KAI-PETTERI HÄMÄLÄINEN WAS watching Kai-Petteri Hämäläinen, and already he felt a little better.
‘It’s only just begun,’ said Irene. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, sat down again on the sofa and watched her husband on television.
‘Today that girl was on the show, wasn’t she?’ she asked.
‘Yes, the girlfriend of the gunman who ran amok,’ said Hämäläinen.
He went into the bathroom, washed his hands and splashed a little water on his face. Then he went back to the living room, sat down beside Irene and put an arm round her.
‘How did it go?’ asked Irene.
‘Fine,’ said Hämäläinen.
On the screen, the girl kept her head lowered as she concentrated on finding words to describe something beyond description.
Yes, it had really gone very well.
He had steadied himself again. He had sat on his chair, seen his face in the mirror, thinking about ideas that were difficult to grasp, and Tuula had come along and said, yet again, that there wasn’t much time, the recording was beginning and the girl seemed silent and unsure of herself. He had nodded, stood up, and went to interview the girl. He had talked, the girl had listened. His voice had filled the studio, and the girl had nodded gravely, and then his powers had returned to him. When the recording began he was still feeling a little dizzy, but he couldn’t quite remember what had really disturbed him.
Lords of life and death, he had thought, and the girl had talked about her boyfriend, a gentle, affectionate young man, a model student, who had killed three people and then turned the gun on himself. He had nodded, and at every answer the girl gave, he knew what to ask next. Together with the girl he had swum in a river of words. His words, her words. A steadily flowing current.
The girl had concentrated on what she was saying, had not felt unsure of herself. Tuula had been wrong there, and anyway Hämäläinen was inclined to doubt Tuula’s judgement. How the hell could she have come up with the idea of getting him to interview, on two successive evenings, women who had lost their men? The Tango King’s widow, the girlfriend of the gunman who had run amok.
He looked at the TV screen and felt Irene’s hand tickling the nape of his neck. It gave him a tingling sensation. He closed his eyes and listened to the girl’s voice coming from the TV set.
‘I won’t forget him,’ she was saying. ‘He’s always with me.’
His own voice putting a question. Calm, controlled, warm and understanding, yet also sceptical and with a touch of admonition. Lords of life and death, Tuula had said. There was something about that remark that he couldn’t get out of his head.
‘The one thing I can’t forgive him is that he never really talked to me,’ said the girl. Then another voice, croaking slightly. The psychologist sitting in the audience whose job it had been to contribute a scientific comment from time to time. Then he heard his own voice asking a question. A question that now hovered in the air.
‘If I’d known, I’d have kept him from doing it. I could have done that,’ said the girl.
A moment of silence.
‘I could have kept him from doing it,’ said the girl again.
Irene’s hand at the nape of his neck. Hämäläinen opened his eyes. He saw himself on the screen, nodding thoughtfully. Then there was long applause.
‘Good,’ said Irene. It sounded curiously toneless.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘Good. I mean you were good today,’ said Irene. She caressed the back of his neck, and he felt tired.
‘How are those two little imps of ours?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ said Irene.
‘When did they get to sleep?’
‘Late. Just before you came in.’
He nodded.
‘Lotta has her first race with the school cross-country skiing team at the weekend. She was all excited, so then of course Minna didn’t want to go to sleep either.’
He nodded.
‘Terrible,’ she said, and he said, ‘Goodnight, stay with us,’ but that was on the screen. The credits came up, and Irene said, yet again, ‘Terrible.’
‘What …’
‘That girl. She seemed to be … concentrating so hard. You too, both of you.’
He nodded.
‘I never felt you were concentrating so hard as in this particular show,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘It’s hardly two weeks ago, and people have already stopped talking about it. They hardly even remember how many people that boy shot.’
‘Three,’ said Hämäläinen. ‘And five wounded. You’re right, we weren’t …’ But he didn’t finish his sentence. That interview wasn’t so topical any longer, he had been going to say. It hadn’t been easy; first they had tried inviting the gunman’s parents or relations of his victims on to the show, and after fruitless efforts in those quarters they had finally got hold of the boy’s girlfriend. Not so topical, but relevant to the subject all the same. The girl had made a good guest.
Irene massaged the nape of his neck and his back. The children were asleep.
‘Let’s hope the girl can leave it all behind her one day and carry on with her life,’ said Irene.