‘Yes, that’s Hasan. That’s the one.’
Chapter 31
Irma had suggested a tram ride after their daily coffee hour on the second floor of Hakaniemi Hall, and because Siiri had noticed that a new route, the 6T, had just been added to Helsinki’s selection of trams, she wanted to ride the entire route once. It would have made most sense to ride it downtown first, because it wasn’t until after Hietalahti Market Square that the number 6T veered off from the number 6 route and ventured down new paths, but Siiri wanted to go a little further afield, to get away from it all, and Arabianranta felt like a sufficiently distant destination. Besides, the tram would make a quick loop there before continuing back to the long Hämeentie stretch, which all drivers hurtled down even faster than the number 4 did down the Paciuksenkatu hill on its way to Munkkiniemi.
Hauhon puisto was the stop after Lautatarhankatu. The park was known for its abundance of roses and fruit trees, which nevertheless brought no joy on this snowless December day. A few pooch-walkers were sheepishly scooping up their pets’ droppings in plastic bags; other than that, the place was lifeless. Siiri had sat in the park the previous spring, when the blooming Cornelian cherries had formed a leafy arbour over the bench at the southern end. One year someone had hung recipes on all the branches; the idea had been that the recipes’ ingredients could be found in the tree it was hanging in.
‘But I didn’t see it myself; Muhis told me about it. Those are handsome, those tall, colourful buildings over there on Hauhontie, although some people think they shade the park too much,’ Siiri said.
‘Hmm,’ Irma mused absent-mindedly.
At the Vallila tram depot, Siiri started waxing rhapsodic over her favourite architect, Selim A. Lindqvist, even though the halls where the trams were serviced was quite the hotchpotch, and only its oldest part and the main façade were designed by Lindqvist.
‘Just think, there used to be a market hall here in Vallila, too, a cute little wooden building that was torn down when the tram depot needed expanding,’ Siiri said, but Irma’s response wasn’t particularly enthusiastic. Irma didn’t put much stock in Vallila; she still thought of it as the city’s old pasturelands. That’s where the name came from, too: some manor house whose cattle spent their days chewing cud in the vicinity. Since then, it had, in Irma’s eyes, been transformed into a neighbourhood primarily for rumrunners and the poor.
‘Look, they even have potato patches.’
‘Those aren’t potato patches, they’re allotment gardens planned by Elisabeth Koch. Charming little cottages and gardens, and still popular, even though no one in Finland is starving any more.’
To the left they saw St Paul’s Church, a dreary brick building from the 1930s by Bertel Liljeqvist; dents and surface damage from the Winter War had been unrepaired as a historical reminder. Irma thought it looked more like a fire station than a church. But neither one of them had ever passed through its doors, and it might be the most beautiful building imaginable from the inside.
‘Jumping jiminy, we are in the countryside now,’ Irma said, as the tram passed the allotment gardens and drove on towards Arabianranta.
‘I was supposed to remind you about something, but for the life of me I can’t remember what,’ Siiri said. Irma admired the old Arabia porcelain factory buildings and didn’t remember what Siiri was supposed to remind her about.
‘It was some time ago; I think it was before Eino died. You were very serious, you were smoking, and you said you had something very important to tell me but couldn’t talk about it then.’
‘Shuffle and cut, now I’ve got it!’ Irma crowed, and just then the driver took the end-of-the-line loop at a clip and it elicited a small squeal of joy from both Siiri and Irma. The driver looked at his sole passengers in concern, and Siiri recognized him: it was the boy who generally listened to classical music as he drove.
‘Why aren’t you playing Bruckner or Wagner today?’ Siiri called out.
‘One of the passengers who got on at the Western Harbour complained,’ the man said. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’ll put some on now.’ And so the familiar, sonorous orchestral thunder started building at the front of the tram.
‘This is such childish music,’ Irma whispered to Siiri, unnecessarily loudly. ‘Cowbells and cuckoo-birds. Poor Mahler, I wonder what complex he suffered from.’
‘What was it I was supposed to remind you about? Do you still remember?’ Siiri said, to distract Irma from criticizing Mahler any further; after all, he was the driver’s hero.
Irma remembered. It had to do with the renovation at Sunset Grove and the company responsible for carrying it out, and the time their whole household had unsuccessfully tried to remember the name.
‘Well, I remembered it: Fix ’n’ Finish. But I pretended that I didn’t, because Anna-Liisa was there.’ Irma looked a little uncomfortable as she explained that she had found several articles and comments from some crazy discussion forum on her flaptop about the company known as Fix ’n’ Finish, and it had made for unpleasant reading. Quite a few plumbing retrofits had taken on a dubious cast when this company was involved. Someone writing under a randy pseudonym had claimed that Fix ’n’ Finish was in the habit of changing its name whenever things got too hot.
‘That’s what Muhis and Metukka said!’ Siiri cried.
‘It’s clearly a fishy enterprise, that’s what everyone was shouting on the Internet. I suppose that means bankruptcies and fraud, all sorts of malfeasance. That’s why people change their names, too. My poor cousin who moved to Oulu knew one such swindler, a Don Juan whose name changed every week. Luckily, my cousin jumped off that horse before things got any worse; all he got out of her was a gold watch. Imagine, how idiotic!’
‘Sounds like something out of a novel.’
‘Believe me, he was no romantic hero; he was a completely average, normal man from Oulu. Well, not normal, of course, but from Oulu. And then I found out on the Internet, as a matter of fact on the Baby magazine discussion board, that Fix ’n’ Finish isn’t necessarily just a construction company, that it’s involved in . . . that site hinted that it’s somehow linked to a broader network involved in human trafficking.’
‘That’s what Muhis said. He’s been trying to warn us this whole time,’ Siiri said softly. ‘But why couldn’t you tell me this when in Anna-Liisa’s presence?’
‘That’s what’s so awful.’ Irma gazed out the tram window, and Siiri wasn’t sure if she’d forgotten what she was talking about, or why she was holding such a long pause. Eventually, Irma turned back to Siiri, a distressed look on her face. ‘You see, the name Onni Rinta-Paakku kept coming up.’
‘But that’s the Ambassador!’
‘A Finnish businessman who, thanks to his past career, has connections to Eastern Europe and former communist countries.’
Chapter 32
Mahler’s music echoed more and more loudly in Siiri’s head, even though they had stepped off the tram. She felt so dizzy and so weak that she was afraid she would faint. Everywhere she turned, things looked ambiguous and incomplete, old warehouses and half-built apartment buildings, and she didn’t recognize the neighbourhood.
‘Let’s take this number 9; it will bring us back to Hakaniemi,’ Irma said firmly and led her friend onto the tram. ‘Look, your favourite spot is free; sit there. I’ll stand here next to you.’
Siiri didn’t want to believe it. She thought about the Ambassador, who was such a charming man – debonair, as Irma said. Over the past year, Onni had become a real friend to Siiri, someone she had absolute faith in. Cooking was a joy because the Ambassador ate with a healthy appetite and purred in satisfaction whenever he tasted something delicious. Inevitably kind and considerate, he was an informed conversationalist, and had a sense of humour to boot; he dressed stylishly, smelled good, and demonstrated common courtesy. On more than one occasion Siiri had reflected how happy Anna-Liisa must be to have found such a man at the end of her life. Nor did it really bother Siiri any more that Onni trimmed his
moustache and his eyebrows in the kitchen. It was good he took care of himself. And now she was supposed to believe that this fine man was a notorious Mafioso? Had she misjudged the Ambassador so badly? Or was it all just a big misunderstanding; what if Irma had muddled things while fooling around with her tablet? And why would the readers of Baby magazine know anything about it?
The number 9 was packed with drunken cruise-ship passengers hauling towers of beer-cases behind them on hand-trucks. Irma wondered how cheap the beer in Tallinn must be for it to make sense to sail across the Gulf of Finland to fetch it, and how much beer one had to guzzle to make the trip pay off.
‘Maybe someone is celebrating their fiftieth birthday and is giving friends beer by the case. Even fifty-year-olds don’t celebrate with much dignity these days,’ Irma said. Momentarily, she harkened back to her own fiftieth, over forty years ago, when the darlings and other relatives had pitched in and bought her a freezer. ‘I’m smiling next to it in my fiftieth birthday picture, surrounded by flowers, as if it were a coffin.’
Siiri couldn’t stop thinking about the Ambassador’s business affairs. She remembered what Mika Korhonen had taught her: first you did something illegal that brought in horrific amounts of money, and then you had to scrub the money clean in a legal company. That’s what retirement homes and construction companies were for. It didn’t seem likely that Fix ’n’ Finish was the Ambassador’s sole enterprise. What about the apartments he had scattered across the city? Perhaps they weren’t normal rental units after all.
‘That’s where they conduct their filthiest business,’ Irma said serenely. ‘It’s plain as day in our Hakaniemi apartment. It’s no reception venue for the Foreign Ministry.’
‘Do you think the Ambassador is aware of this, knows what’s going on in the names of his companies? After all, he’s a very cultured and ethically advanced individual.’
‘That’s the way the biggest crooks always seem, at least in the movies. Do you remember that charming gentleman thief they made that TV series about, Arsène Lupin?’
‘This is much worse than Lupin’s shenanigans,’ Siiri said soberly.
They took in the arresting view at Ruoholahdenkatu. The disjointed effect arose from the wooden shanties from the 1890s, called ‘villas’ in real-estate agents’ ads, which were now besieged by a mishmash of modern apartment and office buildings. Siiri felt like one of those dilapidated shacks that looked completely out of place in its surroundings, a memory, a relic that had been left behind, to which the Antiquities Board’s preservation status offered cold comfort. To the left, before they reached Malminrinne, they passed a triangular sliver of park, the biggest in the neighbourhood, where hundreds of people walked past Emil Cedercreutz’s statue Apollo without knowing that originally it had been proposed as a memorial to Finland’s national author, Aleksis Kivi.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Onni and Fix ’n’ Finish earlier?’
Siiri couldn’t understand how Irma had been able to forget such a devastating bit of news. She was hurt that Irma had known something so essential about the Ambassador and hadn’t told her.
‘Eino’s death came at a funny time. And ever since Anna-Liisa has been feeling better, you and I haven’t had a chance to talk privately. And sometimes I just forgot. That’s what I’m like; my mother always called me a grasshopper, even though I don’t think that has much to do with memory, more with an attitude towards life. There’s that little story about it, too, the grasshopper and the ant. Or was it a bee?’
Siiri smiled. Maybe this was the reason she loved Irma so much. What were they supposed to do about it if their friends had got mixed up in unfortunate circles? The best thing would be to just die off.
‘Does she know . . . have you spoken with Anna-Liisa?’
‘No, I couldn’t. Do you know, I found a photograph on my flaptop of the Ambassador with Jerry Herring Head, the one with the waxed hair who taught us how to use composting toilets.’
Siiri corrected her: ‘Jerry Hedgehog Head, Jerry Siilinpää. So you think he’s involved in all this, too? He was a fool, not a criminal. He was just a boy.’
Irma didn’t believe Anna-Liisa knew anything about her husband’s affairs, not even the fact that her jewellery box was being used to transport illicit gains back and forth between Sunset Grove and Hakaniemi. This last bit was just a wild guess of Irma’s, of course; Siiri didn’t want to believe the jewellery box had anything to do with anything. In the end, Irma had come to the conclusion that this business of the Ambassador’s was nothing they needed to stick their noses into; they could leave the entire Sunset Grove renovation unprobed by their inquisitive minds. This wasn’t at all like her; Irma was forever sticking her nose into everyone else’s business. And this matter had, no doubt, been weighing heavily on her.
‘But then I remembered the complaints and memos. We filed a criminal report, and Anna-Liisa’s signature was at the top of the list.’
‘Oh, poor Anna-Liisa!’ Siiri said from the bottom of her heart, tears welling up in her eyes.
The number 9 had driven to Hakaniemi, but just as they were standing to get off, the driver announced that an accident on Fleminginkatu was blocking the tracks. He had been ordered to loop around the Arena building and drive back to the Western Harbour. Everyone travelling to Kallio, Alppila, or Pasila should get off now and wait until the track was cleared or a replacement bus arrived.
Siiri was thrilled. She knew trams rarely drove the Arena loop. It was a unique loop on Helsinki’s tram map, because it was the only one to circle a single building: their temporary home, the formidable fortress designed by Lars Sonck. Suddenly, she also remembered how the Ambassador had told them the building was divided into two housing associations, so the OX from the neon OXYGENOL sign on the roof belonged to one of the associations, and the YGENOL belonged to the other. And that during the bombing of Helsinki in February 1944, some simpleton from Turku living on the YGENOL side had refused to turn off his lights, despite the blackout that had been declared to trick the Russkis. This fool from Turku had basked in his lamplight, but despite this, not a single bomb had hit the building. Siiri absolutely wanted to ride along as the tram circled the triangular, single-building loop.
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ the driver said, after all the other passengers had stormed off. They would be late for their important engagements, and as far as they were concerned, it was the innocent driver’s fault, which was why they took out their pointless frustration on him. Siiri and Irma rode ceremoniously up Siltasaarenkatu, slowly curved onto Toinen linja, even more carefully onto Hämeentie, and then pulled up at Hakaniemi Square again, only headed in opposite direction. It felt like a real victory lap. They were the only two passengers in the tram, and the finale to Mahler’s Sixth Symphony rang out dramatically. The people on the street gawked; most understood that they were witnessing something out of the ordinary.
‘Quite the feeling, making the round of our private prison,’ Irma said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re imprisoned there, without any options, and thanks to our little secret, we’re even more isolated than we were at Sunset Grove. It’s like being on a desert island that a lost ocean liner of a tram circles once every ten years. Only death can save us now. Döden, döden, döden.’
Chapter 33
‘Good, you’re back!’
Anna-Liisa hurried out on her cane to greet them in the entryway. She looked concerned, not the least bit tired or weak; a little grave, perhaps.
‘Onni is ill,’ she said in a low voice, articulating over-carefully, as if she were revealing a confidence. ‘Very ill indeed.’
Just that morning the Ambassador had been his energetic self, as they had seen with their own eyes when they’d drunk their morning coffee, but after painstakingly reading the newspaper from the comics and the TV guide to the letters to the editor and the front page, he had started feeling fatigued and had retired to his room to rest, which wasn’t in the least bit like
him. The Ambassador had been in a deep sleep when Anna-Liisa’s in-home caregiver showed up to twiddle her thumbs in the middle of the living room. Anna-Liisa had taken advantage of the situation and asked her to take a look at Onni.
‘And this was no little girl, but an experienced nurse. One glance at Onni through the cracked door was all she needed to tell me that Onni needed to go to hospital.’
But Anna-Liisa hadn’t obeyed; Onni didn’t want to go to the hospital. Anna-Liisa was agitated and urged them to follow her. She spun around on her heels and started off, her cane cracking sharply against the parquet. Siiri and Irma silently stripped off their outerwear, damp from the December rain, and exchanged glances.
‘Will this be the resolution to our problem?’ Irma fixed her hair, swiped on a bit of lipstick, and smiled at her reflection, satisfied. Then she dropped her cane into the umbrella stand, because, like Siiri, she never used it indoors. Irma eyed the cane and raised a bossy forefinger: ‘All right, Kalle, my trusty cavalier, I expect you to wait there patiently for our next adventure.’
It was dim inside the bedroom Anna-Liisa shared with her husband; the curtains had been drawn across the windows and the only light came from the mirrored dressing table in the corner. The Ambassador was lying in his big round bed, sleeping almost soundlessly. Anna-Liisa was standing at the dressing table, holding the jewellery box in her hand, an odd look on her face.
‘Is he already dead?’ Irma asked inquisitively.
‘For goodness’ sake, Irma, could you please be sensible for once, if for just a moment,’ Anna-Liisa said, her voice trembling. She took two steps towards them, opened the jewellery box, and showed it to them without saying a word. They stretched out their necks to peer in, as if forbidden from taking a step.
‘Land sakes! Will you look at that!’
The box was full of jewellery, most of it gold. Anna-Liisa’s stolen goods had been restored to her!
Escape from Sunset Grove Page 26