Schopenhauer is purring, murmuring like a small, old car, looking for a comfortable position on the sofa. I’ve told him all about recent events, and I even tried my best to bring up the subject of possibly moving house. Schopenhauer dealt with this the way he deals with everything: he is trying to find his place, a perspective that will allow him to observe matters over a longer period rather than running in headfirst. I’ve told him I would like to do the same, but it seems as though sustained, thorough consideration isn’t always possible. It feels odd to hear myself say something like this. But if there’s one thing I have learnt in my adventure-park career then it’s the simple truth that nothing is predictable. All you can do is count. However, these two things aren’t as mutually incompatible as I once thought. Schopenhauer finds a suitable place in the corner of the sofa, rolls onto his side and starts washing his face.
I reach across to the coffee table and put down my cup of tea. Outside it is dark, save for the illuminated windows of the building opposite, which seem to be floating in mid-air. Golden, multicoloured, dim, bright floating squares in a sea of black, or in an endless universe, all set in soothing, regular formation.
I get up and think to myself that of today’s remaining chores there only remains brushing my teeth (four and a half minutes) and sending Laura Helanto a text message (anywhere between ten and fifteen minutes), then I will try to sleep. Five seconds later, I think rather differently.
The sound of the doorbell is both loud and unexpected. I can’t imagine who is visiting me at this hour. I walk into the hallway, think for a moment, then lift the entryphone handset and hear a familiar voice.
Juhani barges his way inside before I’ve even had a chance to say good evening, let alone ask him what he’s doing here. He leaves his shoes in the hallway but keeps his coat on as he marches straight into the living room. Then he stops and sits down in the armchair in front of the bookcase, though he doesn’t look like he is about to examine the extensive, mostly mathematical, library on his right. He is just as ruddy-cheeked as he was earlier this morning, but now he looks nowhere near as happy, enthusiastic or carefree in that quintessentially Juhani-esque fashion. I see that Schopenhauer is keeping an eye on him too.
‘I don’t understand what’s happened,’ says Juhani. ‘Kuisma Lohi contacted me again. I thought we’d agreed on the timetable and when we were going to sign the agreement. But now he says he’s lowering his offer. The new offer is only a tenth of the previous one.’
I sit down on the sofa, where I was a moment ago. Juhani is sitting across the coffee table. My reading lamp, a tall floor lamp behind him on his right, makes his hair and cheeks shine all the more and casts shadows under his eyes. He looks suddenly much older. I think of my calculations and of what I know he has done.
‘A tenth won’t even cover the life insurance, which I really need, like, yesterday,’ Juhani says and shakes his head. ‘A tenth won’t even … You’re going to have to work out how we get the old offer back.’
‘Me?’
‘You’re still in charge of the park’s finances and the bookkeeping, the raw numbers.’
‘Only pertaining to my time as CEO. And I don’t think the current problem has anything to do with the numbers.’
Juhani looks over at Gauss’s handwritten equation on the wall. Again I am reminded of the pleasure it has brought me over the years. If I look closely enough, I can always find something new in it. Normally I don’t look for anything in particular, I simply admire it, follow the familiar markings that always lead to the same beauty and clarity.
‘Henri, I just can’t sell the park for that little,’ he says eventually.
We sit in my living room for a long while. In the building opposite, some of the windows turn dark. Juhani talks, going round and round, always coming back to where he started. Which, of course, is no surprise: in this situation, it would be impossible to end up anywhere else. And I can’t offer him what he is asking for – a solution to a problem that doesn’t take all the variables into account. And as I listen and watch my brother, I conclude that my calculations thus far have been correct in all but one respect: the speed of events. Of course, I should have taken the laws of physics into account. Juhani is a force of nature. He is potent, untamed and unpredictable – except that he always, with tireless regularity, ends up working against his own interests.
Juhani leaves shortly before eleven. I walk from the hallway back into the living room. Schopenhauer gives me a knowing look, then he stretches, rests his head on the sofa and closes his eyes.
The following morning, I wake up before my phone’s alarm clock, and it’s hardly surprising. In all probability, I’m going to be busier in the next few days than at any other point in my adventure-park career, and this naturally has an impact on the quality of my sleep. I shave, get dressed, give Schopenhauer some food then open the balcony door for him, eat the same good and healthy breakfast that, with a number of carefully considered variations, I have been eating for a few decades now, give the newspapers and the business pages a quick look, knot my tie, pull on my outdoor clothes and leave.
With one change of train, I arrive in Tapanila thirty-six minutes later.
Tapanila is a leafy district full of detached houses, and even in mid-November it is beautiful and idyllic, like a little village all of its own. Some of the buildings are clearly older wooden houses, well-kept properties whose value has doubled many times over the last hundred years. Some of the gardens are large, and the black, twisting branches of the abundant old apple trees are like something straight out of the pages of a fairy tale. I notice the quiet, which seems to increase and thicken the further I walk from the train station. Six degrees above freezing feels warmer than the figure suggests, thanks to the still air. The sun peers from between the clouds and guides my steps.
It takes nine minutes to find the address I’m looking for. I ring the bell on the wall of the brick house. When nothing happens, I ring it again, with the same result. I take a few steps back. The house looks like it was built in the 1970s: it is on two floors with a flat roof, and is in clear need of some renovation. I suspect the owner must have thought he would get enough money from the sale of his company to cover the renovation costs. And now that the sale isn’t going quite as planned…
I recognise the sound almost immediately. A chainsaw, behind the house. That must be why nobody heard the doorbell. The path leads through the front garden, turns the corner, then continues along the side of the house and winds its way round the back. I can’t hear the chainsaw anymore, but I can see where the trunk of a spruce tree has been chopped and split into logs. I walk towards the spruce. The back garden is square and large. Flowerbeds, berry bushes, a cherry tree, apple trees and…
A chainsaw.
Which I can hear again, and which is now hurtling towards me.
The saw wails – and so does the man brandishing it.
In an instant the world is awash with the noise of thousands of tiny, razor-sharp teeth.
The man is wearing a lumberjack’s helmet and visor. He raises the screaming saw and brings it crashing downwards. I dive to my right and land on my side. The blade sinks into the lawn, sending mud, earth and brown grass flying in all directions. The man raises the saw again. I roll across the ground, again the saw cuts into the grass. I manage to stand up, the man is already coming after me but trips on a loose clump of soil. The chainsaw flies from his hands, he spins around, fumbling for the saw, and falls flat on his back. The saw cuts out, and the man groans in pain. Then everything is as quiet as it was a moment ago.
‘Hannes Tolkki?’ I ask. ‘Former CEO of Toy of Finland?’
‘That’s me,’ says the man lying on his back. ‘Who’s asking?’
‘I’m Henri Koskinen,’ I say, ‘from the YouMeFun adventure park. We’ve spoken on the phone, but we’ve never met in person.’
‘Right, yes, I remember it well. Sorry about that. I thought you were … someone else. Back’s playing up again. Can you give me a hand?’
I walk over to Hannes Tolkki and crouch down, and he grips my arm. Standing up is hard for him, he has to be careful of his back and I have to support him under the armpits. Eventually he is on his feet, but even this looks like quite an ordeal.
‘You thought I was one of Toy of Finland’s new owners,’ I say.
Tolkki looks at me. He is a man in his sixties, fair-haired, and in his grey eyes I can see that my guess wasn’t too wide of the mark.
‘I thought, enough’s enough,’ he says. ‘I’m not giving an inch more.’
By and large, Tolkki’s account is as I expected. A quick debt, taken out in an emergency and strictly off the books, grew over time into a monster, and eventually paying it back became simply impossible. In addition to this, there came the physical reminders and other forms of blackmail, culminating in the forced sell-off to Liitokangas and his associates. And even that wasn’t enough. According to Tolkki, two of them visited him yesterday, demanding money. I decide not to tell him why there are only two of them left, but I give him some choice examples of my dealings with the new owners of Toy of Finland, particularly my problems with the new equipment. And the longer we discuss this, the more it seems we have in common. Finally, the only unclear question appears to be how to get Hannes Tolkki out of his garden, indoors, and lying down on his massage table.