And as I wait outside the restaurant, I feel that same strange, almost dizzying sensation that I always feel whenever I think about Laura and meeting her.
On this late-September evening, downtown Helsinki is like a theatre set soaked through. The streets gleam, making the rain look black and grey, the buildings are nothing but façades, even those where carefully positioned lamps shine in the windows, the stripes of the zebra crossing glisten nonsensically like an ice rink, and all around is the rush of water, the splash of puddles.
A date, I think and sigh into the rain as I shelter beneath an awning: this doesn’t make any sense.
Particularly not now, when I have a barn to look for, a place where debtors are either hanged or where they decide to start up their own bank. In reality, I don’t even know what finding the barn will mean. I don’t know what it will achieve. I don’t have a plan. It is also highly possible that, even if I actually manage to locate the place, I will still be too…
‘Late,’ says Laura. ‘I knew it. Sorry.’
She has hurried beneath the awning from behind me. I assumed she would be coming from the direction of the Kamppi bus station, because that’s where her bus would have pulled in. If she is coming from home, that is, and chooses the most direct route from the station to our meeting place. I don’t understand why anyone would ever do anything else.
‘You haven’t been waiting long, I hope?’
‘I don’t even know what time it is,’ I say. Even I am taken aback.
She closes her umbrella, shakes her hair and loosens her scarf. She looks past me and into the restaurant.
‘Looks nice,’ she says.
I turn and look in the same direction. A waitress in a gleaming-white blouse and a tightly fitting black skirt glides past carrying several bottles of wine. The people sitting at the tables look more like characters in American TV shows than people who might visit an adventure park and borrow money from me.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve never been here.’
‘Why did you choose it, then?’
‘Given the average rating review, the distance from our respective bus stops, the prevailing weather, the day of the week, the time of year, your predilection for spicy food, and the fact that the point of a date is to try and make an impression on the other person, this seemed like the optimal choice.’
‘Optimal…’ Laura says, and smiles as though I’ve said something amusing. Her smile is like a warm lantern in the rain. ‘That sounds romantic.’
‘I think so too,’ I say.
We are shown to the table for two reserved in my name, next to the window at the far end of the long room. The window is rather low-set against the street as the restaurant itself is slightly below street-level. We can only see passers-by from the waist down. At times it’s impossible to guess what kind of face belongs to which pair of legs. If we were only a pair of legs, it would be easy to disguise ourselves. I don’t say this thought out loud. I still feel somewhat dizzy; my mouth and tongue, and my entire jaw, feel oddly stiff, yet at the same time frighteningly ready to open up and blurt out whatever comes to mind. I have to concentrate on looking Laura in the eyes without losing myself in them, so that I both listen to her and hear her. Her hair is like a blossoming rose bush, her cheeks are glowing, and there’s a special joy and contentment in her eyes. She is wearing a white blouse with black spots, buttoned up to the neck.
A waiter appears and asks whether we would like something to drink while we look at the menu. Laura orders a gin and tonic, I have one too. I don’t like gin or tonic, but right now that doesn’t really matter. What’s more, any drink that might moisten my arid mouth is a small step from the desert towards a welcome oasis. Because that’s what it feels like: like suddenly wading through sand. The menu is mercifully short and, to my delight, numerical. There are four different kinds of menu: with five, eight, eleven or sixteen courses. We quickly resolve to take the eight-course menu; we might be celebrating but we don’t want to be here all night. Once the waiter has left, I raise my glass.
‘Congratulations,’ I say. I have thought long and hard about what to say, and this seems by far the most sensible option.
‘Thank you.’
We clink our glasses. Laura stops me just as my glass is about to touch my lips.
‘Without you … I don’t know … Shall we toast to mathematics?’ she asks with a smile.
Then she drinks, and I drink too.
Our first course is a small pink pouch, approximately the size of a pinecone cut in half, filled with a foamy, salty, fishy, essentially weightless substance. Laura seems to like it. This makes me happy. The same cannot be said of my calculations regarding the difference between the cost of the raw materials, the production costs, and the eventual price. I decide to put such thoughts to one side. But only for a moment.
‘I took out a loan too,’ says Laura out of the blue.
Perhaps I look as surprised as I really am.
‘So has everybody else,’ she continues. ‘The other staff members. But that wasn’t the reason I took one out. Obviously.’
I begin to understand what she is talking about. The adventure park. The bank I have opened.
‘Everybody?’ I ask in genuine bewilderment.
‘Yes,’ she nods.
‘Everybody was suddenly in need of some extra money?’
‘You said yourself that borrowing money from our bank is the sensible thing to do.’
‘It is sensible…’ I stammer. It is sensible if you can’t get the same sum of money more cheaply somewhere else, I think, which in turns means they don’t realise that—
‘Exactly,’ Laura cuts me off before I can add anything else. ‘I really needed that money. Tuuli’s school trip to France. I want her to have the kind of opportunities I never had, and besides, travelling is expensive for Tuuli because we have to take all her health issues into account. She’s been talking about this trip for a long time, begging me to let her go. I know she’s been dreaming about it. All her friends are going, and I felt bad thinking she might not be able to join them. But now she can, and I’m just so happy for her. It’s much more important than my wall.’
Just then, the waiter brings our next course to the table. On a large white plate, there are two long, dark strips about half a centimetre high. At the top of the strips is a microscopic bundle of microscopic forest flowers. Around it all is a circle of congealed, bright-red liquid as thin as sewing thread.
‘I wouldn’t have been granted a loan anywhere else,’ Laura continues. ‘I’ve had some … Well, my wages are spent on living costs, food and … Let’s just say, the final days of the month are always quite the balancing act. And I don’t have a penny in savings either. I’ve never been very good with money, and I’ve had to learn the hard way.’
Her last words burst out like a gush of water through a crack in a dam. Laura is clearly embarrassed. She has said a lot, and if I had done the same I would be in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to rewind the tape to double-check everything I had said. Then she smiles again. Her smile isn’t as breezy as it was before; there’s a new shade to it now.
‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this now … Maybe it’s the wonderful company, the wonderful environment and wonderful food.’