Marion liked asking this question most, throwing it casually into the air. It made her feel like a good fairy. The parents’ frozen expressions lasted for a moment, and then their imaginations galloped off, and nothing could hold them back anymore.
Alvar produced his Ukraine binder from his briefcase and handed it to the man.
“Take your time. We can choose an appropriate candidate when it feels right. Are you ready for the call?”
The couple shifted in front of Alvar’s computer. Marion guessed she could already begin making travel plans for Lviv. Ukraine was one of the clan’s strongest areas. The border to Russia was open, and you could trade in anything. The surrogate business was growing steadily, the paperwork was a breeze, and the law wasn’t an issue. And even if it was, you could deal with that easily enough. Not one single international surrogacy scandal had sullied the country’s reputation, and that made it reliable in the eyes of prospective parents. At most, they were concerned about the lingering effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on the food chain, which was why agency brochures emphasized the cleanliness of the Western diet in Ukraine. Lviv had been an excellent choice of location for the clinic. Despite the Cyrillic letters, the city looked European.
—
After the couple left, Alvar remained sitting at the table fiddling with his phone. “That went well. Do you feel better?”
Marion nodded, even though she hadn’t been sleeping much. Her deadline had passed, yet she was still sitting here. The salon was still hers, and she was being allowed to handle agency business. That was a victory in itself.
Her relationship with Norma was warming, and that had bought her more time with Lambert. Anita would say she had to keep going. She had a goal, and she couldn’t let anyone stop her. This afternoon she’d be back in the salon unraveling tangles, but soon her clientele would be different. At the new salon, there wouldn’t be a single girl who spent her vacation taking selfies of her bikini butt in the mirror of a stranger’s Ferrari, by a yacht in Marbella, or at the door of a Versace shop. None of the hair studio’s clients would show her such pictures as if they were some great accomplishment. Her new customers would have real merits, the kind you didn’t even need to brag about, and it would show in the way they carried themselves. They wouldn’t think that if they managed to get their face in the same picture as some expensive brand logo, they were someone. The new customers wouldn’t think that posing in front of a nightclub frequented by stars made them stars too and moved them closer to Hollywood, fairy-tale weddings, cinematic love stories, and wealthy men. The new customers wouldn’t scramble after VIP club passes, certain they were in the fast lane to better hunting grounds where they could end up on the arms of men who knew important people. They wouldn’t think that was the way to find their prince. They would know that that road led only to one kind of pimp or another, a Lambert who took everything there was to take from talentless bimbos and then threw the husks to the crows.
For just a little longer, she had to maintain the energy to admire these simpletons’ tapping on their phones. She had to keep pretending to be fooled by their pirated handbags, keep lying that they had the makings of a model or Madonna, that stardom and Hollywood were waiting around the corner, and that all you needed to get into a Playboy audition was good hair and big tits.
There was hardly a break in the stream of customers. Norma was horrified. The Ukrainian stockpile was supposed to be reserved for the best clients, but today the situation had gotten out of hand. She’d given appointment times to a stay-at-home mom complaining about her fibers tangling, a woman suffering from spot baldness, a sobbing nursing mother who was shedding hair, and a fashion blogger. She’d promised the Ukrainian to a dance troupe on their way to stardom and a fitness fanatic going through a fat-cutting phase. She’d found the right words even though she didn’t have her mother’s self-assurance, and to her this hair was trash. The feeling had been like a mild buzz, and her turban still wasn’t tight. Had it been this easy for her mother? She hadn’t been able to help her daughter, but here she’d been able to help everyone, and her hands had transformed mice into princesses. Norma was beginning to understand her mother’s buoyancy after work. Now she felt the same. The whole stock was reserved before she even realized what she’d done.
She spent the whole day adding entries to the reservation book alongside her mother’s, and her fingers holding the pen had remained steady. She was starting to see her mother’s handwriting as if it were anyone’s instead of reading those appointments as if they were obituaries. Her mother’s pen had begun writing on the pages of this book after Christmas, and from February on women had streamed onto the streets of Helsinki wearing Norma’s hair, just like the ones she had spoken with today. Not one of them asked where the hair came from. They wanted to know only the price and that the hair being taped or glued to their heads was Ukrainian.
Norma had imagined the customers would be like Plan sponsors who knew exactly who and what their money was going to and hoped the children they supported in Africa would send drawings from school and letters about their successes. But no. For these women, the hair being glued to their heads was an impersonal, faceless mass of strands, and they didn’t want to know who had owned it before they did. They didn’t want to know that someone else had worn these same locks as they made love. As they went off on a rant. As they hoped and cried and dreamed. At most, they were concerned about lice and disease. Marion had stressed this as she taught Norma the secrets of customer service. Norma was floored. No creature could survive the processing the hair underwent, which forced the factory workers handling the hair to wear respirators, and still the customers were concerned only about lice, not the source of the hair. But the same women used only free-range eggs for their omelets and scrutinized product labels. Norma didn’t understand the logic, and she was tempted to respond in kind when the first customer expressed her concerns about hygiene. It had felt like a personal insult that required self-discipline to swallow, and Norma considered overcoming it a victory. She could do this. Whenever asked, she simply followed Marion’s instructions and stated that Shear Magic purchased raw materials only from vendors who could offer hygiene certificates.
Norma was also no longer startled by the women whose gazes became transfixed by the salon display window. Marion had set out a Ukrainian sample, and each girl who stopped to size it up could already picture herself as the hottest young thing in the nightclub, her social media exploding with new followers and likes. The ecstatic expressions began to tickle Norma. She kept a count of how many passersby her hair trapped each day and was disappointed when the breaks in the stream of admirers were too long. Maybe Elizabeth Siddal had felt the same as she posed in the midst of a crowd of artists competing for her. Before her career as a model, she had worked at Mary Totzer’s hat shop. Mrs. Totzer wanted salesgirls who would be attractive to her customers, and Elizabeth undoubtedly was with her copper locks.
Alvar’s phone rang. His face remained impassive, but he answered immediately, then stood up and walked to the window. Marion continued packing and tried to listen, but Alvar’s muttering betrayed nothing. He ended the call with a grin, looking like a dog that had caught the scent of a hare and was waiting for permission to attack its prey.
“We found something in Norma’s apartment,” Alvar said.
Marion put the folders back on the table. The mongrels had already checked the girl’s apartment before, and it had been a waste of time. That’s what she guessed, anyway. They didn’t tell her everything anymore, and they wouldn’t reveal such an important detail without ulterior motives. Either the clan didn’t care how credible she was in the girl’s eyes, how well she could lie to her, or they hoped this news would make her nervous, and the girl would sense it and grow nervous herself. Nervous people made mistakes.
“You didn’t tell me what they found last time.”
“Nothing relevant to this mess.”
“How am I supposed to achieve anyt
hing if I’m always kept in the dark?”
The seascape in the window rocked before Marion’s eyes. She had lost. The knowledge began spreading through her limbs like the water that splashed on her cuffs. She picked up the glass she’d knocked over. She had ironed this blouse in the morning, but now it looked and felt like dirty, melting snow. One of the mongrels must have laid his grubby fingers on something she should have found first, and only because she had lulled herself into the belief that Norma’s home was the same dead end as Anita’s. She should have stolen the girl’s keys herself during work and gone to search the apartment. She could have grabbed the spare keys from Anita’s workstation right after her death. She’d had numerous opportunities to handle this, and then she would have been a step ahead of everyone else. She hadn’t done that, though, because she feared being caught. The girl could have come home unexpectedly, or she could have missed her keys in the middle of the day. One of the mongrels could have been inside just as Marion tried to slip through the door. She was a depressing novice and shouldn’t be doing any of this.
“The apartment is cheaply furnished and clean,” said Alvar. “Too clean. Scoured. There’s bleach in the cupboards and not much else. It’s the opposite of Anita’s house. Plus she has a huge pile of Scopoderm patches and Marzine. Marzies. Scopolamine.”
The last word hit Marion in the diaphragm.
“The girl’s pill collection probably doesn’t have much significance to the Ukrainian catastrophe. They’re unique choices for recreational use, or she must really mix her drugs. But it gives us more ammunition.”
“Is it all over-the-counter?”
“Yeah, mostly for motion sickness. It’s not the same as Devil’s Breath from the borrachero tree, even if it is related. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I was only thinking of you.”
They hadn’t talked about Albino after the Cartagena trip or even after the meeting where Albino’s fate had been decided. Alla had been in charge of putting the plan into action, and Marion followed her instructions. She wasn’t even sure whether Alvar had been aware of the details, but now she knew he had. Lambert thought the Devil’s Breath was a stroke of genius. It transformed a person into a helpless zombie, willing to carry out any command but still looking completely sober. When Albino left her margarita on the table in the middle of the negotiations and went away with a man she didn’t recognize, Marion hadn’t understood what was happening. Albino walked on her own legs, apparently of her own volition. But of course, the pills in Norma’s apartment had nothing to do with Albino. She should forget about Albino entirely. Her weakness and her inability to forget had made Alvar conceal things from her. Her brother thought the strange coincidence would make her imagine that Alvar had become like Lambert, a sly, taunting brute.
“I’m sure they can also be used as sedatives,” Alvar said. “Anything will knock you out if you take enough of it. But why would Norma want to drug anyone? Or Anita, if they were hers? Why wouldn’t they have chosen something more normal? There are plenty of options. Can you think of a reason?”
Marion filled her water glass again. The water had a strange aftertaste. Blood. She had bit her tongue.
“You’re not concentrating. Lambert is satisfied for now that you’ve created a connection with the girl. All our options have to be open, all the traps set, all the hooks under the surface. She’ll take the bait eventually. We just don’t know which way she’ll go. That’s why you still have time. Borrowed time. You have to be aware of what’s going on because we’ve made a breakthrough. Guess what we found in the girl’s compost? Half a bundle of matted hair. Ukrainian. The length and color match, and the quality.”
The tree frogs chirped in Marion’s ears so loudly, she could barely hear Alvar’s voice. The girl knew about Anita’s business. She must know where the hair came from.
Six
We met Reijo and Lambert at a dance. Helena had just finished singing and was coming down off the stage when Lambert swung in front of her. Peonies bloomed on Helena’s cheeks, and Lambert called her a star. Lambert called her a star until Marion was born. Then it ended, as did Helena’s performing.
March 2, 2013
In Sweden we didn’t have the courage to leave the factory or the Finnish immigrant community, even though we should have. The same lack of courage made us throw ourselves into Reijo’s and Lambert’s arms. They were from the same parish as us, and they remembered Helena’s parents and our house, but at home we’d never noticed them because they were the children of an impoverished drunk. Meanwhile they had transformed into exciting businessmen out to conquer the world. Markku Lambert had even changed his name to Max to make it more international. The world was laid out before them, and it would be for us too if we joined up with them.
—
Our weddings were small affairs, as was the custom at the time, and without any relatives. Our parents didn’t approve of our choice in men any more than our decision to go to Sweden. For Helena and me, these were huge steps that helped us break away from our village. We didn’t understand that our new husbands’ businesses were so shady. We were starry-eyed in love. When we finally began to learn what kind of work they were involved with, Helena was already the mother of a small child. And we believed Reijo and Lambert had just made some mistakes, listened to the wrong advice. We blamed their hustler friends. We would lead our husbands back to the straight and narrow, and building families would help our efforts. That’s how it seemed. A few years later Helena had a second child on the way, and Lambert started talking about returning to Finland. He wanted a new direction in his life, and Helena believed him. For a while Lambert behaved like a model father. He got Helena and the kids an apartment in Laajasalo in Helsinki, helped with the move, and promised to follow soon. Lambert’s talk also rubbed off on Reijo. Both of them convinced us of the risks of raising children in an environment where Finns had a bad reputation, where even speaking Finnish was an embarrassment. Thinking back on it, that was nonsense. They probably just had business problems in Sweden, creditors breathing down their necks, and wanted to handle things without complaining wives and whining children around. We were slowing them down.
—
Helena seemed content with life in Helsinki and encouraged me to follow her. The idea was appealing—settling down in more peaceful surroundings, without Reijo and Lambert’s dodgy circle of acquaintances—and I planned to look at a couple of apartments when I visited Helena. Suddenly in the middle of the trip, I found out you were coming.
March 4, 2013
By the time you were born, it was clear I needed to get away from Reijo Ross. I called Helena from the hospital and made up a story about Reijo having a new mistress. That was enough. Helena brought money, escorted us to the train station, and promised not to reveal our destination to anyone. Going home was my only option. I showed up penniless, with a bundle in my arms and no husband. My mother greeted us by asking if I was the return of the family curse.
—
Over the years, I tried to leave so many times. I even saved money for it but always chickened out. We were at least safe in the village, tucked away in the forest, and I could take care of you during the day. No one other than my mother paid us any attention, and time had already begun to gnaw away at her alertness. I didn’t dare to plan our move in earnest until you were in high school—I decided that you were strong enough then and knew how to take precautions. You would understand the dangers of the world better than I had when I moved to Sweden. I made bad choices because I was stupid and inexperienced—Reijo was one of them. I hope you won’t do the same.
—
Reijo died about ten years ago in Thailand in a boating accident, and after I heard, I breathed a sigh of relief. Even if something happened to me, you could never go looking for him now. That would have been the beginning of the end for you. Reijo was too similar to the Sutherland sisters’ father, who came up with the idea to market his daughters’ musical performances. They became an immediate s
ensation in the States, not because of the music but because of the hair. Everyone wanted them and the “Niagara Falls,” as their hair was called, to perform in their theaters, to tour with their circuses, or to lie in their department store windows. Hurrahs, applause, admiration, the cover of Cosmopolitan, and the front page of the New York Times.
—
I’m not sure you’d be able to withstand the ecstasy, the sudden riches, and the associated side effects experienced by the Sutherlands. When one of my clients sighs in rhapsody as she looks at her new hair—your hair—those sisters always come to mind. Their childhood reminded me of our years living with your grandmother. The girls’ mother rubbed their scalps with disgusting smelling liniment imagining that it might slow the growth of their hair, and the girls were teased because of the bad smell. Maybe that was what inspired their father to invent an expensive snake oil elixir, which he sold with the girls’ picture. It broke the bank. Seven Sutherland Sisters’ Hair Grower and Scalp Cleaner built the family a mansion, complete with marbled bathrooms and furniture imported from Europe.
—
When they toured, they kept to themselves and did a good job concealing their oddity except for occasional small slips. Mary Sutherland had fits of madness—caused by her hair, I suspect—that occasionally drove the family to lock her up. After Naomi Sutherland died, the sisters wanted to store the body at home, claiming the reason was the slow progress of construction on their family mausoleum, but that attracted the attention of the authorities. Only two of them married, both past their peak age of fertility. That was wise, though their choice in men was appalling—morphine addicts, adventurers, and circus performers—and they paved the girls’ road to ruination. The Sutherlands spent their final years as impoverished hermits in their decaying mansion, weeping over their many heartbreaks. They would have been happier if they’d stayed in their log cabin. Elizabeth Siddal’s fate wasn’t much rosier, although the artists who supported her as their muse weren’t nearly the con men that the knaves who hounded the sisters were. No one like you can assume love is sincere.