M: Are we cooking for Kiki?
T: I’m here only because of Samy. I face forward.
M: Svensson is Samuli’s father?
T: I face forward, and you’re standing in front of me. Even if you are strange, Manteli.
Drink with me!
says Tuuli, juo minun janssani! What I say: Cheers! What she replies: kippis! What I think: that I’m going to kiss her again, once we’ve emptied this glass, in her green bikini, her thin body will be lighter than Elisabeth’s, her breasts smaller. I will compare, as Svensson compared, I will touch the possibility of another life, this kiss will be the attempt to take two paths (where does that bring me?). We drink. Tuuli takes the Polaroid off the fridge and holds it next to the red-wine-stained picture on the kitchen wall. Shitty City, she reads, and tells me about Oulu and the Hotel Turisti. We drink. Tuuli talks about the cold of the Finnish winter, about her father in the Arctic Circle and about the Borromean rings. The rings were just like them, Blaumeiser, Svensson, and Tuuli herself. We keep an eye on the pie in the oven. When I finally do put my hand on Tuuli’s back so as to bend down again toward her mouth, so as not to let this opportunity pass, she says that I touch her as if I never touched a woman before, as if she were made of cotton candy.
Nice to see you
Now I’m sitting at Svensson’s desk again in front of my notebook, out of breath and ambushed for the second time this afternoon by the arrival of a woman. I kissed Tuuli, she bathed my mouth in coriander and icy cold, the hair on the back of her neck still damp from the lake water (suutele minua!). I could observe us as we kissed, her fingers, my hands between her shoulder blades. After a few seconds, the squeak of the sliding door stabbed Tuuli’s and my ears, in my head the thought of Svensson and the death of the dog, in Tuuli’s eyes the fright at her fatherless son in the doorway of the kitchen, my thought of Elisabeth in Hamburg, in Tuuli’s face maybe the possibility of a first self-caught fish in Samy’s small hands (in me Elisabeth’s red hair, her red dress, her green eyes). But then a woman’s voice from below, speaking English: Where the fuck are you, Svensson? Tuuli and I jumped apart like two teenagers, we fell away from each other, we looked at each other, she put her index finger to my mouth and her other hand on my chest, I brushed a wet strand of hair behind her ear (her smile, my smile). I took a hairpin out of her hair, and when the sound of women’s heels on the stone steps approached, I pushed myself off Tuuli as I had off buoy 1477, and disappeared into Svensson’s study (I swam ashore). Where is everybody? the woman’s voice asked on the steps, what’s going on here? A few seconds later I heard the English-speaking voice in the kitchen say “look at that!” and finally, after a brief pause and a few footsteps through Svensson’s kitchen, the name I’ve often read in the past few days and have been finding everywhere in Svensson’s house: Tuuli Kovero, this voice declares, nice to see you again! Tuuli’s reply: Kiki!
August 9, 2005
(Lua leaves)
Suddenly wide awake: I’m standing barefoot in front of Svensson’s desk, the fresh imprint of Tuuli’s lips on mine, the warmth of the vodka in my belly. As it does every day at this time, the smell of something burning hangs in the air, over the lake lies the stone smoke (Claasen is torching again). I can hear the two women’s voices in the kitchen, then footsteps on the stairs. Tuuli Kovero, I think, because Tuuli’s last name has eluded me until now. Kiki Kaufman knocks on the door of Svensson’s study, comes in, a cardboard box in her hand and a small child on her hip: Hi, I’m Kiki. Daniel Mandelkern, I say. The two of them seem not the least bit surprised. And this is Bella, says Kiki Kaufman, say hello to Daniel, but the child only looks at me motionlessly and sucks on an orange pacifier (younger than Samy, maybe one and a half, dark curls and eyes). Kiki Kaufman is a tall woman with huge eyes, which beam despite their darkness. She’s wearing a red dress and yellow flip-flops, I notice her freckles and the gray strands in her hair, the paint on her strong fingers. Switching to German, she says that it’s nice to meet me, Svensson already told her about me on the phone yesterday (Bar del Porto). It’s good to have visitors, Bella should see other people now and then besides just father and mother and dog (he told me you’re feeling better, she says in English, are you?). Bella has the same large eyes as her mother, she has her warmhearted mouth, she has Svensson’s broad nose. I’m taken aback as I stand opposite her and the girl, I imagined her differently while reading Astroland, thinner and more reserved. Downstairs in the kitchen Tuuli is busy with kitchen things (the taste of her lips). Kiki hands me the box and puts the girl down on the floor of the study. Bella strolls through the room, she rattles the airplane mobile still hanging from the ceiling (Mandelkern can’t tell children’s toys from dog toys, incredible!). She and Bella have just returned from Rome, her first exhibition in Italy, a group show, but still (quattro, she says, then in English: all pictures of the dog, how fitting, he’s so sick). Bella has come to the bookshelves, she laughs, her little teeth shine. Kiki follows her daughter, she briefly runs her finger over the boards, she straightens one of the pictures (gut, gut, she says). She’s sorry that I have to stay in this empty and dreary room, Svensson and she are currently renovating this house. I must have already noticed the preparations for renovation. This room first, the books in the shed, the junk out of here, the chairs and loungers, the things left by Blaumeiser’s family. Did I need anything, something to drink maybe, I should make myself completely at home. Yes, I say. Kiki jumps between her languages, she falls from one into the other (und so weiter and so forth). Without books, she says, the room immediately looks much drearier and bigger, but now it can be turned into something completely new. Apparently someone has already begun beautifying the room. Have you been drawing here, Daniel? Kiki laughs (I thought of Svensson as lonely). Would I agree with her that the view from this window is gorgeous, she loves sitting here in the morning (the American ease with which she uses the word Liebe). The lizards, the wasps, the swallows. She talks and laughs, I nod. Finally she takes the box and removes the tape, she pulls out a PowerBook, styrofoam and plastic she throws back in the box. The old computer was so old, she says, after a while you couldn’t read a word, and when it came to photoshopping, it froze every time I started to work, so I threw it out. I’m glad to be back for the party, she then says, looking at me. You’re not much of a talker, Daniel, she says, switching back to English, are you? I’m just somewhat surprised, I say, sorry. She asks why exactly I’m here. I’m a journalist. My superior sent me, I say, but Kiki doesn’t understand the German word, so I speak English: My wife is my boss, I explain to her and myself, and as I hear myself speaking, I think that that’s precisely what could change. I blundered into this situation, I say, I was supposed to conduct an interview in a café in Lugano, but then I suddenly found myself on the boat, and now I’m still sitting here. My wife wants a profile for the newspaper, I say, but only a tiny bit of what I’ve learned so far is usable, a lot of it isn’t suited to a newspaper article, which can only feel its way along the surface. Kiki lifts up Bella again, the child squeals, the two of them laugh. We’re barely gone for a few days, she says, and Svensson invites over his listeners. Kiki is standing by the door holding the box and the child, Bella throws her pacifier on the floor. I pick it up. Do you have kids, Daniel? asks Kiki, looking at me. Not yet, I say.