In the albums there were a lot of pictures of his wife and son. He had piled all the albums on the living-room table so that he could look at the photos whenever he liked. And he had looked at them, many times.
All in all, everything in the house was fine, except for the fact that the people pictured in the photographs were missing.
Olli decided to clean. He vacuumed half the living room. Then he stopped and stood staring at the birds perched in the trees, turned off the vacuum and went back to the sofa.
Olli was thinking.
He really would have preferred to sleep. But since Aino had vanished into Facebook, and the boy with her, he had to gather his thoughts and memories, arrange them, separate the fact from the dreams they were mixed up with. The world is chaos, Notary Suominen had once said. A man’s job is to bring order to it.
The thought of Grandpa Notary made Olli straighten his spine. What would his grandpa have done in this situation? Olli furrowed his brow and sat up, then stood up and walked around, thinking about the office upstairs and the computer with his Facebook profile and all his Facebook friends—workmates and colleagues, the author Greta Kara, the Blomroos siblings, and now his own vanished wife, with her own Facebook friends, and among them, as Olli had discovered, was Karri Kultanen.
Karri?
Olli rubbed his temples and tried to make his thoughts progress more clearly.
The last time he had seen Karri Kultanen was about three decades ago. It was at the end of the Tourula Five’s seventh summer. He remembered the day as if he were looking at it though the wrong end of a telescope. All of the Tourula Five were there. They had probably just come from one of their endless picnics. The Blomrooses were off somewhere and Olli and Karri were left alone. They had been looking for something, probably playing at searching for secret passages. Anyway they had been playing at something.
Then things had gone wrong. Maybe he and Karri had quarrelled. He didn’t remember the reason. All he remembered was a surge of emotion. He sometimes had confused, surreal dreams connected with that day and its dramatic turn.
In the dreams there were always secret passages.
Anyway, he had run to his grandma and grandpa’s house at the rifle factory and told them that he wanted to go home to Koirakkala.
Grandma had clucked over him and wanted to know why. Grandpa Notary had come out of his office and said, “Well, there’s a time for everything and there is a certain wisdom in knowing when things are beginning and when they’re ending.” He had sensed that Olli didn’t want to talk about it. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested; maybe he just wanted to get rid of his moody grandson.
In any case, Grandpa had immediately called Koirakkala and informed them that the summer traveller was coming home. Olli’s father must have tried to put it off because his grandpa’s voice had turned sharp and he had said firmly that yes, the boy really was coming home, right now.
Olli stretched out on the sofa to sort through his thoughts, and fell asleep.
The passageway is dark and narrow. Olli is crawling forward. He’s wearing his best suit. Dirt keeps pattering down on him. His knees and elbows are bloody. The fine Italian fabric of his coat and trousers is tearing, wearing through, getting filthy. Even the best tailor and dry cleaner couldn’t save it now. But he has to keep crawling. He has forgotten something very important down here in the dark.
The passageway keeps pushing deeper and deeper. A great coldness radiates towards him. He sees a faint light ahead. Amid a swarm of light particles, there’s a heap of clothing. A grey sweatshirt. That’s what he came here for. He left it here years ago. Olli is relieved. Now he can go back to the daylight.
When he touches the sweatshirt, his hand touches something else, something solid. There’s a person inside the clothes. A boy. Or the pale, withered ghost of a boy.
It turns. It whispers in a voice rasping with the soil of the passageways. “Oh, it’s you. So. I guess you know the reason I’ve been sitting here all these years…”
Olli opens his eyes and realizes he’s on the sofa. His clothes are damp with cold sweat.
There was a picture on Aino’s profile now. It was a photo of Aino and the boy wading near the waterline on a deserted beach. In the background was the sea and an exotic point of land. The boy looked very happy. Aino was looking at the camera. There was panic in her eyes.
In the foreground was a man in a suit with his head cut off by the edge of the picture. A security guard, Olli thought. Or a keeper. The man’s coat was open. The butt of a pistol peeked out from under it.
Where are you?
Olli’s question had received an answer.
Hello, Olli. They’re letting me answer your message. I don’t know where we are. Somewhere warm, on the seashore. It might be an island. We were brought here by helicopter. We’re going to change our location soon, from what I understand. We’re all right, as long as we follow instructions. They tell me I should think of it as a luxury holiday, albeit an involuntary one. They apologized for their unorthodox actions, but they said that it has to do with some old story that you had a part in, and that you would no doubt understand the situation. You’re supposed to help these people to correct some past error that you witnessed. Once it’s taken care of, our forced holiday will be over and they’ll let us go home.
Hopefully you can help them correct their problem, whatever it is.
It’s very nice of you, by the way, to notice that I was gone. I don’t think you noticed when our son was kidnapped two weeks ago. I’m sorry I didn’t spell it out for you, but I was forbidden from telling anyone, including you. It seems that it was meant to be a lesson, as well as being practical in terms of the travel arrangements—they stole the child, and the mother dutifully followed. I eventually received instructions, left home while you were out meeting that author (I hope the meeting went well, dear, so that nothing bad happens to your publishing house) and the kidnappers—or “organizers” as they like me to call them—brought me to him. But don’t be too worried. At least Lauri and I are together. We’re being treated well and we’ll be all right, as long as you do what’s expected of you, provided you can spare the time from work for it.
:–)
Olli stared at the smile added to the bottom of the message.
Then he noticed that he had three new messages in his inbox.
They were from the Blomroos siblings.
PART TWO
24
WHEN AINO HAD BEEN MISSING for three days, Olli put down his book, got undressed, washed and put on pressed trousers, an Italian dress shirt, a tie and a pale-coloured jacket. He went to the living room and looked the portrait of Notary Suominen in the eye.
Deeds are a man’s full-length mirror, the portrait reminded him.
Olli stepped out into the yard, stopped and waited for the vertigo to subside. He went over the instructions he had received. Then he walked through Mäki-Matti, cheerily greeting his neighbours. His greetings were returned. Someone asked the news and said to say hello to Aino. I certainly will, Olli answered. How’s the boy? Fine, fine. Growing all the time. Having fun at the beach. They praised the weather and remarked that summer was, after all, a fleeting thing, and you ought to enjoy it just as long as you could.