Not even the hardiest Finn drank her coffee outdoors at Hakaniemi Square on a sleety November day, despite the fact that the stands were tented and warmed by glowing heat-lamps and the air was oddly mild for the time of year. There was no hope of a proper snow, which suited Siiri and her friends just fine; they had endured enough mountainous snowbanks during their lifetimes and had no interest in frolicking through snowfields. Margit, Siiri and Irma had moved their daily coffee outing to the second floor of the Hakaniemi Hall in hopes that President Tarja Halonen, Finland’s first and so far only woman head of state, would one day sit at the table permanently reserved for her, but no luck yet.
Margit had much to report. Her coffee cooled in its cup as she apprised her friends of her adventures in the jungle known as the Meilahti hospital complex. It had taken some time before she found Eino at the Haartman Hospital, abandoned in a hallway surrounded by belligerent, unruly drunks.
‘Be grateful he ended up at Haartman. At least it’s new and nice, compared to those old dumps where the plaster is falling down on the patients’ heads.’ Irma was informed, because she had made the rounds of nearly every hospital in Helsinki during her bout of temporary dementia.
Unfortunately, the hospital had managed to begin treating Eino before Margit’s arrival: an IV drip was delivering liquids and drugs from two bottles into his arm, an oxygen moustache had been shoved up his nose, and his chest was full of electrodes or whatever those sticky magnets were called.
‘Why on earth would they drive a man with a fever to the hospital when there’s no room for him there anyway?’ Siiri huffed in empathy, although they all knew the multi-hospital circus was normal practice, the Finnish way of doing things.
The living will Irma had written had proved effective once Margit got her hands on a doctor, which was no easy undertaking. If a member of the staff happened to sail past in the corridor, it was a nurse, and nurses had no interest in living wills or the concerns of loved ones. ‘The doctor will be here soon,’ they all said to Margit, and more than one had clocked out in the meantime. But Margit hadn’t given up. Every few hours she had trudged off to the petrol station to chew down a dry, plastic-wrapped sandwich and returned to Eino’s bedside, until a Russian doctor had suddenly appeared at her side the next morning.
‘He barely understood a word of the living will except the bit about IV antibiotics. I said antibiot nyet, and he responded by nodding wisely.’
The doctor had exited without saying a word, after which Margit had waited a further two hours before a friendly Filipina nurse had come and disconnected Eino from the tubes, bottles and stickers. The nurse had clearly expressed her displeasure at not being able to treat such a lively old fellow, but these textbook sentiments, memorized during nursing school, had had no effect on Margit. The nurse had pushed Eino’s bed into the lobby to wait for the non-emergency ambulance to arrive.
‘It took another three and a half hours before a single non-emergency emergency vehicle was available in this city.’
‘That’s quite the contradiction in terms,’ Siiri chuckled, glancing at the family that had occupied the next table. The exhausted mother pulled a plump, wool-swaddled baby out of a sleeping bag, the kind given to all Finnish parents in their government-issued baby box. The poor thing was dripping sweat and red as a beet but very good-natured. The infant patted its mother on the shoulder and peered brightly at Siiri, giving her a winning, albeit toothless, smile.
‘It’s a good thing there’s someone who isn’t in a hurry, even if that someone is an ambulance!’ Irma chuckled, and they laughed merrily. The tired mother started feeding her chubby child unheated baby food, which brought Siiri’s game of peek-a-boo to an end. Margit continued ploughing through her account, without skipping a single detail.
Eino was back at the SquirrelsNest, only in a new room, because his spot had already been released for some fresher dementee’s use. It made no difference, because Eino didn’t seem to understand where he was lying. Margit gathered that the doctors had poked and prodded Eino enough to find, in addition to advanced Parkinson’s and a difficult case of dementia, heart failure and pneumonia.
‘But that’s wonderful!’ Siiri cried spontaneously.
‘How so?’ Irma said.
Margit was very calm. She explained to Irma that she’d been hoping to expedite Eino’s death for some time but hadn’t come up with an effective strategy until one of Anna-Liisa’s caregivers had advised she mix morphine tablets and sleeping pills in yogurt.
‘And you were there, Siiri? You didn’t say a word.’ Irma seemed angry, but Margit looked at Siiri approvingly.
‘We were too late. It was pretty macabre, since Eino wasn’t able to eat properly any more,’ Margit continued. Ultimately, it was a big relief that Eino didn’t have to die from the yogurt she fed him. She hadn’t completely thought out whether she’d be able to bear responsibility for the consequences of her actions.
‘Besides, if they had done an autopsy they would have caught you,’ Irma said.
‘They wouldn’t necessarily have performed one, but for that reason alone I would have had plenty of sleepless nights,’ Margit said tiredly. ‘Now we just have to hope that this case of pneumonia is merciful to Eino.’
Irma thoughtlessly started pondering out loud about the likelihood that Margit’s force-feeding had somehow caused Eino’s pneumonia, and could that be somehow detected through an autopsy. Siiri listened impatiently; this had occurred to her, too, but she decided to weed the notion out of Margit’s mind.
‘I don’t suppose even the most eager medical examiner would want to open up a sick old man who died of an apparent illness to determine the cause of death. They must have better material,’ she said.
‘For teaching purposes, maybe?’ Irma suggested. ‘I’m leaving my old bones and organs to science.’
Margit didn’t trouble herself over autopsies. ‘My only concern now is whether Eino will be allowed to live out the time left to him at the SquirrelsNest. But they’re not prepared to deal with dying seniors there; all they can handle are the kind that lie there without any symptoms and can be regularly medicated.’
Margit had engaged in many contentious conversations with the nursing home’s head nurse, director and head of resident services on the topic. They had arrived at a truce of sorts when Margit agreed to pay out of pocket for a dedicated nurse to watch over Eino at night.
‘Last night a frightened little thing with her face and ears full of spikes sat there at Eino’s side. I’m sure she’ll be an incredible comfort to me when I have to face my husband’s death.’
‘Look! Tauno’s in the paper, too.’
Irma was browsing through the tabloid someone had left on President Halonen’s table, and there was an entire spread on the retrofit at Sunset Grove and the steadfast veteran who refused to desert. There was nothing new in the article; it just rehashed the story from the weekend news with an extra dash of scandal. Facts about retirement home renovations were called out in a box to the side, and it said that most of the buildings were so new that Sunset Grove was a precedent of sorts.
‘It reads here that the costs of the Sunset Grove renovation have tripled during the project, and it’s the clients who will foot the bill. That means us.’
‘Of course. They can raise the rents and the service fees as high as they want. And there’s no law against it,’ Siiri said.
‘A Facebook group has been founded called “Save the Last Vet Standing”, and thousands of people have already joined,’ Irma read. It was a beautiful gesture; the intent was to offer Tauno help and moral support, but it didn’t seem as if it had much practical effect. Irma had come to learn that the Internet was like the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado about Nothing.
‘On Facebook you can like and poke and tell everyone what’s on your mind, but what good is that going to do us or Tauno? Besides, Tauno isn’t the only World War Two veteran who’s still standing.’
‘Siiri, my love!’ rang out in a familiar voice, and in that same instant Muhis and Metukka were seating themselves at the table. The boys had been grocery shopping, and this time they planned on preparing something from veal kidneys. Eyes twinkling with enthusiasm, Muhis recounted what beautiful innards were available downstairs. He couldn’t understand why Finns ate ready-made pizza by the yard and frozen French fries when fresh organs were available much more cheaply.
‘Kidneys taste like urine to me,’ Irma made the mistake of saying, and was repaid with a long lecture on how kidneys needed to be rinsed several times, stewed and spiced until they were succulent and delicious.
‘Have you found work?’ Siiri asked. She was concerned about her friends’ unemployment and consequent drift into illicit activities. Muhis reported that he had spent a couple of days the previous week cleaning schools, and Metukka had lent a hand at an acquaintance’s moving company. But nothing else had turned up, and they didn’t have anything in store for the week ahead. Metukka drummed the tabletop restlessly and Muhis adjusted his hat; their beaming smiles had vanished.
Then Siiri had what she thought was a brilliant idea: ‘Maybe you could come and work for us? We’re too tired to clean, do laundry, press the sheets and cook every day. You could help us out, and we can give you a little spending money in return.’
As soon as she spoke the words, a wave of relief washed over Siiri, as if the burden of their blended household had been instantly swept from her shoulders. The boys liked the idea. Margit didn’t participate in the conversation; she just gathered up her things, still muttering about Eino. The chubby baby at the next table had finished her meal and squealed cheerfully. She continued squawking insistently, until Siiri looked over and was rewarded with another exuberant smile. Suddenly Siiri felt as if the sun were shining through the roof of Hakaniemi Hall and straight onto her face, even though it was November.
Irma doubted whether they could afford manservants, but when Muhis and Metukka said that twenty euros an hour would be plenty, it stopped sounding so bad. Besides, it would be charity: they would be helping the boys, and the boys would be helping them.
‘But isn’t that what they mean by under the table?’ Irma asked, lowering her voice conspiratorially. ‘Might we end up in jail?’
Muhis and Metukka burst out in guffaws. Of course it would be under the table, but in Finland even ministers didn’t need to report payments made for a little help around the house to the tax office. It was ‘totally normal’.
‘Or “hella normal”, as my darlings would say,’ Irma said in satisfaction. ‘Have you noticed how everything is normal these days?’
Muhis and Metukka promised to come by that very week to clean the apartment and do the laundry.
‘We know the place. We’ve done a few odd jobs there in the past,’ Metukka said with a wink.