White Hunger (Chance Encounter Series) (6 page)

The yellow wall takes up the entire length of the street. Marja walks under the windows. The wooden building resembles a fortress. Frost forms a thin, limp veil over the yellow paint, unable to penetrate the great house.

A man comes round the corner and leaps in front of Marja like a startled hare. His eyes bear the same expression as Pajula’s dog Peni after Lauri beat it senseless in a drunken rage.

Marja stumbles against the wall. Juho sways in time with his mother, like a branch that yields to the wind’s every whim.

The man loses his footing as he dodges Marja, but he manages to break his fall with one hand. He carries on crossing the street at the same speed, only on all fours. Three other men, who all look like landowners, catch up with him. One of them, who is dressed in wolf fur, grabs the man on all fours by his collar and tugs violently. The fugitive rears up like a horse. Then he slips, and slumps into his coat. The man in wolf fur flings him down as if he were a wild cat.

‘Thief, thief,’ croaks a woman in a blue shawl who has followed on the men’s heels.

A small shrivelled man with a droopy moustache pulls the coat half off the thief.

The thief looks at the moustached man in horror, presses his forehead to the snow and pants. He hunches his shoulders, as if expecting a blow. His pursuer digs out a lump of meat from inside the coat and holds it up like a trophy for all to see. Then, suddenly, he bashes the thief on the back of the neck with the meat. The man goes limp and just lies there. Not because of the blow, but because he has no strength to resist. The man with the moustache kicks him. Marja covers Juho’s eyes.

The woman in the blue shawl spots Marja and points at her with a long, thin finger.

‘There goes another beggar, meat thief, robber, whore,’ the woman shouts.

Marja squeezes Juho protectively, too hard. Juho tries to prise his mother’s hand away. He manages to peer through her fingers; he sees the man using his hands to drag himself forward. Bright-red blood trickles from his mouth.

The pursuers turn towards Marja. The man with the moustache merely glances over his shoulder before turning back to watch the flogged man crawling.

The stares are empty; they exude coldness. The woman in the shawl opens and closes her mouth. Marja sees her teeth, and the frozen breath rising from the woman’s mouth along with her words; she does not hear the voice. The town starts revolving slowly around her. Wolf fur steps closer.

‘Let her be. She’s got a child and all.’

The man’s words open Marja’s ears. After the moment of deafness, she hears the sounds of the town again. They roar in the emptiness inside her head, cause shooting pains behind her eyes, but then, finally, they settle down in their proper places. Wolf fur tells her there is an almshouse on the other side of the river, at the foot of the church hill. She should go there.

Marja cannot move her legs. She looks in the direction wolf fur indicated, then at his hand, and finally at his face. Instantly, she understands how idiotic she must appear. She begins to shiver with exhaustion.

Wolf fur picks up Juho. Marja is alarmed; she tries to stop the man but manages only to move a hand feebly in his direction.

‘Very well, I’ll take you there.’

It takes a moment for Marja to comprehend the man’s words. She calms down and her body stops trembling. The woman in the blue shawl is now standing next to the man, and she looks curiously at Juho.

‘Mr Gustafsson should take care. Could be the boy’s got something. Typhus.’

‘Could be. Could always be there, typhus.’

The man turns and begins walking. Juho stretches out his hand towards his mother.

‘Come on,’ Gustafsson orders.

Marja follows the mitten Juho extends. At the crossroads, she looks at the thief lying on the ground. The man
with the moustache is already walking off, the lump of meat under his arm. The woman in the blue shawl runs to catch up with him and the man he is with. Having joined them, she looks back at Marja and Gustafsson and seems to be explaining something; she tugs at moustached man’s sleeve, but the men are more interested in the lump of meat than whatever it is the woman has to say.

The thief has attracted curious onlookers. Muffled laughter rings out from the crowd. Marja sees a young boy throwing horse shit at the thief. An icy turd hits the man’s cheek. Marja stumbles, as if her own cheek had been struck. But the thief feels nothing; he breathes only blood now.

‘Let that be a lesson to you. That’s what happens to thieves. Times like these, no one looks kindly on people who steal food. We’ve all got the same hunger. If beggars come, we give what we can, if we can,’ Gustafsson says. ‘Take note, don’t be tempted.’

Marja cannot see the man’s face; she is being addressed by a lifeless wolf fur. She cannot work out if the voice is friendly or hostile. She tries to force out a reply, so that the man will go on talking. It does her good to hear another person speak. When she has to exert herself and concentrate on listening, she momentarily forgets the cold and the hunger. No matter what the other person is saying, as long as he is addressing her. Then she remembers that there are other people in the world, and that people still talk to each other. And one day, maybe, there will be
talk of things other than bread, the lack of it, or hunger and diseases.

People would talk about the coming of spring, the melting of the ice. About the swans someone spotted on the Holy Lake. About the neighbouring fields being flooded, and the floodwater taking Verneri Lenkola’s sledge, and Lenkola’s dog Musti sitting on the sledge like the captain of an ocean liner bound for distant shores. About Juhani taking Mataleena to the edge of the marsh to watch the cranes perform their spring dance.

‘We’re here. You can ask Hakmanni, the church warden, for a piece of bread, though he’s not likely to have any. But he will have water for you to drink. He lives over there; the almshouse is further down, towards the fields.’

Gustafsson lowers Juho to the ground and starts back in the direction of the river without saying goodbye. A young man emerges from the woodshed and comes over to Marja. He is holding firewood in his arms tightly, as if it were a child. He welcomes Marja and Juho in the name of the Lord. This is Hakmanni. He tries to smile, and a stupid, albeit gentle, expression crosses his face.

‘I have no bread, unfortunately, or maybe a small piece for the child. But you can stay the night in the outhouse. Or perhaps I can let you have my own… bread, I mean – I can’t have you in the main house. It’s forbidden, because of epidemics. But that’s just my house – you can go to the almshouse, naturally, as I just said. These logs, I’ll take them later. Or no: wait here, I will take the logs,
we’ll find some bread afterwards. That way, there won’t be a fight. Because everyone should have some, but there isn’t enough.’

Half-running, Hakmanni makes for the almshouse. The logs seem ready to spill from his arms, and he has to contort himself so his gait becomes awkward.

The sky is the colour of a snake’s eye. The first star lights up and Marja feels the snake watching her and Juho. She looks back at the snake, eye to eye, but she cannot fool it.

At last, Hakmanni’s figure slowly comes into view on the snowy slope, bent and black. Marja hopes the man will banish the snake, but she realizes that Hakmanni is not up to it. The snake smiles.

Marja stands on the step. Hakmanni starts upon seeing her, wakes from his stupor and puts the key in the lock.

‘Is this where I left you, outside the door in the freezing cold? The vicar tells me to keep the door locked as a precaution. These days, there are all sorts of folk wandering about. I should have let you inside, where it’s warm. Although I don’t see what I’ve got that’s worth stealing. Bread, maybe, but then we must give to those in need, you can’t call it theft. You must be frozen stiff.’

Indoors, Marja sits down on the edge of the couch. Hakmanni shoves small pieces of wood into the stove. In the warmth, Juho falls asleep on his mother’s lap. Hakmanni wipes his hands on his coat-tails and disappears
into another room. Marja lifts Juho on to the couch and goes to drink some water from a pot. Hakmanni returns with half a loaf and a crate not quite full of small potatoes, bitten black by frost.

‘I shouldn’t really give these to almshouse residents… Aren’t they small these days?’ Hakmanni lets out a mirthless laugh.

‘You can’t tell them apart from blueberries.’ Marja remembers the comparison.

‘They’re what I eat myself; there isn’t anything else, we’ve got to make do with what there is,’ Hakmanni mumbles apologetically.

‘That’s a lot – I can’t remember when I last saw a potato,’ Marja hastens to say.

Hakmanni sighs, as if with relief. He turns the crate this way and that, and watches the small, black marbles rolling from one side to the other.

‘They’re a little like these years. Black and modest… Though you can’t really call this time modest. It’s taking a heavy toll. Hardest hit are those who’ve already been given the least. The harvests are meagre; these are like the harvests these days, small and black…’

I’m glad he’s talking, at least, Marja thinks. Hakmanni’s words float in the small room like great snowflakes. They fall gently on Mataleena and Juhani, tenderly covering the memories of them, and Mataleena smiles under the veil of snow.

‘The child sleeps so blissfully. It’s a pity to wake him.’

The flakes vanish. Marja wakes up to the twilight of the room and looks at Hakmanni wonderingly. He has stopped moving the crate around and poured the potatoes into a small saucepan.

‘But he’s got be woken up to eat – I can’t let you take any food with you. Everyone is hungry in the outhouse, and hunger makes people desperate. I’ve seen bread taken from the mouth of a child,’ Hakmanni continues. He points at Juho, resting on the couch.

‘They killed a thief at the crossroads on the other side of the bridge,’ Marja tells him.

Juho chews a potato for a long time, until it dissolves and trickles out as saliva from the corners of his mouth. Hakmanni says nothing, merely stares at Juho, whose jaws continue their endless movement.

‘Well, I don’t know if he was dead, but he was as good as,’ Marja goes on.

‘We should try to understand,’ Hakmanni whispers finally. ‘Given there’s a shortage of food everywhere. People will chase a lump of meat like a pack of wolves and tear each other to pieces.’

‘It was a lump of meat he stole, in fact.’

The snake has disappeared. The stars shine, bright and dead, in the darkened sky. Marja walks, holding a lantern, along a path in the snow towards the almshouse. Hakmanni comes after her, carrying the sleeping Juho.

From inside the cabin, a heavy, smoky blast of air hits them. Marja discerns an oven made of blackened stones, and reddish firelight shimmering and rippling feebly towards the dirty floor, to withdraw again behind the stones after hitting the ragged people lying there. ‘God bless you,’ Hakmanni says, and shuts the door. Marja picks up Juho and seeks a vacant spot. She settles down on a bench under the window and lays Juho on the floor, as close to the oven as possible.

The small windowpanes are covered with soot on the inside and frost on the outside, but Marja sees the stars through them, still staring cruelly. Then bony fingers curl round her neck and tear her to the floor. A repugnant panting penetrates Marja’s hunger and exhaustion, terrifying her. She tries to shout, but cannot breathe. Finally, the hands let go of her throat, only to begin tearing at her clothes. The cold fingers grope her, seeking either bread concealed about her person, or flesh, wizened with hunger. Desperate, Marja tries to clutch at Juho’s sleeve, but the fingers squeeze her wrist and wrench her hand loose.

‘A whore peddling her wares; thinks she’ll get bread out of it.’ The malign voice of an old woman bleats in the darkness of the room. ‘Couldn’t you get into a gentleman’s chamber? Is that why you come here to show your wares? Heheheh…’

Frost crackles in the wooden walls and, at the same time, the man disappears into the fetid air; Marja is left lying in emptiness.

A crack sounds: the man falls to the floor. It takes a moment for Marja to take in the thud. She turns to see a thin figure holding a long piece of wood.

‘You killed a man, you killed a good man,’ the old biddy screeches.

‘Shut up, grandma,’ a voice rings out from the corner.

‘In cahoots with the whore. The whore seduces and the other one strikes. They killed a man, murderers! Murderer! Whore!’

‘One more croak, you fucking toad, and you’ll get it from the same log.’

The voice belongs to a young boy. Probably not much older than Mataleena, Marja thinks. Juho has woken up and is sobbing. Marja picks him up and soothes the child and, at the same time, herself.

The door creaks open, a lantern appears and then Hakmanni’s face. ‘In God’s name, what is this racket?’

Hakmanni’s lantern lights up the room. The skeletal man lying face-down on the floor watches, eyes wide open, as straw gradually begins floating in red blood. It drifts right in front of his eyes and yet the man looks from very far away.

‘Dead,’ Hakmanni states woefully.

‘Murdered by the whore! The whore and her helper,’ the small, wizened old woman screeches. But her words drop back down from the black planks of the ceiling.

‘Shut your mouth, you crazy cow. Take no notice of her. You can see what happened: the bloke was trying
feel his way through the dark with his trousers round his ankles. He tripped over and hit his head on that log.’ A man sitting in the corner joins in the conversation.

Hakmanni looks at the body, then turns to the boy holding the piece of wood.

‘I found it on the floor. I picked it up to prevent another accident happening,’ the boy says calmly.

‘You’re not yet a man and you’ve already gone down that path,’ Hakmanni says, more in sorrow than in judgement.

‘You mean a beggar’s path?’

‘You know what I mean. For the sake of your own soul you need to know that; for you, too, have a soul. Just as this poor man does,’ Hakmanni replies softly.