TH02 - The Priest of Evil

by Matti Joensuu

  His hand had also been a hindrance in making his final preparations and in putting the bomb together. It had impaired him so much that he had had to start again many times and adjust the various settings, but there it finally was in the rucksack on his back. The clock was not yet ticking, but it would start the moment he pressed the battery into place, and after that only an hour would be left until the final BOOM! He could only imagine how the nails and bolts and pieces of metal would be cast in a great cloud in all directions, and how they would tear the infidels to pieces; their blood, their flesh and their splintered bones whirling in a wild, red storm.

  He had already decided upon the place of the sacrifice. It was appropriate in many ways, a temple of material greed, awash with people, and what’s more its structure was open, a grand hall, allowing the force of the blast to move freely upwards, right up to the top floor. There was even a glass ceiling and he was certain that it would collapse, shattering into millions of razor-sharp shards that would shower down upon the heads of the infidels who had been spared from the initial blast.

  ‘Ea lesum!’ he uttered, for something told him that the boy might be on his way after all. He did not know how he knew this; perhaps it was the pigeon that hopped out of his way on the path through the park, its head jutting back and forth. His mind was made up: he would start the clock. Let it be a test: it would force the boy to come to him. And if the boy did not come, he would once again demonstrate his bravery and his devotion to Maammo by stopping the clock only half a minute before detonation.

  He stopped by a park bench, removed the bag from his back, placed it on the bench beside him and, somewhat hindered by his hand, began untying the cords. And although those stalking him thought that by fortifying the underground with cameras they could prevent him from reaching Maammo’s sacred temples and his home, they were mistaken. In the centre of town he could make his way underground at five different points, through unmarked, almost invisible grey doors in the foundations of buildings; although in fact he had only managed to deactivate the alarms on two of them, using aluminium foil so that they appeared to be shut even as he slipped in and out of them. The only true hindrance was that he now had to walk much farther. He finally managed to open the rucksack and picked up the clock. He had replaced the glass at the front so that the hands would not accidentally snag on anything inside. He placed his thumb upon the battery and pressed. First came a click, then the regular tick as the clock was set in motion.

  ‘Cum sabateum!’ he murmured, like a blessing. ‘Come my boy, come to me!’

  54. Pizza Outing

  ‘I’m only now beginning to realise quite how terrible it would have been,’ said Matti, and now he meant it, for at first he hadn’t fully understood the seriousness of the matter. ‘I would have been stuck with Mum and Roo, and they would probably have sent me to a foster home.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’ Leena asked, but avoided his gaze. She was behaving oddly, as if she were nervous or felt guilty about something. They were sitting on the underground train rattling its way towards the centre of town, and this time they had even bought tickets – Matti had insisted.

  ‘He’s OK, I suppose. He knocked his knee quite badly.’

  ‘I meant how’s he dealing with it?’

  ‘He’s good at hiding things, but he didn’t seem in shock or anything.’

  ‘Terrible that someone would do something like that,’ said Leena, staring ahead strangely as though she couldn’t see a thing.

  ‘It was only last week someone got themselves killed at Hakaniemi.’

  ‘What made you decide to go and see him now?’ she asked, quickly changing the subject. ‘The priest, I mean?’

  ‘It’s just a strange feeling, I feel like I need to see him. I suppose I ought to thank him for healing me. Somehow… I thought he might be able to take care of Dad.’

  ‘I’m sorry… Maybe he isn’t a priest after all. And I don’t know whether he’s all that good either.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just a hunch,’ she said and turned to look out of the window. She started chewing the nail on her little finger, and for a long moment neither of them said a word.

  ‘Haven’t you figured out the whole SIM-card thing yet?’ Leena asked finally, though she still didn’t seem like her old self.

  ‘What about it? She said she thought it was a CD.’

  ‘Oh come on, Matti, don’t be so gullible. She sells the exact same cards at work. She knew what it was all right. She was probably going to sell it off at half-price to some customer, and pocket the money herself.’

  ‘Really,’ Matti replied slowly. At first he was ashamed that his mother could be so conniving. Gradually he began to feel happier than ever that his father hadn’t been killed in the underground accident.

  At the same moment he realised how painful it was waiting to move in with his father, and how he wished it would happen soon – that same day even. Only then did he remember the terrible fact that there had never been any discussion of him moving whatsoever. He had made it all up, and he had lied to Leena so much that for some reason he too was now beginning to believe it was all true. He let out a long, deep sigh and wondered whether to own up to everything once and for all.

  ‘Leena, listen,’ he said and took her hand, but his lips suddenly began to tremble and he couldn’t bring himself to tell her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just that I’m really glad Dad didn’t die.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t be? But will you promise me something? When we meet him – the priest.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘If you could make yourself scarce for a minute; I’ve got something personal I need to give him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. There’s just something I want to ask him.’

  ‘OK.’

  They fell silent again, each focussing on their own secrets. The train pulled into Hakaniemi. It was rush hour and people were flooding out into the shopping centres, heading back to their homes.

  ‘You realise…?’ said Leena. They were still holding each other by the hand, but now Matti no longer found it embarrassing. ‘We haven’t checked any of the other stations in case he’s there.’

  ‘Of course not, because he’ll be at the Railway Station.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can feel it. Or he might be somewhere outside the station.’

  ‘Does it feel like he’s calling you? You know, like by some weird telepathy or in some spiritual way?’

  ‘Well, now that you ask… It’s just, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him all day.’

  ‘That’s it, that’s exactly what happened to me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. OK, let’s do a test – just for fun. Shut your eyes and concentrate really hard. Now guess exactly where we’re going to find him.’

  Matti closed his eyes. He couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary; nothing happened that might have meant someone was sending him thoughts. On the spur of the moment, just to please Leena, he said: ‘He’s outside on the square by the Railway Station, down there where the buses leave.’

  ‘Are you sure? You didn’t just make that up?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘Well, good. It’s just that I’ve never seen him anywhere other than the Railway Station or in the underground.’

  ‘We’ll soon see, we’ve just gone past Kaisaniemi.’

  They ascended the slowly jolting escalator at the Railway Station in perfect silence, a silence held tight by something almost magical. They didn’t dare look at one another, though as if by accident their fingers gently touched each other on the black moving handrail. They both looked around, and Matti expected to see the priest at any moment. The decision to meet the priest seemed suddenly wrong, as though if he were caught a terrible punishment would ensue.

  ‘Leena,’ he whispered as they arrived at the level with the compass. ‘I’m not sure I want
to see him after all.’

  ‘You’re not?’ said Leena, stopping in her tracks. They were standing in people’s way, right in the middle of the crowds coming up from the train, passengers barging into them on all sides, forcing them to move upwards with the mass.

  ‘I don’t know either,’ she whispered finally. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this, like an omen…’

  ‘Maybe we should just go back?’

  Leena bit her lip for a moment; they could already here the station announcements echoing through the vast hall.

  ‘No,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘Let’s go and see if he’s there; if you guessed right. Then we can just go home, we don’t need to go and talk to him.’

  ‘OK, but we will leave, won’t we? I can feel something in my stomach…’

  They walked through the underground hall, weaving their way in between the groups of people, loitering first beside the numerous kiosks, then the toilets. The main door was only some twenty metres away, and a gust of wind caught them as people walked in and out. They stepped outside and stood beneath the massive stone pillars, staring out across the street and down to where the buses departed. There were dozens of people, hundreds maybe, making it impossible to distinguish anyone in the crowd.

  ‘I was wrong. He’s not here. Let’s go.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Do you see that man down by the taxi rank?’

  ‘Good afternoon, children,’ came a voice from behind them, and they both recognised it instantly, though it wasn’t as tense as normal – it was almost gentle. They spun around: the priest was standing behind them. This time he looked somehow different; instead of his normal jacket he was wearing a raincoat that reached almost down to his knees, and a baseball cap pulled so far down that it hid his face almost entirely.

  ‘Where are your glasses?’ asked Leena; it came out rather stupidly, but the priest didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘At the optician’s,’ he replied with a smile, then his voice turned suddenly sharper. ‘Did I invite you too, my girl?’

  ‘No… but… Matti called me and asked me to come along.’

  ‘Is that so, Matti?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have something to tell me?’

  ‘Yes, thanks a lot. The stone worked great.’

  ‘Why, think nothing of it. As a matter of fact, I have something to tell you too. I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell both of you, seeing as things have turned out this way.’

  When the priest looked Matti in the eyes, so closely, he was overcome by a strange sense of helplessness, as though he had just been sick. He also felt that he could no longer leave, even if he’d wanted to, but that now he had to obey the priest. He glanced at Leena, and she too seemed a little confused. In an incredible way, it felt as though they were the only people in the world, as though the sea of people around them had suddenly disappeared.

  ‘Do you children like pizza?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes… Especially ones with garlic.’

  ‘I see,’ said the priest, removing his hand from the pocket of his raincoat. In his fingers was a crumpled bank note; judging by the colour it must have been at least a hundred euros. ‘I shall buy you any pizza you want. And then I will join you later. First I must take care of another appointment.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘I insist,’ he said and handed the note to Matti; sure enough, it was a hundred euros. ‘You know the Forum shopping centre?’

  ‘Yes, we know where it is.’

  ‘Down in the basement there are many different kinds of restaurants. Choose your pizzas, then go and sit at the table nearest to the small pool and the stone pillars.’

  ‘I’ve eaten there before.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice. But I do expect a favour in return. In fact, it is no real favour. It is more a test of your maturity.’

  The priest slipped his hands beneath the straps on his shoulders and removed a large rucksack from his back. It was a perfectly normal rucksack; black, the kind almost everyone took to school. Matti could see that it was rather heavy.

  ‘Matti, put this on your back. And although it may be heavy, do not once take it off. It contains something very precious to me. It is also a symbol of life’s burden. If you can bear the weight of this rucksack, you shall be able to carry on fearless for the rest of your life.’

  ‘It is very heavy,’ said Matti, shrugging the rucksack on to his shoulders.

  ‘As for you, my girl, you must support Matti the way a wife supports her husband. And if you succeed in this, you will succeed in everything you do for the rest of your life. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘You must wait for me there until I arrive, then we will have ice cream for dessert. And remember: you must not open the rucksack. For if you do you will tarnish and sully that which life shall bring you.’

  ‘We won’t open it.’

  ‘No. And I won’t take it off.’

  ‘And when I return, each of you shall receive something else as a reward…’

  ‘More of those vibes?’

  ‘Yes. Sublime, incredible vibes.’

  The priest performed a series of strange hand signals in front of them while muttering something almost inaudibly. It was as if he were blessing them, and in a terrifying way it all resembled a funeral. Matti could already feel the straps of the rucksack chafing against his shoulder blades, but decided that he would be able to cope. Leena groped for his hand and her fingers were sweaty with excitement. He allowed her to take his hand; the moment was strangely solemn.

  ‘Ea lesum cum sabateum! Mamolae sub extriensa!’ the priest said finally, waving his hand in a circle above their heads. ‘Now – go!’

  He hastened them towards the grand doors of the station and they understood that they should go immediately. As they were about to walk through the door Matti glanced over his shoulder. The priest was not following them, he trusted them. And just as the doors swung shut behind them he thought he could see the priest turning and walking down the stone steps, heading diagonally across the square towards Kaivokatu.

  It was the busiest time of day: people coming and going in every direction, more and more people appearing from nowhere. It was difficult to see the crowd as made up of individual people; it was swarming and pulsating like a giant organism. For some inexplicable reason it occurred to Matti that if someone were to go mad and start running amok with a machine gun, the station would be a scene of mass slaughter.

  They not so much walked as dodged and wound their way through the station hall and down into the underground shopping level, and still neither of them said a word. They even avoided looking at one another, though they were still walking hand in hand. Matti’s mind was strangely numbed, as though he had been sedated. This in itself meant that he didn’t particularly want to speak. They wandered around the upper level of the underground station – they could barely make out the compass beneath the crowds of people – then they headed towards the tunnel running under Mannerheimintie, leading to the basement level of the Forum shopping centre.

  ‘What do you think all this means?’ Leena whispered, clearly puzzled and perhaps even slightly afraid. ‘Something about this freaks me out…’

  ‘I don’t get it either. Maybe this is one of his religion’s holy rituals.’

  ‘Yeah maybe… I don’t understand… When he looks at me it’s as if he can control me by some magic.’

  ‘Me too. It makes me feel… Like if he told me to jump off a cliff, I’d do it.’

  ‘Do you think he can hypnotise us?’

  ‘I don’t think it happens that quickly. Don’t you have to stare at a swinging watch or something? And I read somewhere that you have to want it to work too.’

  ‘What do you think is in the bag? Should I have a peek?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to know. Let’s just do this the way we agreed. Still, it’s really heavy though…’

  They were far enough along the tunnel that th
e traffic and trams along Mannerheimintie must have been thundering directly above their heads, though they couldn’t hear a sound. All at once the air changed, making them hungry instantly; the smell of food wafted out of the numerous restaurants in the lower level of the Forum.

  ‘Let’s go over there,’ said Leena nodding to the right. ‘My Mum and I have been there a few times, they have really good toppings.’

  ‘I’ve been there too, but I’ve never eaten there.’

  ‘Have the Della Casa, it’s got black olives and loads of onion.’

  ‘I’m not too keen on olives. I want one with prawns.’

  ‘Then you should have the Cam…Camberetti - and a large Coke?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Look, those people by the fountain are just about to leave. Give me the money, I’ll order and you can save the table.’

  ‘OK. I’m not really used to being in a real restaurant.’

  ‘Garlic on the pizza?’

  ‘Yes please, lots.’

  Barely ten minutes had passed before the waitress laid the plates in front of them. They were enormous, like the steering wheel of a bus. Matti’s pizza was piled high with prawns and the rich smell of garlic filled his nostrils, whetting his appetite. He had propped the rucksack against the back of the chair, making it almost comfortable to sit down. Dozens of people chattered around them, knives and forks clinked, and beside them water rippled softly in the pool. Two thick blue pillars rose up towards the ceiling. The pillars united several floors higher; undoubtedly a work of art of some kind, situated right at the heart of the shopping centre.

  ‘They’re here already?’ Matti asked.

  ‘Yes!’ said Leena, and Matti followed her example, spreading a napkin across his lap. Then he picked up his knife and fork and started slicing up his pizza. The crust was so crisp that he didn’t have to saw at it like pizzas from the supermarket; a gentle cut was enough. The first mouthful was a glorious experience. Matti closed his eyes and let one prawn after another melt in his mouth.

  To his amazement he realised that, despite being so nervous a moment ago, for the first time in a very long while he felt happy. He had a friend, Leena; he had his own mobile phone with prepaid talk-time; and then there was the priest who, with all his strange little quirks, had saved him from his tormentors. Then there was Dad. When he thought about all this he had a strong and warm feeling, a certainty that his father would take him in - all he had to do was ask.