I wade through the snow to the other side of the fence. The heavy lunch in my stomach feels so big and hard to digest that I suspect it’s pushing me deeper into the snowdrift. The fence’s deep-grey slats look bare and frozen; the winter midday sunlight illuminates the world like a small, tired old lantern sitting on the horizon. The smell of the old building and the spruce forest hangs in the air.
I have arranged – and carefully planned – to come to the area around the outdoor museum at Teerilä.
The plan is simple – and appalling in every respect. And while I regret it, I know it is utterly unavoidable.
I have a meeting with my wife.
This part of the plan sounds banal. But after that come the stages that are harder to accept. Posing as my wife’s lover, I have invited her to an appointment I have no intention of keeping. Neither as myself nor as anybody else. And then, to crown it all, comes the very heart of the plan – the bit that will happen once my wife arrives and realises nobody else is coming. I’m going to follow her.
I don’t know how many laws I am breaking, societal or divine, or how many rules of etiquette I am contravening, ignoring or dismissing; the lies and falsehoods seem to multiply exponentially with every new turn. But necessity and purity don’t always make comfortable bedfellows.
And besides, what makes me think this plan will work?
Krista is someone who doesn’t do things by halves. She is strong-willed and always wants to find out everything as soon as possible. Or, to put it bluntly, immediately. At least in that regard, I know her well. I’m convinced that once she realises nobody is coming and when she can’t contact the mystery man behind the text message, somehow she will try and sort the matter out in person. She has behaved like this many times before. When Krista gets something into her head, it’s hard to stop her.
That’s why I chose the outdoor museum at Teerilä. The courtyard formed by the main building, two fences and a barn is outside the centre of Hurmevaara, only a short walk away, at the top of a small hill, beside an intersection of four roads, each leading to villages with a finite number of virile adult males.
The main building of the Teerilä museum isn’t exactly a manor house, and it’s not even very big. It is a log cabin that has stood on the same spot for a hundred and fifty years, and in the summer it serves as a local-history museum. The walls are red, the window frames white. During the winter months the courtyard is regularly ploughed to keep it free of snow as the house is often rented out for private functions, and the village action committee has held meetings there too.
It is almost our agreed time. I am in position. I can see the courtyard, but nobody in the courtyard could see me. The spruce forest stands silently about thirty metres away. A little more preparation, then…
My phone rings.
I pull the thing from my pocket and answer. Pirkko from the church office. I waste no time in getting to the point.
‘I’m on my lunch break,’ I say. ‘I’ll be back in an hour.’
‘We need to put in the order for the new hymnals today,’ she says.
‘We can do it this afternoon.’
‘There are so many options for the cover and they’re all just marvellous. I think this dark one is particularly thrilling. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”’
‘“I fear no evil”. Yes, it’s very atmospheric.’
‘Then there’s the one with a brook trickling between the rocks. “He lets me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters…”’
‘“He restores my soul”,’ I continue. ‘Yes, but right now I’m—’
‘Leather,’ says Pirkko. ‘Black leather.’
I peer between the logs and into the courtyard. Was that movement? I wait a while longer. Then…
Krista.
Approaching.
‘Black leather is very stylish,’ I whisper into the phone after a long pause. ‘But I’m in the—’
‘Soft and yet … strong,’ Pirkko whispers in return.
I don’t know what’s going on in the church office, but that whisper has the distinct tone of misunderstanding. Then I realise things all at once: the way Pirkko has started sitting closer to me with every meeting, bringing home-made pastries into the staffroom more and more often, visiting me in my office when she could have asked something by email.
‘I really must…’ I whisper again.
‘Must what?’ Pirkko whispers.
Krista is approaching fast; I must put my phone away. She stops in the middle of the courtyard and looks around.
My mind is a blur. This is all I need. What kind of signals have I been giving Pirkko? I realise I’ve indulged in jokes with her – risqué jokes – and now we finish one another’s sentences without a second thought. People can easily misconstrue things like that. Everyone construes everything in their own way. At times the two come close together and produce … something like this. I sigh.
It is a few minutes past our agreed meeting time. Krista takes a couple of steps towards the main building, pushes her hands into the pockets of her down jacket. Her breath steams up in the air. I feel horrific. Surely I can’t get lower than this; surely this day can’t get any worse…
Krista raises a hand to her ear. It’s astonishing how little thought I give this before the phone rings in my pocket. Naturally, I have both phones with me, and the one that rings belongs to the mystery texter. I was supposed to switch it to silent, but just then Pirkko called my work phone and distracted me. I reach into my pocket and peer between the slats of the fence.
Krista has heard the phone.
I look up at the blue sky and curse.
I run.
The spruce forest in front of me draws nearer with every step. The snow is deep, crisp and even.
‘Hello?’ I hear from the courtyard, which is now beyond the fence. Krista is shouting out: ‘Hello?’
I run, pushing forwards, one foot after the other.
‘Hello?’ I hear again. Each utterance of the word sounds more puzzled than the previous one.
The fence will shelter me for a while, I know that. But will I reach the cover of the spruces before Krista appears at the other side?
The thick sea of spruce seems to be waiting for me, ready to take me in its arms. I dive into it as if it were water. Branches scratch at my coat as I press deeper inside. I hold my gloves in front of my face.
‘Hello?’ I hear, closer now.
Krista has walked round the fence, and now she is approaching, moving much quicker than me because she can walk in my footsteps. For some reason I assumed she wouldn’t follow me into the forest, but she does. And now she’s asking why I won’t stop, why I don’t want to talk about it.
The forest is spread across a sloping hill. The angle of the slope begins to steepen. I know where the ridge comes to an end. At the foot of the ridge is a road, a very straight road, and it’s a long way to either end.
I stumble downhill, keeping close to the tree trunks. From further up the ridge I hear questions that are, by and large, perfectly understandable. Why can’t I face her? What am I afraid of? Where’s the sense in tricking someone into suggesting a meeting, then running away? Now Krista’s determination is working against me. Of course, I fully understand her. You don’t have to have an Olympic gold in empathy to realise what it must feel like to turn up for a rendezvous only to find the other party legging it in the opposite direction.
Everything that then takes place is horrible, grotesque. We were happy only a moment ago. Now we are both fleeing, chasing each other through the forest.
By the time I arrive at the road, my thighs are stiff with lactic acid. There are no other pedestrians on the road – thank God. I don’t know what I’d say if I ran into any of the villagers, especially seeing as my wife is shouting for me through the trees. At its western end the road intersects with a smaller lane that leads back to the village; the eastern end might lead all the way to Siberia for all I know. On the other side of the road another steep ridge awaits; at the foot of the embankment is a stream and beyond that a field. I’ll reach hiding quicker if I head west. I am about to spring into a run when I hear Krista scream out.
After the scream, silence.