‘No, it’s not that.’ Suddenly Magda sat up, and began to brush bits of dry leaf off her shoulders. ‘But be careful, Eeva. That one might do anything.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That’s it, that’s exactly what it is with Sasha,’ said Magda excitedly, punching her left fist into the palm of her right hand. ‘I couldn’t put my finger on it before. With most people, after a while you know more or less what they are capable of. The things that they won’t do – those are even more important than the things that they will do. Of course you can’t predict exactly what anybody might do – or be forced to do – in an extreme situation. But I’m not talking about that with Sasha. It’s that he might do more or less anything, simply because he felt like it.’
‘But Magda, why do you say that?’
‘He steals, did you know that? And yet he has money. He always has plenty of money. That’s something else which troubles me.’
‘Steals? Where from?’
‘There was one particular time that he came into the bookshop when I was working there. Sasha often comes in to buy books. But this time he put two books under his coat. Expensive books, on natural history. He saw that I’d seen him do it. He just looked at me and smiled. He didn’t try to hide it from me: in fact I am sure he wanted me to see.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I said to him, “Sasha, two books have slipped under your coat. Put them back on the shelves before you leave.’”
‘That was good. And did he?’
‘Yes. I waited by the door. He knew I meant it. He shrugged and said, ‘All property is theft,” and he dropped the books on a table where they didn’t belong. I said to him, “Sasha, you’re not an Anarchist. You’re not even a very good book thief.” He was quite angry.’
‘Why do you think he did it?’
‘God knows. But later on it occurred to me that maybe it was to make me lose my job. At the time I needed that job because I hadn’t built up enough journalism. If I hadn’t said anything, then he’d have come in again, and again, and stolen books each time. I’d have been responsible for the lost stock.’
‘Do you think he’ll try it again, with me?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. But watch out for him. It’ll be something different, that you’re not expecting. He’s very inventive, you must have noticed that.’
‘Yes. Magda… do you think he’d ever do something like that to Lauri?’
‘Oh Eeva, how should I know?’ said Magda impatiently. ‘Lauri’s chosen his friendship, and he must take the consequences.’
‘Lauri trusts him. Lauri’s known him a long time.’
‘Has he?’
‘I think so. He met Sasha in Petersburg.’
‘And how many years ago was that? Two?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Not so long, then.’
‘No.’
Eeva scrambled to her feet. It hadn’t been a good idea to lie so long on the ground like that. She was stiff, and her right foot had gone to sleep. She stood on one leg, shaking her other foot until it fizzed with life again. And she was cold. Yes, autumn was coming fast. Thin white cloud filmed the sun that had been warm an hour ago. But there in the basket was their mushroom harvest, rich gold, frilled and scented.
Lauri once said that chanterelles looked like the waves of the sea. She’d always remembered it, because he didn’t usually say things like that. His closest thoughts never went into words. No, it was no use trying to join the present to the past with words. She and Lauri needed to be together, side by side, eating and sleeping and playing cards, telling fortunes in candle wax, dragging heavy bags of potatoes home from market, keeping out of the adults’ way when they had hangovers, doing all the things that just naturally fell into place when there were two of you, almost all the time… the way they used to be.
But you can’t go back to that, Eeva told herself. My father is dead, and Lauri’s. We are the adults now. We have to find a different way. But she knew, she was sure of it, that the fabric of Eeva-and-Lauri could weave together and grow strong, if only it had a chance. Was it her fault, or his, that each time the eagerness of seeing each other faded to disappointment?
Or maybe, worse than that, he wasn’t even disappointed. Perhaps he was quite satisfied and hoped for no more, wanted no more, had never expected more. He had been glad to see her for old times’ sake, but childhood was over, they were grown up now, and naturally they had grown apart.
23
One day she would set a stone for him, Eeva thought. She didn’t even know how much it might cost. There’d been some discussion after her father died. Mika had talked of a gravestone, but at the time it wasn’t a practical possibility. Paying for the grave was as much as they could do, and there was a wooden marker that gave the dates of her father’s birth and death.
She would set a granite stone, close to the earth. Her father would like that. He would not want a metal cross or any of the fancy designs. A piece of Finnish rock, set deep into the earth of his own country, because in the end he had never left it.
The wooden marker already looked worn with age. The earth had closed up again over his body. He was there beneath her, actually beneath her. Her father, who had carried her so often on his shoulders.
She explained to him why it had been so long since her last visit, and told him everything that had happened to her while she had been away. There was a stiff, chill breeze coming off the water, and the birches and larches rustled. Leaves were falling now. Soon it would be time to go indoors, close the double windows, light the stove and keep it lit until spring. Not many people would come here in winter, except to light their candles on All Souls’ Day. But he was used to that.
‘You didn’t waste your life,’ she whispered into the earth.
He used to bring her to the beach not far from here. He taught her to swim at Hietesaari, in the shallow Sunday water. Before he was ill he was a fine, strong man. She loved to see him wade into the water without hesitation, dip his head so that he was wet all over, and then set off straight out from shore with a steady trudgen stroke that he could keep going for hours.
They went fishing too. What he liked best was fishing on evenings in midsummer, when the water was smooth and the little wooden jetty where they sat was warm with the day’s sun. He knew all the best places to fish. How he’d have loved to have a little boat and row himself out… but although they often talked about it, it never happened. Sometimes they rowed to Hietasaari in a friend’s boat – she couldn’t remember whose boat it was. Only the feeling of sitting crouched in the bottom of the boat along with the friend’s picnic and coffee pot wrapped in a cloth…
Those were good days, before he got ill. She remembered those summer evenings so clearly. Maybe there hadn’t been all that many of them, but they had cut deep into her memory, like diamonds cutting into glass. They were clearer than a thousand ordinary days. He brought bread and cheese and a bottle of sour milk. Sometimes they built a fire.
She remembered one day, very late in the summer, or even early in the autumn. The beach was quiet. Her father was reading, and she was bored. She pointed at a rowing boat anchored some way out, and told him that she could swim to it.
‘Go on, then,’ he said.
She knew she could not really swim that far, but she was too proud to back down. She waded into the sea, looked back at him, and then plunged forward, dipping her head briefly under the water. The surface was completely calm, like silk. At first she thought it was going to be easy. Her heart rose with delight. She was cutting through the water, and the boat didn’t look so far away. She would be able to reach it for sure.
She swam on. The water was colder than she’d thought at first, or maybe it was because she was getting tired. The sun was in her eyes. She pushed her arms through the water and tried to kick firmly, as she’d been taught. The black outline of the boat wavered in front of her. How far had she got to go? Surely it was almost as far away as it had
been to begin with?
Her strokes were becoming more jerky. Could he see where she was? Was he standing on the edge of the water, to track her progress? But she wasn’t going to look round. She was only going to look at the boat. She was going to keep on swimming…
But suddenly she knew she wasn’t going to make it. She was too cold. Her arms and legs had no power left when she tried to move them. Water slopped into her mouth and she coughed, choked, then spat it out. She wasn’t really swimming any more. Just treading water, trying to keep her head above it. That was the first thing her father had taught her. As long as you can tread water, you’ll be all right. She couldn’t even see the boat. She kept her eyes on two big chimneys, far away, but even they seemed to drift away from her. Another wave washed over her mouth, but this time she knew what to do, and she kept her lips pressed tight together.
He came up behind her. Before she knew it, he had his right arm around her chest, under her arms, bringing her up.
‘Hold on, my girl,’ he said, and with a powerful sidestroke he began to tow her back through the water. ‘Don’t wriggle.’
It only seemed to take a few minutes for them to reach the shore. She could barely stand. He picked her up in his arms, carried her up the sand and wrapped her in his jacket.
She thought he would scold her, tell her she shouldn’t boast of being able to do things unless she could really do them, but instead he said, ‘That boat’s farther away than it looks. It’s a trick of the light.’
‘I didn’t know you were swimming after me.’
‘No. You never looked back, did you? Just kept on going.’
She smiled, nestling into the jacket that smelled of him. By next summer it was a game to swim out beyond all the anchored rowing boats, into clear water.
‘You didn’t waste your life,’ she whispered into the grass that covered him. ‘It wasn’t so good at the end, but that’s all over and done with now.’
He wasn’t an old sick man any more. He wasn’t even the father she’d known. He could slip about through time like a fish, doing what he wanted. He could be a boy or a baby or a proud twelve-year-old wearing a cap that was too big for him, off to his first day’s work. He could be the father Eeva didn’t remember, the one who’d taken her out of her mother’s arms and scrutinized her, before accepting her as his.
24
Eat it, you fool, eat it! Thomas looked at the slice of almond cake he was holding. For God’s sake, just put it in your mouth and take a bite.
Anna-Liisa’s smile was becoming stretched. This was her best almond cake, rich and crumbly, moist with butter and scented with lemon peel. She’d cut him the first slice, apologizing as she did so. It was so fresh, she said, it might not cut well yet…
But of course it did. And she put it on his plate and gave him a little silver fork – how he detested little silver forks! – and then she waited, expectant, triumphant.
But what the hell was he going to do with it? The longer he held it, the more impossible it seemed that the cake could be eaten. It might as well have been a pad of lint. No, he could not, he simply could not swallow it.
‘I’m very sorry, Anna-Liisa. I’ve got to confess, my stomach’s not too good today. Even your delicious cake –’
And she leapt into sympathy. No, no, of course he mustn’t, she knew what it was like, with a bad stomach even your favourite foods made you feel as if you’d swallowed a rat, pardon the expression. He mustn’t think of trying to eat. She’d ring the bell at once and send for some fennel tea. Nothing better to calm the stomach than fennel tea.
But he put out his hand blindly, to stop her. For now he really was beginning to feel ill. Nausea churned in his stomach. He felt sweat on his forehead, and a taste of metal in his mouth that told him he had to get out now, into the cold air.
She was close behind him as he blundered out of the room, down the long hallway. The door, there it was. A smell of carbolic and washing, and another smell behind it, the smell of the children. Yes, that was what it was. They smelled, because they weren’t loved.
And maybe he smelled that way, too, no matter how much he washed. He ripped open the door and stepped into the air, the good cold air that smelled of nothing. He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall and breathing deeply. His heart pounded and his body was cold with sweat.
‘Are you all right, Doctor? You’re so pale. I could fetch someone.’
He opened his eyes. She fussed about in front of him, spots of red flaring in her cheeks.
‘I’m not ill,’ he said. ‘All I need is some fresh air.’
‘I’ll get you a glass of water – and my salts. Or brandy? Would you rather have brandy?’
‘No. Just water.’
If only she would go. He needed to sit down on the ground. He let himself slide down the wall and there he was, safe on the cold, packed earth. He put out a hand to steady himself. Not so dizzy now. Deep breaths. He’d feel better in a minute.
He looked up. Good God, he was being watched. The front gate had opened and a little train of children had wound its way in and stopped, staring at him. The big girl in charge of them stared, too. They were babies, really. Their pinched, elderly little faces watched him without surprise.
‘It’s the doctor.’
‘The doctor.’
‘Look, he’s fallen down.’
‘He’s drunk,’ piped up one of the little ones.
They couldn’t get enough of staring at him. Little grey figures in their grey cloaks, their skin colourless, their eyes sharp. He thought that if they came close they would have the musty smell of baby birds that have fallen out of the nest. And suddenly he was afraid of them, for no reason, afraid of these little ones he’d always done his best to help, as if each of them might pick up a stone and throw it at him. And then another stone, and then another. Each stone quite light and small – they would not be able to throw it otherwise – but each one sharp enough to cut.
‘What are you standing there gaping for? Get inside, this minute! Soila, you’ll come to my room before supper.’
Anna-Liisa with the glass of water. She held it to his lips. No, he could manage it. The glass shook. He had never heard her talk like that to the children.
‘They weren’t doing any harm,’ he said. ‘They were surprised to see me like this, that’s all it was.’
‘It’s not their business to be surprised. Who does that girl think she is? I’ve had my eye on her, oh yes, she doesn’t know it but I’ve been watching her –’
‘They’re only children,’ he said.
‘Children!’
‘What else are they?’
‘They’re orphans. And you can take it from me, orphans want watching.’
Perhaps it was because he was down on the ground, looking up at the bulk of her, that he suddenly saw Anna-Liisa quite differently. The underside of her chin jutted and her eyes were like currants in dough, without kindness or warmth. He would not like to be in her power, he thought. Quickly, his thought rushed to bury itself. She was a good woman. She did her best in difficult circumstances. What more could be expected?
But the thought would not be buried. Her harsh voice rang in his head. What would she say to that girl Soila, when she came to the little sitting room before supper? How would Anna-Liisa punish her?
‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ he said.
Instantly he knew he’d made things worse, as Anna-Liisa’s face contracted with anger. ‘Allow me to know what’s best,’ she said. She was stronger, more powerful than he’d thought. He did not ever want to sit in a room with her again.
But next week he would be there was usual, he knew that. These children needed a doctor more than he needed not to eat cake with Anna-Liisa. He was trying to persuade her to give the children cranberry juice each morning in winter. Anna-Liisa was doubtful. Surely porridge was enough? No doubt he’d set back the cause of cranberry juice by years, in one day. He must smooth her down, make her believe that he liked and resp
ected her, as he used to believe he really did like and respect her. Otherwise, she’d find a reason to keep him out of the House of Orphans. She wouldn’t be able to help herself. She wouldn’t even know why she didn’t want him there.
It was always going to be a matter of compromise, he thought, in a small place like this. You can’t choose your neighbours, you have to get on with whoever is there, and make the best of it. That’s reality. Everything else is just the most ridiculous of dreams.
An immense weariness filled him at the thought of all the getting on and making the best of it that lay ahead of him, before…
Before what?
Before it was over, of course.
Thank God it’s Friday and this evening Matti will be heating the sauna. In the sauna some of this at least will wash away.
He was up on his feet again, no longer dizzy, his heart beating in its normal rhythm. If he weren’t a doctor he’d have been scared he was having a heart attack, but he knew it wasn’t that. No, it was just a moment of weakness.
He wouldn’t go straight home. Home was empty, even though Lotta had found him a big strong raw-boned girl who scrubbed as if the devil were after her, and couldn’t cook to save her life. He’d go over to Lotta and ask her to give him supper. She’d be glad to do it, and it would help to heal the breach between them. Indeed, it was already healing over. Threads of scab were feeling their way across the raw surface. Soon the scab would be solid, then it would itch, and at last it would drop off. For a while the new skin would be bright pink and shiny, but in time it would grow dull, and fade in colour, and look more or less like the original.
You couldn’t keep a quarrel going in the country, he thought, especially with winter coming. You needed each other too much.
‘But where is Karl?’ asked Thomas.
‘He’s gone to Stockholm. There’s an exhibition of lathes. He’s staying for a couple of weeks.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s nice to have the house to myself,’ said Lotta crisply. He looked up.
House of Orphans Page 24
