The End of Sunset Grove

by Minna Lindgren

  Sergei looked up at the auditorium ceiling and muttered in a barely audible voice:

  ‘Even in this room, there are those guided by Satan. Satan is using them to lead them to perdition.’ He lowered his eyes to the row where Siiri, Irma and Anna-Liisa sat and roared out the concluding words, spit spraying: ‘THE HOLY SPIRIT SENT BY GOD PURIFIES JESUS CHRIST, WHO BECAME MAN!’

  After an uncomfortable silence, the audience clapped politely. Sergei’s cheeks were glowing, sweat was streaming down his brow and he was trembling, even though he had done nothing but mumble and bark without moving. Taija rose from the floor and panted nearly as alarmingly as the poor woman whose final act in this life had been a bit of exercise in the Console Centre.

  ‘This time we’re not getting involved. She can keep gasping for air, for all I care,’ Irma said, reading Siiri’s thoughts. ‘But a shot of whisky would do her wonders.’

  Suddenly Taija shrieked. A rat was scampering across the lectern. The audience stopped clapping, assuming that the performance was continuing. Those who had already stood sat back down, and those who had fallen asleep awoke, like in authentic tent revivals. But Taija had frozen on the spot and Sergei couldn’t get a word out. The rat assumed the role of a lump of dried moss on the middle of the stage, and Siiri relished the aesthetic pleasure of the moment, as the trio formed a beautiful still life.

  ‘I don’t believe that’s the rat you’ve been feeding,’ Irma said. Siiri agreed. This was clearly greyer, and its tail had been severed or was otherwise stunted. Siiri’s rat had a long, handsome tail.

  ‘There’s another one!’

  It was Tauno’s voice. He pointed at the corner of the stage. Siiri caught a flash of a tail, as this second rat wasn’t as interested in improvisation as the one still cowering on the stage. After a pause that seemed to last an eternity, Taija rushed into Sergei’s arms. Then Sergei came out of his stupor or was frightened, it was hard to say which, but he started stomping his feet and braying verses about Satan so frantically that the rodent came out of character and skittered back into the hole whence it had miraculously emerged. The audience was mesmerized and clapped wildly for the performance, perhaps most of all because it was over and because the vermin had been chased from the room. Only Margit sat silently, unable to discern what was performance and what was something else. Sergei and Taija stood on the stage, bewildered by the excessive applause. Eventually the audience started gathering up their canes, handbags, hearing aids and walkers, intent on making their exit. But then the man in the bow tie stepped out and raised his shepherd hands into flight mode.

  ‘Not again,’ Irma said, shuffling towards the exit even more quickly.

  ‘We’d like to thank Taija and Sergei for that moving piece of poetry and dance. Perhaps it gave you food for thought regarding the lusts of the flesh and the Devil. Remember: all you have to do is open your hearts and ask to be filled by the Holy Spirit and freed from sin. If you’d like to make a donation to Awaken Now!, the boxes you all know are at the doors; all you need to do is flash your fob at them. I can also accept cash. It’s that simple. After all, you weren’t asked to pay for the performance, am I right?’

  The curly-haired man walked to the door intolerably slowly and shifted his pleading gaze from elderly resident to elderly resident like a beggar, which is what he was, of course. When he reached Anna-Liisa, he stopped. A flush rose to Anna-Liisa’s cheeks, her facial muscles tautened, and she refused to return his gaze.

  ‘Have you prepared a will, my dear widow?’

  The man’s voice was still velvety, and he smiled at Anna-Liisa benevolently with the wet pools of his eyes. But when he took Anna-Liisa’s hand in both of his own, she yanked it back angrily.

  ‘My will is none of your business.’

  ‘Making a will is no simple matter. We want to help, and we have the necessary expertise. After all, we don’t want your money to be scattered to the four winds, do we? You decide what happens to it. We just help. It’s that simple.’

  ‘You just said it wasn’t simple,’ Anna-Liisa snapped, standing up. Siiri was surprised to realize her friend was taller than the curly-locked shepherd, who must have been short indeed for a man. She hadn’t got this impression as she watched him praying at the altar. ‘Irma and Siiri, let’s go to my apartment to drink whisky and play cards.’

  Irma immediately caught on.

  ‘That’s right! It’s time for our daily dose of sin. Come on, Siiri! Maybe we can look at some pornography, too. The Internet is full of it. Open Sesame, and we can watch all sorts of disgusting things.’

  The man’s expectant hand remained extended, but he was unable to come up with a fitting Bible passage for this moment. He gazed on in silence as the three nonagenarians marched out of the room, laughing gleefully.

  Chapter 18

  Siiri woke up later than normal; she could tell because the sun was shining in through the window. Seeing as how it was late December and the room was so bright, the hour might have been who knows what. She marvelled at the motes of dust dancing in the sunlight, unable to recall when she’d last been surrounded by such glory. After sitting up and sliding into her slippers, she paused in front of the smartwall. To her shock, it was dark. Not a single report about the previous night or the quality of her sleep, not even a teeny-tiny biblical passage or review of the residents who had died over the week.

  ‘The age of miracles hasn’t come to an end after all,’ she said to herself, her stiff legs carrying her tentatively into the kitchen.

  The kitchen light didn’t come on automatically the way it normally did, and she didn’t know how to turn it on. She poked at the stove for a while, but it didn’t react in the least, not even a whine. At least the radio still obeyed her; it was an ancient contraption she had bought back when her husband was still alive. One changed stations by rotating the knob, but Siiri had never done so during her lengthy sojourn at Sunset Grove, because YLE Radio 1 was her most faithful companion. It was from this radio, a bit grimy now, that she and her husband had listened to the Pearl Fishers concerts while reading the morning paper at the big table in the kitchen. Their children had thought it strange, but to them it had been a pleasant way to start the day.

  ‘No newspaper, and no Pearl Fishers, either,’ Siiri said. ‘And of course, no husband. Oh dear, oh dear.’

  She tried to infer the time from the radio programme. A young woman was just wrapping up a talk show about the everyday challenges of parenthood, and then the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie started up. It instantly filled the morning with a bright, delicious joy, although apparently the morning was no longer morning. She must have slept until nearly noon.

  ‘Siiri! Warning! I’m breaking in!’

  It was Irma making a racket out in the corridor. Before Siiri could reach the door, Irma had yanked it open and strode in, brandishing a weapon.

  ‘Good Lord, what’s got into you?’ Siiri asked in astonishment.

  ‘This is a mechanical handle,’ Irma said, displaying the object in her hand. ‘I used it to break into your home. It’s an emergency. There are boxes in the corridor that say to break the glass in case of emergency. So that’s what I did, and here I am!’

  Siiri smiled. Irma had a very dramatic temperament and apparently didn’t remember she could step into Siiri’s and Anna-Liisa’s homes as easily as her own with a flash of her fob. In her other hand, Irma held a burning candle.

  ‘Who named you Santa Lucia?’ Siiri asked.

  ‘I’m no saint; I’m Lucifer. Döden, döden, döden!’

  Irma sat down in Siiri’s armchair and launched into her morning news report. The electricity was out, and no one knew why or how to fix it. Sunset Grove had been thrown into turmoil. The residents didn’t know what time it was, the smartwalls had gone black, the dining room wasn’t working and neither were the elevators, medication hadn’t been distributed and the heating may have shut down, which meant the building would gradually begin to grow cool. Some reside
nts were locked in their rooms, the least fortunate strapped to their beds.

  ‘They can’t get up without apparati and androids. Anna-Liisa told me the robots need electricity to work. Without it, it’s as if they lose their brains. That means the motorized caregivers and doodads don’t work and seal pups can’t soothe the elderly. Do you see, we’re in grave danger!’

  Irma was genuinely terrified, on the brink of hysteria, even though she had clearly got a boost of energy from the possibility of an exciting adventure. Only now did Siiri realize that a hunting knife dangled from the belt of her friend’s dress.

  ‘What on earth are you doing with that?’

  ‘Anna-Liisa gave it to me. She has everything one might need for a rainy day. Where is that Rossini coming from? Your radio? How did you get it to work? Ahh, of course it’s a portable radio and runs on batteries; you’re a genius. This is the overture to something. I read that during this mechanized golden age the only reliable mass media during an emergency is the radio, because it works even when all the computers and the Internet have fallen. Can you say that about computers, or only about those who die in war? The wartime euphemism came from wanting to avoid the word “death”, or so I’ve understood: falling was more beautiful than dying, but I suppose it would take more than one blackout to kill the Internet. Why, the entire world is in there! Anna-Liisa is waiting downstairs and is very agitated. I promised to make sure you weren’t dead. Do you have food? The refrigerators aren’t working, so you need to gobble down anything that might spoil and rescue the ice cream from your freezer compartment. I ate three ice cream cones for breakfast and half a litre of slightly sour milk, and now I’ve got a terrible case of flatulence.’

  ‘What else is new? Are there any staff members downstairs . . . or anywhere? Someone who could help, at least during an electricity outage?’

  Irma laughed her high, tinkling laugh and shook her head as if Siiri had proposed some awfully amusing thought experiment.

  ‘There aren’t even any of those preachers around! Demented residents are bartering a handful of oats for a cup of buttermilk. It’s like being in the Helsinki bomb shelters during a Soviet air raid. Some people don’t even have food, can you imagine?’

  Siiri hurried to throw something on and then explored her fridge, retrieving a yogurt for herself and Irma and making them both a sandwich. Thus fortified, they would be able to keep going for some time, despite the fact they couldn’t boil eggs. And Irma was already in fine fettle. The Rossini was followed by an overly romantic piano piece, but Siiri didn’t dare turn off the radio, because they might miss an important bulletin. She used to get extremely annoyed when, in the middle of a Mozart string quartet, someone with a poor command of Swedish would suddenly butt in to report that a wolf had been spotted somewhere in the hinterlands beyond Lieksa and as a result the entire nation needed to be on alert. Emergency bulletins were always read in Finnish and Swedish.

  ‘That’s what makes them such fun! The way this current crop of radio announcers speaks Swedish is very strange. It must be the mandatory Swedish they’re taught in schools.’

  They wolfed down their meagre fare and prepared to make their way downstairs to discover what sort of chaos reigned there. As she searched for her bag, Siiri reflected how almost everything these days was dependent on electricity, even the doors to their apartments. Without Irma’s emergency key, she would have been locked in her cubbyhole for God knows how long.

  ‘Do you know what electricity is?’ Siiri asked.

  ‘Not really. But I harbour a deep suspicion of anything that runs on it.’

  ‘Me too,’ Siiri said, in relief. ‘It’s like we’re on a desert island without something we need and we don’t even know what it is!’

  Irma laughed so hard the candle went out. But then they noticed that it was no longer dark in the kitchen and the hallway. The lights had come back on! Just to be sure, Siiri tried the stove. It was working, too. Irma had already rushed over to the smartwall.

  ‘For when they shall say, peace and safety 1 Thess. 5:3. No name days today! Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted Num. 24:22. Awaken Now! would like to wish happy birthday to: Sleep efficiency 0.2! And there came against Gibeah ten thousand chosen men out of all Israel. Warning! Error! They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noonday as in the night. Job 5:14.’

  ‘That smart-alec wall is as comforting as one of Job’s friends. Do you believe it really knows how to think?’ Siiri asked.

  ‘Of course not. It’s a machine,’ Irma replied. ‘Besides, spewing Bible phrases from memory with no regard for the circumstances would seem the opposite of smart to me.’

  ‘I think the Bible contains a lot of wise and beautiful thoughts. But this last quote is of absolutely no consolation, despite its accidental appropriateness.’

  They poked about Siiri’s home for a moment and grew convinced that the electricity outage had passed. Irma set the television blaring to a barrage of local news from around Finland. A storm was raging in south-eastern Finland, and in Häme snowfall had caught drivers off guard. She and Siiri decided it would be best to head out into the world, at least as far as the ATM. The more uncertain the world grew, the more important it was to keep a little cash stashed away in one’s purse. Irma set off to fetch her overcoat, and they agreed to meet at the elevators.

  To their surprise, the elevator wasn’t working yet. They had to make their descent via the deserted stairwell, its corners festooned with frightful cobwebs and dust bunnies.

  It was dreadfully deserted down below. Anna-Liisa wasn’t sitting in the common room, and they heard no voices from the dining room. One skeletal Ahaba-like robot had keeled over on the sofa, two rats were sleeping under a smartwall, and the long-abandoned walker stood sentry in its familiar place in the middle of the floor. The lights were beaming brightly, even though the sun was doing its best to banish the deep December gloom, which meant electricity and energy were surging into the building once more.

  ‘Perhaps they all went back to their flats since they had to wait so long without food and light. Not many were clever enough to deal with the circumstances as resourcefully as you did, Siiri, by sleeping until noon.’

  Chapter 19

  Siiri and Irma tried to withdraw cash from the ATM on Munkkiniemi Allée with little success. Two female and one male employee sat inside the bank, looking unoccupied, but the door wouldn’t budge. A sign on the door announced that one could only enter by appointment. Irma had to crow for quite some time before one of the women came over to crack the door, but it made little difference. She informed them that the ATMs had been outsourced, and the branch employees had no control over them.

  ‘There’s some temporary technical disturbance.’

  ‘But can’t you just give us cash from our accounts?’

  ‘No. We don’t have any money here. If you have a bonus chip for the supermarket, you can withdraw cash while you’re doing your daily shopping.’

  ‘Are you insane?’ Irma looked as if she were on the verge of seriously losing her temper, but she calmed down when the woman took their contact information to forward a complaint to the bank’s customer relations department. They liberated the bank employee from her chilly spot and allowed her to resume her repose.

  Siiri and Irma decided to take the number 4 tram to Katajanokka, where the nearest safe ATM was located. Withdrawing money downtown was risky. The talk at Sunset Grove was that thieves lurked in the vicinity of the downtown ATMs, ready to knock over the elderly and make off with their money.

  ‘They could turn Katajanokka into a museum,’ Irma exclaimed. ‘Look at all the beautiful old buildings; there’s a grocery store, an ATM and a phone booth, perhaps even a few live-in maintenance men still around. It’s like being in a Swedish children’s movie.’

  The former headquarters of Enso was lit up like a Christmas tree and beamed beautifully, even from a distance. The marble Sugar Cube took perfect command of its site across from the Uspe
nski Cathedral, which was no easy architectonic neighbour. It looked downright gorgeous in the fading light, with two candles burning in each window, like at the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Finance. It created just the right amount of Christmas spirit, a blend of festive and cosy, unlike the gigantic flashing illuminated advertisements at the city’s shopping centres. One time Siiri had made the mistake of standing outside the Kamppi Mall staring at a continuously changing wall-sized Christmas ad and felt nearly as nauseous as at Jerry Siilinpää’s resident event. Behind the Sugar Cube, a Ferris wheel, someone’s bizarre brainstorm for luring Russian tourists, stood empty and motionless in its red holiday lighting. From the tram window, they had seen adults waiting for the brightly lit carousel among the handcrafts stands at Senate Square, and on Aleksanterinkatu they had spotted a Santa Claus dancing on a tightrope. Helsinki was clearly turning into an amusement park, and Siiri and Irma viewed this as a happy development.

  They climbed off the tram at the first stop in Katajanokka. From there, it was just a walk across the street to the ATM. Siiri let Irma lead the charge at the machine, but this proved a mistake. Irma was a little fuddled. She pulled her fob out of her handbag and started flashing it at the screen as if she were trying to pay the automated cashier at the supermarket.

  ‘Wait a minute, what am I doing?’ Irma suddenly squealed and started laughing. ‘How silly of me.’

  ‘Select. The. Desired. Amount.’

  ‘Goodness gracious! It’s talking to me like my refrigerator.’ The ATM had retrieved the necessary information from Irma’s fob and now it couldn’t wait to give her money. Irma wanted to make sure the cash wouldn’t be withdrawn from some poor student’s account, and so she dug around in her bag for the big slip of paper where she had written down her important codes. She clearly and audibly enunciated her birthdate, social security number, phone number, blood type, the phone numbers of a few of her children and a couple of her previous addresses as well as her PIN code for the ATM. Unfortunately, they weren’t sure what part of the ATM they were supposed to speak to. After Irma had listed all of her vital personal information for a third time, the ATM went dark.