The Winter War by Philip Teir Read Free Book Online Page A

Helsinki style: well-mannered, always willing to help, and so polite as to be slightly boring.
    Now Helen asked her father: ‘What’s this Amanda has been telling us? She says you’re going to be interviewed?’
    Max looked at Katriina. ‘That’s right. By a former student. Apparently she now works at the Helsingin Sanomat . Or maybe she said she’s a freelancer,’ replied Max, his eyes still fixed on Katriina, who nodded.
    â€˜That sounds risky.’
    â€˜Well, anyway. I guess she’s working as a journalist now. She said that she wanted to do a feature article about me. It’s not a big deal. And it might not even happen. But an article because I’m turning sixty.’
    Edvard ran from one person to the other, greeting each of them in turn. Then he lay down in front of the door to Eva’s old room to keep an eye on all of them.
    Katriina looked at Max. ‘Helen and I want to go into town, so you get to take care of Lukas and Amanda. Did Edvard pee?’ she asked.
    â€˜And took a dump,’ said Max.

four
    WHEN EVA WAS SEVEN YEARS old she’d almost drowned near the family’s summer cottage in Sideby. She’d learned to swim in the spring, and she’d gone out into the water without thinking that it was a whole different matter to swim in the sea, where there were rocks and high waves, than in the community heated swimming pool on Topeliusgatan. After swimming twenty metres she could no longer touch the bottom with her feet, and she panicked. The beach was on a small bay, and a strong wind was blowing in from the sea. It was cold (since it was still only June), and the waves were bigger than she’d thought. They came towards her like dark, threatening swells, and she suddenly felt that she’d lost all strength to fight back, that something was pulling her towards the bottom and she was about to go under. Her big sister Helen was somewhere up on the rocks, but Eva couldn’t turn around. And when she tried to yell, not a sound came out.
    But the strange thing was that the panicked feeling changed into something else. She thought: so this is how I’m going to die. The realisation wasn’t frightening but fascinating.
    And when she accepted that she was going to die, she suddenly felt completely calm. She looked up at the sky and let her body fall back. Her body had gone numb, so the water no longer felt as cold as before, and Eva thought that she could see millions of different colours. Was this how it felt to drown?
    The moment was shattered when Helen shouted that it was time to eat. Eva pretended not to hear, but then Helen, who was standing on the rocks, jumped in, and Eva noticed that her feet could touch the bottom after all.
    She never told anyone what happened – not that day, and not afterwards, either. Maybe she hadn’t been on the verge of drowning, but she’d definitely learned something: to die, to disappear entirely, was not something that she needed to fear.
    She thought that was the reason why she was rarely afraid of failing, of making the wrong choice, or of ending up in unexpected situations. And that had led her to make some drastic decisions. For instance, she’d broken off her engagement to Alexander after four years, just as they were starting to talk about having a baby. Eva had done what men had been doing all through history: she told him that she was going out for a while, and then she never went back.
    It was also Eva’s fearlessness that had driven her to move to London, more or less on a whim, with no real plans other than to study art for a year.
    Now she was lying in bed in her flat in Bethnal Green, pondering whether to drop the course and try to find a job instead. Her period was late, but she didn’t know why. She suspected that it was due to a general stressed-out feeling.
    It was the end of November and the course had been running for two months. The air was still warm enough to