Olli had patiently tried to explain what made a photo worthy of the album and what made for a bad photo—you had to be able to notice the lighting, the mood, the framing, the effect of the depth of field…
Aino had interrupted him and said that it was obvious he didn’t know the first thing about family photos. Then she had scooped up the larger pile of pictures and announced that she was going to start her own album.
Olli pushed the pram. Snow had covered the street overnight, and it clung to the wheels. His hair grew moist under his fedora and his thick wool coat was stifling. He loosened his scarf, puffing like a horse.
The shouts of children echoed down from the west slope of the Ridge. They were sledding.
Aino wondered why in the world Olli hadn’t dressed more sensibly. “You should have put on a tracksuit like me.”
“I don’t have one,” Olli said.
“Yes, you do. I gave you a windproof one for Christmas. The blue one.”
Olli remembered and knew he was in trouble. “That’s right, you did. I wonder what happened to it.”
“I would be happy to help, but unfortunately I don’t know where it is now,” Aino said. “I noticed in February that it was in the box where you put all your old clothes to drag out to the donation bin.”
They continued walking. The happy shouts of the children accentuated the tense silence. Aino’s face twitched. They passed the playground without speaking.
There were four little boys and a girl stretching their heads over the playground fence and spitting on the ground. They looked up and stared at Olli expressionlessly.
One boy looked familiar, as did the girl with blonde hair flowing out from under her knitted cap. Olli waved at them with a friendly smile and the little girl whispered something to the others.
The children looked scornfully amused and Olli felt cold. Then he realized where he knew the boy from. He looked like a childhood picture Olli had of himself on a shelf at home. And the girl reminded him of a friend from years ago, who was of course a grown woman now.
When they reached the conservatory, Aino’s mood changed. The tension disappeared, she forgot their quarrel, took a breath and started chirping about everything under the sun.
Sometimes Olli found this taxing. But at the moment it was a sign of forgiveness, and he accepted it gratefully. Olli didn’t like quarrels. They made his blood pressure even higher than it already was and gave him a stiff neck.
Aino talked about the macaroni casserole waiting in the refrigerator, the apple pie she had baked for dessert, and how they should get home on time because there was a lot of laundry to do, and besides, she still had to go through her pupils’ exercise books, make a call to a colleague, and prepare next week’s lessons before tomorrow. Then she mentioned that she’d been awakened during the night by Olli’s snoring, and he apologized. She told him that someone ought to change the bedding; it was quite dusty and the boy had been eating rye crispbreads in bed. Olli humbly promised to take care of it.
Aino wondered aloud when they had last cleaned. “But then when would we have had time, since you have your meetings and other goings-on in the evenings and I’ve got my work, too, plus taking care of Lauri…”
Olli made a quick budget calculation in his head and suggested that they hire a cleaner. He was still thinking about the blonde-haired girl he had known long ago.
The weather seemed to be getting colder. His breath was steaming and he didn’t feel hot any more. In fact he felt chilled.
They came to the soccer field, surrounded by a chain-link fence. Olli touched his camera and scowled. It was hard to find picturesque places in Jyväskylä.
“A cleaner?” Aino’s stride faltered for a moment. “That would be nice, of course, to not have to clean… But no. I don’t want a stranger mixed up in our life.”
Then she poked him in the ribs with her mitten and demanded, “Hey, have you read that book I gave you on our anniversary? Or did you toss it in the recycling bin?”
Olli told her that he had spent two evenings reading A Guide to the Cinematic Life. Aino was pleased. He added that he thought the book was very interesting.
Aino was delighted.
They were nearing the swimming hall now. Aino slowed down, grew serious and started to tell him about a dream. She’d had the same dream for two nights in a row, and thought it was caused by the cover of the book she’d bought him.
“I’m getting home from work, and I notice that a pear tree is growing in the garden. It’s shading the house. You’re inside the house, sitting and watching a video of Casablanca and eating a pear. I ask you to cut down the tree before it falls on the house. You turn to look at me and then I notice that you’re crying. You cry so many tears that the house fills up with steam, until rain starts falling from the ceiling. This doesn’t bother you, because you’re sitting under an umbrella. When I woke up, I had to go downstairs and make sure we didn’t have a leak or any water damage. I looked outside, too, to make sure there wasn’t really any pear tree there.”
The boy stirred himself in the pram and craned to look at Olli, until his hat sat crooked on his head. His smooth brow was furrowed.
“Daddy…”
“What?”
The boy concentrated intensely.
Finally he said: “Daddy, you shouldn’t eat those pears. They’re poison.”
5
THE STAFF IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM of Book Tower Publishing were drinking coffee, munching on Marie biscuits and talking about A Guide to the Cinematic Life. The ceiling of the room was a high one, the ambience venerable.
They sat in ornate oak chairs hand-crafted before any of them were even born. The dark table was too large. There were interspersed empty chairs and everyone was far away from each other. Olli sat in his usual place at the head of the table. The window was open. A warm waft of air blew in, bringing a scent of spring. Maiju was at the other end of the table giving them a report of what she had learnt from an acquaintance at WSOY Publishing.
When Olli turned his head to the right, he was looking straight into the park. It was May. Now that winter was over, people were trying to learn to enjoy life again.
Children ran around, teenagers lolled on the grass. People sat on the benches eating ice cream from the kiosk in the park. An old couple strolled arm in arm wearing heavy coats; their bones still remembered the cold of winter. They passed a fat woman who was tossing breadcrumbs to the pigeons. Then the children ran up and chased the birds away, which gave the old couple a start, and the woman was left standing in the path in befuddlement.
In addition to Olli and Maiju, there was Antero, and grey-haired Seija. The rest of the staff were in Helsinki arranging a children’s book event, to which Eduard Uspensky had been invited, thus making it worth their while for Book Tower to be on hand and visible.
There was always an intern present as well. These wards of the publishing house came and went. Just as they got to know one of them, a new one came to replace them.
The current intern was a blonde girl in a blue blouse. She was sitting in the corner looking neglected. “Please, have some coffee and biscuits,” Olli said encouragingly. He pointed to the coffee pot and the plate of biscuits, which the regular staff were quickly emptying.
The girl shook her head and looked at the ceiling.
Olli peered at the intern over his horn-rimmed glasses. She had an interesting face. It had a certain refinement. The film club had recently watched Vertigo, and she reminded Olli of Kim Novak.
The girl shifted her gaze uncomfortably, the impression faded, and Olli continued listening to the discussion. They were still talking about A Guide to the Cinematic Life. Olli had left his copy on his desk. The others had also bought the book and were reading it at a fast clip. They were all in agreement that although the book seemed trivial at first, it quickly hooked you and made you think. And it was making its publisher a lot of money.