The End of Sunset Grove

by Minna Lindgren

  ‘We’re going to unplug it and put a stop to this madness,’ Irma said fearlessly. ‘We can’t take living among these machines any more. Our neighbours are dropping like flies, and as the last guerrillas standing we have to do something to save ourselves before we end up in debtors’ prison at the orders of some Brazilian conglomerate. District supreme chief Jerry Siilinpää didn’t understand a word of what we explained to him, even though we spoke plainly. But I don’t think he speaks normal language any more. He jabbers in that consultant-speak as if he were being controlled by some bargain-basement Indian cloud from the other side of the world. Can you imagine, he offered us tickets and coupons as the solution to all this! Kept on shoving tickets down our throats and then rushed off like a madman in his gorilla feet. And we were so fond of him back when he was in charge of the renovation at Sunset Grove and taught us how to use composting toilets.’

  ‘Got it,’ Mika said, as if he had internalized every word of Irma’s rundown. ‘Those are the cables right there,’ he said, pointing at a plastic tube running along the ceiling.

  ‘Is that the heavenly service? Is that how they control the robots and transmit biblical phrases to the smartwalls? Is that how the religious fanatics’ commandments travel into our homes?’ Siiri was sure that Mika was pulling their legs. She peppered him with questions like a bottomlessly curious child, one finger raised, until she realized how comical she looked and stopped. ‘You’re making fun at our expense, Mika.’

  ‘No, I’m not. The cables lead there.’ Mika indicated the far end of the hallway. ‘That’s where the routers are. And the switch.’

  Irma and Siiri stared, dumbstruck, in the direction Mika was indicating, where they could see nothing but blackness. So that’s where the Holy of Holies was, which reminded them of a normal light fixture, in that it had a switch. Mika calmly clicked open the locks of his death-box one at a time.

  ‘I’m here to kill rats. Have you seen any?’

  ‘My rat was so frightened by your blue gas that he hasn’t been back in weeks for his bit of cheese. But someone said they’d just seen several rats out in the yard. Might it have been Margit? Or Ritva? Who else could it have been?’ Siiri sought support from Irma, but her friend’s mind was blank. As far as she could remember, it had been ages since anyone had spoken about rats, let alone mysterious deaths and empty bank accounts.

  ‘We’ll all be destitute before long. Tapping around with our canes begging for alms, as poor as church rats, if you catch my meaning, since you’re so interested in sewer fauna. They’re sucking our accounts dry along that electricity cable, these miserly merchants of nothing. Not the rats. I’m not as addled as I sound. I’m just so upset; this is unprecedented thievery, and there will be no end to it unless we gnaw that wire in two,’ she said. Just to be sure, she stomped her foot and shook her fist at the cable.

  ‘Irma! That’s it! We need the rats’ help,’ Siiri cried. She gave first Irma and then Mika a sly smile, but neither caught on to her flash of genius. She had to start from the ground up. The thought had already crossed her mind back when Mika had sprayed the poison in her kitchen, but she hadn’t understood then how everything fitted together. Thanks to Ritva’s inebriated tutorial at the Ukko-Munkki, now she did. Irma should have, too. And since Jerry Siilinpää had inadvertently revealed that the dementia unit no longer existed, her greatest cause for concern had been dismissed.

  ‘Do you think you could help us a little?’

  ‘By not killing rats?’ Mika growled, kicking the lid of his box shut. It was impossible to decide from the wry look on his face if he was on their side or if he was intent on carrying out the task assigned by the city’s Department of the Environment.

  ‘Maybe not all of them, at least . . . I doubt you’ll get caught if you’re careful, but the rats will stay alive, right? Who’s counting them? Would you do us this one last favour, Mika?’

  Mika Korhonen looked at the wizened old woman staring intently at him with her grey eyes and gripping his arm in her veined hands. He remembered that gaze and that demanding grip from a few years ago, remembered his childhood friend Tero’s tragic death, and how one bizarre taxi gig had thrown this irrepressibly optimistic duo into his back seat, forcing him to investigate Tero’s death and the convoluted criminal activity at Sunset Grove. Compared to that, locking up a couple of rats in the basement didn’t seem like such a big deal.

  ‘So it’s settled, then?’ Siiri said, throwing her arms around Mika. He looked embarrassed but laughed pleasantly the way he sometimes did. Irma looked on in bewilderment, with no idea what had just been settled in the basement corridor.

  Chapter 34

  It came as a complete surprise to Siiri and Irma that Anna-Liisa was Orthodox. She had never mentioned it, and upon further reflection, she had always been reticent when the conversation touched on religion. The Orthodox preferred rapid burials, within three days of the death if at all possible, which wasn’t within the framework of Finland’s bureaucracy. Several weeks passed before Pertti & Co.’s call to emergency services had started up the mortality mill required to grind out a document pronouncing a ninety-six-year-old acceptably dead, determining the cause of death and granting the burial permit. At long last, the official death certificate had reached the offices of the Orthodox parish, whose staff had undertaken to arrange the funeral, as there was no kin.

  Irma and Siiri were joined by Margit, Ritva and Aatos for the funeral, and on a cloudy April day, the five of them took the number 4 tram from Munkkiniemi to the Uspenski Cathedral. Siiri realized that she had ended up in Katajanokka this winter time again and again, always on different business, even though in the past Helsinki’s maritime cul-de-sac had seemed a town of its own. It rose in isolated loftiness on the far side downtown, a peninsula transformed into an island by a canal; for decades she had viewed it as an obscure periphery home to the prison, the customs house, the old navy barracks, the shipyards and the harbour. The prison was now a hotel, which struck her as queer. Was it truly possible that cells built in the early 1900s served as hotel rooms for foreign tourists?

  An unusual suspense enveloped the elderly troop. None of them, seasoned funeral professionals that they were, had ever participated in Orthodox rites. Aatos had never even set foot in Uspenski Cathedral, and Margit was afraid she’d have to see a badly decomposed body, as the funeral arrangements had been so delayed.

  ‘That’s right, they always have open caskets,’ Ritva said.

  ‘That shouldn’t be anything new for you, seeing as how you were a pathologist in your previous existence,’ Siiri said.

  ‘Medical examiner. But you’re right, I can’t deny this reminds me of work,’ Ritva barked with a raspy laugh.

  The casket was open in the middle of the cathedral, but Anna-Liisa’s face had been covered with a fine cloth. She was wearing her own clothes; a small icon rested on her breast and a cross at her throat. A ponytailed young priest had donned a stunning white cape with silver trim, and when Siiri approached to admire the garment, the priest explained that for the Orthodox, white was the colour of baptism and death.

  ‘What a beautiful thought,’ Siiri said spontaneously. ‘We end up right back where we started.’

  ‘Yes. Death is not an ending, but a new beginning.’ They looked around and silently admired all they saw, apart from Irma letting out the occasional and inappropriately loud ooh. It was all so gorgeous. The place was swimming in tall, fat candles, and the magnificent altar had been opened. All this in Anna-Liisa’s honour!

  They had to stand from start to finish, which required determination and effort. They found their spots a short distance from the casket and observed the ritual that didn’t appear to proceed according to a strict formula, but meandered from one prayer or song to the next.

  ‘. . . lead to rest, Lord, the soul of your servant who now sleeps . . .’

  The magical mantra melded into the warmth of the candlelight, the tinkling of the braziers, and the fragrant, pitch-scent
ed smoke, sinking Siiri into a pleasant stupor. She relished the movement and chanting around Anna-Liisa’s casket. The choir was blessed by one soprano whose song rose above the others. Its closest competitor was a lagging female voice, but thanks to the prolonged echo, the voices filtered into a rather lovely harmony.

  ‘. . . the resurrection, life and repose of your sleeping servant Anna-Liisa Petäjä . . .’

  The priest bent over Anna-Liisa, raised the icon from her breast and kissed it. One of the women made the sign of the cross and also kissed Anna-Liisa’s icon. The choir purred the same tune over and over, and Siiri couldn’t make out all the words on account of the melisma.

  ‘. . . rejoice, oh worthy . . .’

  Then it was their turn to bid Anna-Liisa farewell. Irma stepped forth boldly, the first to approach the casket. She stood there for a moment, touched Anna-Liisa’s hand and dabbed at her eyes with her lace handkerchief.

  ‘. . . that the Lord lead her to rest . . .’

  Siiri touched the familiar hand, too. It was a moving experience, a much more concrete way of saying goodbye to an old friend than laying flowers across a closed casket in oppressive silence, as Lutherans did. Siiri walked back to her spot in a fog, to observe how the others managed their part.

  Then the casket lid was closed, and a group of men she’d never seen before came and stood around it. The chanting continued, and Siiri couldn’t tell if a moment or an eternity had passed. She felt like she was floating ethereally and closed her eyes to relish the enchantment enveloping her. She, a ninety-seven-year-old atheist! What a stunt you pulled, Anna-Liisa, and without the slightest warning!

  ‘Holy God, holy mighty, holy immortal, have mercy on us!’

  It felt as if sunlight were filling the cathedral, although that was highly unlikely. Siiri opened her eyes and swayed a little. The porter led the attendees out, starting with the choir and the priest, then the casket. Last of all, the unsteadily advancing mourners proceeded into the drizzling sleet of an April Saturday.

  ‘. . . Amen now, always and for eternity, holy immortal, have mercy on us . . .’

  The elderly attendees, on the verge of wilting from standing so long, moved their stiff limbs and glanced around. The casket was lowered into the black vehicle sent by the funeral home. The door slammed shut, keenly cutting the silence that had fallen when the choir stopped singing. When the hearse slid into the Helsinki afternoon traffic, Siiri realized she would never again hear Anna-Liisa lecture on the disappearance of the possessive suffix from spoken Finnish.

  They shook hands with the priest and thanked him for the beautiful funeral, as they had just witnessed one of the best blessings in their lives, and they had seen plenty. Then the quintet from Sunset Grove proceeded silently and slowly through Tove Jansson Park to the tram stop, lost in thought. Siiri paused to admire Viktor Malmberg’s statue The Water Bearer, which depicted a woman lifting a water jar in a distinctly awkward position. She remembered how Luotsikatu and the tram line used to run through the park, but for the life of her couldn’t recall when the street had been moulded into one of the park’s paths. She looked up at the first pair of buildings and let her eyes rest on two very different examples of Jugendstil architecture. Gesellius, Saarinen and Lindgren had designed the red, fortress-like Tallberg Building, whereas Selim A. Lindqvist was responsible for the streamlined asymmetrical edifice named Aeolus – which wasn’t, strictly speaking, Finnish; it should have been spelled Aiolos. Not that the Lord of the Winds wasn’t the perfect gatekeeper to windswept Katajanokka.

  At the tram stop, a nasty northerner straight from Siberia whipped Siiri’s face so harshly that she turned her back on it and faced Alvar Aalto’s Sugar Cube, although she had determined to avoid doing so on the day of Anna-Liisa’s adieu. The marble-clad cause of Anna-Liisa’s death stood there brazenly, staring down on the old cathedral and the cluster of friends who had just bid their farewells to the old woman.

  Siiri tried to take her mind off things by admiring the former mint, a pink edifice that was the handiwork of many architects and eras and adorably hidden between two modern buildings. Finnish markkas and pennies had been coined there for over a hundred years, until production moved to the suburbs and the old building became redundant. At first came the euros, then the cards and the chips that transferred ethereal currency from account to account with a simple flash, in their case along a white cable from Sunset Grove to the Sugar Cube and from there to tax havens in the middle of the sea. The Foreign Ministry designed by Olli Pekka Jokela framed the mint to one side, and it was only now that Siiri realized how elegantly the 1990s structure respected its environment. Development aid, to her understanding, was what took place inside the building, so invisible currents carried money abroad from there in a rather uncontrolled fashion as well.

  ‘It was lovely not having to listen to the usual desperate reminiscences about a person the priest has never met,’ Irma said as the number 4 tram sped down Aleksanterinkatu. The others were silent. ‘Oh well, we never got a chance to sing those two beautiful hymns. Actually that’s for the best, that way they’ll be a little fresher at my funeral. Siiri, have you figured out why Anna-Liisa left us the numbers of her favourite hymns when she knew she’d end up in the Uspenski Cathedral? My understanding is the Orthodox don’t look too kindly on it if someone starts belting out Protestant paeans.’

  Siiri had flipped through The Magic Mountain to see if that would help them decipher the message contained in the numbers. But on page 484, Hans Castorp was half-audibly babbling such strange, consonant-free gibberish that he was alarmed by his own condition, and on page 548 a new visitor to the sanatorium was introduced, the Dutchman Mr Peeperkorn, an unpleasant fellow with pale watery eyes and patchy facial hair. Anna-Liisa’s sole margin note there, which was reinforced by two exclamation marks, referred to an incorrectly inflected predicate she had spotted.

  ‘Perhaps it was her phone number from the landline days? 48 45 48 would imply Munkkiniemi, wouldn’t it? The Töölö numbers started with 49 and Meilahti with 47,’ Irma chattered, for all intents and purposes to herself. ‘It was so handy back when you could tell the neighbourhood from the beginning of the phone number. These days they’re so long it’s impossible to deduce anything from them. I can’t even remember mine! But when we lived in Töölö, our number was 49 71 72. I’m sure I’ll still remember it at the gates of heaven if I’m asked.’ Siiri sat in the tram behind Irma and Ritva, with Margit at her side. Aatos had stayed further back in solitude. He had clearly stopped taking his Alzheimer’s medication, and as a result had grown as listless and absentminded as a castrated steer, to the point that on occasion Siiri found herself secretly longing for the frisson the former Don Giovanni brought to Sunset Grove with his amorous couplets.

  Margit had asked Siiri to sit next to her; she had something on her mind that was difficult to put into words. It wasn’t until they reached the old convention centre that she opened her mouth.

  ‘I’ve started having second thoughts about my involvement with that cult,’ she said, and looked at Siiri, eyes full of tears.

  ‘Really? But you haven’t done anything irreversibly foolish, have you?’

  ‘In a sense I have. I donated Eino’s bonds and stocks to them. They even made me pay the gift tax, can you imagine? And now my pension is too small to afford the fees at Sunset Grove.’

  Siiri felt a flush of anger rise to her cheeks. So this was how these men of the cloth had exploited their faithful new servant. She felt like screaming in rage, but she settled for clutching her handbag with both hands, as if she believed Pertti’s paladins would snatch it at that very moment and carry it off to their vault.

  ‘Do you have any savings left?’ Margit asked, and looked at Siiri in concern, as if afraid her friend had lost her grip on reality.

  ‘Not really. I’ve been frugal with my pension, but I must admit this winter was difficult,’ Siiri answered, discovering that her nerves had eased slightly. ‘Although it’s not
as if I need much, aside from a bit of liver casserole now and again. Clean water comes from the tap, beautiful music comes from the radio, and I have a wardrobe full of clothes.’

  ‘And I felt so safe at the prayer circles and praise services! But now it seems there was something phony about it. It dawned on me back there at the Uspenksi Cathedral. The ambience there was completely different from what it is at Awaken Now! events. Hope, tenderness, mercy . . . that’s what I’ve been yearning for.’

  ‘Now don’t start changing religions in your old age. It’s too much trouble.’

  Margit launched into a convoluted, agitated explanation of the Awaken Now! Association, which she still refused to criticize for trying to spread the message of Christ. But Margit had found herself alone indeed in her new congregation once her major donation had been received, as if that had been their sole interest in her. She had tried to unburden her heart to Sirkka the Saver of Souls, but instead of helping Margit, Margit had ended up supporting the poor woman.

  ‘Ritva told me about your plans,’ Margit said, no longer looking miserable. She deepened her voice and bellowed so loudly in Siiri’s ears that it made them ache: ‘You have my full support! We have to put a stop to this! Once and for all!’

  Chapter 35

  Siiri was nearly frightened out of her wits when Mika suddenly pounded on her door. Nowadays no one just walked in the way they used to, at any time. Irma was the only one who visited her, and she was easy to identify from the cock-a-doodle-doo she belted out before she even found her fob. But this time, Siiri heard a demanding, powerful beating at her entrance.

  ‘The rats are piling up; we have to do something,’ Mika said, once Siiri had opened the door and Mika had pushed past her in his muddy clodhoppers.

  ‘Could you be a dear and take off your boots? I just mopped this morning.’