The Healer

by Antti Tuomainen

  I got a few names from her, people from her student days and even later. One of them was someone I knew: Laura Vuola, Ph.D. Her name brought to mind things that I’d imagined were settled and forgotten. It almost made me doubt my sanity: the beginnings of this whole tangled web had been so close to me, and I was blissfully ignorant of all of it. I didn’t mention it to Elina.

  I thanked her and embraced her longer than I meant to, pulling away when I realized what I was doing.

  14

  The incipient clarity of the morning had grown damp while I was indoors, with intermittent wind and clouds covering a sky that promised rain and darkened the world in the meantime.

  I knew why I had held on to Elina for so long. I missed Johanna physically, too: her dense warmth, her distinct wool and honey scent, the feel of her small frame beside me, close to me, the way her hand fit into mine. We were affectionate with each other, all the time. That’s why missing her came so quickly, so deeply, so sharply. I looked up, sighed, pushed all my thoughts of Johanna to the back of my mind, and let only one thought come front and center: I’ll find you.

  I walked toward Museokatu, intending to visit that same tavern. I didn’t know if it would be open, but I remembered that it used to be even in the mornings. Thirsty artists and those who thought they were artists used to gather there to level out the holes and hummocks left by the night.

  I descended the stone stairs from Temppelikatu to Oksasenkatu. I couldn’t begin to count the times I’d walked down those stairs before. When I got to the bottom I looked behind me at the sturdy stones, the bolted steel door of the weightlifters’ gym halfway up, the large moss-covered rocks resting against the railing.

  I stopped at the corner of Tunturikatu. Farther down the street was the flea market. The entire space was filled with stuff. Some of it had even been carried out to the sidewalk. It was difficult to imagine why anyone would go there. What would they have bought? Clothes, which everyone had too much of already? Dishes, when there wasn’t enough food? Electronics that gave only a moment’s pleasure even when they were new? Books and records that no one had any time to read or listen to anymore?

  A sculpture of two bears facing each other watched over the intersection of Museokatu and Oksasenkatu. Two teddy bears, really—they were so small. Their handsome gray coats of stone were covered in a green fuzz of mold.

  The tavern door was open. I could hear music coming from inside. I walked up the steps, smelling the same mixture of sweat and urine that I remembered, now masked by the smell of disinfectant. Nobody was behind the bar. Some customers sat at a few tables on the left side of the room, each one alone, fiddling with their phones or staring into space.

  I stood there, wondering how to proceed if I encountered the bartender with the ponytail. I waited a couple of minutes. The door to the back room opened, and a moment later a heavyset bodybuilding type came out with a clinking brown cardboard box in his arms. He put the box down on the counter and looked at me questioningly.

  I ordered coffee.

  He turned without nodding or saying a word, took a cup down from the upper shelf, and filled it from the coffeepot, which looked like it had been sitting there since the place opened. Or since it closed. He plunked the mug on the bar in front of me and stood waiting. He was young, maybe twenty, and seemed composed entirely of large individual and incompatible masses of muscle. His blue eyes were squeezed between his brow ridge and his cheekbones, and you could see the squeeze in his gaze.

  “Are you gonna pay?” he said.

  “How much would I pay if I did pay?” I answered.

  He turned around slowly and pointed at the menu on the wall in a pose that gave me a good look at his arm.

  “It starts with a K. Then an A. Then H and V, and one little I. That spells KAHVI. And that number after it tells you how much it costs.”

  I dug a coin out of my pocket and tossed it on the counter. He didn’t put it in the cash register, but instead dropped it into the glass mug next to it. Then he started taking bottles out of the cardboard box. After a while he noticed me watching him. He straightened up and turned toward me.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You forgot to ask for milk.”

  The air conditioner hummed. I didn’t say anything.

  “Sugar?”

  He sighed and put his hands on his hips.

  “So you’re just a mad starer, are you?” he said. “OK. Drink your coffee and get outta here.”

  “I’m not a mad starer. But I’d be happy to drink my coffee and get out of here if you’ll tell me where I can find the bartender who was working here last night. Big guy with a ponytail. Is he working today?”

  He took his hands off his hips and folded his arms across his chest, screwed up his lips, and looked at me like I was cluttering up his decor.

  “I think you better finish your coffee—”

  “And get outta here. I understand. Is he coming in to work today? Or do you have the guy’s phone number?”

  “What do you want with his phone number?”

  I looked at him for a moment.

  “I thought I might call him,” I offered.

  “Why?”

  “Why do people usually call each other? Maybe I’m a friend of his who lost his number.”

  “You don’t look like a friend of his.”

  I looked at him again.

  “What do you think a friend looks like?” I asked. “Do his friends look different than friends usually do? How can you tell if somebody’s a friend of his?”

  His eyebrows and cheekbones seemed to be squeezing his eyes right out of his head now.

  “What kinda clown are you?”

  “I’m not a clown.”

  “You are a clown ’cause I said you’re a clown.”

  I took a breath. My body ached with exhaustion and frustration. I realized that there was no point in bantering with him—it would only make my task harder if I got into an argument—but I couldn’t stop myself.

  “That’s not how it works,” I said. “Things aren’t what you say they are just because you say it. Some small children believe that, but you’re an adult—or you look like one, anyway.”

  “Are you trying to fuck with me?”

  “No, I’m just looking for the bartender that was here yesterday, the guy with the ponytail.”

  He took a couple of steps toward me, leaving just the half-meter-wide glass-covered counter between us. I glanced to my left, toward the barroom. The music apparently blotted out our little exchange because the eyes of the clientele stayed glued to their telephones, the tabletops, and the empty air.

  “Get lost,” he said.

  “Or else what?” I asked, suddenly completely tired of the conversation and every other difficulty I was encountering. “What’s the guy’s name?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “OK. And where does this Go Fuck Yourself live?”

  “Up your ass.”

  “You must’ve skipped biology. Along with all your other classes, I’ll bet. What classes did you go to?”

  “The classes on how to cut morons like you to pieces.”

  “Oh, do they still teach that? I was under the impression that they’d practically discontinued that kind of instruction. It’s good to hear that children are still being properly educated.”

  He leaned over the counter and raised his hand. A retractable baton clicked out to its full length. I backed away. Thrown out of the same bar for the second time in twenty-four hours, I backed up all the way to the door and stopped.

  “Tell him hello from me,” I said.

  He came around the bar after me. I was already in the street and walked quickly toward the center of town, satisfied with my visit. It was a sure thing that word would get around and eventually reach the right ears. If I couldn’t find Tarkiainen, I’d let him find me.

  15

  The mouse-gray, drizzly day was half over when I stepped off a tram full of damp clothes, violent coughs, and worr
ied looks at the stop in front of Stockmann department store. Downtown Helsinki was doing its best to remind us that tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Here and there a lone string of Christmas lights twinkled desperately, looking in their feeble glimmer like they missed not just their finer days but also their lost comrades.

  A few drops of rain fell on my face, all the colder for their paucity. I wiped them away, slipped into the flow of people, and didn’t notice until I was halfway across the street that I was walking into the middle of traffic. I heard a choir singing “Silent Night” from somewhere up ahead.

  There was a large decorated spruce tree at Three Smiths Square. Its red and yellow lights glowed in the drizzle like thousands of little traffic signals escaped from their poles. Next to the tree an armored police car was parked. There were a lot of police on foot, too, as well as private security guards. The security guards walked in pairs wearing black or gray coveralls, a few of them crossing in front of traffic, and as many on the sidewalks as there were Christmas shoppers. I counted six security guards under the clock in front of the entrance to Stockmann. And there were more inside the store, of course, in plain clothes.

  Charities collecting donations lined the square. Everybody could use some cash. The recipients were mostly people in Finland and nearby countries: schools, hospitals, children’s services. The Salvation Army’s traditional kettle stood in the middle of the square. A Salvation Army choir stood around it—four women and three men singing “Silent Night.”

  I dug a bill out of my pocket and dropped it in the kettle. I thought about how I was eating up our savings—the money I’d spent over the past day and a half was more than I’d spent in the previous six months put together. The savings were supposed to be for emergencies. If Johanna’s disappearance wasn’t an emergency, then what would be? I dropped another few coins into the pot and continued east on Aleksanterinkatu.

  I passed windows that promised discounts of up to 95 percent. The jewelry stores were advertising brand-name watches at prices that would have caused a stampede a year earlier, but now the gold and platinum timepieces sat in their glass cases measuring a time that no longer existed.

  The fast food places had all closed. The shoe stores and clothing stores were toughing it out with the help of Christmas shoppers. The tavern on the corner of Mikonkatu and Aleksanterinkatu had a sign advertising cheap beer and lunch, with lunch crossed out.

  I turned left on Mikonkatu, continued right on Yliopistonkatu, and found myself in the middle of a fight.

  The large, broad-shouldered, bald man who looked like a native Finn was wearing a short leather jacket. He seemed an overwhelming opponent for the other man, a slim young Asian in a hooded sweatshirt who was little more than a boy. The bald man was trying to get the younger one in front of his hefty fists, and the young one was dodging them nimbly. After evading a few right jabs, he let his left foot do the talking.

  The kick surprised everyone, but especially the bald fellow. The thump and the crunch of the bone in his nose could be heard from meters away. He staggered and tried one last punch, throwing all his weight behind it. The young man dodged him again and answered with a high, quick right-legged kick that struck the bald one somewhere in the vicinity of his ear and looked and sounded like it hurt.

  The older man’s arms dropped to his sides, and the young man moved in front of him. He busted the older man’s lip with two swift smacks, like opening a packet of ketchup, and ended with three blows to his chin, which seemed to give way under the lightning-quick punches.

  The man fell to the ground, first onto his ass, where he sat with empty eyes and a bloody face, then onto his side on the asphalt as if lying down in bed for a nap. The younger man turned and walked to where a friend was standing, took his coat from him, and looked back. There was no triumph on his face, or any feeling at all. The whole episode had lasted less than thirty seconds. The two men walked off toward the railway station.

  I continued on to the university. The small plaza in front of Porthania Hall was silent and deserted, which wasn’t surprising considering it was Christmas Eve and drizzling. The revolving door was still revolving, however, and I went inside.

  I had called Laura, who had, of course, been surprised that I got in touch with her. Under the polite distance in her voice there had been a touch of alarm, perhaps even fear. I didn’t talk for long. As soon as she said that she was at her office at the university, and that there was a porter and a few professors working in spite of the holidays, for the physical and spiritual support of the students and for sheer scholarly tenaciousness, I said I wanted to come see her. All right, she said, after a moment’s silence.

  Laura Vuola, the love of my life—twenty years ago.

  I remembered clearly the first time we met, at the political science department Christmas party, on the fifth floor of the New Student House, Laura in her long-necked, wine-red sweater and dark lipstick, my amazement and triumph when she agreed to leave with me, the walk through downtown in the snow to her apartment—Laivurinkatu 37.

  And I remembered the times I walked back to my place in Töölö after one of our arguments, the desolate, black winter wind tearing through the city. Laura had seen the truth quickly: I wasn’t ambitious, determined, or career oriented at all. If someone had told me that opposites attract, I would have told them the story of Laura and me.

  I walked through the metal detector in the lobby, taking off my belt and shoes, like I did nearly everywhere I went, it seemed. A red-eyed woman handed them back to me and flicked her bleached hair away from her face without saying a word, then sat down in her chair and went back to playing a first-person shooter on her phone.

  I climbed the spiral staircase past the cafeteria where, in another life long ago, I used to sit and talk, sometimes for hours, over a single cup of coffee.

  The glass doors on the third floor were locked. There was a buzzer on the wall with a sign over it that said JUST PRESS IT ONCE—WE CAN HEAR YOU. I pressed the button once and hoped I would be heard.

  16

  Sometimes you do remember correctly.

  Laura’s hair was still long, dark, and slightly curly, parted evenly in the middle and combed to either side of her fair, almost pale face. Her high cheekbones and slightly fuller than ordinary lips gave her face a sort of Mediterranean look, as did her brown eyes and long dark eyelashes.

  Laura still seemed to be a proud riddle. I remembered very well how I used to want to solve that riddle.

  “I don’t need to tell you that this is quite a surprise.”

  Her voice was still low, echoing through the quiet stairwell.

  “I’m not really sure what you need to tell me.”

  “Should we start arguing right here at the door, or would you like to come in first?”

  I had to smile.

  “I didn’t come to argue,” I said. “Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”

  Now Laura smiled. Her smile was wary, probing.

  “Anyway, nice to see you.”

  She showed me in and made sure the door was locked behind me.

  She was dressed in the same timeless way that she used to be: an elegant gray sweater with a copious collar whose numerous folds hung in layers down her front, a long tweed skirt, and light brown high-heeled leather boots, which made her taller than I was.

  She had an office at the end of the hall, its walls lined with shelves full of books, journals, and stacks of paper. There was a narrow window on one side that showed a slice of the wall of the building opposite. It was hard to believe that even an ambitious professor of literature could get anything out of a view like that.

  Laura sat at her desk, her chair yielding to her as if taking her in its arms. I backed into the other seat in the office, an upholstered sofa that was the shortest I’d ever seen. Although we were as far away from each other as the office space allowed, the distance between us was a meter and a half, at most. She looked at me, her brown eyes open and curious.

  “You’re a poe
t now.”

  I didn’t answer right away. I looked at her and remembered how easy it was to just sit and stare at her, waiting for her to reveal the smallest opening into her secrets. Maybe there never were any secrets, except in my imagination.

  “And you’re a literature professor. Just as you should be. You were always a wee bit more ambitious than I was.”

  “You haven’t lost your sarcasm,” Laura said.

  There didn’t seem to be any help for it. Her quick answers still left me at a loss. And there was something else. Looking at my long-lost love, I understood how much I yearned for my present one.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I meant that I’m happy for you. Honest.”

  “Thanks.”

  She looked away.

  “The youngest professor of literature they’ve ever had,” she said. “And a woman. It wasn’t easy.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t,” I said.

  “You’ve got to have strong elbows,” she said. “But I’m sure you remember that. Strong, sharp elbows. Literally.”

  I showed with my smile that I did remember, not letting my face show even a trace of how painfully. I had already noticed the diamond ring on her left hand. I nodded toward it.

  “You’re married.”

  She didn’t look at the ring.

  “Samuli died a year ago. Tuberculosis.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We have a son, Otto. He’s thirteen.”

  “That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

  Were all meetings after a break of twenty years this tense, this full of traps and land mines? Laura looked at me again.

  “So you really became a poet,” she said.

  “After some setbacks.”

  “Unfortunately, I haven’t…”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Neither has anyone else. They only came out with a couple hundred copies. The kinds of books that have a small audience. And it was before all this.”