White Hunger (Chance Encounter Series)

by Aki Ollikainen

  Marja gets up and sees the sledge. The boy continues staring ahead in the direction of travel. Marja lifts up Juho and, summoning all her strength, begins striding towards the sledge.

  Once they have climbed in, the boy gives them a single glance over his shoulder. One of his eyes is identical to the old farmer’s at Viklund. He says nothing, merely smacks his lips to get the horse moving.

  The motion soon makes Juho go to sleep. The blizzard has ceased. It is as if the flurry had originally risen up off the field, which has now dragged the snow back down to use as a blanket. The first stars light up, and a grey shawl covers the fragment of moon.

  They wake up in the abandoned cabin where the lad from the inn left them the night before. There is a lake half an hour’s walk away, he told them, and beyond it a house.

  An ice road leads across the lake, but snow has fallen here, too. At every step, Mataleena sinks into the snow, which nearly reaches her waist, though she tries to tread in her mother’s footprints. Wading through the snowdrifts is hard work. Mataleena shuts her eyes and thinks of Father, their last shared boat trip on the local lake.

  Father was calm. He looked solemn, just as when he rowed Willow-Lauri’s coffin to the church. Mataleena thought Father was handsome as he moved the heavy boat across the lake with long, steady strokes, but then a strong wind rose up, almost taking off Father’s hat, and he pulled it back down so low that his ears bent under the brim. The wind tried to turn the boat, and Father had to struggle to keep it on course and his expression dignified.

  Lauri’s coffin was small. How did they manage to stuff the big man inside? Was he lying there curled up, the way Mataleena herself slept on cold nights? Mother explained that people shrink in death. Something leaves them, but even Mother did not know if it was the soul; or whether, if so, the soul floated away like steam from boiling water in a saucepan, or instead flowed downwards, a sticky, black liquid.

  Perhaps different people have different souls.

  Mataleena thinks of Charcoal-Kalle, who was found dead in his cabin. No one ever went there except Mother, who was related to Kalle, and Roope the cobbler. It was he who found Kalle’s body and fetched Mother. She took Mataleena along, and Mataleena still shudders when she remembers the smell of death. There was a black puddle underneath Kalle. It was not blood, but water seeping from the body, Roope said.

  Lauri did not leave a puddle, though they said his mouth was black. From the poison, according to Father, but Mataleena wondered if the soul can escape through the mouth and leave the colour behind.

  Roope said there is no soul inside a human being, only blood and black water, flowing around before they just run out; then he shrivels up. Two kinds of wetness go into the making of a human being: man’s water and woman’s water. Mataleena asked how that happens, and Roope explained that a man ejects his own liquid into a woman’s liquids, and that is how a new person is created. But Mother forbade Roope to say such things in the presence of a child. She asked a question herself, though: who provides the blood and who the black liquid.

  Then Mataleena is again sitting with Father in the boat, and when she finally comes to, she has already crossed the lake.

  ‘The house has got to be beyond that hill,’ Mother gasps in front of her.

  Mataleena looks back. No sign of Father, only the open lake, covered by snow; Father has rowed out of sight, into the whiteness.

  All of a sudden, the sun drops down to the horizon from behind the curtain of clouds. Only now does Mataleena spot the house and the outbuilding, which are inflamed as light sweeps away the blizzard. Juho falls out of Marja’s arms and stays sitting in the snowdrift. Mataleena tries to pull him up. The boy stands, but at the same time Mataleena falls.

  Marja stares at the gaping, hungry jaws on the grey barn wall.

  ‘Pike heads.’ She finally realizes what they are.

  Snow stuck to the skulls has sculpted strange expressions, and the reddish rays of the setting sun cause the eye sockets to glow uncannily. Mataleena sees a dark figure approaching; at the same time, the whole world turns red.

  Small trickles of water flow in through both corners of her mouth. Mataleena comes to. She feels the warmth of a hand supporting the back of her neck. The grey planks of the ceiling above her undulate for a moment, then settle down. The thin face of a woman comes into view. Mataleena turns her head and sees Mother and Juho sitting on a bench by the door.

  ‘Make gruel, thin gruel for the beggars,’ a man’s voice says.

  ‘Surely we can find some real food, at least for the children. They look so hungry,’ the woman says.

  ‘Gruel is fine, even thin gruel,’ Marja whispers.

  ‘Everybody looks hungry these days. When did you last see someone with a bit of meat on their bones, apart from in a pulpit?’

  ‘Shame on you – such talk at a time like this. When did you last go to church?’ the woman retorts.

  She ladles gruel out of a saucepan into a wooden bowl. Juho is already seated at the table, and he begins to devour the grey gruel. Mataleena awaits her turn. She gets her share after Juho, in the same bowl. The girl is still eating when Juho falls asleep on the bench by the wall.

  ‘The beggars can stay. We’re not in the habit of turning people out into the night here at Vääräjärvi, particularly not women and children. But you’ve got to leave in the morning. I’ll give you a lift to the church in the sledge; I’m going to see if there’s any flour left in the communal silo, from the emergency supply,’ the man says.

  Marja nods in response. The woman brings her the bowl. Marja slurps down the contents before the woman has time to bring a spoon. Then she falls asleep. Juhani is calling her.

  *

  Juhani is a bird, a loon. It is summer, autumn and spring, all the snow-free seasons. Marja wanders around in a pine forest. She sees a pond, flashing between the trees; the water is black but bright. Even so, Marja cannot find the way to the edge. New trees keep appearing in front of her and she has to dodge them. Finally, she realizes she has turned in the wrong direction.

  She does not recognize the forest but she knows the pond. Juhani took her there years ago. She hears Juhani’s call: u-uui, u-uui, u-uui.

  Marja tries to make her way towards the sound, but the echo travels around the wilderness so the direction is unclear. Soon Juhani takes off, leaving her alone, the pond abandoned. If Juhani gets away, the children will not be born.

  Suddenly, the black pond water glimmers far ahead. Too far. Marja begins to run towards it, keeping the pond in sight. But the setting sun blinds her for a moment and soon she cannot see the water. Juhani’s call comes from afar, from another direction. U-uui, u-uui.

  Marja freezes. She hears the weeping and wailing of the ghosts of dead children ahead. Winter is near. It is closing in, already twisting and turning, restless and angry, inside a pike skull. Soon the pike will open its jaws. The cry of ‘u-uui’ is now far, far away.

  Mataleena wakes before the others, but she stays lying on the bench, looking at the room, which has gone topsy-turvy: the wall with the door is now the floor, the floor and the ceiling have become walls, and the stove sits on the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t you forget: only give beggars gruel. Thin gruel,’ the man says.

  Mataleena laughs softly; the man and woman are flies, sitting on the wall in summer. Then she sits up, and the room assumes its normal position. The man and the woman turn to look at her.

  ‘Poor child,’ the woman says, sighing.

  The man comes and sits down next to Mataleena.

  ‘My name is Retrikki and my wife is called Hilta. We’ve no children of our own, they died years ago, long before these lean years. But we can’t feed you here. And soon new beggars will come. Folk with no bread, they’re all on the move. Though there’s nothing to be found elsewhere, wherever you’re thinking of going. You’re chasing a will-o’-the-wisp; still, you can’t do anything else,’ the man says.

  Mataleena nods. Retrikki strokes her hair;
clumps of it come off and cling to the man’s mitten.

  Retrikki stands up and says he is going to harness the sledge.

  ‘Don’t you worry about that old ogre, child, we’ll find you something,’ Hilta says.

  ‘My name’s Mataleena.’

  ‘That’s a beautiful name. Christian. That’s good.’

  Hilta fills the wooden bowl from the previous day. The gruel is thicker this time, porridgey. Hilta also brings half a loaf of bark bread to the table, and some dried pike, which she stirs into the porridge.

  ‘Eat, child.’

  And Mataleena eats. She wolfs down the porridge before Retrikki can come in and take the bowl away. The woman gives her watery milk, which helps wash down the bread in a flash. Hilta refills the bowl. When Retrikki comes back in, Hilta snatches the empty bowl from Mataleena. The girl smiles at Hilta, whose eyes well with tears.

  The slamming of the door wakes Juho and Marja. Hilta makes them some thin gruel. She breaks off small pieces of bark bread and hands them to the three visitors. Then she glances at Retrikki and hands out small pieces of dried pike too. Retrikki remains silent.

  Juho puts a piece of pike in his mouth, digs it out with his fingers, looks at it briefly. He places the morsel back on to his tongue for a moment, then takes it out again to squeeze it tightly in his fist. Retrikki observes the boy’s antics and laughs.

  ‘You’ll be back on the road soon. Where are you off to, actually?’

  ‘St Petersburg.’

  St Petersburg. Marja cannot imagine anyone being permitted to starve in the Tsar’s city. There is enough bread for everyone in St Petersburg. And it contains no bark or lichen, let alone straw. But St Petersburg is a long way away. Not beyond the next hill, not even after the next village, but far away, in Russia.

  ‘How will you ever make it to St Petersburg?’ Retrikki sighs.

  Marja looks out of the window, through the ice flowers. The sun glints, among clouds of snow. The same sun that gilds the Tsar’s palace in St Petersburg.

  ‘First we have to get to Helsinki. St Petersburg’s beyond Helsinki,’ Marja states.

  Mataleena stares silently ahead. Her stomach is hurting. At first the pain pinches, but soon there is an angry cat scratching, scraping, sinking its teeth into the pit of her stomach. Claws push through to her ribs from inside and the animal mauls her so brutally that she starts to writhe. The cat raises its mangy tail and comes out of her mouth, bloody porridge. An angry hurricane blows in her head and hits her eyes, making them roll.

  Mataleena collapses on the floor.

  From Marja’s mouth comes an animal cry, subdued at first but then slowly gathering strength. Retrikki is the first to recover. He lifts Mataleena up off the floor and carries her to the bedroom, where he lays her down.

  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.