Little Siberia

by Antti Tuomainen

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I can’t say I know him, but I’ve met him.’

  ‘You know his name.’

  ‘He introduced himself,’ I say. ‘Eventually.’

  By now Karoliina has regained her composure. ‘Leonid isn’t a problem,’ she says.

  The darts group is braying again. Karoliina glances in their direction.

  ‘I need to get out of this place,’ she says. ‘Thirty-six years of this.’

  ‘Why don’t you just leave?’

  ‘Empty-handed? Head to Helsinki and beg on the streets? Join a housing waiting list, queue up at a food bank, something like that? We can’t all be pastors with a job and a house lined up for us when we decide it’s time for a change of scenery. No offence. I’ve left a few times, yes, and something always goes wrong. But not this time.’

  ‘Haven’t you got any family here?’

  ‘My dad left when I was three. My mum’s dead. No brothers or sisters. No man either – it’s thin pickings round here. I’ve tried a couple of times, but I’m not going to make the same mistake again.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ she says. ‘You’re not from here. But it doesn’t matter. All you’ve got to do is open the door.’

  I shake my head. ‘It has to look like a break-in.’

  Karoliina smiles. There’s something more than simply happiness in that smile.

  ‘You’re not bad for a vicar.’

  I could tell her something else about myself and my calling – and some of the matters I choose not to reveal awaken very strong emotions within me, sentiments of which guilt is the smallest – but I’m not getting into that now.

  I take my phone from my pocket. ‘Can I have your number?’

  Karoliina gives me the number and asks me to ring it. The phone next to the till buzzes. We are connected. We agree I will call her soon, once I have sorted a few things. I don’t go into any more details, because at least for the moment I’m not sure what they might be. What’s important is to understand the situation, to get a feeling for events, to look for and find something useful, anything at all.

  I turn, and I’m about to slide off my stool when I catch a glimpse of the spinning sausages in their glass grill. I remember what I just heard.

  ‘Local sausages, eh?’ I say.

  Karoliina turns her head and looks at the light-brown saveloys dripping with fat. Again I see the bruise on her temple.

  ‘Want one?’ she asks.

  ‘I’d say yes,’ I say, trying to keep my voice steady, though I can feel a certain agitation bubbling inside. ‘But I’m still full. They look good, though. Where are they from?’

  ‘Jokinen, who else?’ she says. ‘The grocer. He makes them himself in his own little factory. He even butchers the meat himself in his own abattoir.’

  His own abattoir?

  3

  And so the pieces of the puzzle slot together. I maintain a brisk walking speed, even but relaxed. I’m not sure whether I’m being watched but I want to be on the safe side. The sky has turned a nostalgic blue, the sun has entered its short-lived afternoon arc. All the while, time is running out. Krista, I’m doing the best I can, I repeat to myself over and over. Then I run through the one thing I haven’t seen, though it’s been right in front of my eyes.

  Jokinen.

  His visit, his words. The things he told me about running his own business, how awkward he seemed sitting in our kitchen, how impossible it was for him to look me in the eye. All this was buried beneath a wave of jealousy swelling within me.

  Things are tight as it is, we’re just scraping by.

  Jokinen’s business is on a financial knife-edge. And that’s just the beginning. The man has his own abattoir.

  Jokinen, with all his delicacies, his home visits. The jovial grocer who chit-chats with customers and remembers their birthdays, who pops in to see people any day of the week, who knows people’s homes, which doors lead where, the layout, when people are at work and when they’re at home. In my case it was even easier: Jokinen knew I would be at the museum. I told him so myself.

  Jokinen, I think. So it was him after all. I blame myself for dismissing Krista’s suggestion I get to know him better. I would have known about the abattoir, and probably a lot more besides, much earlier on. But something stopped me making any closer acquaintance with him: instinct.

  I arrive at the church hall and walk up to my office. I take the car keys from my desk, return to the car park and jump in the car. I start the engine, turn the car around and am about to put my foot on the accelerator when I see Pirkko standing at the front door of the building. She waves. I use the gas significantly more softly than I had been intending, steer the car nearer to the door and roll down the passenger window. Pirkko walks up to the car and leans inside. Her expression is one of confusion, perhaps even concern.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ she asks. Her breath is steaming so much that for a moment it obscures her brown eyes altogether.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You left so … suddenly. I’ve just promised someone the threethirty session.’

  I glance at the dashboard, though there’s no need. I know what the time is, and I know it’s running out.

  ‘I should have said. I’m really sorry but I have to pay a … home visit. It’s an emergency, I’m afraid, completely unexpected.’

  ‘Has something happened to…?’ she asks, and places her hand on the edge of the door.

  The movement is perfectly normal, but it catches my attention. Perhaps it has something to do with the way her fingers grip the top of the door, but there’s a hint of insistence in her expression now. But that’s not the most arresting thing.

  ‘To who?’ I ask. ‘You mean my wife?’

  Pirkko looks as though I’m speaking a foreign language but quickly regains her composure.

  ‘Your wife? No, I mean … Well, has something happened to your wife?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Will you be back at work today?’

  I am conscious of the passing seconds, how they turn into minutes, hours … Soon it will be evening. I have to get moving.

  ‘I’ll keep my phone on,’ I say, though I’m unsure I’ll be able to keep that promise. ‘Who booked the three-thirty slot?’

  I already have my foot on the accelerator when I hear Pirkko’s voice.

  ‘Timo Tarvainen. You know, the rally driver. Former rally driver, I should say. He hasn’t competed since his accident. What a tragedy that was. The death of the map-reader and everything else.’

  Jokinen lives outside the village. I take the road leading to Joensuu, then turn north. The spruce trees stand dark on both sides of the road; the day is slowly disappearing. A few hours of light are followed by almost twenty hours of darkness. Right now, it’s hard not to think this says something fundamental about almost everything.

  Snow billows up behind the log trucks in front of me. I overtake them utterly blind, trusting the flashing lights the drivers give me. I check the rear-view mirror every bit as much as I look ahead. Nobody is following me. I don’t know how many people would be able to. I squeeze every last drop out of our Škoda, turn on to a narrower lane the width of one car. The lane has been recently ploughed. I keep going for another five minutes.

  I have visited Jokinen’s farmstead once before – like many idealistic people from the south before him who have moved out here, he bought an old farm complete with barns and outbuildings – but I’ve never driven right up to the house. I recall that Krista and Jokinen’s wife Minna wanted to walk the rest of the way so they could pick blueberries. I stop the car at the same place as I did last summer.

  I step out of the car and listen. The forest is silent, not even the wind is whistling through the darkening boughs of the trees. For a moment I think of the rifle that I still don’t have. Then I set off on foot.

  The farm’s buildings come into view all of a sudden. I step out of the protective c
over of the trees, and there they stand like an island in the middle of a sea of snow and, inconveniently, right in the middle of a large clearing. There’s only one path leading up to the buildings, everything else is just flat, open terrain covered in snow.

  There are at least four red-painted buildings: the two-storey house, a long, narrow barn, some sort of warehouse and the building I first heard about earlier today: the abattoir. That’s the one. The stone foundations are tall, the windows wide and low; there’s a grandness about the building, a chill, an air of finality.

  I remain for a moment in the cover of the trees and watch the buildings. I wait for the blue moment between light and dark, and at this time of year I don’t have to wait long. It’s two-thirty in the afternoon when dusk begins to fall. I wait a while longer, then make a move.

  When I’m halfway across the opening I see a light switch on in the ground floor of the house. I’m still relatively far away and can’t make out anyone in the rectangle of light. If someone has seen me approaching and wanted to take precautions, switching on the lights would be the last thing they would do. I run closer, approach the front yard. I am almost there and run a bit faster – until I see the front door opening. I dive to the other side of the snow verge on the left and land on my stomach. Immediately I haul myself up, just enough to see over the verge. Jokinen.

  He is only twenty metres away and he’s carrying something in both hands. They look like water canisters. He walks across the yard and seems to be heading towards the smaller of two doors at the front of the abattoir. At the other end of the building is a larger door; it is tall, split into two parts, and bears some kind of warning sign. He lowers one of the canisters to the ground, opens the door, picks the canister up again and disappears inside.

  The door remains open. I bound into a run. Just before the building, I stop.

  I hear a voice from inside.

  The clang of metal. Muffled cries of pain, like howling that can’t quite get started, can’t release, then turns into a whimper, gasping for air. Like a dog’s bark, but without the power or determination, without the growl. Like something running out of strength, something whose final moments are approaching. I step inside.

  The space is large and bare, the ceiling high, the floor and walls concrete. There are what appear to be fluorescent strips in the ceiling, but they are not switched on. The only light comes from a red warning light glowing above a door at the far end of the room. Again I hear the metallic clang, the faint whimpers. The sounds are coming from behind that door. The powerful red lamp hurts my eyes after the soft, blue dusk outside. It seems to take a lifetime for my eyes to adjust to the red room. I step across the concrete floor, head towards the door, and look around, try to find something heavy. But the room has been stripped of almost everything, it’s like a cell or…

  ‘Are you going to call the police?’

  I spin around.

  Jokinen is standing against the wall. He looks like he’s been waiting for me. He is wearing a pair of plastic protective goggles. In his right hand he has a gleaming steel object that I can’t identify. The object is long, it has a handle in the middle and tapers to a sharp point at both ends. Jokinen moves the object, swings it slowly back and forth.

  ‘If everything’s fine, then…’

  ‘Everything was fine until now.’

  ‘Everything’s still fine, isn’t it?’ I ask.

  ‘You’re one of the authorities,’ he says, the steel object in his hand now swinging in a longer curve. But that’s not the most worrying thing. It’s Jokinen’s voice that grabs my attention. This is not the same jovial Jokinen who chats breezily in the store, who puts everyone in a good mood. This Jokinen is the opposite of the old one. His last statement wasn’t a conversation starter; it was a judgement.

  ‘Easy now. Let’s have a look at what’s on the other side of that door, okay?’

  Jokinen is silent for a long while. His head moves slightly; the red light is reflected in his plastic goggles as though it were beaming from his eyes.

  ‘I should have realised yesterday morning,’ he says.

  ‘Realised what?’

  ‘That you knew something … Asking questions like that.’

  The room is cool, the smell of disinfectant pungent. Our breath creates a faint steam, a brief flash of red. Jokinen’s voice is cold and sterile – undeniably suited to the room. He takes a step forwards. I can’t get back to the front door without passing him. I don’t know whether the door is open and I don’t know what lies behind that door.

  ‘We can talk about this,’ I say.

  ‘I already asked if you’re going to call the police. You didn’t answer. What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘But you can’t just behave like this.’

  Jokinen shakes his head. The goggles flicker as though they are on fire. He gives the steel object in his hand a shake.

  ‘Pastor,’ he says. ‘You’re always right, always know what to do. Always such a good, upstanding person.’

  ‘I’m not a good person,’ I say. ‘I’ve made many mistakes. And I often don’t know what to do either, don’t know what would be best or good for people. In this situation—’

  ‘You’re making me angry,’ Jokinen interrupts. ‘I’ll tell you straight. You’re making me angry. You and your know-it-all wife. Both of you. Always think you’re above everybody else, better than the rest of us. Always handing out advice.’

  I remain silent. I don’t remember giving advice for years. I have been so acutely aware of how little I know that giving other people advice is the last thing I’d do. I note that Jokinen is gradually moving closer in tiny, almost imperceptible steps. He looks threatening, powerful. He looks … for a moment I try to find a better word, but I can’t think of one. He looks bloodthirsty.

  ‘How did you find out about this?’ he asks.

  ‘I worked it out.’ It’s the honest answer. ‘I put two and two together.’

  ‘And who have you told?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  Jokinen seems to think about this. ‘I don’t know if you’re telling the truth.’

  His white protective coat looks redder the closer we get. I have to keep the conversation going. If possible, I have to steer it in such a direction that I can better engage with him, man to man, human to human.

  ‘Does Minna know what you’re up to?’

  ‘She doesn’t like it,’ he says and lowers his eyes. ‘Doesn’t like it one bit. But she’ll understand once we’re out of the woods. To be honest I’m not sure why she’s so worked up about it.’

  ‘Maybe she thinks it isn’t right.’

  ‘She’ll change her mind once the worst is over and we’re in the clear again.’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘We only have one store, but there’s plenty more where this came from,’ he says indicating to the doors at the back.

  ‘This?’ I ask and get ready to spring into action. Jokinen clearly isn’t going to listen to reason. He is utterly different from how I’d imagined him to be. He sounds like a lunatic. And if he sounds like a lunatic…

  ‘Don’t you start,’ he says impatiently and takes another step in my direction. There are now only a few metres between us. His goggles are like red mirrors. ‘Anyway, how do you recognise one from another? There are thousands of them out there, just find yourself another one.’

  This is too much. I turn, take two long, quick strides towards the door, open it and step into a taller, chillier room. But in the cool blue lighting I’m not entirely sure of what I see. At that moment I hear a heavy thud, then Jokinen’s steps behind me.

  He lunges at my back and we both fall forwards. He tightens his arms around me. We hit the floor. I don’t have time to put my hands out to break my fall, and my forehead bangs against the floor. I am on my stomach, Jokinen on top of me. I try to spin round. Jokinen says something – I can’t make it out. I manage to pull one arm partially free and haul myself forwards inch by inch. Once my
arm is completely free, I grab Jokinen in a headlock and twist. His arms release from around me. I rise to my knees and squeeze Jokinen’s head in my armpit. I use force. By now he is on all fours; he is furious, battering his fists against my sides, my kidneys. I twist stronger still and eventually he stops. And there we are: me on my knees with Jokinen’s head beneath my right arm, Jokinen on his hands and knees beside me.

  I raise my eyes, then look up. We are so close that I can feel the warmth, smell the musk. My eyes rise from the legs to the chest, from there to the neck and muzzle and eventually to the antlers, which from this angle look metres long, like broken branches. I have to say it out loud.

  ‘An elk.’

  Jokinen is sitting in a chair at the far end of the room. The stag is standing in the middle of the room, snorting. It looks in turn at me and at Jokinen, and doesn’t seem particularly pleased about what it sees. There’s a bloody scratch on my forehead from falling over. Jokinen’s half-metre-long steel meat cleaver is propped against the wall. I have turned off the blue light and switched on the fluorescent strips on the ceiling.

  Up close the elk is even larger than I thought. Its head rises a full metre above my own, its antlers are like the naked boughs of a tall, skeletal tree. When it shakes its head, the balance of the whole room seems to shudder. Its dark-brown flanks shine like halves of a huge oak barrel; its legs look like gnarled telephone poles, tall yet in some way shaky and unsteady. According to Jokinen, the animal weighs around five hundred kilos. It’s easy to believe.

  Jokinen’s goggles are dangling from his hand. His hair, which is normally neatly combed and patted down with gel, is dishevelled, jutting out here and there. His white coat is askew, twisted across his right shoulder and round to his back. Beneath his coat the two top buttons of his shirt have been torn loose. He looks like a man who has just been in a wrestling match.

  ‘But why?’ I ask him.

  ‘It’s January.’

  I don’t know what he is talking about, so I wait for him to continue. He sighs, raises his eyes from the floor to the elk.