Burnt Land

by Tua Harno

  During high school Janne had a reputation for being so free with hugs. Sanna remembered that smiling boy greeting her and wrapping his arms around her. What had happened to that boy?

  “I’ll come back to get the rest,” Sanna said from the doorway, her voice hoarse. “And leave my keys.”

  There was no response from the living room.

  Way back when, Mom had gathered up her clothes the same way, crouched over as if protecting her head, while Dad followed her around the house. Mom had already been hunched over in the beanbag, reading the romance novel she had picked up in line at the supermarket, when Dad came home. Mom had hundreds of them; the women on the covers invariably had long, thick hair, the men sun-bronzed forearms.

  Dad walked into the middle of the living room without taking off his shoes and asked Mom if she had an explanation. She’d been seen with another man.

  “I love him” was her explanation.

  “Get out, and get out now.”

  Sanna and Ville had both burst into tears. They could tell from their parents’ voices that there was no surviving this one. Dad slammed the bedroom door in their faces. They looked at each other, afraid. Ville gulped audibly when Dad shouted, “Keep listening at that door and you’ll go to hell.”

  They crept into their room, where they sat side by side on the edge of Ville’s bed and waited. Sanna remembered staring at the crocheted lampshade and the fringe dangling from it. They heard a nasty crash through the walls; Ville flinched but took Sanna’s hand.

  Mom came to say a teary good-bye, told them she’d be back soon. Sanna wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and hung there. Mom had to release the fingers one by one. When she left, Ville held back Sanna.

  “Why’d you do that?” Sanna roared at him.

  Ville picked at his warts, not looking Sanna in the eye. “There wasn’t anything you could do.”

  The next morning, Dad laid down the new law. They were no longer a family, and this house was no longer their home.

  Initially Sanna and Ville moved into a one-bedroom apartment with Mom. The apartment building alone felt like a drop in status compared to their previous townhouse. Ville grumbled about it, and Sanna told him to shut up. Mom kept bursting into tears. Weeks passed without them setting eyes on Dad.

  Then Dad gave them his new address in Espoo and demanded the court-mandated weekends. So Mom set the phone books down on the plastic tablecloth and had Sanna look up the bus map.

  The bus had high-backed seats upholstered in heavy burgundy fabric, and carpeting the color of dirty straw ran down the aisle. Sanna stared out the windshield; the dashboard creaked. Mom kept glancing out anxiously, even though the driver had promised to let them know when they got to the right stop.

  Ville was sitting calmly, but Sanna could tell from the way he was clenching his teeth that her brother was nervous. Sanna realized that Ville had put on different clothes, the kind they normally only wore on special days at school: a short-sleeved dress shirt with a sweater over it, walking shoes with hard soles, and ironed pants. Sanna pinched the back of Ville’s hand and called him Mr. Snooty. Ville pushed her, hard. Mom snapped at them to behave.

  Sanna moved up to the next row. She was wearing mismatched gloves. The blue glove on her left hand was a pimple-grip riding glove; she liked the way it felt against her cheek. Mom had bought the pair at the flea market without asking why they had plastic bumps on them; Sanna didn’t say anything. She loved wearing them. But she hadn’t been able to find the other one when they were leaving the house, so the glove on her right hand was a stretchy yellow one with a big hole at the base of the thumb. There was a rip in one of the knees of her stonewashed jeans and her sneakers were crusted in dirt.

  They got off the bus. Gray asphalt stretched before them and behind them, with a gleaming white fence on either side. The sun was beating down on the backs of their necks. They walked for a long time before coming to a broad drive. They looked up the drive and Ville gasped.

  Mom sensed the grandness, too. Sanna knew that if she removed Mom’s melamine hair clips, the spikes would be slimy with sweat. Mom instinctively touched the clips as if they were in danger of slipping and falling out of her greasy hair, casting her into even greater disarray. It pained Sanna that Mom thought both of them could be bewitched by the fountain and the expensive car in the driveway.

  Sanna hugged Mom and wouldn’t let go, even though Ville impatiently tugged at them to keep moving. She wanted to take Mom by the elbow and go back home, stop by Elanto on the way for Berliner doughnuts. Mom would eat her doughnut and fall into a funk that evening as she gazed at the knitting that lay across her thighs. Mom’s thighs barely fit between the chair’s armrests, which left red dents in her skin. Sanna would comfort her, tell her moms were supposed to be round and soft, but Mom would still look sad.

  Mom stopped going with them to Dad’s after that first time, now that they knew the way.

  After that first visit, Ville gradually moved in with Dad, one belonging at a time. Once all his schoolbooks were in Espoo, Ville didn’t have any reason to come home for the night.

  “You can move there, too,” Ville had said.

  Sanna gaped at her brother. “I can’t. How is that going to make Mom feel?” Only one of them could get out of Kannelmäki free, and Ville was the one who played the card.

  One time after Sari and Dad were married, Sanna noticed that Ville looked like her son, with the same healthy vigor, the same wiry build. Their sandy hair gleamed from the same shampoo. Sanna wondered if Ville ever looked at Sari inappropriately.

  Sanna hadn’t been able to resist commenting on Sari’s age to Dad, but Dad had been prepared. “I’m happy that you think thirty-seven is young,” he said. Sanna continued to cast aspersions, but she realized she was on thin ice. Dad could say something about Mom at any instant that would disarm Sanna. Nonetheless, she thought it was clear that Dad should have been alone the way Mom was alone. She demanded fairness and symmetry, and as harmless as this dull, flat-chested, short-haired Sari was, she made Dad seem the victor.

  Sari had read up on how to approach a spouse’s children. She was polite and maintained her distance. As a sign of the fact that Sari lived with Dad now, plush fabric softener–scented towels that matched the rug and the bathrobes appeared in the bathrooms. The bathrobes were velour soft, and Sanna wanted to touch them, but her fingers wouldn’t let her.

  She remembered Dad’s coarse terry-cloth bathrobe and how his chest smelled of sauna sweat when Sanna climbed into his lap in the family room of their old home and the water dripped from his hair onto her nightshirt. Now Dad probably smelled like lily-of-the-valley and lavender in the velvety bathrobe Sari had bought.

  Instead of caressing the bathrobes, Sanna scrubbed her fingers with the nailbrush. They were always stained with oil or acrylic paint, or charcoal that blackened her entire palm. She wanted to prove that Mom had succeeded with her. But no matter how hard she tried to show she was well bred, she couldn’t help making mistakes. Mom had never taught her how to use utensils properly, or that you weren’t supposed to reach across the table—you had to ask.

  Sanna could sense Sari eyeing her and felt like chucking potatoes at her. They had appeared on Sanna’s plate, already peeled; there was no shared scrap bowl on the table, awaiting peels, bones, and bits of tendon. Here you arranged the bones from your fish at the edge of your plate, like false white eyelashes.

  Sari didn’t try to raise Sanna later, either, but Dad started making comments about manners. One time, after the school’s spring fete, Sanna got up from the table without asking to be excused, because that’s what you did at Mom’s when your plate was empty. Dad swiveled around in his chair and looked at her. Sanna had already picked up a magazine and was lying on the couch.

  Alarmed, Sanna said, “What?”

  “Did we do something to offend you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Why did you leave the table that way?”

  Sann
a saw Sari and Ville chewing their food mutely.

  “I’m done eating. What?”

  “We wait until everyone else is, too,” Dad said, turning back to his plate.

  Sanna returned to the table more confused than embarrassed. She sat there rocking on one leg and waited. Why exactly had it been important for her to come back?

  “Is there anything for dessert?” she asked a moment later, when the conversation didn’t seem to pick up.

  Sari shot Dad a questioning glance and said, “I wonder if there’s ice cream in the freezer.”

  “Sanna, we sit at the table until everyone’s finished, even if there is no ice cream. Your manners are worse than a street urchin’s.”

  “What? What sense does that make?” Burning tears welled up in Sanna’s eyes. “You guys eat so slow.”

  “You wolf down your food and smack like a pig!” Ville chimed in. “It’s disgusting.”

  Sari looked at the tablecloth.

  Sanna challenged Ville with her gaze and said, “What the hell?”

  Ville looked right back without batting an eye.

  “Well, excuse me!” Sanna said.

  She stood up so violently that the hem of the tablecloth caught in the crook of her knee. The jerk toppled the candelabra and wax ran across the tablecloth.

  “Sanna!”

  Sanna went into Ville’s room and slammed the door. She didn’t have her own room at her Dad’s; she slept on Ville’s floor on the rare occasions she spent the night. According to the custody agreement she was supposed to spend every other weekend there, but no one was keeping track.

  Dad opened the door. “Sanna, you can’t behave this way. I tried to tell you politely.”

  “But I don’t know your rules. Maybe I should just go home,” she said, not looking at him.

  She was curled up on Ville’s bedspread, trying to sniff Ville in the covers, but the fabric gave off a pressed brightness, an ironed fragrance that was foreign and repellent. Sanna remembered the poison-green quilt she had slept with since she was a baby. Dad had wrapped her up in it and then come pretending to look for her. Sanna had laughed so hard she peed her pants.

  She waited for Dad to lower a hand between her shoulder blades the way Mom did when she couldn’t sleep. But Sanna was quiet too long. Dad left, and a moment later, Sanna could hear the television.

  Sanna imagined herself stalking down the hall, letting them watch her go home in the middle of her stay. She wanted Dad to say, “Sanna, please don’t leave like this.”

  Would he? Or would he just let her go? When Sanna finally stepped into the hallway, she saw that the big double doors leading into the living room were closed, and the sound of the television was seeping through. Sanna sighed loudly enough for Dad to hear, but nothing happened.

  Sanna waited for the bus forever, staring at the fence. The glowing paint turned the grass peering between the planks a deep, vivid green, and its brilliance made her eyes ache. She could hear children shrieking as they ran through a sprinkler; water splattered and drizzled to the sidewalk. Sanna cast a murderous glance at the miniature rainbows.

  Her fury and desire for revenge evaporated on the bus as she gazed out at the springtime city, and pictured how thrilled Mom would be that she was coming home early. They could do something together, like wash the windows. Doing housework like that with Mom was fun.

  But as she walked across the parking lot, Sanna could sense that not everything was as it should be. The blinds in Mom’s room were lowered. Sanna entered the building, but her footsteps slowed as she climbed the stairs. She thought she could hear voices through the door, but she wasn’t sure if they were coming from their apartment. Even though she had the key in her hand, she rang the doorbell. The apartment fell silent. Sanna noticed movement at the peephole.

  “Sanna, what are you doing here?” Mom said as she opened the door.

  Mom’s makeup was smeared, her hair was tousled, the scent of tropical perfume wafted out into the corridor, and her breath was stale and sweet. She was in her bathrobe, which she was holding closed because the belt was missing.

  Sanna scratched the wall with her nails.

  “I didn’t want to stay there. Can I stay here instead?”

  Mom looked embarrassed and angry.

  “You sort of picked a bad time.”

  “So where am I supposed to go?”

  “How about the library?”

  “Yeah, great idea, Mom!” Sanna shouted, letting anger get the better of her. “I’m sure it’s open on Saturday night!”

  “Just wait a second, I’ll give you some money.” Mom closed the door and Sanna could hear her saying, “It’s just Sanna, I’ll be right there.”

  Sanna leaned against the wall; she felt like crying and shouting. Mom unlocked the door with a click and shoved a fifty-mark bill into her hand. It was so much money that for a second Sanna forgot to be offended.

  “So when can I come?”

  “Spend the night at a friend’s, he and I don’t get a chance like this very often.”

  A lump formed in Sanna’s throat.

  “He has to leave before nine in the morning. You can come back then.”

  Sanna nodded and started walking down the stairs, money in hand. When she was outside she went over to the swing; the metal chain smelled of iron and cold. She saw Mom peer out through the curtains. So tomorrow she’d probably hear about how she’d stayed in the yard too long, too. Sanna could point out to Mom that it wasn’t a good idea to let a married man use her. How she hated her mother, herself, and her life at that moment.

  Who was this so-called friend Mom thought Sanna could spend the night with? Had Mom ever seen her with friends, the kind other girls had? Sanna saw them leave school together. The only friend she’d ever had was Ville. When they were younger he played with her all the time. She remembered how Ville had grumbled when she crept across the bedroom rug and climbed into bed next to him. But her brother always made room for her, and then in the morning he’d jab her with his elbows.

  As an adult, Ville had tolerated her existence solely because of Janne. Ville was an engineer and Janne was an economist, which meant a competition of sorts, but the men were clearly fond of each other. Sanna could remember them drinking round after round of gin and tonics at a downtown café, talking trash about the people walking past, how weak the drinks were, how they had been made incorrectly. They claimed to yearn for the service you got in foreign countries. They agreed that their meal had been mediocre at best, although it had cost a thousand euros for their party of four, and even Ville’s wife, Erika, who was nearly as cold as Ville, tried to soften the sentence. She sought support from Sanna, who had opposed the whole idea of going out to eat together.

  Sanna wondered if Ville was ashamed of the working-class neighborhood where they grew up. She looked at her brother’s manicured nails, the delicate white fingers that swiped his phone’s screen. Did her brother ever talk about the times before he moved in with Dad? Or, even worse, did he claim to be from a poor single-parent household, becoming successful only after pulling himself up by his bootstraps?

  Ville liked to tell people how he bought stocks with his student loans. He also boasted about how he lived off boiled eggs and oatmeal, but forgot to mention the diet was motivated by weight loss, which was the hobby he and his first college girlfriend shared. According to the girlfriend, she didn’t understand fat people. Ville didn’t understand poor people.

  Sanna saw Janne one last time when she dropped off the keys. He wasn’t shouting anymore, but he kept an eye on Sanna while she collected her belongings. She held up things that they had bought together or received as gifts and asked whether or not he wanted them. Sanna’s fingers were sweating and trembling. When there was nothing left to grab hold of, she looked timidly at Janne.

  “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  Sanna was frightened by the hardness of his face, even though that’s what she’d expected to find there
.

  “What were you thinking?” Janne said. “You’re dreaming if you think I’m going to be the father of some breakup brat.”

  “What if,” Sanna stammered, “what if it’s the only baby you’ll ever have?”

  Janne’s jaw tightened. “That’s not your problem.”

  Closing the door felt unreal.

  How do you walk out of an eleven-year relationship?

  Like this, I guess.

  She walked down the stairs and out the back door by mistake, because that’s the way she usually went, taking the trash on her way out.

  10

  She finally heard from Janne one Friday night in Kalgoorlie. She went numb as she read the e-mail. The new girlfriend had been introduced to his parents and friends, so everyone knew now. So, according to him, Sanna didn’t have to worry about that anymore. She couldn’t say what she had expected from him, maybe a friendly message, some conciliatory gesture, but no. It was still just about him.

  I don’t know what the time limit is, but it would be best for everyone under the circumstances. We both made mistakes, and now we just have to have faith that the future will hold something better for us. Write back soon, my parents want to know if I’ve heard from you.

  Sanna closed her computer and rose from her desk. She didn’t know how to reply, she didn’t even know what she felt for Janne anymore. She got dressed and left. She walked right across the street, hardly stopping to look. Cars honked, and a drunk spread his arms and licked the air. Sanna ignored him.

  At the saloon, she bought a drink from the fly-eyed girl without a moment’s hesitation and took a seat by the wall. Was Janne right? Could she manage with the child? She remembered Dad’s words: You moved straight in with Janne from your mom’s. Have you ever been alone?

  Sanna downed her beer and the belch that followed brought up bile. She looked around at the other customers. Were they happy? Was anyone happy in this town?

  Martti walked up to her table, clinked his pint against Sanna’s bottle, and sat down. “My mom always said that if you don’t drink alone you won’t become an alcoholic.”