by Philip Teir
He lifted up her T-shirt and ran his hand over her bra. She liked that. It made her feel warm. He moved his hand inside her bra, and she felt his cold, soft hand on her skin. The darkness was like velvet, as if she could sink into it, like water.
Afterwards she couldn’t remember whether she was the one who took the initiative, or whether he did, but he showed her what to do with her hand. It didn’t last long, and there was a stain on her T-shirt afterwards. She washed it off in the sea, and then they went swimming together, heading away from shore until the waves got big and the water was so deep and cold that they were forced to turn around.
part three
nature
1
EACH MORNING ANDERS would quietly walk across the sand to Kati’s house. She was often sitting on the terrace, and would get up to fetch him a cup of coffee when he appeared. Then they would usually sit outside for a long time without saying anything, merely looking at the sea and the morning light, which looked different every day.
July brought perfect summer weather. In the city it was too hot, but out here at the sea there was always a cool breeze that offered respite, even on the hottest afternoons. The water quickly warmed up, and even Anton ventured in for a swim, often with Leo and Alice, who took long walks around the area or sat on the rocks and listened to music.
One morning Anders was sitting with Kati as he read on his mobile about the collective at the beach. On Google he’d found an old article in the Guardian describing Chris Blackwood’s movement in detail, with photos of the Scottish Highlands, in which Leo and Marika could also be seen. The family was described as ‘neo-hippies’. They were said to have updated the flower-power message, though for them it wasn’t about ‘peace & love’, but about a sense of humility towards the earth’s limitations.
In the interview Chris quoted from the old Peter Gabriel tune ‘Here Comes the Flood’.
In the photo, a somewhat younger Chris stood on a hill, wearing a Norwegian woollen sweater.
‘Imagine that we humans are on board a huge spaceship,’ he told the interviewer. ‘Meaning we’re the crew of the spaceship, and we’re completely dependent on the life-support systems of the ship, including access to food and water. But we’ve managed to sabotage these systems, and none of us knows how long we can survive before the food runs out. Yet even without us, the ship will continue to travel through space.’
His background was also described. He grew up as the only child of academic parents. His father was an amateur bird-watcher, and nature had been a constant part of Chris’s upbringing.
After secondary school he’d gone to Oxford and studied philosophy, politics and economics during some of the same years as David Cameron. During his time at university, he was known as a liberal debater among student circles, representing the leading trends of the time. Afterwards, he spent several successful years in finance, only to do an about-face in the nineties when he joined the anti-globalisation movement. In 1999, for instance, he worked as a volunteer during the WTO demonstrations in Seattle. The Guardian article also mentioned that he’d met his Finnish life partner, Marika, at a conference in Norway.
The article was five years old, and when Anders did another Google search, he saw that information from more recent years presented a less coherent picture. He found newer articles that dealt with the overpopulation of the planet and the problem this presented, articles in which Chris quoted the controversial Finnish ecologist Pentti Linkola and seemed to advocate for a society governed by a small elite. It was hard to get a true sense of Chris Blackwood and his movement, which was most often mentioned only in obscure blogs. His own blog hadn’t been updated very often over the past few years. It consisted of disparate thoughts about what ‘de-civilisation’ meant, as well as minor efforts to write poems in line with that principle. He seemed to have developed his own vocabulary, which was supposed to form some sort of primal language.
Anders read aloud selected passages to Kati.
‘You’d think they would write their messages in the sand instead of on the internet,’ he said.
‘I think that’s what they actually do,’ said Kati. ‘They spend a lot of time down there on the sand, although the words get erased almost instantly.’
They laughed.
Just as they’d finished their second cup of coffee of the morning, they heard muted trumpet blasts coming from the neighbours.
‘Is that a didgeridoo?’ asked Anders.
‘I think it’s something similar,’ said Kati.
‘Maybe that’s their way of announcing that it’s time for lunch. Or maybe they don’t believe in lunch, maybe that’s too modern for them. It sounds more like some sort of sexual thing. “Time for today’s orgy.” Why do you think all “back-to-nature” movements are so obsessed with sex?’
‘You’re asking the wrong person,’ said Kati.
‘All extreme movements make the mistake of thinking they can change the world overnight. They don’t realise that the majority of people don’t get it. That’s why it never amounts to anything, because the group doesn’t have enough followers.’
For a while neither of them spoke.
‘Did you get any sleep last night?’ he asked then. He knew Kati had a hard time sleeping, and that she sat out here on the terrace to rest.
‘I actually slept a little longer than usual. I didn’t wake up until six, and strangely enough I was hungry. I’m not usually hungry in the morning. Or at least, that hasn’t happened in a long time,’ she said.
He realised he wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know everything she was willing to tell him. She sat and stared at the sea, occasionally taking a sip of coffee.
‘I don’t know very much about you.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘For instance, what are you doing here? We meet every day and sit here and read books and talk, but I don’t know what you really do. It doesn’t seem like you’re on holiday.’
‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’m on sick leave.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘There’s not really much to tell you. I fell into a depression and came here in May.’
‘Do you have a family?’ he asked.
‘Two children, but the younger one also moved away from home last year, so now I’m alone.’
Kati told Anders a little about her life, about her children, about her job as a therapist. Anders was aware he shouldn’t ask whether she had a husband. Maybe she didn’t, and there would be nothing strange about that. He felt a certain shamefaced joy about meeting her here like this – both of them alone and in need of someone to talk to. Or was he merely imagining that? He didn’t really understand why she was so welcoming towards him, or what about him interested her.
‘Have you talked to them?’ Anders asked.
‘Who do you mean?’
‘The people down there at the beach.’
‘The only thing I know is that they run around on the sand every evening. But they’re probably harmless. I think they just drink too much and take drugs. That’s the way people end up. But I feel sorry for the boy. Sometimes I wonder whether I should call social services. I haven’t yet. I get the impression they’d think I’m nuts.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, because all I do is sit out here day after day, doing nothing.’
‘They think you’re the odd one, while we sit here and laugh at their didgeridoo-penis extension.’
Kati laughed.
When it was lunchtime, Anders stayed at Kati’s house. She thawed out the last of what was in her freezer – some French fries and fish sticks – and they ate the food out on the terrace.
‘That’s all I’ve got left. And these fish sticks are probably two years old.’
‘Maybe we could borrow a car and drive to the supermarket later today. Would you like that?’
‘I ate a lot. I think I’ll be fine until tomorrow,’ she replied.
‘We’ll
see.’
They sat there for a while, reading. Anders leafed through one of Kati’s coffee table books. Later they lay on top of the coverlet on her bed for several hours, talking. The same bubble formed around them, and the hours flew by as Anders told her about his family, about his crazy paternal grandfather, about the frequent hospital stays of his childhood, about his trip to Vietnam. Kati talked about food. She said that was her big passion.
‘But I’ve totally lost inspiration when it comes to cooking right now. All I do is heat things up in the microwave or oven. But I can still talk about food and dream about it and fantasise about it. Or I can read recipes. I just don’t feel like doing any cooking myself,’ she said.
‘Sometimes all you really want is mashed potatoes and meatballs with cream gravy,’ said Anders.
‘You’re right,’ said Kati. ‘Meatballs and mashed potatoes would taste good right now.’
Around them the world teemed with life, and the air filled with a warm scent of pine needles and resin. They were walking towards the public beach, which was about two kilometres from the bay.
For the most part, Kati asked him about himself. She didn’t say anything more about her own life, giving only vague answers when he asked any questions. Occasionally she would stop mid-sentence and change the subject, as if trying to avoid certain topics.
Anders had a feeling that their whole relationship was something temporary, but that didn’t bother him.
It was almost – when he thought about it – as though she was spending time with him because it gave her something to do. As if he was a client, a way for her to practice her skills as a therapist.
The most important thing was being allowed to talk, to acknowledge the closeness that arose in their conversations.
‘What are you going to do when autumn comes?’ she asked.
‘I don’t really know,’ he said. ‘But for once it doesn’t seem terrible that I don’t know.’
‘Will you go and stay with your parents? You don’t have to answer that question. I’m just curious. It’s an occupational habit of mine.’
‘The situation is complicated. I have a complicated relationship with them.’
‘That’s more common than uncommon in most families,’ she said.
‘Sure, but I think … Oh, I don’t know. But I think I might have been a happier person, more like other people, if I was interested in what people are generally interested in. I don’t know when I got the way I am. I started reading philosophy in secondary school, and that shaped my world view. I adopted a pessimistic outlook. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a girlfriend and watch TV in the evening and maybe start a family. But that doesn’t seem on the cards for me. Instead, I went to Hanoi, chasing God knows what. Even I don’t know what I was looking for. The whole trip was a complete waste of time.’
‘But there are lots of people who go to Thailand and Vietnam and live there for a year or so, precisely because they have no idea what they’re looking for.’
‘I just want … I don’t know …’
They both fell silent. He wondered if this was also part of her therapeutic methods, allowing the silence to speak.
‘If you were working right now, it would be awfully expensive for me,’ he said then.
‘What do you mean?’
She was walking ahead of him along the narrow path, pushing aside branches that blocked the way.
‘I mean, if you were my therapist.’
‘Well, I work for the municipality, so it’s not expensive. You just have to get a referral. Does it feel like I’m working when I talk to you?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe a little. Now and then.’
‘That’s not my intention,’ she said. ‘I enjoy your company. I really do.’
They arrived at the beach and spread their towels on one of the sand dunes higher up. Kati went to the bathing hut to change her clothes.
‘Could you put some of this on me?’ she asked when she came back. She handed him a tube of sunblock. She knelt down as he rubbed the lotion on her back. She was so thin that he could see the vertebrae under her skin, which was covered with freckles.
‘What are those pills you have in your bag?’ Kati asked him.
‘Pills?’
‘It’s not that I’ve been snooping through your things. But when I got out my towel, I saw some pills in there.’
‘Don’t worry about them. I should throw them out.’
‘But what are they for?’
‘Just my medicine. I have Crohn’s disease. It’s an infection of the small intestine. I’ve had it all my life.’
‘But the pill bottle doesn’t look like it came from a chemist shop.’
‘No, those pills are special. Just something I brought back from Hanoi.’
‘Are they drugs?’
‘I suppose you could say that.’
‘Are they any good?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, do they produce a good effect?’
‘Are you saying you want to try some?’
‘I don’t know.’
He looked at her as she lay face down on the towel. There was no sign that she’d been outdoors in the sun all summer, but she had a lovely olive-coloured skin that probably didn’t burn very easily. He, on the other hand, burned bright red on his arms and face as soon as he got out in the sun.
He was so different from Kati. He could tell they’d been shaped by different experiences. It was possible that they actually had no common language. But then why did everything seem so easy when he was with her?
When he was a teenager, Anders got a serious glimpse of the social control that a small town exerts on its residents. He sometimes thought that Ekenäs might as well have been a medieval Catholic town when it came to how regulated everything was, how difficult it was to break with the norms, and how fiercely a person was punished for trying to do that. Maybe it seemed especially harsh because the town was so picturesque and in many ways idyllic – with the low wooden homes, the cobblestones and the open marketplaces. But when he was exposed to the local social life, he had a feeling he was in the exercise yard of a prison. Everyone seemed predestined to assume specific roles, and there was no chance of doing anything different. Maybe Ekenäs, in particular, was that way because it was so close to Helsinki, but with forest in between, as if it were cut off from the rest of the world. Hangö was the closest town, and it was even more extreme with its failing industries, its unemployment, its beautiful villas from a bygone era.
When Anders began secondary school, he felt as if he’d been tossed into a controlling system. As he dashed to a class – he was late because he couldn’t find the room at first – an older student yelled after him: ‘That boy is going to run himself to death.’ The comment wasn’t especially mean, but the way he said it was.
With secondary school came the entire arsenal of teenage shenanigans. Smoking behind the school building, in an area called the ‘pit’, where Anders soon ended up, even though his knees were practically shaking the first time he went there. The first taste of alcohol (Anders and his friends bought beer from a local man who was well known in town because he cycled everywhere with big bags on his bicycle rack); and his first serious attempts with the opposite sex.
But also the sudden insight that the adult world was a sham, that everything the grown-ups claimed was false, and the harder they hammered home their viewpoints, the more they lied. All this in combination with the absurd hierarchies in Ekenäs social life, the harsh macho culture in which guys on mopeds still ruled during those last short years before they were left behind in the small town while others made their escape and created new lives for themselves. All this made Anders hate Ekenäs. He hated the small-town pettiness, he hated being a Finland-Swede and being born into this pathetic section of Finnish society, a member of the minority that was reputed to be snobbish but was really just inbred and stupid and in the best case harmlessly old-fashioned, but in the worst case a totall
y backward part of the world that would only get worse and worse the longer it existed.
But then there was Kati. And a completely different feeling. He lay down next to her and looked up at the sky. Not a cloud in sight.
‘We could give it a try someday, if you want,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing weird about the pills. They just make you feel good, and life seems simpler.’
‘That sounds like something that would really suit me at the moment,’ she said.
‘It suits most people.’
He turned to look at her.
‘Tell me more about your cooking.’
‘Right now?’ she said.
‘Yes. Tell me how you make cream gravy.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes. I don’t know why, but it was so great hearing you talk about food earlier.’
She turned onto her back and squinted up at the sky. She placed a hand over her face.
‘I usually avoid using wheat flour,’ she said.
‘Then what?’
‘I usually make cream gravy with butter, mustard, bouillon and cream. It’s very simple and very good.’
‘Tell me more,’ said Anders.
She laughed.
‘Then I add a little Worcestershire sauce to the ground meat so the meatballs will have a slightly saltier taste.’
‘What else?’
‘Mashed potatoes. Butter and milk. And the potatoes should be as mealy as possible. That makes them soft and fluffy.’
Anders felt both safe and excited. Her voice was low and gentle and a bit hoarse.
‘And lingonberry preserves?’
‘Of course,’ said Kati. ‘And pickles, if there are any.’
‘What else do you make?’
She laughed again. ‘That’s all!’
‘But do you make other sorts of dishes? I want to hear more about what you cook.’
‘Do you like food?’ asked Kati.
‘What do you think? Haven’t you noticed what I look like? Tell me more.’
‘I make cakes.’
‘Yum. What kind of cakes?’
