The Year of the Hare

by Arto Paasilinna

  “I must go and get that hare,” he said sadly, looking at the ring. “You’re engaged, I see, and I can’t help saying I don’t think much of the ring.” He sighed deeply.

  “Guess who I’m engaged to,” she said, looking him gravely in the eye.

  “Oh, some high-flying young accountant, I suppose. Forgive me, but it doesn’t interest me.”

  “Wrong ... Guess again.”

  “You could try and guess who I’m engaged to instead,” he retorted.

  “I know already,” she said. “You have to guess who I’m engaged to.”

  “I don’t have the energy at the moment,” he said. “We’d better get our stuff together, I think, and go. You wouldn’t mind phoning the station for me, would you? I need to know the train times. Do me that favor, please. I’m so tired.”

  “I’ll give you the answer, then,” she said. “I’m engaged to you.”

  He heard what she said—he heard it word by word—but didn’t grasp the meaning. He looked her in the eye, he looked at the tablecloth, he looked out of the window, he looked at the restaurant floor, and then he looked at the hovering waiter. He managed to give the waiter an order: two glasses, the same as before.

  The waiter brought their drinks. They drank them in silence.

  “Is it true?” Vatanen asked after a long interval.

  Yes indeed, she affirmed. Vatanen had proposed in Kerava, and she had accepted in Turenki. The ring had been bought in Hanko. Since the shops were closed, nothing better was obtainable. He’d bought it from a Hanko taxi driver’s daughter, a girl of eleven. Nickel, gold-plated nickel, Leila said.

  “Really.”

  “Yes.”

  “So we’re going to get married?” he asked.

  “That’s what you’ve been insisting, over and over, for days.”

  So now he was in yet another situation. The hare was not here, but in its place there was . . . this woman. Leila. Rather young, and lovely. His body thrilled with happiness, and a flush of power went through him: a woman, a woman had come to him! Young, healthy, and vital! He wanted to take a closer look.

  She was smart, desirable. Beautiful hands, long fingers. He held them, squeezed them tentatively. Nice, very nice. Her face was alluring—a perfect nose, and blue-gray eyes, rather large, no makeup, but long lashes—delightful—her mouth large, good, good, and such lovely teeth!

  “Hm! You wouldn’t mind getting me the newspaper?” he asked. He didn’t need the newspaper: it was a stratagem to make her move. He wanted to watch her rise from the table, see her whole body walking across the room. He loved the way she rose from the chair: her hair bobbed adorably over the table as she turned.

  To this extent, everything was ideal.

  As she went to the newspaper rack by the door, it was obvious how lovely her figure was, perhaps her best feature of all. A massive joy flooded Vatanen’s weary heart. And as she came back, he noticed how womanly her hips were: she swayed like a ship of dreams! Marvelous! Wonderful!

  He didn’t look at the newspaper. He thrust it aside and took her by the hand.

  “I’m already married.”

  “That makes you both married and engaged,” she said. It seemed to be all the same to her.

  “You knew?”

  “I know everything about you. I’ve been listening to you for over a week! You can’t imagine how well I know you. And I’m counting on this: we’ll be married someday, and you’re going to come and live with me.”

  “But suppose my wife won’t give me a divorce?” he asked, knowing his wife.

  “She will. I’m a lawyer,” Leila said. “But first of all there’s another little matter: you’ll have to give me complete power of attorney. You may not recall it, but in Helsinki you beat someone up—the secretary of the Junior League of the Coalition Party—and you made quite a mess of him. I’m going to take the case on. I don’t think you’ll be sentenced for a first offense.”

  20

  Humiliation

  Vatanen took a dive into the slushy snow. A shot rang out, very close, then another. Buckshot fusilladed into the spruce trees. He dared not move. He could hear the irritable mumbling of drunken men.

  “Damn it, he got away.”

  “Unless we dropped him.”

  Their voices moved farther away, but Vatanen didn’t dare get up or try to escape yet.

  Things had taken a very nasty turn. The hare was fleeing through the forest at Karjalohja with two great hounds at its heels, and Vatanen was crouched near a ridge, fearing for his life.

  How on earth had it come to this?

  Vatanen and Leila had left Turku to spend the New Year in Helsinki. Her vacation over, Leila went back to work. Vatanen signed the power of attorney and moved in with her. After a week or two, he got a job repairing a summer villa at Karjalohja, a lakeside hamlet about fifty miles from Helsinki. A room required wallpapering, and the sauna was in a bad state inside and needed fixing up. A nice job for wintertime. He settled into the villa with the hare.

  Now it was February already, and the previous evening a rowdy, disagreeable crowd had blown in, out for a big time in the villa next door. They heated the sauna and started an all-night rave. Men, and women with them, dashed naked onto the frozen lake, skidding and taking off on the slippery ice; car engines revved all night long in the floodlit drive—off for more booze, or to fetch more guests. The veranda was loud with endless yammering—the threat of communism in Finland and the free world, and so on—and now and then there were scuffles.

  Vatanen didn’t get a wink all night, and the hare was on edge. Annoying headlights beamed across the walls and ceiling, and it was five o’clock before things settled down and the noise petered out.

  Around noon, things began to stir again. Crapulous voices moaned for a sauna: they had to get it going again or they’d never be able to face the day.

  The wood must have been used up the night before, and the finished as well, for two men called at Vatanen’s door, asking to borrow some wood.

  “We’ve come to get some sauna wood off you.”

  “And a drop of the hard stuff if you have some.”

  Vatanen had neither sauna wood nor alcohol, and anyway he was in no mood to be friendly to the ravers of the night before. He pointed to the oil stove and told them there was no wood: the sauna was being repaired.

  “But listen, pal. We’ve got to have that wood. We’re having a sauna, you see, we’ve made up our minds. Here’s fifty dollars. Now, how about that wood?”

  Vatanen shook his head.

  “Oh, a bit high and mighty, are you?” the other said. He threw some more bills on the table. “Now! Let’s have that wood, okay? You could chop a bit off those veranda railings, for instance. You’ve got a saw. So what are you shaking your head for? The money’s there on the table.”

  Vatanen had no intention of chopping up the house to please them, and they had no intention of leaving it at that. Slamming some more bills on the table, they returned to the point: he’d better find some wood. Vatanen wadded up the bills, pushed them into the nearest man’s breast pocket, and ordered them out.

  “Christ, what next? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Vatanen was steering the men outside and closing the door. They started hammering on the door. When Vatanen didn’t open it, one of them kicked the veranda rail and dislodged it. The other, eager to have a go, tore it completely loose, and it dropped into the yard. They grabbed hold of the wood and dragged it exultantly off to their own compound. Vatanen ran out to stop them, but they were already there.

  “It’s a cooperative!” one of the men yelled. “We’ve created a cooperative!”

  “Or put it this way,” the other gloated. “It’s good business—if you can’t buy it, take it.”

  Standing at the edge of his compound, in a black rage, Vatanen watched the veranda rail turning to firewood. A dozen other morning-after-the-night-befores came out to laugh and jeer. Someone set off in a car; someone els
e shouted: “Get enough of the stuff this time! We don’t want to run out!”

  Rigid with rage, Vatanen stalked into the neighboring compound and asked whom the house belonged to.

  The chopping stopped. A fat, mulberry-faced man, who’d been busy splitting the railing, stretched up to his full height.

  “Listen, pal, it belongs to some big fish. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll make tracks while you still can. I’m in charge here, and if you don’t get out I’ll have the boys bustling your ass.”

  “I’m going nowhere till this is settled,” Vatanen said, without any urgency.

  The man bounced into the house and reappeared a moment later with a shotgun. He loaded both barrels on the steps and leveled the gun at Vatanen’s chest. The nauseating stink of stale alcohol wafted on the air.

  Suddenly one of the men who’d gathered around Vatanen kicked his backside so hard he was knocked flying onto his belly. An explosion of laughter broke out, and someone kicked him in the ribs.

  He got to his feet. The women threw dirty sand-laden slush in his eyes; someone punched him in the back.

  There was nothing to do but retreat to his own territory. Raucous laughter pursued him as he withdrew into the villa. Maybe, someone said, they’d gone a bit too far; but the others disagreed.

  “Shit! A bastard like that? He won’t risk calling the police. I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll threaten him. You won’t hear another squeak after that. But first, sauna! To work, men!”

  Easy to imagine how sore Vatanen was. He took the hare in his arms and went out onto the ice, thinking he’d take a walk across the bay, sort out his thoughts, and calm down. It was about half a mile to the farther shore.

  When he was halfway across, the ravers sicced a couple of large hounds on him. They’d spotted the hare he was carrying. “After ’em! After ’em!” they shouted.

  The yelping hounds tore across the ice in hot pursuit. The hare took to its heels, and, seeing it on the run, the hounds broke into a fierce baying. Their big paws slithered on the ice as they hurtled past Vatanen and vanished into the trees across the bay.

  Vatanen pursued them to the headland, wondering how he could save his hare. What he needed was a gun, but that was hanging on a nail at Läähkimä Gorge.

  Several men came running out of the villa carrying guns. Bellowing as they ran, they were like the hounds they’d set loose. The ice bent under their weight.

  Vatanen concealed himself among the trees, because as soon as they got to the headland they fired in his direction. He was lying in the slushy snow, hearing the peevish mumbling of drunken men.

  The hare was already far away, the baying of the hounds scarcely audible. Their cry was actually a howl—so the hunt was still on, the hare still alive.

  Vatanen’s brain was working overtime. This savage chase must stop, but how? How could such men exist? Where was the pleasure in roughhousing like this? How could human beings lower themselves so viciously?

  The poor hare was circling back in its terror. Suddenly it burst out of a gap in the trees, saw Vatanen, and dashed straight into his arms. Two drops of bright-red blood had oozed from its mouth. The baying of the hounds was getting louder.

  He knew the hounds could rip the life out of him if he stood there in the forest with a hunted hare in his arms. Should he reject his beloved beast? Send it on its way to save his own skin?

  No—the thought shamed him as soon as it came. He ran for a knoll, overgrown with thick-trunked, gnarled, and twisted pines. Quickly he clambered up one. It was tricky, climbing with a hare in his arms—bits of fur got stuck on the bark—but he was out of reach when the hounds came whirling up, snorting and sniffing the hare’s traces. They soon found their way to the foot of the tree and frenziedly reached up on their hind legs, yelping into the branches, clawing at the red bark with their paws. The hare thrust its head under Vatanen’s armpit, trembling all over.

  Boozy voices were again drawing nearer, and soon five men stood at the foot of the tree.

  “Sit, boys, sit! So he’s perched up there, is he, our friend—in the tree?”

  They cackled. One kicked the tree trunk; another tried rocking the tree to make Vatanen fall down.

  “Losing his nerve, is he? Drop that damned hare down here or we’ll have to shoot it in your arms!”

  “Fire into the tree! Go on, go for it! Hell of a good story that would make. Can you believe it? Karlsson shot a hare in a pine tree!”

  “And got a guy with the same shot!”

  They were having a grand old time. They pounded on the tree. The hounds lurked around the men’s legs. Vatanen was so incensed, tears came to his eyes. Someone noticed.

  “Shit, let’s go, the guy’s crying. That’s enough fun for one Sunday, anyway.”

  “But let him have the hounds for an hour: that’ll teach him to speak more politely next time. Come on. Sauna’s waiting. It’ll be hot already.”

  They left. The hounds prowled on guard at the foot of the tree, barking and howling. Vatanen thought he was going to vomit.

  Shortly before dark, someone whistled the hounds away. They loped off reluctantly. Vatanen felt dizzy; the hare was still trembling.

  He went back to Helsinki the same evening. At first he thought of pressing charges, but in the end he didn’t. To Leila he said: “I’m going back north, to Läähkimä Gorge. It doesn’t suit me down south.”

  And off he went.

  21

  A Visit

  Spring was here. Time flowed by pleasantly in the clean-aired northern climate. The chairman of the Reindeer Owners’ Association had offered Vatanen a job constructing an enclosure for reindeer, and now he was hewing palings. The work was agreeably heavy, and free of constraint: he felt like his own man. The hare was enjoying its existence at Läähkimä Gorge; the wild surroundings were scattered with its traces.

  Leila kept him posted with letters; sometimes they arrived two at a time, for delivery was only every other week. Her letters were steamy, and it was distinctly enjoyable to read them. He replied less frequently, but enough to keep the fire going, so to speak. Leila hoped he’d give up Lapland and return at long last to the civilized world, but he couldn’t make up his mind. He felt a diffidence about the south: the manners disgusted him.

  In the last week of March, life at Läähkimä Gorge altered dramatically.

  Last autumn’s bear had emerged from its lair—or perhaps it had not even tried to hibernate again after the pre-Christmas upset. At any rate, the bear was once more on the prowl around Läähkimä Gorge. It had killed several reindeer, Vatanen observed; the soggy slush must have made it difficult for it to find other food. It came snuffling around the cabin walls, urinated at the corners, and snorted testily in the March night.

  These nocturnal visits rattled Vatanen, who slept in a bunk next to the log wall. The grunting and snorting on the other side of the wall made it difficult to sleep. He felt like a small fish in a fish trap, with a big pike circling it.

  Reason told him that bears don’t attack humans, but sometimes events are unreasonable.

  For instance, one night the bear pushed a whole window in, frame and all. It thrust its upper body through the space, sniffing the warm air inside. Outside, there was a brilliant full moon, but the bear’s body obstructed the whole window space. The hare hopped onto Vatanen’s bunk and cowered, squeaking behind his back. Vatanen lay stiff. Quite a situation.

  The bear snuffed the food left on the table, the remains of supper: dried reindeer meat, bread, butter, a bottle of ketchup, and a few other items. In the moonlight Vatanen saw the animal reach over from the window and adroitly paw some delicacies into its mouth. It rustled the wrappings and opened them up; then there were some smacking noises. How handy it was with its paws! Soon everything had been eaten, and the bear eased itself back into the yard for a moment.

  When it appeared again, it was bolder. Its eye fell once more on the open ketchup bottle; it picked it up in its paws and examined it, w
ondering. The smell seemed alluring. It kept squeezing the bottle, evidently not understanding how to extract the contents.

  The bear gave it a shake. There was a squirt and a surprised groan as ketchup flew out of the bottle and sprinkled the wall above Vatanen’s head.

  Now the bear appeared to be licking the bottle. In between, it squirted the ketchup around the room, undoubtedly smearing itself all over in the process. It licked its own coat. The sound reminded Vatanen of the name of the place, Läähkimä Gorge—“Gasping Gorge”—there was plenty of gasping going on at the moment.

  Now the bear was licking the tabletop. The oilcloth wrinkled under its thick tongue. The streaks of ketchup tempted it ever farther in; the window opening was stuffed as tight as a bottle with a bottle brush. The bear’s upper body was weighing on the table; the table collapsed, and the bear thumped onto the cabin floor in a clatter of shattering wood. It appeared somewhat shocked at first but soon recovered and began exploring the interior of the cabin.

  Vatanen was afraid to move a muscle.

  The bear began licking the floor; the ketchup had flown quite a distance. The moonlight illuminated the huge, lithe animal: a terrifying spectacle. Its massive head crossed the floor swiftly, like an alarming cleaning machine getting closer and closer to Vatanen’s feet.

  At this point the hare’s nerves snapped. It hopped from Vatanen’s back onto the floor and zigzagged around the room. The bear made a grab for it but was left groping, while the hare cowered inaccessibly in a recess.

  The bear forgot it and began licking the wall at the foot of Vatanen’s bed.

  Only now did it notice the man. Cautiously and curiously, it began a puzzled examination. Hot, moist bear’s breath warmed Vatanen’s face. Feeling Vatanen’s breath on its muzzle, the bear snorted, picked him up in its paws, and shook him a little. Vatanen faked limpness, trying to appear unconscious.

  The bear studied the body in its arms, somewhat like an ogre that had gotten hold of a doll and didn’t know what to do with it. Tentatively it took a bite at Vatanen’s stomach and brought about a stabbing cry of pain. Shocked, the bear threw the man against the cabin wall and fled through the window, out into the open air.