Anne lets out a little giggle.
“There’s all kinds of interesting stuff in here. I guess we both made a serious mistake about our cute little freak of nature, Olli dear, although your mistake was obviously a little more serious than mine.”
Anne starts to read aloud. The words squirm into Olli’s ears and scratch around there like insects. He doesn’t want to listen, but he hears her nevertheless.
Eventually he manages to say that he’s going to kill them if they don’t let Greta go.
Leo shakes his head in disbelief and Riku breaks into a high-pitched laugh. Olli’s slim torso and thin arms don’t frighten them.
Olli growls like an animal and is about to throw himself at them when his legs unexpectedly give way beneath him and he falls on his face with a thud.
Then comes the pain.
The backs of his legs explode. He yells.
Or is it Greta who’s yelling?
Olli grinds his teeth, turns his head and sees Anne strike him right on the back of his knees with a crowbar.
“Mind your own business, Olli,” she mutters. “We don’t have anything against you…”
But Olli tries to get up. He’s concerned for Greta. The Blomrooses have gone mad; there’s no telling what they might do.
The crowbar swings again and for an instant its shadow darkens the room.
Olli opens his eyes and realizes he’s alone. The room is darker now. The sky has filled with clouds; there’s a drizzle of rain outside.
He tries to stand up. His legs don’t want to hold him, and he has to put his hands on the floor. There’s a stab of pain in the back of his head. His whole skull feels tender. He squints.
On the floor where Greta was lying is a large, dark spot. With other streaks around it. Large and small streaks. The Blomrooses seem to have made quite a mess.
Even the walls have dark handprints on them. To be more precise, red handprints.
There are similar stains on the tools, which have been neatly arranged in a row after use:
A screwdriver.
Pliers.
Pincers.
A hammer.
A chisel.
A drill.
A saw.
41
OLLI FOLLOWS THE BLOODSTAINS OUTSIDE.
He feels dizzy, wants to throw up. The back of his head is throbbing. His legs hurt, too.
He stumbles around, and then he finds the Blomrooses, at the edge of the ravine.
They’re standing in the drizzle, among the trees, blank-faced, spattered, staring at the ground. They see Olli, and Leo turns to look at him, like a wild animal. Leo can’t speak, just makes a sound, and finally grimaces.
Riku, looking pale, points at a hole in the ground with blood around it.
“She’s in there,” he whispers, his eyes shining. “She gave us the slip when Leo turned chicken. Ran out here and crawled in before we could catch her. Slipped right underground. Now if we just had the guts to go in after her…”
Olli didn’t know what to do or say. His brain wasn’t working. He turned to look at Anne.
The rain was gradually washing the blood off her pretty face.
Smiling sadly, she wiped her brow with a hand red to the elbow. Then she sighed and said quietly, in a carefree, pensive voice, “What a mess. Say what you will but I still think that somewhere under there is my sweet Karri…”
42
GRETA IS ALL WOMAN NOW.
But her whole body is covered in scars.
When Olli’s hand, with Greta’s guidance, has been everywhere, they lie down, holding each other, naked and quiet.
Finally Greta, noticing Olli’s ardour rising, whispers in his ear, “Darling, I will gladly give you this body, but first you should know its whole story. So listen…”
I was born in the secret passages, right before your eyes, born among the M-particles, out of love for you.
I’m sure you know the story of how Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, met the amorous nymph Salmacis, and they merged with one another. This created a being that was both man and woman. That happened in mythical antiquity. Another story began in Finland in the 1960s, in Jyväskylä Central Hospital, when a young woman named Anna Kultanen happened to have a baby like that.
The father had really wanted a boy. He took one look at the baby, freaked out and left. The doctors examined the child, conferred for a while and decided they wanted to make it a girl.
But the mother refused to let them touch her baby. She named it Karri, and started raising it as a boy.
The first few years passed without any major problems. Then came the Tourula Five. And little by little, unknown to everyone, I started to develop, in the mind of the boy you knew as Karri Kultanen, at the same time that he was having one adventure after another roaming through the secret passages with the Tourula Five. I came to be because of his secret, hopeless devotion to a boy he knew he could never have. That was you, of course, Olli. You probably remember how I once told you that there would be no me if not for you. That was literally true. He started watching you. He learnt to sense what you liked. Then he imagined a girl you could love, and he found the necessary parts in himself—the parts that he didn’t need for being Karri.
In the darkness of the secret passages he recreated himself and hid the change under a dirty hoodie and silence.
Finally he decided that the time had come for him to step aside, and he let the girl he had created stand before you, a little nymph whose name was Greta. Her whole being was crystallized around one singular hope, the same hope that had brought her to life: that you could love her…
Now you’re smiling. Why? Are you laughing at the big emotions of the little girl in the pear-print dress? I suppose they are funny. But please be kind and don’t laugh. It’s a sad fact, but those feelings haven’t really changed in all these years. If you know me at all, you know that I am what I am. I may behave like a self-sufficient cat, but I have the heart of a faithful dog who can’t help but love you. That’s what I was created for. For you, Olli. You mustn’t forget that.
All right, I forgive you. Of course I do.
That summer together was wonderful. But then came the last night, and the morning, and the Blomrooses…
I’m sorry.
Please hold me tighter. Otherwise I won’t be able to stop shaking. Kiss me. On the lips. And one on the forehead. OK. I can continue now. Stroke my hair. Don’t let go of me.
I could understand Anne, in a way. The poor crazy girl had always loved Karri as hopelessly as Karri loved you. So naturally she hated me from the moment she saw me.
One time she came into my room drunk while I was playing the piano and tried to find Karri in me. She examined me up close, exposed herself and tried to get me to touch her. She said that I still smelt like Karri under my pretty dress and my phony act. She said she wanted to show Karri all the wonderful things a girl can do for a boy.
I gave her a cheeky answer, like furious teenagers do, said I knew very well all the wonderful things a girl can do for a boy.