The Mine

by Antti Tuomainen

  I thought of Pauliina, of how far we’d drifted away from one another. I thought of Ella, and once again I thought of how I’d grown up without a father. I remembered how I’d understood his absence, the question it had raised: there was a place this person should be right now, but he wasn’t there. Why? My father had left, disappeared from our lives when I was a year old.

  I knew nothing about him.

  6

  He sat on the edge of his bed and leaned heavily on his thighs. It was that same dream again. It always followed real events, in a strange way almost reran them; all except the very end.

  He enters the house from the garden, through the sliding doors on the veranda. The lock is easy and quick to open. He knows the lawyer is asleep upstairs. He gives himself time to grow accustomed to the sounds of the house, its climate. Soon he is breathing in sync with it. He adapts; he’s a master at that. He can adjust to any conditions, any at all. He often thinks of this as the key to his professionalism – the one factor that explains why he’s so good at his job. He has the ability to become whatever the situation requires. Always.

  Now he is part of this two-storey, 250-year-old red-brick house, two and a half kilometres from the centre of an old, attractive city. He hears the sound of the fridge and is convinced he can hear that faint, high-pitched hum that televisions give off in standby mode. He is certain he can hear the sounds of a nearby square, the rowdy hustle and bustle of late-opening bars, and even the slow-moving water of the wide neighbouring canal. He walks up the stairs, placing both feet on each step, lowering his weight slowly, gradually. As he reaches the top he can see into the bedroom and hear the sound of heavy breathing. He takes the syringe from his jacket pocket, fits it between his fingers and removes the protective plastic cap. From the bedroom he can see the canal, its dark, glistening waters. He takes a few steps, finds a spot where the duvet has become crumpled and the T-shirt pulled up to reveal a bare midriff, and jabs the syringe in. The man wakes up. He has seen this expression dozens of times; it is a perfectly natural reaction to his arrival, to the sting of the syringe, in the middle of the night, unexpected.

  Just as the man is about to shout out, he stuffs a fistful of duvet into his mouth and grabs him by the hands. Once the man stops writhing, he pulls the duvet away and listens. He cannot hear a thing. He covers the man, walks towards the bedroom door and takes one look back.

  As if by chance, he glances across the bed and out of the window. There is something soothing about the canal, its black, stagnant water. And just then he sees a reflection in the window.

  The movement is microscopic.

  The man’s toe.

  A small, quivering motion.

  He feels like pulling the syringe out of his pocket and inspecting it, but he knows it is futile. Something has gone wrong. He steps towards the bed. Just as the man is about to pull the covers from around him, he hears sounds from downstairs.

  Someone is coming into the house from the veranda. He recognises the sound of the sliding doors.

  He dives towards the bed and wraps his right arm round the man’s neck. Perhaps the poison has taken effect after all; the sleeping man has defecated in the bed. He struggles and tightens his grip, and eventually shunts the man’s head into the right position. With all his strength he yanks his forearm and hears the neck snap. He gets up from the bed and listens.

  Downstairs everything is silent. Silence means that someone has heard what just took place.

  He goes down the stairs, three at a time, trips on the threshold between the two rooms and manages to locate the new arrivals. A rapid conclusion that might be wrong but is probably right: two junkies breaking and entering – one in the kitchen in front of him, the other in the small office space behind him.

  There are no options: the kitchen thief is standing in front of him bathed in moonlight, looks him in the eye, says he smells of shit and tells him he’ll die if he shouts or tries to call the police. Thirty-something, his face gaunt from years of addiction, a breadknife in his hand.

  He raises his hand and hears the sound of the burglar in the office coming into the living room. The kitchen thief is approaching him with the knife, tells him to show them where the money is. When the kitchen thief is close enough, he punches him right in the middle of the face, breaking his nose and probably his jawbone, then grabs the knife from the thief ’s hand, spins round and thrusts it into the throat of the other burglar, who has now appeared in the kitchen. This one is younger than his mate: a few weeks of straggly beard, bad teeth, metal rings in his eyebrows. He lets the thief slump to the floor and turns to face the first thief, by now lying on his back on the kitchen floor. He presses the knife into the thief ’s fist, stands up and crushes his skull with the heel of his boot.

  He knows this doesn’t look anything like the way it was supposed to, but it was the best he could do in a fleeting moment, in a situation that went bad.

  He walks towards the sliding doors, looks up to the windows of the neighbouring houses to see if anyone is awake. He has already gripped the door handle when he hears soft steps behind him. Even before he turns around, he knows who is behind him. Terror and regret fill his mind. He cannot explain how he has ended up here or what has just taken place.

  He turns.

  His son’s face is round and happy. The boy raises his hand, wants to hug him.

  The dream woke him up, his heart pounding, his body awash with the adrenaline of a frantic animal. He got up, walked to the kitchen and ran the tap until the water was cold enough to numb his fingers. He filled a glass, drank and switched on his computer. Part of his skill was his ability to track people down.

  Finding his son had been easy – he had either taken or been given his mother’s surname and now worked in the public eye. He looked at the photograph he’d enlarged on the screen. He had downloaded it from the upper right-hand corner of a column advocating the development of the city’s public transport infrastructure.

  He’d read the column. He’d read it with a sense of pride.

  He didn’t really have an opinion when it came to the subject of public transport, but every word his son had written felt miraculous. Not because he admired the adroit choice of words or because he sighed with every sentence, but because somewhere in this city his son was committing words to paper, typing them on a screen, and through that he existed to so many people.

  His son had dark hair, blue eyes and a nose he recognised as his own: rather long, slightly wide. The expression was that of a young man. Life hadn’t yet etched its mark into his eyelids or the corners of his eyes; it hadn’t tired him, worn him down.

  The expression was one of hope.

  7

  In its shroud of snow, Mustikkamaa looked like an enchanted island. It was so quiet, I could hear the pine trees, the wind rustling through the boughs. Marjo Harjukangas was late. We’d agreed to meet at ten. It was six minutes past. The sun was rising, and the eastern horizon was a golden, velvety gauze, glinting like the promised land. The winter solstice had just passed, and now we already had five and a half hours of daylight.

  When Harjukangas had suggested we meet on Mustikkamaa, I’d agreed straight away. I liked the place, especially during the winter. In the summer it was filled with sun-worshippers, families with little children, different groups of people, picnickers. Now it was empty. As the crow flies it was only two kilometres from the centre of the city to the island, but it felt more like twenty, particularly because, in order to get there, you had to travel several kilometres east and cross Hopeasalmi Bridge.

  Harjukangas arrived. She looked like a student: a rucksack on her shoulder, a chunky scarf, a woolly hat. A slender woman used to working out. She had walked from the metro station and apologised for being late. We took off our gloves and shook hands. In person she looked the same as she had in the photograph: brown, serious eyes; a runner’s furrows in her cheeks, now apple-red from the chill and the walk. She was alone.

  ‘Shall we walk?’ she
said and pointed towards the beginning of the path.

  We walked anticlockwise round the island. The path, covered in snow, rose and fell, at times winding close to the shore. You could sense the cold of the water just by thinking about it. We went through the background information. I learned that Finn Mining was a leader in its field, even when it came to environmental impact; that the company’s mining operations were founded on the notion of sustainable development; that Marjo Harjukangas was a former top-level distance runner who, through determination and an uncompromising character, had won competitions; and that an attitude like this was important for an environmental officer. She would never be prepared to compromise on her principles. All this I learned through what was, for the most part, a monologue. What’s more, it provided me with very little information that I needed or could use.

  When Harjukangas started giving me inquisitive looks between sentences, I began to understand what this was about. For that reason her next question came as no surprise.

  ‘What would you think if I asked you to stop recording now?’

  We had arrived at the western extremity of the island. Across the sound, construction was under way on the new Kalasatama complex. Sompasaari would be a pile of rubble for a long time to come. I showed Harjukangas my phone and touched the red Pause button. She looked at the phone a moment longer, as if to make sure that the second counter really had stopped moving.

  We walked on. Snowflakes disappeared into the sea.

  ‘There’s a mistake on the website,’ she said. ‘I’m no longer on the board of directors.’

  I glanced to one side, waited for her to continue.

  ‘I’ll admit I was surprised when you called. But I recognised your name, and I thought you and I might have a shared interest in this. The more I think about it, the more opportunities I see.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were no longer a member of the board?’

  ‘Because you might not have been as keen to meet me,’ said Harjukangas and stopped. ‘Am I wrong?’

  ‘It depends,’ I said. Of course, she was right.

  Harjukangas’s serious eyes didn’t let up; her gaze didn’t relent for a second.

  ‘I wanted to meet you. As I said, I recognised your name. You’ve written some good pieces. Your article about the grey economy in the building industry was excellent.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You had an inside informant for that article, yes?’

  There was something almost magical about the seconds that followed: our frosted breath mingling before disappearing; the protective curtain of snow around us.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  ‘I have a proposal.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I’ve worked for Finn Mining Ltd for eight years. Five of those were on the board of directors. I am very proud of my work and my achievements. You can take it from me that trying to instil a sense of environmental responsibility into businesses in the mining industry is not easy. There’s a certain level of resistance. You learn a lot. More particularly, you learn to see people, to know them through and through. I might have lots of information that could be useful to you.’

  We walked onwards. The snow was wet and heavy.

  ‘At this point I should ask the compulsory question,’ I said.

  ‘What do I want from you?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I want you to write a good article, preferably the best article you’ve ever written.’

  Harjukangas seemed serious. Sometimes people actually said what they meant.

  ‘You said you’re no longer on the board of directors.’

  ‘I was sidelined a year ago. Of course, that’s not what they would call it. According to them I was “promoted”. My official title is now Senior Consultant on Internal Affairs and Environment–Procedural Analysis. It doesn’t just sound vague; it is.’

  ‘And why were you sidelined?’

  ‘Promoted. Write that in the article. I think that answers your question.’

  ‘I mean, wouldn’t it have been simpler to fire you and…’

  ‘… and attract everyone’s attention. Show them what the company truly thinks about environmental concerns? Publicly admit that they no longer have any significance for this company?’

  Of course, Harjukangas was right. I continued my line of questioning.

  ‘So, these sideliners or promoters – the other members of the board – did they unanimously agree that you should be moved to another brief?’

  ‘Promoted,’ she corrected me again. ‘Yes. Well, I don’t actually know. I never heard the CEO’s opinion in person. But otherwise the answer is yes.’

  ‘You said you learned a lot about people. Do you specifically mean the other board members?’

  We crossed the bridge leading to the Korkeasaari zoo. On the other side of the narrow sound the animals prowled in their cages. The sea flowed dark between the two stretches of land.

  ‘Apart from the CEO, there is no longer anyone on the board of directors from the time I was there. Are you familiar with these men? They are all men, of course.’

  ‘I don’t know any of them. I’m keen to hear your thoughts on them.’

  ‘Kimmo Karmio joined immediately after me. Director of finance and investment – a passionate footballer; a former top-end player, apparently. A consummate professional, good at his job, but easily swayed by others.’

  ‘A yes-man.’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Harjukangas, and glanced at me.

  There was a flicker in her gaze, a flinch in the lines of her cheeks.

  ‘Kimmo Karmio is no longer with us.’

  ‘He left the company?’

  ‘He died. Some kind of accident at home. I don’t know the details.’

  I said nothing. I doubted Marjo Harjukangas needed my condolences.

  ‘Then there’s Giorgi Sebrinski, our sales director,’ she continued. ‘Aside from his work, a mystery to everyone. A salesman in every sense of the word, both good and bad. He did a lot of work on the side, selling things we hadn’t agreed on as a team.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Hannu Valtonen is the company’s development manager, a stalwart mining professional. Swears like a trooper. I’d take the word “development” out of his title. He’s a manager. Very much so.’

  ‘Power hungry?’

  ‘That’s putting it mildly,’ Harjukangas nodded. ‘Alan Stilson is the head of HR. Seems like a nice enough chap. His level of ambition was a bit of a surprise.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Many times I’ve wondered whether he isn’t more interested in the business side of the company than he is in the staff, which is supposed to be his area of expertise.’

  ‘And what about the CEO?’

  ‘Yes, Matti Mali. I don’t know.’

  I turned my head.

  ‘What I mean is, I saw less and less of him over time,’ said Harjukangas. ‘When I first started, he was heavily involved with the day-to-day running of the company. But as time went on, I barely saw him in board meetings at all.’

  The path meandered, following the contours of the shore. The sleet made me wonder whether the opposite shore existed at all.

  ‘Can I ask your opinion on one other person?’

  ‘I’ll answer if I can.’

  ‘Marjo Harjukangas,’ I said. ‘What can you tell me about her?’

  Harjukangas gave a smirk; didn’t say anything for a while. Then we talked about the weather, about how there was more snow than we’d had in years, how neither of us could remember the last time January in Helsinki had been so white.

  When we arrived at the car park, I offered to share a taxi with her.

  She looked me in the eyes and said she would walk.

  The editorial team’s briefing began at twelve. Hutrila speedily went through the points on the agenda.

  Most were the standard subjects: the government’s austerity cuts (‘As well as talking about the parl
iament, let’s take a human angle on this: the average worker, how the cuts affect their lives. Nopanen, set us up with a quick online poll: what would you cut first, that sort of thing. It’s boring, but readers like it when they can get involved’); Helsinki City Council’s lack of money (‘the capital city finances people in the rest of the country and is left scratching its arse. You don’t need to say it directly, but use some graphics that make it obvious’); the usual lifestyle spread (‘What’s it going to be today? Detox treatments, income inequality, foster homes, rotting school buildings, junkie mothers, something else? Okay, detox therapy. Shall we say something like, “Give the little shits their Subutex so they won’t have to steal our bikes from the garden?” Just joking); Russia (‘Lievonen and Kuusi, come up with something, but most importantly, and like in all other papers, you can say anything except the truth’).

  After going through his list of bullet points, Hutrila moved on to topics that ‘made us stand out from the crowd’ and looked around the room. I raised my hand. Hutrila looked at me and asked Pohjanheimo, who had also raised his hand, to speak. An experienced economics correspondent, Pohjanheimo wanted to examine the government’s corporate subsidies. ‘Socialism for Capitalists’ was the working title of his article. Hutrila encouraged him to carry on with his line of enquiry.

  The others were all asked to speak before me.

  The paper’s culture editor, Rantapaatso, wanted to run a lengthy article about an American author currently visiting Finland. ‘If he agrees to talk,’ Hutrila said. ‘What else is he going to do?’ asked Rantapaatso. ‘He’s a writer. I won’t get very far if he only agrees to write.’ ‘He must enjoy something,’ said Hutrila. ‘Says here he’s into wrestling,’ Rantapaatso read from his notes. ‘Then wrestle with him,’ said Hutrila.

  Finally I was asked to speak. I explained the background to the mining operations in Suomalahti in a nutshell. Hutrila suggested I join Määttä, Tukiainen and Nopanen on their austerity-cuts team for the time being and continue looking into Suomalahti on the side. When I uttered the word Suomalahti, the economics editor, Pohjanheimo, turned to look at me from beneath his dark, sharp eyebrows, before continuing to read his paperwork. Hutrila repeated what he’d said earlier. First other subjects, then Suomalahti.