White Hunger (Chance Encounter Series)

by Aki Ollikainen

  Until suddenly she realizes that it is Juhani. Her Juhani. But the relief is short-lived, for Juhani’s eyes are snowballs that crumble in the wind, leaving only black holes behind. Then a gust of wind blows Juhani, who has become mere snow, out of existence; slowly, her beloved is scattered all over the white field. Alarmed, Marja glances at Juho, who is lying in the hay. It is not Juho, though, but Ruuni, with whom she has just slept.

  And yet it is Juho, Ruuni never existed. Rather, her little Juho has grown up without her noticing and she has mistaken him for a man. She cries out, but the scream does not emerge – an invisible hand pushes it back into her mouth, which stays open. Marja cannot breathe.

  She realizes this is the same barn where she left Mataleena, and when she turns to look, Mataleena is lying next to her, white as snow, on a grey plank.

  Marja wakes up with a start and gasps for air. Cold penetrates her body from all directions. There is Juho by her side, and, pressed up against the boy, Ruuni. Marja tries to exhale the nightmare but it takes a long time for the images to leave her in peace. Then she shakes Ruuni awake.

  ‘We’ve got to be on our way. It’s too cold to stay the night here. It’ll be getting dark soon.’

  Ruuni wakes reluctantly. When he half-opens his eyes, cold rushes at him. When he closes them again, something drags him down deeper into the treacherous warmth of sleep. But Marja forces Ruuni and Juho to get up.

  Shadows lengthen. They begin spreading over the landscape, soon swallowing it up. The snow is deep; Ruuni and Marja take it in turns to carry Juho. Marja tries to hold on to the image of St Petersburg, but the city shrinks. A field of snow and a dark forest spring up around it, and finally the trees conceal the palaces, which flee into the distance.

  In the end, all that remains before her is a white track meandering between gloomy spruces. The snow casts a cruel light: teasingly, it reveals a road that does not shorten as you walk. Until suddenly, past a bend, there appears a narrow, frozen river with a wooden bridge, and a mill and mill-house looming on the other side.

  Without knocking first, Ruuni pushes the door of the mill-house open. The room is small. The miller lies wheezing on the couch. The bed is too short for him; the man lies oddly bent. The weak light draws deep shadows on the miller’s deathly pale face. He turns his face towards the door and looks at the visitors with empty eyes.

  ‘Scurvy,’ a voice says from the corner.

  Marja sees a grey-haired woman. On her head she wears a large woollen sock, which is unravelling above her forehead. Her tangled hair tumbles out from underneath. Marja looks at the miller’s foot. Long. He is a tall man. Was – he is not any more.

  ‘Shut the door,’ the woman orders. ‘There’s nowhere else to go in these parts. You won’t necessarily catch what he’s got, if you don’t get too close, but the frost will surely kill you if you run off into the night.’

  The woman promises Juho alone something to eat. The room is dim; the open fire flickers with a strange light. The woman seems one moment to vanish in the dark and the next to reappear in the corner, when the embers direct their red light towards her.

  Bunches of dried hay hang from the ceiling, all over the place. The woman gets up with difficulty, breaks off a stalk from one bunch and crumbles it into wooden bowls, before pouring hot water from a pot on top. She pushes the bowls to Ruuni and Marja. Ruuni hesitates. The woman lets out a hollow laugh.

  ‘I knew this was coming when a white raven sat on the mill two autumns ago,’ she says, looking at the visitors piercingly.

  ‘She’s mad,’ Ruuni whispers to Marja.

  The woman bangs her tiny fist on the table, her black eyes flashing. Suddenly, she bursts out into hollow laughter again.

  ‘What of it, who wouldn’t be at a time like this? And soon the sickness will have raged here for over a year. Ageing men get pus in them and nearly die of it, can’t open their eyes for weeks. And lose the sight in one eye. Him over there, his whole body is one big scab, you’re bound to lose your wits. This is God’s punishment for the wickedness of men, that’s what the minister says.’

  The woman looks at the wheezing miller, then lifts her gaze up through the ceiling beams towards the dark clouds that have gathered over the cabin, and as far as the Heavenly Kingdom. A dark accusation blazes in her glare.

  ‘And what harm has that man done You? I will lance Your eyes, You Satan, since it’s the only way to make You see our trouble!’

  Marja is startled by the woman’s thundering, and is sure that Our Father on His throne feels the same, and is awkwardly adjusting His position to get more comfortable.

  ‘Ahh,’ the miller wails from his bed. He tries to raise his fist, but it flops back feebly on to the cover.

  The woman stares now at the wooden tabletop, scratching it with her black nails. Marja sees the woman observing her own fingers, as if she expected a ploughed field to open in their wake and large, golden-yellow potatoes to rise in the furrow. Instead, the woman gets a splinter under her nail. She calms down, prising it out.

  ‘All autumn, people have come just to have animal bones ground into flour. Not a single grain, just bones, gnawed white. Sometimes I think that soon, when his time’s come, I’ll grind his bones too to make fine flour. And my own; I’ll squeeze my body between the millstones by witchcraft. I’ll leave the door and all the air holes open so that the wind can take us away. So there’ll be no trace of us left in this world. As if we’d never existed. A man who’s worked all his life, and this is the end he endures.’

  Suddenly, the woman gets up and orders the beggars to go to sleep in the guest bed. She turns the miller on to his side and lies down next to him on the narrow couch. The embers in the fireplace go on glowing for an unnaturally long time.

  Juho cannot keep awake any longer. Marja and Ruuni again take turns to carry the boy. The wind hits them in the face, cold and slippery; a proper frost would be better. The snake has gained the upper hand and slithers around the wanderers, threatening to ambush them from behind the trees but failing to deliver the decisive blow. After a walk that seems endless, Marja sees a house on top of a hill, and the snake retreats into a field to wait for the journey to resume.

  A skinny dog yaps in the yard, before baring its teeth. Ruuni grimaces in reply.

  ‘Go back to where you came from!’

  A large man with a droopy moustache has flung the door of the house open. He is in his shirtsleeves. From his raised fist, a long finger extends, pointing at the field. The same field in which Marja’s snake has just settled. It has time to wait, Marja does not.

  ‘The child is tired. Have mercy, please,’ Marja begs.

  A thin woman appears from the cowshed. She walks to Marja, who is holding Juho, and takes the boy’s chin to turn his head and look at his eyes.

  ‘Are any of you sick?’

  ‘No, but the child is exhausted, hungry, cold…’

  ‘You can’t send him away, into the night,’ the woman says to her husband, who is standing on the steps.

  ‘The other one’s a grown man, I won’t take him in. He’s a thief, you can tell.’

  ‘You can stay the night with the child. In the morning, you’ll go on to the village. I don’t care whether you’re up to it or not. That one can be off now. If he hurries, he’ll make it before it’s pitch black,’ the woman says haughtily.

  ‘It’ll be dark in no time,’ Ruuni complains.

  ‘Then you’ll just walk blind, not my affair. The village is not that far.’

  ‘Are there any other houses round here we could try?’ Marja asks.

  ‘No. If there were I’d already have told you to go. You’re not that far from the village, the boy can try to get there. If he steals, it’s his own responsibility. You probably won’t be able to make it.’

  ‘I’ll go. I’ll wait for you in the village,’ Ruuni says.

  Marja turns to give the boy a farewell hug, but he is already on his way down the slope.

  Marja follows the man
and woman inside, Juho in her arms. Out of the window she sees Ruuni, who has stopped at the bottom of the slope. His shoulders are hunched. Gusts of wind make him sway like a small birch. The skinny dog followed him for a little while and now yaps halfway down the slope, where the sparse pine wood begins.

  ‘Mother?’

  The voice comes from a dark corner. Once Marja’s eyes have adjusted to the dimness of the room, she makes out a boy sitting on a bench by the stove. He is Ruuni’s age.

  ‘I’m here,’ the woman answers.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Strangers. You don’t know them.’

  The boy looks at the space next to Marja as if someone were standing there. Blind, Marja realizes.

  ‘Time for bed,’ the man says to the boy.

  The boy stands up and climbs on to the warm brick ledge above the oven. When the man lights a spill, Marja sees the boy’s face. Again he looks to the side of Marja, and she cannot help making sure no one is sitting next to her.

  The farmer settles at the head of the table, glowers at Marja and blows into his moustache. There is something listless about the man, as if wind were breathing in and out of him, shifting lichen on spruce branches. The woman lights a fire in the stove and sets a pot on it. Soon, steam rises from the pot.

  When the woman places bowls before Juho and Marja, the man stands up and disappears into the bedroom. The bowls contain grey gruel. The woman settles wordlessly at the head of the table, where the man was just sitting. She has half a loaf on her lap and she breaks off chunks and hands them to Marja.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Marja again sees the blind boy’s face on the brick ledge.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ the woman barks. The face vanishes into the dark.

  ‘Was he always… blind?’

  ‘From birth. But he’s not alone with his trouble in this village,’ the woman replies.

  The grim triumph in the woman’s voice gives Marja goose pimples.

  The gruel in the bowl looks like the slushy snow on the path to the cowshed in spring. But now even the thought of spring feels gloomy. Marja does not see the summer that follows it but a long winter that goes on for ever. She raises the spoon to her lips and stares into the darkness of the brick ledge; blind eyes meet hers.

  Through her sleep, Marja hears floorboards creaking as footsteps approach in the dark, carrying with them a heavy panting. The click of a tinderbox, a spill ignites with a crackle, and in the dim light, a menacing silhouette rises on the wall. An unnaturally tall figure flickers spectrally, pulling off a shirt. The man bends naked over Marja and rips her shirt and skirt open before she has time to put up a fight. A scream sticks in her throat, terror freezes her voice, it is like a mass of water engulfing someone unable to swim, black and cold.

  ‘You don’t think you get to eat our last crumbs of bread for free, you whore?’

  The man shoves his fingers between Marja’s legs, pulls them out, spits on them, forces them back inside. Panting, he gets to work on Marja, who is pressed underwater by the cold hand of terror, which will not let go. No air. Then the man pushes himself into her.

  ‘Fucking dry mare,’ he grunts.

  The moment feels endless, but it does end, when the man lets out a spluttering noise. Then he gives a cry and seems to float off Marja.

  His wife has pulled him up by the hair. He puts on his shirt and disappears back into the bedroom, swearing at the boy whose face looms above the ledge.

  Finally, Marja’s voice is released from her throat. She gulps it back down when she sees the woman’s hand, raised ready to strike, though still trembling in the air.

  ‘Whore, whore, whore,’ the woman hisses through her teeth.

  She grabs Marja by the hair and swings her head around. Juho clings to his mother’s neck.

  ‘You can go into the cowshed for the night, along with all the other cows, though there’s no bull for you there,’ the woman says, finally releasing her grip.

  Marja gathers together her torn clothes, dresses Juho hastily, goes to the door and opens it. It is dark outside and cold. The woman stands in the main room, in the glow of the spill, and tears now at her own hair. The head of the blind boy sticks out from the ledge, seeking the light, moving to and fro like a pendulum.

  The woman lets go of her hair and her anguished expression instantly becomes a haughty one. She takes a lantern off a hook by the door, lights it and hands it to Marja.

  ‘Go. And in the morning you’ll be gone, whore.’

  Darkness rises from the snow, along with the whirling flakes. The wind rustles in the trees; beyond, the muteness of the night is endless. The cowshed door resists Marja’s attempts at pulling, then the wind blasts it wide open and at the same time snow pours in, taking Marja with it. She hears the meek lowing of cows.

  There are embers in the cowshed stove, radiating the same faint light as in the mill. Marja hangs the lantern on a hook and adds some twigs to the embers. They ignite with a small crackle, like ice on a puddle breaking underfoot. She finds a horse blanket next to the stove and wraps it round Juho.

  There are three thin cows in the shed. Marja spots a pair of shears that have been pushed into the gap between the wall and the door frame. She takes them out, chooses the healthiest-looking of the animals and cuts a small wound in its neck. The cow lets out a subdued cry. Marja licks the wound and starts sucking blood. The cow lows again and butts Marja so she falls over. She lies on the floor and tries to lick tears from her cheeks, but there are no tears.

  ‘Mother, make me warm,’ Juho pleads.

  Marja drags herself to the boy, curls up inside the blanket next to him and falls asleep. She has a dream in which she does not exist. A dream that contains no dream, only boundless, colourless darkness.

  Finally, Marja is reborn in the middle of the darkness. At first, she is just a reflection on the surface of the water, then her senses fill the image mercilessly. The darkness around Marja slowly changes into a space she recognizes as a cowshed. Pallid light streams in through the doorway, then condenses into a woman, who bends to pick up a pair of bloodied shears, which hurtle towards Marja.

  ‘Were you sent by the Devil?’

  The woman’s eyes glint with cold anger. Marja struggles to get free of the blanket and stumbles out of the cowshed, pulling Juho after her. The woman follows, holding a pail. Out in the yard, the farmer is calling the dog, which is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘The whore’s let blood from the cow!’

  The man jumps on Marja, fells her so she lies beneath him and rubs snow in her face. ‘I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!’

  The man presses his cold palm against her face. Marja hears Juho’s cry. Between the man’s fingers, she sees the woman raising her pail with the aim of striking. A thud sounds, and the hand lets go of Marja’s face. The man collapses.

  Marja grabs Juho by the shoulder and starts stumbling down the slope. Not until she reaches the bottom does she dare look back, to see the woman hitting the crouching man with the pail.

  Juho drags his mother up out of the snowdrift. Panting, she begins trudging on. The gale tears snow off the field and tosses it around. It is unable to decide from which angle to attack the travellers.

  Marja sees a bridge ahead: a road to another world, one that is equally white. The bridge itself is just a dark dot in the landscape.

  Suddenly, Marja spots the snow-covered cadaver of a dog by the road. The veil of snow is thin – the dog has not lain there for long. Its flank has been torn open and oddly grey innards show through the opening. Teeth did the tearing. Marja does not know whether the cold shivers she feels are down to the grotesque sight or the gale. The dog is the one that barked at them yesterday as they arrived at the house.

  Marja steps on to the bridge. She lifts Juho up and presses the child to her breast as hard as her feebleness will allow. The bridge is a greedy tongue, ready to transport the wanderer into winter’s gullet, to satisfy its endless, insatiable hunger.

 
The wind decides now on a direction and pushes Marja over the bridge. Swirls of snow lap round her feet; the current no longer flows under the bridge but along it, towards the snow plain on the other side, where the road vanishes.

  Far away, she sees the trees edging the open space; they change into the silhouettes of spires and palaces in the Tsar’s city. They flee, fluttering, into nothingness, and towards this nothingness Marja crawls, Juho in her arms. The Tsar himself descends to the crown of the biggest spruce, but dressed up as death, as a black raven.

  Once over the bridge, Marja sees the body. It is curled up in the foetal position, but the face is turned towards the sky, mouth open in an eternal grimace. As if the dying man had at the last moment realized that the womb where he had settled to await rebirth was the bleak womb of this barren winter.

  The ears, too big for the gaunt head, make the body look like a frozen bat. The long fingers still clutch the knees desperately. Marja bends closer to Ruuni’s face. It takes her a while to grasp that it really is Ruuni. He has no eyes any more; the Tsar has inherited them, and he sits now at the top of the big spruce showing them his realm. Here you are, here is your St Petersburg, a snowy field. I cannot give you more.

  Staring into the boy’s open mouth, Marja notices that hair and flesh from the dog have got stuck between his teeth.

  She presses her lips tenderly against Ruuni’s. She feels the chill of death as she breathes it in, kissing the dead boy.

  A gust of wind throws a thin shroud of snow over the boy. Something forces Marja up and onwards, but her strength ebbs away after a few steps. She freezes on the spot. A bottomless longing rises up from the depths of her empty stomach. Marja tries to picture the colour of life on Ruuni’s face, but sees only bluish-white ears shredded by the frost.

  Longing thickens into sorrow. The sorrow fills her body, changes her into a barrel packed with heavy water that presses against the sides, so they no longer hold. Mataleena and Juhani slumber in the depths of her sorrow-water. Marja takes a few uncertain steps forward, then the hoops keeping the barrel together give way.