The Winter War (28 page)

thirty-four

HELEN AND CHRISTIAN DID NOT
have a summer cottage of their own. The one that belonged to Christian's family was located almost on the Russian border, and it wasn't really a cottage. It was more of an old farmstead, the place where his paternal grandmother had grown up. He spoke nostalgically about the house and had suggested many times that they ought to start using it, since none of his relatives ever spent more than a couple of nights there each year. But Helen thought it was much too remote to stay at the place for any length of time. And it wasn't on the water. It was just a shady plot of land filled with mosquitoes and tall grass at the end of a tractor path with a huge rock that they almost always ran into when they went there. In reality, Helen had gone out there only twice: once when Amanda was a toddler – the first thing they'd had to do was clear away all the mouse droppings and dead mice – and once last summer. That was when they'd had a free weekend and Christian had persuaded his family to drive out to the cottage.

‘Mum, I don't want to go to that place. I want to drive to Flamingo,' Amanda had complained.

For Christian, the summer place was a personal obsession, and he talked about it the way someone might tell an old family story that just got funnier the more often it was repeated and enhanced. Christian had so many memories linked to that place, although they seemed inexplicably boring whenever he tried to talk about them to anyone else. His biggest dream was for his children to develop a similar emotional attachment to the cottage the way he had done, or the way Helen had grown fond of Sideby.

On a Saturday morning in June they had driven out to the cottage. The drive took three and a half hours, which really wasn't that long, through the beautiful landscape of eastern Finland. Helen actually caught herself thinking that it wasn't so bad – maybe the house had potential, maybe she would change her opinion once she saw it again.

They certainly couldn't afford to renovate an old family farm, since any extra money went towards work on their own house. But maybe the place only needed a few basic repairs.

When they arrived, they discovered that it was impossible to drive into the yard because the grass was two metres high. They had to get out and wade through the grass to reach the front steps. As Helen was walking, she pictured a snake biting her. Amanda shrieked and said she could feel ticks jumping on her legs.

‘Why did we have to come out here to this damn house?' asked Lukas.

Christian found the keys under a rock and opened the door. The whole place smelled of mould. Helen noticed it at once. There was nothing really wrong with the house itself. It was spacious, with high ceilings, and the floor was covered in a lovely linoleum from the early 1900s. But everything looked worn, lifeless and crude, with visible damage from moisture. This time there were no dead mice or voles lying about, but the air smelled foul and dead, like an old doper's den that just happened to have furniture from the 1930s. Christian quickly stepped inside to give an enthusiastic tour to his extremely sceptical audience. He showed them everything – from the kitschy painting depicting an old fence to a little suitcase which he claimed had come from America. He spoke about everything as if they were magical objects, as if they possessed powers that only he could see.

‘When can we leave?' asked Lukas, and Amanda nodded that she, too, wanted to know.

‘We don't have to stay long, do we?' she asked.

‘We could spend the night,' suggested Christian. ‘There must be some bed linen in the cupboard.'

Helen gave him a stern look.

Half an hour later, when they were back in the car, Lukas solemnly declared that the house ‘was worse than I ever imagined'. Amanda, who was always trying to be the dutiful daughter and who liked to side with her father, said, ‘It was sort of yucky, but I'm sure it was nice enough,
in its own way
.'

As they drove home, Helen attempted to be diplomatic. ‘Looks like it needs a bit more than a coat of paint on the outside,' she said as they entered the motorway and saw the sign for Helsinki. ‘There's a lot of mould.'

‘How do you know that?' asked Christian.

‘I just do. I could feel it,' she replied.

For a few minutes Christian didn't say anything, as if considering whether to drop the subject.

Then he said, ‘Okay. Let's say that you're right. There might very well be mould in the house. But I just wonder how you know that. Because of the smell? No one has lived there for years, and that's the way old houses always smell. Or do you have some special ability to distinguish the smell of mould?'

‘Maybe I have,' said Helen.

‘All right. But it's strange how everybody has been talking about mould lately. Nobody did in the seventies. It's like the subject of lactose intolerance. Suddenly nobody can drink milk. And suddenly all old houses have moisture damage.'

They hadn't gone back since then, and Helen was afraid the topic might pop up again if Max and Katriina really did sell RÃ¥ddon.

Helen had found it hard to concentrate on her work ever since Ebba ended up in hospital. She felt weighed down, sad about something that seemed to be slipping away, not just Ebba, but some part of herself, the way she had once been. She thought that there were certain facets of her character that Christian would never understand, but which might be more important than she wanted to admit. They had to do with her whole view of life. Or maybe what she was feeling was a sense that something important was missing, something that she'd had in the past.

She tried all week to put this feeling into words, just for herself. When Friday arrived, Christian said that he was going to the gym and then to a pub with Michael.

‘We'll probably have a bite to eat, so you don't have to make any dinner for me.'

‘You're going out? But you went out last week.'

Christian and Michael had been out twice since the dinner party at their place.

‘So? Does it matter? We're just having a couple of beers. He told me that he doesn't know the city very well.'

‘And you do? You haven't gone out on the town in years.'

‘But I do know a few good pubs. And at work I keep hearing about all the trendy places. I was thinking we'd try that new restaurant near Skillnaden. They're supposed to have good food.'

‘Okay,' said Helen.

When she got home she put some fish fingers and chips in the oven and let the kids eat in front of the TV. Then she stretched out on the bed and tried not to think about what Christian and Michael might talk about together. She went into the living room and ate the leftover food from the kids' plates, looking at her children for a long time as they watched TV.

Christian didn't come home until four in the morning. She knew what time it was because she woke up when he practically fell into bed. He was awake by eight, but at breakfast he seemed drunk, telling an incoherent story about what he and Michael had done. They'd ended up at a nightclub and then had to wait an hour for a cab. Finally, Helen suggested it might be better if he went back to bed.

Christian didn't get up again until noon and still seemed tired and sluggish as he sat down at his computer.

‘I was thinking of taking the kids sledging over at the hill,' she told him as she came into the living room.

Christian was hunched over his mobile. Who was he sending a text message to? Michael?

‘Did you guys have fun last night?'

‘Yeah. It was great.'

‘Is that who you're texting? Michael?'

‘Uh-huh. We were planning to meet at the gym today.'

‘Oh,' said Helen. ‘Sounds like you've really become good friends.'

‘I don't know. It's just the gym.'

She couldn't believe this was the same Christian who so recently had insisted that they take their own sandwiches on the ferry boat, who always chose the familiar over the unfamiliar, who never really let loose. What was it about Michael that made him suddenly behave this way? Was it some sort of early midlife crisis? Was he trying to make up for those lost years of his childhood?

That evening she asked him if they could make love. They were lying in bed and had just watched a DVD. The kids were already asleep in their own beds. He responded at once, turning over to lie on top of her. He pulled off his shorts and her knickers, and the whole thing was over in less than ten minutes.

‘Thanks,' he said. ‘That was great.'

‘Yes, it was. We should have sex more often.'

‘Uh-huh. We should.'

For a while neither of them spoke. Helen was just about to doze off when he suddenly started talking.

‘There's something I've been thinking about,' he said.

‘Mmmm.'

‘The thing is we don't really know each other. I mean, we do know each other, but we never talked much about our lives before we had children. We met and we had the kids and that's when our life together began, but we don't know anything about before. It's like my whole life before Amanda and Lukas belonged to another person, not to me.'

‘You mean like all the music that you've started listening to lately?'

‘Sure … but not just that. Or rather, that too. I had to stop everything I used to do because I thought that was required, that I needed to leave everything behind.'

‘But I've never asked you to do that.'

‘I know, I know. I don't really understand why I did that. But I've been talking a lot about this with Michael, and that's what made me realise that I haven't really been myself. He didn't change anything just because he had a child.'

‘No, but his wife is dead. And how do you know he didn't change?'

‘Because that's what he says.'

‘Huh. So what do you want to do? Join a rock band? Is that what you mean?'

‘Maybe. For example.'

Neither of them spoke for a while.

‘He seems to know a hell of a lot. He's got an amazing knowledge of all sorts of things.'

‘Who? Michael?'

‘Yeah.'

‘It sounds like you really admire him.'

‘I don't know about that,' said Christian dismissively. ‘I just meant that he knows a lot.'

Silence settled over them, and Helen almost fell asleep, but she managed to stop herself and refocus her attention on the room and one more thing she wanted to say.

‘Christian?'

‘What?'

‘I think I'll go up to Kristinestad and visit Grandma.'

‘When?'

‘Soon. Maybe next weekend.'

‘Sure. Go ahead.'

She lay in bed thinking about that. She decided to take a day off from school and drive up to Kristinestad.

thirty-five

EVA WAS SITTING IN THE
dark, inside her art installation. It was the thirteenth of March. Over the past few days the weather had turned warmer in London, so that people could sit outside in the sunshine to have their coffee and take long walks along the river without freezing. It was almost possible to feel that life was tolerable, that something was just around the corner and it was worth waiting for.

She had put together her art piece in two weeks. Sarah had given her a big space in the gallery. Eva went over there every morning to ponder and plan. Sometimes she would forget to eat, and Sarah would surprise her with a plate of food. Some days she kept working until she discovered that it was two in the morning and time to go home. The other students worked on their pieces at the school, but Eva had been given permission to construct hers on-site. She used a power hammer and steel wires, and Sarah helped her to measure angles and dimensions. The most time-consuming part was weaving the whole structure of the hut she was building. For that she used some of the branches that she'd brought back from Kristinestad. The rest she'd gathered in the nearby woods that she and Russ had located on Google Maps. Then she carted them over to the gallery in three big boxes from IKEA. She decided to have the Bible quote from St Paul's Cathedral in both Swedish and English. She'd post them on the wall next to some crocheted doilies that were an Österbotten tradition.

Now she was almost finished, she just had to arrange the lighting inside the hut. There was a small TV in the back, showing a film that she'd made with Helen's help. Clips from movies that Max had taken of the two sisters when they were kids. Eva thought there was something so immediate and aesthetic about Super 8 films with no sound.

Sarah crawled inside and looked around.

‘I like it. It has such a harmonious feeling. Most artists who show their work in our gallery have some sort of ugly but interesting aesthetic. It's rare that anyone dares embrace beauty in such a natural way.'

Eva was pleased to hear her words of praise. Lately she'd been thinking a lot about the word ‘love'. Maybe it wasn't bad to make something out of love. Maybe everything didn't have to be so trendy. There was a reason for not creating a layer of irony between the viewer and the artist.

‘Let me say again that I'm sorry about what happened with Malik. I haven't seen him in such a bad state in a long time. But that's how it is when someone's bipolar. Sooner or later the manic period ends and he hits the wall. Don't tell anyone, but I think it was because of some girl at your school that he'd fallen in love with. When she rejected him, he flipped out.'

Eva didn't know what to say. ‘But doesn't that bother you? I mean, since you're married and all?'

Sarah laughed. She gave Eva a look that suddenly reminded her of Katriina, the way she simply dismissed the whole issue.

‘We haven't had a functioning marriage for ten years. I don't even know if I like the man any more. But I can't just … Someone has to take care of him. Someone has to make sure he seeks help when he needs it. Usually he manages to lead a more-or-less normal life. As I already told you, his family is really fucked up. It's hereditary, you know.'

When Eva went home that evening, she took the route past St Paul's and sat down on the steps. The Occupy encampment had been cleared away at the end of February, and many had given up. Some had moved their tents to nearby Finsbury Square, but the movement as a whole had largely dispersed. Now tourists crowded the square in front of the cathedral, as if nothing had changed, or as if everything was back to normal and life was inexorably continuing on. She thought it was sad. The fact that there was such a thin line between the two options: world-wide revolution or total oblivion. A warm gust of wind seeped through her jumper. She got up and walked home.