House of Orphans

  ‘Eeva,’ he said aloud, testing her name. How long was it since he’d said that name? Eeva. He’d grown up saying it twenty times a day.

  He looked around the room. Thank God Sasha wasn’t here. What would Sasha have thought, if he’d been there, with Lauri carrying on like that? He’d have thought Lauri was crazy

  ‘Eeva?’ He wasn’t calling for her. He was just saying her name, in exactly the way he used to when she was studying in the light of that one candle, her right arm curled around her paper, her left hand holding her pen. He’d even forgotten that Eeva was left-handed, until this moment. But she was. If they sat side by side to write, their elbows knocked together. He used to try to get her to write with her right hand, like him, but she wouldn’t.

  ‘It looks like spiders walking over the paper. Besides, you can’t write with your left, can you? I like being left-handed.’

  When she wrote this letter, she’d have curled her hand around the paper in exactly the same way. He was sure of it. Her writing hadn’t changed a bit. She’d always been able to put exactly what she wanted onto the paper, like her father.

  He knew where she was now. He could get on a train, and then find a cart that was going out that way and would give him a lift. If not, he’d walk the rest of the way. Never mind if it took a couple of days. He’d sleep in a barn. She was there, now, at this minute. He could go and find her. Yes, as soon as Sasha came in he’d tell him, show him the letter, and together they’d find a way for Eeva to come to Helsinki. She’d need somewhere to live. She’d need work. Sasha would know what was best to do.

  Your friend, Eeva. He didn’t think of her as his friend. She was too much part of him for that. And yet she wasn’t his sister. If she’d been his sister they couldn’t have taken her away.

  Your friend. She’d written to him. She wanted his help. He would get her out of there, whatever it took. He saw her as clearly as if she was sitting there at the table with him, bending over one of her books.

  ‘Eeva?’

  She looked up. Her face lit with a flash of surprise and pleasure.

  ‘I’ve been waiting ages! I thought you were never coming.’

  Sasha came in very late, heavy-footed with tiredness. He’d been at a meeting, he said. He sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots, and it was clear that he was surprised and maybe not too pleased to find Lauri wasn’t asleep yet. Dawn light was pushing strongly around the edge of the blinds. It must have been well past midnight, Lauri thought.

  ‘I’m dead,’ said Sasha. ‘Move over, I’ve got to catch a couple of hours’ sleep.’

  ‘I’ve had a letter from a friend.’

  ‘Who? A comrade?’

  Lauri hesitated. It wasn’t the way he thought of Eeva. She was just herself. ‘She’s one of us,’ he said at last, ‘she’s Pekka Koskinen’s daughter.’

  Sasha grunted as the right boot came off. ‘From what I’ve heard, Koskinen had liberal tendencies.’

  ‘Liberal tendencies? Sasha, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You might as well say I’ve got liberal tendencies.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder,’ said Sasha. ‘So, you mean, Eeva Koskinen?’

  Of course, he must have mentioned Eeva to Sasha, even though he couldn’t remember it.

  ‘Yes. Eeva. She’s written to me from where she’s living now.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  Lauri discovered a sudden, surprising reluctance to tell Sasha exactly where Eeva was.

  ‘It’s about eighty miles north east of Turku, way out in the country.’

  ‘Oh. Right. So why’s she written?’

  Sasha wasn’t asking the questions he’d expected. But then what would be the right questions? It was hardly Sasha’s fault. He couldn’t be expected to understand how important it was that Eeva had written.

  ‘She needs help,’ Lauri said. ‘They took her away to an orphanage, and then she went into service. She was living with us, you see, after her father died. And then when my father was arrested, they searched the place and found Eeva – well, you know how it is, me and Eeva slept by the stove and my father had his own cubbyhole. And so they took her away. She was Pekka Koskinen’s daughter, too. He was dead, but they could still punish him by putting Eeva in an orphanage.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sasha.

  ‘We grew up together,’ said Lauri, feeling a flush rise in his face. ‘We were like –’

  ‘Like brother and sister?’ asked Sasha silkily.

  ‘No,’ said Lauri.

  ‘It sounds like a fairy story. The orphans are about to be reunited after their long, sad parting. It’s a happy ending, isn’t it? At least, I hope it’s a happy ending –’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Lauri.

  Sasha turned round to look at him. He hadn’t heard that tone from Lauri before. Lauri was sitting bolt upright, his face set, ready to shove back the bedclothes.

  ‘That’s enough, Sasha.’

  Lauri knew Sasha in this mood. Goading his opponent in the heart of a meeting, barbing his words. When you took Sasha’s words apart there was never an open accusation, nothing you could fight against. He was glad he’d put Eeva’s letter away. He didn’t want Sasha to see it.

  But suddenly Sasha changed. He put out his hand, palm up.

  ‘Don’t mind me. I’m jealous, that’s what it is. The only letters I ever get are about how I. M. Nicolaev will define our position on the rising price of essentials.’ All at once his face was warm, alive with sympathy. ‘I’m sorry, Lauri. I’m worn out and everything’s gone wrong today – I’ll tell you about it another time. I’m a clod and a clown and I deserve to be shot. Forgive me?’

  Lauri smiled back. ‘It was my fault. I should’ve waited ...’

  ‘No. This is important. She’s to come to Helsinki, of course.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes. Well, no, obviously not here in this room. That’s scarcely practical, is it? Unless you’re going to marry her?’

  Going to marry her? But Lauri said nothing aloud. Why had Sasha said that? Those things should never be said.

  ‘But we’ll find somewhere for her,’ Sasha went on breezily. ‘It won’t be difficult. And then she must get work. She’s in service, you said?’

  ‘Eeva can do anything. You’ve no idea. She can write – you wouldn’t believe how she writes. And she speaks Russian better than I do, even though she’s never lived there, and Swedish. She knows pages of poetry off by heart, and she’s read hundreds of books.’

  ‘She’ll be perfect in a dairy shop,’ decided Sasha. ‘As long as she’s neat, and clean, and nice-looking. I expect she’s nice-looking, isn’t she? They’re crying out for girls like that, with the dairy shops that are opening up all over the city. I’ve got contacts, I’ll get to work on it.’

  It was all being taken out of his hands. Sasha had the best intentions in the world, and this was just how he’d helped Lauri, finding him that job at Pavlov’s. But Eeva was different. Somehow Sasha’s fixing didn’t feel right for her.

  ‘When Eeva’s settled here, she can decide,’ Lauri said.

  ‘She can’t live in the street. I know a woman comrade who’s looking for someone to share her room. You’ve met her: Magda, the German girl. But Eeva will have to get work straight away. There’ll be her share of the rent, and then there’s lighting and heat, and everything else, not to speak of food –’

  ‘I can help her, to begin with. I’ve got some savings.’

  Sasha looked at him quizzically, smiling. ‘I want to help, Lauri. That’s all I’m trying to do. And yet you’re angry with me.’

  ‘I’m not angry. I know you want to help.’

  ‘Has she the money for her fare?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘The trouble is, she’s out in the back of beyond. You’d have to find out the nearest railway station. Or should we go there ourselves, to fetch her?’

  But the thought of turning up to fetch Eeva with Sasha was a pair of boots
that didn’t fit. She might not even come.

  ‘I’ll write to her,’ Lauri said. ‘I’ll send her the money for her fare, and she can decide for herself.’

  Something in his tone silenced Sasha for a moment.

  Long after Sasha was asleep, Lauri still lay thinking. He would be able to send her the fare. He had the money he was saving for next winter’s boots, and that would do it. Of course Eeva would have to get work, but he hadn’t liked the way Sasha talked about putting her into a dairy shop, as if Eeva wasn’t Eeva, but just any girl fresh up from the country.

  He turned over, very carefully so as not to disturb Sasha. It was no good trying to sleep now. It was full daylight outside, anyway, and on summer nights Lauri never slept long. He made up his sleep in the winter.

  Eeva’s letter made the last years seem like no time at all. He could shut his eyes and believe he was back sharing a bed with Eeva, in her father’s apartment, when they were children.

  That night – yes, the night he’d nearly told Sasha about once. But he’d stopped himself, and he’d been right to do so. Things like that shouldn’t be talked about. What had he actually said to Sasha? Lauri frowned, trying to remember the exact words. I’ve been in a room when a death was planned. Yes, that was it. Long ago, when I was a child.

  Long ago, when we were both children. When we snuggled up in the same bed, and Eeva’s father laid his coat over us.

  Eeva usually turned to the wall and humped out her backside. Lauri would push her into her own half of the bed. He can still remember exactly what that little backside felt like: bony, but somehow soft too.

  He could always tell from her breathing whether she was really asleep or not. She didn’t snore but she breathed more slowly. Eeva hadn’t always been able to tell whether he was asleep or not. He was better at faking it than she was.

  ‘Lauri?’ she asked that night, in the thread of a whisper, and he didn’t answer. He kept right down under the bedclothes, breathing away deeply and evenly. If she’d been able to see his face she’d have known at once that he wasn’t asleep, but of course she couldn’t.

  ‘Lauri?’

  He should have answered, but he lay dead still, listening.

  ‘You’ve sorted it, then?’ Eeva’s father said that. And a deep voice – Juha – said that the man had fallen on the ice and hit the back of his head.

  They meant the man who’d been at the meeting. Lauri knew something was wrong about him straight away. The way they talked to him and the way he asked so many questions. Lauri knew about police spies. He wondered if Eeva knew, too? They gave the man drink after drink and watched him to make sure he swallowed the vodka. His voice went sloppy and he kept saying he’d had enough, but they poured another glass as if they hadn’t heard. And when everyone else had left, Eero and Big Juha took the man away. Lauri can’t forget what he looked like. He had one arm over Eero’s shoulder, and one over Big Juha’s. In fact both men were bigger and broader than him and he dangled between them. He had a weak, blurred smile on his face. They said he shouldn’t try to walk alone, and they’d take him where he was going.

  He went out with them. From the back he looked like their prisoner. Had Lauri really thought that at the time, or did he only think of it later? The man was still asking a question as he went out of the door, but they didn’t answer.

  They’d killed him. Lauri knew that now and he’d known it then. Yes, children know things like that, even more clearly than adults, because they don’t tell themselves that things are impossible and can’t be happening. He’d known that they were going to kill the stranger, the man who might be a police spy Did they know for sure that he was a police spy? Had they had a tip-off, or was it only that no one could vouch for him, and he asked too many questions?

  Lauri had lain awake that night, cold and shivering. He’d thought that Eeva was awake too, but he didn’t want her to know he wasn’t asleep. He didn’t want her to know how frightened he was. If Eero and Big Juha knew he’d been listening and he’d understood, maybe they’d take him out into the snow, too. Even Eeva’s father might not be able to stop it.

  No, Eeva’s father would stop them, Lauri told himself. He wouldn’t let it happen. But he hadn’t stopped Eero and Big Juha, had he? Lauri lay shivering, with Eeva close but not touching him. That’s how he knew she wasn’t really asleep, because when they were really asleep and she was breathing slow, they always slid together somehow. But he didn’t whisper her name. It might be dangerous. If she didn’t know he was awake, maybe she’d think it was all a dream, and she’d forget it.

  After a long, long time, he heard them come back.

  ‘You’ve sorted it, then?’ It was Eeva’s father’s voice.

  ‘That’s right. He took a nasty fall on the ice, struck the back of his head… it’s not likely he’ll be found before morning.’

  Had Eeva still been awake then? He wasn’t sure. And then one of them had creaked across the floor to where the children lay. He hadn’t dared stir. He’d kept his eyes squeezed shut even though he knew his face was hidden. Something pressed down on the mattress. The bed creaked and the mattress moved. Maybe they knew. They knew Lauri had heard and were coming to silence him. And then, after a few seconds, the pressure lifted. Footsteps padded away, the door to the little inner room where Eeva’s father slept clicked open, then shut again. The room breathed out.

  Lauri didn’t remember what had come next. One minute he’d been lying there rigid, the next it was morning. Maybe he’d fallen straight from terror into sleep. He’d never said anything to Eeva, nor she to him.

  Yes, much better if Sasha didn’t know any of it. To Sasha, it would be perfectly straightforward. A group of vigilant comrades had spotted a spy in their midst, and taken steps to eliminate him. That was Sasha’s language. He was fond of expressions like ‘in their midst’ and ‘taking steps’. And as for vigilance, it was one of Sasha’s favourite themes…

  But the question was, did Eeva remember that long-ago night, and know that it wasn’t a dream? If she did, maybe one day they would talk about it. It was strange how important it seemed to know whether or not she’d really been asleep.

  He would write back to her straight away. And he’d find a way to send her the money. She’d need her railway fare, and something to get as far as the station, and money for food on the journey. Maybe she could get a lift in a cart going to market, thought Lauri vaguely, if there was a market wherever the railway station was. He had never lived in the country, and had little idea of how people lived there, except that his political education had taught him that the peasants were just as badly off as the workers. And even easier to exploit, since they were tied to the land.

  He couldn’t imagine Eeva being tied to the land. She was much too quick and light. But even so, he felt a touch of panic at the thought of Eeva lost out there, in that foreign world of trees and crops and the smell of farm animals, as if she’d sunk to the bottom of the sea.

  He turned over again, and shut his eyes. Soon he’d have to get up for work, and he’d not even slept.

  In his mind he saw Eeva coming towards him over a sheet of green grass. She looked just as she had done before she left. He couldn’t find a way to make her older, or different. She was looking at him across the wide stretch of grass that she still had to cross, and all at once he realized that of course it wasn’t grass at all, but a broad green river, so deep that you couldn’t see the bottom. The current was rushing along, and there was a wind that made Eeva’s grey skirt blow out, and then in again, close to her body. Even though the water was flowing so fast, its surface didn’t break and it remained coldly green. It looked like green snakes, he thought, as if hundreds of snakes were twisting just beneath the skin of the water. Eeva put a hand on her skirt to keep it from blowing up around her, and she stared at him across the water, as if to say, Are you going to come to me?’

  ‘Sasha!’ he called. ‘Sasha, we need a boat!’

  But there was no reply. He turned and
there was no Sasha, only the echo of Sasha’s voice saying, ‘I’ve sorted it.’

  Lauri slept. The mattress was old, and it sagged in the middle so that any two sleepers couldn’t help meeting some time, in the course of the night. But whenever Sasha’s body touched his, Lauri turned and moved away to the edge of the mattress, as if by instinct.

  17

  Yes, there she went! Scuttling away into those trees like a rabbit, but not quite fast enough to avoid Minna, who picked up her skirts and hurried after the girl. She’d have preferred to have this encounter in the kitchen. In the kitchen it was perfectly clear where they stood, and the strength of Minna’s position was obvious.

  Things weren’t quite so clear in the open air, unfortunately. And having to run after her like this put Minna at a disadvantage. It was too hot to run. Her stays were tight and she couldn’t get her breath. Where on earth was the wretched girl off to? She ought to be cooking, or cleaning something, not running about in the woods. Minna was panting now. This was completely ridiculous. Leaves brushed her face, dirty twigs snapped at her, roots caught her feet. She tripped, and nearly fell. And wearing her new skirt too – how annoying! Minna stopped, and shaded her eyes against the criss-crossing of light and shadow. That was the worst of trees. They took the light and broke it up and hid things in it.

  Ah, there she was! Not doing anything, just standing there with a colander in her hands. A colander! Did she think she was in the kitchen garden? She’d seen Minna. Yes, she’d realized she wasn’t going to get away from her. No doubt she knew exactly what it was that Minna wanted to say to her. Well might you run away from me, my lady, thought Minna. You’ve got something you hadn’t bargained for now, haven’t you? Yes, I’ve something to say to you and well you know it. Unless you’re a fool, and you’re certainly not that.