The Black Tongue

by Marko Hautala

  The mumbling stopped. Now a steady pecking sound pierced the wind. He took one more step and saw the device.

  A movie projector.

  The large reels were spinning in overdrive. The projector broadcast a bridge of light through the dust onto the wall across the room. Samuel walked even closer.

  A torn piece of fabric hung from the wall. It may have been a sheet. He stood in the glow of a black-and-white image, glancing around the room. He’d forgotten about his numb legs.

  The projected image showed a large bed and a woman on it, sitting but leaning back on her elbows. A young man dressed in old-fashioned clothes was sitting next to her. He couldn’t see their faces because the two figures had been shot from afar. Both of them looked straight into the camera.

  A quick cut to another scene.

  A woman, most likely the same one as previously, stood alone on the seashore, slightly hunched. Her entire body jerked as if she were shouting at the camera. Her long nightgown had slipped off her shoulder, and its hem flapped in the wind, mimicking her wild black hair. The nightgown was filthy, covered in black splatters. Samuel still couldn’t see her face because the camera was again too far away, as if the person behind it was too scared of the woman’s tantrum. Samuel gaped at this mute display of emotion that lasted for what felt like an eternity. Its strangeness was captivating, voiding all rational thoughts—all those thoughts about running away. Thoughts about any reasons he’d had for coming here.

  Then the woman began to approach the camera. The camera shook once. Then again.

  Her face filled the entire screen.

  Samuel stumbled away until he hit a wall.

  The wrinkles and imperfections in the sheet distorted her face, but despite them, he saw enough to feel a chilling lump in his throat. The woman’s left pupil had shrunk. Her jaw was covered in black splotches. The toothless mouth formed words in exaggerated, jerky movements. Its muted scream raged from beyond the forgotten decades and summoned the wind to shake the villa’s foundations, as if to tear off the entire roof.

  The image cut to another, but the muted scream remained.

  First the shapes in the dark looked like folds in the sheet. Then the folds began to move.

  The wind kept on howling.

  An image like large earthworms writhing against each other unfolded. The camera light reflected off their slimy skins. Samuel caught glimpses of a white circle with a black dot in the middle among the slippery earthworms. It was revolting. Like a rotten black egg yolk in a frying pan. It disappeared, then reappeared. Even the thought of it watching him, hiding a primitive form of intelligence behind it, nauseated him. His throat rattled as he bent over, not quite sure whether he was about to throw up or simply kneel down. He grabbed ahold of the projector, twisted each button and lever, then tore the reels off. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the lit image on the wall first shake, then go dark.

  Samuel panted in the dark room, doing his best not to spit because it had been drilled into him at an early age: spitting on the floor was rude and not allowed under any circumstances. He lit the cell-phone screen again. The floor near the projector was covered in shreds of film. Shoddily cut pieces, some taped together. Samuel lifted the phone higher to shine the light into every corner, his feet stomping around rebelliously to scare any attackers. He saw nobody. Only the memory of the woman’s face on the torn sheet remained. The memory of slimy shapes sliding against each other. He had heard that the way earthworms and snakes moved evoked primitive feelings of disgust in humans. Samuel had seen only an adder, and only twice, but he knew this claim to be true. The image of whatever he’d seen on the screen made him feel worse.

  He gagged again. Wiped tears away from his eyes. Got himself under control. Muttered a curse.

  That made him feel better—the ability to say something, anything. Samuel huffed and leaned forward, his palms on his thighs. Now that the projector was quiet, he could hear the mumbling again. The sound was coming from behind a door. He stepped closer. A dim light was shining under it. It looked different than the other lights. Softer, more even. No flickering from an old projector.

  Samuel touched the door with his fingertips. The hinges creaked softly as the weight of the old wood shifted to reveal another room. He stood in the doorway.

  There was a TV in the room. An old CRT. A VCR player underneath it.

  The screen showed a woman, in the same location as in the film he’d watched on the sheet. She was wearing the same kind of dirty nightgown, in the same pose, but this time her body didn’t jerk.

  She spoke calmly. In color. Samuel could hear the voice. The camera mic picked up the wind, but he could still hear words here and there.

  “To swim on God’s surface for a gentle . . .”

  He recognized that voice.

  “. . . chosen moment . . .”

  He had already recognized the figure, the pose, the way her arms hung over her hips.

  “. . . on the surface of the cold eyes of gods . . .”

  He’d recognized the figure as soon as he’d stepped into the doorway.

  “. . . who do not stay awake . . .”

  Samuel recognized everything. The figure, the voice, the poem. A memory that earlier had been a cramp in his muscles now flooded over him like white water. This had all been set up, just for him. A trap.

  He yanked himself out of the hypnotic glow of the screen and rushed back into the dark room. His wet shoe slipped on the floorboards, sending him flying. His cell phone bounced, then slid on the floor.

  Samuel lay on the hardwood floor. He looked up.

  All he saw in the darkness were the straight edges of the dark windows and the madly waving bushes behind them.

  A human-shaped figure was standing in the middle of the room.

  Samuel lay helplessly on the floor, staring at the figure. The chill in his legs had migrated into the rest of his body, making his limbs tremble uncontrollably. He’d never felt this way before.

  He uttered the woman’s name, although he didn’t want to. It was the whisper of a man nearing hypothermia. A man who trembled on the surface of a god’s cold eyes.

  The figure said nothing.

  She just stared at him with her one glowing eye. A glowing red dot. A spark that had leapt out of a fire that had been put out.

  “The flints brought you back here,” the spark said. “Whence you once came.”

  Decades had scratched her voice hoarse.

  But Samuel remembered.

  HOW THUNDER GOT ITS NAME

  Julia went inside to charge her video camera, the woods nearby darkening as if a velvet shroud had been pulled over the sun. Samuel waited at a safe distance from the house. Just as he saw her at the end of the street, the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.

  “Where should we take shelter?” he asked.

  “Nowhere,” she said. “Let’s get wet.”

  Thunder began to rumble in the distance. Samuel felt it in the pit of his belly.

  “Wow,” Julia said.

  They looked over to the sea. A wall of clouds had risen on the horizon, now visible between the treetops. The wall was black in the middle. They couldn’t stay outside, but they couldn’t go home, either. And the Suvikylä library was too far away.

  “Let’s go to Helge’s,” Samuel suggested.

  “You think he won’t mind? Last time he seemed a bit down.”

  “Let’s cheer him up, then.”

  The rain began to fall heavier as they ran into the woods. They heard another rumble, and the woods were illuminated in a bright flash for a second. Samuel grabbed Julia by the hand and pulled her down the shortcut. It meandered through tall ferns and fallen tree trunks, but they had no other option. He pulled her behind him, although his instincts told him to nestle in safety under the first fallen tree trunk he spotted. He realized he’d ne
ver experienced a proper thunderstorm before. The rumbling had always been in the distance, followed by a delightful flash of lights that he and Aki both observed from their balcony, excited to count the lightning bolts they saw.

  Rain was coming down so hard now that its roar drowned the sounds of their shoes. By the time they reached Helge’s cabin, they were soaking wet and out of breath, their ears pounding from exhaustion.

  To Samuel’s surprise Helge stood outside the cabin in the pouring rain, wobbling like a sleepwalker.

  “What are you doing out here?” he yelled over the roar.

  Helge yanked his head toward Samuel when he repeated the question.

  “Hello, Samuel,” he said. “Lousy weather, isn’t it?”

  “Can we get out of the rain?” Julia shouted.

  “Of course.”

  Helge slurred his words. His face was limp. Samuel saw he was barely holding on to a bottle of vodka.

  Samuel led the way up to the porch and wiped water off his face. Julia’s breath was steaming. Helge opened the door and gestured to them to walk in.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, the rain changed its tone. The drops rustling dully against the corrugated roof played a monotonous tune. The thunder rattled the windows and the glassware inside the house.

  “You’re fucking drunk,” Samuel told Helge angrily, although he didn’t mean to.

  “Your observation is correct.”

  Arvid crawled from under the table to greet Julia first. His gait was calmer than usual, but he still managed to jump against her and lick her face. She almost fell over.

  “The dog’s inside and you’re out there in the rain,” Samuel said.

  Helge nodded.

  “But why?”

  He shook his head slowly. “What’s my life worth, huh?” he asked. “I should just die. A worthless . . . damned . . . How are you two? Is everything all right?”

  “Don’t say that,” Julia said, scratching the dog. The dog panted and rolled his eyes in panic. “Arvid needs you.”

  Helge muttered something.

  “The old man’s piss drunk and just wants sympath—”

  Thunder interrupted Samuel. The floor shook and the light in the room went off. This time the glassware rattled longer. When the lights came back on, Arvid had disappeared. His eyes gleamed under Helge’s wooden bench.

  “What’s this?” Julia stared at her fingers.

  She got up slowly and extended her palm to Samuel. It was covered in blood. First Julia looked at Helge, who swayed in front of the window and stared at the floorboards as if they needed his immediate attention. Then she turned toward Arvid, who was whimpering under the bench.

  “What happened here?” she asked.

  Now Samuel saw Arvid’s paw prints. Red pools all over the light-blue floorboards.

  “That damned . . . Reino Raaska, he . . . never yields . . .”

  Thunder drowned Helge’s soliloquy. As the lights flashed, Samuel watched Julia crawl toward the bench.

  “It’s because you went to the shore and talked back to him,” Helge said. “He never yields, he’s never given in . . .”

  “Who did this?” Julia demanded.

  Samuel wanted to tell her not to touch an injured dog. His dad had warned him about that. The animal does its best to hide its wounds and will bite if you meddle with it. He saw Julia reach under the bench to stroke Arvid’s fur in calming motions.

  “Reino Raaska. I told you not to go to the shore.”

  Helge hadn’t lifted his eyes off the floor. His hands were balled into fists.

  “You mean the fisherman?” Julia asked.

  Her voice sounded distant. It was unsettling.

  “His mother served them until she died, and I’ve always listened to them, too, but they’ve never yielded and they’ve never thanked me . . .”

  Julia got on her knees and put her hands on her thighs, leaving bloody stains on her jeans. She turned to Helge.

  “Are you talking about that fucking sadist?”

  Helge shook his head miserably. “I understand, he has his reasons, but . . . why hurt Arvid? He’s never hurt any—”

  This time there was no rumble. The sound escalated quickly, but on another frequency than the thunder. It crackled and hummed at the same time. The noise filled the room and grew louder, until Samuel’s ears were ringing. A strange, cold light stretched their shadows against the wall.

  Samuel stumbled back until he hit a wall.

  Before he noticed the ball lightning that had appeared over Helge’s desk, looking exactly like his teacher had described in class, he was already in full fight-or-flight mode. His skin tingled and tensed like in cold water. Papers flew in the air, twisting and turning across his vision. Samuel shouted, but he had no idea he was shouting. He lowered himself onto the floor and began to crawl along the wall to the other side of the room.

  Then a loud bang, and the ball lightning was gone. Papers floated down, touching the floorboards softly. He was pressed against Julia, who sat on the floor and hugged Arvid, who was struggling in her arms. Helge had slumped right behind Samuel, so close that he could smell the alcohol on his breath. He wished he had been converted at the Lutheran confirmation summer camp, because this seemed like a good time to pray.

  “What was that?” Julia asked.

  Samuel blinked, trying to dispel the afterimage.

  “We call it ball lightning,” he said in a sunken voice, as if he’d just woken up. “But my teacher says they’re not real.”

  The afterimage of a brightly lit sphere stuck. It just kept on changing color and moving in his field of vision.

  “I didn’t ask you if it was real,” Julia said. “I wanted to know what it was called.”

  They gasped for breath and sat still until the rain and thunder began to wane. The drops on the corrugated roof became louder twice more, but the time between the flash and the rumble grew longer. Samuel counted the seconds in between, although he didn’t quite remember what the point of it was. How many kilometers one second was equal to.

  He came out of his reverie to hear Julia sobbing.

  The sound was so surprising that it broke the ball lightning’s spell.

  Julia lowered Arvid gently onto the floor. He was panting fast. His fur was matted with blood. When she put her hand in front of Arvid, his pink tongue licked her fingers twice, then remained stuck between his teeth.

  Samuel hadn’t seen Julia cry before. He hadn’t even imagined it was possible. The swollen eye had been nowhere this bad. She was an angel who had arrived to save him from all this shit. She was supposed to be endlessly free and strong and confident. And here she was, tears streaming down her face. Samuel looked at Arvid. His belly was rising and sinking too fast. He didn’t need a vet to know it wasn’t normal.

  “He’s suffering,” Julia said, wiping snot from her nose.

  Helge stood up. He didn’t want to look at them. His voice was now clearer than before.

  “There was no reason for this sort of . . . unreasonable after everything . . . what had Arvid ever done to them . . .”

  Julia stroked the dog’s fur gently.

  “You have to help us . . . Arvid and I have never been to the vet . . . He’s not comfortable on that cold floor . . . he usually sleeps over there . . .”

  Helge pointed at another room.

  Arvid wheezed. His legs jerked every now and then, as if he were trying to run.

  “How are we supposed to help?” Julia asked.

  “We’ve never been to a vet . . .”

  Samuel understood that Helge expected them to take on a vet’s responsibilities. The thought was so bizarre he wasn’t sure if he’d understood correctly.

  “We don’t . . .”

  Samuel didn’t look at Julia, but he knew that she understood, too.r />
  Helge just stood there, watching them. “I can’t do it,” he said.

  “What happened to Arvid?” Samuel asked to avoid the subject.

  Helge opened his mouth, but then shook his head.

  “Anyway,” Samuel said. “We’re not going to—”

  The movement in the corner of his eye cut him off. Julia had swiftly leaned over Arvid, and before he knew it her hands were wrapped around the dog’s throat. She pressed down with straight arms, putting all her weight into it.

  Arvid started convulsing. He bared his teeth, slowly and helplessly. It had to be instinctual. Samuel couldn’t call it a struggle, although it seemed to last forever. If Arvid had been healthy he would’ve struggled free, bitten Julia’s hand, then calmed down and slinked back to lick her fingers. But now he was losing the battle, his world turned upside down. The same hands that had petted him and scratched him and handed him pieces of sausage were choking him to death. That would be the last thing he’d ever experience on this Earth. The pain and the notion that even the most reliable of humans turned evil in the end. He saw the people who scratched and fed him, and one of them was strangling him.

  Arvid’s eyes relaxed, as if he were getting tired. His legs were still jumping. His right paw was tapping on Julia’s arm as if to tell her, There, there.

  Julia didn’t let go, although the dog had stopped moving. Her body was stiff and immobile, except for her arms, which shook from exertion.

  Then she fell back onto her elbows and gasped for breath, as if she’d just surfaced from a sinking ship. She clambered up and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  “Why did he do it?”

  Her eyes had the same distant look like that time when Helge had told them about the Bondorff villa. The back of her hand had left a smear of blood on her face.

  When Helge said nothing she began to scream.

  The sight terrified Samuel. The thunder’s crackling rage seemed to have returned and squeezed itself inside Julia’s fragile frame.

  Maisa’s finger hovered over the doorbell. She listened. The stained plastic letters on the door read “Saarikivi.” She could hear music through the door. She pressed the doorbell, then hesitated, and waited for a couple of beats before removing her finger. That was how an insecure woman rang a doorbell. Not a great way to start, she thought.