Before bed, I asked Kate if she would mind if I invited Arvid to stay with us for a few days.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because he’s lonely, and I think the company would help him get past the death of his wife. They were together for fifty years. He’s suffering.”
“He’s got too much pride. You can’t say that to him.”
“I can say he can help me out with Anu and give you a little more freedom, and that would be true. Carrying Anu around while I walk on crutches is hard.”
“Is he really a mass murderer?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“He’s so sweet, and he’s wonderful with Anu, but he killed a man in cold blood, in a restaurant I manage. I suspect he’s a charming sociopath. And now he’s sleeping in our house. The situation is bizarre. I have … reservations about this.”
“He only kills Russians, not babies. Not even baby Russians,” I said.
The joke combined with the strange situation made her start to giggle. “A few days,” she said. “I don’t want a permanent houseguest.”
“Thanks,” I said.
She kissed me, and gave me my Valentine’s Day present.
9
The next morning, in front of Kate, I made a show of asking Arvid to stay with us for a few days. After a couple refusals for the sake of pretense, he reluctantly agreed.
Sweetness was to be my chauffeur for the day. First, a trip to NBI headquarters to fill out his job application, then to Arvid’s to pick up some clothes for him, and then to my physical therapy, which I loathed, because it hurt like hell.
We took Sweetness’s car, a 1998 Toyota Corolla with a hundred and twenty thousand miles on it. He was new to driving. Milo broke into the registry computers and created a license for him. Sweetness was so proud when he received it. Completing all the courses necessary for a license: normal weather daylight driving, winter driving, nighttime driving, et cetera, is a lengthy process and before all is said and done, costs some thousands of euros. Poor people can’t afford one. The car had been his father’s, but since he was doing a long stretch for double murder, he had no use for it.
He picked me up in front of my building. On crutches, on the ice, even making it from our steps to his car was difficult. We went straight, banged a left onto Helsinginkatu. We stopped at a red light by Vaasanaukio—Vaasa Square, often referred to as Piritori, Speed Square—because it’s an infamous hangout for the alkies and dopers in S?rn?inen, not far from our house, that haunt the area.
Finland’s number one killer is alcohol. According to statistics, despite our small population, we also have more heroin users than the rest of the Nordic countries put together. I don’t know if that’s true or if we’re just better at keeping statistics, at which we excel, than the other countries in the region. We also have problems with amphetamine and tranquilizer addiction. Plus, about a quarter of us use or have used anti-depressants. And studies show that depression remains severely undertreated. What is it about this place that causes so many of us to seek oblivion and be so miserable?
In the square, it’s quiet in winter because of the cold. Minus ten and a little windy that morning, but thriving in summer. Druggies and drunks hang out and sip beers, listen to boom boxes. Police often park their vans in the square and keep watch, but don’t often interfere with anything non-violent. A big S-market grocery store dominates one side of the square, a subway station the other, and a porn shop called Seksipiste—The Sex Point—sits off to one side. It’s been there for many years. I never see anyone go in or out of it. It must do the majority of its business via the Internet.