Kind, decent, honourable Eerik. He saw a clear line between right and wrong and did not understand why everyone didn’t stay on the side of what was right. He would have despised me if he had known. He would probably have hidden his pain, borne it alone and tried to behave in such a way that no one would be hurt.
Those years were heavy with guilt. At the same time they were the lightest years of all, full of the tenderness of long caresses and the joy of being desired. I knew it would not last for ever; that was why I wanted to hold on to it. Telling Eerik would have made what was beautiful ugly, would have turned joy to immense sorrow. There would have been a trial, with my secret as the crime.
‘How long? How many times? Where? What? How? Were you together that time when you said . . .? And that the time? And that time when you came home from a trip and lay with me and . . .?’
That is what Eerik would have asked, and I could not have answered. It would have gone on so long that everything would have been dug up, and once on show it would all have been ugly.
For all of that time I loved Eerik. But I also felt that I was not completely his. Part of me had chosen him and the family; part was still hesitating. That part belonged only to me and, for that period of two years, to the man who saw me differently from the others.
One evening during those years, when I was sitting in the kitchen reading and thought everyone else was already asleep, Aava came to me. She was barefoot, in a white nightdress; the light from the street lamp through the window cast a transparent glow onto the fabric. Aava walked so softly that it felt as if she had landed beside me from another world.
‘Mum,’ she whispered, and her voice startled me.
‘Sweetie. Why aren’t you asleep?’
‘I can’t sleep.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m frightened.’
‘What of?’
‘That you’re going to leave us all.’
Aava was taller than me. I grasped her by the hands and took her in my arms on the sofa like a child. She pressed her head against my neck and curled up her legs, her long, slim Bambi legs, which at that time she used to try and hide beneath long, floaty skirts. I stroked her back and calmed her as I used to when she and Aslak were little, by drawing dense forests on either side of her backbone.
‘Sweetie. Of course I won’t leave you. Why are you afraid of something like that?’
‘It’s just that it sometimes seems . . . as if you’d rather be anywhere but with us.’
My finger halted next to Aava’s backbone. She had lost weight; her vertebrae rose beneath the skin in a sharp row. I looked through a slit in the Venetian blinds and saw the single woman in the house opposite opening the window and lighting a cigarette, stretching her hand out and waving it in the air as if to see how it felt. I could not look at Aava.
‘Oh, darling,’ I said quietly. I could not find the words to go on. Shame spread through me like icy water.
How ridiculous I had been. How could I have imagined that they would not see? That the children, who see and sense everything and carry it quietly with them, wordlessly protecting their parents and what they imagine to be their family, how could I have imagined that they would not notice what was happening to me?
I drew on Aava’s back for so long that she fell asleep; then I picked her up. She had long arms and legs, which dragged along the ground as I carried her. She weighed so much that I almost fell, but I felt it was my job to carry her to bed.
Aava did not wake when I tucked her in, stroking her hair away from her forehead and switching on the fairy night light which she had had since she was a baby.
When I left Aava’s room, I heard a crash from Aslak’s room. I pushed the door open cautiously. The window was open. A spring night breeze and the scent of newly emerged leaves flooded into the room, with their promise of something good. Aslak’s quilt was at the foot of the bed, his pillow on the floor beside the bed.
I switched on the light. The curtain twitched. Beneath it I caught a glimpse of the soles of Aslak’s feet. I thought he might be sleepwalking. I walked up behind him softly, tentatively touching him on the shoulder through the curtain.
‘Sweetie?’
‘Go away.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I want to be alone.’
Aslak was twelve years old, but I could hear the ser-iousness of a grown man in his voice. I stroked his back cautiously. He was so thin that his shoulder blades stuck out like sharp wings. Something about him brought to my mind the monkeys that I saw years ago in a Nepalese zoo, wild-eyed creatures sitting quietly in their cages, their bones sticking out through their matted fur. Next to him on the table was a red droplet. I wiped it away with the sleeve of my blouse. When I realised what it was, I tore at the curtain with such force that the curtain rail and the curtain fell onto Aslak.
‘Leave me alone!’ In Aslak’s right hand was a flick knife. I had not seen it before. On the inner side of his forearm were fresh, long gashes.
I recognised the gashes immediately. On my wrists, on my thighs and on my ribcage I still have faint scars from the time when I cut myself with the shards of a hand mirror I had smashed while my mother was asleep. I still remember the moment of relief that flashed through me, when the vague, surging angst was replaced by a pain defined by the length of the cut. I grasped Aslak by the hand and took the flick knife away. He did not resist. The flick knife was an old one. The wooden handle was worn, the brass at the end tarnished. There was dry blood on the blade.
‘Where did you get this?’ I asked, biting my tongue.
‘Nowhere.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I sat on the table beside Aslak. He let me put my arms around his shoulders and stroke his hair, which was wet with sweat.
‘My sweetie,’ I said. ‘What has happened?’
Aslak was silent. His head rested against my neck. He was breathing lightly like a frightened animal; as I stroked his back I felt the rapid beating of his heart. When he finally spoke, at first I could not hear what he said.
‘Taika is leaving,’ he said finally, loud and clear, in the voice of a stranger. My hand was still for a moment. I breathed in. We will get through this, I thought. I must get Aslak to believe it.
‘How long for?’
‘For ever.’
‘Where’s she going?’
‘Japan.’
‘We can go and visit her there,’ I said quickly. ‘Although not this summer. You can get there by train and ship if you go through Russia. It would be fun!
‘Everything will be all right, sweetie,’ I went on when Aslak did not say anything. ‘It really will.’
‘I’m tired,’ he said at last.
I tucked him in, and he allowed me to stroke his head until he fell asleep. He was a narrow-shouldered, big-eared boy with a child’s face who looked as if he was in the wrong place. As he slept his face smoothed into that of a young child; his long eyelashes cast feather-like shadows on his cheeks. I remembered the time when he was always laughing, when he made everyone around him laugh.
Eerik did not wake up when I finally lay down beside him. He was sleeping on his back, his mouth slightly open. There was a trail of dried drool at the corner of his mouth and he was snoring fitfully; I could never get to sleep while I listened to it, and tonight was no different. I sat beside Eerik, looking at the moonlight shining through the gap in the curtains, cautiously stroking his hand. For a moment I felt again the gaze of the self that lived a different life. It was no longer full of pity, but pure grief. When, in the early hours of the morning, I fell asleep, I dreamed a dream in which she went away without looking back, and after that I never felt her presence again.
22
Aava
Can we come to yours after school?’
‘Could we go somewhere else?
‘Why?’
‘We’re always at my house.’
‘So what? You’ve said we can come to yours.’
&nbs
p; ‘It’s different now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s just . . . we’ve got a situation.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Aren’t we friends?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘No?’
‘Of course we are.’
‘Why can’t you say? Don’t you trust us?’
‘I do, but . . .’
‘You don’t seem to.’
‘It’s not to do with me.’
‘What do you mean it’s not to do with you?’
‘Have you got an illegal immigrant in the cupboard?’
‘The word is undocumented.’
‘What?’
‘Undocumented, not illegal.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Well, do you have an undocumented immigrant?’
‘They could have. Her mum takes food to the gypsies.’
‘I get it. It’ll be her brother.’
My diaphragm tautened, the same way as once in football when I was goalie and the ball hit me straight in the stomach.
‘Is it? Aslak’s gone crazy?’
‘No, he hasn’t.’
‘I bet he has.’
I shook my head. I curled my hands into fists and thought about the trip to Copenhagen in the summer and the Swedish boy who had kissed me on the lawn of the outdoor swimming pool. The boy had broad, soft lips and his mouth tasted of strawberry chewing gum and beer. ‘Du är så vacker!’ (‘You are so beautiful!’), the boy said in Swedish, opening the beer; we drank from the same bottle and sat with our sun-cream-scented legs touching.
I was fifteen. It was vital to act as if everything was fine.
‘Sorry. I’m not feeling well.’
I sprinted away. I ran over the boulders where I had picnicked with Aslak and Dad as a child, along the little paths to the shore where some of the boats were still in the water even though the autumn was well advanced. I looked at the boats floating in the dark water; one wooden one was half sunk, its outboard motor completely beneath the surface. For a moment I felt like turning to see whether the water could be pumped out of it, whether the beautifully made craft could still be raised to the surface. I was wearing high-top shoes and tight jeans. As I ran my jeans chafed at my ankles and the seams rubbed my thighs. I wanted the pain to go on, for the skin to be scoured until it bled.
After Taika went back to Japan, Aslak did not come out of his room. He stayed up all night playing games whose names he did not tell me. During the day he kept his curtains drawn, lying on his bed with his face to the wall and did not touch the food that Mum brought him.
At that time we all stayed awake at night. I read The Hunger Games in bed, wrote in my journal and listened to Mum and Dad talking on the other side of the wall.
‘You should talk to him,’ Mum said.
‘He doesn’t want to talk,’ Dad said.
‘How do you know?’
‘You can see.’
‘You don’t even try.’
‘I don’t think it’s necessary at the moment.’
‘What is, then?’ Mum’s voice rose to a shout.
‘We have to give him time.’ Dad’s voice tightened to the official tone he adopted when he was angry.
‘We have to get him help.’
‘It’s hard to help someone who doesn’t want help.’
‘He’s twelve. You can’t ask him what he wants.’
‘What do you want to do? Send him to an institution?’
‘You’re the one who doesn’t want to do anything!’
‘Oh, is that what the problem is?’
‘What?’
‘The fact that you think I’m not doing enough.’
‘Did I say so?’
‘It sounded as if you think—’
‘Don’t you try to bloody guess what I’m thinking. Say what you’d do.’
‘I would leave him in peace.’
‘That’s all you ever do.’
‘His best friend has just left. It’s a difficult age.’
‘He’s always been difficult.’
‘So you say. But he’s always been good at school. He hasn’t been in trouble. He’s a good boy.’
‘He hasn’t had a single friend for years.’
‘He just had one.’
‘The only one.’
‘People don’t all have to be the same. You often say that. That the limits of normality have shrunk too much. Now you’re shrinking them yourself.’
‘He’s my son.’
‘Don’t shout.’
‘Don’t shout yourself. Our son is sinking and you behave like some fucking official.’
‘Don’t swear.’
‘Fuck off.’
I tried to become invisible.
‘I will give everything up,’ I promised God, the forest spirits, the angels and the demons; I promised the same thing to every imaginable power.
‘I will give up everything I have if you will let Aslak be happy one day. I will give up my friends, my hobbies, music, books, happy days and long evenings. I will give up my health, my dreams and my life. Let Aslak be loved and me be alone. Let Aslak live and me die.’
When nothing changed, I asked: ‘Let Aslak die and me live. Let Aslak disappear from the world so that he never existed. Let me be the only child and let me breathe freely, even for a short time.’
Aslak did not leave his room. In the end Mum bought a car and drove him to school every morning, waking him by playing music, feeding him breakfast like a little child.
I, too, wanted to sink into eternal rest. I went for a long run before school every morning and ate so little that my clothes became baggy. I drank a lot, passing out at parties, on beaches and at festivals, waking in the arms of strange men, pushing them away and running, except that I did not always have the energy to run. I hoped that something so bad would happen to me that Mum and Dad would be forced to see me. I stole lipsticks, underwear, cigarettes and jewellery. Once I was caught and I was happy, thinking that for once the responsibility rested with someone else and that Mum, who would come to collect me from the brightly lit back room of the department store with the stocky security man, would be forced to see the whole of me.
‘How could you do something so stupid,’ said Mum, pushing me in front of her like a child.
‘Don’t you realise how worried we are about Aslak? Why do you have to behave like that, too?’
23
Beautiful death. Private group.
Someoneisoutthere: Hi. Where have you disappeared to?
Someoneisoutthere: I’m worried.
Someoneisoutthere: Send me a message, let me know you’re alive. I’m going to call the cops soon!
Übermensch:
You and the cops. I bet.
Someoneisoutthere: What’s happened?
Übermensch:
Nothing.
Someoneisoutthere: What did we agree?
Übermensch:
To be honest with each other. Do you mean to say you always have been?
Someoneisoutthere: You know the answer. I wouldn’t be alive without you.
Übermensch:
I’m not sure it’s worth anyone’s while.
Someoneisoutthere: That’s a different question. You said no one can survive in the dark alone. Do not try alone.
Someoneisoutthere: Did you disappear again?
Übermensch:
Wait a minute. I’m going to send you something.
Übermensch:
Here.
ASLAK ANTTILA. YOU ARE A FUCKING STUPID QUEER. YOU LOOK STUPID. YOU SPEAK STUPID. YOU HAVE STUPID CLOTHES. YOU TRY TO BE COOL AND LICK THE TEACHERS’ ARSES, BUT EVERYONE CAN SEE YOU’RE TRYING TOO HARD, YOU ARE A FUCKING STUPID QUEER AND YOU WILL NEVER BE ANYTHING ELSE. NO ONE LIKES YOU AND NO ONE WILL EVER LIKE YOU AND THAT’S WHY YOU SHOULD TOP YOURSELF BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.
UNKIND REGARDS
All the pupils of 9A, 9B,
9C and 9D.
(EXCEPT FOR IIRIS, WHO’S A LESBIAN WHORE!)
Someoneisoutthere: Idiots.
Someoneisoutthere: Are you still there?
Someoneisoutthere: Hello . . .?
Übermensch:
What if they’re right?
Someoneisoutthere: They’re not.
Übermensch:
They’d be happy if I died.
Someoneisoutthere: They’re morons. Who cares what makes them happy?
Übermensch:
What sense is there in living?
Someoneisoutthere: Go to the window.
Übermensch:
What?
Someoneisoutthere: Just go.
Übermensch:
You’re crazy.
Someoneisoutthere: What can you see?
Übermensch:
The street. The street lamp. The building opposite. Trees. Some old lady taking her dog out for a walk.
Someoneisoutthere: Look up.
Übermensch:
Stars. The moon.
Someoneisoutthere: I can see it too.
Übermensch:
Are you playing at being Coelho or something?
Someoneisoutthere: Fuck off.
Übermensch:
OK. We’re looking at the same moon. So what?
Someoneisoutthere: I couldn’t look at it alone. I couldn’t bear it if you weren’t there. You have to live. You have to laugh at the idiots who know nothing. You’re the only person in this world who gets me.
Übermensch:
Coelho!
Someoneisoutthere: If I was there, I’d beat you up.
Übermensch:
Sorry.
Someoneisoutthere: Do I have to spell it out? You’re important.
Someoneisoutthere: If you disappear now, I’ll never forgive you!
Übermensch:
I won’t disappear.
Someoneisoutthere: Do you feel better?
Übermensch:
A bit.
Übermensch:
Thank you.
PART
Three
A thousand dreams within me softly burn.
When Time Runs Out Page 8