As Red as Blood (The Snow White Trilogy)

by Salla Simukka

  The dead don’t care. The dead are dead. Corpses don’t care even if the girl running over their graves is trying not to become a corpse herself. That was why she had to run, even though her feet slipped wildly with each step, even though the cold seemed to be filling her lungs with tiny puncture holes and sweat was streaming down her back under her heavy coat and sweater.

  The tall spruces of the graveyard were frosted with white, softening their sharp lines. Their branches hung down under the weight of the snow, down toward the headstones, down toward any visitors.

  The dead and the living. The living and the dead.

  Come again to judge.

  The living and the dead.

  Lumikki could already hear the man’s breathing. Not long until his hand would grab the back of her coat.

  Then something happened. Lumikki heard a thud, a snarled cry, and a string of curses in Estonian. She didn’t understand them, but the meaning was clear. She didn’t turn, but hope lent her legs renewed strength.

  Slipping and falling, Viivo Tamm banged his left knee painfully on the ice. Immediately, he knew the game was up. He wasn’t going to be chasing the girl anymore. He would be lucky to be able to limp back home.

  Like a whipped dog.

  Like a beat-down mongrel.

  Again his rage boiled up inside. But now it was bigger, redder, and more blinding. Propped on one knee, he drew his pistol.

  He didn’t think, he only felt with every fiber of his being that the girl had to be stopped. At any cost. He raised his weapon and aimed.

  Lumikki heard a muffled crack. Then something whizzed past her thigh and struck a gravestone ahead of her, blasting a piece off.

  A bullet.

  The man was shooting at her.

  Lumikki’s pulse suddenly jumped twenty beats higher. Now she flew, no longer noticing the slippery ground or the cold air or the rivulets of sweat running down her spine.

  Only after a long, long way did she dare to take a look back. The man’s silhouette was small, but still visible, holding his knee. Some friendly old lady had gone to help him.

  There was no sign of the gun. No more bullets whizzed at her.

  Lumikki continued running, which suddenly felt easy. She knew she had escaped.

  This time.

  Cracks ran through the paint on the ceiling, forming strange roads to nowhere. Lumikki lay on her bed, looking at the cracks crisscrossing and letting the anger inside her grow. Against her stomach, she clutched a worn-out, baby-blue stuffed rabbit that was missing an ear. The bunny accepted the hard, desperate grip of her hands.

  She had made it home, yanking off her combat boots and hurling her winter coat at the back of a chair. After stripping off her soaked sweater and the even wetter long-sleeved shirt underneath, she’d stood in the shower for half an hour, letting the water wash over her like heavy rain. She washed her hair with unscented shampoo and used similarly fragrance-free soap. She always used odorless products. Not because she was allergic or had especially sensitive skin, but because she didn’t want to smell like anything in particular.

  Recognizing a person from the shampoo, soap, or lotion they used was all too easy, not to mention perfume or aftershave. Just a hint of a fruity soap could be enough to tell even a stuffed-up nose that a certain person had just been in the room. Most people couldn’t identify other people’s characteristic odors in public spaces—that took a more developed sense of smell—but anyone who didn’t have the flu could pick out the cloying, pungent smells of perfumes.

  Scents also triggered memories. The smell of pine tar shampoo brought back a summer night and dragonflies flitting over the surface of the water. Musky shower gel traced a sharp picture of wiry, muscular arms and a back with beautiful, prominent shoulder blades. It reminded her of the moments they lay embracing, laughing at some little thing no one else would think was funny at all. It made her think of the sharp, searching gaze of those light blue eyes, before which she always felt bewildered and flushed. Her heart always skipped a beat and her knees went momentarily weak when someone walked past smelling of that shower gel. Even though she saw—and knew even before seeing—that the smell was not coming from the person she longed for. That’s how strongly smells affect memory.

  A person might not remember how a stranger looked, but when you happened to smell his aftershave somewhere else, his burly frame, short hair, jeans, and checked button-down shirt immediately appeared in your mind. For example, she might remember how this man walked and where. Whether he entered a certain door.

  Lumikki didn’t want that. She didn’t want strangers remembering her. Or even, necessarily, all of her acquaintances. She wanted to be able to move around as invisible and scentless as possible.

  Lumikki had rinsed the fear and panic from her skin. She had treated the blisters brought on by running in boots.

  She had answered a call from her mom.

  “Fine. No, school isn’t too bad. Yes, I still have money.”

  Lies. Well-intentioned lies.

  When did she stop telling her mother everything? When she started school? That was probably it. Or maybe even earlier, since her family didn’t talk much in general. Lumikki had never figured out everything they didn’t talk about, but the lack of talking hung so thick in every room that it attacked you like cobwebs. Everyone minded their own business. The taboo topics could be completely bizarre, things an outsider would never guess at in a million years. Like the stuffed animal Lumikki was holding. Mom had brought it to her the last time she visited Tampere and said that it was Lumikki’s favorite toy as a child. Looking at the bunny’s jet-black eyes, Lumikki instantly remembered that it had really been someone else’s favorite. Not hers, though she had played with it too. She had expressed the thought out loud.

  “No, you must be remembering wrong,” Mom had said. “This was your favorite toy, and his name was Oscar.”

  Lumikki had shaken her head.

  “I gave him the name Oscar later. At first, his name was Zany. Maybe I got him from a cousin or something.”

  Mom didn’t say anything, and Lumikki had taken that to mean that this was one more of the many things they simply weren’t going to talk about.

  The cracks in the ceiling were like a star chart for a foreign sky. Flaws. She loved them. They were interesting. But right now Lumikki was concentrating on anger, because it gave her power. She had been chased a second time, and now someone had shot at her. By all rights, she should want even less to do with this mess than before. But now she wanted to know; she wanted clarity; she wanted closure. And most of all, she wanted these men to pay for their crimes. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore.

  The fear would only end once the last card was revealed, though.

  That was why she knew what she intended to do the following day. Angrily hurling the bunny rabbit in the corner, she pulled out her cell phone and called Elisa.

  With the aid of a cane, Viivo Tamm hobbled to his door and struggled with the key. Holding the cane and turning the key while avoiding putting any weight on his left leg was difficult. Swaying off balance, he grimaced.

  The excessively helpful old lady at the cemetery had practically forced him to call an ambulance and probably would have come along to make sure everything was all right if the paramedics hadn’t assured her that Viivo was in the best possible hands.

  After finding a hairline fracture on his X-ray, the ER doctor fitted him with a splint and sent him off with a cane and some strong painkillers.

  Now he was finally home. Viivo couldn’t remember his barren, dreary little studio apartment ever feeling so inviting. A cold beer, a couple of ibuprofens, and maybe some of the doc’s super pills. Mixed drug use at its best. Then he’d call Sokolov, who had already left several angry messages on his voice mail.

  Raving lunatic Russian. He felt like ignoring the calls, but then Sokolov would come banging on his door.

  A musty fug greeted Viivo in the entryway. At some point, he really should wash the m
ountain of dishes in the sink. But wait, there was also a strange hint of peppermint mixed in. As if someone had just eaten a piece of hard candy in the apartment.

  Closing the door, he limped into his combination living room-bedroom-office. He didn’t have time to turn on the light though, because someone did it for him.

  Viivo did have time to register the meaning of the smell.

  Polar Bear’s men.

  The shot was only a muffled snap. Then Viivo fell on his back, and blood welled up out of his mouth like red paint.

  Skin as white as snow.

  An enormous powder brush swept over Lumikki’s face. She was pale after the long winter, but they weren’t trying to hide it. Quite the opposite. The foundation cream was a step lighter than her natural skin tone. As was the powder. The color shift was hidden carefully under the arc of her jaw. The makeup equalized the color of her skin and concealed the small blemishes, making her face unnaturally smooth. She looked like a porcelain doll.

  Lips as red as blood.

  Elisa carefully traced the outline of Lumikki’s lips. The liner pencil ran along her cupid’s bow, then the left side of her upper lip and finally the right. Then came the lower lip with one sure stroke. Fading the lines toward the middle of the lips. That enhanced the impression of depth.

  One layer of lipstick. Excess carefully removed with a paper towel. Then another layer. And finally, red lip gloss in the middle to create an optical illusion of plumpness.

  Hair as black as ebony.

  Elisa arranged Lumikki’s bangs and then froze them with a fine mist of hairspray. Fluffing the rest of her bob cut, Elisa let another layer of hairspray fix it in place.

  The hair dye had taken well. Lumikki thought about how strange it had looked when she washed her hair after giving the dye time to set, and blue-black rivulets had snaked across the white tile. The dye had formed beautiful, otherworldly patterns on the floor until the drain sucked the tinted water down the pipes. Lumikki had rinsed her hair until the water ran perfectly clear.

  Even stranger had been when Elisa sat her down in a chair, wrapped an old sheet around her shoulders, and started trimming her hair. First to her shoulders and then up a little below her ears. Black locks pattered to the floor. It took Lumikki a while to get used to the idea that they were coming from her head.

  Black, wet strands of hair curling on the floor. Like question marks without the dot. The whole situation was a question mark. Lumikki longed for that missing period, something to put a full stop to everything that had been happening. That was why she was here.

  “You aren’t regretting this, are you?” Elisa had asked in the middle of the makeover. Lumikki almost smiled.

  “Hair’s just dead cells.”

  Elisa shivered.

  “I could never think like that.”

  Lastly, Elisa had given her bangs, straightened her hair, and double-checked to make sure there weren’t any stray strands poking out.

  Elisa handed Lumikki a long, red evening gown whose color shimmered from rose to orange and purple to burgundy as the fabric shifted and the light caught it in different ways. Lumikki put it on. The evening dress was simple, with thin straps and lines that draped perfectly on her form.

  Lumikki lifted her eyes.

  Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . .

  The beautiful woman who looked back at her was a stranger with erect posture, mysterious dark eyes, and an expression on her lips that could presage a smile or contempt. Lumikki was satisfied. This woman was not her. This woman was someone else. Someone who could get into Polar Bear’s party.

  Elisa bounced up and down, making strange little squeaks. Lumikki interpreted them as positive feedback.

  “Oh my God, you’re beautiful! I am so good. What the heck am I doing in high school when I could be the world’s best makeup artist?”

  Seeing Elisa happy felt good. The color had returned to her cheeks, and there wasn’t that muzzy, forlorn emptiness lurking right behind her eyes.

  “And now a touch of this,” Elisa said and then spritzed Lumikki’s neck with perfume that Lumikki instantly recognized as Elisa’s signature Joy.

  Lumikki held her breath to avoid inhaling any of the mixture of essential oils and alcohol wafting in the air.

  Now she smelled like someone other than herself as well. Good. No one would remember her from the party. What they would remember was a woman who looked like the Snow White from the fairy tales and smelled like expensive perfume, hairspray, and luxury soap.

  “Guys, come look!”

  Tuukka and Kasper clattered in from the adjoining room.

  “Well, were you able to get her—wow!” Tuukka stopped mid-sentence when Lumikki turned around. Kasper’s mouth literally hung open.

  “Um . . . wasn’t it a different story where the dirty, mousy girl turns into a hot chick?” Kasper finally said. “Cinderella?”

  “I’d hit that,” Tuukka said.

  He clearly hadn’t had time to think before the words tumbled out of his mouth.

  “In your dreams,” Lumikki volleyed back, restraining herself.

  It was 7:20 p.m. Three hours earlier, Lumikki had come over to Elisa’s house, where Tuukka and Kasper were already waiting. The beginning of their meeting had been taciturn. They all knew that they had crossed some sort of line now. Until this point, everything had been light, somehow, controllable—exciting, but not too exciting. It was different now. Someone had shot at Lumikki, and now she was going to a place where her life could truly be in danger.

  Lumikki had told them her plan.

  It wasn’t sensible. It wasn’t rational. It was dangerous. Lumikki didn’t care. She wanted to be in danger now. She wanted to move toward what frightened her most.

  When Lumikki got to the place in her plan where she would try to get into the party secretly through the back, Kasper opened his mouth and said, “You won’t be able to.”

  “How do you know?” Elisa asked.

  “You don’t just ‘sneak in through the back’ to get at Polar Bear. From what I’ve heard, they’re going to have serious security there. Fences and guards and cameras and all that shit.”

  Kasper clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his chair. He was clearly enjoying his role as the fount of all knowledge.

  “Okay. Then we can forget the whole plan,” Lumikki said sarcastically.

  Kasper smiled slyly.

  “Except that you can walk right through the front door with everyone watching.”

  “And how is that going to work?”

  “Because women can. At least, the kind of young women they invite to the parties to keep the men company and look pretty. Just so long as you’re dressed for the theme, no one is going to ask them anything. And this time, the theme is fairy tales.”

  Tuukka snarfed sparkling water out of his nose.

  “Are you serious? Do you really think we can make our little eco-anarchist lesbo look like some kind of high-class who—sorry, I mean . . . escort?”

  Elisa appraised Lumikki from head to toe. Then she announced that the boys could go entertain themselves for a couple of hours watching movies or playing video games.

  “I’ll bet there are some things I can do that you two boneheads can’t,” she said with a smile. “And if Dad comes home, keep him out of my room. Say I’m sleeping or doing naked yoga or something.”

  Lumikki was ready. It was 7:45. She had on her red gown and white high heels. She had practiced in them for a few minutes until she learned how to balance her weight between her legs, and how to walk, which was completely different than in low-heeled shoes. When all was said and done, it wasn’t that hard. This was just another role for her to play, adjusting her own movements to match the image created by the clothes.

  Lumikki doesn’t know how to walk normal. She always shuffles around. She’s so weird.

  Words from ten years before. Lumikki remembered precisely the tone of voice in which they had been delivered. The expressions and ge
stures that emphasized the words. The exaggerated mimicry.

  In that moment, she had decided to learn to walk every possible way. Normally and abnormally, beautifully and unattractively, quickly and slowly, sauntering and mincing. So that no one would ever get to say anything like that to her again. It hadn’t saved her then, but the skill had served her many times since.

  Elisa helped Lumikki put on a short, imitation fur coat and then handed her long black gloves that reached to her elbows. Finally, a small beaded handbag.

  “Don’t lose that. It’s crazy expensive,” Elisa said.

  From downstairs, they heard banging around as Elisa’s dad prepared for the party as well. Tuukka and Kasper had gone downstairs too, preparing to go out. Lumikki snapped the purse open. Inside was face powder, blood-red lipstick in a gold tube, one hundred euros, and something fluffy and pink. Grabbing the fluffy surface, Lumikki felt her fingers sink in and then meet something hard. She lifted the object out of the purse. Pink handcuffs.

  Elisa shook her head, blushing.

  “Don’t ask. I don’t want to remember that party.”

  Lumikki raised her eyebrows ever so slightly and then put the handcuffs back in the bag. What Elisa did at her parties and with whom was none of Lumikki’s business.

  “And then this.”

  Elisa handed Lumikki a long, black, hooded parka that reached almost to her ankles.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought this. I look like I’m wearing a sleeping bag when I put it on. But now we have a use for it.”

  Lumikki put the parka on. It was a little tight in the sleeves with the fur coat underneath, but otherwise perfect. Fastening the snaps, she carefully pulled the hood over her hair and looked at herself one last time in the mirror.

  The Abominable Snowman’s black cousin, I presume.

  Elisa and Lumikki stood facing one another for a few seconds. Neither had any words. Lumikki wanted to hug Elisa and tell her everything was going to work out fine. Even though she wasn’t at all sure of that. And she had never wanted to hug anyone voluntarily, except maybe her mom and dad when she was little.