Lucifer's Tears

14

I stop at a fast-food place and intend to wolf down some lunch, think better of it and grab a coffee instead. While I sit and drink it, I get a text message from Jyri Ivalo: “I read the Filippov murder initial report. Charge Saar. Open and shut. Interview Arvid Lahtinen and report.”

I ignore the text and call Jari.

“Hello, little brother,” he says. “How are things?” I’m forty-one. Jari is four years older than me.

“They’ve been better. Can I see you?”

“You’ve been in Helsinki for the better part of a year. I wondered when you’d want to get together.”

“Actually, I’ve got a headache problem, and I need to see a neurologist.”

“Oh.” I hear disappointment in his voice.

I don’t know why I haven’t seen him. I guess being around him makes me think about our childhoods, something I try to avoid. “I’ve been meaning to call, it’s just… you know how things are. The new job. And I guess you heard Kate is pregnant. She’s expecting soon, and I’ve been spending every free moment with her.”

“I understand,” he says.

He doesn’t understand. “Tell me about your headaches,” he says.

“It’s not headaches. It’s one long headache. I’ve had problems for about a year, but this particular migraine has lasted about three weeks now.”

“Constantly?”

“Yeah, no breaks.”

“Your nerves must be shot.”

“They’ve been better.”

“You shouldn’t have waited so long to see me. Come to the polyclinic at Meilahti at nine a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.”

He rings off without further chat. I guess I really hurt his feelings.

I’ve debated how to approach Winter War hero Arvid Lahtinen. The polite and respectful way would be to call, introduce myself and arrange an interview. This strikes me as a possible mistake. Whether he’s a war criminal or not, I want Arvid to tell me the truth about Ukki, and I don’t want to give him time to prepare fabrications. He lives in Porvoo, a town on the Porvoo River that dates from the fourteenth century. In this weather, it’s about an hour’s drive from Helsinki.

It’s still minus ten degrees, but snowing a little harder now. The trip is pleasant, much of it through wooded areas. But my migraine gets worse. It’s like a wolverine thrashing around in my head. I try to ignore it.

The old section of Porvoo is mostly made up of wooden houses. In the late eighteenth century, when Finland was a province of Sweden, the houses of the lower classes were painted red, and those of higher classes yellow, to impress the visiting Swedish king. Many of those houses still stand, and by tradition remain painted those colors.

I find Arvid’s house. It’s red and sits on the river among a group of similar buildings that were once warehouses. He has an old-fashioned door knocker. I bang it against its metal plate. He opens the door. He’s ninety years old. I expected someone decrepit, but he’s far from it. He’s short and thin, his white hair thick. If I didn’t know his age, I would think him a vigorous man in his seventies. I’ve broken a personal rule of police work. Never anticipate, it clouds judgment.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

I introduce myself, show my police card and ask for a few minutes of his time. He ushers me in. I look around while I take off my boots. The downstairs is one large room. A settee and three armchairs surround a coffee table. Against the wall to the left of it, an antique bookcase with deep shelves and glass doors serves as a well-stocked liquor cabinet. To the right is a fireplace with a crackling blaze. Deeper into the room, a dark oak dining-room table seats eight. Behind it, a soapstone stove stands floor-to-ceiling. It breaks my view of the kitchen, but the part I see, a big stove and hanging pots and pans, tells me that the people who live here like to cook, and the smell wafting out confirms it.

Four cats lounge at various points around the room. The house carries the faint scent of cat piss. Somehow, it makes the place even more homey. I once had a cat, named Katt. He felt compelled to mark his territory on occasion, and my house smelled the same.

“Forgive me for coming unannounced,” I say.

He folds his arms and looks up at me. “I’ll consider forgiving you once you explain why you did it.”

His presence is commanding. It’s clear that he considers himself a man not to be fucked with. I start to make up a lie, but the headache roars, and I can’t speak for a moment.

“Well?” Arvid says.

I pull it together and half lie. “I was asked to speak to you about something and had other business in Porvoo. If I’m imposing, we can talk another time.”

“Asked by whom?”

I walk over to the fireplace and warm my hands. “Indirectly, by the interior minister.”

On the mantel above the fireplace, among mementos, war medals and photos, sits one of Ukki’s guns. I blink, think the headache has induced some kind of weird deja vu. It’s a little Sauer Model 1913, 7.65mm automatic pocket pistol. A low-power peashooter sometimes called a suicide gun.

I pick it up, turn it over in my hand. “Where did you get this?” I ask.

“Why? You want to see my license? I haven’t got one.”

“No, it’s not that.”

He cuts me off. “Put it back where you got it, or I’m going to take it away and shoot you with it.”

Our conversation is off to a bad start. My fault for touching his things. The headaches make me lose my manners and common sense. I lay it back on the mantel. “My grandpa had one just like it.”

“Boy,” he says, “you don’t look well.”

“Just a headache,” I say.

He softens. “My father carried that pistol in the Civil War, and I carried it when I was a Valpo detective during the Second World War. It’s the only belonging of his that I have left.” He pauses, I think deciding how to deal with me. “Let’s sit down,” he says.

We take easy chairs on opposite sides of the coffee table. He raises his voice. “Ritva, we have a guest. Make coffee.”

A voice calls back from upstairs. “Make it yourself!”

He laughs. “I’ll make it in a minute,” he says to me. “You were saying about the interior minister.”

He sits with his back straight, at a sort of relaxed attention. Ukki did that, too. Must be a generational thing. “This is a simple formality,” I say.

Matter-of-fact, I explain the accusations leveled against him and give him the background: about Tervomaa’s book, Valpo collaboration with Einsatzkommando Finnland in Stalag 309, about the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s request for investigation, about Germany’s request for extradition. “They want to charge you with accessory to murder,” I say.

I see anger well up in him. “Boy, who the fuck do you think you are to come here and talk to me like this? Accessory to murder my fucking ass. How many girls have you kissed?”

Off the top of my head, I don’t know. “What difference does it make?”

“Because if you take that number and multiply it by a hundred, that’s about the number of goddamned Communist Bolshevik Russian fucking bastards I’ve killed. And I wish I killed a hundred times more than that. You fucking pissant, you go back to the interior minister, that fucking cocksucker, and tell him to take his charges and accusations and stick them up his fucking ass.”

I realize I won’t get the opportunity to ask him about Ukki. Arvid leans forward in his chair and stares at me. I take in his starched white dress shirt, his tailored pants. Ukki dressed well every day, too. At home, I wear sweatpants and T-shirts. Arvid is a man with a great deal of pride. He has earned and demands respect.

The migraine thunders. My vision blurs.

“You look like shit,” he says.

“My head is killing me,” I say.

I stand and the world sways under me. I feel myself falling and realize I’m blacking out.

I start to regain consciousness. I’m fuzzy and confused. I look up at Arvid. “Ukki?”

Arvid slaps my face to focus me. I shake my head to clear it. He slaps me again. He packs a wallop for an old man. “You can stop now,” I say and sit up. “What happened?”

He hands me a glass. “Apparently, your headache made you pass out. Drink this.”

“What is it?”

“An opiated painkiller dissolved in water.”

I drink it down. “Thank you.”

He helps me to my feet and back into the armchair. He goes to his bookcase bar, comes back with a half balloon of cognac and hands it to me. “You need this,” he says.

I shake my head. “The painkiller was dope. I shouldn’t mix it with alcohol.”

“I’m ninety fucking years old. Don’t lecture me about health practices. Just drink it.”

I set it on the coffee table.

He sighs. To him, I’m a hopeless child. “You’re not going anywhere for a while. You’re going to stay here and eat lunch with us. When you feel better, you can leave.”

He’s ordering, not asking. I take a drink. The rush of opiates and booze is immediate. It helps.

A woman walks in from the kitchen. “I’m Ritva,” she says. “I suffer the misfortune of being Arvid’s wife. While you were passed out, I told him to stop being mean to you.”

She’s tiny and frail, maybe fifteen years younger than Arvid. Her face is kind, her long gray hair pulled back and rolled into a bun. Arvid’s smile exudes love for her.

“What happened to you?” Ritva asked.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I had a bad headache and passed out. It’s never happened before.”

“Finish your drink and come to the table. Some food will do you good.”

Ritva starts setting the table. Arvid and I sit in silence. He studies me. I drink the cognac. Dope and booze kill the headache, and its absence leaves me ravenous. Ritva calls us to eat. We take our places.

“It’s simple fare,” Ritva says.

“I’m grateful,” I say. “Thank you for having me.”

It’s some of my favorite food from childhood. Moose meatballs and brown gravy over boiled potatoes. Lingonberry jam to accompany the moose. Homemade perunapiirakka -little pies with potato filling-smoked whitefish, dark rye bread and piima -buttermilk-to drink.

We pass dishes around and start filling our plates. I look at Arvid. “I didn’t mean to offend you earlier.”

“I blamed the messenger,” he says. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I still have so much shrapnel in me that I set off airport metal detectors. No one has the right to question me about anything that happened during the war.”

We dig in. Everything tastes just the same way that my grandma made it. I tell Ritva this. She looks gratified. I need to know about Ukki, and I work up my courage. “The truth is,” I say, “I couldn’t care less about what the interior minister wants or doesn’t want. I was told you served in Stalag 309 with my grandpa, and I came here to find out if it’s true.”

I neglect to mention that said work in Stalag 309 implies Holocaust participation, and I want to know if Ukki was a war criminal.

Arvid is a hearty eater. He swallows and chases moose with buttermilk. He points at the whitefish. “You like the eyes?” he asks me.

“Yeah.”

“They’re the best part,” he says and scoops them out, one for him and one for me. We chomp them. They have an initial pop and crunch, then a little juice. I think he’s stalling, preparing his answer.

“Son,” he says, “I never served in Stalag 309. During the time that camp was open, I was stationed in Rovaniemi, not Salla. What was your grandpa’s name?”

“Toivo Kivipuro.”

“Sounds familiar, but I can’t picture him. It was almost seventy years ago, after all.”

“How do you think they made the mix-up?” I ask.

“Maybe a paperwork error. Valpo was a big organization, and a few men from the Rovaniemi station went to 309. Maybe there was another Valpo detective by the same name.”

I can’t put my finger on why, but I’m not quite believing him. “I’m sure they’ll figure out their mistake and this will come to nothing,” I say.

I’m lying. I think he’s banking on his hero status to pull through this, but it won’t go away. The German government won’t let it.

We finish our meals. “Want some ice cream?” Arvid asks. Aside from his ferocious temper, he reminds me so much of Ukki that it’s uncanny. Maybe Ukki had a temper, too, but I never saw it.

We have dessert and coffee, chat about nothing. I thank them and get up to go.

“Are you feeling well enough to drive?” Ritva asks.

I’m pain-free and well-fed. Relaxed. I haven’t felt this good in a long time. “I’ll be fine,” I say.

Arvid walks me to the door. He’s one of the few people I’ve met over the past year who have neither stared at nor inquired about the scar on my face. He’s sharp, seen a lot of scars like it and didn’t need to ask. He knows I got shot in the face. He offers his hand. We shake. I thank him for his hospitality. He says it was good to meet me. I have the feeling we’ll meet again.