There were forests on both sides of the highway. He got the impression that the whole country was covered, from one end to the other, by a rich green. Most of the trees were white birch, with occasional pines, spruce, and maples. The pines were red pines with tall, straight trunks, while the branches of the white birch trees drooped way down. Neither was a variety found in Japan. In between was a sprinkling of broadleaf trees. Huge-winged birds slowly circled on the wind, searching for prey. The occasional farmhouse roof popped into view. Each farm was vast, with cattle grazing behind fences ringing gentle slopes. The grass had been cut and rolled into large round bundles by a machine.
It was just before noon when he arrived in H?meenlinna. Tsukuru parked his car in a parking lot and strolled for fifteen minutes around the town, then went into a café facing the main square and had coffee and a croissant. The croissant was overly sweet, but the coffee was strong and delicious. The sky in H?meenlinna was the same as in Helsinki, veiled behind a thin layer of clouds, the sun a blurred orange silhouette halfway up the sky. The wind blowing through the town square was a bit chilly, and he tugged on a thin sweater over his polo shirt.
There were hardly any tourists in H?meenlinna, just people in ordinary clothes, carrying shopping bags, walking down the road. Even on the main street most of the stores carried food and sundries, the kind of stores that catered to locals or people who lived in summer cottages. On the other side of the square was a large church, a squat structure with a round, green roof. Like waves on the shore, a flock of black birds busily fluttered to and from the church roof. White seagulls, their eyes not missing a thing, strolled along the cobblestones of the square.
Near the square was a line of carts selling vegetables and fruit, and Tsukuru bought a bag of cherries and sat on a bench and ate them. As he was eating, two young girls, around ten or eleven, came by and stared at him from a distance. There probably weren’t many Asians who visited this town. One of the girls was tall and lanky, with pale white skin, the other tanned and freckled. Both wore their hair in braids. Tsukuru smiled at them.
Like the cautious seagulls, the girls warily edged closer.
“Are you Chinese?” the tall girl asked in English.
“I’m Japanese,” Tsukuru replied. “It’s nearby, but different.”
The girls didn’t look like they understood.
“Are you two Russians?” Tsukuru asked.
They shook their heads emphatically.
“We’re Finnish,” the freckled girl said with a serious expression.
“It’s the same thing,” Tsukuru said. “It’s nearby, but different.”
The two girls nodded.
“What are you doing here?” the freckled one asked, sounding like she was trying out the English sentence structure. She was probably studying English in school and wanted to try it out on a foreigner.
“I came to see a friend,” Tsukuru said.
“How many hours does it take to get here from Japan?” the tall girl asked.
“By plane, about eleven hours,” Tsukuru said. “During that time I ate two meals and watched one movie.”
“What movie?”
“Die Hard 12.”
This seemed to satisfy them. Hand in hand, they skipped off down the square, skirts fluttering, like little tumbleweeds blown by the wind, leaving no reflections or witticisms about life behind. Tsukuru, relieved, went back to eating his cherries.
It was one thirty when he arrived at the Haatainens’ summer cottage. Finding it wasn’t as simple as Olga had predicted. The path leading to the cottage could barely be called a road. If a kind old man hadn’t passed by, Tsukuru might have wandered forever.