The Priest of Evil

by Matti Joensuu

  Harjunpää slid the telephone back into his pocket and for a moment something warm and good flashed through his mind, soft as the finest wool. To have somewhere to go, to be; to be with people who cared about him and about whom he cared, was wonderful. How magnificent, how almost unbelievable it was that in life there existed such a thing as love; without it, he would probably not have been able to cope. And this, to him, was the most profound realisation he’d made that Tuesday.

  Despite this, everything that had happened left a bad taste in his mouth, an aftertaste of failure and disappointment, as though he had just eaten a piece of mouldy bread.

  16. Kikka

  ‘I know, I know all too well,’ Mikko almost snapped. It shamed him, as did the fact that he always poured all his problems on to Kikka. Helplessly he padded the floor of his workroom in Kontula. He had been unable to stay at home, not wanting Sanna to realise quite how hard he was taking everything.

  ‘But where am I going to get help?’

  ‘The local shrink, if you ask me.’

  ‘Yes, but I tried that a year and a half ago when Cecilia started trying to get Sanna out of the house. I told them Cecilia was abusing her and that Sanna was at a low ebb… The psychologist told me I had to stop getting involved in my wife’s business and start living my own life. She even said there was no way I could help Sanna, that I couldn’t suddenly become her therapist.’

  ‘That’s outrageous.’

  ‘I know,’ Mikko sighed. He still remembered how humiliated and useless the situation had made him feel. ‘To cap it all off she turned the whole thing around and asked whether this was all just a projection of my own violent sentiments towards Cecilia.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. And by then I’d already had to take care of Sanna’s bruises maybe three or four times, because whenever she could escape she came to me.’

  Mikko stopped and stood in front of the window. He could see only one tree, the top of a pine; the rest was just identical grey concrete buildings, exactly like the one he was in.

  ‘Still, I can’t really imagine she’d start beating Matti,’ said Kikka. ‘Especially since he’s always been “Mummy’s little boy”.’

  ‘She used to beat me. I never told anyone before. I was sitting in the red chair downstairs and she just started battering me round the head with both fists. There was nothing I could do but try to take cover. She was trying to get me to hit her back, of course. Imagine the tabloids the next morning: “Mikko Matias Moisio Batters Wife!”’

  ‘Of course…’

  ‘Where can battered husbands go for help? Nowhere. Men don’t even dare talk about it, because then people would think they’re just wimps.’

  He turned and looked around the room. It was almost the very incarnation of depression and sorrow. It was bleak and somehow harsh; he hadn’t bothered to decorate it at all. At first he’d sensed that it wouldn’t be an appropriate workroom, but eventually he’d been left with no option but to take it. The only pleasant item in the room was his desk: several decades old, it was sturdy and made of hardwood. Back when things had still been going well he had even painted it two different shades of green with flowers, the sun and a blossoming tree. Down one side there were four birds flying together; a single, whole family just like he’d once had. Was it such a pleasant item after all, bringing back memories of the past he had lost?

  Another reason that the room was not truly a workroom was the fact that even the corridors were heavy with smells reminiscent of the earliest stages of his life, a time before he realised he could write: the smell of miserliness and penny-pinching, of tobacco and heavy drinking, the stench of quarrelling families sorting out their differences. Even if he used earplugs while trying to write, he could still make out the sound of the couple next door at each other’s throats. It always ended with the children crying and the eldest son ringing his doorbell asking him to call the police. That put paid to any attempts at writing and he would remain blocked for days at a time.

  ‘I’m sorry about always unloading the crap in my life on to you,’ he said, and now his voice sounded different, pinched like an oboe; and with that he understood that there was at least some good in his office – it was a place where he and Kikka could meet in secret. He always felt relieved after seeing her. She was sitting in the chair by his desk, a green GN that he had bought with the money from his first novel. Kikka was almost a miniature person, she couldn’t have been taller than 5’2”, yet she was still perfectly proportioned in every way: she was thin but not too thin, and her face had the funny ability to be either angular or soft depending on her expression. Her hair was the colour of wheat, her nails unvarnished and her hands were small and delicate. So too were her breasts, and her nipples were tiny, barely the size of a small coin, yet when he kissed and caressed them they came to life and protruded like olives.

  In his eyes everything about Kikka was beautiful. Her wrists, her thin white neck; the way she walked, the way her hips and buttocks came to life. Her laugh was beautiful, as was the way she coyly tilted her head when she was amused. Particularly beautiful was her profile, both her face and her body. Her smooth stomach curved gently down towards her groin, while on the other side her bottom was softly rounded.

  The very fact that she was a woman was beautiful too. Mikko found that same beauty in all women, even supposedly ‘ugly’ women. It was this that had first captivated him about Cecilia and that had blinded him to so many things he should have seen as warning signals.

  And when he looked at all of this together – the tilt of her head and her fleeting smile, almost revealing her teeth – the sense of how much he loved her began to burst within him; how he craved her, how at once fervently and wistfully he wished that Kikka were something permanent and stable in his life, a part of him. Yet then the thought began to puzzle him, frighten him even, and with difficulty, like holding in a sneeze, he would try to suppress those feelings. On one level he fully understood that he was not afraid of Kikka herself, nor was he afraid that over time she too might prove to be some kind of monster. What he was afraid of was commitment and, ultimately, love itself.

  ‘Mikko, come and sit next to me.’

  ‘On the bed?’

  ‘We’re hardly going to do it on the table,’ she scoffed as laughter spread across her face. She had to say this, it was their little joke. The first time they had made love had been on that same table, as there hadn’t been a bed in the room. The typewriter had fallen, crashing to the floor, cracking its cover. Every time he saw that crack he smiled quietly to himself.

  He lay down on the bed next to Kikka and pulled himself up tightly against her side so that his head was resting on her shoulder and his face lay against her neck. He began to inhale the smell of her skin, drinking it in with his soul, moving his arm around her head and caressing her earlobe with his fingertips. They would often sit like this for hours at a time, two hours, occasionally changing positions, Kikka curling up in Mikko’s arms. Sometimes they would exchange a few odd words, but for the most part they’d simply lie there, breathing together.

  ‘Did you try talking to anyone other than that psychologist?’

  ‘You name it… There was a man at the community office in the church, Jokinen I think his name was. I stupidly thought he’d understand what was going on, but once it became clear that Sanna was going to move in with me, the only thing he worried about was how Cecilia would deal with losing her role as a mother and how Sanna and I could support her – even though Cecilia was deliberately trying to force Sanna to move in with me because she knows I can’t work properly with someone else living under the same roof.’

  ‘So how did you work back in Kulosaari?’

  ‘The ground floor had a room facing the sea that I used as an office. You could only get in through a door in the back garden. Down there I always felt like I was alone.’

  For a moment they lay together, inhaling the same air, each breathing strength into the other. Mikko co
uld feel an artery in Kikka’s throat pulsing restlessly, expectantly, and moved his hand to her smooth stomach.

  ‘But even that stopped working?’

  ‘Yes. Cecilia started appearing at the door dozens of times every day, even though she’d agreed not to. She’d make a drama out of nothing, then once she’d gone it would always take me an hour or two to get back into the world of the novel.’

  ‘Yet you were supporting the family with your writing?’

  ‘Well… I don’t know. She must have been profoundly envious, jealous even. Once we’d already decided that I would move out she suddenly announced that she would stop the divorce proceedings if I signed a written agreement never to write again. When we went to the social services things couldn’t get underway because Cecilia just didn’t turn up. At least there they understood what a terrible situation this was for Sanna. They started talking about placing her with foster parents – my own daughter! I walked out of the office and Sanna moved to Kallio the following week.’

  Kikka tightened her arms around him and moved her leg across his thigh. Mikko closed his eyes and tried to close his mind too, to concentrate on that single moment, on Kikka lying there warm beside him, her hair gently tickling his forehead. But his thoughts still turned to his son, and all at once everything was perfectly clear to him: as soon as Sanna had moved out, Matti would have to move in.

  ‘Mikko,’ she whispered, like an agreed signal. Mikko propped himself up on his elbows; their lips met and they kissed, rapidly, over and over, as if they were tasting one another, and he slipped his free hand beneath her blouse until he felt her bra strap.

  What happened after that was the most beautiful thing he knew. It wasn’t simply a physical act – sex, a shag, a fuck – it was a gift, an act of giving and receiving, between two people who trusted each other so much that they were prepared to share something of the utmost intimacy, bringing each other the pleasure and fulfilment that alone they would be unable to experience.

  17. Sausages

  There were fourteen objects in total, and although in a mysterious way they were all very important to Matti and had been for several weeks, what was most important was that they were in the correct order. He had only realised this a couple of nights ago; this and the entire process for that matter.

  From the left, in a row, there stood a spruce-green glass ball the size of a fist, tiny air bubbles trapped inside forming a universe all of their own. Beside that was a bicycle reflector, the old kind set in a tin cup with no room for a real lamp, and next to that stood a lion carved from stone somewhere in Africa. Then there was an open pine cone, and next to that a fluorescent elephant that glowed in the dark. The elephant’s trunk reached out towards a pure white shell that was full of brightly glowing red glass beads, each like a droplet of blood.

  The shell was followed by a rock, sparkling with amethyst crystals, then a small skull – presumably this had originally been intended as an ashtray, but despite its size it looked so genuine that anyone looking at it would have felt the hairs on the back of their neck stand on end, with a shiver of mortal fear. Next in line was a green porcelain hand holding an almost life-sized alabaster egg, while beside that crouched a goblin made of black clay, its mouth in a grimace and its arms outstretched. The bear’s hand just reached the next object: a small round stone, like the earth seen from deep in space, that looked as though it could well have been spun at the bottom of a giant’s cauldron. The stone was followed by a brass owl, barely the size of a thumb, while the owl was joined by a titmouse ruffling its feathers. Finally, on the far right-hand side, was a sacred white scarab made of stone, a beetle whose job it seemed was to keep the whole throng in tow.

  Matti was lying on the floor, his hands propping up his chin, and from that perspective everything looked rather different from the way it looked crouching down or from above. He was wearing a large set of headphones, the kind that kept both the high and the low notes in perfect balance, allowing him to concentrate solely on the objects in front of him. In this precise order they formed a symphony of their own; not any old symphony, but one that didn’t yet appear on any recordings, one that nobody had ever heard, and though at times it seemed to include parts of the alternating horn theme from Sibelius’ Fifth, it was otherwise entirely his own composition.

  When he first looked at the glass ball, the lower strings began to stir gently somewhere deep within the earth. Then a pair of tubas joined in, followed immediately by the timpani sounding a warning of their imminent arrival: tu-rum, tu-rum. The purring of the strings grew, rising from the depths beneath the floorboards. Finally the violas tentatively joined the choir of voices and, as if pulled by a set of ropes, he rose up to his knees and his hands floated up into the air with his fingers loosely spread out. He began conducting, beckoning new voices and instruments, calling them to join the music, the notes all the time rising higher and louder. He moved his hand towards the reflector and the oboes softly joined in. It was the third time he had conducted that same symphony and by changing the position of the objects he could create an array of different variations.

  Once the music was in full swing he picked up the smooth stone and felt the rumble of the instruments flowing through it, in unison. At this he began to make out the end of the piece: it would be a bit like Sibelius’ Seventh, the music rising to a crescendo, then thinning and drifting away at the end.

  Sibelius’ works seemed like rock and roll, like real heavy metal – at that point he was thundering his way through En Saga and the First Symphony. When he thought about this he felt at once shy and embarrassed, as if one day he would be able to achieve the same, or at least something similar, and that all he needed was a little support – then suddenly everything was blown to pieces. His ears burned as if someone were trying to rip them from his head. The music died away and now all he could hear was the babbling of the television and the shuddering of the washing machine. Startled, he spun around and sat there, resting on his hands like a child.

  His mother stood in front of him, her hands on her hips, Matti’s headphones dangling from one hand, and an expression like sour milk on her face. He knew what it meant. He was in for another lecture, complete with examples of what a little shit he was and how he was going out of his way to ruin her relationship with Roo.

  ‘You could at least knock,’ he said sullenly, amazed at his boldness.

  ‘Oh, so now I didn’t knock? You just couldn’t be bothered to answer, I was imagining all sorts.’

  ‘Maybe the music was up too loud…’

  ‘Music? What bloody music? Don’t think you can pull that same madman act like your father. You’re just as screwed up as he is.’

  ‘Dad’s not a…’

  ‘Quiet! I’m not interested in that good-for-nothing. I am interested in who’s been eating Kari’s sausage? I’ve told you a thousand times that the sausages and the whole milk are for him only. Don’t touch them again!’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes you have! You bit off a chunk, I can see the teeth marks. Kari had to throw the whole thing out and now he’s so angry he won’t even talk to me. You should be ashamed!’

  ‘You should be ashamed, you shit-head,’ he whispered, to his own surprise. Perhaps he only found the courage because his voice and lips were quivering, just as they had done that afternoon in the playground before he’d started to cry.

  His mother lunged forward and stood, her legs apart, towering like a giant above him. Matti saw her raise the headphones above her head like a whip, but she didn’t strike him.

  ‘You’d better watch your mouth, my boy,’ she shouted. ‘Your father wants a settlement, which means selling this house. And that means Kari and I are going to have to move into a smaller flat. And do you know what that means?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘It means there will be no room for you! That’s how much your father cares about you, he’s prepared to make you homeless. He rang you again this afternoon by the way. I can’t s
tand the way he forces his way into this house. I’m going to have that phone cut off.’

  ‘Fucking arseholes…’

  ‘What did you say?’ She leapt at him. The headphones clattered to the floor somewhere in the background, and she started grabbing at his hair with both hands. It hurt, burning as though someone had poured boiling water over his head. There was nothing he could do but try and prise her fingers off him, but he couldn’t. He tried to hit back, and may have even struck her.

  ‘Kari!’ she shrieked. ‘Kari, help! He’s hitting me! Help!’

  Suddenly she let go of him and quickly messed up her hair; then she gripped her cheek firmly between her knuckles and twisted it, leaving a glowing red mark on the skin. Matti could hear the thud of footsteps as Roo came bounding out of the living room and into the hallway, the thud becoming louder and louder, like a stable full of horses galloping towards him.

  ‘Kari, help!’ she cried, though for no reason whatsoever. Kari strode past her with one enormous step. He only had to kick once and the entire symphony was gone, destroyed. Its different elements flew into the air and the flute – the small ruffled titmouse – lost first its beak and finally its whole head.

  18. The Marker

  ‘Enuresis nocturno,’ he thought. He was so used to talking to himself in the safety of Maammo’s temple that his lips moved now too, though he was around other people. They moved very slightly, as though he were sucking on something, a pastille perhaps, yet no one paid him any attention as he rode upon the great Orange Apostle – an underground train, as the heathens called it. It seemed an unspoken law that people should look around them but see nothing, only emptiness, the same emptiness that filled their mindless souls. Only he, the earth spirit, knew why this was so: the Apostle had silenced them and, unbeknownst to them, was drawing their attention and shaping their minds.

  He was thinking of other things too. He was thinking of so many things at once that his mind resembled a coil of different coloured cables, almost like the one beneath his bedside table, but far more tangled and twisted. In a way his thoughts and deeds were like a fuse; above all he recalled the vermilion swirl and how he had succeeded in pleasing Maammo by carrying out her will, and a fond tingling warmed his breast. His thoughts turned instinctively to the new Big Bang. It would be similar to the swirl, yet a million times more powerful, and his function was to precipitate its coming. He thought too of the chubby girl and the compass mosaic, and the sound the Apostle made as it came to a halt: phiuu-phiuu. There came a whole series of these sounds, and as the Apostle jolted into motion again there came another series, only this time the sounds rose towards the end: phuii-phuii. It was a song of exaltation, a holy psalm chanted by the Orange Apostle to the glory of Maammo.