Leena knew without me saying it that my family would limit my options. I hadn’t told her about the nausea I’d experienced during the investigation. I had gone to a doctor, and she thought that the symptoms might be psychosomatic, caused by my fear of being hurt again.
“It’s perfectly normal,” she’d said. I wouldn’t tell anyone about this weakness, but it allowed me to justify not applying for Anni’s position. Not that I needed justification. I would miss working with Koivu and Puupponen, and Ursula too. I’d promised to treat them to dinner once the final reports were filed with the prosecutor.
Ristiluoma’s portrait stared at us from between two candles. He’d lost his life because he’d tried to help Jutta. Anneli Vainio and Satu Häkkinen from MobAbility delivered a brief eulogy, though the latter mostly just sobbed. Hillevi was there, along with Leena, who had found herself as acting director of Adaptive Sports after Merja’s imprisonment.
Miikka Harju remained in the hospital, but the doctors had told me that he would be back to normal before long. I’d stopped by as soon as he was able to receive visitors. One of his legs had been badly burned, and he had some scrapes and a few minor fractures. He’d have to face responsibility for the car accident eventually, but I believed he would get off with a fine. I’d replayed his fall in my mind and still wasn’t sure whether he’d intended to end his life when he cut the rope. Maybe I’d ask him if we met again.
Jutta Särkikoski had made a full recovery from the explosion, and she needed only one crutch these days. By Christmas she might not even need that. Now that no one was threatening her, she seemed to have a new lease on life. She’d been offered a permanent position on the Aamulehti sports desk in Tampere. A change of scenery would do her good, since Espoo held too many painful memories. She promised to move into an apartment that Leena could access in her wheelchair, and then we could come visit. Jutta had announced that she didn’t intend to press charges against Ilpo Koskelo.
“But I’m going to rake Ilpo and Toni over the coals if they don’t start putting up some better times,” she said. “I’m not afraid anymore. Even if someone threatens my life, I’m going to write exactly what I want to write. In the Finnish sports world there are still taboos and good-old-boys’ clubs that need shaking up, to say nothing of international sports politics. Can you believe they gave the summer Olympics to Beijing? Then they play pious about human rights, after selling out to the highest bidder.”
“It’s just a show. The Olympics, I mean,” Leena said. “Athletes are the gladiators of this age, and they’re still entertaining us by risking their lives. And the crowds go wild.”
I wasn’t as excited about the Olympics as I’d been as a child. Back then it had been easy to believe the speeches about peace and goodwill. I still had a good dose of the armchair athlete in me, and I hoped Toni Väärä would achieve his dream. He and his coach were headed to the south of Spain right after Ristiluoma’s memorial. The camp would last three months, although Koskelo would return to Finland occasionally and spend Christmas with his family. But Väärä would spend the whole three months in Spain.
“We’re going to live in a small mountain town with hardly any other Finns,” he told me as we were exchanging news after the formal portion of the memorial. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something. Would you mind stepping out onto the balcony with me?”
I grabbed my coat, and we went outside. The wind was bracing that high up, and I saw a lone sailboat disappear behind the shelter of the islands. I vaguely remembered a sailing trip ten years ago, in a boat that wasn’t my own, with the entirely wrong man, and I realized that the memory wasn’t painful anymore. I was able to leave behind more than just the Espoo Police Department.
“When we were talking . . . When you were at my apartment in Turku . . .” Väärä tripped over his words, so I knew this had something to do with his sexual orientation. “You said you knew a family with four kids and two sets of parents, two men and two women. Is that true?”
“Yes. I can give you their phone number, if you want. They’re nice people and active in the Rainbow Families movement.”
“I told the girl my parents chose for me that I can’t get engaged to her. I’ve thought about it a lot, because I really do want kids of my own. But marrying her would be cruel, because I could never have the same feelings for her as I did for Janne.”
“Have you seen him again?”
“No. I’m not ready for dating and all the talk it would cause. For the next few years, I’m going to concentrate on running.” Väärä smiled shyly, and I patted him on the shoulder.
“In Turku you said that if we’d lived forty years ago, you would have been considered a criminal, and it would have been my job to arrest you. In some ways the world is moving in a better direction.”
“Maybe. If only I could get my parents to understand. Ilpo promised to talk to them, but I’m not ready for that either. Maybe they’ll accept me once I’ve won a Euro Championship medal or something.”
“A lot of people have different ideas about God and his requirements than your parents do, Toni.” I wanted to tell him that he had every right to expect his parents to love him exactly as he was, without having to achieve something big or deny his own sexuality, but I’d be wasting my breath. He would have to realize that for himself.
As Leena and I were leaving the memorial, Hillevi asked if she could catch a ride. We waited in the parking lot while she had a cigarette. She was happy, because Jouni Litmanen had violated his restraining order on his very first furlough, and that meant he wouldn’t automatically qualify for parole after serving half of his sentence. Hillevi talked a lot about Miikka Harju, and I got the impression she was visiting him nearly every day. She liked taking care of people, and now she seemed to think she could help Harju recover and keep him sober. Maybe it would work. He needed forgiveness, and Hillevi was prepared to offer it.
“My last name is Karjula now, by the way. I took back my maiden name,” she said as we were dropping her off.
That night I went to the Flatfeet band practice. We had gigs lined up for the Espoo Police Violent Crime Unit Christmas party and the Helsinki Narcotics Unit Christmas party. Söderholm thought we should add a couple of new covers to our repertoire, because he and Montonen hadn’t had time to write any new material. Our bassist, Pasi Ropponen, never commented on set list choices. He just played whatever he was told to.
“We should at least do Juice’s “Police Academy,” Söderholm said. “I can sing it. But let’s do some classical music too.”
“What the hell?” Montonen exclaimed, but I guessed that Söderholm only meant an album called Classical Music by the Rehtorit. I was right.
“‘I Know Everything,’ isn’t as obvious a choice as that one from Juice, I know. I think it will work for us, though, since we know everything too. Let’s listen to it.” Söderholm put the album on. He put a match in his mouth to chew, since smoking wasn’t allowed in our practice space.
“That’s fine, but do you even have the sheet music?” Montonen asked after the song was done.
“What, can’t you play by ear?” Söderholm passed handwritten words and chords to Montonen and me. “But as you may have noticed, this is for a female vocalist. Maria should sing it.”
I stared dumbfounded at my bandmates. I’d sung backup vocal before, but I wasn’t a soloist, and I never would be. We’d agreed on that from the start.
“Good idea! At least try,” Ropponen said when he saw my expression.
“Don’t worry, we’ll tell you to shut up if it sounds terrible! Come one, let’s go through the rhythm and melody a few times and then add the words.”
Even though I was among friends, singing still made me nervous. It wasn’t horrible, though. I started to get a feel for it by the third round with the words and the guitar solo. When we reached the chorus, I belted with gusto, reminding us that you never leave a friend, and all you have to know is who loves you and what record is playing.
The most important things were just that simple.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2011 Tomas Whitehouse
Leena Lehtolainen was born in Vesanto, Finland, to parents who taught language and literature. At the age of ten, she began her first book—a young adult novel—and published it two years later, followed by a second book at the age of seventeen. The author of the long-running bestselling Maria Kallio Mystery series, Leena has received numerous awards, including the 1997 Vuoden Johtolanka (Clue) Award for the best Finnish crime novel and the Great Finnish Book Club prize in 2000. Her work has been published in twenty-nine languages. Besides writing, Leena enjoys classical singing, her beloved cats, and—her greatest passion—figure skating. Her nonfiction book about the sport, The Enchantment of Figure Skating, was chosen as the Sport Book of the Year 2011 in Finland. Leena lives in Finland with her husband and two sons.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Photo © 2015 Aaron Turley
Owen F. Witesman is a professional literary translator with a master’s in Finnish and Estonian-area studies and a PhD in public affairs from Indiana University. He has translated dozens of Finnish books into English, including novels, children’s books, poetry, plays, graphic novels, and nonfiction. His recent translations include the first nine novels in the Maria Kallio series, the dark family drama Norma by Sofi Oksanen, and Oneiron by Laura Lindstedt, 2015 winner of the Finlandia Prize for Literature. He currently resides in Springville, Utah, with his wife, three daughters, one son, two dogs, a cat, five chickens, and twenty-nine fruit trees.
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