The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

by Sjón

  Last spring I turned sixty-one. As a birthday present, the post brought me a little surprise, and boy, what a real red-letter day it was. The social awarded me a permanent disability pension! It felt like I’d won the lottery. I walked to the toilet by myself, the letter in my hand, and Jappe just sat at the kitchen table staring at me, his jaw almost touching the floor. I pulled on my best clothes and even took the lift downstairs—the last time I used the lift must have been back in the nineties when Nipa was still alive. I strode into the supermarket and filled my shopping bag with food because it felt like the whole world had opened up to me, then I skipped across to the bus stop like some young whippersnapper and took a ride into town. I accidentally left the bag of food on the bus, but at least I still had a bank card in my pocket. The railway station looked so nice that I bought a ticket all the way to Pori. I spent three months dashing from one place to the next, and I can’t remember a thing about it. I would probably have carried on like that indefinitely, but one day Jappe turned up and took me home.

  Now I’m back sitting at the kitchen table and Jappe has to help me to the loo again. But it doesn’t matter. The good thing about this permanent disability pension is that if I get well again, I can jump right back into the jobs market any time I want.

  IX

  We’ve been swimming so long I bet you’re really hungry. Mummy’s brought some grapes. Have some of those. You must be very thirsty. I’ve got some carrots too. See? The little baby carrots that you like so much. Munch a few carrots first, then have some grapes. Right, T-shirt on, pants on. Mummy’s almost dressed already. Let’s see which one of us can get our socks on first. Look, here’s a banana. Eat that and you’ll be able to walk all the way out to the car park. It’s such a long way, you can’t even see it out of the window. It must be at least fifty metres away. Come on, socks on, please, Mummy’s already combed her hair. Have a digestive biscuit—that’ll make you grow. Tie your hair back now, Mummy’s already got her trousers on. Don’t just stand there. Eat your biscuit, trousers on, jumper on, and we’ll be just fine. Look, I’ve brought you a doughnut too, your blood-sugar levels must be low after all that splashing around. Wasn’t that fun? Take a bite of your doughnut. Look, give me the biscuit if you’re not going to eat it. Sweater on. Chop, chop, Mummy’s ready to go. You haven’t touched your banana either. Did you eat any of those grapes? Carrots? Goodness me, you hardly eat a thing, you’ll waste away. Just think, you’re almost three years old and you’re still that small. You’ll never turn into a big girl if you carry on like that. Do you want to be like Mummy one day? If you do, then you’d better start eating properly. Don’t you worry, us girls will be just fine, even though Daddy left us and went off with that bitch. God, I hate her, but we’ll be all right though, won’t we? If you walk back to the car nicely, there’s Coke and popcorn, OK?

  X

  A stinking salmon carcass had been left lying on the kitchen counter. I chucked it in the bin. I sat down at the kitchen table, but I hadn’t quite finished my green tea when the doorbell rang. It was Tuukka, said he fancied a quick shag. I was like, just let me finish my tea, will you? He’s like, he hasn’t got time to wait around. I took care of him in the hallway. I nipped into the bathroom, then back into the kitchen; the smell coming from the bin slapped me in the face as I made a fresh pot of tea. I’d just lit a cigarette when my phone rang. It was Tuure. He was sitting in his car outside and needed a blow-job. I was like, come up to the flat, I’m still in my nightie. He’s like, no, you come down here. I pulled a dressing gown round my shoulders and took the lift down two floors. Only once the lift had jolted into motion did I remember I’d forgotten the rubbish bag. At least it was warm in the car. Once we were done, I walked up the stairs and popped into the bathroom on my way back to the kitchen. The tea was brewed to perfection and tasted really good, the stink from the rubbish bin notwithstanding. I smoked a Camel and went through to the bedroom. I’d just pulled on a T-shirt when the doorbell rang. There were two blokes standing outside. I was like, what? Can we come in, one of them mumbled. Fuck off, I said and slammed the door in their face. I went back into the bedroom, pulled on my jeans and heard the blokes pushing something through the letterbox. I dashed to the door to look, and there was a piece of paper lying on the mat. I snatched it up and read it: My name’s Mage and that’s my mate Samppa. He’s a bit of a retard. Can you help him out? He’s still a virgin. I crumpled the piece of paper, threw it in the smelly bin bag. I wiped the counter, and just as I was about to take the whole stinking thing out, my phone rang again. It was Jarkko, said that he was delivering an order to Tikkurila, that he was in the mood, and he’d be at my place in two minutes. I threw the rubbish bag into a corner of the hallway, took care of Jarkko and finally took the whole fucking thing out to the rubbish bin. When I got back to the flat, someone gave the door a sleek knock three times. I couldn’t help smiling because there’s only one person in the world who knocks like that.

  XI

  I quickly pull on my clothes, give my teeth a cursory brush and run out to the car. I’ve got to be at the hospital before nine. I drive through two sets of red lights. I leave the car in the hospital car park, located far away from the main door, and run to the lift. I’m three minutes late. I press the button for the fifth floor; the lift seems to rise so bloody slowly, then finally the doors slide open. He’s standing there in a green coat, and he’s so livid that there’s spittle bubbling at the corner of his mouth, he won’t look me in the eye, but keeps his lips tightly shut. We rush into the bathroom the way we always do. I give him the bag and he slaps a five-hundred-euro bill in my hand. He doesn’t say anything, but from his trembling hands I can tell that waiting in the operating theatre there’s a patient whose skull he’s about to bore open. He disappears into the cubicle and locks the door. I step out of the bathroom, head back to the lift and catch my breath. His hands aren’t trembling any longer.

  XII

  So you decided to order a cab in the middle of the night? You’re a brave woman; there are all kinds of junkie drivers out at this time of night, and not all of them are nice guys like me. The night shift always brings out the freaks and perverts. Anything could happen. Imagine a situation where I tell you to undress and spread your old muff on the back seat, so I can get an eyeful of it in this little mirror here. I wouldn’t do anything else, I wouldn’t touch you, wouldn’t say anything, I’d just look. You haven’t got the number of my cab because you didn’t know how to order by text message, but called the switchboard instead the way people did in, you know, prehistoric times, and besides, by the time we got to the airport, you’d be in such a state of shock that you’d forget to write down my reg number. Just imagine I was some kind of serial-killer cabbie, a real psycho that pulled a gun on you, released the safety catch and pointed the thing at you while I was driving. I wouldn’t say anything, I’d just point the gun at you, and once we’d arrived at the airport, I’d slip it back into my pocket. If you went crying to the police, they’d just think you were crazy—which you probably are anyway. All kinds of things can happen when you race around in a taxi to catch a budget flight at this time of night. You’re better off flying with a proper airline so you can travel at a decent hour of the day. The predators come out at night, you know that, right? Just think about what happened in Pori. Did you read about that? There was this young cab driver, small and skinny, a guy just like me, spends all night driving around the town centre. Then outside a pub some bitch waves her hand at him, the kind of slag that’s slept with at least half the town. Taxiii, she squeals. And it really fucks this driver off. He picks her up, turns on to a small lane into the woods and stabs her six hundred and two times with a hunting knife, then drives back to the motorway, washes his hands in a toilet at the petrol station and carries on with his shift until morning. Sure, there was a bit of blood on the steering wheel, but not a single customer noticed it. Was it Terminal 1 or 2?

  XIII

  There’s a really nice clubroom in
our house. A while ago, when there were lots of children living in the building, the clubroom was in constant use. Now that the children have moved away, we rent the room to outside groups. Our first tenant was an art club called Picasso. The first week went well enough, but once they started painting, the stench of turpentine came up through the ventilation shaft and it caused a right row. Manninen, who lived on the third floor, made a complaint about the group, as did the old widow on the sixth floor, and I was the one that had to go and tell the art teacher that it was no use, they’d have to go. And so the clubroom was empty for another few years, but when the housing association found itself a bit short of cash, Manninen suggested we rent the room to a group that doesn’t make such a stink. I flicked through the classifieds and found a group called Silver Lining. They were funded by the Red Cross, which promised to pay their rent on time. I suggested this to Manninen, who seemed pretty enthusiastic. At first the group was no trouble at all. They were mostly octogenarians who liked to play bingo and talk about CT scans and homoeopathy. But when autumn turned to winter, that’s when things started to go south. One day a member of the group had a stroke and we had to call an ambulance. Soon after this little incident the group’s volunteer leader died during a meeting of the book club and the body had to be driven away in a hearse. Manninen had had it with all the nonsense and asked me to ring the Red Cross and tell them enough was enough. I made the call, and the clubroom was empty once again. Our building was about to undergo a substantial balcony renovation and the housing association desperately needed some extra funds. I found an advertisement in the newspaper: the Band of Brothers was looking for a clubroom. I showed Manninen the ad, and Manninen said it seemed promising as the group’s name made a nice reference to lost Karelia and the Finnish kindred peoples still living there. I called the number in the ad and arranged a meeting with the group’s chairman. He was a patriotic young man—he’d even sewn a Finnish flag on his jacket. We drew up some ground rules, signed a rental agreement, and the man paid six months’ rent upfront in cash. All summer Manninen opined about how pleasant it was to discover that there were still some people in Finland with good, upstanding values. And this continued until Christmas. The first setback came on Boxing Day. A young woman had allegedly been raped in the clubroom. Probably her own fault, said Manninen. Then on New Year’s Eve a man claimed to be the victim of a grievous assault. An American basketball player had allegedly been knocked unconscious with a taser, dragged into the clubroom and beaten to a pulp. Well, Manninen sighed, relieved—at least he was black, not white. But it was at the beginning of February that things finally came to a head. The case ended up in the headlines: a killer was on the loose and he’d dismembered at least two victims. One of them was Manninen.

  XIV

  This morning Nazi Mum swallowed the last of Kalle’s ADHD tablets and headed off to work, her handbag swinging over her shoulder. By the time he went to school, Kalle was so hyper he punched a hole in the hallway mirror.

  I went straight to my aerobics class, and as I was getting changed, I noticed my tub of caffeine pills was missing. Fucking Nazi Mum, I shouted. The instructor ran up and handed me an energy drink to try and calm me down. I thanked her. Over and out.

  After school I went to a café with my mates. Gran called and said she’d run out of dementia tablets. Gran, listen, I explained to her at least five times, you haven’t run out, Nazi Mum’s been nicking them. She’s been taking Gran’s meds too because they stimulate her brain function. Without all the doping, she’d probably get the sack.

  When I got home from basketball training that evening, Nazi Mum was snoring in the armchair in the living room. She’d probably taken a handful of sleeping pills before the news, so she could get a good night’s sleep before another tough day at work. I dragged her into the bedroom, covered her with a blanket and opened the ventilation window to give her some fresh air.

  XV

  I don’t need to look him in his eyes or stare at the muscles in his face to see the deep sense of disgust he feels towards my saggy old arse, my alcohol-bloated body, my rotten stinking breath, my stumpy white legs, my puffy ruddy face, my veiny hands, my eyes that have long since lost any lustre. That being said, I’ve saved him from a Bangkok whorehouse, paid for his flights out here, bought him a pair of fancy white Adidas trainers and an electric shaver. On top of that, I pay for his rent, food and bus tickets; I’ve sorted him out with gym membership and an English course, lube and insurance and I even wire a few quid a month to his family by the side of a paddy field in the middle of nowhere, so I think it’s only reasonable to expect him to do his job properly, though it sometimes makes him retch.

  XVI

  After a meeting of the housing association, my husband said that he and the other motorists had agreed to cut down one of the trees in the garden. Come September the old rowan will be history because sap drips on to the car bonnets and the little birds feed off its berries and shit all over the paintwork. We’ve put up with it for thirty years, he said, and enough is enough; the city gardeners can take care of it and it won’t cost the housing association a penny.

  Without the least hesitation I told my husband I’d file for divorce if anyone touched the rowan. It’s only a tree, he scoffed. In the city we live like city people.

  September arrived, and one day when I got back from work, the rowan was lying in the back garden, its crimson berries weeping on the grass.

  The next morning I marched up to the magistrates and submitted the paperwork for a unilateral divorce. My husband was in the transit lounge at Heathrow Airport waiting for a connecting flight to Singapore when my lawyer contacted him to inform him of the development. Ten minutes after take-off he had a heart attack and died despite attempts at resuscitation.

  XVII

  If they mutilate my genitals, the Finns will give me those slow, awkward looks. But if they don’t, my own people will think I’m weird.

  TRANSLATED BY DAVID HACKSTON

  THE DARK BLUE WINTER OVERCOAT

  JOHAN BARGUM

  DEAR MUM,

  You’re right, this is a terrible city: noisy, dirty and shabby, and there are piles of rubbish on the pavements which no one seems to care about. The air pollution hangs like a yellowish-grey mist between the skyscrapers. My allergy has already broken out after only a few hours, and I had to put myself to bed in the hotel room with a running nose and streaming eyes. It was icy cold in that room, by the way, because the central heating had gone on strike. There’s nothing wrong with my English, as you know, but making myself understood to the lady in reception was impossible to begin with. They’re in such a hurry all the time, even when they speak; monosyllabic nasal sounds shoot out of their mouths as if from machine guns. Towards midnight, and out of the blue, there was a knock at my door. I followed your advice and didn’t make a move to open it. There was another knock. I lay staring up into the darkness, my heart pounding so that it seemed to echo against my palate. Then I heard the sound of someone putting a key into the lock. The door was pushed open slightly, and then there was an ominous rattling sound, as the safety chain tautened and held fast. I sat bolt upright in bed and turned on the light. I heard a man’s husky voice and a torrent of words outside the door. The only bit I could understand was the “sir” at the end. I grabbed hold of the telephone. “I’m ringing Reception right this minute,” I said in a loud voice, hoping to hear hastily retreating footsteps down the corridor. However, the man stayed where he was and the woman in Reception made it clear, in a direct and forthright manner, that the man was a plumber. At least, he was dressed in overalls and had a toolbox in his hand. He was a gigantic black man, who mumbled something incomprehensible to himself, scratched his head, gave the radiator a mighty kick and went on his way.

  A few hours later the room was boiling hot, so I hardly got a wink of sleep all night.

  At dawn, as the traffic started thundering by, I opened the window and looked out. The people down on the street looked so ridicu
lously small beneath the towering buildings; dwarfs in a city built for giants.

  It all suddenly seemed a little unreal. At the passport desk a forbidding official had asked me what my intentions were in this country. Just suppose I’d explained the situation to him, that I’d told him there had been an envelope lying on the hall floor one morning, with an air ticket and a note from Dad’s new wife asking me to come and visit, and at the same time pointing out to me that Dad wasn’t able to write personally because he’d turned into a dog? Maybe I should have followed your advice and stayed at home.

  There is an almost childlike logic to the layout of this town with its numbered streets at right angles to the avenues. It’s effective and unimaginative. It was easy to find where they lived on the map, and I decided to go by bus. This was easier said than done. The bus driver wasn’t the slightest bit interested in my dollar bill. He pointed at a glass container beside him, which looked like an old-fashioned money box, then reeled off a long speech I couldn’t understand. I shrugged my shoulders and tried to edge back into the bus, but that caused a terrible commotion until a young man took the dollar bill out of my hand and put a yellow token into this “money box”. I sat down and tried to look calm and collected; you know how you get stared at at home, well, no one so much as looked in my direction. That’s the way things seem to be in this city. Furthermore, when someone happens to glance at you, you still don’t have that feeling of having been looked at, rather the feeling of merely having been accidentally caught in someone’s gaze.