They started filming, and Henrik placed a bundle of papers in front of her. “What are these?”
She looked down. Invoices from her wholesaler—Jonathan and his father. Where had he gotten hold of them? He must have taken them out of the folders she kept behind the counter.
“Er . . . invoices.”
“Exactly, itemized invoices, and this list ...” He shook his head. “Your expenses are unbelievable. And when I look at your overhead ...”With a flourish he produced another sheet of paper. “It’s obvious that you have a major problem.”
What was she supposed to say? She had no idea what she’d been thinking during all those months while things had been going downhill. She’d just kept telling herself that it would all sort itself out. She’d been counting on a miracle.
“Do you realize that you’ve driven this place into the ground?”
She simply stared at him, trying to quell the rising tide of panic. Her mind swirled with memories of her parents, the sourdough, all the happy times in this place, Henrik’s words. Was it true? Had she driven the business into the ground?
She suddenly saw everything so clearly, as if a curtain had been raised, exposing her failure. Could she have saved the patisserie if she’d acted earlier? She’d seen those invoices and the overhead each month with her own eyes; she’d spoken to the accountant, been in those meetings. She’d done her best, hadn’t she? Maybe she should have stomped on the emergency brake weeks ago. How could this have happened? Why had she done this? Why hadn’t she seen the magnitude of the problem until now?
Henrik’s words echoed in her mind:driven this place into the ground. She wasn’t sure whether he had actually said them again, or if they were just reverberating in her head.
“You continued to spend even though your overhead ...” That was his voice, and it was filling her head.
Continued to spend. Driven this place into the ground.
Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Her hands were tingling. Oh no, this couldn’t happen now, not in front of Henrik and the production team, not on camera.Not now. Not now.It had happened to her only once before, but she recognized the signs. Maybe she could stop it?
She tried to take a deep breath, but her heart was beating faster and faster until it was pounding. The tingling in her hands spread up her arms to her neck, and her throat constricted.
“Can’t breathe,” she gasped, bending forward and clutching at her throat. “Can’t get any air. Can’t breathe.” She was desperate for air. She heard a strange noise, unaware that it was coming from her, and her whole body was suffused with pain. Then everything went black, and she felt as if she were drowning.
15
1945
Ritva ran up to Tuula as she was about to head out to work. There were tears running down her daughter’s cheeks.
“Mommy, can’t I come to work with you today?”
Tuula crouched down next to the child. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you can’t. You have to go to school.” It was hard to say those words; every cell in her body protested.
When Tuula had gotten home the day before, she had found Ritva in floods of tears on the sofa. Eventually it emerged that Ritva’s classmates had laughed at her in school. Little by little Tuula had coaxed more details from her. Ritva had found it difficult to pronounce the teacher’s name, so he had forced her to say it over and over again, but she still couldn’t get the consonants right. In the end he had grabbed her by the shoulder straps of her dress, lifted her off the floor, and held her there, legs dangling, while the children ran around her shouting made-up Finnish words. And the teacher let them do it. Ritva told her mother that the children had been mocking her from the start, she had no one to play with, and the teacher did nothing to help.
Her heart broke as she pictured Ritva sitting at her desk, trying to answer the teacher’s questions, spending recess alone and then bullied by her classmates. Unable to hold back her own tears, Tuula had gone into the bedroom so that the children wouldn’t see her cry.
She felt so powerless. Given the teacher’s attitude, she didn’t think it would help to speak to him. It might even make things worse. All she could do was surround her with love and make sure she understood that the fault didn’t lie with her.
Tuula bent down and hugged her, then took her tearstained face in her hands. “I’ll see you this afternoon—I can’t wait.” She gave her daughter another hug, then hugged Matias as well before she left the house. She wished she could take Ritva to school, but the timing just didn’t work. Ritva had been so proud when Tuula gave her her own key to the apartment, so that she could take her brother to daycare and then walk to school on her own. There was no sign of that pride now; the spark in her eyes had been completely extinguished.
At work it was impossible not to think about Ritva and the situation in school. Aino kept looking questioningly at her, but didn’t say anything until their coffee break. When they had settled down with freshly baked Danishes and a cup of coffee, Aino turned to her friend.
“What’s wrong, Tuula? Has something happened?”
The words came pouring out. Aino placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and Lydia, who had come out for a smoke, sat down beside them with a worried look on her face.
“Sweetheart, what’s happened?” Lydia took Tuula’s hand and held it.
“What is it?” This time it was Nils’s voice.
Tuula glanced up at him, and the others looked in surprise at their boss.
“Sorry—maybe it’s none of my business,” he said quickly.
