To Cook a Bear

by Mikael Niemi

  The men eyed each other and then the pastor. They attempted to laugh, if only to dispel the fear that had just crept into them. A bottle was ferreted out and tossed to the sheriff, who took several deep swigs. It was offered to the constable and Nils Gustaf as well, while the pastor looked on in disgust. Coughing and clearing his throat, the sheriff took out his thick purse and walloped it against his thigh, before ceremoniously counting out several large banknotes and silver coins. Michelsson was given the task of writing up each reward on expensive watermarked paper and the villagers were instructed to wash the blood off before they nervously gripped the quill to sign the receipt. The constable helped them direct the nib to the right place and then blotted it with some fine sand from a little jar.

  “What are we going to do with the skin?” someone ventured to ask.

  “That’s the Crown’s booty,” the sheriff said. “The skin belongs to the king.”

  He grabbed the brandy bottle again and took one last draft.

  “Though under the circumstances . . . of course you can bloody well have the skin!”

  “And . . . do we have a right to the rest as well?” asked a man with crossed eyes.

  “What do you mean by ‘the rest’?”

  The sheriff gazed round imperiously.

  “You don’t mean you’re going to eat the bloody thing? You’re going to tuck into a man-eater!”

  “Only the cubs,” the cross-eyed man argued. “We’ve never tasted bear before and people say it has a strong flavor.”

  “The meat’s supposed to be stringy, but it has medicinal properties,” said another.

  “Yes, stringy,” the cross-eyed man echoed. “We’re hungry and we thought we could cook the bears.”

  He glanced hopefully at the man in uniform. The brandy had begun to take its effect and now Brahe couldn’t stop himself. He broke into a belly laugh and the constable sniggered too.

  “Well, I’m not one to split hairs! They say bear meat tastes like a cross between pork and grouse. And the only suitable drink to accompany it is brandy, the stronger the better!”

  “‘A cross between pork and grouse,’ hee-hee,” the constable said with a chuckle.

  While the men had been drinking, the pastor’s face had grown redder and redder. Now he took a step forward.

  “I would like to keep the bear’s cranium,” he muttered. “For research purposes.”

  “The cubs’ as well?”

  “No, just the she-bear’s. The actual skull.”

  “Take the damn thing. But we need a receipt. Michelsson, can you arrange that?”

  The pastor put on his spectacles and signed the chit. Meanwhile, I drew my knife and prepared to skin the bear’s head.

  “Stop there!” came a sonorous voice.

  It was Nils Gustaf. While all this had been going on he had rigged up his stand, taken out his sketch paper and pencils, and was now stepping round us in search of suitable angles.

  “This heroic deed must be immortalized for posterity. Would you all please position yourselves as though the bear were still alive? As though it were about to attack you.”

  The artist’s words were translated into Finnish. With a degree of commotion, the she-bear was turned back onto her stomach and arranged into as threatening a pose as it was possible to achieve.

  “And I’d like the sheriff to stand close to the beast.”

  The aforesaid had nothing against being painted. He adjusted his cap and dressed his mustache with a little brush.

  “Does the sheriff not have his saber?” asked Nils Gustaf. “To smite the attacking bear?”

  Nils Gustaf could already see the painting in his mind’s eye. The drawn saber would be angled so that it reflected the light, and become an almost metaphysical symbol, a lightning flash. But since the sheriff only carried his saber on high days and holidays, the blade of a scythe removed from its snead handle had to suffice. The men were placed in various poses and the sheriff was invited to suggest which one he himself preferred, as the artist sketched with his charcoal pencil. Swift sweeps of color were created by oil crayons, mainly green and brown, and dramatic emphasis was added with the bear’s red blood. The size of the bear’s mouth was exaggerated, as was the length of its teeth, and he allowed the villagers to take up various heroic poses with their axes and cudgels. All were instructed to remain perfectly still while the artist reproduced this dreadful battle between man and bear.

  When the sketches were finished the slaughter began. Evidently satisfied with the day’s proceedings, the sheriff took off his boots and sat with Nils Gustaf in the smoke from the fire. In a high Swedish that few of those present could understand they started to entertain one another with anecdotes of their travels. Stories of chasing reindeer-stealers and set-tos with local villains, dallying with loose women in urban settings. Constable Michelsson feigned preoccupation with the accounts but listened, all agog. I turned my attention to the bear’s skull. With great care I extricated it from the precious skin. The skull itself was difficult to cut away from the neck vertebrae, but eventually I had the grisly, flesh-covered cranium in my arms. It was surprisingly heavy. I tied some sticks together so that I could carry it over my shoulder and then followed the pastor, who was already on his way to the parsonage.

  13.

  Before long the entire parish knew what had happened. Here in the villages and hamlets of the north where major incidents seldom occurred, the bear hunt had been a long-awaited event. Everyone was relieved the killer bear had been captured and slain. The villagers who had done the deed became the region’s heroes and they had to replay, again and again, the nighttime drama in which they had risked their lives. The foundry owner Sohlberg purchased the bearskins from the men and had them sent to the tannery as a trophy of the feat, to be hung on the wall in the manor house.

  The pastor asked me to boil the bear’s skull. The cranium looked gruesome with its shreds of flesh and maked, staring eyeballs, one dangling from its socket. I hauled the large pan out of the barn into a corner of the yard and poured several buckets of water into it. From the woodshed I brought the pastor’s ax, the one forged at the Kengis foundry and bearing his initials etched on the ax-head. With rapid blows I cut the kindling and ripped off some birch bark. The flames soon rose beneath the black pot and after a while the first bubbles could be seen breaking the surface.

  In the heat, the sour stench of slaughter disappeared. Instead, the steam rising from the simmering fat and meat smelled like a potful of Brita Kajsa’s reindeer stew. The surface turned white with scum at first and subsequently gray with rolling brown bubbles. I skimmed off the foam with my guksi and threw it onto the grass. Tjalmo the dog was there in a flash to lick it up. The pot was boiling so fiercely that it splashed over the rim and made the fire sputter. I spread the firewood out a little when the meat appeared to have stopped frothing and the water cleared, revealing the white parietal lobe. The skull was not smooth as mine was, but striated with distinct grooves and ridges. With a birch stick I turned the skull so that it cooked evenly and didn’t burn and stick to the bottom. It didn’t take long for the scalp to come loose and shrivel up. I tried to scrape off the softened flesh with pieces of wood; the pastor had asked me to be careful and not damage the cranium. When they had cooled, I tossed the scraps to Tjalmo, who pounced eagerly on the tasty morsels. It was fascinating to see how the skull was constructed. There was a good deal of meat in the powerful jaw muscles where the lower jaw was attached. I hesitated at first, but then I drew my knife and cut a piece off. I looked around furtively, but there was no one around to see. The meat was dark, the color of liver, with a strong but not unpleasant smell. I quickly put it in my mouth. The man-killer. The meat was not completely cooked and I had to chew it well and for some time before I managed to swallow it. It wasn’t exactly tasty. But now I had done it. I had the creature inside me.

  The lower jaw soon l
oosened from the vigorous boiling, and I was able to start scraping off the gums to uncover the full length of the white canines. As I was doing this, I saw the pastor approaching. He shooed Tjalmo away, and the dog lowered her tail and backed off. With the aid of the birch stick, I lifted the cranium out of the bubbling broth so that he could inspect it.

  “Good.” He nodded. “Very good.”

  I carefully placed the hot bear skull on the grass, where it lay steaming as if on fire. The pastor took out a piece of paper covered in notations and studied them in silence. I recognized my handwriting. They were the notes relating to Hilda Fredriksdotter’s dead body.

  “Give me the lower jaw as well.”

  I gave it to him. With a ruler he measured the exact distance between the eyeteeth, both in the separated lower jaw and in the cranium itself. He then compared them with our measurements.

  “The measurements don’t correspond,” he said.

  “So it wasn’t the bear?”

  The pastor was stony-faced.

  “I just wanted to be sure. I think the puncture wounds on the girl were made with the point of a knife after her death.”

  “But why?”

  “So we would think it was the bear. You saw the cuts on the girl’s back. If they had been made by a bear’s claws, the marks would have been parallel. But you could tell the cuts had been made one after the other and, in addition, that the cloth of her dress moved position after every cut.”

  The pastor pulled Tjalmo toward him and tickled her under the chin. She licked his broth-scented fingers greedily.

  “If the bear had wanted meat, it would have taken one of the cows,” he went on. “I had my doubts about the bear story from the beginning.”

  “What about the claw marks on the tree? Didn’t the bear scratch the tree trunk where the girl stopped to rest?”

  “They were done with a knife too.”

  “How can the pastor be so sure?”

  He held up the little pocket ruler.

  “I measured the claw marks on the tree and they didn’t match the measurements of the bear’s paws at all. No, the killer bear we feared is walking about in human form.”

  “How did the pastor know that Hilda was hidden in the bog?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Does the pastor mean the perpetrator is still at large?”

  The pastor nodded slowly.

  “Imagine, Jussi. A man sees a girl on her own and is seized with carnal lust. Somehow, he lures her to the hay barn. There, he pulls her in. She resists. He strangles her. Immediately he realizes what he’s done. To cover up his deed, he lays the blame on the bear. He simulates the slashes of a bear’s claws and teeth before pushing her into the bog. And on the way back, he scores claw marks into the tree.”

  “But . . . can any man be so calculating?”

  “It would seem so.”

  “We have to tell the sheriff!”

  “Sheriff Brahe’s report is already written. I’ve seen it myself. Hilda Fredriksdotter Alatalo’s body exhibits evidence of a bear’s teeth marks together with injuries sustained from a bear’s paw. Bears are known to trample their quarry into the bog and this demonstrates the prowess of the seasoned brute that had to be dealt with. The creature wanted to tenderize the flesh and at the same time hide it from other beasts of prey.”

  “Does he even believe it himself?”

  “You and I know the truth, Jussi. A man of violence roams free out there. A killer bear in human form. And when a bear has developed a taste for human flesh, what happens then?”

  “It wants to have more?”

  The pastor didn’t respond. Instead he borrowed my knife and bent over the cranium. The skull had been crushed by the violent blows of the hunters’ bludgeons and he carefully broke off the loose splinters and laid them out on the grass. I turned the skull upside down as he painstakingly prodded around the membranes with the point of the knife, and with a slurping noise the brain came away and slid onto the grass like a soft-boiled egg. It was squishy and wobbly, surprisingly small for an animal of such prodigious size. He leaned forward and studied the brain more closely, gently stroking the tip of his finger along the twisting corrugations.

  “Do you think it’s in here? Can you identify it, Jussi?”

  I didn’t understand what he meant.

  “The soul,” he said. “The bear’s soul?”

  He closed his hands around the brain. It had cooled sufficiently for him not to be scalded. He cautiously lifted it up as if it were a quivering egg and started to carry it toward the parsonage.

  I didn’t know what he intended to do with it. Draw it, perhaps? Or show it to his daughters? He was in a hurry, full of eagerness, and didn’t notice Tjalmo fawning at his feet. The pastor stumbled over her and with a loud cry let go of the brain as he tried to regain his balance. The moment the bear’s brain hit the ground, the tyke darted forward and in one swift gulp half of it had disappeared. The pastor was left frowning at the remnants in his hands. He looked at them from different angles, picking at them gently, before shaking off the slimy residue with an ill-tempered flick of his wrists.

  14.

  The funeral service for Hilda Fredriksdotter Alatalo was held on a Saturday. The church was full, curiosity intense. The coffin lid was open, and muffled sobs came from the pews. The girl’s parents approached the bier, their backs bowed by sorrow. The father was old and thin, his face ashen, as if drained of blood. He laid his trembling hand over the clasped hands of his lifeless daughter and patted them clumsily before plucking at them as if he were trying to make her rise up out of the coffin. The mother dabbed at her eyes incessantly, her weeping utterly silent, but her tears soaked the funeral handkerchief she used to wipe her cheeks. Beside them stood the girl’s only brother, a tall, strange boy. It was obvious he was a half-wit; he kept buttoning and unbuttoning his black coat, which was far too short in the sleeves. Perhaps because he had never worn anything with such fine buttons before. His lips were shining with spittle and he kept swallowing, but to no avail; it might have been his way of weeping. Now he was the only one his parents had left; God had not blessed them with more children.

  The congregation was excited at the prospect of the pastor’s sermon. Sheriff Brahe sat at the front in his uniform. He acknowledged the churchgoers’ thanks with a curt nod to each one, an action that caused his blubbery cheeks to wobble, while he endeavored to maintain an air of solemnity and concern. When the pastor began to speak, they exchanged glances like arrows through the air. Then the sheriff turned his gaze to the altarpiece, puffing his cheeks out in a conspicuous fashion. Did he have something trapped in his teeth that made him so obviously distracted at the prospect of the litany? Constable Michelsson sat beside him, fingering the hymnbook.

  The pastor spoke of summer’s brief flowering. The prettiest summer blossoms felled by the scythe, seemingly to no purpose. But at another time, under winter’s heavens, this dried hay would give life. In due course the victim would be a blessing sent by God and have her purpose.

  I tried to listen but my mind drifted away. She had taken her place on the opposite side of the aisle. My beloved. She hadn’t looked at me once; to her I was less than air. But that didn’t matter to me, I delighted in just seeing her. In the manner of fingertips stroking a pebble polished by waves, its curves so soft that they feel like music, I held the edge of my little finger against my cheek, where she had touched it. My skin remembered.

  And in the midst of all of this I seemed to have slipped into a dream. We were still in church, but now I was the one in the coffin. I lay there dead, my hands clasped, in the middle of the church, in full view of the congregation. The pastor was looking at me and so was the sheriff. Everyone in the pews was watching me. My beloved likewise; even her gaze was resting on me, and now it was filled with sorrow. Something bad had befallen me. I had done something, carri
ed out some daring and admirable deed that no one had expected of me. And now they were all thinking: Who was he really? Why did I never get to know him? If only I’d known what was going on in his heart. . . . But now it was all too late. My body would be lowered into the darkness of the grave, and they would say to one another:

  “Have you ever wondered how such a quiet person, someone so unassuming . . . could achieve something so great?”

  I was roused from my dream by a dry rustling, the sound of the pastor pouring three scoops of sand onto the coffin lid. A feeling of shame rose up in me; I had let myself be moved by a thirst for glory. And yet, despite the sinfulness of my thoughts, they left a sweet taste that gave me a faint thrill.

  I would show them. Somehow I would make them see me. I just didn’t yet know how.

  15.

  The pastor deemed it timely to assess the teaching he had instituted for a few weeks of summer in Kangosfors. We took up our positions in the narrow canoe belonging to the parsonage—I gripped the pole while the pastor rowed—and with arduous effort we made our way upstream to the confluence with the Lainio River. The water level was still quite high and the rapids caused us some trouble, but the flat-bottomed boat always slid over the stones into a new stretch of smooth water. Along the most difficult stretches we received help from local people, far more skilled at poling than I was, people who were glad to help their priest. The Lainio was narrower and shallower than the Torne and in several places the pastor wanted to go ashore to investigate the mountain plants that had taken root along the banks, washed here from distant uplands.

  The summer lessons in Kangosfors were held in a simple timber structure that, judging by the smell, was normally used to house animals. We were met by Herr Mattsson, a serious gentleman, with a crooked neck caused by a fall that had rendered him unsuited to heavy manual labor. He had been appointed by the pastor to teach the youngest children, despite having significant problems reading himself. The previous incumbent had been Juhani Raattamaa, who was now teaching up in Lainio Village. It was said of Juhani that he surpassed even the pastor as a teacher, and that his oratory was so great that it provoked a religious revival among the pupils. Visitors came from far and wide to see the “crazy” students who might be lying on the floor writhing in remorse or grown so feeble they could no longer stand, or even leaping around in their wild blessedness. If one of the pupils behaved badly, Juhani simply took him in his arms and spoke calmly and gently, and it wasn’t long before he made the child cry. He never needed to use the cane, as so many other catechists did.