Dark As My Heart

by Antti Tuomainen

  After I finished high school and got out of the army I moved into the city, to the bustle of Sörnäinen. At first I tried to study something, but since I wasn’t able to find anything that interested me, I apprenticed to a carpenter. From Sörnäinen I moved to Meilahti, then Alppila. I’d left my second place in Alppila to come here, and as I’d closed the door to my studio apartment for the last time, I had decided that a period of my life was coming to an end, one way or another.

  But leaving Helsinki hadn’t been the clear, clean break I’d once thought it would be. Love had made my departure difficult and messy. I carried Miia with me, as present as she had been at our last meeting, our last parting.

  How could I have done it better? How could I have broken only my own heart?

  Expressions of bewilderment and anger took turns on her face.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘I find it hard to understand myself …’

  ‘That’s not what I meant, you conceited, self-centred blockhead. I understand very well what you’re doing. You’re leaving me. That’s perfectly clear. What I don’t understand is why you led me to think that I was the most important thing that had ever happened to you.’

  ‘You are,’ I said. ‘You’re the most important pers—’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said quietly. Her voice was as soft as the day outside the window. The sun was shining warm and butter yellow high over the hill at Torkkelinmäki. In the park outside Miia’s window I could see groups of drunks, people walking their dogs, lazing through the summer. They seemed to have a lot of time. ‘Shut up, Aleksi,’ she said.

  The woman sitting at the table was so lovely that my heart could have broken just at the sight of her. Miia Niemelä, primary school teacher, height 159 centimetres, slightly broad hips, a round face, a laughing mouth, quick with a quip. Not a fashion model or a beauty queen, but so charming that in my eyes she was the most beautiful woman in the city. She was also the best thing that had happened to me in twenty years. But I had my past and I had my future, and one was just as hard to explain as the other.

  I simply didn’t know how to tell her how it feels to lose your mother at the age of thirteen. I didn’t know how to describe how it felt to carry something like that with you for twenty years, the kinds of thoughts it makes you think, the way it affects everything. And I couldn’t tell her what I was planning to do about it. I couldn’t tell her about signing on at Kalmela Manor, and I couldn’t tell her about Henrik Saarinen. I didn’t know how.

  ‘Is this just what you do?’ Miia asked. Her brown eyes shone, her bare, delicate shoulders glowed tan on either side of her sleeveless shirt. ‘You tell women they’re important when they aren’t? I can’t believe I’ve been so naive. I’ve seen everything. I’m thirty-two years old. This isn’t my first time around the block. I can’t believe it but somehow, I don’t know why, I trusted you.’

  I had meant everything I’d said – that she was the best thing that had ever happened to me, the first person who ever made me believe in myself and believe in someone else, believe that life with a woman could be more than just a fight, more than just a combination of sex and power games, that even I had a chance at something better.

  ‘I’ve been honest with you,’ I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘Honest?’ she said, looking at me. ‘What do you know about honesty?’

  Quite a lot, I thought. At least I knew that the greatest honesty doesn’t always mean revealing your every darkest thought.

  ‘Miia …’

  ‘Forget it. I saw a different kind of man in you. A different kind of person. That’s all.’

  I wanted to say that what she saw was true. That I was that kind of man. That I could be.

  Miia’s apartment was a studio – one bright, high-ceilinged room and a microscopic bathroom. There was little furniture but all of it was well-chosen and beautiful. A dark brown antique peasant cabinet stood solid beside me as I tried to find a place to put my feet. I couldn’t find one. I leaned against the wall. Finding the right words was just as difficult. I’d never been in this situation before. How could I have been? To love and leave at the same time? My mother was the only person I’d ever loved, and she was taken away from me. After that I’d done nothing but lust, hate, and fight. And leave. I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to do it.

  ‘Get it over with. Tell me what all this is about. Let me know what to be angry about. Tell me you have another woman, or you’ve realised you like men, or you’re a secret agent – anything.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. No other woman, nothing.’

  ‘How long have we been going out?’

  ‘Six months and eleven days,’ I said.

  Miia looked at me, her eyes filled with such a searching fury that it spilled out of the corners of her eyes and down her sun-browned cheeks, cheeks that I loved to smell and touch.

  ‘Why do you say it like that,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You can tell me down to the day how long we’ve been together, but you’re breaking up with me. Do you realise how crazy that sounds? How crazy it makes me feel?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Then you say you’re sorry. I’m sorry, Miia, you’re the best thing ever, but I have to leave. Jesus.’

  The day was positively glowing outside, the sky blue from one end to the other, smooth as the cover of a book. Young men were lying in the park with their shirts off. The thought of cool grass on my back felt enticing, and utterly foreign.

  ‘Why do you have to do this,’ Miia suddenly asked, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. I could see a tear clinging to her cheek. I was surprised by her question. Surprised that I’d said something that gave her that idea.

  ‘Well, I …’

  I couldn’t tell her that I had to move to Kalmela within the next two weeks, that I had to do it because I planned to find out what Henrik Saarinen had done to my mother, that I had to because if I didn’t, I’d never stop thinking about it.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just have to.’

  ‘If it’s not another woman and it’s not that you’re some weirdo and you’re not in the service of a foreign power, then it must be about you. And I thought I’d got to know you. I realise now that the only you I’ve got to know is how you are now, today. Do you understand what I’m talking about?’

  Of course I did. I had purposely avoided, dodged and ducked any discussion of my past, especially my family. In other words, my mother. The official version – the one I’d told Miia – was that my mother was dead. That was true. And what I’d told her about my father was also true, of course – that I didn’t really know anything about him.

  ‘But your face doesn’t lie,’ Miia said.

  I loved her for this, too. Her ability to see what I really was, who I was.

  ‘Miia,’ I said.

  She didn’t look at me.

  ‘Leave.’

  And that had been it – the last word that Miia had ever spoken to me.

  I went down the stairs and headed for the sauna. I’d been given the use of the all-terrain quad bike and trailer, too, but I’d only needed it one time. If I didn’t have anything heavy to carry, like my tools or building supplies, I preferred to walk. I always had. Walking was best in every way. You never got anywhere too soon. Your thoughts straightened out; things fell into proportion. The restlessness left your body, the dead ends left your mind. You got where you were going step by step, both in the world and inside yourself.

  The narrow gravel path wound around the manor house and sloped down to the left side of the lawn. From there it continued almost straight down to the beach. On the shore you turned left, walked a couple of dozen steps, and came to what they called the main sauna. The log building covered in board cladding was built long before present building codes and stood as close to the water as was physically possible. If you’d wanted it any closer you would have had to build i
t in the Venetian style. It did, in fact, have pilings in the water. A terrace for small parties was built over the sea at the front of the building. The sauna was the size of a small, one-storey house, pale yellow like the manor, with a black roof and a chimney as big as a factory’s.

  I inspected the washrooms, both dressing rooms, and the large hearth room. The high windows looked out over the water. The sea and sky were full of colours and hypnotic movement. Pale rifts moved through the mass of clouds, flowing across the sky like rivers, meandering, dotted with rapids. The sea looked almost black one moment, and shone an unreal blue the next. It changed its spots like a living creature, moving first left, then right.

  I went over the terrace as carefully as I had the sauna house.

  This was the main part of my job. Making sure that the place was kept in good condition, making necessary repairs. For larger jobs I paid someone who specialised in whatever needed to be done, and the estate had a cleaning service. All that was left that I had time for, I took care of myself, and I was happy to do it. I needed more time, and I could have it if I did my job well.

  The water lapped against the stones on the shore as I walked the short way from the terrace to the boat dock. There were two boats tied to it.

  The larger one was white and surprisingly tall, all of its windows dark. On the other side of the dock was an aluminium skiff with a large outboard motor. I walked past it to the end of the dock. When I moved the couple of dozen metres away from the shore the wind greeted me with a stiff slap.

  There was a swimmer’s ladder leading up from the cold water. The dock swayed. I turned back towards the shore, my back to the open sea. The manor stood on its hill under the sky like something in a picture. I let my gaze slide along the shoreline metre by metre. A broken, rocky shore, and beyond that dense forest.

  Soon I saw movement among the maple trees and recognised her hair. I stood at the tip of the dock, letting the wind push against my back. The quad bike pulled up at the other end; the motor stopped. I could hear steps on the dock and feel them through the soles of my feet.

  Amanda Saarinen had changed clothes. She’d returned from wherever it was she had gone, and she’d done it quickly. She was wearing coveralls and carrying a rod and reel and a tackle box. I didn’t know which was more out of place, Amanda in her fishing outfit or me, a stranger here. She must have noticed my expression, because she said, ‘Don’t look so surprised. I fish. Do you?’

  ‘No,’ I said quietly, trying to get my mind around the idea of a fishing heiress.

  ‘Do you hunt?’

  ‘No,’ I said again, and imagined Amanda with a rifle in her hand. The image it conjured up seemed surprisingly natural.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve never felt the need.’

  ‘Have you ever tried it?’

  ‘No.’

  Where would I have bagged an elk or angled for trout? In Sörnäinen? I didn’t tell Amanda that not everyone is born with a five-hundred-euro fishing rod in his hand and his own waterfront property, or a thousand-euro suede boot to put on the Range Rover’s accelerator.

  Her eyes flashed. Her hair was so thick that the wind couldn’t lift it all at once.

  ‘It’s getting windy, but tomorrow it should be sunny,’ she said, more to herself than to me.

  ‘I hope so.’

  We stood on the dock a couple of metres apart. Amanda was a slim, delicate woman. Her nose was sharp, her chin slightly wide. There were faint lines around her eyes. She looked past me, out to sea. I was pondering how to get away as quickly and politely as possible when she said, ‘Will you help me?’

  She pointed at the boat. I stood next to her, leaned over, took hold of the rope and pulled. When the bow was almost touching the dock she stepped into the boat with her rod and tackle box, in one smooth, unbroken motion. Her soft, silent movements made an impression, whether I wanted them to or not. There were a lot of things about Amanda that impressed me. Like the way she effortlessly maintained her balance. She put down the box and rod, glanced at the motor, and put a key in the ignition. I stood staring at her.

  ‘When it’s your own boat, you know where everything is,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  ‘I forgot something. Could you pull the boat in?’

  She stepped onto the dock with the same smooth combination of movements and started digging in her pockets.

  ‘I wonder if it’s in there,’ she said, nodding towards the larger, white boat.

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘A knife. It’s not in my box for some reason.’

  ‘You need it for fishing?’

  ‘On the sea … You need all kinds of things on the sea.’

  ‘There’s a basic set of tools in the quad bike. There’s probably a knife in there.’

  I walked to the four-wheeler and took the toolbox out of the trailer. There was a small collection of tools inside, including a yellow-handled knife in a black plastic sheath. I carried it to Amanda, who was watching the water again.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem. Remember to return it.’

  I didn’t mean it as a joke, but a little smile came to Amanda’s lips as she slipped the knife into the breast pocket of her coveralls.

  ‘What about a life jacket?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you worried?’

  I looked her in the eye. I thought about why I was here, what was most important. I didn’t want to think about Amanda, her life, or her seafaring habits. I’d already let the conversation go too far.

  ‘It probably won’t turn stormy,’ I said. ‘Just a bit of wind.’

  Amanda didn’t say anything. She looked at the open water again for a moment, tugged on the zipper of her coveralls, although they were already zipped up, and jumped into the boat. I took a deep breath of the salty air and thought that this strange encounter, the second one today, was over. Just then she turned. There was a break in the clouds, the sun’s rays pierced the world, a gust of wind took hold of her hair and the strong light reflected in her eyes in a way that seemed to dazzle me more than it did her.

  She started the motor and loosened the rope. The boat moved away from the dock, backed up, and swung out towards the empty crest of the sea as the sun disappeared behind the clouds again.

  AUGUST 1993

  MUM …

  The room is dark as if it, too, had covered itself in a blanket. I hear my mother breathing at the end of the sofa. The living room is small and long, the sofa against the wall facing the kitchen.

  Don’t turn the light on, she says.

  Why? I ask.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I know the way to the sofa. First my bare feet find the edge of the shag rug. Two or three careful soft steps over the carpet, then my shins touch the thick edge of the table, from there my left hand follows the table to the sofa and I make a little turn and sit down. My mother’s sitting at the other end.

  You should be asleep, she says.

  I woke up.

  I can see that.

  Is it late?

  It’s very late. Too late.

  Was the party nice?

  Yes.

  Then why are you sitting in the dark?

  Because the party was so nice.

  I don’t understand what she means. I can smell that she’s been drinking alcohol.

  Why don’t you want the lights on? I ask.

  I want to sit and think for a minute. Undisturbed.

  Are you tired?

  I’m sure I am, a little.

  Shouldn’t you go to sleep, then?

  I should. And you especially should, my little sweetheart.

  I’m not little any more.

  But you’re still a sweetheart.

  We sit quietly for a moment. The building changes at night into a living creature. It breathes, drinks, gurgles, pees, clatters, moves through the night as if through outer space, flying, weightless.

  What was so nice about the par
ty? I ask.

  People, she says. A person.

  A certain person?

  Yes.

  What kind of person?

  A nice person.

  What’s this nice person like?

  You ask an awful lot of questions. You should stop asking and start sleeping.

  I’m awake.

  The kind of nice person I haven’t met in a long time.

  Who is it?

  Let’s talk about it some other time.

  What’s nice about him?

  She doesn’t say anything.

  Don’t you plan to go to sleep at all?

  In a minute.

  Should I bring you a blanket?

  No. I’m going to sit for a while, then I’ll go to bed.

  Promise?

  I promise.

  I have a match tomorrow.

  I know.

  Are you going to come and watch it?

  Of course.

  But you’ll be tired if you stay up.

  This is the kind of staying up that doesn’t make you tired.

  How can you stay up and not be tired?

  You can when you’re happy.

  I thought you were happy before you went to the party.

  I was. And now I’m even happier.

  Oh. Because of this nice person?

  You guessed it, Sherlock. I love you. Now go to bed.

  I will if you will.

  All right.

  She gets up from the sofa, and so do I.

  I go to my bed and get under the blanket. Before I fall asleep I hear her in the bathroom. She’s humming. Almost silently. But in the quiet, in the building drifting weightless through the night, I recognise the song.

  Don’t you forget about me.

  SEPTEMBER 2013

  THE RAIN STARTED as I was warming the sauna. At first it fell from the sky in large drops, as if someone were tossing them onto the earth one at a time. I’d filled the firebox with thin sticks of birch, piling them in crossed rows with pieces of newspaper in between, and managed to light it with one match. The firebox hummed with hungry flames as I closed the steam-room door behind me.

  From the sauna porch I could see heavy drops falling on the water like little stones. Their number quickly grew and soon the water was like the surface of the moon, rough and black as space.