Emmi Itäranta - Memory of Water

‘I wish we had a freezer, too,’ Sanja sighed and sipped her tea. ‘I tried to fix one last year, but it only worked for a couple of weeks before breaking down for good. I’d have needed to go to the city for the spare parts and that would’ve been two months’ food budget gone.’

‘Do you find it weird how much past-world technology there still is in the plastic graves, the kind that is easy to fix?’ I asked.

‘What’s so weird about that?’

‘They always said at school that past-world technology was frail and can’t be manufactured anymore, and that’s what all books say, too.’

‘And it was. Most of the stuff in plastic graves is rubbish.’

‘What about books?’

‘What about them?’

‘Why weren’t more past-world books preserved?’ I knew the tea master’s house had more books than any other in the village, and my parents had told me that they were rare even in cities. Few books were printed because of the price of paper, and past-world volumes were virtually impossible to come by, unless one had access to state libraries or military archives. At school we had only used pod-books.

‘Most were in the big cities that drowned when the oceans changed their shorelines,’ Sanja said.

‘Yes, but have you ever seen a history book that was written before the Twilight Century?’

‘What would be the point of a history book that didn’t contain the Twilight Century and present-world era?’

‘Still, they couldn’t all be lost under water, could they? When the cities drowned, why weren’t more past-world books rescued?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sanja spread her hands. ‘Maybe there was no time. People had to be rescued first. Maybe—’

A shout from outside interrupted her. I got up and walked to the window. I saw one of the soldiers – short, bespectacled – gesturing at two others, who came half-running to him. I didn’t hear what he said, but after exchanging a couple of sentences all three headed towards the teahouse. I couldn’t see the teahouse from the kitchen window, and after a moment they vanished from my view.

‘What is it?’ Sanja asked.

‘I don’t know.’ I couldn’t help wondering if the soldiers had found something. But there wasn’t anything to be found in the house, teahouse or garden, was there?

It was as if cold water was poured over my heart. I understood, perhaps for the first time, how little my parents had told me. Was there a map indicating the location of the spring hidden in the teahouse that the soldiers had found? Was there something about the spring written in the current tea master’s book, the thick and pale brown pages filled with my father’s accurate handwriting of which he had only let me read parts while he was watching closely? Or perhaps in one of the other books, neatly locked in a glass case in the living room, in which late tea masters described ceremonies meticulously? I did not know, and my imagination wove swiftly a thousand stories, none of which ended well.

‘You don’t need to come if you don’t want to,’ I told Sanja. ‘It’s probably nothing.’

She followed anyway, when I placed my cup on the table, pulled the insect hood over my head and walked out. The lawn was full of holes and mounds of earth that we avoided, but I noticed that the rock garden and the tea plants next to it remained untouched save for boot prints crossing the sand. Amid the overturned ground my footsteps felt unsteady and the route unfamiliar.

As I walked around the corner of the teahouse, I saw my parents standing on the edge of a large hole opened in the grass. They stood side by side, and although they were not looking at or touching each other, at that moment they belonged seamlessly together, like stone pillars of some old building or the intertwined trunks of two trees I had seen in the Dead Forest years ago. Commander Taro was standing on the opposite side of the excavation, and the other soldiers had gathered around the hole. I stopped a few steps away from my parents. Sanja stepped to my side, and although I wasn’t looking at or touching her, I knew she was close.

The hole was deep and steep-edged, and the slated sun of the late afternoon didn’t reach to the bottom of it. Nevertheless, I could clearly see some kind of man-made, hard wall at the bottom, and even deeper, dark water glinted like a teardrop in the eye of the earth. I tried to read the expressions on my parents’ faces, and for a second time within a short period I felt that they were strangers to me. I didn’t know everything they knew, and I didn’t know how much they had told me.

One of the soldiers drew water from the hole with a glass dish attached to a metal telescope rod. It was murky with mud, but Taro took the dish, lifted his insect hood, dipped his fingers in the water and licked his fingertips.

‘It seems there is drinkable water on your grounds,’ he said, gazing at my father. ‘I assume you weren’t aware of its existence?’

‘If I had known, would I have kept the knowledge from you?’ my father replied, not averting his eyes.

‘You and your family can go now, Master Kaitio,’ Taro said. ‘Rest assured we will keep you informed on further developments.’

Slowly, my father turned to leave. He looked at my mother, and he looked at me, and his expression changed. He turned back to face Taro and then walked calmly to the commander along the edge of the excavation. A couple of soldiers tried to stop him, but Taro gestured at them to leave him alone. My father stopped in front of Taro. They stood there against the earth and the sky and the torn wreck of the teahouse, a tall official in a blue military uniform and a man whose hair was already brushed with grey in the simple linen garments of a tea master.

‘You believe everything can be owned,’ my father said, ‘that your power reaches everywhere. Yet there are things that will never yield to man-made chains. I will dance on your grave one day, Taro. If my body is here no longer, my spirit will do it, free from the cage of my bones.’

Taro turned his head slightly, but did not take his eyes off my father.

‘On second thought,’ he said, ‘now that we have searched the grounds, it’s a good time to move on to the house. Liuhala, Kanto,’ he directed his words to two of the soldiers. ‘Escort Master Kaitio and his family back and begin the search. Make sure to be thorough.’

The two soldiers stepped towards my father. He made no attempt to move. I thought he was going to hit Taro, but eventually, after staring at him for a long time, my father turned and started towards the house without looking back again. The soldiers followed close behind him. My mother, who had been observing the scene in silence, took my arm and went after them, pulling me with her.

She walked slowly, and once we were outside the hearing range, she whispered to me, ‘We have nothing to be afraid of, Noria. I’ve searched the grounds several times, and I know there’s no spring here. It’s just rain water in an old well filled with concrete.’

‘Why didn’t you tell them that?’ I asked.

‘It’s better if they realise it themselves. It will humiliate them and chase them away. Someone might even apologise.’

‘Not Taro, though,’ I said and thought about the expression on the Commander’s face, the unyielding quality behind it.

‘No, not him,’ my mother admitted.

When we entered the house, the soldiers had already begun to open cupboards and drawers, pulling things out and throwing them to the floor. I saw my father bent down at the kitchen door. He was holding his chest with one hand and his breathing was troubled.

‘Are you all right?’ my mother asked. My father didn’t reply immediately. A moment later he straightened his back, banished the pain from his face and said, ‘It’s nothing. I just felt a little short of breath.’