The Healer by Antti Tuomainen

through the smallest opening and poisoned all my memories. I shook him forcefully from my mind and saw Johanna before me again.
    She raised her head and looked into my eyes from so close that it was difficult to clearly see the flecks of color in her irises, her hard, black pupils, or the expression behind their moist surface.
    â€œOn the one hand, we’ve got so much,” she said. “But at the same time, so much is already lost.”
    I took her hand. She answered with a gentle squeeze.
    â€œIf I understand you correctly, we’re not moving.”
    A dark shadow crossed her gaze quick as lightning, then vanished. She smiled.
    â€œLet’s not,” she said quietly.
    She heaved herself up, putting her hand on the pillow beside my ear and bending over to kiss me with warm, soft lips.
    â€œLet’s not,” she said again.
    *   *   *
    A PIT HAD APPEARED at the intersection of Urho Kekkosen katu and Fredrikinkatu. Some men were crowded around it, and an excavator stood with its shovel raised on one side of it. Trucks from the electricity and water departments were lined up in front of the pit facing Fredrikinkatu as if waiting to drive into it. Traffic was driving up over the curb to get around it.
    I stood on the corner, pulled my scarf tighter around my neck, zipped my parka all the way up, readjusted my stocking cap, and carefully pushed the cuffs of my gloves into the ends of my sleeves. When one of the workers from the water department, a red-faced man in winter coveralls, walked by me, I asked him what had happened. As you can see, he said, there’s been a cave-in. I couldn’t get any more information out of him, but then there was no reason I should.
    I walked around the intersection and looked first at Temppeliaukio Church, then at Malminkatu, Fredrikinkatu, Urho Kekkosen katu, and then at the church again. Now and then I looked at the pit in the middle of the intersection. Since there was nothing in any direction to see but the pit, and since the wind seemed to be growing teeth, I gave up and headed toward Töölö, to Ahti and Elina’s house.
    When is it time to admit that you don’t know someone as well as you thought you did a moment before?
    I tried to gather the facts in my mind as neutrally as I could, to filter truth from imagination. I tried to separate my worst fears from what I could see with my own eyes to be true. It wasn’t easy, but it was for the woman I love. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t remember Johanna ever mentioning anything about Tarkiainen or ever saying a word about the house in Kivinokka. But then I couldn’t think of a reason why she would, either. She had no reason to. Who could have predicted that Tarkiainen’s and Johanna’s paths would cross again?
    I crossed the bridge between Eteläisen and Pohjoisen Rautatiekatu and looked down. Cars driven under the bridge and abandoned there now formed a row of small dwellings. The narrow passage under the bridge had been growing into its own neighborhood for several years. I could see smoke and steam rising, and smell grilling meat, gasoline—and moonshine, of course. The shouts of children could be heard here and there, playing a game, or shouting for other reasons.
    I looked at my watch. It was almost ten. The minutes and hours seemed to pass more quickly as time went by. I reached Arkadiankatu, took out my telephone, and tried to call Johanna, with the same results as before. How many times would I try to call her? How many times would I listen to the toneless recorded voice of the woman telling me again and again what I knew only too well? I didn’t know. Maybe events had to be repeated until the repetition produced results, or until it was useless to try.
    A tram full of people coming from downtown rattled past a couple of meters from me. The passengers standing near the door had their coats pressed up against the windows. Countless people on