From upstairs comes the sound of a piano beginning to play. Olli doesn’t know very much about classical music but he knows that the piece is Chopin’s Prelude no. 16. He can’t help but admire the skilfulness of the playing.
Aunt Anna sways a little and says, “I told the neighbours that my son moved to Sweden to live with his father, to make room for my sister’s daughter. I said that she came here from Helsinki when her mother’s arthritis got so bad that she had to move into a nursing home. They raised their eyebrows and said, ‘Oh, is that so. And a very pretty girl you got, too. Just like a little Goldilocks in a fairy tale.’”
She thinks for a moment and adds, “Of course, Karri wasn’t perfect. I’m not saying he was. He was a moody, difficult child, and I never could tell what he was thinking. He never learnt to play the piano, either, in spite of all his lessons. But I’d still trade that silly, musical girl straight across for Karri if I could.”
“You’re not the only one,” Anne mutters, her eyes glued to the table.
The music has stopped now.
There’s a squeak at the top of the stairs and everyone’s neck stiffens. Olli looks towards the landing, sees a flash of the pear-print dress, and his face flushes.
Greta has avoided the Blomrooses ever since she arrived. She comes down to get something to eat when the others are outside, and when she’s at home she stays in her own room, where no one else feels like going any more. She slips in and out of the house without anyone noticing. When she’s not playing the piano it’s easy to forget she exists, which suits Aunt Anna and the Blomrooses fine.
Olli and Greta have kept their meetings secret from everyone else. They’ve been thrown together a couple of times when Aunt Anna or the Blomrooses were around and smoothly pretended that they hardly noticed each other.
Now Greta appears in the kitchen in her pear-print dress. Her golden hair is shining. Her green eyes glance at Olli shyly, as if seeking courage, then her chin lifts and her gaze sharpens. It moves around the room, stopping at each person for an excruciatingly long time. No one meets her eye. Anne turns pale and looks ill. Riku and Leo stiffen, as if waiting for a dog to attack.
Aunt Anna can’t do anything but stare at the girl speechlessly.
Greta puts a radiant smile on her face, walks across the kitchen, and stands at the window. She looks outside with her head high, humming a cheerful little tune.
“The fact that you love me, Olli, makes me like myself, too,” she whispered yesterday as they lay side by side in their secret room. “You know, maybe I don’t want to be ashamed of myself any more.”
“Do you think it will rain some more?” Greta wonders aloud, turning to look at them. She smiles innocently, defiantly. “I’ll bet we’re going to have a real downpour. Good. I like the rain.”
Aunt Anna scratches her arm. The muscles of her face are working under the skin. Her cheeks redden. She bites her lower lip until a drop of blood drips down her chin. As if by agreement the Blomrooses get up from the table and march out. After a moment’s hesitation Olli follows, but tries to do so in such a way that his departure can’t be interpreted as a protest. Something wriggles in his belly. He has no way, and no desire, to interfere in what happens in that house. It’s a matter between a mother and child. He can meet Greta later, after dark.
The Blomrooses are standing outside under the apple tree, speaking in whispers, their eyes red, their faces hard as stone. It’s starting to rain. Olli senses that they don’t want his company and leaves, heads for his grandparents’ house.
The thought of his girl in the pear-print dress makes his skin tingle and moves the fluttering from his belly to his chest. When the rain starts to fall harder, he breaks into a run.
34
AT THE BOTTOM of the steep ravine flows the Touru River. The house is not far from the shore. There’s just a narrow strip of hilly land between, covered in meadow and leafy trees. There are secret passages there, too, if the atmosphere of the place is any indication.
You can smell the river there, and particularly could back when the paper mill used to pour its waste water into the river. Aunt Anna’s house and the Blomrooses are many turns and junctions behind Olli now; he can relax. When there’s a real rain the rest of the world disappears on the other side of the roaring water. At those times, this is a good place to be.
Olli and Greta always arrive separately, usually Greta first and Olli a little later. Once they’re sure that no one is watching, they go into the yard and slip inside the house.
Until last winter the place was occupied by the old railwayman who got his bike back thanks to the Tourula Five. When the old man died, the house was left empty. The heirs to the place came and hauled away a truckload of his belongings, then left the rest, locked up the house and never came back.
On the very first day of the school holidays Greta leads Olli to the place. It’s raining. They hide under their shared umbrella. Greta breaks a porch window, slips inside, opens the door and smiles slyly at him. Please come in, my darling. Welcome home. I’ve been expecting you. Did you have a nice day?
The ground floor has a high ceiling. Daylight penetrates the room through large uncurtained windows and makes everything too bare, too defenceless, so the secret lovers can’t linger in the room for very long.
No furniture. No carpet. On the wall is a painting of a steam engine that the heirs didn’t want for some reason. The dusty wood floor is strewn with magazines, empty bottles, books, dishes and rusty tools.
When they come to the house for the first time, Olli picks up a pair of pliers, a frame saw and a bent gimlet, and says that as the new owner he ought to get started remodelling the place. Greta laughs.
Don’t bother, she says, Tourula’s a dying neighbourhood. New buildings aren’t allowed and renovating old places is discouraged. The young people are moving away and the old people are staying in their dilapidated houses hoping that they’ll have time to finish living their lives before the city makes them leave. The gentry of Jyväskylä has plans for Tourula, and that includes destroying everything old.
Olli drops the tools. The thought of destroying Tourula makes him sad.
Greta comes to him and wraps her arms around his neck. Don’t worry, she whispers in his ear. Even if everyone else leaves, we’ll stay here forever.
The stairs are just off the front entry. They lead to a room that has a ceramic stove, an old piano and a bed with covers. There are thick red curtains over the window. They filter the sunshine to softness, slow the passage of time, separate their time alone together from the world outside.
They have walked together through the city, publicly, in broad daylight, like innocent friends. They’ve bought ice cream from the booth on Puistokatu, slipped into the Adams or the Maxim to see a movie, sat next to the blue-bottomed fountain in the old church park, chased the pigeons in the plaza. They always have the large umbrella Aunt Anna bought in France. In the shelter of its deep, pastel-green dome they can exchange kisses without anyone knowing.
The rain is a good excuse to hide under the umbrella. It frees them to be lovers elsewhere as well, like here in this room.
What they do in the upstairs room of the abandoned house is their own business.
They talk a lot, of course. They plan their future. Daydream. In a few years we’ll go to Paris and rent a room on the banks of the Seine, they vow with a kiss. We’ll have coffee and cream tarts in little street cafes, drink red wine in the Latin Quarter, walk hand in hand down the Champs-Élysées, and climb up the Eiffel Tower and kiss at the top where the whole world can see us.