reached the bottom of the hill, where it hit a curb and shattered.
As I passed in front of a department store, the lights in the window snapped on, and the sound of “Silent Night” blared through a speaker. Startled, I almost twisted my ankle. In slow motion, and accompanied by a ticking sound, the mannequins in the window rotated left and right. A dog’s tail wagged. A small boy in a striped sweater extended a present toward me, then retracted it. The mouths of women in traditional dress dropped open. I quickened my pace.
At the train station, I asked a man behind the ticket counter how to get to Inari. There were no direct trains, he said. I would have to take a twelve-hour train ride to Rovanemi, and from Rovanemi I’d take a bus to Ivalo, and from Ivalo I’d take another bus to Inari. It would be a twenty-one-hour trip. I unsuccessfully searched my map for the towns he was mentioning. The man redirected my gaze. I hadn’t been looking far enough north.
I booked a sleeper, sat on a bench, and waited to depart for the town where, according to the Finnish phone book, Eero Valkeapää, my real father, still lived. A pigeon flew into the train station and sat at my feet. I kicked it with my boot. Watching it scurry, stumble, and fly away was more satisfying than anything I’d done in weeks.
2.
The train was called The Santa Claus Express. I boarded and searched for my sleeper. As I approached my compartment, two men smoking cigarettes ducked inside. I had assumed I would be in a smokeless compartment, alone—not with two men. I almost wept. I hadn’t realized how tired I was, how unable I felt to remedy a mistake.
I stood outside the door to my compartment, and the men stood inside. I showed them my ticket. The men, it turned out, had stepped inside to let me pass. They shuffled out and nodded, leaving behind a plume of unfiltered smoke. My stomach curled—it was empty and I was hungover. I had been so angry at those men, and now I was angry that I had been angry.
Each room in second class had three berths. Mine was the middle one. I turned the pillow so I could look out the window, and placed my backpack at my feet. I took off my jacket and crawled under the comforter. Clean and white and soft.
As the train left the station, I pressed my forehead to the cold window. We started out slow, passing houses the color of Viking ships in children’s books—utterly confident blues, reds, yellows. Ladders led to the rooftops, to ease the shoveling off of snow. Parted curtains in the windows revealed the same scene: seven lighted white candles, all balanced on an upside-down V .
The farther north we traveled, the darker it grew. By three
o’clock, it was already night.
3.
We arrived in Rovanemi after midnight. My bus wouldn’t be leaving until six a.m. I sat in a coffee shop adjacent to the train station, and when that closed, I lay on a bench inside the waiting area. I slept with my purse held close to me, like an infant. On a nearby bench, a woman slept with her baby held close to her, like a purse.
The bus, when it came, was double-deckered. I sat on the top level, toward the back, away from the schoolboys listening to unquiet headphones. I removed my boots, but my feet were so cold on the footrest I had to sit on them. The bus stopped at every town to pick up mail, drop off packages. On the side of the roads, children walked to school, their flashlights casting yellow circles on the snow.
On the bus from Rovanemi to Ivalo, I finally grew impatient with travel. Until then, I’d liked that the trip was taking so long: I had time to plan what I would say to Eero Valkeapää. But on this, the second-to-last leg, I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to read any of the books I had brought. Restless, I flipped through the in-flight magazine from my SAS flight from Brussels to Helsinki. Hans Blix was on the cover, pictured relaxing in a black leather chair. I read the article about him. He was
As I passed in front of a department store, the lights in the window snapped on, and the sound of “Silent Night” blared through a speaker. Startled, I almost twisted my ankle. In slow motion, and accompanied by a ticking sound, the mannequins in the window rotated left and right. A dog’s tail wagged. A small boy in a striped sweater extended a present toward me, then retracted it. The mouths of women in traditional dress dropped open. I quickened my pace.
At the train station, I asked a man behind the ticket counter how to get to Inari. There were no direct trains, he said. I would have to take a twelve-hour train ride to Rovanemi, and from Rovanemi I’d take a bus to Ivalo, and from Ivalo I’d take another bus to Inari. It would be a twenty-one-hour trip. I unsuccessfully searched my map for the towns he was mentioning. The man redirected my gaze. I hadn’t been looking far enough north.
I booked a sleeper, sat on a bench, and waited to depart for the town where, according to the Finnish phone book, Eero Valkeapää, my real father, still lived. A pigeon flew into the train station and sat at my feet. I kicked it with my boot. Watching it scurry, stumble, and fly away was more satisfying than anything I’d done in weeks.
2.
The train was called The Santa Claus Express. I boarded and searched for my sleeper. As I approached my compartment, two men smoking cigarettes ducked inside. I had assumed I would be in a smokeless compartment, alone—not with two men. I almost wept. I hadn’t realized how tired I was, how unable I felt to remedy a mistake.
I stood outside the door to my compartment, and the men stood inside. I showed them my ticket. The men, it turned out, had stepped inside to let me pass. They shuffled out and nodded, leaving behind a plume of unfiltered smoke. My stomach curled—it was empty and I was hungover. I had been so angry at those men, and now I was angry that I had been angry.
Each room in second class had three berths. Mine was the middle one. I turned the pillow so I could look out the window, and placed my backpack at my feet. I took off my jacket and crawled under the comforter. Clean and white and soft.
As the train left the station, I pressed my forehead to the cold window. We started out slow, passing houses the color of Viking ships in children’s books—utterly confident blues, reds, yellows. Ladders led to the rooftops, to ease the shoveling off of snow. Parted curtains in the windows revealed the same scene: seven lighted white candles, all balanced on an upside-down V .
The farther north we traveled, the darker it grew. By three
o’clock, it was already night.
3.
We arrived in Rovanemi after midnight. My bus wouldn’t be leaving until six a.m. I sat in a coffee shop adjacent to the train station, and when that closed, I lay on a bench inside the waiting area. I slept with my purse held close to me, like an infant. On a nearby bench, a woman slept with her baby held close to her, like a purse.
The bus, when it came, was double-deckered. I sat on the top level, toward the back, away from the schoolboys listening to unquiet headphones. I removed my boots, but my feet were so cold on the footrest I had to sit on them. The bus stopped at every town to pick up mail, drop off packages. On the side of the roads, children walked to school, their flashlights casting yellow circles on the snow.
On the bus from Rovanemi to Ivalo, I finally grew impatient with travel. Until then, I’d liked that the trip was taking so long: I had time to plan what I would say to Eero Valkeapää. But on this, the second-to-last leg, I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to read any of the books I had brought. Restless, I flipped through the in-flight magazine from my SAS flight from Brussels to Helsinki. Hans Blix was on the cover, pictured relaxing in a black leather chair. I read the article about him. He was
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