The Howling Miller

by Arto Paasilinna

  Depressed, Ervinen closed his eyes only to open them again immediately, as a muffled thud on the other side of the wall made him jump. The doctor recognised the miller’s voice straightaway. He grabbed a rifle from the wall, knotted the belt of his smoking jacket and rushed outside, almost losing his slippers on his way.

  Huttunen came marching round the house, holding his bicycle with one hand. He was in a completely different world; his eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, froth pooled at the corner of his mouth. His movements were jerky and extravagant.

  ‘You took the pills, you maniac,’ Ervinen shouted at Huttunen, who barely saw or heard him. ‘Go to bed immediately, for God’s sake.’

  The miller brushed the doctor and his rifle aside, and leapt on the bicycle. Ditching his gun, Ervinen grabbed the bicycle rack with both hands, but Huttunen was already flying and there was no way a skinny doctor could compete. Ervinen was dragged along for twenty yards before he had to let go: his slippers were coming off and few people are crazy enough to try and stop a frenzied cyclist barefoot on gravel. Ervinen heard Huttunen storm off along the birch avenue; he couldn’t make out a word of sense in his shouting.

  Bawling and yelling at the top of his voice, Huttunen rode through the village. He invited himself into most of the houses and woke the occupants, shouting greetings, conversing, howling, slamming doors and kicking walls. The whole village was pandemonium. Dogs barked dementedly, women bewailed the chaos and the pastor implored the Lord.

  Rural Police Chief Jaatila’s telephone rang. Someone had to come and calm down the miller in the name of the law. As Jaatila was taking the call, Huttunen got to his house, ran up the steps and kicked his front door. Jaatila went to meet his visitor.

  Huttunen asked for some water; his mouth was dry. But rather than give him something to drink, the police chief fetched his standard issue truncheon and boxed the miller so roundly about the ears that the poor man staggered out into the garden with stars in his eyes and went on his way clasping his head in his hands.

  The police chief called Constable Portimo, who had already heard what was going on. ‘The telephone’s been ringing non-stop for almost half an hour. They’re saying Huttunen’s having a fit.’

  ‘Handcuff him and put him in the cell,’ Jaatila said. ‘Law and order have been flouted long enough in this canton.’

  Constable Portimo put on his Wellington boots, loaded his pistol and gathered up a pair of handcuffs and a coil of rope. Then he set off apprehensively to find Huttunen; the miller would be in a filthy mood by now. The duties of his position sometimes struck the unassuming old policeman as extremely onerous and disagreeable.

  ‘Please God, I beg you, make him calm down. It’d be better for everybody,’ Portimo prayed.

  The police constable quickly established the movements of the man he had to arrest. The summer night pulsated to Huttunen’s rhythm. The most almighty racket could be heard over at the Siponens’ farm, leading Portimo to deduce that the miller had paid it a visit. He had apparently not received the warmest of welcomes.

  Huttunen had run into a determined group of villagers in the Siponens’ farmyard: the shopkeeper Tervola, the teacher Tanhumäki, the pastor and his wife, a few parishioners of lesser standing, Mr Siponen himself and his farmhand Launola. The farm dog, which had been trained to hunt bears, was darting about under everyone’s feet, trying to sink its teeth into Huttunen’s behind. Horrified, the horticulture adviser Sanelma Käyrämö was watching the encounter in the shadowy yard, praying and moaning. Siponen’s stricken wife had been abandoned on her bed of pain, but, refusing to countenance being left out of proceedings, she had promptly leapt up in a frenzy of curiosity and rage. Forgetting her chronic disability, she had rushed over to the window to see the throng give the mad miller of Suukoski a spectacular beating.

  Pummelling him with blows and kicks, the villagers reduced Huttunen to silence. When Constable Portimo appeared, they grabbed his truncheon and dealt the miller such a thrashing that the police constable himself felt ill. With the last of his strength Huttunen managed to grab Launola’s ankle, which he twisted so hard that the farmhand’s shrieks of pain drowned out all the other commotion.

  Eventually, outnumbered and exhausted from struggling, the miller was forced to submit. Portimo snapped the handcuffs shut on his wrists and the schoolteacher and the shopkeeper dragged their unfortunate quarry to a cart and tied him up. The pastor sat on Huttunen’s head while the horse was harnessed. The miller bit the man of the cloth in the bottom, but without any unfortunate consequences, at least not for the pastor’s wife. Siponen then stood on the cart and whipped up the horse, and they set off to take Huttunen to the police station.

  Near the churchyard, the convoy halted as Ervinen ran out to meet them. Rifle in hand, he cried, ‘Stop! I’ll examine the case!’

  Ervinen walked round the cart and looked the trussed-up miller in the eye. He offered an instant diagnosis: ‘Stark raving mad.’

  Now catatonically silent, Huttunen gazed dully at the doctor without recognising him. Ervinen searched Huttunen for the bottle of pills, nimbly transferred them to his own pocket and wiped the foam from his patient’s mouth. Then he waved the posse on, saying, ‘Keep him locked up. I will draw up papers for Oulu for him tomorrow.’

  Siponen lashed the horse’s crupper, and the cart disappeared off towards the village station. Ervinen saw Constable Portimo mop the detainee’s forehead with his own handkerchief.

  Returning home, the doctor shook the sand off his slippers and hung his rifle back on the wall. He put the medicine bottle he had confiscated from Huttunen back in the cupboard. Seeing how few pills were left, he shook his head sadly. He drank a medicinal shot of rectified spirit straight from the bottle and went and lay down, still wearing his old slippers.

  Mrs Siponen was making coffee for the shopkeeper, the schoolteacher and the pastor, who was stroking the family’s cantankerous spitz, when she suddenly remembered her incurable ailment. Solemnly smiting her breast, she collapsed on the floor, and then dragged herself off to her room, trying to look as paralysed as possible. There she bewailed the sickness that had struck her down forever, the curse that would prevent her ever leaving her bed other than feet first.

  Sanelma Käyrämö couldn’t sleep all that night. Burrowing under the blankets, she wept between the sheets for her darling Gunnar who had been taken from her so inexplicably. In her lonely room, the forlorn young woman’s grief slowly transformed into inconsolable love.

  Clapped in irons, Huttunen fell asleep in his cell. He only woke up the following day, stunned to find himself trussed up on the back seat of a car with Constable Portimo sitting next to him. Quietly, almost apologetically, the policeman told the miller, ‘We’re already at Simo, Kunnari.’

  CHAPTER 12

  The mental hospital was a vast, gloomy red-brick pile. It looked more like a barracks or a prison than a medical establishment. Constable Portimo contemplated the building and said, ‘I don’t like this place one bit but don’t hold it against me, Kunnari. This has got nothing to do with me. I only brought you here under orders. I’d let you go if I could.’

  Huttunen was registered as a patient, and given hospital clothes: a worn-out pair of pyjamas, a pair of slippers and a woolly hat. The trousers were too short, as were the sleeves. There was no belt. His money and belongings were confiscated.

  The miller was led along noisy corridors to a large room already occupied by six men. He was shown a bed and told that he didn’t have to fight his illness anymore; he could just quietly give in to it now. Then the door slammed and the heavy key turned in its lock. All contact with the outside world was severed. This was it, Huttunen realised. He’d finally been sent to the loony bin.

  The room was cold and bleak. It was furnished with seven iron beds and a table bolted to the concrete wall. There was a tall window covered with bars that showed the hospital walls were at least three feet thick. The room’s walls were veined with cracks sealed with li
me. A transparent electric bulb without a shade hung from the middle of the ceiling.

  The other patients were lying or sitting on their beds. They barely looked around at the arrival of a new inmate. Huttunen’s neighbour on one side was a trembly old man who sat perched on the edge of his mattress, muttering incomprehensibly with his eyes closed. A slightly younger bald man, who stared unblinkingly at the corner of the room, occupied the next bed along. His neighbour was a scrawny, tearful lad, younger than the rest, with a constantly changing expression: one moment joyful, the next sad and agonised. He would knit his brows and then, seconds later, his trembling mouth would freeze in a silly, mechanical smile.

  Near the door, lying on a bed away from the others, a strapping and, at first sight at least, sane and healthy-looking man was reading a book.

  Two morose old men were huddled together at the end of the room, apparently wanting nothing more than each other’s mournful company; they stared fixedly at one another without saying a word, just their eyes flashing.

  Altogether the room emanated an air of profound despair and apathy. Huttunen tried to strike up some sort of rapport with these troubled souls. He smiled, said hello to his neighbour and asked, ‘How’s it going?’

  No response was forthcoming. The man reading by the door was the only one even to acknowledge Huttunen. The miller asked about the habits of the place, tried to find out where everyone was from, but it was all to no avail. Wrapped up in their thoughts, his companions evinced no desire to communicate. Huttunen gave a resigned sigh and fell back onto his bed.

  In the evening, a ruddy-faced orderly came into the room. His sleeves were rolled up, as if he were hoping for a fight. Full of burly energy, he asked Huttunen, ‘Are you the one who was brought in this morning?’

  Huttunen nodded and said he was surprised that the other patients had barely said a word to him.

  ‘These are a pretty depressed, silent lot. New inmates are often put in here. It’s better, because the agitated wing’s always chaos.’

  The orderly explained what the hospital expected of Huttunen.

  ‘You behave yourself and don’t start causing mayhem. We feed you twice a day. Sauna once a week. You can piss when you feel like it, there’s a pot in the cupboard. If you want a shit, you tell us. The doctor comes on Mondays.’

  The orderly left, locking the door behind him. Huttunen thought that it was Thursday. He wouldn’t see the doctor till Monday. He had plenty of time on his hands now. He lay down on the bed and tried to go to sleep. Ervinen’s pills were still working and he drowsed a little, but later, after it grew dark, sleep eluded him.

  At some point, the orderly came in to tell the patients to go to bed. Everyone docilely complied. Soon the glaring electric light in the ceiling went out, having been switched off in the corridor.

  The miller listened to his sleeping roommates. Two or three of them snored. The air smelled stale; someone in the corner farted from time to time. Huttunen wanted to wake him up, but then he remembered that that was where the two most unnerving patients slept.

  Let them fart, the poor wretches.

  Huttunen thought that anyone could go mad in a place like this if they didn’t get out quickly. It was horrific to be lying in a pitch-dark room surrounded by mentally ill people. What possible use could it be? How could this incarceration cure anyone? Everything was so ordered and regulated that you couldn’t make a single decision. You couldn’t even go to the toilet on your own. An orderly watched to make sure no one made a mess. It was completely humiliating.

  Huttunen stayed awake the first few nights. He lay sweating in his bed, tossing from side to side, and sighing. He wanted to howl but managed to control himself.

  Time passed quicker during the day. Huttunen even got a few responses from some of the other patients. The skinny young guy whose expression changed constantly came and told him about his life a few times. The poor lad explained himself in such a confused way that the miller didn’t understand a word. He simply nodded and agreed with everything the boy said. ‘Ah yes. That’s the way it is.’

  There was a perpetual uproar and din in the dining room, but the meals offered some diversion to the days’ monotony. Many of the patients ate with their fingers, letting the slop run down their chins; they knocked their dishes on the floor and giggled stupidly, despite being fiercely reprimanded.

  A cantankerous woman who never failed to give the patients a substantial piece of her mind swept the room every day. You lazy good-for-nothings, she called them, you slovens.

  ‘How can you be so tall and play the fool?’ she scolded Huttunen.

  From time to time, the orderly came in to give the inmates their medicine. He handed out the pills and made everyone take them in front of him. If someone didn’t swallow their tablets straightaway, he’d roll up his sleeves, force open the recalcitrant’s jaw and stuff the pills down his throat. Everyone had to take their prescribed dose, whether they liked it or not. When Huttunen asked why he wasn’t given any medicine, the orderly snapped, ‘The doctor will give you your prescription on Monday. Simmer down, my lad, unless you want to be taken to the agitated wing.’

  Huttunen asked what it was like.

  ‘It’s agitated: like this.’

  The orderly jabbed his hairy fist in the miller’s face. Huttunen jerked his head out of the way. He hated this mean-spirited, violent man who at night would shake and punch any patient who didn’t jump into bed the minute he told them to. Huttunen thought that after he’d talked to the doctor on Monday and could get out of this place, he would make a mop out of this brute of an orderly and clean the corridors with him as a farewell gift. But until then he had better control himself.

  On Monday Huttunen was taken to the doctor.

  This was a bearded, grubby-looking figure with a tic of continually taking off his glasses and putting them back on. Now and then he would produce a dirty handkerchief from his pocket and painstakingly wipe the lenses, breathing on them and polishing them for an age. Huttunen’s first impression was of a nervous, inattentive, patent imbecile.

  Huttunen immediately began talking about his being discharged. Leafing through the papers on the desk in front of him, the doctor said sternly, ‘But you have only just been brought in. One doesn’t leave here just like that.’

  ‘But the thing is, I’m not really mad,’ Huttunen explained in his most normal voice.

  ‘Of course you’re not. Who could possibly be mad in this asylum? I’m the only one who’s got any mental problems here. Everybody knows that.’

  Huttunen told him he was a miller. He was urgently needed at the Suukoski rapids. He had to finish repairing the mill that summer so that it could be ready for autumn.

  The doctor asked why the autumn specifically.

  ‘Well, autumn’s when the harvest’s brought in in Finland, you see. That’s when the farmers bring their grain to me to be milled.’

  The miller’s reply amused the doctor. He took off his glasses and began cleaning them with a knowing smile on his face. After putting them back on, he said almost spitefully, ‘Let’s get one thing clear. That’s it for you and milling: it’s over.’

  The doctor asked Huttunen if he’d fought in the wars. On hearing he had, the doctor’s eyes lit up with a meaningful gleam. He asked where he had served. Huttunen said that he was in the Karelian Isthmus during the Winter War and north of Ladoga during the last war.

  ‘At the front?

  ‘Yes … men like me were always at the front.’

  ‘Was it tough?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  The doctor jotted something in his notebook. As if to himself, he muttered, ‘War neurosis … I thought as much.’

  Huttunen tried to protest, saying that his nerves had never given him any trouble during the war, and they didn’t give him much now, but the doctor waved him out of his office. When Huttunen brought up his leaving again, the doctor looked up from his papers and said, ‘These cases of war neurosis are serious, espe
cially when they show up so many years after the actual fighting. It is essential you receive long-term treatment. But I don’t want you to worry: we’ll make a man out of you.’

  Orderlies escorted Huttunen back to his ward. The door banged shut behind him.

  The miller wearily sat down on his bed and thought to himself that his life had ground to a complete halt: he was a prisoner of this inhuman institution, at the mercy of the arbitrary decisions of an idiotic doctor, and condemned to the morose company of his unfortunate roommates. He could end up in here for years. Maybe he’d die within these stone walls. From now on a garrulous cleaner and a brutal orderly spoiling for a punch-up would be his only source of distraction. Endless days punctuated solely by supervised trips to the toilets and the pigsty that passed for a dining hall. With a heavy sigh, Huttunen stretched out on his bed and closed his eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come. His head felt as if it was being gripped in a vice. He wanted to howl but how could he in front of all these people?

  Moments later, Huttunen gave a start: the occupant of the bed near the door had come over on tiptoe.

  ‘Pssst, pretend nothing’s happening,’ the man said.

  Huttunen opened his eyes and looked at him inquiringly.

  ‘I’m not mad but these chappies don’t know that,’ he continued. ‘Let’s go and have a chat by the window. You go first, I’ll follow in a minute.’

  Huttunen went over to the window. His mysterious companion quietly joined him soon afterwards. The man looked outside and then said, as if talking to himself, ‘As I said, I’m not mad. And I don’t think you’ve got any more screws loose than I have.’

  CHAPTER 13

  The man was in his forties, with a broad face and an air of florid good health that was matched by a relaxed, affable manner.

  ‘The name’s Happola. But we’d better not shake hands in case the loopy loos see us.’