Little Siberia Read online

  ‘I’m looking for something,’ I say.

  ‘Me too,’ the man nods. ‘There are so many things that threaten our—’

  ‘I thought you might be able to help me. Confidentially. Just like our conversations here.’

  The man squints as though he were trying to see something very far away. ‘Me? Help you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘How does that sound?’

  He hesitates, glances to one side then the other. ‘What … or how … would I…?’

  I’ll help you see end-of-the-world scenarios you can hardly even imagine … I stop myself from suggesting that.

  ‘How about we find you a regular slot?’ I say. ‘You could come here without queuing, without checking for cancellations. You would have your own mark in the calendar, just like at school.’

  ‘And how can I…?’

  ‘I’m looking for a particular perfume.’

  In all the hours the man has spent at my surgery, this is the first time he is lost for words. This would be a welcome exception at any time, but especially so now.

  ‘This is a small village,’ I say. ‘I guess you’ve been face to face with all the adults round here many times, and, without noticing, breathed in the air around them. You’ve smelled everything. Because we all have our unique scent. It could be something very faint, discreet or almost overwhelming.’

  ‘It’s true,’ he says, still hesitating profoundly.

  ‘I’m looking for a perfume that’s strong but not too heavy. Not one of those dark, robust evening perfumes, but something much lighter. The person in question wears a lot of it. It hangs in the air when this person walks past. There are undertones of citrus, but the primary ingredient is something else. I believe that once you’ve smelled it, you’ll easily recognise it in the future.’

  ‘You’re looking for someone in particular?’

  ‘First and foremost I’m looking for the perfume.’

  The man gives this some thought. ‘A regular slot, you say?’

  ‘We can look at the diary right away.’

  8

  It’s payback time. Actions have consequences. No one rides for free.

  The latter isn’t exactly a Biblical reference. I remember it from years back – a sticker in a public toilet. There’s a ring of truth about it, unlike many of the other things flooding my mind at the moment. I don’t know why my head is so full of things it doesn’t need right now – things that only cause me more unnecessary grief – and so few of the things I actually do need. This, of course, is one of the central conundrums of humanity, one that most certainly doesn’t apply to me alone; but right now, in some exhausting fashion, everything feels like a profound personal insult.

  The room is quiet, I am alone, and on the wall the Redeemer sends me a message. The message is that all is already forgiven. It is hard to square that thought with reality, here on a freezing day in a small village in eastern Finland, a day when I have slept badly and lost sight of the meaning of life.

  I regret my actions, and yet I do not.

  I have embarked on a path, the end of which I do not know.

  And if I do what I have planned to do, nothing will be the same again. That said, nothing is the same any longer.

  I take out my old phone and insert the prepaid SIM card. The new card starts to work immediately. I don’t yet know the number off by heart, so consult the piece of paper. I notice that as my right thumb keys in the number, the scrap of paper in my left hand is trembling slightly.

  The trembling is barely perceptible, but it clearly stems from somewhere deep within. Of course it does. I remember only too well the sensation the first time I typed that number into my phone at the time. It felt like mercy, a victory, a promise. Like life.

  The message field glows a bright white, like snow or a bedsheet. Or, it suddenly occurs to me, like a coffin.

  I’m not well. I decide that once I have done this I will have some kind of rest, a long one. I haven’t eaten anything. Jealousy no longer feels like jealousy. It has consumed me entirely. I am it. Blackness, bitterness.

  I go through the list of risks involved in the first phase of my plan. Those I can see and that I am able to list without feeling nauseous.

  So:

  If Krista and the unknown philanderer are the type of lovers who are constantly in touch with each other, my plan will not work. But for a number of reasons I find it hard to imagine she is having a long-term, sustained affair. I’m certain I would have noticed something. Besides, the size and population of this village isn’t exactly conducive to keeping things secret for long. It’s far more probable that something simply happened and the pregnancy is the result. Who knows? Perhaps Krista found herself in a situation from which, one way or another, there was no way out…

  Gambling. Risk-taking. That’s what this is about. But so many of the facts suggest that, for whatever reason, Krista and the mystery man have already gone their separate ways.

  I base this belief on the facts at hand: only two hours ago Krista told me she loved me. She has been affectionate with me, in her words, her gestures, her touch. She has been her own, warm, funny self. She suggested I eat a bowl of her homemade granola for breakfast. (I avoided this by telling her the break-in had taken away my appetite. In a way this is true. And I have never lied to Krista, not literally anyway.) More facts: Krista wants me to join her at the village fête, in the shower, she wants me to think about baby names with her. How many people would do that while they were still fooling around in the neighbour’s bedroom?

  I tell myself once again that knowledge will heal the pain.

  My fingers feel frozen against the buttons of the phone, though the air in the room is warm. I remind myself that sometimes the things you have to do don’t always make you feel good. I force myself to type.

  Hi, I had to get a new number.

  You Know Who

  I look at the message. Instantly I realise this is going to be far more demanding than I’d thought. I’m going to have to put myself in the role of the lover. I’ll have to act like a desperate, horny hunter. My messages should exude passion, pent-up lust.

  Another difficulty, one that I appreciate right now, is a textual one. I have literally no idea of the mystery man’s reading and writing skills. How could I? What if he is one of this modern breed of texters who doesn’t care for spelling or punctuation? I ask myself whether Krista, a literary translator, would fall for someone barely literate. Desire does funny things to us. Man is but flesh. Lust pays spelling conventions no heed.

  I don’t quite know why, but the idea of Krista having intimate relations with someone who RITES IN ALL CAPS and has a less-than-adequate ability to deploy them in a sensible order is all the more crushing. I quickly decide that Krista must have found a villager with a flawless grasp of written Finnish. This too feels bad and inexplicable, but it makes it easier to finish my message.

  Krista, I had no option but to shut down my old number and get this new one. At the same time I feel like I’m on the cusp of something completely new. I don’t know why. Do you feel like that too? I miss you and I think about you a lot. Just the thought of you drives me crazy. So crazy that I don’t even know who I am. Sometimes I imagine you at my place, but I guess that’s impossible. I hope to hear from you soon. Yours. ‘Maybe still in your affections?’

  Ultimately I don’t know which is worse. Writing the message or sending it. One press of the button. The world will either come to an end or it won’t. I can hardly breathe as the message is sent on its way.

  I stand up from my chair, which now feels too hot, walk to the window and stand almost tight against it. All in a day’s work, I think to myself. What did you get up to at work? Oh, nothing much. I pretended to be my wife’s lover, that’s all. And that was preceded by a joyride through the woods with an old grenade and the small matter of her adultery. See you tomorrow.

  The winter sun casts a cold light against the trunks of the pine trees – not enough to wake the t
rees from their winter sleep; it doesn’t bathe them in soft, gold invigorating warmth. At this time of year everything is covered in such a thick layer of snow that winter feels as endless as the Ice Age. I feel the cold sheen of the windowpane. There’s something magnetic about it, something alluring. You want to touch it. As if you can hardly believe that the difference between two worlds, between life and death, is so close, right there in front of you.

  The phone beeps.

  The journey back to the desk feels interminable. I want to read the message, yet I am afraid to open it. The phone is lying on the desk. I sit down and pick up the phone. The new message gleams on the screen.

  We should meet. K

  9

  I need to move, get some fresh air. Primarily some oxygen.

  And I need food too. It’s the first time I’ve been hungry since yesterday lunchtime. The maelstrom whirling inside me dispels hunger with such ease that it could be considered an effective natural weight-loss technique. Want to lose weight? Find yourself a duplicitous partner.

  Liisa’s Café serves up hearty homemade food, the kind of stuff Krista thinks is unhealthy. I rarely eat at Liisa’s Café, not because it’s unhealthy, but because I prefer to eat lunch at my workplace, alone. I enjoy eating in peace and quiet; I can keep my thoughts focussed on the day’s work, and after lunch my concentration continues unperturbed. I don’t have to wonder where I was, what I was doing.

  Now, however, the idea of concentration seems like a distant utopia. Besides – and this thought I manage to crystallise as the cold refreshes my body and the frozen air makes me catch my breath – it is only by meeting other people that I can continue my investigation. On the other hand, the sinister truth is that both the impregnator and burglar might be watching me as I spoon down my creamy salmon soup and tuck in to Liisa’s famous Karelian hotpot.

  The thought makes me feel nauseous. For a moment. Then I begin to see the opportunities in all this. The fact that I am out in the open might encourage one or both of them to act, to do something.

  Liisa’s Café is almost full, as it usually is at this time of day. It is situated in what used to be the foyer of the local bank; there are eight four-seater tables and three two-seaters. If necessary the kitchen can be sealed off with steel shutters, and the former safe is used to store dry foodstuffs. I order lunch at the counter and turn to choose a table. The clientele is mostly men; I recognise almost all of them. None of them looks like they have spent the last few weeks knocking around with my wife. And none of them looks particularly like a burglar either.

  I hear someone call my name. Räystäinen’s tanned, sinewy arm waves at me from across the room. I walk up to his table and he gestures towards the chair opposite him. He only arrived a moment ago. The two-seater table is small and wobbly.

  Räystäinen is full of questions. He has heard almost everything there is to know about the break-in, everything that’s public knowledge. Now he wants some meat on the bones.

  I begin to speak, spreading butter on a slice of rye bread as I do. I have to watch my words, keep strictly to the official version of events. Dressed in only a T-shirt, Räystäinen listens intently, but once I’ve finished, his solarium-tanned face doesn’t look at all satisfied. He crosses his bare arms over his chest; his veins and tendons stretch and bulge. I can see he was clearly expecting more. His eyes only leave me for a moment, then return like a hungry animal to a bowl of food. All I can do is shrug my shoulders and munch on my rye bread.

  ‘Everything happened so quickly.’

  Räystäinen leans back in his chair.

  ‘And you can’t even say what they looked like?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘You didn’t hear them talking?’

  I continue eating my bread and again shake my head. Räystäinen seems to be thinking about something. I don’t know much about him, except for a few well-known facts and what he and his young wife get up to – and how often.

  ‘But you’d recognise them all the same?’

  I look at him. I think about the perfume, how powerful it was. I know I’d recognise that smell again.

  ‘Maybe,’ I reply.

  ‘From what?’

  The question comes so quickly that it completely cuts off what I was about to say next. Just then our dishes arrive at the table. I’ve ordered macaroni cheese, Räystäinen the chicken breast.

  ‘From what?’ he repeats, once the waitress has left.

  I hesitate. I decide quickly, and in a purely instinctive way, that that perfume is my private property, with a few provisos. Moreover it is an inseparable part of my task, inextricably linked to the very thing I have undertaken to protect. Räystäinen holds his knife and fork in the air.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say eventually. ‘I suppose, because the whole event was so shocking, I’m sure it’ll stick in my mind. I might be completely wrong.’

  ‘So, you wouldn’t recognise them after all?’

  This is classic Räystäinen. He asks more and more questions until all your answers have dried up. But why is he fixating on this particular detail?

  ‘I’ve only had a few hours’ sleep,’ I say. ‘I can’t really say what happened. Maybe I need more rest before I start to see things clearly again.’

  Räystäinen lowers his eyes and starts eating, and I too begin cutting up my hearty portion. For a moment we eat in silence, exchanging only a few words about the upcoming meeting of the village action committee. Then Räystäinen repeats that I should come over to his gym one day and try it out. He says he’ll prepare a personal workout plan for me free of charge. He’s got a free slot this evening.

  It’s a familiar subject, but now it’s as if there is a new, more urgent tone to his voice. Räystäinen lays his knife and fork on the plate. Right now there’s nothing further from my mind than getting into shape. I’m about to say so, but first ask him to pass the bottle of ketchup from the table behind him.

  Räystäinen spins round in his chair, reaches out his right hand. His arm extends, grips the ketchup bottle. His elbow bends in again, the back of his hand comes into view. There it is: a long, fresh scratch. It reaches from his elbow far up beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. It looks like the kind of wound one could get from a broken window.

  I shift my eyes from his arm just as Räystäinen spins back into place and looks at me. I take the ketchup bottle from his hand.

  ‘It might just help me sleep better,’ I say. ‘A little exercise before bed.’

  PART TWO

  THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

  1

  I wade through the snow to the other side of the fence. The heavy lunch in my stomach feels so big and hard to digest that I suspect it’s pushing me deeper into the snowdrift. The fence’s deep-grey slats look bare and frozen; the winter midday sunlight illuminates the world like a small, tired old lantern sitting on the horizon. The smell of the old building and the spruce forest hangs in the air.

  I have arranged – and carefully planned – to come to the area around the outdoor museum at Teerilä.

  The plan is simple – and appalling in every respect. And while I regret it, I know it is utterly unavoidable.

  I have a meeting with my wife.

  This part of the plan sounds banal. But after that come the stages that are harder to accept. Posing as my wife’s lover, I have invited her to an appointment I have no intention of keeping. Neither as myself nor as anybody else. And then, to crown it all, comes the very heart of the plan – the bit that will happen once my wife arrives and realises nobody else is coming. I’m going to follow her.

  I don’t know how many laws I am breaking, societal or divine, or how many rules of etiquette I am contravening, ignoring or dismissing; the lies and falsehoods seem to multiply exponentially with every new turn. But necessity and purity don’t always make comfortable bedfellows.

  And besides, what makes me think this plan will work?

  Krista is someone who doesn’t do things by halves. She is strong
-willed and always wants to find out everything as soon as possible. Or, to put it bluntly, immediately. At least in that regard, I know her well. I’m convinced that once she realises nobody is coming and when she can’t contact the mystery man behind the text message, somehow she will try and sort the matter out in person. She has behaved like this many times before. When Krista gets something into her head, it’s hard to stop her.

  That’s why I chose the outdoor museum at Teerilä. The courtyard formed by the main building, two fences and a barn is outside the centre of Hurmevaara, only a short walk away, at the top of a small hill, beside an intersection of four roads, each leading to villages with a finite number of virile adult males.

  The main building of the Teerilä museum isn’t exactly a manor house, and it’s not even very big. It is a log cabin that has stood on the same spot for a hundred and fifty years, and in the summer it serves as a local-history museum. The walls are red, the window frames white. During the winter months the courtyard is regularly ploughed to keep it free of snow as the house is often rented out for private functions, and the village action committee has held meetings there too.

  It is almost our agreed time. I am in position. I can see the courtyard, but nobody in the courtyard could see me. The spruce forest stands silently about thirty metres away. A little more preparation, then…

  My phone rings.

  I pull the thing from my pocket and answer. Pirkko from the church office. I waste no time in getting to the point.

  ‘I’m on my lunch break,’ I say. ‘I’ll be back in an hour.’

  ‘We need to put in the order for the new hymnals today,’ she says.

  ‘We can do it this afternoon.’

  ‘There are so many options for the cover and they’re all just marvellous. I think this dark one is particularly thrilling. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”’