The End of Sunset Grove

by Minna Lindgren

  Siiri took the will and left her friend to sleep off her woes.

  Chapter 24

  A horrific din echoed from the dining room. The canteen was typically deserted, and increasingly frequently that went for mealtimes as well, as many of the residents had pronounced the three-dimensionally printed nourishment so foul they preferred to skip it altogether. But now the door was closed, apparently with some sort of vociferous mob inside. Siiri and Irma couldn’t figure out what was going on.

  ‘That’s that velvet-eyed man’s voice,’ Irma said.

  ‘Pertti,’ Siiri said. ‘That was his name, wasn’t it?’

  They stood at the door to the dining room and tried to eavesdrop. It wasn’t one of the usual praise services, or even a collective exorcism of demons, which were also held from time to time. They had recently witnessed Margit banishing the Devil from the depths of her soul, and it had been shocking indeed. Pertti and one of the other volunteers had ordered Margit to pray harder and harder, to believe more fervently and testify more passionately. Margit had tossed her head, cried, and shouted Jesus Christ is My Lord, her prayers intensifying into a hysterical litany reminiscent of a torture victim’s agonized screams. The men said they were helping Margit, but they had taken her half-grey head in both hands and shaken it until it nearly popped off. Logic should have dictated Margit dreading such treatment, but afterwards she said she felt wonderful and light, having been freed from evil influences. They hadn’t dared probe any more deeply into the matter; so horrific had the procedure seemed to their eyes. But now something else was afoot in the dining room.

  ‘It’s normal for some Christians to struggle with this problem.’ It was Pertti’s voice. ‘They feel an erotic attraction towards their own sex.’

  Pertti was gentle, but now a reedier, more nasal male voice zealously uttered:

  ‘Homosexuality is a plot of the Devil, Satan’s way of luring the unsuspecting into the fires of hell! God will not abandon you, if you but turn your shameful face to him!’

  Irma tried to restrain a spontaneous squeal and only partially succeeded. She looked at Siiri in horror and pressed her ear even closer to the door. A shrill female voice joined the chorus.

  ‘Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway. And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, shall be holy unto the Lord.’

  ‘They’re preaching directly to someone, they’re saying “you” . . .’ Irma said. Then: ‘Shuffle and cut! It’s Tauno! They’re talking to Tauno, aren’t they!’

  ‘Lower your voice,’ Siiri hissed, pressing her ear to the door, too.

  The two grey-haired women leaned in towards the door, eyes wide with curiosity. There wasn’t another soul in Sunset Grove’s echoing lobby, and without the two inquisitive eavesdroppers the retirement home’s communal area would have looked prosaic indeed: forgotten, dusty and utterly static, despite the prominent presence of modern technology that added nothing to the ambience, other than intermittent automated statements with no one to hear them: ‘The. Elevator. Is. Free.’ ‘A. Code. Is. Required. To. Open. The. Door.’ These random sentiments, repeated day in, day out, remained orbiting in the space-time encapsulated by the retirement home, where the ceiling was high and the walls distant but time so stagnant that by all appearances it had vanished entirely.

  ‘Didn’t your father show you enough love? Perhaps not. What is broken can be repaired. It’s that simple.’

  The woman with the shrill voice started praying in earnest, a low background murmur. It was impossible to hear what she was saying, but as the men drew breath, Siiri and Irma could make out a cry for help uttered directly at the victim:

  ‘Holy Spirit, heal Tauno! Open not the wrong doors for him!’

  Irma was already opening the door, but Siiri grabbed her hand. ‘We can’t go in. It would cause a huge fuss.’

  Inside the dining room, the pace of the prayers picked up, as in the best opera finales, where everyone sang their own lines at the same time. The interweaving voices would have formed a beautifully building contrapuntal tapestry if the words being voiced hadn’t been in such glaring conflict with all that is beautiful.

  ‘Sin cannot be allowed to rule mortal flesh.’

  ‘Holy Spirit, free him from lust!’

  ‘Let out the roar of a lion. Give in to your masculinity!’

  ‘Confess your degeneracy.’

  Siiri and Irma couldn’t catch the tiniest hint of Tauno’s voice amid the cacophony. Perhaps it was just a rehearsal, and Tauno wasn’t present? If that were the case, they could go and warn their friend.

  ‘This man has not hidden his degeneracy, verily, no!’

  Only now did they make out a male voice with a hint of tenor.

  ‘Aatos Jännes!’ Siiri hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

  So the amateur poet cum insatiable lecher as a result of his memory medication had joined forces with the religious fanatics. It was nothing if not tragicomic. Siiri glanced at Irma, who had been uncommonly reticent about the poetry club at Aatos’s salon. Irma looked bewildered, unable to believe her ears. The thundering beyond the door continued, mightier than ever. Now Aatos’s voice bellowed above the others.

  ‘The dark corners of railway stations and sleazy public lavatories is where they belong, not among decent people. Normal taxpayers aren’t safe from this trash, even in retirement homes. Isn’t homosexuality the greatest sin imaginable? What could be worse?’

  ‘You’re right, Siiri. It’s Aatos,’ Irma said sadly. ‘He’s the one who’s sick, as we know. Even at his poetry salon he’d slip into incredibly lewd language; he has absolutely no control. Some people find it amusing, but I can’t understand it. I stopped going. You knew that, didn’t you? It made me as nauseous as these religious lunatics’ broadsides.’

  ‘Yes, Aatos. Homosexuality is the worst possible sin.’ The speaker wasn’t Pertti; they didn’t recognize the other volunteers’ voices. ‘But Tauno need not shrink from that. Awaken Now! can help. We will make you whole.’

  Then it was absolutely silent, and Siiri and Irma nearly burst with curiosity. Tauno had to be in there; they wouldn’t be putting such effort into a rehearsal. But why didn’t Tauno say anything? Generally he was quick to defend himself, regardless of the circumstances, and tenacious beyond belief, as they had witnessed during the plumbing retrofit: Tauno had been the lone resident to soldier through the cataclysm, sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor, the last of the Mohicans.

  ‘Don’t lose heart. God is stronger than the Satan within you.’

  ‘You don’t need to end up in the fires of hell, Tauno.’

  Irma could take no more of the secret society’s attempts to heal Tauno into heterosexuality. Without further deliberation or asking Siiri for permission, she yanked open the door to the dining room and stepped in. Siiri’s digestive organs threw a somersault, and the rushing in her ears was intolerable. She followed Irma on unsteady feet.

  Upon seeing his friends, Tauno let out an unintelligible howl. If it included words, they were impossible to make out, as his wail was a mixture of tears and outrage. He was bound to a chair in the middle of the room. Layers of orange laundry line had been wrapped around his arms and legs, confining him to his seat, and he had been gagged with a scrap of fabric. His face was crimson, the veins in his forehead bulged blue, and his cap had fallen to the floor, revealing white hair glowing against the red. He mumbled desperately, twitched and writhed in rage. Tears damped his face, and his eyes burned with a terrified fury. Siiri had to sit down on the nearest chair to keep from fainting.

  Tauno was surrounded by Aatos in his brown weekday suit, four volunteers in suits and socks, and Sirkka the Saver of Souls in her eternal artificial-fabric tunic and green high heels. When the door opened, they had all fallen silent and now glared icily at Irma and Siiri. Siiri felt disgusted and impotent, but Irma smiled angelically.

  ‘Oh, excuse me, are we interrupting?’

  No o
ne answered.

  ‘Siiri and I were just coming in to eat, but it looks like we’ve completely misjudged the time. Can anyone tell me what time it is? Is it Tuesday? We’re so dotty, you see, and when you spend all of your days inside four walls and the sun doesn’t even rise outside, it’s easy to get mixed up, and you never know whether it’s day or night or time to eat, no matter how many reminders you get from the smartwall. It tries to send us to bed at nine p.m., too, repeats it as tirelessly as the radio announcers who read the same news headlines every hour on the hour. Have you ever heard anything so silly? I stick out my tongue at it every night at nine p.m. Like this!’

  Irma made a face at the healers and broke into her tinkling laugh. As she spoke, she calmly walked up to the circle, radiating an aura of sweet innocence. Siiri almost started laughing, and her revulsion evaporated. How ingenious and brave her Irma was!

  ‘Yes, well . . . today is Wednesday, isn’t it? And the time is . . . Hmm, does anyone have the time?’

  Pertti clawed at his wrists searching for his watch, then slipped a hand into his pocket, but when he couldn’t find what he was looking for, spread his hands and looked helplessly at the other evangelists. Sirkka was the first one to rouse herself enough to come to Irma’s aid.

  ‘The time is seven minutes past ten. Ten a.m. Or ten in the morning, whichever you prefer.’

  ‘Thank you, Sirkka! Where does it say that in the Bible? Since everything is laid out in it so precisely, there must be a verse somewhere that tells how time passes and what time it is.’ Irma laughed cheerfully again and then turned towards the prisoner, as if she hadn’t even noticed him yet. ‘But, Tauno dear! For goodness’ sake.’

  Irma patted Tauno and bent down calmly to undo the knots in the plastic laundry line, and Tauno looked at her like an abandoned child, his pale blue eyes still wet with tears. Siiri rushed over to lend Irma a hand.

  ‘What on earth are you doing tied to a chair like this? Are you playing some childish game? My darlings always loved playing bandits, and one time they rolled up the neighbour’s boy in a rug so tightly he nearly lost his life; the poor thing couldn’t get any oxygen or scream for help. I always told my children they weren’t allowed to roll anyone up in a rug, even in jest, because you can never know if you pulled the knots too tightly and cut off the circulation. And what if the children hadn’t been able to undo the knots? I wasn’t always looking over their shoulders the way these professional mothers do today, perched on the edge of the sandpit day in, day out. I was just a housewife, and when you have six children and just one father providing, I had my hands full running the household. Oh dear, oh dear, what fun we had.’ She shook her head and smiled at the memory. She had reached into her bag and pulled out the hunting knife Anna-Liisa had lent her. ‘Cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians. Is this supposed to be a totem pole, this chair, and Pertti and his friends a tribe of Indians? Is that what you’ve been playing at, you naughty boys. Dratted knots, I can’t even undo them with my knife. Could you lend me a hand, oh Great Indian Chief Pertti?’

  Pertti gaped at the well-dressed, rotund old woman, diamonds glittering at her ears and bracelets jangling as her knobby fingers sawed away, faster and faster. The neo-charismatic leader obeyed Irma like a schoolboy, took the knife and severed the ropes. Siiri had worked the cloth away from Tauno’s mouth and removed it while Pertti spooled up the plastic twine. Siiri was afraid Tauno would start hurling ill-considered insults at his healers, but he didn’t. He just sat there trembling silently, his eyes glued to the floor.

  ‘Well, well. These charming ladies are riding to the rescue, I see. I believe I have some things to take care of. Thank you, one and all. Until the last time!’ Aatos Jännes took a couple of steps towards the door and waved. It seemed to him no one had understood his joke, and he stood there scratching his ear. ‘They used to say “until next time” on the radio and telephone, do you remember? At this point in our lives it seems more fitting to say until the last. A little innocent wordplay. Or should I say till the very last time? Would that be more fitting?’ He laughed nervously, turned on his heels, and fled the scene like a hardened criminal.

  ‘Tauno, get up, dear,’ Irma said, grabbing Tauno by the elbow. ‘You’re fine, my dear. We’re with you and we will protect you. You don’t have anything to be worried about. You’re a wonderful man just the way you are, in that sense things are undeniably rather simple. Only a gargantuan blockhead could think anyone needs to change at this age. Like when they told my cousin she needed to stop eating sugar when they detected a little diabetes at the age of ninety-two. I said to her, don’t talk nonsense, and then I told her I always pop one of the Amaryllie pillies into my mouth after I have a piece of cakesies or an ice cream cone, and my blood sugar has remained so superb that I won’t be dying of that, at least. Oh dear, oh dear, this world is full of crazy people. Don’t you fret, Tauno, about this idiotic Indian chief and his warriors.’ Irma turned towards Pertti and made a face: ‘Ugh!’

  Siiri rushed round to Tauno’s other side, and together they managed to help their trembling friend out of the chair and to his feet. The paralysed volunteer healers looked on as the frail trio wandered out of the canteen, leaving the door ajar behind them. When it had proceeded some way down the corridor, they heard a cheerful voice ring out:

  ‘What if we sang a little? Would that help?’

  And immediately afterwards, the women started belting out an old Austrian folk song.

  ‘Oh, my dear August, my dear August, my dear August! Oh, my dear August, I fear all is lost. My trousers are lost, my shirt is lost . . .’

  And then an unsteady male voice joined in.

  Chapter 25

  ‘I can’t take this prison any more!’ An overcoat-clad Irma was standing at Siiri’s door, which she had managed to open with her own fob for once. ‘When was the last time we saw the world? Back when we escaped the plumbing retrofit at Sunset Grove for that pornographic lair in Hakaniemi. I’ll go mad if you don’t take me for an adventure this minute, even if it’s just a tram ride.’ She had pulled her winter beret down over her ears and attached her anti-slip plates to her ankle boots; the spikes clacked against Siiri’s plastic flooring as Irma paced back and forth in exasperation. She was clearly ready to face the outside world no matter how arctic it was.

  Siiri had no trouble understanding Irma’s restlessness. Things had been extraordinarily bleak of late. Tauno’s attempted conversion had been hard on them; they had all been out of sorts since. Tauno had retreated to his C-wing cubbyhole too shaken to show his face, even for card games, Anna-Liisa lay ensconced in her bed reading The Magic Mountain, and Margit ran from praise service to prayer circle more frantically than ever. Only Ritva continued to man the card table undisturbed, yearning for a pint.

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, calm yourself, Irma!’ Siiri said. ‘I’d be happy to join you for a ride. It’s been ages since I set foot in a tram.’

  Siiri put on her coat and shoes, spent a moment looking for her handbag before finding it in its place next to the telephone table, verified that she had her fob and wallet in her bag, glanced in the mirror to find an ancient, withered creature there, adjusted her beret, grabbed her cane from the hallway cupboard and was ready.

  ‘Aren’t you taking your cane, Irma?’

  ‘My Cane Carl has abandoned me again. I don’t understand where he’s gone off to, seeing as I haven’t been anywhere. Do you suppose I left it in Anna-Liisa’s apartment after our book club? I nearly fell asleep yesterday when she read Settembrini and Naphta’s quarrel over the role of monks in the universe in such a monotone voice that I must have sleepwalked home. La Sonnambula, isn’t that the Bellini opera? Shall we go and fetch my cane? Maybe Anna-Liisa will join us for a joyride. It would do her good; lounging about in bed for days on end is life-threatening. People just grow sicker and sicker in hospitals too, when they’re kept lying there with nothing to do.’

  Irma had heard about this on the radio; it was par
t of the structural change. Politicians had heaped all societal problems – the ill, the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed, drunks and immigrants – into one jumble. Assistance was offered from a single service point and no one was put up in institutions; instead, they were encouraged to get by on their own. Everyone did better that way, enormous sums of money were saved, and the government was able to cut unnecessary jobs, especially in social services. That was the end goal of all government activity: cutting costs and replacing people with machines or a single service point. Too much money was wasted on people, and Finland could no longer afford all its citizens, especially the unemployed elderly.

  ‘Yes, we don’t belong to society’s productive sector,’ Siiri said with a smile. ‘Our time is worth nothing.’

  ‘But we’re doing our part! We’re putting our lives on the line to test a money-saving monitored existence for the elderly.’

  They knocked on Anna-Liisa’s door, but she didn’t come and open it. She was sleeping, no doubt; she slept nearly all the time now, and Irma felt that was the influence of Thomas Mann, whereas Siiri was concerned indeed and suspected it was due to the pressure from Pertti and his co-volunteers, which she knew weighed heavily on Anna-Liisa. And so they were bowled over to discover Anna-Liisa in her black dress at the card table in the lobby, in the company of Margit, Tauno and Ritva.

  ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo and the latest! We’re going out for a bit of fun! Come with us!’

  But no one responded enthusiastically. A driving sleet was coming down, and a bone-chilling wind whipped across the faces of those who dared poke their noses outside. Siiri was rather disappointed when Irma nonchalantly plopped down with the others and started stripping off her beret and overcoat. She would have so loved to peer through the windows of Töölö, Punavuori and Kallio into strangers’ homes. Now that it was cold and dark outside, the apartments looked so cosy inside. Such views reminded her of all the homes she had lived in in Helsinki’s various neighbourhoods over her lifetime. But it was no good. Their lives had shrunk so far from their former parameters that few of them could even be bothered to wonder if there was life beyond the walls of Sunset Grove. Siiri also took off her outerwear to join her friends.