White Hunger (Chance Encounter Series)

by Aki Ollikainen

  ‘Well,’ Matsson grunts, grinning wolf-like.

  He shoves the old man to the end of the bench. The Ostrobothnian pushes back but then recognizes Matsson. He lowers his head, hunching his narrow shoulders in the manner of a dog caught by his master up to no good. Matsson is the type of person whose gentle nature is not apparent.

  ‘I didn’t really have any business with you,’ Teo admits, almost ashamed.

  After leaving Cecilia and the Alhambra, he had stood for a moment on the market square. A strong wind blew in from the sea. Teo watched the large, foam-crested waves hit the rocks of Katajanokka. It seemed to him that the miserable shacks of the district would not withstand the storm if he failed to stand by their side, spreading his arms to protect them and calming the merciless sea. He did not feel like going home, walking around the empty rooms and lusting after Cecilia, who seemed just as unobtainable after every visit.

  The drifting clouds were low. They pressed everything down with an unrelenting strength; the peninsula on which the town stood seemed on the brink of yielding. A mass of whooshing water would then sweep over the villa Kalliolinna and the observatory, and, with a solemn roar, drown St Nicholas’ Church with its cupolas, and the Senate House. The new Orthodox cathedral would plunge thunderously into the waves. The sea would wash away the brothels of Punavuori effortlessly, the rickety wooden planks of the walls would scatter like sticks in the waves. The Green Hell would vanish, the Alhambra would follow. And Cecilia.

  Teo pictured the reddish hair floating in the depths like a twisting aquatic plant, the skirt swelling like the bell of a jellyfish, moving the lifeless but beautiful body past sunken ships, past the Hanko Peninsula and the Åland islands towards Stockholm.

  But the woman would never reach her home in Dalarna. Her body would get caught in a fisherman’s net off some rocky, sea-battered islet. A man would drag Cecilia out of the water and look at the dead mermaid with a puzzled expression spreading over his weather-beaten face.

  In Katajanokka, Teo called in at the tavern, then felt unsafe and sent the landlady’s son out to look for Matsson.

  ‘What’s this all about, then?’ Matsson wonders.

  ‘I just… I wanted to see you.’

  ‘Regrettably, I can’t stay here any longer. And I’ve got some business of my own I’d like to discuss with the doctor,’ Matsson says, getting up.

  The storm has subsided. The city has won one battle; the spire on the church cupola has succeeded in tearing holes in the blanket of clouds, through which the moon shimmers.

  ‘If I were the doctor, I’d be sitting by the fire drinking liqueurs with other learned men, not spending my time in taverns round here.’

  ‘You said you had something to tell me?’

  ‘Right, yes. I’ve got… a woman. Not a relative, but I took her in as a sort of favour. Could the doctor… examine her to make sure she’s all right? That she hasn’t got any…’

  ‘Venereal diseases.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Teo sees Matsson’s lips forming the words ‘venereal diseases’ in the dark.

  ‘I’ll pay the doctor, of course. But I haven’t got money at the moment.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure we’ll think of something.’

  ‘Though I’ve already paid, sort of. A word of warning to the doctor: that Polish sailor will be lucky if he just wakes up on the seashore with no money or clothes,’ Matsson says.

  ‘I don’t think he had any money left. And without clothes, he’ll die of cold. Even with clothes.’

  ‘In that case, it’d be best if he wakes up in the sea. Or not at all,’ Matsson comments.

  A dog with a whipped air hops out from behind the corner of a crooked building, dragging one of its hind legs. It looks like its master, and its master is none other than Katajanokka, with its hastily erected wooden shacks that seem to tilt in new directions after every gust of wind. Matsson’s hovel is no different from the rest of the district’s miserable homes.

  The girl sitting on the bed inside stands up and curtsies. She is barely twenty. Matsson passes Teo a lantern. Despite being pockmarked, the girl’s face looks somehow appealing to Teo in the dim light.

  When Teo asks the girl to undress, she lifts the hem of her dirty linen dress up to her armpits and lies down. She wears no underwear. Teo parts the girl’s knees. Matsson clears his throat and says he will wait outside. The girl stares at the wooden planks of the ceiling as Teo sits down on the bed and turns the flame of the lantern higher, to look between her legs. The hair there is pale, somehow colourless. The girl’s face retains the same serious, expressionless quality as Teo pushes his finger inside. The hole is tight; she is not very experienced and appears healthy at first glance.

  The girl’s locks are the same sandy colour as her pubic hair. Teo cannot resist stroking her head. The girl starts, not in a frightened way, but rather as if she were about to fall asleep. Teo tries to smile at the girl in a friendly fashion. He does not know which of them is more embarrassed by the situation.

  The girl has interesting looks: Teo can mould her into anything he chooses in his mind. She appears ugly if he wants to think that way, beautiful if beauty is what he seeks.

  He moves his finger back and forth. He already knows she is not diseased. Her expression does not change, she thinks of Teo only as a doctor. Still, she is beginning to get wet. Teo takes his finger out and places it on the spot Cecilia has told him about. He feels something like a small marble under his finger. He circles his finger on it lightly, asks what it feels like, trying to sound as if he were examining a patient’s knee.

  Teo asks the girl what her name is. She is called Saara.

  He takes his finger off. Saara pulls her dress down straight away. Teo calls for Matsson.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with her.’

  Matsson nods at the girl. She turns her gaze from Matsson to Teo, and quickly takes off her dress. Matsson declares that Teo may collect his payment as he sees fit; he himself is in the middle of a job outside.

  Saara sits naked on the edge of the bed. Teo takes off his clothes, folds them up and puts them on the small table.

  He moves his fingers on Saara’s lips. Her posture is rigid but she opens her mouth enough for Teo to understand that she understands. He pushes himself into the girl’s mouth. Too deep: she begins to choke, and withdraws. A new attempt. This time, Saara takes hold of Teo’s member and guides the end of it into her mouth. She sucks it like a piece of meat she has discovered in a stew.

  Then she lies down on her back and spreads her legs. She straightens her knees; her legs form a V-shape. Teo positions himself in the wedge.

  She smiles at Teo timidly with her dirty teeth, and he inserts his tongue into her mouth as he pushes inside her. Saara bites Teo’s tongue tenderly.

  Teo does not have the patience to prolong the business, to hold back, but comes inside Saara. When he rolls off the girl, he sees an uncertain smile on her face.

  Outside, Teo sits down on the steps next to Matsson and lights his pipe. Matsson passes Teo a bottle of spirits; he swigs and grimaces.

  ‘Booze or cunt – men get the same look with both,’ Matsson says. He means to be funny, but he cannot hide the tension in his voice.

  Teo stumbles on after Matsson. The figure ahead forms a black shape against the silhouettes of the houses. A few windowpanes reveal lone lights gleaming, but they yield quickly to the dark embrace of the night.

  Matsson stops by the bridge. In Katajanokka, he treats Teo as a fond father would a son who is not yet a man but who needs to learn a bit about life. On the other side of the bridge, though, where the houses are made of stone, Teo is a gentleman, and when addressing the doctor, Matsson feels the urge to whip off his hat.

  Having crossed the bridge, Teo turns round and looks back. Oh, you whores and vagrants of Katajanokka. Clinging to this world with those gnawed nails of yours.

  The Book of Mataleena

  The colour o
f death is white. At funerals, people wear black, the living, that is. Even the deceased is in black, because he is dressed in the best clothes he owned while alive, but his face is always white. When the soul leaves a human, only white remains.

  The colour is being drained from Juhani’s face. The first to go was red, the colour of blood. Red changed into yellow, then yellow, too, vanished, leaving grey, which is now fading gradually into white.

  Juhani reaches out his hand. A rattling sound comes out of the gaping mouth, from deep within. He tries to say something but Marja turns her face away, towards the window. Ice flowers cover the pane, ugly, mocking a summer meadow: blooms of death. Frost spreads weed-like through the window frames along the timber joints across the wall. The door is the worst: snow pushes in through the chinks and forms a frame, like a cadaver bent on settling in the cottage.

  Marja lowers Juho from her arms on to the bench and wraps the blanket more tightly round the child. Then she crosses the small room and bends down close to her husband’s face. Juhani’s cheeks are shrunken, covered in a pathetic stubble that recalls seedlings attacked by frost. His eyes are two holes in the ice covering a lake with no fish. He is still alive, you can tell from the movement of his chest. The panting is soundless.

  ‘Jesus, Marja… Jesus… help…’

  ‘You’re always going on about Jesus.’

  Marja goes back to the other side of the room and lifts up Juho. Mataleena adds more wood to the feeble flames.

  ‘Put them all on,’ Marja says wearily.

  ‘We should hold back if we’re not going to fetch any more.’

  ‘No point.’

  Mataleena kneels by her father and feels his hot forehead. She tries to adjust the blanket so it is better positioned. Her father grabs the child’s wrist and manages to twist his face into a shadow of a smile.

  ‘Dear child, get me something to drink.’

  Mataleena stands up, intending to fetch water from the saucepan on the stove.

  ‘Frozen,’ Marja says.

  Mataleena looks at the saucepan. A small amount of water has frozen at its base. When she tilts the pan towards the light and moves her face closer, she sees her own image.

  ‘Get some snow,’ Marja says.

  ‘Sun,’ Mataleena establishes at the door.

  The storm has subsided for a moment. Clouds make way for the sun, which dyes the hoar frost on the windowpane silver. Something reminiscent of life appears in the room, the window frame draws the shape of a cross on the floor.

  Mataleena comes back in; she is carrying snow in a bowl formed by her hands. She plans to put the snow in the saucepan to melt, but Marja stops her.

  ‘It’s not worth it, put it straight into his mouth.’

  Mataleena rubs snow carefully on to her father’s chapped lips; she feeds him slowly, as if giving pieces of a bun to a small child. A rattle like a cat’s purr comes out of Juhani’s mouth.

  Marja lets her gaze wander around the cottage. They have to leave now, before the storm resumes. Any later and they would not even make it to the next house; they would collapse before reaching Willow Ditch and be buried under snow. It is not leaving that frightens her, but the thought of having to return. They need to get as far away as possible from their miserable patch of land. All that is left here is death.

  Marja plucks a piece of straw from the corner of Juho’s mouth. They ran out of bark bread some time ago. She has not dared use lichen after Lauri Pajula died from eating bread made of it. That was in late summer – in another year, people would have been harvesting round then. The farmer at Lehto said Lauri died of poisoning. He had read in the newspaper that you need to treat lichen correctly if you are going to add it to flour.

  ‘Mataleena, we’ve got to go.’

  ‘Father’s not up to it.’

  ‘We have to leave Father.’

  Mataleena presses her face against the blanket on Juhani’s stomach and sobs. Juhani looks at Marja and tries to say something. Marja gets up and goes to him. She bends her head and examines her husband’s face.

  What is he trying to say? Juhani again only manages a rattling sound. He seizes Marja’s arm, and she does not try to shake him loose but looks her husband in the eye, curious. Is he asking for help, or mercy, or urging her to go? Does he understand anything any more? Marja looks and looks, but cannot fathom his expression.

  She ties her church shawl over Juho’s ears and wraps a scarf over the top. On her own head, she puts Juhani’s fur hat. She turns it this way and that, decides in the end that it is better back to front.

  ‘Put on whatever you can find,’ she advises Mataleena.

  Herself, she puts on Juhani’s black loden coat. It looks like funeral attire – Juhani is a tall man. Was. She takes Juhani’s mittens, gives her own to Mataleena. Mataleena’s mittens she puts on Juho, on top of the boy’s own.

  ‘We’ve got to fetch logs for Father,’ Mataleena says.

  Marja glances at Juhani and goes out. Light rushes in through her nostrils and eyes, it forces itself under her clothes and enters all the cavities of her body, for a moment filling the emptiness that hunger has hollowed out.

  The woman stands legs apart and lets the sun rub cold air over her body. Then she wades along the snow-covered path to the cowshed, thinking she might find something to burn there. She does not make it inside, instead taking hold of a rickety-looking plank that forms part of the door. She pulls with the full force of her emaciated body. A rusty nail screeches as it loosens, and Marja falls on her bottom. The snow makes for a soft landing.

  Indoors, she leans the plank against the bench and breaks it in two with a kick. Mataleena strokes the back of Juhani’s hand with her mitten. Juho rests his head on his father’s forehead. The boy looks touching and funny in that pose, and Marja is filled with sorrow. She feels her chin tremble, but coughs and spits her tears into the stove.

  Mataleena guides her brother to the door. Marja places the last of the straw bread in Juhani’s hand. She fills the saucepan with snow and carries it to the side of the bed, within her husband’s reach.

  ‘This is all I can do,’ she whispers.

  Juhani grabs Marja’s shoulder and tries to lever himself up without success. He manages to grunt something incomprehensible before collapsing on to his back. Marja lifts Juhani’s hand off her shoulder and places it on her husband’s chest. She presses her lips to Juhani’s forehead and then, unexpectedly, to his lips, lets them linger, breathes in unison with her husband for the last time.

  Outside, Marja wonders why they did not burn the skis, given the lack of firewood, but she is grateful they did not. A light wind rises and sweeps snow on to the grey logs of the house walls. The snow drifts slowly over the threshold, as if seeking something to eat inside. Clouds move past the sun but do not stop to conceal it.

  Juho hangs on to his mother’s back, Mataleena steps on to the ends of the skis. The poles are a little taller than Marja. The door is wide open, gaping like Juhani’s mouth. Marja forbids Mataleena from going back and closing it.

  ‘It’s more merciful that way.’

  A strong wind sweeps along Willow Ditch.

  Ledges of snow have softened the steep banks of the brook. The willows are virtually buried under drifts; only a few dark twigs push out from under the suffocating blanket of white. Marja skis cautiously down the bank.

  At the bottom, Mataleena stumbles and falls on her face into the snow. She struggles to get up but keels over on to her back. Marja does not dare bend to lift the girl up because she is afraid of Juho falling. The boy dangles limply on his mother’s back, arms wound round her neck. Marja stretches out a ski pole to Mataleena for the girl to use as support.

  The child is shattered. If it were anyone else – Juhani, say – you would better off hitting them with the pole on the forehead in an act of mercy, Marja thinks. Mataleena gets to her feet and staggers back on to the ends of the skis.

  ‘Another one spared. Only to suffer more pain.’ The wor
ds escape Marja’s mouth.

  Mataleena presses herself against her mother’s back and for a moment the three of them stand in the blizzard on the icy ditch, unable to move. Marja feels like giving up and falling into the snow. Then she gathers her strength and forces herself to press on.

  She thinks angrily of Juhani refusing to eat and giving everything he could lay his hands on to her and the children. It was stupid: the man should have looked after himself so that he could take responsibility for his family. She and the children would have stayed alive on less, but now, without Juhani, they would not survive the winter in Korpela.

  It was not generosity that motivated Juhani’s decision, but cowardice.

  Soon after leaving the brook, they spot Lehtovaara. The Lehtos’ smallholding lies on the other side of this hill. From the top, they see, on the horizon, a church tower sticking out of the white landscape like a lone willow branch on the bank of the ditch.

  A large barrel stands in the middle of the main room of Lehto’s cottage. The farmer sits at the table, hands clasped, and looks at the arrivals with suspicion.

  ‘So you had to leave Korpela to go begging?’

  ‘If we could just stay the night, we’ll carry on in the morning.’

  ‘How’s Juhani?’

  ‘He’s not.’

  Lehto lowers his gaze to his hands. His eyes water, he looks out of the window, then at the fire blazing in the grate. His wife comes out of the bedroom and rushes to hug Marja. The children creep shyly towards the barrel.

  ‘It’s got tar in it, so illness doesn’t come in the house – tar keeps sickness at bay,’ Lehto says.

  His wife starts taking off the children’s coats. On seeing Mataleena’s face, she lets out a cry.