Antti Tuomainen: The Healer

I heard a language foreign to me on the other side of the curtain—first a man’s voice, then a woman’s. I remembered my dream, felt a sense of panic, and took my phone out of my pocket. The display was dark. Either it had been hit by a club or the battery was dead. My panic grew.

I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t hold me, and I collapsed back to where I’d been sitting.

I fixed my gaze on the red text glowing behind the curtain and managed to remain upright. I breathed for a moment until I was sure that I wouldn’t get dizzy, and looked around me. A gray cement room, cardboard boxes and junk along the walls, plastic sacks full of soft drink bottles in the doorway, some full, some empty, and a chair with the backpack I’d got from Ahti slung over it. It was less than two meters away.

I got to my feet again and—made wiser by my previous attempt—used the wall for support. I got the backpack and sat down again. The gun lay in my hand as the pack fell to the floor.

The voices behind the curtain paused.

I held the pistol on my lap as the curtain was pulled aside. I recognized Hamid in spite of the red glow behind him that left his face in darkness and formed a halo around his head, softening his outline.

“Take it easy,” he said.

I shook my head, opened my mouth, and moved my tongue, but I couldn’t get any sound to come out.

“Water,” I heard Hamid say.

A moment later the curtain was pulled completely to one side. Into the room came a woman with a pitcher of water in one hand and a glass in the other. She filled the glass, set the pitcher on the floor, and handed the glass to me.

I drank as if it were my first taste of water. Half of it slopped down my chest, the other half I coughed back up. Swallowing was going to take some practice. I did better with the second glass—the woman didn’t need to back up to avoid a spray of water this time.

She was about thirty years old, brown-eyed, with slightly lighter brown skin than Hamid. She had long black hair twisted into a bun on the back of her head and large silver earrings that shone brightly. She was wearing dark jeans, a yellowish hooded sweatshirt, and a startlingly white apron. She handed me my backpack.

“My cousin,” Hamid said, nodding in her direction.

He came closer and pointed to my ear.

“She knows what she’s doing.”

I touched the wad of paper and tape. For that ear the world was full of rustlings and raspings. It didn’t hurt, though, so perhaps it was wisest to be grateful. And I was. I said so to Hamid.

“Yes,” he said with a smile. “They almost did you in.”

The woman also smiled. I tried to.

“Thanks,” I said to her. First in Finnish, then in English.

“I speak Finnish,” she said. “It’s all right.”

“Tapani,” I said, extending my hand.

“Nina.”

Her hand was warm and narrow in mine, and I held on to it longer than was necessary for a handshake. Its slenderness immediately reminded me of the dream I’d just had about my wife, whose hand was just as smooth and delicate. My mind was flooded with memories, and in all of them I was touching Johanna. On the street at night coming home from the movies, under the table at a boring dinner party when no one was watching, walking her to work on an early summer morning.

Nina noticed.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Hamid intervened: “You’re in some kind of difficulty.”

It was close enough to the truth, so I nodded.

“Can you tell me about it?”

Why not? Provided he would tell me where I was.

“You’re in Kallio,” he said.

I told him that my wife had disappeared and I had to keep looking for her. The gun was mine, and I would pay Hamid for having returned it to me. He kept his eyes on me all the time I was speaking.

Nina got up from the chair, went out into the restaurant, and came back carrying her purse. She took out a packet of painkillers and handed it to me.

“Thank you,” I said, taking out two tablets and swallowing them with some water.

Next Hamid went into the restaurant, clattered around for a moment, and came back carrying a cup and saucer.

“Tea. With lots of sugar.”

The tea was as dark as coffee, burning hot, and so sweet it sent a stab through my teeth. I drank the whole cup in a few swallows. I felt the hot liquid in my throat and a moment later in my stomach.

When I was sure the tea would stay down, I got up and stood for a moment. I took a few tottering steps toward the door and went out into the restaurant. The room was the size of a small office. Half the space was taken up by an open kitchen and buffet counter that stretched along one wall. The other half was set aside for three small tables. The wooden chairs around the tables were empty. A television on the wall was showing a report about a wildfire.

“Is this the local news?” I asked.

Nina shook her head.

“Our home country,” Hamid said.

I looked at the fire again. It looked like all the other fires in the world.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Hamid.

“Me, too,” he said.

Nina picked up the remote from the counter and changed the channel. The Helsinki area information station reported news of the capital continuously. I asked her to call up the latest news broadcast. She pressed the remote.

I took out my phone and asked for a charger. Hamid snapped up the phone and took it behind the counter.

I sat in one of the restaurant’s chairs and looked at the clock on the wall: twelve past one. I felt weak and sick. Ideas came into my mind, but I didn’t want to follow them to their conclusions. Most of the thoughts revolved around Johanna, and the mere idea that something might have happened to her like what had just happened to me hurt more than the beating I’d taken.

The local news didn’t offer any more clues. Armed robberies had increased—they were being committed in the daytime now, and closer to the city center. A skyscraper in central Pasila had been set on fire earlier in the evening. Traffic from the Russian border to the capital was jammed again. There was also good news: The metro tunnels had been pumped out, and the metro was back up and running. They had also increased the number of armed guards there.

But none of that was any help to me.

Hamid sat on the other side of the table.

“I’m sure things will get better,” he said when I turned away from the television and looked at him.

I STOOD FOR A moment in front of the pizzeria, breathing in the night’s thin air, feeling it in my throat, and keeping my eyes on the trees that stood stock-still behind the library, silently waiting for spring, for warmth and new life, in the middle of the winter, in the middle of the night, glistening with rain, their limbs dripping. The earth beneath them was numbingly cold and would be for months yet, but the trees didn’t let their nerves get to them, they didn’t tremble or blame anyone for the unpleasantness of their situation. I was awakened from this lesson when Hamid backed the taxi around the corner and stopped in front of me.

I turned my phone back on in the taxi. No sign of Johanna. I took out a tissue and wiped my earlobe. The wound had opened again when I washed my face. The tissue turned dark red in seconds. I took a new one out of my pocket and held it against my ear.

We drove north to avoid the roads closed due to the high-rise fire in Pasila and made it to the police station without any trouble. Hamid stopped the car a few hundred meters before he reached the gates, and I handed him who knows how many bills. I hadn’t calculated how much the fare would be. He had saved my life, so I felt I ought to pay a little extra. I asked him to wait. If I didn’t return in an hour, he could go look for another fare.