Deep River

by Karl Marlantes

  Aino’s heart lurched. She quickly took her glasses off and stood up. Her hair, which she had piled in thick braids on top of her head, must be a mess from spending the whole morning looking up Mrs. Puumala’s kusipää.

  Voitto’s lean form stood in the doorway, his head nearly touching the lintel. Aino couldn’t decide whether to pull her hair together or whether that would be too obvious.

  “We heard Fanny-täti was in labor,” Voitto said.

  “So how long have you had this interest in babies?” Maíjaliisa asked Voitto. There wasn’t a hint of it, but Aino knew the question was dripping with irony.

  Voitto looked her square in the face and said, “I really came to see Aino.”

  Aino sat down with her mouth open. For a Finnish boy, this was a declaration of love.

  Maíjaliisa turned to Aino. “He isn’t shy.”

  Aino dumbly shook her head no.

  Maíjaliisa took out her pocket watch, always with her to time contractions. She turned back to Voitto. “If she isn’t back here at noon it’ll be the last time you see her because she’ll be a prisoner sentenced to hard labor.” She turned to Aino and said so no one else could hear, “And you keep your skirt down.”

  Aino gave Maíjaliisa a look, squeezed past her, and was out the door. Voitto was just out of sight of those inside and she ran to him. He lifted her feet off the ground and twirled one time around before putting her down. He nodded to his horse, mounted, and she was up behind him, long skirt and apron bunched beneath her bottom, her bare legs dangling down, holding him tight with her head resting on his back. She wanted to stay there forever.

  They found a spot near the small stream that formed the boundary between Puumala’s land and the farm next to it. They were both on their backs, next to a large smooth rock, holding hands, looking up at the August clouds.

  “That one,” Voitto said. “See. A house with a chimney.”

  “And to the right, a horse.”

  “No, that’s a cow,” he said.

  “A horse.”

  He rolled over and kissed her quickly on the forehead. She laughed. “OK. You win. A cow.”

  They both waded into the river, ostensibly looking for crawdads. Voitto was carrying the crawdads in his hat, constantly shaking them down as they tried to crawl out. “My uncle can cook them for Fanny after the baby comes,” Voitto said.

  Aino nodded, happy with the idea. Then she turned serious. “Do you think there will be marriage after the revolution?”

  Voitto shrugged. “Probably for a while. But after the state withers away, no reason will exist for marriage. It’s all about property rights, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Sure.” Aino paused. “Of course.” She snuggled against him as they waded.

  “But there will still be …” He colored. “I mean people will still love each other.” He turned her to him and, looking into her eyes, put both of his hands gently on the back of her exposed neck. He kissed her, fully and forever.

  She felt him through her skirt and apron. Looking up at him, pushing against him, she whispered. “And everyone will have healthy, well-fed babies.”

  He smiled warmly and shook his head back and forth in wonder, as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune to have her for his girl. “And everyone will have healthy, well-fed babies,” he repeated.

  There was a brief moment; then his whole countenance changed. “Babies,” he gasped.

  They both hissed, “Saatana!” and ran for the horse.

  Mrs. Puumala delivered a healthy baby girl with no complications. Sitting on the buckboard with Maíjaliisa on the way home, Aino felt she was moving into her mother’s sphere as a participant, not just an appendage, and it felt good. Maíjaliisa went over the delivery in detail, questioning Aino about what might have gone, but didn’t go, wrong at each step and Aino had the thought that maybe, just maybe, she might follow in her mother’s footsteps.

  When they arrived at the house, several buggies were in front. Maíjaliisa’s hand went to her mouth, she dropped the reins, and she ran into the house. Aino, torn between following her and taking care of Ysti, compromised by tying him next to a water trough and went in after her mother.

  Inside the kitchen were two policemen from Kokkola and Gustafsson. Matti was seated on the floor with his hands on his head. One policeman held Matti’s puukko; the other one, older, looked uncomfortable. Her mother was literally on her knees in front of Gustafsson, who was seated at the kitchen table having helped himself to some raspberry pudding.

  “Mother, get up,” Aino said quietly. She asked the two policemen, “Will you let him up if he promises he’ll do no harm?”

  “He’ll do no harm in jail. He assaulted a police officer,” the man with Matti’s puukko said.

  “They came to take the farm,” Matti blurted out.

  “You’ll be quiet,” the younger officer thundered, pointing the puukko at Matti.

  “Surely, these are extraordinary circumstances,” Aino said. “He’s fifteen.” She looked down at Matti. Matti wouldn’t look at her. She looked pleadingly at the older officer who had seemed uncomfortable.

  “We’re sorry, Mrs. Koski,” the older officer said to her mother. “It’s the law. Mr. Gustafsson here has given you two weeks.”

  “And two months before that,” Gustafsson said. He took another spoonful of pudding. “I hope you understand my position. I’m responsible for making the estate work efficiently. Clearly, you are no longer able to work the farm. Your husband’s agreement with the father of the current owner—which we were prepared to honor fully—to pay him a third of the crops or the cash equivalent is moot. Then there’s the undone work rent.”

  “Surely, my husband will be back soon.” Maíjaliisa turned to the older policeman. “It was an accident!” she pleaded. “The Russian was drunk.” The police looked down at the table. Maíjaliisa turned to Gustafsson. “He could be back within the month.”

  Gustafsson sighed. “Mrs. Koski, I have a perfectly healthy man in his thirties with three young children and a wife who will pay half the crops instead of a third. The farm is obviously worth far more now than when your husband made his agreement with the owner’s father.”

  “But we built—” Aino blurted.

  “I’m not finished, young lady.” Gustafsson cut Aino off. He turned back to Maíjaliisa. “Your husband won’t be back in a month or even a year, if ever, and you know it.”

  Gustafsson gave the older policeman a self-righteous, I-demand-justice look. “We all have our duty.” The man looked at Aino, then spoke to Maíjaliisa, still on her knees. “We have no choice. We’ll have to take him in.”

  Maíjaliisa groaned. At best, it meant years in jail.

  Maíjaliisa slowly rose to her feet.

  Aino watched her struggle for control. She found it. “Aino,” Maíjaliisa said. “Please get out the visitor glasses.” Then she added, “And the napkins in my dresser.” She turned to Gustafsson. “Please. Can’t we just have a cordial and talk. He’s just a boy.”

  Gustafsson drew himself up. “It’s too late for that.”

  Aino knew there were no napkins in Maíjaliisa’s dresser. What was in her dresser was the family savings, held beneath a false bottom. She swallowed and gave her mother a look to signify that she understood the mission. She went into the bedroom where she nearly tore the false bottom out. She returned to the kitchen, their small savings palmed in the hand that held her apron.

  Matti was standing. The younger policeman was taking his handcuffs from his belt.

  Maíjaliisa went to her knees again, sobbing hysterically, pleading with them not to take her son. Everyone was looking at her. Aino slipped Matti the bills. There was the briefest of moments when their eyes met, then Matti was running out the door.

  The two policemen were trying to get past Aino, who stood firmly in the door until she was thrown against the wall. She watched their backs. There would be no chance for them to catch Matti. She could only hope he’
d elude the certain manhunt to come.

  Aino looked calmly at Gustafsson. “You’ll be the first one we get when the revolution comes.”

  He slapped her face.

  The two police officers returned, winded. Gustafsson pointed at Aino. “Arrest her. She’s a revolutionary. She threatened to kill me when the revolution comes.”

  Maíjaliisa came up to Aino and put her arm around her shoulder, staring defiantly at the three men.

  “I heard her. She’s a goddamned red,” Gustafsson said.

  The older police officer sighed. “She’s a child—and she’s just lost the only home she’s ever had.”

  Maíjaliisa asked Mr. and Mrs. Laakkonen if she and Aino could move into their barn, and they gladly agreed. Laakkonen, taking advantage of the railroad and new creamery in Jakobstad, had switched his rye and barley crops to oats to feed his cows, which increased their milk production, and he was now finding himself with more cash and cows but short of labor.

  The law said that the Koskis could take all their personal possessions and Maíjaliisa argued that Ysti was a personal possession. That became irrelevant when Gustafsson said he’d be willing to take Ysti and the wagon in lieu of what was owed for back rent. He also magnanimously agreed to let them use what was now the estate’s horse and wagon to haul their goods to the Laakkonens’.

  On the last trip, they brought Maíjaliisa and Tapio’s bed and Maíjaliisa set it up against the hewn logs of the south wall of the barn, where it could get some heat from the sun. The logs were well fitted with a wide groove on one side overlapping the curved top of the log below in the Finnish style. It required very little chinking. There would also be heat from the cows. Aino and Maíjaliisa were grateful and relieved. They would be safe for winter.

  Aino and her mother mounted the wagon behind Ysti for the last time. Down the road, Aino asked Maíjaliisa to stop and she climbed on Ysti’s back. Coming up on the farm—with its expanded orchards, tidy rows of new and old trees breathing in the early fall sun, the birches and the alders already starting to turn color; the new outbuildings crisp and solid, the work of months by her father and brothers; the solid old house with its board-and-batten sides, its birch-bark roof, the loft window through which she and Matti would jump with their skis onto fresh snow piled nearly over the sill, the new addition that Maíjaliisa had insisted be built when Aino came of age and that for the past two years had been her very own room; and the neat well-tended graves of old Musti, the baby boy found in the snow, and young Laulu—Maíjaliisa pulled the horse gently to a stop.

  “I can’t go any closer,” she said quietly.

  Aino understood. She slid off Ysti’s hindquarters to the ground. Maíjaliisa joined her and tied the reins loosely to the seat. Then she gently slapped Ystävä, clucking to him, and said, “Home, Ysti, home.”

  The horse turned to look at the two of them. Aino couldn’t be sure, but she thought Ysti must know that this was a final parting. He slowly and gently bent his large head around toward them and Maíjaliisa scratched his muzzle. Aino let out a cry and grabbed him around the neck, burrowing her head into his wiry hair, feeling his heat for the last time. She pulled back and Maíjaliisa again slapped him on his hindquarters saying, “Home, Ysti, home.”

  Ysti gave them a long look. Then he turned toward the house and walked away.

  Six days later, Aino found work as a housemaid with a merchant family in Kokkola, where she could sleep in the windowless basement near the coal chute, sharing a pallet with another girl. She would have Sundays off to be with her family, given of course that everything had been cleaned up after breakfast and that she was back by four to help prepare supper. Since she had to walk the six kilometers to the Laakkonens’ and back, this would give her three or four hours.

  Two days after beginning her new job, she joined Voitto’s growing cell of the Finnish Active Resistance Party, violent revolutionaries.

  7

  The pallet Aino shared was only ten feet from the coal bin. She breathed coal dust all night and constantly fought to keep her uniform and underclothes clean. On the other hand, the coal bin was next to the warm furnace. The other advantage of living in the basement was that it was easier to slip away to attend meetings. Which she did, bribing her pallet mate to cover for her with extra food that she managed to sneak out from under the watchful eye of the cook who was also the head housekeeper and had a tiny room to herself just off the kitchen.

  Aino’s workday started at six in the morning and she had to be dressed and have eaten breakfast before then. She could go to the basement and her pallet only after the kitchen and parlor were spotless, often after ten at night. If the family was entertaining, it was later.

  On meeting nights, she could snatch only two or three hours of sleep. She was often late and sometimes missed entire meetings, even though meetings started at ten to accommodate working people like her. It would be her first insight into organizing; working people don’t have time to debate theory. That was why most socialist theorists and organizers weren’t from the working class.

  Aino and Voitto agreed that before meetings he would wait for her by the stone wall of the old Kaarlela church on Kirkkopolku Street. She would usually know from a distance whether he was still waiting for her, because she would see the glow of his cigarette long before she could make out his form in the darkness. From there they would make their way down to the docks, where a sympathetic longshoreman let the small group meet in the attic of one of the many warehouses that lined the harbor. Meeting in the Kokkolan Työväentalo, where the social democrats mostly held sway, was too risky. The police monitored everyone who went there, as Voitto pointed out, to talk. The Finnish Active Resistance Party despised social democrats and anyone else who compromised with the corrupt system—and the party wanted to do far more than talk. The time for talking had ended, but a frustrated Voitto had found it difficult to move the group from rhetoric to action. Action meant risk.

  On a still, cold night in February 1905, Aino smelled Voitto’s cigarette before she saw its glow by the stone wall. She ran into his arms and they held each other, feeling each other’s warmth from beneath their many layers of stiff clothing.

  He took her by the hand and started off. “Come. We can’t be late tonight. What took you so long?”

  “My mistress had company and wanted me to serve coffee.” Voitto was already in front of her, pulling her along. “Hey, hätähousut,” Aino laughed, calling him a name that literally meant “emergency pants.” “What’s going on?”

  “Rauta, from Helsinki, is coming tonight.”

  The chill evoked by the name Rauta came with a tremor of excitement. There might be action. Why else would the party send him this far north? She linked her arm closely inside Voitto’s and buried her cheek against his wool coat, feeling the moisture from her breath freezing on his sleeve. Fresh snow squeaked beneath their shoes in the silence of the sleeping town.

  Everyone knew that Rauta, which meant “iron,” wasn’t his real name. None of them knew how high up in the party he went. Everyone was nervous. This was Voitto’s only link to the larger party and Rauta’s orders were to be obeyed without hesitation.

  Rauta wasted no time. “This student debating society must act. I mean illegal action in defiance of laws that protect the rich.” He scanned the room, making eye contact. “The party has decided that you will be reorganized for action into independent cells of just three people each. However, you will continue meeting with this larger group, discussing theory, putting out pamphlets, and making speeches. We know that army intelligence, the local police, and even the Okhrana think—with good reason—you’re woolly-headed student radicals playing at revolution.”

  He surveyed the room. “Backsliders and reactionaries will be purged.” He paused, the word “purged” hanging in the air. “Am I perfectly clear?”

  Aino studied Voitto to see if there was any sign of how he felt about all the changes. He showed nothing.

  Then Gunna
r Långström spoke. “Don’t we get a say in what we’ll be asked to do?” he asked. Voitto could not contain a visible wince, nor could Rauta contain his anger.

  “Who are you?” The voice was ice cold.

  Voitto jumped in to protect Gunnar. “We haven’t studied democratic centralism as a group, yet,” he said to Rauta. He turned to Gunnar. “We must trust party leadership to exercise democratic centralization. Bourgeois democracies are palliatives to keep the people working for capitalists.” Aino knew that Voitto was struggling to show Rauta that Gunnar and by association the others weren’t reactionaries. “Knowledge of the organization must be limited. You know that, Gunnar. The Okhrana can be very persuasive.”

  “Yoh,” Gunnar said. He and Voitto held each other’s eyes.

  Rauta stared at Gunnar, then said, “I see we understand each other.” Gunnar nodded, shifting his eyes to the tabletop.

  “Just last month,” Rauta went on, “the czar murdered more than one hundred of our comrades in front of the Winter Palace. The czar’s response to the appeasing petition of that collaborating priest, Father Gapon.” He paused, making sure no one agreed with Gapon. “The Finnish Active Resistance Party retaliated by killing Grand Duke Alexandrovich and that bastard traitor Soisalon-Soininen. We need to keep up the pressure.”

  The room was silent.

  “Only active resistance,” Rauta continued, “not stupid ineffective petitions begging the czar for crumbs, will stop the Russians from squeezing us into slavery and continuing to throw Finnish boys on the corpse piles of imperialism and capitalism in a war with Japan that is not our war. We need to hit the Russian imperialists again.” He slapped a palm on the table. “And again. And again. And again.” He was now pounding the table, a fleck of spit at one side of his mouth.

  Rauta stopped pounding the table and stood up straight. “You have been given the privilege of attacking the army base south of Kokkola. The party will help you with explosives and weapons.”