‘And I was thinking,’ he continues before I have a chance to respond. ‘Why don’t we push these loans more aggressively? If I was in charge, it would be ABCD: Always Be Closing the Deal. We should push them, right?’
He gestures at a small stand propped on the end of the counter. The stand invites customers to avail themselves of a short-term pay-day loan at a sensible rate of interest. I take the stand and place it behind the counter, out of sight.
‘We are not pushing anything right now,’ I say. I note that my tone is rather harsh and, when I employ Kristian’s jargon, almost mocking. It’s hardly surprising. Someone has driven a car over me. Both literally and figuratively.
‘Kristian,’ I begin, now in a much more conciliatory tone, realising I have only one option left: I need to find my inner Perttilä and let it out, and I need to do this right now. ‘The journey to deep, inner success is aligned with the development of positive team synergy, and from there it’s only a short leap to optimal success in the mind-body-soul trinity. The solution is often a process of emotional transference, which in turn is symbiotically linked to the interaction frequency we use to bring about the best reciprocal default dynamics. I estimate there’s still room for improvement and an element of collective adaptation on your journey towards a fully-fledged, personal awareness of your entrepreneurial self. On the other hand, this gives you a chance to explore other professional opportunities within the field of resource management. Learning about self-relevance isn’t just a linear-psychological or a cumulative emotional learning curve, you know.’
We look each other in the eyes. I will not blink first. Eventually Kristian lowers his gaze and starts fidgeting. The front door opens, customers begin flowing into the adventure park and Kristian starts serving them.
24
On the way back to my office, I think about my encounter with Kristian, about what it really means, and I know all too well.
I’m putting everything off, stretching everything out. I know that we can talk about infinity in mathematical terms, but in this world and this reality, everything has a point beyond which it will not go. Everything has a breaking point. I can feel myself approaching that point. The feeling is all the more disconcerting because I can’t work out what exactly is going on. Everything from the loans to the rabbit’s ear is finely balanced, taut as a violin string, and right now I can’t afford for anything to start fraying.
Upon reaching my door, I stop. At first I don’t know why. Everything is exactly as I left it yesterday. I have tidied the room up and organised the things Juhani left behind, and I can see that every pile of papers is exactly where it should be. But stilclass="underline" something in this room has been moved, perhaps simply picked up and put back again, but the equilibrium has been disturbed. I’ve always noticed things like this. In a calculation a page long, if you change even a single number or symbol, the result is completely different. But in the following minute or minute and a half I can’t work out what has changed, so I walk behind my desk and sit down.
A moment later, it feels as though I might never stand up again.
I don’t know whether it’s the fatigue. Maybe the metaphorical sled I am pulling has quite simply started to weigh too much. Maybe the combination of the debts, the struggle to get through them, the body in the freezer, the multiple attempts to murder me, the other body trapped in a car in a pool of rainwater, and my growing uncertainty about almost everything are too much to cope with. Still, I am an actuary, I remind myself, I am used to logic and predictability; in a word, to reason. But the thought is instantly followed by another, that I am an actuary with tyre marks on his back and a death sentence hanging over his head. And I know it was Lizard Man who sent AK to find me.
And though AK is currently revving his BMW along cycle paths in a higher plain of existence, Lizard Man’s orders have yet to be carried out. I know he is close at hand. He’s probably watching me right now. And for the moment at least I can’t think what to do about him. I remember the big man’s words all too welclass="underline" The stronger man will survive. Right this minute I don’t feel very strong.
But there is one thing that gives me strength. And hope.
Laura.
Maybe I’ve been misinterpreting her these last few days. Perhaps she just wants to concentrate on her work because, like me, she wants to do her paintings as well as possible, to give them everything she’s got. If I’m trying to resolve an especially complicated conditional probability equation, I don’t have time for minute-long French kisses either. Afterwards, by all means, as long as the person in question is appropriate and we have reached some form of consensus on the matter.
I can still feel our shared night on my skin. When the memory creeps up on me, the images in my mind are astonishingly physical. And I can’t understand the logic of my thought processes in that the less I see of Laura, the more I think of her. It doesn’t make sense. At the same time, I hear her saying all those things about me that nobody has ever said before. The phenomenon of remembering our conversations verbatim is not new to me. But now I don’t find myself listening to our conversations and rewinding them merely to check particular facts, but to hear everything else that is there besides the words: the softness, the gentleness and something that tells me she sees me just the way I am and that she likes what she sees.
Maybe Laura really is just busy. She has a few walls and a daughter to take care of. All the same, my mind is filled with images of us waking up in the same IKEA bed, buying a shared apartment with a reasonable price tag per square metre and a sensible price-quality-location ratio, jetting off on a last-minute holiday somewhere where the sun burns down on bare rocks and the sea is a cobalt blue, walking hand in hand through the crisp autumn morning from the bus stop to the adventure park.
At the same time, I am reminded of the morning’s events.
Schopenhauer appeared in the kitchen and stirred me in a manner I was not expecting.
He stretched the way he has stretched for years: pushed his back legs out as far as he could, arched his back, lowered himself into a forward stretch, then straightened up again and shook his legs. Then he started up a morning conversation the way he always has. And I realised that, just like his namesake, he has remained the same while I am the one who has changed. All I had to do was recall recent events, and I could see quite clearly that I have been behaving in ways in which I have never behaved before, felt things I have never felt before. My life had changed, and I quickly realised it had changed for good. Maybe. Schopenhauer, meanwhile, was still following his old script. I didn’t bring the matter up. I stroked him and said I understood him. At the same time I wondered whether perhaps it is our very routines that reveal how much everything has changed.
I adjust my position in my chair, look at the time and make up my mind. I will speak to Laura today.
Perhaps these feelings are reciprocal after all. Amid all the uncertainty and confusion, it is good to have something bright and clear to focus on, like an exact calculation achieved through diligent, concentrated work.
I think of a ship without an anchor, then one with an anchor, and ask myself: when a storm whips up, which is better?
I switch on my computer and resolve to examine the room with fresh eyes later, when I notice movement in the corridor. Samppa is standing at my office door.