‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe the same place as Venla.’
Kristian’s expression showed that, at least to some extent, the thought was excruciating.
‘Has someone suggested that?’
‘No,’ I sighed. ‘Not that I know of. The original question was rhetorical. My intention was to demonstrate that your chosen course of action is profoundly illogical.’
Kristian looked like he was scaling a particularly steep hill.
‘You had something on your mind,’ I said eventually. ‘When you knocked at the door.’
‘Right, yes,’ he said, visibly relieved at the change of subject. ‘I know this is your first day and everything. But out there we were talking – I mean, the others were talking and I was listening. Anyway, since there’s a new owner here now, you’re the new owner and you’re responsible for…’
‘It certainly looks that way,’ I nodded.
‘The thing is, about a month ago me and Juhani were talking. We had an agreement, and Juhani is … well, he’s not in that chair, which I’m really sorry about, but seeing as we had an agreement and everything, I was wondering what kind of timetable we might be looking at…’
I waited for a moment. ‘What agreement?’
‘Well, we talked about…’ Kristian’s eyes roamed the room to find something to focus on, seemingly without success. ‘You see, I was supposed to become … or be made … become … whichever way you look at it…’
‘You were supposed to become something…’ I tried to prompt him.
‘The general manager,’ he finally blurted out.
I was sure I’d misheard.
‘Excuse me?’
‘The boss. The CEO. The big cheese.’
I finally understood. Of course. Juhani had been planning to make Kristian the general manager, the kind of general manager who … might not pay attention to every detail, every signature. Someone who would be a general manager only on paper. Of course, it was always possible that Kristian had a vast array of hidden managerial talents. I looked at him and thought about what I’d just heard. I couldn’t help thinking that, if he did possess hidden managerial talents, they were hidden with the precision of a stealth bomber.
‘Kristian,’ I said. ‘That isn’t … going to happen.’
Kristian’s brown eyes suddenly stopped roaming. He looked directly ahead.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘No. You—’
‘Yes. Me. Manager.’
‘You know, Kristian—’
‘I don’t want to know anything,’ he said emphatically. ‘I want to be the general manager.’
We sat in silence for a moment.
‘We have an agreement,’ said Kristian. His voice had lowered an octave.
I glanced at the piles of papers on the desk, the ones I had already gone through. It now looked as though Juhani was caught up in the middle of something – something besides an economic catastrophe. If what Kristian said was true – and I had no reason to doubt him, he seemed very sincere indeed – then only a month ago, Juhani had found himself in a situation in which he needed to erase himself from the company’s board.
‘Kristian,’ I said cautiously. ‘Let’s talk about this later.’
Kristian bolted up from his chair and reached a firm hand across the desk. I stood up and took it. Kristian shook my hand – literally. I could feel the force of his grip. The power seemed to flow through his whole body, as though even the tectonic pectoral muscles rippling across his chest had played their part in sealing our conversation.
‘It’s a deal,’ he said.
I was about to open my mouth but stopped myself at the last moment. I repeated what I’d said: we’d talk about it later. This seemed to satisfy Kristian and he released my hand. He turned, stepped towards the open door. Just before reaching the doorway he stopped, turned again and stretched out his arm. He raised his thumb and forefinger like a pistol going off, then tried to wink at me, but succeeded in blinking both his eyes.
‘Cool,’ he said.
7
The man was waving a handful of documents in my face. Lalla-lalla-laa, he taunted me. He walked backwards, and I pursued him. I tried to grab the bundle of papers, but my arms felt heavy and my movements hopelessly slow. The man continued tormenting me. I couldn’t make out his features. The parts of his face – the mouth, nose, cheeks, forehead – all kept changing place, never settling in one position. Those documents contained the information I needed, they explained where the money had gone. Finally I wrenched myself into motion, dived and grabbed the…
I woke up just before I hit the ground, but nonetheless hit it I did, with a thump. I fell on my left side, bashed my right fist against the bedside rug as I reached for the papers. The pain from the fall arrived with a slight delay. I was already staggering to my feet when I realised I’d hit my head too. It had struck the laminate floor beside the rug. The left side of my forehead started to throb. I managed to stand up and assess the situation.
The digital clock on the bedside table showed the time in blood-red numbers: 03:58.
The commotion had woken Schopenhauer, and he watched my movements from the end of the bed. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to argue over his night-time snacks. I pulled on my dressing gown and a pair of woolly socks. I walked into the kitchen, drank a glass of water and opened the balcony door. The concrete floor felt cold under my feet, but the air was fresh and light. The silence was absolute.
I had arrived home exhausted. I’d eaten quickly – a few cold sausages and a tart apple – and gone straight to bed. My first day at the adventure park had had the same effect on me as it did on all our visitors. At least, that’s what Laura Helanto said. When you’ve been running around the park all day, come the evening you’re out like a light. There was no arguing with that.
The cold no longer felt bad. My forehead was still throbbing, the dull sensation beginning to subside. Many things Laura Helanto had said kept popping into my mind, like someone casting a stone at regular intervals into a still, nocturnal pond. She had expressed surprise at how soon I’d visited the park after my brother’s death. I hadn’t understood the question. She said I needed time to grieve properly. Wasn’t I planning on taking some time for myself? At this point, we had just arrived at the broken Banana Mirror when something urgent came up, so I never got to answer her. But right now, just like every day in the early hours, I was having conversations with people who weren’t there.
I mentally answered her, saying I didn’t see how the situation would change or get any easier were I to sit on the sofa for a while, pondering future plans and the nature of death. My musings on the subject were neither here nor there.
And the funeral had been taken care of too. The lawyer said he would arrange everything according to Juhani’s instructions. I would choose the casket and it would be duly incinerated. After that, I would be informed when it was time to bury the urn. There wouldn’t be any formal memorial service. There was no one to invite; nobody wanted to eat dry meatballs, warm potato salad and stale cinnamon buns from a catering company. No one wanted to hear a priest giving a eulogy for the deceased, a speech full of second-hand information but without any first-hand corroboration. I assumed I would be told where to bury the urn. I assumed I would be able to borrow a rope too – to bury the urn, not to follow Juhani into the bosom of the earth. More importantly, what was a suitable period of grief for such a loss?
Juhani was my brother.
Our childhood was chaotic.
Our parents took turns losing their grip on various aspects of everyday life. The expression ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’ suited them to a tee. When they’d brought their Bohemian alcohol problems at least temporarily under control, before the week was out they would start buying things that we didn’t need and that they couldn’t afford. When the situation had reached almost catastrophic levels, they managed to stem their compulsive hoarding by moving house and starting over in a smelly commune led by a bearded man in a dirty woolly jumper that was too short for him, and who even a child could see was hopping in and out of bed with all the women in the house. When our impulsive father finally uncovered the truth, we were on the move again and, apparently in revenge for Mr Utopia, heading right into a world of capitalism: my parents became Tupperware agents for a while, until our over-priced rented apartment became filled with plastic dishes and boxes of all shapes and sizes and which my parents decided to pay for by starting up a puppet theatre. Which, even at the age of thirteen, I realised would only lead to another catastrophe of a slightly different complexion.