Aki Ollikainen: White Hunger

Marja stares at the deserted road ahead and presses Juho tightly to her breast. A group of beggars walks past; they join the end of the line.

They are the ghosts of this winter, the statues of snow that the wind knocks up on the icy open sea. The ship never came; winter came, without warning, overnight.

‘No point questioning my conscience. I know who they are, those spectres herded by the wind. I too have buried a child.’

By way of a response, the senator feels an icy breath on his face.

He spent the whole of yesterday leafing through the Bible, reading about Joseph’s prophecy, about those seven lean and seven fat cows. Years of crop failure have now passed, one after the other, but there is no sign of the fat cows on the horizon. Has his incessant talk of Finland’s bountiful forests been in vain? Are these people good for nothing, apart from tearing bark off trees to supplement their bread?

Somebody has to see further, beyond the horizon. Through those pallid spectres. Ultimately, it always comes down to bread; if anyone understands that, he does. He has formed the leaven; it is the size and shape of a copper coin, not to be eaten even to satisfy the worst of hungers. Because once lost, it is gone for good. His task is to make sure that the leaven is passed down to future generations, so that they will not always be reliant on foreign bread.

It is the world’s loneliest fate, not being able to afford to take wrong decisions. There are the gentry, upset by the hordes of beggars, afraid of the disruption to their comfy little lives. They run round like dogs chasing their tails, demanding money and food from the state to put out by the roads, so all the poor devils on the move will be pacified and return to their homes.

And then there are those who agree with him because they always agree with him. They cannot think with their own heads; he has to think their thoughts for them.

The procession of the snowy dead vanishes. The senator looks at Katajanokka. That is where his sampo , his magic source of wealth, lies. It is a treasure trove, at the moment still surrounded by those miserable hovels, smothering dreams of future riches.

The senator closes his eyes and imagines Katajanokka one day sinking into the waves, then, washed clean, surfacing, with proud stone houses rising into the sky.

Here lies Dr Johan Berg.

Lumps of frozen soil thud against the lid of the coffin. On the horizon, a pale-red streak wages a hopeless war against the weight of the sky, in defence of the dead man’s soul. Finally, it is sapped of strength, and heavy clouds shroud the last rays of the sun. The shadows on the mourners’ faces grow darker.

‘I bet the gravediggers cursed, digging this hole,’ Matias Högfors says.

‘I just hope that wooden lid holds,’ Teo replies.

They interrupt their digging and wait to get their breath back. The mourners, dressed in black, had been standing motionless at the graveside. Now they turn away and begin drifting towards the cemetery gate. Only a small woman, bent over by grief, remains standing a short distance behind them. The minister approaches the woman and puts his hand gently under her elbow for support.

Högfors lifts up more soil with his shovel. A heavy stone causes the whole load to fall off before it reaches the grave.

‘Let’s leave it at that,’ Högfors suggests, sighing.

He plants the spade in the earth by the grave. It does not stay up, instead falling and, upon hitting the icy ground, releasing a sound like shattering glass.

Teo picks up one last large, frosty lump of soil from the pile and drops it into the grave.

At the foot of the clock tower are three iron crosses, as on Golgotha, but they are empty. Teo’s gaze wanders up to the top of the tower, as if ascertaining that Jesus and the robbers have not climbed up there to hide.

‘Do you believe in God, Teo?’

‘No, I don’t believe that this distress and misery have any purpose. That’s what you’re really asking.’

Matias tells Teo to think of Job.

And Teo does so. He thinks aloud of all the ragamuffins now wasting away in snowdrifts. He thinks of Johan, who lies hidden in that coffin, on which stones fall. And then he thinks of all Job’s wives and children: God let them die so Job’s faith would burn more brightly.

‘I think of all of them. Those Johan tried to save in vain. But by all means think of Job, Matias, so that he won’t be entirely forgotten.

‘If this suffering is meant to be a test, who is it aimed at? Whose faith will be sanctified through the suffering of these people? Who is Job? The beggars? No, God protected Job; only all those close to him suffered.

‘Do you equate your Job with these people, Matias? These people who starve as we versify: make your bread so it’s half bark, our neighbour’s grain was killed by frost. Have you ever tasted bread with bark? I haven’t. We are not of the people, Matias, and we shall never cross the boundary between them and us. Only Johan crossed it: he went among the people and died of their diseases.’

‘Maybe it’s the destiny of these people to fight for their existence and so get tougher,’ Matias says, and goes on after a moment’s thought: ‘But if there’s no God, as you say, there’s no destiny either. Then everything is just chance.’

‘And is it by chance that the poor starve to death and go begging? Was it chance that killed Johan and spared us?’

‘There you are, you don’t believe in chance yourself. Your faith is being tested. Perhaps you’re Job,’ Matias says.

Teo feels like hitting Matias. The only thing God could take away from him is Cecilia. A whore’s love is all he has to surrender — or rather, his love for a whore.

He is not clinging on to life’s hem, begging for bread. And he does not even know what makes the masses out there, his so-called compatriots, do so. For Teo, this is inexplicable, a great mystery. The mystery of life, which can only be understood through death.

Matias Högfors has raised his spade. Now he leans on it and looks into the open grave.

Teo pushes back his fur hat and wipes sweat from his brow with a glove. ‘I wonder: why not wait till spring?’

‘When you die, you die. You can’t wait for better weather,’ Matias replies.

‘No, the wife, I mean. Why didn’t she postpone the funeral?’

‘Well. Perhaps she didn’t think there would be another spring.’

‘There will always be a new spring, even after the harshest of winters.’ The minister joins in the conversation.

He has left Mrs Berg swaying among the snowflakes, and he peers into the grave as if to make sure that Teo and Matias have not made a hole in the coffin lid with their rocks, causing the soul of the deceased to escape and vanish out of the minister’s reach.

‘And the world will burst into blossom again?’

‘Exactly so,’ the minister replies.

He nods approvingly: the coffin is intact, and there is enough soil on the top acting as a weight. Coffee is being served in the rectory.

‘Mrs Berg wanted to bury Johan before she leaves. I’m taking her to Kokkola for the winter. There’s nothing left here for her, she doesn’t even know Finnish,’ the minister tells them.

By the cemetery wall, bare trees rise up like bolts of lightning frozen in their attempt to strike at the sky from the ground. Teo throws a farewell glance at the grave and sees Mrs Berg levering a large stone into it with the long-handled spade. Matias strides back, takes the spade from the wife and carries on filling the grave. She stands, shoulders hunched, and watches the earth falling into the hole.