The Fire Witness

191

As Joona walks down the hospital corridor, it seems as if everything is sinking. His steps are heavy and the distant murmur of voices and televisions seems to get slower and slower.

He opens the door to Summa’s room and walks in.

A thin woman is in the bed, her back to the door.

A light cotton curtain is drawn across the window. Her thin arms lie on top of the covers. Her hair is sweaty and dull.

He doesn’t know if she’s sleeping or not. He must see her face. He walks up to her. The room is completely silent.

The woman who had been Summa Linna in another life is extremely tired. Her daughter sat up with her most of the night. Now Lumi is sleeping next door in the room reserved for relatives.

Summa can see the weak light of dawn filtering through the curtain. She’s thinking that human beings are helplessly alone. She has a few good memories, which she tries to bring to mind when she feels most alone and frightened. When they put her under for the operation, she’d remembered the light, light summer nights of her childhood; the first hours after her daughter was born and her baby fingers wrapped around her own; the wedding that summer day when she wore the bridal crown her mother had woven from birch root.

Summa swallows, fully aware of the life in her body. She is breathing and her heart is beating. She is so afraid of leaving Lumi all on her own.

The stitches from her operation burn as she turns over. She closes her eyes, but then opens them again. Joona Linna is standing over her.

She blinks a few times. Her message has reached him.

He sits beside her on the bed and she reaches up to touch his face. She runs her hand through his thick blond hair.

“If I die, you must take care of Lumi,” she says.

“I promise.”

“You must see her before you leave again,” Summa says. “You must see her.”

He strokes her face and whispers she’s the most beautiful woman ever. She smiles at him. Then he leaves the room and Summa no longer feels so afraid.

The room for relatives is simply furnished. There’s a TV suspended from the ceiling and a pine table scarred with cigarette burns alongside a saggy corduroy sofa.

A fifteen-year-old girl is lying on the sofa, fast asleep. Her eyes are swollen from too much crying. One of her cheeks is creased from the pattern of the cushion. She wakes with a start. Someone has put a blanket over her. Her shoes have been taken off. They are lined up on the floor by the sofa.

Someone has been here. In her dream, she’d felt someone sit next to her and hold her hand.