The Winter War (22 page)

‘What would my daughters say if they saw me now?'

‘Do you think they'd be surprised?'

‘I can't believe they've tried this themselves.'

Laura laughed.

‘You think they have?' asked Max. ‘Wait, don't tell me. The less I know, the better.'

After smoking one of Laura's joints, they sat in silence for a while. Max was waiting to feel something. Back in the seventies he'd tried cannabis at a party in Berkeley, but he didn't really know how to do it properly. This time Laura had shown him how to hold the smoke in his lungs.

He'd never felt a greater urge to kiss someone, but he sat there as if turned to stone. A shiver raced through his body when Laura leaned back and stretched.

‘My mother seemed so frail today, so vulnerable,' he said.

Laura looked at him and then reached out to take his hand. ‘How old is she?'

‘Eighty-five,' said Max.

Laura settled herself more comfortably on the sofa. Max stayed where he was, staring at her. In his fantasy they moved into the bedroom, where Laura took off her clothes. He imagined how they would pull the covers over themselves, the sheets cold and stiff, but quickly warmed from their bodies as they pressed close to each other. Her breasts were incredible, of course, the most exquisite breasts he'd ever seen in his life – and he felt euphoric at the mere thought of touching her breasts, of being allowed to do that.

‘Do you feel anything?' asked Laura.

It took a few seconds for Max to remember where he was. She was still sitting next to him, fully dressed, giving him a crooked smile.

‘Maybe a little,' he said and suddenly had a strange feeling that she was there but not there, as if he were dreaming the whole thing. As if the entire room was about to disappear. A dream from which there was no awaking.

Max got up and stumbled to the bathroom, thinking it might help to splash a little water on his face. Laura's make-up bag was next to the sink. It held a toothbrush, contact lens solution and a familiar-looking tube: ‘Dr Oppolzer's AFRO-Schlamm contains an African clay that has both …'

He turned on the tap of the large water container that they'd brought along and splashed water on his face. It was fresh and cold, and made him feel better. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw a face grimacing at him.

Max knew that he needed to go outside and breathe in some fresh air. So he put on his shoes and coat and opened the door to the yard. Edvard, who'd been lying on the floor in front of the fire all evening, got up to follow him out. A strong gust practically blew them off their feet and made Max's coat flap in the wind. It was snowing. In fact, it was more than just a snowstorm – it was a blizzard, bending the bare gooseberry bushes towards the ground and changing the shape of the entire landscape. What struck Max the most was the noise: the roaring of the wind. It was as if he could hear every nuance: the low rumbling at the bottom, the rushing sound at mid-level and the high-pitched whine on top of everything else that cleared his mind of all thought, making it impossible to think of anything whatsoever. He stood out there in the yard for a long time. It was great to feel at one with nature, to let the wind sweep him up. Then he moved further away from the cottage and leaned on the wall of the sauna building to listen. Edvard ran around in circles, and Max tried to follow the snowflakes as they fell, but there were too many to distinguish one from the other. He walked down to the shore and stopped to look out across the ice, thinking that this might be the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

By the time he went back inside half an hour later, Laura had fallen asleep on the sofa. He felt elated, happy. Nothing had happened tonight, nothing that he needed to feel ashamed about, but he had a feeling that now he could do some writing on his book. If only it wasn't so late, if only he was sitting at his desk back home instead being here at RÃ¥ddon. He sat in the living room for a long time, staring as if hypnotised at the glowing fire. Finally he went into the chilly bedroom and lay down on the bed. He was ravenous but didn't have the energy to get up, so he simply pulled up the covers and tried to sleep.

‘Have you been up a long time?' asked Max when he went into the kitchen the next morning.

Laura was already there, and he didn't dare meet her eye.

‘A couple of hours. I had to send off a column that I'd promised to write,' she told him. ‘I'm sorry I fell asleep last night. Did you go out with Edvard? I don't know what happened. Suddenly I was just so tired that I couldn't keep my eyes open.'

Max felt like an idiot. Apparently he didn't have what was required to take advantage of the situation. He tried to see this in a positive light: maybe it was because he was a good person. Maybe he wasn't the type of man to commit adultery.

He made breakfast and they drank coffee, then washed the dishes from dinner. Laura checked her phone, answered a few text messages, and kept on working.

When they were ready to leave, they found the car buried in a snowdrift, and they had to dig it out before they could even get in.

They listened to the radio as they drove towards Highway 8. The newscaster reported that the storm was not about to let up, and everyone was advised to stay off the motorways. Max thought how ironic it was that nothing had happened on this trip, nothing that would require him to lie or make him feel guilty, but now they were about to get stuck in bad weather and if that happened, he'd be forced to explain.

‘I wonder if we should stop somewhere,' said Laura. ‘I'm not sure I want to drive in this kind of weather.'

‘You're right, it doesn't look good. But maybe we should try to get home.'

Just as they were about to enter the motorway, Max's mobile rang. It was Elisabeth. He didn't answer. But when he put the phone back in his pocket, it rang again.

‘Why aren't you taking the call?' asked Laura.

‘It's just my sister.'

‘But what if it's important?'

twenty-four

WHEN THE FOUR OF THEM
sat down to dinner on Saturday, Helen heard nothing but praise for the food. She had lit candles and served the children their meal in the living room. Michael and Marit had arrived together in a cab.

‘It's very, very good,' said Michael.

‘Yes, it really is. What kind of spices did you use?' asked Marit. She had on a red dress, and Helen noticed that she'd put extra effort into her appearance, wearing lipstick and a strong perfume. Her attire was almost too much for a simple dinner with friends. But Michael laughed when she did, and he kept giving her looks that boded well for later on. When he said something amusing, Marit put her hand on his arm, as if they were an old married couple.

‘Just wine, vegetable bouillon, thyme and a few bay leaves. Nothing special, really.'

‘Impressive,' said Michael in between bites.

Why didn't they invite people over more often? Right now it seemed crazy that they never did. But then Helen remembered: she and Christian were often way too tired during the week to even contemplate something like this. And they had no close neighbours, which normally would have led to more socialising.

Everyone took a second helping. Helen served the beef with jasmine rice, and Christian ate a huge portion as he eagerly talked about some project at work that Helen hadn't heard about before. After he'd been going on for a good twenty minutes, she gave him a look to signal that he ought to change the subject.

‘Sweetheart, do you think everybody wants to hear every single detail?' she asked.

She was thinking about Michael, who sat there listening so politely. Was he actually interested in any of this? Wouldn't he rather move to the sofa and sit next to Marit?

But he didn't seem bored at all. On the contrary, he was listening attentively to Christian. It was strange to see people she knew in different roles, to see how others viewed them. They couldn't know that everything Christian was now discussing got extremely tiresome after a few years. Helen sat at the table and looked at her husband until all she could see was his mouth, and out of it came disconnected phrases that had no meaning whatsoever.

‘… and you know how hard it can be to get a building permit for an old house. I mean, just putting in a ramp for a wheelchair requires a ton of paperwork …'

He went on and on. After a while, his monologue shifted to other topics – the expansion of the city of Helsinki out towards Busholmen, the lack of low-priced housing, the segregation in urban areas, and the district of Berghäll – all flowing together into one long, enthusiastically delivered speech. Then Christian got up to put on some music, and when a Neil Young tune came on, it turned out that Michael was also a big Neil Young fan. At that point Helen stood up and began clearing the table, scraping the food left on the plates into the rubbish bin.

‘Now wait … there's something I really have to show you,' said Christian.

Helen saw him run up the stairs, almost tripping on the way, but at the last second he regained his balance and raced on. Michael could then turn his attention back to Marit.

Helen knew that Marit was planning to take Michael home with her that evening. She stood next to the kitchen worktop, surreptitiously studying them. Marit had probably pictured the two of them sharing a cab ride, and then that red dress of hers would be shed the moment they stepped inside her flat. Maybe she'd also imagined going to bed together, the glances exchanged in the teachers' room on Monday, and the whispering of their colleagues, which would lead to gossip among the students. Michael was no Brad Pitt, but no one else at the school was either.

Helen turned around to look out at the yard, but she could see only darkness through the window. What was taking Christian so long? She could hear him rummaging about in the storage room upstairs. She pictured him hauling out the items she had so carefully arranged on labelled shelves, how everything would come tumbling down, and all the Christmas decorations would be scattered over the floor for her to find in the morning.

When he finally came back downstairs, he was carrying a stack of vinyl LPs.

‘I know I've got a record player somewhere up there too, but I haven't had a chance to set it up since we moved. There's been so much to do with the house and the kids … but I just had to show you these albums.'

It occurred to Helen that Christian had no idea what the real purpose was behind this dinner party. He didn't realise that Marit was here with Michael, that the whole evening was just a pretext for the two of them to socialise outside school. Instead, he was directing all his attention to Michael. Helen thought he was worse than the girls at their school; Christian seemed totally infatuated with this stranger who had suddenly appeared in their home and showed an interest in listening to all his stories and looking at his old LPs.

Helen hadn't seen her husband so exuberant in a long time. He was usually very reserved and proper, the one who stopped drinking first, who was a bit boring but always polite, who put the children to bed and calmly whiled away the evening. Now he was pouring more wine for Marit and Michael as soon as their glasses were empty, and Helen thought: what if it's my fault? What if I'm the one who makes him seem boring?

After dinner Marit and Helen sat on the sofa in the living room while Christian and Michael stood outside on the front steps to have a smoke. Christian conjured up a pack of cigarettes from one of the kitchen cupboards. Helen hadn't even known it was there.

When the men came back in, they had a lengthy and intense conversation about British pop music in the eighties – Helen heard them mention the names Billy Bragg and Lloyd Cole – which ended with Christian getting out his laptop and setting it on the kitchen table. Then they both started shouting names to each other like ‘Bill Drummond!' and looking up video clips on YouTube.

Marit and Helen sat in the living room, struggling to find something to talk about. Marit kept glancing towards the kitchen with a frustrated and restless expression. At one point she reached for her handbag and touched up her lipstick.

Christian offered Michael some Calvados, and of course he accepted.

‘What about us?' said Helen, and at first Christian didn't seem to understand her remark. Then he nodded and got up to set the bottle of Calvados on the coffee table.

‘You can use the same wine glasses, can't you?' he said.

At ten thirty Marit took a cab home. Christian insisted, with a silly grin on his face, that Michael should stay for a while. Helen didn't want to say anything, since it seemed so unnecessary. So she simply excused herself and left the room to check on the kids while Michael and Christian continued talking in the kitchen.

By midnight Michael was still there. Helen had been forced to ask them to turn down the volume on the computer, so as not to disturb the children. The two men had finished off the bottle of Calvados by the time she came back to the kitchen, feeling sleepy and worn out. She had almost fallen asleep in Lukas's bed. They were now drinking beer.

‘I promise to clean up tomorrow, but I've got to find that record player. We're thinking it'd be great to have a vinyl evening here sometime,' said Christian.

‘Sounds fun,' she said. She was too tired to talk.

‘Doesn't sound like you really mean it.'

‘Of course I do. Sure, I do.'

He gave her a hurt look, but there was also something blank about his expression, combined with a comical grin. Michael looked more sober, and now he got up.

‘Well, I think it's about time for me to get going.'

‘You don't have to,' said Christian.

‘Yeah, I do. It's getting late. Do you know the number for the cab company?'

‘Leave it to me. I can send a text to order you a cab,' said Christian. ‘Now where did I put my mobile?'

Helen went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and take out her contacts while Christian and Michael waited for the taxi.

While they stood outside, she took off her clothes, put on her nightgown, and climbed into bed. She set a glass of water on the bedside table and got out her mobile. She heard a car pull into their driveway and a door open and close. A moment later Christian came inside and seemed to be doing something in the kitchen. Helen had already cleaned up from the dinner party, but now she could hear him opening the fridge, taking out food and opening a beer. She decided to give up waiting for him and instead started listening to her audio book.

Much later she saw the bedroom door open, letting in light from the living room. She felt the bed sag as Christian sat down next to her. She smelled cigarettes and alcohol as he took off his socks and then practically fell on top of her. He was searching for her breast. His hands were cold, and for a while she lay there without moving.

Then she took out her earbuds and switched off her mobile in silence. Christian's hand, limp and motionless, was still on her breast.

‘I'm not really in the mood tonight,' she said.

He sighed, removed his hand and turned over. He didn't say a word.

‘Sorry, but I'm too tired. You shouldn't have stayed up so late. Couldn't you come to bed earlier next time?'

‘Okay,' was all he said.

‘By the way, I thought it was nice that you and Michael hit it off so well.'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘But didn't you realise that Marit is interested in him? She didn't have a chance with the two of you carrying on a bromance like that.'

Christian didn't reply.

‘I mean, it's great you liked each other. It's always good to meet new people.'

He got up and went into the bathroom, turned on the light in there, turned it off again and came back to bed.

Helen lay awake for a while, thinking about something she'd once read in a story by Alice Munro, about how people in their thirties sometimes had a hard time acknowledging that they were living their own lives. That was it exactly, and she realised that it could hardly be expressed in a more mundane way: life was happening right now. It was not something that would happen later.

‘We made plans to go out some evening,' said Christian suddenly.

‘What?'

‘Me and Michael. It's been a long time since I had a night out.'