Helsinki White by James Thompson Page B

rest of the day?”
    “Yes.”
    It was a bit of an arduous process, with IV tubes, the mobile carryall and wheelchair, but I got my cigarette.
    He put me back to bed and rearranged my medical paraphernalia, told me he would check on me again as soon he could and left.
    I lay in bed and pondered the meaning, the worth, of life without emotion. My remorse was gone, but also my passion. If my remorse and sense of failure were gone, what had replaced them? I was emotionless, or nearly so. What would motivate me in life now? Maybe the same things that always motivated me. A desire for balance. Justice. Perhaps now I could even pursue those goals with a feeling of equanimity. For me, duty and love had always been closely related. Something I doubted Kate would understand. I reached one decision. I would take Sweetness under my wing and help him find himself and discover, for good or bad, who he really was, and help him become whatever it was that might be. As I wished my father had done for me. I lay in bed for two days, practiced my fake smile, and contemplated the changes that had come over me.
    I thought of Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s
The Metamorphosis
, who awoke to find that he had become a monstrous insect. Was I a morphed Gregor Samsa, or a surgically enhanced Kari Vaara?

8
    I came home on Friday. Despite all the work done to me, I had spent only four days in the hospital. I lay about, ate narcotics and tranquilizers as instructed, watched crappy television shows, played with Anu and the cat. I felt fine but a little tired and napped a lot. I was on a one-month sick leave, to be extended if necessary, but I was free to go back to work in two weeks if I chose. On Saturday I caught up on the news.
    Parliamentary elections were a little over a year away, and a dark horse was gaining ground fast. The Real Finns Party. It was officially headed by Topi Ruutio, an experienced politician and member of the European Parliament. It had a second leader, Roope Malinen. He held no office, but his blog was the most popular in Finland. The Real Finns agenda was unclear, except that they were anti-foreigner and anti-immigration. The Real Finns had invented a euphemism for racists. They staunchly denied charges of racism and dubbed themselves “
maahanmuuttokriitikot
,” critics of immigrants. Our population was aging, our birthrate low, and without immigrants to work and pay taxes, there would be no pension money for our retirees. The Real Finns’ answer: Finnish women must bear more children, out of patriotic duty.
    Other than hate, their agenda wasn’t clear. They wanted a return to traditional Finnish values. I’m unaware of what traditional Finnish values are, and I don’t think anybody else knows, either.
    Real Finns believed that government should decide what qualifies as good art to receive government support. They looked to nineteenth-century-style Finnish classic works as ideals. They made wild promises to spread the wealth that couldn’t possibly be met. They wanted to leave the EU. Their rhetoric reminded me of early Nazi propaganda. Like I told Kate, Real Finns are like a more virulent strain of American Teabaggers.
    Real Finns have skyrocketed in popularity because the global financial crisis, coupled with greed by our own leading financiers—despite manipulated statistics indicating we have the world’s strongest economy, leading the world to believe that Finland is some kind of financial paradise—has driven our economy into the shithole. Nearly twenty percent of Finns now live beneath the poverty line. Their jobs are being outsourced to other countries. Inflation is high, wages stagnant. People are frightened, and they’re focusing that fear, placing their blame, on immigrants.
    I don’t believe they’re actually pro–Real Finn. I think they’re terrified and protesting the establishment that made them feel this way. I kept up with Real Finn antics because their policies changed daily and, when I felt emotions,