Diego Marani - The Last of the Vostyachs

Aurtova swept grandly up the steps to the cathedral, then paused outside the main door to take in the length and breadth of the square. His mission was accomplished. Finland was safe once more. He thought back to every detail of that day, reviewed it again from start to finish to reassure himself that there was no possibility of any oversight. He had cleared everything up scrupulously, thrown the jute sacks over the railway bridge. He had gone to collect Olga’s case from reception at Torni and put it in a locker in the left luggage office at the station, throwing away the key. He’d burned the tapes with the recordings of the Vostyach in the middle of the wood. He’d put Olga’s jewels through some letterbox. He’d called by at his office to collect the paperwork for the conference, and the text of his own speech. He’d taken the hired car back to the airport and asked the taxi-driver to leave him in front of the cathedral, because he was in such a state of excitement that he couldn’t even think of sleep. He needed to walk, to wear himself out in order to forget that endless night. Perhaps he still had a fever, but he was no longer aware of it. He felt thoroughly euphoric, but also nervous, and his blood was coursing wildly through his veins.

The silent square lay stretched before him like a deserted drawing room. He cast an affectionate glance in the direction of his office window, at the crisp architecture of the university colonnade, with the flight of steps leading up to the dark wooden main door, and the lighted windows of the Café Engel on the corner opposite, site of his many rendezvous and amorous conquests. At the end of the Unioninkatu, towards the sea, the chandeliers in the fashionable restaurant where he took all his meals were still ablaze. A little further on, beyond the silent barracks, was his modest, simple bedroom in the villa in Liisankatu. It was not there that he took his women, but to the grand hotels on the Esplanadi, where a suite, his favourite champagne and pairs of silken sheets, embroidered with his monogram, were permanently at his beck and call. For Professor Jarmo Aurtova, Helsinki was not just the capital of Finland, it was above all his personal apartment, its sumptuous rooms strewn among the city’s streets and squares. That memorable January night Aurtova was simply strolling through his own home, checking that all was in order before going to bed.

Now the last trams were heading for their sheds, casting their fire-fly glimmer on the snow. The odd drunkard was weaving his way home, keeping a cautious hand against the wall. The last of the Vostyachs would be in Sweden by now, lost for ever in the streets of an unknown city or perhaps already dead, and the only person who knew of his existence was lying frozen on the shore of an island in the middle of the Baltic. All Finland was lying curled up in its granite nest, unaware that it had just been plucked from danger. Aurtova walked towards the sea, then went along the Esplanadi, skirted the station and went up the avenue leading to the parliament building. He crossed the road and stood to attention in front of the equestrian statue of Marshal Mannerheim. The hero of Finland could rest easy in his bed. Now the Finnish language would never be linked to that of the wild Red Indians. Indeed, it would spread ever further eastward, wresting the former lands of the Proto-Uralian fatherland from the Slavs. The Algonquins would never put up their filthy teepees on the banks of the Pyhäjärvi. They would stay put, selling feather head-dresses to tourists and getting drunk on their dismal reservations, gloomily waiting to become extinct. Aurtova looked tenderly at the austere figure of the old soldier, clicked his heels and performed a military salute. Then he put one hand on his chest and began to sing the national anthem. He saw the Pecheneg horsemen fleeing for their lives, vanishing into the misty steppe, throwing down their arms, retreating in terror as they did so, stumbling over the corpses of their fellows. Then they leapt on to their horses and unbuckled their breastplates in order to beat an even hastier retreat, pursued by the Finnish cavalry, swords drawn and unfurled banners billowing in the wind. Over the days which followed, the awestruck soldiers on guard in the Finnish army barracks told their incredulous superiors of how, in the depths of that polar night, the portraits of Marshal Mannerheim on the walls of the company offices, dormitories and corridors had lit up with the ghost of a smile. This was attributed to the extreme cold, the lateness of the hour and the excessive amount of cordial the recruits themselves admitted they had imbibed.

Still too agitated to think of sleep, Aurtova felt a sudden urge to pass by the Grand Marina Palace, where the XXIst Congress of Finno-Ugric languages was to open the next day. He walked down to the quay at Katajanokka, pausing to cast a respectful eye over the flags of the Finno-Ugric nations fluttering at the bottom of the steps. The wind was sending the ropes clattering against the flagpoles, causing the coloured cloth to snap sharply in the cold air. The whole of Katajanokka reminded him of a great ship, its sails unfurled so as to release it from the ice in which it was currently trapped. The professor practised climbing the flight of steps in a debonair fashion, as he would the next day. Reaching the entrance, he pretended to greet various dignitaries. He shook hands with ambassadors, paid his respects to their lady wives, kissing the hands of the lovelier among them. Then, fearing he might be seen by some night watchman, he hurried down again towards the quay. At last he was beginning to feel tired, and thought it might be wise now to go home. Thrusting his numb hands into his pockets, he came upon the little bone pipe Ivan had given him. He twisted it in his fingers, suddenly amused. He held it to his mouth, blew into it a couple of times, producing a thin, high-pitched sound, then threw it angrily into the snow, crushing it under his foot and setting off homewards, yawning. But all the animals in the Helsinki Zoo had heard it: from the shores of Suomenlinna, from the empty streets of Kruununhaka, from the observatory, perched on its hill, from as far away as the park at Korkeasaari. They pricked up their ears and craned their necks to listen. Blue foxes, zebras, guanacos, wolves, lynxes, owls, pandas, skunks, squirrels, Siberian tigers, deer, wild goats, reindeer, vultures and even the majestic arctic falcon moved off in the direction of the conference centre, summoned by the pipe of a man of the woods who knew how to talk to animals. The only ones who didn’t answer the call were the lazy walruses, the hibernating bear, the wolverine and the baboons; their house had cooled down now that the glass had been smashed in, so they clambered up to the highest branch and formed a huddle, trying to keep warm. This time, none of the little ones dared to venture down on to the tractor wheel that hung there from its chain.

Ivan screwed up his courage and, following Urgel, proceeded guardedly in the direction of the city. He had no idea how he would get through that flickering inferno, but somehow it had to be got through, because all other ways to the sea were blocked. There in the open, far from Korkeasaari, the wind, encountering no obstacles, raised whirlwinds of snow which became tinged with yellow as they drifted citywards. The whole surface of the sea was crossed by its glancing breath, as though the ice were boiling magma on the point of exploding. The reindeer were advancing tentatively over the powdery terrain, but suddenly they pulled up short, pricked up their ears and dug their hooves firmly into the ice, refusing to go any further, sniffing the air, nostrils aquiver. Ivan looked around him, saw furtive shadows ahead. It was the wolves. Then he climbed off the sledge and gave eight long beats on his drum. Yellow eyes glinting, the dark shapes began to circle round him: tails between their legs, ready to leap, they followed one another closely. The last of the Vostyachs knelt down in front of them and beat out the slow compelling rhythm with which he had once called his people in the Byrranga Mountains. Little by little, he added his own voice to the drum’s sombre roll, until it drove out the sound of the instrument altogether. Now it was just Ivan singing: his voice rang out like a drumbeat, a steady measure which, as it left his mouth, turned into words. ‘ Kyäyölöngkö! ’ he thundered, pronouncing each letter clearly before he sent it forth into the air. This was the word uttered by Ululutoïon, the shaman with three shadows, who rises from the earth and disappears back into it. Ivan had learned it from his father, but this was the first time he had ever used it. On hearing it, the wolves lowered their heads and scattered, whimpering, dragging their snouts in the snow. Ivan walked towards the circle of footprints and saw a body lying on the ground, encased in ice. He went closer, touched the stiff limbs, which gave out a wooden sound as he moved them. In the dim starlight Ivan could not make out the face of the corpse that lay before him; the smell, however, was all too familiar. The Vostyach had smelt the sweetish, sweaty smell of a prostitute only once in his life — a few hours earlier, in a rundown room in Kallio; and it was a smell that would be with him always. He thought uneasily of the smooth skin which had made his blood run backwards through his veins, of the embrace in which his spirit had forsaken him. There must be something evil in this creature if she’d been capable of causing a Vostyach to take leave of his senses, dragging him into a world peopled only by empty images like those in dreams. But she could not be completely dead if she continued to follow him: perhaps any number of coloured fish were swimming beneath the ice, ready to shed their scales in order to bewitch him, the last of the Vostyachs. Even the wolves had given her a wide berth, a sure sign that evil spirits remained trapped within her flesh, nestling in her liver, ready to unleash disease and death in order to free themselves. She should be cooked, boiled until the flesh fell from her bones. Only that way would the spirits evaporate, get caught up again in the great breath which made the world go round.