The Healer (21 page)

I reached him as he held his injured knee and rolled onto his back. His face was frozen in pain. He curled his broken hand and pulled it toward his chest, then pulled his gun from its holster with his good hand and gave it to me. I didn't say anything—I had no time to even think. I just took the gun and kept running.

Tarkiainen jumped down onto the rails. I followed. I dropped off the platform and felt lactic acid already stiffening my muscles. My landing wasn't a springy one, it was a thud and a stagger. But I kept my footing, heard the metallic voice announcing departing and arriving trains, and felt a tiny drop of rain on my skin. On the left I could see glass office buildings rising up, their black surfaces gleaming like water over ice.

Tarkiainen had a head start, and I gulped for breath as I tried to catch up. He was approaching the grassy cliffs and old villas that lined the tracks at Linnunlaulu. The gun weighed heavy in my hand. With each step it was harder to carry. I got my run into a rhythm, matching my steps to the ties between the rails. Tarkiainen's back loomed larger. The rain, the dark night, and the wan light of the rail yard made visibility hazy and blurred. The crossbeams of electrical poles floated above us like an unfinished roof.

The cold, wet air tore at my throat and chest. When we reached the bridge at Linnunlaulu, where the rail yard narrowed between the stone cliffs, my legs felt very heavy. A commuter train arriving at the station rattled and wobbled on its tracks as it passed on our right. The tracks on the left were empty.

As I passed the cut stone of the cliffs, I was only fifteen meters behind Tarkiainen. But my legs were like cement—I was slowing down. The pistol felt heavier and heavier in my right hand, and I made a decision. I released the safety, as Ahti had shown me, lifted my arm straight toward the sky, and pulled the trigger.

Tarkiainen jumped, lost his balance, and stumbled. He looked behind him. I couldn't speak, just aimed the gun at him. He stopped. I gasped for breath and concentrated on holding the pistol in front of me and holding myself upright. My lungs wanted me to bend over and rest my hands on my knees, or better yet fall to the ground and lie there on my back. For some reason, Tarkiainen wasn't nearly as winded.

“You must be Johanna's husband,” he said, not seeming at all surprised.

I nodded. I let my breathing level out and held the gun straight in front of me, although it was so heavy that my arm felt like it was going numb. I took a few short steps toward him. Not that I necessarily wanted to be any closer, but because moving hurt less and kept my legs from stiffening better than standing in one place.

“What are you going to do?” he asked. “Shoot me?”

I used all my willpower to calm my panting for a moment.

“If I have to,” I said, and greedily sucked in some air.

I was standing five or six meters away from him now. Another commuter train was already passing us on the right. It shook the ground and made my legs tremble. I could feel the deepest tones of the slamming sounds it made in my breastbone.

“Listen to yourself,” Tarkiainen said, and repeated my words. “‘If I have to.'”

His face was wet and shining, but otherwise appeared just as it did in the photos—confident and muscular, even handsome. There was an intelligent look in his eyes; his gaze was level, and his hair was short and modishly gelled. And there was nothing in his midlength coat, oxford shirt, jeans, and sneakers that my sense of style could find fault with. As he stood there on the railroad tracks, he looked like he could be posing for a fashion shoot: one of those spreads where they put pretty people in gritty environments—abandoned factories, old tradesmen's shops, or, in this case, rail yards.

My breathing was leveling out, but my legs were twitching and the arm that held the gun had lost all feeling.

“You know what I'm looking for,” I said.

Tarkiainen didn't say anything.

“Johanna,” I said, wiping the sweat and rain from my eyes with my free hand.

Tarkiainen's expression remained unchanged.

“You seem to have already found Väntinen,” he said. I noticed he was looking at the gun in my hand. I glanced at it, too.

It looked the same as the gun that I'd left in Väntinen's hand, the one lying in the dirt, sinking into the mud of Keskuspuisto.

I nodded and looked at Tarkiainen again.

“Hopefully he got what he deserved,” Tarkiainen said.

I nodded.

“A savage. A sick shit,” Tarkiainen said.

“Who?” I asked.

“Väntinen. As you know.”

“And you're not?”

He shook his head.

“Even though you participated in murdering whole families?”

“Väntinen murdered them,” he said. “And he enjoyed it. I didn't kill them. I just did what I had to.”

“And what was that?”

“There's no need to pretend to be horrified or shocked,” he said. “You can be your own smart self and tell me you understand.” He paused a moment. “Because if you're half as sharp as Johanna says you are, you do understand. You know very well that my purpose wasn't to murder families. My purpose was to show that actions have consequences.”

“Tell that to those little children.”

“What are they going to miss?” he asked, and took a step sideways. I moved my hand, following him with the pistol. “Food running out, clean water running out, everything running out. They're going to miss being slowly smothered, and eventually suffocated. What is there going to be that they would have got any pleasure from? Cannibalism? Plague? Everyone at war with everyone else on one gigantic trash heap?”

“Maybe they should have been allowed to decide that for themselves,” I said, moving the gun a little to the left again. Tarkiainen took a few small side steps toward the outermost rail. There was nowhere for him to run.

“That was the whole problem in the first place,” Tarkiainen said. His face was tense now, excited. “That everyone got to choose. Endlessly, with no limits. That's why we're here today. The two of us. You and I.”

Another commuter train clattered and rumbled past on the right. Someone had to eventually notice two men standing on the tracks. Where were all the guards and soldiers and police I'd seen in the station?

I glanced behind me. The station shone all the way through the rain, but it was likely no one there could see us in the darkness, half hidden by the rocks.

“Where's Johanna?” I asked in frustration.

“What's the rush? Let's chat a little,” Tarkiainen said. A smile rose to his face. “Or you could always shoot me. Is that your plan? Or are you going to hand me over to the police?”

I remembered what Jaatinen had told me. The evidence had disappeared. Tarkiainen couldn't be indicted, or even arrested. If I told him that, he would walk away triumphant. Then I would have no choice but to shoot him. I didn't think I had that in me. On the other hand, I had heard that there's something in all of us that's ready to do almost anything.

“What do you want to chat about?” I asked, to win myself a few more seconds.

“Don't you want to know what this is all about?”

“Väntinen told me. Greed. Business. Plus a taste for murder, I might add.”

Tarkiainen shook his head, displeased.

“None of those things,” he said decisively, as if we were on a talk show rather than standing on railroad tracks with a gun between us. “It's about humanity, about what, in the end, is the right thing to do. Who do you think those murdered people were? Benefactors? Humanists? They were selfish, indifferent narcissists. They were the real murderers.”

A short, dry laugh erupted from behind his tight smile.

“There's no other name for them. Even after they knew about the destruction they were causing, they kept doing it. They kept murdering—by lying. The worst thing is the deceit. All that talk about being friends of the environment, about ecology, respecting nature. As if electronics wrapped in plastic or cotton irrigated with drinking water could ever be anything but a detriment, the cause of the destruction, replacing something irreplaceable with a pile of trash.”

He took another step toward the outer rails. I followed him, stepping over one tie, then another. He continued talking, his voice rising: “You're an intelligent guy. You don't really believe that eating organic food or driving a hybrid car could solve the problem, do you? Or buying environmentally friendly products? What does that even mean? Why do marketers use Soviet-style language? That's like talking about liberation through communism. Do you understand, Tapani? We've been living in a dictatorship. Shouldn't dictators be opposed?”

He was standing next to the outermost track now. I had been listening and watching him without speaking. The ground started to tremble, and I glanced behind me. Another train had left the station. It would reach us within a minute.

“We're in free fall, Tapani. All we can do now is what our heart tells us is right. Defend what is good, even if we know it's too late.”

The train shook the earth. I could hear steel against steel, the wheels screeching against the tracks.

“I'm on the side of good, Tapani. There was a time when I strove for nothing less than saving the world. Now that the world can't be saved, I have to make sure that good continues to live for as long as evil and selfishness does. Maybe justice isn't winning, but it's not completely gone.”

The train let out a long, low warning sound. I lifted the gun, not knowing why. The train was almost upon us. I took a couple of steps backward and looked in Tarkiainen's direction again. He was standing in front of the train, in the middle of the tracks, lit up by its headlight. The low warning blast echoed from the rocks. Then the train passed just two meters from me and I couldn't see him anymore. I lowered my gun.

When the train and all its cars had roared past and its noise had faded, I looked warily across the rail yard. I directed my gaze to where I had last seen Tarkiainen and prepared myself to see … what? Pieces of a person, the white bone, the varicolored internal organs?

I saw coarse gravel, railroad ties, and the rails, shining in the night. When I raised my eyes higher I saw a tall fence, and beyond that a taller wall of rock glistening with rain. I looked to the side at the retreating rear of the train, and then that, too, was gone. All that was left were the tracks, reaching into infinity.

I looked in the other direction and saw the rail yard, the tracks like a vast steel web, and the brightly lit station on the horizon, shining like the world's largest campfire, burning steadily even through the veil of rain. No trace of Pasi Tarkiainen.

I turned around several more times. All I got was freezing rain in my eyes. The cold took its numbing hold on my body again. Finally, I shoved the gun in my coat pocket and walked back toward the station.

Someone was jumping from the platform onto the tracks and coming toward me with quick steps, every third or fourth step ending in a treacherous stumble. I recognized the walk—eager, decisive. The grayish-blue coat, which was hanging slightly crooked, and the baggy black pants were familiar. There was something strange about the hands though, held straight out in front like that, not swinging from side to side for balance. When I could make out the hair and face, I was sure. The hair was dirty and tangled, the face pale and wet. From closer up, I could see a bloody scratch on the right cheek and a dark blotch on the chin. Lips dry and cracked. I could see the plastic tie around the wrists now and the feverish light of complete exhaustion—but also persistence and strength—in the eyes as they fastened on me again and again.

Johanna stumbled against me. I kissed her hair, held her head against my chest. She clung to my chest, my face, and finally my hands. I could see in her eyes that she'd been drugged, and it was hard for her to speak through her dry lips, stiff tongue, and hoarse throat. The words came out short and rough, and I couldn't understand her. It didn't matter. I held her in my arms and murmured soothing words in her ear. I told her I loved her a thousand times.

I could see Jaatinen behind her. He had climbed, or been lifted, onto a baggage cart and driven it to the end of the platform. Sitting there in the rain, he looked like a ship's captain on lookout. He spread his arms, and I knew he was asking about Tarkiainen. I shook my head.

His arms fell to his sides and he sat looking at me and Johanna. His expression may have been one of bafflement or disappointment. I couldn't worry about that. I closed my eyes to better feel what was in my arms.

I walked Johanna back to the station. Her steps were short and unsteady, but they were headed in the right direction.

 

THE MORNING OF GOOD FRIDAY

 

29

The slightest creaking of the house, scratch of bird's feet on the tin-covered windowsill, or strong wind in the crowns of the pine trees that bend over the bedroom window, and Johanna will flinch. But then she falls asleep again almost immediately.

It's a brightening spring morning at the end of April. The sun comes up early and shines buttercup yellow as soon as it rises, bright and strong.

I'm careful not to touch Johanna. The slightest touch can wake her. The blanket is wrapped around her like a bandage. Her cheek presses deep into the pillow, and I can hear a quiet, steady sniffling from her nose.

I get out of bed without making a sound, close the bedroom door behind me, and walk into the kitchen. I make coffee and stand in front of the window. The surface of the bay at Vanhakaupunki is dazzling blue and ragged from the wind. Here and there around the bay you can already see the various shades of the coming spring, from pale buds to the deepest green.

There's almost nothing to remind me of the past Christmas. Johanna recovered physically a long time ago, of course. She still has nightmares and a wariness—a feeling of fear in certain places and at certain times—that she finds hard to admit, even to herself.