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for coffee before their practice starts. I’ll buy,” Koivu said.
    “OK, but make mine half milk. This damn heartburn is killing me,” I said, which seemed to embarrass Koivu. He was clearly having a hard time figuring out how to act naturally around pregnant me. Any deviation from the sweet expectant mother routine totally threw him off, even if it was just a single swearword. He should have known me better than that. One pregnancy wasn’t going to suddenly change somebody’s personality.
    At the coffee shop I kicked off my shoes because despite the cool weather, my feet were swollen. Maybe no one would show up at the ice rink and I would get to go home. The coffee was bitter, so I added some sugar cubes, but I still couldn’t get it down. It seemed like the baby didn’t like it either, because it turned from side to side as if offended by the horrible taste being passed through the umbilical cord. I had to drink a big glass of buttermilk to wash away the coffee. We didn’t make it to the ice arena until six thirty. Koivu’s cell phone started ringing at the door, so he stayed outside to talk.
    The rink was almost dark without a single light on in the stands. The floodlights focused on the ice. As I walked toward the light, music suddenly started playing: “Aquarius” from Hair , the opening of Noora and Janne’s free skate.
    Janne came speeding out onto the ice. I had seen their routine enough times that I knew to expect a combination jump. This time Janne landed it upright, with just the slightest stutter coming down out of a double toe loop when the bottom toe pick of one blade grabbed the ice.
    Watching Janne skate the routine alone was eerie; he seemed to be constantly looking at an invisible partner. During the first lift, he was clearly bearing someone’s weight, and in the side-by-side solo pirouette, he checked to make sure he was in sync with her. The tune changed to “Hair,” and Janne touched his own free-flowing locks, which really were unusually long for a male skater. He grinned mischievously at the place in the program that had reportedly offended some of the conservative judges at the World Championships. I remembered how Noora had looked during that part, her brown ponytail swinging around her spinning head. Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair . . . Next would have come a double-axel throw, but Janne just glided with arms outstretched until launching off to meet his shadow partner for a series of steps and the transition to the next song. The pain on his face during the death spiral was part of the program, but now it was so genuine that I almost ran out onto the ice to stop him.
    “Don’t interrupt him,” a voice whispered behind me. I could barely make out Rami Luoto’s silhouette and thought I saw his hand move as if wiping away a tear. With my eyes glued back on Janne, I could almost see Noora’s skates glinting during the star lift. Janne’s arms lowered the emptiness they held calmly and surely, and then the tempo of the music increased toward the finale, “Let the Sunshine In.”I had seen Miloš Forman’s film at least four times over the years, and the end always made me bawl. That was probably why I blubbered when I saw Noora and Janne skating to it in competition. Janne’s double axel was flawless, a long glide, a dramatic plunge on the ice like a dying soldier, and then a rise into the vaunted final death spiral, which I only saw as dim motion in the wavering light.
    Rami Luoto shifted behind me and then almost ran to the edge of the ice. I wished someone would turn on the lights to break the ethereal mood. I wiped my face on my sleeve, since I didn’t have a handkerchief in my pocket. Then the rink brightened. I saw Koivu weaving through the rows of seats toward me.
    “A red Nissan Micra, license plate starting with an A , and a white Renault Clio!” Koivu said loudly as he approached, but for a second I didn’t have any idea what he meant.
    “Lähde