Aino and the boy were eating potatoes and hamburger gravy. The cutlery jangled. Olli was late from the trip to the florist and the five minutes taken up by his chat with the principal.
Customary greetings were exchanged. Olli ruffled his son’s hair and handed the flowers, tightly wrapped in paper against the cold, to Aino. Aino thanked him, smiled and laid the bouquet on the counter next to the pot of potatoes. “After dinner we can see what kind of pretty flowers Mommy got this time, Lauri. There’s a surprise for Daddy too. But let’s eat first.”
Olli took out his glasses and polished them with a napkin, dished three warm potatoes and two ladles of gravy onto his plate, and sat down. The chair wobbled on the uneven floor so that one chair leg was always in the air, but it didn’t bother him if he didn’t think about it too much. There was rye bread and low-fat spread to put on it. Olli’s blood pressure had been high for the past few years, and since he didn’t have any extra weight he could lose, or a smoking habit he could quit, he had no choice but to eat more healthy food. There was a bowl of tomatoes sliced in half. Olli put two halves on the edge of his plate, well away from the gravy. Gravy and vegetables mustn’t be allowed to mix.
Everyone had their own drink. The boy drank milk, Aino lactose-free buttermilk, and Olli mineral water. Sometimes he drank low-fat milk.
Aino told him about her day teaching Year 3. She had heard at the nursery school that their son wasn’t taking his naps and that because of this he had thrown a tantrum when they were putting on their coats and hats.
“Aha,” Olli said. “Is that so?”
The boy mumbled through a mouthful of potatoes. Forks clinked against porcelain. Aino told the child to mix his gravy into his potatoes and reminded him that dessert was made for little boys who drank up all their milk. It sounded like a repurposed proverb to Olli, but Aino was a practical person, and not one to speak in proverbs.
“Your bones need calcium,” she said soberly. “And milk has calcium in it.”
The boy peered into his milk mug doubtfully.
Then Aino’s attention turned to her husband. It was Olli’s turn to give a summary of his day at the publishing house. He did so, and mentioned that he would have to go to Helsinki again in a couple of days, and wouldn’t be home until about eleven. Oh, and there was a meeting of the film club tonight.
They watched the movie in the dark.
It was To Die with the Blossoms. Bold colours, veiled gazes. Tony Leung’s character loves a sales clerk who looks like Maggie Cheung, but she’s obsessed with her dead lover. It’s good to love the dead, because they live in yesterday, and yesterday will never leave us, Tony Leung says. Then he strokes his moustache, lights a cigarette and burns the letter that would have revealed her dead lover’s crooked past, and thus freed her from his grip.
The rainy city changes to a sunlit beach. The bright film screen lights up the room. Tony Leung steps out from a sea of umbrellas and follows a girl in a flower-print dress.
The saturated colour on the screen pressed Olli into his seat and quickened his breath. He rubbed his stubbled chin and glanced to left and right. There were about twenty people in the room. The purpose of the film club wasn’t to get to know people; the point was to share the viewing experience, not the feelings it aroused. They showed up in the darkened hall to watch a film, then exited up the dim staircase.
End credits.
Olli and a couple of other viewers remained seated in the dark. A good film left a trace in the mind, like wine. You had to taste it before rushing back to your ordinary life.
When Olli finally got up, he saw a woman sitting near the doorway. He had noticed her before. A slender, delicate thing, gracefully gaunt. Flamboyant clothes. Like a movie star herself.
Olli still couldn’t see her face. She had her back slightly turned, seemed to be looking for something in her bag. Today she was wearing a long skirt and a short-sleeved, pale-coloured blouse. Her hair was covered in a white scarf with a dark pattern on it. A lock of hair peeped out. A winter coat was hanging on the back of her seat.
Olli tucked his umbrella under his arm, straightened his tie and headed for the door. As he started up the stairs he noticed that the woman had an unlit cigarette in her mouth.
He stopped, hesitated a moment, walked back to her seat, and said, “There’s no smoking in here, you know.”
The woman gave no response at first.
Finally she said, without looking at him, “I’m not smoking.”
“You’ve got a cigarette in your mouth, haven’t you?” Olli said. He realized he sounded stupid and unsure, and regretted that he’d said anything.
“Sure. And I’ve got shoes on my feet, but I’m not walking.”
Olli climbed up the stairs, embarrassed. It wasn’t until he was out of the building that he realized he had just had a conversation out of an old American comedy.
He stepped into the courtyard under the black sky. There was a red Vespa parked next to the entrance. Olli stood looking at it. He ventured to touch it, ran his fingers over the red painted surface beaded with raindrops.
He heard voices approaching and hurried out of the gate onto the street.
Olli climbed up Harju Ridge.
The massive stone staircase had always appealed to him, but now it stiffened his feet and made him feel cold. It felt as if the chill of ten winters were stored in the stones. As he came to the crest of the hill and started down the other side a north wind struck him, freezing his glasses to his head and nearly stealing his hat.
When he got home, he was shivering. He hung his wool coat and fedora on the rack, took off his glasses, gloves and shoes, and went into the living room.
Aino was sitting on the sofa correcting tests. She was wearing loose green sweats. The television was showing a programme about the everyday life of a family. The children screamed and refused to do what their parents told them. A psychologist gave them some advice. The children’s behaviour improved.
Aino was surrounded by a teacup, an open packet of Marie biscuits, a half-eaten apple, three children’s books, a thick stack of test papers, a mark book, five pens, a packet of tissues, a bottle of lotion, wool socks, a phone, a wrapped present and a lot of biscuit crumbs.
Olli sat in a chair next to the television and looked at his wife benevolently.
Aino picked up the wrapped package, smiled, and handed it to him. “I almost forgot, because I had to put Lauri straight in the bath after dinner. Everything he had on had to go in the laundry. Plus I had to clean the kitchen floor—it was covered in crud. Luckily it’s plastic. Anyway, happy anniversary.”
Olli thanked her and started to open the package.
Aino turned down the sound on the television and watched his expression. “I don’t know if you’ll like it,” she said. “I was walking by the shopping centre today before I went to pick up Lauri and I remembered our anniversary and I thought I should buy you something this year. I’m usually so busy that I don’t have a moment to get to the shops so you have to go without any present…”
Obviously a book, Olli thought.
He was touched that Aino had bought him a book, but he braced himself for disappointment. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She didn’t really know his taste in books, didn’t really know literature in general. For a teacher, she was surprisingly indifferent to the arts, or to anything cultural. She preferred kitsch of all sorts, and carried around a Hello Kitty pencil box without the slightest irony.