TWELVE DAYS AND COUNTING until they opened up my skull. I wasn’t afraid until then. I had only thought about the possibility of dying. The surgeon’s suggestion that I might be permanently damaged, either physically or mentally or both, turned into an invalid, scared the shit out of me. I tried not to think about it, stayed zonked on tranquilizers and painkillers. I spent a lot of time lying on the couch, listened to music, watched movies, read, kept Anu tucked under my arm. My thumb was her favorite toy.
Kate tried to be brave. She would have waited on me hand and foot if I let her. She made my favorite foods, came home one day with muikun m?ti—roe from whitefish the size of my finger, that carries a price tag commensurate with the arduous work of cleaning the eggs out of those tiny fish, and to my mind better than beluga caviar—and a bottle of good Russian vodka to go with it, reindeer inner fillet for the main course, and we had a homemade cake for dessert.
There can be no normality in a home if a family member is gravely ill, but we did the best we could, and we managed moments of happiness, shared laughter, comfortable silences. As difficult as it is to have a newborn, Anu eased our burden. She kept us busy, kept our spirits up. I thought she looked like Kate. Kate thought she looked like me. I hoped, despite our dysfunctional relationship, that my parents would come to see their grandchild. Mom called to congratulate us. Dad didn’t even come to the phone.
Kate was unable to make love because of recent childbirth, but she used an American expression I was unfamiliar with: “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” I didn’t ask what it meant, and remain uncertain of the relationship between the skinning of cats and oral sex, but I drifted off to sleep every night sated. Often, during the night, I heard Kate weeping. And at other times as well. When she was cooking, vacuuming, at moments she thought I couldn’t hear her.
A few days before my surgery, Kate came home with a gift for me. A kitten. She’d gotten him at the animal shelter. I don’t know what inspired Kate to give him to me. I had a cat once before, named Katt—Swedish for “cat”—and kept him for several years until I came home one day and found him dead. He tried to eat a rubber band and choked to death. I was truly fond of Katt, and his death hurt me. I named this kitten Katt as well, in memoriam.
He fell in love with me at first pet, wouldn’t leave me alone for a second. He followed me to the bathroom and scratched at the door until I came out. When I sat or lay on the bed or couch, he climbed up, sat on my shoulder, kneaded his claws in my skin, and purred, used my neck and the side of my head for a scratching post. I let him. I looked like I’d been attacked and mauled by a pack of small but vicious animals. Anu loved him, too. The feel of his fur, tugging on its tail and ears. Katt took it all in good stride.
In that time before my surgery, Kate showered me in love, affection and kindness. Fear lurked behind it all. She radiated it. I wished I knew a way to calm her, to offer her some kind of re-assurance and quell her dread, but I didn’t.
3
On the evening of Friday, February fifth, Milo, Sweetness and I committed our first heist. As the national chief of police, Jyri is able to collate a great deal of information from police around the nation, and he also has a cordial relationship with Osmo Ahtiainen, the minister of the interior. Among his other duties, Ahtiainen heads SUPO. Ahtiainen also has amicable and cooperative relationships with his counterparts in both Estonia and Sweden. Through his own position and relationship with Ahtiainen, Jyri has access to a mountain of information.
Jyri had fed me dossiers on the Finnish and Swedish Gypsies and information on the drug deal. They were to meet at the dog park set on top of the hill in the neighborhood of Torkkelinm?ki at seven p.m. It’s a good meeting place. A wide-open area, plenty of people around letting their dogs run and play together.