John Irving - Until I Find You

Even their rehearsals were famous. People often went to the Church in the Rock during their lunch break just to hear Hannele and Ritva practice. Jack imagined that it wouldn’t be easy to speak with them in such an atmosphere; in those surroundings, Hannele and Ritva and Jack were too well known to be afforded any privacy. Maybe he should just show up at the church in the early afternoon and invite them to dinner.

Jack was finishing his workout on the ab machine in the gym when his thoughts were interrupted. About half a dozen sweaty women from the pregnancy-aerobics class had surrounded him; Jack guessed that their workout, their dangerous-looking bouncing, was over. Given his Michele Maher state of mind—not to mention his disturbing memories of the Schwangere Girls magazine—these pregnant women were an intimidating presence.

“Hi,” he said, from flat on his back.

“Hi,” the aerobics instructor replied. She was a dark-haired young woman with an arresting oval face and almond-shaped eyes. Because her back had been turned to him during the aerobics class, Jack hadn’t noticed that she was pregnant, too; he’d watched her lead the leaping women from behind.

“You look like Jack Burns, that actor, ” the most pregnant-looking of the women said. Jack wouldn’t have been surprised to learn, later, that these were her last words before going into labor.

“But you can’t be—not if you’re here,” another of the women said doubtfully. “You just look like him, right?”

“It’s a curse,” Jack told them bitterly. “I can’t help it that I look like him. I hate the bastard.” It was the last line that gave him away; it was one of Billy Rainbow’s lines. In the movie, Jack said it three times—not once referring to the same person.

“It’s him !” one of the women cried.

“I knew you were Jack Burns,” the most pregnant-looking woman told him. “Jack Burns always gives me the creeps, and you gave me the creeps the second I saw you.”

“Well, then—I guess that settles it,” Jack said. He was still lying on his back; he hadn’t moved since he’d noticed them surrounding him.

“What movie are you making here? Who else is in it?” one of them asked.

“There’s no movie,” he told them. “I’m just in town to do a little research.”

One of the pregnant women grunted, as if the very thought of what research Jack Burns might be doing in Helsinki had given her her first contraction. Half the women walked away; now that the mystery was solved, they were no longer interested. But the aerobics instructor and two other women stayed, including the most pregnant-looking woman.

“What kind of research is it?” the aerobics instructor asked him.

“It’s a story that takes place in the past—twenty-eight years ago, to be exact,” Jack told them. “It’s about a church organist who’s addicted to being tattooed, and the woman whose father first tattooed him. They have a child. There’s more than one version of what happened, but things didn’t work out.”

“Are you the organist?” the most pregnant-looking woman asked.

“No, I’m the child—all grown up, twenty-eight years later,” he told them. “I’m trying to find out what really happened between my mother and father.”

The pregnant woman who hadn’t yet spoken said: “What a depressing story! I don’t know why they make movies like that.” She turned and walked away—probably she was going to the women’s locker room. The most pregnant-looking woman waddled after her. Jack was left alone with the aerobics instructor.

“You didn’t say you were doing a little research for a movie, did you?” she asked him.

“No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “This research isn’t for a movie.”

“Maybe you need a guide, ” she said. She was at least seven months pregnant, probably eight. Her belly button had popped; like an erect nipple, it poked out against the spandex fabric of her leotard. “I meant to say a date. ”

“I’ve never had a pregnant date,” Jack told her.

“I’m not married—I don’t even have a boyfriend,” she explained. “This baby is kind of an experiment.”

“Something you managed all by yourself?” he asked.

“I went to a sperm bank,” she answered. “I had an anonymous sperm donor. I kind of forget the insemination part.”

From flat on his back on the ab machine, Jack made one of those too-hasty decisions that had characterized his sexually active life. Because he’d imagined that he wanted to be with someone who was pregnant, Jack chose to be with the pregnant aerobics instructor at the Motivus gym—this instead of even trying to make a dinner date with Hannele and Ritva, the lesbian couple who were the reason for his coming to Helsinki in the first place.

Jack rationalized that what he might learn from the organist and cellist, who were a couple when his mother and father knew them—and they were still a couple—was in all likelihood something he already knew or could guess. Jack’s mother had somehow misrepresented them to him; they had slept with her, not his dad. Of course there would be other revelations of that kind, but nothing that couldn’t be said over coffee or tea—nothing so complicated that it would require a dinner date to reveal.

Jack decided to go to the Church in the Rock about the time Hannele and Ritva would be finishing their rehearsal. He would suggest that they go somewhere for a little chat; surely that would suffice. Jack thought there was no reason not to spend his last night in Helsinki with a pregnant aerobics instructor. As it would turn out, there was a reason, but Jack was responding to an overriding instinct familiar to far too many men—namely, the desire to be with a certain kind of woman precluded any reasonable examination or in-depth consideration of the aerobics instructor herself, whose name was Marja-Liisa.

They made a date, which was awkward because they had to get a pen and some paper from the reception desk; other people were watching them. Marja-Liisa wrote out her name and cell-phone number for him. She was clearly puzzled by what Jack wrote out for her —Jimmy Stronach, Hotel Torni— until he explained the business of always registering under the name of the character he plays in his next movie.

When Jack left the gym and returned to the Torni, he went first to that porn shop where he’d seen the unlikely but alluring Schwangere Girls in the window. He took the magazine back to his hotel room—just to look at the pictures, which were both disturbing and arousing.

When Jack left the hotel for the Church in the Rock, he threw the disgusting magazine away—not in his hotel room but in a wastebasket in the hall opposite the elevator. Not that you can really throw pictures like those away—not for years, maybe not ever. What those pregnant women were doing in those photographs would abide with Jack Burns in his grave—or in Hell, where, according to Ingrid, you were deaf but you could see everyone you ever knowingly hurt. You just couldn’t hear what they were saying about you.

Since that afternoon in Helsinki, Jack could imagine what Hell might be like for him. For eternity, he would watch those pregnant women having uncomfortable-looking sex. They would be talking about him, but he couldn’t hear them. For eternity, Jack could only guess what they were saying.

To Jack, the dome of Temppeliaukio Church looked like a giant overturned wok. The rocks, which covered all but the dome, had a pagan simplicity; it was as if the dome were a living egg, emerging from the crater of a meteor. The apartment buildings surrounding the Church in the Rock had an austere sameness about them. (Middle-class housing from the 1930s.)