Helsinki White Page 6

  “Good.” I clued him in to leave. “Let me know what happens.”

  “I’m getting everything together so when you’re back on duty, we can really rock. I want to have a welcome back party for you. You OK with that?”

  I put on the smile I’d practiced in the mirror. “Sure. We’ll set the date later.”

  He grinned, happy now. “Great. This party will be so much fun, you’ll want to take it out behind the middle school and fuck it.”

  GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS. Pretending to feel, to care. Without emotions, life lacks meaning. I learned a life lesson from my loss. Nothing has intrinsic meaning. We give meaning to the things important to us. It seems the other way around, that loved ones, material possessions we enjoy, our perceived successes, give meaning to our lives. Not so. Those things have meaning because we have emotionally injected meaning into them. Emotions keep us walking, talking, functioning, striving.

  I promised myself that I would keep living life as if I felt emotions, in the hope that one day I would feel them again. I promised myself I wouldn’t forget that although I felt no emotions, others did, and theirs remained important. That the most important things in life lie outside my inner being. I had duties to fulfill, whether I found meaning in them or not.

  But I was running on sheer desire. Childlike. That meant I had some form of emotion left, but base, almost animalistic, primitive. I tried to squelch it. The childishness that was now a part of me, however, had a blurred sense of right and wrong. It had no interest in them. I had to guard against that part of myself, be wary of it, suppress it. The trick, I realized, was to act through the memory of emotions. In that way, I could at least outwardly be the same person I was pre-surgery.

  In early afternoon, Kate went grocery shopping. Anu slept. I had promised to cook that evening, was going to make linguini carbonara. Nothing quite like salty American bacon was available in Finland until recent years, and so carbonara is a relatively new dish for me. Bacon. I love the stuff.

  I was gimping across the floor on crutches, a newspaper tucked under my arm, on my way to the couch to sit down and read it. Then I lost it, went incoherent, got dizzy and light-headed. My chest got tight. The world went slow motion. I felt myself going down. A few minutes later, I came to, sprawled on the floor. It scared me.

  I followed my first instinct and called Jari. He said I’d suffered a seizure, but told me to stay calm. Especially in the first week after surgery, this could be a onetime event. To be on the safe side, though, I should start on anti-seizure medication and, depending on how things went, stay out from behind the wheel of a car for three to six months instead of just the standard one month following non-problematic brain tumor removal.

  I nixed that idea automatic. I wanted my freedom, wanted my car back. I told him if it wasn’t an anomaly, I’d take the medication, but wanted to wait and see first. He said that was OK.

  But I was afraid to pick up Anu, in case I had a seizure while I was carrying her. Kate would be home soon, I had to think fast.

  Mobility was difficult enough already. I had a baby carrier that fit in the front, against my chest. I put her in it and then walked around on crutches. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. First, I lost feeling for my own child, and now I was afraid to pick her up.

  I went with my first idea, called Arvid and explained the situation, omitting the lack of emotions part, and told him I didn’t want Kate to find out about the seizure because she would try to insist that I take the medication. This total truth thing with Kate didn’t seem to be working out for me.

  “Can you come here and stay for a few days?” I asked.

  “What will it help, and on what pretext?”

  “It will help because I don’t want to fall with the baby. You carry her for me. The pretext is you say you were in Helsinki and just decided to drop by and visit. You seem dispirited, so I invite you to dinner. You accept, and then later, old man that you are, pretend to nod off on the couch.”

  “I doubt I’ll have to pretend,” he said. “I’m two days older than dirt. I nod off frequently.”

  “I’ll suggest putting you up in the spare bed for the night. Then, in the morning, you just don’t leave. You help out with the baby, carry her to me or for me, and I point out how much easier this makes life for me. I say you’re probably just lonely, that you just lost your wife after fifty years of marriage.”

  I waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. I shouldn’t have said that, it cut too close to the bone. He was so lonely and sad that it was unbearable for him. That’s why he called me so often.

  “I can spare a few days,” Arvid said. “What am I supposed to do about bringing clothes, though? I can’t exactly show up with a suitcase.”

  “When it becomes apparent that you’ll be staying, I’ll send one of the boys to pick some things up for you.”

  “All right. I won’t be long. I’m coming by taxi.”

  “Why? A taxi is a hundred euros.”

  “I’ve been meaning to visit anyway. I’ve got a couple things for the baby and can’t carry them to the bus stop.”

  “That’s nice of you to think of her. I’ll pick up the tab.”

  “No, you won’t.” He rang off.

  KATE CAME HOME loaded down with groceries. After she put them away, I said, “I’ve got a Valentine’s Day gift for you.”

  She smiled. “I have one for you too, but I thought we would wait until after dinner to exchange them.”

  I’d planned in advance, bought them weeks ago, and I wanted to give them to her while we had a private moment, before Arvid arrived. I put on my practiced smile. “I want to do it now.” I hobbled off to the bedroom to take it from its hiding place in the closet and came back with a small, gift-wrapped box.

  She had a dozen white roses in her hands. “Just a small expression of love,” she said. “I have something else for you too, but it’s physical in nature. You have to wait, though, to let the anticipation build.”

  A blow job. About the most thoughtful gift she could give me at the moment. The way I’d felt since surgery, if I couldn’t eat it, drink it or fuck it, I didn’t want it.

  My knee hurt. We sat on the sofa. She opened her gift. A Kalevala necklace with a silver oak leaf, and matching earrings.

  I put the necklace on her. She stood in front of the foyer mirror and tried on the earrings. “They’re lovely,” she said. “Delicate and feminine but with a Viking air about them.”

  “They’re about as traditional Finnish as you can get,” I said. “Kalevala jewelry is based on ancient Nordic combined with modern designs.”

  The door buzzer rang. Kate answered. Arvid stood there with the taxi driver, who had helped him carry the mountain of packages up the stairs. The driver left. Arvid extended his hand to Kate. “I’m Arvid Lahtinen,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about you, it’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

  “And yours,” Kate said. “Kari has said nothing but good things about you.” She gestured at the piles of gift-wrapped packages. “What is all this?”

  His smile was shy. “Some odds and ends for baby Anu.”

  I was unable to help them. Arvid and Kate moved the boxes into the middle of the living room floor.

  “Good to see you, Kari,” Arvid said. “You look well. And younger. Without that scar, you look like somewhat less of a thug.”

  “Kind of you to say so.”

  Kate also said it makes me look younger. It wasn’t entirely gone, but almost. The skin was smooth, but there was a slight red discoloration, barely noticeable. The surgeon said the results are seldom this good. Also, I hadn’t been to the gym since well before the beginning of the year. I was slimmer as well.

  “Please,” Arvid said, “open the boxes.”

  Kate and I were both awestruck. There were clothes of different sizes to last Anu for a year. An antique musical mobile decorated with wooden fantasy animals. A jumperoo. A variety of stuffed animals. Everything desig
ner brands. The best money could buy. After the last package was open, Arvid took one more from his coat pocket and handed it to Kate. Inside was a silver box with Anu’s name and birth date engraved on it. It’s to keep Anu’s baby teeth in. Arvid had spent a grand, maybe two, on all this. I was taken aback. Kate was moved to tears. The old man knew how to make an impression.

  He was actually eighty-nine, not ninety as he habitually stated. I knew, from reading his secret police dossier while investigating him for murder, that he would turn ninety on March third. His appearance and movements, though, suggested a well-kept man in his seventies. Despite his advanced age, mentally he was sharp as a tack, and he had a good sense of humor. The three of us sat down for coffee and pulla, sweet rolls flavored with cardamom. He asked to hold Anu, and bounced her on his knee while we talked. He told stories from his life and travels. He had the social knack, spoke neither too much nor too little. He was charming the pants off Kate. If he were fifty years younger, I wouldn’t have left him alone in the same room with her.

  With a powerful blat, followed by a giggle, Anu announced that she needed her diaper changed.

  When we were alone, I asked about feeding Arvid’s four cats while he stayed here.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said.

  It was hard to imagine that he gave them away after his wife, Ritva, died only weeks ago. They were all the company he had left, and they had been with him and Ritva for many years.

  “How come?” I asked.

  “They mourned Ritva and meowed non-stop. You ever read the Edgar Allan Poe story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It felt like that. They never stopped crying for her. I felt like I was going out of my mind. I couldn’t give them away. They belonged to Ritva. So finally, I put them in a burlap bag and drowned them in the bathtub. Next to helping Ritva die, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  And he’s killed hundreds of men in war, so that’s saying a lot. Arvid must be the toughest man I’ve ever met. The image it conjured was horrible. The cats choke, gag and struggle while he holds them under the water. Bubbles rise to the surface of the water as their lungs empty, until finally, they go limp.

  “I built a wooden box for a coffin,” he said, “and buried it in the snow. In the spring, when the ground softens up, I’ll dig a grave out back behind the house for them.”

  “Why did you buy all those things for Anu?” I asked.

  “I told you, I think you’re a good boy. You remind me of your grandpa, my friend. I felt like doing something nice.”

  “That was more than nice,” I said.

  He just smiled.

  After a while, I didn’t have to prod her, Kate asked Arvid to stay for dinner. He played his role well, changed Anu himself once, with deft movements. He told Kate that he and Ritva had two boys, but both died before adulthood. One from cancer, one from a car crash. The story brought tears to her eyes. After a meal, a cognac and a little more conversation, it was as Arvid said. He drifted off to sleep. It had been a much more action-packed day than he was accustomed to. I prodded him awake and asked if he would like to spend the night in the spare bed. He nodded agreement, made it into Anu’s room and was asleep again within minutes.

  Before bed, I asked Kate if she would mind if I invited Arvid to stay with us for a few days.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he’s lonely, and I think the company would help him get past the death of his wife. They were together for fifty years. He’s suffering.”

  “He’s got too much pride. You can’t say that to him.”

  “I can say he can help me out with Anu and give you a little more freedom, and that would be true. Carrying Anu around while I walk on crutches is hard.”

  “Is he really a mass murderer?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s so sweet, and he’s wonderful with Anu, but he killed a man in cold blood, in a restaurant I manage. I suspect he’s a charming sociopath. And now he’s sleeping in our house. The situation is bizarre. I have … reservations about this.”

  “He only kills Russians, not babies. Not even baby Russians,” I said.

  The joke combined with the strange situation made her start to giggle. “A few days,” she said. “I don’t want a permanent houseguest.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She kissed me, and gave me my Valentine’s Day present.

  9

  The next morning, in front of Kate, I made a show of asking Arvid to stay with us for a few days. After a couple refusals for the sake of pretense, he reluctantly agreed.

  Sweetness was to be my chauffeur for the day. First, a trip to NBI headquarters to fill out his job application, then to Arvid’s to pick up some clothes for him, and then to my physical therapy, which I loathed, because it hurt like hell.

  We took Sweetness’s car, a 1998 Toyota Corolla with a hundred and twenty thousand miles on it. He was new to driving. Milo broke into the registry computers and created a license for him. Sweetness was so proud when he received it. Completing all the courses necessary for a license: normal weather daylight driving, winter driving, nighttime driving, et cetera, is a lengthy process and before all is said and done, costs some thousands of euros. Poor people can’t afford one. The car had been his father’s, but since he was doing a long stretch for double murder, he had no use for it.

  He picked me up in front of my building. On crutches, on the ice, even making it from our steps to his car was difficult. We went straight, banged a left onto Helsinginkatu. We stopped at a red light by Vaasanaukio—Vaasa Square, often referred to as Piritori, Speed Square—because it’s an infamous hangout for the alkies and dopers in Sörnäinen, not far from our house, that haunt the area.

  Finland’s number one killer is alcohol. According to statistics, despite our small population, we also have more heroin users than the rest of the Nordic countries put together. I don’t know if that’s true or if we’re just better at keeping statistics, at which we excel, than the other countries in the region. We also have problems with amphetamine and tranquilizer addiction. Plus, about a quarter of us use or have used anti-depressants. And studies show that depression remains severely undertreated. What is it about this place that causes so many of us to seek oblivion and be so miserable?

  In the square, it’s quiet in winter because of the cold. Minus ten and a little windy that morning, but thriving in summer. Druggies and drunks hang out and sip beers, listen to boom boxes. Police often park their vans in the square and keep watch, but don’t often interfere with anything non-violent. A big S-market grocery store dominates one side of the square, a subway station the other, and a porn shop called Seksipiste—The Sex Point—sits off to one side. It’s been there for many years. I never see anyone go in or out of it. It must do the majority of its business via the Internet.

  Kate and I often shop in the S-market. It’s interesting how quickly we adjust to things in life. The druggies don’t harass us, and so become invisible unless they fight or cause scenes. Like much of Helsinki, normal middle-class inhabitants, even the well-to-do, exist side by side with the scum.

  A bank ATM is attached to the wall beside the S-market. A little squab bones of a girl inserted her card. The machine spit her card out instead of money. A young man in a black bomber jacket with a bloated alcoholic face slapped her. I told Sweetness to pull into the square. We watched.

  Squab Bones was underdressed in a tattered coat, had little ears and a low forehead, small pointy teeth inside a scarlet smear of a mouth, sores on her face. Crystal meth or heroin had whittled her down to nothing. Best guess, she buys whatever it is from him. The man looked simian and his mean eyes were glazed. She tried to speak. He grabbed her by her short dirty hair and jerked her head to and fro. She slipped, fell to the ice, started to sob.

  Something should be done. I couldn’t do it myself. “Sweetness,” I said, “go over there and punch that guy in the head. Hurt him.”

>   “OK, pomo.”

  He reached in his coat pocket and took out a flask, had a pull from it and put it away. I checked my watch. Ten forty-five a.m.

  Sweetness meandered over, the simian paid no heed. I rolled my window down to listen. Sweetness hit him with a right hook, lightning fast. So fast that at his size, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Simian’s teeth were clenched in anger. I heard Simian’s jaws both crack broken. His mouth hung funny. Blood shot out of his mouth like a burst water balloon.

  Somehow, he kept on his feet. Teeth flew. He spat bridgework. He gagged on a tooth he swallowed that went down the wrong way. He hacked and coughed it out of his airway, spit it out, started crying, and the expression on his face asked Sweetness why. He leaned over, put his hands on his knees. Blood drooled from his mouth in a thin stream and puddled on the ice at his feet.

  Sweetness hit him again. A straight jab angled down to the face. Simian’s front teeth broke out. His nose crunched flat. He flew backward, hit the ATM and collapsed.

  I called out. “Go through his pockets.”

  Sweetness took his wallet. Dope in eight-ball packets. A switchblade.

  “Any money in the wallet?” I asked.

  He pulled it out and counted. “Three hundred and sixty.”

  “Give it all to the girl except the switchblade and the wallet. Throw it in a trash can.” To force Simian to go to the trouble and expense of replacing the cards and ID.

  Squab Bones snatched the drugs and money and, dope greedy, didn’t bother to say thank you. Wounded animals are like that. She ran into the subway station.

  Sweetness got behind the wheel, hit the flask again and we pulled out.

  “You’re fast,” I said. “Have you trained?”

  He grinned. “Naw, just another of my natural gifts.”

  We rode in silence for a while. Something rolled back and forth under my seat. Judging by the sound, it was a bottle of booze to refill the flask throughout the day.

  “How much do you drink?” I asked.