Maybe “sweet dreams” was a phrase William used. It could have been something he’d said to Alice and Ritva and Hannele—because Hannele’s brave whistling stopped for a second, as if the pain of the shading needles on her left breast and that side of her rib cage had suddenly become unbearable. Jack guessed it was the “sweet dreams” that had hurt her, not the tattoo.
The boy was fighting sleep; involuntarily, his eyes would close and he would reach out his hand and feel Ritva’s soft sweater and the fingers of her warm hand closing around his smaller fingers.
Jack might have heard his mother say, “I don’t suppose you know where he’s gone.”
“He didn’t tell us,” Hannele may have answered, between whistles.
“He’s got you and Jack hounding him,” Jack distinctly heard Ritva tell his mom. “I guess that’s enough.”
“He said ‘hounding,’ did he?” Alice asked.
“I said it,” Ritva told her.
“We say it all the time,” Hannele said.
“Wouldn’t you agree that Jack is his responsibility?” Alice asked them.
They both agreed that Jack was his father’s responsibility, but this was one of those Helsinki conversations that the boy at best half heard in his sleep. Jack woke once and saw Ritva’s pretty face smiling down at him; from her expression, he knew she must have been imagining his dad in the unformed features of Jack’s face. (Even today, Jack occasionally saw that pretty face in his dreams—or when he was falling asleep.)
He never did get to see Ritva’s plump breasts—or learn if her armpits were unshaven, like Hannele’s. When he woke again, Hannele’s sleeping face was on the pillow beside him; she was wearing the cotton turtleneck but not the ski sweater. She must have fallen asleep while she was waiting for Alice to be finished with Ritva’s half-a-heart tattoo. Jack could hear the tattoo machine, but his mother blocked the boy’s view of Ritva’s breasts and armpits. Over his mom’s shoulder, Jack could see only Ritva’s face; her eyes were tightly closed and she was grimacing in pain.
Hannele’s sleeping face was very close to Jack’s. Her lips were parted; her breath, which had lost the fruity scent of her chewing gum, was faintly bad. Her hair gave off a sweet-and-sour smell—like hot chocolate when it’s stood around too long and turned bitter in the cup. Jack still wanted to kiss her. He inched his face nearer hers, holding his breath.
“Go to sleep, Jack,” his mom said. Her back was to him; he had no idea how she knew he was awake.
Hannele’s eyes opened wide; she stared at Jack. “You have eyelashes to die for,” she said. “Isn’t that what you say in English?” Hannele asked Alice. “ ‘To die for’?”
“Sometimes,” Alice said.
Ritva choked back a sob.
Under the covers, Hannele’s long fingers lifted Jack’s pajama top and tickled his stomach. (Even today, he sometimes felt those fingers in his dreams—or when he was falling asleep.)
The knock on the hotel-room door was abrupt and loud; it woke Jack from a dream. The room was dark. His mother, snoring beside him, hadn’t stirred. The boy recognized her snore. He knew it was her hand, not Hannele’s, on his hip.
“Someone’s at the door, Mom,” Jack whispered, but she didn’t hear him.
The knock came again, louder than before.
Occasionally the clientele at the American Bar got restless, waiting for Alice to return to the bar. Some drunk who wanted a tattoo would come to the room and pound on the door. Alice always sent the drunks away.
Jack sat up in bed and said in a shrill voice: “Too late for a tattoo!”
“I don’t want a tattoo!” a man’s angry voice shouted from the hall.
Jack had not seen his mother so startled since the night of the littlest soldier. She sat bolt-upright in bed and clutched Jack to her. “What do you want?” she cried.
“You want to know about The Music Man, don’t you?” the man’s voice answered. “Well, I tattooed him. I know all about him.”
“Sami Salo?” Alice asked.
“Let’s make a deal,” Salo said. “First you open the door.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Salo.”
Alice got out of bed and covered her nightgown with a robe. She took out her flash, her best work, and spread it over the bed. Jack, in his pajamas, lay adrift in the maritime world—a child on a bed of hearts and flowers, ships in full sail, and half-naked girls in grass skirts. The four-year-old lay amid snakes and anchors, among Sailor’s Graves and Roses of Jericho, and his mom’s version of Man’s Ruin. There was her Key to My Heart and her Naked Lady (from the back side) with Butterfly Wings—the latter emerging from a tulip.
The boy lay among her flash as if he’d just awakened from a tattoo dream. When Alice opened the door to Sami Salo, she stepped aside and let him walk past her into her world. He was a scratcher, as Alice had guessed; she knew he could never avert his eyes from her superior work.
“The deal is …” Salo started to say; then he stopped. He scarcely glanced at Jack—the flash had seized his attention completely.
Sami Salo was a haggard-looking older man with a gaunt, soul-searching expression; he wore a navy-blue watch cap pulled down over his ears and a peacoat of the same color. He was sweating from wearing his winter clothes on his walk up four flights of stairs, and his breathing was ragged. He didn’t speak; he simply stared at Alice’s best work.
Salo’s favorite might have been a toss-up between Alice’s Rose of Jericho and her Key to My Heart—the key held horizontally against the naked lady’s breasts, the keyhole you-know-where. (The tattoo was unique among Alice’s naked ladies in that the lady was not seen from the back side.)
To judge him by his defeated expression, Sami Salo was his own version of Man’s Ruin. “The deal is …” Alice prompted him.
Salo removed his watch cap as if he were about to bow his head in prayer. He unbuttoned his peacoat, too, but he just stood there. He wore a dirty-white sweater under the peacoat; the faded-gray fingers of a skeleton’s hand reached above the crew neck of the sweater, as if holding Salo by the throat. It was as bad an idea as any tattoo Alice had ever seen—or so Jack concluded from his mother’s expression. It was a blessing that the rest of the skeleton was covered by the sweater.
Jack and Alice didn’t see any of Sami Salo’s other tattoos—nor was Salo in a mood to converse.
“The deal is,” he began again, “I tell you about The Music Man and you leave town. I don’t care where you go.”
“I’m sorry your business is suffering,” Alice told him.
He accepted her apology with a nod. Jack was embarrassed for the poor man; the boy buried his head under the pillows. “I’m sorry if my wife spoke rudely to you at the restaurant,” Salo may have said. “She doesn’t much like having to work nights.”
His wife would have been the opinionated waitress at Salve, Jack guessed. With his head under the pillows, the four-year-old found that the adult world seemed a nicer place. Even Jack could tell that Mr. Salo was a lot older than his overworked wife, who looked young enough to be his daughter.
Their apologies stated, there was little more that Alice and Sami Salo needed to say to each other.
“Amsterdam,” the scratcher said. “When I inked a bit of Bach on his backside, he said he was going to Amsterdam.”
“Jack and I will leave Helsinki as soon as we can arrange our travel,” Alice told him.
“You’re a talented lady,” Jack heard Salo say; he sounded as if he was already in the hall.
“Thank you, Mr. Salo,” Alice replied, closing the door.
At least Amsterdam was a town on their itinerary. Jack couldn’t wait to see Tattoo Peter, and his one leg.