Somewhere Else

Chapter 11: The Only Way Is Out (ii)

"Maybe it's because we all see something you don't want to admit," Tatiana says, and when I say nothing to that, shrugs and rises from the table with her now-empty plate. Her psychoanalysis of me obviously stops here.

"By the way, Emi," she calls out from the kitchen, "I cooked; you do the dishes. If you're going to be staying here, you need to start pulling your weight."

"I literally just got here today!" I whine, previous topic forgotten. "And whatever happened to host culture? I'm the guest here!"

Tatiana emerges from the kitchen and grins at me. "You're in Finland; we don't believe in that." But she ruins it with a wink, so I have no idea if she's joking or telling the truth.

"Fine, whatever," I mutter, shooting her a mock glare. "I'll wash up."

She blows me a kiss. "Thanks, darling. I'll be in my room when you're done – we can paint our nails and braid each other's hair and do some girly, stereotypical sleepover stuff. Or talk more, if you want. But I think I prefer the hair thing."

I laugh out loud as she vanishes into the bedroom. In spite of the circumstances that led me to Tampere, I'm glad to be here for now. Living with Tatiana is going to be fun.

***

Even to my unschooled eyes, Tampere has a completely different vibe from Helsinki.

While Helsinki is far from a big city – I'm from the metropolis Hamburg, after all – it is still the capital city, and a bustling major city by Finnish standards. Tampere is a major city as well, but it is quieter. Or at least, the area that Tatiana lives in is much more relaxing than Aksel's neighbourhood, which is right smack in the heart of the city.

In Helsinki, there was always something happening, something to deal with. Everything I did seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction to the problems raining down on me. Here in Tampere, I finally have the space to stop and think.

And, walking along the empty street along Tampere's central railway station, that's exactly what I do.

Tatiana is gone for the day, off to work. Just like Aksel in her daily schedule. But the difference is, I don't feel at a loss here in Tampere while she's gone. In Helsinki, I was always left feeling like I was simply waiting for Aksel to return whenever he was out at work or with his friends.

I don't know why it feels different with Tatiana – maybe it's because I'm not as dependent on her as I was with Aksel – but it feels good. In Tampere, I don't feel like I need to be doing something to prove myself, to try to show that I'm assimilating. Maybe along with the knowledge that nothing is keeping me in Finland now, comes the freedom to view everything through the eyes of a simple tourist. I don't have to fit in anymore. It doesn't matter that I don't understand the Finnish littering the signboards and street signs, because I'm not staying long enough for it to matter.

At lunchtime, I stop by the café attached to the train station. They have some pastries and wraps on display, as well as a menu with coffee and tea on it. I grab a packaged smoked duck roll with the a very long Finnish word beginning with 'gluteen' stamped across the packaging.

Probably something like gluten-free, I guess from its likeness to English.

The Finnish language is a little strange. Sometimes, it has words that look like they could have been cloned from the English language. Vitamin C, for example, looks similar to the English, but is turned around in Finnish into C-vitamiini.

I have no idea why some words are so similar to their English counterparts – were they borrowed from English?

Priscilla would probably know. Maybe I should ask her sometime.