Aki Ollikainen: White Hunger

Bunches of dried hay hang from the ceiling, all over the place. The woman gets up with difficulty, breaks off a stalk from one bunch and crumbles it into wooden bowls, before pouring hot water from a pot on top. She pushes the bowls to Ruuni and Marja. Ruuni hesitates. The woman lets out a hollow laugh.

‘I knew this was coming when a white raven sat on the mill two autumns ago,’ she says, looking at the visitors piercingly.

‘She’s mad,’ Ruuni whispers to Marja.

The woman bangs her tiny fist on the table, her black eyes flashing. Suddenly, she bursts out into hollow laughter again.

‘What of it, who wouldn’t be at a time like this? And soon the sickness will have raged here for over a year. Ageing men get pus in them and nearly die of it, can’t open their eyes for weeks. And lose the sight in one eye. Him over there, his whole body is one big scab, you’re bound to lose your wits. This is God’s punishment for the wickedness of men, that’s what the minister says.’

The woman looks at the wheezing miller, then lifts her gaze up through the ceiling beams towards the dark clouds that have gathered over the cabin, and as far as the Heavenly Kingdom. A dark accusation blazes in her glare.

‘And what harm has that man done You? I will lance Your eyes, You Satan, since it’s the only way to make You see our trouble!’

Marja is startled by the woman’s thundering, and is sure that Our Father on His throne feels the same, and is awkwardly adjusting His position to get more comfortable.

‘Ahh,’ the miller wails from his bed. He tries to raise his fist, but it flops back feebly on to the cover.

The woman stares now at the wooden tabletop, scratching it with her black nails. Marja sees the woman observing her own fingers, as if she expected a ploughed field to open in their wake and large, golden-yellow potatoes to rise in the furrow. Instead, the woman gets a splinter under her nail. She calms down, prising it out.

‘All autumn, people have come just to have animal bones ground into flour. Not a single grain, just bones, gnawed white. Sometimes I think that soon, when his time’s come, I’ll grind his bones too to make fine flour. And my own; I’ll squeeze my body between the millstones by witchcraft. I’ll leave the door and all the air holes open so that the wind can take us away. So there’ll be no trace of us left in this world. As if we’d never existed. A man who’s worked all his life, and this is the end he endures.’

Suddenly, the woman gets up and orders the beggars to go to sleep in the guest bed. She turns the miller on to his side and lies down next to him on the narrow couch. The embers in the fireplace go on glowing for an unnaturally long time.

Juho cannot keep awake any longer. Marja and Ruuni again take turns to carry the boy. The wind hits them in the face, cold and slippery; a proper frost would be better. The snake has gained the upper hand and slithers around the wanderers, threatening to ambush them from behind the trees but failing to deliver the decisive blow. After a walk that seems endless, Marja sees a house on top of a hill, and the snake retreats into a field to wait for the journey to resume.

A skinny dog yaps in the yard, before baring its teeth. Ruuni grimaces in reply.

‘Go back to where you came from!’

A large man with a droopy moustache has flung the door of the house open. He is in his shirtsleeves. From his raised fist, a long finger extends, pointing at the field. The same field in which Marja’s snake has just settled. It has time to wait, Marja does not.

‘The child is tired. Have mercy, please,’ Marja begs.

A thin woman appears from the cowshed. She walks to Marja, who is holding Juho, and takes the boy’s chin to turn his head and look at his eyes.

‘Are any of you sick?’

‘No, but the child is exhausted, hungry, cold…’

‘You can’t send him away, into the night,’ the woman says to her husband, who is standing on the steps.

‘The other one’s a grown man, I won’t take him in. He’s a thief, you can tell.’

‘You can stay the night with the child. In the morning, you’ll go on to the village. I don’t care whether you’re up to it or not. That one can be off now. If he hurries, he’ll make it before it’s pitch black,’ the woman says haughtily.

‘It’ll be dark in no time,’ Ruuni complains.

‘Then you’ll just walk blind, not my affair. The village is not that far.’

‘Are there any other houses round here we could try?’ Marja asks.

‘No. If there were I’d already have told you to go. You’re not that far from the village, the boy can try to get there. If he steals, it’s his own responsibility. You probably won’t be able to make it.’

‘I’ll go. I’ll wait for you in the village,’ Ruuni says.

Marja turns to give the boy a farewell hug, but he is already on his way down the slope.

Marja follows the man and woman inside, Juho in her arms. Out of the window she sees Ruuni, who has stopped at the bottom of the slope. His shoulders are hunched. Gusts of wind make him sway like a small birch. The skinny dog followed him for a little while and now yaps halfway down the slope, where the sparse pine wood begins.

‘Mother?’

The voice comes from a dark corner. Once Marja’s eyes have adjusted to the dimness of the room, she makes out a boy sitting on a bench by the stove. He is Ruuni’s age.

‘I’m here,’ the woman answers.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Strangers. You don’t know them.’

The boy looks at the space next to Marja as if someone were standing there. Blind, Marja realizes.

‘Time for bed,’ the man says to the boy.

The boy stands up and climbs on to the warm brick ledge above the oven. When the man lights a spill, Marja sees the boy’s face. Again he looks to the side of Marja, and she cannot help making sure no one is sitting next to her.

The farmer settles at the head of the table, glowers at Marja and blows into his moustache. There is something listless about the man, as if wind were breathing in and out of him, shifting lichen on spruce branches. The woman lights a fire in the stove and sets a pot on it. Soon, steam rises from the pot.

When the woman places bowls before Juho and Marja, the man stands up and disappears into the bedroom. The bowls contain grey gruel. The woman settles wordlessly at the head of the table, where the man was just sitting. She has half a loaf on her lap and she breaks off chunks and hands them to Marja.

‘Thank you.’

Marja again sees the blind boy’s face on the brick ledge.

‘Go to sleep,’ the woman barks. The face vanishes into the dark.

‘Was he always… blind?’

‘From birth. But he’s not alone with his trouble in this village,’ the woman replies.

The grim triumph in the woman’s voice gives Marja goose pimples.

The gruel in the bowl looks like the slushy snow on the path to the cowshed in spring. But now even the thought of spring feels gloomy. Marja does not see the summer that follows it but a long winter that goes on for ever. She raises the spoon to her lips and stares into the darkness of the brick ledge; blind eyes meet hers.

Through her sleep, Marja hears floorboards creaking as footsteps approach in the dark, carrying with them a heavy panting. The click of a tinderbox, a spill ignites with a crackle, and in the dim light, a menacing silhouette rises on the wall. An unnaturally tall figure flickers spectrally, pulling off a shirt. The man bends naked over Marja and rips her shirt and skirt open before she has time to put up a fight. A scream sticks in her throat, terror freezes her voice, it is like a mass of water engulfing someone unable to swim, black and cold.

‘You don’t think you get to eat our last crumbs of bread for free, you whore?’