The Brothers

by Asko Sahlberg

  I hear their panting through my own puffing. Henrik starts coughing water onto my face, I shift him off me. I hear sounds approaching from further along the bank. I push myself into an upright position, I sway. The brothers lie on the ground next to each other with their chests heaving, so alike. Anna reaches us and throws herself onto her knees next to Erik. The Old Mistress has stopped at the bend in the river, not because she does not have the strength to go any further, but because she can see all she needs to from where she is. I bend down to push Anna to the side and help Erik to sit up by taking hold of his armpits.

  ‘You should’ve taken your boots off,’ I say. ‘They gulp down water.’

  ‘There wasn’t time,’ he gasps.

  ‘We’ve got to get into the house at once,’ Anna says. ‘Otherwise you’ll catch your death.’

  Henrik lifts his head listlessly. ‘Doesn’t sound like a bad idea.’

  ‘Keep your mouth shut!’ Erik snaps. ‘I’m not planning to go to my grave because of you.’

  ‘Though you nearly did,’ Henrik says, his voice quivering.

  Erik pushes himself up. ‘I would have let go.’

  ‘I expect you would have. But would I?’

  We half-run upstream. The Old Mistress has already turned round to trudge back ahead of us. Henrik trails behind, his head bent, hugging himself with both arms. Erik turns to me and asks, ‘It is true, then?’

  I nod. ‘It’s true, most likely, no way round it.’

  He thinks for a moment and states calmly, ‘Why not, suits me fine.’

  I look over my shoulder; Henrik is following us. He looks lonelier than ever as he comes up the slope. I stop to wait for him. This is the way he must have trudged for months, struggling uphill, sullen, alone. Reaching me, he is minded to pass at first, but then he turns his face towards me and, with it, his eyes. They lack their usual gleam. Maybe it is because of the bluish light of the moon that his expression appears almost gentle, unless he is just exhausted, unless his strength has finally been depleted and he has, at last, given in. ‘St John used to baptize folk in a stream,’ he says.

  THE OLD MISTRESS

  We had no choice in the matter. No generation can fail to hear the demands that are sung out by the choir of the tribe that came before. The legacy of landowners in particular is to burden their offspring with their gains and losses; they are to succeed, come what may. When it began to dawn on Arvid and myself during that night in the bridal chamber that he had not been blessed with the capacity to make fruitful the field that he had been given to sow, something that later became undeniable, we understood that hostile fate had picked on us and was beginning to nudge us towards shameful oblivion. I would have borne our situation, but it made the sickly Arvid seriously ill. The flesh fell off his bones, he lost his appetite, he stayed awake brooding at night. The gloom in his eyes reached such proportions that even animals shied away from him and when he took to his bed in the evenings, you would think he was arranging his limbs in a coffin.

  ‘I’m not fit to make babies,’ he sighed, resigned.

  ‘It isn’t your fault,’ I tried to comfort him.

  ‘I must have done some wrong, to be punished like this.’

  ‘Maybe you’re having to pay for the sins of past generations.’ ‘In that case there must have been many generations of sinners in this family. I’d happily go hang myself so you could get a new husband, but that too is a sin, as we know, and there’s nothing to be gained from me roasting in hell.’

  I do not remember now, or I do not want or dare to remember, which one of us came up with a way out of the horrible situation. I only recall, or choose to recall, how once again we had laid our heads on the pillows of our marital bed, airless in its chastity, and the idea worked itself into our subdued talk, as if presented by heavenly mercy. Arvid said, ‘What if I had a chat with the Farmhand? We could agree on one Sunday a month.’

  I thought the suggestion over. ‘I wonder if once a month is enough. Wouldn’t two or three times be better?’

  ‘Let’s say that, then. I can reward him with a cow.’

  But the Farmhand did not care to be paid with a cow. He explained that first of all it was a matter of honour for him to help his masters in such a matter and, secondly, he did not expect the service we had agreed upon to prove altogether unpleasant. And so I started creeping into the Farmhand’s small cabin at night, unbeknown to the servants; at first two or three times a month and then, emboldened, four or even five times. In the beginning, we stuck to Sundays, as planned, but despite our earnest efforts, the hoped-for result did not come about. That is when Arvid concluded that we had perhaps misinterpreted the Lord’s wishes – Sunday being a day of rest, it might not be favourable for conception, and therefore we should try on weekdays too. Performing this taxing night service after a long working day put quite a strain on the Farmhand, but Arvid had a neat herb garden laid out behind the Farmhand’s cottage and also forced him to accept as a gift the biggest pig that could be found in the district. As you might expect, the Farmhand resisted these luxurious gifts till the end, but I saw how he chuckled, when alone, at the surprising improvement in his living conditions.

  Whatever atrocities Arvid’s forefathers had committed, they were eventually forgiven: I became pregnant with Henrik. His birth was joyous, but we did not dare to trust in fate firmly enough to be satisfied with only him – many a firstborn is snatched straight from the cradle by the Grim Reaper. So I had to make my way back dutifully to the Farmhand’s bed, for which Arvid had procured a soft cotton mattress from Vaasa to make me happy.

  The joy brought by offspring came too late for Arvid, however; it did not make him a healthy man. He seemed to fade away gradually, from day to day, and I had to take more and more responsibility for the affairs of the house. At the same time, I became oppressed by the loneliness of the man, who would barricade himself in his cramped study. At night, I could not help thinking about my lawful spouse sitting sleepless in his worn leather chair, broken by ill health, pale and wounded, while I lay drowsy, the needs of my blood satisfied, next to the Farmhand. I knew that Arvid would not have allowed me to pity him, but I could not help doing so.

  ‘I feel that he’s approaching death. It may take weeks or years but it’s coming,’ I said to the Farmhand. ‘So I thought that we could have a break from these services of yours. It’d feel more decent somehow.’

  And so came long and quiet years, through which Arvid struggled with amazing endurance, holding on to life, and I stayed away from the Farmhand’s bed. I watched my children grow up, I spent a lot of time by the river in summer and in winter remained mainly indoors, letting time crawl by. I would not say that I was hoping for Arvid’s death. I anticipated it because it was inevitable. When the moment finally came – when the housemaid found him one morning, lifeless in his chair – I did not experience overwhelming grief any more than I did great relief. I felt I had encountered an inescapable given, just as I did when I first came to this remote place as Arvid’s bride. I waited for as long after the funeral as I deemed fitting and then crept into the Farmhand’s shack to discover that he had slept all these years on his old straw pallet, keeping the cotton mattress strictly in storage for me.

  I did not become pregnant again. My blood calmed down, it was in ferment only now and then, and the agony of the long days began to trouble me. I started to shorten my days with the help of spirits. At times I paused to wonder whether I should reveal to the boys their origin, but I kept deferring the moment, carelessly and irresponsibly. I put off the future for a long time, but now it is here.

  ANNA

  I stand with my back against the window and watch Erik about to fall asleep. He is stretched out on the bed, his head bent tiredly to one side. A strong vein throbs at his throat and I feel its pulsing in my fingertips. I feel it on my temples, my tongue. Frozen moments always carry the salty taste of impatient skin.

  I turn to glance outside. The Farmhand and Mauri are standing in the
middle of the yard, which is chalked by the moonlight; Mauri seems to be explaining something fervently and the Farmhand keeps nodding, as is his habit: exaggeratedly, almost as if he were bowing and scraping. I sense the frost, polishing their words bright. The darkness in the forest yearns for their echoes. Mauri grabs the Farmhand’s hand. Immediately, the spaces between my fingers seep with clammy sweat.

  There is a knock on the door and the Old Mistress pushes her face in. It is a calm face; the customary numbness of the evenings has peeled off. On such an evening, then, she leaves her bottles be. She looks at me tenderly and clears her throat, meaning for Erik to open his eyes. When Erik has done so, she says, ‘I think we should set off sooner rather than later.’

  Erik raises his head and asks in a feeble voice, as if he were still gasping for air on the riverbank, ‘By night?’

  The Old Mistress nods. ‘The sky’s clear and you can see in the moonlight. And there are no neighbours or villagers around to gawp at us.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Erik concedes. He levers himself onto the edge of the bed. ‘Doesn’t make any difference to me, let’s leave by all means.’

  ‘I’ll go and prepare some sustenance first,’ the Old Mistress says. Her head vanishes from the doorway, but reappears in no time at all to add, ‘I must put some eggs in the hat.’

  The head disappears again. Erik looks at me, baffled, and repeats, ‘In the hat?’

  I shrug. I should take something to cover my head, too. I can already see myself in the gig. The road shines ahead of us, a channel piercing the gloom of the forests. The past will be left behind in its entirety; the days to come are calling us to them. I will have to get used to a big town, the noise echoing from the streets and the unkindness of busy people, but I am still young, and eager to accustom myself. I will learn to look bored and toss my head proudly, and if the townsfolk try to boast about their knowledge, I will tell them my bloodiest tales of pig-slaughterings and tough calvings, and if that does not help, I will hint at a contagious disease I have brought with me, one I’ve picked up from animals. At night I will lie down next to my husband and hear the townsfolk – the listless sighing of city lungs, the exhausted twisting of city hearts – and I will turn over, pleased that I can still sense, from afar, the peace of the fields and the silence of the forests. I will be there and at the same time here; I will be in the air amidst all that is alive, I will be in myself.

  ‘I’d better make sure the mare’s been fed,’ Erik says, and walks stiffly out of the room.

  His steps grow faint. I hear the banging of the front door, I watch him cross the yard. Henrik comes from the opposite direction in dry clothes he has found somewhere, his shoulders still hunched as if he were cold. They exchange a few words without stopping. Henrik nods and looks like the Farmhand, just as he is supposed to do. I stir myself and slip light-footedly into the stairway. Not all the words remain in my mouth, some drip off my chin soundlessly. I bump into Henrik in the porch. I shove him by the chest as close to the door as possible and whisper, ‘Don’t interfere in my life again.’

  Until a short while ago his eyes were as sharp as poker points. Now they look blanched and lost; they have become the eyes of a child who has just woken up. He laughs sadly and replies, ‘Why would I? I thought I might go to America.’

  I glance behind me, just in case. My ears lie in ambush for sounds. ‘How will you get there?’

  ‘I might get a job on a boat. Otherwise, I’d have to earn the money first.’

  ‘As long as you don’t earn it in Turku.’

  ‘No, I won’t. Although there is a port in Turku.’

  ‘Please, will you stay in the port?’

  He contents himself with nodding. Now I have to swallow the bile rising from my stomach. A clock begins striking inside me, I am thrown by the maelstrom of time, the early morning is cool and sweaty. I resist. I grip Henrik’s arm and say, ‘You were good once.’

  His face twitches, lowers. ‘And so were you.’

  ‘Although I knew nothing then.’

  An unprecedented din comes from the direction of the kitchen; we both twist round, stunned, in that direction. The Old Mistress is singing. Henrik laughs soundlessly and looks at me with his face opening out, as if seeing me for the first time. ‘But that’s not why. It was…’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I turn my back on him. ‘Yes.’

  THE FARMHAND

  They sit in the cart, stiff and solemn. They could well be leaving for a nocturnal church service. Henrik, holding the reins, wears clothes retrieved from the late Master’s estate, the Old Mistress sits next to him, and Anna and Erik are behind them with the chests and bundles. I do what I have to do: I walk to the side of the cart and look the Old Mistress in the eyes by way of a goodbye. The moonlight falls on the lines of her face, gets caught in her eyelashes and stays there, glittering.

  ‘You’re staying?’ she asks, or states.

  ‘I have no choice,’ I say, ‘I’ve been given the title of Farm Manager.’

  ‘You think you’ll get on all right?’

  ‘With the title or the man? I’ve always got on with Mauri. And what can he do to me?’

  She smiles. ‘No one can do anything to you.’

  I move over to shake hands with Anna and Erik. Anna smiles. She has wrapped a blanket round her shoulders over a thick coat and looks very young, like a little girl excitedly anticipating a journey. Erik holds my hand between both his palms and says, ‘You’ll come and visit us in Turku.’

  ‘Duties permitting,’ I promise. ‘I have become an important official.’

  ‘And you must write, since you have that skill.’

  ‘Unless Mauri hires a scribe to help me out.’

  I walk round the cart and stop by Henrik. He crouches, stooped, his head drawn between his shoulders, the features of his thin face sharp and stubborn in the bluish light. I have just opened my mouth when he flings the reins from his hands, jumps onto the ground and sets off determinedly past me, towards the house. He takes a lantern suspended from a pillar of the veranda and continues with a heavy tread towards the stable. He has already pulled open one half of the double doors when I go after him.

  He stands by the stall, circled by the dim, flickering light of the lantern. I stop by his side. We observe it in silence: a creature that has strayed into our age from the airless centuries of the past, a creature that exudes the nasty smell of a churchyard and whose malevolent gaze bores into us from its immobile eyes, eternally judgemental and accusatory. It does not breathe, it emanates quietly, you can feel life flowing in and out, eternally, through its tough skin.

  ‘Erik must have paid a pretty penny for Horse,’ Henrik says, looking at the animal he worked so hard to win.

  ‘On the contrary. He got it practically free as it was no good to anybody. Jansson was probably pleased just to get rid of it.’

  Henrik nods. He stretches out his hand, the horse has to bend its head, swaying up there so high, to nudge the palm with its rounded muzzle. I feel the warm saliva smell of its breath. Henrik smacks his lips. The horse, or rather the horse-like being, more mysterious and more powerful than a horse, responds by throwing its head up and letting out a sound: not a neigh but rather the boom of an out-of-tune organ, or the hollow, screeching din of heavenly trombones – or infernal instruments. I step back, poised to raise my hands to my ears.

  ‘You thought you’d let it go,’ I say.

  Henrik nods. ‘That’s what I thought.’

  I walk outside and move away from the doorway. The horse steps out of the stable slowly, haughtily and insolently. It could quite easily dig man-sized holes in the ground with its hooves, but refrains out of sheer superiority. In the middle of the yard, it stops to look with scorn at the cart and its passengers. Shaking its head discontentedly, the horse carries on to the edge of the field, as if trying to forge those heavy hooves into the earth. It does not need to jump over the ditch. It simply crosses the ditch without acceleration. In the middle of the fiel
d, it hurtles into a gallop.

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