by Mikael Niemi
One of his fellow prisoners was an old Lapp from the Kola peninsula. Even when first captured he had been emaciated through lack of food as the old Sami villages had been replaced by kolkhozes, and no disrespect to Stalin, but at that time he was not a great fan of breeding reindeer. The old skeleton could feel that his end was nigh, and as he shared a bunk with Jussi he opened his heart to him. In a mixture of Sami, Finnish, and Russian, he mumbled on about mysterious powers and happenings. About abscesses healed, madnesses cured, herds of reindeer driven unharmed through wolf-infested country at dead of night. There were words. There were eyes that traveled through the air like a pair of testicles while their owner lay under a reindeer skin. There was blood that ran backward into a wound until there was nothing to be seen but a white mark. There was, in short, a possibility of escaping from the labor camp.
During the long, cold nights the old Lapp instructed Jussi on how he should get away, and how he could take the ancient wisdom with him into the unknown future, where it would doubtless be needed.
“When I die,” wheezed the old man, “carry me out into a snowdrift. Wait until I’m frozen stiff, that won’t take long, just wait until I’m stiff and hard. Then break off the little finger of my left hand. That’s where I’ve collected all my powers. Break it off and swallow it before the guards see you.”
The old man died shortly afterward. He was so thin that he rattled when Jussi shook him. Jussi did as he’d been told and put the body out in the Siberian deep freeze. He snapped off the dirty little finger at the knuckle, popped it into his mouth and swallowed it. And he was never the same again.
Jussi waited until an early spring night at the end of April. The snow had acquired a firm crust strong enough to walk on, so the time had come. The guards were in the middle of one of their gloomy, maudlin vodka parties, and Jussi went to the outhouse. There, he turned himself into a woman. She emerged and stood outside, dirty and in rags, but beautiful. She knocked discreetly on the door of the guards’ hut. With coquettish charm she encouraged them to set upon one another until blood poured from mouths and fists, and the way of escape was open. Taking with her two dry crusts of bread and a broken-off knife blade, she started her long trek to Finland.
The next morning the men set out in chase, but when they caught up with her she changed their scent so that their own dogs turned on them and tore them to pieces. She cut as much meat off their bodies as she could carry, and strapped on a pair of skis taken from one of the dead soldiers, and it was only two months before she was clambering underneath the barbed wire at the Finnish border. For safety’s sake she kept going all the way across Finland as well, skied through the endless forests until she came to the River Torne. She crossed over, and settled down on the far bank. In Swedish Tornedalen.
Now that safety had been reached at last, Russi-Jussi tried to turn himself back into a man, but he wasn’t entirely successful. Too long a time had passed with him as a woman. So for the rest of his life he wore a skirt. Usually a long, thick one of coarse wool, but on Sundays and public holidays he would change into a more elegant black one. He also wore a head-scarf over his long, white hair, and when he was resting at home in his hut he would wear a home-made pinafore, but even in Tornedalen’s roughest, toughest villages, not a soul dared even to grin. Instead people would look the other way and step aside when Russi-Jussi came cycling past, leaning forward and swaying from side to side, with piercing eyes and skirt flapping in the breeze. A bass-voiced witch, as burly as a lumberjack but with the all-conquering cunning of a woman.
* * *
We slunk out into the clear spring evening and hurried off to Niila’s house. His big brother’s three-wheel delivery moped was standing outside the barn. Niila wheeled it over the yellow grass to a path and, when we were out of earshot, kick-started it. Bluish-white fumes belched out of the exhaust pipe. I perched on the platform at the front where all the parcels were usually stacked, Niila engaged first gear and we headed somewhat uncertainly for the main road. We slowly gathered speed, and, amid the crunching of gears and clouds of two-stroke fumes, we put-putted our way through Pajala.
We took the old dirt road on the other side of the river as there was less traffic on it and less chance of being caught by the Gällivare police out on patrol. The sap was rising and it was just before summer delivered its green punch. The previous year’s leaves were rotting in the moss, the birch trees were naked but had buds that were starting to grow plump, and on the sunny side of the ditches the heat had encouraged shoots of horsetails looking worryingly like rows of erect penises. The river was bluish black and unusually wide after the ice had melted. We rattled upstream along the narrow dirt road, up steep hills then down the other side following the outline of the wooded ridges, babbling brooks, spires of sedge at the edge of boggy pools. I was semi-recumbent on the cargo platform, filling my young lungs with sap and spring resins. The evening chill was rising from their shady hollows and I could feel it seeping in through my long johns. Only once did we meet a car, a bloke chasing the land speed record in his souped-up Volvo Amazon on the straight stretch near Autio Bridge where normal laws didn’t apply. Gravel was spattering against the bodywork as he roared toward us. I sat up uneasily, but he didn’t even take his eye off the speedometer as he shot past us like a trumpet blast.
We crossed over the river when we came to the bridge and continued along the wider, asphalted Kiruna road. Erkheikki and Juhonpieti slipped past with their red-painted houses and grassy meadows, then we plunged into the forest once more. Here and there we caught glimpses of the river through the mass of trees, looking like a shiny strip of polished metal. It lay on its back gazing up into the spring-clear sky striped with its lines of migrating birds.
We eventually turned off onto a pock-marked forest track. We bumped and swayed down a slight incline as the trees began to thin out and it grew lighter. At last we came to the river, edged by one last strip of ice. Further up were a few barren meadows, once upon a time hacked out of the virgin forest but now dotted with little aspens and fir trees. A bit further up the hill, out of reach of the spring floods, was an ancient wooden cottage, gray with black windows. A lady’s bike was leaning against the wall.
“He’s at home,” I muttered nervously, clambering down from the platform. My bottom ached after the long journey. Niila switched off the engine, and there was an eerie silence. We tip-toed unsteadily toward the steps leading up to the porch. A curtain moved in one of the windows. I knocked and tentatively opened the fragile-looking door. Then we went in.
Russi-Jussi was sitting at the kitchen table. He wore a dirty pinafore that had once been white, and around his head was a brownish, carelessly knotted head-scarf. Strands of gray, greasy hair dangled out and hung over his shoulders. The kitchen smelled strongly of old man, an acrid, choking stench, a mixture of burnt milk and rancid pork. There was also that typical smell you always find in Tornedalen cottages, a slightly musty tang of earth cellars and rag carpets, cold and old wool. The smell of poverty that seeped into the house walls and floors and never quite disappeared, no matter how often you renovated the place.
“No nykkös tet tuletta. So, you’ve turned up.”
He pointed at the table where two steaming cups of coffee awaited us. He must have sensed that we were approaching. Peering out from under our bangs we started gulping down the coffee, which had a strange flavor of sour well water.
Russi-Jussi enquired gruffly what we wanted, and Niila came out with the whole tale, mumbling away in Finnish. He included everything from his grandmother’s death three years earlier to her terrifying return and stealthy attempt to choke him with her hands round his throat. Russi-Jussi poked slowly at his stubble with a slender index finger. The nail was overgrown and had been carefully filed to form a sharp point. There were traces of red varnish on it.
When Niila had finished, the old man gave us a funny look. His eyes stared, glassy and hard. His face crumpled up and formed a knot, and in among all the wrinkles
his pupils dilated and turned into black rifle muzzles. His left hand started trembling, and his little finger fluttered around in all directions like a pennant before coming to a sudden stop and pointing stiffly straight out. The skin of his face slowly softened and turned darkish blue and crisscrossed with veins. We didn’t dare move a muscle.
“Well, there is a way,” said a gentle and very beautiful voice in Finnish.
The old man’s growl had disappeared. Instead we heard a surprisingly warm and mellow alto. And all at once we could see the woman. She’d been there all the time, hidden under the surface. Now she was leaning forward inside him, as if behind a darkened window pane, pressing up against the old man’s wrinkles and smoothing them out from inside. She was a beauty. Thick womanly lips, a smooth, high forehead, arched eyebrows, bitter and very sorrowful eyes.
“There is a way …,” she repeated hesitantly, turning half away. “The old girl must go back under the ground …; the old girl will disappear if you cut off her cock …”
She fell silent. A shudder ran through the whole of her tall body, like snow falling from an old fir tree. A chilly breeze blew out from between her lips and we shrunk back from her breath, which smelled of resin. Ever so slowly Russi-Jussi returned. He seemed exhausted and frozen stiff, hugging himself to keep warm.
“You’ll be staying the night here, I expect,” he said imploringly, and looked pitifully lonely.
We declined as politely as we could.
“You will bloody well stay the night!” he exclaimed angrily, knitting together his eyebrows to form an impenetrable thicket.
We thanked him and emptied our coffee cups, thanked him again, and then again as we backed toward the door. Russi-Jussi got to his feet and started following us. He smiled imploringly at us with his wet lips, and held out his arms as if to hug us. We wrenched the door open and raced toward the moped. Terror-stricken we leaped aboard. It wouldn’t start. Niila fiddled with the choke and kicked hard, but nothing happened. The engine was stone dead. I tried push-starting it. Russi-Jussi strode down the steps in his slippers, gazing entreatingly at us.
“Just hold me a bit … just touch me …”
Suddenly I could feel his sharp-pointed nails on my back. They started tripping down toward my waist. Like claws.
“Hiiri tullee … Here comes the mouse …”
Down onto my bottom. Outraged, I turned round to face him. And his mouth was all over me in a flash, big and wet, dripping all over my face, and I felt as if I were drowning. Too wet, much too wet.
Slowly he caressed me, gazing into my eyes. Surely he could see! He must be able to see that I didn’t want to!
I twisted and wriggled. He clung on to me. That hand seeking and searching.
But then it burst. The mask splintered. Tears gushed forth and streamed down his face. He made sure I saw that, stood there revealing his pain and waiting for me to rescue him. But I was no longer there. He hunched his shoulders, turned around, and shuffled back into the cottage.
Just then the engine started. In a turmoil, we accelerated away toward the forest track. The cottage disappeared behind the trees. The forest enveloped us in its placid darkness, the tree tops high above us glittered in the evening sun. I clung on for all I was worth, scared stiff of falling off as we raced through the woods. Felt the tension ease, the pain in my midriff fade away.
“We made it!” I yelled over the roar of the engine. Niila slowed down. I could still taste the old man and his musty coffee, and spat into the gravel as it rushed past. We slowed down still further, went slower and slower, and eventually ground to a halt. The engine cut out and everything fell silent. I looked questioningly at Niila. He was staring vacantly at the next bend.
“It’s on fire,” he said.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. His jaw started moving as if he were eating, I could hear his teeth grinding.
“I expect we’ll die,” he said, his voice quivering. He got off the moped and staggered toward the ditch at the side of the road. Tip-toeing, swaying from side to side.
“Hang on!” I yelled, running after him. Then I realized how hard it was for me to reach down to the ground. It had sunk five inches, just out of range of my feet. I couldn’t get any purchase when I tried to walk, and had to glide instead, with shaky skating movements. Niila had already disappeared into the forest. I thrust branches to one side and straddled a small birch sapling, almost falling over.
“Niila, stop!”
He was staring intensely at his left hand, as if it were some strange, unpleasant organism that had attached itself to his body.
“Red,” he said.
Then I saw it as well. Angry red flames were bursting forth from his fingers. When he turned his hand over, bits of skin came loose and set fire to his clothes. I looked around in terror. Too late! The whole forest was burning. We were surrounded by a raging but totally silent forest fire. Niila had been right, we were going to die. And yet it was all so beautiful. Such bewildering beauty! Despite my fear I felt tears coming into my eyes, had an urge to embrace the nearest tree trunk as we were burned to death. The colors changed and merged. Butter yellow, flame yellow, meat red, and tiny violet arrowheads rained down from the treetops. I could feel myself rising even higher above the ground, and grabbed hold of Niila to stop myself flying away. I could feel that my head was lighter than the rest of my body, a balloon hoisting me upward. The fire was closing in on us from all sides. We stood there, black tubes in the midst of the glowing lava, waiting for the pain to hit us.
At that very moment Niila took out his knife. A shiny pocket knife, as flat as a little fish. He prized out the blade with his thumb nail. And when I looked up I could feel ice in my heart, a chill spreading out into all my limbs in spite of the fire licking my skin. I was an icicle in a pot of boiling meat stew, I screamed and bubbles rose to the surface.
There stood the old witch. Niila’s grandma. Laughing scornfully with her toothless mouth, she came toward us, a shriveled specter with her arms held out as if to embrace us. At the end of them were her yellow strangler’s hands. Niila stabbed at her, but she grabbed his wrist with the speed of a snake striking, held on tightly and slowly bent it back. And all the time she was laughing, and drips of sausagey fat rained down from her mouth into the fire. Niila flailed desperately with his free arm and grabbed hold of her bun. He tugged at the thick, gray lump of hair with all his strength. She started shrieking and dug her nails into his throat. Felt his pulse beating inside, a little pecking bird, and squeezed. As if she were squashing an insect—pinch hard and out come the juices. Niila tugged away at her hair, which resembled a magpie’s nest. I tried to prize her fingers away from his throat, but they were clamped there like pincers. Niila went through the motions of opening his mouth to scream, his eyes swelled up from lack of blood. One last desperate wrench. Craaatch! The bunch of hair was ripped out like a clump of grass from the soil. Bits of rotten scalp came away with the roots. The old witch gave a roar, let go of Niila’s neck, and groped after her bun. Quick as a flash Niila ripped open her dress. She was naked underneath. Two wrinkled old legs, with a black bush of hair between them. And in the middle of the bush, something ghastly. A stalk. It was alive. A wriggling serpent. It struck at Niila, spitting venom. He grabbed it by its scraggy end, clung on tight, and with one swift blow of his knife cut the penis off by its root.
As he did so the old woman opened her mouth wide. A rustling gust of wind blew through the sea of fire, and the ground opened underneath her. As if somebody were pulling at her feet from below, the monster was dragged down into the moss. To her waist, her chest, and to her neck. But it was not until the whole of her hairless cranium had disappeared from view that the horrific screams ceased.
Niila stood with the dripping penis in his hand. I touched it with a shudder, felt the stiff black hairs. There was still life in the stump—it was still struggling to break free. But he wouldn’t let go.
And then it was all over, darkness fell. And
the fire went out at last.
* * *
When we woke up, we were curled up in the moss, freezing cold. The forest was all around us, gray and raw. The stained knife was visible in the light of dawn, but there was no trace of the penis.
“The nopat,” Niila groaned.
I shuddered and nodded. The old bastard had spiked our coffee. We drove home, frozen stiff. We had to stop several times and make little bonfires at the side of the road, longing to be in our warm beds.
The following week we got our first pubic hair.
CHAPTER 11
Where two pig-headed families are joined by marriage, on which occasion muscles bulge and a sauna is taken
My old man was a silent type. He had three aims in life and he had accomplished all of them; he sometimes oozed a degree of self-satisfaction that annoyed me more and more, the older I grew. His first aim was to be strong, and his work as a lumberjack gave him bulging muscles. His second was to be financially self-supporting. And his third was to find a wife. As he had succeeded in all these, it was now my turn to follow suit, and I could feel the pressure on me growing by the day. Strumming a guitar was not an activity rated especially highly, no doubt about that. On the other hand, he liked to make me saw wood with the bluntest saw he could find, to build up my muscles. He would occasionally check to make sure I didn’t cheat, thrusting out his clog-shaped jaw and adjusting the peak of his cap, which kept slipping down his low, sloping forehead. His facial hair was sparse and thin, something you often see in men from Tornedalen, and hence his cheeks were pale and pudgy, almost like a baby’s. Sticking out of the middle of this doughy mass was his nose. It looked like a radish somebody had thrown, but it had landed at a slight angle. I always felt the urge to grab hold of it and straighten it up.