Secret Passages in a Hillside Town

by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen

  His deep self nods approval and makes some additional adjustments to his mental state.

  They’ve been meeting almost every day for three weeks now. The fourth day was the only one when he wasn’t given any orders except to rest for a while and wait. On every other day the Blomrooses have informed Olli which magical place Greta will be visiting and when, and Olli has sought her out according to their instructions.

  Their relationship has remained relatively chaste, limited to kisses exchanged under his umbrella in various places around the city. Once, however, at the front gate of the paper mill, Greta’s hand grazed the front of his trousers as if by accident, and she smiled, mischievously at first, then blushing. Every time they parted, they went their own ways without planning or promising anything, Greta to her unknown lodgings and Olli, as far as Greta knew, home to his family.

  Coming home to an empty house has become more difficult each time.

  Greta no doubt believes that these frequent encounters are due to their spiritual connection, that Olli’s ability to find where she is comes from some kind of romantic intuition. This, of course, makes the whole thing that much more magical in her eyes. Or maybe she’s only pretending to believe that they have some larger connection between them because of their magical cinematicness, and she secretly assumes that Olli has her under some sort of surveillance. You see darling, once a thing is done and there’s nothing I can do about it any more, if I’m offered a pleasant lie about it or a depressing truth, I’ll take the lie.

  Whatever the case, when he can’t reveal the truth about the Blomrooses’ messages, or his family, or anything else, Olli has the paradoxical feeling of being betrayed himself.

  And there are quite a few things that he would like to tell Greta, not to mention questions he would like to ask her. For instance, he’s mystified at how the Blomrooses are able to know a day ahead of time where she’ll go, and at what time.

  The most logical explanation is that she’s working with the Blomrooses. But Olli doesn’t believe that. Because he can see in her eyes that she would never conspire against him. And besides, Greta hates and fears the Blomrooses after what they did to her.

  Another thing that Olli hasn’t asked her about is where in Jyväskylä she’s staying. He has the impression that it’s not a hotel but a house somewhere north of the city centre.

  Each cinematic encounter is a complex dance of expressions, gestures, words, intentions, cues, sensations, actions and retreats, the Guide to the Cinematic Life says. And indeed, in the present situation certain things feel natural to say or do while others break the rhythm and flatten the mood. They’re like errors that the two of them, caught up in the cinematic moment, instinctively avoid to the very last. It’s remarkably difficult to ask questions if they don’t seem to belong in the built-in script of an encounter.

  When they’ve emptied their glasses of raspberry soda, Olli and Greta walk down the stairs that lead to Lounais Park. They find a bench sheltered by shrubbery and sit down to watch the children ride around on the carousel. The sky has gone grey. It’s drizzling. A bus drives by on the street below, its chassis rattling over the cobblestones.

  Greta lights a cigarette.

  Olli opens his black umbrella, which is large enough to cover them both. It’s the Chantal Thomass design dome umbrella, direct from France. He picked it up the day before when Maura called to tell him that his order had arrived. Greta looks at the umbrella in surprise and starts to reminisce, smiling dreamily, about the summer they shared thirty years ago.

  She knows how to choose her words skilfully. Her talk brings the past closer, close enough to touch the present, like the hand of a beloved. The years that have grown up between them gradually fade until they lose their meaning completely.

  His consciousness saturated with M-particles, Olli closes his eyes to listen to the waves of Greta’s words and the rhythm of raindrops on the umbrella.

  33

  AS OLLI’S EIGHTH and last summer holiday in Tourula is coming to an end, it’s obvious to all of them that the Tourula Five are no more.

  The tart smell of autumn rises from deep in the earth and birds gather in restless flocks. It’s been raining all summer. Little by little the rain is wearing the green landscape down to shades of brown, and Olli, Anne, Riku and Leo look at each other as if they were strangers. The Five have spent the whole summer without Karri, who disappeared into the secret passages the summer before.

  They don’t go into the secret passages any more; without Karri they don’t even know how to find them. Their memories of the passageways are fading, too, like long-ago dreams.

  The Blomrooses have been hanging around Aunt Anna’s house and Olli has gone to see them, but even their best visits have been pitiful attempts to recapture something that no longer exists. Even Aunt Anna’s treats have lost their flavour, and Anna herself is nervous and strangely brusque now, and she’s often drunk.

  They’ve tried to go on picnics like they used to, but without their expeditions in the secret passages their outings wither to listless wanderings and the heavy rains drive them back indoors. There’s not much to talk about and attempts at the old banter turn into arguments. Anne in particular needles the others; it’s especially hard for her to accept that Karri is gone. Riku throws tantrums, has fits of rage, breaks things—he jumped Olli once. Leo had to calm him down. Riku broke two fingers and Olli came away with a bloody nose.

  Leo’s usual firm patience is wearing thin, too, and his gloomy outbursts frighten the others. Once when Leo seemed particularly sullen, Anne blurted that he ought to find himself a woman, or at least go and jerk off. Leo turned pale and stood up. He had grown considerably since the previous summer and thickened up, and when he glared at Anne, a vein in his temple throbbing, she left the house.

  There are still those moments when everything feels like it used to be. At those times the remaining members of the Tourula Five look at each other with their eyes shining and the colours seem to brighten. But that happens less and less often, and the moments are slipping away from them faster than the mice that used to run away from Timi.

  Olli is shocked that the Blomrooses have started to seem ordinary to him, even unpleasant, just like his classmates in Koirakkala. They seem tired of his company, too. They don’t seem even to enjoy being with each other. Karri is gone, and with him the magic that they shared for so many summers.

  The Blomrooses have pilfered Aunt Anna’s cognac a few times and tried to medicate away the tedium. Olli didn’t want to touch the alcohol, at least not since the time that Anne, alone in the house, drank until she was so messed up that she was laughing like a lunatic, and broke the porcelain cat and the floor lamp, and ended up making a pass at Olli.

  “You’ve wanted this for a long time, Olli,” she purred, and took off her shirt. Her nipples shone through her white bra. Her fingers groped at his fly.

  It was true that Olli had dreamt of something like this at one time. But now Anne smelt disgusting—and Olli’s heart belonged to another. So he turned his back to her and said as kindly as he could that he wasn’t interested, and suggested in a fatherly way that she put her clothes on and have a cup of coffee and clean up after herself.

  She wouldn’t listen. She put his hand between her legs and promised that he could do whatever he wanted as long as he kept it to himself, promised she wouldn’t get pregnant.

  It scared him, and he jerked his hand away. It was wet and slippery and smelt weird.

  They stared at each other.

  Then she fell onto her hands and knees and started throwing up on the rug and Olli ran out of the house.

  The next day Anne was washing the rug in the yard and acting like nothing had happened. But since then she’s been colder towards him.

  That was two weeks ago. In three days Olli’s father will come to take him back to Koirakkala. The day after that school starts. Olli doesn’t want to think about that yet. He sits at the table drinking juice and eating pastries with L
eo, Riku and Anne. He’s come to say his goodbyes to Aunt Anna and the Blomrooses today so that he can spend the rest of his holidays with the girl in the pear-print dress.

  The clock ticks on the wall. Riku gobbles down one pastry after another. Anne sips from her coffee cup, her face tight. Leo is sunk in thought.

  Olli wants to leave but can’t bring himself to get up from the table. He should be polite.

  The house has been different since Karri went into the secret passages. The air is hard to breathe. There’s not enough light even with all the lights on. Aunt Anna doesn’t feel like taking care of the house or her summer guests any more. She just talks about how much she misses her son.

  The Blomrooses said a couple of days ago that they won’t be coming to Tourula for the summer next year. Anne is planning a beach holiday somewhere warm.

  Aunt Anna is standing at the sink. Her hands hang at her sides. She’s wearing her bright-yellow summer dress, but she looks grey. Her plumpness has thinned and shrivelled.

  “Oh how I miss that boy,” she sighs again. She’s slurring her words a bit from the cognac, although she tries to speak carefully. “One of the neighbours asked about Karri. I couldn’t even begin to explain it to them. I don’t understand myself what happened to my Karri.”

  Life returns to her a little as her temper flares. “Didn’t I do everything for him? I even took him to Paris so he could get out of this little town for a while and fill his head with the fresh air of Europe. We saw the Eiffel Tower. We went to the Moulin Rouge… You raise a child for a decade and a half to be a good boy and then all of a sudden you’ve got a flirty little girl in his place, a complete and utter stranger.”

  From upstairs comes the sound of a piano beginning to play. Olli doesn’t know very much about classical music but he knows that the piece is Chopin’s Prelude no. 16. He can’t help but admire the skilfulness of the playing.

  Aunt Anna sways a little and says, “I told the neighbours that my son moved to Sweden to live with his father, to make room for my sister’s daughter. I said that she came here from Helsinki when her mother’s arthritis got so bad that she had to move into a nursing home. They raised their eyebrows and said, ‘Oh, is that so. And a very pretty girl you got, too. Just like a little Goldilocks in a fairy tale.’”

  She thinks for a moment and adds, “Of course, Karri wasn’t perfect. I’m not saying he was. He was a moody, difficult child, and I never could tell what he was thinking. He never learnt to play the piano, either, in spite of all his lessons. But I’d still trade that silly, musical girl straight across for Karri if I could.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Anne mutters, her eyes glued to the table.

  The music has stopped now.

  There’s a squeak at the top of the stairs and everyone’s neck stiffens. Olli looks towards the landing, sees a flash of the pear-print dress, and his face flushes.

  Greta has avoided the Blomrooses ever since she arrived. She comes down to get something to eat when the others are outside, and when she’s at home she stays in her own room, where no one else feels like going any more. She slips in and out of the house without anyone noticing. When she’s not playing the piano it’s easy to forget she exists, which suits Aunt Anna and the Blomrooses fine.

  Olli and Greta have kept their meetings secret from everyone else. They’ve been thrown together a couple of times when Aunt Anna or the Blomrooses were around and smoothly pretended that they hardly noticed each other.

  Now Greta appears in the kitchen in her pear-print dress. Her golden hair is shining. Her green eyes glance at Olli shyly, as if seeking courage, then her chin lifts and her gaze sharpens. It moves around the room, stopping at each person for an excruciatingly long time. No one meets her eye. Anne turns pale and looks ill. Riku and Leo stiffen, as if waiting for a dog to attack.

  Aunt Anna can’t do anything but stare at the girl speechlessly.

  Greta puts a radiant smile on her face, walks across the kitchen, and stands at the window. She looks outside with her head high, humming a cheerful little tune.

  “The fact that you love me, Olli, makes me like myself, too,” she whispered yesterday as they lay side by side in their secret room. “You know, maybe I don’t want to be ashamed of myself any more.”

  “Do you think it will rain some more?” Greta wonders aloud, turning to look at them. She smiles innocently, defiantly. “I’ll bet we’re going to have a real downpour. Good. I like the rain.”

  Aunt Anna scratches her arm. The muscles of her face are working under the skin. Her cheeks redden. She bites her lower lip until a drop of blood drips down her chin. As if by agreement the Blomrooses get up from the table and march out. After a moment’s hesitation Olli follows, but tries to do so in such a way that his departure can’t be interpreted as a protest. Something wriggles in his belly. He has no way, and no desire, to interfere in what happens in that house. It’s a matter between a mother and child. He can meet Greta later, after dark.

  The Blomrooses are standing outside under the apple tree, speaking in whispers, their eyes red, their faces hard as stone. It’s starting to rain. Olli senses that they don’t want his company and leaves, heads for his grandparents’ house.

  The thought of his girl in the pear-print dress makes his skin tingle and moves the fluttering from his belly to his chest. When the rain starts to fall harder, he breaks into a run.

  34

  AT THE BOTTOM of the steep ravine flows the Touru River. The house is not far from the shore. There’s just a narrow strip of hilly land between, covered in meadow and leafy trees. There are secret passages there, too, if the atmosphere of the place is any indication.

  You can smell the river there, and particularly could back when the paper mill used to pour its waste water into the river. Aunt Anna’s house and the Blomrooses are many turns and junctions behind Olli now; he can relax. When there’s a real rain the rest of the world disappears on the other side of the roaring water. At those times, this is a good place to be.

  Olli and Greta always arrive separately, usually Greta first and Olli a little later. Once they’re sure that no one is watching, they go into the yard and slip inside the house.

  Until last winter the place was occupied by the old railwayman who got his bike back thanks to the Tourula Five. When the old man died, the house was left empty. The heirs to the place came and hauled away a truckload of his belongings, then left the rest, locked up the house and never came back.

  On the very first day of the school holidays Greta leads Olli to the place. It’s raining. They hide under their shared umbrella. Greta breaks a porch window, slips inside, opens the door and smiles slyly at him. Please come in, my darling. Welcome home. I’ve been expecting you. Did you have a nice day?

  The ground floor has a high ceiling. Daylight penetrates the room through large uncurtained windows and makes everything too bare, too defenceless, so the secret lovers can’t linger in the room for very long.

  No furniture. No carpet. On the wall is a painting of a steam engine that the heirs didn’t want for some reason. The dusty wood floor is strewn with magazines, empty bottles, books, dishes and rusty tools.

  When they come to the house for the first time, Olli picks up a pair of pliers, a frame saw and a bent gimlet, and says that as the new owner he ought to get started remodelling the place. Greta laughs.

  Don’t bother, she says, Tourula’s a dying neighbourhood. New buildings aren’t allowed and renovating old places is discouraged. The young people are moving away and the old people are staying in their dilapidated houses hoping that they’ll have time to finish living their lives before the city makes them leave. The gentry of Jyväskylä has plans for Tourula, and that includes destroying everything old.

  Olli drops the tools. The thought of destroying Tourula makes him sad.

  Greta comes to him and wraps her arms around his neck. Don’t worry, she whispers in his ear. Even if everyone else leaves, we’ll stay here forever.

&nb
sp; The stairs are just off the front entry. They lead to a room that has a ceramic stove, an old piano and a bed with covers. There are thick red curtains over the window. They filter the sunshine to softness, slow the passage of time, separate their time alone together from the world outside.

  They have walked together through the city, publicly, in broad daylight, like innocent friends. They’ve bought ice cream from the booth on Puistokatu, slipped into the Adams or the Maxim to see a movie, sat next to the blue-bottomed fountain in the old church park, chased the pigeons in the plaza. They always have the large umbrella Aunt Anna bought in France. In the shelter of its deep, pastel-green dome they can exchange kisses without anyone knowing.

  The rain is a good excuse to hide under the umbrella. It frees them to be lovers elsewhere as well, like here in this room.

  What they do in the upstairs room of the abandoned house is their own business.

  They talk a lot, of course. They plan their future. Daydream. In a few years we’ll go to Paris and rent a room on the banks of the Seine, they vow with a kiss. We’ll have coffee and cream tarts in little street cafes, drink red wine in the Latin Quarter, walk hand in hand down the Champs-Élysées, and climb up the Eiffel Tower and kiss at the top where the whole world can see us.

  But what about before that? The summer holiday is almost over and we’ll have to be apart…

  Of course we’ll see each other in the winter, too; we’ll arrange it somehow. You can come here, or I’ll go there. We’ll have weekends and holidays, after all. We’ll miss each other, sometimes terribly, but what is there to keep us apart? Nothing. Nothing at all. We’ll stay together, we’ll call each other, write each other letters, and then when we’re of age we’ll thumb our noses at the rest of the world and get married and have dozens of children…