His mother appeared in the living room doorway. She always seemed to be suffering and decrepit, and though there was nothing wrong with her physically, she had taken every available test at every hospital in the city. On the surface she was in tip-top shape: her blouse gleamed, it must have been of pure silk; she wore thick, golden rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists, so many pieces of jewellery that any sense of good taste was long gone.
‘These are for you,’ said Mikko as he handed her the bunch of roses. This time he had unwrapped the bouquet on the forecourt.
‘Dear me, I don’t know why you bring me these things. I’ll only come down with some reaction or other.’
‘Come on through,’ his father said. He was wearing a suit, a white shirt and tie. ‘Take your shoes off first.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Mikko muttered humbly, and he could hear his mother go into the kitchen, but couldn’t make out the sound of her opening the cupboard with the vases, nor could he hear the water running. Something was gnawing away at him. He remembered that whenever he had brought his parents signed copies of his books they had never so much as touched them, telling him instead to leave them on the table; and afterwards they never even mentioned them. He wondered whether they’d bothered to read them at all.
‘Sit,’ his father ordered, gesturing towards the sofa. Coffee had been laid out on the round Chippendale table, the same one that as children he and his sisters had been forbidden to touch so as not to smear it with fingerprints. Only Marja had dared to touch it in secret, and because their parents had never established which of them was the culprit a collective thrashing had followed. His mother appeared from the kitchen and sighed quietly. Mikko knew why too: to demonstrate what a nuisance his sudden arrival had caused.
‘You said there was something you wished to discuss,’ his father began. This too was more than familiar to Mikko; they never exchanged any kind of pleasantries, and although he had planned what he was going to say in advance, he was suddenly confused, lost; perhaps partly because he had never before thought to ask his parents for anything.
‘Well, I’m in a bit of trouble… It’s to do with Cecilia.’
‘Your father and I knew from the start that nothing would come of that marriage, but of course you wouldn’t listen.’
‘It did last eighteen years…’
‘Your father and I have been together for fifty happy years.’
‘Yes,’ he stammered. He wanted to say more but kept his thoughts to himself. You’ve been together for fifty years of hell, constant nagging and bickering; it’s a miracle your children are capable of having relationships with other people at all.
‘Have you still not been able to sort things out with that Cecilia of yours?’
‘This is about Matti actually. Sanna and her friend have moved to a flat in Vesala, so now Matti is going to move in with me.’
‘And how is that possible? As far as I understood it there were clear conditions regarding this in your settlement.’
‘Yes, but in real life not everyone follows those agreements…’
‘I always said that woman was greedy and malicious.’
‘It’s not about that… The fact is that I can’t live in a one room bedsit with another person and write at the same time.’
‘Write?’ said his mother incredulously. ‘You haven’t written a thing in seven years. I tell you, creativity and other such nonsense all comes to an end sooner or later. One day you’ll simply have to accept it.’
‘That’s right,’ his father croaked. ‘It’s the natural way of things, once you’ve fallen from the top it’s impossible to climb back up there.’
Mikko felt very awkward indeed, so much so that he could feel a churning at the bottom of his stomach, as though vomit were rising upwards, the acrid taste tickling the back of his throat. What an idiot, why did I come here, he thought. I still haven’t got to the point. Do you remember whipping me whenever we went to the countryside, Mother? First you would strip me naked and command me to bend over a chair, then you’d start whacking me with birch branches; first on the back of my legs, then on the front. The blows would get higher and higher, and you would only stop once you had struck my penis. Did it give you some kind of satisfaction?
‘I have to move to a larger apartment,’ he finally said out loud. ‘But the bank won’t give me a loan. I thought maybe… you might be able to…’
‘Stop right there!’ exclaimed his father, as if in shock, and raised both his hands in refusal. ‘Your mother and I are very clear about this and we will not mix family relations with financial matters. You are a grown man and you should know how to take care of your own affairs.’
‘Yes,’ Mikko uttered, staring down at his hands, for he simply could not look his parents in the eye, not now and not as a child. Do you remember how we struggled on the window ledge, Father? I hadn’t even started school and it was my duty to save you. If you tried it again I’d help you with a kick up the backside!
‘But are none of your rented flats empty at the moment?’ he stammered eventually.
‘Now listen here, your mother and I are both of the opinion that matters relating to our investments are of no concern to outsiders. Be that as it may, all of our apartments are currently occupied with decent, respectable tenants who pay their rent on time.’
‘Yes…’ he mumbled in such a way that it no longer meant anything. He was beyond taking offence at his father’s insinuation that his rent might go unpaid. He remained silent for a long moment, quietly sipping his lukewarm coffee. The matter had been dealt with and in his family there had never been any opportunity to argue the point.
‘I saw Marja a few weeks ago,’ he said finally, subdued, still staring down at his hands.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My sister, Marja.’
‘Mikko. We do not want to discuss her in this house. She has chosen her path and knows full well that it is an affront to us.’
You made the decisions for everyone in this family. No – you denied us the right to make our own decisions. For Marja it all started when you forced her to have an abortion and prevented her from marrying her boyfriend. If she had been able to choose her own path, she might have been the next Helene Schjerfbeck. Now she’s just a bag lady, hanging around Hakaniemi for all the layabouts to fuck. She won’t live much longer.
Again Mikko bit his tongue. Everything felt hopeless, immaterial. He replaced his cup on the saucer with exaggerated care.
‘Well,’ said his father to indicate that the discussion was now over, then glanced at his watch to check that they were still within the designated timetable. ‘It’s time for your mother’s appointment at the hairdresser’s. I suppose I’ll have to go to the market alone now, as we had to postpone our trip like this. What a shame you won’t join us for blinis.’
‘Try and get your life into some kind of order once and for all,’ his mother said, pained. ‘I doubt you’ll ever understand what a terrible disappointment it is that our children amounted to nothing.’
‘I see,’ he muttered, barely audibly.
I’m an internationally acclaimed author. And do you know what my earliest memory of childhood is - of life? I must have been only a few years old. I could walk up the steps one at a time holding on to the wall. Every night, Mother, you washed my penis so hard that it hurt, and once I started crying and said that I wanted to leave home… Do you remember what you did? You dressed me in nothing but a long-sleeved vest, left me sitting on the first floor, down in the stairwell, my bare bottom against the stone steps, and you said, ‘Suit yourself, you can leave if you want to’. It took me a long time to climb back up to the sixth floor, and when I got there the door was shut, of course. I looked at the letter-box and tried to rattle it because I couldn’t reach the bell. I couldn’t properly reach the letter-box either…
‘See you again, son. Be a man. We’ll be in touch.’
‘Letters…’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘We’ll be in touch.’
39. Travellers
All year Matti had been worried about going to school and he knew perfectly well that it was all because of the other boys. He was worried now too, but in a different way; perhaps more exhilarated than worried, and for many reasons. For a start there were the events of the previous day: he had got into a fight, he’d hit another person. He had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand there was the feeling that he had done something bad and that he himself was bad, a criminal almost; both his mother and the headmaster had shouted at him, and he was still unsure what would happen to him.
The other feeling was unfamiliar to him – he was almost proud. Perhaps proud was the wrong word. It was almost as though he had risen above Janne and his friends, and above all, he felt protected from them. On top of this, the pebble the priest had given him had worked; it was in his pocket now giving him strength, or at least the faith that he would be able to get through this day too.
This very moment is a step, my left foot on the ground. But it’s no longer the same moment, because now my right foot is on the ground. And whatever happens today, at this very moment I will be on my way home…
It was incredible, but at the same time it was true. He walked into the underpass, another moment; then he was halfway along the tunnel, another moment. A moment later he spotted Leena. It was impossible to mistake her, she was so much larger and sturdier than the others. What he didn’t understand was why she was there at all, because she usually took a much quicker, more direct route to school.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi. You’re better then?’
‘Yeah, I didn’t feel like coming to school yesterday,’ she replied. She seemed distant and stared at him oddly.
‘I know the feeling.’
‘I heard… I know what happened yesterday; Kati told me when I rang her about our homework.’
Matti didn’t respond. He didn’t dare look at Leena, he was too scared. She might think he was a little brat. They walked together silently for twenty metres or so. Cars rumbled past. Then Leena gave him a friendly knock on the shoulder and said, ‘Good for you!’
‘You think?’
‘Yes, I’m proud of you. Kati said everyone else is too. That sack of shit has been bullying other people too, you know.’
‘Really?’ he exclaimed. He stopped and looked at her. She was serious, her smile reaching right up to her eyes.
‘I was afraid of all sorts…’
‘I told you the priest was a guru, didn’t I! Come on, we’ll be late.’
They set off again with more of a spring in their step, but Leena’s curiosity soon got the better of her and she asked nonchalantly: ‘Your dad… Has he been in touch? I mean, has he said when you’re moving?’
‘He’s got to sort out the money first,’ he replied sullenly and looked at the ground. Then he remembered something, his expression became neutral again and a smile spread across his face; he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled something out.
‘Check this out!’
‘A phone! That’s great, where did you get it?’
‘Dad brought it round last night and left it with my mum.’
‘Your dad’s great! Give me your number. You remembered to ring and thank him, didn’t you?’
‘Well I can’t… yet.’
‘I think you ought to thank him.’
‘Yes, but it doesn’t work yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘It hasn’t got a SIM-card.’
Leena stopped and put her hands on her hips. ‘You mean he gave you a phone without a connection?’
‘Yes…’ Matti mumbled, and now the satisfaction he had felt a moment ago was gone and he felt oddly embarrassed, perhaps because his dad was so poor. ‘I don’t know. He and my mum aren’t really on speaking terms, she wouldn’t open the door when he came round. He left the stuff on the step and Mum picked it up later. Maybe someone nicked it…’
‘Yeah right! If a thief found all that stuff on the step they wouldn’t take the card and leave the phone. This can only mean one of two things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your dad’s really strapped for cash, that’s obvious… I doubt you’ll be moving just yet. Or maybe someone else took it…’
‘What?’
For a moment Leena didn’t say anything; she sighed heavily, as though something had upset her, and without looking at him she finally said: ‘You’ll figure it out soon enough.’
40. Realisation
‘Hmmph.’ Mikko felt his throat move, but he didn’t make a sound. It was almost like a whimper, after crying, but he hadn’t been crying, at least not that he had noticed. But in his mind he had been; once again he felt as if he had been thrashing about beneath the surface of the marsh, eyeless fish shouting all around him. His hands dangled beside him like a pair of dead bats.
Why had he gone there at all? And of his own free will! He had known exactly what would happen: they weren’t going to help him in the slightest. Perhaps he was imagining things, but he had felt as though his mother and father had in fact been pleased about his difficulties and his depression, as these things only strengthened their wishes: that in no way could he ever be good and successful. It seemed incredible that some parents wanted this for their children, but in his case it was the sad truth.
From his earliest memories, nothing he had ever done had been considered good or well done. ‘We should have known,’ they said, or ‘You know it’ll never amount to anything.’ As a child and a young man those were the two sentences he had heard most often. The third was ‘Shame on you!’ He remembered the first time he had managed to slide a maggot on to a hook by himself and had caught his first ever fish. Excitedly he had run to show his parents, his father had merely glanced over his shoulder and snorted: ‘It’s only a roach. Come and show us when you’ve caught a real fish.’ And when, after a year’s hard work in the woodwork class at school, he had produced a coat hanger – or at least something resembling a coat hanger – the following spring his mother had taken it to the cottage and used it to heat up the stove.
‘Damn it, damn it, damn it,’ he cursed to himself, wondering why all the humiliation of the past few decades was suddenly flooding back to his mind, though the reason for this was clear enough.
His parents’ message, which as a child he had accepted as the truth, was: ‘You do not deserve our love’. Behind this lay another message: ‘You are no good, and you have no place feeling good, because there is something wrong with you’. On one level he had tried to deal with these sentiments over the years in his diaries, but never in such a concrete way as now. He also realised that his current problems all stemmed from his past, even the fact that he was unable to write. In fact, it wasn’t so much a question of ability as not allowing himself to feel good, to reap what writing and being a writer meant to him, as this would have represented a defiance of the most important authority figures in his life – and that in turn was bad and shameful.
He trudged past Johanneksen Kirkko – it was in this church that he had been baptised and taken his first communion – and he was so immersed in the depths of his own wretchedness that he didn’t really notice the individuals around him; all he sensed was that he was walking in a throng of rushing people. A few times he almost bumped into someone walking the other direction. And then he felt it once again, that same awkwardness, as sharp and sudden as a pinprick: someone was staring at him! Or following him. He stopped and spun around: nothing but a crowd of people strolling past. He turned back, crossed the street and continued on his way, his steps somewhat calmer.
With each step his mind slowly began to relax. His thoughts returned to his meeting that morning; sitting there he had realised that throughout his whole life he had had entirely the wrong impression of himself. He had always thought that there was something wrong with him, that there was something inside him making him bad, preventing him from being good. He had written about t
his in his diaries, but now in some way it had become more real: his parents were the ones with the problem, his mother and father. Admitting this was still intolerably difficult, it felt almost blasphemous. Now it dawned on him that as a child he had denied himself the right to accept the painful truth: that his mother and father were wicked people. At the same time it dawned on him that had he not been able to suppress this thought, he would have been too afraid to live.
His parents lacked the fundamental ability to love – they couldn’t even love their own children. This alone went a long way towards explaining the brutality he and his sisters had experienced as children. One of his most terrifying memories was of when he had been out rowing with his mother and father, and for some reason they had started arguing in the middle of the open lake. His father had started rocking the boat from side to side, it started taking on water, and all the time he kept shouting: ‘I’ll drown us all!’ Mikko was so young he couldn’t even swim.
He remembered everything, and the thought made him suddenly nauseous, as if the coffee he had just drunk had turned bitter and was rising up in his throat. He leant up against the wall of a house; he rested on the window ledge, staring vacantly at his hands and feet, repeating to himself like a mantra: ‘There is nothing wrong with me.’
41. Solution
‘Eupatorus gracilioprnis!’ he exclaimed to himself, for now a terrific excitement grew within him. It felt as though a hot summer’s day were sweltering inside him, like a storm brewing. It was the same feeling he always experienced just before Maammo appeared to him. And now that he was surrounded by people, and not deep underground in Maammo’s temple, he felt a burning need to preach to them, to proclaim the Coming of the Truth. Still he managed to control his excitement, for he could still see Mikko Matias and did not want to reveal himself so soon.
‘Ea lesum!’
How well he had succeeded in solving the problem at hand! This was not just any solution; this bordered on genius itself. For, in this new way, in conducting this sacrifice he need not usurp the authority vested in him. Indeed, he would be able to carry out an act of such grace that he would live on as part of Maammo for billions of years, wandering from one Big Bang to the next. And what could be more magnificent: with this act he would defeat the heathen God!
TH02 - The Priest of Evil Page 17
