When Time Runs Out

by Elina Hirvonen

  46

  When Eerik comes home, he already knows. He opens the door and steps into the hall which the police left a moment ago. I walk up to him and we hug each other so tightly that it hurts. We sink to the floor against each other, Eerik still in his outdoor clothes, on his back the same worn rucksack that he takes on all his trips, I with wet towels still around my hands.

  Eerik’s face and neck have burned on his trip. The skin peels in thin rolls from his neck. I press my face against it and breathe in the smell of sand and the sun cream I packed for him. I hear the beating of his heart and feel the vein in his neck rising and falling against my cheek. I am grateful that he understands that it is better if he does not speak. That he does not try to ask anything and that he does not weep. I am grateful that he is here. That after all these years he is here, that he is holding me.

  ‘I’ve got to get out,’ I say finally.

  Eerik nods.

  ‘Maybe it isn’t too late,’ I say; I can almost believe it myself. ‘Perhaps there is something we can do.’

  We dress without speaking – thick shoes, woollen sweaters, waterproof coats. I take a big woollen scarf from the shelf and consider wrapping it round my neck so that, if necessary, it will also cover my face. The scarf is almost twenty years old. I bought it on a cycling trip in the archipelago when Aava and Aslak were children; I folded it as a blanket for them, and they fell asleep in the bike box with their helmets touching. I don’t put the scarf on. I put it in a bag and take it to the rubbish bin in the yard; I slam the lid shut.

  In the street in front of our building Eerik squeezes my hand. His grip is the same as always, his big hand around mine, the warmth of his palm against mine.

  To the left of the door is the road Aslak and I walked along on his first day at school. The road he walked along alone later, a big backpack on his back, his eyes fixed to the ground. If he had looked back, he might have seen me glancing after him before I set off to work on my bicycle, looking as long as he remained in sight, as if nothing bad could happen to him as long as I could see him.

  To the right leads the road we walked along to the playground and the rocks to have a picnic – me, Aslak and Aava – on evenings when Eerik was on a trip and I wanted to be a really good mother. I packed pancakes, blueberries and jam into a lunchbox, poured juice into a bottle and took the children out for supper. We played pirates, peering at passing joggers, scanning the sky for clouds that looked like animal heads.

  Straight ahead is the road along which I cycled to lectures with Aslak, his big shirt fluttering in the wind, and hoped that that moment marked a new beginning.

  If you go along that road and turn left you eventually come to the city centre, to the building on whose roof Aslak is now standing.

  I am unable to look at Eerik. I cannot ask what he is thinking. The roads and rocks around us are full of memories of Aslak. From now onwards this will always be so. That child who, in the tram, points at passing cars. The parents who, in the restaurant, argue about whose turn it is to change a nappy. The gang of boys in the bus on a school trip, the jokes of the others, and one with a forced smile to show that he is present.

  I don’t know whether we will ever be able to talk about it. I don’t know whether we will be able to go on living together, waking up in the same bed, seeing the pain in the other’s face. But I do know that we will both go on living. For Aava’s sake we will go on. We will stay alive to be there for her, even if she does not ask anything of us.

  We do not set out until the door behind us opens. We walk hand in hand away from the building; we do not turn to see who came out.

  We walk towards the centre of the city, an area that is cordoned off, quiet, because of our son. Eerik’s stride is much longer than mine; I have to quicken my pace to keep up with him. He notices and slows down, squeezing my hand a little harder. We find a joint rhythm and walk, unspeaking, our collars shielding our faces, in the empty streets towards the building on whose roof Aslak is standing.

  When Aslak was a few weeks old, we walked the same streets, all four of us, Aava on Eerik’s shoulders and Aslak in a sling against my breast, his thumb in his mouth like a baby monkey. It was a windy day and I was wearing Eerik’s big coat, inside which Aslak could take shelter. I could feel the baby’s breath against my skin, the wriggling of the little body as he sought a good position to fall asleep. I wrapped the coat around him, pulling the zip up just far enough for him to have space to breathe and so that my hand could stroke his cheek. With my forefinger I caressed the soft down of Aslak’s skin, feeling a love that made everything inside me tingle.

  I saw the outlines of the buildings more sharply than before, heard the sounds of the city more loudly.

  I will protect you from all of this, I thought as the tram rattled towards us, a bewildered-looking man broke an empty liquor bottle against the rubbish bin and a little boy lagged behind his friends. I will carry you in my arms until you grow strong and tough enough to face all of this, to step into the world and to change it.

  I push a hand under my coat and can almost feel a baby’s soft cheek against my finger, Aslak’s face, whose thoughtful expression remained the same throughout the years.

  I loathe the term working at grief. As if grief really could be something that you can survive with the aid of work, as if you could process the grief away and live without its scars and traces. It is the same kind of deception as the anti-wrinkle creams and cosmetic fillers you inject into your face. As if, somewhere, there really was a substance that could turn time back, make our skin smooth again and our souls carefree, as if, by working hard enough, we could stay eternally young and enthusiastic, for ever believing that everything is possible for us.

  Eerik and I are not working at our grief. We have no reason to break out of our grief, not a single reason to liberate ourselves from grief. Our only alternative is to carry it with honour, the weight of our own mistakes, of our own grief, of the love we have for Aslak. We will stay alive and love him. And every single day, as long as there is anything left of our memory, we will think about what we did wrong.

  Our steps quicken as we approach the area blockaded by the police; the rhythm of our breathing quickens. We squeeze each other by the hand and run, so fast that are unable to speak even if we wanted to, towards the cordoned-off area at whose edges we can see the outlines of the army tanks.

  47

  He has always been a clumsy boy. The one who couldn’t make a catch at baseball and who ran more slowly than the others.

  Now he gets up, lithe as a cat, stepping onto the edge of the roof with one certain and easy stride. The lights of the police cars flicker in blue waves on the ground. He jumps before he has time to think about anything, head first as if he were diving into warm water swarming with silver-flanked fish.

  48

  Aava

  I wake in yesterday’s creased clothes, the pattern of the pillowcase on my cheek, in my mouth the taste of yesterday’s dinner. Gerard is sleeping with his arms flung out; he too is wearing his day clothes, the stubble blue on his chin. I rest my hand on his ribcage, my palm against the peaceful beating of his heart.

  I open the curtains I have hung on the narrow window. The sky is cloudless. The moon casts its pale glimmer into the room, the stars like holes leading to another, brightly lit world. I think of Bahdoon’s grandfather gazing at the stars, waiting for the growing season to begin and for the children’s arms to grow strong again.

  A plane is will be waiting for me at Mogadishu International Airport in half an hour. The plane is a rusty Cessna; as I get in I always have sticky palms but a smile on my face. I have not told anyone here that I am afraid of flying. I wouldn’t have the nerve to say anything like that.

  The shower block is on the other side of the yard; at this time there may already be a queue. I clean my armpits and my face with a wet wipe; this time, it will have to do. Gerard’s forehead is sweaty. I also clean his face; he murmurs in his sleep and pulls me close
r. I press my face for a moment against his sleepy neck.

  I pack a pen and notebook, bars of chocolate as snacks, and the lunch I ordered from the kitchen yesterday, a penknife, a water bottle and a walkie-talkie, and dress as I always do when I am going to the villages. Ugly underwear, an ankle-length skirt and over it a bulletproof vest, on my head a scarf which covers both my hair and most of the bulletproof vest, and on top of the scarf a helmet. I pull soft socks onto my feet and on top of them sturdy hiking boots in which I can walk long distances in thick scrub. As I tie the laces my hands are shaking. I think about another young doctor, a Norwegian man, whom al-Shabaab kidnapped from a village health centre seven years ago and whose eyes still change when he talks about it.

  ‘On field trips you have to remember that you can be kidnapped at any moment,’ he said, and at the end of the sentence his voice began to shake.

  ‘Wear proper shoes. If you’re kidnapped you have to walk a lot.’

  I pull my shoelaces into a knot by mistake; when I tug it just gets tighter. Tears flow down my cheeks; I wipe them away with the edge of the scarf, cut the lace with a knife and tie the tangled lace. The front of the shoe gapes open so that there is no support for the ankle when I walk. If I were to be kidnapped on this trip, I would walk more slowly than the others. I would trip on roots and I would be weak. A weak victim makes kidnappers use harsher violence. A weak victim is easier to kill.

  Before, I did not fear kidnapping. As I set off on this trip I thought about the war, which had been going on for so long that killing people had become easy. I thought about the roadside bombs, the kidnappings and the masked men who might attack residential areas in the middle of the night, kill the guards and do to the residents whatever would cause the most fear. I curled up on the sofa, drank tea, and thought a lot about what fear-hardened people who wanted to make foreign workers so fearful that they would no longer come here might do to me. I went through it all in my mind. I want to do something good in places where no one really wants to go, I had written in my journal back then. It is the only thing that makes sense in my life. If the cost is to be killed or raped, I am prepared to pay it.

  A news item glows on the screen of my phone. I glance at it once more.

  Danish terrorist arrested for planning attacks

  In simultaneous attacks in New York, Shanghai, Helsinki, Gothenburg, St Petersburg and Ghadames, Libya, 46 people were killed and 283 wounded. According to police the figures may rise, for some of the wounded are in a critical condition. Five people have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Three of the accused have committed suicide.

  Twenty-seven-year-old Lauri Aslak Anttila carried out the Helsinki attack.

  Lars Skovgaard Jensen, who has been arrested in Libya, is suspected of masterminding the attacks. Forty-three-year-old, Danish-born Jensen is one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. He spent his youth in neo-Nazi circles in Denmark and influenced the radicalisation of the far right in Denmark. Subsequently he has lived in Iraq, Ukraine and Libya and participated in many terror attacks with both far-right and Islamist groups. The police are silent on the question of whether Jensen’s acts are informed by any unifying ideology. Jensen is known to participate in internet chat groups under many assumed identities. He communicated with Anttila in the guise of a woman under the alias Saharaflower.

  I quit the news item. In my mind is a thick door and in it a lock which no one can open. Behind the locked door is Aslak.

  Now all I think of is the journey I must undertake. The coming days, weeks and years, when I must stay in this country and focus on being able to do something, at least.

  I pull the covers over the sleeping Gerard, pull a piece of paper from my notebook and write: Thank you.

  Outside it is cool. At the edge of the dark-blue sky the pale red strip of morning is spreading. In this city I love most of all this moment, when the pale, warm light fans the night into morning and the antennae rising from the buildings are outlined against the glowing sky. The city is for a moment so quiet that near the sea you can hear the sound of the waves. You can close your eyes, smell the salty air and imagine that the day contains the promise of something good.

  Bahdoon is at the door. He is reading a newspaper and brings dark tea, raising his eyes and smiling when he sees me.

  ‘Sister. How are you?’

  I put my bag down on the ground, sit on it and press my hands to my face.

  An armoured car will be coming to fetch me soon. The plane will take off shortly. It will land on a runway the width of its wheelbase cleared from the dense brush; the guard will announce on his walkie-talkie to the group that controls the village that I am about to arrive, and the nurse will come and meet me. Before I can start work, I must meet the chief and the village elders – wise-eyed, orange-bearded men who thank me for coming and offer me warm lemonade, which must be drunk. After that it is time for what I like most: measuring the children’s arms in the health centre with the local nurse. Talking to these calmly working women in the simple but neat and systematically functioning health centre in a mud hut always reassures me.

  I admire the serenity with which the women do their jobs despite the fact that the local doctor was shot in this village a few weeks ago. The women’s capacity to go on with their work despite these conditions puts the world back to rights for a moment. Work must be done. Whatever happens, work must be done.

  ‘My brother . . .’ I whisper to Bahdoon from behind my hands.

  Bahdoon has never touched me. Now he takes me by the hand, pulls it gently away from my face and gives me a hot cup of tea.

  ‘Drink this,’ Bahdoon says. ‘The car is ready.’

  The mug warms my hands, the drink my mouth, chest and belly. I give the empty mug to Bahdoon and thank him, swallowing my tears, when he takes my hand again, a quick squeeze that conveys a sympathy that is too strong.

  I get into the car where the guard is already sitting, a rifle on his shoulder.

  When I decided to study medicine, I separated myself from Aslak. For years I dreamed about knives which cut Siamese twins apart from each other, amputated a hand or a foot, slashed a sternum open and dug out a still-beating heart. I had decided to go. I had decided to tear myself away from the past by violent means if necessary and to direct myself towards a life that suddenly seemed inviting and fresh, like a sea breeze in a stuffy room. I spread my arms and walked steadily in its direction; I no longer wanted to die, but to live.

  ‘How can you abandon me like this?’ Aslak asked, and I didn’t have an answer. He appeared in my dreams and in quiet, solitary moments; my memories were Aslak’s memories and my shadow Aslak’s shape. I could not tell Aslak anything about it. I could not tell anyone else, could not explain what is was like for another life to walk alongside my own life, the person I loved the most, in whose life nothing had ever begun, and how that person’s world was much more real than mine.

  Some time later, perhaps a very long time later, I think about Aslak again, my little brother, who used to creep under my covers to sleep. Now all I think about is work.

  I think about women who bury their husbands and children and go on working. Women who are not afraid of gunshots, machetes or rape. Women who go to work and do their jobs well, asking everyone how they are, filling in their health records, joking with the little patients resting in the corner of the mud hut, using humour to create, in the health centre and the surrounding village, an atmosphere of quiet hope. The women work showing that it is possible to do this too, to continue working even though everything around has been destroyed, to continue work which sustains order and hope, to demonstrate to people who encounter death every day that they are important. Amid endless violence there is nothing more important than to champion the meaning of life, all the more tenaciously, the more frustrating, hopeless and desolate it seems.

  Bahdoon opens the gate and waves at me. I wave back. The call to prayer echoes over the city. The driver takes me to the airport. There the rusty plane
awaits me, as ever.

  Turn over for a sneak peek at The Cleaner by Elisabeth Herrmann

  1

  It was not a good place to die.

  Judith Kepler pulled the handbrake and turned off the motor. She watched the grey tenement building through the windscreen of the van and felt her stomach contract. Her palms, clinging to the steering wheel, were moist. And to top it off, she had an absolute beginner with her this morning.

  Along the busy street there were rows of discount chain clothes stores, brothels and shady used car salesmen. A district where everything could be had on the cheap: women, cars, even apartments. Several of the building’s windows were boarded up. In others, blankets and towels took the place of curtains.

  Her front-seat passenger looked longingly at a run-down Ford Fiesta that could be driven off the lot for the monthly payment of only ninety-nine euros. Provided you had a steady job. Kai had neither ninety-nine euros, nor a job. He was a broad-shouldered, tall boy with a stylish Beatles haircut with the fringe combed into his face. It lent something unintentionally poetic to his powerful features, something he probably had no clue about. She flipped down her sun visor and looked into the mirror. What did twenty-one-year-olds think about women over thirty? They didn’t even come into consideration, probably. She brushed back a strand of hair and at the same moment thought how vain she must seem to him. She did it every time she went onto a job site: hands washed, hair combed. First impressions mattered. That was true for apartments, jobs, men, and everything else that had to be taken care of properly.

  Kai tore his gaze from the Ford Fiesta, raising his eyebrows all the way up to his fringe and asked sullenly, ‘We going up there now or what?’