While I was sharing these observations with the girls, the phone rang. Jamie. Can't be a coincidence.

"Hi! What's up? I am in Helsinki now, can I see you somewhere?"

I covered the phone with my hand and whispered "A relative. Is it OK if he joins us?" Tarja and Liisa nodded.

"I am sitting with a couple of friends drinking beer outside, you can join us. Where are you?"
"Downtown somewhere. Near a bar called Memphis, and right across from the railway station."
"OK, just cross the street towards the railway station and keep walking in the same direction."

In a couple of minutes Jamie appears, gives me a brotherly hug and kiss, and sits down with us. I introduce him to Tarja and Liisa, and he gives each of them his sexiest and most endearing and at the same time submissive smile. That's what he usually does when you introduce him to women. He also gives one of these smiles to me, which I find disconcerting. If a handsome stranger were showing such signs of sexual submission to me, I'd be totally thrilled. When it's Jamie, I just know that he is expecting to be yelled at, and most likely for a very good reason.

"How are you? How long have you been here?"
"A few hours."
"What's up?"
"Katie and I are moving to Helsinki, at least for a couple of years."

Does he expect me to be mad at that? In fact I am pleased - Jamie is a fairly nice person to have around if you know you can give him back to Katie at the end of the day, and with any luck I might even occasionally see Katie herself, even though she is always so busy. Must be something else. I express the appropriate enthusiasm at the idea of their move, and Liisa says she's glad there are more foreigners who are crazy enough to come here.

Liisa is taking part in the conversation, to the extent that you can take part in the conversation that keeps bringing up many people you don't know. I try to put labels on the names for her as much as I can. Tarja is listening attentively, but I am not sure whether she is interested in the content or in Jamie's accent, which is Scottish and a bit heavy at times. She's had a minor in phonetics and loves accents.

"What else is new?"
"Karen is having a baby. I think she is pissed off at me for not wanting to be its father."

I stare at him in horror. He grins.

"She is not gonna be the biological mother, you idiot. Mieke is."

Karen is Jamie's sister. She is married to a woman named Mieke, they want to have kids and apparently getting sperm has been a problem.

"Why don't they ask Lior? He is quite generous with his sperm, I hear."

To be fair to Lior, he is generous with everything: time, money, beer, chocolate, and yes, especially sperm. Lior is the only person I'd ever seen who would really fuck anything that's in any way interested, regardless of sex, age, looks and much everything else. He doesn't usually use condoms unless his partner demands it or unless he is having anal sex, and therefore I shudder to think how many little Liors are prowling the world right now. Don't ask me how I know all this - we have no secrets in the family.

"They can't, too much of a risk that the kid grows up and falls in love with one of its numerous half-siblings. Anyway, they asked Andy and he agreed. He has never been too bright."

At my mention of Lior something moves in Jamie's eyes, something clearly of the "should I tell her now?"-variety, but he decides against it.

"OK, man, out with it. What's going on? And why is Rudy here too?"
"You saw Rudy? When, where?"
"Crossing that street over there, five minutes before you called."
"Was Alex with him?"
"Not that I know of. What? Is Alex supposed to be here too?"
"He is here. They came together on the morning flight from London. They were supposed to wait for me at the airport but then Alex left me a message that they went to the city and that he'd take care of Rudy."

OK, do I really wanna know why Rudy needs to be taken care of, in which way, and how is Alex doing it? I grab Jamie by the hair (painlessly, I hope, but forcefully enough to show that I mean business), bring his face closer to mine and hiss:

"What the fuck is going on and who else is here?"
"Errr... We are having a bit of a family reunion..."
"In my city?"
"You don't really own it, you know."
"You are having a family reunion - our family reunion - in my city and nobody told me?"
"We meant to tell you. Alex was supposed to tell you. He fucked up."
"Jamie, Alex cannot find snow in Siberia, sand in Sahara or his own dick with both hands. Nobody ever tells him to do anything unless they really don't want the thing to be done. Who the fuck was the moron that told him to call me?"

Jamie casts his eyes down, which is enough of an answer to the last question. He feels so guilty that he does not even rise to the bait about Alex's dick and two hands. I suddenly feel sorry for him, or maybe for Alex. Jamie and aunt Esther are the only two people in the world who actually still believe, in the face of all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that Alex can sometimes get something done and not fuck it up. I let his hair out of my hand and continue in a more peaceful tone:

"So who else is here?"
"Just the three of us, now, but more are coming. Jack and Marij are coming later today, and Lior and Anat. Tomorrow morning: Leo, Esther, Aviva, Zvi and Isaac."
"Isaac? As in uncle Isaac from Frankfurt? Shit, I need a drink."

He takes it as a request and rises. I start protesting, but he waves me off. He brings me another Guinness, and a glass of dessert wine for himself. This is disturbing. Normally he doesn't drink. Oh well, he does have a glass of wine 3 or 4 times a year, maybe today is the day.

"So, what is the topic of the event? Am I?"
"No, you aren't. Rudy is."
"Does he know?"
"I don't think anyone told him, but he is not stupid."
"What has he done now?"
"It's mostly about the things that he is not doing. Eating, for one. Working. Thinking. Clinically depressed in a rather self-destructive way, and getting worse. Cutting himself again, too."
"Did something happen to him?"
"His divorce finally came through a couple of months ago. And he was already quite depressed from the time Rebecca filed for it."

I know I am a bad and callous person, but I can't imagine how could anyone consider getting rid of Rebecca to be a bad thing. The woman is a psychotic bitch with violent tendencies. Come to think of it, Rudy's first wife was also a psychotic bitch with violent tendencies. Where does he find them?

"Speak about the devil..."

We see Rudy coming towards us and dragging semiconscious Alex with him. He has already seen us. Dragging Alex is no easy task, since he weighs at least 30 kilograms more than Rudy, but he manages it. Jamie rises to help them. He berates Alex gently: "Alex, you were supposed to take care of Rudy, not the other way around." Rudy kisses me on the cheek and sits down next to Jamie. Alex hugs me and remains in that position until I realize that he cannot sit down without my help. I oblige. We arrange Alex in such a way as not to upset the staff of the bar too much.

Rudy introduces himself to the girls, and they to him. Then he introduces Alex by saying "and this drunk asshole is my little brother Alex". Alex beams at them. Good, at least he is not in an aggressive mood. Now that the critical mass for having two distinct conversations at our table is achieved, Tarja and Liisa start shamelessly discussing my relatives in Finnish. They've heard about these and other relatives many times before and now they are comparing their first impressions to their preconceptions.

I finally get a good look at all of them. Jamie has long black hair, which is normal, but now Rudy has long - well, longish - black hair too, which is a new development. Usually his hair is quite short and a very bright red. For a short second of insanity I wonder whether long black hair is contagious and glance at my own to see if it is turning black too. It isn't.

"What have you done to your hair?"
"I haven't. When you don't do anything to your hair it usually becomes long and turns its natural color. Ask Katie to explain this to you, she is a biologist."

Dear Rudy. Friendly as ever. Well, at least he does sound like himself, maybe everything is not that bad. But yes, indeed, the ends of his hair are red. Now I realize that red in fact looked better. Rudy is so fair otherwise that when he has black hair the word teinigootti immediately comes to mind, even though he is 35 and has never been a goth, and obviously doesn't even have blond roots.

"Is Katie coming?" - I ask Jamie.
"She doesn't know yet whether she'll make it here."

Damn. I miss Katie. Besides, she knows how to tame her brothers and husband. She has a very commanding presence. Part of it comes from having been a boss of a number of people for a number of years, but most of it was already there when she was a teenager. Maybe most of it is just her stature. She is very tall - a meter ninety - and likes to wear high heels. When she bangs her fist on a table, people listen.

Rudy is also about a meter ninety, and about 50 kilos, which looks scary on him. He's always been a fairly thin guy, but not nearly that thin. Dark circles under the eyes. He really doesn't look good. In spite of apparently not having paid any attention to his hair for a year or so, he is quite stylishly dressed, as usual. Either dressing well is so much a habit that it takes him no energy at all to do it, or his closet only has nice clothes.

The fate distributes gifts unfairly, I thought. Rudy, who would cringe at the very idea of someone calling him a metrosexual, has such an impeccable sense of fashion, and Jamie, who is in fact a wannabe metrosexual, has none at all and has to satisfy his metrosexual tendencies with regular use of moisturizer and very occasional makeup. Alex, on the other hand, probably thinks that metrosexual is someone who has sex in the subway, and would surely do it if he ever found a willing partner.

Rudy takes a bottle of whiskey out of Alex's pocket and starts drinking it right from the bottle. I tell him that this is not the way we do things here in Finland. He shrugs, says nothing and continues drinking. I stare at him. He stares right back and lights a cigarette.

Jamie is flirting with the girls, and clearly getting some kind of a positive response. I find it inappropriate of him as Katie's husband to flirt with them like that, not because he would have sex with them, but because he probably wouldn't. Alex is watching them with the same envy with which he usually watches other men's success with women. Liisa is clearly trying to compare Rudy's butt with Jamie's, but the current seat arrangement prevents her from having a good view of either. Tarja is probably trying to figure out why Rudy's accent is so different from both Alex's and Jamie's although she knows they all grew up in Edinburgh. I ask her in Finnish whether this is indeed the case, and she says that it is. I explain, without using the names, that Rudy has actually worked hard on sounding like a native Londoner, Jamie hasn't, and Alex still lives in Edinburgh.

"They are very good-looking, the dark ones," - she says. Liisa nods enthusiastically. I somewhat disagree. OK, Jamie is good-looking and Rudy is not to my taste but I can understand how other women find him cute, or used to find 20 kilos ago, but I have always considered Alex to be the prettiest of the Scottish relatives. His beauty is of the dirty-blond high-cheekboned kind that is so common here in Finland, so I can sort of understand why Finnish women don't notice him, but it generally pains me to see how little of his good looks translates into any success with women. Women sure notice him, but usually flee as soon as he opens his mouth. And he is not a bad guy, really - he just has a personality that requires a fair lot of social grace to carry it off, and no social grace whatsoever to go with it. He is as cynical as Rudy and as aggressive as Jamie on their bad days, and does not have the social skill that occasionally makes their cynicism and aggression sexy.

Especially aggression goes over badly. When Jamie promises to kick a woman's ass, she takes it as a funny joke. When Alex does the same, the woman calls the police. Jamie has once tried to explain to him that the idea is not to sound believable, but Alex did not quite get the hang of it. When Rudy says nasty things about people and life in general, he manages to sound like a tragic rebel figure. Alex just sounds like uncle Isaac after a few drinks. I wonder whether it's possible to teach him to just be friendly to people in a normal way. Considering that he has just turned 31, probably not.

I tell Tarja that the tall dark one is now free, as she has already heard, and she is welcome to try, but should keep in mind that he lives in London and is likely not interested in any woman who wouldn't beat him up at least twice a day. This is a rather cynical assessment of Rudy's sex life, but it's pretty much true. Tarja grins at me and says that a little whipping can be arranged, but I know she is kidding. Liisa is in a monogamous relationship, so she just sighs.

Suddenly a scary thought comes to my mind. "Are my parents and Sam coming? Did you guys tell them?"

"They know but they are not coming," says Jamie. "Too far away. So it's gonna be just between us Europeans. Besides, Sam and I have talked it over in person a couple of months ago."

In person? Sam lives in Hong Kong right now. Now that we are talking about it I remember that he'd mentioned that Jamie visited him there. Did not say anything about this family reunion, the asshole. Or maybe he thought I was in the loop.

"What were you doing in Hong Kong?" I ask, hoping for the better.
"Just sort of a long vacation: a few of weeks in Hong Kong, a month in Japan, a few days here and there."

Uh-oh. This means that Jamie is not in the best of his mental health himself, either. He used to have severe mental problems some years ago, has mostly recovered, but every once in a while breaks down under stress and takes a couple of months' leave of absence for reasons of mental health, ostensibly his own, although his absence in that state might be good for his coworkers' mental health too, and buggers off somewhere for a couple of months. He especially likes Japan, even though he hated the place when he lived there for a year. I guess living somewhere is very different from being on vacation. He is not really doing anything terrible in his bad moments, just has even more sleep problems than usual and cries an awful lot, but the thought of him trying to deal with Rudy's mental problems while being in that state himself just seems like the blind leading the blind. On the other hand, he has just had his mental-health vacation, so he might he OK. In fact I can ask him.

"Feeling better now?"
"Oh yeah. You can't imagine how healthy it is not to work for a while."

Sure is. Especially when you have a wife who can afford to support you when you take unpaid leave. For a scientist Katie is amazingly good at earning money. She could afford not to have him work at all, but she thinks it's bad for his mental health too, and generally demands that he'd work at least 3/4 of the time. He does.

Jamie's phone rings. He answers it and gives somebody directions to where we are sitting, then hangs up and says "Lior and Anat". I go and get another beer.

Liisa and Tarja decide to flee before more crazy relatives come in. They rise, tell everybody how nice it was to see them and how nice it would be to see them sometime again, congratulate Jamie on his upcoming move to Finland and wish me strength and endurance in Finnish. Damn deserters. They wink at me and leave.

Alex has sobered up a bit and asks me to bring him a coffee. I oblige. Jamie looks like he is considering another glass of wine, but is not buying it yet. Rudy keeps drinking from the whiskey bottle and getting drunker. He still has his jacket on, even though it's pretty hot. I keep wondering whether his arms are so cut up that he doesn't want to show them, or whether he is just cold from being severely underweight. A quick look reveals several fresh and healing cuts near his wrists. I hate to think what's further up.

Jamie broaches the subject of staying over at my place overnight. I am not thrilled with the idea. I know he wants to sleep with me in my bed, simply because he does not like to sleep alone. There is no impropriety in it, but a person who tends to wake up screaming in the middle of the night is not somebody you'd want to sleep with. I start wondering who does he sleep with when he is traveling on his own, but then decide I don't necessarily wanna know. He also mentions that Rudy might want to stay over too, which presents a different problem: Rudy likes to smoke inside and it's not very easy to prevent him from doing so. Finally I decide that the problem can be dealt with by putting Rudy and Jamie in the same bed together, using earplugs and making Jamie watch that Rudy doesn't smoke. The last part is easy, Jamie hates smoke too. I point at Alex with my eyes and Jamie says that Alex, Jack and Marij will be staying at some apartment hotel they have reserved.

I extract from Jamie the promise to prevent Rudy from smoking inside by any means necessary, and the matter is settled. Rudy takes no part in the conversation and just continues with drinking and smoking. If he carries on like that till the night maybe Finland will run out of cigarettes.

Jamie swears jokingly by his Celtic heritage, which he doesn't really have. His parents moved to Scotland in the sixties, just like Rudy's and Alex's parents. It's kind of an ongoing joke for him: he is rather dark and exotic-looking for a Scot, and does not look like he belongs to any common immigrant group either; people there are often surprised to hear that he sounds like any local, then they ask him where his parents came from and then get even more surprised when he answers "Denmark and Iceland".

Anat and Lior arrive. Lior jumps around everybody and looks really happy to see us. Anat bends down to me and hugs me from behind, rubbing her cheek against mine. I catch a whiff of her expensive perfume. She always has some fancy perfume, which is somewhat unusual in an otherwise jeans-and-t-shirt person. Then she rises and announces that she needs to take a piss, and that she would like company. I rise and she follows me to the downstairs toilet. There, under the bright blue lamps, she grabs me by the shoulder. "Now would you tell me what the hell is going on?"
"I am just as much out of it as you. Even more. At least you knew that this meeting would take place. I was only told a few hours ago."
"The assholes did not tell you anything in advance?"
"No."
"Did any of them say anything today?"
"Basically: Rudy is being self-destructive, we should decide what to do about it."
"What can we do about it?"
"Beats me."
"Why don't they get him committed in a hospital if he is a danger to himself?"
"Dunno. Maybe because he'd kill them afterwards?"
"He wouldn't!"
"I would if I were him."
"That's because you are healthy."

Can't argue with that logic, can you?

"Who's behind it all?"
"At least Jamie, and probably not just him alone."
"Are Esther and Leo in the loop?"
"We'll find out tomorrow. They are coming."
"Any other adults coming?"

Anat and I are both 32. I cringe at her use of the word "adults".

"Zvi, Isaac and Aviva."
"Shit! Who the hell invited them, and what for?"
"Hey, wasn't me."

Anat and Aviva in the same place is a really, really bad idea indeed. Hope they won't kill each other.

We do what we allegedly went to the toilet to do, and come back to the table. Anat and Lior get themselves Irish coffees, Anat sits down in Lior's lap, takes his face in her hands and starts kissing him, all the time talking softly in Hebrew. It sound like pillow talk, but I know Anat is sharing information she has just gotten out of me. Jamie and Alex demonstratively start a conversation in Gaelic, but neither of them is any good at it, so they cease and desist. Rudy sneers at them like a man who really can speak Gaelic but wouldn't do it in front of the commoners, but I don't really know whether he can speak it. I wouldn't be surprised though. He is very much a language person. In fact wouldn't be surprised if he also understands every word Lior and Anat are saying in Hebrew. Shit, can he understand Finnish too?

I ask them what's up. Thankfully nothing particularly bad is up with them. In fact "nothing except my dick" is the first answer Lior cheerfully gives me. Anat got a promotion; Lior had just been to a conference at some Greek island; great beaches and good Greek food; no, didn't really make it to any presentations except his own, what with all the beaches and little drinks with umbrellas; the lovely kitten is doing fine, thanks (in fact a horrifying evil beast that would give Nanny Ogg's Greebo a heart attack); it's staying with Gilad and Shlamit (Anat's parents) now; no, hasn't bitten anyone for a week now; the relatives in France are all doing well; the relatives in Israel are also doing well, except that little Yehuda is in the army now, and crazy uncle Baruch has moved back from Hebron to Jerusalem and now the Jerusalem relatives' life is a complete nightmare because they have to deal with the crazy fucker. In other words, business as usual.

At some point Jack and Marij appear, and a new round of hugging starts. Jack sits down, pulls out a marijuana bag from his pocket and starts rolling a joint. "Jack!" - exclaim Anat, Lior and I in chorus, outraged. Jamie looks resigned; Rudy and Alex, rather hopeful. I tell Jack that marijuana is not legal in Finland, and that people especially do not roll, let alone smoke, joints in outdoor cafes. "Sister does not have faith in me," - says Jack with a smile and continues rolling. Marij looks amused, but she always does. "Jack," - she says - "You are a disgrace to Dutch people everywhere." "I am not Dutch," - protests Jack. "I am Scottish." "See, you are not even Dutch and you are still a disgrace to Dutch people everywhere." Jack smiles and tries to light up. "Remember that sex we were going to have ever again?" - says Marij in a tone that makes it clear that Marij quotes this particular line from Firefly fairly often. Jack sighs and puts the bag and the joint in his pocket. I try not to think of whether he brought the bag with him from Amsterdam on a plane or managed to obtain it in the hour and a half that he's been in Finland. From the looks on the people's faces I can see that there are many people around this table who are trying not to think exactly the same thing.

Jack is the calmest, most even-tempered, most laid-back person in the Goldberg family. He is also perpetually stoned. I wonder if these two things have anything to do with each other.

Marij switches her manga-character eyes from me to Anat and back. "I need to go to the bathroom," - she says. "Anyone coming with me? Mira? Anat? I don't know where it is."

Marij has the eyes that you generally only see in Japanese cartoons: a lot longer and a lot slantier than Asian eyes in general. She also always has a vague ironic smile on her face. This disturbs a lot of people who think the joke is on them, and it often is.

Anat and I get up and go to the bathroom with Marij, and Jamie looks like he'd like to join us, but he cannot for the obvious reason. The conversation that happens there is very similar to the one we had with Anat. The most obvious difference is that unlike Anat, upon leaving the bathroom Marij does not relay it to Jack, not immediately in any case.

Jack and Marij tell us their news and those of the other Amsterdam relatives. Marij is almost done with her master thesis, Jack hasn't even started his, and Karen and Mieke just spend all the free time in bed in an attempt to make the baby.

"They are lesbians," - I point out.
"But at least they are having fun trying," - says Jack.

"Can we give some of this pot to uncle Isaac tomorrow?" - says Alex. - "At least that way he might not be as nasty as usual."

This suggestion cheers everyone up immensely. Even Rudy smiles. Since there is no chance of making uncle Isaac smoke the stuff they start discussing making magic brownies. I put my foot down and say that there will be no pot and no magic brownies in my place, but Jack and Marij say that the meeting can be held in their hotel room, which is a studio with a kitchenette, and the brownies can be made there too.

Uncle Isaac is an obnoxious old moron who yells and everyone and tells everyone how to live. Besides, he is very religious and yells at us all for not being good Jews, except for Jamie, at whom he yells for not being a good Christian. Rudy tried to defend Jamie by saying that he is a good Christian once, but upon finding out that Jamie does not really know whether Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus and Easter the death or the other way around, and also whether his parents are Catholic or Protestant, Rudy had to concede the point that Jamie was indeed not a very good Christian. (He is the only one in the world who does not know, by the way; to those of us who are not aliens from outer space the last names Hallgrimsson and Sorensen give a fairly good clue as to whether their bearers are likely to be Catholic or Protestant.) Isaac also used to yell at that Bangladeshi girl that Jack used to date for being a bad Moslem, until somebody told him that she was a Hindu, after which he started yelling at her for being a bad Hindu as well. Marij is the only person who confuses him, because he does not know what she is supposed to be. She was born in China and adopted in a family of Dutch Catholic atheists (that's the way she usually describes her parents' religion or lack thereof), but uncle Isaac does not know that. So he thinks Marij is just bad in general.

I think brownies are a really bad idea. First of all, we don't know how Isaac will react to them. He might become an even bigger asshole, although this is unlikely, he might have an allergic reaction. How do we stop him from eating too many if he likes them? How do we stop other innocent relatives who don't know they are laced from eating them? As a matter of fact, how do we stop the people who do know that they are laced from eating too many? But I am severely outnumbered.

At some point we leave the place, much to the relief of the staff and other customers, buy some booze and some ice cream and go sit down in a park. The conversation revolves around the handling of the older relatives tomorrow. I raised the question of why they were invited, and by whom. Jamie admits that it was a mistake, at least in Isaac's and Aviva's case, and takes all the blame, but I can see from the look on Alex's face that he has definitely had something to do with it. It's not immediately obvious to everyone, since Alex glares defiantly at everyone around him in the situations in which most other people look down or aside and try to avoid meeting others' eyes, but I just know Alex well enough. This means that he is really in on it, and not just as Jamie's errand boy.

Leo and Esther are fairly inoffensive people, and besides we owed it to them to invite them - they are, after all, Rudy's, Katie's, Alex's and Jack's parents. They really are nice, healthy-minded, well-educated and well-adjusted folks who have always loved their children and paid attention to them. I don't know how come one of their kids is a self-destructive perpetual victim of domestic violence, another is a social disaster and yet another a pothead. Although is being a pothead so bad? Jack is quite fine otherwise.

Zvi is not so bad either, except that when he gets drunk he start lecturing people on art in a very annoying way. He is in fact an artist and an art critic, which is a weird combination. His brother Isaac is, well, an ultrareligious asshole who keeps threatening everyone with fire and brimstone, or whatever the Jewish equivalent is (is there?). Aunt Aviva is just an annoying old biddy who spreads inaccurate gossip and minds everybody's business but her own, in great detail.

In the evening Rudy, Jamie and I go to my place and the rest of them go to the hotel. On the way Jamie declares that he is hungry and that he is quite sure that my fridge is empty of anything but beer (I have no clue where he got that idea), so we go to a grocery store to buy some food. Good idea, that. Haven't had any lunch except beer and ice cream. While he is shopping I call Timo - my boyfriend - and tell him about the relative invasion. Instead of offering to be there for moral support the evil creature says that he wishes to let me hang out with my relatives in peace. I can almost see an evil grin in his voice.

We come home. I try to grab the groceries, but Jamie pushes me away, grabs them himself, and disappears in the kitchen, saying "you should never let women cook, they put vegetables in your food". Rudy walks into the living room, his jacket still on. I sit down on the sofa. He walks around the room, inspecting my bookshelves with obvious disapproval at the insufficient amount of classics.

Rudy is - at least when he is not clinically depressed and is actually able to work - an English teacher at the university level, and he teaches mostly 19-century British and US literature. He used to hope for an academic career, but he only has an academic job, except that not even that now. Unlike many young people who choose an academic career because they love research and then realize that the career necessarily involves teaching and they hate it, Rudy went into it because he liked teaching, and then realized that his career would never amount to anything if he does not have any publications. He is a good teacher and has never had any problems finding jobs in universities, but they tend to be dead-end and low-paying lecturer jobs. Pay is not that much of a problem, though: in his free time, of which he has a lot, he also teaches martial arts, which pays better. Obviously in his current condition he cannot do that either. Or probably he could, but that would be really bad for him. He has a few black belts in various martial arts, but prefers teaching several varieties of karate, and sometimes also muay thai. Used to compete internationally in karate, too. Did not win any prizes internationally but won a few within the UK.

Being an accomplished martial artist did not stop him from being injured regularly, and sometimes seriously, by two psychotic abusive wives, the divorce from one of whom is making him so depressed now. Between the wives there were a couple of girlfriends, also abusive although less so than the wives.

Jamie teaches martial arts too, mostly hapkido and wing chun. He does it only several hours a week, though, and more to keep his skills up than to earn money. For a living he works as a system administrator, usually in fairly big companies that have several sysadmins and don't mind that one of them becomes a Bastard Operator from Hell and takes a couple of months of unpaid leave every once in a while. He used to fight competitively too, but not quite at the same level as Rudy. Katie used to do martial arts too, and still occasionally does, although she does not have a lot of time for it nowadays, and Jamie's sister Karen still competes and wins in spite of her advanced age.

"Come on, take the jacket off," -I tell Rudy. - "We all know what's there, we've seen it before and it's pretty hot here."

He gives me an exasperated look and doesn't take it off, but also doesn't resist when I come and take it off him. I sit down on the sofa. He sits down next to me. There are dozens of cuts on the inside of his arms, not as deep as I expected but so close to each other that you can't even put a bandaid on them. That's the fairly fresh cuts. The old ones are under them. I run my hand along his spine and feel like saying something that would cheer him up and make him less depressed. Somehow, it seems that "that wife whom you are so sorry to lose is a violent psychotic bitch and it's good that you are finally rid of her" does not quite fit the bill. Difficult.

We end up talking about love. He tells me, in quite a lot of words, that he still loves Rebecca and wants her back. I try to explain to him that getting her back is neither likely nor in fact desirable, in effect still saying "she is a violent psychotic bitch and it's good that you are finally rid of her", but in a much milder and more polite form. He clearly thinks I don't know what I am talking about.

"Do you know what true love is? Have you ever loved?"
"Yes, I do know what true love is, and it doesn't involve hitting your loved one on the face with a frying pan."
"It was a cold frying pan."
"That's hardly the point."

He tells me that for him "in sickness and in health" of the marriage vows includes the situations when your partner is violent. I am quite sure that he is wrong, but that is hardly the point either - the point is that there is something wrong with him, something that makes him seek out women like that. In my life I've met only two women who have managed to beat their partners up to the point of needing serious medical attention, and both of them were married to Rudy.

In the movies it's always so straightforward: the little woman (it's always a woman in the movies) is afraid to leave her redneck husband because he has threatened to kill her if she does, and that's it for the dynamics of the relationship. Rudy was definitely not afraid of Debbie and Rebecca - in fact quite defiant and "asking for it" - at least until the day when Debbie poured gasoline over him and pulled the lighter out of her pocket. (Would've set him on fire, too, but at that point some vestiges of survival instinct finally came upon him and he wrestled the lighter away from her.) It's like he doesn't really feel loved unless somebody is punching him in the face.

He did file for divorce from Debbie all by himself after the gasoline episode, and we are all very proud of him for that. In fact he considered it even before that. Debbie did not want to let him go, and their divorce was somewhat of the shotgun variety. Without an actual shotgun, of course. Jamie just beat her up in a way that one can expect from a very angry man with two black belts and four good lawyers in the family, and told her that there was more coming if she did not leave Rudy in peace. The Jamie-style restraining order worked very well, and he did not even need the services of the lawyers. Rudy was really pissed off at him, though, but finally calmed down.

Rudy goes on describing what true love means to him. Gradually my thoughts turn to the South Park episode An Elephant Makes Love to a Pig, and this disturbs me. Maybe I really am cynical, and Rudy is a lot more idealistic than he usually seems. But no, that's not really it. I do believe in romantic love, I believe in it with all my heart. I just think one shouldn't do it with Rebecca.

Another disturbing thought: Rebecca was quite a progress in comparison to Debbie. The worst she'd ever done to him was two broken ribs and a mild concussion. Maybe Rebecca is in fact the best he can do?

I just don't know what are the right things to say. I was hoping for help from Jamie - he and Rudy are very close and have known each other for ages, way before Jamie married Katie - but he has strategically withdrawn to the kitchen under the pretense of making dinner. From there comes rattle of pots and pans, occasional swearing and the smell of garlic that suggests that sometimes even he puts a little vegetable in the food.

Finally he appears and says that dinner is ready. It's some Thai noodle thing with chicken and a lot of sauce, and he made a lot of it. I take some. Rudy says that he is not hungry but would like some whiskey or vodka if I have it.

I have vodka, but hesitate to give it to him. One cannot just drink all the time and never eat anything. This is all pure self-destructive action, by the way - Rudy does not have any weight issues when he is not lovesick, and he does not normally drink that much.

"You can't live on booze," - echoes my thoughts Jamie.
"Oh yeah? Used to know a guy some time ago who'd lived on booze for a long, long time, wonder who that was?"
"First of all, that was beer, and then there were sausages too. Also I am not underweight unlike some people."
"Yes, you are!"
"Am not! I weigh more that you, man, and I am 17 centimeters shorter."
"Let's find out!"

They grab a calculator and a scale and start chasing each other around the apartment. I am eating my dinner, marveling at the immaturity, and thinking that I am the one who needs vodka here.

After a bit of running and screaming they figure that the scale works better if you put it down, take the measurements, and came up with a body mass index of 14 for Rudy (I think the technical term for that BMI range is "catastrophic") and 21 for Jamie, after which Rudy calls him a lardass.

I pour myself a glass of vodka and tell Rudy that he'll get some too if he eats his dinner. He gives me a nasty look, says "sure, mom", but sits down to eat. I wonder whether I should remind him that his real mom is coming tomorrow, but decide against it.

We have some vodka afterwards, and I have to drink a lot of it in order to prevent Rudy from drinking the whole bottle. Jamie is no help with alcohol nowadays. Rudy tries to light up all the time, and we have to stop him over and over. Finally he tells us that we are no fun, and goes outside for a cigarette. Or twenty cigarettes.

I turn to Jamie:

"Now would you like to explain to me what are you trying to do here? I get the point about Rudy being in a bad way, what do you imagine we can do about it?"
"Trying to get him to move in with Katie and myself and move here with us. We'd be able to look after him, see that he eats and takes his medication and does not date axe-wielding maniacs."
"I have always known Rudy is a self-destructive person. Now you are being self-destructive too. This is a new development."
"Sister does not have faith in me?"

This is usually Jack's line, and Jamie delivers it in such a good imitation of Jack that it throws me off-balance.

"How do you expect to make him go along with that?"
"Family pressure, in case you haven't figured it out. I was sort of hoping we all could threaten him that we'll try to get him involuntarily committed if he does not go along with it."
"Shit. He is gonna be pissed off."
"No shit."
"Are you sure it's a good idea? This is a new country, and he does not have a job or any friends here."
"He does not have a job or any friends there, for that matter."
"What happened to the friends?"
"There is only so many times you can be really nasty to people. Besides he's never been really sociable."

I disagree. He is in fact quite sociable even though he does not have a lot of friends. I am not convinced Jamie's and Katie's idea of having Rudy move to Finland with them is good, but I haven't heard a better one, either, and somebody has to do something. Maybe somebody will come up with something better tomorrow.

"How are you doing yourself?" - I ask.
"I am OK, I told you. As OK as I am ever likely to be, anyway."

He's had a bad case of post-traumatic stress disorder from a vacation that went very bad 14 years ago. He did get a lot better, considering the state he was in back then, but is still having rather severe recurring nightmares. He doesn't go on dangerous vacations anymore, and tends to need a rest every once in a while after a stressful time at work, more so than other people, but otherwise leads a fairly normal life. Because he got help when he needed it, he says. I wonder whether his belief that Rudy can get better stems from the fact that he himself did in fact get a lot better with a year of drugs and three years of therapy. Somehow I doubt that it would be as easy in Rudy's case: Jamie used to be a healthy person to whom a bad thing happened, Rudy probably does not have any experience of good mental health at all. Also, even at his worst moments Jamie was never self-destructive - just afraid of all people, including family and friends, terrified to go outside and unable to sleep for more than 10 minutes.

Our conversation turns to lighter things, such as renting apartments in Helsinki, and whether they have any good sushi restaurants here. We cheer up a bit. Eventually Rudy comes up, also a bit more cheerful than before, and asks about the sleeping arrangements. "You'll be sleeping on the sofa with Jamie," - I say. "Hey, as long as it's not with Lior..." - he answers.

Rudy is surprisingly homophobic for a member of university faculty. No, he does not bash gays, and is not even against them marrying, but he has this weird habit of imagining that all gay and bisexual men always want to have sex with him. He is always guarding his ass from Lior like a hawk, despite the fact that Lior is happily married, is a bisexual with a lot more interest in women than men, and has never expressed any sexual interest in Rudy.

The phone rings.

"Hi, mom!"
"Hi, Mira! How is everything going?"
"Lots of relatives are here, as you surely know."
"I know. How is Rudy doing?"
"Not so good."
"This boy needs some Prozac. Lots of it."
"They don't make that much."
"Don't let them fight."
"That's easy for you to say. Why don't you get your ass here? I miss you anyway."
"Don't have any vacation now, sorry. I wish I could. Good luck with the relatives."
"I am needing it already."
"Don't let Anat punch Aviva again."
"You'll have to tell Aviva to stop pissing Anat off, I am afraid."
"You can stuff something in her mouth."

I smile, remembering the magic brownies, and wish mom good night, even though it's still afternoon there. We settle down to sleep. I can't find earplugs and just pull the blanket over my head.

Jamie wakes up screaming only twice, and manages to wake me up only once. Rudy is hugging him and trying to calm him down, which is not hard once he is awake. I come up to them and hug them both too.

In the morning Jamie looks quite well-rested and is bouncing off the walls, which as far as I know is not an evidence of any manic disorder but just Jamie being himself (I don't know how Katie deals with it - I couldn't, back in my time). He fries some bacon and eggs, which he eats by himself, since Rudy is, surprise, not hungry, and I am eating the dinner leftovers for breakfast. Rudy wants some more vodka. I lie that I don't have any. He wants to buy some. For the first time during my life in Finland I am actually glad Alkos are closed on Sundays.

Jack calls me:

"Rise and shine, sweetheart, and be a good American for once."
"What do you want me to do as a good American?"
"Get us a good brownie recipe. You can buy the ingredients on your way here."
"Listen, I still think the magic brownies are a really bad idea."
"Listen Mira, either we are gonna have magic brownies or we are going to have very foul-tasting magic brownies. Your call."
"Alright, alright. Does that place have oven sheets and wax paper?"
"Yeah."

We buy the stuff and make our way to the hotel in Kallio where the rest of them are staying. Jack sees us from the balcony where he is smoking and waves to us. Argh, what did I tell him about smoking pot in Finland? When Jack is smoking something it's definitely not tobacco.

Everybody is in the room already, and it's a pretty big room. There is a big table with benches and a few chairs, and Lior and Anat are sitting at the table. They have been to a store too, and bought a lot of Fazerin Sininen chocolate bars that Anat likes so much for some reason, apparently figuring out that they are not gonna eat any brownies. Our arrival is met with cheers. I hand over the brownie ingredients and the recipe to Jack, stating once more that I am doing this under protest, and he gives me a bear hug. Jack, Marij and Alex start cooking, which is something they rarely do, and are getting in each other's way. Jamie makes himself a cup of tea, takes one of the chocolate bars, lies down on the floor next to Lior, and they start chatting about some computer game. I sit down at the table and Anat and I start discussing all that can and surely will go wrong with the brownies. Rudy is just sitting on the sofa and staring at his brothers' and sister-in-law's cooking attempts. Suddenly he springs to his feet.

"You morons! What the hell do you think you are doing?"

Jack is adding the pot to the brownie mix.

"That's not how you do it! What do you think this is, adding oregano to a pizza? You heat the grass in butter or oil, and take it out of there, and then use the butter to make brownies!"

He starts lecturing them on making magic brownies, and then takes over the process himself. The rest of us listen in fascination, wondering where he learned to do that.

"How much of the stuff are you supposed to put in how much butter, and how long do you heat it?" - asked Jack.
"I have no idea!"
"Does anyone have any idea?" - inquire I carefully.

Nobody does. I raise the question of not making the magic brownies since none of us really know how to, but Jack, Rudy, and Alex all explain me everything about anal-retentive paranoid bitches, and I shut up.

We need more brownie ingredients unless we want to have only magic brownies and no regular ones. Somebody has to go to the store, and I volunteer. When I come back the first batch of brownies is in the oven already.

Katie calls and says she'll come on the same flight as Leo and Esther. They'll be here in 4 hours or so. Jamie looks so radiant that if he were a woman aunt Aviva would have started asking whether he is pregnant. For the first time during this weekend I start wondering whether being around happy couples is actually good for Rudy in his current state, and for the first time I am somewhat glad that Timo is not here. Rudy is apparently having similar thoughts, because he sighs "what does Jamie have that I don't?", hopefully with regard to women in general and not Katie in particular.

"Standards," - I say and immediately regret it, but it cannot be unsaid, and I cannot even say that I did not mean it, because everybody knows that I did mean it and that it's true. The most I can do is apologize, and I do. Rudy shrugs and does not say anything.

Jack and Alex make a second batch of brownies, these ones without pot, if you believe them. The problem is that they look exactly the same and they have put them on a same kind of dish, so there is a huge potential for confusion even if they are clean.

I go out to the store again, get some cream cheese and make a third batch of brownies, these ones with a cream cheese frosting. At least now I know that these are regular brownies; whether the rest of the family believes in me as an upstanding and law-abiding citizen remains to be seen.

Marij says that we should decide now which ones of the "adults" would be given laced brownies and which the regular ones. I can't believe it: they actually start voting on that. The voting comes to nothing with five different suggestions getting one vote each, and three abstentions. They settle on "let's drug Isaac and Aviva, and then we'll see". This is a moronic idea since the ones who will not be drugged have to be forewarned. "No, aunt Esther, please do not eat these brownies, they are full of marijuana and meant for uncle Isaac." Yeah, right!

I bury my face in my hands and say "God, I need a beer!" The beer magically appears in front of my face, provided not by God but by Marij. I am as close to falling in love with a woman as I'd ever be.

Waiting for more people to arrive and trying to figure out what to do with the brownies is getting on everybody's nerves. Alex expresses hope that it is over with soon, so that he can go out and try to pick up some women. Rudy tells him that no woman would ever look at him, let alone have sex with him. This is most definitely untrue. Alex has probably had sex with more women than Rudy, Jamie and Jack combined. It's just that we are not aware of the existence of any woman who'd made that mistake twice. Jamie is quick to point that out, but for some reason that doesn't calm Alex down a bit.

Rudy is in a cruel mood and continues taunting Alex. He tells him that he is ugly, stupid and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and that wearing an Islamic veil would be his best bet to get close to any woman.

"Come on, a lot of women find him cute, at least until he opens his mouth," - says Jamie. - "I have always told him that he should try dating among the hearing impaired community".
"Cut it out, guys, shut up and leave Alex in peace," - says Lior.
"Don't patronize me!" - screams Alex. Jamie actually shuts up for once.

Rudy keeps insulting Alex's mating skills. Alex is furious and starts insulting Rudy's admittedly unfortunate choice of mates.

"No woman would have you even if you were the last piece of meat in the world!"
"I wouldn't stick my dick into either of the cunts you married even if they were the last piece of meat in the world, either!"

Their conversation deteriorates from there on. At some point Rudy grabs a knife and attacks Alex. By some momentary failure in survival instinct Alex does not flee, but grabs another knife and turns to face Rudy.

Marij jumps in between them with the mindless courage of a pretty and fragile woman who is convinced that no man would ever hurt her, and for a fraction of second I am really afraid for her life. Then Jamie jumps at Rudy and I tackle Alex, trying to wrestle his knife away from him.

Jamie is clearly no match for Rudy even when the latter is severely underweight, and it takes Rudy about half a second to send him flying into a wall. Rudy's knife, however, flies off to another direction, and this half-second gives Lior enough time to get up and join the fray. Our karate kids tend to dismiss Lior as a fighter since he has had about a year of martial arts training against their 25 years each, but they have spent those years fighting in nice warm gyms for belts and awards, whereas Lior has actually fought in the army against men who have tried to kill him, and is still alive, which tends to give a man a good fighting edge. Besides, he probably has more muscle mass than Rudy and Jamie combined. In any case, by the time Rudy realizes that Jamie and Lior together really do constitute a superior force he is lying prone on the floor, Jamie is lying on top of him and holding him in an armlock, and Lior is sitting on his legs to prevent him from kicking too much.

I have it easier with Alex. After I grab his knife hand and fall on top of him, Anat follows immediately, and Alex finds himself under the two of us and without a knife. He gives up, and we get up and sit on top of him, the knife still in my hand.

"Stop fighting, people," - says Jack. - "This is so immature."

Rudy wriggles a bit. He clearly wants to spit at Alex, but it is not possible from where he is.

"You got beaten by girls!" is the first insult that comes to his mind.
"But look at the size of these bitches! Argh!" - retorts Alex, the "argh" being the result of Anat pinching him painfully in the leg.

None of us dare set Rudy or Alex free. I sit on Alex's back and say a silent prayer praising God for the fact that none of my relatives are doing any sport where you get to throw things. Well, cousin Mark throws javelin, but he is in Los Angeles and is therefore not an immediate problem.

Jack gets up, takes the knife from my hand, collects the rest of the knives from the room and puts them in a drawer.

"With a family like that we need plastic knives," - he says. - "Marij, could you..."

A knock on the door. Shit. Jack and Marij start yelling that everything is OK and that we are sorry for the noise and won't do it again. I look around. Lior is bleeding a little from his nose, and Anat is gesturing for him to wipe it off. Other than that we could pass for a particularly wild party as opposed to two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

The knocking does not stop. Jack hides the pot and opens the door just a little bit, ready to close it at any moment. The next second he steps away from the door, and in walks Leo followed by Katie and Esther.

Either Leo is extremely fast on the uptake, or he generally knows what his sons are usually fighting about, or both, because the first thing he says is "Calm down, children. I have seen more pussy than any of you will ever see, and believe me, it's not that serious."

This cracks us all up. Leo has been a gynecologist for more than 35 years now, and he really has seen more pussy than all of us put together. Jamie releases Rudy from the armlock and we all get up, but Rudy immediately has to get down on the floor again. A moment of panic ensues, but it turns out that he is not particularly hurt - just feeling weak and dizzy like most people who try to work out on an empty stomach. He lies down on the floor, and Marij brings him some water and an allegedly pot-free brownie, which he eats without much protest.

Nobody seems to be really hurt. Jamie is rubbing the shoulder that has made a somewhat violent contact with the wall, Lior's nose is bleeding a little but does not seem to be broken, and Rudy's left cheekbone, which has connected with Lior's fist, is redder than his other cheekbone. Anat and I got just a few bruises between us, and Alex looks like someone who has just woken up after passing out under a heap of other people at a party, but is otherwise no worse for the wear.

"Icepacks for everybody?" - cheerfully asks Jack. - "Marij and I made a lot of ice yesterday especially for this eventuality."

Lior gratefully accepts a homemade icepack for his nose, Rudy refuses for some unfathomable macho reason of his own, and Jamie expresses a preference for Mobilat. To our utter amazement Jack pulls a tube of Mobilat out of his bag and hands it over to him.

"Look at that! Jack distributing legal drugs for a change, who would have thought!" - whispers Lior to me.

Jamie pulls his t-shirt off and lies down, and Katie starts massaging Mobilat into his back and shoulders. After she is done with that she rolls him over, climbs on top of him and they start kissing. She runs her hands through his hair and along his body, and start unbuttoning his jeans. His hands are already somewhere in her pants. They are not actually having sex right there on the floor in front of everybody, but they are fairly close. Everybody is watching them. I take a look at Rudy and Alex and wonder if it's good for them to look at that right now. I don't mind seeing Jamie, Katie or anyone else having sex, but the sound effects they produce are fairly loud and are getting on my nerves.

"Katie, how can you behave like that, you are a scientist," - says Esther somewhat illogically.
"Mom, I am not doing anything anti-scientific," - responds Katie in between kisses.

Finally even Lior tells them to get a room, and when Lior, whose middle name is "public display of affection", tells you that you are being indecent, you are being really indecent. He actually offers them the keys of his and Anat's room, and they take him up on this offer. They leave without even bothering to take Jamie's t-shirt with them. Unfortunately Lior's and Anat's room is right next door, and we still hear some of the louder sound effects, but the wall manages to filter out most of them.

Esther looks at the brownies. I point to the dish of cream-cheese-frosted ones. "Aunt Esther, please try these, they are very good."
"Thanks, dear, I think I prefer the plain ones," - she says and takes one of those.

I give a questioning look to Jack. He looks back sheepishly with a guilty smile. The dishes got moved out of the way during the fight and now he does not know which is which.

"Aunt Esther, please, I need a word with you outside. Right now," - I say. She notices the urgency in my voice and says "OK". Jack and Alex are showing me their fists behind her back. I give them a one-finger salute, open the door, and walk out, followed by Esther. To my horror I notice that she is chewing.

"What's wrong, lovie?" - she asks.
"Spit it out! It might be laced with pot, and we don't even know how much pot is in there. The cream cheese brownies are clean, I made them myself," - I say, although I am not quite sure whether the knowledge that I have made them really serves to convince Esther that they are clean.
She swallows, but thankfully at least does not take another bite. "What do you mean, might be? They are either laced or not, and you should know which and how much."
"That's the problem: one of the dishes is magic and one is regular and we don't know which is which. Also nobody knew how much pot to put in them."
"Children, children, this is no way to use drugs. I'll give Jack a proper thrashing next time I have a chance."
"Wasn't Jack's idea."
"But it surely was Jack's drugs."
"Nothing escapes you," - I sigh.
"What did you do that for, anyway?"
"To pacify Isaac."
"What? Isaac is coming? What kind of moron invited him and what for?"
"Not me."
"How could you even think of using pot on Isaac? Couldn't you get your hands on Valium or Diapam?"

I look at her in shock and suddenly realize more strongly than ever that she is, in fact, Jack's mother.

"We had very little time. I am just warning you. Please find some way to tell Leo, too."

We come back into the room. Alex and Jack look nervous, their expressions questioning. I try to keep a poker face. Leo is eating a cream cheese brownie.

A cell phone rings. Nobody makes a move to answer it, and I realize that it's Jamie's. I pick it up to see who is calling, but the caller ID doesn't seem to work. I ask if anyone wants to answer it, but nobody does, and I don't either, so I just let it ring. It stops, and immediately after that Alex's phone starts ringing. He answers it.

"Hello! Oh, hi, uncle Isaac! He is in the next room fucking. What do you mean 'with whom' - with my sister of course! Where are you?"

He gives Isaac the directions from downtown to the hotel, hangs up and says "they are in downtown already". A lot of swearing ensues.

Esther whispers something to Leo, then comes up to Alex, hugs him and whispers something to him too. Apparently it's something good, because he smiles and immediately seems to be in a better mood. She makes scary eyes at Jack, who does not seem to be particularly scared, and sits on the sofa next to Rudy. He buries his face in her shoulder.

Fifteen minutes later Zvi and Isaac come in. Zvi greets everyone nicely and is generally well-behaved. Isaac starts with asking why they were invited to this country of anti-semitic heathens. I explain to him that they are neither heathens nor anti-semitic, and keep thinking that he should have asked this question before buying the tickets. He says "they were on Germany's side during the war" in a tone that shows that he thinks that this is the ultimate proof of a country's antisemitism. I think this is pretty thick from a guy who actually lives in Germany.

Zvi takes a brownie and starts chewing it. Alex extends the brownie plate to Isaac.

"Uncle Isaac, please have some brownies."
"Are they kosher?"

Oh shit! Did not think of that.

"Of course they are! I made them myself!" - I join the conversation.
"Mira, you wouldn't know kosher if it bit you on the ass."
"I know enough to figure that things that bite me on the ass are usually not kosher. Seriously, I made them myself, all the ingredients are kosher, and none of the utensils have ever been in contact with meat," - I say, all the time trying to think what else you have to do in order to make things kosher.

He takes a brownie. The door opens and Jamie and Katie walk in while zipping their flies, Jamie still without a shirt. Isaac sees red.

"Katie, how could you? You are a Whore!"

There is nothing else in the world I hate as much as the people who pronounce the word "whore" with a big "W". Katie's eyes sparkle dangerously - she also doesn't like being called a Whore with a big W. For a second there I am afraid we are going to have one more fight around here, but Katie just smiles icily.

"I am not aware of any place in the Torah or Talmud that would call a woman a whore for having sex with her own husband," - she says. Of course she isn't. I'd bet a plateful of brownies against one bar of Fazerin Sininen that Katie has never read Torah, Talmud or Tanach.
"He is no husband to you! Torah prohibits marrying goyim!" - screams Isaac. Here we go again.
"Uhm, Isaac," - says Zvi, who has in fact read at least most of the books. - "Torah prohibits marrying goyim, but being married to one is not considered whoring, and in fact the marriage is even legitimate."

God bless Zvi. He usually knows what he is talking about when he speaks about Judaism, and with a little bit of luck he can distract Isaac from being an asshole. We do not have this little bit of luck, though, and Isaac keeps carrying on about how Jamie's and Katie's marriage was a big mistake. Considering that they've been happily married for about 10 years now, it's a bit late for "you shouldn't be married" speech, even by the Jewish Orthodox standards.

"He is just pissed off because he was not invited to the wedding," - says Alex. This is not true. Isaac was invited to the wedding and declined the invitation because Jewish weddings are legitimized religiously by having two kosher witnesses and he did not want to lend legitimacy to this marriage. Which is funny - one would think he'd consider this and all other marriages perfectly safe from being legitimate, since there is no Jew on Earth other than himself that Isaac would consider a proper kosher witness.

Katie is growing visibly angrier and angrier, and even Jamie, who usually considers uncle Isaac an amusing variety of talking gorilla, is slowly getting pissed off. He takes a big knife out of a drawer and starts playing with it as if it were a katana, all the time giving Isaac fairly dark looks. I catch Rudy's eye and point questioningly at Jamie. Rudy smiles and shakes his head a bit: no, Jamie doesn't really know how to use a katana. Apparently Isaac has decided to get a rise out of Jamie one way or another:

"When are you gonna cut your hair? You look like a girl, could as well start using makeup."

Oops. That was a very wrong thing to say, especially the M-word. Jamie's face brightens with a positively evil grin, and he asks Katie for her makeup bag. He puts some eyeliner and mascara on pretty nicely, then lipstick. Katie's lipstick is a very wrong color for him, but he doesn't know or doesn't care. He gets up, still without a shirt on, comes very close to Isaac, looks him in the eyes and asks, in a very bad imitation of a husky feminine voice:

"Don't you find me sexy?"

Then he starts taking his pants off, apparently to help Isaac with gender recognition.

"Argh!" - screams Isaac and jumps aside to get away from this abomination, only to run into Marij, whom he considers an abomination on general principle. Marij grins at him and he says "argh" again.

I keep gesturing wildly at Lior, pointing to Isaac's ass and pinching the air. Lior smiles at me somewhat guiltily and shrugs, making it clear that while he perfectly understands my desire to cause Isaac a heart attack by having him pinch his ass, he is not yet quite ready to participate in this noble project.

Zvi is clamoring for Katie to get Jamie's clothes on Jamie, and the makeup off him. Katie says that at the tender young age of 34 Jamie is perfectly capable of performing both of these tasks himself if he happens to want to. At some point he actually gets tired of all the yelling, puts his clothes back on and goes to the bathroom to wash his face. When he returns I notice that Katie had been just a little bit too optimistic about his ability to wash makeup off properly.

The yelling does not stop. "What's going to become of your children?" - Isaac asks.
"We are letting Petra and Jonathan find their religion all by themselves," - primly says Katie. Petra and Jonathan are two elderly and rather overweight German Shepherds who have almost as little use for religion as Jamie and Katie themselves. They are pretty good at finding sausage, though.
"Atheists," - says Marij with a bit of steel in her voice. Apparently this circus is starting to get even to her.
"Jewish atheists or Christian atheists?
"Half-Jewish and half-Christian atheists."

Leo tries to restore peace by telling Isaac that you can be very religious without being an asshole, but somehow Isaac does not calm down upon hearing this.

I sigh and say, way louder than I intended to: "Dear God, why did you create so many relatives?"
"It wasn't God, it was grandma," - answers Rudy helpfully. The scandal has apparently cheered him up.
"Religious or careless?" - inquires Marij politely.
"Grandma was religious and grandpa was careless. Always forgot to pull out on time," - says Rudy, thus sowing the seed for a new scandal.
"No, it's the other way around," - I correct him. - "Grandma was careless and grandpa was both careless and religious."
"Children, stop teasing uncle Isaac," - says Esther.
"Mom, he started it!" - Alex points at Isaac.
"No, you started it when you were teasing him over the phone," - remembers Esther.
"He was asking me where Jamie was and what he was doing. Was I supposed to lie?" - says Alex, and is greeted with everyone else's unanimous "yes!". Well, good thing we all can agree on something. Except Alex, of course.

Katie takes a plain brownie from one of the plates and marks the edge of the plate with a piece of bandaid. A few pairs of eyes look at her questioningly. "Well, we have to find out which are which somehow."
"Which are which what, Katie? Aren't they all the same?" - asks Zvi.
"Which are plain and which are coffee-flavored," - says Katie without blinking an eye.
"What if the one you are eating is coffee-flavored?" - asks Esther.
"Maybe it's all for the better," - sighs Katie.
"A coffee-flavored one might have a fair lot of caffeine," - I warn her.
"That's OK," - she grins.

Zvi takes one from each plate, eats them both and declares that neither tastes particularly coffee-flavored to him. Jack takes two brownies from different plates too, but he is probably already so stoned that it is not going to make a difference. I take another cream cheese brownie. Lior is sticking to Fazerin Sininen, and Jamie makes sad puppy eyes at him and Lior gives him a Fazerin Sininen too.

Isaac looks around for a new victim and finds one:

"Mira, when are you going to find a real man?"
"I have one already. Do you think I should have two?"
"You do? Which shul does he go to?"
"Same place as me."

Jamie and Marij look around questioningly. "Synagogue," - translates Leo. Isaac is staring at me with a newfound respect.

"Did not know you go to a shul."
"I don't."

He is disappointed. - "But is the guy at least Jewish?"
"Lutheran."
"But what are your children gonna be?"
"We'll grill them and eat them, like all good Lutherans normally do," - I say, all the time wondering whether he is taking me seriously.

Jamie's cell phone rings. He answers it, and apparently it's Aviva, because he gives the directions from the downtown to the hotel. Then my cell phone rings. It's Timo.

"What's up? Are they evil? Do you need to be rescued?"
"Some of them are really evil, and I don't think I can be rescued at this point. I'll just close my eyes and think of England.
"What's the situation?"
"Everybody is here, except for the stupid aunt from Paris who is arriving any minute now, we haven't got down to business yet, the younger uncle is fucked in the head even more than usual, the youngest of the cousins is stoned...
"Isn't he always?"
"Yeah, but he could have made an exception. ...the oldest cousin and the blond one almost had a knifefight, the scientist is trying to get stoned and her husband has pulled his dick on the uncle."
"Hah? That sounds like something Lior would do, not Jamie."
"No, he only pulls his weapon out when he is about to fire it, not to tease uncles. In addition, they made magic brownies to calm the scary adults down and now got them confused with the regular brownies."
"Couldn't you find some real sedatives?"
"That's what auntie said, too."
"After eating the brownies or before?"
"During, actually."
"If at some point you get rid of the scary adults I can come up to say hi to the rest of them."
"OK. I'll call you."

It is a relief to speak Finnish for a moment. Avoiding saying anyone's name is silly, because surely they know I am talking about them, but somehow it would have felt even more stupid to mention them by name.

Jamie's phone rings again. Apparently Aviva is unable to follow directions, and Jamie does not know how to advise her. "Where is she?" - I ask. He repeats the question to her, and is then unable to relay the answer to me. He gives me the phone.

"Hi, Aviva, can you tell me where you are?"
"Somewhere near the railway station."
"Can you, like, go to some corner and give me the street names?"
"Just a second. Hämeenkatu and Rautatienkatu." She pronounces the names with difficulty but I am sure that was what I heard.

For a few seconds I am at a loss. Then I scream "shit!". Everybody turns to look at me.

"Aviva," - I ask carefully. - "Which airline did you fly?"
"Ryanair. Does this make any difference?"
"It totally does! You are in the middle of bloody Tampere!"
"Oh, dear. What do I do now?"
"You go inside the railway station and buy yourself a ticket to Helsinki."

By the time I hang up pretty much everyone is doubled over laughing, even Isaac. "I can't believe it," - I say. - "She ended up in Tampere." Anat says that she would believe anything about Aviva, even if somebody said she's grown horns, fur and a dick on her forehead.

Katie gets up from the floor where she was sitting and grins happily: "Hey, these ones here are the flavored brownies," - she says, pointing to the plate that she has marked, and reaches for another one.
"Are you sure that you need another one?" - asks Esther.
"Absolutely," - says Katie, taking the brownie. - "And I recommend it to you too. Good stuff."
"Coffee-flavored brownies?" - asks Isaac - "That's interesting, I've never seen one." He grabs a brownie and puts it in his mouth, for a second forgetting about kashrut. "Mmmm... really does taste like coffee."

Esther takes a brownie too, and so do Leo and Zvi. Rudy takes three, and Esther gives him a death glare, but he does not release his prey. Jack, Alex and Marij have some more. Jamie looks at all this with hypocritical disapproval of a person who likes the stuff but is allergic to it - he knows that if he eats a brownie he will have to beg forgiveness from the Great White Porcelain God on his knees. Anat looks pensive, but takes a look at Lior and thinks better of it.

That leaves us four people who are not stoned. Five if Aviva comes at some point. That also means that if Anat and Aviva start fighting there will be only three people to keep them from killing each other, or, to be exact, to keep Anat from killing Aviva.

Jamie is getting really nervous. Katie is sitting next to him on the floor, stroking his back and head to calm him down, but does not succeed in calming down even herself. I sit down next to them and touch him too, and even Alex comes to us and pats Jamie on the shoulder.

"Do you think we should get down to business before everyone is stoned, or after?" - he asks us.
"During," - I suggest.

He gives me a that's-not-funny look.

"People are much easier to bend to your will when they are drunk or stoned. Didn't they teach you that in the evil overlord school?"
"I am not trying to bend anyone to my will! I just want them to go along with my plan!" - he says.

It's a good thing he works as a sysadmin, because he clearly wouldn't have made a particularly efficient evil overlord.

"Shouldn't we wait for Aviva?" - asks Alex, who is getting nervous too. - "By the time she is here, everybody will sober up."
"Or pass out," - points out Katie.
"That's even better!"

We decide wait for Aviva. Katie reaches for another brownie, then stop herself.

"You know," - she tells me - "nobody has had any lunch, and people will start getting munchies soon. And guess what they are gonna munch..."
"Shit. Should we order some pizza or something?"
"Could we have Chinese or Thai?" - asks Jamie.
"Or Indian?" - asks Alex.

I explain that I don't know of any Chinese, Thai or Indian restaurants that deliver, but we could go out and get some takeout.

We decide that Katie, Alex, Anat and I will go forage for food and bring some to the rest of them, too. "Get something kosher!" - commands Isaac. "Sure thing," - says Alex. Leo and Lior want pizza, the rest of them prefer something oriental, and Zvi would settle for anything that has fish. Rudy, of course, doesn't want anything. Eventually we get all the stuff, and some beer, too. We get a pizza for Rudy, he says "no, thanks" but eats half of it anyway.

After everyone has eaten I start asking what are people planning to do after the meeting. It's hard to believe that everyone flew here just for that. Lior and Anat have a week of vacation and are planning to see Lapland. Jack and Marij have three days and now that Anat has said it they are thinking of Lapland too.

"Can we hunt reindeer there?" - asks Jack. - "It would be cool, I've never seen a real gun."
"Don't need to hunt them, they sell the meat in the supermarket," - says Jamie.
"I believe they are livestock, Jack, and their owners might get a bit angry if you start hunting them," - I say.

Jack is disappointed. Marij is relieved.

The older generation has the return tickets three days from now, leaving from Stockholm, and I do my best to convince them that Stockholm is a very beautiful place and that they should want to go there as soon as possible.

Alex sits down next to me and hugs me. His hug does not feel entirely brotherly, but I don't mind it. His hand somehow slips inside my bra and it feels pretty nice. He holds me tighter.

Shit! Alex is very cute indeed, and Timo and I have an understanding about occasional affairs, but I can't do it! It just feels so, well, incestual. Alex is my first cousin and the idea of having sex with a first cousin just feels wrong. I was raised to think that cousins are off-limit. On the other hand, there are many cousin marriages in the family. In fact Leo and Esther are second cousins, so are Esther's parents, and Isaac's and Zvi's parents are first cousins, which probably explains a lot. But no, I won't do it. It is wrong. Besides, I will never live it down if I have sex with a cousin at a family reunion. Never.

I gently take his hand out of my bra and say "no, sorry". But Alex is not a man who takes "no" for an answer easily. He wouldn't really rape anyone - I hope - and is surely not physically capable of overpowering me even if he wanted, but in his mind the very fact that I can kick him off myself any time I really want to gives him the right to pursue me as aggressively as he wants until I actually do kick him off myself. He pushes me on the floor, climbs on top of me and starts trying to take my bra off, which is hard with me lying on my back. I tell him in no uncertain terms to get off, and start thinking how to throw him off with minimal damage to either party. Suddenly he yelps and rolls over his head. It's not a proper ukemi - Alex has never done martial arts - and I am immediately afraid that he might have broken his neck. Jamie, Esther and Leo rush to him, but apparently his neck is OK, or in any case he can move all the body parts, and right now his hands are cupped over his balls, and he is doubled over and screaming "aaarrrrggghhh!".

Katie stands at my feet with a crestfallen expression. "Sorry," - she says - did not mean to kick him in the balls, just meant to kick him in the ass, and not that hard, either. Sorry, Alex!"

She has sandals with sharp high heels. I don't know how anyone walks on those, let alone kicks.

"Katie! What did I tell you about sparring while drunk!" - Jamie says in his teacher-to-bad-student voice.
"I am not drunk, I am stoned. I am really sorry." She really does look sorry.

Marij brings an ice pack and stands there with her usual inscrutable smile. We take Alex's pants off, even though Isaac is trying to protest. His balls are red and look bruised. We start discussing taking him to a hospital. He protests and says that he will be OK if somebody gives him an icepack and some pain medicine. Leo and Esther want to take a closer look at his balls. He resists.

"Alex, honey, let us take a look," - pleads Esther. "We are doctors, after all."
"You are gynecologists!" - screams Alex as if it were a crime.
"And you need a psychiatrist!" - chuckles Rudy.
"Look who is talking," - remarks Jack.

Finally he lets them examine his balls and they declare that he will survive without a hospital unless it gets worse. He lies down on the floor, naked from the waist down, with his legs spread and the icepack under his balls. His balls are now the center of everyone's somewhat horrified stares, except Isaac's, who is deliberately looking away, and Katie's, who is looking guiltily at her mother.

"Katie," - says Esther - "How many times do I have to tell you: we do not kick our little brothers in the balls."

Katie throws a quick glance at Rudy.

"Not big brothers, either."
"But he was trying to rape Mira!"
"Mira is perfectly capable of kicking him in the balls herself. At least she does not wear high heels."
"Mom, Alex, I am sorry. I was stoned."
"I told you not to take the second brownie!"

Uh-oh. Now everyone knows that the brownies were of the magic variety. For some unknown reason Isaac chooses to blame it on Jamie. He grabs Jamie by the hair and start twisting his neck. Shit, this looks really painful.

"Are you trying to poison us all with your drugs?"
"I had nothing to do with it," - says Jamie, showing remarkable restraint under the circumstances. - "Please stop it, this hurts."

Rudy sneers at this request, which is unmanly in his opinion. Rudy himself would probably die before he admitted that something besides love can hurt him. Isaac apparently doesn't think much of it either, because he just says "Good! It's supposed to hurt!" and twists Jamie's neck further.

"Can someone please get this asshole off me?" - asks Jamie.

I grab Isaac's wrist, twist it with a lot more force than is strictly necessary and release Jamie.

"Ouch," - says Isaac, hurt. "What did you do that for? Should've let him bear it like a man or fight his way out if it himself."
"Because the only way for him to fight his way out if it himself, uncle Isaac, would have involved breaking your nose and probably your jaw with his elbow," - I explain in my most neutral voice. "After that somebody, most likely myself, would have had to take you to a hospital and spend many hours there. Then we would have to explain your injuries to the police, and they would possibly have constituted aggravated battery, after which we would also have had to explain that Jamie did it in self-defense when you tried to break his neck. Then you would probably have been convicted for attempted manslaughter and would spend years in prison with a boyfriend named Bubba."
"Do they really have men named Bubba in Finland?" - asks Rudy with a fresh onomastic interest.
"Never met any," - I answer, - "probably they are all in prison waiting for uncle Isaac. We can check it out on the population registry webpage later."
"He would have broken my nose? That little shmuck? I can break him in half with one hand!" - says Isaac about Jamie, and the whole room dissolves in giggles, even Alex for whom giggling is visibly painful. Apparently Isaac is the only one unaware of Jamie's martial art credentials.
"Isn't marijuana supposed to make people less aggressive?" - asks Lior sourly, looking at Jack.
"This is uncle Isaac at his less aggressive," - Jack points out.

A knock on the door. I open it just a little, and see aunt Aviva.

"Hi, Mira!" - she says, - "Why aren't you married yet?"

She says it much in the same tone in which a normal person would say "why haven't you washed the dishes yet?", and I am at loss of what to answer. Responses like "because gay marriage is not legal yet and we don't want to settle for a civil union" come to my mind, but I resist them.

"No takers!" - yells Alex from the room. I show him a middle finger. Or somebody, anyway.

"Come on in," - I say, and Aviva walks into the room. The first thing she sees there is Alex's swollen balls. She lets out a stifled scream.

"What are these?"
"Balls," - explains Lior. "I am sure you've seen them before."
"Not mine, she hasn't," - says Alex.
"Why are they purple?"
"Katie kicked them," - answers Rudy.
"What for?"
"By accident," - I say firmly.
"Accident my ass," - says Alex.
"Can't we put some trousers on him?" - asks Isaac.
"No!" - answer many people at the same time, and I realize that indeed Alex will be in no condition to wear any pants, in any case any of his own pants, at least today and quite possibly tomorrow. We should see about getting him a skirt.

Aviva looks around the room.

"How is everybody?" - she asks.
"Fucking great," - hisses Alex, still in pain.
"Could be worse," - says Jamie without raising his head, and it's not clear whether he is commenting on his own condition or Alex's.
"At least we did not come to Tampere by mistake," - says Isaac.
"Didn't anyone save any brownies for aunt Aviva?" - asks Anat.
"Thanks, dear, I've always known that you are so much nicer than that skanky whore Shlamit," - smiles Aviva. Shlamit is Anat's mother. I am not aware of any reason why anyone would consider her a skanky whore.
"Here are the brownies," - Esther points to the plate.
"They are not flavored," - says Katie.
"Trust me, sis, they are flavored enough," - Jack winks at her.
"So it was you!" - roars Isaac, but makes no move to twist Jack's neck, apologize to Jamie, or warn Aviva about the brownies, - "I'd never have thought you would have anything to do with that kind of thing."

The massive laughter scares two birds from the balcony and makes all glasses tremble. Aviva takes a brownie and looks around, perplexed.

"Very nice flavor," - she says.

Rudy, who has been rolling his eyes all the time for the last half an hour, goes out to the balcony for a smoke. I start wondering whether self-destructive Rudy and a balcony is a good combination, but do not dare say it out loud, so as not to give him any ideas. Apparently Jamie is thinking the same, because he follows Rudy to the balcony.

"So, girls, when are you finally going to have your babies?" - Aviva asks, - "the biological clock is ticking, you know, soon it's gonna be too late".
"We are trying very hard every night," - answers Katie, - "in many different positions." Indeed. Katie and Jamie are both sterilized, so it would take a lot of trying.
"After we both graduate," - says Marij.
"None of your fucking business," - says Anat. She gave up on the idea last year after two years of unsuccessful fertility treatments.
"Surely you wouldn't expect me to have sex before getting married!" - I try to look scandalized. This causes another wave of laughter, except for Isaac who apparently takes this at a face value and smiles at me encouragingly.

Aviva seems to be taking me seriously:

"Mira, dear, at your age you can already start having sex within a committed relationship even if you are not married. You should try to find somebody. Even if he is not quite good enough for you, you can get married and then get divorced, it's better than being an old maid."

Now I am starting to regret that Alkos are closed. I can't listen to that without the help of hard liquor.

"OK, I'll talk to my boyfriend and we'll discuss the matter seriously."
"You have a boyfriend? With a personality like that? Who would..."

That's so typical of Aviva. She is not trying to insult me on purpose, she is just genuinely surprised and not afraid to show it. She believes in honesty. Everyone else wishes she'd believe in a little less honesty.

"And you are not having sex with him yet?"
"Who, me? No, perish the thought."

I am tired of teasing Aviva and Isaac that way. It's no fun when they really believe you. I retreat towards the balcony door and stick my head out gingerly, concerned that Rudy and Jamie might be having some kind of an intimate conversation and not wanting to interfere, but it turns out they are just talking about sadomasochism and bondage. This is one of their eternal topics, in which they never come to any agreement. Jamie is a sub, but not a masochist, and does not understand how pain can fit into sex at all, and Rudy, who is undoubtedly a masochist although he doesn't really refer to himself as such, does not understand what's the point of being tied down and dominated in other ways if your dom is not allowed to do anything painful to you anyway. I have no personal experience of either, and no desire to acquire any, but listening to them is more fun than going to the Sexhibition, especially after I just had to pretend to be a virgin for two minutes for Aviva's benefit.

Finally they exhaust the topic and look around.

"It's too light," - says Rudy. Must be the only person in the world who does not like Scandinavian white nights.
"You'd like Finnish winters," - I say.
"And too cold," - remarks Jamie.
"And you wouldn't," I say.
"I have no problem with winters," - he says, - "Sweaters, tea, chocolate and staying inside are all good ways of dealing with it."
"Hope Alex will be OK," - I say.
"He will," - says Jamie, "physically at least. Psychologically, I am not sure he is ever OK. The poor bastard needs to get shagged. On a regular basis, preferably."
"Come on," - protests Rudy. "What will happen to civility if we start letting fuckers like him into the gene pool?"
"There are condoms to protect the gene pool," - I point out.
"Are they fighting in there yet?" - asks Rudy.
"Shit!" - I say - "We left Aviva and Anat and the rest of them in there together, who is gonna stop them?"
"Lior can handle it," - states Jamie firmly. "I think," - he adds, a lot less firmly.

We step inside. It's relatively peaceful, with Esther and Leo listening to Aviva's gossip, Lior trying to distract Anat with a public display of affection similar to what Katie and Jamie were doing earlier, Isaac carrying on about how fully-Jewish couples (meaning Lior and Anat, of course) are as lecherous as everyone else nowadays, and Zvi still eating brownies and staring happily into space. Hope he is not overdosing. Jack is quite stoned but conscious, and Marij is enjoying herself like people in zoos usually do. Alex is still sitting on the floor and holding on to his balls.

"Maybe we should get down to business?" - says Jamie nervously, trying to get everyone's attention and failing.
"Maybe we should get down to business?" - says Jack, and he does get everyone's attention - he has quite an impressive voice. He then yields the floor to Jamie.
"Maybe we should put some trousers on Alex?" - asks Isaac.
"He is in no condition for that," - says Esther.
"A skirt, then?" - asks Isaac.

Alex resists at first, but his ass is cold, and it's not such a bad idea. We ask Anat whether she has a skirt that would fit Alex, and she brings it. It's long and wide and orange and flowery. Alex reluctantly puts it on. Rudy starts making fun of him, but Leo says that a true Scotsman should never be ashamed to wear a kilt, even if it's a somewhat unorthodox kilt.

Jamie stands in the middle of the room, mostly looking down and biting his lips. Alex comes to stand next to him and looks around. Esther also comes up to them. Rudy sits down on the sofa and is also starting to look nervous.

"As you all know," - starts Jamie, - "Rudy got divorced two months ago and has been extremely depressed since then..."
"As well he should be," - says Isaac. "Rebecca was such a nice girl! How come Rudy doesn't know how to keep his women?"

Everybody stares at him like he has just grown horns. Marij looks at him out of the corner of her eye and smiles. He shuts up.

"He hasn't quite been himself lately," - continues Jamie. "He hasn't eaten well, or sometimes at all, he has been cutting himself..."
"Rudy sulking after some girl has left him, starving himself and cutting himself?" - asks Aviva. "To me this sounds exactly like he is being himself."

Hate to admit it, but she does have a point.

Rudy looks a bit panicked.

"OK, so he is fucked in the head, so what else is new?" - says Isaac. "What do you propose to do about it?"
"I think he cannot live alone right now, and I think he could benefit from moving to a new place. I suggest he moves with Katie and myself to Helsinki."
"No fucking way!" - screams Rudy and jumps up. "It's so fucking cold here I'll freeze my balls off, and they don't even have proper nights in summer, or Indian takeout. Besides, I don't want to live with you assholes."
"We do have Indian takeouts!" - I protest - "They just don't deliver."
"That's OK," - says Esther. "If you don't want to move to Finland you can always move back in with us. I think this would work just as well."
"What? No fucking way I am moving in with any of you!"
"Then I think we'll have to have you committed into a hospital," - says Esther. "You are being very self-destructive."

A few seconds of silence. Then Rudy comes up to Jamie and tries to slap him. Jamie dodges and Rudy slaps Esther instead. At that moment he realizes that there are things that are not safe even for a karate champion to do and starts running around the room screaming "sorry, mom! I did not mean to!", chased by Esther. Finally he stops in a corner, his back to the wall.

"You are all the most despicable group of wankers I've ever seen," - he says. "You gang up on me just because I am different from you. You have no souls, no minds and no hearts, none of you. You've never seen true love and you never will. And you have never been a real friend to me. You've been damaged goods ever since you got fucked in the ass by that regiment in Angola."

This is a very crass way to refer to what happened to Jamie 14 years ago. A regiment is surely an exaggeration, the rape was not the worst of it, and Jamie does not have any memory of the event, which is probably good for him. Nobody is likely to ever find out any details, because the other three survivors of that trip (out of the original group of eighteen) have since died and did not remember much while they lived, either.

Jamie does not mind talking about all that, but for the obvious reasons he tends to get angry when people talk about it the way Rudy is doing now. I see a flicker of rage in his eyes, then more and more. I position myself on the line of sight between them, my face to Jamie and back to Rudy, and start wondering how bad will I get it if I try to break up their fight, and there will be a fight, because Rudy is carrying on. I make an eye contact with Lior: "will you help?". He nods. I look at Jamie again.

When the punch comes I realize that I have been looking in the wrong direction all the time. Rudy is wiping blood from under his nose and Katie is rubbing her fist with a satisfied grin on her face. "Bitch!" - screams Rudy and attacks her. She tries to kick him in the balls, but he is much harder to kick than Alex. They roll on the floor. Jamie joins the fray, I am not quite sure whether he is trying to break it up or to help Katie in beating Rudy up, and probably he is not quite sure himself, either. For a second there I feel very uncertain about their future life together. The rest of us try to pull them apart, first with moderate success, but then they apparently get tired. They sit on the floor, rubbing various body parts, Rudy wiping blood from his nose.

"So, Rudy," - says Esther, "are you moving back home with us?"
"To Edinburgh? No fucking way! I'd rather move to Helsinki."
"Any of you guys need another skirt?" - asks Anat. "I am afraid you'll have to ask Marij."

Rudy and Jamie shake their heads.

The adults are all going somewhere to eat. They try to get the younger generation to come with them, but we say that we are not hungry, and decide to go to Milenka for a drink. At first Alex doesn't want to go in his flowing orange skirt, but then his love of beer wins over the embarrassment. I call Timo and ask him to join us there, promising to protect him in case uncle Isaac suddenly jumps out from behind the corner. Timo has never seen Isaac, or any of the older generation, for that matter, but he'd heard enough.

Rudy is still sitting on the floor where the fight ended.

"You coming?" - asks him Jamie.
"Yeah. But you'll have to buy me a beer, asshole."