Aki Ollikainen: White Hunger

Marja presses Juho so hard to her body that the boy can barely breathe. Retrikki lifts Mataleena’s eyelids, then puts his ear right up close to the girl’s mouth.

‘She’s alive, still alive. Possibly not for long — I can’t say. Now bring some water, for God’s sake!’

Hilta fills a cup with water and tiptoes softly into the bedroom. Marja sits trembling on the bench by the front door, Juho on her lap. She stares into the other room with vacant eyes, seeing Mataleena’s blanched face. Juho gazes at his sister with fearful curiosity. Marja hears the low voices of the farmer and his wife.

‘Has she got a disease?’

‘Not likely. She’s been so short of food her guts couldn’t even take gruel.’

‘Shall I take her to the doctor’s? Could he save the child?’

Retrikki comes out of the bedroom and stands before Marja for a moment, deep in thought. Marja looks at the man standing in front of her as if she were a sinner and he St Peter at the pearly gates.

‘You can’t leave now. I daren’t take the girl in the sledge: she won’t make it… I’ll try to get the doctor to come from the village. Though it might be he’s too busy to come out to the back of beyond for the sake of some beggar. And it’ll take a while; she might not even survive that long.’

‘Don’t bury her before she’s dead — just go,’ Hilta snaps.

‘There’s no point dressing it up. It’s clear what’s going to happen.’

Retrikki slams the door on his way out. Marja looks to Hilta for something, even just a scrap of hope. Hilta stares at the blade of the scythe that hangs above the door, until she hears the sledge setting off outside.

‘She’ll be fine. Just stomach cramps… She’s got skinny but she’s a strong girl,’ Hilta says.

Her voice quavers, though, and the last shreds of hope fly away from Marja. She takes Juho off her lap and goes to the bed where Mataleena lies. Hilta follows Marja, then takes the cup of water from the bedside table, lifts Mataleena’s head and pours some liquid carefully into the girl’s mouth. Mataleena coughs, water spurts down her front. Marja sits on the edge of the bed and asks Hilta to wet a rag. She dabs gently at the girl’s face with the damp cloth.

Finally, Mataleena recovers enough to drink a little. But the water does not stay down; she throws up over the side of the bed before sinking back into unconsciousness.

Dusk becomes dark. Mataleena regains consciousness. This time, she even tries to talk, she looks at her mother and smiles.

‘Father brought goldeneye eggs. For my little cygnet, he says.’ Mataleena laughs.

This laughter comes from somewhere very far away, Marja realizes. Coldness strikes her from within. She senses something she does not want to understand.

Just then, the door opens. Hilta jumps up and rushes to meet the arrivals. Retrikki lingers by the bedroom door. Dr Berg bends over Mataleena.

‘Father… father… father…’ Mataleena gasps.

Then the dark brightness of vacancy appears in her eyes.

Dr Berg closes Mataleena’s eyes. He looks tired. He has caught Mataleena’s pallor, Marja thinks. She shrinks back as Berg lays his hand on her shoulder.

‘…perhaps to a better place,’ Marja hears Berg say softly.

A chill spreads from her stomach all over her body, changing into grief and sweeping everything else aside: hunger, cold, fatigue. It fills her hollow body with a heavy emptiness that leaves room for nothing else. Inside is a marsh pond full of black, lifeless water. A goldeneye swims before her eyes. It changes into a velvet scoter, which tries to take flight. Then a snowy gale freezes everything and emptiness reigns, the bird vanishes. After the blizzard, all is white, dead. Marja stands up and walks to Juho, asleep on the bench. She lifts the boy’s head on to her lap and drifts into sleep.

Morning comes, grey. Retrikki, Dr Berg and Marja trudge across the yard to the sauna, where Mataleena lies alone on a bench. The wind tries to tear Juhani’s old hat off Marja’s head. Retrikki goes in.

Dr Berg stops by the door. Marja looks at his overcoat, which hangs loose. Berg’s face is gaunt, but she can see from his clothes that at one time he was sturdier. The man has lost weight. Gentlemen starve, too, Marja thinks. The thought does not console her for long, for she realizes: if gentlemen have no bread, how can there ever be enough for the poor folk?

Thoughts of bread and hunger disappear when Berg stands aside and she sees Mataleena. She takes a step backwards, stumbles and falls in the snow. Berg stretches out his hand to her. The man’s face is exactly the same as Juhani’s was just before they left.

Mataleena’s body has been lifted into the sledge. The doctor sits up at the front with Retrikki; Marja and Juho are next to Mataleena. Retrikki smacks his lips and jerks the reins, and the horse springs into motion. Hilta remains standing on the steps. She does not wave. She plucks at her shawl, drawing it more tightly round her head. Marja and Hilta look at each other until the sledge descends the slope and the house disappears from view.

The sun stays behind a grey curtain for the whole of the journey. They reach an open field. At the edges, snow-covered trees cast a grey shadow like the boundary between the lands of the living and the dead. Marja no longer trusts that boundary. The shadow fades and fades until it can contain the white wilderness within its borders no more, and the two worlds become one.

A rickety, grey wooden building stands in the middle of the field, constantly tempted by the wind to fly away. Retrikki directs the sledge towards the barn. Marja spots a few derelict dwellings further away, at the edge of the forest.

Retrikki gets off the sledge and opens the barn door. Marja sees people sleeping inside. Before she can marvel at the scene, Retrikki tells her that Mataleena will stay here.

‘There are others here awaiting burial.’

Berg turns to look at Marja and promises to make sure the girl will get a decent funeral in good time.

‘She’ll be thrown into a mass grave,’ Marja cries.

‘No doubt,’ Berg concedes.

‘There’ll be no name on the cross.’

Berg and Retrikki carry Mataleena into the barn on a plank. Marja does not want to get off the sledge.

‘Where’s Mataleena going?’ Juho asks.

‘To Father,’ Marja replies.

‘I want to go in the barn, to Father,’ Juho says.

Marja gently presses her hand against Juho’s mouth.

‘Mataleena goes to Father, Juho stays here to keep Mother company. Else Mother will be on her own.’

Retrikki and Berg come back to the sledge. They get on their way immediately.

Marja stares at the diminishing barn. She thinks of her daughter, left there on a plank. She does not cry. The grief is hidden, concealed in the egg of a goldeneye, which Marja cannot find. Snow flurries in the field, or inside her.

After a while, the sledge comes to a halt. Dr Berg says something to Marja, shakes her hand. She nods. It is not until the sledge jerks back into motion that Marja notices the doctor has been dropped off outside a small manor house.

The road from the doctor’s house descends into a village. Retrikki rides to a church and stops in front of it.

‘I’ll leave you here. You’ve got to go on from here by yourselves. I don’t believe you’ll ever make it to St Petersburg. You’d be better off going back where you came from,’ Retrikki runs on. He gives a quick shout of farewell and smacks his lips to get his gelding going.

Marja looks at the spire: a thin, powerless finger pointing accusingly at the sky. Then she takes Juho by the hand and they begin trudging along the road. She stops by the last houses. She does not know the name of the village. Where she is, where Mataleena remains. She has brought her child to utter anonymity; her name is not even recorded in the Book of Life.