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 to her. Finally, I decide Kate may not wake for hours, and go back home to get something to eat. Mary continues to wait, in case Kate wakes and needs something.
I find John in the kitchen, a bottle of kossu in front of him. He’s not tanked, just drinking. “I guess you know I told Kate about myself and everything you did for me,” he says.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Are you pissed off at me?”
“No.”
“Can I give you a brotherly hug to congratulate you on the birth of your child?”
It makes me laugh. “If you have to.”
He stands and gives me a hard squeeze. “Want to have a drink with me?” he asks.