“Here,” Esa said from far away. “Have a beer.”
Kosonen felt a chilly bottle in his hand, and drank. The dream-beer was strong and real. The malt taste brought him back. He took a deep breath, letting the fake summer evening wash away the city.
“Is that why you brought me here? To show me that?” He asked.
“Well, no,” Esa said, laughing. His stone eyes looked young, suddenly. “I just wanted you to meet my girlfriend.”
The quantum girl had golden hair and eyes of light. She wore many faces at once, like a Hindu goddess. She walked to the pier with dainty steps. Esa’s summerland showed its cracks around her: There were fracture lines in her skin, with otherworldly colors peeking out.
“This is Säde,” Esa said.
She looked at Kosonen, and spoke, a bubble of words, a superposition, all possible greetings at once.
“Nice to meet you,” Kosonen said.
“They did something right when they made her, up there,” said Esa. “She lives in many worlds at once, thinks in qubits. And this is the world where she wants to be. With me.” He touched her shoulder gently. “She heard my songs and ran away.”
“Marja said she fell,” Kosonen said. “That something was broken.”
“She said what they wanted her to say. They don’t like it when things don’t go according to plan.”
Säde made a sound, like the chime of a glass bell.
“The firewall keeps squeezing us,” Esa said. “That’s how it was made. Make things go slower and slower here, until we die. Säde doesn’t fit in here, this place is too small. So you will take her back home, before it’s too late.” He smiled. “I’d rather you do it than anyone else.”
“That’s not fair,” Kosonen said. He squinted at Säde. She was too bright to look at. But what can I do? I’m just a slab of meat. Meat and words.
The thought was like a pinecone, rough in his grip, but with a seed of something in it.
“I think there is a poem in you two,” he said.
Kosonen sat on the train again, watching the city stream past. It was early morning. The sunrise gave the city new hues: purple shadows and gold, ember colors. Fatigue pulsed in his temples. His body ached. The words of a poem weighed down on his mind.
Above the dome of the firewall he could see a giant diamond starfish, a drone of the sky people, watching, like an outstretched hand.
They came to see what happened, he thought. They’ll find out.
This time, he embraced the firewall like a friend, and its tingling brightness washed over him. And deep within, the stern-voiced watchman came again. It said nothing this time, but he could feel its presence, scrutinizing, seeking things that did not belong in the outside world.
Kosonen gave it everything.
The first moment when he knew he had put something real on paper. The disappointment when he realized that a poet was not much in a small country, piles of cheaply printed copies of his first collection, gathering dust in little bookshops. The jealousy he had felt when Marja gave birth to Esa, what a pale shadow of that giving birth to words was. The tracks of the elk in the snow and the look in its eyes when it died.
He felt the watchman step aside, satisfied.
Then he was through. The train emerged into the real, undiluted dawn. He looked back at the city, and saw fire raining from the starfish. Pillars of light cut through the city in geometric patterns, too bright to look at, leaving only white-hot plasma in their wake.
Kosonen closed his eyes and held on to the poem as the city burned.
Kosonen planted the nanoseed in the woods. He dug a deep hole in the half-frozen peat with his bare hands, under an old tree stump. He sat down, took off his cap, dug out his notebook, and started reading. The pencil-scrawled words glowed bright in his mind, and after a while he didn’t need to look at them anymore.
The poem rose from the words like a titanic creature from an ocean, first showing just a small extremity but then soaring upwards in a spray of glossolalia, mountain-like. It was a stream of hissing words and phonemes, an endless spell that tore at his throat. And with it came the quantum information from the microtubules of his neurons, where the bright-eyed girl now lived, and jagged impulses from synapses where his son was hiding.
The poem swelled into a roar. He continued until his voice was a hiss. Only the nanoseed could hear, but that was enough. Something stirred under the peat.
When the poem finally ended, it was evening. Kosonen opened his eyes. The first things he saw were the sapphire antlers, sparkling in the last rays of the sun.
Two young elk looked at him. One was smaller, more delicate, and its large brown eyes held a hint of sunlight. The other was young and skinny, but wore its budding antlers with pride. It held Kosonen’s gaze, and in its eyes he saw shadows of the city. Or reflections in a summer lake, perhaps.
They turned around and ran into the woods, silent, fleet-footed and free.
Kosonen was opening the cellar door when the rain came back. It was barely a shower this time: The droplets formed Marja’s face in the air. For a moment he thought he saw her wink. Then the rain became a mist, and was gone. He propped the door open.
The squirrels stared at him from the trees curiously.
“All yours, gentlemen,” Kosonen said. “Should be enough for next winter. I don’t need it anymore.”
Otso and Kosonen left at noon, heading north. Kosonen’s skis slid along easily in the thinning snow. The bear pulled a sledge loaded with equipment. When they were well away from the cabin, it stopped to sniff at a fresh trail.
“Elk,” it growled. “Otso is hungry. Kosonen shoot an elk. Need meat for the journey. Kosonen did not bring enough booze.”
Kosonen shook his head.
“I think I’m going to learn to fish,” he said.
White Threads
Anne Leinonen
Translated by Liisa Rantalaiho
Anne Leinonen is the editor and publisher of Usva (Mist), a magazine of Finnish speculative fiction. With co-author Eija Lappalainen, Leinonen has written a number of books for young adults; these have been nominated for prestigious Finnish awards, including the Finlandia Junior and the Tähtivaeltaja Awards. Meanwhile, Leinonen’s speculative fiction for adults has also collected its share of accolades. Winner of both an Atorox Award and a Portti Prize, “White Threads” explores the fantastical implications of quantum mechanics, with a wink to Schrödinger’s infamous cat . . .
Helena
“And how are you today?” A female voice is asking.
The bottom sheet feels rough against bare skin and the quilt tangles around my legs like a snake. I blink my eyes open and the first thing I see is a grey plastic table. I’m in my own room again, at home. But there’s something strange in the bedroom, however, especially the yellow walls; I’ve never liked the color yellow.
I turn on my side and stare at the floor. A plastic mat. My head is humming. I know I’ve slept badly though I cannot remember what dreams I saw. Or perhaps I’m no longer capable of seeing dreams.
“I’ll bring you something to eat in a moment,” the voice continues, and the microphone snaps off.
I sit up; the floor sends cold thrills against my bare toes. It would be easier to stay and sleep the innocent sleep of the unaware, but I’ve got to wake up. I force myself to stand on my feet, and they carry me to the toilet, staggering. From the mirror the eyes of a middle-aged woman stare back at me with dark circles underneath them. With my hand I brush at the grey ends of the hairs on my temple.
I am Helena. Helena García Luna. I taste the words in my mouth until I feel sure that is my correct name. My memory does not deceive me, then. Not this time.
I open the mirrored cupboard and search a moment among the rows of hairspray bottles and cotton wool tops until I find the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste in a mug. I hold the objects in my hand and for a while I do not know what to do with them. They feel strange, alien, unknown beings that demand something from m
e. Then I squirt some paste in my mouth and my hands start to move the brush, they remember better than my head what needs to be done. Body memory. The memory of a touch. A soft feeling on my arm, something soft, warm, I miss something beside me that I’m not able to define. The rush of water covers my sobbing. I do not want them to notice I’m different today.
“Who’s them?” I whisper to myself, and the answers are immediately there for me. My guardians. They do not need to know that Helena is able to think again, that Helena remembers who she is.
I manage to rinse my mouth, but then I need to sit down for a while on the toilet seat and hold my throbbing head. I have to gasp for breath—each inhalation goes hard and when I breathe out I hardly know whether my lungs will be able to take in any more air.
There’s something very wrong with me, that’s why they have to watch my every movement. And at the same time I know that it’s horribly wrong to be watched, it makes me weak and ill. Fear cramps the pit of my stomach; I turn to the toilet and try to vomit but nothing comes up.
I stumble to the kitchen and take a look at my surroundings. The big green door leads out; I know there’s a long corridor outside with doors on both sides. A long downstairs lobby with plants, and behind the glass, outside air. But I’m not going out, not yet.
On the other wall there’s a blue door. I open it and see a row of shirts and two-piece costumes on hangers. It’s inordinately tidy in the kitchen, as if the room had just been cleaned. Inside the kitchen cupboards there’s a coffee set for four, a couple of plates, and a drinking glass.
From the window one can see a balcony with a stone balustrade, tiled roofs on high houses, television antennas, a bit of a mountain and the mute sky. The wind is waving the tree branches rhythmically. I cannot see the streets waiting down there, but from somewhere I hear a woman speaking as she greets a passerby: A good day to you, señor, how are you? . . . Very well, thank you señora, I think I’ll go and drop in at the butcher’s before siesta.
I sit down by the kitchen table. There are a couple of books that haven’t been worn down to dog-ears, a pile of standard writing paper, with writing on the pages, series of numbers, mathematical formulas. I take up the papers and look more carefully at the first one: the traveling salesman’s problem with twenty-five cities, a list of localities with distances and traveling times between them. My head starts to swarm with a series of numbers and answers, but I thrust them aside, I don’t want to compute, not now.
There’s a calendar on the refrigerator door with no year or any handwritten notes, as if my everyday life were one empty sheet: it has days but the days have no meaning. I remember that when I turned forty, I sold my house on the seaside and moved to an apartment house in the old city center. I used to have a job taking care of animals as a veterinarian’s assistant. But I’m not working any more. Something has happened to me that makes it impossible for me to be among other people any longer.
But I still miss the sea smell, the rush of waves, and the rough sand. I used to walk down on the beach in the evenings, when the fishermen were setting up their seats and their long rods on the mole. Again I understand that the scenes of my childhood are somewhere far away in the past, and just as unreachable as a miniature ship built inside a bottle.
I remember things that are far away but cannot remember yesterday or the days before that. Not even weeks, only the indistinct feeling that my life has changed.
The door clicks. I take a few steps back until I feel the table behind my back. After a torturous waiting the door opens and a woman comes in carrying a tray. She has short, dark hair and a white coat, and she looks me cheerfully in the eyes. There is a nametag on her lapel: Rodriguez.
“What day is it today?” I ask carefully.
“Tuesday,” the woman answers and sets the tray on the table.
“Really? September?”
The woman looks patient, but at the same time it seems as if my questions irritated her. And when I think about it, I really cannot say what difference the weekdays or even months would make. If I do not remember, time has no meaning, either.
The woman sets the tray on the kitchen table; I smell boiled egg and fresh bread. She turns around to look at me.
“Take it easy, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I know,” I say, and I really do know that the woman doesn’t wish me any harm.
“Just call me Mireia.”
She has a face one can trust. At least she doesn’t want to harm me, I’m in no immediate danger; my life is not threatened. And yet I feel awkward. An unpleasant foreboding comes welling up inside me, from some earlier experience that’s imprinted in my body memory.
And then I remember the source of the touch. A cat’s deep green eyes flash in my mind and her gaze bores directly into me. She is my only true friend here. She doesn’t lie. She doesn’t try to profit from me; she protects me from all dangers, instead. I need to find her quickly. But how?
“Do you know where you are?” Mireia asks.
“In a hospital.”
“Why?”
“Because I forget things.”
Mireia turns around in my apartment, and my thoughts circle around one single thing. I have a request for her, but I do not know how I ought to present it. I’m not sure of what my position is, whether I’m an easy or difficult patient. I’m troubled with the idea that there are a lot of things I’d never be allowed to have.
“I’d like to have a cat,” I tell her.
“A cat,” Mireia says and a certain expression comes to her face. “Don’t you ever remember?”
“Just a little kitten.”
“Of course you don’t,” she says and her voice holds her anger in check. “But this is something new. I can ask, of course, but it’s hardly going to happen.”
She glances at the papers on the table but doesn’t pick them up. The door lock clicks shut after her.
I lift the cover off the tray and notice a tabloid folded beneath the plate and mug. I pick it up without checking the date, since after all, I do not want to know about the passing of time while I’ve been ill. I open the center page and see a news item about an accident near the Tibidabo amusement park. A child ran into the street after a ball and was hit by a car. He flew some ten meters in the air but fell softly on a terrace awning. The cloth checked the hit and they found only bruises on the child, though he ought to have died from the collision alone.
The news means something; otherwise it wouldn’t have come to me.
I lie down on my bed and keep staring through the window at the sky that has already begun to darken. We have to leave soon.
Mireia
I walked to the personnel coffee room and poured a full mug of the coffee the boys had made. Between the coke bottles, computers, and empty pizza boxes, I found some vacant space where I could set my cup and sit down on my arse. My feet were hurting; I ought to buy a new and better pair of sandals.
Behind the glass there were big black cupboards where videotapes kept running and recording the lives of Helena and the boy. The cupboards were locked, and only Salvatore had the key. We were not allowed to study the tapes before Helena crashed.
No one stood up for Helena’s rights and that made me sick. I had started to feel it was my duty to defend her. But how would I do that? I couldn’t even talk with Helena about what she really wanted from her life and fate. She just kept talking about cats. Maybe she’d seen the Institute’s phantom cat; she talked about cats so often. Or else Helena was remembering her occupation; she loved animals so much she lived more in their world than in the human world.
I was fed up to my ears with the same pattern repeating from week to week. We had tried all manner of things. We let Helena stay in her room alone and recover, without any disturbance. We tried to understand her panic, we treated her gently, without any irritations; and then again, bored with tactfulness, we forced her to start with a situation where she had to try to explain what had happened to her.
After each episode Helena was as helpless as a newborn, but she adapted to her environment with an amazing speed. She drew herself back to a normal state in a couple of hours. The fun just didn’t last long. Rise and fall followed each other in a rhythm of two, three days. At the longest, she lasted five days, at the worst, the cycle ran through in twenty-four hours. But the end result was inevitable. She always crashed.
“What’s up?”
Manuel appeared behind my back and hugged my shoulders. He was a novice recruited by the university, an eager young fellow working in the laboratory.
“Fortunately I’m not on duty tomorrow.”
“Helena, is it? Is it that serious?”
Manuel sat on the other chair and lifted his feet on the table in a relaxed manner. I had made the same complaint to Manuel before, but no one seemed to be bothered by Helena’s fate.
“I suppose you’ve tried to tell her what’s going to happen?” Manuel asked.
“It’s no help. To begin with, she doesn’t believe it, and even if you could convince her, she’ll still run away somewhere, stubbornly. We haven’t yet found out what drives her.”
He kept nodding. He was always very polite to me, because he knew I was related to Señor Cañedo, the director of the Institute. That relationship, however, had not benefitted me as much as many people thought. I got an assistantship but otherwise I enjoyed no privileges. I wasn’t even invited to the director’s society parties where the university bigwigs promoted their research to the sponsors.
“And she’s been here now . . . what, four months?” Manuel asked.
“Just about.”
“Basically she seems quite sane.”
“She must be suffering dreadfully since she always wants to get away.”
Helena was first found drifting on the streets, and was taken into custody by the city social welfare office. Nobody had reported her missing, as she had no family or close relatives to miss her. She had quit her job just before she was taken ill, so at her workplace they hadn’t suspected that anything was wrong, either. We found her by the regular screening, when we were searching for eventual oscillators from institutions and hospitals.
It Came from the North Page 10
