Strange Are the Ways

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by Strange Are the Ways (retail) (epub)


  ‘I can’t,’ she said, flatly.

  Jussi’s lips twitched. Kaarlo frowned. Heimo paused, a half-open sack on the table in front of him from which he had been pulling cheeses, salted fish and a ham, bread, a bag full of root vegetables. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean exactly what I say. I can’t. Cook. I wouldn’t know where to start.’ She looked at the ancient iron range. ‘I’ve never so much as boiled a saucepan of water.’

  ‘And she’s proud of it,’ Kaarlo muttered behind her.

  She swung on him. ‘I’m not proud of it. But I’m not ashamed either. Why should I be? It’s a simple fact. Can you play the piano?’

  Kaarlo scowled.

  Heimo laughed. ‘Fair enough, Kaarlo – answer her.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t be so damned smart.’

  Katya smiled, very sweetly. ‘Because you never learned. Exactly. So if you want to eat the equivalent of boiled bootleather and stewed socks then force me to cook.’

  ‘We’ll eat it to the accompaniment of Kaarlo’s piano,’ Jussi said, soberly.

  ‘I’ll cook,’ Heimo said, returning to his sack. ‘I’m actually quite good –’

  ‘And modest,’ Katya said, carried away by her success against Kaarlo.

  ‘– and Katya can clean,’ Heimo continued, placidly. ‘How’s that for a bargain?’

  Jussi could not contain his laughter at the outraged look on Katya’s face. ‘We can always hope,’ he said.

  In fact Heimo did indeed turn out to be a more than passable cook, though the fare he provided was on the whole unfamiliar to Katya. When she and her family had summered in their Finnish dacha they had eaten Russian food prepared by Russian servants; now she was introduced to traditional Finnish dishes – mashed potato or turnip baked in the wood-burning oven for a long slow time until it became sweet as a pudding, an egg and fish dish, a favourite of Jussi’s, called ‘kalalaatikko’, the salted Baltic herring that was a staple diet of the people. She began too to notice other things; the difference, for instance, between Jussi’s accent and the accents of Kaarlo and Heimo. Questioned, Jussi grinned, and Heimo, good-humoured as always, laughed aloud.

  ‘He speaks Russian with a Finnish accent and Finnish with a Swedish one,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that so, Jussi?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Jussi was undisturbed.

  ‘Why? Why don’t you speak the same as the others?’

  Jussi shrugged.

  ‘Because he’s an aristocrat,’ Heimo said, solemnly. ‘Eh, Jussi? And our little aristocrats are brought up to speak Swedish, not Finnish.’

  ‘Were,’ Jussi said, through a mouthful of sweet potato. ‘Were brought up like that. Not any more. You’ll see.’

  ‘When Suomi is free,’ Kaarlo said, ‘no-one will be brought up like that. Our language will be our own again.’

  Jussi rolled his eyes. ‘Perhaps in sympathy with coming generations I’ll give up the fight after all now I come to think about it.’ He grinned. ‘All those damned verbs! Words as long as a dictionary! What a language! And the Kalevala, Kaarlo – you’ll have all the poor little beggars chanting that from beginning to end, will you?’

  Kaarlo slanted a dark look at him. ‘It isn’t funny, Jussi.’

  ‘Everything’s funny, Kaarlo.’ Jussi was mild as a lamb. ‘To one degree or another. Or life isn’t worth living.’ In that moment his eyes touched Katya’s and he smiled; and for one instant she saw that the Jussi Lavola with whom she sat now under such strange circumstances was not so far removed after all from the Jussi she had known in St Petersburg. He believed what he had just said; it was his philosophy. She smiled back. At least they shared something.

  Later she asked him about the conversation. ‘What was it you said? About a Kaleva-something? Kaarlo seemed quite angry.’

  ‘Kaarlo’s always angry, you’ve surely noticed that?’ He was easy. They were washing and wiping dishes. Kaarlo had taken his gun into the woods, Heimo was off on an errand of his own. ‘The Kalevala,’ Jussi said, ‘is our national folk epic. Fragments of it have been handed down, orally, through many centuries. In the last century a man called Elias Lonnrot collected the fragments together and published it as an epic poem. It came at a time when Finns needed inspiration, needed an identity. The Kalevala gave them what they needed. To someone like Kaarlo to joke about the Kalevala is to commit the worst of blasphemies.’

  She had stopped wiping, was watching him in open curiosity. ‘And to someone like you?’

  He appeared not to be disconcerted by her interest. ‘As I said: not to joke is the blasphemy to me. It doesn’t mean, you understand, that I take things less seriously –’ he carefully balanced a plate on the board to drain, flicked her an innocent blue glance ‘– it just means I get to laugh more.’

  That surprised a small gurgle of laughter from her. He grinned approvingly. ‘You see? And others get to laugh more too. It’s surely better?’

  ‘It’s better,’ she said.

  He turned, leaned against the wooden sink, still favouring his wounded shoulder. ‘Why? Why do you ask?’

  She reached for a plate. ‘Just being a good wife,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what a good woman’s supposed to do? Whither thou goest –’ She stopped, hearing the distinct and bitter failure of the attempt at light-heartedness. She ducked her head and would not look at him, rubbing at the plate as if her life depended upon it.

  The silence was long, and significant. ‘Katya,’ he said at last, and his voice was deadly serious, ‘I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than I can say. Believe me, if there had been another way – another possibility – I’d have taken it. It was just such damned bad luck your walking in just when you did – I had to do something.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, tensely.

  ‘It matters. It matters to you and it matters to me.’

  She lifted her head and turned to look at him. In the past weeks she had lost weight, her face had thinned, her body lost some of its softly-rounded curves. Her soft brown eyes were shadowed, palely ringed from all but sleepless nights and the fair hair that was such a contrast to those dark eyes was loosely pinned away from her face, dirty and untidy as an urchin’s. ‘It matters to the others too,’ she said. ‘They don’t like me.’

  His eyes remained riveted to her face for a strange, long moment before he said with a small shake of his head, ‘It isn’t that. They don’t trust you. You’re a Russian.’

  ‘That isn’t my fault.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m afraid.’ The words came from nowhere, unheralded and unsought, the voice that spoke them small and shaky. ‘Jussi. I’m afraid! What’s going to happen to me?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing! I promise you.’ He had stepped towards her and she towards him with no thought. He caught her to him, hugging her hard and comfortingly, heedless of his damaged shoulder. ‘I promise you,’ he said again, fiercely.

  Silence fell. She trembled against him. Felt his face brush the top of her head. Then, in a single movement, as if at an unheard signal, his arms dropped from around her and she stepped away from him, turning, nearly running across the room to the window where she stopped, gripping the sill, looking through the misted glass to the quiet, magical winter landscape beyond. ‘I know it’s hard,’ he said after a moment. He had not moved to follow her. ‘But try not to worry. I’ll think of something.’

  She nodded, shakily. Knowing that he no more believed it than did she.

  The weeks moved on. Kaarlo mysteriously disappeared and just as mysteriously returned a few days later with supplies and two newcomers, who stayed for a couple of days, slept a lot, spoke hardly at all except to Jussi in low, secretive tones and then left.

  This was the first of many such comings and goings; sometimes it was Kaarlo that guided the fugitives to them – for that certainly was what Katya felt them to be – and sometimes Heimo. She was not slow to note that those who came with Kaarlo regarded her with rath
er more suspicion and hostility than did those who arrived with the more affable Heimo. Jussi remained at Pikku Kulda and now day by day his strength was returning.

  But spring was coming. There was time yet, the snow still lay deep, the ice thick, the trees bare of green, yet coming it must be. And with it, Katya sensed, a decision would have to be taken, a decision that concerned her above all others and over which she had no control whatsoever. She had served her purpose. With the spring she could become nothing but a liability; her parents, who had not tried the impossible task of pursuing the runaways into the frozen depths of a Finnish winter, would surely question now if no word came. And questions were dangerous. Sometimes she would catch the eye of Kaarlo as he sat, wrapped still in the filthy sheepskin jacket, picking his teeth with the long and wicked-looking knife with which he had threatened Katya in the sledge what seemed a lifetime ago on the bridge at St Petersburg; and more and more often he would look away, unable it seemed to meet her eyes.

  Nothing yet had frightened her as much.

  It was on a grey day in March as she walked along the frozen lakeside that she overheard a furious argument between Jussi and Kaarlo. They spoke their own language; she could not understand a word, except her own name, repeated more than once by both of them. She drew back into the shadowed woodland as they passed. Gesticulating, intent upon their quarrel, they did not notice her. She saw and heard the fierce anger in Jussi’s face and voice, saw too the lack of conviction on Kaarlo’s as he listened. At last he threw up a hand, shook his head and said something very short and very sharp. Again, Katya heard her name, understood too the single adjective, that Kaarlo spat as he might have spoken the name of the devil – ‘Russian’. Jussi stood tight-lipped and silent before turning swiftly on his heel and striding away towards the house. Kaarlo slouched, watching him go, then turned, shrugging, to make his own way down towards the lake.

  A bitter wind blew across the ice-bound countryside. Katya, chilled suddenly to the bone, turned and hurried after Jussi towards the warmth and shelter of Pikku Kulda.

  * * *

  Margarita’s last hope – that she would find it difficult to become pregnant – failed signally to be fulfilled. Within three weeks of her reluctant decision she knew herself to be with child.

  Predictably Sasha was delighted; equally predictably Margarita took almost at once to her bed. ‘I feel so ill, Sasha! You simply don’t understand.’ He hired a girl to come each day – the last one having left in a flurry of tears and high-tempered recriminations when Margarita had slapped her for knocking the theatre scenery askew when she dusted – petted and cosseted her as if she had been an ailing child. She did indeed suffer from morning sickness, a misfortune which was excuse enough to make her pettish for the rest of the day.

  Sasha complained not at all; it was enough that she was bearing his child. To Valentina he sent a brooding and heartfelt letter, explaining why he could not see her again; he was unexpectedly mortified when his high-minded impulse came to nothing, the letter being returned, unopened, by Nikita, who had recognized his handwriting and who explained that Valentina had gone from the apartment and had left no forwarding address. So the break was mutual and, he told himself sternly, for the best. Now he must make it up to the suffering, unsuspecting Margarita.

  Margarita, actually suffering very little though she would have died before admitting it, settled herself in to enjoy the attention; it seemed to her that given the circumstances it was no more, after all, than she deserved. She was secretly pleased to see how her pale skin glowed, how the initial loss of weight suited her, how her hair shone as she brushed it. Sasha told her she had never looked so beautiful and she knew it to be the truth. Of the birth itself and what might come after she tried not to think. She entertained her mother and her aunt, and various of her friends, declaring herself far too delicate to venture out into the city; others must needs come to see her. Sasha spent every available moment with her, though as influenza struck the barracks he was on duty rather more often than not. For two or three weeks she was almost content. It was a full month before the novelty of this new role started to wear off and boredom began to set in. Another virtually unprovoked loss of control saw the new servant girl leave, sullenly forgoing a month’s pay rather than stay a moment longer.

  ‘Good riddance, you lazy little cat!’ Margarita was scarlet with temper. ‘Go! See if I care! Starve on the streets – that’s all you’re good for! Be sure you’ll get no reference from me!’

  The girl gone, the apartment seemed still to echo the sound of the angry voices, the air strung with tension and ill humour. Restlessly Margarita roamed from room to room, picking things up, putting them down, plumping cushions, kicking bad-temperedly at a ruckled rug. In the bedroom she paused in front of a long mirror, eyeing herself, turning sideways, sucking in her stomach. Her breasts were fuller, her belly rounded. She suddenly remembered seeing Lenka pregnant; lumpish and slovenly, dragging her bulk about the house, hand to her aching back. What had she done? What in God’s name had she done? A wave of self-pity engulfed her. She didn’t want this child. She was afraid. She was most terribly afraid.

  It was as if the thought opened a floodgate of tenor. All the distorted stories she had ever heard, whispered old wives’ tales repeated with salacious and lovingly-embroidered horror by girls who in fact knew no better than she did herself, suddenly were there to haunt her. Blood and agony. Death in childbirth. She heard a whimper, pressed her hand to her mouth in case it had been she that had made that small, animal sound. She looked into the eyes of the white-faced image in the mirror; looked away, hating what she saw. A shawl lay tossed across a chair, where she had thrown it the night before. That damned girl! She’d dared to leave before she’d cleared up the bedroom!

  She snatched the shawl from the chair, flung open the wardrobe door. The big cupboard was packed with clothes.

  She ground her teeth in rage. Rags! Just look at them! All rags! She wouldn’t be seen dead in most of them! Just wait – after this – this thing was born – Sasha would have to buy her a whole new wardrobe. Everything! Simply everything!

  She had to vent her fear and her temper upon something; she reached in to the deep wardrobe and snatched from its hanger a pale blue dress, ruched and dainty, decked in rosebuds. She tossed it onto the bed. That could go! And so could the red. God Almighty, how had she allowed herself to be seen in some of these?

  In a sudden irrational frenzy she began to drag the clothes from the cupboard, tossing them in a sprawl of crumpled colour on the bed. A fine blouse tore as she pulled at it; in rage she ripped it, flung the two pieces upon the pile. All her pretty clothes; was this all they had been? Tawdry rubbish? Sasha would have to pay – oh, yes! She savoured the phrase – Sasha would have to pay for a suitable wardrobe for his wife. Mistress of the Drovenskoye Estate. Mother of its heir. She paused for a moment at that, lifted her head; saw a tall, handsome son, who smiled possessively and proudly as he bent to his beautiful mother’s hand –

  She took a long, slow breath, the fierce fit of energy dying. She pulled another dress from the wardrobe, looked at it, held it to her, pulled a face, tossed it on the heap on the bed. Her side of the deep cupboard was all but cleared. There were still the hats, of course, and the shoes. She would tell Sasha when he came home tonight – it must all go. She pulled the other door. Compared to hers, Sasha’s side of the wardrobe was militarily ordered. Two dress suits, two dress uniforms, his slightly shabby and well-worn English tweed jacket, a couple of pairs of trousers, precisely hung. Beneath them, shining shoes and boots, neatly paired, stood as if on parade. And behind them, tucked in the shadows at the back, the battered old leather bag that sometimes he carried when he went to and from the barracks. The catch had been snapped shut awkwardly; a piece of dark, rough material showed. Her curiosity aroused, with not the slightest compunction she reached for it, dragged the heavy bag out onto the carpet, snapped it open. Frowned, puzzled, at what she saw.

  A
cheap, heavy, worker’s jacket. A rough, homespun shirt. Shabby trousers. A pair of well-worn boots. A flat, navy-blue peaked cap. And a creased letter, tucked into the folds of these strange clothes that had no possible place in her husband’s bag, in her wardrobe, in her bedroom.

  She picked the letter up. It was addressed to Sasha, at the Preobrajensky barracks, in a sharp, impatient-looking hand, and it had been opened. She shook the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper, opened it.

  Sasha – the new address – I’m sorry, my love – I swore to myself and to the God in which we both know that I don’t believe that I wouldn’t send it. But you knew I would. Didn’t you? Why, oh why do I love you so much? Valentina.

  She sat back upon her heels and stayed very still for a very long time. Then, shockingly, she made one small noise, wordless, a savage sound of rage, and smashed her clenched fist painfully upon the floor before silence fell once more.

  * * *

  Sasha got away early that evening. He bought flowers, and a magazine that he knew Margarita liked. Though the evening was dark and the air still cold, spring was in the air; the ice was moving, the first breakers had been upriver. During the day there had been a faint sunshine. He had to go back on duty later that evening, but from the day after tomorrow he had a twenty-four-hour pass. Perhaps he could persuade Margarita to come out for a walk with him – she had no need to be embarrassed – she really didn’t show yet.

  Whistling, he took the last few steps two at a time, let himself into the apartment. ‘Rita? Margarita? Are you there?’

  The apartment was apparently empty, and cold. Puzzled, he dropped flowers and magazine onto the table in the hall. The stoves had burned low. There was no light except for a faint lamp light that came from the bedroom. Suddenly apprehensive, he flung open the door. ‘Rita? Are you there?’ He stopped. She had stood as he entered. Her face was in shadow. It was expressionless, utterly still.

 

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