‘Fuck, what a night. And day.’
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Amanda took off her sunglasses. The black eye was purple now.
‘First I’m woken up in the middle of the night and they refuse to tell me what’s happened –’
‘Who woke you up?’ I asked.
‘The police.’
I looked at her. She took a sip of wine. I decided not to interrupt her again, to listen first to what she had to say. Then I would tell her what had happened to me. Or would I? I lowered my hands onto the armrests and waited. She held the glass of wine in front of her face, looking over it at the darkened room.
‘This thing between us is over, by the way,’ she said, as if she was making a passing remark about the weather.
I’d decided not to interrupt. I was also thinking about Miia, about my misery when I saw her. Amanda’s words seemed to fall by the wayside.
‘Where was I?’ she said. ‘Right. They woke me up, asked to come in, and asked me all kinds of strange questions. When had I last seen my father? Had he said anything that struck me as suspicious? Things like that. And they wouldn’t tell me what it was about, although it was clear something had happened.’
A swallow of wine.
‘A couple of hours of that, and then they started to hint to me that my father had tried to kill somebody. I showed them this.’ She sighed and pointed at her eye, in case I didn’t know what she meant. ‘I said that’s what he could accomplish when he wasn’t even trying to kill anybody. Then they asked me what I knew about Enni Salkola.’
The glass emptied. She seemed to be considering whether to fill it again or keep talking.
‘I told them all I knew was that she’d been cooking for my dad for a long time. They asked me whether I thought Henrik had any reason to murder Enni. I said of course not, unless you counted a slightly overdone creme brûlée.’
She looked at me.
‘Then they said that he tried to kill her last night.’
I struggled to put the events, the people, together in my mind, but I couldn’t manage it no matter how I tried. I sat quiet, waiting for her to continue. Her story wasn’t what I’d expected. Nothing was.
‘Aleksi.’
I raised my head.
‘Why are you here?’
I shook my head.
‘No reason,’ I said.
Amanda looked at me, expressionless, her eyes cool and hard. Why was it that at moments like this my mind brought up things that I usually was able to keep out of sight, under the surface? I thought about my mother. I went over and over what had happened at the abandoned house, what Saarinen had said. I knew I should tell Miia everything. No matter what her reaction was.
‘Do you know anything about this?’ Amanda asked, leaning forward and resting her thin elbows on her thin knees. She looked like a scorpion. ‘Because I feel really weird right now.’
I shook my head again.
‘No,’ I said, as convincingly as I could. ‘So Henrik tried to kill Enni. Was she badly hurt?’
Amanda looked at me as if I’d broken her favourite vase, done something outrageously crude and bizarre.
‘No. Enni was not badly hurt. Enni defended herself. My dad is dead.’
The darkness didn’t creep into the room, it ran in, flooded in. The world behind Amanda dimmed; the shadows melted together. I realised that I couldn’t see her eyes any more. A great, cold wind swept through me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘For what?’
She lifted her elbows from her knees and leaned back again. A woman in black in a dark room, like a painting from a couple of hundred years ago. Like a bad dream.
‘Sorry that your father … that he’s dead.’
‘Wasn’t that the idea?’
I didn’t answer. Amanda ran her fingers through her hair. Henrik Saarinen was dead. It was over. Twenty years, and now it was over. The thought didn’t fit into the world.
‘Don’t pretend you hadn’t thought about it,’ Amanda said. ‘About what would come after. Once Amanda’s father is out of the picture and you get Amanda and all her money.’
‘I’m not interested in …’
She lifted her shoulders, set her head at the appropriate angle.
‘A flat-broke carpenter,’ she said in a cold, hard voice. ‘Grew up in Vallila. Used to run a second-hand bookshop. Jumping into bed with an heiress. Of course you weren’t thinking about money.’
I couldn’t see even her face now, and I didn’t need to. I remembered when we met, what we’d said, what had happened, how one thing led to another. It was all absurdly logical. There was no point in claiming that I was surprised. I knew my weaknesses. I knew what would happen if I gave them even half a chance.
‘Now I really think you should leave,’ Amanda said. ‘I’m expecting someone.’
OCTOBER 2013
OVER THE NEXT two weeks the police brought me in for questioning twice. I also received a request from Elias Ahlberg, Henrik Saarinen’s lawyer, to continue working at Kalmela until notified otherwise.
During the police interviews I answered only the questions directed at me. I didn’t offer anything about my own experiences or theories. No one had connected me with the events in the abandoned house, for the time being, and Ketomaa wasn’t going to either – he was being kept in a coma, for medical reasons. And contrary to what I’d expected, Mansikka-aho hadn’t got in touch with me at all.
Piece by piece I put together a basic picture of what had happened between Henrik and Enni.
Henrik had arrived disoriented at Enni’s apartment at Kalmela. He told her he’d been the innocent victim of an assault and that he couldn’t go to the police. He didn’t tell her what had happened or where he had been. He insisted that she hide him until he could decide what to do. He had dried blood on his shirt cuffs. Enni was frightened. She wanted to call the police. Henrik firmly forbade it. She tried anyway. He knocked the phone out of her hand. She tried to get out of the apartment. Henrik attacked her. She had bruises on her upper arm and wrist. Henrik backed off. Enni ran into the kitchen to make the call from there. Henrik followed her. She was panicked. He was yelling things that she didn’t understand. She feared she was going to die. He raised his fist and lunged at her. She grabbed a knife. He stopped. The long, steel knife had gone through his aorta and his heart muscle. He died immediately.
Enni was released after a short time. She hadn’t come back to work, and I hadn’t seen her anywhere around the estate.
I hadn’t seen Amanda either. I hadn’t even heard from her. I noticed that the thought of her gave me goosebumps, made me afraid she would turn up, surprise me from behind. Whenever I thought about her I started looking around. The shadows took on her shape, variations in the landscape, noises from the next room seemed like signs that she was somewhere nearby.
I felt as if I was floating, in spite of the fact that my days were long and filled with work. When I didn’t have any real work to do, I invented something. I particularly liked being on the shore, repairing the dock or the sauna. The first week of October was unusually dry. The days were clear and blue, full of cool, clean air and gentle breezes. The sun tried its best to rise, but every day its reach was a tiny bit lower than the day before. In the mornings it mixed its palette of reds and violets on the horizon, painted broad streaks of pink that tore through the black. I worked outside, kept my hands and feet busy – and floated.
Thinking was the same as remembering. Both hurt.
I knew that staying at the estate was making things worse but I wasn’t ready to leave yet. Henrik Saarinen had been the reason I came here. Now he was gone. So why didn’t I go? What was keeping me there? I didn’t know. Saarinen had taken the knowledge of my mother’s fate with him, and the knowledge of what he’d meant by what he’d said when Ketomaa was tied to that chair.
The handrail on the dock was a white-painted lattice a metre and a half high and the sea next to it was as hard on the paint as i
t was on the wood underneath. Replacing it felt like the right kind of busy work. It was a chore that could have been put off for a year, or even two, but I could just as well do it now. I was tearing the railing down when I stopped to stretch my back and looked up at the main building.
Someone had opened the double doors on the veranda; the wind fluttered the white and yellow striped curtains. They waved restlessly in and out and climbed the walls like tongues flicking and licking around a mouth. I watched them for a moment and started towards the house.
The front steps needed sweeping. Leaves blown from the trees were piled thick and matted at the base of each step. Some of them were already grey, some still kept their colour – pale yellow, deep red. The curtains puffed out to meet me as I walked up to the double door. I stepped inside, and stopped.
The hall looked different, though the furniture and fixtures were all the same as they’d been that morning. Then I saw what was new: gladioli in a glass vase, their strong, almost intoxicating fragrance. The bouquet was in the same place, the same vase, as when I met Henrik Saarinen for the first time. I heard familiar sounds from the kitchen, cupboard doors opening, a table being set, a glass put down on a wood surface, the clink of metal utensils.
Enni looked the way she’d always looked – absorbed in her work, and slightly surprised to see me. She was wearing white running shoes, loose-fitting dark blue jeans and an apple-green sweater. Her cheeks were flushed, probably from exertion. It was all so normal. It was hard to think about Henrik Saarinen’s death, to think that this bustling woman was the person who had dealt it.
‘Hi,’ I said, not wanting to start by expressing my condolences or telling her how sorry I was. I didn’t even know if I was sorry. And none of that would have meant anything anyway. The whole thing just was what it was.
‘Hi,’ Enni said, continuing what she was doing, which seemed to be emptying the cupboards and refrigerator. There were grocery bags on the floor, a woven basket on the kitchen table where she was putting jars of her own homemade juice, jam and other delicacies. It seemed to be full. She continued her work for a moment, then looked at me.
‘Did Elias talk to you?’
I nodded. ‘They decided I should stay on until they say otherwise,’ I said.
‘Same for me.’
I wasn’t going to ask why they would still need a cook in the house when the only regular diner there was dead. It was none of my business.
‘Was there something you wanted to ask me?’ She’d straightened up to her full height. She was a tall woman, some metre and seventy centimetres tall. She looked straight at me.
‘What about?’ I asked, although I could guess what she meant.
Her face was friendly. Her red cheeks added to her matronly appearance.
‘About what happened. About Henrik.’
I shrugged. ‘I guess not. I’m sure it was … unpleasant. Awful, I mean.’
‘Extremely. But there was nothing else I could do. That’s what I’ve told everyone.’
‘Of course not.’
We stood in silence for a moment. I thought I felt a cold draught on my legs and ankles, the sea air blowing in through the open doors and fluttering curtains.
‘I would have been happy to see him remain the master of this house,’ Enni said. ‘But he wasn’t himself when he came to my apartment. He wasn’t Henrik. He was someone else.’
People had probably already recommended that she get some kind of crisis treatment or therapy, directed her to someone who could help, listen, prescribe medication. She was talking to me more than she ever had, in a tone she might use to talk about anything at all. At some point I would have to ask her what Henrik had said, whether he had mentioned me, told her what he’d done. She turned her eyes away from me, looked around as if she’d been suddenly shoved into the middle of the kitchen floor.
‘I have to finish my work,’ she said, bending over a plastic bag and taking out an armful of food. ‘I’m sure you do too. Life goes on. You have to live, eat, do your job. No matter what happens, life goes on. You have no choice in the matter.’
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have anything in particular to say. I was already going out of the door, looking at the autumn light as it poured over the floor, when I heard her voice.
‘Aleksi.’
She took some glass jars out of the basket, piled them in her arms, and went to the cupboard. She talked as she placed them on the shelves.
‘You can get something to eat here this evening. I’ll leave some food for you. And go ahead and pick up what you want to take to your apartment.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘You’re welcome,’ I heard her say from behind the refrigerator door. ‘It’s important that you and I get along. I’m sure that’s what Henrik would have wanted, too.’
I went back down to the shore and kept working. The sea shone and sparkled calm until sunset, like the top of a lacquered table. When the colours had faded into darkness I gathered up my tools, carried my pack to the sauna, and stood on the porch for a moment. The endless play of the waves on the stones of the shore and the sides of the dock sounded like someone sprinkling pearls from a bag onto a parquet floor. Other sounds, too, were amplified in the darkness. My footsteps as I walked up the path crunched like a hungry man gobbling his food. I had almost forgotten my conversation with Enni but now I remembered it. Or my stomach did.
The main house felt deserted again, as if Enni’s visit had never happened. I walked into the kitchen, turned on the lights, and went to the refrigerator. She’d said I could take what I wanted. She had made a meat and cabbage casserole; there was only a sliver missing. She really was doing what she’d said, going on with her life, with making food, even if there was only one person to feed – herself. I found a plate in the cupboard and spooned a generous portion onto it. I was about to put it in the microwave, but decided to eat in my room, at my own table. I could take a few things to put in my refrigerator, too – something for breakfast.
The basket was on the floor. I loaded it with food: gooseberry jam to put in my yogurt, apple juice, winter mushroom salad, and of course some of her elk pâté, rich and meaty, it would go well on a slice of rye toast. I took some other things, too, and set my plate on top of it all. The basket was full and heavy in my hand as I closed the door behind me and walked across the lighted lawn to the outbuilding, climbed the stairs, and went in my apartment.
If I’d sometimes wondered at what solitude was, it became clear to me that evening. Solitude was a deserted estate, dead people, the sound of my own breathing. I did my best to feel like a member of society, of the world. A hot shower, candles on the windowsill, the radio on, a hot meal. The food was steaming and fragrant. The candlelight flickered in a soft puff of air. The light reflected off the window and walls. The cabbage and meat were comforting and filling. Maybe Enni was right. Maybe life would go on.
It took a moment for my mind to register what my eyes were seeing. My gaze went from the vase on the windowsill to the jars on the counter, the inside of the vase, then the jar of pâté. At first I didn’t know what had caught my attention. When I realised what it was, I almost spat out my food.
AUGUST 1993
MY MOTHER COMES in and pulls the door closed behind her. The slam rings in my ears, fading only in steps, as if somewhere far away doors were still slamming. I’ve come from a football match in Vesa’s father’s car, and I’ve already eaten. I’m at the table reading Lucky Luke. The Dalton brothers have just escaped from jail when my mother walks into the room. There’s only one light source, a lamp with a plastic shade that hangs over the table. She stands at the edge of the pool of light so that I can’t see her face. Her black shoes are shining, like they were when she left. She hasn’t been walking outside.
How did the match go?
We won 4–2.
Oh, that’s nice, she says in a voice that isn’t quite the same as when she means what she says. Did it rain the whole time?
Almost.
She takes off her red scarf.
Did you eat all your dinner? she asks.
Almost. So did you have fun?
The red scarf is wrapped around her right hand.
How should I put it? she says. I wouldn’t say it was 4–2.
The rain is pouring over the window behind me. What was it I should have said before she left? I can’t remember.
What happened? I ask.
She’s quiet for a moment.
Do you want to hear?
I nod.
The food was good. The view was pretty. A waterfront restaurant.
Isn’t that nice?
It certainly is.
She takes off her coat and puts it on a hanger. She sits on the chair by the front door, takes off her shoes, and pushes them under the chair. Then she straightens up and looks at me. I can see her face.
It’s not nice to be dishonest, Aleksi. It’s important to be honest. To speak the truth, be who you say you are, and do what you say you’re going to do.
She’s upset. I realise that. She’s doing her best to remain calm, but she’s angry, furious. Like she was the time the bathroom upstairs from us started to leak into our bathroom and she had to watch the repairmen to make sure they fixed it the way they should have the first time instead of doing it all wrong and forcing us to move into a spare room at her co-worker’s house for two weeks.
She gets up from the chair and comes to the table.
I didn’t eat my meal. I think I’ll have your leftovers.
Why?
Why what?
Why didn’t you eat your meal?
She thought for a moment.
Let’s not talk about it.
I’m still looking at her. She sighs.
Because of a certain woman, she says, who I wasn’t told about and who was very, very unfriendly.
In the restaurant?
She works there.
What did she do to you?
Dark As My Heart Page 18