Olli stared at Maiju without speaking.
“OK,” she sighed, seeing his discomfort, but not understanding its cause. “It’s only a working title. We’ll probably have to polish it a bit. In any case, it’s an introductory sex-education book for preschoolers, and that has to be clear in the title.”
Olli relaxed and lost himself in staring at a photo on his office wall.
It was a photo of him, taken in that very office, a black-and-white portrait of Olli Suominen, Publisher, in authoritative mode. He wore a grave expression and an upright posture. Olli had a similar photo at home, not of himself but of his paternal grandfather, the notary Mauno Suominen, whom Olli strongly resembled. The similarity had been reinforced when Olli started wearing horn-rimmed glasses and relaxed but stylishly continental suits, just as his grandfather had worn in his day.
Olli wondered what his grandfather would have thought of this children’s book.
In addition to writing, Amanda Vuolle was an accomplished watercolourist, and had illustrated the book herself. Maiju showed him two of the illustrations, in which a girl bunny first shows her private parts to a boy kitten, and the boy kitten then shows his private parts to the girl bunny. The author’s misty style oozed with sweetness.
Maiju read aloud from the manuscript:
“‘I have a fanny, and you have a wee-wee,’ Emma Bunny said to Karl Kitten, and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I am a girl and you are a boy. Do you like me? I like you. When we grow up, we can get married and have children together.’”
Olli wanted to say something publisher-like, but nothing came to mind. His bum searched for a more comfortable position in his chair. The back of his hand wiped his mouth. His chest felt tight. His nose twitched. He struggled to tamp down the surge of emotion this bunny–kitten love story had evoked in him.
Maiju looked at him. Olli pretended to be clearing his throat.
“We decided at our September meeting that I should commission an educational book from Amanda,” Maiju said. “So here it is. Yeah, it sounds odd, but it’s well executed and I think it’s a sure hit.”
Olli nodded, got up, walked behind her, took off his glasses and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
At the end of the workday, Olli stood in front of the large, many-paned window of his office and looked out, pressing his cheek against the stone wall, his fingers resting on the windowsill. The old glass warped blisters into the wintry cityscape and stretched and twisted the lights and the people passing.
He couldn’t see the sky in the dark of 5 p.m., but it was no doubt cloudy. Olli wondered if it was about to snow or sleet. He decided to take his umbrella, just in case.
He shot a glance into each office as he left, hoping not to attract anyone’s attention. He had dinner waiting for him at home.
Seija, who handled the finances and served as Maiju’s assistant, had left for the day. In the third room he passed he saw Antero, their young publicity agent. He had neat blonde hair and immaculate clothing: a white shirt, narrow tie and suit trousers. He was working on a book ad for Helsinki’s largest newspaper, and it had to be ready in the morning.
There was an opened cup of yogurt on his desk, the cover licked clean and carefully folded. Every time Antero licked the cover of his yogurt his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His thyroid cartilage was larger than average. Sometimes it irritated Olli. It was hard to watch, and harder not to watch.
When Antero noticed Olli in the doorway he pointed at him and mouthed the words Don’t forget the flowers. Antero didn’t wear a ring. Olli did. He remembered that he had asked Antero for this reminder. He thanked him, and said, “You may have saved my marriage.”
Olli went down the stairs, stopped when he got to the street, and paused a moment before starting off. The asphalt was icy. It would be easy to fall and break a bone. He’d had better soles put on his shoes, but he still needed to be careful.
He proceeded with cautious steps, his arms spread slightly, not caring that he looked a bit ridiculous. Once he was safely across he walked onto the ice-free pedestrianized street and gave silent thanks to the city engineer who had thought to circulate the district’s heating water under some of the streets, at least.
Jyväskylä’s town centre was small, basically just a few square blocks. Every evening it was jammed with people getting off work, stressed and hungry. They mingled with the school kids loitering on Compass Square or in front of the Forum shopping centre.
Sometimes there was the occasional street musician along the way. Today there was a ragged accordionist on the corner playing The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Olli dropped two euros in his accordion case. The playing intensified. The accordionist wanted to give him his money’s worth.
The crowds of people made Olli nervous. Too many faces. Every few steps he raised a hand or nodded in greeting. He met a constant stream of familiar faces—acquaintances from the many organizations he belonged to, or just people who seemed to know him, people he ought to recognize. There were too many of them. Their names and connections were a mystery. His head felt strained. His cheeks quickly tired from this rapid smiling, even if it didn’t use all two hundred muscles.
Olli crossed the Forum to the flower kiosk and bought a bouquet of yellow roses.
Aino was wearing a yellow dress the first time they met, in a nightclub popular with students. The place had been too crowded and Olli’s friends had decided to continue to another bar. Olli had looked around, chuckling at his mates as he emptied his pint, when suddenly the light in the room had changed somehow, and the sight of a girl came hurtling at him through the dimness.
He still remembered that moment.
A girl in a yellow dress on the other side of the restaurant, chatting with friends. She touches them, laughs and gestures, stands out from her surroundings like a brimstone butterfly alighting on a highway.
Olli finds himself walking across the room. He makes some insignificant remark, and she answers. Two hours later he says, more to himself than to the girl, whose name is Aino, “It’s weird, but I feel like I’ve always known you…”
They’re sitting at a corner table. Olli’s hand rests lightly on Aino’s, as if he wants to hold on to her so she can’t get away—not yet, maybe not ever—but it isn’t too possessive, not at that moment. Her face opens up more and more with each minute that passes. Olli enjoys her warm expression, its sincerity. “It’s like I was always meant to know you,” he says, then regrets it, because Aino is startled, grows serious, withdraws, tilts her head and examines him, looks long and deep.
Olli’s smile freezes. She’s going to get up and leave, he thinks.
But the girl nods, takes hold of his hand and smiles, as if she’s just got to the bottom of an important question.
Olli walked past the compass inlaid in the pavement on Compass Square and headed towards the yellow facade of the Lyceum.
The cold wind slapped at his coat-tails and toppled three bicycles, which fell at his feet. He jumped out of the way, teetered, then righted himself and corrected his stride, in a complicated series of steps that brought him to the other side of the street and made two schoolgirls burst into giggles.
As he reached the corner, he yawned. His eyes closed for a moment. When he opened them again he nearly stumbled over a cocker spaniel that had appeared in front of him. Stepping around the dog, he found himself crossing against a red light, and a car nearly hit him. The horn blared. Olli strode to the opposite kerb, angry and embarrassed, looking back over his shoulder, and ran into a stocky fellow who had just stepped out of the school building.