Escape from Sunset Grove

by Minna Lindgren

  Chapter 25

  Margit slammed the newspaper down on the counter, making Siiri jump. Margit was still naked after her shower and had a peculiar look on her face; she narrowed her eyes at Siiri as if the sun were shining directly in them on this rainy October afternoon.

  ‘We could go to the SquirrelsNest today. We don’t have to take the metro, I’ll spring for a taxi in honour of the celebration.’

  They were alone in the apartment, because the Ambassador had taken Anna-Liisa across Hakaniemi Square to a hotel brunch; he was trying to placate her after the strain and stress produced by the jewellery box. Irma had rushed off to water aerobics at the Allergy Institute first thing that morning.

  ‘Celebration? What celebration?’

  ‘Eino’s celebration. I need to get dressed, wait a minute.’

  ‘Is it Eino’s birthday today?’ Siiri asked, but Margit had already vanished. She cleared away the mugs, a little peeved, and loaded and turned on the dishwasher. Why did it always fall on her shoulders, loading the dishwasher? It was convenient, the only convenient contraption in this household. She had never owned a dishwasher in her life, and now she intended on making the most of this ecologically unfriendly luxury that spared her from the daily mountain of dishes. A press of the button, and the machine started working for her. She took off her ‘Queen of Fucking’ apron, put it back in its place in the bottom drawer, and started gathering up the belongings she might need on an expedition to the SquirrelsNest. Her cane and handbag, that was about it, now that she knew the place.

  Margit emerged from her room surprisingly rapidly, looking utterly different to a moment ago, when she’d been drinking coffee in her usual house-wear – without a stitch, that is, unless you counted threadbare underwear. She had brushed her hair up into a tidy bun, put on a flowered headband and a stylish navy-blue dress, and had even made up her face skilfully. Siiri couldn’t be bothered to use make-up any more, but Margit occasionally felt the urge. She looked classy, and somehow dignified.

  ‘I called us a cab. It will be downstairs in a minute,’ she said.

  It was grey and rainy outside, and the taxi was waiting for them by the pavement, just outside the door. The vehicle was disappointingly compact and not at all fancy. Siiri was used to a taxi ride being a touch of luxury; in the past, the cars were new Mercedes that smelled of leather and the drivers opened the doors with a tip of their caps. But this jalopy was mud-stained and cramped, and advertisements played in the headrest in front of you, making you queasy. The driver stayed slouched in his seat and didn’t so much as glance at his customers, even in the rear-view mirror, the way Mika Korhonen had done fatefully so long ago. Siiri felt like ages had passed since their encounter with that dratted angel, even though it had only been a year or two. In addition to a mild nausea, she felt a profound wistfulness, and she was wrenched by a strong, vague spasm like you had when you missed someone. What had happened to Mika, why didn’t he have a phone any more? She and Anna-Liisa could have certainly used him to look after their interests through this fresh spate of mix-ups.

  Upon their arrival at the SquirrelsNest, Margit paid for the taxi with a debit card, had no trouble remembering her PIN code, and was otherwise very sharp, contrary to her usual demeanour at the Hakaniemi flat. She marched briskly down the corridor, entered the access code for the dementia unit without having to check the combination on her Post-it, purposefully pulled open the heavy automatic door before it started to open itself, audibly greeted the foreign male nurse in his glass cubicle, and sat down next to Eino in his room. The other bed was empty.

  ‘Did you know that that other woman is . . . Did they move her somewhere?’ Siiri asked, not knowing which words to use.

  ‘They took her off to the hospital to die, yesterday. Now we can enjoy a moment’s peace and quiet before they bring in the next shrieking lunatic.’

  Eino was asleep and looked even more frail than before. His sparse hair was in messy tufts, his bushy eyebrows tangled, and his face hadn’t been shaved. Margit stroked her husband’s forehead, gazed at him tenderly, and talked to him in a soft voice, until Eino opened his eyes and looked at his wife as if he recognized her.

  Margit smiled, continued stroking his forehead, and said: ‘Eino, today is your special day.’

  Eino closed his eyes again. Siiri was sure she saw Eino nod and smile slightly, as if indicating to Margit that he remembered his birthday.

  ‘How much is Eino turning today?’ Siiri asked, thrilled at her friend’s reinvigoration.

  ‘Oh, today isn’t his birthday. Just the opposite.’ Margit opened her handbag, took out a candle, placed it on the table next to Eino’s bed, and lit it. Then she continued digging around in her handbag, pulled out a blueberry yogurt and a small jar of medicine. She calmly opened the yogurt, poured a huge pile of pills into it, and stirred it with a spoon she had packed along with it. She looked at Siiri with a calm certainty.

  ‘Could you help me lift Eino into a sitting position?’

  It was only now that Siiri understood what Eino’s ‘celebration’ meant. Only now did she realize the magnitude of the trust Margit had placed in her, the incredible significance of what she was about to witness, and almost reverently she started helping Margit, who propped up her husband with movements that were tender but sure. Siiri slipped two thick pillows behind Eino’s back, and now he was in an upright position, although he could barely sit without assistance. She and Margit went about their business without speaking, in perfect harmony, knowing what they needed to do and why.

  Eino opened his eyes. There was a bright gleam in them, and he smiled at Margit again. Siiri instinctively took a couple of steps backwards, so she wouldn’t disturb the married couple, as the wife started to feed the yogurt to her beloved husband. Eino opened his mouth as if he realized what was happening, accepted a spoonful of yogurt, swallowed, and grimaced. He clearly had a hard time swallowing. After the second spoonful, he was racked by a coughing fit and looked mournfully at his wife. Margit gave him some water, but drinking it looked torturous, too.

  ‘Let’s keep going, honey,’ Margit said calmly, placing another spoonful of yogurt in her husband’s mouth. Eino ate with a healthy appetite, or so it seemed, as he kept his eyes shut and focused on swallowing. But the fourth spoonful was too much. Eino started coughing again, sucked yogurt into his windpipe, and started to choke. Siiri wanted to go for help, but Margit hissed at her like a she-snake and told her to sit down on the empty bed.

  ‘I need you to keep a lookout and make sure no one comes in.’

  Eino coughed and hacked until he vomited; the carefully swallowed yogurt splattered all over the bed. Eino sighed deeply, whether out of disappointment or relief, it was hard to say. He gave Margit a sheepish look, like a child who hasn’t lived up to his mother’s expectations.

  ‘That’s all right. We’ll start over again, honey.’

  Siiri went off to look for something to clean up the mess. She didn’t have a clue where to search for a cloth, but she was happy to have an excuse to step out of the room. She saw a cleaning cart at the far end of the corridor, relieved it of a couple of cloths and a pail full of dirty water, and carried them into Eino’s room. Together she and Margit wiped the vomit from the bed and Eino’s clothes. There was still an unpleasant smell in the room, but Margit wouldn’t let Siiri go and ask the nurse for a clean duvet cover.

  ‘Then they’ll come in and make the bed, and we can’t have that.’

  ‘But aren’t we . . . can’t you take a small break now that . . . now that you have to start all over again anyway?’ Siiri opened the window, and the candle blew out. ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’

  She hunted for the matches in a panic, but Margit must have put them back in her handbag. Suddenly, nothing was going smoothly, and the entire idea of Eino’s ‘celebration’ was unnerving. Siiri heard a tremendous thunk; she was afraid Eino had fallen out of bed, but it was Margit, who had collapsed into the chair as if all the strength had drained ou
t of her. Hands trembling, Margit hid the jar of medicine in her handbag, dropped the handbag to the floor, and, holding her head in both hands, told Siiri to go and get the nurse. Siiri rushed from the room. The dementia unit was perfectly still; even the woman who yodelled dirty folk songs wasn’t disturbing the morning idyll. The tiny old woman with stuffed animals was alone in the living room, rocking in her rocking chair.

  She greeted Siiri brightly: ‘Oh, are you here to see me?’

  Siiri went over to her, stroked her and the unicorn, and said she was visiting Eino.

  ‘Eino is my lover,’ the woman said, beaming with happiness.

  Siiri left the woman to her rocking and hurried into the glass cubicle, shook the male nurse awake at his computer, and got a clean sheet from him.

  ‘Put the dirty one in the hamper. You know how to change the sheets, don’t you? I’m just in the middle of something here.’

  Margit was thrilled that the nurse hadn’t bothered to come and help Siiri, and so Siiri rolled up her sleeves again. She had never been impressed by the supposed ingenuity of duvet covers. Slipping one over a blanket alone was incredibly difficult, and for a small person like Siiri, nearly impossible. The clean sheet swept across the dusty floor; Siiri struggled to find the right corner of the blanket inside the cover, and shook out the bunched fabric as best she could, trying to straighten it out. The end result was rather lumpy, but maybe that didn’t matter now. Margit remained calm as could be throughout this operation, stroking Eino’s forehead. Eino had fallen into a deep sleep.

  ‘All right, here you are. A clean sheet. You can start . . . over again.’

  But they couldn’t rouse Eino. Margit had to shake her now-skeletal husband rather roughly before he opened his eyes, but this did no good, because there was nothing there. His gaze wandered aimlessly without recognizing Margit. He tried to say something, but his voice was so feeble Margit and Siiri couldn’t make it out. Siiri remembered how Eino used to make off-colour remarks at Sunset Grove, much to his wife’s chagrin, and then Siiri felt ashamed of herself, thinking about such things at such a solemn moment. Eino had stopped whimpering. His eyes bulged, and then he fell back to sleep.

  ‘Do you suppose he’s already had enough . . . yogurt?’ Siiri asked, but Margit huffed angrily. Eino had vomited up the contents of his stomach. His last warm meal probably would have come up, too, if anyone on the staff had had time to feed him one. He had no strength left, and it was due to lack of nourishment. In Siiri’s view, this wasn’t an exclusively negative development, considering the circumstances, but Margit was determined to proceed in her chosen fashion. Stubbornly she pulled out the yogurt and patted her drowsy husband into a sufficient state of consciousness for her to convince him to swallow a spoonful. And a second. And a third, even a fourth. Everything seemed to be going well, until Eino yelped and sucked in air so loudly that the yogurt went down the wrong way again.

  ‘This is impossible. The nurse didn’t warn me about this!’ Margit groaned, patting her frail husband on the back. Siiri took an empty plastic bag out of her handbag and held it in front of Eino’s mouth, in case he vomited again. And vomit he did, this time listlessly. The carefully administered spoonfuls slid tidily into the Low Price Market shopping bag.

  They tried one last time, but with even worse luck. Eino was too tired to swallow, and after he had inhaled the yogurt into his windpipe for the third time, Siiri grew afraid, although she wasn’t able to verbalize what the worst possible outcome here was.

  ‘Maybe we should come back some other day? Maybe he’ll have more energy, say, tomorrow? Is he usually more lively in the evenings?’

  ‘It’s impossible to know. You can’t really ever call him lively any more. This is horrible. Oh, Siiri, thank you for coming with me!’

  Margit burst into tears and flung her massive carcass into Siiri’s arms for a hug. Siiri steadied herself against the edge of Eino’s bed and did her best to keep from being bowled over. Margit cried loudly, properly bawled, and Siiri could see what incredibly important things were weighing on her friend. Margit had planned it all out carefully, which drugs were needed to ensure death and how much of each, as well as the best way of getting the cocktail down her husband’s throat. But it was too late. Eino couldn’t swallow enough. Or else it was just a bad day. Margit had also discovered through her research that it wasn’t a good idea to mix Eino’s pills with juice because they wouldn’t dissolve sufficiently, and the danger in that case was that Eino wouldn’t ingest enough of the drug. This was no cakewalk, participating as an amateur in another’s death.

  ‘This is a catastrophe,’ Margit said, breathing choppily. Siiri wiped the tears and streaks of mascara from Margit’s cheeks.

  ‘I think it’s time for us to go. We’ll come back tomorrow.’

  Margit kissed her husband on the mouth, patted him on the hand, picked up the candle, and whispered something in Eino’s ear. Eino lay there as if dead, which, unfortunately, he wasn’t.

  Chapter 26

  Anna-Liisa’s rehabilitation had progressed at such a remarkable rate that, in honour of the upcoming weekend, the Ambassador had asked her to join him in the whirlpool tub. They spent over an hour in the spa, lounging and splashing about at their favourite pastime, memorizing various pointless rhymes together. The townships of Finland from the 1970s and German prepositions echoed rhythmically into the living room, where Siiri was preparing dinner. She was tired but felt incredibly happy, in that profound way that warmed the belly. Their home in exile had not had a particularly beneficial effect on Anna-Liisa and Onni’s marriage, and although Anna-Liisa had been dragged out for a walk and a bit of exercise now and again, there were days she’d been so weak that Siiri had feared that the rehabilitative care would gradually turn into the palliative variety. Irma had told her about a cousin who had no desire to be rehabilitated at the age of ninety-six, but in the end the family had arranged interim care at an expensive private treatment centre. Irma’s cousin had obediently gone in to exercise for a week and died mid-exertions.

  ‘So if we’re being rehabilitated to die, it was a very successful stint indeed,’ Irma had said brightly.

  Siiri had bought zander fillets from the Hakaniemi Hall despite teasing from Muhis and Metukka; in their minds, only urban ninnies bought their fish cleaned and filleted. Ninnies. Where had those African boys picked up a word like that? But Siiri simply didn’t have the energy to cook two warm meals a day from scratch, and Muhis and Metukka forgave her this.

  ‘As long as you don’t buy fish sticks,’ Muhis had laughed, his beehive of a hat jiggling on his head.

  ‘Just the occasional ready-made liver casserole,’ Siiri said, and it was true. She and Irma still enjoyed sharing a moment over liver casserole while the others were running around or lying in bed, too tired to eat lunch.

  Zander was Siiri’s favourite fish, and she always fried it in butter. All it took was a sprinkling of salt, and oh, it was delicious. Irma materialized to inspect Siiri’s labours, lifted the lid to peer at the boiling potatoes and announced she needed sauce, to which Siiri replied, rather snappishly, that those who wanted sauce could make it themselves.

  ‘Gravy, sirs, if you please.’ Irma was quoting her favourite scene from Runeberg’s Tales of Ensign Stål, and she now improvised a new ending to it: ‘But, alas, it pleaseth not.’ She raised her hand dramatically to her forehead and retreated to the couch for a smoke. ‘Remind me that I have something important to tell you,’ she called out as she lit her cigarette.

  ‘Why don’t you just tell me now, while you still remember it?’

  ‘I can’t. Don’t forget to remind me.’

  Siiri had put four peeled and six unpeeled potatoes on to boil in good time. A variety of tastes required accommodation: the Ambassador and Anna-Liisa demanded their potatoes be boiled without their skins, Margit insisted on eating the skins, and Siiri and Irma preferred to peel theirs after boiling. The proper assortment had finished cooking at just the right ti
me, as the Ambassador and Anna-Liisa’s whirlpool-tub bliss was coming to an end. They emerged from the bathroom, cheeks glowing and eyes gleaming, wrapped in their bathrobes, and before long the living room was enveloped in steam. It mingled beautifully with the smoke Irma was exhaling.

  At first Siiri had found it irritating that Irma smoked her cigarettes whenever and wherever she pleased, as if she were the sole resident of the apartment, but she had come to realize that three cigarettes a day wasn’t much, and how incredibly important those moments were to Irma, almost a ritual of sorts. Irma would always settle in at the window, pop a Mynthon pastille in her mouth, and draw long, leisurely drags of her cigarette, chattering all the time. She generally began by reporting what a lovely job the cigarette did of opening up her blocked nose, and continued by lamenting that she was incapable of quitting, even though it was so dangerous, and in the end reflecting that, when it came down to it, a ninety-four-year-old no longer needed to worry about how many cigarettes she smoked every day. Then she’d stub out the cigarette in the round brass ashtray and say, of course: ‘Döden, döden, döden.’ But this time she smoked in silence, without jabbering.

  Siiri crowed out a line from the drinking song Otto Nicolai penned for Falstaff: ‘Ready now, provide!’ The others knew what this meant. She carried the plates and utensils over to the bar and set them out in everyone’s spots, which had been settled without explicit agreement: the Ambassador always sat at the window end, Anna-Liisa at his side, Siiri and Irma across from each other, and Margit at the bedroom end. At their age, even the smallest habits developed into meaningful routines they clung to, whether or not it made any sense. Like the Ambassador’s compulsive need to read the newspaper back to front, or comb and trim his moustache in the kitchen with a little pocket mirror. Why couldn’t he do it in the bathroom, or in the privacy of his bedroom?