A couple of weeks after her doctor’s visit, Siiri received a report about her heart arrhythmia, two prescriptions, and a complete explanation of why this ninety-four-year-old, alert patient was not having a pacemaker installed. She particularly liked the phrase: ‘seems rational for her age’. The doctor had sent two copies of the report, which was very kind of him. Siiri went to find Irma to show her – not exactly a bill of health, but at least she was rational. The weight of an expert’s opinion would surely speed up the handling of their complaint to the Loving Care Foundation.
But Irma didn’t answer her door. Siiri knew that Irma was in her apartment because she could hear Mozart’s piano concerto blaring much too loudly. Luckily, they had given each other spare keys. You never knew what might happen if you left your handbag somewhere or accidentally closed the door when you went out to get the post in your nightgown. Erkki Hiukkanen charged twenty-five euros to open a locked door, and they refused to pay that lazy caretaker such exorbitant fees. Virpi and Erkki Hiukkanen lived on the top floor of Sunset Grove in a large apartment, so it couldn’t have been any great inconvenience to come and open an old woman’s door. Many of the residents walked around with their keys around their necks like 1970s schoolchildren, including Anna-Liisa, but Siiri thought that a grown woman should keep her keys in her handbag, which she now remembered she had left at home on her kitchen table. So she didn’t have her own keys with her, let alone Irma’s. There was nothing for it but to pound on Irma’s door with her fist and crow loudly. She had to pound for a long time, and kick, too, before there was a pause in the music and Irma came to the door.
‘What in the world is all that racket? Have you gone out of your mind?’
Siiri explained the situation with some embarrassment, and Irma offered to make them some instant coffee and dug some ice creams out of the freezer. Siiri sat in Irma’s old flowered armchair and told her about the doctor’s report and her hope that it would help with their complaint.
‘What complaint do you mean?’ Irma asked, and Siiri had an uncomfortable feeling. Her hands started to shake and she tried to shove the papers back in the envelope. They got all crumpled and she didn’t know where to put them. Irma’s table was a jumble of objects, including all sorts of folders, which was odd because her home was usually very tidy. Irma contentedly ate her cloudberry jam ice cream and looked at Siiri in wonder, but didn’t say anything.
‘Do you ever worry about your memory?’ Siiri said, finally finding the courage to bring up the subject after having rehearsed several times. She had to know whether Irma herself realized that she was sometimes very confused. They had always been honest with each other about everything, so she ought to be able to talk about this, too.
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ Irma said, waving her hand as if a swarm of flouse-lies were buzzing around her. ‘Anyone can forget her handbag – even young people do it. What I’m starting to worry about is what Virpi Hiukkanen’s up to. Because I think she’s spying on me. Also, you’re sitting in my spot.’
Siiri got up out of the armchair and moved obediently to the sofa. She remembered how they had often laughed at Irma’s husband, who’d had a sacred armchair and a place at the dining table and didn’t scruple to show his annoyance if some unwitting soul accidentally sat there. The yellow light of the lamp cast a strange glow on Irma’s face and she spoke in a quiet voice, glancing around uncertainly. She said she’d pulled the plugs on the surveillance cameras and even taken her telephone off the wall, because the people downstairs were listening in on her phone calls. She also claimed that some of her important papers had been stolen. That was why she had a pile of folders on the table.
‘All of my health-related records were in a green folder, neatly arranged. And somebody’s pinched them.’
Siiri started going through the files on the table. None of them were green, and she switched to thumbing through the ones on the bookshelf. Irma had almost a metre of books by Eeva Joenpelto, twice as many Moomin books, Isaac Singer, Astrid Lindgren, Selma Lagerlöf, and a few random newer books, all in alphabetical order by author, as well as two shelves of photo albums. When Siiri had finished going through the bookshelf, she looked through the pile of folders on the telephone table, but she didn’t find any medical records or any green folders.
Irma ate another ice cream, then got up, opened the wardrobe door and rummaged for a time. After a moment she stuck her head out and said, ‘Hey! What was it we were looking for?’
‘What were we looking for!’ Siiri snapped. ‘We’ve spent half the day searching because you’ve got some silly idea in your head. As if anyone would want to steal your papers! What in the world was it that you needed this green folder for? Do you remember? Was it full of old recipes and doctors’ notes?’
‘Oh right, that. Boy, there’s something strange going on. Several months ago I asked Virpi Hiukkanen if I could look at my own medical files and any other files concerning me, but she refused to give them to me. Don’t you think that’s odd? After all, I have a right to read what they write about me – doctors’ reports and that sort of thing. Such strange things have been going on here lately that I’m starting to feel scared of the whole place.’
Perhaps the green folder had been stolen. Maybe there was something shady happening with Irma’s files, probably false information about her, faked diagnoses. Irma was very agitated, and she stood there, blank-faced, holding two pairs of silk long johns in her hand. Siiri led her over to sit in her armchair, poured her a glass of red wine, put the long johns back in the wardrobe, and noticed that Irma had at least twenty identical pairs in boxes on the shelves.
Irma drank a large glass of red wine, almost in one gulp, and began to droop. Her speech was laboured, and Siiri couldn’t make out what she said except that she wanted to go to sleep, although it was only three in the afternoon. She helped her to lie down on the bed and checked to make sure that she had taken her medicine. There was a pill box full of tablets on the bedside table. There seemed to be more pills than there had been on the day when Mika helped them count out the tablets at Restaurant Kämp. Irma had taken that day’s first doses – one of each pill in the morning and one at noon. But why in the world did a ninety-five-year-old woman who was as healthy as a horse need so many pills?