Dusk in Kalevia

by Emily Compton

  A blast of frigid air hit him in the face. Instead of a hotel room, he was greeted by the dirty brick of the alley walls.

  He stepped through the portal and into the alleyway, closing the red door behind him.

  **

  Pregnant clouds drifted low and heavy as Toivo walked through the streets of Vainola; as the first flakes began to fall, the air filled with the faint metallic scent of new snow. He was worried about leaving tracks, but when he looked back at his path, he could see the dimples of his footsteps vanishing under the steady accumulation. Soon, everything was white.

  The dove flew overhead, perching occasionally on lampposts and car roofs to wait for Toivo to catch up. Toivo squinted up at the sky, trying not to lose sight of the gray bird in the drifting snow. He felt slow, like he was walking through a haze. Only the harsh chill that froze the inside of his nose and made his fingers ache despite his gloves reminded him that he was living this, not dreaming it.

  He couldn’t say how long he walked in the blizzard, in a city that seemed muffled and half-there. This was the first time he’d been out on his own in Vainola. He almost immediately lost the path by which he’d come, only aware of the next street corner and the vague, looming shapes of lampposts and post boxes. People passed him on the street without a glance, concentrating on their own bleak journeys; with his collar turned up and his hat low over his eyes, he could have been anyone.

  He eventually found himself walking between rows of factory buildings, breathing in a thin smell of rust and wood rot from the river. The dove, its flight patterns growing wild with excitement, passed close enough that the tips of its wings brushed his frozen cheek.

  The bird settled onto the snow in front of a warehouse door. Toivo waited, watching it for a sign as it strutted back and forth, the marks of its feet like little runes in the fresh snow.

  “This,” the bird said, tapping a small symbol painted on the wood. “Inside here. Behind grate.”

  It flew off without another word.

  Toivo crouched to investigate the sign of the leaf, but it meant nothing to him beyond being a deliberate mark. He put his shoulder against the heavy door and it ground open.

  He stepped inside the huge, echoing space beyond, full of the dross of abandoned construction projects. Snow had covered the small windows that ringed the ceiling, muting the light into a murky, uniform gray. This was a forgotten place, clothed in dust and the creep of damp decay. He couldn’t imagine a better place to store secrets.

  Walking along the periphery, Toivo searched methodically for the drop. It wasn’t long before he found a small opening low on the wall, covered by a barred grating. He gave a tentative tug, and the plate came away easily in his hands.

  He hesitated for a moment before he reached in, imagining the prickly brush of creeping things and cobwebs foul with desiccated insects, but winter had killed everything; there was naught but the same thin layer of wooly grime that had settled over the whole place. He felt around the corner and his hand grasped the corner of a piece of cloth. His heart pounded as he pulled the hidden treasure into the dim light of day.

  He freed the box from its dirty rags. Taking a deep breath, he flipped the latches open.

  Inside lay a gun. He recoiled, his scalp prickling in a prelude to panic.

  It was not the object he feared. It was merely a tool, barbarous though it might be. He could still see himself, only a few scant months ago, standing at a Washington firing range and practicing his marksmanship on a paper target like it was the most natural thing in the world. At the time, he hadn’t thought much about the implications--although he abhorred the use of weapons, he’d found it prudent to train himself in their handling as a matter of course, merely assuming that if push came to shove, he could draw upon his other talents to provide a more palatable form of conflict resolution.

  This wasn’t just a gun, however, but a message. The gift of a lethal weapon--so clearly meant for his personal use--spoke volumes about what sort of mission this was going to be. It was a statement of assumed violence, a black portent of blood spilled by his hands. With the uncomfortable feeling that everything had begun to slip beyond his control, he picked up the revolver and gingerly slid it into his waistband.

  The unpleasant sensation of freezing gunmetal bit into the small of his back as he investigated the remainder of the box’s contents. It wasn’t much--only a small sheet of neatly folded yellow paper with a hand-drawn map to the Agricultural Produce Distribution Center. Written neatly below the map was a date two days hence and a short note.

  4:30 A.M. Bring proof of identity. Ask for Little Bear.

  After returning the box to its hole, Toivo stared at the map until he committed it to memory, then crumpled it up into a little wad in the palm of his glove. He walked back outside.

  The snow was still falling strong, and the mournful call of a mail boat sounded out on the Kalevajoki.

  Toivo leaned on the steel guardrail and stared down at the ice floes that crashed and groaned in the river below. After a moment’s thought, he reached down and grabbed a generous handful of snow, which he packed into a ball around the wadded map. He pressed the snowball to his lips, and then, with a wind-up like a pitcher, threw it with all his might into the whiteness above the river.

  Now what? he wondered. Where to from here?

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on the sensation of snowflakes melting upon his cheeks. The entrance to the Station had to be nearby. The directions had been maddeningly vague, but he knew that somewhere in this city, an open door waited to welcome him--a door that led to the answers to all his questions. If he found his way there, he could trust his allies to guide him. This time, rather than reaching out and searching, he cleared his mind, making himself as empty as possible as he hoped for a signal to reach him in the dark.

  Sure enough, he felt a faint pull guiding his internal compass--less a deliberate gesture than a trace of power--that pointed to somewhere directly below him. He opened his eyes and stared down at the water, puzzled. Surely they weren’t suggesting that he jump into a freezing river?

  It was then that he noticed the drain service stairway running down the side of the flood wall, complete with a metal maintenance door. He had found his portal.

  Toivo carefully descended the narrow steps, pressing himself against the rough wall to steady his feet on stones slick with ice and river slime. He cranked the rusted wheel that served as a handle, and to his surprise the door glided open smoothly, admitting him into the darkness beyond.

  The first thing he noticed was warmth. As soon as he entered, he felt himself steeping in the soft heat of a fire that soothed his reddened face and erased the chill that had wormed its way through his clothes. An unpleasant gust of wind blew down his neck, and as he turned back toward the doorway, his eyes widened in confusion.

  He could see the broad expanse of the river outside, yet beside it, visible through the rippled glass of a tiny window, were pines bowed with the weight of the snow on their branches, shining in the light of a clear day. The strange contrast filled him with a woozy agitation. To block out the inconsistency, he quickly shut the door--a door now made of carved wood, the sanded planks brushing his palm.

  His eyes adjusted in the dim light of an old log cabin, where the air was thickly perfumed with woodsmoke and the spice of pinesap. He had the feeling that he’d been in places like this, far from the cold clarity of the modern world--surely this was a place that had persisted, unchanged, for years.

  Someone was singing.

  The song had no discernible words, yet contained a depth of expression that held Toivo spellbound. In the hypnotic chant lived the rich glow of the fire and the feeling of coming in from the cold. It was not a song about warmth; it was the essence of warmth itself.

  A chair rocked back and forth by the open hearth, a white head bobbing as the voice mumbled its incomprehensible, beautiful lyrics. As Toivo walked closer, the singer finished her song and rose, her knitting claspe
d in her hand. She bowed her head in greeting.

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  The angel had the appearance of an old woman, far advanced in years--but when Toivo looked at the crags and valleys of her face, they spoke not of approaching death, but of the fullness of life. She was a calming presence, glowing with vitality, who reminded Toivo of a cozy wood fire.

  “You’re the Station Chief for Kalevia?” he asked at last.

  “I’ve been here for a long time and have been many things. I suppose that’s what I am now...everything is espionage these days. Cloak and dagger. Times change.” She chuckled, shaking her head ruefully. “I guide the new arrivals in the region.”

  “And you were the one who called me here?”

  “Come sit by the fire,” she said, drawing up a chair. “You’re Toivo, yes? You can call me Äiti.”

  Basking in the heat of the hearth, Toivo settled down and began to shed his winter garments. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt properly warm. Fighting the drowsy contentment that had begun to creep over him, he nodded at Äiti.

  “To answer your question,” she continued, “no, I didn’t call you down. You’d have ended up here with or without my messages. I just helped you along.” She tilted her head inquisitively, her dark eyes crinkling up in a benevolent smile. “How much do you already know?”

  “I don’t really remember much. It mostly comes when I sleep.”

  “You’ve been out of it for ages, haven’t you? How did you manage to stay away so long? This century has been...” She looked down, her face contorting as though swallowing something bitter. “Complicated.

  “No matter. The longer you stay down here, the more it will come back.” She resumed her knitting, the needles ticking out the seconds as evenly as a clock. “The point is, you would have come whether or not I’d sent for you. The rebellion needs you. It’s who you are now.”

  “Who I am now? They gave me this thing.” Toivo drew the revolver from his waistband and held it out for her to see. “I don’t...want this.”

  “If they want you to have a gun, you’ll have a gun. You can’t escape it. We become what they need us to be--their dreams give us form.”

  “So the humans call us down?” He was on the edge of his seat now. As she spoke, he remembered things, like words finally forming on the tip of his tongue.

  “It’s the war. That’s why you’re here. I felt it coming in my bones; now the Forest Clan, the partisans in the woods, are on the move. They hoped for a beacon to lead them to victory--a capable agent from the West, an intellectual with ties to the Americans.” She smiled. “And now he’s appeared.”

  “They created me,” Toivo breathed.

  “Not just you. The Communists, too, have their own agents of the light. Here, a full-bodied farmer woman with her arms full of wheat inspires the collective; there, a scientist gives a nation dreams of flight and entreats them to break the shackles of gravity and soar. Inspiration! Courage!”

  “My opposites?”

  “No. They are us, just aligned with different causes, bolstering different sides in human struggles. We shift into any role we’re summoned for.” She leaned toward him, as though sharing a grave secret. “But our opposites are also summoned as fear takes shape. And here, in this conflict...you already have a Shadow.”

  The word sent a shiver racing down Toivo’s spine. The darkness he’d felt the day before--the cold void that had passed him at State Security. His shadow. He replayed the moment over and over in his mind as Äiti’s voice took on a grave tone.

  “In any human conflict, a balance must be struck between hope and fear. You bring hope, but your shadow devours it. That darkness will pursue you to the ends of the Earth, unraveling the threads you’ve woven, sowing fear among the very people who brought you here for solace. The shadow will not stop until one of you is overcome.”

  “One of us has to die?” Toivo swallowed.

  She nodded.

  “And then?”

  “Oh, you’ll go back to being what you always were,” she replied, waving a hand toward the ceiling. “Out of the way for a while. Purely theoretical. But the humans who conjured you up?”

  She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, a pained expression upon her face.

  “They’ll lose everything.”

  Toivo was no longer comfortable in front of the fire. Something itched at the back of his mind; he could no longer sit still. He jumped up and began to gather his things, feeling immensely upset.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled. “You’ve told me everything I need to know.”

  He shook Äiti’s hand. She patted him on the shoulder with her tiny liver-spotted hand.

  “Come back any time. We can even open a door closer to you, to make things easier.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Toivo promised.

  Out on the stairway, he found his breath coming in sick little gasps. What was happening to him? He leaned back against the icy stone wall and tried to remember what had happened so long ago. Something about Shadows. Something about pain.

  It wouldn’t come. The tantalizing clarity of past memories had receded, closed to him like the iron door in the snow-kissed stones.

  Feeling just as lost as before, he miserably burrowed his face into his scarf and began the long walk back through the blizzard.

  **

  Demyan sat in the reception area of the Minister of State Security’s office, staring at a closed door. He shifted in his plastic chair, the small of his back already aching from that torture device disguised as a piece of modern furniture. He heard no sound or sign of life from behind the heavy paneling--but then again, anything could be happening in there. Demyan knew well that the walls were completely soundproofed.

  It was unlike Kuoppala to be so late. The man was impeccably punctual; tardiness for him was invariably a flexing of his political muscles, a dominance display. You will wait for me, he seemed to say. What other choice do you have? The possibility that today he was Kuoppala’s chosen victim irked Demyan, and he resolved to nip this contemptuous behavior in the bud. Anyone who decided they could bully Demyan Chernyshev had another think coming.

  He cast around the sterile blue room for a distraction and lit upon Kuoppala’s secretary, a blonde waif who cowered behind her desk for protection, jerking her head up at every sudden noise or cough. He rummaged listlessly in her mind, but soon freed her in disgust. In the paltry dregs of optimism that clung to her soul there was barely a dram left for him. Her boss had drained her dry.

  What use was she to Demyan now, without even foolish dreams to sustain her? He could only add to her state of desperate anxiety. She would stumble onward, growing emptier by the day, the bruised rings of sleepless nights shining through her powder.

  What does Kuoppala even have to gain from this? Demyan wondered. Nothing. She suffers for nothing.

  As he chewed on this grim thought, the door finally swung open and discharged a man in plainclothes. As he hurried by, Demyan caught a glimpse of the long white scar that bisected his eyebrow, marring an otherwise-nondescript face. The thorns of Demyan’s shadows caught at the stranger, but he was through the waiting room and gone before Demyan had a chance to ferret out his identity, leaving behind only a residue of determination and danger.

  A man on a mission, thought Demyan, his curiosity piqued.

  The phone on the secretary’s desk beeped. She picked it up, bowing her head in a gesture of deference invisible to the person on the other end.

  “Yes, sir,” she murmured into the phone. She replaced it on its rocker and lifted her watery blue eyes to Demyan. “The Minister will see you now.”

  Demyan rose, clutching his dossier to his chest, his stiff body aching as he shifted it back into his usual perfect posture.

  Beyond the door was an expansive yet sparsely furnished space, windowless and colorless; every sound was eaten by the foam triangles lining the walls. Demyan entered the office like he owned it, refusing to
break eye contact as he walked straight up to the stainless steel desk.

  Kuoppala was stirring his coffee with a little silver spoon that glinted brilliantly in the harsh light. He set it down and regarded his drink with interest, causing Demyan to hold back a smirk.

  “Commander,” Demyan saluted him, his voice clipped and hollow in the soft blankness of the room.

  “Chernyshev! I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

  You asshole, thought Demyan, but he just shook his head. “I need a favor.”

  “Now you’re coming in here, first thing in the morning with that sourpuss face of yours, demanding favors?” Kuoppala chuckled. “We’ll see, Comrade--we’ll see.”

  Demyan noted with suspicion the unusual air of good humor that surrounded the Minister of State Security. His smile was less forced, his eyes roaming to the ceiling as though recalling a particularly tasty memory. What good news had the plainclothes man delivered to render Kuoppala so content? Tentatively, Demyan began to probe, fighting the mental nausea that threatened to overwhelm him.

  They wouldn’t see this one coming. He was good, really good.

  Who wouldn’t?

  Their time was up. Soon.

  Demyan let the silence linger a little to long. With a small sigh of impatience, Kuoppala’s eyes snapped down, and the thread was lost.

  “Go on,” Kuoppala said. “What do you want?”

  “A warrant for the arrest of a foreign national.”

  Demyan took a slow breath, feeling the damage done with one simple sentence. Once the words were out, he could not reclaim them.

  Kuoppala raised an eyebrow. “That’s not really your department, is it?”

  “Special circumstances. Someone of interest to Moscow.”

  The Minister of State Security gestured for elaboration. “And?”

  “I can’t share the details, but we need him brought in as soon as possible.”

  Kuoppala set his mug down roughly upon his blotter. He stared past Demyan, his eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, while he attempted to laugh off the snub.