The Healer by Antti Tuomainen

Author:Antti Tuomainen [Tuomainen, Antti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Speculative Fiction,
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9555-5
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2013-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

15

The mouse-gray, drizzly day was half over when I stepped off a tram full of damp clothes, violent coughs, and worried looks at the stop in front of Stockmann department store. Downtown Helsinki was doing its best to remind us that tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Here and there a lone string of Christmas lights twinkled desperately, looking in their feeble glimmer like they missed not just their finer days but also their lost comrades.

A few drops of rain fell on my face, all the colder for their paucity. I wiped them away, slipped into the flow of people, and didn’t notice until I was halfway across the street that I was walking into the middle of traffic. I heard a choir singing “Silent Night” from somewhere up ahead.

There was a large decorated spruce tree at Three Smiths Square. Its red and yellow lights glowed in the drizzle like thousands of little traffic signals escaped from their poles. Next to the tree an armored police car was parked. There were a lot of police on foot, too, as well as private security guards. The security guards walked in pairs wearing black or gray coveralls, a few of them crossing in front of traffic, and as many on the sidewalks as there were Christmas shoppers. I counted six security guards under the clock in front of the entrance to Stockmann. And there were more inside the store, of course, in plain clothes.

Charities collecting donations lined the square. Everybody could use some cash. The recipients were mostly people in Finland and nearby countries: schools, hospitals, children’s services. The Salvation Army’s traditional kettle stood in the middle of the square. A Salvation Army choir stood around it—four women and three men singing “Silent Night.”

I dug a bill out of my pocket and dropped it in the kettle. I thought about how I was eating up our savings—the money I’d spent over the past day and a half was more than I’d spent in the previous six months put together. The savings were supposed to be for emergencies. If Johanna’s disappearance wasn’t an emergency, then what would be? I dropped another few coins into the pot and continued east on Aleksanterinkatu.

I passed windows that promised discounts of up to 95 percent. The jewelry stores were advertising brand-name watches at prices that would have caused a stampede a year earlier, but now the gold and platinum timepieces sat in their glass cases measuring a time that no longer existed.

The fast food places had all closed. The shoe stores and clothing stores were toughing it out with the help of Christmas shoppers. The tavern on the corner of Mikonkatu and Aleksanterinkatu had a sign advertising cheap beer and lunch, with lunch crossed out.

I turned left on Mikonkatu, continued right on Yliopistonkatu, and found myself in the middle of a fight.

The large, broad-shouldered, bald man who looked like a native Finn was wearing a short leather jacket. He seemed an overwhelming opponent for the other man, a slim young Asian in a hooded sweatshirt who was little more than a boy.

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