The Winter War

by Philip Teir

  By the time he went back inside half an hour later, Laura had fallen asleep on the sofa. He felt elated, happy. Nothing had happened tonight, nothing that he needed to feel ashamed about, but he had a feeling that now he could do some writing on his book. If only it wasn’t so late, if only he was sitting at his desk back home instead being here at Råddon. He sat in the living room for a long time, staring as if hypnotised at the glowing fire. Finally he went into the chilly bedroom and lay down on the bed. He was ravenous but didn’t have the energy to get up, so he simply pulled up the covers and tried to sleep.

  ‘Have you been up a long time?’ asked Max when he went into the kitchen the next morning.

  Laura was already there, and he didn’t dare meet her eye.

  ‘A couple of hours. I had to send off a column that I’d promised to write,’ she told him. ‘I’m sorry I fell asleep last night. Did you go out with Edvard? I don’t know what happened. Suddenly I was just so tired that I couldn’t keep my eyes open.’

  Max felt like an idiot. Apparently he didn’t have what was required to take advantage of the situation. He tried to see this in a positive light: maybe it was because he was a good person. Maybe he wasn’t the type of man to commit adultery.

  He made breakfast and they drank coffee, then washed the dishes from dinner. Laura checked her phone, answered a few text messages, and kept on working.

  When they were ready to leave, they found the car buried in a snowdrift, and they had to dig it out before they could even get in.

  They listened to the radio as they drove towards Highway 8. The newscaster reported that the storm was not about to let up, and everyone was advised to stay off the motorways. Max thought how ironic it was that nothing had happened on this trip, nothing that would require him to lie or make him feel guilty, but now they were about to get stuck in bad weather and if that happened, he’d be forced to explain.

  ‘I wonder if we should stop somewhere,’ said Laura. ‘I’m not sure I want to drive in this kind of weather.’

  ‘You’re right, it doesn’t look good. But maybe we should try to get home.’

  Just as they were about to enter the motorway, Max’s mobile rang. It was Elisabeth. He didn’t answer. But when he put the phone back in his pocket, it rang again.

  ‘Why aren’t you taking the call?’ asked Laura.

  ‘It’s just my sister.’

  ‘But what if it’s important?’

  twenty-four

  WHEN THE FOUR OF THEM sat down to dinner on Saturday, Helen heard nothing but praise for the food. She had lit candles and served the children their meal in the living room. Michael and Marit had arrived together in a cab.

  ‘It’s very, very good,’ said Michael.

  ‘Yes, it really is. What kind of spices did you use?’ asked Marit. She had on a red dress, and Helen noticed that she’d put extra effort into her appearance, wearing lipstick and a strong perfume. Her attire was almost too much for a simple dinner with friends. But Michael laughed when she did, and he kept giving her looks that boded well for later on. When he said something amusing, Marit put her hand on his arm, as if they were an old married couple.

  ‘Just wine, vegetable bouillon, thyme and a few bay leaves. Nothing special, really.’

  ‘Impressive,’ said Michael in between bites.

  Why didn’t they invite people over more often? Right now it seemed crazy that they never did. But then Helen remembered: she and Christian were often way too tired during the week to even contemplate something like this. And they had no close neighbours, which normally would have led to more socialising.

  Everyone took a second helping. Helen served the beef with jasmine rice, and Christian ate a huge portion as he eagerly talked about some project at work that Helen hadn’t heard about before. After he’d been going on for a good twenty minutes, she gave him a look to signal that he ought to change the subject.

  ‘Sweetheart, do you think everybody wants to hear every single detail?’ she asked.

  She was thinking about Michael, who sat there listening so politely. Was he actually interested in any of this? Wouldn’t he rather move to the sofa and sit next to Marit?

  But he didn’t seem bored at all. On the contrary, he was listening attentively to Christian. It was strange to see people she knew in different roles, to see how others viewed them. They couldn’t know that everything Christian was now discussing got extremely tiresome after a few years. Helen sat at the table and looked at her husband until all she could see was his mouth, and out of it came disconnected phrases that had no meaning whatsoever.

  ‘… and you know how hard it can be to get a building permit for an old house. I mean, just putting in a ramp for a wheelchair requires a ton of paperwork …’

  He went on and on. After a while, his monologue shifted to other topics – the expansion of the city of Helsinki out towards Busholmen, the lack of low-priced housing, the segregation in urban areas, and the district of Berghäll – all flowing together into one long, enthusiastically delivered speech. Then Christian got up to put on some music, and when a Neil Young tune came on, it turned out that Michael was also a big Neil Young fan. At that point Helen stood up and began clearing the table, scraping the food left on the plates into the rubbish bin.

  ‘Now wait … there’s something I really have to show you,’ said Christian.

  Helen saw him run up the stairs, almost tripping on the way, but at the last second he regained his balance and raced on. Michael could then turn his attention back to Marit.

  Helen knew that Marit was planning to take Michael home with her that evening. She stood next to the kitchen worktop, surreptitiously studying them. Marit had probably pictured the two of them sharing a cab ride, and then that red dress of hers would be shed the moment they stepped inside her flat. Maybe she’d also imagined going to bed together, the glances exchanged in the teachers’ room on Monday, and the whispering of their colleagues, which would lead to gossip among the students. Michael was no Brad Pitt, but no one else at the school was either.

  Helen turned around to look out at the yard, but she could see only darkness through the window. What was taking Christian so long? She could hear him rummaging about in the storage room upstairs. She pictured him hauling out the items she had so carefully arranged on labelled shelves, how everything would come tumbling down, and all the Christmas decorations would be scattered over the floor for her to find in the morning.

  When he finally came back downstairs, he was carrying a stack of vinyl LPs.

  ‘I know I’ve got a record player somewhere up there too, but I haven’t had a chance to set it up since we moved. There’s been so much to do with the house and the kids … but I just had to show you these albums.’

  It occurred to Helen that Christian had no idea what the real purpose was behind this dinner party. He didn’t realise that Marit was here with Michael, that the whole evening was just a pretext for the two of them to socialise outside school. Instead, he was directing all his attention to Michael. Helen thought he was worse than the girls at their school; Christian seemed totally infatuated with this stranger who had suddenly appeared in their home and showed an interest in listening to all his stories and looking at his old LPs.

  Helen hadn’t seen her husband so exuberant in a long time. He was usually very reserved and proper, the one who stopped drinking first, who was a bit boring but always polite, who put the children to bed and calmly whiled away the evening. Now he was pouring more wine for Marit and Michael as soon as their glasses were empty, and Helen thought: what if it’s my fault? What if I’m the one who makes him seem boring?

  After dinner Marit and Helen sat on the sofa in the living room while Christian and Michael stood outside on the front steps to have a smoke. Christian conjured up a pack of cigarettes from one of the kitchen cupboards. Helen hadn’t even known it was there.

  When the men came back in, they had a lengthy and intense conversation about British pop music in the eighties –
Helen heard them mention the names Billy Bragg and Lloyd Cole – which ended with Christian getting out his laptop and setting it on the kitchen table. Then they both started shouting names to each other like ‘Bill Drummond!’ and looking up video clips on YouTube.

  Marit and Helen sat in the living room, struggling to find something to talk about. Marit kept glancing towards the kitchen with a frustrated and restless expression. At one point she reached for her handbag and touched up her lipstick.

  Christian offered Michael some Calvados, and of course he accepted.

  ‘What about us?’ said Helen, and at first Christian didn’t seem to understand her remark. Then he nodded and got up to set the bottle of Calvados on the coffee table.

  ‘You can use the same wine glasses, can’t you?’ he said.

  At ten thirty Marit took a cab home. Christian insisted, with a silly grin on his face, that Michael should stay for a while. Helen didn’t want to say anything, since it seemed so unnecessary. So she simply excused herself and left the room to check on the kids while Michael and Christian continued talking in the kitchen.

  By midnight Michael was still there. Helen had been forced to ask them to turn down the volume on the computer, so as not to disturb the children. The two men had finished off the bottle of Calvados by the time she came back to the kitchen, feeling sleepy and worn out. She had almost fallen asleep in Lukas’s bed. They were now drinking beer.

  ‘I promise to clean up tomorrow, but I’ve got to find that record player. We’re thinking it’d be great to have a vinyl evening here sometime,’ said Christian.

  ‘Sounds fun,’ she said. She was too tired to talk.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like you really mean it.’

  ‘Of course I do. Sure, I do.’

  He gave her a hurt look, but there was also something blank about his expression, combined with a comical grin. Michael looked more sober, and now he got up.

  ‘Well, I think it’s about time for me to get going.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Christian.

  ‘Yeah, I do. It’s getting late. Do you know the number for the cab company?’

  ‘Leave it to me. I can send a text to order you a cab,’ said Christian. ‘Now where did I put my mobile?’

  Helen went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take out her contacts while Christian and Michael waited for the taxi.

  While they stood outside, she took off her clothes, put on her nightgown, and climbed into bed. She set a glass of water on the bedside table and got out her mobile. She heard a car pull into their driveway and a door open and close. A moment later Christian came inside and seemed to be doing something in the kitchen. Helen had already cleaned up from the dinner party, but now she could hear him opening the fridge, taking out food and opening a beer. She decided to give up waiting for him and instead started listening to her audio book.

  Much later she saw the bedroom door open, letting in light from the living room. She felt the bed sag as Christian sat down next to her. She smelled cigarettes and alcohol as he took off his socks and then practically fell on top of her. He was searching for her breast. His hands were cold, and for a while she lay there without moving.

  Then she took out her earbuds and switched off her mobile in silence. Christian’s hand, limp and motionless, was still on her breast.

  ‘I’m not really in the mood tonight,’ she said.

  He sighed, removed his hand and turned over. He didn’t say a word.

  ‘Sorry, but I’m too tired. You shouldn’t have stayed up so late. Couldn’t you come to bed earlier next time?’

  ‘Okay,’ was all he said.

  ‘By the way, I thought it was nice that you and Michael hit it off so well.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘But didn’t you realise that Marit is interested in him? She didn’t have a chance with the two of you carrying on a bromance like that.’

  Christian didn’t reply.

  ‘I mean, it’s great you liked each other. It’s always good to meet new people.’

  He got up and went into the bathroom, turned on the light in there, turned it off again and came back to bed.

  Helen lay awake for a while, thinking about something she’d once read in a story by Alice Munro, about how people in their thirties sometimes had a hard time acknowledging that they were living their own lives. That was it exactly, and she realised that it could hardly be expressed in a more mundane way: life was happening right now. It was not something that would happen later.

  ‘We made plans to go out some evening,’ said Christian suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Me and Michael. It’s been a long time since I had a night out.’

  twenty-five

  EVA WENT OVER TO ST PAUL’S one day and found Russ in the process of rigging up a sound system for a political rally that was apparently going to take place later in the evening. It had snowed all week, and big drifts were piled up outside the tents. A man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask was shovelling snow in the small square. Eva had walked all the way from Piccadilly Circus to Fleet Street, and several times she’d been forced to jump aside to avoid being sprayed with slush when the big red double-decker buses roared past.

  ‘Back again?’ said Russ.

  He was standing inside the white tent that had been dubbed the University.

  Eva didn’t answer as she looked around, thinking it was funny that even a global grassroots movement would have such obvious accessories. Hanging on the wall was a rainbowcoloured flag with the word PEACE on it. A Palestinian shawl had been wrapped around the microphone stand. On a black, hand-painted board she read: ‘BANKERS, POLITICIANS, THE GLOBAL ELITE AND THE MASS MEDIA ALL LIE, STEAL, BRAINWASH AND DESTROY YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.’

  For the past few nights the temperature had dropped below freezing.

  ‘Don’t you get cold sleeping here?’ Eva asked.

  Russ was wearing a cap, and he’d exchanged his corduroy jacket for a down coat. He seemed to be in good spirits.

  ‘It’s not so bad. The snow is worse. Last night I had to shovel the snow off the roof or the whole tent would have collapsed. And since the wind has been so strong we had to work out some way to anchor the tents in place. We can’t stick stakes into the cement, so I brought over some sandbags.’

  Eva wondered how long Russ was going to last in this place. He seemed determined and involved, like someone who enjoyed what he was doing. Russ picked up a pile of cables and began untangling them.

  A young guy came into the tent to ask Russ if he felt like ‘coming with us’.

  ‘Are you leaving now?’

  ‘Yeah. In about five minutes.’

  The guy was wearing fingerless gloves, and he had a long scarf wound loosely around his neck. He was properly dressed for the winter weather, with multiple layers, almost as if professionally outfitted.

  Russ hesitated. He looked at Eva.

  ‘No, I think I’ll pass. You go ahead. I can catch up with you later.’

  ‘Okay.’

  After he’d left, Eva asked Russ what the man wanted.

  ‘The water pipes to the tap we’ve been using froze. So now we have to go around to the nearby shops and local businesses to get water. But I have enough for a while,’ he said.

  Eva couldn’t picture herself sleeping here. She wasn’t sure why. But she didn’t understand how these tents, and these people with their flags and Palestinian shawls, were going to accomplish anything concrete, anything that would make a difference in a fundamental way. She wondered if it was her attitude or theirs that was the problem.

  Suddenly she saw a familiar face appear in the tent opening.

  It was Malik.

  Eva hadn’t seen him even once since Christmas. His only communication with the students had been through Laurie. He’d also assigned them what he called ‘inspiration weeks’, which meant they were supposed to work on their own until it was time to gather for group critique sessions again. Some of the students had lost patien
ce and claimed they weren’t getting their money’s worth from the course and should demand a new teacher.

  In three weeks it would be Eva’s turn to show what she’d been working on. Nothing was finished yet; in fact, she’d started over several times, scrapping ideas and painting over pieces that she’d spent weeks working on.

  Now Malik was standing right in front of her, wearing a little woollen cap on his head. Maybe it was meant to make him blend in with the Occupiers.

  ‘If you’ve come here to persuade Russ to go back to class, you’re wasting your time. I’ve already tried, and he’s not budging. I think this is his calling,’ said Malik as he went over and put his hand on Russ’s shoulder.

  There was something about the body language between the two men – something new compared to the way Malik had treated Russ in class during the autumn. Eva was so surprised to see Malik that she couldn’t think of a thing to say. She had never before felt excluded from male company, had never felt threatened by it. The guys’ jargon was surprisingly easy to comprehend. But right now it was like arriving at a party only to realise that she hadn’t been invited.

  ‘I’m not going back to college,’ said Russ as he wound several cables around his elbow.