Tuula looked around. The pale-blue wallpaper was peeling off in places, the paint was flaking, and the windows looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned since the First World War. But it was a home, and they would be safe here, at least as long as Sweden stayed out of the war.
“And the bedroom is in there.” Aino nodded toward the room next door, then turned back to Tuula. “I’ll let you unpack.”
“Thank you for your help, Aino. Thank you for everything.” Tuula seized both of her friend’s hands.
“No problem. We have to help old friends, don’t we? Come and have something to eat later. Six o’clock.”
Tuula shook her head. “You’re too generous.”
“Nonsense. You unpack and get yourself sorted, and we’ll see you in a few hours.”
When Aino had gone, Tuula unpacked their few possessions. She placed the children’s clothes in the shabby chest of drawers in the bedroom, and handed each of them a toy; that was all she had managed to grab before they left the house in Rovaniemi. Matias immediately wanted to run down and join the children in the street with his soccer ball.
“You can play in the yard, but not in the street.”
Matias nodded, looking downcast. Tuula didn’t want to let him out of her sight, but they had to try to live as normal a life as possible. At least she could see the courtyard from the kitchen window.
She looked around with a deep sigh. How she missed the spacious house they had left behind, with its vegetable garden and all her flowers and the meadow just outside the window. But she was lucky to have her own apartment and a job. It was more than many of the others in the camp had, so she couldn’t justify feeling sorry for herself.
Matias ran outside, and Tuula unpacked her own clothes. Last of all she took out the glass jar containing her sourdough starter, carefully wrapped in her woolen pants and sweater. She placed the jar on the kitchen counter.
She would have to spend the few kronor she had on flour to feed it. It was her mother’s sourdough. It had survived for so long, and it was the very first thing she had packed before they fled. She opened the lid and inhaled the mild, sour aroma that reminded her of home.
As well as being a precious memory, the dough would provide them with delicious and substantial bread. Only flour and water were required, and then she could introduce variations based on what was available, such as rye or crushed oats.
“Do you want to come with me to buy some flour?” she asked. Ritva put down her wooden horse, nodded, and got to her feet.
They went down to the courtyard and Tuula called to Matias, who was kicking his ball against the wall of the house. He picked it up andran to join them. As they walked through the village, Tuula realized she was keeping her head down in an attempt to avoid people’s gazes.
She picked up a few basics at the store: eggs, milk, cheese, butter. And flour. When she got home, she fed the starter and made two loaves while the children played outside. She left the bread to proof, then took one down to Aino and Heikki so they could bake it later and have fresh bread for breakfast.
After dinner she tucked the children into bed, then slid the remaining loaf into the oven. As the wonderful smell spread through the kitchen, she allowed herself to be transported back to her hometown. The town that had been laid to waste by the war, according to what she had heard. A pang of homesickness squeezed her heart, and yet she felt a strange sense of calm. She closed her eyes and inhaled the smell of the bread once again. She could see their red house, Juhani sitting on the front porch with a thick slice of bread in his hand.
4
Henrik Fucking Eklund. He had been every bit as supercilious as she had expected. Okay, so she might not have been particularly cooperative, but the way he had criticized her cinnamon buns and then walked out was just arrogant. Nora was in the meeting room at the bank, waiting for her personal banker.
She took out her phone while she was waiting. Wondered whether to message Bea about the meeting, but decided she didn’t really want to talk about Henrik Eklund.
I see Maryam and Tess have dropped out of floorball tonight. Are you going?she wrote instead, hoping that the practice session would be on; she needed an outlet for her aggression.
Sorry, Ahmat is working, Bea replied. Nora wasn’t surprised. She made it to practice more than the others, despite the long hours she worked at the patisserie. The four of them had originally met when they found themselves on the same indoor floorball team in high school and quickly became a close-knit gang. Nora had been the most athletic and played the longest. She had joined the club’s women’s team and played pretty seriously until the patisserie became too much for her mother to run alone. A couple of years ago, she and her friends had put together a group who played four against four one evening a week in a school gym that they rented out for next to nothing.
In that case maybe I’ll skip too. Then again, if no one is there the pace will be more manageable ...
However much Nora needed and enjoyed the exercise, she mainly participated to see her friends. Bea, Tess, and Maryam all had relationships and families of their own, and floorball practice was the one night of the week when Nora recaptured a small part of the friendship of their youth.
She sent the message, and Anna came into the room. She was about Nora’s age, and was responsible for Nymans’ account. She had a cup of coffee in each hand and a laptop tucked under one arm. She passed one cup to Nora, put the other down on the table, placed the laptop beside it, then squeezed her heavily pregnant belly between the table and the chair.
“Thanks—you didn’t need to do that. I could have fetched the coffee.” Nora put down her phone.
“It’s fine, it’s good for me to keep moving.” Anna smiled and adjusted her chair, then opened the laptop and started tapping away at the keys.
“I believe you wanted to discuss the patisserie’s financing?” Anna fished up her glasses, which were hanging from a cord around her neck. Did people really use that kind of thing these days? Maybe it was coming back into fashion.
Nora cleared her throat, took a deep breath. “I did. The thing is, I need a little more credit. I invested in a new oven last summer, and I need some extra money to cover the Christmas season, which always involves considerable expenditure.”
Anna nodded, her expression serious as she made notes on the computer. She frowned, considered for a moment, then looked up at Nora. “I’m sorry, but we can’t raise your overdraft limit any further. You have no security, and you’ve already borrowed the maximum you can against the business. I see here that you own the property, including theapartment above the patisserie.” Anna paused and studied the data on the screen. “But I’m afraid you can’t borrow any more.”
