Secret Passages in a Hillside Town

by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen

  Olli’s smile freezes. She’s going to get up and leave, he thinks.

  But the girl nods, takes hold of his hand and smiles, as if she’s just got to the bottom of an important question.

  Olli walked past the compass inlaid in the pavement on Compass Square and headed towards the yellow facade of the Lyceum.

  The cold wind slapped at his coat-tails and toppled three bicycles, which fell at his feet. He jumped out of the way, teetered, then righted himself and corrected his stride, in a complicated series of steps that brought him to the other side of the street and made two schoolgirls burst into giggles.

  As he reached the corner, he yawned. His eyes closed for a moment. When he opened them again he nearly stumbled over a cocker spaniel that had appeared in front of him. Stepping around the dog, he found himself crossing against a red light, and a car nearly hit him. The horn blared. Olli strode to the opposite kerb, angry and embarrassed, looking back over his shoulder, and ran into a stocky fellow who had just stepped out of the school building.

  The man took Olli by the arm to keep him from falling.

  “You seem to be in quite a hurry, Mr Suominen,” the man said. It was the principal, who was also a member of the school board. Olli took a breath and apologized. The men shook hands in a show of mutual respect. Like two honoured city leaders who each in his own way and of one accord uphold the civic culture of this, the Athens of Finland—that was how one of the jokers at the Jyväskylä Club once put it. “You might have spoilt your fine bouquet,” the principal continued. “What’s the occasion? Is today your wife’s birthday?”

  Olli told him it was his anniversary. The principal congratulated him. Olli thought about dinner, which was probably already on the table, his wife and son picking up their cutlery at that moment.

  The principal lifted his chin, gave Olli a serious look, and said in mock sternness, “Mr Suominen, I hope you have bought your club membership.”

  Olli shrugged, smiled, and said, “I’ve been very busy…”

  The principal laughed. It was the same old joke every time Olli saw a member of the Jyväskylä Club. The last time had been two weeks earlier when the principal invited him to the club for a meal and a cognac with the higher-ups of the city.

  While he was there it was explained to him, once again, that club membership was not only an honour but a civic and social responsibility, and that he shouldn’t put it off any longer. With all hesitation drowned in a snifter of Delamain, Olli had promised to take care of the matter at the first opportunity. The next morning, however, it hadn’t felt quite so urgent.

  The two men wished each other a pleasant evening and parted. As Olli continued on his way he noticed that the pavement in front of the school was well gritted, and for that he was happy.

  The Suominen’s house was in Mäki-Matti, a verdant residential area on the far side of Harju Ridge. There were three possible routes home from the publishing house. The easiest and safest was also the dullest. That was the route Olli took, because he wanted to be home before Aino and his son got up from the table. He crossed the market square and walked down Harjukatu along the lower slope of the Ridge.

  Harju Ridge was Jyväskylä’s most important landmark. If you stood at the summit and looked south-east, you could see over the city streets as far as the lake and beyond. Olli passed the new school annexe, a red-brick colossus where teenagers studied for university entrance or for a profession. It looked like a prison. The sign in front read “MUNICIPAL–REGIONAL EDUCATION DISTRICT”. It sounded ugly and bureaucratic to him, and brought a scowl to his face.

  Boys in billed caps and girls dressed in black were standing at the bus stop. Olli strode past with his brow furrowed.

  He didn’t like the walk home from here. It lacked all atmosphere. Jyväskylä nowadays had too many out-sized structures that tired the eye; oppressive, purposeless spaces; roads and tracks laid in the wrong places; buildings with no personalities; erasures of history.

  In cities like Paris or Budapest, your senses opened to take in experiences, but Jyväskylä nurtured dullness. Olli had spent the best summers of his childhood in Jyväskylä, but the city in his memories was more beautiful, larger, magical.

  He turned left at the corner of the school. On his right was a car park, and beyond it a small city park—although it was really just a paved square. It looked like it had fallen randomly where it lay. There was a flea market there on Saturdays. Most other days it was full of skateboarders practising tricks. It had several step-like structures, a fountain and a massive signpost that marked the distance and direction to Jyväskylä’s various sister cities: DEBRECEN. ESBJERG. ESKILSTUNA. FJARđABYGGđ. YAROSLAVL. POTSDAM. POZNAŃ. STAVANGER. MUDANJIANG. Presumably there was in each of these cities a sign that pointed to Jyväskylä. Olli found the thought depressing.

  At last reaching the end of the long school building, he came to the first houses of Mäki-Matti. The Ridge with its street lamps, footpaths and benches rose up on his left. Runners and dog walkers flitted by among the trees.

  On the top of the Ridge was the observation tower stretching up to the sky like a prayer from the city fathers and mothers: Our Father who art, perhaps, up there in heaven, do not forsake Jyväskylä, but give us this day our daily vision, mission and development strategy, and a little relief from budget deficits!

  Every summer Olli went at least once to the observation tower with Aino and the boy. They rode the elevator to the restaurant, bought bowls of ice cream with chocolate sauce and looked at the view: the downtown streets, the lake, the little people swarming around the stadium, the wooded suburbs that surrounded the city.

  Olli thought about dinner. It was Tuesday. Potatoes and hamburger gravy.

  They had lived at their present address for ten years. Before that they’d lived in a two-bedroom apartment, their first shared dwelling. When Olli was given the post of publisher and Aino got her job at the school they took out a loan and bought a house at the top of the Ridge.

  It was an expensive house, but brighter and roomier than their apartment, and in a lovely neighbourhood. “Have we really earned a house like this?” Aino exclaimed with tears in her eyes the day they moved in, and Olli laughed at her childlike joy. They dashed from room to room, holding each other by the hand, and made love on the pile rug in the kitchen. Olli had bought the rug as a gift for Aino when she was living in a sublet room in a pensioner’s house.

  Seven years later a little boy just learning to walk had diarrhoea on that rug. As Olli carried the rug out to the bins Aino had said very sensibly, “That ratty thing. A family with kids needs a kitchen floor that’s easy to clean.”

  As the years passed, the house revealed its little failings. Aino didn’t mind them. And Olli tried not to think too much about them. A person should be positive.

  For instance, the slope of the wood floor at the south end of the dining room didn’t really bother him once they adjusted the legs on one side of the table. They could replace the floor later, once the boy was bigger and they’d paid off more of their home loan and Olli had the time to arrange it all. And if they didn’t hang any shelves or pictures on the living-room wall, they didn’t really notice that it leant in by about three centimetres.

  Sometimes as Olli lay in bed waiting to fall asleep and listening to Aino snuffling in her dreams, the flaws in their house would circle in his mind like houseflies. It was a comfortable, pleasant house. Aino found it pleasant, anyway, and so did their son. Olli tried to. He just felt that when the place was built the horizontals weren’t quite made horizontal, or the verticals vertical.

  The builder seemed to have been missing his spirit level and measuring tape. Sometimes when Olli thought about this inattention to detail it made him so angry that he had to get out of bed and go to the kitchen for a glass of milk. The kitchen had been remodelled properly, and neatly. It was a sort of temple of clarity for Olli, where he could, on nights like these, regain his peace of mind.

  The house had a l
ittle metal gate in front. When you went through the gate it squeaked open and slammed closed. In the yard were five currant bushes, three apple trees, a rowan and, at the moment, a metre of snow, with Aino’s flowerbeds beneath them, waiting for the spring. A narrow path led to the front door. Olli came through the front door with the bundle of flowers under his arm, smelling the aroma of food. He hung his things on the coat rack, took off his fogged glasses and stuffed them in the breast pocket of his shirt, and went into the dining room.

  Aino and the boy were eating potatoes and hamburger gravy. The cutlery jangled. Olli was late from the trip to the florist and the five minutes taken up by his chat with the principal.

  Customary greetings were exchanged. Olli ruffled his son’s hair and handed the flowers, tightly wrapped in paper against the cold, to Aino. Aino thanked him, smiled and laid the bouquet on the counter next to the pot of potatoes. “After dinner we can see what kind of pretty flowers Mommy got this time, Lauri. There’s a surprise for Daddy too. But let’s eat first.”

  Olli took out his glasses and polished them with a napkin, dished three warm potatoes and two ladles of gravy onto his plate, and sat down. The chair wobbled on the uneven floor so that one chair leg was always in the air, but it didn’t bother him if he didn’t think about it too much. There was rye bread and low-fat spread to put on it. Olli’s blood pressure had been high for the past few years, and since he didn’t have any extra weight he could lose, or a smoking habit he could quit, he had no choice but to eat more healthy food. There was a bowl of tomatoes sliced in half. Olli put two halves on the edge of his plate, well away from the gravy. Gravy and vegetables mustn’t be allowed to mix.

  Everyone had their own drink. The boy drank milk, Aino lactose-free buttermilk, and Olli mineral water. Sometimes he drank low-fat milk.

  Aino told him about her day teaching Year 3. She had heard at the nursery school that their son wasn’t taking his naps and that because of this he had thrown a tantrum when they were putting on their coats and hats.

  “Aha,” Olli said. “Is that so?”

  The boy mumbled through a mouthful of potatoes. Forks clinked against porcelain. Aino told the child to mix his gravy into his potatoes and reminded him that dessert was made for little boys who drank up all their milk. It sounded like a repurposed proverb to Olli, but Aino was a practical person, and not one to speak in proverbs.

  “Your bones need calcium,” she said soberly. “And milk has calcium in it.”

  The boy peered into his milk mug doubtfully.

  Then Aino’s attention turned to her husband. It was Olli’s turn to give a summary of his day at the publishing house. He did so, and mentioned that he would have to go to Helsinki again in a couple of days, and wouldn’t be home until about eleven. Oh, and there was a meeting of the film club tonight.

  They watched the movie in the dark.

  It was To Die with the Blossoms. Bold colours, veiled gazes. Tony Leung’s character loves a sales clerk who looks like Maggie Cheung, but she’s obsessed with her dead lover. It’s good to love the dead, because they live in yesterday, and yesterday will never leave us, Tony Leung says. Then he strokes his moustache, lights a cigarette and burns the letter that would have revealed her dead lover’s crooked past, and thus freed her from his grip.

  The rainy city changes to a sunlit beach. The bright film screen lights up the room. Tony Leung steps out from a sea of umbrellas and follows a girl in a flower-print dress.

  The saturated colour on the screen pressed Olli into his seat and quickened his breath. He rubbed his stubbled chin and glanced to left and right. There were about twenty people in the room. The purpose of the film club wasn’t to get to know people; the point was to share the viewing experience, not the feelings it aroused. They showed up in the darkened hall to watch a film, then exited up the dim staircase.

  End credits.

  Olli and a couple of other viewers remained seated in the dark. A good film left a trace in the mind, like wine. You had to taste it before rushing back to your ordinary life.

  When Olli finally got up, he saw a woman sitting near the doorway. He had noticed her before. A slender, delicate thing, gracefully gaunt. Flamboyant clothes. Like a movie star herself.

  Olli still couldn’t see her face. She had her back slightly turned, seemed to be looking for something in her bag. Today she was wearing a long skirt and a short-sleeved, pale-coloured blouse. Her hair was covered in a white scarf with a dark pattern on it. A lock of hair peeped out. A winter coat was hanging on the back of her seat.

  Olli tucked his umbrella under his arm, straightened his tie and headed for the door. As he started up the stairs he noticed that the woman had an unlit cigarette in her mouth.

  He stopped, hesitated a moment, walked back to her seat, and said, “There’s no smoking in here, you know.”

  The woman gave no response at first.

  Finally she said, without looking at him, “I’m not smoking.”

  “You’ve got a cigarette in your mouth, haven’t you?” Olli said. He realized he sounded stupid and unsure, and regretted that he’d said anything.

  “Sure. And I’ve got shoes on my feet, but I’m not walking.”

  Olli climbed up the stairs, embarrassed. It wasn’t until he was out of the building that he realized he had just had a conversation out of an old American comedy.

  He stepped into the courtyard under the black sky. There was a red Vespa parked next to the entrance. Olli stood looking at it. He ventured to touch it, ran his fingers over the red painted surface beaded with raindrops.

  He heard voices approaching and hurried out of the gate onto the street.

  Olli climbed up Harju Ridge.

  The massive stone staircase had always appealed to him, but now it stiffened his feet and made him feel cold. It felt as if the chill of ten winters were stored in the stones. As he came to the crest of the hill and started down the other side a north wind struck him, freezing his glasses to his head and nearly stealing his hat.

  When he got home, he was shivering. He hung his wool coat and fedora on the rack, took off his glasses, gloves and shoes, and went into the living room.

  Aino was sitting on the sofa correcting tests. She was wearing loose green sweats. The television was showing a programme about the everyday life of a family. The children screamed and refused to do what their parents told them. A psychologist gave them some advice. The children’s behaviour improved.

  Aino was surrounded by a teacup, an open packet of Marie biscuits, a half-eaten apple, three children’s books, a thick stack of test papers, a mark book, five pens, a packet of tissues, a bottle of lotion, wool socks, a phone, a wrapped present and a lot of biscuit crumbs.

  Olli sat in a chair next to the television and looked at his wife benevolently.

  Aino picked up the wrapped package, smiled, and handed it to him. “I almost forgot, because I had to put Lauri straight in the bath after dinner. Everything he had on had to go in the laundry. Plus I had to clean the kitchen floor—it was covered in crud. Luckily it’s plastic. Anyway, happy anniversary.”

  Olli thanked her and started to open the package.

  Aino turned down the sound on the television and watched his expression. “I don’t know if you’ll like it,” she said. “I was walking by the shopping centre today before I went to pick up Lauri and I remembered our anniversary and I thought I should buy you something this year. I’m usually so busy that I don’t have a moment to get to the shops so you have to go without any present…”

  Obviously a book, Olli thought.

  He was touched that Aino had bought him a book, but he braced himself for disappointment. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She didn’t really know his taste in books, didn’t really know literature in general. For a teacher, she was surprisingly indifferent to the arts, or to anything cultural. She preferred kitsch of all sorts, and carried around a Hello Kitty pencil box without the slightest irony.

  “Happy anniversary,�
�� she said again.

  The wrapping paper fell to the floor. There was a picture of a pear on the cover of the book.

  “Since you’ve been going to the film club, I thought… It came out last summer and I heard that the first printing was sold out by Christmas. But it’s in the shops again now. They’ve got a huge marketing campaign for it. Big best-seller. There was an ad for it on television yesterday and I thought you might like it…”

  Over the top of the pear was the title: A Guide to the Cinematic Life. The author’s name was Greta Kara. Olli opened the book. Aino had written across the title page in her familiar scrawl For Olli from Aino on our anniversary.

  “I do like it,” Olli said, happily surprised. He hugged his wife, who let out a chuckle and started watching the television again. Olli turned to the first page, which had a dedication:

  For the love of my life, from the girl in the pear-print dress!

  2

  ON THURSDAY OLLI was on the phone making arrangements for the book fair. Outside the window the old park was covered in snow. Inside was work that kept accumulating on desktops and computer screens. The work they already had was still for the most part unfinished. Olli could only spare an hour for working late today because he had a parish-council meeting at six o’clock.

  At 5.55 he tore himself away from publishing and hurried to the parish house, just a few streets away. He stopped at the entrance and opened and closed his umbrella three times quickly to shake off the snow.

  The swishing shadows made him think of a dream he’d had when he was elected to the parish council:

  He’s on his way into a meeting on a summer evening when he sees an angel ascending from the parish house roof into the air. Its wingbeats are so powerful that for a second the air is filled with feathers. The angel flies towards the Ridge and lands halfway up the Harju Steps, then points to its feet and gives Olli such a meaningful look that it frightens him, and he wakes up.