When I think of Aava, this is the image that always comes to mind:
Aava is sleeping. The room is dim but not yet dark. Dust floats in the corners and from the garden comes the sound of a power saw. I sit beside her and pull the covers up over her ears so that the noise will not wake her, putting my finger beneath her nose to feel the warmth of her breath. I go to the door and come back to see that my baby is still breathing; I sit for a moment by the bed, in my limbs a heaviness that makes every movement difficult.
From now on, until the end of my life, I think, my happiness is bound to the happiness of this person.
Aava breathes a sleepy tickle onto my skin. I think about the children I have seen during the day, laughing and chatting in the tram but falling silent the moment a boy standing next to them tried to talk to them. When the boy eventually turned his head, his face was reflected in the window against the dark November evening. The smile frozen on his face was the same as all children who have to smile all the time.
The power saw falls silent. Aava screams in her sleep. I set my hand on her back. My hand is heavier than before.
13
Before my son was born, I thought I could not go on any longer. I felt strong contractions long before the due date; I lay on the sofa and tried not to cry. Aava ran around the flat destroying everything she could find. I ate chocolate in secret, letting her watch too much children’s television. I closed my eyes and prayed that I might be able to call it all off.
We called the boy Lauri Aslak Eerikinpoika. Lauri and Aslak for our grandfathers, who went to war as young men and came back strangers. Eerikinpoika (Eerik’s son) because I wanted to apologise to Eerik.
When Aslak was half a day old, Aava came to the hospital with Eerik’s parents to visit him. Aava was three years and five months old; she had a woolly hat with strawberries on it, dungarees that sagged at the bottom and serious eyes.
Aslak was in Eerik’s lap. I had read that it was good to do this when a child met its new brother or sister for the first time. It is good to give the baby to the father and it is good for the mother to take the firstborn in her arms. I was pale and broken from giving birth; I lay in bed and needed support to stand. When Eerik’s mother rang to say they were on their way, I took a shower sitting on a stool, took off the pink hospital dressing gown and put on my own dress, dabbing some rouge on my cheeks, which were pale and yellowish from the blood I had lost. When the door of the family room opened and Aava came in holding hands with Eerik’s mother, I walked unsteadily to take my child in my arms.
Aava did not want to come. She shrank back against Eerik’s mother’s legs and my mother-in-law lifted her into the air, whispering in her ear, ‘Granny’s here,’ and promising her an ice cream in the hospital café when the visit was over.
On the other side of the room Eerik smiled, holding little Aslak, whose nappy he had changed and whom he had dressed in the hospital’s white baby clothes and a hat that looked like an eggshell. While he did so I lay on my side on the bed, took some painkillers and closed my eyes, although I did not feel I could sleep.
Now I stood awkwardly at the end of the bed in a difficult position and looked at Eerik’s mother walking with Aava in her arms towards her son and her grandson and Eerik’s father followed them, a bunch of flowers in his hand, nodding to me as if asking forgiveness.
‘Take a rest,’ Eerik said. ‘We can look after this.’
I took another painkiller, even though I should not really have done so, got into bed and tried to find a position in which the pain in my crotch and breasts was least unbearable, pulled the covers over my head and thought about a lone whale swimming in the Mediterranean, whose song the other whales did not understand.
14
Mummy. Where does death come from?’
Aslak was four years old. It was a spring evening. The smell of fresh leaves wafted in through the window and the sky was pale even though it was late. Aava was on a sleepover with a friend and Eerik was in the Philippines redesigning a village that had been destroyed by floods. I was sitting on the sofa with Aslak, his soft cheek against my neck.
At that time there was something wrong with the radiators and it was always too hot at home. In the mornings when it was time to go to nursery Aslak would lie on the floor screaming and throwing his shoes, Eerik and I would take offence at everything the other said and Aava would sit in a corner somewhere, drawing quietly, and no one had time to ask her how she was. This moment with Aslak was full of peace and I did not want it to end, even though it was late. The light of the spring evening made a halo around his tousled hair. Aslak nestled in my arms and I stroked his bare arms; I wanted to paint a protective layer onto them.
We had been watching a movie in which wild rabbits fled from human habitation to look for a new home. In the film the rabbits are trapped, wounded and die. I hugged Aslak in my lap and asked him if he wanted to turn the movie off, but he shook his head vigorously.
‘Does that happen to animals in real life?’ he asked after the movie.
‘We can try to make it so that it doesn’t happen,’ I replied after a long pause.
‘But does that happen to them now?
‘The same as in the movie?’
‘Yes.’
‘No. It doesn’t happen to them quite like that.’
Aslak looked at me appraisingly, as if weighing up whether he could trust my answer. I remembered a time when my friends and I would go round shops that sold furs. At night we stuck pictures on the windows of mink and foxes in cramped cages, their gleaming eyes staring at the camera through the bars.
Even though we had not baked for a long time, for a moment the smell of freshly baked cardamom bread wafted through the room. I squeezed Aslak more tightly in my arms and felt the warmth from the oven as if I had a memory of a warm, fragrant home in which fresh cardamom bread was eaten on Saturday evenings. I thought about a time when Aslak and Aava would begin to think about the same questions I thought about when I was young, and how I would be able to talk about them with them. And their ideas would surprise me. My entire body overflowed with happiness. How amazing it was to hold in my arms a person who one day would step out into the world without me, challenging me with their ideas.
‘Where does death come from?’ Aslak asked again. ‘Does it come from the mouth?’
I thought about my response for such a long time that Aslak pinched me to check that I was awake.
‘It comes from life,’ I said then. ‘In the same way that night comes from day and day from night.’
‘I don’t want to die,’ Aslak said. ‘I only want to live.’
‘You have plenty of time, sweetie,’ I said. I tried to sound like a confident adult, the kind I longed for as a child.
‘You will live a long life and do lots of exciting things. When you are old, you will be able to sigh contentedly and say that death can come now.’
Aslak looked at me dubiously. I told him about my granny, who climbed on the climbing frame in the playground so that you could see her lace petticoat. ‘Granny died twenty-five years ago, but I think about her every day. So in that way she’s still alive.’
We sat together on the sofa for so long that light gave way to darkness. Aslak wanted to know more about my granny, and I told him about the princesses of my childhood and the silver tray my granny gave me to be their skating rink.
When Aslak began to yawn, I carried him to bed. He was asleep before I put him in his bed, his face against my throat, his warm breath tickling my skin.
15
I can’t sleep.’
It was an August night. We were on a cycling trip in the archipelago. We were sleeping in a tent near the shore boulders, Eerik and I together in a large sleeping bag and Aava and Aslak in their own bags. An oil lamp hung from the roof of the tent and outside were our bikes, two little ones and two adult ones. As I looked at them something within me stirred.
We are a family. For some reason it was our belongings that broug
ht that thought to my mind most clearly. Two pairs of little shoes and two pairs of big shoes in a row by the opening of the tent, two children’s tickets and two adults’ tickets to the circus, two little swimming costumes and two big ones hanging up to dry on the bathroom rail.
When I was with Eerik, Aava and Aslak, I was often restless and nervous, mechanically performing the tasks that went with the roles of wife and mother and longing for a moment when none of them would demand anything of me. I felt the deepest love for them when I was alone, tidying things or folding clothes. As I made the beds, I would pause for a moment to breathe in the scent of the children’s pyjamas; as I filled the dishwasher I decided to wash by hand the elephant mug Aslak had used since he was one. He had refused to give it up, even though he would be going to school in September. Those years were so full of work, my own and the children’s interests, money worries and increasingly panicky questions about what I would be able to do with my life, what was I good enough for or whether I was good enough for anything, that there was most room for love when my loved ones were absent. Love was at its strongest in moments when I was able to pause alone to cherish images of them, images that lacked the imperfections of real people.
Aslak’s little hand stroked my cheek from a slit in his sleeping bag. His fingers were warm, his voice a whisper that did not wake anyone else.
At that time I did not sleep very well. Generally being woken at night annoyed me, but now I could hear the roar of the waves on the other side of the tent canvas, and from the opening of the tent wafted the smell of the sea.
‘Shall we go and look at the stars?’ I asked.
‘Yes!’ Aslak said, with such enthusiasm that I was struck by guilt. Why didn’t I make such suggestions more often? Why didn’t I ask my child to come with me more often, since my invitation brought him such joy?
I switched on the torch and looked in the darkness for our sweaters, windcheaters and shoes. We had made pancakes for supper and I packed the ones we hadn’t eaten, sprinkled with sugar, in a box. I took this with us, and a quilt. Grasping Aslak’s hand, I slipped out through the tent opening. In the wind that caressed our faces was the coolness of the autumn that was to come; the waves pounded the rocks with an even crash. The sound always calmed me. The sky was clear, and a bone-white full moon bathed the stones in a pale glow.
I spread the quilt on the stones and we sat next to each other on it. Aslak curled up in a little ball in my arms; I could feel the bones of his shoulders under his sweater and smelled the scent of sleep and the campfire in his tousled hair. We made rolls out of the pancakes and ate them with our fingers, listening to the sea and the chirping of the grasshoppers, which Aslak could hear much more clearly than I could.
‘Mummy,’ Aslak whispered. We had been sitting for so long that I thought he had fallen asleep in my arms.
‘What, love?’
‘What’s it like to be a grown-up?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I don’t know.’
I was amused, but Aslak was completely serious. I hid my laughter with a cough giving Aslak the last pancake.
‘It depends who you ask. It’s probably different for everyone.’
‘What’s it like for you?’
‘Different. Rushed. Sometimes stressful. Mostly, it’s nice.’
‘Is it nicer than being a child?’
‘For me, yes.’
‘Why?’
‘When I was a child, there were so many questions that I didn’t dare ask. When you’re a grown-up, it’s easier to look for answers.’
Aslak lowered his head into my lap and asked me to draw a spaceship on his back. He had loved his back being drawn on since he was very small; it had calmed him as a baby and as a toddler and when he had nightmares and screamed, his eyes open even though he was asleep. With my forefinger, I drew a spaceship standing on a launch platform, its sides swelling on either side of Aslak’s spine. I wondered when it would be time for me to tell him and Aava something about my childhood.
Aslak and Aava met Eerik’s parents often. I told them about my mother only when they asked about her, and often after those conversations I wanted to be alone. I wondered whether Aava and Aslak would fail to understand themselves fully if I never told them about anything but beautiful moments. If I didn’t tell them about how, as a child, I had pressed my ear against my front door and listened for a long time before I dared open it, how I had carried a secret that no one was allowed to know.
Aslak shifted in my arms. The night was cool and his warmth spread to me.
‘I think it’s nice being a child,’ he said softly, as if he were already falling asleep. ‘But I don’t want time to pass.’
‘Why?’
‘Because then one day it will end,’ he said, and his shoulders trembled a little.
‘Our own time ends,’ I said, ‘but the Earth’s life goes on. I think that’s a beautiful idea.’
‘Why?’
‘Think of the sea, for example,’ I said. ‘The sea has been here for billions of years before us. And it will still be here when we no longer exist.’
‘I want to live for ever,’ Aslak said, turning his head so that he could see the sky. ‘I want to see all the countries in the world and all the stars in the sky. I want to learn all the languages and stroke all the dogs in the world.’
‘I’ll draw them on your back.’
‘All the world’s dogs, can you? Will they fit?’
‘I’ll draw them one by one.’
Aslak curled up in my lap so that my hand could reach his back better. I slid my finger under his sweater and drew dogs – pointed-eared ones, floppy-eared ones, long-haired and almost hairless ones – until his body flinched into sleep and his lower lip stuck out as it always did when he slept.
I carried Aslak back into the tent, put him in his sleeping bag and kissed his smooth cheek. After that I went out again, walking on the stones until the sky began to lighten. I concentrated on every sound, every snap under my feet, every scent that came from the sea and the interior of the island.
16
Aava
You take these white ones.’
‘No, I want the pink ones!’
‘OK. You can have the pink wings, but I’m having the pink wand.’
I was nine and Aslak six years old. We thought we were too old to play games like this and so we played them secretly, in the playroom with the curtains shut, behind a closed door. The darkened room became a fairy world in which we two superfairies were able to read minds, see through the walls of the neighbours’ house and make others do our will.
We were AA-superfairies. We were able to fly through walls, become invisible, breathe in outer space and under the water. I was a day fairy. I had a pale skirt and flowers on my cheeks and I knew how to spread light into the darkest corners. Aslak was a desert fox. He had transparent wings on his back, and on his temples fox ears that could hear everything; around his eyes the dark rims of fox eyes. Aslak the desert fox used the cover of darkness to find maltreated animals, free them and take them to a secret refuge where he looked after them until they were better and gave them magical powers that they could use to fight against humans.
At that time Aslak often asked me to play with him, but I seldom said yes. I was at school and I had my own friends whom I used to go home with after after-school club. Aslak was in the same nursery school as the siblings of some of my friends and I knew that the others thought him strange. He learned to read and write when he was three years old and sometimes beat Dad at chess. But when the other children asked him to play with them, he often got lost in a world of his own, staring at a shadow that moved on the wall or at something behind it, and then, after a long silence, saying something that no one else understood. I hoped that a year would change something in him. That when he came to school he would be a more ordinary boy, one whom no one laughed at. I wanted to think that I hoped this above all for his sake, so that it would be easier for him to fit
in. But really I hoped it mostly for my own sake. I was afraid that if everyone else thought my little brother was odd, I too would be left alone.
When we did play together, we generally played superfairies. I too longed for that world when there had been an argument with my friends or Mum and Dad spoke to each other in voices that were supposed to sound normal, but which I knew would explode into an argument in the evening when they thought we were asleep.
‘AA-superfairies, check all areas!’
‘AA-superfairies, roger!’
Aslak was no longer a little boy, but a loose-limbed, sharp-eared, all-powerful desert fox fairy. He looked under the beds and on the bookshelves, inspected the cupboards, the little holes in the walls and the world that opened up on the other side of the window.
‘A fire engine!’
‘Water fairies! Fire!’
‘For real!’
‘What?’
‘Silly. There’s a real fire engine by the garden!’
‘Wait!’
‘Come on!’
When Aslak came through the door, he was no longer a fox, but an ordinary little brother, smudges of face paint around his eyes, on his back pink fairy wings, his eyes glowing with excitement on account of the fire engine.
Mum was out shopping and I would have liked to have gone on playing. It felt strange. The room was half ordinary playroom, half fairy kingdom. I was half ordinary Aava, half fairy-tale creature. All of a sudden the feeling that I was somewhere in between was unbearable.
When I took the white wings off my back and put them carefully back in the dressing-up box so that the fine fabric would not tear, it was as if something were ending. My hands shook as I closed the lid. At the same time I was closing the lid on something else. I had always thought the fairyland was our hiding place, my and Aslak’s shared world, which we could escape to whenever we wanted to. Now I realised that our fairyland could disappear completely and that I would not be able to go there even if I wanted to. My tummy hurt as if I had eaten too much cake mixture. I went to the toilet and sat on the loo for a long time without turning the lights on. When I came out, I found pencils and a piece of paper and began to draw a map of fairyland, so exact and detailed that I would be able to find my way back there when I had grown up. When Mum’s key turned in the lock, I had barely begun.
When Time Runs Out Page 5