My phone beeps. It’s a message from Laura Helanto. I quickly formulate an answer, try to punctuate it with appropriate emojis – three of them, just like in Laura’s message – send it and slip my phone into my pocket. Then almost immediately I take it out again and double-check what I’ve written. I sigh with relief; at least I kept on topic. I must admit, my powers of concentration aren’t at their best right now.
It is a dim and drizzly morning. I walk to the car, and something about this perfectly ordinary action reminds me of what a veritable swamp of conflict and confusion I am wading through. I like using public transport. Of course, it’s the most sensible option, but it’s also liberating, it is freedom and movement all in one. It feels as though each occasion I have used the park’s van has either caused me considerable problems or had something to do with clearing up those problems. Which, in turn, has only led to a sense of more constraint and less freedom. Is this what using a private car is all about, and is this the reason I soon find myself sitting in the morning traffic jam: I have got myself into problems spiralling further and further out of control, and now I am trying to survive them by myself in a constant cycle of driving, delivering, visiting and managing.
I switch on the windscreen wipers.
I’ve been thinking about my evening meeting in Rastila, going over what happened, trying to remember every word. I’ve tried to combine times, places, events and people, but I haven’t been able to find anything I might call clarity. Moreover, I don’t know what to think of Juhani. I was surprised at myself too, at the calm with which I said good night to him after our short conversation last night. Maybe this is all like a simple division and multiplication exercise that always gives the same answer. Maybe.
Twenty minutes later I am in the staff car park behind the adventure park. I switch off the engine but stay in the van.
I can’t hear the rain, but I can see it. As though the world were filling up with thin water, the kind of water that doesn’t weigh the same as normal water but that still drenches everything, soaks the earth, trickles along every furrow and fissure, forming ponds both large and small in every fold, every dip and knoll. I don’t have the energy to correct myself, to remind myself of the density of water, the nature of matter and constants. And I don’t know whether this temporary disturbance is the greatest of my problems. I don’t know precisely what this temporary disturbance is, so I can’t assess whether one of my big problems is bigger than another big problem, or a third one. I don’t even know what order I should try and resolve them in, if I were to embark upon such a project. I’m about to grip the door handle when a conclusion about all my restless thoughts appears in my mind with dazzling clarity.
Perhaps things really are as bad as they can possibly be.
The Duck Tunnel, however, proves me wrong. Things are in fact much worse. The bright-yellow construction is standing exactly where only a while ago Kristian disassembled the Crocodile Canyon. The Duck Tunnel is a long tube about two metres in diameter; the aim is to proceed along it while trying to avoid soft ducks that jump, dive, fly, fall and try to hinder the runner in all possible ways. In theory, that is. The fact of the matter is that not a single child has ever come out of the Duck Tunnel without crying. The ducks are hard and rough, some have even knocked a child out. The Duck Tunnel is an even older apparatus than the Crocodile Canyon. It’s more dangerous too, and therefore even more shunned by the customers. The Duck Tunnel is a reminder of how everything that can possibly go wrong in the design and manufacturing of a piece of equipment can sometimes go wrong all at once.
But the Duck Tunnel itself isn’t the end of my woes.
Kari Liitokangas and Jeppe Sauvonen from Toy of Finland are standing next to the Duck Tunnel talking to Kristian. There’s no mistaking them. The fifty-something Kari Liitokangas looks like he has been assembled from several different men. He has a large chest, but skinny arms and legs. He has a strong, Hollywood jawline, but a small red nose indicative of a fairly close relationship with the bottle. Jeppe Sauvonen is standing next to him like a short, stumpy bollard, his dark monobrow slithering like an adder above his eyes, and this time he is wearing a T-shirt bearing the words FOLLOW ME. I’m not quite sure what this text is trying to suggest or who it’s appealing to, who it’s supposed to impress.
By now they have all noticed my arrival, so I walk right towards them. I reach the group and glance briefly at Kristian. He looks perhaps a little tired. I assume this means he’s discovered that waking up at three o’clock in the morning isn’t a sustainable solution after all. As I get closer, I see that Liitokangas and Sauvonen appear to be in rather a bad mood. At the same time, however, I reach an important conclusion: the men would not be behaving like this if Otto Härkä had been found. Of this, I am relatively certain. They wouldn’t just be in a bad mood, they wouldn’t have forcibly sent us the Duck Tunnel and forced Kristian to construct it. And they wouldn’t be standing next to a bright-yellow plastic tube, waiting for me.
‘Here it is,’ says Liitokangas without any pleasantries as he points at the yellow side of the Duck Tunnel. ‘And here it’s going to stay.’
‘It’s not moving an inch,’ adds Sauvonen.
‘We have the order form right here,’ says Liitokangas, and takes some folded sheets of A4 from his jacket pocket. ‘And the invoice, of course.’
‘And the payment deadline is, like, today,’ says Sauvonen.
I take the documents from Liitokangas’s hand and unfold them. I look at the invoice and the price at the bottom of the page. It is utterly ludicrous. The order forms haven’t been filled out with the same care as last time. I can tell at a glance that it’s a forgery. I fold the papers again and slip them into my pocket.
‘We will try this out,’ I say, ‘and return it if we can’t find any use for it.’
‘Just shove the kids inside,’ says Jeppe Sauvonen, ‘and voilà, it’s in use.’
‘From what I’ve heard about the Duck Tunnel—’
‘People hear all kinds of things,’ says Liitokangas. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read online. Before you know it, the world will be flat again.’
‘Just pay the fucking bill, all right?’ says Sauvonen. ‘I mean, how difficult can it be?’
‘Paying a bill like this is very difficult indeed,’ I say.
‘Why?’ asks Sauvonen.
I look him in his brown eyes. The black adder wriggling above them highlights the intensity of his stare.
‘Because the sum is so big,’ I say. ‘And the product so unfit for purpose.’
Sauvonen takes a step closer to me. ‘We haven’t even been able to unload your little delivery yet,’ he says. ‘Because it stinks. Smells like you’ve been screwing those crocodiles yourself.’
‘I’ve never done such a thing in my life,’ I say, and it’s the truth.
Sauvonen and I stare fixedly at each other. My suspicions have been confirmed. Otto Härkä is still in his canoe.
‘What Jeppe means is that sending the product back is no longer an option,’ says Liitokangas. ‘And that we will take action if the payment isn’t in our account by the end of the week.’
I don’t think it’s a good thing that Kristian is listening to this conversation, and because he is within earshot I can’t speak freely. Sauvonen seems to have said everything that’s on his mind. He steps back, and he and Liitokangas begin to take their leave. I decide to give it one last try.
‘The Moose Chute,’ I say.
Liitokangas and Sauvonen both turn and look at me.
‘What about it?’ asks Liitokangas.
‘I want to buy it.’
‘It’s not for sale,’ he says.
‘I will pay this invoice,’ I say, ‘and I will pay for the Moose Chute. If I can get it.’
What I have just said, what I have just promised, is only theoretically possible. But, as I see it, I don’t have any other options; all I can do is try. I have a very real feeling that I am like an astronaut whose cord connecting him to the mother ship has long since been severed. I realise I’ve seen this image in many a film, but that doesn’t change the fact that I really am running out of oxygen and that the only spot of warmth is on a tiny blue sphere all too far away.
Sauvonen is about to say something, he is about to lunge towards me again when Liitokangas holds an arm out in front of him.
‘The Moose Chute is not for sale,’ he says once again, then adds: ‘Not to you anyway. Ever.’