Pasi Jääskeläinen - Secret Passages in a Hillside Town

Olli went to the computer and sent a request for bids to some contractors and a loan application to the bank.

At work he caused a brief panic when he announced that he would be leaving in a few days for a three-week holiday. Yes, three weeks. You heard right. No, the publishing house certainly wouldn’t collapse while he was away, as long as everyone did their jobs.

The girl in the pear-print dress still haunted his dreams, but Olli was optimistic about the future. Everything would turn out all right now that he had begun rebuilding his life and recovering from his midlife crisis.

In the name of healing his marriage Olli delegated a couple of his most urgent priorities to Maiju and went home an hour earlier than usual.

The stone steps of Harju Ridge divided into two narrow stairways just before descending onto the street. Between them was a wedge-shaped space with a blue fountain, a couple of park benches, and an ice cream stand. As Olli was headed up the Ridge at this spot he saw one of Jyväskylä’s many Grace Kellys, a woman at the kiosk buying ice cream for her three little boys. She was wearing sunglasses, shorts and a pale-coloured shirt, making an effort to look like she had just stepped out of To Catch a Thief .

A Guide to the Cinematic Life included a thorough discussion of all of Grace Kelly’s film incarnations, right down to her clothes and hairstyles. She was a favourite among fans of cinematicness. Many who found something of Grace Kelly’s timeless features in themselves decided at first to base their style on To Catch a Thief or Dial M for Murder . More advanced practitioners preferred the characters of Almodóvar or Wong Kar-wai.

The sons of the Grace Kelly clone launched toy sailboats in the fountain, their sails bright with sunlight, like an overexposed scene from a movie.

Olli missed the film club. Maybe he should watch a video tonight. Perhaps Casablanca . Or, if Ageing with Dignity could be trusted, perhaps ordinary entertainment television would be better for a midlife crisis, he thought gloomily. A cheery quiz show or something.

The stairs Olli was climbing were mentioned in the Magical City Guide manuscript as the most photographed spot in Jyväskylä, and also as a very cinematic locale:

The Harju Steps, also known as Nero’s Steps, were designed by Gunnar A. Wahlroos, and were constructed as a jobs relief project. The steps were named after city engineer Oskar Nero, although the work itself was overseen by city engineer J.E. Järvilehto in 1925. The M-particle levels on the steps vary from one day to the next, but even at their most ordinary they offer a fine vantage point on the great meetings and partings of life.

I am also aware of an entrance to a secret passageway located near the steps (see Appendix 3). It is difficult to spot, and entering the secret passages is not recommended to anyone, due to its many risks.

The Magical City Guide manuscript was coming together. Olli had added his comments and suggestions to the text. There were still the secret passages to be discussed. Then he could leave the manuscript with Greta to be polished, and go on holiday.

When Olli got home, the house was silent. He poured a glass of juice and went into the living room. The afternoon sun painted the room in shades of fruit juice. The trees and shrubs in the yard glowed outside the window. Through the hawthorn hedge he caught glimpses of the house next door, where his neighbour was walking back and forth in the yard wearing a red cap. A gas engine sputtered. The smell of freshly cut grass wafted through the window.

On the living-room table was the cheap photo album, and next to it was a pile of pictures.

He emptied his glass of juice and noticed that he was in a glum, cynical mood. He started looking through Aino’s collection of photos. They were all poor pictures technically, taken over several years. The boy was in most of them. Olli himself didn’t appear in any, and even Aino was only in a few of them, and always with her son.

In the earliest photos he was a button-eyed infant. The most recent ones were taken early that summer. When he was a baby he’d had Olli and Grandpa Notary’s features. Now that he was five he looked more like his mother: a cute, instantly recognizable face.

As he looked through the photos, Olli decided to take the boy swimming. Aino could go, too, of course. Once they’d had a splash they could get some ice cream and lie on a towel in the sun and Olli could point out the hill and the ski jump on the other side of the lake. Maybe they could climb up Taulumäki. They could bring a picnic with them. And the camera. Aino could take some photos with Olli in them.

Olli went out to the garden, supposing Aino and the boy were picnicking there. When he didn’t see them he went back inside, walked from room to room, wondering whether they were visiting someone or had gone into town.

He stopped in the bedroom doorway.

“Well? What is it?” Aino finally whispered.

Olli told her his idea of going swimming.

Aino laid her forearm over her face, heaving it there slowly, as if it were made of stone.

“Female problems again?” Olli said sympathetically. “Can I get you some water or an aspirin?”

“I already took one. Thanks for offering.”

Olli asked where the boy was.

Aino said he was taking a nap, like her.

Olli went to peek in the boy’s bedroom. The bed was empty. He went back to Aino and told her that the child wasn’t in his bed.

“A nap at the neighbours’,” Aino explained, without looking at him. “Anyway Lauri has a sore throat. He can’t go swimming today, and maybe not tomorrow, either. It was a nice idea, though. Some other time.”

Olli went into his office and opened Facebook. He had a message from Greta Kara.

Hi, Olli. I’m still in Jyväskylä. Did you want to discuss the manuscript? Shall we meet today at 10 p.m. at the observation tower?

OLLI SPENT TWO HOURS on Facebook and sent a lot of messages about the Frankfurt Book Fair. When he went back downstairs he met Aino in the kitchen, sitting at the table eating Marie biscuits. She said the boy had come home from the neighbours’, eaten dinner and gone to bed.

“He told me to tell Daddy goodnight and sweet dreams.”

Olli said he wanted to read to the boy from a new Book Tower children’s book just off the presses. It was called A Day with Daddy . In the book a kitten learns all about peoples of the world from his father while his mother is at home making fruit compote. But Aino shook her head.

“No. It’s a nice idea, but he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Some other time.”

Olli shaved, took a shower, got dressed and flipped through the Magical City Guide manuscript one more time, adding more edits.

When he left with his briefcase in his hand, Aino was watching television.

On the western slope of Harju Ridge there was a summer theatre stage and behind it a narrow wooden staircase, which Olli climbed. The evening breeze rustled his clothes rather pleasantly. Halfway up the stairs, however, he had to stop and rest so he wouldn’t sweat and spoil his clothes. Olli adjusted the knot in his tie. The last time he’d shown himself to Greta in a dirty shirt, and this time he had given special attention to how he was dressed. When the outside’s taken care of it’s easier to keep the inside under control.

He was wearing the jewel of his wardrobe, a high-quality Dolce & Gabbana suit made of thin virgin wool. Thus attired, Olli believed he could behave in a businesslike manner and not like an inmate off his meds the way he had the last time.

When he got to the top of the steps he turned left towards the observation tower with its neon clock. The Swedish city of Eskilstuna had presented it as a gift and installed it in the tower in 1953, when no one in Finland knew how to construct one, and they couldn’t buy one from Sweden due to currency problems.