It is a crisp, cool au­tumn af­ter­noon. I re­a­li­ze I have enough time af­ter the school day to drive to our count­ry cot­ta­ge, pick a pail of cur­rants and make them in­to jui­ce on the wood-bur­ning stove. What bet­ter way to un­wind af­ter a day in a noi­sy clas­s­room!

The sun is shi­ning. I can hear the rust­ling of as­pen le­a­ves be­hind the hou­se and the bar­king of dogs furt­her away in the vil­la­ge. I tho­rough­ly en­joy the lengt­he­ning sha­dows and the cool air, the crack­le of fire in the stove and the bub­b­ling of wa­ter in my jui­cer. I get eve­ryt­hing done quick­ly. I wash the jui­cer, pack the bot­t­les of jui­ce in a bas­ket, and head back to town. I feel re­la­xed and hap­py. To con­ti­nue in this hap­py mode, I plop down on the sofa and get car­ried away by the plot of a good de­tec­ti­ve story.

My sis­ter al­so gets car­ried away – though wit­hout a book. She does not know that my land­li­ne does not work. And I do not know it eit­her: I can use my phone nor­mal­ly to call ot­hers, but ot­her pe­op­le can­not get through to me. I usu­al­ly switch off my mo­bi­le for the night, be­cau­se I still have the land­li­ne. I want to sleep my nights in pe­a­ce. If so­me­o­ne has so­met­hing re­al­ly im­por­tant to say, they can call my land­li­ne.

Be­cau­se my sis­ter knows I went to the cot­ta­ge to make jui­ce, and be­cau­se she can­not get through to me all eve­ning, not even when the late eve­ning be­gins to turn in­to night, her ima­gi­na­ti­on be­gins to run wild. There are three pos­si­bi­li­ties, none of them good: I hit a moo­se on my way home, I fell in­to the well, or I was at­tac­ked by a gang of thugs who beat me up. At first her le­vel-he­a­ded hus­band is ab­le to calm her down, but af­ter mid­night he ag­rees with her that so­met­hing is wrong.

They call the A&E, then the po­li­ce. The po­li­ce say they will not drive in­to the count­ry in the dark­ness of the night, but they can go and peek in through the win­dows of my first-floor apart­ment. My sis­ter then has a brain­wa­ve: they could go and see if my car is out­si­de the buil­ding where I live. And sure enough, my ma­roon wreck of a car is there. My sis­ter cal­ls the po­li­ce to can­cel her re­qu­est.

In the small hours I wake up to ang­ry rin­ging of the door­bell. Right af­ter that I hear the front door click open. ¬I hear male voi­ces in the cor­ri­dor. There is a streak of light un­der my door. My first thought is that, sin­ce the door was ope­ned in the mid­d­le of the night wit­hout my per­mis­si­on, I must close it at on­ce. I quick­ly open the in­ner door of my apart­ment and slam the ou­ter door shut as fast as I can, not ca­ring whet­her or not the per­son fumb­ling with the sa­fe­ty chain have their fin­gers bet­ween the door and the frame.

So­me­o­ne in the cor­ri­dor gi­ves a clear com­mand:

– Open the door! This is po­li­ce!

But I am not to be foo­led so light­ly.

– How can I know for sure that you are the po­li­ce? I de­mand.

– You can use the peep­ho­le to check! he says, soun­ding a bit an­no­yed.

I do that and see the blue uni­form and the bad­ge. I open the door. There are two po­li­ce­men and be­hind them the ca­re­ta­ker, pro­bab­ly cross to have been cal­led to open the door at this hour.

– Yo­ur sis­ter …

I be­gin to tremb­le all over, there must have been an ac­ci­dent.

– ... is wor­ried be­cau­se you don’t ans­wer yo­ur phone. You should call yo­ur sis­ter at on­ce! the po­li­ce says, poin­ting at my half dead phone on the si­de­bo­ard.

Af­ter first re­fu­sing the in­ves­ti­ga­te the mat­ter, the po­li­ce have still been alar­med enough by my sis­ter’s phone call to come and check if I am all right.

When they are gone, I keep chuck­ling for a long time be­fo­re I fall as­leep. I al­so feel deep­ly touc­hed to think about the good care I seem to I en­joy. My sis­ter and her hus­band have sta­yed up half of the night, and the po­li­ce have come to check on me in my home.

Text: Tuu­la Stång

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.