The Human Part

by Kari Hotakainen

  Helena turned toward the crowd and saw the core trio of her team on the other side of the terrace. Kähkönen, Laakso and Reinikka were slapping high fives and shaking their behinds to the beat of some ancient American R. & B. By their choice of music they wished to convey that the little boys, whom this cold business life had shoved into the background, were still alive and kicking in their adult bodies. They had left their sauna hats on. Their well-cut suits and the silly hats emphasized their nonchalance and folksy sense of humor, which conveyed their willingness to throw off their business armor now and then and condescend to the level of the child, the common man and the customer.

  Fifteen minutes had passed, and Helena had to rejoin humanity. She attempted to avoid eye contact with Kähkönen, Laakso and Reinikka, who were prepared to pull anyone into their amorphous bumping and shaking dance, the actual purpose of which was not to imitate the music, but rather to express in broad gestures: we are now being entertained.

  Helena searched the crowd for a person with whom she could talk for a moment about the granite railing, the ragged roach and the net in which we wriggle until the club thunks us between the eyes. Helena needed a serious person now. Not humorless, not dull, not funny, not sociable, not a recluse, not a moralist, but rather an old-fashioned serious person with whom she could exchange a few words about these strange emotions.

  Helena noticed a quiet man next to the drinks table who was turning a stirring stick in his glass and looking around calmly. Helena did not know the man. He might be a customer or some other stakeholder in the company who had received an invitation to the Xero Party event.

  Helena stopped in front of the man and recited the appropriate civilities. The man introduced himself as “just Kimmo.” Helena was irritated by his self-styled modesty, and she felt like asking if the name “Just” indicated Dutch roots. It was introductions like this that usually ended up after six drinks with exclamations of bravado in which the “Just” is replaced with phrases like “Let me tell you something …”

  Kimmo said his perspective on all of this was a little further removed than most, since he was usually looking on from Barcelona or Tallinn, depending on which home he was staying in at any given time. He said he kept a home in Helsinki as a sort of backup so he wouldn’t have to use disgusting, low-class hotels. Kimmo also said, without Helena asking specifically, that he had sold his business at a good time and that now for the first time he had the opportunity to look at the big picture—from the sidelines as it were—a big picture he saw clearly, but which he tried not to get involved with anymore.

  Helena noticed her full glass, drained it all at once and motioned to the waiter. She took a drink from the tray and asked the waiter to come by more often. Helena raised her glass, clinked it with Kimmo’s and congratulated him on his excellent way of life. At the same time, Helena sensed the direction of the conversation and wished, although she sensed she was wishing in vain, that he would follow Helena’s five-point list of don’ts:

  Don’t claim you made all your money with your own two hands.

  Don’t claim you saw further than other people and that’s why you’re standing on the top of the heap now.

  Don’t claim your success has nothing to do with the caprices of capitalism.

  Don’t claim that you’re an independent, unique individual.

  And don’t say that you know a good restaurant near here that the rabble hasn’t caught wind of yet and that has an absolutely mind-blowing wine list.

  Kimmo made all five mistakes in ten minutes, but Helena didn’t pour cold water over him. She just let him talk. One must show humility before a force of nature. If a dam breaks, stay far away from the shore. If a bear approaches, don’t run all over the place, just stay where you are. If a fire breaks out in the house, don’t open the windows.

  Helena remembered these rules of thumb she had learned in Scouts, and let Kimmo continue. She listened, understanding that this was how it went if you let it loose: unbridled capitalism blazed exultantly, growing blindly; it made the very tarmac blossom and brought utterance to every mouth; it was limited in neither dimension nor amount; it pissed on moderation and curtsied to excess; it took credit for every jingling of a coin and blamed outmoded social contracts for any cash register that stood silent. Kimmo was the grand offspring of an ideology without ideals, the one with the best poop. His firm had had the honor of advertising for the world’s largest mobile phone company, which had exploited one of the great wonders of the world: a people that was thought of as largely mute wanted nothing more than to talk to each other about personal devices that fit in your hand and do it so loudly, in so many places, and so often, that the rest of the world just had to believe: this miniature handset is not only new but necessary, handy today, essential tomorrow. And so the sea gave birth to a wave, a wave so large that Kimmo too was able to surf atop it and make money on a quirk, money the source, country of manufacture and method of production of which no one knows, and no one needs to know. It was enough for him to convince himself and others that the money came from his insight alone.

  Helena was startled by her thoughts and looked at Kimmo. She didn’t see the man anymore, just a mouth that ground and chewed and munched the material produced by its paunch, flawless and beautiful phrases, the purpose of which was to stake out their producer, a well-dressed bull, in a central place in the food chain. The mouth stopped for a moment, and the pink-and-white-fleshed tongue licked the lips to remove the saliva and wine that had dried on them. Helena didn’t manage to say anything before the mouth attacked the next piece of material, constructing new words and phrases from it, the repeated use of which had ravaged of all meaning or sense, and which clinked to the terrace floor like bent nails into a steel bucket. Helena looked at the mouth and wondered if it was boundless, limitless, if it had a bottom or an end, and if it did have a bottom, was there some sort of perpetual-motion device or machina dei chugging away down there, which regardless of all else and without consulting its owner, produced always and forever the same mash, which Kimmo refined with his phenomenal gifts of speech into the ambrosia of the gods?

  Then Helena made the mistake she should not have made: she looked past Kimmo toward the horizon. And nobody did that to Kimmo.

  “Now you aren’t listening.”

  The phrase came unexpectedly, loudly, the lightness and softness of the previous phrases absent. Kimmo hadn’t bothered to tenderize and marinate this phrase, so its freshness brought to mind a bream that had just been lifted from the lake, slapping onto the bottom of the plastic boat.

  “Sorry. I was just thinking about everything you were saying.”

  It wasn’t true, but there was one right word in her answer—“you”—and Kimmo was appeased.

  You.

  i.e. me.

  Lovely.

  Kimmo’s satisfaction was complete, full. It was reminiscent of coming. His audience was an attractive, sexy woman after all, not some tipsy bald guy with a title made up of a stream of unpronounceable English fluff. Kimmo loved words and always hoped that the ground onto which words fell would be good ground, soft ground, because if this was the case, the words would grow into other new words, and, behold, before us would soon stand a meadow of lilies, amaryllis and roses, Kimmo’s gift to marketing and advertising.

  Kimmo looked at this pleasantly receptive woman and considered whether she would be ready to leave that repulsive, inelegant and raucous group and go with him to some more peaceful place, where Kimmo could talk in a little more detail about himself, his ideas, his accomplishments and his plans for the future, which just might include a niche for a woman with a good ear and a nice, tight ass, who had developed an exceptionally well-honed gift for listening during her long career in customer service.

  Helena had to get away. Because of her position she couldn’t say anything directly, even though Kimmo couldn’t have any current projects with their company. Networking meant that the bream also had to take into consideration the to
ugh zander that had slipped through the mesh of the net out into the deep. They could still surface to tell troublesome tales.

  Escape was unavoidable, but it had to be done purposefully, delicately enough that Kimmo would not be put out. The industry was full of big babies, whose whims, mood swings and blood sugar spikes had to be taken into consideration. Helena thought of her seven-year-old daughter Sini and her temper, the knots she tied herself in. Helena had needed the skills of a psychological precision mechanic to unravel them. She had found help in Aikido, the Japanese art of self-defense. It emphasized the transfer of the opponent’s strength past the target. The attacker’s hand is diverted to the side, its force ultimately pulling the opponent over. If Sini shouted that she wanted to go outside right now, Helena opened the door, letting in a biting wind. Sini got what she wanted, but didn’t want it anymore when she realized that she had wanted unwisely.

  Helena thought. Kimmo wanted to talk and come on to her. Talk was foreplay, a preface. According to the basic principles of Aikido, I should divert Kimmo’s will past me such that he realizes the impossibility of his wish. How to give Kimmo everything without giving him anything?

  Finally Helena fashioned her trap like this: “You talk really well, but here on this windy terrace, some of the words get lost in the wind. Over beside the sauna area is a room for cooling off. Talk some more in there and when you’ve said everything, I’ll take off all my clothes and you can fuck me like a bull.”

  Kimmo fell silent before these words. He had made his fortune with words, with their subtle connotations. He was a surgeon of tone and delicate shades of meaning who forced his way into the client’s pleasure center unnoticed, bypassing any defense mechanisms, opening the wallet and exiting via the same route without leaving a trace. But Kimmo didn’t like coarse words—he thought people who used such words had just come down out of the tree looking for something to eat. “I’ll take off all my clothes, and you can fuck me like a bull.” After the charming beginning came those uncouth, base words; the content was definitely good, but incorrect word choice ruined the whole. Just like squirting ketchup from a bottle all over a meringue made of whipped egg whites and sugar.

  Kimmo took a sip of his tall drink and decided to be silent for a moment. During his long career, he had observed that silence was a part of communication. Silence created meaning and suspense, and made the client think about his words.

  Helena grew nervous. She remembered the sharp glance of her Aikido instructor when Helena had grabbed her opponent’s hand and pulled it violently. Not like that. Do not ever show emotion. When you show your feelings, you give power to the other. Show your feelings somewhere else, not on the mat. With that last long sentence, Helena had shown her feeling of disgust, and now Kimmo had the power.

  Helena realized she was at work, even though she was at a party. Actually, she was always at work, because her work was exactly this: spinning meanings, looking for words, observing moods, evaluating those she spoke with, open flattery and mild rejection, fawning and courting, frivolity and trivialities, but never anything clear, concrete or indisputable. The vagueness of the work gnawed the nervous system to shreds and built up a pounding pressure in the temples.

  Kimmo was enjoying Helena’s mistake. Now he had all the time and all the power. Time to wait for the next move, power to draw out the silence. Kimmo leaned on the granite railing and smiled faintly, as the well-off are wont to do. They don’t condescend to guffaw, they don’t snort into their fists and it would never cross their minds to giggle at a bawdy story. Their smiles have a trace of mockery, not inviting one to smile along.

  Helena looked at Kimmo and thought about why men like him always dressed the same way, even though each one swore allegiance to individuality. Thick corduroy trousers, an English suit jacket cut from strong cloth with a herringbone pattern reminiscent of the deep waters from whence they hailed, a white T-shirt peeking out from beneath an expensive dress shirt, hinting at eternal youth, high-quality, patterned leather shoes on the feet and, to top off the ensemble, a small earring, in this case a black stud. The earring could be a traditional hoop, but not a big one—it couldn’t be allowed to suggest membership of one of the wrong tribes, the bikers or rockers, even though they were precisely the ones, after gypsies and sailors, who set the parameters for the continuing use of the earring, encouraging the upper middle-class to join in the rite of mimicry. The black stud in Kimmo’s left ear indicated that although he had made his fortune by speaking, he was also ready for action, ready to burn off steam, to express his rugged masculinity, which meant that one might find him strutting out of tapas bars humming classic American rock songs and kicking trash cans in the wee hours of the morning.

  Helena sensed that all was lost, that there was nothing left to do. But what did losing everything mean in this case, on this rooftop terrace? What would happen if she said to the bull that his stall had been spread with fresh straw and that he should come along now and do what a good bull should? What was the significance of a few wrong words in a world made up of millions of words?

  Everything?

  If it meant everything, then you could just keep heaping anything on top of everything.

  Nothing?

  If it meant nothing, then could we just fill our tall glasses and continue on to another topic?

  As a negotiator, Helena went over both options. Both felt bad. And what if they were combined? What would that make?

  Everything and nothing.

  Full emptiness.

  Carnal spirit.

  Globally local.

  Sunny night.

  Odorless shit.

  Her head was screeching. And humming. Then she heard faint pops coming from her ears, like when their water seals finally burst after swimming as a child. The veins in her temples pulsed. They were little red threads that had set out from their spools and were swarming under her thin skin trying to find a way out.

  Helena grew hot. This was supposed to be free time. This was supposed to be a break. I found Sini a sitter to come to this party. I put on something pretty. I took my place. I programmed my mood. I put on the expected expression.

  Helena turned red. Then white. Then she moved from words to actions.

  Later, Helena thought about what she had done as she stepped out of the tall, glass building for the last time. Was that act the reason why she had to leave the company? Was Kimmo one of the major investors who had become nervous about the company’s profits? Had the words resonated, magnifying the act? Had Kimmo understood her small gesture in monumentally the wrong way? Had the hard zander risen to the surface and told his own version of what had happened to the other fish in the net?

  Helena felt like nothing had been anyone’s fault or to anyone’s credit for a long time. There was no star glimmering somewhere that she could have followed. A smokeless alternative had sprung up alongside the traditional smokestack industries, an invisible kingdom of words, a wasteland of conference rooms.

  In the courtyard of the office building was a stone bench, where Helena sat and tried to think. She had rejected the word and replaced it with action. In a factory, a forest, a cowshed or a field, hardly any attention would have been paid to her action, because in those places everything was based on tangible things, on physical performance and the compensation received for it. In places like that you could show anger and frustration. In the world of actions you act. In the world of words you talk. Good.

  But in making the shift from the factory to the conference room, we didn’t become different creatures, we didn’t leave our feelings behind like a lizard leaves its tail. We carried all that anger, rage and frustration with us indoors. The problem is that there isn’t any storage space for negative feelings in offices. They aren’t specifically forbidden, but the message is clear that they belong to that earlier breed, the one that built the nation with hellish hue and cry.

  Helena rose from the bench and decided to schedule an appointment with a consultant who speci
alized in people on the edge.

  POSTCARD, AUTUMN SCENE

  Pekka, my only son!

  I could see from your expression last time that my boy hasn’t been having luck in the world of women. Listen to your mother: don’t wear baggy trousers. And we already spoke about the platform shoes with the thick soles: ditch them. Don’t offer women alcohol. Give them food, dinner! If she eats greedily, uninhibitedly, she will be frisky and warm in bed too. This is a truth.

  Your mother

  THE PARTICIPANT

  Pekka Malmikunnas stood on a large rock at the top of a steep hill looking down over a churchyard of people standing around dressed in dark colors. The men scraped the gravel with the tips of their shoes. The women hugged each other. The children raced around their parents’ legs. The double doors of the church opened, and out rolled a black cart supporting a white casket. Four men walked beside the cart. They were looking at the casket, evaluating any possible irregularities in the ground before them. When the front wheel of the cart hit a stone, the men looked at each other worriedly, as if the deceased might have noticed the jolt. The people in the churchyard joined the men with the cart, and the procession set off walking slowly toward the cemetery.

  Pekka came down from the hill and set off after the funeral party, keeping a little distance from them. The procession stopped beside a black pit. The priest spoke a few words, some of which were lost in the wind and the roar of the main ring road.

  The men took hold of the straps and began lowering the casket into the grave. Judging from their expressions, the load was valuable and heavy. Pekka knew that sorrow increases the weight of a casket by at least thirty kilos. The casket scraped against the sides of the grave, as if not wanting to go down. Their arms trembling, the men finally got it to the bottom, after which people began throwing dirt over it. Pekka felt as if the deceased might wake at the pattering sound of the dirt, be startled by his death and try to beat the lid of the coffin open.