Holy Ceremony by Harri Nykanen

Author:Harri Nykanen
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908524904
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
Published: 2017-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

15

I’d only recently started to understand the meaning of family in our lives. My brother Eli had been selling me on it for twenty years, but who listens to their older brother? At least not to an older brother whose marriage, despite a handsome facade that included a luxurious home in Helsinki’s poshest district, Eira, was a mass of complications. Eli had cheated on his wife Silja with his co-worker Max’s wife Ruth on the leather sofa of his office, and Silja had cheated to get back at him. The kids had survived, however; both of them were at the university. The old married couple had also accepted that their coexistence wasn’t perfect but better than the alternative.

I didn’t ask for much from life. A one-bedroom apartment, comfortable furniture, a good stereo, a few modern works painted by my artist cousin, and a four-figure sum in my bank account were enough for me. I had little in the way of material possessions, but no debt either. I enjoyed living in Punavuori, where I’d spent my entire life. My dad had been born there, too. Every old building, park, hill, and slab of shoreline granite brought back memories, if I chose to remember. My dad had owned a dilapidated fishing boat that smelled of mold and petrol and was kept down at the Kaivopuisto marina. In the spring, Dad would fix it up alongside the other men, moor it between the dock posts, and there it would stay right up until the autumn storms came and it was time to haul it out for winter. The boat had a butane stove we would cook on from time to time; Dad would even fry up any fish Eli and I managed to catch.

All I asked for was a good woman, and with that I was asking for everything. It had been two years since my previous dalliance, which with some goodwill one could have characterized as dating. Now and then I paid a visit to a nice Russian woman who lived a couple of blocks away and sponsored her teenage children’s education. That relationship cost me €150 a pop. It was a steal.

After one such visit, I had literally taken a good look at myself in the mirror. Was I so stuck in my pitiful bachelor ways that I couldn’t stand another person with their own ways at my side? I wanted to challenge my doubts. Someone else’s toothbrush in the bathroom or a roll of toilet paper hanging the wrong way didn’t bother me. What made me anxious was the thought that once we started living together, all of my comings and goings would be somehow subject to that other person’s will. If I wanted to go out for a beer after work, I would have to take into consideration that someone was expecting me at home, maybe even that that someone had cooked a dinner for me that would get cold if I didn’t show up on time.

Despite such restless ruminations, I was even more anxious about being alone.

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