Dark As My Heart

by Antti Tuomainen

  ‘Hey!’

  The shout came out of my mouth before I could think it through.

  Harmala stopped and turned. I stepped onto the street. Amanda said something, but Harmala wasn’t interested in her any more. His eyes were fixed on me. I stopped a few metres from the two of them. Harmala’s eyes were impassive.

  ‘The caretaker,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to pick up those brass fittings.’

  From close up, Amanda looked as if she had been enjoying herself. Not drunk, but not sober either.

  ‘Brass fittings,’ Harmala said. ‘What brass fittings?’

  ‘It’s no big deal. I can get them any time,’ I said. I nodded to Amanda. ‘Everything all right?’

  Harmala wasn’t falling for my ruse. His eyes didn’t let go of me.

  ‘I asked you what you’re doing here.’

  Amanda looked at me. She may have been smiling a little.

  ‘Aleksi.’

  ‘Hi, Amanda,’ I said.

  ‘This is quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’ Harmala said. His voice was more insistent this time, hoarse and breathless.

  ‘Anything I can help with?’ I asked.

  Harmala and I stared at each other for a moment. I counted the seconds. If I kept it up he would have only one option – to accept my explanation. Whether he believed my story or not was another matter. I smelled alcohol and perfume in the cold night air. Both coming from Amanda, I would guess.

  ‘Sure,’ Harmala said finally, taking a step backwards. ‘You might drive this lady home.’

  Amanda smiled. Harmala smiled, too, but it was a fake smile. His voice had the same friendly veneer as when we’d met earlier.

  ‘As you can see, Amanda’s had a few today. And yesterday. And the day before.’

  I looked at her. She didn’t seem nearly as drunk as his words would indicate.

  ‘Shall we go, Amanda?’ I said.

  She looked at me, then at Harmala, but she didn’t say anything. Harmala was still smiling his joyless smile.

  ‘Thanks again for an unforgettable evening, Amanda. Your father must be pleased. This is just the kind of evening and the kind of company he craves.’

  ‘May I have the car keys?’ I asked Harmala.

  He gave me a questioning look.

  ‘The car keys in your pocket,’ I said, ‘that you took out of Amanda’s bag.’

  The smile disappeared from his face. I realised that I had misinterpreted the scene I’d just witnessed. Harmala hadn’t come out to the street to prevent Amanda from driving drunk. He’d done it for some other reason. But what?

  ‘The keys are in her bag,’ Harmala said. ‘If the lady wants to drive, it’s up to her. It’s none of my business. Here.’

  What is your business? I wondered. What’s in her bag that is your business?

  I took the bag from him, zipped it open, and found the keys. I beeped the doors open. Harmala had his smile back.

  ‘I’ll have to mention this to Henrik,’ he said as I took Amanda’s arm and pulled her around to the other side of the car. ‘Tell him we finally have a caretaker who’s a real self-starter. A guy who’s on the spot without even being asked.’

  I opened the passenger door and helped Amanda inside. She smiled. She was clearly enjoying the situation. I went to the driver’s side and stopped in front of Harmala. I stared into his dead eyes. I didn’t intend to let him spoil something that had taken me years to build. Our faces were half a metre apart. I spoke quietly.

  ‘You’re not going to say anything to anybody. You don’t want me to tell Henrik that there’s something between you and his daughter that has you running after her and taking things out of her bag, for safe keeping. Do you want to show me what you took out of it a minute ago?’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut,’ I said calmly. ‘I’m driving Amanda home. That’s all.’

  He raised his chin and lowered his eyelids. The intended effect was apparently to seem to be looking down on me. We stared at each other. Then we heard approaching footsteps and cheerful conversation. Harmala smiled that same smile that was no deeper than the surface.

  ‘Good night to both of you,’ he said, and left without waiting for an answer.

  Before the two men and two women approaching had reached us I turned the key in the ignition and drove away. I cursed myself. I’d wanted to be a hero, to stop a man from striking a woman, and what had I really done? I may have put everything in danger. And I’d strutted and threatened while I was at it. It was as if my former self had suddenly come back to life. Why had I got between the two of them and forgotten why I was there in the first place? But I knew the answer to that – she was sitting in the car beside me.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of Harmala’s white shirt. It didn’t look at all fancy any more.

  The slam of the car door boomed over the cobblestone surface of Liisankatu. The sound bounced from wall to wall until it faded into the dark sky and the street had an unreal look in the light of the streetlamps, as if every stone were a different height and shape from every other. I stood on the pavement for a moment. I knew where Amanda lived. She’d told me. At the time, just a few nights ago, I hadn’t thought that I’d soon have a use for the information. We hadn’t talked in the car. Amanda had remained facing forward. The outline of her face and body had made me feel both heroic and extremely stupid.

  I went around and opened the passenger door and held out her keys. She made no move to take them.

  ‘You’re not going to leave me in the street, are you?’ she said.

  There was no elevator. The sturdy stone steps of the old jugendstijl apartment house were low and wide, the kind that are as difficult as possible to climb. You don’t know whether to take little steps or stretch out your stride to two at a time. I followed Amanda. I could smell her perfume, see the shape of her, the movements of her legs and ass under her thin dress.

  On the third floor she opened a door and looked me in the eye.

  ‘Now that you’ve rescued me, what do you want to do?’

  I walked inside and switched on the light. Amanda followed. I heard the door close.

  ‘I’m going in here,’ she said, stepping into a bathroom off the hallway. The stylish old white-painted wooden door closed silently.

  I looked around.

  There was a tall mirror in a brown wooden frame on one wall of the hall and a coat rack covered in clothes on the other. A shoe rack with about twenty pairs of shoes.

  The living room was rectangular with three windows facing the street on one long wall. The original wood floor was beautifully finished and in excellent condition. To the right was a wide entrance to a bedroom and next to it a pale green ceramic stove. In the middle of the room was a steel table with a glass top, behind it a sleek, soft, white sofa flanked by two matching armchairs.

  The other furniture – a steel floor lamp arching like a tsunami from behind the sofa, a dark, straight line of shelf for the designer Danish television, the vases on the windowsill, the square, black dish in the centre of the sofa table – all looked carefully considered. And of course stylish, expensive, and joyless. There was a kitchen and a small office to the left.

  The Italian kitchen was gleaming and hygienic. I turned on the tap, which was of a presumably carefully chosen minim-alist design. I got a glass from the cupboard and filled it. The kitchen was the size of my apartment. In the middle of the room was a long, black dining table like a fresh asphalt road. Around it were eight steel-legged chairs with black backs like giant flyswatters. The two lamps with metal hoods that hung over the table felt too bright. I turned them off. My eyes adjusted to the dark quickly, the meagre glimmer from the window on the far wall was enough to keep me from running into anything.

  The window faced the building courtyard below. There was a light shining in the middle of it. It cast a hazy, feverish glow that was reflected yel
low from the still-leafy shrubs and the red paving stones. I drank the water and knew I was in the wrong place, but sometimes, I told myself, you have to be in the wrong place in order to find the right one. I don’t know if I believed myself.

  ‘Just water?’

  I turned.

  Amanda was standing in the doorway with her right hand behind her back and her left hand rubbing her hair, then her nose.

  ‘Nothing stronger?’

  I shook my head. She pulled her hand from behind her back and stuffed something into her jeans pocket.

  Neither of us said anything more. We were kissing. I took her completely into my arms, put my palms under her ass, and lifted her onto the edge of the table. I tore off her shirt, kissed her neck, tasted her skin. She pushed her chest against my face. I kissed her round breasts and then her hot, wet lips again. I took off my own shirt. I carried her to the bedroom, put her down on the bed, and pulled her jeans off. I left them where they fell, pushed her further onto the bed, and tugged off her black knickers. She spread her legs and pushed herself against my mouth. I licked for a moment, then rose and lowered myself onto her. We bit each other’s lips. I looked into her eyes and saw a complete stranger. Our hips pounded together. The sweat was pouring off us. All the fury, fear, and jealousy I felt was in every thrust. Amanda scratched my back, my shoulders, panting. When I came, I heard her say something, but I couldn’t hear what it was.

  I lay on the bed. I heard the sound of the shower, stared at the ceiling. The sweat dried, leaving my skin leathery. The thought of the taste of her, how she felt under me, slippery and tight, made something in my lower abdomen tremble and my mouth turn dry. So fast, I thought. When I’d made love with Miia I’d been satisfied, calmed, for hours afterwards. Now the same restlessness that had made me clutch at Amanda, tear her clothes off and dive on top of her had immediately returned.

  The bathroom door opened and Amanda came back into the room and stood naked at the end of the bed. She rubbed her nose, pulling the air into her nostrils like a boxer. It was hard to look at her without feeling an animal lust and a desire to possess her. Both feelings were the very thing that had always got me into difficulties.

  ‘Caretaker,’ Amanda said, smiling as if she’d won something, ‘you seem to know what you want.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘I think that’s a good sign.’

  She lowered her knees to the bed and climbed over me on all fours. Up close, her eyes were shiny and hard and her gaze sharp. The inside of her thigh was soft against my leg.

  ‘But you know what?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to go to sleep.’

  Her tone told me what she meant.

  ‘I’ll take a shower and go,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve got potential,’ she said, pressing her lips against mine and kissing long and hot. Then she got up without looking at me, put on her robe, and went into the kitchen.

  The neighbourhood was quiet and empty when I left on foot towards Saarinen’s apartment in Eira, and my car. I walked across Senate Square, so deserted I could hear my own footsteps, the cathedral glowing white against the black night sky.

  SEPTEMBER 2013

  A FEW HOURS later an early Friday morning was dawning with its cloudless sky over the elegance of Eira when I saw Markus Harmala drive a black Lexus out from under a building onto the street. I’d been sitting in my Volvo a hundred metres away from the door to Saarinen’s city apartment, trying to tame my thoughts.

  Harmala was alone in the car. He looked both ways and put on his indicator. The car was turning in my direction. I lay down on my side and waited for him to pass. I sat up and looked in my wing mirror. The Lexus’s indicator was still blinking. He was turning right.

  I started the car, pressed in the clutch, and made a quick U-turn. I caught sight of the Lexus climbing Korkeavuorenkatu towards downtown, but kept my distance.

  The Lexus crested the hill, then rolled sedately to the intersection at Esplanadi Park. Harmala slowed his speed and stopped the car halfway to the pedestrian crossing, then turned on his hazard lights and opened the driver’s door. I turned right and went back up the hill and around the block, and parked as close as I could on the adjoining street. I couldn’t see the Lexus, but I assumed it was still parked in the same spot. I waited. Then I felt a twinge of doubt.

  I got out of the car, walked to the end of the block, and peered around the corner. Yes, the Lexus was still there, its hazards still blinking, but Harmala was standing in the street smoking a cigarette, looking as if he was waiting for someone. I went back to my car. The stone building where the Lexus was parked was where Henrik Saarinen kept a second-floor office.

  I felt the sleepless night through my whole body. My legs ached, my eyes stung. I took hold of the steering wheel and squeezed. I had to be careful not to lean back against the seat. That would have made me fall asleep.

  Finally the Lexus slipped past in front of me. Someone was sitting in the back seat. I would have recognised Saarinen – this was someone else. Harmala circled the Havis Amanda statue and soon we were both driving along the North Shore Road. The eastern horizon was a gentle pink, unbroken by clouds. The sea was a dark carpet, the islands were holes cut in it. The modern high-rises at Merihaka stood like giant toy blocks left behind on their lonely outcropping.

  Keeping a safe distance from the Lexus was as hard as I remembered. Following one car in another isn’t like in the movies. Not even remotely. I’d learned that years ago trying to stay behind Saarinen on his night outings. The world had never seemed so filled with traffic lights, pedestrians, lane changes, visual obstructions, sudden stops, unexpected turns, rocketing accelerations, and daredevil passes as when I absolutely had to keep a steady, uninterrupted speed.

  The Lexus pulled onto the freeway. I let a city bus pull out from the stop in front of me. It served as a screen as we crossed over Kulosaari bridge. The landscape opened up. The sea was on both sides, the pure morning light all around us. For a few seconds I had a feeling of lightness, as if moving of my own volition, going somewhere that I wanted to go. The feeling faded quickly as the bus in front of me pulled over at another stop and I saw the black car some hundred metres ahead.

  We passed three metro stations and the Lexus signalled to exit at Itäkeskus shopping centre. We drove straight until the road pulled a trick and veered left without changing its name.

  We drove into an upmarket neighbourhood. The streets narrowed, the houses grew larger. It was still early and there was no traffic, so I gave the Lexus plenty of room. I nearly drove past the turn, took a right and slowed to a crawl, pulling over as soon as I spotted them.

  They had stopped in front of a large white house. Harmala was slamming the back door of the car. A garage door on the street level of the three-storey building was just lowering. The passenger had gone inside. Harmala opened the driver’s door.

  He stood where he was for a moment, reached in his pocket, and lit a cigarette. He was facing the sea. The smoke from his cigarette was dark blue in the bright morning air.

  The house was new, rising up like a just-opened gift from the god of Mammon. Half of the wall facing the street was glass. You could probably see the Baltic from the top floor. I wondered how much a plot in this area cost. Maybe half a million. The house itself a couple of million. Whoever built it would hardly have needed a loan for the project.

  Who lived here? I typed the address into my phone’s memory. The car had come from Henrik Saarinen’s office, but the passenger wasn’t Henrik Saarinen. Maybe it didn’t matter who was in the car. I was more interested in Harmala’s movements.

  He finished smoking his cigarette, dropped the butt on the driveway, rubbed the sole of his shoe over it, and looked out in the direction of the rising sun. Then he got in the car and drove away.

  The Lexus disappeared around a bend before I could turn the key and shift into gear. I kept my distance as we crossed over the freeway and turned left. It
was easier to follow him now that there was more traffic. We reached an industrial area with three cars between us. We took another left, then right. I was in no hurry. I saw the Lexus turn right again and disappear around a corner, behind a building. I came to the intersection and slowed down. If the Lexus was parked on the road I would drive past it and come back from a different direction.

  The road opened in front of me, straight and empty. It was lined with industrial buildings fronted by gates broad enough for large lorries. I looked into the building yards as I passed and came to the end of the road without seeing the Lexus.

  I was about to make a U-turn when my phone rang. I pulled over. Unknown number. I answered with my name.

  ‘Henrik Saarinen here. Good morning.’

  I looked at the clock on the dash – 7.15.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘I see I didn’t wake you.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I remember your application mentioned a driving licence. That you have one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it just so happens that my driver has the day off and I need someone to do some driving. I have my car here in Helsinki. If you leave Kalmela now you could be here by nine.’

  My eyes had wandered to a sign that said we were in Roihupelto.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, you’ll be here by nine, or yes, such a thing is theoretically possible?’

  ‘I’ll be there by nine,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks. I won’t call again.’

  He hung up. I thought for a moment. Was this a coincidence? The timing was amazing.

  My plan had been to use Markus Harmala to get closer to Henrik Saarinen. That was why I’d followed him here. And now Saarinen was asking me to come to his house.

  With morning traffic it would take half an hour to drive from East Helsinki to Eira. So I still had an hour. I pulled out again; I wanted to try one more time to find the Lexus. The more I knew about Harmala the better.