The Man Who Died

by Antti Tuomainen

  Sanni says nothing.

  ‘I happen to know that their packaging and preserving equipment is far more modern than ours, and it’s ready to be switched on at any moment. I tried to ask them about pickers, but I didn’t get an answer. There’s something about this whole business that seems a bit off. To be honest, everything seems off. Everything, damn it.’

  Sanni looks at me. I bat my final sentence away with a dismissive wave of the hand.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’

  Sanni hesitates slightly. It’s a fleeting pause, short enough that if you blinked you’d miss it, and that’s why I notice it. Her hesitation disappears, Sanni flicks the long hair from her face, but still she won’t answer.

  ‘Sanni,’ I ask. ‘Have you heard anything?’

  She looks at me.

  ‘They offered me a job. As head of the picking staff.’

  Head? With us, Sanni is only a coordinator.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  Sanni turns to look at the bushes. The tangle of green is like a jungle.

  ‘Just now.’

  ‘And what did you say?’ I ask.

  Again she looks at me. She looks different from a second ago, her blue-green eyes now reflecting the white glare of the sun.

  ‘I said I’d talk to you about it.’

  I breathe in, breathe out.

  ‘What do you know about them – about their business?’

  ‘I know I’d get a significant pay rise.’

  The distant beater continues whacking dust from the rugs. The sound seems to ricochet from the direction of the shore.

  ‘You once told me you have a passion for mushrooms.’

  ‘I do,’ Sanni nods. ‘I like them more than any human being. But with a raise and…’ She turns her head, stares straight ahead.

  ‘Did they offer you more than just a raise?’

  Sanni is silent for a moment. ‘They think our – well, your – company doesn’t have a future.’

  A profound, searing pain bubbles from deep within my forehead, and an electric eel slithers across my field of vision.

  ‘In what way?’ I ask. ‘Why don’t we have a future?’

  Sanni looks at me. ‘Because we lack courage and determination,’ she says. ‘Because we’re not aggressive enough.’

  ‘Is that their opinion or yours?’

  Sanni purses her lips and glances down as if to check that her laces are still tied securely. They are.

  ‘Sanni, I have to say this out loud,’ I begin. ‘The Hamina Mushroom Company doesn’t inspire trust. On the contrary. With their background…’

  ‘I know,’ Sanni nods. ‘But there are so many different sides to each of us. Just like mushrooms. A bolete that looks beautiful might be riddled with maggots. The milk cap is an ugly mushroom, but it’s perfectly good to eat. Sami and I used to date each other.’

  ‘You and the baseball player?’

  ‘Yes, back in the day. When he stopped playing, we stopped dating.’

  Sanni notices me watching her. My gaze is what you might call intense.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘You are…’ I fumble for words. ‘What I mean is, he seems so different from you, so completely…’

  ‘…Like every time he tried to hit the ball he whacked himself round the head instead? In a way it’s true,’ she explains. ‘Sami’s last ever game, he was warming up before going out to bat for the final time. They were playing a team from Seinäjoki, and the mood in the stadium was tense. They were down by only a single run. The batters were swinging their bats around at the edge of the pitch, but Sami was completely focussed on the game. He was warming up, doing the low stretches he was famous for. A player was called out, but the call was unclear. Sami was stretched out like a panther ready to leap at its prey, so when he jumped to his feet Halonen’s bat caught him round the head as it came hurtling towards the bench. Halonen was the wild-card batsman. He packed a real punch.’

  We sit for a moment in silence. The sound of the rug beating has stopped. The garden is fragrant.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m going to run ten kilometres,’ Sanni replies, ‘in under fifty minutes.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘I know.’

  Sanni runs her hand through her hair, slips a band from round her wrist and ties her hair tightly behind her head. Her ponytail is like a copper flag poised to flutter in the wind. She pulls a protein bar from her bumbag, tears open the wrapper and begins to eat.

  ‘Sanni, what do you want?’

  She swallows, then bites off another piece of her bar. ‘That pay rise, maybe,’ she says with her mouth full.

  ‘In life, in general?’

  There’s a strength and brightness in the blue-green glow of Sanni’s eyes, and something else too, something I’ve never noticed before.

  ‘That’s quite a question for a Tuesday afternoon.’

  I look at her and say nothing. She runs her tongue across her upper lip, swallows the food in her mouth.

  ‘I want to walk through the forest on a fresh, crisp morning. I want an SUV that isn’t Korean, Japanese or Chinese. I want breakfast in bed, but never on my birthday. I want to get people round to fix my drains. I want to own underwear from Victoria’s Secret at least once in my life. I want a new, high-grade shotgun. I want to run the Tokyo marathon in under three and half hours. I want to know everything there is to know about mushrooms and plants.’

  Sanni stops and pops the final chunk of energy bar in her mouth. I think of my list, my investigation, my poisoning. This is what it’s like to be human, to be surrounded by other humans: I know what Sanni wants, but I know nothing about her.

  ‘What kind of raise are we talking about?’ I ask.

  ‘Fifty per cent.’

  I almost choke, though my mouth is empty.

  ‘They promised me even more,’ she explains.

  ‘I don’t doubt it for a minute.’

  I need Sanni, for so many reasons. More than anything, I have to keep her close to me. What’s more, I know where to find the money she wants. Petri hardly needs a new delivery truck. He seems perfectly capable of getting anywhere and everywhere with his own equipment.

  ‘Well, for a raise in that ball park … if I agree to it … I’ll have to ask for something in return.’

  Sanni seems eager to hear my offer.

  ‘I’d like you to play hard to get,’ I say. ‘Tell the guys at the Hamina Mushroom Company that you’ll think about it carefully, that you have to weigh up the pros and cons. Tell them you’d like to know how they are planning on organising their harvest operation and who they are doing business with.’

  The corner of Sanni’s mouth curves into a smile. Not quite a smile, perhaps, but her lips give a small twitch that soon melts away.

  ‘You want me to spy on them.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Maybe I was completely wrong about you,’ she says and manages to sound at once disappointed and excited.

  8

  I turn the car, the gravel crunches and sunlight glints against the bonnet as though someone is playing with an enormous mirror. Instead of turning on the air conditioning I roll down the window, slowly cruise along the gravel path and turn onto Kalastajankatu. I glance in the rear-view mirror to make sure I’m not slowing anybody else down. A dark-blue Ford Mondeo appears from around the corner. I increase my speed a little and look to the right.

  I catch a glimpse of the garden outside a light-coloured detached house. I’ve seen the man in front of it before, he’s always out working, from dawn till dusk – always doing something. This time he’s chopping firewood, which can be seen around the garden, both in neat rows and in a pile the size of a small ski slope. The man is short, sinewy and ageless; with his weather-beaten face and perfectly fat-free body he reminds me of the guitarists from the Rolling Stones. He has the aura of someone who likes to get down to business – a humble
fusion of ruthlessness, straightforwardness, mystique, and the sense that he gets things done. If I had to wage a war, I’d send that man and his chainsaw off to win it for me. Today it seems I can imagine doing all kinds of things.

  At the intersection of the gravel path and the road I stop to let a truck drive past. In the rear-view mirror I see the dark-blue Mondeo gliding towards the edge of the path and staying there. It seems my thoughtful dallying didn’t slow anyone else’s driving after all. The indicator clicks as I turn and continue along the road leading towards the town centre. In my ears I can hear Sanni’s steps as she runs further away from the car, I can feel the warmth and size of her palm as we shake hands on our little deal. I see her auburn hair, her white shorts – which look all the shorter when she’s running. Sanni, my secret mushroom agent.

  The dark-blue Mondeo.

  Only once I’ve checked to see if it’s still behind me do I even realise I’m checking for it. I instantly look away. Then check again. I decide to go for a little drive. I head downtown. The market square is almost empty. I twist and turn through the streets, heading towards the heart of the town, and then I have an idea.

  Designed more than three hundred years ago, the concentric streets around the Town Hall are a divine gift to anyone being chased, or at least to anyone who wants to find out whether or not they are being chased. The largest circular road is only a partial circle: a ring road about a kilometre long and with the final quarter of its length missing. This is Isoympyräkatu, ‘Big Circle Street’. At some point I lose sight of the Mondeo.

  I drive along Isoympyräkatu for as long as I can, all the way to the Bastion. Built in the early nineteenth century, the Bastion was originally a military fortification. Nowadays its atmospheric central embankment, perforated with a series of brick casemates, hosts an array of public events.

  Taina and I once visited the Bastion during the Hamina Tattoo. I banish from my mind the image of a sun-tanned Taina, her bare thighs tacky with sweat – dismiss the memory entirely. I turn onto Rauhankatu, head straight towards the Town Hall and again see the dark-blue Mondeo behind me. For a few seconds I’m convinced my imagination is playing tricks on me, but it isn’t.

  Very well.

  The smallest of the circular roads is only two hundred metres long. The cobbled street runs neatly round the Town Hall, so neatly that the Town Hall itself, which stands some twenty metres taller than the rest of the town, looks like an island raised on its foundations at the meeting point of eight roads. As I glance in the mirror the thought occurs to me that all roads do not lead to Rome after all, but to the administrative centre of a small town in eastern Finland. I slow my speed and begin my first lap.

  The mirror is of no use, as I’m constantly turning. I crane my head out of the window and look behind me. The dark-blue Mondeo is behind me. I’m not driving very fast.

  The first lap of the road lasts only about thirty seconds. I continue my circuit. The Mondeo follows me. Halfway through the second lap I look back again and try to see inside the Mondeo.

  The driver is stocky. The second lap is complete.

  On the third lap we are joined by a red Golf for about three streets. The car clearly has to slow down and soon leaves our little carousel, its tyres screeching angrily against the cobbles. We continue as before – only now I begin to accelerate.

  The fourth lap is a repeat of the last, and I increase my speed still further. If a summer bird were to look down from high above us, it might wonder at our strange game of cat and mouse.

  On the fifth lap the driver of the Mondeo begins to lose his temper. The voice finally reveals his identity. I look over my shoulder. A bulbous head pushes out of the open window.

  ‘Oi, fatso,’ shouts Tomi. ‘You hear me, fat boy?’

  I haven’t thought this scenario through any further. In the cinema and on the TV, scenes in which someone is tailing someone else usually end with the stalker being discovered. It seems Tomi and I haven’t been watching the same films. By now he’s yelling out of the window, clearly furious. I’m beginning to realise he doesn’t plan on leaving our encounter at mere stalking. After all, this is a man who killed his mother over a couple of herrings. What will he do to a man who laughed at his threats of snapped porcini?

  ‘Chubby cheeks! Stop!’

  He toots the horn, hurls curses out of the window and continues telling me to pull over.

  Fifty kilometres an hour is normally a fairly brisk speed. But going round in a circle – this must be the seventh or eighth lap – it seems slow. I start to feel queasy. The carousel ride, combined with a severe case of poisoning, is quite an overpowering experience.

  I accelerate to sixty.

  Even Tomi has stopped shouting by now. When the nausea reaches my tolerance threshold, I take a sharp turn to the right.

  After straightening the car on Kadettikoulunkatu I put my foot down again and speed up even more. Tomi is still right behind me. After a while I take a left. I don’t know the town particularly well, but I have learned that the town centre will soon be behind me no matter what direction I take. And that’s what happens.

  The only problem – apart from the fact that I’m being pursued by a deranged bodybuilder – is that I’m starting to feel as though I might throw up.

  The spinning, the pressure, it’s all too much.

  On the right of the street there are only a few houses and on the left an abandoned stretch of land, dotted with trees, which appears to slope downhill. The asphalted road comes to an end and turns to gravel. I remember that to the left of the slope there is a small river or stream flowing towards the lake at Kirkkojärvi. On my left I see a section of undergrowth worn away by the tyres of turning cars. I steer the car in that direction, undo my seatbelt, open the door, jump out and vomit on the ground.

  My engine dies and I hear the Mondeo approaching. Its bumper scrapes the verge as it pulls up, its engine roars and the car bounces across the terrain like a dry pea. I’ve managed to throw up, I think to myself; the worst is over.

  The Mondeo comes to a halt, and Tomi jumps out. In his hand he’s carrying something long and shiny. I’m about to leap back into my car, but the key is no longer in my hand. I can’t see it on the ground. I peer into the car; the key isn’t in the ignition either.

  Tomi is only ten metres away.

  He approaches me from the direction of the road, and only now can I see what it is he’s carrying.

  I would shout for help, but there isn’t a single house or passer-by in sight, and anyway, I can’t breathe and my throat feels as though it’s being clawed from the inside. My eyes focus on Tomi’s hand. Some kind of Samurai sword. Perhaps a few centimetres shorter than usual, but the shape, gleam and blade are the same. That’s good enough for me. I run in the opposite direction.

  The ground is grassy, uneven and slopes downwards. I would shout back at Tomi, ask him what he wants, but I can’t. He’s coming for me. We dart between the trees. I fumble in my pocket but realise that my phone is still in the car. Before long we arrive at the stream. As far as I can see, I don’t have any other option: I lower myself to the edge of the verge. The earth gives way. I slide downwards and find myself up to my knees in mud. For a few seconds I can’t see Tomi anywhere, then he appears on the verge above me and takes a wild leap.

  The sight of a burly man flying through the air with a sword in his hand is like something straight out of a comic book. Looking behind me all the while, I try to wade through the mud and make it to the other side of the ditch.

  There’s power in Tomi’s jump. The momentum tilts his body forwards slightly, and he moves his arms back to adjust his position. It looks like he’s using a stepping machine in the air. Eventually he reaches the ground. His legs sink into the mud, his knees buckle and his right hand lands directly on top of a thick, dried branch. The sword is propped upright, waiting, as Tomi’s head follows the rest of his body. The blade enters beneath his jawbone and comes out through the top of his head, the fist gr
ipping the hilt coming to a stop at the base of his chin. Tomi looks like he’s sitting down and pondering something – with a sword in his head.

  I slump down on the verge and manage to fill my lungs with air for the first time in what feels like an eternity. I clamber to my feet, and when I’m certain my legs will carry me, I trudge through the mud, climb up the verge, locate the end of the path, stagger back to my car and collapse inside. The key has fallen beneath the driver’s seat. I pull off my shoes and socks and roll up the legs of my trousers. I clean off the shoes as best I can and slip them onto my bare feet. I walk over to the Mondeo, pull the key from its ignition, lock the doors and throw the key into the thicket.

  Then I return to my own car, start the engine, pull the door shut, put on my seatbelt and drive off, peering into the rear-view mirror.

  The Mondeo looks as though someone has deliberately left it in the clearing. Tomi will be able to sit by the stream and ponder all by himself, hidden from prying eyes – at least for a while.

  Stranger things have happened.

  PART TWO

  LIFE

  1

  The water from the potato pot trickles down the drain, and Taina disappears in a cloud. A moment later she reappears, her bare arms tensed, the pot still in her hands. The potatoes are steaming, their sweet scent a mixture of earth and sugar. Taina looks over in my direction but doesn’t meet my eyes and doesn’t watch me as I walk towards the dining table.

  ‘Hi,’ she says. ‘I thought you were having a nap. Meatloaf with funnel chanterelles, creamy onion gravy, new potatoes and rye bread with plenty of salted butter. For dessert I thought I’d make pancakes with whipped cream and my own strawberry jam.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I say. ‘Delicious; magnificent even.’

  She turns her head. I smile at her.

  Taina. My wife.

  Five foot three and a half inches of woman. Thick, brown, shoulder-length hair, round, greyish blue eyes, a small nose and a big, jocular mouth full of white teeth.