The Howling Miller

by Arto Paasilinna

  People began to say Kunnari was twice as mad as most people: he behaved like a maniac, for a start, and now it seemed he worked like one too.

  After a week and a half, the millrace was fixed and tightly sealed throughout. It fed the river water down from the dam to where it was needed to drive the mill and the shingle saw. Huttunen moved onto the saw wheel. All the paddles were rotten through and had to be replaced. But the axle was still in a decent state, he saw. If he just replaced the spindle on one side and the sleeve, it would work fine.

  This done, the miller stripped to his underwear and waded out into the river to reinstall the wheel. And it was at that moment that the mill received a visit.

  A woman appeared on the mill bridge. She was thirty or so, Junoesque and rosy-cheeked, radiant in a flowery summer dress and a brightly coloured scarf. She was beautiful, bursting with life and vigour, but her voice was as delicate as a little girl’s, and Huttunen didn’t hear her over the roar of the rapids when she shouted, ‘Mr Huttunen! Mr Huttunen!’

  The woman watched the almost naked man set about his task. Struggling with all his might against the cold water, the lean, wiry miller fought to wrestle the wheel into place, but the spindle kept on coming off the axle, the current was too strong. At last, with a supreme effort, he managed to force the huge wheel home. He set it free, the paddles filled with water and it began turning at once, slowly at first, and then faster. Stepping back to observe his handiwork, Huttunen declared, ‘Got you, you bastard.’

  Once the flow of water had been channelled, the miller heard a clear woman’s voice calling, ‘Mr Huttunen!’

  He turned towards the sound. A young woman stood on the bridge. She had taken off her scarf and was waving it in a very fetching way, freeing her blonde, natural curls. She looked gorgeous, silhouetted there in the sunshine and summer breeze. As he gazed up at her from the river, Huttunen noticed her powerful thighs and sturdy calves. When the wind lifted her dress, he could even see her underwear – seamed stockings and garters alike. She didn’t seem to realise she presented such an edifying prospect, or perhaps wasn’t embarrassed about showing a glimpse of her thighs. Huttunen hauled himself out of the river, grabbed his clothes from the bridge and quickly got dressed. The woman walked over to the mill, and then turned and offered the miller her hand.

  ‘I’m the 4H adviser,* Sanelma Käyrämö.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Huttunen managed to reply.

  ‘I’m the association’s new horticulture adviser here. I’m visiting all the households in the district, even those without any young people. I’ve already visited sixty, but I’ve still got a long way to go.’

  Horticulture adviser? What business could someone from the 4H Federation have at the mill?

  ‘Your neighbour Mrs Vittavaara told me you lived here on your own,’ Sanelma Käyrämö continued, ‘and I decided to come and see you. A bachelor can grow vegetables too, after all.’

  Whereupon, the horticulture adviser launched into an enthusiastic exposition of her field of expertise. Growing vegetables was the best thing in the world you could do if you lived in the country: they were an excellent additional source of food, and provided a wonderful balance of vitamins and mineral salts. A vegetable garden of just half an acre could keep a small family hale and hearty for an entire winter – provided it was properly looked after, of course. It was all just a matter of rolling up one’s sleeves and getting stuck in. She couldn’t tell him how rewarding it was!

  ‘So, Mr Huttunen, don’t you think we should start planning a lovely vegetable garden for you? Vegetables are so fashionable nowadays that even a man needn’t be embarrassed about growing or eating them.’

  Huttunen started to protest. Living alone, he said, he was quite happy buying the odd sack of turnips or swede from his neighbours when the need arose.

  ‘Say no more!’ Sanelma Käyrämö broke in. ‘We’re going to get the ball rolling right away. I’ll give you some seeds to get started. Now let’s go and see if we can find a suitable spot for your garden. I’ve never known anyone who was sorry they took up growing vegetables.’

  Huttunen made another attempt to deter her.

  ‘But the thing is, I’m a … a bit crazy. Didn’t they tell you in the village, Miss?’

  The horticulture adviser brushed aside Huttunen’s mental instability with a casual wave of her scarf as if she had been dealing with the disturbed all her life. She took the miller firmly by the hand and led him to the mill yard. There she sketched out the dimensions of his garden-to-be in the air. The miller’s head spun as he followed her sweeping gestures; the veg patch seemed enormous. He grimaced, she scaled it down a little, and then that appeared to be that. The matter was settled. She broke off four birch branches and stuck them in the ground at each of the corners.

  ‘It has to be a garden this size for a man as tall as you,’ she said, before going to fetch her briefcase from her bicycle. She sat down on the grass, opened the briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers that she spread on the ground. The wind caught a few and blew them away; Huttunen went and fetched them from the riverbank, not quite able to believe what was happening; it all seemed marvellous to him. When he handed the papers back to the adviser she thanked him with an adorable laugh. This made him so happy he felt like howling with delight, and almost did so, but then restrained himself. He thought it was better to behave normally in front of a woman like this, at least at first.

  The adviser signed up the miller Gunnar Huttunen as a member of the local 4H Club. She drew a plan of the vegetable garden and wrote on it what he should grow: beetroot, carrots, turnips, peas, onions and herbs. She added spring cabbage, but then crossed it out because there weren’t any in the village.

  ‘It’ll probably be better, for our first season, if we stick to the most common varieties. Then, after we’ve had a little practice, we can increase our repertoire,’ she decided. She gave Huttunen several packets of seeds, saying she’d collect the money for them on her next visit.

  ‘We have to see if they come up first … But I’m quite sure, Mr Huttunen, that you will soon be witnessing the miracle of life and growth.’

  Huttunen was doubtful about his ability to tend the garden; he said he had never done anything like it before. Such hesitancy did not even merit discussion, as far as the horticulture adviser was concerned, however, and she began explaining how to grow the vegetables and giving the miller detailed instructions on how to work and fertilise the soil, how to start the seeds, how deeply to plant them, and what were the ideal spacings between different species. Vegetable gardening soon struck Huttunen as not just extraordinarily fascinating but also ideal for him since there wouldn’t be enough work at the mill to keep him busy all summer. He told the horticulture adviser he’d get started right away and hurried off to get a shovel and a hoe from the shed.

  Sanelma Käyrämö watched the tall man drive his hoe into the ground. The blade tore up big clumps of earth that the miller then turned over. She bent down to pick up some soil, rubbed it between her fingers, sniffed it and said it would be impossible to find a better spot for a vegetable garden. Seeing the adviser had got her hand dirty, Huttunen dashed into the mill to fetch a zinc bucket, splashed into the river to fill it and brought it back to her so she could wash her fingers.

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have,’ said the horticulture adviser, blushing, as she rinsed her fingers in the bucket. ‘Your trousers are wet up to the knee. How can I make it up to you?’

  Who cares about trousers, Huttunen thought happily. The adviser was pleased, that was the main thing. He set to hoeing again with such a will that an ox and plough would have been hard pressed to keep up.

  The horticulture adviser put her papers back in her briefcase, fetched her bicycle and put out her hand in farewell.

  ‘If any problems crop up, do get in touch,’ she urged. ‘I live upstairs at the Siponens’. Don’t be shy. You’re a beginner and I may easily have forgotten to explain something.’

&
nbsp; Then she knotted her brightly coloured scarf over her blonde curls, hooked her briefcase over her handlebars and got onto her bicycle, her ample bottom entirely enveloping its seat. Her light dress fluttered in the wind as she rode away.

  When she got to the woods, she stopped her bicycle and turned to look at the mill, sighing, ‘My goodness …’

  In a state of high excitement, Huttunen didn’t know what to do after the adviser had left. Hoeing the garden had lost some of its urgency. He strode restlessly into the mill, leant against the millstone, rubbed his hands and closed his eyes, thinking of her. Suddenly his whole body tensed and he dashed outside. He ran under the millrace and into the river, plunging into the cool water up to his neck. When he climbed out, he was shivering a little but he felt calmer. He went into the mill, looked out of the little window at the road and whined quietly, but didn’t howl as he did in winter.

  Huttunen finished digging the garden that evening and spread a load of manure after night had fallen. He raked the manure into the soil and sowed the seeds the horticulture adviser had given him. It wasn’t until after midnight that he finished watering his patch and finally went to bed.

  Huttunen drifted off to sleep a happy man. He now had his very own vegetable garden. And that meant that the lovely 4H adviser would soon be riding out to see him again.

  *A rural youth educational organisation, the 4H Federation teaches practical skills to young people in rural areas – courses range from animal husbandry and horticulture to home economics and computing – and encourages enterprise and self-reliance. It is named after ‘the four Hs’: Head, Hands, Heart and Health – Harkinta, Harjaanus, Hyvyys, Hyvinvointi in Finnish. It was established in the USA in the early 1900s, and has branches in eighty countries.

  CHAPTER 4

  Huttunen continued repairing the flood damage over the following days. He overhauled the chute between the mill and the shingle saw, which, in places, only required replacing a plank or two. He added new beams under the millrace. Many of the old ones were rotten. When he got up on the edge of the channel and bounced up and down, it swayed precariously and shipped water, which reduced the flow and the power the wheel could generate.

  After five days’ work, Huttunen was ready to test the mill. He closed the sluice gate to the saw wheel to steer all the water into the turbine house. The turbine began turning, lethargically at first, and then faster and faster. After checking it was rotating evenly and that there was an adequate water flow, Huttunen climbed up onto the bridge from the turbine house and went into the mill. He greased the main axles and bearings and, using an oilcan with a long spout, dabbed machine oil into every working part. He took an aspen spatula and applied belt resin to the pull-wheel of the turbine axle; the stuff spread easily if he pressed the tool hard against the turning drum. He rubbed resin on the gears that drove the shaft of the upper millstone, the runner stone, and then ran the driving belt round the drum, giving it a twist to keep it in place. Moving to the snaking rhythm of the turbine axle, the wide belt set the heavy runner stone turning, and it began to grind against the motionless bedstone beneath it. Had Huttunen poured a few handfuls of grain into the eye, a smell of flour would soon have drifted up into the air.

  The mill was working. The stones turned with a muffled roar, the driving belt gripped, the axles clattered in their gleaming housings and the whole building shook, while down below the millstream seethed in the turbine house.

  Huttunen tested the millstones methodically, switching the driving belt from the ones for flour to the ones for animal feed, and then the huller wheel. They all worked fine too.

  The miller sat down on the edge of the empty grain bin, closed his eyes and listened to the familiar sounds of the mill. His face relaxed, showing no trace of either his customary elation or despondency. He let the mill run empty for a long time before diverting the water away from the turbine. The wheel gradually stopped turning and came to a complete halt. The mill was silent again, the only sound the gentle babble of the river as it slipped beneath the building.

  The following morning, Huttunen went to the shop to announce that, should anyone need any of last year’s fodder ground, he was ready to start milling.

  The shopkeeper Tervola greeted him with a sideways look. ‘I had to put those stump bombs in my name when the police asked me if you had a licence. I’m not selling you any more explosives without a licence. You’re too odd.’

  Huttunen walked around the shop as if he hadn’t heard the reproach. He fished a bottle of pilsner out of a crate and lit a cigarette. It was his last one, conveniently enough. He tore the back off the cigarette packet and wrote a notice to the effect that the Suukoski mill was back in operation and people could take their grain there to be milled. Then he took an old drawing pin from the shop door and stuck up his announcement.

  ‘Why did you blow up that charge in the river when all those people were on the bank?’ asked Tervola, as he weighed out some mixed dried fruit for the schoolteacher’s wife. Huttunen put the empty beer bottle back in its crate and tossed a couple of coins onto the counter. The shopkeeper leant over his scales and continued grumbling.

  ‘The council said you ought to be put away somewhere where you can have your head examined.’

  Huttunen abruptly swung round towards the shopkeeper and, looking him straight in the eye, asked, ‘Tell me, Tervola, why do you think my carrots haven’t come up yet? I’ve watered them every day until the soil’s black, but not a glimmer.’

  The shopkeeper muttered that nobody had said anything about carrots. ‘This is the second summer my daughter’s been hanging around your mill. Are we supposed to let our children stay out all night, and listen to a lunatic while they’re at it?’

  Huttunen put his fist on the scales and pushed down.

  ‘Twenty pounds exactly. Put another weight on.’

  Huttunen added some weights to the scales himself, and then pressed down again.

  ‘Now my hand weighs thirty pounds.’

  The shopkeeper tried to get Huttunen’s fist off the scales. The bag of mixed fruit was knocked over in the tussle, dried apple scattering across the floor. The schoolteacher’s wife backed away from the counter.

  Suddenly Huttunen gathered up the scales in his arms and walked out of the shop, tearing his notice off the door with his teeth on the way. In the yard outside, he put the scales in the bucket of the draw well and then carefully lowered it to the bottom. Tervola stormed out after him, shouting from the top of the steps that Huttunen had played his last prank.

  ‘You belong in a padded cell! The sooner the better! You’re barred from this shop from now on, Huttunen!’

  The miller headed towards the church, wondering how it had come to this. He felt downcast, but the thought of the scales at the bottom of the draw well cheered him up. A draw well is a sort of scale, anyway. Just one that uses water instead of weights.

  When he got to the churchyard, Huttunen stopped and, using one of the assortment of old nails from previous notices, stuck the back of the cigarette packet he had been carrying in his teeth on the gatepost. His announcement read:

  Suukoski mill is turning again.

  Huttunen

  From the churchyard, Huttunen walked to the café by the church. He ordered a bottle of pilsner and, as the place was full of idlers from all parts of the canton, he stood up and announced, ‘Put the word out that anyone who’s still got grain can take it to Suukoski.’

  He finished his beer and, on his way out, added at the door, ‘But no treated grain. I won’t mill it, even if it’s for fodder. It fouls up the stones.’

  The miller slowed as he reached the Siponens’ farm, scanning the upstairs windows to see if the horticulture adviser was at home. He looked for her blue bicycle, but he couldn’t see it. She must be doing the rounds of the villages, teaching children how to look after vegetables and swapping vegetable recipes with farmers’ wives. Huttunen felt jealous at the thought of her at that moment initiating some tongue-tie
d, snotty-nosed youngster into the art of thinning carrots, or advising some plump farmwife on how to chop lettuce leaves. Huttunen thought of his own, heavily watered vegetable patch. So, the adviser didn’t have time to come and visit, was that it? She could have at least dropped by to see how faithfully he had hoed and fertilised and planted his garden. He’d followed her every instruction to the letter.

  Had she been making fun of him, persuading a grown man to do a child’s work? Everyone in the canton laughed at him as it was, ‘the crazy beanpole’. Had she joined the chorus? The thought was an unbearably sad and painful one to Gunnar Huttunen. He turned his back on the Siponen house and ran feverishly back to Suukoski.

  He encountered the schoolteacher’s wife on her way back from the shop. When she saw Huttunen tearing down the road, she stopped her bicycle and let him sweep in front of her into the woods.

  Huttunen stopped in the mill yard to inspect his vegetable garden. It lay there, black and lifeless. He studied the soil with its air of neglect, and felt equally abandoned by the horticulture adviser. Climbing sadly up to his little room at the top of the mill, he kicked off his Wellington boots and threw himself on his bed without having anything to eat. He lay there sighing heavily for two hours, and then fell into a fitful sleep, haunted by confused, disturbing dreams.

  CHAPTER 5