But the shadow is Aino. She rises to the surface and shakes the water from her hair. When she smiles, a gentle light radiates from her face.
Aino places a blue toy boat in Olli’s hands and whispers, “Look what I found, darling. Don’t let the mermaids take it away again. I had to make a dear sacrifice to St Anthony to get it back. But I have to go now. Our little boy is waiting all alone at the bottom of the sea.”
Olli tries to take hold of his wife’s hand, but she’s already gone.
Four days later, Greta sent another message. It seemed her writing wasn’t going well.
I’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors. The streets of Paris are filled with advertisements for my book. Yesterday I was walking on the Champs-Élysées and I saw five of them. People everywhere are reading it. I was in a cafe and a whole group of people at another table were in a heated discussion about it. They took the book’s ideas very seriously, which is flattering, of course. They were all dressed cinematically and striving in general for a deep cinematic self—you could tell from their conversation. The magazines here are filled with articles about how to cinematicize your life. It’s the newest fashion, a lifestyle that even has its own designated clubs now. I went to one yesterday. It had a rather strange, but exciting, atmosphere. I’m really happy that no one recognizes me from my author photos—otherwise I would never be left in peace.
A Guide to the Cinematic Life, in other words, is selling amazingly well. I sent the first pages of my new book to my Finnish publisher. They didn’t like them and suggested changes. I don’t quite know what to think. It’s depressing.
Olli offered Greta the same fatherly advice he gave to his own authors when they lost their inspiration. Of course, this time he knew that it was more pastoral counselling than genuine practical guidance.
But he left it in the message. He thought for a moment, then started to answer the questions she had asked in her first message. Yes, he was married. They had a child, and a joint mortgage.
What should he say about Book Tower? They published mostly children’s books but also some popular non-fiction, the kinds of things people bought as gifts, and read themselves.
Olli furrowed his brow and rubbed his chin. He sounded sterile and distant. He should write a bit more openly, more personally. They were old friends, after all.
As far as the children’s books go, at the moment we have a bit of an oversupply and are actually trying to get rid of the most tired book series, and their authors, but we’re always looking for interesting non-fiction to add to our list, so that we can keep afloat as a mid-sized publisher. That’s actually the most worrisome item in my work life right now.
Olli read the last few lines several times.
He hoped they didn’t give the impression that he was trying to persuade a successful author to change houses…
He tapped on his desk, tasted the words, squinted and decided to delete the last sentence, to avoid any misunderstanding.
But his hand slipped, and a mischievous finger hit the mouse button, and the message escaped without revision.
8
TWO WEEKS LATER, Olli gathered the staff in the conference room. He filled his lungs with the venerable ambience and announced that, if all went according to plan, Greta Kara’s next book would be published the following autumn by Book Tower Publishing. He added that the contract wasn’t yet signed, so Antero shouldn’t start issuing press releases just yet, but they would definitely be putting a contract together as soon as possible so that everything was settled and the marketing rumba could be set in motion.
There followed five seconds of silence, analysis of his facial expression, searching for any possibility of irony or misunderstanding.
The applause lasted so long that Olli eventually had to cut it off.
Later that day Maiju appeared at Olli’s office door, perfumed and coiffed. She was wearing a white summer dress that showed off her long legs. Her fingernails were long now, and painted bright red. Her hair looked lighter.
“Don’t you ever say goodnight?” she cooed, in English.
It took Olli by surprise.
“Hello?! Veronica Lake?” Maiju said huffily. “The Blue Dahlia? According to The Cinematic Life, Joyce Harwood is a character I can use to get in touch with my deep cinematic self…”
“Right. Was there something you wanted?”
“It’s about Greta Kara’s book… Who’s going to edit it?”
“I am,” Olli answered.
He was at that moment writing an email to the book-fair organizer. There was going to be plenty of work to do in Frankfurt. It wouldn’t be easy to stand out from seventeen thousand other exhibitors from a hundred different countries. “Greta specifically requested it,” he added. “We’re old acquaintances, you see.”
Maiju was speechless. “What kind of book is it exactly?” she finally said. Olli could see that she would have asked for more information about her boss’s relationship with the famous author if she’d only dared.
Olli stopped writing, leant back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. “Hopefully a book as successful as her first one,” he said. “If it’s money you’re thinking about. It’s going to be a sort of city guidebook. We’re actually talking about doing a series of guidebooks. One for each city. At some point they could also be combined in one volume, once the concept is worked out.”
Maiju gnawed at a fingernail. A deep groove appeared between her brows.
“OK. A city guide. I don’t mean to be a drag, but hasn’t that already been done to death? What does Greta Kara have to add to the guidebook market?”
“Well,” Olli said, stretching. “The plan is to continue the filmic angle from her first book and adapt it to different cities of the world, large and small. That’s how Greta described it. Have you read the part in Cinematic Life where she talks about the different degrees of cinematicness in different locations and how to judge them? It’s a fun sort of mind game that was left a bit undeveloped, but it still has lots of potential. That’s going to be the starting point for the guidebooks. Instead of discussing the usual city sights, she’ll present the cinematic places, the kinds of places that haven’t been much written about, places people usually don’t know to look for. Magical, out-of-the-ordinary places where the atmosphere is especially concentrated, where life feels more meaningful. Greta and I have a working title of Magical City Guides, or Magical Travel Guides.”
He could see the gears turning in Maiju’s blonde head. “OK,” she said slowly, her eyes glassy, her tongue clicking. Her face took on an expression that had a touch of pure sexual arousal in it. “Magical City Guides… It sounds unusual. Unusual in a sellable way. I can imagine buying a book like that for myself. And I would certainly buy it as a gift for someone who was planning to go to that place. Nice work, Olli. What cities will be covered? I suppose she’ll start with Paris? There’s hardly a place more magical than that. Or Rome?”
Olli shook his head. “Actually no,” he said. “The first city she wants to cover is Jyväskylä, and its magical places.”
Olli’s announcement had been preceded by a two-week correspondence that was like two cats dancing around a hot bowl of oatmeal.
Greta had revealed that her publisher wasn’t warming up to the idea of writing the first magical city guide about Jyväskylä, even if it was the place where she’d spent the first seventeen years of her life, and was thus important to her.
They tried to talk me into choosing Helsinki, or even Tampere, if the capital didn’t inspire me for some reason. And the French publisher got even more nervous when he heard what it was I was writing. He promised that I could keep my room and my piano and my view of the Eiffel Tower for another year as long as I focus on large European cities as soon as I finished the book on Jyväskylä. It seems the potential magic of Jyväskylä is only of interest to Jyväskyläns. As far as France is concerned, Jyväskylä doesn’t exist.
Olli answered that publishers, of course, ha
ve their own interests, and it was understandable that a publisher in Helsinki or Paris wouldn’t share her interest in a small town in central Finland.
You’re in a strong position at present because your first book is bringing in money. As a publisher myself, I understand your publisher, but don’t make any compromises that don’t feel right to you.
Greta responded:
The easiest, safest thing would probably be to give in to all their demands and forget my own whims and be a good girl and continue working with my present higher-ups. But you understand me better than anyone else in the world. You know that I’m loyal above all to my feelings and whims—what else does a person have! It’s wonderful that you support me! Hopefully I won’t burden you too much with my problems. You’ve got heaps of your own urgent publishing matters, especially now that you’ve got to find yourself some new non-fiction.
The next four messages dealt with everyday trivialities. Olli described his activities in the parish council and the publishing house, and briefly talked about his home, family and Sunday walks. He mentioned that he belonged to a film club and for that reason particularly enjoyed Greta’s book, which he was reading as his schedule permitted, and sometimes on the sly during busy workdays. Greta, for her part, had described her own walks in Paris and reminisced about her time in Jyväskylä.
What I’ve been thinking about writing is mostly based on what I remember from twenty years ago. The old Tourula neighbourhood isn’t there any more, and many places must have changed. It’s clear that sooner or later I’ll have to get to know Jyväskylä again and update my knowledge for the book.
Immediately after this came the pivotal message:
Olli, I just had the craziest idea! Or actually a really brilliant idea! How could I not have thought of it earlier?… What would you say if I offered my next book to your publishing house?
9
YOU LOSE FEWER UMBRELLAS in rainy weather, because you need your umbrella all the time. In June it rained constantly, so Olli only lost one, although it was one that had served him well for a long time.
It happened at Sokos department store. He had the umbrella under his arm, bought three shirts on the second floor, went downstairs with his shopping bag in his hand and walked through the cosmetics department, where pale sales assistants catered to customers amid clouds of perfume.
As he stepped out onto Kauppakatu he realized that he no longer had his starry-sky umbrella with him.
He went back inside and asked about the umbrella at the men’s clothing department. The assistant looked under the counter and called someone. Then she said that unfortunately no umbrella had been found but if it was they would certainly call him.
Olli knew that no call would come. Missing umbrellas stay missing. He thanked the clerk and went to buy a new one. That night he dreamt that he went back to the store to look for it.
He peers between the shelves, enquires with the staff, eventually is crawling around on the floor. He has to find the umbrella. It’s important. It must be here somewhere. He just has to look everywhere.
All around him are women’s legs—thick, thin, bare, covered in stockings. The women are walking around him with their skirts rustling. They smell good. Each one has her own smell. No smell of sweat, just flowery scents, enchanting perfumes that can make a man forget his purpose if he’s not careful.
The women cast suspicious glances at him. Some wonder aloud at the gentleman from the parish council creeping around on the floor, looking up parishioners’ dresses to peek at their underwear. A high heel treads on his hand. There are angry hisses. He feels a kick to his backside. The women start to talk all at once about how degrading this must be for such a fine gentleman, speaking with mock sympathy, giggling. A family man, crawling on the floor looking for an old umbrella. Can you imagine…
Their teasing voices press down on him. There are several among them that he’s thought of as his friends, but he knows the rules: if he wants to find the umbrella he has to debase himself and take whatever comes.
The scents grow strong, burning. Olli starts to feel faint. The flowery smells muddle his mind. It’s hard to think, to remember, to act. He falls on his side, panting, can’t make out his surroundings. Did he just come down the escalator? Did he already look here or not? What floor is he on? It’s hard to see very far. The air is thick with clouds of perfume vapour and dark, flitting figures.
Then Olli sees, to his delight, the umbrella, on the floor in front of him. As he reaches to take hold of it a cocker spaniel appears out of the mist, snatches up the umbrella and runs away. Olli yells after it, but the dog doesn’t listen.
He sits up, frightened. He’s lost in the cosmetics department.
From somewhere far away he hears someone humming. A woman’s voice. Beautiful, positively lilting. Gradually the hum turns into singing. Olli knows that he has to leave, to get as far away from here as he can.
So he’s going to leave.
In just a minute.
But first he wants to hear the singing just a little longer. He can’t make out the words, but he understands that the song is speaking to his spirit, asking him to stay a little longer, forever, to forget everything else. Now there are many singers. The song is alive and changing all the time and it holds his attention so that he won’t notice the quick, rustling footsteps approaching through the clouds of perfume.
Then it grows quiet and Olli realizes the danger too late, and tries to get away.
But the saleswomen are already upon him. They look at him, smile ingratiatingly and whisper, Hello. How may I help you?
Olli tries to smile.
It would be so easy to fall for the sweet-smelling, carefully made-up women’s faces, their hair, their breasts, to surrender to their services, just for a little while at first, and then forever. The only problem is that they seem to be part bird.
From under their fashionable skirts sharp-clawed bird’s feet protrude, and although they’re trying to hide the truth of their nature, Olli can see that they also have folded wings with slashing talons.
Every town has its own styles of businesses. There are large department stores, little speciality shops and market halls. Every place has its own unique atmosphere. In Paris’s famous Lafayette department store, for example, one encounters refinement, history and decay—the ancient floors of the building slope and sway, making the shelves look as if they might fall over at any moment, although they’ve stood in the same spot for decades. It’s a place with an enchanting, dreamlike magic, in all its frightfulness, a wonderful place for cinematic encounters.
Jyväskylä’s analogue to the Lafayette is the Sokos department store, opened in 1962, which is not particularly historic as architecture, nor is it aesthetically dilapidated. But its magic is perceptible, particularly at the cosmetics counter, which has been tended for many years by saleswomen slender as birds who are charming but by all accounts chillingly cool when they are at their worst, and who have in years past been famous for their choosiness about their customers—many a simply dressed girl has not failed to notice that she doesn’t receive the same level of service as wealthy ladies in furs.
The cosmetics department is filled with clouds of perfume that, combined with the well-groomed beauty of the saleswomen and the unreal atmosphere created by the lighting, can muddle the head of a man who happens to wander through. The Sokos cosmetics counter is its own sort of urban island of sirens, frightening in its magic, alluring and apt to elicit all sorts of desires.
GRETA KARA,
Magical City Guide Number One: Jyväskylä
The weather was rainy, but the sun was shining at Book Tower Publishing. Seija usually searched her account books for signs of catastrophe and chewed on her grey tresses, the others watching her the way seafarers watch a barometer. But now she was glowing. The whole staff thought that Greta Kara’s next book would improve their finances and raise the company’s profile, so the mood in the place had considerably improved.
Th
e Suominens continued their Sunday walks.
Olli took pictures of their walks and sent them for developing. He didn’t have to fight with Aino about the photos any more. They had come to an understanding: Olli chose the rare photos that he judged successful, in technical terms and in atmosphere, for the family album, and Aino put the rest in albums she bought at the discount store.
In a couple of weeks, she had filled four albums. Olli’s expensive, leather-bound, exclusive album, on the other hand, had only five pages full.
The summer break started at the beginning of June, so Aino was on holiday and had started dreaming of travel again. Olli didn’t know when he would have time for a break. He spoke tentatively of sometime in July or August. Aino grew resentful and reminded him that he had promised two years ago to take a long holiday and he’d said that the whole family could have a two-week trip to some golden beach. Olli assured her he would keep his promise, but perhaps not this summer, because he had so much work to do at the office.
Aino punished him by leafing through travel brochures and sighing audibly.
Because no such trip was in the offing and Olli couldn’t get away from work, Aino invented ways to pass the days pleasantly with her son.
Every day when Olli came home from work, he saw Aino and the boy picnicking among the berry bushes in the garden. They read children’s books, drank juice and binged on Marie biscuits. If it was raining, they would build a fort for shelter. Every day, Olli was invited to join them. The idea was attractive, in principle, and he could have taken some nice photos of such an activity, but once he had changed clothes he preferred to throw himself on the sofa for a nap and then relax in his office with Facebook.
Secret Passages in a Hillside Town Page 5
