Pirjo's jealousy

Pirjo’s jealousy is a long-running state shaped by the gap between her intimate place in Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi’s life and the passionate attention he gives other women. She is his closest collaborator and the last disciple from his earlier life, yet he treats her as an untouchable guardian rather than a lover. The conflict moves from private longing to planned action when Wanda Phinn announces that she is coming to the academy.

A relationship divided by a door

For almost four years, the Nature Absorption Academy’s headquarters had been on Öland, a setting Pirjo found reassuring because life there seemed under control and Atu’s soul undisturbed. Away from the island, as Atu recruited women at centers in Barcelona, Venice, and London, Pirjo felt alone, trapped by jealousy and insignificant beside the women who approached him as a healer. The contrast was not simply between home and travel: it exposed how little control her position gave her over the attention she most wanted from him. The academy’s layout made that exclusion immediate. Pirjo’s office stood beside the atrium, and Atu locked the connecting door when he wanted privacy with another woman. The click announced that she was shut out. Her response was bodily and abrupt: she closed her eyes, felt sweat beneath her arms and her pulse beating in her neck, and sometimes covered her ears and chanted to recover her balance. The sound could mark either the beginning of his encounter with someone else or its end, when the unlocked door signaled that he was finished with her. In either case, it condensed distance, exclusion, and humiliation into a familiar noise. Pirjo had considered moving her office and had tried to persuade Atu to relocate his quarters, but neither effort changed the arrangement. He defended keeping their work and living spaces close as practical: administration, supplies, and the two of them would remain within easy reach. His reasoning preserved the organization’s convenience while leaving intact the very proximity that repeatedly exposed Pirjo to his other relationships. On one such occasion she ignored a ringing telephone and disciples waving through the window from the square, trying instead to shut out the knowledge that Atu was with another woman next door.

The intimacy she wants and the role she has

Pirjo had earned a substantial place in Atu’s operation as his extra hand and think tank, as well as its diary writer, organizer, and coordinator. But the authority and closeness of that work did not translate into the kind of intimacy she desired. Although she and Atu had a long history of cooperation and closeness, he had never made love to her physically. He framed their bond as spiritual and valued the energy he drew from her gentleness and insight; Pirjo hated that account because it cast her as gentle and chaste when she did not feel either. Over time, their relationship had become more like that of a brother and sister in spirit than the passionate partnership she wanted. Atu regarded her as a vestal, an untouchable virgin guarding him, his business, and everything around him. That identity was his decision, not hers. At thirty-nine, Pirjo still considered herself a virgin in her relationship with him, and she wanted a child. She believed that if she were to make love to Atu and have a baby with him, it would need to happen soon. Her jealousy therefore carried more than the pain of seeing other women receive his desire: it was bound to an increasingly urgent hope for a future he had not offered her.

Wanda’s arrival becomes a threat

In September 2013, Pirjo read Wanda Phinn’s message about her imminent arrival for the tenth time. The teachings of nature absorption did not recognize gut instinct as a valid guide, but Pirjo’s background made her reluctant to dismiss it. Each rereading prompted fresh scenarios, yet she reached the same conclusion: Wanda had disregarded Pirjo’s refusal to accept her into a course and now meant to enter the world Pirjo shared with Atu. With her biological clock ticking, Pirjo could not tolerate the prospect. Her control of course requests gave her a way to act before Atu saw Wanda’s message. Pirjo believed that Wanda would awaken his curiosity and libido, and she knew what she considered his weaknesses. She therefore decided that Wanda must not be allowed to reach the Nature Absorption Academy. The jealousy that had previously left her enduring Atu’s choices now joined her administrative authority to a plan to intervene in them.

Concealment and escalation

Pirjo imagined explaining a future absence as a drive north to clear her head, or as time spent organizing new ideas for her telephone line. The explanation needed to sound believable, and she resolved not to mention Wanda so that the woman would remain outside everyone else’s awareness. Pirjo’s private formulation was that Wanda would first be neutralized and eliminated; after that, it would be Malena’s turn. She had not yet worked out how to settle matters with Malena without Atu finding out, but she feared that delay could make the situation ugly. These plans establish the reach of Pirjo’s jealousy without showing their eventual outcome. The repeated door click embodies the exclusion she has endured; the Wanda message turns that distress into a decision made in secret. Her attachment to Atu’s institution is inseparable from her unfulfilled wish to be chosen by him, and her position inside the academy gives that wish practical, potentially dangerous means of expression.