‘Write a letter? But –’
‘I will pay the postage for you,’ he added quickly, to forestall her. He was afraid that she was about to say to him what she’d told Lotta. I can’t read. I don’t know how to write.
‘I know you’re an orphan,’ he went on, ‘but perhaps you have friends? Distant relations?’
‘Yes,’ she said, but as if she was thinking, not agreeing. ‘I have a friend.’
‘If you want to write, I could send the letter for you, when I am next in town.’
She wiped her hands on her apron, looking at him. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Because – because I want to help you, Eeva.’
‘Oh.’
He thought she wasn’t going to say any more, but suddenly she looked him straight in the face and said, ‘We weren’t allowed to write letters, in the House of Orphans.’
‘I know.’
‘Nobody’s heard from me for years. They probably think I’m dead.’
Had she really said that? The anger in her voice almost made him step back.
‘Anna-Liisa means well. She believes it’s better to sever all connections,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Some of the girls, you know, had to be taken away from bad influences. You are too young to understand. It seems harsh, but it’s for your welfare.’
Eeva’s hands tightened on a fold of her apron. ‘She thinks it’s better to take us away from everything,’ she said.
She seemed not to care what she said to him. Suddenly he felt a fool. She didn’t look too young to understand anything, in fact her face was full of knowledge. But she shouldn’t know such things, he thought.
‘Anna-Liisa is a good woman,’ he went on, feeling he must assert himself. ‘She has a difficult job to do. You don’t know what some of these girls have been removed from.’
Incest, he thought. Families crammed to sleep in a room. Brothers and sisters in one bed, fathers too close to daughters. The children of prostitutes being taught their trade.
He’d treated a child whose back was permanently scarred by being burned with a flat iron. ‘It was done deliberately,’ Anna-Liisa told him, her gossipy lips drawn tight for once, her eyes full of a knowledge he wouldn’t have thought she possessed. ‘There are people who take pleasure in such things.’
Eeva was looking at him with a strange expression. Impatient, and a little pitying, the look of an adult waiting for a child to catch up. He wondered, suddenly, what her experience had really been. What had Eeva been taken away from?
‘Why do you want to help me?’ Eeva asked. The question fell like a drop of water, and ran away into silence. He couldn’t answer it. He didn’t even know what she’d meant by it. Was she mocking him, telling him she knew what he was like, and what he wanted? He could only fumble.
‘Because I’m responsible for you. Because you’re living under my roof and I want you to be –’
She didn’t fill the pause.
‘Happy,’ he said at last. ‘Or at least, not unhappy.’
‘My work’s good,’ she said, ‘I do everything that’s needed. Don’t I?’
‘Don’t be silly, Eeva, I’m not complaining of your work. All I’m saying is that I want you to feel… I want you to feel that this is your home.’
‘Helsinki is my home.’
He wanted to shake her. ‘I know. Of course that’s where you come from. But you’re here, now. This is where you’re living your life. It’s not a railway waiting room.’
‘What do you think I’m waiting for?’ she asked quickly.
‘I don’t know. For heaven’s sake, Eeva, I’m not attacking you. All I’m saying is that you are living here. This isn’t some other girl’s life, it’s yours. It belongs to you and you won’t get a better one. It’s a crime to let even one day disappear. So, if I can make your life better –’
‘But why? Why should you? Why do you want to? I’m nothing to you.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s not true.’
‘I’m just a servant.’
She was angry now and she couldn’t hide it. She wanted to shout at him. Words boomed in her head, powerful enough to break every plate in the kitchen: Don’t talk to me like my father. You are nothing compared to him. Nothing, do you hear me?
‘You are not my father,’ she said, in a voice so low that he was not sure he’d heard her correctly. Her face was shuttered with anger and pain. He wanted to hold her as once he had held Minna.
‘Your father’s memory is sacred to you,’ Thomas said, as gently as he could. ‘We won’t talk about this any more.’
Her eyes shone and he thought she was going to cry, but instead she said in a voice that was tight but not hostile any more, ‘Yes.’
They looked at each other. How were they going to get back onto safe ground, where he was the doctor and she was Eeva, working in the kitchen? It was like a game of chess that had gone wrong, he thought. They were supposed to move only in certain ways. If a pawn refused to soldier forward step by step, stopping where it ought to stop, this is what happened. Boundaries broke, and the pieces lay everywhere. She was a girl, and he was a man. She was the age of his daughter – no, younger. And that made it even worse.
He was going to tell her to pack her things and go, she thought. He was going to tell Anna-Liisa what she’d said. You are nothing. You are nothing. Had she really said that to him? No, she can’t have said those words aloud. They only boomed in her thoughts. He’d have slapped her face, kicked her out of the door.
He could kick her out of the door. If he told Anna-Liisa she was no good, Eeva would never get another place.
And then what? Out in the road with her bundle, miles from anywhere. Those trees everywhere, all around, pressing in on her. Not so much as a shop to steal from if she got desperate. Never mind. I can walk to Helsinki if I have to. It’ll take days and days but I’m strong. And I’ll find Lauri and he’ll help me.
She saw herself at farm doors, being chased away by dogs. They would think she was a bad girl, a beggar or worse. I’ll find work along the way, she thought. There’ll be something I can do.
They’re clever, she thought. They train you for domestic service and that’s it. They won’t teach anything that lets you escape. But she could read and write and she could learn fast. There were women who worked in offices now; typewriters, they were called. They sat down in warm clean offices and they had a holiday every Sunday. She had seen them hurrying to work in Helsinki.
But she looked wrong for an office. She hadn’t got the right clothes and she couldn’t get them. You couldn’t get that kind of job unless you looked right and had done the right training, and you couldn’t look right until you already had the job and the money that went with it. Don’t waste your time thinking about office work, Eeva. There’ll be a factory job for you in Helsinki somewhere.
He was still staring at her, as if he was trying to see inside her.
‘Go and write your letter, Eeva, and I’ll make sure it’s posted,’ he said.
‘I’m making pea soup,’ she objected. She wanted him to realize that he’d be banjaxed without her to make his soup. He didn’t know where anything was, in the kitchen. Even Mrs Eriksson knew more about his kitchen than he did.
‘Well, after you’ve made the soup.’
She was turning back to her work. He nearly said it then: Eeva, Mrs Eriksson tells me that she is planning to teach you to read. Why did you tell her you couldn’t read? I know that you can.
But the words stayed in his head. Her heavy calico apron was drawn tight around her waist. She stretched up, to reach a colander from the top shelf. That clumsy skirt was too short for her. Her ankles showed, and part of her calves in grey woollen stockings. She had thin ankles. The stockings were snagged and matted. Suddenly he thought of Johanna’s stockings. She wore fine lisle, and silk in summer. Her stockings fitted exactly. Not that he saw much of them, he thought bitterly. And Minna’s plump little calves, stuffed into warm woollen leggings. Johanna would pinch the si
des of Minna’s boots, gently, to make sure that the child’s growing feet weren’t cramped. If they were, there would be new boots at once. Soft leather boots with button fastenings. He left all that to Johanna. He was proud that she knew all the things the child needed, at each stage of her life.
Eeva’s boots were heavy and they looked too big for her. Yes, that was why her feet clattered when she walked about. The boots slipped and her heel rose and then slid back into the boot. So she clumped and clattered across the kitchen. Oh God, he thought, she’s slipshod. What Eeva’s feet do, that’s what the word means.
All the same her movements flowed like water. He could not stop watching her. She put the colander down on the table and tipped the peas into it. The surface of her forehead wrinkled in concentration as she picked over the peas and took out any that were shrivelled or black. He thought that her forehead was like a lake, quick to change as the wind blew on it. How quick her fingers were too. She was good with her hands, yes, anyone could see that there was a brain behind those fingers. Her forehead was round and high, her skin very pale after the winter. He must stop watching her. He must go.
I want to help you, Eeva. Up in her attic, she took her basin and jug off the little table and sat down. He had lent her a pen with a steel nib, and a white china inkwell full of black ink. She had four sheets of good paper, a sheet of blotting paper and an envelope.
But maybe he only wanted her to write a letter so he could read it. Her father had taught her about spies. Police spies, government spies: they were everywhere. They watched for years and years if need be, building up evidence and reporting back to their masters. Her father was on their lists for sure. Maybe she was on those lists too, because she was his daughter.
She remembered a meeting in their apartment, long ago. She hadn’t seen this particular man before, but that didn’t mean anything. People came and went, they gave her an apple and ruffled her hair, or showed her tricks with cards.
But she picked up the tension in the room. Her father spoke loudly and clearly, introducing the stranger who smiled readily and tried to give his hand to everyone. ‘We have a friend from Petersburg with us tonight. He has a letter of introduction from comrades there.’ She noticed something strange. Her father said ‘a friend’. When people came, they were not usually called friend. They were called comrade.
The evening wore on. The man sat by the stove as if he would sit there for ever. Mika was there, and Lauri played twenty-one with Eeva. They played and played and no one told them it was time to sleep. Big Juha was there, and Eero. They sat one on either side of the stranger. Juha’s broad hands were planted on his knees. Often she sat on Juha’s knee, and he played at being a wild bear and she had to hold on tight so as not to be thrown to the floor. He had a thick beard and hair on the back of his hands and he looked a bit like a bear, so that there was terror in the excitement of the game.
But there was no playing that night. Lauri and Eeva kept giving each other quick little looks, checking if the other one knew what was going on. She’d have been scared, if Lauri hadn’t been there. The men were talking, but not really saying anything. The new one was asking questions in a bright and friendly voice. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and they kept giving the strange man vodka even though he said, ‘No, no, comrades, I’ve had enough.’ They wouldn’t let him refuse. He had to empty his glass but she saw that Eero and Big Juha weren’t emptying theirs.
He said ‘comrades’, but they didn’t. His questions grew longer and they didn’t make sense. She knew from his voice that he was drunk. When men sounded as if their tongues were too thick for their mouths, then they were drunk.
It was late when the stranger got up to leave. He staggered and put out his hand to balance himself and she thought he was going to grab hold of her. She flinched towards Lauri, but Eero and Big Juha had already got hold of the stranger, one on each side. They said, ‘Steady now, friend, you shouldn’t try and walk alone, you need help.’
They helped him out of the apartment. Her father held the door, watching them go.
Much, much later, when she and Lauri were asleep in her bed in the corner of the room, there was a knock on the door. It was a very soft knock, but it woke her. Lauri was curled up so only the top of his head showed. But there was her father, getting up from his chair by the stove. Why, he hadn’t gone to bed at all! He must have lit a fresh candle.
Her father’s shadow stretched across the wall as he went to open the door. There were low voices on the landing outside, and then Big Juha came into the apartment. He looked bigger than ever in his thick coat, with his hat pulled down so that hardly any of his face showed. But it was him for sure. She knew his voice and shape and the shaggy rabbit-skin hat that she always liked to stroke. There was a pelt of snow on his shoulders.
‘You’ve sorted it, then?’ her father said quietly.
‘That’s right. He took a nasty fall on the ice, struck the back of his head. He’s sleeping it off in a snowdrift. It’s a bit of an out-of-the-way spot so it’s not likely he’ll be found before morning. Snow’s coming down thick.’
‘Keep it quiet, Juha. You’ll wake the little ones.’
The bear shifted his feet and snow slid off his shoulders. ‘I’ll be off then,’ he growled.
‘No, you stay here. You don’t want to be wandering about tonight. If you get picked up they might make the connection.’
‘You’re right. Should’ve thought of that. I’ll doss down by the stove and be off first thing.’
‘You can have my bed. I’m working tonight.’
‘Well, if you’re sure –’
Big Juha was going past her into the inner room. She felt his shadow, and squeezed her eyes shut. He halted by her bed and she heard his breathing come closer and closer as he bent down. She felt the cold that clung to him, and a drop of icy water fell on her chin. She didn’t move. She kept her eyes shut tight, tight. Very gently, so gently that it didn’t feel like Juha at all, a hand stroked her hair.
Why had she thought of all that now? She’d never even told Lauri about what happened in the middle of that night. In the morning Juha wasn’t there, and her father was making porridge as usual.
She would write a letter to Lauri, but it would be a letter anyone could read. It would reveal nothing but where she was and that she was safe and well. Lauri would understand. The doctor would put her letter in the post for her, he said. She’d seen his letters waiting on the post table: letters waiting to go out, and letters that had come in. If she wrote this letter, if she dipped the pen into the ink and crowded the paper with words, then in a few weeks there might be a letter for her.
Would Lauri guess what she wanted to hear? They had never needed to write in the old days. Mika and Lauri were in their apartment most days, when her father was alive. Lauri stayed with them for weeks sometimes. And after her father’s death she went to live with Mika and Lauri. Anything she and Lauri wanted to say, they just said it.
The paper was white and clear, like snow. She didn’t want to make a mark on it. Snow’s beautiful when it’s white and intact but when it melts there’s an ugly between-time, before the sun grows strong. You feel cold and wretched and mud soaks into your boots. Lauri was so far away. Probably he believed he’d never see her again. What would he think when he got a letter like a piece of snow with black footprints on it?
That’s if nothing’s happened, thought Eeva. If they’re still there. Mika’s apartment had been searched. They took away books and papers when they arrested him, and they took Eeva. ‘They won’t find anything,’ Lauri had whispered. But they’d found her. Who was she, what was she doing there, what was her relationship with Mika and Lauri? Whose daughter was she?
Ah.
Mika had no right to stop them taking her. He wasn’t related to her, was he? A friend of her father, that was all. You can’t have a young girl living with an adult man and a boy who is rising sixteen. They’re not children any more, to share a bed. Anyway, he was unde
r arrest.
They said she was in moral danger. She was so stupid then, she didn’t even know what the words meant. Only that her life was being taken away from her.
‘I’ll visit his grave every week, I promise,’ Lauri said.
When she thought of Lauri, there he was as she’d last seen him. In the apartment with his hair sticking up where he’d pulled off his cap. His grey eyes were full of anger. He couldn’t stop them from taking his father away, or Eeva. He couldn’t do anything. Lauri had his cap in his hands and he was twisting it and crushing it. So the last look she had from him was a look of anger. She knew Lauri wasn’t angry with her, but it was hard to blot out that memory of him, and remember him as he had been on ordinary days.
Her father didn’t mind anger as she did. ‘We should be angry, Eevi. If we aren’t, then nothing will ever change. Why do you think the priests tell us to be patient and know our place in life, and wait for our reward in heaven? It’s to keep us from demanding a better place now. Heaven’s a very convenient place for the ruling class.’ Her father had often said that.
She’d wanted so much to believe in heaven when he was dying. But she didn’t dare believe in it for him, against his will. When Eeva was little, Mrs Peltonen in the next apartment had taught her to sing ‘O brightest star’.
O brightest star, we praise Thy light.
Before we close our eyes each night
We sing our hymn, O brightest star,
Lead us to heaven where Thou art.
She had loved the tune, and thought the words beautiful. She’d sung it under her breath at home, half-wanting him to hear.
‘What’s that dirge you’re singing, Eevi?’
‘It’s a hymn.’
‘Go on, let’s hear it properly. Strike up.’
She sang out loud, but the hymn didn’t sound as sweet as it was inside her head. Her father grunted. ‘Where did you get that one from?’
‘Mrs Peltonen taught it to me.’
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