KAI-PETTERI HÄMÄLÄINEN LAY on his back. First the day and then the night seeped away around him.
The young doctor or the nurses came in to check up on his condition. They smiled gently and looked at him as if he were a child.
Irene sat beside his bed, holding his hand, was silent for a long time, said the twins sent him their regards.
‘Sounds kind of formal,’ he said.
‘You know what I mean,’ she said.
From time to time one of the smiling nurses topped up the tubes surrounding him with fluids, and he asked Irene if she remembered Niskanen.
‘The cross-country distance skier?’
He nodded.
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Do you know what he’s doing these days?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Irene.
‘I wondered what’s become of him.’
Irene said no, and went home. To the twins and her sister Mariella, who was being kind enough to look after the girls.
Sitting at a table. Drinking coffee. Walking down a corridor. A shadow, a stabbing feeling. A numb, damp sensation in his lower body. Pain turning in on him.
Irene had kissed him quickly on the mouth before she went, and the doctor checked the various items of apparatus. ‘Sleep well,’ he said finally.
‘You too,’ said Hämäläinen.
A young nurse emptied the bedpan, an older nurse checked his dressings.
He was not to do anything but lie on his back, the doctor had told him earlier that day, if possible without shifting at all to right or left.
He had lain on his back without moving, and asked the doctor checking the apparatus whether he remembered Niskanen.
‘The cross-country skier?’ the doctor had asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Yes, of course,’ the doctor had replied.
‘Do you know what he’s doing these days?’
The doctor didn’t know.
He wondered which of the recorded programmes they had run. At 22.00 hours. Or maybe not until 22.15, if the attack on him had been a major item on tonight’s news. As he suspected, as he strongly suspected it had. Maybe they had ended with his interview with Niskanen. It was long enough ago to bear repeating.
In neighbouring rooms people were shouting. Loud enough for him to hear them. He saw nurses and doctors scurrying past his window. First in one direction, then in another. He heard discussions going on, but he couldn’t concentrate on the words. The words hovered above him.
‘There’s a lot going on today,’ said the younger nurse, topping up one of the tubes.
‘Is it night yet?’ he asked.
‘More like early morning. Three o’clock.’
He asked her if she could remember Niskanen the cross-country skier.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Everyone knows his name.’
‘Do you know …’ he began.
‘Yes?’
‘Oh, never mind,’ he said.