Siiri looked through her magnifying glass at the pile of pills in the porridge bowl. She thought it was odd that the tablets didn’t have anything written on them – no manufacturer, amount, nothing. She didn’t see any pills that looked like Amarilly pillies, the only one she was supposed to take every day. And it was interesting that the pills were so varied – round ones, small ones, longish ones, thick, thin, blue, red, pale orange, and, of course, white ones too.
She had moved the tablets from the pill counter to the porridge bowl every day so that it would look like she was popping them obediently. Once a week the pill counter replenished itself, as if a ghost were waiting in a corner to dash out and refill it. The nurses always just happened to come to refill them when she was asleep or out – that had to be it.
Someone she had never met must have prescribed tranquillizers and stimulants, pills to go to sleep and pills to wake up, although Siiri was healthy and slept well at night. There might be some medicine in there for her heart troubles, too – they had tried to press those on her. She was sure that the pill counter was part of some sort of plot by the Sunset Grove staff. If she took the pills, she would turn senile. If she returned them and reported the matter, her medical file would accrue dubious notes that proved she was senile: ‘Doesn’t recognize her own possessions. Forgets to take her medication. Refuses treatment. Uncooperative.’
Siiri took three pills out of that day’s morning slot and three out of the midday slot, put them in the porridge bowl, then put the bowl in the cupboard behind the rice and buckwheat. She put the magnifying glass back in its place on the bookshelf – or maybe she should put it in the drawer of her bedside table, where she could get to it easily. Was she sure she would remember she’d put it there? Today was an important and slightly nerve-wracking day because she and Anna-Liisa had decided to go and visit Irma at Töölö Hospital.
They were so excited about seeing Irma that they rode to Ruoholahti and Jätkäsaari on the new number 8 route to gather strength from the novelty of seeing a new neighbourhood. Ruoholahti seemed pleasant. There were a lot of people there, a large shopping centre, massive buildings, the old cable factory renovated into an arts centre, and exciting places like a Nepalese restaurant, the Helsinki Aquarium, and an eyelash-extension salon. And, of course, the Baltic Sea.
There was a new bridge from Ruoholahti to Jätkäsaari, and Siiri and Anna-Liisa couldn’t figure out why it was named after the composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell. He probably didn’t get to Helsinki much, and if he did, he certainly wouldn’t have come to Jätkäsaari.
‘Better that than the Bell Bridge in Itä-Pasila. It sounds like Venice and looks like East Germany,’ Anna-Liisa said, and admired the canal that led from under the tram bridge into the bay.
Jätkäsaari looked rather depressing, though in a different way to how Siiri had imagined it. Maybe it would become a real neighbourhood some day. Now it was just muck, piles of gravel, pieces of cable and chunks of concrete. But they had built a new tram platform there, which was a promising beginning.
‘We’ve never been here before. What business would we have had here, even in our youth?’ Anna-Liisa mused. ‘Especially since we didn’t have a youth.’
Youth was only invented later, when they were already in the middle of work and family chores and building a new society after the war. When the war ended, Siiri was a mother of three and wouldn’t have known how to yearn after her lost youth.
‘And I was a twenty-five-year-old widow and divorcee,’ said Anna-Liisa. ‘Every small-town wife’s nightmare.’
They watched as a grey-haired man stepped onto the tram wearing a long ponytail and blue jeans, though he had to be at least sixty-five. He was one of those people who’d had such a wonderful youth that he couldn’t bear to give it up. They talked about things like that, about whatever came to mind, because they were trying to calm themselves down. They hoped, of course, that Irma had undergone the same miraculous recovery as Olavi Raudanheimo had when he’d got out of the closed unit and been transferred to the hospital, but then they remembered what had become of Olavi in the end, and they felt uneasy again.
‘This hasn’t gone exactly according to the Plan,’ Anna-Liisa said, and Siiri wasn’t sure if she’d caught a reproachful tone in her voice. ‘We just have to hope that you don’t end up in jail. Otherwise the Lavender Ladies Detective Agency really will be doomed.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘You must understand that Virpi Hiukkanen wants you to be blamed for the fire. That’s what the pill counter is about. If you had taken all the pills like you were told, you would quickly have gone so senile that no one would have listened to your testimony and everything could have been spun as your fault. But luckily, because of the fire, we don’t have to steal Irma and take her back to her apartment. That was actually a pretty daft idea.’
Siiri tried to think what it would be like to spend the rest of her life in jail. She imagined talking about it with Irma, as they’d talked about so many difficult situations. She used to have conversations in her head with her late husband, but lately Irma had taken his place as her imaginary confidante. Irma would almost certainly say that prison might not be any worse than Sunset Grove, and the idea wouldn’t seem so bad once she’d made fun of it.
They had left Jätkäsaari and Ruoholahti, ridden safely down Mechelininkatu and into Töölö, and were just passing the Reitz Foundation. It had a museum on the top floor that no one ever went to, and on the ground floor was Restaurant Elite, which was always full. When Siiri was a child, there had been a large boulder where the building stood and she used to play on it in the winter. When the building was constructed later, it had an amazing outdoor terrace with seats that stretched along the length of the park and was quite a sight.
They got off at Töölö market and Siiri stopped to admire the Sandels building, which Anna-Liisa had never paid much attention to.
‘An ordinary, modern structure.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s unusually beautiful. It has a strange way of bringing light in and out. Look at those windows!’
Anna-Liisa wasn’t listening; she just hurried single-mindedly down the street.
Töölö Hospital was in an unkempt condition. From the outside it looked badly weathered, and once they were inside it was messy, dirty and unpleasant. Sedated patients and rubbish bags were wheeled up and down the hallways. The paint was peeling from the walls and the corridors were full of old computers, tables, chairs and beds, as if the place were a warehouse instead of a university hospital. One doctor had to work among the junk, so passers-by could see that she was examining a femur on her computer screen.
Anna-Liisa and Siiri found Irma on the third floor, in a room for six. She was lying in the middle bed on the left, and looked much better in her pink hospital gown than she had in the grimy, ‘sexy’ T-shirt they had given her at the Group Home. Her hair was washed and combed and she almost looked like her old self. Anna-Liisa stood back but Siiri sat down excitedly on the edge of the bed and took hold of Irma’s hand.
‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’
Irma didn’t recognize Siiri. She didn’t say anything or even smile; there was none of the twinkle in her eyes that Siiri had expected to see.
‘Irma! Anna-Liisa and I came to see how you’re doing here while you wait in line for your new hip. Irma? It’s Siiri. Don’t you remember me?’
Irma didn’t seem to understand where she was or what was happening. She didn’t respond at all. Siiri got up, confused, and went over to Anna-Liisa. They stood for a long time in silence looking at Irma and waiting for something to happen. Irma stared back at them blankly, then a happy smile spread across her face. She reached both hands out to Siiri and said:
‘Mama! You came to see me after all! Mama, I’m so thirsty!’
Siiri’s eyes grew wet and she couldn’t say anything, just held her handbag tight with both hands and swallowed.
‘Give her some water.’
It wasn’t until she felt Anna-Liisa give her a sharp dig in the ribs with an elbow that Siiri responded. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Sorry.’
With trembling hands she poured some water from the pitcher into the glass on Irma’s night table and sat wearily down on the bed again.
‘Here, Irma. Have some water. I don’t have anything better to give you right now. I’m Siiri. Remember, Irma? I’m your good friend Siiri. Would you like me to sing “Oh, My Darling Augustine”?’
Irma drank the water greedily in big, loud gulps, like she always did on the rare occasions when water was what she wanted. When she’d emptied the glass, she gave it back to Siiri and stared into her eyes with a long, searching look.
‘Thank you.’
Irma closed her eyes and turned her back to Siiri. She seemed to want to be left alone. Siiri pulled the covers over her friend, rubbed her back for a moment, then got up and took a deep breath. She looked helplessly at Anna-Liisa and, to her surprise, Anna-Liisa had tears in her eyes too.
‘Let’s go, Siiri. We’re not making anyone happy here,’ Anna-Liisa said, and turned her Zimmer frame towards the door.