Хьелль Аскильдсен - The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

There’s a really nice clubroom in our house. A while ago, when there were lots of children living in the building, the clubroom was in constant use. Now that the children have moved away, we rent the room to outside groups. Our first tenant was an art club called Picasso. The first week went well enough, but once they started painting, the stench of turpentine came up through the ventilation shaft and it caused a right row. Manninen, who lived on the third floor, made a complaint about the group, as did the old widow on the sixth floor, and I was the one that had to go and tell the art teacher that it was no use, they’d have to go. And so the clubroom was empty for another few years, but when the housing association found itself a bit short of cash, Manninen suggested we rent the room to a group that doesn’t make such a stink. I flicked through the classifieds and found a group called Silver Lining. They were funded by the Red Cross, which promised to pay their rent on time. I suggested this to Manninen, who seemed pretty enthusiastic. At first the group was no trouble at all. They were mostly octogenarians who liked to play bingo and talk about CT scans and homoeopathy. But when autumn turned to winter, that’s when things started to go south. One day a member of the group had a stroke and we had to call an ambulance. Soon after this little incident the group’s volunteer leader died during a meeting of the book club and the body had to be driven away in a hearse. Manninen had had it with all the nonsense and asked me to ring the Red Cross and tell them enough was enough. I made the call, and the clubroom was empty once again. Our building was about to undergo a substantial balcony renovation and the housing association desperately needed some extra funds. I found an advertisement in the newspaper: the Band of Brothers was looking for a clubroom. I showed Manninen the ad, and Manninen said it seemed promising as the group’s name made a nice reference to lost Karelia and the Finnish kindred peoples still living there. I called the number in the ad and arranged a meeting with the group’s chairman. He was a patriotic young man—he’d even sewn a Finnish flag on his jacket. We drew up some ground rules, signed a rental agreement, and the man paid six months’ rent upfront in cash. All summer Manninen opined about how pleasant it was to discover that there were still some people in Finland with good, upstanding values. And this continued until Christmas. The first setback came on Boxing Day. A young woman had allegedly been raped in the clubroom. Probably her own fault, said Manninen. Then on New Year’s Eve a man claimed to be the victim of a grievous assault. An American basketball player had allegedly been knocked unconscious with a taser, dragged into the clubroom and beaten to a pulp. Well, Manninen sighed, relieved—at least he was black, not white. But it was at the beginning of February that things finally came to a head. The case ended up in the headlines: a killer was on the loose and he’d dismembered at least two victims. One of them was Manninen.

This morning Nazi Mum swallowed the last of Kalle’s ADHD tablets and headed off to work, her handbag swinging over her shoulder. By the time he went to school, Kalle was so hyper he punched a hole in the hallway mirror.

I went straight to my aerobics class, and as I was getting changed, I noticed my tub of caffeine pills was missing. Fucking Nazi Mum, I shouted. The instructor ran up and handed me an energy drink to try and calm me down. I thanked her. Over and out.

After school I went to a café with my mates. Gran called and said she’d run out of dementia tablets. Gran, listen, I explained to her at least five times, you haven’t run out, Nazi Mum’s been nicking them. She’s been taking Gran’s meds too because they stimulate her brain function. Without all the doping, she’d probably get the sack.

When I got home from basketball training that evening, Nazi Mum was snoring in the armchair in the living room. She’d probably taken a handful of sleeping pills before the news, so she could get a good night’s sleep before another tough day at work. I dragged her into the bedroom, covered her with a blanket and opened the ventilation window to give her some fresh air.

I don’t need to look him in his eyes or stare at the muscles in his face to see the deep sense of disgust he feels towards my saggy old arse, my alcohol-bloated body, my rotten stinking breath, my stumpy white legs, my puffy ruddy face, my veiny hands, my eyes that have long since lost any lustre. That being said, I’ve saved him from a Bangkok whorehouse, paid for his flights out here, bought him a pair of fancy white Adidas trainers and an electric shaver. On top of that, I pay for his rent, food and bus tickets; I’ve sorted him out with gym membership and an English course, lube and insurance and I even wire a few quid a month to his family by the side of a paddy field in the middle of nowhere, so I think it’s only reasonable to expect him to do his job properly, though it sometimes makes him retch.

After a meeting of the housing association, my husband said that he and the other motorists had agreed to cut down one of the trees in the garden. Come September the old rowan will be history because sap drips on to the car bonnets and the little birds feed off its berries and shit all over the paintwork. We’ve put up with it for thirty years, he said, and enough is enough; the city gardeners can take care of it and it won’t cost the housing association a penny.

Without the least hesitation I told my husband I’d file for divorce if anyone touched the rowan. It’s only a tree, he scoffed. In the city we live like city people.

September arrived, and one day when I got back from work, the rowan was lying in the back garden, its crimson berries weeping on the grass.

The next morning I marched up to the magistrates and submitted the paperwork for a unilateral divorce. My husband was in the transit lounge at Heathrow Airport waiting for a connecting flight to Singapore when my lawyer contacted him to inform him of the development. Ten minutes after take-off he had a heart attack and died despite attempts at resuscitation.

If they mutilate my genitals, the Finns will give me those slow, awkward looks. But if they don’t, my own people will think I’m weird.

DEAR MUM,

You’re right, this is a terrible city: noisy, dirty and shabby, and there are piles of rubbish on the pavements which no one seems to care about. The air pollution hangs like a yellowish-grey mist between the skyscrapers. My allergy has already broken out after only a few hours, and I had to put myself to bed in the hotel room with a running nose and streaming eyes. It was icy cold in that room, by the way, because the central heating had gone on strike. There’s nothing wrong with my English, as you know, but making myself understood to the lady in reception was impossible to begin with. They’re in such a hurry all the time, even when they speak; monosyllabic nasal sounds shoot out of their mouths as if from machine guns. Towards midnight, and out of the blue, there was a knock at my door. I followed your advice and didn’t make a move to open it. There was another knock. I lay staring up into the darkness, my heart pounding so that it seemed to echo against my palate. Then I heard the sound of someone putting a key into the lock. The door was pushed open slightly, and then there was an ominous rattling sound, as the safety chain tautened and held fast. I sat bolt upright in bed and turned on the light. I heard a man’s husky voice and a torrent of words outside the door. The only bit I could understand was the “sir” at the end. I grabbed hold of the telephone. “I’m ringing Reception right this minute,” I said in a loud voice, hoping to hear hastily retreating footsteps down the corridor. However, the man stayed where he was and the woman in Reception made it clear, in a direct and forthright manner, that the man was a plumber. At least, he was dressed in overalls and had a toolbox in his hand. He was a gigantic black man, who mumbled something incomprehensible to himself, scratched his head, gave the radiator a mighty kick and went on his way.