The Mine

by Antti Tuomainen

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Mali poured coffee into the cups and slid one of them across the table towards me. I recognised the cup and saucer: the Singapore range by the Arabia ceramics company. I pulled the papers from my satchel. Mali looked at me. He said nothing as I placed them on the table and checked for the thousandth time that nothing was missing.

  ‘Milk? Sugar?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I take my coffee black, too. That’s how it should be drunk, I say.’

  I looked at Mali for a moment. ‘I have here a number of documents that appear to reveal that—’

  ‘Do you have a family?’

  Sitting in the armchair across from me was an old man whose light-blue eyes were curious and friendly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, no.’

  Mali smirked at my answer, and again his expression seemed more a look of sorrow than pleasure.

  ‘I have a daughter,’ I clarified.

  ‘I don’t have any children. I once had a wife, but now I’m alone. The housekeeper visits in the morning. This is a secret.’

  ‘What is a secret?’

  ‘This,’ Mali nodded in front of him. ‘Rather, it’s been a secret for some time now: the fact that I no longer take part in the running of the company.’

  ‘I realised that today.’

  Mali didn’t seem interested in what I had or hadn’t realised. He looked out at the sea, crossed his right leg over his left and picked up his coffee cup. He blew on it, and steam cut across the edge of the cup. I took one piece of paper from the pile and pushed it to his side of the table. He glanced at it, sipped his coffee before putting the cup down, took a set of reading glasses from his pocket and picked up the paper. He read.

  To: Matti Mali

  From: Hannu Valtonen

  CC: Giorgi Sebrinski , Kimmo Karmio

  , Alan Stilson

  Subject: Your offer

  Dear Matti,

  We had a meeting today to discuss your offer. We have decided to decline. We will not accept your offer, not now or in the future.

  Yours sincerely,

  Hannu Valtonen

  Director of Research and Development

  Tel: +35 8 46 8739 223

  hannu.valtonen@finnmining.fi

  Finn Mining Ltd – Commitment and Excellence in the Arctic

  Mali placed the sheet of paper on the table, took off his glasses and replaced them in his shirt pocket. He looked out across the sea.

  ‘The beginning of the end. For all concerned.’

  His tone was neutral, as though he were talking about something that didn’t affect him at all. He turned to look at me.

  ‘It’s a good job my father isn’t here to witness this. The mining company was even more important to him than it is to me. But I’ve done what I imagined he would have done. Everything: though I wasn’t very happy about some of it. Do you know what that piece of paper means?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and pulled out another handful of papers. ‘I believe I do. I have more documents that tell the whole story. Before that, I have to say that—’

  ‘You have to say what?’

  I looked at Mali’s black eye, the wound across his forehead, his arm resting in its bandages.

  ‘That fall of yours was quite convenient,’ I said.

  Mali looked at me, expressionless.

  ‘When I’d read these papers and finally understood what I’d read, I made a single phone call and received a single answer. Nobody saw the attack. All the police have is your statement. The timing is a bit too perfect.’

  Mali was silent for a moment. Then he smiled, and when his smile had disappeared he turned to face me fully.

  ‘As you will have seen,’ he began pensively. ‘The steps out front are treacherous. I’m a practical man. You have to use any opportunities that present themselves. I needed a little time.’

  ‘Time for what? You have no more time – that’s precisely what I’ve come to tell you…’

  Mali raised his right hand. I stopped mid-sentence.

  ‘Would you like some chocolates before we get down to business? I think I’ll have one. There’s Belgian and Swiss, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you, but—’

  ‘I assure you, they’re both excellent,’ he said. ‘If I remember, the Belgian chocolates have truffles in them. The Swiss stuff is dark. Wait a moment.’

  Mali stood up from his armchair, walked through the open room, disappeared behind a wall and remained there for a moment. I heard a cupboard door closing, the clink of glasses. Mali returned carrying two crystal bowls, settled himself in his chair once again, took one of both chocolates and began noisily unwrapping them.

  ‘Do you mind if I correct you as and when you make any mistakes?’ he asked as he pushed a chocolate into his mouth.

  This wasn’t going as I had expected. I’d imagined I would at least have to try and threaten him – blackmail him with what I knew. I looked at him. He looked back and sucked his chocolate. I could see him clearly in the light of the reading lamp and the winter’s day outside. Then it struck me. Alzheimer’s. Dementia. Something like that.

  ‘If you think for one moment…’ Matti Mali began, ‘… that you’ve met a demented old man who hasn’t the faintest idea who and what you are, and who might be suffering from some kind of memory loss, you can forget it.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty.’

  ‘Not a boy any longer. You’re old enough to regret one thing or the other.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. We should all have things we regret. It will be our salvation. Sometimes it seems as if it’s all we have, all that motivates us. Chocolate?’

  I shook my head. Mali took another chocolate and stared out of the window. I stared outside, too. Snow was once again fluttering through the air. The blue sky had disappeared.

  ‘Your father is probably very proud of you,’ said Mali, and again turned to face me.

  ‘He is. He says he is.’

  Mali sucked ponderously on his chocolate. Then he took a deep breath.

  ‘Please, begin.’

  I placed the pile of papers directly in front of me, picked up the bunch on top of the pile – fourteen printed documents from the Register of Companies, plus employee records and financial statements – and laid it in front of Mali. He didn’t look at the papers but kept his eyes fixed on me.

  ‘Sebrinski, Karmio, Stilson and Valtonen together owned an investment company named North Venture Finland. A few years ago, when Finn Mining faced difficulty with meeting the costs of opening the mine at Suomalahti, North Venture came to the rescue. Finn Mining – that is, you – had to accept the terms of the deal. North Venture took over control of the operation, though it never became a majority partner. This confused me at first, as did the fact that North Venture’s investment was split between four separate investment companies, whose funds are held in various limited partnerships whose owners, hidden away at the beginning of the chain, are – or were – Sebrinski, Karmio, Stilson and Valtonen.’

  I paused, laid another sheaf of papers in front of Mali. He glanced at it, took his coffee cup from its saucer and sipped, all the while staring out of the window. The snow was beginning to thicken.

  ‘North Venture began calling the shots at Finn Mining, though all the while you remained as the public face of the company.’

  Mali glanced at me. Not angrily or showing that he was offended, but with a sense of determination. I took the hint.

  ‘Well, for as long as they decided to keep you there, that is. I have a recording of a board meeting at which you are not present. The recording reveals that this group of four men was making decisions that directly affected operations at Suomalahti. They made one decision in particular whose ramifications w
e will be able to enjoy for decades to come. I’ll come back to that point in due course.’

  ‘So far everything you’ve said has been first class,’ said Mali. He looked at me, his eyes keen and alert. ‘Do you know what I see?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘I see happiness,’ said Mali. ‘There you are, surrounded by such happiness. You have everything you need. I imagine you don’t really appreciate it. I imagine you simply can’t appreciate it at all. It doesn’t matter, you’re certainly not alone in that respect. You probably worry about the future of your job; perhaps you have problems at home. You think other people are doing better than you. Let me promise you one thing. One day, when you look back on this, you’ll think it was the best time of your life. And then your only wish – a futile one by that point – will be that you had realised you were as happy as it is possible for a man to be.’

  I looked at Mali and revisited the possibility that he might be demented. His smile was warm and his voice soft as the snow constantly swirling behind the windowpane.

  ‘You don’t believe me,’ he said. ‘You will later. At the end of their lives, everybody does. Everybody believes in God, too. There isn’t an atheist in the world who at the moment of death, at that final second, would dare to think that this truly is the end of the road. Anyone who says anything else is spouting hot air.’

  ‘To go back to Suomalahti…’

  ‘Do you believe in God?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You believe that as a human you are the greatest, most potent force in the universe; that you are behind the universe, its original force?’

  ‘I don’t think that.’

  ‘It certainly seems that way.’

  ‘Do you believe in God, Mr Mali?’

  ‘Don’t be sycophantic.’

  ‘Do you believe in God?’

  ‘Of course. Every rational person believes in God.’

  I looked at him. He picked up another chocolate, twisted it open, popped it into his mouth and dropped the wrapper on the table.

  ‘Good,’ I said, and picked up another bunch of papers and placed it in front of him. ‘I’ve drawn up a timeline. This shows the main events.’

  I ran my finger across the paper as I spoke.

  ‘North Venture takes over Finn Mining. Then North Venture – that is, the four members of the board – realise there is no way of making the mine at Suomalahti profitable. No legal way, I should say. And so they make a decision to lighten up on some of the miserable mine’s expenses. In other words, they decide to dump any unwanted shit straight into the surrounding environment. Once this has been going on for some time, Kimmo Karmio dies. Then Stilson. And so on. The only person left standing in this jigsaw puzzle is you, Mr Mali.’

  ‘Your point being?’ he said and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘You want your company back.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘And what if I don’t want it back?’

  I glanced outside. The light snow flurried diagonally across the window, like feathers falling from a pillow the breadth of the sky.

  ‘The evidence is on the table. On my phone I have the lab results of the samples I took at Suomalahti. Everything points towards—’

  ‘Did you always want to be a journalist? Have you always known it was the job for you; a calling, if you will?’

  I adjusted my position in the chair.

  ‘I must have been eighteen or nineteen, the first time I read an article and realised that whoever wrote it must have put in a lot of work that I couldn’t see. I started thinking about what that work might be, how I could get my hands on information. I’d visit places, meet people, read, put things together. Write. That’s what’s most important. Something happened. I realised this was my profession.’

  ‘Precisely. A calling. You’re privileged. I’m sure you appreciate that.’

  ‘What has this got to do with what’s been going on at Suomalahti and Finn Mining?’

  Matti Mali smiled again.

  ‘You’re impatient. It’s all right. You can train yourself out of it. You’ll see, impatience and youth disappear all at once.’

  Mali lowered his hands and placed them on the armrests. He leaned his back more firmly against the chair and rested his head against the neck support. It looked as though he was waiting for a plane to take off, but without the trembling and shuddering. The house was utterly still and pleasantly warm. The snow outside hid us from the world like a feather duvet.

  ‘I don’t want anything to go back to the way it was,’ said Mali. ‘It’s not possible. I’m not sure I’d want it even if it were possible. I want to correct my mistakes. There’s a difference. I’m talking about the company; the company founded by my grandfather Harald Malin. I’m talking about the company I’ve run for over thirty years, a job I managed very badly.’

  Mali looked at me more intensely than at any time during our meeting.

  ‘I want to make amends,’ he said. ‘Do you know what that means?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Good. That’s a good start.’

  I waited for him to continue.

  ‘I wanted to be an architect,’ said Mali. ‘An excellent hobby, my father called it. He said I could stare at houses and admire buildings to my heart’s content – as long as I did it on my own time, once we’d taken care of our work. By work, he meant the mine. The mines, plural, actually. And that’s what I did. I accepted my lot. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad lot, not in the least. My father had done the same. I never truly learned what he wanted from life. I don’t know whether he had a specific calling. He died without answering all the important questions I had for him. I’ve since learned this is rather normal. People talk about this, that and the other for seventy years, but when they die these things still remain a mystery.’

  Matti Mali looked at me.

  ‘So now you know rather better why you are sitting there and why I’m telling you this.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘So instead of being an architect, I studied and graduated as a geological engineer. I was about as interested in the field as I was in last winter’s snow. I became CEO of the company when my father suggested it. His suggestions weren’t suggestions in the traditional sense of the word. For a long time everything went just as it should. Then things started to happen. Mining became the business of the future. That ought to have woken me up. But at that point … More coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Mali poured some for himself. Steam rose from his cup as he leaned back in his chair again.

  ‘The business of the future. A beacon for the mining industry worldwide. Things like that. I’d been in the business for decades, staring at our profit margins and the ore-depleted Finnish soil all my life, so I wondered quite what they were talking about. Before anyone paid this fact the slightest attention, suddenly a sixth of the country’s surface area had been reserved for exploration. In 2013 the precise figure was 53,000 square kilometres of land, the majority of which was sold to foreign investors for next to nothing. It was entirely senseless. But that didn’t matter. Politicians wanted to reinvent the wheel and declared that the mines would generate employment in Finland for decades to come and, in doing so, create affluence on an unprecedented scale. Nobody dared say out loud that one mine can operate very well on a staff of ten men; that mines are almost always unprofitable and that opening even one new mine would require tens, if not hundreds, of millions’ worth of investments from the state; or that once they are decommissioned mines leave behind such a mess that the only way to clean it up is by using taxpayers’ money. But you know all this, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Mali. Again he managed to muster something resembling a smile, only for it to disappear in the blink of an eye. ‘So now we arrive at the question of why I’m telling you this. When operations in Suomalahti were commenced, I simply couldn’t see the whole picture. There was to
o much uncritical support for the project. That, if anything, tells you the business model can’t last. If there’s unanimous consensus that an idea is good, it more than likely isn’t. The problems started almost immediately. I wasn’t alert enough when they bussed in the first consultants. That’s another sign of a burgeoning catastrophe – the appearance of consultants in increasing numbers. The consultants cost a fortune, but their fees were nothing compared to what it costs to keep the mine running. For that you need capital. Valtonen turned up with Stilson and the rest of them. Decisions were taken quickly because the situation required decisive action. When you work quickly, you have to trust what’s going on. Once you trust, then you have to find the right people. But that didn’t happen.’

  The last sentence seemed to make Mali’s voice quiver. He coughed into his fist and looked out of the window. Snowflakes were gently tapping against the glass. I said nothing. Mali turned his head. His eyes were those of an old man.

  ‘I lost control of my company; the company my father and his father before him had entrusted to me. The investment company represented by Valtonen, Karmio, Stilson and Sebrinski took over. They made the mine profitable, just as they had promised. But they achieved this by destroying Finn Mining. When it came to my attention that the industrial sewage was being pumped untreated straight into the local environment, I made one final attempt to put things right. Using my old contacts, I found a buyer and approached the four members of the investment company. I thought that if I could regain control of the company, I would be able to use all our remaining resources to correct the damage and decommission the mine with a semblance of honour. They declined my offer. Our family company, in operation since 1922, was heading for the most ignominious end imaginable, and before that it was going to turn these four criminals into millionaires. I simply couldn’t allow it.’