Aki Ollikainen: White Hunger

Lars stops by the corner of the Old Church. He tilts his head slightly, like a wooden puppet operated by invisible strings. He looks past the ridge of the church roof at the blue sky. From the direction of Katajanokka comes the sound of the cannon shot that is fired every noon from the navy barracks.

*

The boom of the cannon shot lingers in the lanes of Katajanokka, seeking a way through their maze to the bay and the sea.

The muddy snow under Teo’s feet flees the path to the shadow of the houses, and the protection of the paltry stone foundations. Cruel winter seeks refuge in the very hovels it was only recently battering from all sides. But the crude shacks of Katajanokka withstood the onslaught; still they stand, as crooked as the teeth of their occupants.

Spring sunshine strikes; snow melts into rivulets that babble along the lane. Three children place a wheel in the biggest brook.

If the forces of nature are not up to hurling these miserable dwellings into the sea, what could destroy them?

Matsson sits on a rock opposite the open door of his cabin and fills his pipe. Teo notices that the man has lost weight since they last met. Matsson’s face is more lined. He is a pine tree that has been growing on the tip of a rocky isle for a hundred years: every knock, every ordeal leaves its mark on his trunk, but he only looks stronger than before.

Saara comes out of the cabin, empties a pail of waste into a long depression that serves as a ditch and goes back in. If Matsson has lost weight, Saara’s cheeks have shed every bit of fat they may once have had. But her pregnancy shows more clearly than before. Her stomach is round, a hill rising behind a clear lake.

*

During his previous visit, Teo had smiled inwardly and wondered if he should congratulate Matsson on the child. Matsson, in turn, had looked at him as if evaluating a hand of cards.

‘Ice’s breaking,’ Matsson said finally. He told Teo he was planning to go to sea once the ships were moving again. Teo asked what Matsson was going to do about Saara. In fact, that was precisely what Matsson wanted to talk to him about. Teo had already begun smiling, assuming Matsson was going to entrust him with the delivery of the baby. But then he remembered that he had slept with Saara, too, and he counted the months.

‘You live on your own. Why not take the girl on as a domestic? She’s capable. Of course, she knows nothing of the fine dishes you gentlefolk eat, but she’ll learn.’

Matsson was silent for a moment, staring at his shoes. He blew a thin streak of smoke down towards his knees and appeared to hesitate.

‘And she’s not totally knackered,’ he said in the end, grinning stupidly.

‘Does a street wear out through being walked on?’ Teo replied with an attempt at swagger that was not very successful.

Matsson glanced at Teo, as a master would at a half-grown apprentice trying to talk like a man.

‘And the child? Is it yours?’ Teo asked.

‘Mine, yours… the Pole’s, who knows? It’s hers in any case, Saara’s. They’re all the same when they’re born, children of the same world. But if one’s born in a hovel and one in a mansion — that makes a difference. That depends on the Lord. Not necessarily the Lord in Heaven; a doctor can sometimes play a role.’

Matsson’s gaze drilled a hole into Teo, through which the south-westerly wind blew. Teo realized that Matsson thought he was the father of the child. Indignantly, he reflected that the man himself had led him to Saara’s bed and was therefore fully responsible, but he could not even convince himself. Next, he wondered anxiously why Matsson had allowed the situation to get this far, why he had not called for him in winter, when something could still have been done. Matsson saw into Teo’s thoughts through the opening his eyes had drilled.

‘I’d have taken her to an angel maker, but she guessed and wouldn’t come along. Put up a fight.’

Teo thought of the scandal that would ensue were he to take a pregnant domestic into his home. That is where matters were left.

Now Teo is carrying Saara’s few belongings in a small suitcase he has brought with him. Saara walks behind Teo; she does not chatter idly, and that pleases him. But he feels the girl’s gaze on his back, warming him, pretending to be merely the spring sun. On the market square, it seems to Teo that all the heads bearing top hats turn to follow their progress.

Teo shows Saara the few rooms of his apartment. He promises to get her a couch tomorrow; tonight she will have to sleep in Teo’s bed. He hastens immediately to add that he himself will sleep in the armchair.

‘You’ll only give yourself backache, for no good reason,’ Saara replies.

She sits down on the edge of the bed. She opens the case, peers inside and shuts it straight away, without removing her things.

Teo stares out to the street, then at his own reflection in the windowpane. The coal merchant’s cart travels through the image. A woman stops to look at the sky.

He has not been to see Cecilia since he came back from Johan Berg’s funeral. In March, he heard that Cecilia had left. Madame said she had gone to St Petersburg after some wealthy businessman. But that did not sound like Cecilia, Teo thought. Why else could she have left? Another reason occurs to him, a much grimmer one.

Teo has decided not to worry about the gossip caused by the appearance of a pregnant housekeeper in his home. He has no future in this city anyway. He is more concerned for Lars; his brother will be worse affected by the talk.

Teo sits down at his desk, opens his diary and writes: ‘When all this is over, when the situation is calmer and the roads are no longer filled with hordes of beggars, I shall travel to Vyborg and settle there. And when Adlerberg’s railway is completed, I shall get on a train and ride to St Petersburg to seek out Cecilia.

‘What will happen then, I do not know. What would I say to her? If my worst fears prove to be founded, is there anything that can be done? Perhaps I could try to treat her. Alleviate her suffering, so that her end will not be so painful.’

Saara is still sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking her stomach. She is going to be a mother, Teo thinks, and at that moment he recalls the woman who died in the snow and the boy whom he rescued. By now, Juho has learned to call Raakel ‘Mama’, but he never says ‘Mother’. That word is missing, lost somewhere far away in his mind. Sometimes, it will breathe into his dreams, prompting a deluge of cold, hunger and fatigue that not even sleep can relieve.

‘It kicked. Come and feel.’

Teo places his palm on Saara’s stomach. The child kicks again.

Perhaps, Teo reflects, the baby is already longing for freedom, thinking to find that outside the womb, and desiring to shake off the chain binding it to its mother. Who will divulge to the child that no real freedom exists? The closer to liberty we slide, the more frantically we grope for all the shackles we can lay our hands on. We are chasing will-o’-the-wisps, each driven by our own compulsion. The length of the shackles demonstrates the boundaries of our freedom; only by being content with our lot can we live without them troubling us. Our own desires are the heaviest constraints. When we deaden those, we no longer need to struggle.

His posture has changed; he stoops slightly as if the heavy burden of responsibility were still weighing down on his shoulders. The senator looks at Lars Renqvist, who has come to the door, wondering whether his loyal underling feels guilty for being taller and more upright than him.

But once seated in an armchair, the senator straightens up.

‘Just as I predicted, the railway construction site is fast becoming the most disastrous emergency-relief project of them all,’ he bemoans.