The Bodyguard (14 page)

The sun had reached its peak. Sweat trickled down my back, and I had to unzip my fleece and roll up my sleeves. I suggested that we take a path over the cliffs and walk to the water’s edge. There weren’t many mushrooms on the cliffs, but we ran into some ornithologists on top of the highest cliff, observing geese and crane migration. A couple of the men spoke Swedish, so David joined in on the conversation. I eavesdropped nearby, undressing David with my eyes. Helena didn’t pay me to sleep with Paskevich’s allies—I could do it for free, on my own time.

The ocean was calm; the final shreds of clouds had disappeared from the sky. A flock of geese approached from the northeast; switching formation, they honked instructions to each other. One of the ornithologists estimated there were about four hundred birds. Another flock came from the east. The birds had not yet lost their way. As long as they kept to this ancient ritual of flight, there was hope for the rest of us. David’s smile was inquisitive; he took hold of my hand. A wave of happiness unexpectedly washed over me. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Yet at that moment, there was no other place I would’ve rather been than on this sunny cliff, under a clear blue sky speckled with geese, with David.

We took the path down to the sandy beach where we had our coffee. David talked about soccer. He firmly believed that soccer was a
lingua franca
: everywhere you went the ball was round, and everyone kicked it in the same way. He’d joined pick-up soccer games in Parisian and Brazilian parks, wasn’t afraid of getting in the way of the ball, and loved playing defense. I listened without hearing, and I let him run his fingers through my short hair. I’d let him kiss me if he just had the brains to do it. He’d brought some strange cookies to have with the coffee; they must’ve been Russian. There was no packaging to check for clues, because he had placed the sweets into a small plastic box along with napkins. Even if the coffee was spiked and the cookies were drug-infused, David would not find out anything else about me that he didn’t already know, except for Helena’s and Cecilia Nuutinen-Kekki’s phone numbers. We sat on the beach, side by side. I wanted to stroke David’s bald head and to find out if he was as hairless anywhere else.

A family of four walked on the beach. The older son’s dark hair blew wildly in the wind and the mother’s basket was full of gypsy mushrooms. The younger boy sang and played air guitar while walking. The older one moved like his father, and the mother, much shorter than the men in the family, had to take two steps for their every one to keep up. The father talked about stopping at the inn. The younger son picked up a rock to throw and tried to make it skip on the water. I’d remember this family for the rest of my life; they briefly intruded on the world I shared with David, and although they didn’t even notice us, they remained in my overly stimulated mind as the idyllic family I’d never had. It could very well be that the kids had only joined their parents for the outing because they felt obliged to; maybe they had been bribed with the promise of getting ice cream at the inn, the mother and father disagreeing about everything else except that the kids had to accompany them on family trips. Maybe the older kid was missing his girlfriend, and the younger son felt badly that he wasn’t dating yet. I didn’t know about all the masks people wore; that family of four probably lied to each other about almost everything, like David and I. Still, the attraction I felt for David was genuine and true.

I got up, walked to the edge of the water, and threw a stone. It skipped five times. We started walking along the beach toward the campgrounds. I had a few mushrooms in my basket—three woolly milk-caps, one milk-cap, and some brittlegills. Picking them had been idiotic. Where would I even cook them? David kept asking about my friend who was supposedly staying at my cabin, so I came up with Reetta, who’d gone to the army with me. Her boyfriend was Matti, that’s all I knew about him; he’d told his wife that he was on a fishing trip with the guys. I was making up lies for people who didn’t even exist.

“Have you ever been married?” I asked.

“No. And no kids, either, although there was one close call.”

“What do you mean?”

“About seven years ago, there was this woman. Gintare. She was Lithuanian but lived in Estonia. She was pretty possessive, but I liked her. Until it became clear that she was a drug addict, and then the relationship went south. I tried leaving her more than once, but there was something so pathetic about her that I always relented and stayed. And she was gorgeous, although that’s never enough of a reason to be with someone.”

David thought that Gintare might have used her fingernail to puncture a condom when she was putting it on him. Or maybe it was just bad luck. In any case, Gintare told him she was pregnant. David had begged her to stop using prescription drugs because they might harm the baby; after all, it was his child, too. “How would you know?” Gintare had taunted him. “I could have had any number of men; how do you know the child is yours?”

“That was the only time I’ve ever come close to hitting a woman. Not because of that stuff about other men, but because of the baby. I didn’t want to be with Gintare, but the thought of having a chil
d . . .
it was nice. And it would’ve been fine for my family, too; like I told you before, there are a lot of mixed marriages in my family. Of course I would’ve married her.”

Three months later, David got a call from the hospital. It was Gintare, telling him she’d had an abortion. When she filled out the paperwork at the hospital, she’d listed the father as “unknown.”

“I grieved for that child for two years. Gintare started using heavier drugs. The last time I saw her, she was sitting in the nightclub at the Viru Hotel, waiting for the next guy to finance her habit. She was still beautiful, but her eyes were empty.”

This was a good moment to take David’s hand and squeeze it; that one act communicated what I was thinking,
I’m so sorry.
I let my hand linger in his, and didn’t pull away even as we walked to the inn and I worried that Helena might see us.

“Are you hungry? The innkeeper said we could have dinner as soon as the rest of the guests are finished, sometime around eight. I have some cheese and fruit in the fridge and a bottle of whiskey to tide us over.”

I followed David to the low-roofed building and noticed that he had neighbors on both sides of his room. These old buildings probably had poor insulation, so I was happy that the other guests had gone out to dinner. I took off my fleece and shoes and sat on the bed. The room was way too small; David seemed to take it over completely. Was his head hitting the ceiling when he opened the bottle of whiskey? David’s hands were large with slim fingers, and I wondered how they’d feel on me. He handed me a glass and sat on the chair next to the vanity. Our legs bumped into each other, but I moved mine even closer to his and took a careful sip of the whiskey. I needed to know what and how much David knew about me, and how Anita Nuutinen had died. Why wasn’t he making the first move, or was he just teasing me? It was understood that a woman wouldn’t follow a man into his hotel room unless she was available, right? Or was I supposed to lean over and give him a kiss on the lips? I put my glass down on the table and looked at him. What are you waiting for? Kiss me.

Finally he read my mind, grabbed my shoulders, and pulled me to him, smelling like a man should. His lips were hungry, his tongue searching its way into my mouth. I let my hands wander under David’s shirt, feeling his back muscles, tight and warm. I realized I’d closed my eyes, so I opened them. David didn’t ask for permission; he got up from the chair and threw me on the bed, reaching his hand into my pants behind my back, squeezing my buttocks, his mouth never leaving mine, eyes so close I couldn’t tell their color anymore. I took my shirt off without David’s help and reached to remove the black turtleneck that he’d revealed after removing his camo jacket. His light-colored skin was mapped in small moles and he had no chest hair—maybe he’d shaved his chest, too. He unclasped my bra and I was done with foreplay; I just wanted him inside of me. I unbuckled his pants and threw all the clothes onto a heap on the floor, our pants getting twisted up together.

David pulled back for a moment to search his jacket pocket, found a condom, opened it, and rolled it over his penis before he entered me. It was all completely right; I wasn’t pretending when I rocked in his lap, accepting his rough kisses, his hands groping my breasts. I wrapped my ankles around his neck, folding myself underneath him. My orgasm took me by surprise, and I screamed out, let Helena or whoever hear, now wasn’t the time to care about it, this feeling was what I cared about. I would have confessed anything as long as David didn’t stop, I wanted us to go on even after I had come, onward all the way to Hell, just don’t let this end yet.

Our scents mixed, David was heavy on top of me, this lovely weight, and even though coming together was supposedly the best thing ever—according to stupid porn magazines—even that wasn’t a lie in this moment. Me pressing against David and not letting him go even after he’d gotten soft was all true, true, true.

14

I could’ve fallen asleep in David’s arms, but I was starving. I licked salt off his skin, but it wasn’t enough, and we had three more hours until dinner.

“Hey, where’s that cheese and fruit? I mean, that’s what I came here for.”

“So that was the deciding factor? I’ll have to keep that in mind,” said David. He got up from the bed and bent over to kiss me on the cheek before he turned to look at the heap of clothes on the floor with a smirk, then pulled on his camo pants. He disappeared for a moment and came back with a tray covered with Saran Wrap, revealing cheese, crackers, and fruit.

The cheeses were still cold, but I didn’t mind. I wrapped myself in a blanket and David didn’t bother to put anything else on. I gorged on Brie and apple slices as if I’d never seen food before. David asked if I wanted more whiskey or if he should go downstairs and convince the innkeeper to sell him a bottle of red wine to bring up to the room. I was fine with water, but I enjoyed watching David pour himself a couple of fingers of the amber Scotch. Beyond the window, the forest’s fall foliage was waving in the wind, set against a backdrop of deep blue. Wagtails congregating in the birch trees were negotiating in bird language about when to leave for a warmer climate and for food.

The mushroom basket had been abandoned on the floor—I was now hunting for something else. David was snacking on the cheese contentedly, and I pulled him over to the bed to drop grapes into his mouth. I took a sip of his whiskey then dipped my fingers in it and let him lick the liquid off me. His bite marks were visible on my left breast; I was a marked woman.

“You’re free this weekend and you don’t need to be anywhere. Surely you can stay the night?” he asked.

“I can.” Helena hadn’t called me yet, so I better check on her. I didn’t know which room she was in; worst-case scenario, it’d be the room next to David’s. My private life was none of her business as long as I did my job. I turned the tracker on, but all it showed was that Helena was in the area.

“Who are you protecting these days?” David moved his finger up and down my arm, amusedly checking out my biceps. “Jesus, these muscles! I better not piss you off!”

Hopefully I didn’t need to use my judo skills on him. I expected him to know some sort of martial arts, too.

“This one female representative. But she might be fine and not need me anymore. She was being harassed by her ex-husband and I showed him—” I was going to use the Finnish idiom “how the chicken pees,” but I didn’t know how to express the idea in Swedish, so I ended up just saying, “which way the wind’s blowing now.” David must’ve understood some Finnish, having spent his early years in Finland. They spoke Swedish in Tammisaari, but he would’ve learned Finnish in school before he moved to Tartu. I shouldn’t have assumed that he didn’t know a word. Maybe he was just pretending, trying to make himself seem harmless while eavesdropping on conversations that weren’t meant for him to hear.

David stopped asking about my work. I could hear children outside, someone yelling from the woods, “Karita, come over here! I found some flowers!” I sat at the vanity and looked at myself in the mirror. How could my eyes be drowsy yet twinkle at the same time? David’s toiletries were strewn on the table: cologne and antiperspirant, both the same brand, an electric toothbrush, and a tube of Russian toothpaste.

“So you’re the kind of man who carries around a condom just in case,” I joked in Finnish when I saw the pack of condoms next to the toothpaste.

“I don’t understand you,” David replied in Swedish, but I thought I could see a smile play on his lips.

“I’m sorry, was I speaking in Finnish? I just said that you’re in the habit of traveling with condoms on you.”

“Is that a bad thing? And what if I had bought them only with you in mind, hmm? Do you want anything else to eat?”

“No, thank you. When you take the cheese away, can you also put the mushrooms in the fridge?”

When David left I quickly hopped over to rummage through his closet. Two pairs of jeans, dress pants, a jacket, a black leather jacket, T-shirts, socks, and underwear. No gun or handkerchiefs with embroidered initials. When I heard his footsteps, I slipped back into bed and pulled the blanket over me. Maybe I should send him to get red wine. I was especially interested in checking out his wallet. I had made sure to take all of Reiska’s identification out of mine, and I’d also left my calendar at home.

David took his pants off and got next to me under the blanket, here we go again, and I didn’t resist. His hands were eagerly searching me; my lips were slowly swelling from his bites. I could hear voices in the hallway, luckily they didn’t sound like Helena, but I tried not to moan too loudly. I got on top, moving back and forth across David’s body, now my breasts didn’t feel too small at all, just sensitive and enjoying the touch, the lips on the nipples, the squeeze of fingers. A phone rang somewhere, probably David’s, but I didn’t let him move, nor did he want to. The bed creaked—it wasn’t made for this activity.

David got up and tossed me under him. I was letting him do whatever he wanted, it was Hilja vs. David, zero to six, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I was done with men who apologetically stroked my skin, not knowing what they wanted, pretending that the person they slept with somehow mattered when all they cared about was their own pleasure. David’s enjoyment grew from watching mine, and I wasn’t holding back; I was unashamed, totally free, moving with David until he came in one huge rush. He laughed—this man wasn’t showing any signs of postcoital depression; he wasn’t running away, rushing into the shower to wash himself like a sinner trying to remove all traces of evil. I sniffed him like an animal, memorizing his smell. During my academy years, I had learned to recognize my classmates by their individual scents and, in a dark room, I could tell a person standing close by just from their faint odor.

David’s phone rang again, and this time he reached out to check who was calling.

“Sorry, I need to take this.” He jumped off the bed, trying to put his pants on with just one hand, then left the room. I could hear him out in the hallway, where he began the conversation in Russian.

Now I’d have a chance to go through his wallet. But where was it? It wasn’t in his pants pocket; I would’ve felt it when I was touching him. It wasn’t in the nightstand, either, but I did find a Finnish passport there, adorned with EU stars.

I opened it. According to the passport the man was David Daniel Stahl, born in Tammisaari on October 18, 1974. There were multiple stamps showing his trips to Russia, and it was valid for another two years—yet the pages were almost full.

The passport looked genuine, but with the right connections it wasn’t hard to get a forged one. Finnish passports were a hot commodity because customs officials usually gave them just a quick glance. If I were David, I would have left the passport for me to find, as evidence to back up his story.

I looked under the bed and found a suitcase. I was just about to open it when I heard footsteps in the hallway. I quickly jumped back under the covers and prayed that the slightly dusty floor didn’t show any signs that the suitcase had been moved.

“Idiots! Calling about work on a weekend. That was about Permian, one of those oil moguls; he wants a summer villa in Finland—and it needs to have five bedrooms, two bathrooms, an ocean view, and easy access to the highway to Saint Petersburg! These properties don’t grow on trees, you know?”

“My former employer was also in real estate, and used to work with Russians a lot. Maybe you’ve met her—Anita Nuutinen?”

My surprise tactic worked. For a split second, David looked disoriented.

“Anita Nuutine
n . . .
I feel like I’ve heard that name before. Oh, that’s right!” David was good at pretending that he was slowly remembering the details. “Was she the Finnish businesswoman who was shot in Moscow a couple weeks ago? Were you—was she your boss?”

“She wasn’t my responsibility anymore. I quit a day before she was killed.”

“Wow. That’s quite a coincidence. Why did you quit? Did you feel like you weren’t needed anymore because Nuutinen was safe?” David sat next to me, stroking my cheek slowly. This wasn’t an interrogation; it was just pillow talk between lovers, with one telling the other about the biggest professional screwup she’d ever committed. That was a sign of trust.

I repeated my lynx coat story in as much detail as I could remember. David sat listening, expressionless, but his fingers kept moving around my body, traveling slowly up toward my neck. These hands could quickly go from gently caressing to strangling.

“Are you against furs because of some principle? Are you one of those—what do Finns call them? Fox girls?” David said the last words in Finnish.

“A lynx girl, more like it.” I tried to force a smile. I could hear David’s stomach growl—it was almost seven. I’d have to get him drunk; there was no other way now. I got up and went to the bathroom. The mirror reflected the deep glow in my eyes.

The shower, like the bathroom, was in the hallway. I asked David for a bathrobe, as I hadn’t brought one. The thick black terry cloth smelled of David, making me feel like I was falling into him. I took a shower, wrapped myself in a thin towel that barely covered me from breasts to hips, and then quickly slid back to the room, where I poured myself a shot of whiskey and splashed a bit more in David’s glass. I handed his glass to him and let a sort of half smile play across my lips.

“How much would I have to pay you to wear a lynx coat?” David took the glass, but didn’t lift it to his lips.

“You couldn’t pay me enough. I’d never do it.”

“What if someone’s life was at stake?”

“Aren’t you the philosopher! What is this, part of an ethics exam?”

“No. I was just trying to understand.”

I began to dress for dinner. I put on the only push-up bra I owned and matching bikini underpants, then leather pants and high heeled shoes, and, finally, a tight black shirt Jenni had given me because it was too small for her. The shirt was slightly too short for me but the sliver of skin now visible between the shirt and pants was perfect for the look I was after. The question was whether it was futile to still play the hottie because David had already slept with me.

“Are you upset with me?” David asked as I got dressed in silence. He grabbed my right thigh with both of his hands, squeezing it to his chest. “I didn’t mean to blame you for anything. After all, I’ve made some pretty stupid calls in my life, too.”

“But did anyone die because of them?”

“Not by my own hand. Like in the case of your former employer. What was her name again? Nuutinen.” David stood up, turned me to face him, and gave me a gentle, comforting kiss.

“Remember, Hilja, even if you had been with Nuutinen when she was shot, you may not have been able to do anything.”

“I could’ve handled a drunk with a gun,” I muttered into his shoulder. “And Anita would’ve never been wandering around that late at a subway station if I’d been with her.”

“Maybe you could’ve handled the drunk, maybe not. Maybe you would’ve died right next to her, and we would’ve never met. Let’s go have dinner—we can come back here for dessert.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

I smiled and hoped his words had been said in earnest, employed to absolve me of the guilt I suffered over Anita’s death. I tried to seem grateful, as if I really had believed him; on the short walk to the main building, I pressed my body against his like a little girl. People passed by us on their way to the sauna, but I couldn’t see Helena in the crowd. The innkeeper would know Helena’s room number, but how would I find out without David overhearing my question?

David’s phone rang at the right time. I told him not to rush and I’d meet him at the restaurant in a bit. Helena was standing at the bar, chatting about a gas pipeline project with a woman sporting a blond bob.

“Helena,” I blurted out because I had no idea how long I’d have. “Sorry to interrupt you, but can I talk to you for a minute?” I led her to a small room next to the bar.

That friend of mine . . .” I continued. “I’m not so sure about how trustworthy he is. It might be best if he didn’t see us talking. Is everything all right?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? I’ve spent half a day in this gorgeous scenery, and now I’m ready for a relaxing sauna and then sleep.”

“What’s your room number?”

“Room one in the Copper 1 building.”

I let out a sigh of relief: David and I were in Copper 3. Luckily Helena didn’t ask any questions. I let her leave first, then sat down at the same table where David and I had previously had dinner. Each table was set in a different color; ours had a purple tablecloth, napkins, and glasses. The waitress came over and asked if I’d like something to drink, but I said I’d wait for my friend. I hadn’t filled in any sort of registration card for the inn, but I suppose they didn’t need it.

“
I am what I am / I do what I want / I’m capable of hate and love / and I never embrace someone / just because that’s the way it should be.”
Jari Sillanpää’s dramatic waltz was on the radio, and although I wasn’t a fan of the
schlager
genre, right now this song was getting to me. It revealed my feelings to everyone within earshot, and when David stepped into the room, I was happy to be with him again, right here, right now.

“That was one of my sisters,” said David. “Sofia. Told me to say hi to you.”