THE SILENT WOMAN

BY JOE L. MURR

Munkkiniemi

Kati sways on the balcony to rhythms that only she can hear. Question marks of smoke curl from her cigarette in the cool night air. I stand right next to her, but I might as well be alone. I have no fucking idea what she’s thinking. She hasn’t said more than ten words to me since I arrived at her flat. It doesn’t mean she’s upset with me. This is a Finnish silence. She’ll break it when she has something to say. I’ve become used to it, living in Helsinki.

So we smoke and drink wine, both of us in our own headspace. That’s fine. I’m happy to just watch her groove. She’s a stunner, the kind of girl who belongs on a catwalk.

But she’s not at her best now. Staggering on coltish legs, she grips the balcony railing to steady herself. Red wine sloshes down the front of her blouse. She curses, spitting out, “Vittu saatana perkele.”

Cigarette between her lips, she hands me her wineglass and unbuttons the wet shirt. Her skin is creamy and goosepimpled, her bra a very bright white. One last puff from the cigarette and she flicks it over the railing. She leans over to watch it spin three stories down, spark against the tarmac.

Then she breaks her silence. “Splat. That’s what I want to do to Daddy.”

Like most Finns, she speaks English in a monotone, and that came out sounding like a deadpan joke. But I’ve never heard her tell one. I’m the funny one, apparently. Her funny Englishman.

“What, toss him off? That’s disgusting.”

She doesn’t react to that. Probably not familiar with the idiom. Her eyes on the pavement, she says, “Bastard might not even die from this height. End up cripple instead.”

“What did he do?”

“He said no.”

It’s probably the first time in her twenty-three years that her father has refused her anything. “No to what?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She turns her back to me. I follow her into her cramped flat. It’s only thirty-odd square meters, but I wouldn’t be able to afford it in a hundred years—not even renting. Prices in Helsinki are on par with London. This place is worth around three hundred thousand euros. Her father owns it. He also has two six-room flats in the building, valued at around a million each. I know this because property prices are one of the few things that Kati loves to discuss.

“Refill,” she says.

I top up our glasses from the bottle of expensive Australian Shiraz in the kitchenette. She does all her shopping with Daddy’s credit card. When I’m with her, I eat and drink like a rock star.

She sprawls on the living room sofa, feet on a glass table. When I give her the wine, she gulps down half of it. Her eyes are moist, a rare sign of emotion. I sit by her side, feel her tremble.

“Cheer up,” I say.

“Don’t talk.”

So I don’t. I sip my wine and listen to her breathe. The sofa faces the TV and a blurry reflection of the two of us plays on the black screen, making me think of ghosts and smoke. I have to look away.

She whispers, “Ever think of killing someone?”

The flatness of her voice shocks me. I can almost believe she’s being serious. “Of course not. Apart from my landlord and a hundred other fuckwits.”

She doesn’t laugh. All I can think is, Jesus, she’s really pissed off at her dad. Doesn’t mean anything. She’s drunk and letting off steam, that’s all. I stroke her hair, placating.

“Malcolm, would you do anything for me?”

“Course I would. Anything at all.” Words said without thinking.

“You don’t mean it. What use are you to me?”

“I’m more fun than a vibrator.”

“You wish.” But that at least gets a smile from her.

“I love you, Kati,” I whisper in her ear.

“I know you do.” She touches my cheek. “Do too.”

Her breathing deepens. We fall asleep on the sofa.

* * *

A red wine hangover squeezes my brain. I chew up two paracetamols and wash them down with an energy drink. All I want to do is curl up, fetal, but I have to earn some money today, and then do a gig later.

Kati never gets up before noon, so I don’t wake her before heading out. The first cigarette of the day makes me want to vomit, bile like battery acid coating my throat. I shamble two blocks to Munkkiniemen Puistotie, a tree-lined boulevard, and hop onto a tram. An hour later, I’m in Kontula, where I share a crap flat with two other expats.

Refreshed by a nap and shower, I head back to the city center with my guitar to do a bit of busking. I take my usual spot close to the railway station. The sky’s the color of slate and there are few tourists around. On days like this, I stick to songs everyone loves—the Beatles, Elvis, and Lordi’s Eurovision-winning song “Hard Rock Hallelujah,” a real laugh on an acoustic.

I keep thinking of last night. I’ve seen a new side of Kati. If my father told me no, I’d shrug it off instead of wishing murder on him. A spoiled little creature, that’s what she is. This is what happens when you’re an only child and your mother dies when you’re a teen and the only way your father knows how to show his affection is to buy you stuff.

She may be a diva, but she’s the best thing that’s happened to me in Helsinki. I came here half a year ago because I’d met a Finnish girl in London. That turned into a disaster only two months after I arrived. She made a unilateral and unexpected decision to go to Italy without me. There was no warning at all and absolutely no discussion. Secret machinery had turned inside her head. After that, I was ready to move on, maybe to Estonia or Germany—but then I met Kati at one of my bar gigs. She loved my songs. Said I remind her of Liam Gallagher.

So I’m still here.

It’s looking like rain. I wrap up early, with only ten euros in change to show for two hours, far short of my usual take of twenty an hour.

I catch the train back to my flat. As I eat a can of beans, my roommate Steve shows up. Like me, he originally moved to Finland for love. He’s developed a theory that the Finnish government runs a covert honey-trap program, sending women to other countries with the mission of bringing back employable young men. It’s not a joke to him. He really believes it. I ask him if he’s coming to my gig. He says no, other plans. Which means he’s going on the pull.

Tonight’s gig is one of the worst. In a bar in eastern Helsinki, I share the bill with two other acts. We play to a half-empty room of trolls who hunch over their piss-water lagers. My own songs don’t get a reaction, so I wrap up with “Gimme Shelter.” That at least garners a smattering of applause.

I deserve better than this. Much better. Pisses me off to even think about it.

I finish my beer and fuck off to Kontula.

* * *

The next evening, it’s Kati’s saunavuoro—her turn to use the building’s sauna and pool. I never miss it if I can help it. A sauna is a beautiful thing. I pick up a six-pack on my way to her place. She doesn’t like beer so she never remembers to buy any for me.

I find her waiting for me in the lobby. Dressed in a pink bathrobe, she’s seated in a black leather chair that belonged to Ahti Karjalainen, member of Parliament and one-time presidential candidate, who lived in this building for a while. She’s told me that the chair feels like a throne. Sitting there usually makes her happy. Not today, though. She’s looking as sour as a bag of lemons. Daddy must still be on her mind.

We take the stairs down into the HVAC hum of the basement. Our steps echo on concrete as we pass through two locked doors. In the swimming pool room, broken waves of reflected light shift on the white walls. The pool is a good size, some ten by six meters. A rare thing to see in a Finnish block of flats, I’m told.

The changing room is adjacent. Kati slinks into the showers; I guzzle a beer before joining her in the heat. We sit without talking on the warm wooden benches and she throws water onto the hot stones and the steam is a loving whip on my back. Then we scramble for a brief rinse in the showers and leap into the pool. While she does laps, I float and think of nothing at all except the sensation of being suspended in cool water.

She splashes up next to me and says, “I asked him for money.” Finally, she’s ready to explain what’s on her mind. “Enough money to live in LA. I want to be a model, an actress.”

I’m glad he said no. I’d lose her.

But she’s not done. This is a soliloquy. “It’s not over. He will pay. I want you to come with me. You can really have opportunity in LA.”

I’m touched, but the idea is impossible, a spoiled girl’s fantasy. Her father will never pay my way. But a part of me wants to believe that it really is possible—a golden ticket. There’s nothing I can say, so I kiss her. We grapple like frisky seals.

She whispers, “We can become new people there. Do you want that?”

“Would be nice.”

“Don’t joke now.” Her eyes bore into mine. “Yes or no?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

The answer doesn’t satisfy her. She swims away. I float on my back, eyes on the ceiling, and think of what it would be like to live in LA, to play in awesome clubs, her daddy paying for it all.

Yeah, I’d like that. It’s what I deserve.

* * *

We enter the lift, pink as pigs from the sauna. She presses the button for the top floor instead of her own.

“I will show you something,” she says.

Up we go. Keys jangle in her hand.

She unlocks her father’s flat. He’s away most of the time, either traveling on business or at his holiday home. We step over a scattering of letters and pizza flyers. I’ve never been here before. She gives me the grand tour. The place is huge by local standards and beautifully furnished with the kind of stuff that belongs on Antiques Roadshow. Old landscapes and National Romantic paintings hang on the walls. Without being told, I know they’re worth a fucking fortune. She must’ve brought me up here to impress me. Mission accomplished.

She says, “I want you to meet him.”

I ask her if she thinks this would be wise. My presence won’t make it any easier for her to convince him to turn on the money taps. I can’t imagine a man like him would have anything but disdain for a busking singer-songwriter.

“We have dinner with him on Thursday. At six. In my flat.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“With dinner, we have drinks. Many toasts. We get him very drunk. It’s his saunavuoro at eight. When he’s here, he never misses it. He goes, he drowns in pool, and I inherit his money.”

The shock of hearing her say that makes me laugh. She’s still feeling murderous. I decide that it’s cute, in a way.

“You’re joking, Kati. Aren’t you?”

But no—she never jokes. Her mouth is set in a thin pink line.

“It wouldn’t work, anyway. The chances of him drowning are a million to one, no matter how drunk he is.”

“It will work. We drown him.”

This isn’t funny anymore. “No. Enough.”

She tenses up, eyes slitted. I know that look. I’ve done a very bad thing—I’ve said no. And for that, I will get the silent treatment, the imperious aloofness. She ushers me out of her father’s flat.

Over takeout Nepalese, her eyes don’t meet mine and she pours her own refills of wine. I’m just about ready to call it a night. Going to Kontula is looking more pleasant than staying here with the human sulk. I finish my meal and get up to go.

She shakes her head and says, “Stay.”

“What’s for dessert?”

“Me.” A conciliatory gesture. I even get a smile with it.

“You silly girl.” I sit down and have another drink.

* * *

Later, in the darkness, she curls up close, her naked body against mine. Her breath is wine-sour and hot. I feel a tremor, then hear a sharp gasp. She whispers, “After Mother died, he molested me.”

I don’t know what to say except, “Jesus Christ.”

She presses her cheek to my chest, hiding her eyes from me. “I was fifteen. It went on for two years.”

I want to rewind time, unhear her words. But I can’t. An image forms, her father looming over her. Fucking bastard. I want to smash his face in, give him the boot until he cries.

“That is why he deserves to die,” she says in a neutral tone, as if stating a simple fact. “With his money, I have freedom to make my own life, away from him. Then we can be together. In LA.”

I see the logic of it, and the emotional necessity. From her perspective, killing him would be just and fitting. A sick part of my mind agrees that this is how it must be. But I’m not sure this is something I can do.

I don’t want to look weak, so I fumble for a justification. “We’d get caught.”

“It will seem like accident. Drunken accidents happen all the time.”

“Out on the lakes, maybe. Here, no. It’s a bad idea.”

“Loser.”

That word cuts me right to the core.

She continues: “You are in dead end here. You will get nowhere as musician. Not unless you have guts to do this.”

“Bloody hell, girl. That’s cold.”

“It’s the truth.”

We lie in the dark and I feel the weight of her head on my chest. There are all too many opportunities I have left unseized. And here’s the big prize, the golden ticket.

I ask the question that’s on my mind: “How much money does he have?”

“Over twenty million.”

I can’t even imagine a sum that big. It’s almost absurd. I’d have to work a thousand years to make that much. I can have a slice of it—in exchange for risk and a lifetime of guilt. But guilt for what? He deserves to die for what he did. The thought of his hands on her revolts me. No wonder he’s always bought her everything she wants—to atone for his actions, to buy her silence. He’s a fucking insect. An insect worth twenty million.

She turns to face me. “Think of it, Malcolm. We can start new life. You and me.”

Yes. I want this. Her. And a new life of opportunity. It all locks together. I cannot say it out loud yet, but I know that I’ll play my part.

Anything for her.

I give her the smallest of nods, a tentative movement of the chin. Her eyes glint in the dark, chips of obsidian, and her mouth smears my lips.

* * *

Thursday. Her father sits opposite me, spooning up chanterelle soup. His face is rough and angular, like something hewed with an ax. He has a substantial beer belly, but there’s nothing else soft about him.

Kati pours another round of Marskin ryyppy, his favorite tipple. I’m trying not to think about what we’re about to do, but anxiety thrums inside me like discordant strings. Alcohol hasn’t numbed me enough.

“So you play guitar,” he says.

I start telling him about my songwriting and plans for a career as a recording artist. He stares at me, incurious, and turns his attention to the soup. Feeling slighted, I trail off. After a minute, he says, “I played guitar once.” And then he shuts up again. That’s it for our conversation.

Not having to chat with him at least makes it easier for me to sit here and mask my nervousness. Now and then he and Kati exchange a few words in Finnish. I just nod and keep smiling. There’s a smile on her face too, but it’s forced, as I imagine mine must be.

By now it’s become clear that the plan is flawed. She claimed that he’d happily drink most of the bottle on his own with very little encouragement. No such luck. I don’t think he’s drunk enough to make it seem credible he’d drowned while under the influence. Part of me is relieved. Another part wants to pin him down and pour the rest of the liquor down his throat.

His last spoonful gone, he knocks back his shot. He stands up and nods at me, then says something about the sauna to Kati. She gives him a curt reply. He turns on his heels and leaves. The door clacks shut behind him and the smile fades from Kati’s face. She and I sit, not meeting each other’s eyes. Eventually the silence becomes too oppressive, a total failure of communication. Just to say something, anything, I blurt out, “I don’t think he liked me much.”

“Vittu.” Kati kicks the table. Her father’s empty soup bowl falls, shatters on the floor. She grabs the bottle. “He’s going upstairs to change. Come. Don’t put your shoes on.”

Dread coils like eels in my guts. I follow her downstairs to the basement. In the pool room, she tells me to wait in the cleaning closet until she comes to get me. It’s at the far end of the pool, away from the sauna. I go inside, banging my ankle on a metal bucket. It’s too cramped to sit. In the dark, the reek of pine-scented detergents triggers an image of a nighttime forest—I’m running through it, the police in pursuit. This has to end badly. There is no other way it can end. Jesus Christ, I’m going to die in this country. There’s still time to get out of here. But if I leave, I’ll lose her. And the golden ticket.

I hear a door open and shut. His voice echoes. He sounds surprised and aggrieved. She says something staccato and sharp. His reply is heated. The only word I understand is äiti—mother. If Kati responds to that, I can’t hear it through the door.

Silence stretches. I roll an invisible cigarette in my sweaty fingers, dying for one. My heart thuds so loud that the whole closet resonates with the sound. I’ve never been this nervous in my life, not even before my first proper gig. Those were good nerves. This is something else, a feeling of being poisoned, bad shit inside my veins and guts. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

To give myself something else to focus on, I activate the stopwatch on my mobile phone and stare at the seconds ticking by. With each minute, the idea of killing him in cold blood becomes even more incomprehensible. I’m not sure if I can make myself move from this spot.

The display lights up, an incoming call. Startled, I almost drop the damn thing. On the first note of the ring tone, I thumb it to vibrate. I hope he didn’t hear. Trying not to breathe, I press my ear to the door, listen.

The door handle turns. I tense, prepare to flee. Light floods in. She stands there, expressionless.

“He drank most of the bottle and went in sauna,” she whispers.

“What did you talk about?”

“Go. Stick to plan.”

Forcing myself to get on with it, I take my position by the door to the showers, flatten myself against the wall. Kati gestures at me, reminding me to take off my clothes and put on rubber gloves. She’s thought this through. I wouldn’t have remembered. I’m operating in a very short window of time now. As I undress down to my boxers, hands shaking, she disappears into the changing room.

My skin is goosepimpled. I’m breathing too fast.

The shower runs. It’s time. No backing out now.

Her father comes through. The opening door keeps me out of his sight. He staggers to the edge of the pool, obviously very drunk, his heat-mottled back to me. I think of Kati and the money, tell myself that the world is mine. And then I’m no longer thinking at all. I run at him, leap onto his back. We plunge into the cool water. I hold him down with my weight, my head half underwater. Kati told me not to grab his hair or neck, not to do anything that would leave bruises. He thrashes against me, but I’m stronger, and now nothing matters but ending his life. I rise to gulp air, push him down again. He weakens and after a while stops moving, but I don’t let go yet.

I turn away from him and see her watching us, impassive.

Soon it’s done. The body floats facedown.

I get out of the pool, adrenalized, exhilarated. This is the moment when it all changes for me. I stare down at the body, feeling nothing for him. And why should I? He died so that we could make a new life for ourselves.

“LA, here we come,” I say.

We go up to her apartment and fuck.

* * *

The police call it a drunken accident—here, alcohol is practically a natural cause of death. I’m surprised that I feel almost no remorse. Even though I have flashbacks of his body bobbing in the water like a lump of lard, I don’t have reservations about swimming in the pool. I’ve crossed some mental threshold. Something inside me must’ve broken. I don’t care to think about it much. Mostly I’m just excited by all my future opportunities. I’m like a child waiting for his Christmas presents.

The big day comes. Unusually, she’s up before me. She nudges me awake and tells me everything’s sorted. Her lawyer completed all the paperwork. She kisses me on the forehead and hands me a shoe box. “Time to get up. You must leave.”

I don’t understand.

“I have to pack,” she says.

“What, going somewhere?”

“LA.”

Confused, I open the box. It contains bundles of fifty euro notes. I stare at her, resisting the obvious interpretation.

“Fifty thousand,” she says.

I see no flicker of emotion on her face. Her eyes are glass marbles. I try to think of a joke to lighten the mood. But nothing’s funny anymore.

“We had good times, Malcolm. It’s over.”

The words are a blow to my stomach. So this is how it is. Secret machinery has turned inside her head. She used me and now she’s paying me off. This is Helsinki, where they don’t communicate, and no one really knows anyone else. My anger is cold and detached. I feel like I’ve been submerged in an ice bath.

Under her watchful eyes, I get dressed. There’s nothing for me here except the banality of broken dreams. Never was. I’m going far away.

But not before I get some answers. I push her against the bedroom wall, pin her there. Her expression is a picture of outraged disbelief. She hadn’t expected this.

“Talk to me. Tell me why.”

She laughs, a sound as sharp as breaking glass, and knees me in the groin. Starbursts in my eyes, I cup the agony and sit on the edge of the bed. She darts away. I hear clattering in the kitchenette. Then she’s standing in the doorway with a knife in her white-knuckled fingers, an absurd sight.

“Seriously?” I say.

“Leave.”

I stand, the pain ebbing. “Not until you tell me everything. You lied to me about what your father did, didn’t you?”

She swipes the air with the blade. “Vitun mulkku.”

“Oh, do stop it.” I clutch her wrist and wrench the knife from her. She grabs for it with one hand, the other going for my eyes. Jerking back to avoid her fingernails, I stumble against the bed. We fall together onto the yielding mattress, her on top of me.

She shrieks. Fat wet drops spatter my face. The blade is wedged across her mouth. It’s as if she’s clenching it between her teeth, pirate-style. Except the sharp side is facing the wrong way. Howling, she pulls free. Her bloody mouth stretches halfway across her cheeks, sliced clean open in an obscene smile. The tip of her almost severed tongue hangs out. Hands on her face, she scurries to the bathroom.

Best be leaving. I won’t get any answers from her. Besides—what does it matter? Now that I know what she’s really like, all I want is to be rid of her. Maybe I’ll write a song about her later. Something about a knife in the heart. Could be my breakthrough hit. Taking the box of cash with me, I go knock on the bathroom door. She’s locked herself in.

“I’ll be leaving now. Whenever you look at the scars, think of me.”

Her reply is an incomprehensible gurgle.

“And good luck with your modeling career.”

My next stop is a travel agency. I’m fucking off to Madrid. They’re a talkative people, the Spanish.

 

This story was originally written in English.