Antti Tuomainen - The Healer

I grabbed the last book in the stack, opened it, and read a poem. When I had finished, I looked at her. She didn’t look as impressed as I had hoped she would be.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Shall I read another one?”

“Go ahead.”

I read another.

“You seem to know it by heart,” she said. “You said it without looking at the book.”

She took the book out of my hands, opened it, and saw my photo on the inside cover. She raised her eyes.

“Very clever,” she said with a smile.

I stood for a moment on the sidewalk and watched Hamid’s taillights disappear into the fog.

On the short drive from the train station to Temppeliaukio, I had time to think about the tenacious strands that held us all together: Johanna, Pasi Tarkiainen, Lassi Uutela, Laura Vuola, Harri Jaatinen, and me. Even Mrs. Bonsdorff and Hamid. Not to mention Ahti and Elina. We run, straining, gasping, and groaning, in our own separate directions, and the more we struggle the closer we’re pulled together.

Elina opened the door. She greeted me with a warm smile and had an almost questioning look on her face for a moment. I got a glimpse of myself in the entryway mirror and realized why. My eyes were shining in a way that could be interpreted as anger, even rage. I didn’t want to explain it to her—I didn’t really think I could. At least not yet. I said that I wanted to see Ahti.

“Ahti’s asleep.”

“Wake him up.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Wake him up.”

She looked at me in amazement, then with apparent annoyance. Finally she granted my wish and walked toward the bedroom shaking her head.

Everything in the living room was as familiar as it could be. I knew Ahti and Elina’s bookshelf by heart. The books and their arrangement had been etched into my mind over the dozens of times that we had all sat in this room together. I knew without touching it how soft and enveloping the black armchair was that sat in front of it, how bright the floor lamp was that stood next to it. I remembered an evening we’d spent together that stretched into the night, the candles and candle holders rummaged out of the dark brown antique chest huddled on the other side of the chair with a book lying open on its lid, as always.

Although the room was familiar, I looked at all of it as if for the first time as I listened to the noises coming from the bedroom. I thought about how it’s not the things that are new to us that surprise us, it’s the things we think we know and find out we don’t.

“He’ll be here in a minute,” Elina said from behind me.

“Thanks.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I very nearly didn’t understand it, either,” I said.

We sat on opposite ends of the sofa, leaving the entire middle cushion between us as if by mutual agreement.

“You’re not yourself.”

I didn’t say anything. I was still gathering my thoughts.

“Tapani,” Elina said quietly, leaning toward me. “You must have misunderstood what I said. About what happened. About Pasi Tarkiainen.”

“I think I understood you perfectly.”

She hesitated.

“I hope you won’t tell Ahti everything.”

I looked at her, wanting to say that I would hardly need to, when Ahti came into the room.

“Tapani. Hi.”

He looked like he had lost several kilos in the past twenty-four hours, like he had got shorter, or somehow lost something of his outer form. I knew that it wasn’t possible, but that was the impression I had as I looked at him in his sweatpants and wool sweater, with thick white athletic socks on his feet. He looked around and decided to head toward the armchair. Elina withdrew farther into the sofa, and away from me. Ahti sat down on the chair and looked at me.

“Elina said there was something you wanted to talk to me about.”

I glanced at Elina, then at Ahti.

“I didn’t say there was something I wanted to talk to you about. I just asked her to wake you up.”

Ahti folded his hands in his lap and leaned his head against the back of the chair. He may have been trying to look the part of the lawyer more than the situation or his attire would allow.

“You don’t sound like yourself,” he said.

“How do I usually sound?” I asked. “Like a friend? Like someone who doesn’t notice anything? Who believes everything I’m told?”

Ahti glanced quickly at Elina.

“These are tough times for both of us. I was bitten by a rat, which wouldn’t be any big deal, but it completely changes our plans. I’m sure Elina told you that we’re staying in Helsinki.”

“Yes, she did.”

“I had a high fever last night, and I’m still a little under the weather. And really tired. If there’s anything we can do for you and Johanna, we’ll do it. But it’s no help to any of us if you come here behaving badly and bullying Elina. Our friendship doesn’t give you that right. Especially in times like these.”

I looked at Elina again. She was now sitting as far from me as the sofa allowed. She lifted her foot onto the seat and wrapped an arm around her leg.

“I wasn’t trying to bully Elina,” I said. “But if I did so inadvertently, I’m sorry. As far as what friendship means in times like these, I completely agree. It’s everything else that has me a bit amazed.”

Ahti crossed one leg over the other, leaned slightly to the left, put his elbow on the armrest, and lifted his chin. In other circumstances his posture would have radiated expertise and secure superiority. But clothes make the man, especially if he’s a lawyer. Sweat pants and cotton socks will undo just about anyone’s attempt at dignity.

“When Johanna disappeared,” I said, and looked at my watch, “about forty-eight hours ago, I was in a panic, just as any husband would be. And since I don’t have any family, I turned to my friends. I came here. You were leaving. At that very moment. That’s a hell of a coincidence. And when I told you why I’d come, you immediately agreed to sell me a gun. Normally you’re an absolute stickler about everything—especially anything to do with the law or with guns. But I didn’t even think twice about it. I didn’t stop to wonder why our closest friends hadn’t told us they were leaving town.”

When neither one of them seemed to want to say anything, I continued.

“I didn’t even suspect anything when you told me that you hadn’t been able to sell the apartment, because the place had so much wrong with it and the building was in such bad shape, with water in the basement and holes in the roof. Then it occurred to me to check the facts. This apartment was never for sale. No one has tried to sell it to anybody. As far as the rest of the building: An apartment upstairs was just sold. Two floors up. Two floors closer to the holes in the roof.”

I felt a strange burning in my throat, rough and distracting. It made it hard to swallow, and it was difficult to ignore. Shadows flashed at the edge of my vision: the physical symptoms of fatigue and betrayal.

“Then it started to bug me,” I said once I got my throat cleared a bit. “I started thinking, Why do they want to leave Helsinki, if they can’t sell their apartment? Why be in such a hurry to leave right now, when Elina’s best friend is missing?”

Ahti laid his hand on the arm of the chair and wrapped his fingers over the end of it. It looked like he was holding the chair down, or holding on for the ride.

“Tapani, I’ve been very ill. This sort of thing doesn’t exactly perk me up.”

I paid no attention to his comment. I had to keep going.

“I thought, I have to ask Ahti about this. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for everything. I can trust Ahti. He’s a good friend, an old friend. But how good a friend? I was starting to wonder.”