Lucifer's Tears (8 page)

A gift box of Fazer chocolates and a bowl of chestnuts with a nutcracker sitting in it, left over from the holidays, rest on the coffee table. I take a nut from the bowl but leave the nutcracker, give it a one-handed squeeze and break it open. He winces. I’m not sure why I intimidated him. I munch the nut, place the shells in a neat pile on the table.

He’s left speechless for a moment, then says, “Well done.”

I made him feel like an effeminate fop and a fraud. I feel awful and find myself apologizing twice in the same day. A rarity for me. “Shit,” I say, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. You didn’t deserve it.”

He nods acknowledgment of my regret.

“The truth is you’re right,” I say. “I feel terrible guilt because I’m afraid I traumatized my wife to the point that it caused her miscarriage, and I’m terrified that she’ll lose this child, too. I’m scared that she’ll die.”

“Kate is medicated for the hypertension associated with preeclampsia, the odds of her losing the child are slim. Your child is safe inside her.”

“The odds aren’t slim enough. The statistics don’t make me less petrified.”

He leans forward and locks eyes with me. For the first time I view him as someone trying to help me instead of as an adversary. “Kari,” he says, “I think we’ve made a breakthrough. Our first one. What do you say we start again, and now really begin your treatment.”

I nod.

“How are your headaches?” he asks.

“Bad. A migraine is killing me right now. It hasn’t stopped for weeks.”

“Describe the symptoms.”

“They vary. Sometimes my temples pulse and throb. Sometimes it feels like I’m being stabbed deep in the head with a hot knife and an artery is about to explode. Most often though, I feel like my head is being squeezed, like a weight is on me, pushing me to the ground.”

“This feeling of being stabbed deep in the head is medically impossible, because there are no nerves in that area. If you were about to have an aneurysm, you would never know it.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“It’s possible that your migraines are caused by the gunshot wound to your head or another physical problem, but I would like you to consider the possibility that they’re psychosomatic, and that what you’re really experiencing are sublimated panic attacks generated by guilt over your wife’s miscarriage, and consequently, current fear for your wife and unborn child. That might be why the nearer she comes to term, the worse the headaches get.”

“My headaches are panic attacks that last for weeks?”

“Possibly. Still, I think you should have tests run to rule out physical problems.”

“I already promised Kate I would.”

“Good. Our time is up, and anyway, I think we should call it a day now.”

“Me too.”

For the first time since our initial meeting, we shake hands.

Kate will have picked up her brother and sister from the airport by now. I agreed to meet them at five thirty, at a bar in our neighborhood, for a drink before dinner. I’m running late.

I find a parking space on Vaasankatu and walk into Hilpea Hauki-The Happy Pike-a little bar Kate and I enjoy and consider our local. Most of its sales are from imported designer beers. Its prices are higher than most of the other bars in the neighborhood, but because of it, Hilpea Hauki has a better clientele, a low-key and less than roaring drunk atmosphere. Kate also likes it because the bartenders are a well-educated bunch, and she can speak English with them. It’s a nice place for us to get out of the house and chat.

Kate, John and Mary are sitting at a corner table. The family resemblance is apparent. All three are tall, thin and rangy, have pale complexions and cinnamon-red hair-Kate’s in a chignon, Mary’s long and pulled back into a ponytail, John’s shoulder-length and also pulled back. Mary is twenty-four but looks older, except for young, dancing eyes. John is twenty-three, but looks younger, except for old, unwavering eyes.

I lean over, give Kate a peck on the lips and introduce myself to the others. John stands, shakes my hand and grins. He’s got a rebel style with a pricey slant to it. He wears a leather jacket, jeans and cowboy boots, but the leather jacket is soft, expensive and Italian, the jeans Diesels, the boots Sedona West full-quill ostrich. Fancy garb for an academic. I take it he pictures himself a ladies’ man. He’s a little unsteady, appears to have had a few drinks on the plane. Mary shoots John a disapproving glance because of his wobbling, but her smile toward me is warm. She stands, too, leans across the table and hugs me.

Mary is more understated than her brother. She has on a long, dark dress and no makeup, but her excited smile says she’s thrilled to be here. Her plain wool coat hangs on a wall hook beside a Ralph Lauren overcoat, which I assume is John’s. “So you’re the man who stole my sister’s heart,” Mary says.

She seems pleasant. Maybe my misgivings about having them here for an extended stay were misplaced. “I think it was the other way around,” I say.

Kate has her hands folded on her pregnant belly. Her chair can’t quite fit at the table because of it. She’s resplendent in a green dinner dress. She worked hard at finding clothes she likes while she’s pregnant. She smiles. “No, it wasn’t.”

They must have just arrived, they don’t have drinks in front of them yet. “What can I get everyone?” I ask.

“A Jaffa for me,” Kate says.

“What’s that?” Mary asks.

“Orange soda,” I say. “It’s Finland’s most popular soft drink.”

“I’ll try one,” she says.

I hang my coat up beside Mary’s. “And for you, John?”

“What are you having?” he asks me.

“A lager and a Koskenkorva, Finnish vodka affectionately known to most of us as kossu.”

“I’ll have the same,” he says.

Now Mary’s disapproving look is for me. “You order two portions of alcohol at the same time?”

“It’s a Finnish habit, particularly of middle-aged rednecks like me. Why?”

“I don’t agree with the use of alcohol in general.”

What I drink isn’t her business. I shrug and smile. “Mary, you may have come to the wrong country.”

Her half smile at my half joke is only a politeness.

I make two trips to the bar and bring our drinks. I ask how their trip went. We chat about Kate’s pregnancy. We make the small talk of strangers.

Mary sips Jaffa. “This is good. And Kate, you look ravishing. Motherhood agrees with you.”

“The baby is kicking now,” Kate says.

“Can I feel it?”

Kate nods. Mary lays a hand on her belly. Mary smiles, and tears come to her eyes. “I adore children,” she says. “You and Kari are truly blessed.”

I’m sipping my kossu, but John knocks his back in one gulp. He’s also chugging his beer. “This place is a tad on the drab side,” he says.

It’s not extravagant by any means, but simple and pleasant, furnished with dark wood. The beer taps and bar fixtures are polished brass. “Why do you say that?” I ask.

“There isn’t even any music.”

“The customers here prefer it that way,” I say. “We can hold conversations without shouting.”

He knocks off the rest of his pint of beer. “Whatever. The vodka is good. Let’s have another round.”

Kate and I exchange a fleeting look. “I’ll get it,” I say.

“I’ll go with you,” Kate says. “I haven’t said hi to Mike yet.”

I offer Kate my hand to help her up, and we go to the bar together. She’s graceful, having learned to move in a way that makes her limp almost invisible, but pregnancy has changed her balance, and she lurches a bit when she walks.

The bartender, Mike Davis, has a Finnish mother and a British father. He grew up in the U.K., but has lived here since his late teens. He’s a big, outgoing guy in his mid-twenties. He’s heavily tattooed, is taller than me and runs a little better than two hundred pounds. Despite his good nature, he doesn’t look like the kind of guy you want to fuck with. “Hi, guys,” he says. “How are things?”

“Pretty good,” I say. “Long day at the office.”

An older man has had too much to drink. Mike shuts him off. The man yells, “Mina olen asiakas, mina olen asiakas” -“I’m a customer, I’m a customer”-the standard bitch of drunks when refused service. Mike pretends he’s not there, the standard Finnishbartender method of dealing with such situations.

“Yeah,” Mike says, “I’m having a long day at the office, too. And you, Kate?” Mike asks. “You feeling well?”

“Things are great, couldn’t be better,” she says. “My brother and sister just arrived from the States. That’s them sitting at the table with us.”

“I’ll make sure to take good care of them,” he says.

Mike gets John’s beer and kossu. The drunk leans on the bar and sulks.

Kate and I sit back down. The bar is about half full, the murmur of conversation low. The drunk screams, “Vittu saatana perkele jumalauta!” The anthem of angry Finns announcing aggressive intentions. Kate’s eyes open wide. She’s been in Finland long enough to understand the gravity of the situation. Conversation ceases. Everyone stares. Mike puts his hands on the bar, raises up to his full height but keeps his face expressionless.

“What did he yell?” John asks.

“It’s untranslatable,” I say, “but something like ‘Cunt devil devil goddamn.’”

John laughs. Mary winces.

The drunk yells some more. Mike’s answer is calm. Around the bar, jaws drop. The drunk realizes he’s gone too far, turns and walks out the door without another word.

The exchange was beyond Kate’s Finnish language abilities, even though they’ve improved over time. “What was that about?” she asks.

I explain in such a way that Mary and John can understand as well. “Mike’s mother tongue is English, so like yours, his accent is soft when he speaks Finnish. When Russians speak Finnish they also have a soft accent. Most Finns have never heard a person with English as a mother tongue speak Finnish, so the drunk made a natural assumption and called Mike a goddamned fucking Russian. A bad mistake. Mike, not a Russian and displeased to be called one, got pissed off and said, ‘Yeah, I’m a goddamned fucking Russian, and I hope my grandfather killed your grandfather during the Winter War.’ That’s the point when the drunk knew he was in serious trouble and left while he could.”

“Isn’t Finland somehow related to Russia?” Mary asks.

Now I wince. “No, it’s not.”

John sighs, drinks his second kossu in one go. “Mary, Finland is neither part of Russia, nor is it part of Scandinavia proper. It’s classified as a Nordic country and is an entity of its own.”

“I take it Finns don’t care for Russians,” Mary says.

“No,” I say, “in general, we don’t.”

“Why?”

Kate has told me John is a Ph. D. candidate in history and a graduate teaching assistant. An educated man. He explains. “Finland was a long-standing Swedish possession, but twice during the eighteenth century, Russia invaded. Thousands of Finns were killed or forced into slavery. In 1809, Sweden ceded Finland to the Russian Empire. In 1899, the czar embarked on a policy called the Russification of Finland. Russian was made the official language, Finnish legislative bodies were rendered powerless, its army was incorporated into Russia’s. The czar tried to destroy their culture and Finland resisted.”

John’s knowledge surprises me. It speaks to me that, historian or not, he spent the time to acquire it.

I take up the story. “We declared independence in 1917, but had a civil war the following year-Bolshevik Reds backed by Socialist Russia versus anti-Socialist Whites, as they were called, backed by Imperialist Germany. Like your own American Civil War, it was sometimes brother against brother. The Whites won, but the result was tens of thousands dead, poverty and starvation.”

“You sound passionate about it,” John says.

“You would be surprised, even after nearly a century, what strong emotions the Civil War still dredges up in us.”

“What was the Winter War?” Mary asks.

“Kari,” John asks, “would you allow me to pontificate?”

“Be my guest.”

“During the Second World War, Finland fought three separate wars,” he says. “In the Winter War, Finland fought alone and it kicked Russian ass, but in fact lost, because it ceded territory in the peace agreement. The Soviets invaded Finland on November 30, 1939. The Soviets had thousands of tanks, Finland had thirty-two. The USSR attacked with upwards of a million men. Finns slaughtered them, killed five Russians for every Finn and beat them back. Finland signed a peace treaty with the USSR in March, but was at war with them again in 1941.”

“I’m impressed,” I say.

He continues. “Finland sided with Germany against the Soviet Union in what is known as the Continuation War. The Finnish hope was that the German invasion of Russia would allow Finland to regain lost areas and to annex some Soviet territory in the realignment after the Germans beat them. When it became clear that Germany would lose, Finland signed another armistice with Moscow. Finland ceded more territory and agreed to drive German troops out of their country. The consequence was the Lapland War.” He asks, “Kari, have I gotten it right?”

I finish my kossu and chase it with beer. “In every detail. The German scorched-earth policy as they withdrew resulted in the burning down of Kittila, my hometown, among many others. Again we starved, did without even the most basic necessities. If you can imagine, in this snowy country, citizens wore shoes made out of paper. After the end of the Second World War, even though they had invaded us, among other humiliations, we were forced to pay war reparations to Russia. On a visceral level, we’re still pissed off about it.”

I didn’t realize the people at the table across from us were listening to us. A woman recites a common Finnish sentiment. “Ryssa on aina ryssa, vaikka voissa paistaisi.” A Russian is always a Russian, even if you fry him in butter.

Kate looks at her watch. “We should leave for the restaurant soon.”