by Mikael Niemi
He used to stand there without speaking while I sawed away with sweat pouring off me. Eventually he would reach out and feel my biceps between his thumb and his index finger, and conclude that I ought to have been a girl.
Dad was broad-shouldered, just like his eight brothers; they all had the same rippling shoulder muscles and the same enormous bull neck jutting forward in a way that made them seem slightly hunch-backed. It’s a pity I didn’t inherit more of that trait, if only to avoid having to listen to the old bastards’ comments when they got drunk at family gatherings. But no doubt most of the muscles were due to the hard manual labor they’d all been doing from the age of thirteen, just like my old man.
That was when they’d all started working in the forests. Chopping and sawing and dragging the logs through the snow to the frozen river in winter, spurred on by the piece-work rates. Then accompanying the logs downstream when the ice melted in spring, sorting out the log jams on the way. Their summers were spent haymaking in the fields and in the bogs, and digging ditches in order to qualify for state subsidies; in their spare time they chopped down enough trees to build themselves a cabin, and often worked all night long, hand-sawing planks. Drudgery like that made them as tough as Swedish wrought iron from Kengis.
My youngest uncle, Ville, had always been a bachelor, and many people thought he’d remain one for life. He’d often been to Finland to do some courting, but never managed to find himself a bride. He couldn’t understand where he was going wrong. In the end a neighbor gave him a tip:
“You should buy a car.”
Ville followed the advice and bought an old Volvo. Then he went to Finland again and got engaged straight away. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of such an obvious ploy long ago.
The wedding took place in the middle of summer when everybody was on holiday, and the family home was flooded with relations. I was nearly thirteen, and was allowed to sit at the table with the grown-ups for the first time. A solid wall of silent men, shoulder to shoulder like huge blocks of stone, and here and there their pretty wives from Finland, like flowers on a cliff face. As was normal in our family, nobody said a word. Everyone was waiting for the food.
The first course was local crispbread and salmon. Every single one of the men turned his piece of crispbread upside down, so that the holes were underneath. That way they would save butter, just as their impecunious parents had taught them. Then on with the freshly cut slices of sweetly spiced gravadlax, prepared from salmon netted by poachers near Kardis. Ice-cold beer. No unnecessary comments. Only the newly-wed couple at the narrow end of the table urging everybody to take more. Crunching of crispbread in bull-like mouths, broad hunched backs, knitted eyebrows and concentration. The catering ladies in the kitchen lugged up barrels and bottles from the cellar. The bride’s mother, who was from Finnish Kolari and so knew the local customs, said she’d never seen working men eat such tiny portions, whereupon everybody took a second helping.
Then came the pot of meat stew, steam rising as if it were on fire, tender lumps of reindeer meat that caressed the palate, golden turnips, sweetly spiced carrots and buttery yellow diced almond potatoes, the ones northerners dream about, in a rich broth tasting of sweat and forests, with circles of fat on the surface like rings made by nibbling char in a tarn one breezeless summer’s night. A dish of newly cooked marrow bones was served up on the side. The ends had been cut off, and we poked out the gray, greasy fat inside with elongated toothpicks, the long strings of marrow so tender that they melted on the tongue. The men betrayed no trace of a smile, but their skin assumed a lighter hue and they emitted furtive sighs of relief at being served with food they recognized and appreciated, food that filled the belly and delivered nutritious juices as well as strength. On festive occasions, and not least at weddings, even the most reliable and sensible members of the family were liable to get silly ideas into their heads about what was appropriate and what was classy enough, and start serving grass that they called salad and sauces that tasted like soap, and they’d set out far too many forks and serve up a drink called wine, something so sour and bitter that your lips shriveled up and convinced you you’d pay a king’s ransom for a glass of buttermilk.
And so the slurping and gobbling got under way. The ladies in the kitchen were inspired by the lip-smacking and slobbering. Guests devoured the spicy stew, the meat reared and matured in Tornedalen forests, the root vegetables nurtured and ripened in their native soil, spitting out gristle and bones, sucking out marrow, fat dripping down from their chins. The catering ladies scuttled around with bowls of locally baked rieska bread, imbued with the smoke of the birchwood that fired the ovens, still hot enough to melt lumps of butter, and made from corn grown in northern fields, ripened in the northern wind and sun and heavy rain—a full-bodied bread that made simple peasant souls pause and worship, eyes uplifted to the heavens, while the serving ladies exchanged justly proud looks, and smiled contentedly as they clapped their hands to get rid of the flour still clinging to them.
Now was the right moment for the first schnapps. The bottle was conveyed with due solemnity to the table by the old biddy who was the least religious of those present. The men paused, swayed gently from side to side, farted, brushed the debris from their chins, and followed intently the progress of the relic. In accordance with instructions, it was still sealed; but now in everyone’s presence the cork was lifted and the foil broken with an audible click so no one could doubt that they were being served with the real thing and not moonshine, that no expense had been spared. The bottle misted over and drops clinked into glasses like pearls of ice breaking the devout silence. Broad thumbs and index fingers caressed the frozen jewels before them. The bridegroom forgave the sins of his brothers, whereupon they all leaned back and flung the icy potion down into the depths of their being. A murmur rustled through the congregation and the most loquacious of the brothers whispered Amen. The old biddy with the bottle shuffled around the table once again. The deep bass voice of the bride’s mother was heard to declare indignantly that it was typical for her daughter to marry into the fussiest family in the whole of the Finnish-speaking land mass when it came to food, and that food was there to be shoveled down your throat in case nobody had realized that around here. Whereupon the serving ladies marched in with new sizzling pots of meat stew and dishes of marrow, and everybody took another helping.
The men took their second schnapps, and the women as well, apart from those who would have to drive. Sitting opposite me was a stunningly beautiful Finnish woman from near Kolari. She had brown, almost Arabian eyes, and raven hair; no doubt she came from a Lappish family, and she wore a large silver brooch on her neckband. She smiled with her sharp white teeth and slid her half-glass of schnapps over the table to me. Not a word, just a bold, frank look, as if she were challenging me. All the men paused, their soup spoons dripping. I could see my dad in the corner of my eye warning me not to touch it, but I was already holding the glass. The tips of the woman’s fingers stroked the inside of my hand as gently as a butterfly’s wing, it felt so good I almost spilled the precious contents.
And now at last the men started talking. For the first time all day something approximating a conversation broke out. No doubt it was the drink that had thawed out the frost in their tongues, and the first thing they discussed was whether the young whippersnapper would vomit or cough up the schnapps all over the table, in view of how puny and feeble he looked. Dad made to stand up and stop me, despite the expectant looks on the faces of his brothers, and I knew it was now or never.
I leaned quickly back and poured the whole lot down my throat, a bit like taking medicine. And it sunk down into my body like a jet of piss into snow, and the men grinned. I didn’t even cough, I just felt a melting fire in my stomach and a desire to be sick that didn’t show on the outside. The old man looked furious but realized that it was too late, while the brothers reckoned the lad was one of the family after all. Then they started to boast about how much drink our family cou
ld hold, and proceeded to justify the claims with a series of graphic tales and episodes. When the subject was exhausted, which took an awful long time, the conversation turned to how incredibly tolerant of saunas our family was, and equally comprehensive proof was provided. One of the men was sent out to start up the sauna in the yard outside, and consternation was expressed as to why such an obvious thing hadn’t been thought of earlier. Someone mentioned the absolutely amazing capacity for hard work that was characteristic of our family and a matter for incredulous discussions on both sides of the border, and in order to prove that this was no mere boast or exaggeration, we were presented with an appropriate selection of the stories people told about us, whenever two or three were gathered together.
The bride’s relations were starting to show signs of mild impatience. Some of the sturdier men had evident ambitions to loosen their tongues. Eventually one of the most talkative of them opened his cakehole for the first time that evening for a purpose other than eating. He delivered an astonishingly sarcastic address on families that are too big for their boots and blather on and on in public. Dad and his brothers ignored that contribution to the discussion and became engrossed in how one of their forefathers had carried on his back a hundred-pound sack of flour plus an iron stove and his rheumatic wife for all of thirty miles without even putting down his luggage when pausing for a pee.
Now the ladies marched in with gigantic trays containing mountains of home-made delicacies. Sugar buns as smooth as a maiden’s cheek, crisp white Kangos biscuits, perfect Pajala puff pastries, succulent sponge cakes, glazed buns dusted with icing sugar, sponge rolls with stunning Arctic raspberry filling, to name but a few of the delights. And that wasn’t all: bowls brimful of whipped cream and newly warmed cloudberry jam tasting of sun and gold. Masses of china cups were rattled onto the table and sooty black coffee poured from gigantic coffee kettles, any one of which could have serviced a major prayer meeting. Golden coffee-cheeses as big as winter tires were rolled out over the table, and then the pièce de résistance among all the sweetmeats: a hard, brown lump of dried reindeer meat. Salty slices were cut and placed in the coffee, chunks of coffee-cheese stirred in, and white sugar lumps were held between the lips. And then, fingers trembling, we all poured the coffee mixture into our saucers, and slurped our way to heaven.
The moment I got some coffee inside me, all traces of feeling sick melted away. It was like the sunshine after the storm. A misty cloud of rain evaporated and the beauty of the countryside was suddenly revealed. My eyes felt like warm balloons, the round, bull-like skulls of the men on all sides inflated and grew to enormous proportions. The coffee changed its taste inside my mouth, became blacker and more tarry. I had an irresistible urge to start boasting. Then I burst out laughing, I couldn’t help it, it simply welled up inside me and couldn’t be restrained. I caught sight of the wonderful Finnish woman and my mind filled with pussy, it just happened, her beauty was almost dream-like.
“Mie uskon että poika on päissä. I think the lad’s pissed,” she said in a deep, slightly hoarse voice.
Everybody roared with laughter, me as well, so much that I almost fell off my chair. Then I chewed some dried meat and coffee-cheese and spilled coffee from my saucer and thought Hey, I’m a racing driver. The bride’s mum went on about all the shrinking violets around the table who didn’t dare to eat properly, she couldn’t understand how a clan so scared of filling their stomachs could manage to reproduce, and she’d never heard of such a disgraceful failure to live up to the hospitable reputation of Tornedalen since the King of Sweden declined a glass of schnapps in Vojakkala. Everybody immediately helped themselves to more. But the bride’s mum complained that if that was the best they could do, pretending to be polite, they might as well stuff the cakes up a different orifice, as even her patience had its limits. Everybody was on the point of bursting by now, belts had been loosened to the last hole, but even so everybody took another helping. And more coffee, and still more. But in the end the limit was reached, the final limit. Absolutely impossible to force down a single crumb more.
Then more brandy was served. Most guests declined, apart from some of the Finnish women. However, if there were just possibly a drop more schnapps they wouldn’t say no, as kirkasta had the remarkable quality of not taking up any room in one’s stomach—indeed, on the contrary, it was good for the digestion and for one’s general well-being, and helped to combat the lethargy that often overcame those who had just partaken of a good dinner. The bridegroom once again gave the nod to the least Christian of the serving ladies who disappeared into the kitchen with all the empty bottles. When she came back a miracle had taken place and they were all full again; but when I held out my glass I received a painful rap on the wrist from the old man.
Somebody suddenly remembered a topic of conversation that had been inadequately covered, and immediately all the brothers were at it again. Such as the time when Grandad’s horse had gone lame on him, and he’d pulled the sledge laden with tree trunks all the way home himself, with the horse strapped on top. Or the cousin who was only eight when he punted the fifty-odd miles upstream from Matarenki to Kengis. Or Grandma’s aunt who was confronted by a bear while picking berries in the forest, killed it with the axe she had with her for cutting firewood, butchered it, and carried the meat home on her back, wrapped in the knotted pelt. Or the twins who had to be tied down to their beds every evening in the lumberjacks’ cabin to prevent them from chopping down all the trees in the Aareavaara forest. Or the cousin who was regarded as feeble-minded but had been taken on to help float the logs down-river at half wages; the very first night he had single-handedly broken up the hundred-yard-long log jam at Torinen. The fact of the matter was that our family had no rivals when it came to strong, persevering, persistent, patient, and, above all, modest workers, no one could match them in the whole of the Finnish-speaking world. The brothers drank noisily to that, then proceeded to recall all the gigantic boulders that had been shifted, the enormous areas of bog that had been dug out, the horrific endurance tests while doing national service, the truck that broke down and had to be pushed twenty-five miles from Pissiniemi to Ristimella, the endless meadows that had been scythed in record time, all the blood-curdling fights that had ended up in the family’s favor, the five-inch nail that had been hammered home using only a bare fist, the skier who had overtaken the iron-ore train, and all the other unsurpassed exploits achieved with the aid of axe, pick, plow, handsaw, spade, fish-spear, and potato fork.
Then another toast was drunk. Not least to the women in the family and their amazing feats in hand-milking, butter-churning, berry-picking, weaving, bread-baking and hay-raking that had set similar unbreakable records in the field of women’s activities. The likes of these staunch, willing wenches had never been seen outside this family of theirs. The men also congratulated themselves on being smart enough to pick wives from Finland, since they were as tough as oak trees, as patient as reindeer, and as pretty as birches by blue northern lakes, and they also had large backsides that enabled them to give birth to fine healthy babies easily and often.
The bride’s male relatives had sat in silence, as Finns do, getting worked up while all this was going on. The biggest and baldest of them, Ismo, stood up now and declared that he’d never heard so much twaddle spoken in Finnish since the days of the Fascist Lappland Movement. My dad responded in aggressive fashion, totally out of character, claiming that everything the brothers had said was universally accepted fact, and that if some families felt envious or inferior as a result, he was the first to feel sorry for them.
Ismo insisted that nobody could cut so many acres of meadow in just one morning, nobody could pick a hundred liters of cloudberries inside three hours, no creature of flesh and blood could fell a bull moose with one punch then skin it and butcher it with the lid of a snuff box. Uncle Einari, the eldest of the brothers, maintained frostily that felling bull moose was nothing compared with the other matchless feats accomplished by the famil
y’s fists, especially at weddings, and especially when some big-mouthed pompous ass starts throwing out accusations of lying. He’d have gone on to say more as well, he was just getting into his stride, but his missus clamped her hand over his mouth. Ismo responded by laying his arm on the table. It was as thick as a telegraph pole. He maintained that fisticuffs was risky and haphazard as a test of strength, but that arm wrestling always produced rapid and reliable results.
There was a moment of complete silence. Then the brothers rose to their feet as one man, Dad included, and surged forward like growling bears. The preliminaries were over, the talking was finished, at last they could get down to flexing and using their laborer’s muscles. Einari was first to the seat opposite Ismo: he took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeve. His arm was almost as thick as his opponent’s. Coffee cups and schnapps glasses were hastily removed. The two men grappled with each other, their hands closed like pincers. A sudden jerk from both bodies, blood rushed into their faces, battle had commenced.
It was clear from the start that it could go either way. Their arms swayed like two pythons with trembling heads, welded together. Slight, almost imperceptible quakes were transmitted through the kitchen table and into the pine floorboards. Their backs, broad as stable doors, were arched forward, their shoulder muscles swelled up like rising pastry, their heads turned blood-red, criss-crossed with protruding black veins, sweat poured off them and dripped down from their noses. The brothers crowded around, shouting and urging. At stake was the family honor, dignity, pride: now was the time to put the incomers in their place and earn the respect that was our family’s due. Their opponents echoed these sentiments. The fists trembled and started to lean to the left. Yells and shouts. Then a fight-back, a leaning to the right. The lads were jumping up and down in excitement, passing on advice, flexing their own muscles in the hope it would help. When it became clear that this contest was going to go on for some considerable time, their patience ran out. Hormones were pumping and couldn’t be restrained, lumberjack bodies demanded action. Soon the whole table was covered in fat-veined tree trunks swaying back and forth as if in a gale. Now and again one or two would come crashing down, causing the table top to sag. The victor would grin contentedly, only to be challenged by the next in line. The women were also getting carried away, and started yelling and shouting. Some of them had been on the schnapps after all, and the others were intoxicated by the testosterone-laden atmosphere. Soon two of the elderly Finnish women started finger-pulling, their middle fingers entwined, tugging and jerking, each determined not to be the first to let go. All the time they spat out ancient, almost forgotten curses. They dug their hook-toed shoes into the wooden floor, groaning and grinding their false teeth, and one of them peed herself but kept going even so, splashing around in the pool under her wide skirts. Their fingers were speckled brown and wrinkled, but as hard as pincers. The bride declared that she had never seen stronger fingers, here were women hardened by milking cows and men; her fellow-women chimed in, eager to pronounce the superiority of women over men when it came to endurance, dexterity, persistence, patience, thrift, berry-picking techniques, and resistance to illness, all of which proved they were superior to the good-for-nothing male sex. Then one of the women, Hilma, won with a ferocious jerk and fell flat on her bottom, but managed not to break her thigh bone, which everybody thought was lucky. Flushed with victory she started challenging the men, always assuming there were any present, which seemed doubtful. Dad and the rest of them were now busy huffing and puffing over a prestigious championship involving a bewildering system of quarterfinals and semifinals with everybody getting the results mixed up and shouting at each other. In the middle of it all sat Einari and Ismo clutching each other’s hand, the match still undecided. Uncle Hååkani suggested the old woman should keep her mouth shut as that was the main role of women in this vale of tears, especially when men were present. That made Hilma even more furious, she thrust forward her colossal bust, sending Hååkani stumbling backward, and informed him he was welcome to suck her tits if he had nothing more sensible to say. The women cackled and guffawed in delight, while Hååkani blushed. Then he said he would only pull fingers with the old bitch if she had a drink first. She refused as she was a Christian. They argued and argued. In the end, shaking with fury, Hilma took a large glass of moonshine, emptied it in one gulp, then stretched out her long claw. Everyone fell silent and stared in horror at the old woman. Laestadius rotated twice in his grave in Pajala churchyard. Hååkani was shaken but threaded his plump middle finger into her hook in order to show who was boss, and raised his arm. She was sturdy but short and was lifted up like a Lappish glove but hung on to the finger, dangling in the air. Hååkani put her down again and started jerking from side to side instead. Hilma was hurled and twirled from wall to wall but still hung on. Hååkani was getting annoyed, and paused to think. The woman suddenly flung herself backward with all her weight and with a fierce wrench broke Hååkani’s grip and fell back on her bottom once again. The women clapped and cheered till the walls shook. In the end they began to wonder if she really had broken her thigh bone this time, as the old girl hadn’t been as quiet as this since she had the anaesthetic for her goitre operation. Then she turned her head to one side and spat out the schnapps in one long jet. To deafening applause she assured the assembly that she hadn’t swallowed a single drop.
