. The frozen wind numbed my face. I was careful not to wander off across the frozen tanks, sticking instead to the strips of land separating them from one another. I would be hidden in darkness for a while yet, I thought. My legs ached with cold and adrenaline; the frigid air clutched at my throat and lungs. I was sweating yet at the same time was worried I would freeze.
Over the boom of the diggers I eventually heard the sound of the men’s voices. Behind the digging site, at the forest edge, the ground began to slope downwards. The men were excavating some form of canal, a wide ditch leading towards the woods. I took a few steps closer and came to a halt. Pulling off my gloves I dug my phone from my jacket pocket. It wouldn’t switch on. I tried to warm it by blowing on it. I knelt down in the snow, held the phone between my hands and puffed. But it remained black and silent. After a few minutes of watching the men at work and listened as the diggers scraped against the frozen earth, I decided to go back to the car.
The trek was long and cold. I could hear Pauliina’s voice, the way she’d described me to her friends after a drunken night out: Janne would sell his left testicle for a good story and the right one to have his photo published alongside it. After all, what else does he need them for? He’s never at home.
The fence seemed taller than when I’d come over it before. Using a thick spruce tree for support, I struggled up, rolled over the top and landed on the other side with a thump. Again I was lucky. There were no stones or protruding branches hidden beneath the snow. I couldn’t feel my feet, and it took all the willpower I could muster to get the car started and on the move again.
The motel owner’s wife watched me as I limped through the foyer. I made it to my room, stripped off my clothes and, leaving them on the bathroom floor, gulped down a few glasses of water and stood under the hot shower.
Gradually the shivers and trembling subsided. When I returned to the bedroom, I tried the phone again. It felt cold in my hands and still wouldn’t switch on. No goodnight text message for Ella this evening.
I stepped up to the window to close the curtains and looked out into the car park.
Snow.
A long shadow.
A man.
Everything about him was stocky. A man whose strength you could sense, whose outstretched hand was like the fork of a pick-up truck.
He was standing in the car park, looking right through my window. A moment later he was gone, vanished into the darkness.
I looked from one side of the car park to the other, from the dark edge of the woods to where the road led off into the world beyond, from the spaces between the cars to their windows. I could see nothing, nobody. The gently fluttering snowflakes heightened the sense of static, of frozen motionlessness. I was certain I’d just seen Kosola, the security officer. He had been standing only about twenty metres away and had looked me right in the eyes.
Fourteen hours later I left the car at the rental place next to Helsinki railway station and headed for the tram stop. Wind whipped across the square, making people lean forwards and walk as if they were begging. It pressed snow into their eyes and mouths. When my phone warmed up, I sent Pauliina a text message, told her I’d be home by eight at the latest. I didn’t expect a reply.
A drunk was asleep at the tram stop, his shirt pulled up and his lower back bare, defying the elements. Either he would wake up tougher than before, or he’d have the mother of all sciatic nerve pains. The tram didn’t disturb his sleep as it rattled up to the stop. Neither did he react when someone kicked his empty vodka bottle, sending it clinking and spinning across the asphalt. Poor man’s Russian roulette.
The tram crossed Long Bridge and glided towards Hakaniemi. I got off and skipped across the pedestrian crossing, its white stripes slippery beneath my shoes. The editorial office of Helsinki Today was situated on Paasivuorenkatu. We constantly had to defend the decision to locate our newspaper’s editorial in a building that also housed a number of trade unions and the offices of the once great Finnish labour movement. No, we weren’t keeping the red flag flying. No, this wasn’t a statement – moving from the hip design district around Eerikinkatu to a place where we could look out at the World Peace statue gifted us by the Soviet Union. No, we didn’t yearn for the ideology of a bygone age. We were a thriving, independent newspaper.
I ran up the stairs to the third floor. Hutrila was in his office. It wasn’t yet five o’clock, so he was still in his chair. After five, and well before six, he generally moved around to the front of his desk and perched on the edge, so that nobody coming into the room could sit down. Matters were kept short because reporters had to present them on their feet.
‘Close the door,’ said Hutrila as I entered.
The room was so quiet that I could hear the hum of his computer. Hutrila wasn’t a fan of open-plan workplaces. What sensible person was? Open-plan offices only produced open-plan thoughts: messy, noisy and second-hand. I sat down opposite Hutrila. He was a short, blond man who constantly looked like he was about to launch a missile.
‘I thought you were doing a story about the Suomalahti mine,’ he said. ‘Then I read what you sent me. This is nothing.’
‘That’s what I’ve come to talk about,’ I said.
‘You want to focus on this story, you want to neglect everything else, you want me to give you free rein. On what grounds?’
I looked at Hutrila, stared into his grey eyes.
‘This could be a big story, if I can just work out what’s going on…’
‘Sure. Alongside your other work. I’ve read the text. Tell me what you think is so special about it.’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘Quite.’
‘I need time.’
‘Then make time. That’s what everybody else in this team does. We have an editorial meeting tomorrow at twelve sharp. I’ll see you then.’
A few colleagues were sitting at their desks, typing away. We greeted one another with curt waves. I sat down at my desk, put my laptop on the table and booted it up. I looked up and saw the lights of the hotel opposite. Then I read through the notes I’d made while up north and searched for anything else on the subject published in other newspapers.
Again and again I read that Finn Mining Ltd had bought the rights to the plant for only two euros. It had been said and repeated so many times that nobody even registered it any more. Hutrila didn’t register it, and I barely did either.
A business is only as good as its employees. This was, of course, a cliché, but, like all clichés, it was often witheringly accurate.
I looked up Finn Mining’s website, found a telephone number and dialled it. Mali, the CEO, was not available. Of course he wasn’t, I
thought. What’s more, his secretary was unable to give me an indication of exactly when he might be free. ‘During this presidential cycle?’ I asked and hung up.
I scrolled up and down the company’s gallery of employees.
Marjo Harjukangas, environmental officer, member of the board of executives. About forty years old, long, dark hair with a middle parting; the sinewy face of a long-distance runner; brown, serious eyes. I dialled her number.
She answered.
It all happened so suddenly that I really did almost fall off my chair: I’d been sitting on the edge, leaning my elbow against the table. I introduced myself with a splutter, standing up and explaining why I was calling. Harjukangas didn’t try to say anything. Even once I had finished my monologue, she remained silent for a considerable time.
‘Would you like me to answer your questions now, or do you want to talk face to face?’ she asked.
I glanced at the screen, clicked open every document I’d found about the mining company and let my eyes flit from one name in bold type to the next. Harjukangas’s name didn’t seem to be among them. Everybody else had been interviewed: the CEO, the chairman of the board, members of the committee, the head of production, even one of the truck drivers at the quarry.
‘Face to face is always better,’ I said.
‘How about tomorrow?’
We agreed on a time. I hung up, went back to my chair and sat staring blankly in front of me for a moment. Lights lit up one of the windows in the hotel opposite. A traveller had arrived from somewhere, ended up across the road.
I scrolled back to the top of the website.
Suomalahti. Finn Mining Ltd.
Again I picked up my phone. The other board executives were all unavailable. I left messages with their secretaries and underlings, asking them to call me back. I read up on Development Manager Hannu Valtonen, Sales Director Giorgi Sebrinski, Finance and Investment Director Kimmo Karmio, and Alan Stilson, the Head of Human Resources. Valtonen was the only one of them who appeared to have any background in the mining industry, while the others came from various corners of the international business community. All except Valtonen had LinkedIn profiles. I flicked through the employment histories the men had listed, recognising a few of the companies mentioned. Nothing leaped out at me, however. Finally I closed the browser and looked at the notes I’d made.
The mechanic at Suomalahti had told me about the environmental activists who had arrived from the south, one of whom had been particularly memorable because of his blue hair. Santtu Leikola. His number was easily found through directory enquiries. He answered almost instantly.
I told him who I was and that I was calling about a possible article; might he have time to answer a few general questions?
‘No comment,’ was his blunt reply.
‘I haven’t asked you anything yet,’ I said.
‘No comment,’ he repeated.
‘I wondered whether there was any truth in the claim that you recently paid a visit to a little town named Suomalahti, home of the nickel mine operated by Finn Mining Ltd, and whether the purpose of that visit might have something to do with the mine and its operations.’
For a long time I heard nothing.
The call ended.
I leaned back in my chair. I opened YouTube in a new browser and found the video of Leikola and his accomplices climbing on to the roof of the Parliament. After watching and listening for about a minute, I paused the video. Santtu Leikola looked as though he was charging towards me.
I returned to the Finn Mining website.
Matti Mali’s face was like a box in both width and depth. He had a square, stern jaw, a high forehead, and his blue eyes were wide open. He was seventy-three years old. Either he was incapable of relinquishing his power within the company or there was nobody to whom he felt he could hand it over.
He’d acquired the Suomalahti mine seven years earlier and incorporated it into his business without even having to tender a bid.
Two euros.
I thought about this deal from the other side. Once the contracts were signed, did all the parties involved feel this had gone well, that they had succeeded? The sheet of paper on which the contract had been typed out was worth more than the right to undertake mining operations and to enter into a huge gamble. Not to mention the coffee and cakes, and the chauffeurs who had driven people to the meeting.
My return home was almost painful. Ella’s smile, daddydaddydaddy: it stabbed me and healed me all at once. I hugged her like I didn’t want to stop.
‘Let go, let go,’ she laughed.
I loved her voice. It had been in the world for only two years and already it filled my own world. It was a voice that I would recognise among all other voices in the world, a voice that, as far as I was concerned, belonged to the gods.
She ran into the living room; I hung my coat on the rack and smelled the perfume on Pauliina’s scarf. Her scent.
Pauliina was in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher. Ella had already eaten, her place at the table had just been wiped clean. Moist streaks from the Wettex cloth were still visible, long, even and curved, on the glass surface of the table.
‘I can load the machine,’ I offered.
‘It’s almost done,’ Pauliina replied without turning round. ‘Keep an eye on Ella.’
In the living room Ella was putting books on the shelf. Rarely was a book ever put back the right way up or anywhere near the place it had originally been taken from. I chatted with her for about an hour. Pauliina remained in the kitchen. A typical evening at our home in Roihuvuori.
I got Ella ready for bed, read her a story. Eventually she fell asleep. I switched off the lights and returned to the kitchen.
‘Is she down?’ asked Pauliina.
‘No,’ I said under my breath. ‘I sent her to the shop to get some fags.’
Pauliina’s eyes were fixed on her computer screen. I dropped two pieces of rye bread into the toaster, took the liver pâté from the fridge and placed it on the table. What else? A bit of yoghurt. I’d had lunch at a service station three hours ago, but my stomach still felt full and bloated.
‘Who’s taking her to nursery in the morning?’ asked Pauliina. Still she wouldn’t look at me.
‘I can take her. I don’t have to be in town until nine-thirty.’
The woman sitting at the table looked the same as the woman I’d fallen head-over-heels in love with three years earlier. Among other things it was Pauliina’s stability that had made an impression on me: she seemed able to keep her feet on the ground no matter what was going on around her. There was something so potent about her sensible, bright personality that had attracted me and wouldn’t let me go. Later I’d learned that these qualities also included a sense of stubbornness: if Pauliina thought something or someone was unfair, she remembered it. She wasn’t being unforgiving; it was more a form of accounting.
She sat typing at her laptop. Maybe this was work from her consultancy firm, maybe something else. Pauliina never talked about her own affairs. Her glasses were reflecting the light just enough that I was unable to read her eyes.
‘How are you?’ I asked.
‘Busy at work. But it’s good, for the most part.’
I spread liver pâté on my warm bread. The pâté melted instantly, making the bread wet and shiny.
‘Thanks for doing the shopping,’ I said.
‘Don’t forget the Ruusuvuoris are coming for dinner at the weekend.’
Of course I’d forgotten. ‘Sure,’ I said.
‘Saturday at six o’clock. It’ll be a nice evening.’
‘I could cook.’
Pauliina looked up. We were sitting across the table from one another. The laptop’s lid was like the screen between prisoners and visitors that I’d seen in movies. Again Pauliina’s eyes were hidden in the glare of the screen. From the angle of her head and general ill humour of her face I assumed her expression was serious.
‘How do I know that’s actuall
y going to happen?’ she asked.
‘Because I’ve said it’ll happen.’
‘You’ve said it before.’
‘That was different. The prime minister agreed to an interview.’
‘You interviewed the prime minister and we ordered pizza.’
‘Like I said, I could cook.’
Pauliina was silent. Then: ‘How was your trip?’
‘I don’t know if I can talk to you about it.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You used to be a reporter; you know how it is.’
Pauliina lowered her glasses and peered over the rim. She was beautiful.
‘You’re serious,’ she said.
‘And you work for a consultancy firm that has in the past represented a weapons factory and tobacco firms.’
‘That was years before I even joined the company. I haven’t touched those cases.’
‘But your colleagues might have touched them.’
‘So what?’ she asked.
I ate my slice of bread. It was cold. Now the liver pâté felt like oil in my mouth, meat broth. I swallowed.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Necessarily.’
Pauliina pressed the lid of her laptop shut and stood up.
I could hear her brushing her teeth and going into the bedroom. I sat on the sofa in the living room, my computer in my lap, and flicked from one TV channel to the next. I found an American series in which the parents and children of a patchwork family were trying to get along with each other. It took a while before I realised this was supposed to be a comedy.
It really took nothing to ruin a relationship. Pauliina and I hadn’t really harmed one another or done anything irreparable, but still we looked at each other as you would someone coughing on the tram.
I tried to find more information and news about the mining industry. But I couldn’t concentrate any longer.
The Mine Page 4