The Human Part

by Kari Hotakainen

Niittymäki liked beauty and virtue. He liked them so much that he was ready to do almost anything for them. And that scared him.

  Niittymäki wanted to know a few more things. The woman stared ahead. Niittymäki repeated his questions.

  Kerttu Rinkinen thought of the president’s shield bonus. We all have to accept what life gives us, and we don’t get paid anything extra. We each have to clean up the shit that rains into the fan. Kerttu remembered saying to the president of the company, to the boy from her village, that he should be careful with his stories. Don’t go talking too loud about that shield bonus of yours. He thought that Kerttu’s ears were matchless, beyond compare. I never speak to anyone else the way I do to you. Kerttu had been a little taken aback, because that had sounded like a line from a movie. They speak differently in movies than people do in real life.

  Then the president had lowered his voice and said that if he got fired, it wasn’t a normal firing. They would shake my hand at the door and in the hand of the person who did it would be gold nuggets. That’s why they call it the golden handshake. The gold nuggets are a fairy tale. The truth is in the paper I signed on the day I walked into the building for the first time. On that piece of paper it says that if they give me the boot, I get one-and-a-half year’s salary in compensation. Do you know what that means in euros, Kerttu? It means three hundred and eighty thousand euros. Shield bonus and golden handshake. You I can tell about this.

  Niittymäki clicked his pen, waiting. He recognized a typical eyewitness. The accident they see gets into their brain and shakes it all up. It’s hard to form sensible sentences that an outsider can use to piece together the chain of events. Niittymäki remembered again the accident that led to Princess Diana’s death, an overall picture of which was impossible to stitch together from the eyewitness accounts, because the people being interviewed were so upset and emotional that they couldn’t tell rainwater from tears. Kerttu Rinkinen, who was the first eyewitness being interviewed, did not belong to the victim’s circle of acquaintances, but for some reason she was still acting illogically, slightly irrationally. The accident had obviously opened up something inside her, and whatever had been behind those locked doors was now being disgorged onto the back seat of this police car.

  “The girl flew … and to be totally honest, I can’t say anything more about it right now … I mean, I can, but I don’t know how … and that man stayed in his car like I said and locked the doors. As if he was in a different world in there than the rest of us are out here. And I guess he is. There are any number of different worlds here. I’m sure you know what I mean, Komisario. I see at least six worlds every day at work on that one floor. The president of the company’s, his secretary’s, the three heads of department’s and my own. I clean there, you see. On the top floor they have a sauna suite, which I clean up after parties. I know how to read dirt and trash. They tell me what kind of parties they have. What was I going to say … oh yes. There are plenty of different worlds. The girl … since I don’t have my own … it felt like my own daughter had been sent flying …”

  Kerttu stopped when she realized that nothing was coming out of her mouth.

  That her head was empty.

  And in a strange way she felt like something inside her had been permanently lost along with the girl flying in the air.

  Even though it wasn’t true.

  I stayed here in this world and will soon get out of this car without being accused of anything. I will walk to the big building and start cleaning the executive floor and will hear what the president of the company has on his mind this time. I would like, but I don’t have the courage, to ask the president of the company if he could pay me extra for listening to him, for unburdening him by taking his burdens upon myself. Could I have a burden bonus? Could he pay me a lump sum of one tenth of the golden handshake he would be receiving on the day they kicked him out on his ass, for example? One-tenth of that sum is thirty-eight thousand euros. That isn’t so much. The president of the company made about that much in stock trades after the merger. He didn’t tell me that—he told the phone. But I happened to be there at the moment cleaning the windowsill. He spoke quietly, in a low voice. He was making an insider trade. I’m not stupid—I’m Kerttu. With that sure knowledge I could walk into his office and say, “I will gladly carry this burden, but I would be happy to accept any help you were to offer.”

  “O.K., Ms. Rinkinen. Thank you. We will most likely be contacting you later and when things progress to a certain point, you will receive a summons to appear as a witness at the legal proceedings,” Niittymäki said and nodded to his colleague. He opened the door for Kerttu.

  Kerttu got out of the car and for a moment did not know what world she was in.

  Niittymäki looked at Rinkinen as she wandered around the car in a daze and prepared to interview the driver.

  Niittymäki had to take two minutes of personal time.

  He thought of beauty and virtue, because he was surrounded by ugliness and evil. When it rained, he thought of the sun. When a little girl flew in the air, he thought of a swing. But when Niittymäki thought about the man sitting in the back seat of the police car, he thought about the man sitting in the back seat of the police car. He couldn’t make it change into anything besides what it was. There was no place for this man in the world of beauty and virtue.

  Niittymäki grew furious.

  Suddenly he hated this man, and hate did not become Niittymäki. He shunned hate, and hate shunned him.

  His colleague noticed and asked Niittymäki why he had bitten his fountain pen so hard that fragments were splintering onto the seat and blue ink was dotting the light-colored upholstery.

  Niittymäki jumped. He got out of the car and walked over to the other vehicle.

  The man looked shy and startled. He wanted to look that way.

  He was playing at humility.

  He was mimicking a person in grief.

  Niittymäki took two steps back, thinking.

  Be a policeman.

  You are on duty.

  You are on the side of beauty and virtue.

  Niittymäki opened the door, sitting down on the front seat and turning back toward the man.

  “According to an eyewitness, you were speeding, but you denied this just a moment ago in the car. Is that true?”

  “I don’t believe I was speeding as much as was claimed.”

  “But you were speeding?”

  “Perhaps a little. Everything is in the eye of the beholder. I would say I was speeding just a touch. When you measure speeding, you use a ten percent margin of error. I suppose I fit within that margin.”

  “And you drove through a red light?”

  “Yellow. Or actually, it was a late green.”

  “Right now only the leaves are green. You drove through a pedestrian crossing even though the pedestrians had a green light. This is a fact. We have three eyewitnesses lined up. One has already been interviewed.”

  “My understanding of things differs from yours. It was a sudden situation, for all of us. Truth is a relative concept—everyone has their own views. It would be best to find the average of the truths …”

  “Do you have children?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “But how does that relate to this?”

  “It does relate. Fundamentally. Do you have an imagination?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Imagination is the passport into the world of humanity. And it’s good that we have it. It allows us to be human. We can imagine. We can imagine how others feel. We estimate that you were driving thirty kilometers over the speed limit. In a forty zone.”

  “As far as I can tell, my speed was nowhere near that. As I said, everything happened so fast.”

  “According to the eyewitnesses, the speed of your black Audi A3 was …”

  “It’s an Audi S3.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The model is S3. It’s a completely diff
erent car from the A3.”

  “The body style is the same.”

  “Yes, but it is different in every other way from the stock model.”

  “Would you perhaps like this clarification to be entered into the official interview record?”

  “Gladly.”

  Niittymäki opened the window to get some oxygen. There was too little of it. He opened the door and got out of the car for a moment. His colleague in the front seat looked at Niittymäki, who indicated by his expression that he would be O.K.

  Niittymäki got back into the car and turned toward the man.

  “There are three eyewitnesses. I have heard from one of them. The role of an eyewitness is a difficult one. To see with their own eyes. You have eyes as well. It’s nice to have eyes and ears. They are for paintings and for music. They were not created for seeing and hearing things like this. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t quiet grasp what you’re getting at.”

  “You are mocking my ears by talking shit into them. Excuse me. My language is inappropriate. Don’t write this down, Mirja.”

  His colleague in the front seat sighed.

  “You killed a child. You didn’t murder, but you did kill. The official name will be something like reckless endangerment, vehicular manslaughter or some other vague mishmash. Excuse me. The fact is that you murdered a child by driving too fast through a red light. Tell me this is how things are.”

  “I didn’t have any intention … you can’t use terms like that. They do not in any way even begin to give a correct picture of this ambiguous situation. And, as I said, I had no intention …”

  “Is there any way you can stop producing that filth with your mouth? In a healthy person material like that only comes out the other end. No one ever has any intention of behaving badly in this world! I have a mind to do some tidying up because I serve beauty. To get rid of all the trash and ugly things. I feel like cleaning you out of this world. You can continue this, Mirja. I’m going to get out of this car now and request a leave of absence.”

  Niittymäki threw his notes into the footwell and got out of the car. The spring wind whipped against his face. He bent his head back and looked up. The white, fluffy trail of a fighter jet floated in the sky. That was how he wanted to see filth. As something beautiful.

  THE DRIVER

  Biko Malmikunnas stopped his blue bus in front of the Ateneum Art Museum and opened the door with a hissing sound. Expressionless people pushed their way in through the doorway. No one said a word, not even the ones who paid with cash. They threw their coins or notes onto the tray and waited for Biko to give them their tickets and change as quickly as possible. Six months ago, Biko would have said hello to every passenger, but he had given up the practice after realizing that hardly anyone said anything back.

  Biko turned on the blinker and guided the heavy, rocking bus on to Kaisaniemenkatu. When the tarmac changed to cobblestones for a moment, the bus bumped and rattled.

  There were a lot of people at the Kruununhaka stop. Biko noticed the rising hands in the nick of time and braked. The mass of humanity rocked against each other. A group of young people with buds in their ears entered through the front door. A young woman attempted to enter through the middle doors with a baby carriage. When the woman had gotten the buggy in with great effort and fastened it to the railing, she began looking for a place to sit. The group of youths had occupied the seats next to the buggy. The woman pointed this out, but the group ignored her.

  Biko saw the situation in the mirror and said into the microphone, “Can give woman place?”

  “What the fuck did that cocoa cock say?”

  The boy in the group of youths with the biggest beanie took air supremacy and began to abuse Biko with many and varied turns of phrase, of which Biko understood fewer than half. He understood the tone, but ignored it, speaking into the microphone again in hopes of getting at least one of the passengers on his side.

  “Eyes on the road, tar baby! I wanna get home sometime this fuckin’ century!”

  Biko had no desire to employ all that skill and knowledge which had allowed him to be alive and sitting behind the wheel of this blue bus as the evening turned blue-gray on this smooth road in this northern land. Biko would have just liked to drive people to their homes and to their offices at a steady speed, in a good mood, rejoicing with all of his heart for the one and only life he had.

  None of the passengers paid any attention to the incident. Biko tried once more over the microphone, because he knew what it was like to stand up in a bus rocking back and forth after a hard day of work and a trip to the daycare.

  “Could give the seat if think a little?”

  “Could go jack off in own country and come back when can speak language!”

  This response from the boy with the big beanie evoked great rejoicing among his followers. The other passengers drowsed uncomfortably in their seats.

  Biko set off driving, thinking of the beautiful things his new homeland had brought him. Maija. The rutabaga. Warm apartments. Fried vendace. Small lakes. The zander in all its many forms. Fried perch. Pete, the owner of the bowling alley. Roads. A job as a bus driver. The Hakaniemi market hall. The February sun when there was snow.

  Biko glanced in the mirror at the boy with the big beanie, who was whispering something to his companions and pointing in the direction of the driver. Biko knew what they were planning. The group was touching in its grandiosity. They thought violence was a game and that you could blow the whistle to start the match for any reason whatsoever. This time a black driver was enough of a reason. Biko had experienced so much violence in his life that he knew it was a fire best left unkindled. It was easy to burn your own hair and clothes, even if the purpose of the joke had been to set alight the neighbor’s barn.

  Biko knew the plot of the game and was only worried for the boy with the big beanie and his tribe. A poorly chosen leader spoiled the whole barrel. Biko knew this from his childhood, from his own village. The most enthusiastic and quick-fisted were always put on the back row. At the front stood a calm, aged soldier, to whom the village had assigned their collective brain-usage rights. This saved unnecessary bodily harm.

  Biko tried to drive the full bus calmly, avoiding any violent sideways movements. The people had done a hard day’s work and had earned a comfortable and safe trip home.

  They approached the final stop. Only the gang was left on the bus. The stop was in a dark place at the corner of a housing development. Biko swept up to the stop and looked in the mirror. The tribe of the boy with the big beanie strode toward Biko following their leader.

  Biko opened the driver’s door, turned his chair toward the approaching group and said, “I say once. You start. I only finish.” The boy with the big beanie stopped. He let out a forced laugh and took a stance he had learned from the movies. Biko recognized the stance as Eastern, but it lacked the linearity of an experienced fighter. The boy with the big beanie had only copied the hand positions from the bad action movies.

  Biko struck like a snake. His fingers hit the throat. The beanie flew. The tribe shrank back. The boy jackknifed with a wheeze and fell to the walkway. Biko knelt next to him and hit him on the back with his palm in such a way that his breath began to flow again. Biko raised him up and sat him down on a bench.

  “All good. Tribe take you home. Have good weekend.”

  The boy stammered. His kinsmen came and led him away. Biko closed the doors and sat in the driver’s seat. His hands were shaking. He closed his eyes and prayed forgiveness from his great teacher who lived 6,893 kilometers away in Biko’s home village but saw into the heart of each of his students.

  That which you taught runs onto the sand. The sun that you showed me is covered by cloud. The life that you gave me now resembles death. Forgive me. This was my first time.

  Biko opened his eyes, started the bus and continued his route.

  He could not get the boy with the big beanie out of his head. After the blow he had be
come himself, a sixteen-year-old who lived with his parents in a small row house. The boy with the big beanie would remember the blow and would tell his own story about it, and that story would defeat Biko’s story. This was how all black-and-white stories began, Biko thought, accelerating the blue bus up a gentle hill.

  His shift ended on the fly in front of the Ateneum.

  Biko walked to the R-Kiosk cafe. On the small television on the wall, horses were warming up and preparing for the starting gun. Black and white men talked in loud voices about bets, different races and sure things. Biko recognized Estonian, Russian, Somali and Finnish men in the group. Biko purchased a small coffee and sat on a tall stool bolted to the floor. The horses’ muzzles steamed. The drivers sat in their carts and prepared to hit the horses. Biko hated trotting, but didn’t say so out loud.

  He had learned to keep his opinions inside. His head was full to overflowing with them. Biko knew that if he kept storing things up in his head endlessly, before long the same thing would happen to him that happened to many Finns—everything would come out at once. Biko also knew that his reserve was a result of the language. Even in his beginning Finnish course, Biko had sensed that he would never learn the language well enough to be able to express himself perfectly. Language is a cane that keeps the cripple upright. A cripple standing in the entrance to a shopping center unable to get in to admire the immense selection of merchandise.

  Biko would have liked to share his thoughts using long subordinate clauses. He would have liked to master all of the subtleties, the nuances in tone and the detailed adjectives. He was infinitely irritated that there was only one person in the country who knew exactly what he felt. Maija. All other people were a long language away, somewhere far off on the horizon.

  The men shouted. The horses ran. The drivers sitting on their delicate carts hit the horses, who ran around the track, manes streaming and muzzles steaming. Suddenly one of the horses broke into a gallop, and the men in the kiosk swore and shook their heads. Biko saw in slow motion how the horse that had bounced into a gallop raised his muzzle, shaking his head and attempting to say, “Enough is enough. I want freedom. I want nuance. I want variety in my life.” Biko was that horse. He trotted around a track, carrying mute Finns to their jobs and to their homes. He languished in a prison of three-word phrases—his tongue was his bridle. And the last person to pull on his bridle had been the boy with the big beanie.