The Summer House

by Philip Teir

  He opened the cupboard where his parents kept the bottles of booze. There were only two. One held a clear liquid. The other held something yellow, and it said BACARDI GOLD on the label. He picked up that bottle and filled two glasses. The alcohol had a beautiful amber colour, and he leaned close to take a sniff. It smelled awful, but he decided to have a sip, trying not to think about how much he swallowed. It burned his throat, so intense and powerful, and he felt the heat run down to his stomach. He couldn’t help coughing, and his eyes filled with tears. Anton thought it was crazy that the grown-ups would drink this stuff voluntarily, but maybe it was like his father said: that there were certain things only grown-ups understood.

  Leo’s face brightened when he saw Anton coming across the yard carrying a glass in each hand.

  ‘Christ, you really poured a lot in each glass,’ he said. ‘We’re going to be totally gone. My father drinks this much, but he’s used to it.’

  ‘Does your father drink a lot?’ asked Alice.

  ‘He drinks, he smokes grass. He says there’s nothing he hasn’t tried in his life, except for heroin. Mamma says it was a shock for him to have a kid. Then he had to become an adult with responsibilities. He had to calm down.’

  ‘Our parents got drunk once,’ said Alice.

  ‘When?’ asked Anton with interest.

  ‘Once when you were younger. It was the first of May, at a party with the neighbours. Pappa started singing and shouting. So they must have been drunk.’

  Anton thought about this. He’d never seen his parents behave differently. Sometimes they smelled of wine, but that was all. It sounded so strange to hear Leo talking about his father like that. It opened a chasm that Anton didn’t really want to see. Leo didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about it.

  ‘Geez, this is strong,’ said Alice.

  ‘I think it’s great!’ said Leo.

  Anton sat on the other side of the fire, staring at them. After a while a strange silence came over them. Alice slowly leaned towards Leo until she fell against him.

  ‘Sorry!’ she said. ‘I think I’m a little drunk.’

  She stood up and started flapping her arms.

  ‘Ohhh … I’m drunk! Drunk, drunk, drunk!’

  Leo looked at her and laughed.

  ‘Want to go swimming?’ she asked cheerfully.

  3

  THE WATER WAS COLD, but Alice didn’t care, because so much was going on inside her body. She moved slowly, languidly, like in a film, as if surrounded by some sort of membrane that protected her from everything. She’d changed into her swimsuit in the sauna guestroom, wrapping a big towel around her. She waded into the water until it reached to her stomach, then she paused, waiting for the right moment to simply let go and allow herself to float. It suddenly felt so enticing compared with a week ago. She thought now that she loved being in Mjölkviken.

  Leo was behind her. He was sweet, but that wasn’t the main thing. Maybe, instead, it was the way he looked at her. No one had ever looked at her like that before, or talked to her that way. To avoid his eyes, she stared straight ahead at the horizon. His gaze was too intense, too interested, as if he lacked the normal distance that most people maintained with one another. They’d known each other only a few hours, yet he talked as if he’d always known her. What was that about?

  Suddenly she thought of the gold ring she’d found on the first day. She decided to show it to Leo when they went back.

  He’d said they should stay up to watch the sunset, and he knew of a special place out on the rocks. He hadn’t asked her if she wanted to do this; he seemed to assume she would say yes.

  ‘It’s ice cold,’ he said now, but she didn’t turn around. She heard him speaking behind her, his voice like fine sandpaper.

  She threw herself into the water, wanting to show him that she too could take the initiative and act spontaneously. It was so easy, so simple, and the water was so clear. She ducked her head under and swam a few strokes, opening her eyes to peer down at the soft, sandy bottom, which was a bit blurry, even though she could almost touch it.

  Leo was now swimming alongside her.

  ‘Is your hair really black?’ he asked.

  All of a sudden she was aware of her appearance, her small breasts, her flabby arms. She touched her hair plastered against her face like a wet rag.

  ‘I dyed it,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  She wondered what he was thinking.

  She was convinced that then and there he’d decided she was too childish and immature. Maybe he knew girls who had already done it.

  ‘Do you think it’s possible to drown yourself?’

  Now they were both standing up. The water reached to his waist.

  ‘Maybe. If you threw yourself into a river. There was some author who did that,’ she said.

  ‘A girl in my class lay down on the railway tracks last spring. She wanted to kill herself, but her mother came and dragged her away. She did it again, a week later, and that time she died.’

  Alice wondered if he was telling the truth. Maybe he was the sort of person who made up things like that. But when she glanced at him, his eyes looked sorrowful and his gaze was fixed on a faraway spot on the horizon.

  ‘Why did she do it?’

  ‘My mother says it was a cry for help. Meaning that she didn’t really want to kill herself. She wanted somebody to notice that she was having a bad time. She was always like that, saying that she wanted to kill herself. But I never thought she’d actually do it.’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Not really. I was going out with her friend. We’re not together any more.’

  Alice had never had a boyfriend, and she didn’t think she ever would. But maybe it was easier for him, since he’d already had a girlfriend. She felt a great longing in her gut. She touched his ear, wiping away a drop of water.

  ‘Was it fun?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Being together?’

  ‘It was okay,’ he said, shrugging.

  They didn’t feel like swimming any more. They sat on the beach and stared at the horizon, wrapped in the towels they’d brought. Anton stood a short distance away, skimming stones. He hadn’t gone swimming, merely watched them from the shore as he restlessly roamed over the rocks, like a dog who worries his master might drown.

  ‘Alice, can we go back to the house now?’ he asked.

  ‘Soon,’ said Alice.

  ‘Do you have a sauna?’ asked Leo.

  ‘Sure, but it takes a long time to heat up,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Leo, and for some reason Alice felt disappointed. Maybe he didn’t mean for them to take a sauna together, but it was possible that’s what he was thinking. She wondered why she didn’t feel embarrassed at the thought. Under normal circumstances she would have been terrified to take a sauna with a boy other than Anton.

  She was still dizzy from all the alcohol. It was a warm feeling, in every way a much better feeling than she’d expected. She thought to herself: I could get used to this. Such joy, such a sense that all my problems have disappeared, a giddiness in my stomach and head, and feeling like I’m really here, in the present moment.

  They heard giggling and a muted splashing from the opposite shore. Two grown-ups had jumped into the water.

  ‘Is that your mother?’ asked Alice.

  ‘Where?’ said Leo.

  ‘Both of our mothers. They’re in the water, swimming.’

  Alice assumed they’d been in the sauna and afterwards had gone straight down to the water. Her mother’s dark hair floated on the surface as she swam. She was totally focused on her strokes. She did everything like that, with great purpose and concentration, always looking so pretty. She swam like someone who did so often.

  The other woman swam behind her. Then both of them paused and floated for a moment, looking at each other. Alice turned away. It seemed too private. Why were grown-ups always like that? Why did they look like strangers when seen
from a distance, losing all sense of dignity? Leo’s mother raised her hand and quickly placed it on top of Julia’s head. Maybe she’s swatting away a mosquito, thought Alice. But her mother did the same thing, just for a second, and then both women dived back into the water and swam for shore. They got out and picked up their towels.

  Leo got up and dried himself off, as if the whole scene bored him. He looked at the sky and came over to Alice. Strange how tanned he was, even though the summer hadn’t been very good so far. His body was thin, his arms sinewy. Alice pictured him running through the woods, climbing trees, playing football, as if he were a wilder and freer child than any she’d ever met in Helsinki. And maybe he was, maybe that’s why he talked in such a natural and unafraid way.

  He didn’t seem to need any time to gather his thoughts before speaking. He would merely look at her with those eyes that were as clear as the water they’d been swimming in. Greenish-blue eyes.

  ‘Alice, have you ever played Pidro?’

  ‘No … What’s that?’

  ‘A card game that a lot of people play here in Ostrobothnia. I think it originated in Argentina. I can teach you. Shall we go back to the house?’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, thinking that she loved him. Was that even possible after only a few hours?

  4

  SOMETIME DURING THE EVENING Erik decided to let it all go. To stop worrying about his job, to stop thinking that he needed to come up with something interesting to contribute to Chris’s discussions about the climate, to drop the idea that everything would work out. He took off his sport coat and socks and lay down on the blanket where they’d eaten dinner. The idealism of these people reminded him of how things used to be, how he used to be, when he’d had a vision of his own, maybe not the same one these people had, and yet he’d believed in something. Once upon a time he’d been twenty-two years old and he believed that his future would be about creating a successful mobile phone game for the world market. But that’s not how things had turned out.

  It was uncertain whether Erik would be able to find a new job in the next six months. All week long, he’d sat on the rocks outside the summer house, checking online for job announcements, but nothing seemed interesting or promising. IT-support for a secondary school in Lovisa? Child-care in Esbo? Manager of digital media for a newspaper? He was either over- or under-qualified for all the jobs.

  The others had been taking turns in the sauna. Now he lay here feeling the sand between his toes as he listened to them talking about climate change.

  Erik realised how little he really knew about the topic. Alice sometimes made the rest of the family feel guilty because they didn’t sort the rubbish carefully enough. Yet personally he’d never really given much thought to the environment.

  Erik liked to think of himself as a progressive optimist, but lately it felt like everyone around him had become pessimists. The climate crisis, the financial crisis, the refugee crisis, the euro crisis, the newspaper crisis, the crisis in Ukraine, in the EU, the crisis within the Social Democratic party … There was no area of society that wasn’t in crisis. And in Finland people were especially good at crises, as if they didn’t feel truly comfortable unless everything was going to hell.

  ‘There’s no chance we’ll be able to meet the two-degree goal, and even if we managed to achieve a globally binding agreement, the reality is that we’re talking about up to six degrees. And then it’s sayonara to all of us,’ said Helena. She was looking very intent and serious, yet she seemed to be speaking directly to Chris, as if trying to impress him with her rhetoric.

  They’d had more dessert. Biscuits with a special kind of tea, which Chris said was supposed to be mind-expanding, and everyone except Julia had said yes. Erik thought the tea tasted bitter, but nevertheless he’d finished off a whole cup.

  Ylva and Roger had gone into the house, apparently to have sex (great for the digestion!), but they’d promised to come back later. Marika and Julia were down at the beach, swimming.

  ‘James Hansen recently wrote that global warming will already start accelerating exponentially at 1.5 degrees, which means that it won’t matter whether we manage to keep to two degrees,’ Helena went on. Everyone agreed, though a bit distractedly, as if the subject had been discussed many times before. Chris sat on the blanket with a stoic expression, like a prophet taking a momentary break from issuing predictions.

  Erik thought about how different these people were from his colleagues at the department store. When Erik was studying at the University of Technology, he’d known idealists. The whole atmosphere had been idealistic during those first years. His former colleague Martin had been a communist-oriented computer programmer who talked about Marx at the same time as he planned to earn his first million before he turned twenty-five. Now Martin was one of Finland’s wealthiest individuals under forty, and he possessed some of the same charisma as Chris. Martin’s success irritated Erik, mostly because he could have been in the same situation if only he hadn’t given up the uncertain path of a start-up entrepreneur. But that was part of the agreement he’d made with Julia when the kids were young: he would get a regular job with a monthly salary, and she would be allowed to write. He’d been reminded of Martin only last week when a reporter from an evening newspaper had phoned to ask him about Martin’s wild youth. Erik had done his best not to sound bitter or jealous of his former colleague.

  Now Helena was talking about climate scientists that he’d never heard of, about how the water from the polar ice could create totally unforeseen chain reactions, and about grasshoppers as a source of protein.

  Erik looked up from where he was lying on the blanket and thought that in spite of everything, it all seemed so far away right now, here on the shore of this beautiful, quiet bay. The air was cool and clear. He gazed at the horizon and tried to imagine what it would be like if the water rose several metres.

  He sat up and tucked his feet under him.

  ‘So what do you think we should do?’ he asked.

  The others turned to him, as if Erik’s question was both unexpected and confrontational.

  ‘What do you mean by “do”?’ asked Helena. ‘That’s an awfully broad question.’

  Chris hadn’t said anything for a while, merely nodding during the conversation, looking amused. But now he decided to speak.

  ‘There’s nothing to do. We’re a tiny vessel floating in space and no one can hear us scream,’ he said.

  Erik thought that sounded very cryptic.

  Helena nodded agreement. ‘New York, Los Angeles, Barcelona, all the coastal areas will be hit first. Not to mention the small islands that are already threatening to disappear. The Maldives, Tuvalu,’ said Chris, ticking them off one by one.

  Ville sat nearby, smoking and staring at the small fire they had lit. He looked amused, as if he was actually looking forward to the disaster.

  ‘But what about in the meantime?’ Erik went on. ‘I mean, shouldn’t we try to do something to prevent it? Even if the earth ends in a hundred years, daily life is continuing right now, with everything that involves. I can’t go to the bank and say that I want to stop making payments because Helsinki will soon be underwater … I mean …’

  He lost the thread of his argument. It was as if his tongue had got tangled up in the words.

  Chris gave him an amused look. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘there are insurance companies that are making money on doing climate analyses. Lots of people are already getting rich off the whole thing. You have no idea.’

  Helena leaned towards Chris and stroked his chest.

  Erik must have nodded off because when he looked up again he saw Julia and Marika coming up from the beach. They each had a towel wrapped around them, and water was dripping from their bodies. Marika looked very fit, but not in a deliberate sort of way. It seemed to be her natural body type, as if she enjoyed exercising and maybe even showing off her figure. She took off the towel and stood naked in front of the others as she dried her face.

  �
�I think I’ll go back in the sauna,’ she said. ‘Anybody want to join me?’

  ‘I’ll come and get warmed up for a while,’ said Julia, and they both headed off.

  Chris got out a bottle of Scotch and filled several worn glasses he’d brought from the kitchen. Erik took a sip and felt the heat spread down his throat and into his stomach. He thought about the children and wondered where they were right now. Presumably they’d gone back to the summer house or were somewhere out on the rocks. It’s good for them to run free, he thought, feeling almost jealous. Oh, to be a child again without any worries.

  ‘It’s time for us to get ready for the big bonfire,’ said Chris. ‘Helena, Ville, could you gather up the rubbish, so we can burn it in the fire?’

  Helena and Ville got up and began walking around the yard, collecting anything that could be burned. Erik stayed sitting on the blanket with Chris. He drank slowly from his glass.

  ‘So tell me how you got involved in the environmental movement,’ said Erik.

  Chris leaned back with a small smile, as if that was a question he’d been asked many times before, and he enjoyed answering it.

  Erik stared at the glow from the fire, which looked as if it were lighting up the whole beach. He seemed to see a microcosm, a small solar system within the fire itself.

  Chris rubbed his hands and used a stick to poke at the fire, making it crackle. An explosion of colours appeared before Erik’s eyes.

  Chris said, ‘I suppose it started when I was a boy. My father loved going hiking, and I was an only child, so it was easy for him to take me along. We hiked a lot in the Scottish highlands, sometimes spending weeks in the summertime on lengthy expeditions. It was a very special sort of upbringing, because my father didn’t talk much. So we’d be hiking on some mountain, and neither of us would say a word for several hours. After a while, you develop a different perspective, you become more aware of what is happening around you. How the wind is blowing, all the scents, the birds singing. At least that’s how it was for me. I began to understand that nature is totally independent, it doesn’t rely on human beings, it’s indifferent to us. Later, when I got older, I started travelling to different places in the world, which merely reinforced this feeling I had. I think a lot of climate activists don’t have a particularly close relationship to nature. For them, it’s more about human beings.’