Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction

by Leena Krohn

  The Restaurant is Closed

  In the most northerly part of the city, in a modest and old residential area, a new restaurant had been opened. In fact it was the only real restaurant in the whole town. For Håkan and his neighbours, the new restaurant was a welcome sign of prosperity.

  ‘Out here, you’ve never been able to eat anywhere but the Grill Bar,’ Håkan said to his wife.

  But everyone knew that the food at the Grill Bar was greasy and bad and that the local drunks and petty criminals used it as their haunt. People like Håkan, who had a regular job and whose pension plans were in order, did not frequent it. They never took their wives and children there for Sunday lunch.

  The new restaurant had appeared after Håkan’s summer holiday in business premises formerly occupied by a bank. But the bank had ceased trading and the property had already been empty for a couple of years.

  The restaurant’s external appearance was not enticing. The building itself was low and ugly; its façade was of grey prefabricated slabs. Only an old maple tree that spread its branches at the corner of the building embellished the street scene’s inimical air. Beside the entrance, where better restaurants place pots thrown by a ceramicist and plant in them blue petunias and white tufted pansies, there grew luxuriant bunches of nettles.

  And this eating place did not even have a name. The large windows had been painted opaque white right up to the top. On one window was the simple message: Restaurant. Oriental food. It delighted Håkan, for he liked oriental food; it was, in his opinion, light but nevertheless strongly spiced.

  He decided to take his wife to the new place in the very near future. But day after day the restaurant’s door remained closed and Håkan never, as he passed by, detected any food smells.

  Once, when the restaurant’s main door was ajar, Håkan peered in and saw cane chairs and round tables decked with white table-cloths. The aesthetic quality of what he saw delighted Håkan. In its classicism and simplicity, the restaurant space satisfied his demanding taste. With increasing impatience, he wished to make himself familiar with the place’s menu.

  But after that time, for at least two weeks, the door stayed tightly shut and no menu, or even any announcement of the place’s opening hours, was to be seen. But at last one Saturday, when his wife had sent Håkan to the supermarket to fetch the dried yeast she had forgotten, he noticed that two or three cars with foreign plates had stopped under the maple, half-on the pavement. Well-dressed people came out of the restaurant’s doors and disappeared into the cars.

  Returning from the shop, Håkan decided to take a closer look at the place. He hoped that he and his wife, and perhaps even his sister-in-law too, who was coming to visit, would at last be able to sample the products of the new kitchen. But when Håkan came out of the shop with his plastic bag, the restaurant door was tightly shut once more. He knocked for a long time, but no one came to open up, although he thought he heard the hum of conversation from inside.

  Håkan went on his way empty-handed and puzzled. The exotic lunch would have to wait.

  The new restaurant was not advertised in the local papers. A strange business, thought Håkan, if it was able to survive without advertisements or customers. No meals appeared to be served in the restaurant, at least not to ordinary customers, or at least to locals.

  But a few things were happening around the place. From time to time as he passed by, Håkan saw well-dressed strangers coming and going through the doors with hurried steps. Then a dazzlingly bright light shone through the restaurant windows. A man whose coat and bearing were familiar to Håkan knocked on the window and was allowed in. Håkan thought he recognised him as a passing acquaintance, one of his neighbours, who had moved to the area only a few months previously.

  Perhaps there will be food there today, Håkan thought, and curiosity and a healthy appetite made him hurry to the restaurant door. But when he reached the threshold, the door was closed once more.

  This time Håkan grew angry and pounded on the door for a long time, without however attracting any attention.

  Later that week, Håkan was sitting in the bus beside the neighbour whom he had seen disappearing into the restaurant.

  ‘Didn’t you go to that oriental restaurant the other day,’ Håkan said. ‘What was the food like there?’

  ‘What, me?’ the man said, visibly startled. ‘I haven’t been there. You must have seen someone else, someone who looks like me. I never eat out. According to my wife, she makes better food than any restaurant chef. And much cheaper.’

  He laughed and changed the subject to the terrible weather. When Håkan got off the bus in the city, before the man, he happened to glance back when he reached the door. The man was staring at him, his brows wrinkled, in an unfriendly manner which Håkan could not understand. It had nothing to do with the quality of their acquaintance or their everyday conversation.

  But Håkan was now certain that this was exactly the man he had seen.

  Finally one day, at lunchtime, Håkan saw that the door of the restaurant was wide open. He simply walked in. In the lobby was an empty coat-rack; he hung his mackintosh up on it. The restaurant itself was bathed in dazzling light. It was tidy and deserted.

  On the tables were starched white table-cloths; the cutlery glittered and gleamed and the napkins were folded into tall cones. But Håkan could not detect any smell of food.

  He chose a table next to the window, although he was sorry that he could not really see out, because the white paint ran all the way up. Beside him, suddenly, there stood a strange man. The man must have moved with very light steps, for Håkan had not heard him approach.

  ‘May I have a menu,’ Håkan said. He supposed the man was a waiter.

  ‘I am sorry, but this place is closed,’ the man said, clearly but slightly accenting Håkan’s mother tongue.

  ‘The door was certainly open,’ Håkan said. ‘Otherwise I could hardly have walked in.’

  ‘We were just airing the room,’ the man said.

  ‘Why are you always closed?’ Håkan asked irritably. ‘This restaurant has been here for six months, but no one has been able to eat here. Or not me, at any rate. Don’t you need customers.’

  ‘We will open in the near future,’ the man said.

  ‘I am hungry now,’ Håkan said, almost arrogantly.

  ‘I cannot help that,’ the man said. ‘Would you leave?’

  ‘Are you throwing me out?’ Håkan said, raising his voice. ‘You can’t just do that.’

  ‘You must leave now,’ the man repeated.

  ‘No! I want to eat!’ Håkan announced. ‘Is that too much to ask? In that window it says that this is a restaurant. Restaurants serve food for money. I have money – look! I intend to pay for my meal.’

  He put his wallet on the table and opened it so that two large notes were visible. From the back room he heard muttering, as if there were a large number of people there.

  ‘It is lunchtime now,’ Håkan said. ‘Bring me the menu.’

  ‘There is no menu,’ the man said gloomily.

  ‘What! No menu! Well then, bring me whatever you have. Herring, pig’s trotters, sauerkraut, green peas, whatever. You must have something, after all. I want to eat!

  And suddenly, in a fit of pathos highly uncharacteristic of him, Håkan took a knife and fork and dug their points into the table.

  ‘You cannot eat here,’ the man said. ‘We do not have anything. Not yet.’

  ‘You are the strangest of restaurants,’ Håkan said. ‘Although I’ve been wondering for a long time. Perhaps I should report you. I don’t think this really is a restaurant. Perhaps you are doing something completely different here, something which cannot necessarily bear the light of day. Something which should not have anything to do with restaurants at all.’

  ‘It is perfectly true,’ the man now said, calmly and politely. He looked at Håkan more attentively than before.

  Håkan was astonished. Was he right, and had the man admitted it just lik
e that? But something in the man’s expression made Håkan wary.

  ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘I will go elsewhere, to a place where something is being served.’

  ‘You will not go anywhere,’ said the man.

  ‘What?’ Håkan asked, very startled.

  The man walked to the door with a fast and springy tread. He turned the key, and the chink of the turning tumblers was heard. Håkan, too, had risen to his feet. He went after the man to the door. As he walked he noticed that his legs were shaking. The man was standing with his back against the door, and his hands behind his back.

  ‘Move aside,’ Håkan said in a loud voice.

  ‘Calm down and go back to your table,’ the man said.

  ‘This is extraordinary,’ Håkan said. ‘Quite singular. You are behaving inappropriately. I intend to leave now.’

  The man did not say anything, but did not move either. The situation had changed from silly to unpleasant. Håkan felt that after this anything was possible. He had found himself imprisoned illegally and without reason in his own neighbourhood, just because he had wanted to eat lunch. The entire alphabet of normal behaviour had been forsaken in this place that called itself a restaurant.

  ‘Move aside or I shall call the police,’ Håkan said.

  The man did not react to this in any way. Håkan examined the face of the man who stood before him. It was an uneven face, as if made of many parts that did not belong together. When one looked at them from a new angle, they quickly rebuilt themselves. Håkan could not hazard a guess as to the man’s homeland. His appearance seemed to combine many ethnic groups. His skin was dark, and when the man turned his profile, he looked Indian to Håkan. The word ‘Aztec’ came unbidden to his mind.

  When, on the other hand, one looked at the man from directly in front, his narrow eyes and high cheek-bones made Håkan remember Caucasia and horses. But the most extraordinary thing about his face were the lips, which were unusually red, and so clearly defined that, despite their width, they looked very feminine.

  Håkan saw the lips open and the man shouted, looking at the door that led into the inner rooms, a single word. Perhaps it was a name, but Håkan had never heard such a name, as if he had said tokorikato or koripikaro or rokokitato,

  Another figure appeared in the doorway. The Aztec nodded to him, then nodded his head towards Håkan and raised a finger. On his lips he formed, soundlessly, another word, which Håkan was unable to interpret. The new man slowly moved his gaze to Håkan, nodded and disappeared back into the inner rooms, closing the door tightly behind him. Håkan, however, was able to hear, more clearly than before, the murmur of a number of human voices.

  ‘You are right,’ the man said slowly. ‘This is not a restaurant. Rather, a – how should I say – laboratory. We have selected this peaceful area as our experimental station. Nothing here will remain the same, of that you may be certain. This area’s name will soon be on everyone’s lips.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Håkan asked.

  ‘A certain society meets here. There are hundreds, thousands of cells like ours around the world.’

  ‘What are you driving at? What is this all about?’ Håkan argued. He felt the bitter sweat break out under his arms and on his forehead. He thought he should have laughed, although he did not feel like laughing.

  ‘What do you need us for?’

  Håkan spoke of ‘us’ as if he had begun to feel a particular group or fateful cohesion with all the other inhabitants of this part of town. And precisely this had in fact happened.

  ‘The realisation of a worldwide plan,’ the man said, nodding for some reason to him, satisfied and self-assured. ‘You should be proud.’

  ‘Try to be a little more precise; there is no sense in what you say,’ Håkan complained. ‘What plan are you referring to?’

  ‘The media will call it an attentate. For us it is the last and decisive test.’

  ‘Test! What kind of test?’

  New, panicky and hoarse questions tore their way out of Håkan, although an inner voice urged him to be quiet. ‘How do you intend to organise it? How do you imagine such a thing could be possible.’

  ‘We do not imagine. Everything is ready.’

  ‘But what for? Why?’

  The man no longer replied, but his red lips twisted in an ugly way. At the same time Håkan felt as if within himself there had occurred an unwilled and violent shift, as if his consciousness had somehow changed. In the white paint of the window a small gap had been left or worn, the size of a coin, through which Håkan was able to see the maple that grew on the other side of the road. It was just beginning to change colour.

  Only a few moments ago he had walked past the tree and into this room. But what the man had said and what was now happening in this room had divided time in two: the old time that had predominated before he entered the restaurant, and the new age that had begun after it, which that was in contradiction to what had gone before.

  He felt that everything had changed. Although the maple looked the same as before, it was no longer the same, as if someone had furtively gone and changed it too.

  What had happened to him, in a single room, had happened to the whole world.

  ‘’We’ll get even with you,’ Håkan shouted with the power of a deep-welling rage. ‘You’re mad. Criminal!’

  Håkan thought about his home, which was barely half a kilometre from the restaurant. Both of them, his wife and he, had worked very hard for it. The building had been old and in bad condition when they had bought it, but the garden was large and luxuriant. And although they still had a large mortgage and a lot of work to do, they were happy there; it was a real home to them.

  Håkan thought of the lines of a song which some character in a Chekhov play had sung: My new built house, of maple wood and lattice work all round . . .

  That seemed to describe their home exactly: that spring, they had had to replace the rotten outdoor steps and rail. His collection of oriental maps, gathered over the years, was there; it contained some real rarities. Just the day before they had put up a new shelf. That was where Håkan kept his meteorological and mycological works.

  The garden’s deep purple Martagon lilies were already beginning to wither under the jasmine bush. Their glossy, black, lazy cat washed itself energetically in the August sun on a wooden sofa Håkan had made himself. His wife’s face came close to his as if in a dream, full of caring questions, patience and tenderness.

  Håkan now feared for all of this. He must get out and report what was happening in this place.

  ‘But I only wanted to eat,’ Håkan said humbly, almost as if to himself. He tried to understand, in vain, how and why he had wound up in this situation. ‘Be sensible and let me go now, and there will be no more serious consequences for you.’

  ‘You will stay here,’ the man said. ‘Soon you will be able to eat. Food is already being prepared for you.’

  Håkan looked at him in amazement. What was behind the man’s sudden change of mind?

  ‘I no longer wish to eat,’ Håkan said stiffly. ‘I just want to go home.’

  ‘You will eat,’ the man said. ‘I will make sure of it.’

  What on earth did he mean? Håkan wondered, slowly and foggily. He felt as if there must be something wrong with his brain.

  The door had now once again been silently opened into the inner room, where Håkan surmised the kitchen was – if this restaurant actually had a kitchen. A small, tight group of people had appeared in the doorway, staring at him with attentive gazes, as if they expected something extraordinary from him. Among them Håkan recognised his neighbour, the man who had denied that he had ever visited the place. Håkan looked him straight in the eye and realised that he hated him. The same emotion flashed in the man’s gaze as in a mirror.

  ‘The meal is now ready, my little sir,’ said a maliciously sweet voice. Its owner, a particularly tall and thin man, pushed through the group of curious people who stood in the doorway an
d approached across the floor carrying a tray from which there came an absolutely horrible stench.

  ‘I will not eat,’ Håkan cried in a loud voice, almost screaming.

  ‘Indeed?’ said a new voice, whose owner Håkan could not see. ‘You demand food, anything at all. Here it is: anything at all.’

  The people, still motionless and attentive in the doorway of the inner room, looked at Håkan. In some of the strangers’ eyes Håkan felt he could see a trace of sympathy. It was to the owners of these eyes that he directed his last, but almost inaudibly uttered word: ‘Help!’

  The weakness of his voice demonstrated that even he could hardly believe that anyone could help him. And indeed his plea did not cause any visible reaction among the onlookers.

  He was grabbed by both arms, he was led to the table and forced to sit on a chair. On the table he was awaited by the plate, a bowl really, whose contents looked somehow indeterminate, even frightening. In no sense did the portion even distantly resemble a real meal, or even anything edible, even though it had been set on a plate.

  Håkan saw the dark, almost black plants or plant remains that were heaped on the plate, some of them dried, some rotten. They recalled last summer’s bladderwrack, washed up on the shore. Perhaps the association was also caused by the iodine-like smell that spread from the plate.

  Half covered by the plants was a pale and soft looking veined piece of meat which had finger-like protuberances or which possibly actually were real fingers. The meat looked as if it was moving intentionally, rhythmically.

  But perhaps it was his fault; there must be something wrong with his eyes. It was as if the contents of the plate were changing constantly, as if he were looking at a hologram.

  Now, as he eyed the portion more closely, perhaps it was just cooled, cold porridge.

  He still did not want to eat it, not in any form. Someone grabbed his nose and, pressing painfully with a spoon, forced his mouth open. Just at that point he thought he heard a groan, as if the portion had let out a scream, and the echo of that cry broke hoarsely from his own throat.