What is a documentary credit? What is a bond?
Huttunen was amused and intrigued by business terminology. He found it easy to remember and regretted not having done business studies when he was younger. Not only was the subject surprisingly easy, it could be useful too. If a rich businessman began howling, for instance, he might be forgiven more readily than a miller.
Anyway, he could still learn at his age.
Huttunen gleefully imagined finishing his business studies and receiving the Institute’s diploma. It should be before Christmas, the lessons seemed easy enough. When he had completed his course in the forest, it would be hard for people to think of him just as a lunatic anymore. If he paid the police chief a few fines for howling, perhaps he could be the stockman at a wholesaler’s one day! He could even run a mill as well, if there was one nearby, why not?
Then Huttunen remembered he couldn’t actually get a diploma himself. As a precaution, the courses had been put in the postman Piittisjärvi’s name, so the certificate would obviously be in his name too. Huttunen would just have the knowledge of the subject, which did not seem a great deal without any official recognition.
On the other hand, if one considered the matter from Piittisjärvi’s point of view, the postman stood to benefit considerably from his studies. The chap just had to carry on delivering Huttunen’s letters and sucking away on his homebrew and, next thing he knew, he’d have a diploma in business studies. If he handled things right, he could zip up the postal hierarchy and be appointed village postmaster. The present incumbent didn’t have any qualifications, so people said. Huttunen tried to imagine Piittisjärvi in charge of the post office, enthroned behind a huge desk, his glasses perched on the tip of his nose, occasionally applying one of a panoply of official stamps to a registered letter.
Pleased with the image, the hermit immersed himself in the Kaitilas’ manual again.
What does it matter which of us goes up in the world, Piittisjärvi or me, he thought, testing himself on redis-count.
On Friday, the weather grew a little warmer and it stopped raining. Huttunen put his assignments in an envelope, stamped it and wrote a letter to the horticulture adviser. Then he went to take his correspondence to his forest letterbox. There should be two or three editions of the Northern News waiting for him, and who knew what else? Word from Sanelma Käyrämö?
Night was falling when Huttunen reached his letterbox. He approached warily, but no one was spying on him; the place was still a secret. He found the newspapers and a letter from Sanelma. She declared ardent love for Huttunen and said that another huge search party had gone looking for him east of the Kemijoki. The chief of police had apparently ranted and raved and called Constable Portimo every name under the sun for having failed to catch Huttunen all summer.
There was an article in the Northern News about the provincial athletics championships that would be taking place the following Sunday on the village sports ground. No less than the provincial governor, who was on a tour of inspection of the district, had promised to attend. The paper listed the championship’s and the governor’s programmes.
Huttunen decided that he’d attend the championships as well. Perhaps he could watch the events from the top of a hill? Climb a tree and admire the athletes’ feats through Ervinen’s binoculars. The loudspeaker announcements wouldn’t carry very far, but that didn’t matter too much. The main thing was to see the event and the governor.
No need to buy a ticket this way either.
CHAPTER 32
Huttunen left Sandbank Camp in the early hours of Sunday morning so as to get to the village before its inhabitants awoke. He stole another boat again on the banks of the Kemijoki and rowed across the river. The village was asleep. The air was cool, almost autumnal, and it was still dark. Huttunen began looking for a suitable vantage point from which to watch the provincial athletic championships without being discovered.
There were two tall hills near the village. Neither suited Huttunen’s purposes, however, because all one could see from one were the wooden tiles and steeple of the new church, while the tower where the firemen dried their hoses blocked the view from the other. A third possibility was to watch the championships from Mount Reutu, but it was too far away – even Ervinen’s binoculars wouldn’t be strong enough to follow the action.
The best thing would have been to go up the firemen’s tower but that was out of the question, the head of the council’s road maintenance department lived on the ground floor. Which left only the bell tower of the new church. Why not give it a try?
Huttunen crept stealthily through the deserted churchyard and tried the church doors. All locked. Behind the sacristy, there was a door leading to the cellar. It was also locked but the cellar window swung open when Huttunen pushed it. He squeezed through the little window into the cellar, and shut it behind him.
The basement was dreary and dark and smelled of leaf mould. Lighting a match, Huttunen saw a large room with an earth floor. Was this where they kept the communion wine? Was he about to bump into a mound of dessicated thighbones and shinbones of the long dead? Huttunen lit a few matches without being able to see any bottles or a trace of a skeleton. There was, on the other hand, a big pile of mossy bricks, a wheelbarrow and a cement mixer.
So, this is where the church stores its building materials. Come to think of it, it’s probably unlikely anyone has been buried here, the church was only built at the start of the century.
The door at the top of the cellar stairs was open. Huttunen found himself in the sacristy. He had no problem passing from there to the huge nave of the church. The walls were covered with blue-grey panelling. Despite the gloom, one could see the paint was flaked and cracked, with big bare patches. In their delusions of grandeur, the canton’s farmers had built a vast building, which their sons were now failing to maintain. Whether this was through lack of faith or money, Huttunen didn’t know.
He couldn’t resist going up to the pulpit briefly. He struck a pastor’s pose and uttered a rousing howl. The echo between the high walls of the church was so loud that Huttunen took fright and hurried back down again. He went up to the gallery. Behind the organ, a spiral staircase led to the bell tower.
The staircase made seven complete turns before it reached the belfry, a small hexagonal room with two bells hanging from the roof, one big and one small. Round windows opened on its six sides. They were without panes, which stood to reason, since they would have muffled the sound of the bells. Looking out of one of them at the ground, Huttunen’s head spun, it was so high up.
From the vertiginous heights of the bell tower, the view stretched over the village and the blue-tinged mountains in the distance. The sports ground lay in the foreground, offered up, as it were, on a plate to the spectator. One could follow all the disciplines at a glance. Huttunen couldn’t have found a better seat if he’d tried. He trained his binoculars on the sandy running track. As far as he was concerned, the championships could begin right now.
It had grown light, at last, and the time had slowly crept towards ten o’clock. The meet would be starting in just over an hour. The hermit studied the programme he’d cut out of the Northern News. The field events were straight after the governor’s speech, and proceedings would culminate with the track events: 3000 metres, 400 metres hurdles and 100 metres. That was Huttunen’s speciality, the 400-metre hurdles. On the Svir front during the war, he had won the divisional championship. The prize had been five days’ leave, which he had spent in Sortavala, losing his spiked running shoes and catching a dose of crabs in the process.
Voices sounded below, in the churchyard. The pastor was walking up the path with the verger. It was then that Huttunen remembered that it was a Sunday and time for the morning service. Still, it didn’t matter. He was safe in the belfry; there was nothing he needed from the church. He’d be able to hear the hymns; maybe he’d even join in the singing to pass the time. And then, straight after the service, the main attraction would begin –
the provincial athletics championships.
Sounds echoed up from the church. Doors banged, the floor creaked. The sexton played a few notes on the organ. Then Huttunen thought he could hear footsteps on the stairs leading to the bell tower. The pastor? What on earth could he want in the bell tower? Huttunen went to the top of the staircase and listened. No doubt about it: someone was on their way up.
Then the penny suddenly dropped. It was the verger coming to ring the bells, of course!
The situation was critical. There was nowhere to hide in the little room. The bell ringer’s footsteps were coming closer.
Don’t even think of jumping out of the window.
The farmhand Launola climbed the last few steps, and as he got to the door, completely off his guard, Huttunen punched him in the head. Launola almost fell down the stairs, but Huttunen managed to catch him, grab him under the arms and drag him over to the bells. The farmhand was unconscious but breathing steadily. Huttunen felt his heartbeat; he wasn’t seriously hurt. Huttunen tied his hands behind his back with his belt. Then he took off the farmhand’s shirt and made it into a gag. Once Launola couldn’t move or make a sound, Huttunen propped him up by a window to revive him. In the morning breeze, the farmhand quickly came round.
‘You’re the verger now, are you?’ Huttunen whispered. Launola nodded, terrified.
‘Where’s the real verger?’
The farmhand mimed someone being ill.
‘So you’ve come to ring the bells?’
His prisoner nodded.
Huttunen took out his watch. Lord, the service would be starting any minute! It was time to ring the bells. He couldn’t leave it to Launola; he’d be bound to work out some way to raise the alarm. The congregation would rush to the bell tower to see what danger the verger’s replacement was in. Huttunen decided that, this Sunday, he would have to ring the church bells himself.
He tried to remember the bells’ usual rhythm. Long pauses, that was all he could remember. Did you have to play a particular tune? Huttunen hadn’t the slightest idea. The best thing would just be to keep time. Huttunen grabbed the rope of the little bell and gave it a brisk yank. The bell moved a little, swinging above the horizontal before returning to its original position. Huttunen pulled it again: the bell soared to the top of its trajectory and gave an ear-splitting peal as it fell. With the other hand, Huttunen hauled harder on the rope tied to the clapper of the big bell. It produced an even more fearsome noise. Huttunen pulled the ropes in time, creating a deafening racket.
This is a pretty decent invitation to God-fearing folk to get themselves to church, isn’t it?
Huttunen hesitated. How long should he go on for? Ten minutes? More? The ringing was hard work, plus he had to keep an eye on Launola who was sitting by the window, racking his brains as to how to escape. Huttunen tugged away, bathed in sweat; the thunderous booming made the church tremble. He imagined the distances those infernal peals would carry, the remoteness of the hamlets they would reach. He wouldn’t be surprised if the people of Rovaniemi could hear how Christendom was called to worship God in this pious canton.
Despite the blur of his pumping arms, Huttunen managed to get a glimpse of his watch. It showed one minute to ten. He decided to stop at ten, that was probably right; the pastor had to make his entrance at some point or another. The hermit’s ears were already shot by the diabolical racket.
At ten o’clock, Huttunen let go of the bell ropes. The little bell rang twice more, the big one once, and then a heavenly silence descended on the bell tower.
Moments later, a fervent hymn rose up from the church. The faithful hadn’t noticed anything abnormal about Huttunen’s ringing.
The pastor’s sermon was inaudible in the belfry but even Huttunen joined in the final psalm. Then the service was over and the worshippers left the church to go straight to the sports ground. There had been no collection that Sunday, the verger being off sick and his replacement tied up in the bell tower, but the congregation didn’t seem to be complaining. Huttunen felt a pang of remorse: thanks to him, the children of more than one heathen country would be deprived of the money the parish would otherwise have sent for their evangelisation. He promised that when he was a rich businessman, he would reimburse the parish and its missions.
The sports ground’s loudspeakers began blaring. Huttunen went to a window and raised Ervinen’s binoculars to his eyes. He saw a group of competitors in tracksuits and hundreds of spectators. On the far side of the stadium, by the finishing line, a sort of enclosure had been built with a wooden fence, in which a few chairs had been set out. The governor was in the front row surrounded by local dignitaries: the police chief, the president of the municipal council, Dr Ervinen, the pastor, and a few rich farmers, including Vittavaara and Siponen. The former had come with his wife; the latter was enjoying the event alone.
Huttunen searched for Sanelma Käyrämö with his binoculars. He scanned the crowd painstakingly until at last he spotted the adviser, off to one side slightly, on a small hill planted with pines near the churchyard. She was with a group of young women dressed like her in scarves and colourful skirts. Huttunen was so happy to see Sanelma that he almost howled in greeting.
The governor took the microphone. The angle of the loudspeakers meant that his speech was heard twice in the bell tower. It sounded as if he was imitating himself. He emphasised the role of sport in developing moral fibre and urged his fellow citizens to compete at every possible opportunity. Speaking of the reparations that Finland had been required to pay in kind, he described their imbursement as an extraordinary sporting feat on the part of an entire nation.
‘If the train carrying that sum had been a second, or even a tenth of a second, late reaching the border, the payee would have instantly demanded exorbitant damages. Let this be a concrete example to our youth that there can be never be any excuse for shilly-shallying at the finish line.’
The governor moved on to the Olympic Games that were to take place the following summer in Helsinki. He trusted that the canton’s sportsmen and sportswomen would compete and return to Lapland festooned with gold and silver medals.
After the speech, the athletics started. The farmhand Launola dragged himself over to Huttunen’s side where he conveyed by gestures that he’d like to watch the competition. Despite disliking the man, Huttunen made room for him at the window. The wretched part-time verger gratefully began watching the throwing disciplines. At that moment a fellow from Kanto Lake was taking his run up in the javelin. He let fly, and the projectile soared effortlessly into the governor’s enclosure. He was instantly disqualified, despite being in the lead.
The pole-vaulters used modern bamboo poles. Huttunen was looking forward to some good results but to his disappointment, the winner only managed 11.3 feet. When the fellow was presented with his commemorative spoon, Huttunen couldn’t help shouting from the top of the bell tower, ‘Clumsy oaf!’
The cry reverberated across the sports ground. The crowd and the guests of honour looked up at the heavens whence the voice seemed to have fallen. Two crows were clumsily flying overhead at that moment, coming from the churchyard, and they cawed balefully as they flapped past. The governor and the spectators turned their attention back to the events.
Huttunen avidly watched the 400-metre hurdles. There were only three runners, not including the Northern News photographer who ran alongside taking pictures, his raincoat flapping. Huttunen actually thought he’d won the hard-fought race because the winner hit his knee so badly on the last hurdle that he had to be taken to Dr Ervinen in the VIP enclosure. Ervinen bowed politely to the governor, pulled down the runner’s tracksuit bottoms and slapped his knee with the flat of his hand. A scream of agony rent the air.
Huttunen and Launola watched the championships from start to finish, Huttunen’s binoculars straying repeatedly from the winning athletes to the horticulture adviser Sanelma Käyrämö, whose blonde hair fluttered ravishingly in the late summer breeze.
CHAPTE
R 33
After his public duties were over, the governor was invited to Police Chief Jaatila’s house. The sauna on the banks of the Kemijoki had been heated in his honour and a light meal laid out on the veranda with coffee. Besides the chief of police, the governor’s retinue consisted of Dr Ervinen, the pastor, the president of the municipal council and the bank manager Huhtamoinen. The schoolteacher hadn’t been invited but Vittavaara was there; he owned a great deal of land, after all, and the Korean situation had made him rich.
They talked about the Korean War, the Olympic Games, war reparations, the industrialisation of Lapland and the spread of logging, finally, to public land.
‘Our people will get back on their feet,’ declared the governor, emerging naked from the chilly waters of the Kemijoki.
When the distinguished guests had come out of the sauna and were assembled in the chief of police’s living room, a small bottle of cognac was opened and a toast drunk. Only one, since the governor was unfortunately on the abstemious side.
‘A propos …’ the governor began. ‘Word has reached Rovaniemi that you’ve got a madman around here who refuses to go quietly and get treatment at Oulu mental hospital. They say his favourite pastime is to howl all night.’
The chief of police cleared his throat. Seeking to play down the problem, he pointed out that you found people who were not quite right in the head everywhere, in every village.
The Howling Miller Page 16