Pasi Jääskeläinen - Secret Passages in a Hillside Town

Greta smiles in her sleep. Olli smiles at the sleeping woman. For a little while everything is all right.

After a moment’s hesitation, he puts on his slippers and goes downstairs. He uses the toilet, drinks a glass of mineral water, eats a pear, sits down at the dining-room table and turns on the computer. He can spend a few minutes on Facebook while Greta gets some rest.

Aino’s profile has a new travel photo. Aino and the boy look straight into the camera, sunburnt and exhausted. Their eyes ask: Why can’t we come home?

The M-particles ease Olli’s guilt. They show him in a filmic light. Enthralled to the mission he’s been given by the kidnappers, Olli Suominen may be a selfish cinematic character, in some sense even a traitor, but it’s all for the sake of a larger-than-life love, and there’s nothing a cinematic person can do about a sequence of dramatic events once it’s set in motion. All’s fair in love and war.

Then he notices that he has a new Facebook alert:

Karri has confirmed you as a friend on Facebook.

A chill goes through him. His hands feel numb and he sits there for a moment. He goes to light a cigarette, takes a drag and goes back to the computer to look at Karri Kultanen’s profile.

The profile photo is a sculpture of a naked youth. Olli remembers seeing it in person when he was at the Louvre. It’s called Sleeping Hermaphroditus . It was sculpted by Bernini sometime in the 1600s, on a commission from a cardinal. The sculpted figure had a woman’s breasts and a penis. When Olli noticed this at the Louvre it gave him a start, which made the French publishers and the Swedish literary agent he was with burst into laughter.

Olli looks at Karri’s information, which doesn’t mention his birthday, gender or hometown. All that’s there is his favourite quote, which Olli recognizes. It’s from Ovid’s Metamorphoses :

Karri’s profile has a few status updates, though not many comments. But then he only has five Facebook friends: Olli, Aino and the Blomrooses. The most recent post is from a week ago, written at night:

Karri Kultanen just woke up and is trying not to wake the man beside him and his little nymph.

Underneath it says:

Anne Blomroos likes this.

The next most recent post is from more than a year earlier, in the spring:

Karri Kultanen took two jacks out of the game, but spared the blonde Queen of Spades.

Under that one it says:

Anne Blomroos and 2 others like this.

The two others are Riku and Leo Blomroos.

There’s also a comment from Anne:

I don’t think my dear brothers would mind my bringing them along on this little cinematic project of ours (which I think of as a romantic comedy, although it does perhaps have hints of black). It’ll make them look a little less small-minded than they really were, in at least one person’s eyes.

Olli’s cigarette has fallen on the table. He picks it up, brushes the ashes onto the floor and takes a long drag, trying to comprehend it all.

Now a little chat window with a tiny image of the sleeping Hermaphroditus and Karri Kultanen’s name opens up at the bottom of the screen; Olli is so frightened that he shouts a curse.

Of course, he’s aware that it’s possible to chat through Facebook. He’s just never had any reason to try it. Email is modern enough for him.

The message in the box says: Hello, friend.

Olli feels like screaming. And turning off the computer. But instead he writes: Karri?

Answer: Yes. We should talk.

Olli shakes his head. No, no, no, he really doesn’t want to talk; he doesn’t want to know anything about Karri. With trembling fingers, however, he writes: Where are you?

Then, answering his own question, he mutters aloud, “Where do you think, Sherlock?”

He shivers. His ears ring. He feels like he’s going to vomit. A moment passes. Olli imagines his correspondent putting his thoughts in order.

Finally, text appears on the screen:

Olli my friend, I’m so sorry, but it’s nearly time for the closing scene.

WHEN OLLI WALKS into the bedroom, Greta is slumped on the edge of the bed. Her arms hang at her sides and her whole body is trembling. The laptop on the night table is open and the screen illuminates her pale face. “I guess I turned on the computer in my sleep,” she says quietly. “I must have wanted to look at Facebook. But I can’t. I feel numb. My feet are frozen.”

There’s no green in her eyes now, just the dark of October.

Olli helps her to lie down on the bed and puts the covers over her. Her breath is laboured and her pulse erratic.

“I can rub your feet to warm them,” Olli says, and looks out the window. “But first let’s put the computer away…”

The approaching winter grips the house tight. According to the weather reports the first snow could come at any time.

Greta takes hold of Olli’s hand and whispers, “No, leave it on. I need Facebook… Please don’t think me silly, darling, but I want to leave a goodbye message for all the people I know around the world, when I feel the end is at hand… I still have to think of what to write. Would you help me with that, Olli?”

Olli strokes her golden hair and nods, because he can’t speak. It feels as if his chest is trying to tear itself open. But for Greta’s sake he’ll hold himself together until the end. For Greta, and for his family, of course.

“All right,” he finally whispers. “But that’s not something that has to be done tonight. Not at all. There’ll be time tomorrow. Let’s wait until morning, together.”

Death is justly considered the high point of a cinematic life. It is a strong ending for any story that has been lived truly, and also serves as a dramatic element, if not the critical turning point, in the lives of those who know the dying person.

Depending on the context and point of view, death can be emotional and melodramatic, coolly laconic and expressionless, courageous, happy, symbolic, senseless, terrifying, sickening, ironic, tragic, even comic, but whatever the tone, it gives ultimate meaning to everything that has come before it. If at all possible, a cinematic person should pay particular attention to his or her death, in order to make it elegant and cinematically meaning ful.

(See following page, death scenes: Max Schreck in Nosferatu ; Lew Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front ; Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms ; James Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces ; Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun ; Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal in Love Story .)

The windows brighten. They lie under the covers, holding each other. The house is heavy with silence. The doctor, whom Olli summoned at six o’clock, is making no sound downstairs. He’s probably reading the book he brought with him, some kind of play.