The Healer (18 page)

“I could be wrong,” Johanna says.

“About what?”

“I used to think that if I got news like we got today the whole world would fall apart.”

“It's not going to fall apart.”

“No, it's not,” she says.

We sit in silence. Somewhere in the distance a door opens and closes. A brief blast and an echo, then it's perfectly quiet again.

“What now?” Johanna asks.

“What do you mean?”

“From now on?” she says. “What's next?”

“Nothing in particular, I guess,” I say. “The world keeps on turning. We love each other.”

“And then?”

“Like I said. The world keeps on turning. We love each other.”

She laughs.

“You're quite a one-track guy.”

“You married me.”

“Yes, I did. And I was wrong.”

“How so?”

“I was wrong when I thought I needed something else to be happy.”

“What do you need?”

She walks two fingers up my arm. It feels pleasant, but it tickles a little. The dust motes' dance has gone wild—a draft of air is moving across the room. It must have come from the open window in the kitchen.

“What do you need to be happy?” I ask again.

“This. You. Us.”

We sit in silence.

“Did you write today?” she asks.

“Every day,” I say. “That's how I know where I'm going.”

“Anything good? In what you wrote?”

“Maybe.”

“You don't know?”

“Sometimes you know right off, sometimes not till later.”

“What about now?”

“A little later,” I say, “or maybe a lot later.”

Johanna turns toward me. She picks up her legs and lays them across my lap. Her feet are bare and her toes are almost cold, although it's been one of the sunniest of summer days. I rub the soles of her feet and fold her toes in my hand. The little bundle of toes fits in my fist.

“I don't want to say this,” she says after a moment.

“Don't say it.”

“It's already on its way.”

“I guess you have to, then.”

She waits a moment.

“What if something happens to one of us?”

“Something bad?” I ask. “Or something irrevocable?”

“Is there a difference?”

“There's a big difference.”

“What if one of us dies?”

“The other one will still be alive.”

“No, really.”

From the open kitchen window you can hear someone ride their bicycle into the yard and put it on the bike rack. Then they lock the bike. The door of the building opens and closes.

“Life goes on,” I say.

“You always say life goes on.”

“Because it always does.”

“Except when it doesn't.”

“I don't know,” I say. “Everything in its time, I guess.”

“If something happens to me,” she says, “I hope it doesn't get you stuck. I hope that your life will go on.”

“Likewise,” I say.

The dust motes have less sunlight shining on their dance.

“But then,” she says, “if something happens to me and your life goes on in the wrong direction, I'll definitely come and say something about it.”

“I knew there was a catch.”

“Naturally,” Johanna says. “There's a catch.”

I rub her feet and watch her close her eyes. The soft, safe darkness surrounds us, and Johanna's lips curl into a little smile. She's about to fall asleep, or about to laugh.

 

24

“You've got to understand,” Elina said, but there was no conviction in her words. She didn't believe them herself.

Friendship doesn't end with a bang but with a flop, a letdown. I noticed Ahti wasn't saying anything. I walked to the front door and pulled on my coat and shoes. For some reason, I turned around in the doorway. Ahti and Elina were standing at the other end of the entryway. They might as well have been standing in outer space.

What was there to say? Let's treasure the memories of the good times, all the fun we had together? Let's not let a small thing ruin a big thing, something that was complete and beautiful at one time? I went through the alternatives. I couldn't think of anything better than “Good-bye.”

They say that if you don't learn anything else in your life, at least learn to walk slow. I walked, deep in my thoughts, to the intersection that I'd been looking at on the surveillance video, without seeing anything.

The sun had set a while earlier and the sky was completely dark. The rain that had no beginning or end had lost its passion and power for a moment. The sky trickled little drops of rain here and there as if it had decided to scatter them, sow the earth with them, but then changed its mind and preferred to save its seed. I couldn't be bothered with the cars honking their horns or the shoving pedestrians as I made my way down the street.

There was an acrid smell of burning plastic coming from somewhere, but I didn't look around to see from where. The smell followed me for several minutes. I wiped the drops of rain from my face and realized I'd left my gloves somewhere. A disco across the street had its door open, and a steady, loud, menacing beat pulled people in. I looked at my watch, then looked at my phone. Time was passing. Johanna hadn't called.

The last couple of days had been like one entire lifetime: voracious, crammed full, desperate. The buses and cars sped past with their motors yelling, and the exhaust left a dryness in my throat that I couldn't swallow. I could taste gasoline and exhaust on the roof of my mouth, nauseating and provoking me. A group of youths came rushing toward me and I tried to move to avoid them but failed. I didn't know what language they were yelling or why they were running. Two security guards ran after them. I understood their language. The young people kept running, although the guards shouted at them in Finnish to stop.

I reached the intersection, saw the camera bolted to the wall about ten meters up, and felt the raindrops falling on my eyelids. I looked in the direction the camera was pointed. I could see the intersection—both Urho Kekkosen katu and Fredrikinkatu. Hundreds of people, traffic, lights. All the things I'd been searching through trying to find Johanna.

Sometimes you don't find something until you stop looking for it. That's what Jaatinen had said.

I called him.

*   *   *

I
COULDN
'
T BE SURE
, of course, but I thought that the seven people sitting at the computer terminals were the same ones I'd seen there before. The focused, worried looks seemed to have frozen on their faces. I heard the clicking of keyboards under strong fingers and was sure that questioning gazes were following us, but when I looked quickly behind me I saw that no one had taken the slightest notice of us.

We were in the same workroom as before. I opened up the database with my password. We had exchanged only a few words on the way from the lobby to the second floor. Jaatinen seemed to be not just as weary as usual but also vexed, distant, like he wished he were someplace else, and even if he were he'd be just as cranky. This was a new side of him.

Jaatinen sat up straight in front of the terminal and looked at me, about to say something. I could see from the look on his face that his mind really was elsewhere. Whatever it was he wanted to say, he was taking a long time with it. Then he used a hand to help him. He pointed to the screen and promised to come back in half an hour to see how I was doing. I told him I didn't think it would take half an hour.

He looked at me again, as if I weren't really there. Then he turned and walked out of the room without saying a word. His steps were hurried, indignant. He disappeared into the stairwell, leaving behind a scattered, irritated feeling that threatened to take hold of me, as well. I got to work.

There were a confusing number of surveillance cameras. Although some of them were dark, enough of them were working to form a clear visual record of almost the entire downtown area. A few streets and intersections could be examined from multiple angles and several different elevations.

I went back to the time and the place where I'd already spent many hours: the corner of Fredrikinkatu and Urho Kekkosen katu, the geographic point where Johanna's phone had last been connected. The picture was just as rainy and glistening wet as I remembered. I let the stream of images flow by.

As the video approached the moment when Johanna's phone was turned off, I leaned forward instinctively. The picture was as confused and full of reflections as before, more like a painting than a photograph or film. Almost exactly one minute before zero hour I saw someone at the other end of Urho Kekkosen katu that I seemed to recognize before I possibly could have. But then, Johanna's e-mails had told me who to look for.

At that point the figure was still little more than two perfectly executed brushstrokes, their movements indicating haste. The figure took long, strong steps, coming closer second by second, growing first from two brushstrokes into many, then into a human form with distinguishable, individual features: the way of walking, of looking to the side, of shoving a hand in a pocket. I watched a moment longer to be sure I was right.

The figure reached the street corner, took something out of a pocket, touched it with one hand, and put it away again. At that exact second Johanna's phone was disconnected from the network. A large truck crossed the intersection, followed by an emergency vehicle with its lights flashing. The picture was like an impressionist painting again for a moment, and I realized how little I had understood when I watched it before. When the truck and the ambulance had passed, the figure stood at the crosswalk for a moment, so motionless that I wouldn't have known it was a person.

I paused the video and enlarged it. The figure grew and became more recognizable little by little. When all that would fit on the screen was the face, I adjusted the brightness and leaned back in my chair. Gromov, right down to the stubble on his chin.

 

25

FROM
: Gromov, Vasili

TO
: Lehtinen, Johanna

SENT
: Dec. 21, 01:37

SUBJECT
: One last favor

Johanna,

I want to make it clear one last time that I know where you stand. I understand when you say that you're happily married and we're just colleagues. And I understand why you don't want to work with me anymore after this assignment, even if it does seem very sad and unfair. I sincerely want to honor your decision to work with some other photographer going forward. But I have one small favor to ask before you do. Before our roads diverge, I want you to think about it one more time and remember all the things we've been through together. Remember in Kosovo, when we came under fire? Remember whose shoulder you clung to, who it was that protected you? Remember when our bus died at the edge of the Arctic Sea and the cold wind threatened to freeze the lot of us? Remember what you said when I got the motor running again? I remember. You said you would be forever grateful to me. Forever, Johanna. Those were your words. Now I'm asking you for a favor. If you really meant what you said, you'll grant it. You'll agree to it in order to be true to yourself as well as to me. You'll agree to talk about this face-to-face, and you'll speak the truth. I think it's the least you can do for someone who saved your life. And if, after we've talked, you still believe that I don't belong in your life, I'll accept it. But I'm asking you for one more chance, one more chance to talk to you face-to-face. I'm afraid that if you don't, I'll have to approach you again through a third party.

Vasili

 

26

I found the row house in Maunula, next to Keskuspuisto, at the north end of the park. The building was faced in red brick, built in the 1950s, and contained six townhouses. Judging by the lights in the street-side windows, all the apartments were occupied. Gromov's apartment was next to last on the right. A pale light glowed from the upstairs window.

It had been easy to find his address, of course, but getting Jaatinen interested in it proved impossible. When I had showed him the e-mail messages and the surveillance images all he did was concur that I might have something there. I lost patience with him. I might have something? And when I asked him to come with me, he said he didn't have time. That ended our conversation.

I asked Hamid to stop the cab and turn off the motor in front of the small, parklike area across from the building. The trees, bushes, and darkened lampposts offered some cover, which seemed sufficient for the present. I didn't intend to ring the doorbell. I also didn't want to make the same mistake I'd made in Jätkäsaari—I still had the pain and the bruises to remind me. It seemed wisest to first survey the situation, then start my approach on foot. I waited a moment in the dark, listening to the rain falling softly on the trees and bushes, the soothing drum of the drops on the dead wet leaves.

The building was separated from the house on its left by about ten meters. To the right stood a broad, dark swath of woods; the next nearest row house lay about seventy meters beyond it. The light from its nearest windows sparkled between the tree limbs in runaway rays.

I crossed the street to a trail that led through the woods. The sodden sand of the path made sometimes grinding, sometimes squishing noises underfoot no matter how hard I tried to walk lightly. The trail was drier, and quieter, at the edges. A little farther on I found an uphill path curving off toward the building. It had been trampled down to the roots of the trees by decades of use, and I had to be careful of my footing in the darkness.

The backyard wasn't fenced. There was a lawn that began at the back of the building and stretched to the edge of the woods. I looked in the windows a moment, didn't see any movement, and crossed the fifteen meters of grass to the back door. It wasn't until I was cutting across the small stone patio at the rear entrance that I noticed that one of the double doors, the one with the lock, was half a centimeter ajar.