He wolfs pasta. “Yes, I have.”
“Fancy silencer on that pistol,” I say. “Where did you get it?”
“I bought it yesterday. No law against it. Should we order dessert?”
I smile and shake my head. “Sorry, there’s no time. You have to go to jail soon.”
He nods agreement.
“All this ‘boy’ and ‘son’ and ‘call me Ukki’ stuff. You’ve been playing me all along, haven’t you, preparing for this moment?”
He leans forward and folds his hands on the table in front of him. “Boy, I said you were naive beyond words. Not this specific moment-I didn’t know for certain that I would kill this Russian bastard beside me until yesterday- but yes, I planned all along to use you to keep me from being extradited to Germany after Ritva was gone. But it wasn’t all a lie. You really are a good boy, and in truth, I’ve come to feel affection for you. And I did save your ass, didn’t I? It’s not as if I’m not grateful for all you’ve done for me.”
“And everything you told me about the Civil War and the Second World War and about my grandpa. Was it all one big lie?”
“No, I told you the truth about Toivo and myself at Stalag 309. About the rest of it? Well, let’s say the exact truth about this country’s history is going to die with me. I believe it’s for the good of the nation.”
Maybe he’s right about that. My cell phone rings. It’s Kate. “Kari,” she says, “I’m in labor. Could you come home and take me to the hospital?”
My heart thumps in my chest from both fear and joy. “Are you sure? You’re not due for nine days.”
She laughs, lighthearted. “The baby disagrees. My water broke.”
“I can be there in half an hour. Is that too long?”
The panic in my voice makes her chuckle. “It’s fine, dear. I’ll see you soon.” She hangs up.
“I’m sorry, I’ve got a baby on the way, and I have to take my wife to the hospital. That means you have to go to jail now.”
He reaches over and pats my arm. “Congratulations, son. And please do call me Ukki. I like it. If you were really my grandson, I would be proud.” He takes his pistol out of his coat pocket and lays it on the table between us. “You better take that.”
I put it in my own pocket and call for a cruiser.
46
I drive home as fast as road conditions will allow, pull up in front of our door, call Kate and tell her I’m here. She says I don’t need to come upstairs and get her. John and Mary will bring her down. For once, I’m glad for their presence. Kate didn’t have to be alone while she waited for me.
They pile into the Saab, and we set out for the hospital together. Kate is calm and smiling. I’m a nervous wreck. The car skitters and shimmies. I picture having an accident, and Kate giving birth in a freezing car by the side of the road.
But we arrive at Katiloopisto hospital without incident. I help Kate inside. We get her checked in. John carries Kate’s hospital travel bag. Kate packed it weeks ago, just in case. It has everything she thought she might possibly need to make herself comfortable. Massage aids: tennis balls, a rolling pin, frozen juice cans. Comfort aids: a heat pillow, aromatherapy, socks for cold feet. Clothes and toiletries for after the baby is born. She brought extra, in case there are complications because of her preeclampsia and her stay is longer than the normal two days.
We opted to not bring a camera. Kate said our memories would suffice. She would prefer to maintain a bit of decorum and not have her sweating and grunting recorded for all time to come. I offered to attend childbirth classes with her and be her coach, but she declined. She said she couldn’t picture me huffing and puffing along with her, and holding her hand would be enough.
An orderly and I situate her in a bed in a private room in the maternity ward. John and Mary don’t try to intrude, and they go to the waiting room, for which I’m grateful. I sit in a chair beside Kate’s bed and try to maintain an air of composure I don’t feel. Over the next few hours, Kate’s contractions come harder and faster. At first, they had come about once every fifteen or twenty minutes and lasted for about thirty seconds, and they’ve gradually accelerated to every three or four minutes and last sixty seconds. Kate doesn’t complain, seems to take it in stride, says she doesn’t even need the comfort aids she brought with her. I ask her occasionally if the pain is bearable, and she answers that it isn’t that bad at all.
To take her mind off her contractions, I do something uncharacteristic and tell her stories. I begin with the cases I’ve been working and tell her in exquisite detail about the Filippov affair and how it ended with Arvid shooting Filippov to death in a restaurant she manages. I pause the tale when the midwife comes in to check on her, then tell Kate about how Arvid helped Ritva die, and then he managed to save me and himself, and punish the guilty. Strange childbirth talk, but the tale is so morbid and bizarre that it holds her rapt attention. I leave out the possibility of heading up a black-ops unit for the moment.
A day ago, Kate wanted to hear stories about my childhood, so I tell her some, but pleasant ones. About how, when I was a kid, Dad and his friends would get together, drink and sing waltz and tango songs accompanied by an accordion. I tell her about how we went to a dog show once. My brother Timo looked around and said, “It’s been raining cats and dogs,” even though the ground was bone-dry. “Look,” Timo said, “there are poodles everywhere.” Kate hee-haws despite a tough contraction.
The doctor comes in to check on Kate occasionally, and finally says it’s time to get down to business. The baby’s head is crowning. He tells Kate to start pushing. She says she wants this over soon and pushes like hell. It works. After only about an hour, our child, a girl, is out and into this world. The doctor gives her a slap. She sucks air and squeals, and he cuts the umbilical cord. Kate flops back against her pillows, exhausted. From her first contraction at home until now, her labor lasted sixteen hours.
A nurse takes our baby, who resembles a bullet-headed frog covered in blood and viscous ooze, wipes some of the mess away, wraps her in a blanket and hands her to me. I’m nervous at first, afraid I’ll make a mistake, hold her too tight, drop her. Irrational fears. But they fade within seconds, and I realize that I love this little bullet- headed frog as much as anything in the world.
The doctor tells me that Kate’s delivery was one of the easiest he’s ever seen. No complications, no vaginal tearing, no nothing. Kate didn’t even require an episiotomy. Kate begins contractions again, and within a few minutes expels the placenta and the umbilical cord. And it’s over. All my fears came to nothing.
I hand the baby to Kate, and she asks me to get John and Mary. I bring them into the room. We exchange hugs and share joy. For the first time since they arrived, I feel that they truly are part of my family, and it gratifies me.
John and Mary go back to the waiting room to give Kate, me and our bullet-headed-frog privacy. Kate and I sit in the silence for a while, bask in our moment. After about half an hour, Kate tells me she’s tired and wants to sleep. She wants me to sleep, too. I don’t want to leave, but know it’s for the best.
I talk to John and Mary. John wants to come home with me. Mary says she’s slept while waiting, and she’ll stay in case Kate needs something. Mary tells me not to worry, if anything happens, she’ll call me straightaway. For a woman who doesn’t like me, she’s working hard to be my friend.
47
We get back to my place. John crashes on the couch. I go to bed, and for the first time in I don’t remember how long, I have no headache and feel no anxiety, and sleep the sleep of the dead.
I wake up in the middle of the afternoon and check my cell phone. I kept it on silent while I slept. I have seventy-two missed calls. Press, police and God knows who else are trying to contact me to find out how it came about that in my presence, in the restaurant of the city’s finest hotel, a ninety-year-old Winter War hero put a bullet in the brain of a Russian businessman whose wife had recently been murdered.
I go back to the hospital to be with Kate, but she’s sound asleep. I hold our baby, enjoy the quiet and sit next
