Pasi Jääskeläinen - Secret Passages in a Hillside Town

When he touches the sweatshirt, his hand touches something else, something solid. There’s a person inside the clothes. A boy. Or the pale, withered ghost of a boy.

It turns. It whispers in a voice rasping with the soil of the passageways. “ Oh, it’s you. So. I guess you know the reason I’ve been sitting here all these years …”

Olli opens his eyes and realizes he’s on the sofa. His clothes are damp with cold sweat.

There was a picture on Aino’s profile now. It was a photo of Aino and the boy wading near the waterline on a deserted beach. In the background was the sea and an exotic point of land. The boy looked very happy. Aino was looking at the camera. There was panic in her eyes.

In the foreground was a man in a suit with his head cut off by the edge of the picture. A security guard, Olli thought. Or a keeper. The man’s coat was open. The butt of a pistol peeked out from under it.

Where are you?

Olli’s question had received an answer.

Hello, Olli. They’re letting me answer your message. I don’t know where we are. Somewhere warm, on the seashore. It might be an island. We were brought here by helicopter. We’re going to change our location soon, from what I understand. We’re all right, as long as we follow instructions. They tell me I should think of it as a luxury holiday, albeit an involuntary one. They apologized for their unorthodox actions, but they said that it has to do with some old story that you had a part in, and that you would no doubt understand the situation. You’re supposed to help these people to correct some past error that you witnessed. Once it’s taken care of, our forced holiday will be over and they’ll let us go home.

Hopefully you can help them correct their problem, whatever it is.

It’s very nice of you, by the way, to notice that I was gone. I don’t think you noticed when our son was kidnapped two weeks ago. I’m sorry I didn’t spell it out for you, but I was forbidden from telling anyone, including you. It seems that it was meant to be a lesson, as well as being practical in terms of the travel arrangements—they stole the child, and the mother dutifully followed. I eventually received instructions, left home while you were out meeting that author (I hope the meeting went well, dear, so that nothing bad happens to your publishing house) and the kidnappers—or “organizers” as they like me to call them—brought me to him. But don’t be too worried. At least Lauri and I are together. We’re being treated well and we’ll be all right, as long as you do what’s expected of you, provided you can spare the time from work for it.

:–)

Olli stared at the smile added to the bottom of the message.

Then he noticed that he had three new messages in his inbox.

They were from the Blomroos siblings.

WHEN AINO HAD BEEN MISSING for three days, Olli put down his book, got undressed, washed and put on pressed trousers, an Italian dress shirt, a tie and a pale-coloured jacket. He went to the living room and looked the portrait of Notary Suominen in the eye.

Deeds are a man’s full-length mirror , the portrait reminded him.

Olli stepped out into the yard, stopped and waited for the vertigo to subside. He went over the instructions he had received. Then he walked through Mäki-Matti, cheerily greeting his neighbours. His greetings were returned. Someone asked the news and said to say hello to Aino. I certainly will, Olli answered. How’s the boy? Fine, fine. Growing all the time. Having fun at the beach. They praised the weather and remarked that summer was, after all, a fleeting thing, and you ought to enjoy it just as long as you could.

Olli felt better. It was fun to pretend that everything was fine, to share a moment of the sunny, unchanged ordinariness that his neighbours still inhabited.

He climbed up Harju Ridge. When he got to the top of the Harju Steps he looked at the clock and thought that he should probably continue straight down the other side.

Start down the Ridge at exactly 1 p.m.

It was warm. The light over the city was dazzling. The rooftops glowed. The shadows on the steps and the cold rising up from the earth cooled him pleasantly. Olli prepared himself for the encounter. He put a smile on his face.

You will meet Greta on the steps, quite by accident. Your mission is to buy her an ice cream and make her look forward to your next meeting.

Olli could see that the girl from his dreams was coming up the stairs. The colours were so bright that it hurt his eyes, the outlines unnaturally sharp. For a moment he thought he could see the irises of her eyes from dozens of metres away. He felt dizzy again. His legs were shaking. What if he fell, tumbled down the stone steps and cracked his skull open? Would his family get to come home then, or would they end up dead, tossed in the ocean?

Olli looked into Greta’s eyes as they approached each other. Her eyes sparkled. The surrounding foliage accentuated their greenness.

They met at a landing that looked like a little stone fort, halfway up the steps. Greta was wearing a sleeveless green dress and black pumps. She was the grown woman again, the successful author that the girl in the pear-print dress had become.

“Olli! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Greta,” he sputtered.

His throat was dry. He didn’t quite know what to do or what to say. He stood looking at her expectantly, nervous and embarrassed, a tight smile on his lips. They looked each other over. Greta laughed with a flirty tilt of her head.

“That’s still my name. And now that we’ve remembered each other’s name it must be time to dive into a little small talk. Beautiful weather today, isn’t it? Where are you off to, Mr Suominen? To work again, I’ll bet. Off to publish those autumn titles?”

No. I’ve come to meet you, so they don’t kill my family , Olli thought, and said, “I’m on my way to the supermarket.”

“Ah.”

“To buy some liver casserole,” he added, sounding reasonably natural.

“Oh,” Greta said. “Do you like liver casserole?”

“No. But…”

They stared at each other.

“But your wife told you to get some?” Greta eventually said.

“Yes,” Olli said. He was angry with himself. He shouldn’t have brought his wife into this. It wouldn’t advance his task. But it was too late to take it back. “The boy wants liver casserole,” he said.

Greta smiled sadly. “Children like liver casserole because it has raisins in it. Even I used to like it, years ago.”

“Time changes everything,” Olli said with a smile.

Greta gazed into the distance and whispered pensively, “Everything changes, and nothing changes. A person, anyway, always stays the same.”

Amid an electric silence, Greta sat down on the edge of one of the stone steps. Olli settled in beside her. When they looked at each other Olli could see how pale and transparent their safe roles as a publisher and successful author were; at that moment they were looking into the depths of thirty years past.

They felt embarrassed, as if they had both just realized they were naked.

Olli blushed and coughed uncomfortably.

Greta looked at her shoes. It was clear that she felt like running away.

Olli couldn’t allow that. He had his instructions. He had to think of some snappy line to steer events in the right direction.

As they got up again, there was a flash of disappointment on Greta’s face. She sighed like grass bending in the wind and mumbled, “So, I guess I…”

Just then their stone sanctum was invaded by a passing crowd of French tourists. The middle-aged woman leading the group was explaining the history of the steps, gesturing vigorously. Greta’s voice was drowned out by a chatter of French as the tourists emitted admiring exclamations.