The Last of the Vostyachs

by Diego Marani

  Ivan cut down two young birch trees that were growing on the beach. He stripped them with the axe and fashioned them into eight white stakes, which he then laid out on the ice. He wove branches between them, and hoisted the bodies on to them, using the rope he’d taken from the storeroom in the zoo. He placed a stone on each woman’s chest, together with the fragments of reindeer horn he’d brought with him in the sack. He decorated their hair with falcon feathers and covered their staring eyes with snow. Then he knelt before the catafalque and drummed out the song of sleep, accompanying it with a long lament, so that the great breath of the universe would slow down a little and take their lost spirits into its care.

  Out of the wind in a phone box on Iso Roobertinkatu, Margareeta had made any number of calls to the police station on the other side of the road. Hyttynen was not answering. As they were going back into town, he had dumped her unceremoniously at the corner of Lönnrotinkatu. He wouldn’t hear of going back later to Vasikkasaari, and he wasn’t remotely interested in the story of the strange animals running about on the ice around the island. Helsingfors Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna was just a few points short of victory, and that did nothing to improve his temper.

  ‘Listen, madam, you’ve already caused me to miss the hockey match and get frozen feet. Enough’s enough! If you’re looking for somebody to spend the night with, I suggest you try picking up someone in a nightclub. A new one has just opened at the end of the Bulevardi,’ he had said to her dryly, pointing to the open door. Margareeta would have liked to ring her husband’s bell just one last time, but she was exhausted. Her eyes were burning, her feet hurt and at each red light Hurmo would curl up on the ground and go to sleep. So she’d gone home, gulped down all the beer that was in the fridge and now she was drunk. She picked up the receiver without quite knowing who she was going to phone, then suddenly remembered Jarmo’s answer phone and the newly rewound tape.

  ‘I know you’re listening, Jarmo. I know you’re in there, in the dark. And I advise you not to throw away this tape: listen to it carefully, it may well be of use to you when we see each other again in court. I’ve been looking for you all day. I even went to Villa Suvetar, with the police. It was the only way I could be sure of getting the door opened. I know you’ve been there, no doubt accompanied by one of your “women friends”. Isn’t that what you called them? “We share so many ideas, so many values, that sex is never going to rear its ugly head”, you’d say to me whenever I dared to express puzzlement about the amount of time you spent with other women. I had to swallow lie upon lie. But you’d never done it at Villa Suvetar. You always spared the cottage at Vasikkasaari the mortifying spectacle of your seductions, though I don’t think that was out of respect for me. It was more likely the memory of your mother which prevented you from sullying the old holiday house where you had spent your childhood summers. So this is a sign that at last you feel truly free, of both me and your mother. Indeed, basically, for you we were one and the same: someone who would admire you, forgive you unconditionally, relish your successes as though they were our own. And whom you in your turn could cheat on. In your mother’s case, this went no further than stealing a bit of loose change from her purse; in my case, it was my life you stole. Who did you take a sauna with in Villa Suvetar? With that student of yours with the big feet? Or with the Estonian lectrice? You disappoint me: the one this year is a real fright. And anyway, you’d have saved that sacred place for someone more useful to you. Some functionary at the Ministry of Education, perhaps? Or did you turn gay for one night in exchange for some important favour? Oh no, I see: that ugly great creature from the Vice-Chancellor’s office who puts forward candidates for the Finnish Cross to the President of the Republic. After all, you’d stop at nothing, as we know.

  ‘But this is a strange night, Jarmo. Perhaps it’s some unusual line up of the planets, or perhaps the cold has caused normally indissoluble chemical elements to separate. At all events, today I’ve seen things which have escaped me for fifteen years. This evening, the lights of Helsinki lit up the whole circuit of your vile doings. I made a bracing tour of all the places where you’d so gleefully deceived me, I visited the love nests I’d always known about but had never wanted to see, the sites of your finest lies, the pitiable ruins of a happiness which, though short-lived, had been very real. I happened to pass the local swimming-baths, and I remembered that short period when you used to go there regularly. After supper, every other day. Swimming was the only thing that helped your backache, you told me. I went on as far as Annankatu and walked past the block where the director of the Institute of Slavic Studies lives. Sinikka Hirvi, that was her name. And then I saw it all. It had taken me ten years. Now I know that you used to slip a bleach capsule into your bag together with your swimming suit and towel, and dissolve it in Sinikka Hirvi’s bath tub so that you would come home smelling of chlorine, so as to convince me you’d really been at the pool. That was why those strange capsules had featured on the weekly shopping list for half a year – I had always wondered what you used them for. That was why, when I bought a mauve box, you smelt of lavender, and when I bought a yellow one, you smelt of citronella. I saw the faces of your lovers plastered over the walls of the city as though in a gallery. Even the ones I’d never met, even the journalist from the Helsingin Sanomat you so wanted me to meet that Friday evening. I had to skip my piano lesson to join you at the Klaus Kinski. First you bedded them, then you introduced me to them. Why? Was it a way of ensuring my forgiveness? Or did you want to show them what you had given up in order to be with them? This afternoon, I went to look for you at the university. The windows in your office were open, the carpet was covered with snow and the floor was strewn with old papers and bits of glass. At first I was worried. I thought something awful might have happened and I went straight to the police station to report your disappearance. A policeman came with me to open your front door. But when I went into those rooms where you now live, without a single trace of your past life with me, as though I had never existed, I realised that I couldn’t care less what had became of you. For all I care, you can sink into the ice in the sea off Helsinki or be burned alive in a car accident. It’s all the same to me; I’d just like to be there when it happens. I want to cheer on the icy wave as it closes over your head and fills your mouth, to spur on the flames until they’ve charred you to a frizzle, like a fish on a spit, giving up on you only when they’ve reduced you to so much black mush stuck to the car seat. First, though, you’ve got to take Hurmo back; otherwise I’ll flay him, stuff him and place him on your desk for you to gaze at until the last trump sounds!’

  Gripping the receiver so hard that it hurt, Margareeta felt herself positively salivating. She had so much more to say. Instead, she put the phone down and threw herself on to the bed, weeping, until at last she fell asleep in front of the blaring television.

  Hurmo had taken refuge behind the armchair; as he well knew, when his mistress was in this kind of state he might well be in for a kicking. He hadn’t even dared to go and stand beside his bowl, to let her know that he was hungry. At last, he too had fallen asleep, and was now snoring, a bit of carpet having fallen over his nose, hampering his breathing. But when the shut-down signal appeared on the screen, Margareeta had suddenly woken up, as though someone had called to her, or a hand shaken her. She had looked out of the window. The street was empty. The yellow lamplight made everything look weirdly two-dimensional, casting vague shadows over the windows of the parked cars. The ice which had again formed on the pavements gave off a gauzy light. In the distance, in the centre of town, a red shop sign was flickering on the top of a building, and from time to time the odd flash of red could be seen darting along the otherwise invisible threads of ice which meandered over the zinc roofs where the snow had melted. Margareeta looked at her watch: it was three o’clock, the eleventh of January was dawning. Now she was in the grip of a strange compulsion. She still had time to make that date somehow memorable. She poured herself a glass of vo
dka and put the bottle into the pocket of her windcheater. Dutch courage was what was needed. Then she went to dislodge Hurmo from behind his chair. Coming in, she hadn’t even bothered to take off his lead. Now she gave it a firm tug, and the old dog whimpered as he slithered across the parquet. Dragging himself effortfully to his feet, he shook himself despondently and put out his tongue, rewarding his impatient mistress with a trusting look.

  Four elk were galloping between the tramlines that ran along the Aleksanterinkatu, nimbly avoiding the lacerated bodies of several gazelles, over which a single vulture was doggedly hovering. A blue fox was sidling along in front of the windows of the Stockmann Supermarket, anxiously sniffing the air, then disappeared into the trees on the Esplanadi. Two pandas were loitering on the pavement opposite, uncertain where to go and scratching at the asphalt with their claws, hoping to find some earth. There was too much light around those parts, so they couldn’t tell whether it was day or night. Three alpine goats were goading a lynx, which was following them at a distance, jaws agape, then disappeared behind the Swedish Theatre. Other dark shadows were snaking between the flashing traffic lights.

  The Siberian tiger took the cathedral steps in four great bounds and felled one of the guanacos with a blow from its paw; it had followed them all the way from the Opera House. The other three lolloped off, quite unconcerned. The wounded animal did not make a sound; it turned away, then crumpled, belly up. The tiger sank its nose into the creature’s stomach and dug its teeth into the soft flesh, shaking its prey as it did so; the guanaco was staring resolutely skywards, as though to distract attention from its entrails, which were spilling out on to the snow. Down in the square the wolves had pinioned two zebras and a mountain goat up against the colonnade and were preparing their attack, snarling the while; but the terrorised zebras were huddling together, kicking out at the main door, while the mountain goat was lowering its horns and leaping to and fro, fending off the assailants. The owl had come to rest on the statue of Czar Alexander II in the middle of the square, and was peering around in alarm, looking vainly for some quiet place to roost. Erect in the middle of the Unioninkatu, an old stag was casting a dispassionate glance at the scenes of mayhem going on around it, white breath issuing from its nostrils as it shook its thick complement of antlers. Seeing Ivan arriving at the far end of the street, it trotted away wearily. But the Vostyach carried on towards the Esplanadi, in search of some dark place where he could see the stars and get his bearings. He took his whip to his team of reindeer and disappeared into the trees. In the little wood at the foot of the Observatory the snow lay deep and undefiled, and the harbour lights were concealed behind a thick clump of pines. The benches looked like sleeping animals, and the swing in the middle of the rotunda resembled a sacred altar, its frame pointing towards the sky. Ivan tested the solidity of its posts, then looked upwards. There, at last, were the stars. The Vostyach stretched out on the ground and turned his head from side to side, inspecting the whole expanse of sky. He caught sight of Urgel, which seemed to be calling to him, waiting for him before going down. But Ivan knew he would have trouble negotiating that immense tangle of over-lit city streets. He took up the reins and got back on to the sledge. The little road through the park ran steeply down towards the sea, to the quay at Laivasillankatu.

  Ivan had never seen a ship that size. Not even in the port of Dudinka, where the soldiers had taken him one summer to load up the barges with coal for the foundry. Eight decks, a thousand blazing portholes, two huge smokestacks belching out black smoke. And loud, insistent noise, the smell of fuel, a line of lorries driving up on deck, clanging the while. Kneeling in the snow, the Vostyach gazed in enchantment at the Amorella, all lights ablaze, reflected in the channel of black water it had carved out for itself among the ice. He was exhausted. He hadn’t eaten or slept for a whole day and night, he had spent the entire time wandering vainly around the gulf, trying to reach the forests. On his own he would never be able to find the tracks leading northwards, to get back to his people, to drag them out of their wild beasts’ lairs and back into the sunlight. Moss would gather on his yurt, and finally it would collapse, to join all the other abandoned yurts that lay strewn throughout the woods. No Vostyach would ever again hear him singing in the tundra, in the Byrranga Mountains. Now that even Olga had abandoned him, what could he do on his own in the face of this hostile world? Where was that great and ancient tribe which understood his language and should have been there to welcome him in that alien land? Suddenly, Ivan felt that his life had really come to an end that night, so long ago, when his father had died in his arms. All those years spent in silence, breaking stones in the mine, were nothing but a poisonous excrescence which had bloomed forth from a body already dead. Like the nails on the hands of the convicts who had been crushed by falling rock, where the coal seam was at its deepest: over the long days it took for the skip from the barracks at Talnakh to reach the Byrranga Mountains to free those bodies, twisted white nails would continue to grow out of black hands. Escaping from the mine had served no purpose. Ivan should have died long ago, on that same night, he should have fallen down in the snow and heard and felt no more. But what about the bullet that was intended for him, where had that ended up? Why had none of the soldiers tried to aim at that little body running beside his father? Ivan was crying now, the tear drops freezing on his lashes. At that same moment, the child reappeared. At last he recognised himself: it was he who was the spirit that death had spurned, and which was now following him so doggedly. The Vostyach knew that spirits don’t understand human speech; such was his dread that he nonetheless addressed a question to the shade standing before him:

  ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘To come with you.’

  ‘Come with me where? I no longer have anywhere to go.’

  ‘You told me you’d take me fishing on the lake, you said you’d teach me how to hunt coot in the marshes with my new bow,’ the child protested mournfully.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ murmured Ivan, somewhat shamefaced. ‘It’s too late for that now.’

  Ivan released the reindeer from the sledge and cracked the whip, urging them to move off. But they hadn’t got anywhere to go to, any more than he had. They stayed in a huddle, a few steps away, tossing their heads. A lorry and trailer drew up on the quay and hooted loudly, frightening them off. Reversing on to the pontoon that led to the hold, it crushed Ivan’s sledge beneath its spiked wheels and pushed it off the quay. The sledge floated briefly in the deep water before sinking into the foam whipped up by the ship’s propellers. Ivan had crouched down by the wall of the harbour station. Through the bars of the gate he could see the sailors in the sentry box, the lighted pit of the hold where workers wearing big yellow gloves were pulling on ropes and chains. He looked at the guards in their red jackets, standing at the end of the gangway, and realised that he had no choice: he would have to give himself up. They might beat him, they might lock him up; they might bundle him on to a lorry and take him back to the mine, set him to breaking stones again. He should have died there twenty years ago, together with his father. It was wrong to try to avoid one’s fate. Ivan felt in his pocket for his passport and set off for the gangway, utterly defeated.

  The two Silja Line stewards conferred at length before allowing this strange passenger on board. He had a one-way ticket for Stockholm on the Meloodia, which had left some time ago, at 18.15. At that time of night the Amorella, en route from Tallinn to Stockholm, would not be picking up passengers, but only the odd lorry, and additional supplies of beer and fuel. But cabin 127 was empty, and in view of the fact that the stranger had a first-class ticket with meals, drinks and sauna thrown in, an exception could surely be made. In any case, neither steward felt like embarking on a lengthy argument with a Russian dressed in stinking skins. He had a ticket, he had a passport, and that was all that was required. They slipped a loop of coloured paper round his neck, gave him a leaflet about the duty-free goods obtainable on board and ushered him on to the upper d
eck, which was quiet and dimly lit. One of the stewards stopped to talk on the telephone, and Ivan took the opportunity to rub his numb hands and arms. Then a sleepy-looking stewardess appeared, to lead him along carpeted corridors, through saloons decorated with tropical plants and, finally, to his cabin. She turned on the light and then went out, shutting the door behind her. The Vostyach sat down on the edge of the bunk and waited for someone to come and question him, imagining the beating that would inevitably come his way: cracked ribs, no doubt, and blood-caked lips. The important thing was not to put up any resistance. The secret was to keep your head down and never look them in the eye.

  Margareeta turned the key in the dashboard and blew on her hands, waiting for the engine to warm up. She felt for the bottle of vodka she had stuffed under the cushion of the seat beside her. Now safely in the car, she looked nervously up and down the street. Hurmo, sitting in the back, was also on tenterhooks, scrabbling around and whimpering. This wasn’t a good time for a single woman to be wandering around alone near the station, let alone venturing out on to the frozen sea, but if Hyttynen wasn’t going to help her, she would have to go back to Vasikkasaari on her own and have another look around the cottage. She was convinced that the key to the mystery lay somewhere on the island. The car made a creaking sound as it eased itself out of the ice in which it had been stuck, but the spiked wheels sank deeply into the snow. Margareeta drove carefully down to the goods yard. She had decided to make a thorough job of it. After all, she knew the state of the road, she’d been along it with Hyttynen just a few hours ago. But when she’d been through Tahvonlahti and found herself beside the sea, on the quay at Koirasaari, Margareeta took fright. She shone her headlights over the dark expanse that opened up before her, then took two gulps of vodka. But no, she simply didn’t have the courage to drive out over that icy crust. She switched off the engine, leant her head wearily on the steering wheel and listened to Hurmo’s laboured breathing. Then she got out of the car and walked to the end of the quay. Without really knowing what she was doing, she went down the steps and on to the beach. After a moment or two, Hurmo came bounding after her; he too was uneasy, and felt the need to keep within range of his mistress’s reassuring scent. Margareeta looked towards Vasikkasaari, imagining her arrival in front of a darkened Villa Suvetar, and the strange animals that had been stalking around it. She ventured a few steps out on to the frozen sea, nervously feeling out the darker patches with her foot, exploring the projecting ridges hidden in the veins of shadow. Then, as though drawn by some irresistible attraction, she set out over the frozen waves towards the open sea, stopping every now and again to look behind her; then she would take a sip of vodka and carry on. Hurmo followed her, panting and sniffing out strange scents which distracted him from the smell of his mistress, causing him to make any number of pointless diversions over the ice. Margareeta wasn’t sure if she was drunk or not. Her whole body felt strangely light. She didn’t know whether she would ever get as far as Vasikkasaari, nor what she would find there if she did. Possibly nothing. But she felt that something was definitely coming to an end that night; even the stars in the sky were no longer quite the same. Some that she had never seen before were rising to the east, bringing a new wind with them, a new age in which life could begin afresh. The long illness that had been her marriage was being purged by the fever of the strange hours she was living through, which would leave her drained, but cured at last. But she would have to pass every station of that mysterious Calvary in order to ensure that the bitter memory of fifteen wasted years was well and truly wiped away. She might die in the attempt, she might fall through some crack in the ice or be torn limb from limb by the wild beasts she’d seen wandering the streets of Helsinki. It no longer mattered. She had to put herself through this ordeal in order to be cleansed.