We always eat at six. I’ve had a shower, thrown my muddy clothes in the washing machine, carried my ruined shoes out to the bin, looked in the medicine cabinet and spent just enough time lying on my bed staring at the ceiling. I lay listening as Taina came home, called out a hello and started getting dinner ready in the kitchen. I don’t know where she’s been. Hopefully at work.
‘Seems like you got a bit more than forty winks,’ she says, smiling and carrying the pot of potatoes to the table.
We sit down to eat. I don’t know if I’ll be able to swallow anything at all. We hand pots and dishes across the table to each other. A moment later the food is steaming on our plates. I raise my glass.
‘A toast. To you.’
Taina raises her glass as well, looking at me. We clink and take a sip.
‘I haven’t seen you wearing that shirt for a while,’ she comments.
She’s never liked my Snacky Summer Girl T-shirt that I got free with a super-sized meal years ago. The T-shirt isn’t stylish in any way, shape or form, and, since I first acquired it, I’ve gained the equivalent of a small baby in weight; however, the shirt feels oddly appropriate, given the situation. The white, skin-tight T-shirt features a large, garish photograph of an unknown blonde leaning alluringly against a double hamburger dripping with grease.
‘A spur-of-the-moment choice,’ I say and look down at my plate. I know the meatloaf is melt-in-the-mouth delicious, the gravy so rich that under normal circumstances I could almost drink it. It’s a tricky situation. ‘How was your day?’
Taina is already tucking in. As always, she has a hearty appetite.
‘Pretty average,’ she says between mouthfuls.
I look at her. The answer is both understandable and completely outrageous. She swallows.
‘Except I heard the boys from the Hamina Mushroom Company visited our office. What was that all about?’
‘No idea,’ I say.
‘What did they want?’
‘I suppose they wanted to let us know they’re in the same line of business.’
‘They visited the office to tell you that?’
‘That’s the long and the short of it. More or less.’
‘More or less,’ Taina repeats and looks at my plate. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Couldn’t be better.’ I cut off a piece of meatloaf and slide a chunk of potato on top of it with my knife. ‘They’re ratcheting up the competition in this business,’ I explain. ‘Judging by our conversation, they have brand-new equipment and everything else, ready to go. They were asking when the Japanese are arriving.’
Taina’s eyes avoid my own, her gaze retreating to her own plate.
‘But as far as I know the Japanese aren’t coming this summer,’ I say, keeping my eyes fixed on Taina. ‘At least I haven’t heard anything to that effect. Why would they need to come to Finland? Everything here is in order and we have an agreement about shipment times and prices. But that’s not what I told those three.’
Taina glances first out into the yard then at me. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘I said the Japanese were coming in a week and a half.’
‘Why?’
‘Why did I tell them, or why are the Japanese coming?’
‘Why did you say that?’ asks Taina, a faint note of irritation in her voice.
‘I was playing for time. I don’t think those men are who they say they are.’
‘And who do they say they are?’ she asks.
‘The staff of the Hamina Mushroom Company.’
Taina looks at me and eats in silence. All I’ve eaten today is one ice cream, but I’m not hungry. The plate in from of me has stopped steaming. Taina is eating with conviction; she bites off a hunk of rye bread, scoops up a large slice of meatloaf with the fork in her right hand and pushes them into her mouth one after the other, so quickly that the act of chewing requires considerable concentration.
It seems that a good dose of outdoor hanky panky does wonders for the appetite.
‘And while we’re on the subject of the Hamina Mushroom Company, or whatever they’re called,’ I begin, ‘what with this heightening of the local competition, I promised Sanni a pay rise.’
Her shiver is miniscule, but I notice it all the same. Taina’s fork is about to slip from her hand, but she grips it almost instantly.
‘You did what?’
‘Sanni is the best picker we’ve ever had, and during her time as harvest coordinator we’ve been one-hundred-per-cent certain she’ll find the best local pickers to support her. She is skilled and she understands the challenges we face in this business. Think of it as an investment – insurance for the future. We want her to stay on our books and not decide to move to the Hamina Mushroom Company, for instance.’
Taina lowers her fork to her plate and leans back in her chair. The movements aren’t big or exaggerated, but they are perceptible nonetheless.
‘You’ve clearly given it a lot of thought,’ she says. ‘And have you thought about where we’re going to find this extra money?’
I too place my fork on my plate; Taina’s body language seems to give me permission to do so. The difference, of course, is that her plate is almost empty and mine is still untouched.
‘I’ve got a solution to the problem,’ I begin. ‘I’ve done some detailed calculations and had a look at the cars. I’ve come to the decision that we don’t need to get Petri a new delivery van and we don’t necessarily have to give him a pay rise this summer. He’s still so young, and in some respects so inexperienced, that rewarding him at this stage might give the wrong signal. I think he needs to demonstrate more clearly why he’s important to us, show us what he’s got to offer. If you ask me, he still needs to … how should I put it … grow up a bit. He’s just a boy, a lad, lots of muscle and not much gumption.’
Taina’s face seems flushed. The redness runs from her neck all the way up to her cheeks.
‘We’ve already promised him a new van and a raise.’
I shake my head, doing my best to look contemplative. ‘I promised him we would think about it. That’s something quite different.’
By now Taina’s face is red all the way up to her hairline.
‘He needs a new van,’ she says. She doesn’t look me in the eyes but stares over my left shoulder, perhaps into the living room. ‘He’s unbelievably helpful, he’s full of energy, and despite what you think, he has plenty of initiative.’
‘Well, I’ve made my decision,’ I say. ‘Sanni is the team member we’re going to focus on.’
Taina shifts in her chair. She’s not squirming, this is subtler, but there’s still a restlessness in her movements.
I finally get to the point. ‘While we’re talking things over, I think we should change to a lighter diet.’
The agitation in Taina’s movements disappears, to be replaced by a heaviness I haven’t seen before; and a stern expression makes the red in her cheeks look shinier, harder.
‘What?’
…we’re probably looking at nature’s own toxins. As things stand now it looks as though we’re dealing with poisons that can be acquired from various plants and mushrooms through a process of…
With the doctor’s voice ringing in my head, I place my elbows on the table.
‘We eat far too heavily. I’ve put on quite a bit of weight since we first met – twenty-four kilos to be precise. The same amount I weighed in first grade. Sometimes it feels like I’m dragging that young boy around with me. I thought I’d suggest that for now we leave out the rich sauces and gravies, the heavy stews, bakes, casseroles and meatloaves, as delicious as they are, and switch to a much simpler diet where the ingredients are … how should I put it … easier to identify.’
Taina looks at me. I’ve never seen her eyes this colour before. Is it because of the setting sun, the painfully faint light from the energy-saving bulb dangling above the dining table, or something else altogether?
‘Where has all this suddenly come from?
The need to … “identify” the ingredients?’
We stare at each other. The silence is full of humming – radio waves that no machine can reach.
I lean back, raise a hand and tap my stomach. ‘I’ve decided to get rid of this. I’m going to exercise and get back to the shape I was in when we met.’
Taina hesitates for a moment; the delay is infinitesimally short, but I can see into her blind spot.
‘Really?’ she exclaims as she regains composure, and the blind spot is gone. ‘That’s quite a challenge.’
‘But, with a new diet and a long-term workout regime, it’s perfectly achievable. We could start jogging together again. This belly will be gone by Christmas. How about that?’
Taina looks as though she is about to say something, but remains silent. She stares ahead, stands up, picks up her plate then leans over and picks up mine too.
As she turns and heads towards the kitchen sink, I open my mouth. ‘One more thing,’ I say and watch as she stops in her tracks, the plates in her hand. ‘Have you seen Veikko?’ I ask.
She doesn’t turn to look at me.
2
The morning is golden, the smell of salt in the air. The sea ripples beneath the jetty. I never go swimming in the mornings, but today I decide to do so. I dive in. Near the surface the water is warm, but only half a metre down I can feel an icy fist grip my shins. I kick up to the surface again and blink my eyes.
I perform a gentle breaststroke, my eyes fixed on the horizon. The world is full of new light.
I have survived the night. I have found powers I never knew I had: I lay awake next to Taina without accusing her of murdering me (I’m going to need some evidence first); I managed to down a litre of honey-flavoured acidophilus yoghurt between midnight and six a.m.; and I have pondered my situation, considering my possible next steps.
And you can say what you like about death, but its slimming effect is not to be underestimated. The swimming trunks, which pinched my hips at the beginning of summer and were so tight round my groin that they could have given me a hernia, now sit nicely, thanks to the fasting regime I instituted at dinner last night.
Of course, this is only temporary but, as I now know, so is life. It’s strange to think that I’ve lived this long as if I never imagined I’d die; as if, as one summer came to an end, the next was always a given, and for some reason it always promised to be better than the last. And yet, all we have is a blink of the eye, a glimpse of the sunlight, a brightness we cannot understand, the time we have left getting shorter by the minute.
My nocturnal thoughts are the skeletons of my daytime thoughts – bodies twisted by my dreams. I realised this at four a.m. as I woke from a short, fractured shred of a dream. I was afraid that I’d lived the wrong way, that I’d wasted my life. It was the fear of something irrevocable, as though I’d run off a cliff edge, my feet thrashing above the gaping emptiness below.
But the sun, the sea and the new morning seem to heal everything.
It’s hard to say what is the result of shock, what is an effect of the poisoning, and what is caused by the realisation of what my life does and does not include. But what happened yesterday is perhaps the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. It dropped me right into the heart of my own life.
I am so at one with the light and the water, right here, right now, that I only see the man as I flounder to my feet at the shore and find myself standing knee-deep in water.
A pair of badly fitting dark-blue jeans, a T-shirt bearing the logo of the Suonenjoki strawberry-picking festival, black-and-white Pumas for indoor sports. The man is standing in the overgrown grass along the shore. He is about my age but significantly slimmer. Why am I thinking about my weight all the time? Why now, when it shouldn’t matter at all? Or does it matter? I can hear Tomi calling me ‘fat boy’, and I know why the man is here.
‘Jaakko Kaunismaa?’ the man asks, and when I nod and rub the seawater from my eyes he points to the photographic police ID hanging round his neck. ‘Mikko Tikkanen from Hamina police station. I’ve got a few questions, if it’s not too much bother.’
‘By all means,’ I say.
I wade back to the jetty, pick up my towel and dry my face. For some reason, it feels as though a dry face is my own face, and it’s easier to control the expressions of one’s own face.
Mikko Tikkanen takes a few summery strides through the grass, gleaming in the sunshine, and steps onto the jetty. It must only be about eight metres long, so a moment later we are standing facing one another halfway along it. There’s a dark square round Tikkanen’s mouth: a carefully trimmed beard. His eyes are friendly and alert. He takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and looks at it. Given the way he continues – he knows his stuff from memory – I can only conclude that the scrap of paper is a prop.
‘A Samurai sword has been reported stolen, and its owner seems to believe you might have taken it when you … visited … the premises of the Hamina Mushroom Company at Teollisuuskatu 27 yesterday between the hours of 12:41 p.m. and 12:46 p.m. As proof of this visit the owner of the sword has provided security camera footage and a footprint taken from the floor.’
Tikkanen looks at me. My swimming trunks seem to have shrunk to their early-summer size. I cannot lie.
‘I have not stolen any swords,’ I reply.
Tikkanen’s eyes scrutinise me further. I towel my back dry. The air feels like the warm breath of a small animal against my skin – pleasant and soft.
‘But you admit to visiting the premises of the Hamina Mushroom Company between the hours of—’
‘If it’s on video, it would be hard to claim otherwise.’
Tikkanen is silent. A quick realisation.
‘That is, if it’s on video,’ I continue. ‘In that case, it would be perfectly clear.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Video footage would show that I didn’t steal the sword. Or anything else for that matter.’
So far, all true.
‘There’s only one camera,’ he says, ‘and the footage I’ve seen shows you forcing entry into the said premises. I didn’t see you leave the premises.’
‘I didn’t force entry,’ I sigh. ‘I walked in. The door was open.’
‘Did you ring the bell?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did anyone come and open the door?’
‘No.’
‘And what do you think that means?’
We stare at one another. Water tickles the inside of my thighs as it drips and trickles from my swimming trunks, but I don’t quite feel comfortable enough to start towelling my groin.
‘It doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ I say. ‘The owners might have been busy with work. The noise of the machinery would have drowned out the sound of the doorbell.’
Tikkanen remains silent.
‘Very well,’ I continue eventually. ‘I could have stopped in the porch, but I stepped further inside.’
‘Why?’ It is as though Tikkanen’s question comes at me from a different direction to the others; this question belongs to a down-to-earth guy called Mikko Tikkanen standing in front of me in a strawberry-emblazoned T-shirt.
‘I was curious,’ is my honest reply.
‘Curious about what?’ Once again it’s Mikko Tikkanen without his detective inspector’s persona.
‘I’m a mushroom entrepreneur. My wife and I started our business three and a half years ago. We’ve built our business patiently, always thinking of the long-term plan. All of a sudden the Hamina Mushroom Company appears out of nowhere. I wanted to introduce myself, ask about professional matters.’
‘Why specifically yesterday?’
Because yesterday was the day I died. Because yesterday I finally came to life.
‘Maybe the upcoming harvest season had something to do with it. We’ll be starting the harvest soon; the forecast promises rain and storms towards the end of the week, and the mushrooms will appear almost immediately after that…’
Tikk
anen turns his head, looks across the water towards Tervasaari.
‘Why mushrooms?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘What’s the fascination with mushrooms? What made you start gathering them in the first place?’
‘We don’t gather the mushrooms,’ I explain. ‘I mean, we do, but we don’t do the picking ourselves, and picking isn’t what we wanted to get involved with. We were both made redundant, and my wife read an article in the paper about Japanese mushroom enthusiasts who fly to Finland looking for the local pine mushrooms. And so we had the idea that we could take the pine mushroom to the Japanese instead.’
‘That’s what your wife said too.’
‘My wife?’
Tikkanen looks at me again. ‘Taina Kaunismaa. I’ve just spoken with her. She told me where I could find you.’
‘Of course,’ I nod.
By this point I’m almost dry. The towel dangles limply in my hand. I feel the need for clothes, for some form of protection.
‘She said she hasn’t seen the sword either.’
‘Of course she hasn’t.’
‘So you did not take the sword, and it is not currently in your possession?’
The image of Tomi flashes through my mind, sitting firmly on the embankment by the stream, the sword thrusting through his head like an antenna used to listen to distant radio frequencies.
‘No, I did not. I’ve never even held such a thing in my hand.’
Tikkanen stares at me. I’m not sure what his new expression is trying to tell me. He is serious, but looks as though he is genuinely excited. Perhaps not excited as such, but curious.
‘Did you want to take it?’
I want to get off this jetty. I shake the hand holding the towel towards the ground. ‘I should be getting to work. The harvest is about to start and…’
Tikkanen looks at me. For a few seconds it seems as though not a single part of his body moves at all. The thought occurs to me that his heart might not be beating either.
‘Of course,’ he says eventually.
The Man Who Died Page 6