The Mine

by Antti Tuomainen

  ‘So you’re a hitman?’

  Emil said nothing. Again he looked his son in the eyes. Into your hands I place my life.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Janne. ‘Either you’re telling the truth or … But you have Manninen’s bag and you know what’s going on here. I just heard that the man who killed Manninen is dead. I don’t know how he died, but I doubt it was a heart attack. So there’s only one question left. Why are you telling me all this?’

  Emil was surprised. This was happening differently from what he had expected. On the other hand, everything happened this way.

  ‘You have a family…’

  Emil heard his son sigh. Janne placed his elbows on the table and leaned forwards.

  ‘I had a family.’

  ‘Had?’

  ‘My wife is bored of me. She wants to separate, wants me to move out.’

  ‘Are you going to?’

  ‘I don’t think I have many options.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re sorry.’

  ‘Family is the most important thing we have,’ said Emil, and understood the weight of his words, how they reflected on him. ‘The people closest to us.’

  Janne sat back. ‘Let’s not turn this into a family therapy session. Considering what you told me a minute ago.’

  Janne’s standoffishness – it was a mask, thought Emil. If it wasn’t, then Janne was just like him. The thought was as uplifting as it might have been under different circumstances.

  ‘I was going to say: there comes a point in your life when…’ Emil fumbled for the right words, knowing he would never find them. ‘… When you want to see what you were – what you are; to see what is left. It’s always about people. I don’t know how to put it any better, any more gracefully.’

  Janne looked out of the window, then back at Emil. So far everything had gone far better than he had imagined.

  ‘Thirty years,’ said Janne. ‘It’s too long a time.’

  ‘Too long for what?’

  ‘Too long for there to be anything left, anything to look back on.’

  It seemed Emil had celebrated too soon. ‘I’m sorry you feel like that…’

  ‘You’re sorry, again.’

  ‘I am, I truly am. From my perspective thirty years isn’t too long a time. It’s not a long time at all.’

  Janne shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s worse. Have you any idea of the situation I’m heading into?’

  ‘I know what it feels like to lose my family.’

  ‘Lose? You didn’t lose anything. You left us. You are … I don’t even want to say what you told me you are. That’s if it’s even true. How do I know?’

  ‘I know what it’s like to feel lonely.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  To forget. To remember.

  ‘To be your father.’

  The waiter appeared and collected their plates, leaving the coffee pot. Emil poured them both a fresh cup. Only the most significant moments in life can be this mundane. Life doesn’t come crashing down around us when a champagne bottle is popped open. Life creaks at the seams and the sun and the stars shine in the sky as you sit down on a bus, unsuspecting, and stare through the sleet at the landscape beyond the window, or as you wash the dishes, your back aching. The phone rings, your heart stops. It’s at moments like this that a partner, whom you’ve trusted for years, tells you over supper they are leaving, that they’ve found someone else and will be moving out the very next day.

  Emil didn’t want to foist himself or his thoughts on Janne. Neither did he want this moment to evaporate, to lose the chance before him.

  ‘What exactly can you offer me as a father?’ asked Janne. ‘Teach me various ways of killing people?’

  The question was sarcastic and meant, at least in part, as a blow below the belt.

  ‘Of course not,’ Emil answered honestly, again staring around him. The room was empty. He wouldn’t have wanted to have this conversation in a packed restaurant.

  ‘What then?’ asked Janne.

  ‘I can listen. We can talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About life, anything at all.’

  ‘Okay, let’s talk about life,’ said Janne. He placed his elbows firmly on the table, raised his shoulders. ‘Let’s start with the fact that you lied to me when we met the first time.’

  ‘I did that to protect you. Parents do things like that.’

  ‘Hardly for children in their thirties.’

  ‘Particularly for children in their thirties. The things you haven’t talked about by then will remain unspoken forever.’

  ‘I disagree.’

  ‘Good. Now we’re having a conversation.’

  ‘Does my mother know about you? About what you do?’

  I believe she does. On some level, in some way. Because of what happened back then…

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to tell her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What if I tell her?’

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘What do you think she’ll say when she finds out?’

  ‘She’ll say what has to be said.’

  Janne looked at him. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I believe people have their own reasons for doing and not doing things. Whether or not I understand those reasons is a different matter.’

  ‘Why did you tell me this?’

  ‘You’re my only child. You are my son. I want you to know me.’

  ‘You’re taking quite a risk.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I’m a reporter, and, to all intents and purposes, you and I are complete strangers. I can see the story now. A lengthy article in the weekend supplement. A portrait. It will be touching and personal because we’re related to one another.’

  ‘I don’t believe you’d write something like that.’

  Janne picked up his glass of water and took a sip. He emptied the glass.

  ‘Did you kill those men in the woods?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘One of them shot your colleague. I was afraid they might harm you too. The shooter was very skilled. In many ways they had the upper hand. A snowmobile, a rifle, two excellently trained—’

  ‘So there were two of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you killed both of them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Janne stared at him. The dark rim of his glasses heightened the intensity of his eyes.

  ‘Only one of the men shot at us,’ he said quietly. ‘That means the other one was innocent.’

  ‘He would have harmed you. I knew him. I don’t mean personally, but I know men like that. I know what they are, what they’re capable of, what they do.’

  ‘Isn’t…?’ Janne began, then fell silent.

  Emil turned, saw the waiter approaching. He wanted to clear the table before lunch. Emil asked for the bill. Together or separately, he asked. Together, said Emil. Separately, said Janne. The waiter was frozen to the spot. Together, Emil said in a tone of voice that left no room for ambiguity, and the waiter walked off.

  ‘Couldn’t you just have stopped them following us instead?’

  ‘Everything happened very quickly. Like so many things in life. Nothing happens for a long time, then everything happens all at once.’

  The waiter returned, placed the bill in front of Emil and left. Neither of them glanced up at him. The two men sat looking at one another.

  ‘You could say that,’ said Janne.

  ‘I have a car. If you’re going back to Helsinki…’

  ‘I’ll take the bus. To Rovaniemi. I’ll fly back from there or I’ll get the train.’

  They remained sitting opposite each other for another few seconds. Then Janne stood up, pulled on his coat, wrapped a scarf round his neck, threw the black bag over his shoulder and walked out.

  26

  The snow-covered landscape was full of mo
tion: it rose and fell, twisted and turned, stretched out flat. At times the forest rushed past, then the trees disappeared and the world was again nothing but endless sheets of snow. Apart from me, the back seat of the bus was empty; the window breathed cold air on to my face. I held my phone in my hand for a long while before managing to make the first call. I explained that I wanted to run some tests on water from the well at my family’s farm and that I’d taken the necessary samples. I learned that the laboratory was in Vantaa and that I would have to bring the samples and fill out a form explaining various legal formalities, such as the specific location of the farm. That would be no problem, I said.

  It also took a moment before I sent my first text message. Maarit answered immediately. She said she was already back in Helsinki and that we could meet. It seemed she too preferred communicating by text message; neither of us wanted to hear the other’s voice. I wondered about everything I suspected Maarit might be involved in; what she suspected of me, and what was truly going on. Many uncomfortable, inappropriate things had taken place between us. We’d witnessed a man dying, and we had played a part in making it happen. On top of that, what had happened earlier: a drunken, passionate night, which was either a mistake on both our parts or a shared, concerted attempt to use each other.

  And my father, our meeting, the things we’d spoken about – everything was swirling through my mind. Words took on new weight, the space between the lines disappeared. My father’s voice echoed and dissolved, at times close, at others as though it was carried away across water. What words meant, what they expressed, shifted from the incomprehensible and the utterly shocking, to the mundane and perfectly sensible. I tried to think of him as a person – a sixty-year-old man trying to form a bond with people he had left behind long ago. The emotion was a mixture of sorrow and fright. What made the feeling so difficult was that I could relate to it so completely. I understood my father. In part. But as for the rest, what he claimed he had done – and still did – felt like a nightmare.

  Halonen had told me to contact him directly as soon as I remembered something or if any new information came to light.

  More than anything, the thought of Ella weighed on my mind. My daughter, my child. As much as I wanted to believe that I would never repeat my father’s mistakes, that was exactly what I was doing, and it was all happening too easily. It didn’t take much imagination to see myself explaining my choices to Ella, trying to assure her that she could trust me, which, of course, merely demonstrated that I knew I had betrayed her trust by disappearing from her life.

  There was one thing I had learned, though. Work keeps us sane. Focussing on work helped when nothing else could. I was writing a story. The key to the story was right here in the bag beside me. I knew many things that nobody else knew. At least, no other reporters.

  A mining company trying to increase profit margins by destroying the environment. A company whose board members might have been murdered. The thought brought to mind the activists. Did the police suspect them? And was Maarit one of them?

  I did what I often did when I found myself without a pen and paper: I wrote myself a text message. A list of the facts so far: Nickel mine at Suomalahti probably polluting the environment (confirm samples). Action deliberate. Responsibility with mining company.

  After typing the contents of the text message, I realised that here was my first article. I made another list of historical context: price of company purchase, history of mining company, family business for generations. All at once I realised that everything led back to Matti Mali. I Googled his picture. If the members of the board had been dying, perhaps it wasn’t a group of activists that was behind it. They were energetic and came up with stunts that garnered much publicity. That was it. I couldn’t see them – not even Santtu Leikola, who’d climbed on to the roof of the Parliament – actually laying a finger on anyone. For Matti Mali, on the other hand, everything was at stake: the future of his family business, his life’s work.

  I had considered Mali in various ways during my research, but had always dismissed him. Marjo Harjukangas’s stories about threats must have played a part in my reasoning.

  The bus came to a halt at the airport. I stepped off. I checked the jars of samples, wrapping my woollen jumper round them tightly for extra padding, and lifted the bag on to the conveyor belt.

  The flight to Helsinki took an hour. Two sales representatives behind me were getting in the first drinks of the evening. I listened to their conversation until I dozed off.

  At the other end, every minute I waited for my luggage felt torturously long. My bag appeared, and I checked the jars. Everything was intact, nothing had leaked. I rushed out to the taxi rank.

  The laboratory of Water Analytics Finland was in a redbrick office building built in the 1980s. In the fading light and freezing emptiness of the winter’s afternoon, its illuminated windows and the warmth that enveloped me in the foyer felt cosy. That said, the very fact I was considering a sterile office building near the airport a welcoming place spoke volumes about my state of mind.

  I explained to the receptionist why I’d come, and was asked to fill out the form. I decided to locate my fictitious farm in Suomalahti, about ten kilometres from the mining complex. Once I’d filled in the form, I asked to meet the lab technician who would be examining the samples. The receptionist, a very young woman – probably still a student – looked at me for a moment and made a brief phone call.

  We waited. The young woman gave me an awkward look. Eventually the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor, and before long the technician appeared.

  Susanna Salmela must have been in her forties. Her short dark hair revealed ears with more piercings than I could count at a quick glance. She was wearing a long white coat and a pair of Birkenstock sandals. I handed over Manninen’s samples, explained that the matter was very urgent and important, and said that money was no object. The final comment was an out-and-out lie. I only had a few hundred euros in my account. That would go on next month’s mortgage repayment. What’s more, I was sure I’d exceeded any expenses Hutrila would be prepared to pay for.

  Susanna Salmela placed the jars in a tall, silent trolley with soft wheels and assured me she would get back to me as soon as possible. Then she pushed the trolley back down a corridor lined with doors looking like hatches on a Christmas calendar – some opened, some left ajar, some still closed.

  Back at the editorial office I casually greeted those who were still at work. Nobody asked where I had been. Fortunately Hutrila’s office was empty. I didn’t want to talk to him quite yet. I had to write something first.

  Writing was thinking, a way of bringing order to the world. By writing I worked out what I was actually doing, formulated my true opinion on things. When I was writing I could shut off everything around me. That was my secret; it was the truth about my work. Regardless of what else was happening in my life or in the world, when I was writing I was happy; or as happy as someone can generally expect to be. Even if I was writing about something other than what was preoccupying me, the act of ordering words and forming sentences on paper helped with those very preoccupations. For me, writing was what made each day lived, balanced. When I didn’t write, it soon started to show – at least to me; and even after only a few days. Everything began to become patchy. And the longer I didn’t write, the more scattered and restless my mind became. Eventually I didn’t know what I thought about anything; didn’t know my place; didn’t remotely know what I was doing.

  I booted up the computer, fetched some coffee and sat down. How banal everything seemed right here, right now. But on the periphery of my thoughts – places my concentration couldn’t reach – waited Ella, Pauliina, my father, Manninen the dead biologist, Maarit, and the events of the night in the forest. I looked around. An average day in the editorial department of an average newspaper. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except…

  I began.

  The more I wrote, the more clearly the pattern began to emerge.<
br />
  Matti Mali. Everything started with him: things I knew for certain and things that were still only theories. I left a message for Marjo Harjukangas, asking her to call me back. The story grew longer and longer. I took short breaks. At some point I noticed that everybody else had left. I stretched my legs. In the window I saw the faintly lit park; the blank tree trunks and branches; the lights of the hotel across the road; a part of myself. I turned and went back to my desk.

  I wrote until I was exhausted, until I simply couldn’t continue. The story was long, but it could be reworked. As soon as I had the lab results I would add them to the text. The story’s protagonist: Matti Mali. Working title: LORD OF THE DUNGHEAP.

  I went to the bathroom. When I returned to my desk, I saw that my phone had rung. Marjo Harjukangas. I looked at the time. Nine o’clock in the evening. I called her back. She had news.

  Someone had tried to murder Matti Mali.

  PART THREE

  GOLD

  1

  Leena’s eyes were warm and wise. Emil didn’t imagine the warmth was intended entirely for him – let alone only for him. He enjoyed what he could of it, though. At some point in our lives we make a decision, he thought, a choice that, though we don’t understand it at the time, will be final and will define how the years will treat us. It is a fork in the road that we only realise we have crossed much later. Leena had chosen a good path. It showed. She could have chosen another path, after what Emil had done. He knew that.

  But there she sat, wise and attractive, here, in the same restaurant as thirty years ago, at the very same table. Emil couldn’t remember what wine they had drunk back then. Today a bottle of dark, fragrant Chilean red stood open on the table. Across the table was a woman whose hands, once young and uncertain, now held a glass between her firm, relaxed fingers.

  The passing years. We either disappear within them without understanding a thing, or we accept them as a gift. Something like that. Emil realised that he had been silent for a long time.