True (3 page)

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Eero rolled onto his side. Eleonoora got up. She felt dizzy, her legs felt shaky.

She took the scale out of the cabinet and weighed herself. Fifty-one kilos. She hadn't weighed that little since she was breastfeeding. She ordered herself to eat a chocolate pudding on top of her regular breakfast. She looked at Eero, wished he would wake up, see how pitiable she was, and take her in his arms.

She stood for a moment in the chilly darkness, her ribs sharp against the paleness of the night.

Eero had pulled his knees up toward his chest and put his hand between his thighs as he always did. Something about his sleeping, his trusting presence, gave Eleonoora an unbearable feeling. It felt like vexation mixed with love. When her mother died Eleonoora would still have this family for whom she must necessarily survive.

There would be evenings, nights like this one. Spring would come. Eero would be his old steadfast self. She would get through it. Gradually she would start to laugh again. That was what was unbearable. She didn't want to. She wanted to cry, she wanted to build a cradle and put the rest of her life in it to cry, orphaned.

Eleonoora put the scale back in the cabinet and wrapped her robe around herself again. Her head hurt, her back ached.

She closed the bedroom door behind her, tiptoed across the hall, stopped at the door to Maria's room, and listened for a moment. No sound. Suddenly she had to open the door, to see Maria, if only for a moment.

The predawn moment, the dream of her mother swinging, the dread—all of it made Eleonoora feel that childhood uncertainty about what is true.

Maria was, at least. She lay on her side with a pillow between her knees, her blanket kicked to the floor. Her thighs glowed in the dimness, her mouth was open, her hair bunched up around her face.

She made a smacking sound with her mouth in her sleep.

It seemed almost comical to Eleonoora that a couple of decades ago she had pushed Maria out into the world—this woman with her farmhand's arms and husky laugh that filled the space around her.

Last summer Maria and her grandma, Eleonoora's mother, had washed rugs at the seashore. Her mother had still been strong then, there was no sign of the illness. Maybe it was already wending its way through the corridors of her organs. But she hadn't known about it yet, had lifted the wet rugs onto the drying racks, turned the crank, laughed when the water splashed.

That fall she gave her annual series of lectures at the university. Although she'd been retired for years, she hadn't stopped working. She still had an office in the department. Year after year her lectures drew several hundred listeners. They all wanted to hear the esteemed psychological researcher, to share in her wisdom.

The titles of the lectures were variations on her best-known book,
Recognition and Self.
The book had been a tremendous success when it was published. People had tried to make her into a lap for the whole of society to sit on, a motherly emissary of love.

Eleonoora had gone to hear some of her lectures. Her favorite moments with her mother were when they drove home after a lecture, her mother laying her head against the window and sighing good-naturedly, but with a hint of exhaustion.

“The science doesn't interest anyone. People come to these things to hear tidings of joy.”

She didn't say it with disappointment, just a bit of resignation, gently, like a weary queen.

“Don't underrate yourself. They are tidings of joy. You deliver us from evil. Mothers, fathers, children—you give them permission to be happy.”

She smiled a little.

“Why do they always need someone else to say it?”

Eleonoora had always been proud of her mother's success. She remembered from her childhood the busy evenings before her mother's trips, and when her mother came home, her own tears, a kind of frantic desire to own her, to be part of her, such unconditional love and admiration that she felt the longing even when her mother was with her.

Last summer Elsa had thrown a seventieth-birthday party. Her research colleagues from over the years were there. An interview given at the party carried an apt headline: “Pioneer of Psychology Still Has Sharp Mind and Open Arms.”

Now her arms were disappearing. She would never wash rugs again. She would never turn seventy-one.

Eleonoora went downstairs. There were marks on the hall door showing the girls' heights in years past: Anna, Maria, Anna, Maria. Suddenly Eleonoora felt jealous, almost angry at her daughters for making her always be their mother.

She scolded herself: don't be childish.

She picked the newspaper up from the floor. It was the most comforting thing for her in the morning. She made an espresso, heated milk in a saucepan, and poured the milk and coffee into a large mug. She made toast and buttered it carefully, didn't skimp on the cheese slices.

She read the paper, ate, listened to a blackbird. Night might be a well, her shouts might echo at the bottom of the well, but there was still the blackbird.

In the morning she would go to work, take care of a few routine tasks, keep herself together. At lunchtime she would call her father and mother to make sure everything was all right. Anna was going to spend the afternoon there so Dad could get a little free time. Eleonoora would call Anna and listen for any uncertainty, check up on her.

No, Eleonoora chided herself. She would leave Anna in peace with her grandma and drive over after work. Or maybe she would call the home health care service, ask about a few more details.

Everything had been arranged for her mother's return home: the bed, the pain pump, other necessaries.

The whole family had been together at the apartment in Töölö; her mother had wanted to have a welcome home party for her return.

Eleonoora had watched her mother's hand as it cut another piece of cake. The hand trembled slightly as she pressed the cake knife into the frosting. Maybe it was because of the diapers lurking on the other side of the wall; she had to prove that she still belonged with the kind of people who choose for themselves what they want to eat, who praise the flavor of the cake.

“Have another piece. It's not good for you, but it's not exactly bad for you either.”

As she sat there, Eleonoora remembered her mother's severe expression when she was a child and had behaved badly once when they were out. It was like a wall; she thought she'd lost her approval and affection for good. But in the tram on the way home her mother had taken her onto her lap, her soft, slightly sweaty thighs against Eleonoora's damp skin. She had felt such a great gratitude for her mother's affection that she burst into tears.

How recent those days seemed, when her mother was a queen whose approval she thirsted for. Now her mother whined, made demands like a child, acted stubborn, capricious. She never did it to Dad, only to Eleonoora.

Eleonoora never would have guessed that it would feel like this, stupefyingly lonely, the role of the one in control.

She went to sit on the living room sofa and looked at Anna across the room—her father's portrait of Anna was hanging on the wall. She'd always felt both tender and sad when she looked at the painting. Anna sitting on a small stool, thoughtful, with the world on her shoulders. There were oranges in the background, bright as the sun. He had accentuated the shadow on the left side of her face as if he wanted to particularly mark the difference between the areas where the oranges and the shadows were.

There was a companion picture, a darker, bleaker composition—he had planned it as some sort of diptych. Eleonoora didn't know where the other painting had gone.

Yesterday she had seen all of these expressions in Anna, including this seriousness, and the childhood look of concealment.

Mom had resisted their caregiving plan, wanted to treat hospice care as visits.
Just come when you want to come. We'll have coffee.
Anna had offered to take the first shift. Eleonoora searched Anna's face for signs of dread and Anna glanced at her quickly, recognized her expression, and nodded emphatically, defying her doubts. Eleonoora remembered how when Anna was five she had burst into tears when she was told to try to do a somersault in gymnastics class. Her trembling chin, her eyes searching the corners for a place to escape. That look was still in her, somewhere behind her look of assurance. Eleonoora knew all her fears, all her sorrows, from the smallest to the largest. I'll come tomorrow, Anna had said again.

Eleonoora looked at Anna's face glowing through the darkness. It seemed to be floating toward her.

She decided that Anna would be all right with her grandmother for an afternoon. She wouldn't worry about it.

She needed both hands to keep the panic at a distance.

3

A
NNA IS STANDING
in the hallway in front of the apartment door. It's like any other day at her grandma and grandpa's house. A summer day from the past, when she was six years old. Or even yesterday, when they ate too-sweet cake and she staved off her panic and promised to come today.

It's the only thing she knows how to do for her mother. Day after day Anna sees her mother's grief grow heavier, trembling behind her mask of efficiency. Sometimes she takes off her mask for a moment when she thinks no one can see her, and she looks completely helpless.

YESTERDAY ANNA'S MOTHER
was clearing away the dishes, went into the kitchen to put the plates in the dishwasher, and let her expression drop. Suddenly it was as if Anna had no hands. She would have liked to take her mother in her arms.

She wants to comfort her mother all the time the way that you comfort a child after a bad dream, but she can't find the words. Maria has diligence, practical gestures, and uncomplicated words. Anna is helpless in comforting, all she has are her clumsy arms, outstretched, stopped halfway.

SHE'S WALKED HERE
from her apartment on Albertinkatu, stopped in at Stockmann's to buy a gift for Grandma. It is a bright day. A hot dog wrapper on the corner, a seagull, a yogurt container, the usual cars. The day is silver and there is sunshine and the garbageman's shout across the street, the wide expanse of May.

Anna rings the doorbell and hears footsteps. Grandpa.

“Well, if it isn't Anna. Nice of you to come. Just had our coffee and now Grandma's resting a bit.”

Grandpa uses these tossed-off sentences to cover the embarrassment of just the two of them in the entryway.

Anna is alert. There's a jitter of restlessness inside her.

“Resting? Any pain?”

“Maybe a little. A little fatigue.”

“Is she asleep?”

“Sleeping, dozing, you know.”

Grandpa is familiar. This man—this visionary, as one magazine called him. To have all his success, honors, and respect, to carry his affection, his humor and melancholy, the shapeless wounds of boyhood, through the years to this moment, to go through exhibition openings and restless years in Paris and prizes and nominations and come to this, this doorway, saying hello to his daughter's daughter and trying to think of something to say. The years have layered over him, each stage of life, each spring. Anna can see them all.

Suddenly she remembers one of his charmer's looks, which have always seemed strange to her but still firmly belonging to her grandfather. She was twelve years old, wearing a skirt and dress-up shoes to go see him receive one of his many awards. At the end of the ceremony he threw his bouquet into the audience, smiling at the idea just before he did it. A woman journalist caught it, and he winked at her. The woman blushed and gave a curtsy. He lifted his eyebrows as if to say, Why are you curtsying? That's a gesture of humility. You can do better than that! The woman raised her own eyebrows questioningly. What? What should I do? He spread his arms. Anything you can think of! And the woman did an almost perfect pirouette, like a dancer, and then took a bow. He was satisfied with that, and blew a kiss to her. And then the whole play was over as quickly as it had begun.

Relationships between people are like dense forests. Or maybe it's the people themselves who are forests, trail after trail opening up within them, trails that are kept hidden from others, opening only by chance to those who happen upon them.

Anna remembers days at the park, the days in the studio when her grandfather was painting her. The portrait may have been the result of her mother's persistent persuasion, but once he got going he was pleased with it. Well, then, he would say at the door, Shall we go? and he would reach out his hand and Anna would take hold of it with vague thoughts about men, happiness, virility, and maybe even love.

Her grandfather's hand was sinewy and strong with dark hair growing on it. He smelled of aftershave and oily rags and a hint of turpentine.

After some time painting, they would go to the park, and Anna got to choose her ice cream. They would watch newlywed couples, guessing what their names might be. Seija and Mikko? Amalia and Juhana?

Were you a boy once? Anna asked.

Yes, her grandfather answered.

Before Grandma?

Before Grandma.