by Mikael Niemi
This is the image I try to conjure up in the evenings when anxiety takes hold of me. While I close my eyes and keep very still, blurry clouds pass overhead. The good sleep of the river, restorative and healing, its gentle purl drowning out the buzz of the mosquitoes.
* * *
—
I often reflect that I have the pastor to thank for my life. It was he who created me, once and for all. He fixed me in time, and thus I became a person. From then on I was in the book, I was registered. Now my name can never be forgotten. Because surely the worst thing to befall you is to be forgotten while you are still alive. To go through life without ever being legitimized in letters. Letters of the alphabet are like metal spikes forged with the skill of Walloons, hot at first and pulled straight out of molten iron, gradually cooling and turning red, and in the fullness of time becoming black and strong. I think of them as plants: the contorted trunks of tortured trees, twisted peatland pines or crooked birches found on mountain slopes. That is where the letters are. Sometimes I stop and find a K, a squiggly A, or perhaps an R; the outlines of black branches are writing on the air’s gray paper. You can read them. If you take the time, remarkable tales can be deciphered in them.
The summer I was registered in the book, I was crouching by the cart path, sore, beaten, my stomach empty. Sometimes I might receive a crumb from passing wayfarers, a sliver of rancid fat from the shank they were slicing, a little wad of spat-out tobacco you could suck to forget the hunger. I saw his figure from afar and instantly felt fear. There was something harsh about him, an urgency in his pace. He was clothed in coarse woolen wadmal, his hair was long and unkempt; he could have been taken for a tramp. But his eyes were watchful. He peered around the whole time, switched his gaze from one side to the other, sometimes up to the crowns of the trees and the next moment down to the tips of his toes, whereupon he would suddenly bend down and pick up a tiny straw. With mounting alarm, I tried to squeeze myself into the grass at the side of the track, to make myself invisible. But naturally he noticed me. Poised to run, I said nothing. But then I tried stretching out a suppliant hand.
“Onkos sulla nälkä?” the stranger asked in Finnish. When I didn’t reply, he changed to Sami.
“Lea go nealgon? Are you hungry?”
I understood both languages, but I was afraid of being beaten. My dirty, childish hand shook, but I forced myself to keep it there. He rummaged in his knapsack for a moment before bringing out a darkened bentwood box. He dipped his hand in and scooped something up. When he drew it out I could see his thumb was yellow. He held it out to me, a grown man’s large, protruding thumb topped with a sticky hat. He nodded solemnly. I tried to take hold of it with my own hand, but he waved it away. He quietly placed his thumb against my tightly shut lips and dabbed them. I could feel the stickiness and licked it automatically. Something inside me ignited. The roof of my mouth started to sing. He waited until I opened my mouth again. This time I sucked the blob in. Rapturous warmth filled my mouth. I smacked my lips and I felt the globule melt and fill my palate with the color of sunshine. And now nothing could stop me. I was like a calf, licking and sucking until his thumb was clean.
“Was it good?” he asked.
“Good” was the wrong word. I had never tasted anything like it. I hadn’t even known that the world could contain something so exquisite.
“It’s called butter,” he said. “Voita.”
“More,” I whispered in Finnish.
He looked at me in his intense, critical way.
“What’s your name?”
“Jussi.”
“What’s your father’s name? Mikäs sinun isän nimi on?”
I stared at the ground.
“How old are you? You must be nine? Or ten?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
He bent down closer and I thought he was going to hit me. Instinctively I squeezed my eyes shut and hunched my shoulders. But the hard blow never came. Instead I felt his fingers in my hair, over my little ear.
“Do you know who the blessed are? Do you know who the kingdom of heaven belongs to?” I shook my head again.
“It is the children.”
I had never heard anyone say anything like this. When I cautiously looked up, his face was close to mine. He observed me silently. His eyes were pale blue with flecks of Sami green. Like the streams. And the mountains.
* * *
—
That night I slept in a proper house for the first time. I had spent the night in barns, in forest huts and goahtis, in all manner of burrows and gullies, or simply under the drooping branches of a fir tree. But never before had I slept in a log cabin. At first I was reluctant, and I tried to sneak out into the cowshed to make a nest for myself in the hay, but he promptly brought me back. I balked at lying in a bed; I kicked and tossed until he accepted that he had to make my bed on the floor. The house was occupied by an elderly couple, friends of the pastor’s, who sat talking to him for a long time after supper. Their calm voices were filled with the commonplace, and with love. I rolled myself up in the scratchy blanket they had given me and felt the food warm me from within like a lamp. The pastor had spent the whole evening trying to make me tell him about my parents and my family, but I just kept repeating that I was on the move. He knew I came from the north. From my clothes he judged I was a Lapp, but he couldn’t be sure. The name Jussi was Finnish and I could speak both languages.
Imperceptibly, I drifted off. I was so unaccustomed to falling asleep like this, without being cold or hearing my stomach roar, without the need to protect my face from biting insects. Not even my stick was at the ready, the one I had in case a wild dog should approach. I imagined I was lying in a boat on a large stretch of still water. My hands were clasped behind my head, my eyes turned to the sky. The clouds on high were traveling just as I was, steering like ships toward the horizon. Someone—it must have been an angel—rowed the boat with effortless strokes. I dared to sleep on my back, although that position held the greatest risk, for it exposed the stomach, the softest part of a person, the belly, the easiest to penetrate with knives or teeth. But I was far from the treacherous shores and their beasts of prey, no ill could befall me here, everything was safe. And the helmsman, the figure of light, would guide me safely through the foaming rapids.
I quietly fell asleep like the child I was, slipping into the unfamiliar river landscape to the gentle stroke of the oars. I don’t know how much time elapsed. Everything was blank and blurred, until suddenly my eyes opened wide and I was seized with indescribable terror. Without moving a muscle, I could sense the heinous threat of imminent danger. There in the semidarkness of the cabin; the ceiling, the walls, the towering furniture. And a wild animal, a lion, its black jaws wide open, its paw raised to strike at my head.
“Rauhotu,” came the whisper.
A hand brushed my cheek, its warmth and life almost surreal. I felt the fingers, the gentle brush of the fingertips.
“Shhhh, shh . . .”
The pastor moved his face closer until it was right next to mine. He had lain down beside me and I felt the warmth of his body. Hesitantly, he placed his arm around me and held me.
“You were screaming,” he said softly. “You were writhing around, screaming.”
“A-a-h-h,” I gasped.
“But I’m here now. I’m here, they can’t get you.”
“It was . . . nothing.”
“Did you see a bear? Were you afraid?”
I was shuddering. I wanted to flee, force my burning limbs to let me bolt and rush out of the cabin, tear through the forests and marshlands until my heart burst. But his strong arms restrained me.
“There, there, my child.”
His breath smelled of tobacco and herring. Like a recumbent ox, he made himself comfortable beside me. I was going nowhere.
* * *
—
In the morning, when the housekeeper started clattering the firewood and preparing the porridge, I was on my own. I sat up and could see from her bemused look that I must have caused a commotion during the night and kept them awake. The farm dog came in and sniffed at the corners of my mouth and then at my private parts and down to my kneecaps, at which point I hurried out into the yard. At that moment the pastor was coming out of the privy, buttoning up his trousers.
“Come with me,” he said brusquely.
I didn’t reply.
“We’ll eat first and then you’re coming home with me.”
It was a long walk to the parsonage in Karesuando and when we arrived he led me into a small room inside the log cabin. I had never seen anything like it. Along the walls were shelves filled with flat leather-bound objects. For the first time, I beheld books. He reached for one of them, opened the cover and leafed through the closely written pages.
“How old can you be? And is your name really Jussi? Maybe you were baptized Johan or Johannes? Surely you’ve been baptized?”
The pages were gleaming white and I just wanted to stroke the surface of the paper with the tips of my fingers. Black curlicues in long columns could be seen on page after page. The pastor thumbed back and forth, frowning. He exchanged the book for another, searching everywhere.
“What are your parents called? Your father and mother? Surely you know their first names, at least?”
I shook my head.
“And where did you grow up? Who looked after you?”
“A witch,” I said.
Pausing, he raised his eyes from the book’s pages and regarded me quizzically.
“A witch?”
“Yes.”
“But what was she called? Even witches have names.”
“Sie . . . Sieppi . . .”
“Sieppi? Is she a Lapp?”
I began to shiver as a chill swept through me.
“They’re not people,” I said.
Clearing his throat, the pastor fiddled with his tobacco knife and then his writing implements before returning to the book.
“You look ten or eleven years old. But I can’t find you anywhere. We can’t have this.”
There was no answer to that and I sat in silence.
“Your name shall be Johan. We can call you Jussi, but you’ll be baptized Johan Sieppi.”
“Not Sieppi!”
“Very well, Sieppinen, then. Johan Sieppinen.”
The pastor was smiling now. He opened the inkpot and dipped the pen into it. Then he seized a jug of water and poured some into a glass bowl.
“Do you want to enter the Christian faith?”
“But . . .”
“That’s a yes.”
“Yes.”
“Then I baptize thee, Johan Sieppinen, in the name of the Father . . . and of the Son . . . and of the Holy Ghost.”
The water ran in a cold trickle down my forehead and under my collar. He dried me with the sleeve of his jacket, and looked at me with such compassion that it warmed my heart.
“And when would you like to have been born, Jussi? There aren’t many people who can choose their own birthday. Shall we say yesterday’s date, the twenty-ninth of June? That’s the day we met. And what about the year of your birth? Shall we say you turned eleven yesterday? Does that feel like a good age?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned to the back of the book, where there were a few blank pages.
“I’ll record you as of no fixed abode, temporarily residing in the parish. So . . . Johan Sieppinen . . . born the twenty-ninth of June . . . 1831.”
He held the book up and pointed to a wavy line, moist with fresh ink.
“There you are, Jussi. Now you exist.”
7.
My beloved. I can see her from afar, coming to meet me along the cart track. I am out of breath after running all the way over the meadows to intercept her, but I do my utmost to appear relaxed and let a smile play on my lips. My idea is to address her casually so that she might stop or at least slow her pace. Maybe to meet her gaze briefly, look into her clear blue eyes, and coax a dimple onto her otherwise smooth cheeks. As she approaches I see she is weighed down; in one hand she is carrying a lidded pail and the narrow handle is cutting into her fingers. She keeps changing hands and bends her body over in the opposite direction to balance the weight. I try to think of something to say that will sound as natural as possible, but my heart is pounding so hard I feel sick. The nearer she comes, the worse my condition. My vision clouds and I feel my throat constrict, which makes it hard to breathe; I normally only come this close to her in the church aisle when we are all pushing our way out after the service. I want to flee, but at the same time this is where I want to be more than anywhere else, on this village road with the woman I love. She is very close now, at any moment we’ll pass one another. She has noticed me but turns her face toward the ditch, and that might be the reason she doesn’t catch my croaky greeting. Once again she switches hands and I see my opportunity. I will help her carry and thus afford myself the right to accompany her part of the way. I reach out to take hold of the sharp-edged handle.
“Allow me . . .” I manage to mutter.
But she gives a shrill scream and tries to snatch the pail back. When I, at long last, meet her gaze, it is entirely black. Her face muscles are twisted and her soft pink lips are now as sharp as a pocketknife. Bewildered, I loosen my grip, but then she loses her balance and stumbles. The pail overturns and fish come spilling out onto the grass; shiny, newly cleaned fish bodies, pike and perch and here and there a grayling, slithering like silver between our feet. I feel my face burn with shame and hastily kneel down to scoop them back into the bucket. As I do so she gives me a hefty kick, which strikes me in the chest and sends me staggering backward.
“Hello! What are you doing?” comes a gruff voice.
“He’s pestering me!” she cries, pointing at me squatting there with a huge pike in my hands.
“Clear off!” yells a man, and as he approaches he removes his belt and swings it menacingly in front of him.
I drop the pike into the pail. I recognize the man as Roope, one of Sohlberg’s workers, a broad-shouldered youth with a ginger mustache, who is taller than me by a head. I spring to my feet like a cat and adopt a crouching position. Roope is feared for his viciousness and yet I don’t hesitate. It all happens so quickly, I have no time to think. I only know that now I have to flatten him. With all my weight I have to topple him and hammer my fists into his face until it is soaked in blood. My entire soul, all my sorrow and shame, turn to uncontrollable hatred. He senses it, I see him waver, he swings the belt with such force that the metal clasp whistles through the air. And maybe he will manage to deliver a punch, but after that he’ll be done for.
“He’s just standing there, keeping his mouth shut!” Roope screams.
How I wish I had a bold retort, something caustic, wounding. But I can’t think of anything. Inside me there is just a calmness, a motionless void, and as my beloved raises the fish-reeking pail like a shield before her, I am of two minds. Still I say nothing. And then I turn and walk away. When I look over my shoulder they are walking in the other direction, side by side, as though they belong together. Roope is carrying the heavy bucket for her. I see them chatting. Laughing heartily, he turns and gives me a scornful look, and she does too. I feel the sticky slime from the pike on my hand. My chest aches where she kicked me. She struck me right over my heart. There is a pain in my ribs. As I lift my hand the strong smell of fish hits me. With great care I place my lips against the edge of my little finger, on the skin by the third knuckle, the place where our two bodies met. Where my skin brushed against hers when I grabbed the handle. Where I touched her sheer sweetness.
8.
The first thing I noticed was the smell of smo
ke. It was so alien, so different from the aromas that surrounded me every day. But in all the gray and brown there was a burgeoning hue. It seemed to be emanating from the parsonage. Tjalmo the dog was standing on the step to the porch, pawing restlessly, her head down, as if she had been given a telling-off. My first thought was that someone had started a fire over at the foundry, it smelled like ignited juniper needles, with a sprinkling of tar and maybe a dash of gunpowder. I kept my eye on the parsonage door. There was still time for me to turn back, just walk away, as the elk does when it detects a strange scent, vanishing like a gray silence over the marshes. But I am like the fox, attracted to the unfamiliar, hovering between fear and curiosity. My eager little nose sticks out at the front of my body. I hesitated for barely a second, and then I opened the door and slipped in.
Inside, the smell was overwhelming. Now I worked out that it was tobacco. It didn’t come from the pastor’s pipe, as I had expected, but from a tan-colored stem with a glowing diamond at the end. It was the first time I had seen a smoking implement like this. Strikingly long fingers closed round the brown tube; they were wide and jointed in more places than the fingers of a common countryman. They led, via a thick wrist, into an indigo-dyed coat sleeve, passing into a reclining body that was almost puffy, at once both muscular and fat. The stomach formed a natural center to this sizable personage. He had been given the best seat, the armchair, the one nobody but the pastor usually sat in. Now he was semi-recumbent in it, evidently at ease, making use of all the chair had to offer by way of comfort: the gently beveled backrest, the elbow pads, the foot support on which his heavy round heel was resting. He held the smoking instrument in his left hand, while with his right he made elegant sweeping gestures as if he were winding wool. The most prominent feature was his mouth. It could have been a girl’s. The lips were blood-red, without being painted, the top one curving high like Cupid’s bow, sucker-like, the lower one wet and glistening, dark as a freshly removed liver. And the whole time these lips were moving. Through the smoke, through the unfamiliar fragrance filling the entire cabin, there rose the melodious, almost angelic sound of a man’s voice.
