"Action." "With might and main, my hungry roots." "I dug my way through scorching sands." "I wandered through my soughing crown." "I mulched my way, the trail of a bear." "Then they came with axes and saws, slapping cards and flying cash." "My roots, my branches down they stroke." "For building boards my flesh they sold." "Thank you." "A pair of trolls, six years old, Kukunor and Kalahari." "Anger reigned as you saw - but then it thawed, joy was restored." "Not a moment or a word it took, just the help - of a scholar's book." "Kuku, how I wish you knew how it is inside a storm - how much the very air weighs, when the earth makes waves." "FALLING ANGELS Then the wind blows!" "If you can't see, the eye lends and the blind man knows." "Oh, I wish, I wish you knew how it is when dryness burns - what is rain, and when it rains, it rains because... then it rains." "Kalahari stirs, Kalahari desert turns." "Are you sure you want to go there?" "What is it?" "Hi, Helena." "What brings you here at this hour?" "Had those jolts again." "The last time you were here six moths ago " "I thought we both agreed there's nothing wrong with you?" "Any other symptoms?" "I just feel like - my thoughts are not my own." "Like I don't even exist." "Come to the clinic tomorrow." "All the beds are full right now." "I'll die if I can't stay." "Please, can I stay?" "You still keep carrying your father with you?" "Will you tuck me up?" "Up to the neck." "Kukunor and Kalahari." "Anger reigned as you saw - but then it thawed, joy was restored." "Not a moment or a word it took, just the help - of a scholar's book." "Kuku, how I wish you knew how camels in numbers - donkeys, cities, rivers, gods and cultures - the desert has devoured and over them its sands has poured." "The Modernist." "Keeping down, safe and sound, crawling on the deep ditch soil." "His nozzle nosing though the ground, stopping tired, breathing thick - comes the ancient Modernist." "What?" "See?" "No one reads Lauri anymore." "Maybe you too should accept the fact that your father wasn't so special." "Bring that big lamp over there." "Let's perform this." "And be done with all performing." "You're just a little girl?" "Meriluoto." "Aren't you cold like that?" "Viita." "Take one." "Action." "With might and main, my hungry roots." "I dug my way through scorching sands." "I wandered through my soughing crown." "I mulched my way, the trail of a bear." "Then they came with axes and saws, slapping cards and flying cash." "My roots, my branches down they stroke." "For building boards my flesh they sold." "Thank you." "Peek-a-boo!" "You remember Dr Djupsjöbacka?" "Chief Physician from Kellokoski Hospital?" "I had to come and see for myself." "You've always been afraid of me." "Ever since I punctured your ears when you were little." "And he also diagnosed your father way back when." "A glass of water." "I hear you've made a living by performing your father's poems." "This century has produced many other writers, too." "Like your mother." "Too much Viita, too much pain." "Don't take them!" "I suggest you start to actively seek yourself somewhere else." "Where are you taking me?" "Let's go and see why you are so drawn to those poems." "Into the very essence of poetry." "She's under temporary observation." "We all know what we know." "Don't!" "I don't want to go there!" "You go back to your own ward this instant!" ""If you create, create a world!"" "Though the man didn't have a single thought of his own!" "Just stolen goods, like a typical Pispala inner city boy!" "And check the locks on the doors this time!" "I wonder if your father even had any essence of his own?" "I'm sorry." "He doesn't always know that he's a patient." "We have a broken vase here!" "CLOSED WARD KNOCK, A LUNATIC LIVES HERE" "How can you say that Dad didn't have any essence!" "He tore himself open every time he wrote." "All he had was essence." "Over there." "Sit down." "Just a back-up system, comes with the age." "The seat's dry." "I want those books back." "They are not the reason you came." "You wanted to talk, didn't you?" "Now tell me in your own words - why you prefer to live the life of your late father " "rather than living this life of your own?" "There would be enough story in you alone." "So where do we start?" "Or is there something else?" "Is it hereditary?" "What?" "Schizophrenia." "You use stimulants?" "Alcohol?" "Cigarettes?" "How about you just quit performing your father's poems?" "GET A LIFE OF YOUR OWN" ""Diagnosis: acute melancholia."" ""Treatment:" "Rest and take your medication"." "This is what I get for help." "Or he." "Mother, stop that!" "I have to let them up to the roof." "Sure you can manage?" "The intolerable is intolerably intolerable..." "Mom!" "When did you return to Finland?" "Of course I came as soon as I heard you were in hospital." "You don't mind if I stay here a while?" "Until you're back on your feet?" "So those... doctors...?" "Did they say you really have some..." "Acute melancholia." "I was the same way when I was young." "Always imagining things." "Do you still like these?" "You did when you were little." "You don't have a fever, do you?" "'The Concrete Mixer' had just come out proving his own existence, it isn't just normal ambition - but justifying one's own existence against a constant threat." "And Lauri felt it all the stronger, because he was psychotic..." "Do you have any cigarettes?" "I don't smoke." "What are you writing?" "Some new collection?" "A biography." "Are you sure you don't have a cigarette?" "If it's about Dad, I want to read what you've written." "Why?" "I could help you." "You can read it when it's ready." "All you want is that I stay out of the way!" "Isn't that right?" "Please." "You're the wrong person to write about him." "You'll just write about how crazy he was." "He was a genius!" "A thousand times a better writer than you." "LAURI VIITA A Legend in His Lifetime" "Hermanni!" "Of course it's a big change, moving to the city - from the provinces and becoming a writer." "Literature." "Literature and language." "People don't understand that literature is all about causalities." "Language is not just a tool, but meant to also create meanings - and not just to reflect what is." "Take this thing here." "You use it to stick and take - so a better name for it would be stick-a-take." "Or this thing, my dear gentlemen, this is a slicer." "A stick-a-take and a slicer." "Hell, that should be written down." "For some children's book." "Excuse me, gentlemen." "Came anyways." "As scared as she was." "Gentlemen." "Aila Meriluoto." "The author of the fragile and tender- and yet so confident 'Stained Glass Painting'." "My son Jaakko, marketing manager." "Juha Mannerkorpi." "And Viita you've already met." "Good evening, everyone." "Congratulations." "Poeta Laureatus!" "Still as cold as ever?" "Did you know that he's married?" "Viita?" "And has a pack of children, too." "Doesn't keep him from trotting, though." "Should we go?" "I was about to ask you the same." "I have a pressing need to talk." "I only meant..." "Shall we all leave?" "A small dose of true madness can be a positive thing." "I like being around people like that." "You can see it in the back of the eye, a small stabile spot." "Let me see if there are any pathological elements in you" "Looks good, there is hope." "The word "pathological" means you have too much logic and no path out." "Check mine, too." "You pleased now, Professor?" "I'm just barely a graduate..." "There." "Buy yourself a proper degree." "Company, halt!" "I'm going to recite something now." "From this." "I've kept this in my pocket ever since I first met Aila..." "About a week ago." "Two months ago!" ""Sleep, child, just sleep." "The sheep are taken to the fold - the cloud sheep to the fold." "The wind circles the house." "Odd is the sky, great is the land." "The flame flickers restlessly." "Slowly goes dark." "Somewhere, a rising rhythm beats:" "Great is the night, odd is the night." "Sleep, child, just sleep."" "Shut up!" "People are trying to sleep here!" "Shut up!" "People are trying to read Meriluoto here!" "Got any more poems for us?" "Yes, good ones!" "I've written poems with this all my life." "It's actually a small machine." "The whole modern industry is based on the knife." "Machine saws, air drills, explosives." "It's what they use today to carve Mother Finland's face." "Do you always talk that way?" "What way?" "Aggressively." "If a writer can't speak his own language - there's not much he can do." "Then put that scalpel away." "I think we'd better be off." "Good night, Miss, and Misters Artist." "Which is it?" "Your manner of speech is so original." "You should visit my old neighborhood in Pispala." "Then call me original." "Aila." "May I call you Aila?" "Though in Pispala you kiss first, and then forget formalities." "Then you may not." "I thought you were married." "I am." "Good and firm." "We'll have to be quiet." "There's this woman, Matron Snellman, staying next door to me." "No!" "From the moment I saw you, I knew that you know how to love." "Good morning!" "This is a boarding house, not a brothel!" "I'll give you five more minutes, that's all!" "Swedish-speaking?" "There are a few beautiful words in the Swedish language." "What are you saying?" "Like kärlek..." "love." "Or aderton... eighteen..." "Aderton...?" "Yes, aderton." "Aderton my foot!" "I give you ten minutes." "I don't think I have anything to offer you here." "The beginning's alright." "Although Dad lacks the warmth that I happen to remember." "Let's go home." "You'll catch a cold." "Maybe I should get to say what gets published and when?" "Acting like this won't help you get any better." "Give it back." "I have one month to deadline." "You fell in love with Lauri because he was so straightforward?" "What?" "I'm not telling." "Not until you return me my work." "You slept with him right away?" "On the first night?" "You've got the text." "Who are you?" "Who are you?" "I'm just a war invalid." "Must've hurt." "I shot it myself, to be honest." "Aila." "I know that you can help me." "We'll sort this out somehow." "You wipe the table." "Wow!" "Mom's cleaning." "Good morning." "There's some coffee." "Listen, Helena." "We must get the script into print in July." "The publisher needs it." "Everybody always needs Mom." "Maybe you should tell her everything." "I don't know." "I'll give you this if you'll get my approval for every line." "And you'll write about the great love you two had." "You can't dictate terms like that to a writer." "Yes I can." "He was also my father." "Ok." "We'll do as you say." "Sweetheart." "If you could try to see things the way I did." "Maybe then you could find some of that love, too." "Happy Easter." "The same to you." "I just came to tell you that Aila and I are like husband and wife now." "Oh." "Pinewood." "Fir." "Happy Easter to you, too." "I'm that dreadful man." "Oh." "Field Marshal Mannerheim's Day Orders" "What are you doing with your life?" "The whole world awaits you, a brilliant career and everything!" "This is more important!" "Hiding behind the back of an old, married man!" "When did you last write a poem?" "I've been mostly learning to speak." "The Two Stars of Modern Poetry Finally in New Editions." "Hertta dropped by last week, she's Aila's sister." "She did." "She has finally sorted things out for herself." "You mean she's not a lesbian anymore?" "Cream?" "Sugar?" "If you're interested, this has pictures of Aila as a child." "How did that ad shoot of yours go?" "Fine." "Look at that blue face." "Picking blueberries with Hertta." "And there." "Three years old, I'd say." "Aila was always so sweet, such a good child, and easy." "Always let us sleep through the night." "Carefree." "So where were you stationed during the war, Lauri?" "Yes, sleep's important." "My son has this stomach problem." "He never sleeps." "I keep carrying him up and down the stairs." "He likes the way they creak." "Keeps passing gas as we go." "Always laughing at fart jokes anyhow, like a German." "Yeah, well." "My train to Tampere will be leaving soon." "And I said what needed to be said." "Please, don't go!" "Don't leave me now." "I don't know how to be here." "Then learn!" "People are staring." "Let them stare!" "Let's give the people of Pieksämäki a good run for their money!" "Want me to give you a spanking?" "No!" "By the way, I got some mail." "My divorce is now final." "Look." "Here it is." "The Northern nightingale." "A small and gray bird, but it has such a loud song." "I wish you'd seen how it starts off." "Muscles strained like this." "Yes!" "Just like that!" "You'll show this book to your mom?" "I will." "I saw how she smirked when called it a nightingale." "She must've though it was any old tweeter." "That's exactly it!" "Don't!" "Where does it hurt?" "This isn't it already?" "Let me hold you." "It's just practicing." "But what if..." "It isn't." "Not even close!" "Little pangs like that are only natural." "You'll know when it wants to come out for real." "My little bird." "Promise you'll always love me." "I promise." "Or else we're making a horrible mistake." "And awful things will start to happen." "What's there to be afraid of?" "That things lose their names." "That's a nightingale because we both believe it's a nightingale." "I see you because you see me." "Say that you see me." "I see you." "These letters Dad wrote to you, they have to be in the book." "The book is about Lauri, not me." "Listen to this." ""All I have is your faith in me, for all I was lacking was love."" ""And I have truly seen that you know how to love."" "Someone must love me - or else I can't exist."" "Well, if you can't love, you can't exist either." "Dad adored you!" "It comes up in his poems all the time." "Kukunor's glass knife oath is your and Lauri's union!" "Is that coming from Svea's or the Klemettiläs' place?" "You can go." "Not interested." "Go." "Thanks." "But that oath means that only in love - do the world and its details find their truest meaning." "I won't be long." "Helena!" "Who is it?" "I am I and here." "Or the way they want and there." "Who?" "It's me." "They didn't understand me there." "Come inside." "Don't be such a publishing editor!" "Just a quick glance at the text." "You'll bring it over on Monday so we'll make it in time?" "Don't pressure me!" "Me?" "Never!" "Remember what Helena used to call me when she was little?" "Yucko." "Yucko!" "I love it!" "What about men, Aila?" "Have you been getting laid?" "You do have someone?" "No." "A secret liaison at least?" "Lars!" "That lunatic can't stay here." "We'll never get rid of him." "Some people are always ready to abandon the mentally ill." "Then I'll move downstairs to Svea's." "Go ahead." "I want to know why Dad got ill." "I'm supposed to know that?" "Maybe you if anyone." "Under waters over seas a hand once did some major deeds - until matter came to life..." "Aila!" "Aila!" "Algae, slime in many layers, corals millions in creation - and from under the swirling sea bone and blood then came to be." "Come!" "He's having one again!" "A swimming reef with palm and tree..." "Aila!" "Never seen the butterfly carry pollen like a kite?" "Not so fast!" "I can't help it" "See how in a sideways flight the albatross dives out of sight!" "See how the kernel of a palm drifts over the waters calm." "Yes!" "Yes!" "Dad, shut up!" "Albatross..?" "Drifts in the kernel of palm..." "Don't worry, the rhyme will come." "Hear my words for ever more:" "for he who cannot brave the storm - the Cape of Good Hope shall be the port!" "There!" "Yes." "Never seen a golden field from black soil the harvest yield?" "Never seen the flock of sheep, cross the steppe like clouds do flee?" "Life is marvels, tells the song." "See the truth in statue stones." "See it in the iron bird, the spirit over snow-capped domes." "What your simple eyes can't see you must dream it, it shall be." "Always at the crack of dawn see God's hand cradle the corn." "Always scattered in the flood see the splinters of an arc." "Were you beast or were you tree what you wish will one day be." "If you truly dare to will with your heart and every cell." "A thousand years, and again, nothing's ever done in vain" "Yes!" "Definitely a Nobel Prize." "What?" "Lauri took some paint from there!" "Vandal!" "Dad, come and help!" "But Mom, Mannerheim was a White." "You're so childish you believe everything that man says." "He can't even take care of his family." "He can only put on shows like this!" "Stop!" "I'll take you away from here." "I'll get us an island." "An island of the happy." "Go ahead, but try taking her without taking." "Will she go?" "You try holding her back without holding." "Will she stay?" "Goodbye." "Goodbye." "I feel sorry for you, Aila." "Then keep it to your damned self." "Kuku, it's me, isn't it?" "Dad made this for me for Murole Island." "Now you want to know why there's a wrong name on it." "A term of endearment?" "Kukunor was a small troll." "Kukunor is a self-diagnosis." "Why does Mom's manuscript end at the island?" "Maybe it's time you took a trip there?" "These bohemian artist residencies." "Good morning." "Just what I need." "Shawl and soda water." "I'm not going to that island." "I want to see my first home." "What if Juha took you there?" "If he can drive." "But why does your book end at that island?" "Why did you leave the last stages out even though Dad was still alive?" "Helena, it was just one long darkening." "No one needs to know." "You didn't let him be the weaker one." "Why should I have?" "You left Dad in the mental hospital and me here alone." "Fled to Sweden!" "You wanted to stay yourself!" "What happened on that island?" "Enough of that naive whining!" "You're incapable of seeing things any other way than how you choose!" "Let's trash it all!" "No reason why I should torment myself like this." "You write the book." "Cling to your fantasies - when you don't even have a life of your own!" "Writers' daughter!" "That's not a profession." "Student!" "You're not even studying anything, just living on my expense!" "I'm worried about you." "Looks smaller." "They always do." "This is quite nice." "Didn't Dad make a second set of windows for here - with his own glass cutter." "And that must be the hat nail he hammered in with just one strike." "And that's the fireplace - where your mother burnt her diaries when Lauri forced her to." "Before that, he used to insist she read them out loud to their guests." ""With more feeling", he'd demand." "A pair of trolls, six years old, Kukunor and Kalahari." "Hey, I'm dictating to you." "If you didn't notice." "Not again, please." "Will you take the girl, Maire?" "I'm the housekeeper, not a nanny!" "Took over for the winter chiller - the old professor's summer villa." "Behind the boarded window way - little trolls like kings did live and life it was just play and play" "Without limits, without borders, not a soul to give them orders." "Closed out were the bossy snouts prepossessed by brainless doubts." "Kukunor, my beauty?" "Should we make more children?" "To keep me and Maire entertained?" "We're out of firewood again." "Write." "Kala, am I dreaming, look, a glass knife oath with me you took" "Is this all a dream for you?" "I see you so you see me." "Tell me, Kala, the oath you'll keep." "Close your eyes." "What is it?" "'Ailauri'." "Do you like it?" "It's beautiful." "DARKENING" "Aila!" "There's a lot of them now." "What's out there?" "Now we just wait." " Don't go loony on us again." "They're on the move!" "Dark figures." "What are they?" "There, on the opposite shore." "Signaling with lights." "Can you see?" "Now." "Good evening." "Damned publisher." "The official authority." "You seem to be exceptionally awake in here." "It's because..." "Ah, hell." "We had this seminar in Tampere for our publishing staff." "I got the driving directions from your colleague, Linna." "Sorry to barge in so late at night." "From us." "Sit down." "So how are... things around here?" "We just got a little scared with all that noise." "On the opposite shore." "Did you hear anything?" "There were some hunters there." "Sure." "Hunters." "A shed had caught fire, they were helping to put it out." "We've missed you in Helsinki." "You do understand that it is - in some ways my business, too, how the two of you are doing." "We're doing fine, basically." "We finished Kukunor." "I just need to write it out once more." "Hell no!" "No more of that!" "And Aila is working on a poetry collection." "What's it called?" "'Sick Girl Dances'." "Could it go into print this fall?" "Of course." "So." "You two seem to have everything in order here." "Sure." "Apart from an few occasional bogeymen sightings." "Our nanny, she's..." "Maire, calm down." "'Sick Girl Dances'!" "Oh, you've got a nanny and all." "Makes life a little easier, with another child on the way." "Ah, well." "Lauri has been pretty exhausted after 'The Moraine'." "He's still writing it in his head even though it's already laid out." "Aila, can't you see?" "Lauri is struggling with rather deep pathogenic problems right now." "He is... he's..." "Sick!" "I've studied psychology as well." "I know what is illness and what is something else." "What else?" "Lauri's gift." "Aila, can't you see what's come of you?" "I've learned to chop wood, to put up with the cold." "I can bake and I can cook." "That's what's come of me." "I'll make you a bed upstairs." "Have you really had time to write?" "Lauri was exaggerating." "They are wondering in Helsinki why they've heard nothing of you." "We'll just get Kukunor done first." "You're too interesting to be Lauri's secretary." "I can't do anything." "I just can't." "My whole past life feels so immature." "You call the 'Stained Glass Painting' immature?" "I'm begging you, move out of here." "Before something happens." "The publisher will get you and the children an apartment in Helsinki." "You can go to bed now, Professor." "Nighty night." "You will not break this peace!" "I'll blow myself up if I am left alone." "I love you." "Nothing will ever make me leave you, never." "I'd rather die." "We have to get away from here." "We are like two old tractors here, rusting away." "We just got the place fixed up." "I'll write to the publishing house." "They might have an apartment for us in Helsinki." "As long as we get to be together." "Professor!" "Look at this!" "Just came to my mind!" "Hello?" "Mom, are you tired?" "Not tired." "Just a little drunk." "End of the story." "Not for the faint of heart." "Did Dad really make you burn your diaries there on Murole?" "So I hear." "How were you able to write about it then?" "Hey, I'm a writer." "I don't have to remember everything." "Read, if you dare." "I'm going to get some sleep now." "These I won't touch, these are nothing." "These two we could work with." "What will the collection be called?" "'Sick Girl Dances'." "A fierce name after 'The Concrete Mixer' and 'The Moraine'." "These are Aila's poems." "We promised a collection and in our family we keep our promises." "Didn't I say we're not using them?" "But this one!" "Not every family would let a poem like this be published." ""God, how I despise." "With narrow lips, glossed hair " "I stand and despise."" "Moving into the publisher's building has done wonders to you both." "We have Hermanni here to thank for that entirely." "God, I love this couple!" "The golden couple of poetry!" "And these pills of Lauri's have helped, too." "These here, these orange ones, they get him going like a rocket." "And when he takes these, the yellowish green ones - he slows down again." "Calms down in an instance." "Or what do you say, Doc?" "It's all in the dosage..." "Now you woke Helena up." "Who are you all?" "I'm Leena." "We're having a party to celebrate your mother's book." "The sick girl book?" "This little one here is a champion reciter." "She can read already!" "Will you read?" "No, I can't." "Well, I can." "My dear audience." "I have composed the music for Aila Meriluoto's poem, 'Micah'!" "And David, David dances, he dances with a narrow loin cloth." "With broad shoulders, bare sweaty breasts - and strong clumsy feet." "He dances man's life, very bare and very broad." "But has no feeling for his maid." "But I, Micah, see it - as if watching myself." "I see David." "I see:" "I stand and despise." "And despise and despise." "I see:" "I stand and despise..." "Why don't you recite Koskenniemi's 'Alone You Are, Man'?" "Don't mind if I do." "Recite it from the balcony!" "There, let's hear it!" "Alone you are, man, alone amidst it all." "Alone you were born, alone you shall depart..." "And aloner and aloner!" "Let's hear it again." "Deeper, with feeling." "Lauri, it's freezing cold out there!" "Alone you were born, alone you shall depart." "Cold is my friend's soul, cold my beloved's bosom..." "More feeling!" "Lauri, please." "Take a green one." "For your sake." "Who's there?" "Hermanni." "I'm sorry, but he said it was important." "Will you be alright?" "Mother died." "I'm sorry." "Come in." "What is this?" "He needs a refuge." "The text was for you to read, not others!" "And you can't start playing nurse to him." "Djupe's staying here, period." "He has a point of view." "Oh, a point of view?" "He knows how hard Dad tried!" "Oh, he knows?" "Great, now we get to know, too." "Dad wasn't so horrible as you describe him." "His illness was." "His illness was." "Where are you going?" "5-7 Lastenlinna Street." "To the airport, please." "I'm trash." "Daddy is trash, Daddy is trash!" "Daddy went into the trash bin." "Lauri, come out of there." "I'm trash." "No." "You're a writer." "I am waste." "Daddy..." "I love you." "I love no one." "Let's not be childish now." "The only person I've ever loved is Alfhild." "It's his mother." "She's already dead." "Aila, are you sure this is the best way to take care of Lauri?" "You can speak out in here." "How about I turn on the lights?" "Not that!" "There." "Now you stopped the power." "Check the fuse." "That's the transmitting unit." "You're not man enough for that." "Lauri, stop!" "Lauri, let go of him!" "His hand is his tool!" "He'll lose his daily bread if you keep on squeezing it!" "Bread?" "Bread!" "Lauri, who am I?" "I think it's time Lauri saw a doctor." "You see a doctor!" "Lauri has to be hospitalized!" "Before you lose it, too!" "Me?" "What do you mean?" "!" "Aila..." "Let go!" "Aila, calm down!" "It's not bread that you want." "You want flesh!" "Flesh!" "Flesh!" "The electricity has no way out." "It turns back and starts to absorb itself." "No way out, not through the toaster - not through the lamp." "Lauri, come here." "Silent, silent is the evening, the sky turns dark - nature settles to rest, the earth is wrapped in dusk." "But I can't connect any equipment into that chain - the way out has to be systemic - you can't fix it from just one place." "Sleepy twilight veils the small cabin - the flame of the torch dwindles in ever softer light." "You sing." "What?" "Something you know." "I'm at the end of my path one of my thousands - and the earth is full of them." "It is a cool evening a day has passed - sunk behind the forests." "Nothing can die not the flowers, not the wind - love cannot die." "The path runs past and the flowers stay behind - and the wind plays elsewhere." "And love, the moment just moves from the eye - and the past journey takes it away." "Who are you?" "Are you Alfhild?" "I am Alfhild, too." "What will happen tomorrow?" "Why of the two us only you get to be difficult?" "Let's hit the road!" "Get away from it all." "Just you and me." "We'll take our bikes." "What about Helena?" "Helena?" "You mean Kuku?" "They are showing me death." "The Grim Reaper, there by the chimney." "Where?" "There." "But for you there's nothing there." "Now I see it too." "The Grim Reaper." "You do?" "And God too." "They're there together." "Talking." "You're right." "God it is indeed." "You have to stay beyond their range of vision." "Hiding?" "That's been the custom ever since the war." "Hermanni will take you to Grandma and Grandpa's." "I'll get there soon." "Say goodbye to Daddy." "Daddy, don't!" "We need an ambulance at once." "5-7 Lastenlinna Street." "Lauri!" "No!" "This is the third floor." "If you fall, that'll be it." "That'll be it, then." "So be it." "I have to take care of this too by myself." "If we are going to jump, we're going all the way." "Don't be afraid." "Only the ones without wings fall." "Forgive me, Aila." "You gave me a promise once." "It has to be undone now." "Kala has to break the glass knife oath." "What oath?" "The glass knife oath." "The one that was important." ""What knife oaf?", said Kala." "You remembered." "I wrote it." "Don't answer my calls." "Don't open the door, no matter how hard I bang on it." "Promise me." "It happened here, didn't it?" "You shouted for your mother then." "No." "I couldn't get a sound out." "Shout now." "Shout it out." "She's in Sweden." "Shout now while you have someone to shout for!" "Mommy!" "Lars!" "Mommy!" "Don't!" "Let's shout together, it'll help!" "Mommy!" "Mommy!" "Mommy!" "She isn't coming." "Mother is never coming back." "Helena?" "Mom." "I was only at Svea's." "Mother is never coming back." "Goodbye, Daddy." "Don't say goodbye." "Goodbye is relative." "Say farewell." "It's definite and fairly well said." "Farewell then, Daddy." "Could we hear a sample from the book?" "Read by the author." "Would you read it?" "Maybe I'll dare." ""Lauri called me in Sweden a few weeks before he died." "He wanted to speak to the children." "Ville came to the phone, but it was hardly a conversation." "Lauri just kept repeating, moved:" "'Is it Ville?" "Is it really Ville?" "'" "Today I am happy about that call." "On 21 December 1965 " "Lauri Viita took a taxi to see a friend out of town." "Less than a hundred yards from the destination the taxi was hit - by a truck speeding down the wrong lane with a drunken driver." "It seemed that Lauri had got away with just a few fractured ribs - and it was then that he uttered the sentence that is now legendary - like the last words of Aleksis Kivi or Goethe:" "'Now the worst is over.'" "At the hospital his health took a sudden turn for the worse - and a few minutes before 8 a.m., he died of internal injuries." "Meanwhile in Sweden, we stayed up all night and talked - very keenly and warmly about "Daddy"." "By noon news of Lauri Viita's death had spread all through the media." "Then sudden confusion ensued:" "a rumor started to circulate that Viita wasn't dead, after all."" "Aila Meriluoto and Lauri Viita were married from 1948 to 1956." "They had four children." "Daughter Helena of the film is a fictional character." "I'm at the end of my path one of my thousands - and the earth is full of them." "It is a cool evening a day has passed - sunk behind the forests." "Nothing can die not the flowers, not the wind - love cannot die." "The path runs past and the flowers stay behind - and the wind plays elsewhere." "And love, the moment just moves from the eye - and the past journey takes it away."