The Human Part

by Kari Hotakainen

  I can tell there is life from the smell of the coffee.

  Pekka is here too.

  Pekka came out of the kitchen with Biko. Biko was carrying a serving tray.

  He was carrying it carefully, as if he were carrying something precious.

  It had Karelian pasties on it.

  Helena remembered what Alfred Supinen had said about Karelian pasties.

  The pasty came to the Finnish interior with the people fleeing the yard.

  By “the people fleeing the yard,” Supinen meant the evacuees.

  Homes, land and trees had been taken away from the evacuees.

  Poor evacuees, Helena thought.

  Someone put a pasty in front of Helena. It was Maija.

  Helena didn’t dare look Maija in the eyes.

  Her little sister’s eyes scared her.

  If she looked into them, everything in them was transferred into her.

  Helena hadn’t looked in the mirror the whole day.

  If you look in the mirror, you see yourself.

  It isn’t a good idea to look at yourself.

  It isn’t a good idea to look at what you already know.

  The pasty tastes salty, and everyone is here and alive.

  Except Salme and Paavo.

  They have to be out there in the country.

  Someone has to be there too, Helena thought. Otherwise the land wastes away, rotting and disappearing with the wind.

  The land wants people and trees on it.

  Pekka, Biko and Maija sat on the sofa and tried to be.

  They almost couldn’t.

  Pekka looked at Biko. Biko looked back. Something happened to them.

  They had the same thought. Thought is action. At least halfway.

  Maija poured the coffee.

  Pekka looked at it. It was so black that it wasn’t any color anymore.

  Somber isn’t a color.

  Before the others came, Helena had collected all of Sini’s pictures and put them away.

  In hiding.

  Somewhere. I don’t remember where. Fortunately I don’t remember. Maybe I won’t ever find them. Good if I don’t find them. Bad if I don’t find them.

  I can’t decide, Helena thought. I don’t know how to decide. I don’t know how to move. I don’t know how to live. I don’t know how to die. I don’t know how to anything. I will never be what I was again. I will never be anything.

  Perhaps an image of a person, but not a real person.

  Maija put her hand on Helena’s shoulder.

  No one can put anything on me anymore, Helena thought, even though she knew it was Maija’s hand.

  Pekka paced back and forth in the apartment, wanting to be different.

  Wanting to be violent.

  It was not of this world. Being violent does not fit in this world, even though this world is violent.

  It is too big a thing for this world, for this room, for this moment.

  Pekka asked Biko out onto the balcony.

  There in the wind and the noise Pekka talked to Biko. You name it, he said it.

  Maija took her hand from Helena’s shoulder, and Helena felt like nothing would ever hold her down again.

  She realized Maija’s hand had been holding her on the ground.

  She grabbed the hand and placed it back on her shoulder.

  Maija looked at her husband and her brother.

  Maija remembered what Sini had said after the first time she had seen Biko. “Don’t worry. We can wash him.”

  Maija remembered what Sini had said after seeing Pekka with his pan flute. “Play something Russish.”

  Maija remembered other things as well, but she didn’t want to remember.

  Maija didn’t want to laugh, even though laughter lived inside her and wanted to come out almost every day.

  Helena moved beneath Maija’s hand and took a pasty from the plate.

  The crust crunched, and butter ran onto her fingers.

  She felt like rubbing the melted butter into her face, creating a new face.

  She didn’t have the energy to keep her old face.

  Why do they talk about keeping face?

  What good is there in keeping something ugly, to keep it for others’ sake?

  Helena wanted to talk about normal things.

  But she didn’t know where to start.

  Some normal thing—right now—Helena thought.

  Everything normal had left her head and been replaced by everything abnormal.

  The balcony door squeaked. Pekka and Biko came inside.

  Say something normal, Helena wished, but didn’t ask.

  Helena thought, if we were in the country, I would ask you to chop down some trees or drive the tractor too fast across the fields or kill some animals and roast them in the yard in sight of the women and get raging drunk and sing country songs off key, or I would ask you to do something else loud, common and coarse, because coarse and common keeps us on the ground, but when we’re here in this city apartment, I can’t do anything but be alive and breathe and put something in my mouth to keep me alive until tomorrow, until the day after tomorrow, and until the day I’m supposed to lower my only child into the ground.

  Maija caught Helena as she collapsed, limp.

  Helena spilled out of Maija’s arms. Pekka and Biko came to her aid.

  Together they carried Helena to the bed.

  Biko fetched a towel, moistened it a little and put it on Helena’s forehead.

  Pekka tested her pulse—her wrist throbbed in short thumps like a baby’s.

  They gave Helena one pill, after which she slept.

  They couldn’t leave the apartment.

  Maija fetched two mattresses from the attic. She took the sofa and curled up in fetal position.

  Pekka and Biko promised to watch over Helena and Maija’s sleep.

  Helena woke up in the middle of the night to the fact that she didn’t have anything.

  You can’t explain it to the men who jump up, ready to do anything for you. You can’t say, “Help, I don’t have anything.” You can say, “Help, my leg is hurt,” or, “I can’t reach the pot on the top shelf.” You can say, “Will you make me food?” but you can’t badger people asking for things that are impossible. It has to be enough to know that they want to help. Their desire to carry me, not today, but perhaps a week from now.

  Wanting is already an action.

  Helena indicated to the men that they could sit down.

  She went out onto the balcony.

  The night whispered and hummed.

  The balcony railing was damp and cold.

  She took hold of it with both hands.

  And squeezed.

  The world depended on that railing. If she let go, the world would disappear.

  She sensed that Pekka, Biko and Maija had come to stand behind her.

  She knew that they would always stand behind her.

  They would say that the railing was only a railing, that the world didn’t depend on it.

  The world depended on whether there was anyone standing behind in case you fell.

  Or decided to fall.

  A new night came. There can be many nights in one, Helena thought as they led her to the bed.

  I have to stay in this bed now. I have to give them time to breathe.

  Time to talk about the things of the world, things that belong to them and keep them there.

  I can’t wear them out. I can’t drag them here with me to this place where nothing has any form or purpose.

  This is what people call sorrow.

  No one has been able to give it any other name.

  Sorrow is a beautiful name.

  Ugly things are given beautiful names to cover up the ugliness.

  So the bones and the flesh and the gashes don’t show.

  I have to let them talk out there in the living room about everyday things, to gather their strength.

  I have to sleep now, Helena thought.

  That’s wh
at the one being carried has to do for the people doing the carrying.

  I can’t do much.

  I can do that.

  THE IMMIGRANTS

  You can’t track time. It goes on its merry way. Time not only passes you by—for good measure it backs up, runs you over and then continues forward indifferently. Anyone who says he can keep up is already adrift like a piece of trash.

  So thought Kimmo Hienlahti the day after he was released. He had sat in prison for nine months pressing German license plates with a machine and painting road signs. He had liked the simple work and the unstimulating surroundings. He could see a bay and the sea from the window of his cell. He had stared out for the first two weeks and seen birds he had never paid any attention to before. He had borrowed a bird book from the prison library and learned to identify dozens of species within a couple of months.

  While he was painting road signs, he had thought that it would be nice sometime to drive along the Turku motorway and turn off at the Piikkiö junction to find that he had painted Piikkiö with his own hands, doing his part so that people could find their way to that charming town.

  Now he sat at his computer with his eyes open like a newborn. Finland had changed while he had been away. The same birds circled over a different land now. Most of his business partners had disappeared without a trace. Companies had been laid low in the dust. Whole industries had disappeared in the roaring of the wind—only the wings of aircraft still reached for the sky. A heavy silence hung over the land as before a thunderstorm when he was a child.

  Everything that had been obvious a year ago was now embarrassing, shameful. Kimmo felt like a citizen of another country, a strange interloper who had returned to his birthplace but no longer knew anyone.

  Kimmo turned off the computer, picked up a pair of binoculars and walked to the window. A few birds flew back and forth over the reeds. It was hard to grasp the freedom of birds. Does the eagle understand its freedom? Not likely. Perhaps it sees its life as limited, limited by danger and hunger. Kimmo felt that being deprived of his freedom had been the best thing to happen to him in a long time. Lying on the uncomfortable bed in his cell he had realized that there had been too much freedom, that it had got out of hand. What did you do with everything if you didn’t get pleasure from anything?

  Kimmo moved the binoculars from the reeds to the other shore. Nine months ago that white, modern office building had housed the Innovation Center. Now the wall said Invalid Foundation.

  The phone rang.

  The voice was muted and congested, so much so that Kimmo did not immediately recognize the caller as Nyström, who welcomed Kimmo back to freedom and asked in a timid voice if Kimmo had a moment. Kimmo said he didn’t have anything else.

  Nyström asked Kimmo to listen for a moment. Kimmo agreed because the haste and arrogance had disappeared from Nyström’s voice.

  Nyström’s speech was slow and stripped-down. He used neither adjectives nor English-language jargon. He spoke in simple independent clauses without seasoning what he said with strident opinions or hyperbole. He reproached neither the labor movement, the inflexibility of bureaucracy, nor the taxman.

  He said that the customers no longer wanted talk. At least not our talk. They don’t want consultants. Or at least they don’t want us. They don’t want to advertise. Or they do, but not much. That restaurant where we used to go isn’t there anymore. People aren’t consuming anymore. Or they are, but not luxury goods. Everyone is talking about necessities now. No one is talking about luxuries anymore. This is all strange to me, but if I think carefully, it is all logical and comprehensible. Still, it is difficult for me to accept it. Do you understand, Kimmo? Or I do accept it, but in the same way a ship accepts a storm. I don’t have any hobbies anymore, because no one else does. You can’t play golf alone. Or you can, but it’s boring. My wealth has melted away. Not all of it, but a lot. And it keeps melting away the whole time. I’m not calling because I need money. I’m calling because you’re the only person I can call. Times are bad if you can only call the person you complain to.

  Kimmo listened and listened.

  Nyström’s speech was good, because evil was speaking it. Evil breaking down makes an interesting sound.

  Kimmo put the phone on speaker, picked up the binoculars and focused his eyes on a seagull circling over the reeds. The seagull circled. Nyström spoke. Kimmo watched and listened.

  THE TAKERS

  They walked to the door of the house and rang the doorbell. The person who opened the door had no time to react before one of them pushed his foot in the door and wrenched it wide open. They recognized the person from his photograph, but the person did not know them and was surprised when he saw them. In his life he had become used to surprising everyone and no one surprising him. For this reason he was unable to be hospitable and in his confusion asked them to leave. However, they did not leave because they had been forced to leave so many places so many times in their lives. And besides, they had a task to complete.

  There were two of them, one dark, one light.

  They told the person what the purpose and meaning of their visit was. The person said that there must be some misunderstanding, but they clarified the matter by recounting in detail what the person had done. The punishment he had received from the judicial system was incommensurate with what he had done and so they were forced to come to complete the job that society and the authorities had left unfinished.

  The person backed against a black chest of drawers and said he would pay them anything if only they would leave. They said that unfortunately money had lost all significance as a means of payment in this matter.

  The dark one sat down on the divan and looked out the window.

  The light one ordered the person to sit on the sofa because speeches were in order before the procedure. He said that he might stutter a little at the beginning of his speech. If the person laughed, the dark one would hit him immediately.

  The person sat and said he was interested to hear what they had to say. He was lying. He was not interested in anything other than his life.

  The light one began.

  You kn-kn-know that the ki-ki-ng-dom of heaven belongs to chichi-children.

  The dark one checked to make sure the person did not laugh. The light one continued.

  You know that this is the case, but you still act as if you did not know. When you offer money, you offend even more. In court you played innocent. You imitated an innocent person. I know everything about imitation, and I can say that you imitated poorly. If you imitate well, others believe you. A good imitator becomes the person he is imitating. But you cannot imitate an innocent person, because you don’t even believe it. You have to want to be what you imitate. Get me some water.

  The dark one rose, went into the kitchen and came back with a water glass in his hand. The light one took a gulp from the glass and cleared his throat. He said that the dark one would take over from here and that the system would be the same: if the person laughed at the dark one’s poor Finnish, the light one would hit him immediately.

  The dark one began.

  The one who went away, not my own. Is in my heart, because blood is in family. There are troubles, small sorrows and big sorrow. Trouble is when sleep too long for work or wallet missing. Then is small sorrow. If own dog and it die, comes small sorrow. What is biggest sorrow, big of all? Do you understand?

  The person listened, but was unable to answer. His gaze was fixed on the fish scissors the light one had taken out of his pullover and was turning over in his hand. The person was reminded of gills, bones and fillets and the crackling sound that comes when scissors crunch through a fish’s neck.

  You no answer. No problem. We know biggest sorrow. It no see, no hear. It is. No matter what do, it is. How on earth make it away? No need answer. Soon you not able.

  The person considered his alternatives, which he usually had at least ten of at any one time. Now they had shrunk to two, attack and escape. Both s
eemed hopeless. He had no weapon, and it was ten meters to the door.

  The light one and the dark one sensed the person’s thoughts and sat down on either side of him on the sofa. They were quiet. Together with the person they achieved a silence so profound it was almost audible. The light one looked over the person and the dark one nodded.

  They ordered the person to stand.

  The person felt faint.

  He felt like the legs had disappeared from within his trousers and the air from within his lungs.

  The person felt a strong urge to defecate and urinate.

  The dark one realized this because he had experienced similar urges in a similar situation in his previous life. It was not diarrhea—it was the language of the organism. The organism took the place of the brain, because in certain situations the brain stopped working. The organism spoke because the person had spoken all he had to say. The organism said: There isn’t much material in me because I haven’t had breakfast, but I want to eject everything from myself, even if it is just the sputum, the salts, the acids and all that mess that is left circulating in here even after everything has come out of both ends.

  The person asked permission to visit the restroom.

  The light one said he understood the need, but that it was not possible now, just like everything else. The person had played God, and in that moment lost the world of possibilities.

  The person stood, swaying.

  The light one asked the person to stand up straight, because the final speech was coming now, after which they would move from words to actions. He said that he had taken the exceptional step of writing this speech down. It was short and had been written by the next of kin.

  The person rocked. The dark one took hold of him and lifted him up.

  The light one cleared his throat, took the piece of paper out of his breast pocket and began.

  “Life is taking and giving. You took my sister’s reason to live. You gave a reason to kill. We will not kill. We will take your reason to live. A draw. You sat nine months. We waited nine months. Our gestation period was the same length. It is time to give birth. The prognosis is for a child who is a man of few words. But hopefully he will be otherwise active and optimistic.”