by Mikael Niemi
His mother flailed around like a suckling, then suddenly recovered her strength and got to her feet, furious. Then she hit Johan for the first time in her life, a fierce, resounding box on the ear.
“It’s time you got yourself a job,” he said for the third time.
She could feel the violent blow pulsating through her hand, could still feel the force flowing through her arm and her shoulder, and into the muscles of her back. She twisted her body back and forth in astonishment, and looked around, red in the face. The pain had gone.
CHAPTER 17
In which May bonfires are lit, weapons are acquired, and a bounty is placed on the heads of two young forest guerrillas
They older we grew, the more we understood the way Pajala worked. It transpired that the village was made up of several districts, each with its own unofficial name—such as Naurisaho, Strandvägen, or Centrum. A new housing estate was dubbed Texas, appropriately for a wild west settlement; the area around the old sewage treatment works was called Paskajänkkä, which translates from Finnish as “Shitmire,” and, as mentioned before, the block where I lived was known as Vittulajänkkä, “Cuntsmire.”
In every district the boys formed their own gang, each with its leader. Relations between the gangs could be anything from friendly cooperation to competition, from saber rattling to open warfare, depending on when you looked. A delicate balance of power, if you like. Sometimes two gangs combined to fight a third party. Sometimes it was a free-for-all.
Having been born into one of the districts where there were most children, you soon got used to challenges between the various gangs. You just weighed in and did your bit. It might be prestigious ice hockey matches in the road some winter evening. You stuck to the brightest parts, under a street lamp. Heaps of snow as goal posts, piles of snow, produced by the plows, at the sides of the road as touch lines, left- or right-handed sticks you bought in the hardware shop or borrowed from your elder brother, a tennis ball or an ancient puck, no protective clothing, no referee, but ten to fifteen snotty-nosed kids inspired by a prodigious determination to win.
Everything went fairly smoothly as far as 2–2. Energetic forechecking, hair-raising solo dashes, a gesture in the direction of passing but more often than not a rocket of a shot, then ages spent searching for the puck in the snowdrifts. We all played our heroes in the national icehockey team—Uffe Sterner, or Stisse, or Lillprosten. Or maybe Phil Esposito, who’d hit the puck so hard on Canadian television that it pierced a sheet of iron.
It’s about now we see the first kid get his lips split. A center forward with a stick so long that the handle sticks out a few feet behind him manages to smash somebody in the face. Milk teeth still there, but oceans of blood. A dramatic vote is taken: send him off.
Then a foul tackle with no attempt to hide it. A dive into the snow. Shortly afterward, another one to get his own back. Excited discussions. A goal that’s disallowed because somebody’s shifted the goalposts. Protests. Counter-protests. A puck blasted into somebody’s crotch. Tears. Penalty, another blast. Misses somebody’s face by a hair’s breadth. Elbowing. Shoulder-charge into a snowdrift. Trip. Punch on the nose.
Then before you know where you are, ten boys sprawled half-hidden in the piles made by the plows, mouths crammed full of snow, and one lonely kid at the far goal tapping the puck to and fro over the goal line: his team wins a hundred to three and he trudges home all alone through the glittering galaxy of snow.
* * *
Another thing the gangs did was to gather firewood and stuff for the traditional bonfires lit on the last day of April, and kept burning into May. This task started immediately after New Year when the Christmas trees were thrown out. The village was suddenly full of little boys with enormous piles of fir needles on their kick-sleds. The main competition was between Paskajänkkä and Strandvägen as both districts were alongside the river, and so the bonfires could be as big as you liked. That was the aim, in fact—to make the biggest fire.
On top of the dead Christmas trees went practically anything that would burn: empty cardboard boxes from the shops, wood from buildings that had been demolished, car tires, plastic buckets, furniture, empty milk cartons, broken skis, sheets of hardboard, shoes, and even school books. Now and then a spy would be sent to the neighboring fire to compare and report on progress.
Stuff was occasionally pinched from somebody else’s fire.
Violence also occurred, but not as often as in the hockey matches. The preferred methods of intimidation were implied threats, pigheadedness, or cunning.
For instance, you could make your bonfire look bigger than it really was by piling the material up high. In extreme cases this could lead to murder-fires that could collapse like swaying skyscrapers and burn to death twenty of the nearest spectators. Uncomprehending adults used to pull the tower down before it was lit, however, and pile it up more sensibly.
On one occasion some boys who were hopelessly far behind their rivals set fire to the opposition’s superior effort a few days in advance. But that was regarded as being so dastardly nobody admired the winning fires.
Then everybody would stand in the snow around these burning rubbish heaps throwing firecrackers, and watching several months’ work go up in smoke. That was the reward. Plus the two rockets the gang had managed to save up for, which were let off toward the end when the sky had become as dark as possible. They soared up like glowing flower stems, then each blossomed forth with its own glittering blooms. And then it was spring. Spring had come at last.
* * *
When you were a bit older, the macho thing to do was to acquire an air rifle. I nagged at my old man for months until he bought me one, second hand and a bit battered. It leaked, so that your hair would blow about whenever you shot, and there was hardly enough power for the pellet to exit from the muzzle. Results improved after the application of some electrical insulation tape and tightening of the spring, but it never became what you might call a killer gun. After school I used to practice shooting at a target on the garage wall. The sight couldn’t be adjusted, so you always had to aim above and to the left. My old man had a go once, but he got cross when he could never hit the target and muttered something about being long-sighted.
Air rifles made the gangs both wilder and noisier. Boys would wander about in hordes: sweaty, excited teenagers with dirty trouser-knees. They would have peeing competitions, draw willies on shed walls, learn new swearwords and cause as much trouble as possible. It was fun to be in a group. You felt strong. And when you finally bumped into another gang, just as excited and also armed to the teeth, there could only be one outcome: air rifle war.
In order to prevent adults from intervening, the wars would be conducted in the extensive forests on the other side of the river. I badly wanted to join in, but wasn’t sure if I was up to it. I’d just started class seven and was called a rabbit by the older pupils: I didn’t have a moped, and my air rifle was nothing to shout about. On the other hand, Niila had managed to borrow from one of his cousins an East German pump-action rifle that was frighteningly powerful. It could shoot a hole straight through a sheet of hardboard, whereas my rifle barely made a mark.
One afternoon we decided to visit the front line. We got on our bikes with our guns slung over our shoulders, and set off over the old bridge. The river and village had soon disappeared behind us, and we entered a pine forest with thick undergrowth on all sides. We passed the saw mill, turned off onto a rough forest track and hid our bikes in a thicket. The forest was spookily silent. War was being waged not far away, but everything seemed to be calm and still. There was a smell of autumn. Sticky mushrooms were wearing their big, brown hats, weighed down by maggots. I picked a few overripe blueberries and sucked at the watery juice.
Suddenly there was a sharp crack, and Niila’s cap fell off his head. Before the sniper had time to reload, I yelled out that we’d come to join up, for Christ’s sake. A boy came scrambling down from a tree muttering something about being sorry th
at his finger had slipped, and that the main force was a bit further on. We followed him along a narrow path and soon came to a camp fire where a group of about ten boys were drinking coffee and taking snuff. Most of them were a year or two older than us, some were wearing camouflage clothing and legionnaire hats. They spat out a brown mess, and scrutinized us critically. The General, a burly fellow from Paskajänkkä with a fluffy moustache, pointed at a cone-laden pine branch about thirty feet away. I aimed above and to the left. The cone fell down first go. Niila hadn’t had time to practice, and missed with his first attempt. And his second. And his third. The lads grinned and told him to go to hell. Niila missed with his fourth shot as well. Started sweating. The General was annoyed by this time and told him to run along back home to Mummy. Niila didn’t say a word, but re-loaded. Pumped away. Pumped still more, ignoring all the jeers. Then he shot into the fire. There was a clang. Two jets of brown liquid spurted out from the pierced coffee kettle.
The lads gaped askance. Stared at Niila’s rifle. At the coffee sizzling down into the embers. Then one of the boys threatened to beat the living daylights out of him, but hesitated as Niila had already reloaded and was busy pumping.
“I’ll bring you a new kettle tomorrow,” said Niila calmly.
The General spat into the fire. Then nodded. We had enlisted.
Then we lay concealed in the bushes on the river bank, the whole lot of us, silent and motionless with our eyes skinned. They came in two boats—long, thin craft specially designed to cope with the Tornedalen rapids. Six lads in one, seven in the other. They were all armed, scanning the edge of the forest, apart from the two in charge of the engines. They hadn’t noticed the ambush, but they were on the alert, just in case. Gliding closer and closer to us. Slowed down, watching out for rocks.
The only rule was not to shoot at faces. Bottoms and thighs were the preferred targets. That’s where it hurt most, and you could make lovely big bruises. We glanced at the General. He was still lying motionless. The enemy were now so close that we could read the logos on their caps. The outboard motors were switched off, the boats glided increasingly slowly toward the river bank. The boy in the bow stood up to take the impact with his foot.
That was when the General shot. Slap bang into the boy’s thigh muscle. The rest of us blasted away the first salvo. A swarm of lead-heavy wasps shot out from the bushes and landed painfully on their targets. The victims screamed out in fear and pain, by Hell but we gave them a good peppering! They shot back without having time to take aim, then eventually they managed to get the engines going again. Salvo after salvo. Stinging snake-bites all over their bodies. They lay prone at the bottom of the boats, trying to hide. Slowly, the boats moved out into the river, slid away. And we started laughing, roared so much we had to roll around in the moss.
They landed a few hundred feet further upstream. Several were limping. We guffawed even louder, then withdrew into the trees to prepare fresh attacks.
We had a sort of strategy—at first, at least. But soon it was just a matter of hit and run, and in between, crouch down as low as possible in the wild rosemary. I tried to stick close to Niila. Felt protected to some extent by the power of his rifle. But he aimed like a bleary-eyed old dodderer and hardly ever hit, which might have been just as well, in fact. We lay there panting after withdrawing at the double, with our hands over our mouths to deaden the sounds. Wondered where our friends had got to. Peered into the dark depths of the forest, where we could hear somebody running and shooting. There were screams coming from the other direction, people moving around.
“Let’s go over there,” I whispered.
Just then Niila nudged me in the back. Only a couple of paces away were four of the enemy grinning, their rifles aimed straight at us as we scrambled to our feet. I dropped my rifle in the moss. Niila hung on to his.
“Drop your gun or we’ll shoot your cocks off!” barked the tallest of them.
Niila was white-eyed with terror. His lower jaw was chewing at nothing. I carefully loosened his desperate grip on the butt of his rifle. Then I heard him whisper:
“You shoot then …”
“Drop that gun!” yelled the tall boy in his puberty-stricken voice—he’d seen a lot of American police films on television.
I nodded obediently. Bent slowly down with Niila’s rifle in my hands. And then, before he could react, I shot the warbling berk in the thigh.
He roared like a bull. Slumped to the ground. Shots stuttered all around us as we zig-zagged away at high speed. I felt a sharp pain in my bottom. Niila, who’d managed to rescue my rifle, screamed and clutched at his shoulder. But we were free, we crowed in triumph and raced off between the trees with branches whipping our faces.
After this, the level of respect they had for us increased considerably. The boy with the breaking voice had to remove the pellet with the tip of a sheath knife. A bounty was placed on the heads of both me and Niila. A ten-pack of Finnish cigarettes to whoever succeeded in capturing us.
Taking prisoners was one of the greatest pleasures in our war games, but also probably the hardest. Niila and I once managed to creep up on one of the Strandvägen kids when he was squatting down and having a crap. The reputation of Niila’s pump-action rifle was widespread, and Niila made it convincingly clear that the bloke would get one up the back passage if he didn’t give himself up. Pale and trembling, the poor lad pulled up his trousers without bothering to wipe himself. Then we escorted him back to HQ. The applause was deafening. We used his own shoelaces to tie him against a pine tree, then embarked on the obligatory torture. This consisted of the General waving a penknife under his nose and scaring him to death with all sorts of threats. It was a matter of dicks being abbreviated and anthills being provided with victuals and other niceties he’d read about in the comics. If we could reduce the prisoner to tears, that was a plus. Things rarely went any further than that. Let’s face it, you might find yourself in the same position one of these days.
We once captured the enemy leader. We tied his hands over his head and flung the rope over a stout branch. Then we pulled it taut until he was standing on his toes with a sweaty sock stuffed in his mouth. I suppose we thought he’d work himself loose eventually. But he didn’t. When night fell his mum began to wonder where he was. After a few telephone calls his friends put two and two together. It was already starting to be very dark. Contact was made with our gang, directions were provided, and eventually a group of his friends set out with torches.
The difficulty was in finding the place. It was hard to work out where you were in the gathering autumnal gloom, and, anyway, the bloke couldn’t shout out directions because of the smelly sock in his mouth. All the trees looked the same, paths were rubbed out, and the contours melted away. A wind got up, and the soughing and sighing drowned out all other noises. Then, to top it all off, it started raining.
It was several hours before they found him. His trousers were soaked in pee. When they untied the rope, he collapsed in a heap. The first thing he did when the gag was removed was to pass a death sentence on a number of named teenagers.
A temporary truce was declared for the next few days, to let feelings cool down a bit. Then I got caught in a crafty ambush. I was split off from the flock like an antelope, and was peppered with shots in my bottom until I flung aside my rifle and gave myself up. My God, but it hurt! Nasty purple bruises all over my thigh. But I refused to cry even so, while the lads who’d caught me argued about who was going to get the ten-pack of cigarettes. Their leader forced me onto the ground and announced that I was now going to get the same treatment he’d had. Grinning broadly, he slung a rope up over a sturdy pine branch. The he pulled off one of my socks and peed all over it until it was soaked through. My throat felt dry, I was dizzy with fear. Tried to prepare myself for the torture to come. Whatever they did to me, I mustn’t start crying. I had to resist, no matter how much pain I felt. Be tough. But for Hell’s sake, what would happen if I couldn’t manage it?
Just then we all heard a shouting and screaming not far away. One of the look-outs yelled that we were being attacked. The leader hesitated, then listened to the sound of the battle approaching.
“Run for it!” he barked, and raised his rifle to take aim at me. All the others did the same. I held my breath in anticipation of the pain, then ran for it. I raced for all I was worth, zig-zagging from side to side. Pellets thudded into my body, hurting like third-degree burns.
“You missed, you missed!” I scoffed, with tears welling up as I glanced back in terror.
At that point their leader shot: I fell. Collapsed completely. Landed on my back in the moss. When I tried to open my eyes, I realized I was blind.
“Stop shooting!” somebody yelled.
The attack crumbled. Footsteps approached. My head was pounding like a drum. Pain, darkness. I felt my face. Warm and wet.
“Fucking hell!” somebody yelled. “Some water, quick!”
They all gathered round me, I could hear them panting after all their efforts.
“I’m blind,” I said, and felt like throwing up.
“You hit him in the eye! Jesus Christ, there’s blood everywhere!”
Somebody handed me a soaking wet bit of cloth, and I tried to wipe away the blood. Sat up, and could feel it dripping. Gave it another wipe. Ran my fingers over my eyes.
Panic-stricken, I blinked wildly: but everything was in a fog. I rubbed harder. Found I could see a bit clearer. I wrung out the cloth over my face, and the water streamed down, washing and cleansing. I blinked. Put my hand over one eye. Then the other. What a relief, I could see! Mind you, I could feel a sort of bulge under the skin.