The Last of the Vostyachs

by Diego Marani

  ‘How intriguing! So it’s an arrow I’ll have to thank if I manage to prove that Helsinki was a Sioux Encampment and that I am a distant descendant of Jarmo Sitting Bull! Russian woman, never will you have my scalp!’ said Aurtova jokingly. But the ironic note he’d tried to adopt stuck in his throat. Olga laughed, redder than ever, while her host refilled her glass.

  ‘You’re going too far, as usual, Jarmo!’ she chided him in tones of affectionate reproach. Then she went on:

  ‘It’s true that Vostyach consonants open up new paths, but they have yet to be explored. All we can conclude from the discovery of Vostyach is that it is related to Eskimo-Inuit. At the time when the Indo-Europeans reached Europe, the Finno-Ugrians were migrating eastwards, and their linguistic unity was breaking up into various languages, increasingly remote from one another. But, without Vostyach, it was impossible to reconstruct this fragmentation. This is now within our grasp. As to your Finno-Ugrians, only one part of the Uralic branch went eastwards. Speakers of Veps, Ingrian, Estonian, Karelian, Sami and finally Finnish arrived in successive waves. That would also explain why you settled so far to the north: simply because the rest of the continent was already occupied. It’s true that this will oblige you to reconsider your theories, Jarmo. But do you realise what fascinating new perspectives it will open up? Who knows, perhaps before too long we’ll find ourselves together again attending a congress on the Algonquin languages of North America!’

  Aurtova had been listening in silence, biting his lip in irritation. He uncorked the second bottle of champagne with an angry gesture.

  ‘No, Olga, that’s where you’re wrong. The Finno-Ugrians were a single people, fragmented only marginally by the invasions of Altaic peoples who drove them westwards. A good idea of the various stages of our migration is given by the distribution of our languages across the map, between the Urals and the Gulf of Bothnia, and by their phonological development. To the east we have the Dolichocephalics, with indistinct or barely voiced consonants and some remnants of the coup de glotte. To the west, among the Brachiocephalics, the coup de glotte disappears and the consonants are clearer. Despite this dispersion, even today our languages are very similar, and still have all the sophistication of an ancient civilisation. But during the Upper Proto-Uralic Period we were too far from the Mediterranean for anyone to notice us. There have been other ancient and sharp-witted peoples who, like ourselves, have thousands of years of history behind them. But they were at the centre of the known world: the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Hebrews. Like ours, the words of their languages are hard as slivers of diamond, they have been pared down to the bone by the pitiless scalpel of time. Then come the European peoples, currently at the height of their maturity. Their languages have a hard crust, but below it they are still soft. Then come the linguistic losers: stranded beyond the reach of history’s flow, they are like linguistic ox-bow lakes. Some have already dried up, others will soon meet the same fate. They are peoples with wizened faces; they look like old sages who have seen it all, but inside they are still children, feral children whom no one has ever disciplined, who have grown up running wild, with no need to develop a sophisticated language. The sounds of their speech are too akin to the cries of animals. Your Vostyach is one of these. He does not utter words, but howls. Living alone among the beasts, his phonation apparatus has regressed. His velar and guttural consonants, for example, speak volumes: they are all posterior sounds made with the back of the mouth. According to Baudouin de Courtenay, producing sounds with the posterior phonatory apparatus is typical of animals. The dog, for example, barks with his larynx. Whereas man’s phonatory development has led him to produce sounds with the front of his mouth, with his lips, with the tip of his tongue against his teeth and palate. It is the labials, the palatals and the sibilants which distinguish us from beasts. The language of your noble savage should be consigned to oblivion, not preserved. That’s the truth of the matter! By freeing itself of Vostyach, mankind will be taking yet another step away from the animal kingdom.’

  Olga shook her head in irritation. She helped herself to more smoked salmon and drained her fourth glass of champagne. Aurtova immediately refilled it, though he was beginning to see that it wasn’t going to be so easy to get her drunk, and that he might have to resort to the green pills.

  ‘Once, when we were at university, I remember you lending me a notebook, in which I found the following quotation from Znamensky: “All words are already present in reality, even before they have been uttered. They are like objects in shadow, which only the lantern of the mind can bring to light, one or two at a time, never all at once. There is no such thing as a dead word, because one word will constantly produce another, and all of them contribute to the meaning which the mind illuminates.” That is a lovely image, a declaration of a love for language in all its forms. And you believed it, at the time. But today I can see that you are no longer the passionate scholar you once were. I feel that it is no longer languages which interest you, but something else – although I can’t quite gather what that something is,’ observed Olga bitterly. A whitish thigh became all too visible inside the black fishnet mesh when she crossed her legs.

  ‘Well, today, with a good modern electric language, a sort of linguistic halogen lamp, you would be able to see the words Znamensky mentions all at once, and sweep the room clear of the dry bones of dead language,’ joked the professor, once more taking his distance. ‘Come on, Olga! Must everything always end so tragically when you Russians are involved? We just have different views, that’s all it is. Let’s just agree to disagree and enjoy the evening!’ protested Aurtova, shrugging.

  ‘You’re quite right, why choose today to argue? We’ll have plenty of time for that tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll be two linguists separated by opposing theories. Today we’re two old friends from university, meeting after a long gap. Give me some wine, Jarmo, it’s cold tonight,’ said Olga, pretending to be cold and inching along the sofa towards her host.

  ‘Of course! The wood grouse should be cooked by now,’ he said, getting up in a hurry, and returning with a steaming pot he set down on the table. Savouring the rich smell, Olga winked at him and surreptitiously undid another button of her blouse.

  The faces of the customers seated at the tables of the Café Engel glowed in the warm candlelight. It melted the snow from their hair, causing it to drip down from the brims of their hats. Even from outside the window Margareeta thought she could smell the fragrance of the cinnamon cakes, the violet pipe-smoke, the damp fur caps, the lavender-scented wax, even the bitter smell of newsprint: all smells which reminded her of Jarmo, that winter Sunday when she’d first met him, in this very place. This evening, though, wandering around through the snow-bright streets in search of her ex-husband, places she’d seen a thousand times, looked at indifferently for years, suddenly presented themselves cloaked in an aura of foreboding. Forgotten memories now rained down upon her, merciless as X-rays, revealing things she had tried to forget for years. Now she remembered smiles and glances that had escaped her at the time, the ticking of the clock in the living room, the signature tune of a radio programme and Jarmo still not home; a car door banging shut in a car park, the sound of high heels fading into the distance, Jarmo emerging panting from a street corner. Now, and only now, in that evening darkness, Margareeta unravelled any number of small mysteries, making connections between them, one by one, and constellations of shoddy actions, galaxies of lies took shape in the dark skies of her memory: a densely tangled web of all the low tricks of which Jarmo had been capable. Jarmo: there had been a time when even saying his name had filled Margareeta’s heart with joy. Perhaps one should never fall in love in winter. Perhaps emotions were a bit like plants: they needed the spring to put down roots, the summer to flourish and produce their fruit, the autumn to prepare for the thankless season of dark and cold, when the sun is the merest memory. But her life with Jarmo had been one endless winter, a dry trunk which had never put forth leaves. Margareeta did no
t want to go into the Café Engel, she did not want to stir up other painful memories from the dank places where they lurked. But it was too cold to wait for him outside. She pulled herself together, tugged at Hurmo’s lead and went back into the town centre, in search of an empty bar where she could drink, and mourn. She went back to Liisankatu for the umpteenth time, stood under Jarmo’s window. But all the lights were out, and his car, parked in the street, lay under an even deeper layer of snow. Suddenly it occurred to her that Jarmo might be in his office. Of course, why had she not thought of that sooner? The congress on Finno-Ugric languages was about to start, and he would surely be in the university, putting the last touches to his paper. Margareeta cast an angry glance in the direction of the building next to the cathedral. The fourth-floor windows were dark, but she thought she saw something moving in the dark eye of one of them. Digging her heels firmly into the hard snow, Margareeta crossed the square and pushed open the big wooden door. She was well-known to the porter as Professor Aurtova’s wife. He told her that her husband hadn’t been in that Saturday; the last time he had seen him had been the previous night.

  ‘He dashed off like the wind, scarcely even said goodbye,’ he remembered, scratching his forehead underneath his peaked cap. Then he added:

  ‘I haven’t seen him today. Actually no one has been around. They’re all in the conference centre.’

  ‘I’m just going up for a moment to collect something,’ said Margareeta, biting her lip.

  ‘By all means! In fact, could you take this up for me?’ said the porter, handing Margareeta a folder secured by an elastic band. ‘The man who deals with the mail doesn’t come in on Saturdays, and with my bad leg I have trouble with all those steps.’

  Margareeta took the folder and set off up the stairs, switching on the light on each landing as she went. The Institute of Finno-Ugric languages occupied the whole of the fourth floor. There was only one light on in the corridor, above the photocopier. Hurmo slithered over the gleaming parquet. Margareeta felt a sudden uprush of anxiety as she pushed open the door bearing the brass name-plate ‘Prof. Jarmo Aurtova’, and was surprised by a burst of cold air. She fumbled for the light switch. She had been right: what she had seen from down below had been the curtains billowing in the wind in front of the open windows. The Karelian carpet and the seats of the two Gustav II-style chairs were covered with a thin layer of snow, which had melted beneath the radiators, leaving two fan-shaped pools of water. All there was on the desk was a burnt-out candle and a bottle of cognac. The floor was glittering with shards of broken glass, together with the odd sheet of paper, blown about by the wind. Hurmo tugged on his lead and scratched at the parquet flooring, sniffing out his master’s smell. Margareeta felt downcast, indeed alarmed. She let go of Hurmo’s lead and clutched the folder to her as though it were a defensive shield. She walked around the room, looked behind the cupboards and under the desk, expecting at any moment to stumble upon her husband’s frozen corpse. She closed the windows hastily and stood there, listening. The clock was ticking on its shelf, the small pair of gold scales was catching the milky light of the lamp. Big drops of water were falling from the curtains on to the sopping carpet. Down in the square a tram was rattling by. Breathing heavily, Hurmo was looking at his mistress with the same professorial look as her husband adopted when he was seated at his desk. Margareeta sighed, picked up the lead and hurried out of the room, along the corridor and down the stairs, tossing the folder on to the porter’s desk as she passed it. He raised his eyes and watched her in bewilderment as she left the building.

  Outside the conference centre, small vans were skidding over the ice in their attempts to reach the open space in front of the main entrance. Well muffled-up, workmen were unloading rolls of red carpet and laying them on the steps, fixing them in place with gleaming brass rods. In the main hall, which smelt of glue and paint, electricians were installing the microphones, testing the projectors and putting the finishing touches to switchboards full of coloured cables, like costly jewel boxes. Margareeta picked her way between men in green aprons arranging flowers and plants at the foot of the podium, cast her eye over the entrance hall, went to the floor above and tried the door handles of the various offices, to no avail, then peered through the glass spyholes. There was no one in any of the rooms; desks and hatstands were empty, cupboard doors closed. In the silent corridors, all that could be detected was the stale smell of a cigarette long since abandoned in a distant ashtray. Margareeta went back wearily down the stairs. Almost stock-still for once, Hurmo was waiting for her, well out of the way of the bustling workmen. He was panting, a gobbet of slobber permanently suspended from his tongue. He lifted his gaze to his uneasy mistress, who once again snatched up his lead bad-temperedly and dragged him after her, causing him to yelp. In the main hall, beneath a large panel depicting a Proto-Uralian rock carving, a cleaner was giving the last seats a half-hearted wipe.

  ‘I think something has happened to my husband,’ said Margareeta anxiously to the policeman who was putting the lid back on his coffee thermos.

  Rauno Hyttynen had heard that phrase before. He pulled a form out of a drawer and started where he always started from: name, surname, address. Margareeta answered his questions patiently.

  ‘To tell the truth, he’s actually my ex-husband,’ she added for further accuracy after some hesitation, fixing the policeman with a trusting look. But when Rauno Hyttynen handed her a copy of the report about the disappearance of the Finnish citizen Jarmo Aurtova and turned his back on her, to go and sit down in front of the television, Margareeta looked at him blankly.

  ‘But…what are you doing? We must go straight to my husband’s flat! I’ve been looking for him all day. I found the windows open in his office, and paper and glass strewn all over the carpet. Does that strike you as normal?’

  ‘Madam, the first patrol to get here will take care of things. I’m on my own, and I can’t budge,’ he told her, tuning in to channel 1. The hockey match between Helsingfors Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna and Lokerit wasn’t due to begin for fifteen minutes, but preliminaries at the rink were already under way.

  ‘And when will the first patrol be here?’

  ‘Ah, that depends on where they’ve gone to watch the match,’ said Rauno Hyttynen with a snigger.

  ‘But something serious might have happened to my husband,’ objected Margareeta fretfully.

  ‘Madam, if whatever it is has already happened, it’s too late. If whatever it is hasn’t already happened, I can assure you that for the next two hours nothing at all is going to happen anywhere in Helsinki. Come back in two hours, and we’ll find whatever it is that’s gone astray: husband, stolen car radio, drunken grandfather or missing cat,’ the policeman shot back wearily without taking his eyes off the line-ups of the teams which were now appearing in double exposure over the image of the pitch.

  ‘But he might have had an accident! He might have been taken ill at home! He might have fallen into the sea! He might have been killed!’ protested Margareeta, who in her heart of hearts hoped that all four of these disasters might somehow have befallen him in one fell swoop.

  ‘He might also be at the rink, watching the match. And anyway, didn’t you say he was your ex-husband?’ the policeman retorted brusquely, turning up the volume.

  Margareeta gave a sharp tug on the lead and stomped up to Hyttynen behind his desk.

  ‘Officer! You see this dog?’ she shouted, lifting Hurmo up by his collar and hurling him clumsily in the policeman’s direction. Hurmo squealed, dug his claws into Hyttynen’s thighs and brushed against them with his snout, leaving a trail of slaver on his trousers.

  ‘Have a good look. He’s just like my ex-husband.’ Margareeta had taken Hurmo by the snout and was shaking him by the jaws, pressing him up against the horrified policeman. ‘He walks like him, he sighs like him, at night I can hear him snore like him, even the stench of his wet fur smells like my husband’s wet socks! Do you know how much longer an animal like thi
s can live? Another ten years, that’s how long! And I don’t intend to spend another ten years taking my ex-husband to the park each evening for a pee, washing him in anti-flea shampoo every two weeks, taking him to the vet when he’s on heat, buying him Pappy at the supermarket and giving him worming powder when – well, I’ll say no more. So, kindly get up from that chair, because by this evening I intend to be rid of this animal, of my husband and of fifteen years thrown down the drain!’ concluded Margareeta, beside herself with rage. Hurmo snarled half-heartedly and went to take refuge under the table.

  Rauno Hyttynen saw that he was dealing with a troublemaker; one of those busybodies who write indignant letters to the papers, complaining about police negligence. She might also be hysterical, and if things got worse he might have to take her to the accident and emergency department and give all manner of explanations. He dried his spittle-flecked hands on his trousers and walked backwards to take his jacket from the hatstand. He gave a last regretful glance in the direction of the television; at that moment it was showing advertisements, then there would be a newsflash; then the match would start.

  ‘All right, all right. Let’s go and see where your ex-husband has got to. But I can’t do more than open the door to his flat,’ said the policeman, tightening his belt. If he got a move on, with luck he might be able to see at least half of the hockey match he’d been looking forward to for a whole month.

  Sirens blaring, they arrived in Liisankatu. Alarmed by the unaccustomed commotion, the neighbours peeked through their curtains at the blue flashes slithering over the façades of the houses.

  The neighbour who had opened the main door to Margareeta that afternoon now appeared on the landing: ‘No one’s at home. I haven’t seen the professor since yesterday. The only person I’ve seen today is Noora,’ she volunteered, giving her a sideways look as she noticed the policeman, and warding off an intrusive Hurmo with her foot.