“Although it makes you wonder who they think we are,” says Adele Bergman. “It’s nice to get good soap, but I don’t understand why they send those funny little toys that toddlers stick up their noses and the older kids trample to pieces. And those terribly tight-fitting little skirts and blouses—who could possibly wear such things at work? Of course the girls grab them and make themselves look a perfect fright and think they’re so modern, but is that what they call aid? We have our own flour and grain and sugar, and anyway it’s better for the national economy to buy those things in a store!”
The pastor has an almost irresistible desire to say “Amen” when Adele Bergman has finished. Everything she says is true and right. She is an uncommonly competent woman who ought to be in the government and help build up what the war has pulled down. But hard-boiled as she is when it comes to the economy, she also has a tender heart and a thirst for what she calls a genuine faith. It is for her sake he says grace before Mona serves the tea, and he knows that she is passionately interested in the parochial issues they will unfailingly get into before the evening is over. Arthur Manström is always uncharacteristically quiet during those conversations, and the pastor suspects he is a free-thinker but likes coming to the parsonage for the sake of the intellectual stimulation. Lydia and Adele on the other hand are members of the vestry, as is the organist, and the verger has a fund of practical experience and incontestable knowledge of the customs of the parish. And he if anyone knows how terribly capricious, not to say malicious, the church’s boiler can be. How many nights he has come plodding through the snow to keep it going. The congregation comes tramping in to warmth and light the next morning as if it were the simplest thing in the world, not suspecting that it has all been touch and go.
Yes, truly, life out here is full of drama, and now Arthur Manström sees a golden opportunity and grabs it. Hypnotized, everyone but Lydia listens to his stories from the First World War when he had a radio hidden in the attic of the east village school and maintained contact with the Swedish Free Corps, on its way across the ice to Åland. The Russians showed up again and again, and Lydia thought more than once that they’d been found out, especially the last time when they went up into the attic with some kind of device that could pinpoint the source of radio waves. But the wise and well-behaved little radio held its breath while Lydia played “Quake Not in Terror, Little Band” on the harmonium in the schoolroom below and led her pupils in loud and measured song. The Russians came back down the stairs, apologized for the disturbance, the officer saluted, and they marched away. Chaos up in the attic, but the receiver was untouched behind a panel in the wall.
Others chime in with additional examples of the way political events in the wider world have had a direct effect on the Örlands—the time the Germans blew up the lighthouse in their fishing grounds during World War I, the Russian submarines that sailed with perfect confidence past the Örlands in the final phases of this last war, when neither the Finns nor the Germans were a threat. What a close thing it had been. How securely the Russians sat in the saddle. How certain it seemed that they would take all of Finland and swallow it up in one bite. Exciting. Terrible. The Coast Guard stood there and looked at them through their binoculars, and sometimes there was a flash of reflected sunlight when the submarine captain had them in his sights.
And when all was lost in the Baltic States, boats started coming from Estonia. They were overloaded, unseaworthy, badly off course. Many of them thought they were already in Sweden. They had no food or fresh water, none of them, just a handful of worthless money to pay their way. Poor souls. Drowned bodies pulled from the sea—everyone remembers the handsome officer with his little black book filled with the addresses of Estonian girls. On the other hand, no one involved says a word about the handguns left behind as thanks for provisions and fuel and sea charts. “Because of course we helped them. The Russian Control Commission was already sitting in Helsingfors, we were required to report refugees to the authorities. But the police was our own Julius, and he didn’t get in our way. ‘It could be our turn next,’ he said.”
“Civil courage,” says father Leonard with sincere admiration. “Julius, you say? From the east villages? I think I’ve seen him.”
Not hard to figure out where Leonard means to take his sledge some day soon. But the verger has weighty things to say about the Estonians. “Two of them are buried here,” he says, “as ‘Unknown Estonian Refugees’. They had no papers on them. We showed them to some others that came ashore, but they turned their heads away and said they didn’t know them. ‘It might have been me,’ said one of them who spoke Swedish. Since the Estonian government had been dissolved and there was no one to take responsibility, we buried them at parish expense. We made a wooden cross, too. Mona, you could plant something on their grave in the spring if you’re willing.”
Of course she is willing, and she contributes to the discussion by saying what a close call it was for everyone in Finland. If the Finns hadn’t had their modern German antiaircraft guns, which forced the Russians to drop their bomb loads in the sea and in the woods, it could have been really bad for Helsingfors. She’d stood out on the granite outside her parents’ house and watched—smoke and flames and searchlights and the drama when one of the bombers got caught in a cone of light and was hit and somersaulted out of the firmament. How the cheers echoed on the Helléns’ hillside!
She sounds so bloodthirsty that Petter wants to tone things down a little. “Yes, weather like today’s was the worst of all. Perfect flying weather, good visibility, you could count on spending the night in the shelter. In those days we could only relax when it was cloudy and raining hard. What a joy that we can now be happy about the lovely weather without a qualm. It’s unbelievable. Every day since the war ended I’ve thanked God for peace. Every day it seems to me a miracle that we live in peace and freedom and that we’re not dead or banished to Siberia. I hope the day will come when we can take it all for granted.
The organist thinks of his sons and the Bible school youngsters and joins in. “Yes, indeed. The young take it for granted already. They don’t look at time the way we do. For them, the war is already the distant past.”
“And may it always be so,” the pastor says. He looks out the window at the moon reflected in the ice, the stars like glittering inlays. “More tea?” Mona says, but Adele takes a different tack for all of them and says that tomorrow is another day and now they need to go home. But first the verger wants them to sing “Shall We Gather at the River”, which the people of the Örlands are accustomed to singing when they part and head home across dark waters.
Sanna wakes up as they sing “That flows by the throne of God” so heartily and warmly that it sounds as if the tiles, stoves and the kitchen range were singing along. “Baa, baa,” Sanna sings too, in her warm cocoon. Now she hears them rise from their chairs, their joints creaking after sitting for so long. Chair legs scrape on the floor and the door to the hallway is opened—Oh, so cold! Mama says, “I’ll bring your things into the kitchen to warm them up a bit. Come on in here to put your coats on!” The hanging lamp in the kitchen is lit, and one after another, the guests put their storm lanterns on the stove and light them. They stand there in their great boots, the women winding long shawls around their heads, all of them pulling on wool or fur coats, unfolding lap rugs. The pastor and his wife can’t stand to see them go, so they too wrap themselves up warmly and accompany their guests down to the shore.
The kicksleds wait eagerly, drawn up on land, and now they are shoved happily out onto the ice, the women take their seats and the men push off, slowly at first, like the first revolution of a flywheel, but then off and away. They call to the pastor and his wife, whose strong voices fade backwards and grow thinner as the kicksleds pick up speed. Maybe they’re not competing, not directly, not grown men, but they certainly give that impression as they strike out across Church Bay in a tight pack held together by their calls. The verger and Signe holler good night and swi
ng round the island in towards their house while the Manströms, the Bergmans, and the organist and his wife head full speed out onto the long bays that separate the parish into two equally large, competing parts. They stay together for a long way until the Manströms head off towards the east villages and the others continue on together towards the deep inner waterways of the west. They are almost home before they part company, the organist and his wife heading a bit farther south at a good clip, the Bergmans swinging off to the west where the hills rise black before falling into the sea, which lies frozen far beyond the territorial limits.
“We can go all the way to Estonia if we like,” the organist shouts recklessly, but he slows down anyway in the narrower passages between the islands and into their own shallow bay. He crosses it brilliantly and, just as he does in his boat, he knows exactly when to slow down enough to land smoothly at his dock.
Kicksleds are faster than boats. When the ice has set, you grasp clearly what the resistance of the water means for a body moving through it. Arthur Manström is silent as he kicks, otherwise he could undoubtedly deliver a lecture on the laws of physics. Beneath the moon and the stars, gliding over the moon and the stars, Lydia is absorbed, utterly and completely happy. No present obligations, no future to worry about, everything is now. As a child, she’d scream with joy when she went sledging. It is not much different from what Arthur Manström thinks he hears beneath his own breathing, in his thoughts. Deeply embedded in his fur hat and wolfskin collar, he is already formulating a description of the majesty of ice as it covers the waterways, sweeping away the wakes of skiffs, dinghies and fishing boats, sealing the fishermen’s pastures and the yachtsmen’s gentle billows.
The pastor and his wife stand shivering on the shore for a while after their guests have sledged away, listening to their shouts far out on the ice. Then these too die away, and they can hear the indescribable silence that comes when the ice has set. Otherwise you hear the sea incessantly out here. It is never so calm that the swells don’t rustle and sigh, and the calm itself is carried by a voice that underlies the lazy days of blazing sunshine. Then the wind freshens and the surge grows stronger. When the wind begins to whistle it is time to take care, but even deep among the islands and indoors, the roar presses in and remains, like a delayed echo after the storm has passed.
Now it could not be more silent, or closer to the moon. The pastor and his wife shiver and put their arms around each other. Their steps squeak in the snow that lies here and there on the ground. The lamp burns in the parsonage window. The sheep in their pen, the cows in their stalls, Sanna in her bed. Peace at last on earth.
Chapter Thirteen
THE HEALTH CARE CENTRE is a gift to the Örlands, but most of all to Irina Gyllen. It is like a lesson in how long-range planning can produce results. How quick the Örlanders are to cite the old maxim, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and how easily it comes to Irina Gyllen’s lips when she’s talking to the district doctor. As the plans begin to take more concrete form, so Irina’s hopes grow that the series of quiet inquiries she has made will help her get in touch with her son and eventually bring him to Finland. You need patience while the stones are carried to Rome and the inquiries go unanswered. But the fact that they’ve been made means that a growing number of people are aware of the case, and among them there must necessarily be a few who know the boy’s fate. They do not yet act, but a foundation is being laid, and their knowledge shortens the path to action. Even in the Soviet Union, material conditions have improved since the war, so the boy’s physical situation is less a source of concern that it was earlier.
Especially during the meetings, surrounded by shrewd, self-confident Örlanders, she is able to take courage. She can also let herself take pleasure and amusement in the touching form of democracy they practise. The constant voting and the straightforward distrust of the opposing side is like a lesson in democracy. Oh, if the wretched Politburo could be dragged in, bound hand and foot, and learn how it’s supposed to work! The result is not guaranteed to be good, but the process is honourable, and the project creeps forwards. At times it takes great leaps: when the provincial authorities approve the site and the blueprints, when the first order for materials is called in by the magnificent Adele Bergman, when the first boatload of cement and lumber arrives.
When it comes to her own private project, she can’t help being gripped by anticipation even as she’s seized by panic and impatience. This bitterly cold winter, she sometimes wraps her fur coat around her shoulders and stands on the steps and listens. As long as there is open water, there is the comfort of knowing you can always get away by boat. Now, in this absolute silence, it feels more as if an unseen enemy could attack. Anyone at all could approach silently and invisibly across the ice. Idiocy! Fear of shadows! For shame! Here there is no need to flee, no danger threatens, all is well. Calm. Patience. A cup of tea, a sleeping pill, to bed. She locks her door from the inside, telling herself that the Ministry of Health requires that all drugs be kept under lock and key. Not untrue.
Uninvited, the cold comes straight into the Manströms’ farmhouse, its walls full of wormholes. But Lydia feels younger when she can travel on the ice. Freer, more agile. She takes the kicksled to school, arrives in the morning from the sea and disappears in the afternoon out towards the sound. Like a sea sprite, like who she is. Arthur Manström’s head is full of stories about mermaids and sea sprites, but he doesn’t know he himself is married to one. The sea sprite adapts and lives among people as one of them, but when her boundaries are overstepped, she makes for the sea. That knowledge gives her the peace of mind she needs to stay. Now she steers the sledge into the Manströms’ home bay and goes ashore and in. No one at home except Tilda, who has the coffee ready. Despite being told repeatedly, she always makes it too early and lets it stand and simmer on the stove, God only knows how long. It is hot, at least, and she peels off her plush outer coat, leaving everything else on and pulling on fingerless gloves before sitting down to drink it. A sugar cube between her teeth, coffee in the saucer, the saucer raised in a lovely hand, sipping elegantly. Butters a piece of bread, discusses the temperature outside and in. Seventeen degrees by the stove, six by the window, thirteen in the parlour, minus twelve outdoors. Cold, but refreshing. “The ice is wonderful,” she says to Tilda. Tilda tells her of the traffic she’s seen from the kitchen window. Horses have been out hauling hay from the island hay barns and boys have been out doing what boys do—ducking their work and skating off and ice fishing. But soon the ice will be so thick they’ll get tired of boring holes.
When it’s this cold and brisk, it’s easier to get up and go into the bedroom with her bag of schoolbooks, change quickly from blouse and jacket and school skirt to everyday clothes. Wool all over and finally a big wool shawl, a wool scarf on her head and fishing mittens on her hands. Ought to get started on supper, but sits down instead and starts a “Letter from the Skerries”, a regular feature in the Åbo Reporter:
“How are things out there?” people ask, sympathetically. “Fine, thank you,” we answer. We’re not being brave, it’s the gospel truth. Now that the ice has set, our boundaries have increased a hundredfold, and we’ve got elbow room and polished floors as far as the eye can see. If you care to venture out here, you will see a jolly dance—old and young finding the shortest distance between two errands, giving us traffic like that in New York City but on skates, sleighs, and sledges. A pile of hay glides by over here, a load of sand over there, farther out in the bay comes an Örland grandfather in a go-a-courtin’ sleigh loaded down with goods from the store and Brunte between the traces, as sure of foot as when he was a colt. Boys skate by so fast they are mere streaks, and the smaller children make glassy sliding tracks closer to shore.
“Cold?” you ask. Yes indeed, bitterly cold, but no colder here than in the city where you live. But lonely? Absolutely not!
But she has to stop. There are too many other things to do. Even those are a pleasure, for now that the fire in
the stove must be kept going pretty much all the time, she can make baked dishes in the oven that always come out right and that everyone likes. Nestled down into their hay bales, the hens are puffed up like rabbit-fur muffs in the cold, but they are still laying. There is whole milk warming in a spouted bowl. She breaks a couple of eggs into the milk, whisks it a few times, and pours it over sliced potatoes, onion, and salt herring in a baking dish. A few pats of butter on top and into the oven, several sticks of wood onto the fire, and so, an hour later, a splendid, steaming, golden-yellow dinner. Fresh baked bread and home-churned butter to go with it. She will write about that in her next letter when she has time.
By the time Lydia has put her herring dish in the oven, Adele Bergman has closed the store and gone home to the attic apartment. Elis is at home—where else would he be?—and has the coffee ready and warm. She has brought a length of coffee cake that she purchased at the store, which they eat with their coffee. And three hundred grammes of forcemeat that she will fry for supper.
“Lots of people at the store today,” says Elis, “now it’s so easy for them to get here. It’s funny to see them coming on sledges when you’re used to seeing them in boats.”
“Yes,” she says. “There’s almost a party atmosphere. And nearly everyone buys a little something extra. The organist’s boys were here and bought tobacco. They waited until Birgit was alone at the counter, but I saw them from the office. Except this time I didn’t go rushing out and give them a lecture. I let them buy it, but I wonder if I should tell the organist. Sometimes I think we ought to take a vow of secrecy at the store. There’s no other place to shop, someplace where no one knows you, and where are those boys going to get tobacco if they can’t buy it here?”
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