SHE LEAVES THE lawyer’s office and glides over the snow as if on rails.
She is sitting opposite a man, and there is a small table between them. The man is tapping alternately at the keyboard of a small computer and the keypad of his mobile. From time to time he briefly raises his head and seems to look right through her as if through a pane of glass.
She looks at him, and the steady drumming sound of his fingers makes its way into her and forms a pleasant, harmonious contrast to her present sense of hovering in the air. The conductor comes along to stamp tickets. Now and then children run past, laughing, now in one direction, now in another.
‘Slowly, slowly,’ murmurs the man, without taking his eyes off the keyboard.
At Helsinki station a young man, who has been waiting to meet her, comes towards her smiling. A cheerful, genuine smile. He has a firm handshake. ‘Welcome. I’m Olli Latvala. We’re very glad you agreed to come,’ he says.
She nods. Agreed. An interesting word. She thinks about words so often now that she finds it difficult to speak them out loud.
‘To be honest, I’m relieved that you’re here. Somehow we could never get hold of each other on the phone,’ says Olli Latvala.
She nods.
‘It’s often like that in our outfit,’ says Olli Latvala.
‘All arranged at the last minute. But it works in the end.’
The last minute, she thinks.
‘Very good to see you,’ says Olli Latvala. ‘Let me carry that.’ He takes her overnight bag and walks briskly ahead.
She remembers the first call. A few months ago now. A late summer day. Shimmering heat. The ringing of the phone crystallises in the silence, and as she goes to pick it up she is wondering who it can be. No one has called her for some time now.
The woman’s voice sounds strange and soft and insistent all at once. She introduces herself as Tuula Palonen and talks for some minutes about the moment when the sky fell in, about Ilmari and Veikko, without mentioning their names and without understanding.
‘You don’t understand,’ she tells Tuula Palonen in the end, then she says nothing for several seconds.
‘Then help me to understand,’ says Tuula Palonen finally. ‘Help me and everyone else to understand. That’s why we’re inviting you. Because who can understand it if not you?’
When Tuula Palonen calls again two days later she agrees, and Tuula Palonen is glad and asks her a series of questions about the day when the sky fell in and what it was like for her, and while she answers she feels as if she is taking an examination. In the end Tuula Palonen says she is sorry that it isn’t possible for her to offer a fee.
Fee, she thinks. Thinking about words. The young man puts her little travelling bag in the boot of the car and holds the car door open for her.
‘You’re spending the night at the Sokos. A good hotel.’
She nods.
That call was in summer.
The card of thanks and the invitation came in the autumn. Now it is winter.
‘Maybe you’ll run into Bon Jovi in the hotel,’ says Olli Latvala. ‘He’s touring Scandinavia at the moment; we were lucky enough to get him on the show at short notice. You know who Bon Jovi is?’
She nods, and the young man steers the car into a red, yellow and black sea of lights.
‘I’d like to discuss the course of the show with you tomorrow morning. After breakfast, if that’s all right. I could come to the hotel.’
She nods.
‘A car will come for you at 17.00 hours.’
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘About your husband and son … I’m very, very sorry about them,’ he says.
She turns her eyes away from the street and looks at him.
‘I think it’s impressive that you … you’re willing to talk about it,’ he says.
Talk about it, she thinks.
Who can understand it if she can’t?
The hotel lobby is full of golden light. A pageboy takes her bag, and the young man tells the lady at reception, ‘Salme Salonen. The reservation is with the block booking for the Hämäläinen talk show.’
‘Welcome, Mrs Salonen,’ says the hotel receptionist, smiling, and Olli Latvala presses her hand firmly, for a long time, before hurrying through the broad swing doors and out into the night.
‘Shall I lead the way?’ asks the pageboy.
She nods, and follows him to the lifts.