Kate and I arrive at Juttutupa a few minutes after nine. The restaurant is the perfect place for such a party. The building is known as “the granite castle” and looks out over a bay, El?intarhanlahti. Juttutupa began selling booze in 1898 and has performed a number of functions over the years, including a time as a gymnasium, but most of them political. Various factions had possession of it during its early years. The Red Guard used it during the Civil War. Now the restaurant is next door to the Social Democratic Party. Come to think of it, even the gym was political. It belonged to the Helsinki Workers’ Association.
We take a taxi, since we’ll be drinking, pick up Aino and so are late arrivals. After Anu was fed, I pumped Kate’s breast milk dry while she was sober. The politicos obviously started boozing a couple hours ago, or maybe haven’t stopped since Friday evening. They have that look about them. Milo and Mirjami, Sweetness and Jenna, excited as kids at Christmas, showed up at nine sharp. Tables have been pushed together. Jyri comes over and welcomes us all, tells us he has a tab open for the group and not to pay for anything, he won’t allow it. He introduces himself to each of the women, and I see his charm for the first time. Without showing even a hint of the wolfish slut that he is, and without effort, he makes each of the girls feel like the only woman on earth. The man has a true gift.
We men go to the bar and get kossu and beer. Sweetness orders four kossus, downs three of them at the bar, and brings one back to the table, for sipping purposes. We get caipiroskas for the girls. I don’t know if the drink is a Finnish invention or not. Kate had never had one before coming here. It’s half a lime and a couple teaspoons of sugar in a short glass, muddled, packed over the brim with crushed ice, snow-cone style, filled with vodka and mixed. The sugar makes the vodka go to the head quick, and they taste good as well, hence their popularity.
On the way back to the table, Milo stops me. “You’re a lucky man,” he says.
“How so?”
“Having two beautiful women.”
And a child was born in Bethlehem. He’s about to do what he enjoys most, and stretch a simple statement into a story of epic proportion. “As far as I know, I’m married to Kate and monogamous. Did brain surgery make me forget I’m a Mormon?”
“On the way over here, Mirjami told me she’s in love with you.”
“That’s just silly. She doesn’t even know me.”
He shrugs. “She wasn’t joking.”
I ignore this foolishness, take Kate’s drink to her, and sit beside her.
None of us had ever been in such company before. Prime Minister Paavo Jokitalo. Minister of Finance Risto Kouva. Minister of Foreign Affairs Daniel Solstrand. Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Sauli Sivola. The head of the Social Democratic Party, Hannu Nykyri. Member of European Parliament and the head of Real Finns, Topi Ruutio, and Minister of the Interior Osmo Ahtiainen. Most of them are accompanied by husbands or wives, girlfriends, mistresses. It’s a big do, decided upon last night, on Vappu, when they were drunk. They decided to continue today. Their country and their hangovers can wait.
The band is great. I eavesdrop on conversations held in loud voices that carry over the music.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe great people discussing weighty matters of state. It was the gossip of the smashed. So-and-so had a bad scrape job and now she’s sterile. So-and-so gave so-and-so snout. She’s a tampon—a stuck-up cunt.
Given my recent problem with teen-type hard-ons and sexual preoccupation, I thought having Kate, Aino, Mirjami and Jenna surrounding me might cause slavering and maybe even auto-ejaculation. The effect is the opposite. It’s a bit like eating at a gourmet buffet. All that sumptuous quiff in one place adjusts my perspective and has a calming effect. The others are young beauties, but I still think Kate the most gorgeous.
At a certain point, the prime minister stands and taps his glass with a spoon for quiet. When he has the attention of all, he says, “We have special guests with us tonight.” He asks Milo and me to stand. “These men are national heroes.”
He talks about me being shot twice in the line of duty, and recounts the story of how Milo and I, without backup, entered a school for dysfunctional children under attack by a maniac and ended the siege. Who knows how many young lives we saved?