Asko Sahlberg - The Brothers

Whatever atrocities Arvid’s forefathers had committed, they were eventually forgiven: I became pregnant with Henrik. His birth was joyous, but we did not dare to trust in fate firmly enough to be satisfied with only him – many a firstborn is snatched straight from the cradle by the Grim Reaper. So I had to make my way back dutifully to the Farmhand’s bed, for which Arvid had procured a soft cotton mattress from Vaasa to make me happy.

The joy brought by offspring came too late for Arvid, however; it did not make him a healthy man. He seemed to fade away gradually, from day to day, and I had to take more and more responsibility for the affairs of the house. At the same time, I became oppressed by the loneliness of the man, who would barricade himself in his cramped study. At night, I could not help thinking about my lawful spouse sitting sleepless in his worn leather chair, broken by ill health, pale and wounded, while I lay drowsy, the needs of my blood satisfied, next to the Farmhand. I knew that Arvid would not have allowed me to pity him, but I could not help doing so.

‘I feel that he’s approaching death. It may take weeks or years but it’s coming,’ I said to the Farmhand. ‘So I thought that we could have a break from these services of yours. It’d feel more decent somehow.’

And so came long and quiet years, through which Arvid struggled with amazing endurance, holding on to life, and I stayed away from the Farmhand’s bed. I watched my children grow up, I spent a lot of time by the river in summer and in winter remained mainly indoors, letting time crawl by. I would not say that I was hoping for Arvid’s death. I anticipated it because it was inevitable. When the moment finally came – when the housemaid found him one morning, lifeless in his chair – I did not experience overwhelming grief any more than I did great relief. I felt I had encountered an inescapable given, just as I did when I first came to this remote place as Arvid’s bride. I waited for as long after the funeral as I deemed fitting and then crept into the Farmhand’s shack to discover that he had slept all these years on his old straw pallet, keeping the cotton mattress strictly in storage for me.

I did not become pregnant again. My blood calmed down, it was in ferment only now and then, and the agony of the long days began to trouble me. I started to shorten my days with the help of spirits. At times I paused to wonder whether I should reveal to the boys their origin, but I kept deferring the moment, carelessly and irresponsibly. I put off the future for a long time, but now it is here.

I stand with my back against the window and watch Erik about to fall asleep. He is stretched out on the bed, his head bent tiredly to one side. A strong vein throbs at his throat and I feel its pulsing in my fingertips. I feel it on my temples, my tongue. Frozen moments always carry the salty taste of impatient skin.

I turn to glance outside. The Farmhand and Mauri are standing in the middle of the yard, which is chalked by the moonlight; Mauri seems to be explaining something fervently and the Farmhand keeps nodding, as is his habit: exaggeratedly, almost as if he were bowing and scraping. I sense the frost, polishing their words bright. The darkness in the forest yearns for their echoes. Mauri grabs the Farmhand’s hand. Immediately, the spaces between my fingers seep with clammy sweat.

There is a knock on the door and the Old Mistress pushes her face in. It is a calm face; the customary numbness of the evenings has peeled off. On such an evening, then, she leaves her bottles be. She looks at me tenderly and clears her throat, meaning for Erik to open his eyes. When Erik has done so, she says, ‘I think we should set off sooner rather than later.’

Erik raises his head and asks in a feeble voice, as if he were still gasping for air on the riverbank, ‘By night?’

The Old Mistress nods. ‘The sky’s clear and you can see in the moonlight. And there are no neighbours or villagers around to gawp at us.’

‘That’s true,’ Erik concedes. He levers himself onto the edge of the bed. ‘Doesn’t make any difference to me, let’s leave by all means.’

‘I’ll go and prepare some sustenance first,’ the Old Mistress says. Her head vanishes from the doorway, but reappears in no time at all to add, ‘I must put some eggs in the hat.’

The head disappears again. Erik looks at me, baffled, and repeats, ‘In the hat?’

I shrug. I should take something to cover my head, too. I can already see myself in the gig. The road shines ahead of us, a channel piercing the gloom of the forests. The past will be left behind in its entirety; the days to come are calling us to them. I will have to get used to a big town, the noise echoing from the streets and the unkindness of busy people, but I am still young, and eager to accustom myself. I will learn to look bored and toss my head proudly, and if the townsfolk try to boast about their knowledge, I will tell them my bloodiest tales of pig-slaughterings and tough calvings, and if that does not help, I will hint at a contagious disease I have brought with me, one I’ve picked up from animals. At night I will lie down next to my husband and hear the townsfolk – the listless sighing of city lungs, the exhausted twisting of city hearts – and I will turn over, pleased that I can still sense, from afar, the peace of the fields and the silence of the forests. I will be there and at the same time here; I will be in the air amidst all that is alive, I will be in myself.

‘I’d better make sure the mare’s been fed,’ Erik says, and walks stiffly out of the room.

His steps grow faint. I hear the banging of the front door, I watch him cross the yard. Henrik comes from the opposite direction in dry clothes he has found somewhere, his shoulders still hunched as if he were cold. They exchange a few words without stopping. Henrik nods and looks like the Farmhand, just as he is supposed to do. I stir myself and slip light-footedly into the stairway. Not all the words remain in my mouth, some drip off my chin soundlessly. I bump into Henrik in the porch. I shove him by the chest as close to the door as possible and whisper, ‘Don’t interfere in my life again.’

Until a short while ago his eyes were as sharp as poker points. Now they look blanched and lost; they have become the eyes of a child who has just woken up. He laughs sadly and replies, ‘Why would I? I thought I might go to America.’

I glance behind me, just in case. My ears lie in ambush for sounds. ‘How will you get there?’

‘I might get a job on a boat. Otherwise, I’d have to earn the money first.’

‘As long as you don’t earn it in Turku.’

‘No, I won’t. Although there is a port in Turku.’

‘Please, will you stay in the port?’

He contents himself with nodding. Now I have to swallow the bile rising from my stomach. A clock begins striking inside me, I am thrown by the maelstrom of time, the early morning is cool and sweaty. I resist. I grip Henrik’s arm and say, ‘You were good once.’

His face twitches, lowers. ‘And so were you.’

‘Although I knew nothing then.’

An unprecedented din comes from the direction of the kitchen; we both twist round, stunned, in that direction. The Old Mistress is singing. Henrik laughs soundlessly and looks at me with his face opening out, as if seeing me for the first time. ‘But that’s not why. It was…’

‘Yes,’ I say. I turn my back on him. ‘Yes.’

They sit in the cart, stiff and solemn. They could well be leaving for a nocturnal church service. Henrik, holding the reins, wears clothes retrieved from the late Master’s estate, the Old Mistress sits next to him, and Anna and Erik are behind them with the chests and bundles. I do what I have to do: I walk to the side of the cart and look the Old Mistress in the eyes by way of a goodbye. The moonlight falls on the lines of her face, gets caught in her eyelashes and stays there, glittering.