Mari Saat - The Saviour of Lasnamäe

Vova offered Natalya a seat and she sat down because she felt her legs growing suddenly numb and didn’t understand. Jaakko? Why Jaakko? What was the Finn’s part in all of this?

Jaakko had been a regular client who’d visited at exactly the same time, once a week, no more, no less. He never made any sound – except for his rhythmic, increasingly rapid breathing that stopped suddenly and he left as quietly as he arrived, quickly, almost in shame. For some reason Natalya even felt gratitude towards him – that she could forget him, that she could imagine that he wasn’t really a person, just a rubber robot that she could completely erase from her life – like an unpleasant film, she could just turn the telly off or switch channels… And now she was especially offended that that grey, cold, greasy lizard was occupying the space that belonged to her lovely, warm, tender Dmitri Dmitrievich – what he had to say to her could not be of importance. Perhaps he was going away forever and just wanted to say goodbye; perhaps he already had a family or God knows what, but not under any circumstances should he have been… in his place… She might have guessed as much, she should have realised beforehand, she should know by now that everything in this world was wicked and nothing else, wrong and no two ways about it. It was all a mockery.

“Yes, Natalya Filippovna,” said Vova, “this bouquet is for you. Jaakko chose it just for you, for the wonderful, fleeting moments he spent with you…”

Natalya could no longer hear what he was saying. She felt that Vova was a grey lizard too of the same ilk, only stronger and more execrable for that reason; as if none of them were people – not even Kiira and Vova’s wife Ira. And this room around her was not a place for people, it was some kind of lair for all the animals that had lured her here into a trap. And she burst into tears – how much from offence and how much from despair, she did not know.

“There, there,” Vova tried to calm her by patting her on the shoulder, “it must just be the shock… Have a swig…”

Natalya brusquely pushed away the glass that Vova was offering her; the brandy spewed into her lap and the damp stain on her clothes suddenly divided her in two – on the one side she was crying inconsolably, but on the other she saw and heard everything and followed attentively, yet calmly, with the superiority of an adult at a children’s performance. Not condescendingly, but with understanding empathy, as if she were looking over her own shoulder, as if it was not her own self, but Dmitri Dmitrievich, or as if they were both one and were trying together to calm the Natalya who was crying in the easy chair. But their consoling efforts were different from Vova’s, they would have regarded all the people there, including the unhappy Natalya in the easy chair, in the same way, as little creatures, perhaps as slightly foolish little creatures, but strangely each one as lovely as the rest, even though some of them looked a bit like lizards.

“Why is she crying?” asked Jaakko in Finnish, worried.

And Kiira shrilly replied in Finnish, “Onnesta! Aiva onnesta!”

Although she no longer really knew which Natalya she was just then – Natalya realised she understood what Jaakko was asking. It was just that she didn’t understand Kiira’s reply – onnesta – that must mean õ nnest – “for happiness”, mustn’t it? But she wasn’t crying for happiness, so? Or perhaps the Estonian for the Finnish word was õ nnetust – “unhappiness”… Just what was it they were saying? Kiira could speak every language, because she had to sell stuff all the time and she said that she had to be good at something and that something was selling, and if she didn’t know a customer’s lingo she’d learn it all right, even Chinese if more Chinese started coming here, just so she could flog them stuff… Never mind that Sofia always said that Kiira spoke all languages the same… and suddenly Sofia was here, and she no longer understood whether the person crying at her right shoulder was herself or Sofia; herself and Dima or Sofia and Dima, and how she now thought of him simply as “Dima”, and how she could think and feel so many things at once and so differently at once.

“How’s about that then?” asked Vova. “How about that, dear Natalya Filippovna? Jaakko is just saying that he can’t sleep with anyone any more – except you. He just can’t get it up for anyone else.” Vova spoke with emphatic deference, addressing her formally, although it sounded somehow quite pompous, as if he had Natalya under interrogation somewhere and was accountable to higher powers. “Just think, Natalya, how much worry and pain you’re causing another human being because of that.”

Those words cleared her head; she was suddenly herself again. The tears stopped as if they had never been shed, and she looked at the Finn with surprise: he was a completely ordinary person. And genuinely worried, helplessly worried.

“I will never sleep with anyone for money again,” said Natalya, surprising herself by the manner in which she said it – with such certainty and calmness, as if she knew that she would never need to do that again.

“Not for money,” Vova explained, “not for that… Of course he’d be willing for money, like before, if need be… But he wants you, the full package. To marry you!”

“But I don’t,” said Natalya, surprised, “but no! I don’t love him. Not in the slightest.”

She cast her eye over Jaakko at length and found she no longer understood: the repulsion had gone. There was no love, but there was no repulsion either. There was a chill in her heart.

“Oh Natalya, Natalya,” said Vova, “love is for the young… For children! But you and I should look at life with our feet on the ground. Jaakko, you see, is a simple worker, but he earns more than some of our government ministers and when he retires he’ll have no worries. Finnish pensioners can travel. Just look at us – if we’re even lucky enough to draw a pension, it’ll only ever be enough to keep the wolf from the door… If you’re with him you can be a lady and your worries will be over.”

“I don’t want to,” said Natalya determinedly, “I want to keep my job, that’s not negotiable!” But she wondered what were they talking about it for, she and Vova, because what was the point of travelling or money any more?

Now Jaakko became alarmed, shook Vova’s arm, asked something, Vova explained something to him then Kiira chimed in too. Natalya understood not a thing. Not because she’d understood nothing of the languages they were speaking, but because she was no longer trying to listen or understand anything. She just sat there, disinterested.

Vova then set about explaining again, trying to bring her round: “Jaakko says that you can do anything, live just as you like, you don’t have to invite him to your home, or come here, he’s bought a lovely little pad here and he has another flat in Helsinki… It’s small, but he owns it…”

“But why isn’t he married?” asked Natalya and felt that she wasn’t asking out of stubbornness or nosiness, but just as if she were a doctor addressing a patient, trying to make a specific diagnosis.

Vova translated her question with a sigh, but Jaakko replied dutifully, quietly, as if explaining his problem to the doctor.

“He was married,” Vova now translated what Jaakko had said, “but his wife left him. He says he’s a boring type of a bloke – women don’t fall for men like him… He’s not expecting you to love him – if only you can indulge him…”

Natalya glanced at Jaakko, but then they caught each other’s eyes. The look in Jaakko’s was gentle, humble, concerned – a look that stopped Natalya in her tracks. That was how Dima had looked at her, Dmitri Dmitrievich, when he’d said “pray for us, pray for all of us…” Natalya burst into tears again, whether from despair or sheer surprise that warmth was again flooding into her heart. Vova no longer rushed to console her, but merely turned to Jaakko. The three of them put their heads together, Vova, Kiira and Jaakko, and discussed something at length among themselves…