I remember it word for word.
It went like this:
“Greta, before you do what you came here to do, I just want to say that you look fantastic! I can see now that you were strong enough to survive what we did to you, and believe me when I tell you that I’m glad. Don’t get the wrong idea; I don’t want to offend you, but ever since I read your book, I’ve thought of you as a friend. I want you to know that I accept what you came here to do to us, even if these two idiots are trying to weasel out of it from sheer heartlessness and attachment to the slow continuum. We deserve to be shot. I would do it the same way myself. Cinematically. I read A Guide to the Cinematic Life and I liked it immensely; it’s very inspiring. I started planning all sorts of cinematicness for the rest of my life, but now look at me, me and my blockheaded brothers, the scoundrels in your cinematic revenge… How funny! But this is exactly how it should be. I don’t imagine that asking forgiveness will make up for anything, so I won’t ask forgiveness. But I will ask one thing.”
I nodded.
“Before you shoot me, I want to talk to Karri for a moment,” she said.
“Talk to Karri?”
Olli sits up in bed. Greta’s story started to worry him the moment the Blomrooses appeared in it, and now the story has turned considerably more worrying.
Greta nods. “That’s what she said. It totally threw a spanner in the works. I don’t know what happened next. I think I simply forgot what I came to do. The next thing I knew I was sitting at the table across from Anne Blomroos. Her brothers were gone. I looked at my hand, and it didn’t have a gun in it any more, but a glass of wine. Half empty. Anne poured me some more.”
Greta continues:
Anne said my name. It sounded like a question. I tried to pull myself together and asked what had happened. She smiled and said that she had just told me what it was that she wanted to experience more than anything before she died, and asked me what it was that I wanted.
I thought for a moment. It was a bizarre situation. A moment earlier I had wanted to shoot Anne Blomroos. Now I just wanted to answer her question.
So I told her what I wanted. Anne nodded. We looked at each other with some kind of shared understanding. But I didn’t understand it at all. My bloodlust was gone. I drank the rest of my wine, got up and walked out.
I wondered what had happened to the pistol. Then, as I was getting in the car, I found it in my handbag. I guess I didn’t shoot anyone after all, I thought. I was both relieved and disappointed. Then I noticed that the pistol smelt different. When I looked in the chamber, there were only two cartridges left.
Greta wriggles into Olli’s arms, nibbles his neck and puts her hand between his legs.
“Please don’t ask what really happened there, because I don’t know and I don’t want to know. And don’t ask what answer I gave to Anne. You know the answer. It was you.”
Olli nods. They look at each other solemnly.
“Now you know the story of my body,” Greta whispers shyly. “It’s yours, if you want it.”
As Olli gently kisses her chin, something fierce flames up in her green eyes.
“It was made for you,” she says, her voice husky. “Take it. Please. Stick your cock in it. Pound it to your heart’s content. Baise-moi, mon amour… Fuck me, my love. Olli, please make love to me. I can’t wait any longer.”
46
AFTER THIS THEY’RE BLESSED with a few sweet, unhurried summer days.
Then Jyväskylä erupts into autumn colours and the clear though diminishing light fills the house that Wivi Lönn built for herself, where they walk from room to room, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes following each other, making love on the floor, the tables, the stairs, enjoying a cigarette, reading Christina Rossetti poems to one another.
Greta often sits at the piano playing Chopin and Olli listens, thinking uneasily of the task the Blomrooses have given him: Make her completely happy. You have until the first snow. Then your family can come home—but only if you complete your mission. Every day as he listens to Greta play, he lights a cigarette, inhales pensively and asks with a smile, as if the question were a game, “Would you say that right now you are completely happy?”
Not lifting her fingers from the keys, she answers with something like this: “Hmm. I’m happier than I ever thought I could be… The problem is that the more I love you the more I fear losing you. I have a sort of premonition… Oh, it’s so stupid, I know, but you see, Olli, the most beautiful stories always have sad endings, and our story is so beautiful. I don’t know how I can be completely happy when I’m always afraid that fate will separate us somehow and then I’ll die of sadness.”
“Greta, remember that I love you, too,” Olli assures her. “You’re my girl in the pear-print dress. No power in this world could take me away from you again.”
Greta’s eyes grow wet. Chopin’s notes welling up from the piano grow more emphatic.
“Well, you’ve done it again… I just started to love you a little more,” she says in a tone both sad and amused. “And now the thought of losing you only feels all the more unbearable… I’m sorry. I realize I’m being stupid and childish. I promise to stop being afraid and learn to be completely happy. I’ll try, anyway. Ask me again tomorrow.”
Olli takes care of the publishing business from home and only goes to the office when it’s absolutely unavoidable. Book Tower has to be kept running, but he doesn’t have time to actually be there.
October arrives. The first snow could come at any moment. Olli tries not to think about it too much. He has to surrender to the power of cinematic fatalism or he’ll go crazy. In the end all he can do to make this work is to love Greta and proclaim his love for her for as long as it takes to begin to dispel the shadows from her mind, and hope that it happens before the first snow falls.
The Magical City Guide is scheduled for publication in a few weeks and Greta will be marketing it in publishing events and television appearances. At Greta’s insistence, Olli will accompany her at all times. “I’m just afraid that if I leave you at home alone, I’ll come back and find you gone,” she says with a tense smile.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises. They exchange a look; Greta’s eyes are alight with faith and desire, but behind them there’s still a touch of doubt.
After a night of frost, they walk the paths in the garden over crackling leaves, eating apples and smelling the change of seasons.
“You know what I’m really looking forward to?” Greta says suddenly, turning around so quickly that her golden hair brushes Olli’s face. “Snow. And winter. And spending my first winter with you. Maybe it will be a magical winter. We can light a fire, throw our clothes in the flames and wrap ourselves up in each other. Make love and drink hot cocoa with whipped cream on top and roast sausages and marshmallows on sticks. I’ve never had roasted marshmallows, and I don’t really like sausages. Olli, when does the first snow come to Jyväskylä?”
“Sometimes in November, once in a while even in October,” Olli says, glancing at the sky.
They’ve reached the entrance to the colonnade. Olli presses Greta up against a column, kisses her lips and nibbles her neck, whispering, “I’ll never leave you.”
She wraps her arms around him. “Good. I’m happy that you say that. It’s just that what a person wants, and what they promise, doesn’t mean much if it’s on a collision course with what’s meant to be. You see, Olli, I trust you, but I fear fate.”
“Fate?” Olli says. “Silly girl! Fate has no power independent of us. We create our own fate through the big decisions we make, and the small ones. Things move in their own trajectories and everything has its own weight. My grandfather used to say that there is no act so small that it can’t have larger consequences, but if you’re careful about even small things, I think you can make your fate whatever you want it to be. Look where our choices and actions have brought us… Here, in each other’s arms. This is our fate.”
“I suppose it is,” G
reta says, and presses more tightly against him.
Every night Olli wakes up in the wee hours. He looks at the woman sleeping beside him, tiptoes downstairs to the kitchen, turns on his computer and reads his Facebook messages.
He doesn’t want to mix family matters and his life with Greta, so he updates his Facebook at night. Often, though, he comes back to bed and Greta wakes up a little while later and opens her own computer, which she keeps on the bedside table. Olli hasn’t brought the matter up, but he understands that she also doesn’t want to waste the time they have together on Facebook.
There are no new messages from the Blomrooses. They haven’t really been updating their profiles. No doubt they’re just waiting for Olli to see his task through to the end.
Olli thinks about Greta’s story, how she planned to shoot the Blomrooses and instead ended up making wishes with the dying Anne Blomroos. At least now he knows what gave the Blomrooses the idea to make him a part of their insane plan for atonement and send his family on a perpetual, involuntary world tour. It’s obvious that they were watching them both over Facebook, and probably by other means as well, and once he and Greta found each other they saw to it that Olli’s attachment to the slow continuum didn’t prevent Greta’s wish from coming true. You and Greta had a beautiful love story; we understand that now. It’s time your story had a beautiful ending.
But of course Olli can’t blame Greta for what’s happened, nor does he want to. How could she have known what the wish she spoke aloud would lead to?
New photos from various parts of the world continue to appear on Aino’s profile. She and the boy are doing well, except that they look exhausted.
The most recent update is from the end of September: Aino Suominen would like to go home with her son before the first snowfall. When Olli sees it he rubs his temples and wonders anxiously if she might know about the deadline the Blomrooses have set for him, or whether the post was written by her captors, as a reminder to him. He writes in the comments: Aino Honey, I’m working as hard as I can so you can be home for the winter. You are in my thoughts. See you soon!
He feels like a coward, wants to add: P.S. Right now I’m living in the Wivi Lönn house with my lover and I want a divorce, but hey, there’ll be time to sign all the papers when you get back.
He remembers something he read in A Guide to the Cinematic Life:
A person who surrenders to cinematicness will inevitably experience shocks to reality from the change of perspective, and unfortunately those whose lot is to become less important in the scheme of things will be the casualties.
Greta’s profile is updated every day. Her prevailing mood is apparent in her posts:
Greta Kara and a lost summer reawakened (for a moment) under an umbrella in rainy Lounais Park.
Greta Kara with the summer of youth sleeping beside her. Once lost, long missed, newly found.
Greta Kara made love for breakfast. Now she’s combing the cornflakes out of her hair and secretly crying at all the beauty, because beauty fades.
Greta Kara wants to love! Ilsa’s lines: “Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.”
Greta Kara would like to be happy, but?… Oh, these awful premonitions…
Her most recent update was written a few hours earlier in the day. It says: Greta Kara would tell you a love story, but she doesn’t yet know the ending.
Olli writes a comment on the post: Here’s looking at you, kid. I’m coming back to bed. I’ll wake you up and kiss you and then we’ll write another erotic scene for your story…
When he walks up the perfect curve of the staircase, Greta is awake. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, naked, examining her body as if she’s never seen it before.
Olli watches in wonder as she touches her breasts and thighs and arms. In the light of the garden lamps through the window she looks more ghost than human. As he touches the skin of her back, he feels the thin scars. The room is cool. Greta’s skin is cool as well.
Greta turns and looks at Olli as if she doesn’t know him, her eyes dark. Finally she breaks into a smile and whispers, “Olli… She’s asleep now, but I woke up and found myself here. I was just looking at her while I waited for you. She’s beautiful. I hope she pleases you. And this house. This is the one you wanted, isn’t it?”
There is a peculiar expression on her face as she pulls Olli’s pyjamas down, continuing to speak in such a low voice that he can just barely hear it. “She’s tired and worried, poor thing. Let’s not wake her. Let me do this now. I’ve waited so long. Don’t worry. I know how to do it.”
Olli doesn’t like this new game of hers. There’s something frightening about it, something repellent.
Then it occurs to him that it might not be a game. Greta doesn’t seem to be completely awake. She’s behaving like a sleepwalker.
But Olli doesn’t resist when she lays him down on the bed, touches his body everywhere, wondering at it like a child with a new toy, and finally takes him inside her with her face glowing in joyous surprise.
Since moving into the Wivi Lönn house with Greta, Olli hasn’t dreamt about the girl in the pear-print dress, or anything else. This seems natural to him—his life is like a dream now, so why would he have dreams?
Then, after making love to Greta in this strange state, he does have a dream that lingers troublingly in his mind.
In the dream, he wakes up to a humming sound and sits up in the bed at the Wivi Lönn house. Greta is sleeping beside him. He can see the dark autumn garden through the window. Everything is just as it is in reality, except that at the end of the bed there’s a spinning wheel, and the three umbrella vendors are sitting around it.
The large, dark woman from Jyväs-brella is naked. She’s sweating and milk is dripping from her breasts as she spins her wild, overgrown pubic hair into green yarn.
Maura with the golden hair is measuring out the yarn and checking its quality.
The woman from the Pukkala umbrella shop is smoking a cigarette, her hair in a bun, her face paler than before, her profile remarkably similar to that of the woman sleeping in the bed beside him. Olli is startled when the woman from the umbrella shop suddenly shoots him an icy stare and holds the glowing end of her cigarette near the green strand of yarn, which starts to smoulder.
Then the sleeping Greta stiffens, stops breathing and begins to go pale. The gold of her hair changes to the colour of hay after a frost.
Maura grabs the smoking woman’s hand and shakes her head. Not yet, she seems to say. The smoking woman gives in and leaves the yarn alone.
The colour returns to Greta’s face and hair and she sighs in her sleep.
The next day Greta is playing the piano again. A cold rain lashes the garden. No snow, at least not yet. Olli sits on the little sofa next to the piano reading Rossetti: Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land…
Then he puts the book aside, lights a cigarette, smokes for a while and asks: “What about today? Are you completely happy?”
Greta doesn’t answer. Her face tenses as she stretches for the notes.
“These hands,” she mutters.
“What about them?”
“The clumsy things don’t want to play Chopin today,” she says. “Maybe I should play ‘Chopsticks’. Dr Engel knew how to play it. I taught it to him. Although he knew it by the name Der Flohwalzer—the Flea’s Waltz.”
She’s trying to sound amused but when she stops playing and turns to look at Olli there’s panic in her eyes. “I think I’m sick. This has happened several times before. I just suddenly can’t control my own hands. I feel as if I’m falling into a deep, dark hole.”
Olli helps her to the sofa.
“Maybe it’s the flu,” Olli says, surprised at how unconcerned and sensible he manages to sound.
“Yeah,” Greta sighs. “Maybe I’m just coming down with something. Take me in your arms. Hold me tight. I feel cold and dizzy. Don’t let me fall. Please don’t let go.”
A cold
sweat breaks out on her forehead. It’s clear that she’s about to faint.
“Wait a moment,” Olli says, laying her down on the sofa. “I’m going to call a taxi and get you to a doctor. Or maybe we should go straight to the hospital.”
Greta grabs his sleeve and says in an urgent whisper, “No. I don’t want to go to the hospital, I want to stay here. I have my own doctor. Call him. I got a letter about it. I think my French publisher hired him when he heard that I was coming to Jyväskylä. He wanted to make sure I got good care way up here in the godforsaken north. There’s a phone number in the letter. It’s on the night table.”
Dear Miss Kara,
Welcome to Jyväskylä! I am writing to inform you that I will be at your disposal here for the duration of your stay, should you ever need a physician. I also make house calls. My services are free of charge, and will be covered by the publishers, to whom it is important that your health is attended to. Please do call if you need me, at the number below.
With best wishes,
Helmer Oksanen
General Practitioner
47
THE DOCTOR ARRIVES an hour later. Olli goes out to the street to meet him.
Dr Oksanen is a greying, bespectacled man with warm eyes who fidgets nervously as he introduces himself. He takes a large De Boissy doctor’s bag from the back seat of his Mercedes, walks through the Apple Gate and into the house, and climbs puffing up the stairs to where Greta is waiting in bed.
It takes him two hours to give Greta a complete physical examination. At her request, Olli sits the whole time on a chair next to the bed where she can see him. Dr Oksanen peers into her mouth and ears, feels her glands, draws a blood sample, makes notes, pokes her with pins, talks with her and flips through a thick file with her name on it.
Secret Passages in a Hillside Town Page 25