The Human Part

by Kari Hotakainen

  Biko was sure that with perfect language proficiency he would have been able to get out of the situation and not have had to strike the boy in the throat. He would have been able to say to the boy, “You think that I am a threat to your employment and romantic prospects, but I can assure you that I am not, because presumably you will not be entering the bus driving profession and because I have Maija. I won’t be laying a finger on your women. I am just a little black nuisance for you in this world. The really colorful troubles are to be found somewhere else entirely. You are touching and cute. I was just like you at your age. I ran in a gang and looked for something to bully. Anything small and the wrong color. And if we really combed the savannah, we could find something too. And if it is any comfort to you, I can tell you that I am a racist as well. I think of you Finns as simple people. You kowtow to people’s faces and whimper behind their backs. You take revenge on your neurotic bosses with your wives, husbands and children. By the time you throw your hat in the ring, the bout is already over. You fight your civil wars in your families, not in the workplace where the grousing and self-defensiveness might actually bring some benefit. You never work up any real rebellion. I won a book about your history in a raffle, and I have been reading it on my breaks. You had one real civil war, but it seems you were just following the example of a larger country. Poor little things.

  “And you take every single word so seriously. Perhaps it is because you have so few words that every one of them means so much. To you.

  “Yes. I consider you an inferior race. But I must pay tribute to the fact that you have managed to stay alive alone here in this appalling cold. And you have never been able to force your way in anywhere, since the Bear has always been lurking on your borders. I don’t even count Sweden as a country—it is merely a recreation area. Did you know, by the way, that I can read you like an open book? You think that you conceal so much with your silence, but oh how much you end up revealing. On the night bus I can say after a single glance how a passenger’s evening has gone. You don’t jump up and down, but I can sense your joy, which always has a touch of self-satisfaction. Your luck is always stolen from a neighbor. Is it that you have not had neighbors for very long, that you have always lived kilometers away from each other? Otherwise I cannot understand why your neighbors are the be-all and end-all for you. If things are going poorly for you, and you hear that things are going even worse for your neighbor, you start to feel better. This is both adorable and incomprehensible. What was it we were supposed to be talking about, boy with the big beanie? Oh yes, about whether you could please be so good as to give the young, tired mother a seat. No. Because a black driver is asking. No. Because a white driver is asking. No. Because someone is asking. No. You won’t. Did you see what I did there? The parallelism. Not bad for a negro, eh? Yeah. You make life so hard. Because you don’t get it. Life. That it is a sun. You can’t just stand in front of it.”

  A horse named Jonkka’s Eikka won the race. One of the men, a Russian judging by the lumpy nose, shouted and raised his ticket in the air. Biko finished his coffee and left.

  At home Maija asked how his day had gone. Biko said that the day had slipped from his hand and turned into night. Maija made Biko a large sandwich and stroked his head. Biko took Maija in his lap and softly crooned a song in his own language in her ear. It told of a shepherd who had lost his tribe and was wandering in a strange land.

  Maija told Biko about a letter that had come which was waiting on the nightstand. After Maija had fallen asleep, Biko read the letter. From it rose a sun which Biko could not tell Maija about.

  The next morning Biko called his boss, told the story of the boy with the big beanie and suggested that he be fired. The boss said that he already knew about it and reported a witness statement according to which the gang of youths had started the row.

  Biko tried to explain to his boss that finding the guilty party did not help him because he had transgressed against life and tampered with the sun. He could no longer continue in the position of trust that had been given him. He could no longer transport people from their jobs to their homes and from their homes to their jobs.

  The boss said that it would pass.

  “What?” Biko asked.

  “It. The bad feeling. Take a few days off.”

  “You don’t understand,” Biko said. That was all he could get out, even though he would have liked to say more. He would have liked to explain to his boss about the birth of the sun, its rising and setting, and what the great teacher had taught. Only strike the throat in the greatest distress. If you strike sooner, you lose purpose and meaning. You cause the sun to set. The duty of man is to hold power within himself and keep the sun in the sky.

  “You are a good driver. The kid in the hat touched the wrong guy.”

  His boss didn’t understand. Or he did. But wrong. Biko squeezed the phone. His boss didn’t get it. Purpose. Meaning. And honor. I want to keep face, even if I lose everything else. I come from a land of light. I could tell about my father-in-law. He hated me immediately, passionately, but I did not make the mistake of taking his anger away from him. I gave it time to melt. And it did. The sun melts ice. I had to wait in the shadows and let the sun do its work. I cannot take that work up myself. Now my father-in-law likes me. Or at least he tolerates me. You do not know what kind of letter he sent me. Sent from his heart. He would never have sent it if on that first night I had responded to his anger like I responded to the anger of the boy in the hat. My father-in-law gave me a task. A difficult task. Thankfully I do not have to do it alone. But it is an honor, a position of trust for which I must prepare like the eagle prepares high in the heavens. Below on the earth no one knows yet.

  “Are you still there? So you’ll take some time off and then come Tuesday evening?”

  Life has to have purpose and meaning. Honor comes with them, but not before them. Your land gave me purpose and meaning, but I shoved them into the throat of the boy with the big beanie. But I still have a chance to get them back. I will make it all up to the sun.

  “Malmikunnas, is that clear? Can you hear me? Don’t make any rash decisions. Guess how many drivers have felt like doing the same thing. Are you there? I’m hanging up now. I’ll see you on Thursday.”

  Biko heard a click. For a moment he thought it had come from his own head. Maija came into the room and asked who Biko had been silent on the phone with for so long. Biko told her.

  Maija slapped him instantly.

  And cried.

  And then she stroked him and wailed about what was going to happen to them now.

  Biko said that everything would be fine.

  How can you say that?

  Because we O.K. because love.

  Yeah, but if we don’t have any food, idiot.

  I drive taxi. Vroom vroom. Fancy cars. Mercedes.

  How can you say that? Who’s going to hire you just like that? And what was the letter?

  Some go around thing.

  A chain letter?

  Yeah, that.

  What did it ask you to do?

  If put ten euros in now, get hundred in six month.

  You aren’t fool enough to go along with that, are you?

  No. No worry. Come lap.

  I can’t. I’m too angry.

  Maija. I calm angry.

  What’s going to happen to us, dammit?

  I cut forest out of way of sun.

  THE QUEUER

  Maija Malmikunnas saw it in the distance. It was like a technicolor snake that wound slowly around the block. Muted conversation and coughing came from the bread queue. Maija thought, if I take a place at the end of the queue, I will be declaring myself a member of the tribe. Someone I know will walk by and connect the dots. That person will tell another, word will get around, rumors will start and the truth will fall over the family like a dirty, rented tarpaulin that will cover us completely, and we will never seen the sun again.

  Maija had turned down any and all assistance offe
red by society. Her pride was no traditional immodesty or disdain—it was a question of honor. She did not see herself as one of the fallen. Maija tried to think whether her attitudes had been influenced by her father and mother’s opinions or whether she had come up with her position on her own. She was forced to admit that the influence of her home was visible in her thoughts, but not so much as in Pekka, who would under no circumstances ever admit his defeats. Pekka said that he believed in the free market, but that the free market didn’t believe in him.

  Maija was now forced to compromise her sense of honor because Biko had resigned from his job. It had been difficult for Maija to accept, especially since the boss had called on two separate occasions asking Biko to return to work. As his reason for resigning, Biko had said that his sun had set. Maija had asked Biko not to phrase it that way to the employment office personnel. You’re going to be disqualified from receiving benefits for a while anyway. Biko had claimed he could get work in a taxi anytime because now that G.P.S.s were common, the drivers didn’t have to know addresses anymore.

  Maija pulled the hood of her coat over her head and took her place at the end of the queue. She tried to be air. Like she was. The woman standing in front of her turned to Maija and stared her straight in the eyes.

  “Are you afraid of something? Are you hiding or something?”

  “No.”

  “Then stand up straight and take what they give you. I heard a load of meat came from Kesko today. With stickers. But it won’t go bad for a few days. Buck up.”

  “But I’m not supposed to be here. In this queue, I mean.”

  “None of us are supposed to be here. Don’t even start, because I know the rest already. Let me guess. You fell from pretty high up, higher than Batman ever did. You weren’t supposed to fall, because your genes, your degrees, your background and your work experience point in an entirely different direction, right? You were God’s chosen, not one of us chained to this rock of a slum. But then the fairy tale took a turn. The Big Bad Wolf came along the forest path, took you by the neck and threw you back to the end of the queue. And now you want to hide what happened to you. You want to pull your hood over your head. You listen to me—hold your chin up and uncover your head. There’s a load of meat from Kesko today.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Just so. There are bad days and there are good days. And this is a good day. A meat day!”

  The woman clapped Maija on the shoulder and turned away. The back of the woman’s light green jacket said “Turkey Welcomes You.”

  Maija considered the woman’s words and the situation. What did I want when I came to the city? How has everything turned out the way it has? Is there a storyline in all of this, some unavoidable chain of events that is meant to end at the back of this queue?

  I wanted to succeed moderately well and honorably. I wanted things that everyone should have, even though in wanting them I knew I was privileged. Privileged. That word is ugly and has brought me much sorrow. Privilege, etuoikeus. Etu and oikeus, advantage and right. An acquired advantage. I’ve never had any advantage because my parents never acquired anything they could have passed on to me. The only golden spoon I have I won in a five-kilometer ski race.

  And then rights. Whose? The rights of the strong or of the weak? Neither, because I’ve never felt strong or weak. The rights of the one in the middle, the rights I’ve earned by my labor. By my boring labor. My dull drudgery.

  “Move forward. Or do you want someone to cut in there?”

  “Sorry.”

  Maija stepped forward, trying to understand what was happening. She glanced nervously at the roofs of the buildings. She didn’t see any cameras. But they could be small, too small for the human eye to detect. The previous day Maija had called the welfare office, the church and the organization that ran the queue to make sure it was neither photographed nor recorded, and that no record of her visit would be kept in any kind of registry. Everyone had assured her that nothing was photographed or recorded in any way.

  But you never could be sure. It would be a miracle if no trace of this was left in any official file, Maija thought. She was startled when the queue suddenly moved forward by at least ten meters.

  “They opened the doors.”

  The woman smiled broadly, and Maija noticed her tooth jewel. The woman realized that Maija had noticed it.

  “You saw it. Isn’t it pretty? It’s a reminder of my previous life. The one that ended the year before last, that is. That was my fourth life. Which one is this for you? This is how I count them: my first life was the one I lived in the country, the second was when I came to the city, the third was when I got married and the fourth was when I got rich. The jewel is from that last one. I lived in Lauttasaari, and I was with a company that designed content for mobile phones. Games, I mean. I had some sense that it couldn’t go on forever. But I was getting four grand a month and drinking bubbly whenever I was thirsty. Now this here is my fifth life. But the fourth one left a mark on my teeth. I think it’s nice to have at least something left over. A lot of people in this queue don’t have teeth at all. Sorry I’m talking so much. It’s a bad habit I picked up from my job. I had to talk to the bosses over at Nokia nonstop every day about the virtual widgets we were designing. Hey, but now we’re moving.”

  The woman turned and walked forward briskly.

  Maija followed her.

  The queue sucked and drew them along.

  Maija felt like someone was pulling it. Just like all of society and the whole world. Someone was pulling, but no one knew who. Someone was pulling the strings and the queue. Maija realized what she was thinking was childish and chalked it up to exhaustion.

  Her mobile phone vibrated in her pocket like a small animal. It showed Salme’s number.

  “It’s your mom. Where’s my girl?”

  “I’m in Stockmann. In the women’s department. How come?”

  “What’s all the noise there? It sounds like you’re outside.”

  “I’m never outside … I mean … I’m sorry … what were you calling about?”

  “More than can fit in such a small telephone. I thought to call to ask if you knew anything about Pekka. I can’t get hold of him.”

  “I don’t really know. I imagine he’s at his office.”

  “I’ve been getting the idea that he doesn’t have an office at all anymore.”

  “Well. He must be working for someone new then.”

  “Where?”

  “Listen, I don’t really know.”

  “It’s strange how none of my kids seems to know anything. Even though they’re all educated. They don’t even know about their siblings’ lives.”

  “It’s kind of a bad time right now.”

  “It’s always a bad time when I call. I so want for you to have a good time for once.”

  “I just don’t have the energy right now, Mum. I have to go and get the meat …”

  “In the clothing department?”

  “For a meeting … a new blouse for a meeting, I mean.”

  “What’s that in your voice?”

  “What?”

  “The tension. We should really sit down and talk. I have the money now. That we talked about, about how to help Helena.”

  “Well ah ya gonna take the fawkin’ round roast or not? I’m not gonna fawkin’ wait here all day!”

  The man standing behind Maija pushed his hand past her.

  “Who’s swearing there? Who’s saying that? Hello … Maija?”

  “This is a little bit of a bad time. I’ll call tonight.”

  “No, you won’t. You know you won’t. Where are you? You can tell your mother. They’ve never sold round roast with fucks in the Stockmann women’s clothing department. Don’t deceive your old mother. You’re even making me be coarse now.”

  Maija cut Salme off with a press of the red button and grabbed the roast. The box also included sliced turkey, ham rolls, sausages and light salami. All of the packages had a red sticker
, almost the same color as on the Japanese flag.

  Maija scooped as much into her bag as the person divvying out would let her, pulled her hood over her head and walked out.

  There was the rest of the world and all of the people who never have to queue and who get to walk by calmly and look askance at the queue like some strange natural phenomenon that marks our neighborhood in its own piquant way.

  Maija felt like every passer-by could see into her bag and through her bag into her soul.

  They know what happened to me.

  They think that it is my own fault.

  They know that my bag is full of meat that expires today.

  They think that I am a regular customer.

  They know that I have a stupid, black husband.

  They think that things are going to hell for us.

  They are wrong.

  After getting home, Maija took out her copy of Cooking for Every Home and opened it to the page for roast beef. Onto the table from between the pages fell a card sent by Salme around the time it happened. Salme hadn’t had the energy to write more than one sentence.

  It doesn’t matter what the birds are singing.

  THE CARRIERS

  Helena Malmikunnas stood next to the window and was alive.

  I am standing next to the window, she said to herself.

  I am standing. I have feet. Two of them.

  Outside there are blue buses and trees.

  Trees, like bones. The bones don’t have any leaves. The bones are cracked.

  Someone broke the bones.

  And stood them up in the yard.

  The smell of coffee came from behind her.

  Maija had made coffee.

  Maija is my sister.

  Maija is alive. I can tell from the smell of the coffee.