I listen carefully to what I’m saying. It sounds about right.
‘That’s exactly it,’ I continue. ‘I haven’t been bold enough, haven’t seen how much I can give. I’ve been holding back, not living at … full capacity. Perhaps you’ve noticed it.’
The last sentence was deliberately marked.
Taina looks at me. ‘Perhaps…’ she hesitates.
‘You might have lost faith in me,’ I ask and aim my words directly at her.
Taina continues to hesitate. Filling her fork with food takes longer than before.
‘No,’ she says at last. ‘I … Of course not.’
She’s lying. My wife is lying to me.
‘Good to hear,’ I say. ‘Mutual trust and respect are everything.’
Taina stares at her food. A tiny, almost imperceptible tremble might just have appeared in the hand holding her fork. She says nothing.
‘It’s essential,’ I continue, ‘when you’re about to make big structural changes—’
‘You can’t make them shareholders,’ Taina cuts me short. The words gush out of her like water from a broken pipe, exploding under pressure.
We look one another in the eye.
‘Could you pass the naan bread?’ I ask.
‘At least, not before we know … more.’
‘And the butter, please.’
Taina looks at me, then hands over a slice of bread and the butter dish. She pulls herself together right before my eyes, forces herself to remain calm.
‘You can’t hand out shares like caramels,’ she continues. ‘The employees have to earn them. And for that we have to watch them over time, let them demonstrate what they’re capable of.’
I lean back in my chair. ‘What kind of timeframe are you thinking of? When would be a good time to reassess the situation?’
Taina’s expression lightens visibly. ‘We’ll know more in the autumn.’
No doubt about that, I think. When you and Petri are standing at my grave – if you can tear yourselves away from the comfort of your sun lounger, that is – you’ll know a lot more indeed.
‘Why the autumn?’
‘The harvest will be over, the mushrooms picked, and we’ll know how well we’ve done this year.’
I look down at my plate and take another mouthful. The act of eating doesn’t feel that bad now.
‘So, Thailand?’ I say, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the coconut milk, the chicken and rice. ‘You’d like that?’
‘If you want,’ says Taina. I can hear that she’s trying to force a modicum of enthusiasm into her voice, but the result sounds taut and fake. It looks decidedly as though Taina has a lot at stake here. I don’t know how far she’s prepared to go, but I’m curious to find out.
‘My neck has been sore all day, my shoulders are really tense,’ I say and try to catch my wife’s eyes.
‘I can give you a back massage after dessert,’ she says with a warm smile.
I am convinced my wife has murdered me.
10
What was it about Hamina that I eventually fell in love with? The calm slowness of summer mornings, with a gentle breeze the smell of the sea and the morning market with all its sugared doughnuts and delicacies, which, over the past three and half years I’ve enjoyed enough to cause at least one diabetes scare?
The window is open, the air is motionless and stagnant, though I put my foot down on the accelerator. It’s as though pressure is building beneath a lid somewhere high up in the sky, preparing for an eruption. The sky is still cloudless; it looks as though it’s been freshly painted: it shines and glows a deep, strong blue. It must be a mirage; surely there are dark clouds hidden behind it, a bracing wind, the rumble of rain. That means a storm. And that means mushrooms.
‘Let’s talk. Come round before work.’ Sanni’s text message was waiting for me when I woke up on the sofa at half past six.
I don’t remember much of what happened after watching and commenting on the competitors on The Biggest Loser and snacking on crisps and sweets while receiving my neck massage that evening. I must have drifted off to sleep.
I remember our evening meal and how surprised I was at being able to eat, at how my hunger literally seemed to grow the more I ate, how delicious the chicken and rice were, how perfectly sugary the strawberries and cream tasted and how I picked them from the bowl one at a time thinking, This is the last one. This is the last one. This is…
I remember the feel of Taina’s hands on my bare shoulders, at once so familiar and now so … not strange, but as though their warmest, most intimate touch – the millisecond when the fingers relax and get ready for another press – was absent.
My senses have sharpened, that much I must admit. Now I sense things that before I would barely have registered. At least that’s what my damaged brain seems to be telling me.
Death feels at its most unreal in the mornings. My experience of death is only a few days in length, but already I can say that the nearer the day gets to evening, the closer the end always feels. Perhaps this is only natural.
The sun rises, the sun sets. Life is a single day.
In the mornings life seems like a foregone conclusion, but by evening the certainty slowly crumbles away. Even in normal times, the day’s events are by their nature so ephemeral, so fragile and forgettable, that it’s a wonder I haven’t thought about my own death every evening of my life.
The familiar hubbub of the market place: bread vans, the coffee tent, old men on bicycles. I take an unnecessary drive round the square just to let everything sink in. For a brief moment I think that, if I were allowed to live longer, I’d stop and enjoy a pot of coffee and a sumptuous, fatty doughnut, its sugar crust crunching between my teeth. Nonetheless I’m forced to admit to myself that my situation is by no means a given. If life is capricious and unpredictable, there’s no trusting death either.
Saviniemi is still in its place. The yard outside the house on Kalastajankatu, where I’d seen Keith Richards with his log cutter, is empty. The pile of logs is now as tall as the house. For some reason I’m convinced the man must be out somewhere, fetching more wood, probably straight from the forest.
As I park the car on Kipparinkatu, I instinctively check the mirror. I realise I’m doing it because of Tomi. But he’s not following me; the only things he’ll be following right now are the occasional pike or the lowering of fishing nets – from beneath.
Upon seeing it again, the yard looks greener than I remember: ferns like volcanic eruptions, rows of flowers standing like fruit stalls. Smells, the earth, green caves and boughs leading into the shelter of the trees at the end of the garden.
The door is unlocked. I open it and listen for a moment. I step inside, leave my shoes in the hallway and walk into the kitchen.
Sanni is naked apart from her underwear. She is standing with her back to me and using a food blender, doubtless preparing a high-protein runner’s shake. Her long crimson hair hangs halfway down her back. One side of her light-blue satin underpants has become lost between her buttocks. Her buttock is white and round, half of an athlete’s taut bum. Sanni has already turned around by the time I realise my eyes are still fixed on the spot where the buttock was only a moment ago.
‘Good morning to you too,’ she says.
I do three things at once: I remove my gaze from Sanni’s buttocks, apologise, then pull my stomach in, puff out my chest and position my arms so as to show off my biceps. I don’t know which of these is the most embarrassing. Sanni has raised her hands to cover her breasts.
‘You said in your text to pop round,’ I say. ‘I thought it was an invitation…’
‘It was,’ she says. ‘Have some coffee while I get dressed.’
I try to pull myself together, pour some coffee and sit down at the kitchen table. I look around. The kitchen is pretty, cosy. It’s a twist on an old country kitchen, probably furnished with items from the catalogue of a Swedish interior design retailer. All the bits and pieces of food on the tab
le are labelled with at least one of the words ‘organic’ / ‘diet’ / ‘light’ / ‘natural’ / ‘protein’. Everybody eats so healthily these days, I think; even me, a man who could live on butter alone. I’m not feeling that bad today, if you don’t count the slight dizziness, the tinnitus in my ears (a new symptom) and the pain radiating from my kidneys. These feel like merely small inconveniences, particularly as yesterday’s hearty meal is still inside me.
‘I paid Asko and Sami a little visit yesterday,’ says Sanni as she returns, wearing a baggy red T-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans. ‘I learned one or two interesting things. We talked about work, their plans for the summer and autumn, and how they are planning to dominate the local mushroom market.’
‘They told you that?’ I ask incredulously.
‘Of course,’ says Sanni and lifts the lid of the blender. ‘I said I’d start working for them, said I could start straight away.’
I nearly spit a mouthful of coffee across the table. Sanni pours a beetroot-red drink from the blender into a tall glass.
‘Holymotherofjesus!’ I exclaim and carefully place my coffee cup on the table.
‘Music?’
Sanni doesn’t wait for a response. She flicks her phone and music begins to sound from the speakers above the table. I know that song. Bob Marley: ‘Is This Love’.
‘You said you were going to start working for them?’ I ask, bewildered. ‘Yet only yesterday you signed a new contract with me.’
‘How else am I going to get information on what they’re up to?’ she says. ‘I’ve checked it out; everything is above board. I could sign a hundred simultaneous contracts if I wanted to, unless one of them specifically precludes me from working elsewhere. Sometimes they do, when there’s a non-compete clause or something like that…’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘It seems there’s no non-compete clause in their contract. It seems we don’t have one either. But that’s not my point. I mean in practice. Of course, an employee can accept fifty jobs on the same day if they wanted to, but taking care of them all might prove a bit challenging.’
‘It’s a probationary contract,’ she says and takes a sip from her glass. For a moment she has a bright-red moustache. A quick lick of the tongue across her lips and it’s gone. ‘I can hand in my notice anytime I want.’
‘Well, yes, but right now – and in the next few weeks – we’re going to need you more than ever before. You can’t be in two places at once.’
Sanni says nothing. The deep, smooth pulse of the bass, the jangling guitar and the soft morning sunshine transport the fragrant kitchen in the wooden house somewhere far away, somewhere where I can easily imagine us in a cottage, on an island, me and Sanni, those divine panties and her beautiful left buttock…
‘How content are you?’ she asks me. ‘With your life?’
I look at her, puzzled at the thoughts hurtling through my mind.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply honestly, and think about this for a moment. ‘For a long time I haven’t … Let’s just say looking at the larger picture isn’t all that easy at the moment.’
Sanni has already drunk half of her shake.
‘I realised something the first time you visited me here,’ she says. ‘It was exactly what I needed: a new opportunity. I’d been treading water for far too long. I was in a rut. That’s what they call it. “You’re in a rut.” It didn’t feel bad, but it was the truth. You could say I’ve had an awakening, but without any of the religious overtones. Still, the feeling must be quite similar. Your eyes open, and you can see things right in front of you that you haven’t seen before, though they’ve been there all the time. And suddenly you see the whole world, your own life and the truth about your life. The scales fall from your eyes, and you see what’s really going on, what’s happening right now.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say, partly because I agree with her but also because I enjoy Sanni’s voice, enjoy listening to her.
‘Do you know what I want to do?’ she asks and looks at me across her glass. The drink has been drunk.
I shake my head, take a sip of my coffee.
‘I want to conquer the world,’ she says.
Drinking coffee with Sanni is turning out to be an impossibility. First the palpitations caused by her near nakedness, then the news about her job, and now this. There’s a hint of green in the blue of her eyes, making her gaze positively glow.
‘I’m talking about mushrooms, of course,’ she says.
‘Right,’ I say.
‘Everything is in our hands. We have the best product, the best pickers, the best fresh storage and preserving facilities. We have good contacts. And now … now we’ve got the best management too: a man who is interested in developing our operations.’
I stare at her. ‘Really?’
She gets up from the table. Her jeans are so torn that I can see her groin, and I realise that my eyes have yet again alighted in the most entirely inappropriate place. Sanni leans her back against the counter, places a hand on the edge. She’s not wearing a bra, and her flimsy red T-shirt lets the rays of sunlight through.
‘Why only Japan? Why only one customer over there? Why not the rest of Asia too? Why not Central Europe? Why not London, New York?’
I’m about to say something, but Sanni raises a hand.
‘It’s not your fault, Jaakko. We’re all at fault. Me too, it’s as though I’ve been asleep. I was looking at the woods when I should have been looking in the other direction. Don’t get me wrong, I love the forest; I love mushrooms and everything about them. But … the mushrooms have to serve a greater purpose.’
Everything Sanni has just said is true, sensible. To be honest I’d go as far as to say it’s invigorating and exciting. And yet there are many reasons why I can’t think about New York right now. I don’t know if I’ll ever see Tervasaari again. Not to mention what I’m doing with the time I’ve got left: investigating my own murder and trying to save my business. I need Sanni, need her help going undercover, her role in this jigsaw. I count the cheerful yellow tassels of the rag rug on the floor; sunlight spreads across the rug like a spilled egg yolk.
‘Jaakko,’ says Sanni.
I look up.
‘Did I go too far?’ she asks.
‘It’s not that…’
‘Is it about Taina?’
The shade of green in Sanni’s eyes seems to have deepened. Her position, the way she is leaning against the kitchen counter … She is alert, serious, genuine. And I’ve been honest with her too – about everything except my death, that is.
‘I think so,’ I stammer.
‘You think?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Who would know a thing like that if not you?’
‘I’m looking into it as we speak.’
Sanni looks at me as though I were a bit slow. More Bob Marley:
‘Don’t worry about a thing,
’Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin’ don’t worry about a thing,
’Cause every little thing gonna be all right.’
‘Who are you going to ask about it?’ Sanni asks
I look at her, slide my coffee cup further across the table.
‘You’re right,’ I say eventually. ‘About the mushrooms. And about Taina too, unfortunately. I get the impression she and I see things very differently at the moment.’
‘How differently?’
‘About a hundred per cent differently.’
‘And what about you?’ she asks in a voice that now sounds softer than before. ‘How does she see you?’
‘If I say I don’t think she sees me at all, at least not in the long term, I think I’d be pretty close to the truth.’
Sanni looks at me in silence.
‘Maybe Taina is just looking in the wrong direction,’ she says eventually.
11
I decide not to glance in the mirror but hang my left arm out of the car window the way I haven’t done since I wa
s a child. It’s a warm morning; my arm is like a wing gathering air beneath it. I steer the car with my right hand, taking wide curves around corners, pressing the accelerator gently but decisively.
I am alive.
Everybody should die at least once, if only to see how beautiful the morning can be.
Everything sparkles, glistens. The great blue lid of the sea carries small white boats, and beneath the sky the earth is like a soft, green blanket.
Dangling my arm out of the car window has an unexpected side effect too: people think it’s a greeting and they respond to me, often pleasantly surprised. I smile at them, mouth the word morning. Together, we are this shared morning, every last one of us.
I blow a kiss to an old lady, who looks startled and almost drives off the road and into a hedgerow in front of a terraced house on Mannerheimintie.
The sun warms me, my arm is flying, my mind is…
Petri’s car, with Petri behind the wheel, crosses the intersection ahead of me and continues on its way into town. The car is coming from the direction of our office, but of course that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Hamina is a small town with a limited number of roads: if you drive a lot, you’ll probably drive up and down most of them several times a day. But it’s not even eight o’clock yet. Petri doesn’t seem to be looking to the side. I’m approaching the intersection from behind a warning triangle; he has right of way so he doesn’t need to look in my direction. And neither does he – at least not as far as I can see. By the time I’ve turned left at the intersection, straightened up the car and looked in the mirror, he has disappeared.
My arm is no longer dangling out of the window. It’s gripping the wheel instead.
Inside the office it is dim and quiet. I think I must be the first to arrive, but then I hear the low hum of the drying machines and see that the back door is open. I walk through the hall, arrive at the door and recognise the feet propped on the chair. I step out onto the patio and see the rest of their owner.
The Man Who Died Page 12