Secret Passages in a Hillside Town

by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen

  Olli buys two ice cream cones, pays and turns around with the cones in his hands.

  Greta’s eyes sparkle with joy.

  Olli answers her smile.

  He needs to sit down too, so his legs won’t fail him.

  Just a moment earlier he was seeing in his mind’s eye how this meeting could end in catastrophe. Greta, offended at Olli’s forgetting, could leave him standing there at the bottom of the hill. The result: Book Tower would lose the author most important to its future, people would lose their jobs, the kidnappers would take revenge for his failure on Aino and his boy. Olli’s life would be ruined.

  Then he remembered something about Greta and ice cream. The closer they got to the bottom of the steps, the clearer it grew in his mind.

  And when he stepped up to the ice cream stand, the memory finally opened up completely: he and the girl in the pear-print dress stop at a little kiosk at the corner of Puistokatu and Tellervonkatu, thirty years ago. They’ve come to buy ice cream. When they left the house Greta said she wanted a strawberry ice cream cone. She grabbed Olli’s hand, looked deep into his eyes, and made him vow to remember forever that she never, ever ate any ice cream but strawberry.

  Back then he never asked why strawberry, although he had wondered.

  He asks now.

  Greta demurs for a moment, but eventually says, “You must not remember it, but at the very beginning of our summer together I said I felt like having some ice cream. I didn’t have any money. You had half a markka. Enough to get one ice cream cone at Hjelt’s, which we ate together. It was strawberry, because they were out of everything else.”

  They go back up Harju Ridge and sit on a park bench near the steps looking out over the city. People are climbing up and down. Olli remembers something from the Magical City Guide:

  M-particle levels on the steps vary from one day to the next, but even at their most ordinary the steps offer a fine view of the great meetings and partings of life.

  “So you’re still not tired of this flavour?” Olli asks.

  Greta licks her cone and shakes her head. “In Paris, Brazil, Hollywood… everywhere I’ve been I’ve only eaten strawberry. In Bombay I thought I would have to go without, but then I had Amul strawberry ice cream. I was rather weak at the time, and the ice cream helped me cope. I might have died without it. My friends there bought it for me when they found out what it meant to me.”

  Greta turns her face away, embarrassed. Her golden hair shines so brightly that it dazzles him.

  “Oh, Olli,” she whispers. “We have so much to talk about. More than we could possibly have time to say, or hear, even if we sat here talking for the rest of our lives. And we don’t have… But never mind. You have to go to buy some liver casserole. I’m sure your family is expecting it.”

  She gets up, puts on her large movie-star sunglasses, thanks him for the ice cream, and walks away towards the city.

  Your mission is to buy her an ice cream and make her look forward to your next meeting.

  Olli is left sitting on the bench, thinking. They succeeded in eating ice cream, but will he succeed in the next part of his mission?

  The order to meet Greta Kara “by accident” on the Harju Steps came from the Blomroos siblings. The three of them got carried away and each one sent their own separate message.

  Richard Blomroos wrote:

  Hey there, Olli. How are you? Good, I hope, even if your family is away at the moment “on holiday”, if you don’t mind the expression. I’m sorry about that. But I’m even more sorry about what we did to Greta thirty years ago. Of course, we were just stupid kids, but that doesn’t absolve us of responsibility. We’ve thought a lot about what happened. We want to make it up to Greta, and to you. We took something important away from both of you.

  Your old pal,

  Richard B.

  Leo Blomroos’s message said:

  Olli my friend, what happened to Greta late one summer is unforgivable. I wish I could blame Anne, who put us up to it. Or Richard, who never needed much encouragement to pull a prank, not even when he was older. (He’s been to jail a couple of times, thanks to his poor judgement.) But as the leader of the Tourula Five, I’m the one who’s ultimately responsible for everyone and everything, so I blame myself. I could have easily stopped them, but I didn’t. That makes me the guiltiest of all. I’ll be sorry for it for the rest of my days. I want to say that I’ll never do anything like that again, but unfortunately I don’t see any alternative right now, in spite of what my sense and my conscience tell me, but to go along with this thing, which I’m sure is causing you a great deal of stress. But it is an attempt of sorts to expiate our sins against that which we have broken. That means something, doesn’t it? I hope you understand, my friend, but I realize that you probably hate all of us right now.

  Sincerely,

  Leo Blomroos.

  The actual instructions, however, came from Anne, which didn’t surprise Olli:

  Hi Olli, dear old friend (take my word for it, I think of you often with fondness and nostalgia, although I’m sure you prefer not to think about me)—I know of course that this is all probably rather tough for you, but I hope that you’re not too broken up to do what you have to do.

  As you know, thirty years ago my brothers and I did a terrible thing. A criminal, traitorous, senseless thing for which there is no defence, not even the stupidity of youth or the jealousy that drove a young girl to desperate acts. Ever since then it has followed all of us, as it no doubt has our victim, Greta. There comes a time when such things must be settled, accounts balanced, sins atoned for. Due to unforeseen circumstances, it can’t be put off any longer.

  Olli darling, I’m so awfully sorry but now I have to boss you around. Tomorrow afternoon you must go to the top of the Harju Steps. Start walking down the steps at exactly one o’clock. You will meet Greta on the steps, quite by accident. Your mission is to buy her an ice cream and make her look forward to your next meeting.

  Do not say anything about this message or mention me or my brothers. She doesn’t want to hear anything about us. We did, after all, destroy her thirty years ago, in more ways than one. And don’t say anything about your family being gone—there’s no point in shocking her with such news. Make sure that she wants to see you again. You will receive further instructions later. And Olli, we will be aware of everything you do, so buddy, don’t do anything rash if you don’t want anybody to be hurt more than they already have been. That would break my heart.

  You may be asking why Aino and your son have to be mixed up in this. We removed them specifically to protect them and to keep innocent bystanders out of this little opera of ours, which only pertains to those involved. For logistical reasons we first took the boy from your front yard, then invited your wife to where he was a little later on. You can rest assured that they will be treated well. You have my word on it. They are in fact quite comfy. I haven’t the slightest desire to add to the weight of my sins—quite the contrary, if you do your part in this atonement project of ours, the whole affair will come to seem a great, exciting adventure to your family, travelling to the world’s most pleasant and exotic locales! (Is it true, Olli, that your wife has never been any farther than Sweden? That situation has now been remedied!)

  Of course, we also want to make it easier to do what needs to be done—if you don’t want to do this for yourself and for Greta, do it for your family. Think of it however you like. But forget about moral considerations—you simply have no choice but to follow the script we’ve written for you. You and Greta had a beautiful love story; we understand that now. It’s time your story had a beautiful ending.

  With love from your friend,

  Anne.

  26

  THE BLOMROOSES’ LETTERS made Olli sick. After he read them the first time he went and threw up, then he had diarrhoea. When he came back to the computer he almost deleted them. But then he printed them all, in two copies. He might need them later as evidence.

  Oll
i sits on the bench, mulling over the encounter he’s just had. His first mission.

  It’s still just as confusing, but at least he knows now what it’s all about. And he’s started to do something about it. It beats being in the dark, unable to act.

  It is some consolation that as long as he follows the Blomrooses’ “script”, nothing bad will happen to Aino and the boy. The script is a good thing, ultimately, so he ought to stick to it. Because it has the plot twist that once Olli fulfils his role and helps the Blomrooses atone for their deeds, he’ll get his family back and everything will go back to the way it was. The End.

  Olli walks over to the steps and climbs back up to the top of the Ridge. The steps have been here for eighty years. At first he thinks about his feet, and then about everyone who has, like him, walked these steps, or will walk these steps in the decades to come. Or maybe centuries—where are stone steps like these going to go, even in a town that eats its own history?

  The person he’s known as—Olli Suominen, publisher and member of the parish council—is just one of innumerable people who will at some point in their lives find themselves trudging up the Harju Steps. Every one of them will carry with them dreams, worries, problems, plans, memories and sins that they think unique, meaningful, enduring. Every one will cling to life and be scared to death of change, which nevertheless must come to everyone, as sure as death.

  The city at the bottom of the steps is changing all the time. The days, the seasons, the generations in succession. Only the Ridge and the steps remain the same.

  According to The Magical City Guide, a cinematic life is best achieved at places like the Harju Steps:

  In such places, the temporary phenomenon known as human life is put into perspective by time and by large physical elements, just as it is by the ocean, or a mountain. Paradoxically, the transience and fundamental meaninglessness of human life when seen juxtaposed with phenomena that reflect eternity can be the necessary starting point for cinematic meaning fulness.

  Olli is struck with a fit of fatalism that makes him calmly smile. It’s pointless to brood on it. Like everyone else who walks these steps, he has to accept his fate. No matter what happens, in the end no one will remember or care whether this strange episode had a sad or a happy ending. Until then, he’ll play his role as well as he knows how, and then he’ll either get his family back, or lose everything.

  The thought feels cinematically liberating. He even feels a little spurt of joy as his body adjusts itself to better withstand the ordeal. When he gets home, he walks out to the recycling bin and tosses in Ageing with Dignity, with its warnings about endorphin and adrenalin addictions dangerous to the middle-aged:

  Endorphins (endogenous morphine, or morphine that originates within the body) are peptides that present as opioids in the brain, pituitary and other parts of the nervous system. Endorphins bind to opioid receptors, and have a variety of effects including the reduction of pain. Adrenaline, or epinephrine, on the other hand, is a hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in times of stress. Adrenaline increases physical performance and feelings of well-being. It can accelerate heart function, expand the bronchial tubes and increase energ y by altering the metabolism of sugar. It is clear that a middle-aged man who experiences endocrine and adrenaline cravings and intoxication can be susceptible to overestimating his abilities, and thus lose his sense of reality and rationality and make fatefully poor decisions.

  Walking past the observation tower Olli sees his reflection in the window and it amuses him. He looks like a character from an old movie. He thinks he understands now what he was reading about the deep cinematic self. Naturally he’s still deeply worried, but at the same time part of him, surely his deep cinematic self, would seem to be feeling a sort of aesthetic pleasure that something has happened to break the ordinary routine of his life.

  Intoxicated by this feeling of profound meaningfulness and fatalism, and perhaps also by his own endorphins, he descends the Harju Steps into Mäki-Matti. Dramatic music plays in his head. He senses his surroundings with uncharacteristic clarity.

  As soon as Olli got home his anxiety returned. His stomach started to hurt. He felt faint. He crawled onto the sofa and whimpered like a sick dog.

  It was slow continuum attachment again, getting him in its clutches:

  Slow continuum attachment affects a person like gravity. It shoves a person’s face into the dust of the everyday, the ashes of dreams. It persuades us to be content with our fate like a humble beast of burden and put aside the possibilities that every moment of life offers. The cinematic way of life is liberation from the slow continuum. Instead of unavoidable obligations, a person can learn to see all possibilities, even impossible ones, and live them out in a cinematic aesthetic spirit. All that’s necessary is to dare to pick the pears hanging from the branches of life’s tree and take a bite. Of course, that demands a lot—your whole life, in fact—but in the end it’s nothing more than a choice.

  Olli pressed his trembling hands against his face and was afraid he would be squashed under the weight of the thoughts in his head, and lose himself in their seeping darkness.

  When dusk fell he had recovered enough to go upstairs and read his new instructions on Facebook.

  27

  THE OUTDOOR SEATING at the kiosk in the old church park was chosen as the stage for the next meeting.

  The first week of August was restless and crowded in Jyväskylä. The mass event known as the Neste Oil Rally was happening. It attracted car-racing fans from around the world, and for a few days the city was full of people, cars and all sorts of vendors. During rally week Olli usually avoided the downtown area and took a taxi to and from work. He couldn’t bear the crowds of drunken bar-goers who did bring money into the city but also pissed in the streets, disturbed the peace, broke bottles, littered and clogged traffic.

  He didn’t hear much talk about the races at the publishing office, although Maiju, in particular, secretly followed them with enthusiastic interest and was thrilled at the success of the Finnish drivers.

  The trance-like passion that rally cars evoked in people had always baffled Olli. Even when they showed American Graffiti at the film club, it didn’t give him an urge to buy a car of his own or lessen his scepticism about the pleasures of driving.

  This year Olli had been planning to stay completely away from the central city for the duration of the races, but when his family was kidnapped he had to compromise many of his principles. So there he was, following the Facebook instructions and heading to the park, where he had orders to wait for Greta.

  At your last meeting you gave her hope. Continue in the same manner. Walk with her through town hand in hand. Kiss her lightly so that you leave her dreaming, but without being too blatant. You have to leave her in suspense about your next meeting.

  Olli’s blood pressure was probably dangerously high, so he didn’t measure it. He had eaten and slept poorly. His stomach was in knots. His back ached. His thoughts were muddled. He dressed his suffering body in the clothes of a casually stylish gentleman, examined the result in the mirror, took a taxi to the park, and sat at an empty table on the kiosk terrace.

  As he had expected, people milled around him in a noisy mob. He stared at the table top and tried to shut the stress out of his mind. He was hot in his jacket but he couldn’t bring himself to take it off. Time passed. He waited. People left. Other people took their places. Then they too left. Olli continued to sit. Someone sang a song in drunken German. The air was filled with the smell of beer and cigarettes. Taxis were lined up at the kerb like big, sleepy dogs. Now and then one of them awoke and crept away.

  Olli drank three cups of coffee and a bottle of yellow Jaffa soda. The people at the next table were talking about the races the way soldiers in a movie talk about the war. Olli felt like punching them.

  He started thinking about remodelling. There was a lot that needed to be fixed: the sloping floors, the ceiling panels in the bedroom, the slanting walls, the wallpaper.
He made mental calculations of the labour, materials and expenses. His brow furrowed.

  Then he remembered his wife and son, kidnapped and taken on a forced holiday by the Blomrooses, and he sank into a gloom.

  When a ripple of wind brushed against his face, gently probing it, sounds began to enter his ears. He looked around and noticed that the colours had brightened. It was as if someone had opened a hatch inside him.

  It was hard not to worry about his kidnapped family, even if it was a beautiful summer day. But even the worst problems couldn’t touch the creature that he was beneath his titles, tastes, obligations, responsibilities and memories. It smiled at him, carefree as a child.

  It liked this spot.

  The Magic City Guide describes the old church park thus:

  This one-block park in central Jyväskylä contains a Gothic-style church built in 1880, a kiosk building, an old electrical switching station and a variety of monuments. The kiosk, built in 1954, radiates a particularly dense concentration of M-particles, which enrich the life feeling of people in its vicinity. The park is also a popular meeting place for lovers.

  The scent of floral perfume awakens Olli from his thoughts. Someone is sitting beside him.

  He hesitates a moment, then looks.

  Greta Kara is drinking pink lemonade through a straw and smiling mischievously.

  “If it isn’t Mr Suominen,” she says. “Taking some time out from the workday to enjoy the international ambience of rally week, I presume? I was walking by and saw you and called your name, but you didn’t respond, although half the people in the park waved back at me. I’ve been sitting next to you for fifteen minutes waiting for you to notice me. Silly thing. A couple of minutes longer and I would have lit your trousers on fire. Now, don’t you dare get angry with me, you little devil. You look as if you could bite my nose off.”