Helsinki isn’t a clean start for me. Just old bad blood.
I don’t like big-city life. I don’t like the memories. I don’t like the so-called international atmosphere. Kaamos, the dark time, is short-lived. The light coming and going so fast depresses me. I miss the long Arctic darkness. Already now, in January, we have daylight from around nine a.m. until four p.m. This winter is nice, but most years it’s not cold enough in Helsinki, the snow doesn’t stick. Makes it like sloshing around in a bucket of shit all winter. I’m homesick for the North.
Kate’s eyes meet mine for a moment. She understands I’m trying to stop the argument and lets me. “I’m a little nervous about seeing them because it’s been so long,” she says. “The last time I saw John was in 2006. The last time I saw Mary was 2005. They’re grown up now, and I wonder how they’ve changed. Still, who would have thought that three poor kids like us would have done so well. I’m running the best hotel in the city and John is becoming a university history teacher. Mary is a doctor’s wife. I more or less raised them. It makes me proud.”
“You have a right to be proud,” I say, “and I’m proud of you.” I check the time, it’s a little after three. My therapy session begins at four. I’ve been attending counseling for eight months now, and dread it more and more as time goes by.
I hesitate. Apologies are difficult for me. “Kate, I meant what I said. You’re going to be a great mother. I was out of line and didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It just came out wrong.”
She squeezes my hand. “I know.”
8
I limp through the snow toward my Saab. It’s parked near the taxi stand on Helsinginkatu. The street is nicknamed Raate Road, after the scene of a decisive and bloody battle in the Winter War, for the same reason that Vaasankatu is called Hunting Knife Boulevard. It has a bad reputation from bygone days, but not much real wickedness goes on here anymore. It’s true that Kallio has its fair share of the permanently unemployed that live on welfare and spend their days in rakalat -snot bars, as they’re called-drinking cheap beer, but most towns in Finland have their welfare drunks and dives for them to booze in.
I hear shouting down the street. As I close in, I see a man in front of Ebeneser School, a special-needs place for kids with dysphasia. The students there have speech disorders of one kind or another, difficulties with language comprehension or production, most often the result of varying degrees of brain damage. Some can speak but not write, others write but don’t speak. Very occasionally, a child will be able to sing but not speak.
The school is a beautiful off-peach Art Nouveau building constructed around the turn of the twentieth century, fronted by a chain-link fence interlaced with a growth of decades-old ivy, now wreathed in frost. I get closer and see that the screaming comes from a young man waving a half-empty bottle of Finlandia vodka. His rant is biblical and apocryphal in nature, and he has a bad speech impediment.
“Thpawns of Thatan, damned at biddth, you have fawen fwom da Towew of Babel. Bettew dat you had nevew been bodn!”
I get up close to him and look through the fence. Four little bundled-up children stand on the other side of it, terror-stricken but fascinated. I see no supervising adult. It pisses me off. “Listen kids,” I say to them, “I’m a policeman. Would you please go inside.”
The guy bellows an incoherent howl and screams again. “Bettew dat you had nevew been bodn!”
They don’t move. I make shooing motions with my hands. “Run along now,” I say.
They scramble toward the front door. The guy isn’t making any noise now, but he flails his arms, makes frantic gestures, waves the bottle and claws at his face.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“My name is Weejun. Away fwom me, thpawn of hell.”
“Well, Mr. Legion, why were you scaring those kids?”
He
I don’t like big-city life. I don’t like the memories. I don’t like the so-called international atmosphere. Kaamos, the dark time, is short-lived. The light coming and going so fast depresses me. I miss the long Arctic darkness. Already now, in January, we have daylight from around nine a.m. until four p.m. This winter is nice, but most years it’s not cold enough in Helsinki, the snow doesn’t stick. Makes it like sloshing around in a bucket of shit all winter. I’m homesick for the North.
Kate’s eyes meet mine for a moment. She understands I’m trying to stop the argument and lets me. “I’m a little nervous about seeing them because it’s been so long,” she says. “The last time I saw John was in 2006. The last time I saw Mary was 2005. They’re grown up now, and I wonder how they’ve changed. Still, who would have thought that three poor kids like us would have done so well. I’m running the best hotel in the city and John is becoming a university history teacher. Mary is a doctor’s wife. I more or less raised them. It makes me proud.”
“You have a right to be proud,” I say, “and I’m proud of you.” I check the time, it’s a little after three. My therapy session begins at four. I’ve been attending counseling for eight months now, and dread it more and more as time goes by.
I hesitate. Apologies are difficult for me. “Kate, I meant what I said. You’re going to be a great mother. I was out of line and didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It just came out wrong.”
She squeezes my hand. “I know.”
8
I limp through the snow toward my Saab. It’s parked near the taxi stand on Helsinginkatu. The street is nicknamed Raate Road, after the scene of a decisive and bloody battle in the Winter War, for the same reason that Vaasankatu is called Hunting Knife Boulevard. It has a bad reputation from bygone days, but not much real wickedness goes on here anymore. It’s true that Kallio has its fair share of the permanently unemployed that live on welfare and spend their days in rakalat -snot bars, as they’re called-drinking cheap beer, but most towns in Finland have their welfare drunks and dives for them to booze in.
I hear shouting down the street. As I close in, I see a man in front of Ebeneser School, a special-needs place for kids with dysphasia. The students there have speech disorders of one kind or another, difficulties with language comprehension or production, most often the result of varying degrees of brain damage. Some can speak but not write, others write but don’t speak. Very occasionally, a child will be able to sing but not speak.
The school is a beautiful off-peach Art Nouveau building constructed around the turn of the twentieth century, fronted by a chain-link fence interlaced with a growth of decades-old ivy, now wreathed in frost. I get closer and see that the screaming comes from a young man waving a half-empty bottle of Finlandia vodka. His rant is biblical and apocryphal in nature, and he has a bad speech impediment.
“Thpawns of Thatan, damned at biddth, you have fawen fwom da Towew of Babel. Bettew dat you had nevew been bodn!”
I get up close to him and look through the fence. Four little bundled-up children stand on the other side of it, terror-stricken but fascinated. I see no supervising adult. It pisses me off. “Listen kids,” I say to them, “I’m a policeman. Would you please go inside.”
The guy bellows an incoherent howl and screams again. “Bettew dat you had nevew been bodn!”
They don’t move. I make shooing motions with my hands. “Run along now,” I say.
They scramble toward the front door. The guy isn’t making any noise now, but he flails his arms, makes frantic gestures, waves the bottle and claws at his face.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“My name is Weejun. Away fwom me, thpawn of hell.”
“Well, Mr. Legion, why were you scaring those kids?”
He
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