Aki Ollikainen: White Hunger

But Mother says the word in the song is rulla , not Ulla .

The horse is called Voima. When the old woman’s coffin was driven to the church, it drew the cart. Mataleena and Mother were watching as they left the house. Juho was in Mother’s arms. Father drove the cart; Lehto sat next to him, crying. But Mataleena thought of the heavenly sheep and of the old mistress, who would be sitting on a rock the size of a mountain, shepherding them and smoking her pipe.

Mataleena is looking at the pallid grey sky now — no sign of sheep. Voima stops at a crossroads. The road forms a hollow in the expanse of snow. Fence posts stick out like small, sharp teeth.

Lehto glances over his shoulder at Marja.

She shakes her head. ‘Not to the church.’

Lehto tugs at the reins and Voima begins to pull the sledge towards the neighbouring village. Mataleena realizes that they will not return home. Tears leave warm trails on her cheeks, but they freeze before they reach the corners of her mouth.

Father is no more.

Voima snorts, with a swing of the muzzle. The horse’s head looks bigger than before; the rest of its body has shrunk. Then they hear only the grim crunch of the snow under the runners.

The neighbouring parish is bigger than their own, the church taller. The road descends gently to the river bank, then crosses to the other side via a wooden bridge. There are lots of people near the church: beggars, clearly. Mataleena sees many children her own age. Viewed from the bridge, they blend in with the gravestones; closer up, hats and scarves concealing white faces come into view. Lehto turns the sledge into the road that runs along the river bank, away from the church.

‘I’ll take you to the rectory. They’ll know what’s to become of you. I don’t.’

‘We’re going to St Petersburg,’ Marja whispers, more to herself than to Lehto.

‘Best forget all that. Who knows if it’s possible to get away from here at all…’

On the river bank stands a great white house. Mataleena guesses it is the rectory, though she has never been here before. Lehto waves at a man with a goatee. The man has eyebrows like an owl’s, covered with frost. Mataleena feels like laughing and hooting at the old fellow, who responds to Lehto’s greeting. Suddenly, the man seizes the reins and restrains the horse.

‘You’re not carting your beggars here, surely. Oh, no, you don’t.’

The old man stares with his owl’s eyes; Mataleena’s laughter freezes.

‘You look after your own. We’ve got enough here as it is, no need to ferry in more from neighbouring parishes. And there’s more coming all the time, from the north, the east, the west. We’ll send them on if we don’t know where to return them — a lot of them come from far away. A woman with a small child froze to death yesterday, by the road to the rectory. Don’t bring them here. Oh, no, you don’t.’

‘I’m here on my own business, I’m not dumping anyone on you, damn it,’ Lehto growls. He smacks his lips angrily.

Voima moves forward and the owl lets go of the reins. The horse does not turn into the rectory road, instead continuing along the river. Lehto remains silent, merely smacking his lips angrily from time to time and occasionally striking Voima. The horse’s gait grows heavier but it does not pick up speed. Then the river widens into a lake; a peninsula cuts into it. In the middle of the peninsula stands a manor house, even bigger than the rectory; the road ends in the front garden. This is Viklund manor house.

A man stands outside, a hired hand. Lehto greets him; he responds faintly, then snarls that beggars will not be admitted. Lehto strides past him up the steps. Mataleena follows but turns back when she realizes that Mother and Juho are still standing by the sledge. The hired hand also disappears through the door.

After a while, a young woman opens the door and waves Marja and the children inside.

The large room is bright. A white cloth covers the table. Old Mr Viklund sits in a rocking chair, smoking a porcelain pipe. Mataleena looks at the man’s bushy sideburns. One of his eyes is covered by a cataract and this frightens her. It is as if the old farmer’s eye were inhabited by frost. She has to be careful to avoid looking at that eye of frost: the coldness could burst out and wrap a too-curious child up in its shawl, keeping her captive there for ever.

But the landowner’s smile is gentle, and so is his good eye, with which he looks at Mataleena. The frosty eye stares past her, into the distance somewhere.

‘The visitors must take their coats off. Ella will put something on the table.’

Ella, who let Marja and the children in, curtsies, glances at Mataleena with a friendly smile and crosses the large room.

Mataleena tiptoes to a mirror with a gilded frame. Beyond the glass lies an identical room, from which Mataleena looks back at herself. There are black circles round the eyes, deep lines at the corners of the mouth. The Mataleena looking out from the mirror is like a tiny old lady, and that amuses the Mataleena looking in the mirror.

‘I’m a child, you’re an old woman,’ Mataleena whispers to her reflection.

Then she spots Ella in the mirror; the maid is carrying a big, white tureen.

‘We’re short of food, too, though we’re one of the wealthiest houses in the parish. We’ve had to dismiss some of the servants because we can’t afford to keep on extra mouths to feed,’ old Mr Viklund tells Lehto.

Mataleena strokes the china soup tureen with her fingertip. It is as white as snow, but warm. The most beautiful thing about it is the pink rose with gilt-edged petals. She moves her finger over the raised rose, a living, beating heart blooming amid snow, unvanquished even by winter.

Ella lifts the lid of the tureen and a cloud of steam rises up. A china bowl with a rose identical to the one on the tureen is placed before Mataleena. Ella ladles broth into the bowl. Mataleena can still make out the rose.

In the morning, Lehto hands Viklund a banknote. Briefly, he bids Marja farewell, pats both Juho and Mataleena on the head and steps outside. Through the window, Mataleena watches Lehto’s sledge leaving the yard, then riding the narrow road away from the peninsula, turning to the river bank and lingering for a long time in the landscape, shrinking all the while as Voima trots on, as if fleeing them. Ella takes Mataleena in her arms, and the girl wishes they were staying here in the manor house.

She would never tire of admiring the pink flower at mealtimes. Looking at the rose, she would remember Father. Father is happy for them, but Father will not come to Viklund; he is sitting on the edge of a cloud, and whenever it rains in summer and she looks out of the window and sees water trickling down the glass, she will know Father’s tears of joy are falling to earth.

But Ella puts Mataleena down by the door next to Juho and wraps the shawl tightly round the girl’s head. Mataleena understands that they must leave now.

The hired hand who was reluctant to admit them yesterday comes in through the door. He bangs his gloves together angrily, though there is no snow left on them. He gives Marja, Mataleena and Juho long looks, each in turn. His eyes exude a cold contempt. Mataleena dares not look back at him, and Marja, too, stares at the floor. Only Juho meets the man’s stare. The boy’s gaze is vacant; the gale of anger bounces back, powerless. The man is forced to surrender and his eyes travel the length of the endless-seeming planks in the ceiling of the hall. Ella returns from the kitchen and hands Marja two loaves. You can tell straight away they have no bark in them.

*

The road has been blocked by snow, into which the horse’s feet sink. Mataleena stretches her hand out over the side of the sledge and scoops some up. It melts in her mouth, as if it were springtime on her tongue. Her tongue is a rough field emerging from under snow, still frozen. Mataleena passes some snow to Juho. Marja, too, gathers a handful.