‘Holy … well, look, I’m good. See ya!’ Hietanen shot off and Rahikainen started dreaming up other schemes.
As Rokka, Vanhala and Hietanen were approaching the girls’ building, Tanya and Alexei ran out to meet them, shouting, ‘Heroo!! Heroo!!’
That was their convoluted rendition of Hietanen’s first name, ‘Urho’, and it never failed to crack him up. Alexei was eight and Tanya was six. Their father had been killed right at the start of the war, making them war orphans. They never asked for anything, they just watched Hietanen closely, waiting for him to reach into his bread bag. Hietanen would purposely dawdle awhile, keeping the children dangling in suspense. Not until they reached the courtyard did he pull out the bread and give it to them. They both thanked him in Finnish, though neither of them actually understood a word of the language. They clasped the bread to their chests, as their mother had instructed them to bring home anything anybody gave them. Hietanen glanced at them and yelled, ‘Alexei! Down with the Russkis!’
‘Down viz da Russkii!’ Alexei shouted, laughing, without a clue what he was saying.
There was a third child in the courtyard as well. He was a boy of maybe six or so, wearing a grown man’s shirt and trousers, the legs of which had been rolled up so they wouldn’t drag on the ground. On his head he had one of those pointed, so-called ‘Budenovka’ caps of the Red Army. The boy watched the men closely and silently retreated further away the closer they came.
‘Alexei and Tanya!’ Hietanen called to the children, who were on their way up the stairs. They stopped and Hietanen gestured them to come back. ‘Give him some of the bread. I’ll be sure to bring more next time.’
The children didn’t really understand what he was saying, but they gathered he was talking about the boy and said, ‘Grisha’.
‘C’mere, Chris-ka!’ Hietanen called, but the boy just looked at him, hesitating. Only when Hietanen pulled out the bread did the boy cautiously start toward him. As soon as Hietanen placed the piece of bread in his hand, the boy spun around and bolted off as if he were running for dear life. Hietanen gave a hearty laugh. ‘Wouldja look at that little one go!’
Then they headed toward the girls’ quarters. Hietanen had happened upon them right away that first morning they were in the city. He had stepped in to check the building, his gun poised under his arm, and had suddenly gone red with embarrassment on realizing that he was staring into a pair of beautiful eyes belonging to a girl staring down the barrel of his gun.
The girl was Vera, an Eastern Karelian schoolteacher. After the city had fallen, she’d taken in two of her friends to live with her. Right from the start Hietanen felt some sort of bashful subservience in Vera’s company. He didn’t dare visit her alone, but always brought Rokka and Vanhala along for moral support. And no wonder. Vera was the kind of girl who would have made just about any man a bit uncertain of himself. First of all, she was exceptionally beautiful, and on top of that she had a calm, proud way about her. Her sharp features were expressive, but strong and stately at the same time. She looked upon the occupiers kindly, but from a decidedly elevated vantage point – perhaps because she was a committed communist, but above all because she was aware of her spiritual superiority over the three of them. But she frequently chatted animatedly with them, and she loved to dance. Little by little, Hietanen had become her favorite, as well as that of her housemates. They knew Hietanen brought bread for the children in the building, and they demonstrated their appreciation for this in their own spontaneous way.
The girls were making tea. Vanhala had a few dirty sugar cubes that had been rolling around in his pockets for quite some time, which he now fished out and offered to the girls. The humble offering was accepted – seeing as when the Russians pulled out, the girls had been left with next to nothing. It hadn’t occurred to them to stock up on anything in advance, so they were out of just about everything within a day or two.
Vera was practically silent. She sat staring into a corner of the room, and Hietanen gazed at her profile, whose even regularity was so beautiful it downright frightened him. He had never seen girls like her before, save a passing glance as some fancy car sped by his milk route back home.
‘What’ssa matter, Veerukka?’ asked Rokka, who was not fond of reflective types. ‘C’mon, why don’t you start dancin’? That’ll send your worries whirlin’ away.’
‘Be quiet! She misses her fiancé,’ Hietanen said, blushing.
‘Verotshka doesn’t have a fiancé,’ Nina, the other Karelian girl, said.
Vera smiled, but her face fell quickly and she said, ‘Why did you come? Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?’
‘Now lissen, Vera, don’t you start in on’nat,’ said Rokka. ‘You’re the ones started the damn thing. Took m’farm! You think we’ve wrecked things here, you oughdda go see what kinda state Kannas is in! We wouldn’t be here if you all’d just left us alone.’
‘Ah, listen … who came … Hitler came … But he will be made to pay.’ Vera spoke boldly, particularly once she realized that it didn’t set off these men’s tempers. She never fawned over them, nor did she soften any of her positions, or demonstrate the least deference toward them.
Hietanen was somehow ill at ease. It seemed rather awkward to oppose Vera, even if he knew that she was a communist, and thus the victim of propaganda. He tried to steer a middle road, granting that Hitler was an aggressor, but pointing out that in the Finnish situation, things had been different.
‘Then why did you point your riffle at me?’ Vera asked, smiling.
Vera’s ‘riffle’ made them all laugh, because although she spoke near perfect Finnish, being a schoolteacher, she didn’t quite know how to pronounce all the Finnish terms properly.
‘How was I supposed to know who I was going to find?’ Hietanen asked, continuing in all seriousness, ‘I recognize that war is nothin’ but trouble for both sides, no matter who started it. Brings a whole lot of misery on all kinds of people who never did anybody any harm. Like all the kids, for example.’
‘And you bring ’em bread. Lissen here, Veerukka, you say we’re all a bunch a troublemakers, but Hietanen here took out his own rations for tomorrow so he could bring ’em to Tanya and Alexei.’
Hietanen flushed red with pleasure at Rokka’s praise in Vera’s presence, but his insides turned upside down when Vera then rose and, without a word, kissed him on the cheek.
He tried to laugh, but couldn’t quite manage it, and failing, directed his energies angrily toward Vanhala, who giggled as he gasped, ‘Our boys are sharing their own rations with the children of the kindred nations, who have been suffering from undernourishment under Bolshevik rule …’
Hietanen hadn’t managed to say anything before Vera flared up on his behalf. Vanhala practically froze in terror when those beautiful eyes flashed angrily at him, accompanied by a rapid fire of words uttered in a voice nearly trembling with rage. ‘You don’t give anything to children. You obviously eat everything yourself, or you wouldn’t be such a great sangia priha.’
‘A great sankia priha? What’ssat?’ Rokka asked, laughing, and Vera made a rounded movement with her hands to indicate Vanhala’s plumpness. With this, Hietanen finally regained his footing and burst out laughing loudest of all. Vanhala’s own laugh was heartiest, however, as he repeated, giggling, as if practicing the pronunciation of his new name, ‘Great sankia priha … heehee … Sankia Priha the Great!’
Hietanen boisterously started demanding music, and Vanhala began fiddling around with his gramophone, getting it ready to play.
‘What’ll we play? Should I put o
n Stalin’s speech?’ Vanhala had several large records of Stalin’s speeches. He played them frequently, repeating some of the more clearly distinguishable Russian words over and over to himself.
‘Hell, no. Play “Yokkantee”!’ Rokka cried, campaigning for his favorite.
‘Nah, let’s have “Army Battalyon”!’ said Hietanen, a fan of marches.
Vanhala did not reveal whose wish would be granted. Then, strains of ‘Yokkantee’ filled the air. It was a Russian-style rhythm that girls often danced to, and it was indeed with this hope in mind that Vanhala selected it just now. No sooner did the first notes reach his ears than Rokka’s whole body came alive, moving in time with the music. ‘Lissen, Vera,’ he said, ‘you dance alone. Those legs a yours move so goddamn fast.’
Vera hesitated at first, but then began. Through the slower, opening measures, it was as if she were focusing, concentrating her forces into the fast, feral movements that eventually accelerated into such a dizzying crescendo that the three of them could no longer follow what was going on at all.
For Rokka, this fiery finish was the most interesting of all, and he waited for it, exclaiming, ‘Not like that, not like that. Like last time! Quick like that!’
When Vera’s dance began to accelerate, Rokka clapped his hands and every part of him came to life, moving in time with the music.
‘That’s it, that’s it! You see, fellas, see how this girl can dance? That’s it, Veerukka! Holy Mother a God, that girl is fast.’
Vera danced. Perform she did not – rather, everything about her seemed to declare that she danced for herself alone. The music filled her entire body, which responded to its tiniest nuances, and it thrilled her, propelling her in some kind of ecstatic trance. When the dance ended, a restrained smile emerged on her face, as if proceeding from some internal satisfaction that the dance had given her.
The three crusaders sat dazed in astonishment. They didn’t understand the beauty and precision of Vera’s dance, which would have afforded her easy passage from this sitting room to the most demanding of public arenas. They were just amazed at how fast she was.
As they were leaving, Hietanen lingered by the door as Vera came to shut it. He reached out, playfully unclasping the Youth League pin from its resting place on her blouse, sitting upon her impressive breast. His little finger experienced the trembling pleasure of pressing slightly against it, and then, practically petrified, he said, trying to make his voice sound playful, ‘Think I might take this, to remember you by?’
‘Take it!’
Hietanen was immediately embarrassed at the awkwardness of his flirtation and turned to follow the others. Vera looked after him for a long time, her eyes full of compassion, but there was something in her gaze that made Hietanen sense that this could not continue. He could not quite attain Vera, and he understood that, vaguely and indistinctly. And besides, what could ever have come of it anyway?
He was feeling rather wistful and mixed up when he caught up with the others, though uppermost in his confused emotions was the tiny, minute joy of having touched Vera with his little finger. And it was this feeling that prompted him to blurt out, ‘I have to say, the women here are something else …’
‘And they kiss you on the cheek. You should’ve stayed! The tribes of Finland unite!’
Hietanen was so swept up in his own emotions that he didn’t quite grasp Sankia Priha’s joke. But it nonetheless prompted him to limit his praise of Vera to her dancing, in order to demonstrate to everybody that there was no silly sentimentality in his admiration of the girl.
‘Man! It’s crazy how a person can turn like that! Only time I ever danced, trying to turn those girls was like, I don’t know – moving one of those heavyweight plows they make over in Fiskars.’
‘Lissen here, Sankia Priha the Great!’ Rokka said, laughing. ‘We ain’t takin’ Hietanen there any more. He might git all heartsick on us and then he’d be no use at all.’
‘Heehee! The children of Kaleva reunite … Heehee! No longer lost strands blowing in the wind … Heeheehee!’
Only now did Hietanen realize that they were mocking his most sacred emotions, and he flew into a rage, vehemently attempting to defend his masculinity by making it clear that his soul certainly didn’t have anything like goodness or beauty in it. ‘Now don’t you go thinking I’m the one who’s gonna start getting all gushy first here. I don’t go in for that kind of thing at all … No way … I’m just a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. I don’t give a shit, damn it!’
Then he fell silent, figuring that he had convinced the others he was guilty of nothing so shameful as taking pity on hungry children or falling for a girl in any way that exceeded commonplace flirting.
Near to their lodgings, they came upon a group of small boys asking for bread and cigarettes. They tossed over a few smokes, figuring the children would take them back to their fathers. The boys expressed their thanks by counting off down the line all the Finnish curse words they knew. They had obviously figured out how to earn cigarettes from the soldiers, and supposed that the same trick would work as payment too. One little fellow emerged from the scuffle without any cigarettes, and so chased after them quite a way, attempting to win them over by yelling at the top of his lungs, ‘Sheeeet! Sheeet!’
Vanhala found this hilarious and tossed the kid a cigarette. As they neared their lodgings, they heard strains of an evening prayer service underway. Strains of the company’s hymns echoed through the dark city: ‘… miiiighty fo-o-ortress is our God … A buuulwark never faa-a-ailing …’
They turned cautiously down a back road so as to avoid being seen.
That evening Hietanen sat gazing out of the window, singing off-key, ‘… even in the fiercest fighting …’
V
The next day there was a parade. They didn’t have to do anything for it but maintain order in the city. A few men from their battalion had been selected to take part in the parade, but nobody from Koskela’s platoon. They did receive medals and promotions, though. Koskela was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, Hietanen received the sergeant’s stripe the Major had promised him, and Määttä was promoted to corporal. Just about every man was awarded a medal of some sort, and admittedly, the Second Class medals were starting to be rather like prizes for participation.
That evening they moved into the barracks. After a hell of a lot of work, they had finally managed to make it suitable for habitation. They were not pleased about the move, as they sensed that the old buildings had permitted a freer lifestyle in every way. Nor were their instincts incorrect. As soon as they were in the barracks, Sinkkonen, who had also been promoted in the recent sweep, to master sergeant, ordered the company to fall in by rank into four lines. It was as if the old army brat was suddenly possessed by the devil from the moment he set foot in a barracks. After having been put in his place upon his first presentation to the company, he had kept quiet, but now it was clear that he had decided to settle the score.
He strutted self-importantly in front of the company, clearing his throat, stretching out his neck, and ordering the men to count off.
‘One … two … three … four …’ The men counted off lethargically, as if expressing their opinion of the exercise by making their voices even more apathetic than usual. When the count-off was over, nobody called out any absences, though Sinkkonen could obviously see that neither the third nor fourth row was complete.
‘How many absences? Are you men sleeping or what? Why didn’t you call out the absences?’
‘Who’s had time to count ’em all?’ a voice yelled from the back.
Sinkkonen
ordered whoever was yelling to keep his mouth shut, but then somebody else shouted, ‘We lost seven guys from our platoon. Twelve were wounded, but eight of ’em came back.’
‘What, what … what kind of talk is this?’ Sinkkonen was struggling against the pressure of the crowd. His self-assurance had abandoned him, and to mask its loss he began lashing out at the company. ‘Clearly, there are certain men here who imagine the army is no longer able to maintain discipline. That is a serious mistake. Men in the back, report the number of absences from count-off.’
‘All right, all right, two,’ somebody said, and the Master Sergeant considered victory his. A moment ago he had been feeling very pleased to stand before the company, as he had been planning to give a speech about various issues relating to their move into the barracks. Speaking before ranks like these was one of his greatest pleasures – and now it had been spoiled. Nevertheless, he began. ‘Now that the company is being housed here in the barracks, I would like to call your attention to a few matters regarding routine chores and responsibilities. Impeccable cleanliness and order are to be strictly maintained. Every article of the barracks duty regulations is to be observed. In light of the circumstances, we will permit one exception, which is that you are not required to salute NCOs upon their entry. Only the Company Master Sergeant need be saluted as usual. And then, esteemed NCOs …’ (A few muffled sniggers emanated from the ranks, and even the NCOs laughed, with the exception of one or two men.) ‘Quiet in the ranks! The NCOs will lodge separately in designated NCO quarters. You are to ensure that your quarters are kept thoroughly in order.’
Just then Rokka’s booming voice interrupted Sinkkonen’s speech. ‘Well, shit, no. That don’t work for me at all. Suslin’n I take our tea together and everything else together too. Either I bunk with him or he comes over in’na NCO section with me.’