by Philip Teir
‘What are you going to do in London?’ Eva asked him.
‘I’m going to demonstrate against capitalism and bankers. The same way we used to demonstrate against the Vietnam War.’
‘You demonstrated against the Vietnam War? Really?’
Katriina glanced from one to the other and shook her head. ‘Your father was busy chasing girls, not demonstrating.’
‘I don’t mean me, personally, but my generation,’ Max explained.
Eva took a bite of flatbread and poured herself a glass of juice. ‘Why is it that all of you guys who were young in the seventies always talk in such general terms about those days, but you can’t remember any of the details? It’s like you read about your youth in a book.’
‘And that’s presumably exactly what he did,’ replied Katriina. ‘Everything your father knows, he learned from books.’
‘Nuclear power!’ exclaimed Max abruptly. ‘We demonstrated against nuclear power! Don’t you remember, Katriina? We went to Stockholm to join the protest march. Not that it made any difference. These days they’re building more of them than ever. Maybe we should chain ourselves to a tree.’
‘I’m not sure you could smoke cigars if you were chained up,’ said Eva.
Katriina laughed.
‘The only thing I remember from that demonstration in Stockholm was that I bought a jacket at the NK department store. I think I still have it somewhere. Maybe it’s worth something by now. Russ, would you like more coffee?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Russ.
Eva hadn’t realised it would be full-blown winter weather in Helsinki. When she looked out of the kitchen window she could see how white everything was, and she thought how nice it was to have real seasons. In London the weather had stayed much the same for almost two months now.
‘Mum, do we have any plans for today?’
‘I told your sister we’d serve dinner at six. I don’t know if she’ll turn up or not, but I intend to cook, and anyone who’s here is welcome to join us. How long are you staying, Russ?’
‘Yes, how long are you staying?’ asked Eva.
‘I’m in no hurry. It depends on you.’
Katriina and Max both turned to look at Eva, as if they too wanted to know what she’d say. But she merely continued to eat her piece of flatbread. After a few minutes, when the awkward silence had settled into a more comfortable stillness, she poured herself a cup of coffee.
After breakfast, Russ and Eva went for a walk. They headed for Edesviken, following the shore to Sibelius Park. There was no wind, and Russ put his arm around Eva, which she found annoying. He was wearing a thick blue duffel coat, and he’d borrowed a pair of gloves from Max. She knew that she was going to have to send him back to London.
‘Have you always lived here? It’s so beautiful.’
‘Mostly. But we lived in a smaller flat when I was younger. After my dad got more work, we moved to the place where they’re living now.’
‘Seems like your parents are very well-to-do.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. Well, I mean, they’re doing okay. But my father has always said that nobody gets rich being a researcher. He says he could have made a lot more money as a statistician. I suppose it goes up and down. In the nineties he was really busy. These days he seems to spend most of his time at home in his dressing gown. When I was living at home, we used to play tennis every day, but whenever my mother asked what he’d done all day, he would tell her that he’d been working.’
They walked past the Regatta café and took the path up to the park. The huge monument made of steel rods loomed in front of them. Eva felt a cold gust of wind seep through her jacket.
‘Russ, there’s something I have to tell you.’
‘Okay,’ he said and waited for her to go on, as if he were a child who had just been taken into an adult’s confidence.
‘I’m pregnant.’
Neither of them said another word for several seconds. It was a terrible kind of silence, and Eva realised this was how it must have felt for Russ last night after he confessed his feelings for her. They kept walking, until they reached the monument and stopped.
‘But how can you be pregnant?’ said Russ. His complexion looked darker than usual, but maybe it was only in contrast to the white snow. Eva had such a sense of unreality as she looked at him. For once she felt herself inferior in his company. But she was also irritated.
‘Do I really have to tell you how women get pregnant?’
‘No … I just mean, how can you … Who’s the father?’
‘Malik.’
And she could almost hear Russ trying desperately to make sense of the situation as he allowed the information to sink in.
‘I know it sounds weird. But it happened. Okay? I was really stupid, and I’d shoot myself if I could, but now there’s nothing I can do about it.’
Eva heard her voice quavering, and her eyes filled with tears. Russ reached out and awkwardly put his arms around her as she wept. She hated herself for crying. This was not how it was supposed to be, but once she’d started, she couldn’t stop.
‘Do you hate me, Russ?’
He didn’t answer, just held her close. Nor did he speak as they turned to head back home. He remained silent as he packed his bag and as they stood in the front hall an hour later, waiting for his taxi to arrive. Katriina tried in vain to chat with Russ, who gave only one-word replies to her questions. She finally got the message and realised that something must have happened.
When Eva went to her room after Russ had left, Katriina stood outside for a moment and then knocked on the door.
‘Sweetheart? Do you feel like talking? We could have a chat if you like.’
Eva didn’t answer. She heard her mother go into the kitchen. But after a few minutes she was outside the door again.
‘Eva, you don’t have to go back to London. You can stay here if you want to. It’s only three weeks until Christmas, after all.’
Eva lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. The last thing she wanted was to stay here any longer than necessary. She’d wait until Wednesday, which was when her return flight left. But first she needed to see a doctor.
january to march
fifteen
DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF January it’s light for only a few hours each day before the sun once again retreats from the world and leaves Helsinki to its desolate winter darkness. By the time the afternoon ferries depart from the south harbour, it’s practically night, even though it’s only a few minutes past five. The brightly lit vessels move slowly away from the dock, and like ancient animals they pass the fortress of Sveaborg and make their way along the channel, heading for Sweden.
Helen and her family walked along the corridors on board the Silja Symphony, looking for deck five, where they’d booked a cabin. Helen had picked up a brochure that listed the available activities during the crossing. The entire trip was planned out, down to the last minute, for families with children – from face painting in the Kidz Club at five o’clock to a pirate quiz game at five thirty, to a buffet dinner, children’s bingo, and finally ‘Dancing in Moomin Valley’ at eight. It was actually a relief not to have to think up anything themselves. And the children were happy. Lukas ran ahead, looking for the right cabin. He’d been given his own card key and stuck it in the lock, but at first the door refused to open.
‘Mum, the green light didn’t go on. It’s supposed to be green, isn’t it?’
‘Try again,’ said Christian calmly.
Lukas tried again, and this time the door opened. Amanda stood next to him, waiting, and then followed him inside.
They quickly stowed away their things in the cabin. The children fought over the sweets that had been left for them on the table, but Christian solved the problem by putting them all away until after dinner. In the meantime, Helen put on her make-up in the tiny bathroom. The room smelled the same as all ship’s cabins: an odour that was a combination of wall-to-wall carpeting and cleanser, with a vague und
ercurrent of old tobacco left over from the days before smoking was banned. When everyone was ready, they took the lift to deck seven to find the face-painting event. There was a long queue of families with little kids and grandmothers with their grandchildren, all of them eagerly looking forward to having a good time and exploring the entertainment options on board the ferry. Helen and her family moved on to the playroom across from the Duty Free shop.
After Helen had children, she abandoned the idea that travelling should be relaxing. Taking a trip meant making sure everyone had the maximum amount of fun together. It involved compromises, unexpected obstacles and challenges. It was an art to anticipate the pace and mood of everyone else. Should they stroll for another hour, or was it time to go back to the hotel and rest? Was anyone suffering from low blood sugar? Should they take public transport or attempt to walk? Should they keep going for a while? Were the children ready to visit a museum?
If they decided on the museum, they would dash through without really seeing anything, and as soon as they came out, they forgot everything they’d seen. The next day it was almost as though they’d never been there at all. Finally, they would go back to the hotel with aching feet to rest for a while, until it was time to go out and find something to eat.
When they ate out, it was important to choose the right place. They wanted to eat well, so that while they were eating they could conclude that the food really was excellent and that they’d made a good choice for a reasonable price. And they were already planning what they would say when they got home, how they’d tell their friends: ‘Oh yes, we found this amazing restaurant, and it wasn’t expensive at all. Such a pleasant atmosphere, and the waiters were so nice.’ And if that wasn’t the case, then they’d have to stretch the truth a bit in the opposite direction and exaggerate how bad the service was, since they couldn’t afford to have any mediocre experiences. Taking a holiday wasn’t really a ‘holiday’ at all, because they weren’t really free; there were hundreds of variables that had to be constantly considered.
As in so many other places in the world, families with children had taken over the ferry. It was obvious that the playroom had once been a conference room. Here mid-level managers had spent their work days writing down company goals on little Post-it notes until it was time to delve into the buffet, and afterwards head for the bar with its polished dance floor. Very little energy or imagination had been invested in the transformation from conference room to playroom – there were a few Moomin posters on the walls, some sacks holding balls, several flat-screen TVs with PlayStation games and chairs where the grown-ups could sit while the kids played. At the back of the room there was also a bar that sold beer and pre-mixed cocktails to the parents, whose survival strategy was to numb their brains just enough to forget about the fact that the ball pit was actually a colourful smorgasbord of every kind of stomach-flu virus making the rounds that winter.
‘You know what? I love you,’ said Helen, going over to Christian and putting her hand on his shoulder. He was standing in front of a shelf holding bottles of red wine that clinked faintly with the movement of the ship. He pulled her close and kissed her hand.
Lukas was a couple of metres away, refusing to let them out of his sight because he was afraid of getting lost. Amanda ventured further away and went over to look at the selection of sweets. When the family returned to their cabin, the kids wanted to eat some of their sweets, so Helen let them open the packages. Amanda had chosen several small packets while Lukas had bought a big pink bag filled with marshmallow treats.
Helen was feeling rested. It had been a busy autumn, as it always was at the school where she worked. This year she’d missed Amanda’s Christmas party, but managed to attend the holiday show at Lukas’s day-care centre. He was one of the three wise men in the Christmas pageant. He had only one line – ‘Tonight we have seen the angels singing and speaking of the birth of the Messiah’ – which he’d practised every day for several weeks, until it became a monotone litany, making it hard to distinguish a single word. When he finally stood on stage, he said his line so fast that it sounded like a monosyllabic mumble with a question mark at the end: ‘TonightwehaveseentheangelssingingandspeakingofthebirthoftheMESSIAH?’
When they got home Helen had praised her son, telling him he was great. Lukas then concluded, apparently without any sense of irony, that he was ‘born to be an actor’. He had a selfconfidence based on his very own laws. He was both shy and incredibly attracted to being in the spotlight.
Helen now listened with half an ear as Amanda and Lukas, lying on the top bunk, compared the sweets they’d bought. After a while she looked up and saw that Lukas had already eaten half the bag. He had a wild look in his eyes. Helen quickly took the rest away as she put a finger to her lips, warning him not to say anything. Lukas understood what she meant. Helen and the kids often kept things secret from Christian.
‘All right, let’s go eat!’ she said.
‘Can we have hamburgers?’ asked Amanda. She’d lined up all the little sweets packets and was now sucking on a piece of toffee.
‘I’m sure they have meatballs and mashed potatoes in the café,’ said Christian.
‘I don’t want any damn meatballs!’ said Lukas. This winter he’d adopted the bad habit of cursing, and ‘damn’ was his favourite word. Christian would get furious whenever he swore, and they often waged long and bitter battles that ended with both of them feeling totally exhausted. It was like watching two characters in an old Western having a quick-draw duel, except that the only tactic either of them had come up with was to wear down his opponent.
‘Hamburgers!’ shouted Lukas now, as he jumped up and down on the bunk, his blood sugar level that of a diabetic who hadn’t had his insulin shot. ‘Hamburgers! HAMBURGERS!!!’
If there was one thing Christian hated more than allowing sweets before dinner, it was junk food: chips, burgers, greasy gravy, pizza, and, in particular, the Finnish speciality known as ‘chicken basket’. It was Amanda’s and Lukas’s favourite: a basket of fried chicken with chips, which was always on the menu in places popular with families who had young children. Helen had seen how that particular menu item could provoke an inexplicable sense of helplessness in Christian. According to him, there were few things more offensive than doing something unhealthy when it wasn’t necessary – like taking the car when you could walk, drinking juice instead of water, sitting inside when it was good weather outdoors – or buying something expensive when there was a cheaper option. Worst of all, and what seemed to make him sink into an almost catatonic depression, was buying something unhealthy that was also expensive.
They went up to the so-called promenade deck. People streamed past them from all directions, coming from the lifts, the restaurants and the shops. Nowhere did a family seem so much like a family as on holiday trips – they went everywhere together, more like one body instead of four. Helen tried to see herself from the outside as she moved along next to Lukas and Amanda and Christian, but it felt as though they were interchangeable, and she might just as well have been walking with any of the other families she saw. Individual personalities were erased, and all the families looked exactly the same – as if they were figures in a computer game and the different decks on the ferry were various levels in the game. Two adults, two children, Tax Free, food, ball pit, sweets, face painting. It occurred to Helen that of course the kids wouldn’t see things the same way. For them the ferry was still a new experience that was anything but anonymous; for them it had a meaning that would be added to other, similar experiences which, in combination, would shape them as individuals.
It was the middle of winter, but some passengers were wearing Crocs and T-shirts, as if it were summer, as if taking a mini-holiday on the ferry to Sweden was an opportunity to throw out all the rules, even those that applied to the seasons of the year. Two men, obviously from Stockholm, were studying the menu posted outside the café. There were hamburgers, pizza and a buffet offering meatballs, mashed potatoes and
pork tenderloin. The latter was swimming in a congealed gravy that looked as if it had been there ever since the ferryboat was launched in the early nineties.
One of the men from Stockholm looked disappointed. Helen heard him mutter to his companion in a resigned voice: ‘I was so in the mood for sushi.’
After dinner they went in search of the Atlantis Palace, which was where the rest of the programme for children was going to take place.
At first there was a dance performance with a pirate theme. The dancers were not Finns, or Swedes either. The group seemed to consist of a mix of Russians and Estonians, and the whole show was a bit half-hearted. Amanda seemed to watch without much interest, but Lukas was mesmerised, paying close attention to every single dance step.
‘Mum, can we have one of those?’ asked Amanda impatiently, pointing at a drink that a child at the next table was enjoying, something with a bright neon straw.
‘Do you feel like getting her one?’ Helen asked Christian. By this time she’d learned exactly what tone of voice to use so that he’d realise this was an Especially Important Request.
She used a variation of the same tone of voice – in a negative version – whenever he wanted to have sex and she really wasn’t in the mood. She might have laughed about it if she wasn’t so grateful that it actually worked.
Christian hesitated for a moment but then reluctantly got up to fetch a drink for each of the children.
By now the dancers had come to their final number. The music got louder, the lights flashed faster, and they were dashing around in a circle. The woman in the group had flung off her dress to reveal her short but incredibly toned legs. Two of the men, the most muscular of the group, grabbed her by the legs and hoisted her up so that she was standing on their hands. It was like a fireworks display of flexed muscles. The men stood as straight as they could, and their pirate trousers were stretched so tight that their genitals bulged. There was something oddly feminine about the tableau, thought Helen, even though the men were clearly supposed to radiate a primeval pirate masculinity.
