Escape from Sunset Grove

by Minna Lindgren

  ‘Some are,’ Margit answered matter-of-factly. She told them Eino had been married to another woman when he was young, before he and Margit had met at a workplace seminar. A torrid, blazing passion had immediately sparked between them, and even now Margit’s cheeks started to glow as she remembered the early days of their shared life.

  ‘As you know, having a forbidden love adds to the excitement,’ she said, as if they had all jumped in the sack with married men as young women. She fanned her breast with a headstone brochure to cool herself off and remembered all the strange places, hidden from the eyes of the world, where they had urgently practised sex.

  ‘All right,’ Anna-Liisa cut off Margit’s description, which had grown rather detailed. ‘I’ve never experienced the pleasures of forbidden love, but I still haven’t engaged in amorous behaviour in the presence of others.’

  That put a stop to Margit’s reminiscences. They were silent for a moment, until Irma started thinking which operas pertained to Eino and Margit’s story. Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, of course, but would Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier or Verdi’s La Traviata also apply? She wasn’t sure.

  ‘The Marschallin is married, so she would be Eino, and Margit, you would be the young Octavian. In La Traviata, Violetta and Alfredo are both free, but she is from the wrong class, and didn’t you say that Eino’s family has never accepted you, so I was thinking that might fit the bill, too. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, on the other hand, would not be suitable, because that blockhead Pinkerton consciously bamboozles the poor girl, and I don’t believe we can accuse Eino of that.’

  Irma looked at them, eyes aglow, proud at having come up with what she felt was such a good topic of conversation. But Anna-Liisa couldn’t care less and Margit couldn’t hear, so Siiri felt it was her obligation to comment on Irma’s suggestions.

  ‘Why don’t we pick a story with a happy ending. I’m afraid we won’t find too many in operas.’

  ‘Of course we will! The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, and all kinds of others. Of course I can’t remember anything else at the moment. Shuffle and cut, now I’ve got it: Rossini’s Cinderella, of course.’

  Suddenly Margit was upset. As it turned out, she had heard everything and didn’t see what Irma’s frivolous operas had to do with her life with Eino, their dramatic love story, which had sprung out of sheer lust and matured into a deep affection once Eino’s first wife finally understood and stepped aside, taking the children and every penny Eino owned.

  ‘We didn’t necessarily want to know all this,’ Anna-Liisa said. ‘The original question was regarding your and Eino’s children, which is not, in my opinion, an unreasonable enquiry, considering the length of your marriage.’

  ‘Or did this all happen just before you moved to Sunset Grove?’ Irma asked with a chuckle.

  ‘Yes, Eino had three children and some grandchildren from his first marriage, but he hasn’t really been in contact with them. I don’t have any children. I never needed anyone else in my life except Eino.’

  ‘And then . . . there were still these . . . other children?’ Irma asked.

  ‘Yes. Eino acknowledged two others with two different women. But I’ve forgiven him everything.’

  ‘Like the Countess in the Marriage of Figaro. What fun! So we’ll be having a big funeral!’ Irma exclaimed.

  Margit didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to invite any of Eino’s relatives to the wedding, but the others felt that she couldn’t discount the deceased’s relations, at least his children. They convinced Margit to draw up an inexpensive and straightforward death notice, single-column and without poems, for the Monday paper. It would include an invitation to the funeral and memorial service formulated in such a way that readers would gather it was going to be an intimate affair. They spent some time thinking of a discreet way to word it. Irma suggested: ‘Only those close to the widow invited’, but the others found this inappropriate. In the end, the notice read: ‘A small, modest affair.’

  ‘It has to read “modest”. I’m not about to start feeding that clan of gypsies,’ Margit said.

  ‘And you’re not going to put “my dearly beloved agronomist”,’ Irma verified.

  ‘Of course not. I’ll just put “Beloved” with a capital B.’

  After momentary conferring, it was plain that the memorial service would be held at the Hakaniemi apartment, but they would let a catering company take care of the modest refreshments. Siiri in particular was relieved. She’d been worried that, because Margit was arranging the memorial service for the love of her life on a budget, and a tight one at that, she might have expected them to prepare the refreshments together, which would have meant Siiri handling them on her own from start to finish. It would have been the death of her.

  ‘Anna-Liisa! Anna-Liisa!’

  The Ambassador was calling from his room in a surprisingly powerful voice. He was in bed for the fifth day straight, with a fever that would drop and then inevitably rise again. He had refused any treatment; he was too exhausted to go to the health centre and he didn’t want a private doctor called in, even though Anna-Liisa had gone through a lot of trouble to find a doctor who belonged to the same Masonic lodge as he did. But he wouldn’t stand for either. It was starting to alarmingly look as if, now that their household had recuperated from in-home care, they would be learning palliative care the hard way.

  They rose as one when they heard his call, except Margit, who kept reading her crematorium brochures. They made the trek to the Ambassador’s round bed, as it always put a smile on his face to see his harem, as he liked to say.

  ‘Onni, dear, we were just planning Eino’s funeral,’ Anna-Liisa said, to cheer up her ailing husband.

  But the Ambassador didn’t appear to hear. He was worryingly confused, and a touch seemed to indicate that his fever had risen higher than ever. Anna-Liisa wiped her husband’s brow with a cool towel and tried to get him to drink. His breath was rattling now, and he tossed his head from side to side, refusing the juice. They stood there stock still, not knowing whether they should stay to support Anna-Liisa or give the couple some time alone.

  ‘Anneli, please forgive me,’ the Ambassador said, and mumbled something none of them could make out. His eyes remained shut, but he grabbed his wife’s hand in a powerful grip. Anna-Liisa looked at Siiri in alarm, and Siiri took a couple of steps closer.

  ‘Forgive me, Anneli . . . your jewellery . . . it wasn’t supposed to happen this way . . .’

  Irma’s senses sharpened at this, and she moved up right next to Anna-Liisa, who didn’t appear to understand what the Ambassador was talking about. He no longer shook his head strangely as she stroked his forehead, but he kept his eyes closed and squeezed his wife’s hand with both of his.

  ‘Calm yourself, Onni, it’s all right. I’m here.’

  ‘The boys were just supposed to take care of the money . . . your jewellery . . . it was a horrible mistake . . . I beg your forgiveness, Anneli.’

  ‘He’s confused,’ Anna-Liisa said, to Irma and Siiri’s disappointment, as they were eager to hear more of the Ambassador’s revelations. But Anna-Liisa was extremely agitated and didn’t want them standing there, bearing witness to her husband’s unconsidered, feverish ravings. Grim-faced, she drove them from the room.

  ‘We’re going to be alone now. This could be his last night.’

  Chapter 36

  Siiri and Irma had to go shopping for something to wear to the funeral. Margit always wore black, so the missing mourning garb didn’t pose as much of a problem for her as it did for the others. It was clear that the Ambassador wouldn’t be participating in Eino’s funeral, and Anna-Liisa remained unsure about her own attendance, as she might have to keep watch at her husband’s bedside.

  ‘Come shopping with us; you need to get out of the house!’ Irma said. ‘You can always use whatever you buy at Onni’s funeral if you can’t make it to Eino’s shindig.’

  This argument was so sensible that Anna-Liisa agr
eed to join them. The Ambassador had eaten his lunch with a healthy appetite, hobbled over to the bar on Anna-Liisa’s arm to join the others, looking much better than when he’d raved deliriously about Anna-Liisa’s jewellery. Unencumbered by cares, the trio boarded the first tram headed downtown. They were cheerful and talkative, since none of them could remember the last time the three of them had been out on the town in such boisterous spirits.

  That was another grand thing about Hakaniemi: five tram lines stopped more or less right outside their front door, and all of them led downtown. This time the number 7 came first, and they took it as far as Aleksanterinkatu, where they climbed off at the university so that they wouldn’t miss a single display window on Helsinki’s main shopping street. Senate Square was packed with rows of huts, a German-style Christmas market of sorts, but Irma knew they wouldn’t find anything in the shacks but expensive, hand-made knick-knacks for tourists; not a drop of mulled wine, even the non-alcoholic sort. A handful of Japanese tourists were wandering in the rain, looking in puzzlement at reindeer-fur booties and trolls glued together from rocks and taking pictures of themselves at the base of the statue of Tsar Alexander II. Siiri, Irma and Anna-Liisa glanced at the sad sight, pitied the tourists, and spent a moment admiring the gleaming white Cathedral, its apostles scrubbed and its gilding burnished to such a shine during a recent renovation that the church radiated light, even on pitch-black December days like today. They headed off to look at display windows on Helsinki’s venerable high street. Irma remembered having strolled along Aleksanterinkatu – or Aleksi, as the locals called it – with her mother back when Stockmann was still in the little blue Kiseleff building at Senate Square, but they couldn’t calculate if that was possible.

  Aleksanterinkatu was a crushing disappointment. Not one store looked as if it sold funeral dresses for nonagenarians. It being Christmastime, there were plenty of sparkly mini-skirts, because companies were throwing Christmas parties and apparently women were expected to show up at them looking trashy. Siiri, Irma and Anna-Liisa made the mistake of plunging into the Kluuvi shopping centre and were so disoriented by the thicket of soap-and-nail-polish shops, Japanese restaurants, and purveyors of French bric-a-brac that they couldn’t find their way out. In the end, Irma had the bright idea of exiting through the McDonald’s, which had direct access to the street, but no matter how hard she tried to convince them, Siiri and Anna-Liisa refused to stay and eat greasy food with their fingers.

  ‘You should try everything fun at least once,’ Irma whined, in vain.

  ‘We’re not Africans and we don’t eat with our fingers,’ Anna-Liisa observed tartly, weaving her way through the cars parked on the pedestrian street.

  Next they tried the department store Aleksi 13, which had once been a reliable and affordable place to shop. But it had experienced such violent upheaval that they couldn’t find the escalator for all the suitcases and sporting goods crowding the floor, until a nice young Russian woman helped them. They glided a couple of storeys upwards and were lost again.

  ‘So, like, what are you ladies looking for?’ a cheerful salesclerk asked, once they found women’s apparel.

  They explained that they required suitable funeral attire. When Irma started talking about the construction company carrying out the retrofit at Sunset Grove and the complaints they had sent in, Siiri grew alarmed that she would accidentally reveal the whole, horrible truth of the matter in Anna-Liisa’s presence. But then some funny instinct came to Irma’s aid, and her reportage stopped as if at a brick wall. She announced that she was a size 44 and made herself comfortable at the base of a mannequin, waiting for various alternatives to be carried over for her to try on.

  ‘So, like, it’s the event season so, like, we have a bunch of stuff in black,’ the salesgirl said, sweeping an arm through the air to prompt her customers to search for their purchases themselves.

  ‘Event season? Are there a lot of funerals being held?’ Siiri still believed people preferred dying in November.

  ‘So, like, it’s Christmas. Does it have to be, like, totally all-black?’

  ‘Simply “black” will do nicely,’ Anna-Liisa said, straining to sound even the tiniest bit polite.

  They explained that any black dress that wasn’t too loud would do nicely, and that they would even settle for the same dress, as long as the salesgirl could find them something with a hemline that wasn’t too short or a neckline that wasn’t too open and that wasn’t drowning in sequins – and preferably had sleeves.

  ‘So, like, unfortunately we don’t have anything like that,’ the salesgirl said, without lifting a finger. Apparently, their demands were completely unreasonable. Irma said she could wear something with a more generous neckline and she didn’t really care about sleeves, because she could always yank a shawl over her shoulders, but the salesgirl wasn’t as willing to compromise in these negotiations as Irma.

  ‘So, like, unfortunately you’re out of luck.’

  ‘This is outrageous!’ Anna-Liisa cried, rapping her cane against the floor.

  ‘In that case, we’ll have to take our business to Stockmann. Där får man ju allt, as my mother always said.’ Irma adopted a snappish tone to drive home her point regarding the competing department store’s incomparable selection, but the salesgirl looked just as cheerful as she had been throughout the entirety of their brief encounter.

  ‘So, like, bye, and Merry Christmas and everything!’

  They set off in search of the escalators that would take them down and out and, much to their surprise, stumbled across them right around the corner. The department store was full of cranky, working-aged people out shopping in the middle of a weekday, and they had to remain vigilant to avoid being knocked over in the rush. A dreadful medley of American Christmas songs was blaring everywhere, and Siiri was getting so hot she was afraid she would faint.

  ‘I don’t understand what has happened to young people’s manners,’ Anna-Liisa huffed as they rode the escalator down.

  ‘The same thing that happened to black dresses,’ Irma said.

  ‘And common sense,’ Anna-Liisa added.

  The streets were as crowded as everyplace else, but at least the air was fresh. Siiri paused at the corner and breathed calmly for a moment. What luck that the winter had been so mild. Only a couple of weeks before Christmas and there was no snow on the ground, or any hint of frost. It was easy to breathe and get around, and yet in the newspapers people were demanding that the city build a frozen tube where people could ski year-round. Somehow they felt this was within the purview of the public sector.

  ‘Whatever will they come up with next,’ Irma said. ‘My husband always said he’d only ski during wartime. He ended up skiing in the Alps, where he was quite the ace, since the others had never laid eyes on skis before. Oh, my dear, lovely Veikko!’

  ‘I always liked skiing,’ Siiri remembered. ‘But I don’t recall the last time I’ve had a pair on my feet. It must have been a horribly long time ago. I’ve managed just fine without them.’

  ‘And there you have it. They can forget their skiing tube and use that money for something more sensible. Like a children’s hospital.’

  Everywhere you looked these days, funds were being collected for the children’s hospital, which was unusual in Finland, where such things were publicly funded. The pharmaceutical companies were actually competing to see who could make the most impressive donation on behalf of sick children. This was called branding, as Anna-Liisa knew. She held forth at such length on this English-language marketing term that Irma kept thinking she wanted to stop off for a cheap cognac somewhere. Siiri had donated dozens of euros herself, dropping them in the collection box of a campaigner wandering around Hakaniemi Square. She had informed this disbelieving volunteer that this was the second children’s hospital drive she had participated in during her lifetime. Siiri had educated the campaigner about the enormous push during the 1940s, which the whole city had participated in; she had sold tickets to a historical
joint concert of the Gentlemen Singers and the Helsinki Workers’ Men’s Choir and helped arrange a raffle for coffee, in short supply after the war. While she chatted with the campaigner, she’d also been reminded of a well-known story about a benefit concert dating from the earliest days of the hospital’s collection, back in the 1920s. Sibelius had composed a piece, and the manuscript was sold at an unusual auction: if you bid, you had to pay the sum on the spot, but the bidding continued. The one who ended up with the work was, of all people, the master chocolatier Karl Fazer, brother to the music publisher. The defeated-looking donation collector hadn’t been able to get a word in edgeways.

  ‘What do you think? What will happen to the old Children’s Hospital when the new one is completed?’ Siiri asked. She thought the building, designed by Kaarlo and Elsi Borg was, in all of its idiosyncrasy, rather handsome.

  ‘Maybe it will be turned into a private nursing home,’ Irma suggested. ‘The old military hospital was converted into a pricy retirement home for the poor. Why not convert all the abandoned buildings unfit for human habitation into final repositories for the elderly? Did you all notice what a fine term I just remembered: final repository.’

  The throngs at Stockmann were even worse than those at Aleksi 13. They packed into the elevator and rode up to the fourth floor, where they found a saleswoman in a dusty corner drinking imported French water straight from the bottle. Finnish and Swedish flags were pinned to her breast, as if there were any need to advertise the fact that she could serve them in both of the country’s official languages. They stated their business to the parched saleswoman and were immediately led to an even more secluded corner, where a rack read ‘Final Sale’.

  ‘So, like, these might work for you,’ the saleswoman said, pulling various old-fashioned, sensible black outfits from the rack.

  They waited half an hour for the changing room before deciding that, when they thought about it, trying the garments on was too much trouble and actually rather unpleasant, as it meant gazing at themselves naked in the mirror in a cramped, dirty cubicle as complete strangers sighed impatiently on the other side of the curtain. Irma explained in a loud voice that she couldn’t be bothered to wear a bra any more and it might be awkward to be caught topless in broad daylight. They decided to buy sizes that were large enough, roughly measured the length over their winter coats, and confirmed with the salesgirl that they could return the items if they proved completely unsuitable.