‘I see it’s going to be an interesting memorial service,’ she said, clicking on the coffee machine Siiri had filled beforehand.
‘Is it time for the funeral now?’ Muhis asked, as he came in from scrubbing the toilets. He shouted a couple of funny words at Metukka, who turned off the vacuum cleaner. ‘We’re sorry, we’re in your way. We’ll finish later.’
But Irma was having none of it. Why, the very idea that the boys would bring in the rugs and then leave! She invited Muhis and Metukka to stay for cake, because there was no way they would be able to finish it all, even though the plan had been to keep the celebration modest. Margit was standing in the kitchenette and didn’t say anything. Suddenly, the Ambassador appeared at his bedroom door in his silk dressing gown, looking chipper indeed and not at all in need of palliative care.
‘Hello, everyone; are we going to raise a toast to Eino’s memory?’ he said, and slowly approached the bar. He let Muhis help him to the bar and, after giving his wife a peck on the cheek, started making everyone their usual tipple. ‘What are you boys having?’ he asked with a winning smile, but Muhis and Metukka said they were fine with coffee.
The memorial service proved downright unforgettable. It was, of course, nothing like what the man of the hour would have planned, as Eino had never set foot in the Hakaniemi apartment and had never met their Nigerian friends. Margit was mostly quiet and didn’t eat anything; she just took the occasional sip of red wine. She was a stylish presence in black on the sofa, and radiated an unusual serenity and warmth. Sorrow had imbued her with a languid generosity, and she wasn’t at all bothered when Muhis and Metukka related amusing anecdotes about African funerals and claimed that in some villages they threw a big party once a year, and after they had sung and danced for days, the elders of the village clasped hands, walked to the brink of a cliff, and jumped to their deaths.
‘How convenient,’ Irma said, and started thinking where one might find a ravine in Helsinki to solve the aging-induced prosperity deficit ravaging their recession-era society.
‘There’s a strong tradition of storytelling in Africa,’ Anna-Liisa said, sparking a long, meandering debate as to whether oral traditions produced more implausible legends than written tales did. In her view, memory was the most fictitious of mankind’s inventions. Irma agreed, which was why she felt bad whenever anyone doubted her memory or the accuracy of her entertaining anecdotes.
‘Who can be bothered to tell dull stories?’ she said, as always. ‘And now I’m going to smoke one cigarette, otherwise I’ll never die! Döden, döden, döden.’
She pulled her cigarettes and pastilles out of her handbag and politely stepped aside to puff. For a moment, the room was strangely still, almost like a memorial service, but Muhis looked restless. He kept shifting and glancing at the Ambassador and adjusting his beehive hat. He never took it off, despite the fact that Anna-Liisa had employed every method at her disposal to acquaint him with Finnish manners.
‘Do you know what Hasan died of?’ Muhis finally blurted out, eyeing the Ambassador intently. Margit lowered her wine glass to the coffee table, Anna-Liisa’s back grew even straighter, and Irma and Siiri exchanged worried glances. Everyone tensed to observe Onni, who was as calm as if he’d been asked about his cholesterol values during a physical. He tinkled the ice cubes in his whisky tumbler, took another swig, even though there was nothing in the glass but melted water, and slammed the glass to the table with surprising force.
‘Hasan was killed,’ he said.
A heavy silence fell over the room. The stunned Anna-Liisa frowned, trying to remember who, exactly, was the topic of discussion. She had been caught up in the most frenzied maelstrom of in-home care when the parade of men, each shadier than the last, had come around asking for Hasan. Irma didn’t dare breathe, Siiri didn’t dare swallow, and Margit started playing solitaire. She laid out the cards on the table, cool as a cucumber, moving the glasses and plates out of her way.
‘Yes, I heard,’ Muhis said, smiling brightly, as if the Ambassador’s confession had come as a huge relief. Metukka tapped his foot against the floor and drummed his fingers against his thigh.
‘Good,’ he said, without looking at anyone.
‘What in heaven’s name are you talking about?’ Anna-Liisa shouted, slapping her thighs. ‘Who is being discussed? What sort of person, in your estimation, deserves to be killed? And how is it that you, Onni Rinta-Paakku, know any such individual?’
‘Calm yourself, Anneli,’ the Ambassador said, wrapping his wife in an embrace. He patted Anna-Liisa on the shoulder and stroked her hand. ‘I know all sorts of people. When you’ve spent forty-five years working as a diplomat in the Foreign Ministry, you see all sorts of things. This poor Hasan was a sad case.’
The Ambassador began speaking remarkably openly about Hasan, with whom he had not been personally acquainted. Some years ago, his property rentals had led to dealings with Hasan, who had a company that arranged reliable tenants for investment properties, including the very apartment they were sitting in.
‘As I’m sure you’re aware, tenants can cause all sorts of trouble.’
Muhis and Metukka listened closely to the Ambassador as he calmed his flock of females and explained that his acquaintance Hasan had ended up involved in unfortunate incidents that in no way related to the Ambassador’s investments or other affairs. Siiri believed the boys knew at least as much about the matter as Onni, but discreet fellows that they were, they had no interest in inserting themselves any more deeply into the conversation. Why Muhis had wanted to bring up Hasan at Eino’s funeral, Siiri had no idea, and she hoped she would remember to ask him at a better time.
‘Are you embroiled in criminal activity, Onni?’ Anna-Liisa asked, not the least bit appeased. Now the Ambassador took Anna-Liisa’s concerned face in his hands, kissed his wife, and said: ‘No, Anneli, of course not. It was a mistake to trust Hasan, but we don’t have to worry ourselves about that any more.’ Then he stood remarkably spryly and asked: ‘Shall we have another glass of red wine?’
After they had toasted Eino’s memory several times, eaten half the caramel cake and almost an entire sandwich cake, taught Muhis and Metukka to play Black Maria and say death three times in Swedish in rapid succession, and even succeeded in making Margit laugh several times, the Ambassador was almost falling asleep on the sofa. The boys helped him into bed, brought in the aired-out rugs from the courtyard, and promised to come and finish the cleaning the next day.
‘You boys are so sweet,’ Siiri said, giving each of them two ten-euro notes. The boys laughed their loud laughs, thanked their hosts for the party, and went on their way. Siiri watched them for a long time and wondered how she would manage without her good-natured helpers at the newly renovated Sunset Grove, with no one but old folks around.
‘Oh dear, oh dear, what a smashing day,’ Irma sighed, when it was quiet again and she was lounging on the sofa in her nightshirt waiting for Siiri to bring her her evening tea. ‘I’ve always said funerals are such fun. And the cantor played so beautifully, even though he looked like a drunk.’
Chapter 38
Luckily they hadn’t prepared for Christmas in vain. Siiri had thought she would buy a cooked ham and ready-made casseroles from the Hakaniemi Hall and bake some gingerbread cookies from frozen dough. They weren’t in the habit of giving each other presents, and so that caused no excess fuss. Irma hadn’t been invited to her darlings’ this Christmas, because they’d all decided to travel to the ends of the earth together, to Madagascar, without Irma, to recuperate from the stresses of their own renovations. At least the gargantuan spruce erected at Hakaniemi Square, which made for a pretty sight from their windows, radiated a little Christmas spirit.
Amidst their listlessly commencing Christmas, other concerns arose. The Ambassador had been in rather good shape since Eino’s funeral, and they’d started hoping that he’d beaten his flu. But on the Wednesday four days before Christmas Eve, the darkest day of the year, the Amba
ssador’s temperature rose again. Anna-Liisa forbade anyone from calling in help, and they understood why.
The Ambassador spent most of his time sleeping with a nasty rattle in his lungs, but it didn’t seem to bother him. Siiri and Irma tried to gather pillows under his back to help him breathe more easily, but none of their tricks silenced the rattle.
‘Phlegm and fluid in the lungs,’ Irma said knowledgably. ‘Pneumonia or heart failure is my guess.’
Anna-Liisa didn’t say anything. She slid into a stupor, which was uncharacteristic of her, and acted instinctively but didn’t dare stop to think how this all felt. If Siiri hadn’t kept an eye on mealtimes, Anna-Liisa probably would have forgotten to eat. She lay or sat next to her husband around the clock and without speaking, unless she was reading something out loud. Now and again Onni would utter a couple of words to her, and then Anna-Liisa would stroke her husband, but he was rarely able to answer.
The hardest thing was keeping the patient clean. Irma had bought a little blue potty from Etola, which made life a bit easier for Anna-Liisa at night, but in the end they had to dig into Margit’s stores for Eino’s leftover incontinence pads and force the Ambassador into them. This wasn’t easy. Anna-Liisa would have preferred to handle the task herself for reasons of modesty, but she’d been compelled to ask for the others’ help. All this had been extremely embarrassing for the Ambassador, and he tended to snap at his helpers in irritation, which didn’t make things any easier. He felt humiliated lying there in his nappies, and he scratched and tore at them in his sleep. Now and again Muhis and Metukka came by to lend a hand and the Ambassador was able to do his business, but they couldn’t trouble the boys all hours of the day and night. While the boys tended to the Ambassador in the spa, Siiri and Irma changed the sheets on Anna-Liisa’s and Onni’s bed.
‘These smell horrid,’ Irma remarked as they carried the dirty sheets to the washing machine. They chuckled at the big, round sheet, but Irma grimaced as she took a suspicious sniff. ‘They smell like death.’
‘Do you think so?’ Siiri whispered.
‘Yes. Death has a very particular smell; I’ve smelled it before. Maybe it’s best our problems at Sunset Grove and Hakaniemi are coming to an end this way.’
That’s what Siiri had been thinking, too. The Ambassador would take their awful secret to the grave, and then no one would need to nose about in the less savoury details of the renovation or their property. Their biggest concern was Anna-Liisa. They knew she suspected something, but it was impossible to say how much she knew about her husband’s questionable affairs. Anna-Liisa avoided discussing anything remotely related, seemed to have forgotten the jewellery box and the rolls of cash, and since the shrimp sandwiches at the Fazer Cafe, hadn’t mentioned the renovation once. They left Anna-Liisa to her own devices, and when she wasn’t keeping watch at her husband’s side, she sat staring out the window, or even dozed off on the couch.
Since the funeral Margit had perked up again, and she spent a lot of time out and about. They didn’t know where and were too preoccupied to ask. Margit came and went, sometimes she was on her way to her book club, others to the theatre, and one day she brought home a red clump she had felted herself, which was supposed to be a Christmas elf.
‘Just like the handicrafts we used to make at Sunset Grove!’ Irma cried and started remembering the Easter decorations they’d pieced together from toilet paper rolls and coloured feathers. The poor woman who led handicrafts had come up with this inanity to keep their minds occupied, and they hadn’t had the heart to not participate in the leisure activity she had gone to so much trouble to prepare. It felt wonderful having a proper laugh, so proper that they peed in their pants. Life was so incredibly bleak in their temporary nursing home. Siiri was tired, and she didn’t even have the energy to cook; she just bought liver casserole and pea soup from the supermarket.
On Christmas Eve, the Ambassador stopped eating. He shook his head in exhaustion when Anna-Liisa tried to spoon soup into his mouth, and she didn’t force him. He did sip a little water and juice, but he no longer asked for wine, the way he had a few days earlier. Anna-Liisa diligently read to her husband, the paper during the day and P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves books in the evening. The Ambassador seemed to enjoy listening, if nothing else, then at least to his wife’s melodic voice and careful articulation.
On Christmas Day, the Ambassador no longer wanted to get up for the bathroom. He surrendered to his pads and didn’t seem to need them any more either. Death’s gradual march had reached the stage where the body’s functions start slowly failing. His feet felt cold, despite the layers of blankets and the hot water bottles under the sheet. They made sure the room was aired and the Ambassador always had something to drink. There wasn’t much else they could do.
‘Touch is important,’ Irma said, and held the Ambassador’s hand while Anna-Liisa was resting on the couch. ‘Touch is the last human sense to go.’
Siiri had read that in the paper, too, and people had known it forever. But nowadays science rigorously applied its own methods to proving obvious truths, and the results were then trumpeted in the newspapers. Studies had shown that if you held a dying person’s hand, they needed less pain medication. Or that if a terminal-cancer patient had a beautiful view out the window, they suffered less. Simple things.
Suddenly Onni started bellowing. His eyes were shut, and he no longer seemed to be in this world. But he yelled for help and, surprisingly, God, even though to their knowledge he wasn’t a deeply religious person. He tore his watch from his wrist, ripped apart his nappy stickers, squirmed and shouted. Luckily, Anna-Liisa didn’t hear; undisturbed, she remained sleeping in the living room. Siiri and Irma held Onni by the hand, stroked his forehead, and tried to talk to him in a soothing voice. For a moment it looked as if they would be outmatched by the Ambassador’s agony, but he calmed down from the fit as quickly as he had flown into it. He gripped his watch to his chest in both hands, and the nasty rattle reappeared.
‘Did he take off his watch so that he could die?’ Irma asked, mystified, but she didn’t really expect a reply. She and Siiri sat in silence next to the Ambassador’s bed. Irma stroked his grey hair and Siiri tried to help him drink, but that also seemed like too much. The hours passed, and no one knew what time it was, because the Ambassador’s watch had stopped. Siiri raised the blanket to feel Onni’s feet. They were cold. Gradually, ugly purple splotches and depressions you could instantly tell weren’t bruises formed on them; his blood wasn’t circulating any more. His hands were cool, too. It wouldn’t be long now.
She rose and went over to the sofa to rouse Anna-Liisa. She didn’t need to say anything to her friend; Anna-Liisa could tell from the way Siiri looked at her why she had woken her. Leaning against each other, they went into the dim bedroom, where they could hear the slowing, rattling breath. Anna-Liisa kissed her husband on the forehead and cheeks, and Irma and Siiri helped her lie down on the bed, next to Onni. There they lay, next to each other, looking so serene and beautiful that Siiri was filled with an incredible joy. She tried to get Irma to leave the room with her, but Anna-Liisa didn’t want them to go. Siiri and Irma sat down side by side and indulged in the rare sight: a happy old person taking his leave, surrounded by loved ones.
Sometime that evening, no one knew when, they noticed that the rattle had stopped. At first they thought the Ambassador wasn’t breathing any more, but then he sighed deeply. After that, the breathing was different: short and choppy, pausing for long stretches. But whenever they thought it was all over, the Ambassador drew a deep breath and started gasping lightly again.
‘Shall we sing?’ Irma suggested.
‘If you do, no hymns, please,’ Anna-Liisa said, and Irma started from her childhood song ‘Oh, my darling August.’ It was an utterly silly choice for this moment, but they sang it from the bottom of their hearts, because somehow they needed to get out their feelings, or at least part of them that had welled up in them during the long wait. After they ha
d sung about August four times, Irma started a round of ‘Benedictine Monk Liquor’, and Siiri and Anna-Liisa naturally came in on cue. This song suited to the mood better, and so they sang many rounds of it, and at times it seemed as if the Ambassador smiled faintly.
Suddenly Onni coughed, went dark red, almost purple, and something white dribbled from his lips. Siiri wiped his mouth and Anna-Liisa stroked the Ambassador’s forehead.
‘Let go, Onni; it’s all right,’ she said, and the deep flush disappeared from the Ambassador’s face and he stopped breathing. They looked and listened for a long time, waiting for another gasp, but it never came. The Ambassador looked incredibly handsome; he had a faint, peaceful smile on his lips, and they could tell from everything that things were going to be fine. When his face was nearly white, Anna-Liisa kissed her husband on the forehead once more and whispered to him in a soft voice: ‘Thank you, my love.’
Siiri and Irma left Anna-Liisa sleeping at her husband’s side one last time. They remembered Eino’s tragedy at the SquirrelsNest and absolutely refused to call anywhere to let the world know that a nearly centenarian veteran had died in his own bed in an apartment that was apparently his but that might have been the site of any number of unsavoury assignations. Siiri poured them glasses of red wine, pulled an old pound cake from the fridge, and they each laid down on a sofa. Margit’s faint snoring could be heard coming through the door to her boudoir.
‘Merry Christmas, dear friend!’ Irma said, and it was only then that Siiri remembered that it really was Christmas Day. Irma dunked her cakesies in her wine, which was a new invention, and proclaimed it goodies, too. ‘You should always try new things. How would I have ever known about this, if I hadn’t tried?’
Escape from Sunset Grove Page 31