The Healer Read Online Free PDF Page A

lazy-lidded eyes, and their tattooed necks told me they weren’t just gang members but also probably armed. As the SUV pulled into traffic, not one man’s expression faltered.
    There was a fire in Kaisaniemi Park. Judging by the height of the flames, it must have been a car or something. The massive column of flame was like the mark of a bacchanal in the otherwise lightless night. At the corner of Vilhonkatu and Mikonkatu I heard gunshots and saw three men running toward the park. They disappeared before the echo of the shots had faded. People were kicking a man lying prostrate in front of the Natural History Museum. Then someone, apparently the strongest of the group, started dragging him by his filthy clothes toward the metro tunnel entrance, perhaps planning to throw him down the shaft.
    We arrived at Temppeliaukio in twenty minutes. I shoved a bill through the narrow opening in the Plexiglas and got out of the car.
    The modern dome of Temppeliaukio Church was gone; what was left of the building resembled ancient stone ruins perched high on a rock. The fragments of wall cast long shadows all the way to Lutherinkatu. Surrounded by the yellowish light of the street lamps, the shadows were black as pitch, as if painted on the ground. Someone had taken a PARKING PROHIBITED sign from its pole and thrown it into the middle of the street. The sign looked like it had finally given up on prohibiting anything.
    The night was as cold in Töölö as it had been at home in Herttoniemi, but not as quiet. Cars could be heard here and there, the honk of horns, Finnish rock, people shouting, even people having fun. Above all the noise a woman’s bright laugh sounded carefree, and stranger than anything I’d heard in a long time.
    Ahti and Elina Kallio were friends of ours—it was Johanna and Elina’s friendship that first brought us together. And no, Elina hadn’t heard from Johanna.
    I stood in the foyer of their apartment, took off my rain-soaked jacket and shoes, and listened to Elina and Ahti ask questions in turn:
    â€œWhere do you think she might be?”
    â€œShe hasn’t called you at all?”
    â€œAnd no one knows where she is?”
    Finally Ahti asked a question that I knew how to answer.
    â€œYes, I’d like some coffee. Thanks.”
    Ahti disappeared into the kitchen, and Elina and I went into the living room, where two floor lamps in opposite corners and one calmly fluttering candle on the dark wood table in the middle of the room gave the place a softer light than was perhaps desirable. Somehow I felt that at that moment I needed a different atmosphere, more light, something decisively brighter.
    I sat on the sofa. Elina was in the armchair across from me. She pulled a light brown wool shawl onto her lap, not spreading it out but not leaving it folded, either. It sat in her lap like a living, waiting creature. I told her the basic outline of what I knew: Johanna hadn’t been heard from in twenty-four hours, and the photographer couldn’t be reached, either. I also told her what Johanna had been writing about.
    â€œJohanna would have called,” Elina said when I’d finished. She spoke so quietly that I had to repeat the sentence in my mind.
    I nodded and looked up at Ahti, who had just come into the room. He was a short, wiry man, a lawyer by trade, meticulous to the point of being comical, but just as likely to surprise you in some situations. A thought occurred to me, and as it did I saw a trace of uncertainty in Ahti’s blue, penetrating eyes that disappeared as quickly as it had come.
    He looked quickly at me, then gave Elina a longer, more meaningful look. They held each other’s gaze for an unusually long time and then, almost in unison, turned their gazes back to me. Elina’s brown eyes welled with tears. I’d never seen her cry before, but it didn’t surprise me for some reason. Maybe the exaggerated homeyness of the room was a