Authors: Janis Mackay
In Seponkatu 39, they moved around me differently. They didn’t avoid me. Tuomas was always gazing up at me and smiling. ‘I made this to help bring you back,’ Tuomas said, showing me the poster he had pinned up in all the local shop windows. ‘It’s a good photo of you, eh, Niilo?’
It wasn’t, but I nodded. ‘I was only about ten in that photo,’ I told him. Which was around about the age he was, I guessed. Or maybe he was nine? I looked at him, then looked at myself in the mirror.
‘We look alike,’ he said.
That wasn’t true either, though there was maybe some similarity in our jaw and noses. He was my half-brother – I knew that now, and so did he. Mum had bravely sat us all down the night before and told the whole story. About her first husband, Nilse – my father – and my twin, and the far north of Finland, and the boat. And the accident. Tuomas had come up and hugged me after that. And in a strange way, it was all okay.
I ruffled his hair, liking him, ‘You’re not as handsome as I am,’ I said, with a joking mood in my voice, which was a new thing. I always knew I had a sense of humour locked away somewhere, and these days it was beginning to come out. Tuomas laughed. Even if it wasn’t funny, he would have laughed. The truth was out, and it was like everyone could suddenly breathe. ‘We’re half-brothers, remember?’ I told him. ‘And I have Sami blood, which you don’t.’ Tuomas looked at me, wide-eyed. Since my island escape I’d got a lot of wide-eyed admiring looks. ‘Want to go out on the skateboard?’ I said to him. Of course he did. Mum bit her lip and let us. This was new. She’d never trusted me before.
Tuomas was pretty good fun. And there were loads of things I could show him. I had this amazing sense of balance. Thief training isn’t
all
bad. I had learnt a lot of stuff – like stillness, patience, judgement, speed, invisibility, balance. I told Tuomas all about the circus skills workshop at the Wild School. I didn’t tell him about me going mad and swinging the stilt around. I made the Wild School sound like this exclusive super-cool place for amazingly talented people. I told him I might train to be a mime artist. ‘I wish I could go to the Wild School too,’ Tuomas said.
‘Yeah, I bet you do. We do woodwork, and nature stuff, and they take you out to study the stars and the planets, and you get to milk the goats, and climb trees and go on assault courses. You work outside, and make things. It’s
cool.’ I couldn’t believe it, but I was looking forward to going back.
I had been three days at home. I hadn’t smashed anything. Mum and Dad and me had this serious talk about the stealing. ‘Would I be able to return the money to where it came from?’ they asked me. I shook my head – the tourists would be far away by now – so we sent the money to charities and it felt like a huge relief.
I hadn’t slunk out into the town centre to follow my old pursuits, and I promised I never would – the drive I used to have for that was gone. Mostly I did skateboarding with Tuomas, or showed Mum how to make strawberry jam. I think she did know how to make it, but she made out like she didn’t. ‘That’s great, Niilo,’ she said, licking the spoon and saying how it was the best strawberry jam she had ever tasted. Sometimes I just sat around the kitchen in a daze, eating and getting used to this new sensation. It was as if the aching emptiness was no longer there. Sometimes I caught myself humming an old tune, or smiling for no reason. Mum too seemed younger, like a weight had been lifted off her. We went to the bookshop in town and brought back books on the Sami people. We looked at pictures. I felt a strange shifting inside. It made me restless, but not in the old way.
At night I leafed through these books. At the Wild School I had got used to thumbing through books, and I liked it. Just gazing at these snowy northern landscapes took me to a different place. Sometimes my fingers trembled so
much I could hardly turn the pages. I pored over the pictures of the Sami people with their high cheekbones – a bit like mine – their dark hair, also just like mine. Okay, I wasn’t full-blood Sami, but you could see a similarity. Hannu had noticed it.
The Sami lived in the snow. They lived with reindeer. They wore colourful embroidered clothes. And they sang. It was that that kept me awake till dawn. Yoiking, it was called. Hannu had first told me about the
yoik
– the wild song that was a part of you, a deep part. It was the song that knew you, even when you had forgotten who you were. I read that you are given your yoik by someone who knows you well, somebody who understands the yoik. And every yoik is unique, as every person, plant and animal is unique. Even the sea, apparently, has its yoik – its wild song. But so many people have forgotten the songs.
The Sami people live closely with nature. They know it in the way modern man knows his car. They understand how all creatures of the world are linked together, and when those links are broken the world suffers. People suffer. Loads of what I read was in the past, though. The old traditional Sami way of life has mostly gone. The quad bike has replaced the sleigh, and modern music and television have replaced the yoik. And I felt sad. Because I know what it’s like to lose something that really matters.
The old custom of yoiking is still practised, I read, but nothing like as much as it used to be. The Sami would
have a yoik to heal the reindeer, the tree, the elk, the ocean. ‘When you yoik a person they remember who they are. When you yoik the sea,’ a Sami elder said in my book, ‘the sea remembers its origin.’ Reading about the wild song stirred something deep inside me and I felt ancient. Older than the mountains. Older than the lakes. ‘And when you yoik a person they remember who they are.’
I lay on my bed with the Sami book open on my chest. A shiver crept over me and I saw long roads and deep snow. I saw forests and iced-over lakes. I saw stalagmites in yawning caves. I saw myself on a long journey, in search of the forgotten wild songs. The vision faded and I saw the lead singer from CrashMetal stare down at me in the dawn light as the book slipped off my chest and fell onto the floor.
I let it fall. I didn’t need books any more. I had always known I was different. But up until then I had always felt it in an awkward lonely way. Now I felt it in a strong proud way. Things had changed.
I
had changed. Sure, I would go back to the Wild School soon. Maybe I would be there till I was sixteen. This urge to take off into the wide world soon as I hit fourteen had left me, or at least changed. The Wild School
was
the wide world. And as far as schools go it is kind of funky. Mum says I can come home every weekend. She says the Wild School isn’t a prison – it’s an alternative kind of education – and I don’t have to go if I don’t want to.
But Riku says he’s my best friend.
And I can visit Hannu and Saara.
Maybe, one day, I really could swim for Finland.
I only had three days left of my holiday. Soon it would be time to go back to school. But there was something to do first, something important. The tenth of August was the date. Three p.m. was the time written on the wedding invitation. I had handled that invitation so much that the red love-heart on it with the names ‘Saara & Hannu’ had my fingerprints all over it. Mum said she and Dad and Tuomas would really like to come with me. Part of me wanted to go alone but part of me wanted to go with my family. And that was a first. ‘Okay,’ I said. And it really was okay.
I wanted to wear my jeans and T-shirt, but Mum bought me a cool grey suit. It looked pretty good so I wore it. Tuomas said I looked fantastic. Dad said I was handsome – I had decided I would still call him Dad, even though now we all knew he wasn’t really. We drove down to the market-square harbour and parked the car, where the ferry for Suomenlinna was waiting. I wasn’t scared of ferryboats
now. I saw how Mum bit her nails, though – she was terrified.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I said, smiling at her as we filed down the pier and over the ramp. It was a still day and the sea was smooth as glass. ‘It’s only a half-hour trip, Mum. You can always sit inside if you want.’ And that’s what she did.
Tuomas and I hung over the rails, ducking when the gulls dive-bombed. ‘When I first went to the Wild School,’ I told Tuomas, shouting over the
chug-chug
sound of the engine that we were right next to, ‘I was sick all over the place. You wouldn’t believe it. I felt like I was going to die.’
‘So did I,’ Tuomas yelled, his blond hair flopping over his eyes with the sea breeze. ‘I really thought I was going to die when you went to the Wild School.’
I ruffled his hair, but felt a lump in my throat. Just then a gull swooped down, screeching and trying to jab at a bit of sandwich that was on the deck. Tuomas grabbed hold of me for protection. ‘It’s okay, Tuomas,’ I said. ‘They’ll come pretty close but they won’t hurt you.’ I took him over to the other side of the boat so we could get away from the gulls, and see the island.
‘Island ahoy!’ Tuomas called out.
But it wasn’t the island I saw. I looked out to sea and straight into the yellow eyes of the black seal. ‘Look, Tuomas,’ I yelled. ‘Look at the seal.’ Tuomas cheered and waved to the seal. It nodded its head, then flipped back
its tail fins and dipped under the water. ‘Maybe it’s going to the wedding too,’ I said.
The ferry blew its horn. I stroked the invitation in my pocket, and when the boat slowed down and chugged alongside the pier, putting down its ramp, Tuomas, me, Mum and Dad were the first to leave. We were caught up in a sea of people rushing from the ferry and onto the island. Soon, though, the crowd thinned out as people drifted off in different directions and it was just Mum, Dad, Tuomas and me, all looking really smart and walking up a dusty path that wound its way across the island. Mum was still looking a bit pale.
‘You survived,’ I said to her.
She nodded and smiled at me. ‘You’re right, Niilo. I survived.’ Then she sorted her hat and smoothed down her jacket and we all walked together over the cobbled path.
Suomenlinna is a strange place, full of forts, cannons and dungeons. The whole island is a fortress, or it was a couple of hundred years ago – now it’s a tourist attraction. We caught sight of cute little red love-heart cards stuck to stone walls, saying
Saara & Hannu
.
‘Look,’ Tuomas yelled. ‘That’s them!’ We followed the red love-heart cards under a stone archway, round by a little café and past a big church. It was like a ‘find the wedding’ game.
My heart was racing. I felt nervous and excited, and really glad I wasn’t on my own. ‘Looks like we’ll be there
soon,’ Mum said, sounding a bit breathless from the walking uphill. ‘It’s so good he’s getting married. I want to thank him so much for finding you,’ she said, ‘and for being such a wonderful teacher to you. And a friend.’
‘Sixteen kilometres has got to be a record,’ Dad said. He was also puffing a bit – it was a pretty steep climb. But there were no cars on this island, just bikes and walkers. We marched over a bridge, Mum singing a little love song to herself, to ‘get in the mood’, she said. The whole island was quaint and historic, and singing in the street didn’t seem out of place.
We were heading for a place called Kuninkaanportii: King’s Gate. I took the invitation out for the umpteenth time and read the address, but of course I didn’t need to – I knew it off by heart. We were getting closer and I saw a few other people hurrying up the stone path that led to King’s Gate. I heard the sound of a guitar. The tune twanged out. We all heard it and slowed down at the same time.
‘Here it is,’ Mum said, and we all went through the huge stone archway that led into the gate. We came into an open green space surrounded by stone ruins. It looked gothic and might have been a great setting for a horror film, except all the white flowers everywhere made it beautiful – and romantic, Mum said. At the far end, near the ruins, there was a crowd of people, all in smart clothes. There were seats in rows and people were filing into the seats as the guitar played. ‘Let’s sit at the back,’ Mum murmured, and we all slunk into the last row.
At the front stood Hannu and Saara.
‘They look beautiful,’ Mum whispered.
The guitar music stopped and it looked like they were getting ready to speak a poem or something to each other – I’d never been to a wedding before. Hannu was wearing a cream-coloured suit and his dark hair hung loose past his shoulders. He and Saara were holding hands. Beside them stood a man in a white suit – maybe he was the priest? Hannu and Saara were speaking some words now, and their voices murmured over the crowd, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then the guitar started again and I saw Hannu scan the crowd. He was looking for me, I know he was. Then he found me. He winked, and his face broke out into this huge smile as I smiled back.
‘He’s spotted us,’ Mum whispered and I grinned.
The wedding went on with poems and music and they swapped rings and people cheered, and I felt fine. After that part of the ceremony Hannu and Saara walked through the crowds of people. There was clapping and cheering as they began to speak to all their guests. Saara looked beautiful, like a queen with flowers in her hair and a flowing cream-coloured dress on.
Hannu made a bee-line for me. He shook my hand, shook hands with Mum and Dad and Tuomas, thanked us all for coming. Saara kissed me and said it was so great we could all come. ‘The honoured guest’, that’s what they called me.
After the ceremony we all took a walk in the King’s Garden. People drank wine, and me and Tuomas got sparkling grape juice. Hannu introduced me and Tuomas to his friends. The boss – Mr Stubble – was there from the Wild School. ‘It’s the boy who swam sixteen kilometres,’ I heard people say.
‘Yes, it’s Niilo,’ Hannu said, as though that said it all. ‘And with him,’ he added, ‘is his brother, Tuomas.’ People spilled confetti over Hannu and Saara and some of it fell over me. I felt like I was getting married too.
Maybe I was, in a way.
The musicians struck up and the dancing began.
Saara danced with me and said I looked so handsome. Mum and Dad whirled around the dance floor. Tuomas found a girl his age to dance with. Lots of guests asked me to dance, and I managed it fine, even though I didn’t know much about dancing. Then in between dances people flocked round me and asked me about the island, and swimming, and making fire, and sleeping on my own under the stars, and was it true that I survived four days alone on an uninhabited island?
Time flew by. I almost forgot the presents. When there was a break in the dancing I found Hannu and Saara over by the chocolate and strawberry fountain. We dipped a few strawberries in chocolate and Hannu winked at me – I bet he was remembering the days we spent picking strawberries. I was! I laughed, licked the chocolate off my fingers and fumbled about in my pocket.
I had two presents. I fished out the little book of poems
called
Arctic Sunrise
from inside my jacket – Mum had suggested that. From another pocket I brought out the wooden carving I had found in a tourist shop in Helsinki. ‘These are for you,’ I said, ‘and Saara.’ Then suddenly I didn’t know what else to say. I glanced down at the little wooden seal and wished I had made it myself. I would make it much better, and I thought how when I went back to the Wild School I would make wooden seals in the woodwork studio. And I knew exactly what they would look like.
Saara took the seal and kissed me on the cheek. Hannu took the book. ‘I love this,’ he said.
I swallowed, then ran on with my prepared speech. ‘Um, congratulations, and I hope you two will be really happy.’
Then Mum appeared, all flushed from dancing, and told Hannu what a great influence he had been on me, and she wanted to thank him from the bottom of her heart. ‘I’ve got my beautiful son back,’ she said, and hugged me.
When the food had been eaten and the musicians took a break, a few people strayed outside to watch the moon over the sea. Saara was chatting with Mum and Dad and Tuomas. Hannu sat with me on a rock, looking out to sea. There were a few gulls around, hoping for crumbs.
‘Thanks for coming, Niilo,’ Hannu said. ‘It means a lot to me and Saara. And it is great to meet your family.’
I shrugged and wrung my hands together. ‘That’s okay,’ I muttered.
‘It’s more than okay, Niilo.’ Maybe it was the effect of the champagne, or it being his wedding day, but Hannu said how I was like the boy he had been – the one he had forgotten. I tried to imagine what that was like: you have a car crash and you lose your youth and all the memories of being young. ‘It’s like you are a part of me,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want to forget any more. I don’t wish for you to forget any more either.’
And I told him everything my mum had told me. About the boat accident, and my dad, and my twin brother. I told him their names: Nilse and Isku. And we stared out at the huge yellow moon glittering over the dark sea. It was like Nilse and Isku were there, swimming in the sea. Maybe they were swimming with the black seal. Maybe they were together in the great ocean holding hands – my dad, my twin brother, and the seal.
Behind us a door opened and the low rift of a saxophone reverberated over us. Then Hannu said, ‘You’re okay now, Niilo. Whatever happens now, you’ll be okay. You have your story. You know where you are from. And you survived four days on a deserted island. And you have made friends with a seal. You are getting on with your family. From now on in it just gets better.’
I laughed. I knew he was right. ‘I made friends with Riku too,’ I said.
‘That is so good,’ Hannu said. ‘He could do with a friend like you. And, you know, the Wild School isn’t so bad. As far as schools go, it’s pretty amazing.’
‘So, I should make the most of it, eh?’ I said, laughing. I had already decided that was exactly what I would do.
‘Hey, people,’ someone shouted from a group of guests that had drifted outside. ‘Come in and dance! They’re playing a midnight love song!’ Saara laughed and I saw her take my mum by the hand. I watched them head back to the restaurant, where the dancing was.
‘I’ll be with you soon,’ Hannu shouted back.
I wanted to keep this moment a bit longer. I could sense Hannu getting ready to stand up, so I blurted out, ‘Remember how you spoke about wild songs? You called them yoiks?’
‘That’s right,’ Hannu said. ‘I found my yoik. Now look at me, I just married the most beautiful woman in the world. How about that?’
‘I was thinking … how one day … I might go north. I might find some old Sami man to give me my yoik …’ I looked away and stared out to sea. I didn’t know I was going to say that. Now it seemed so real, like all along I had always been looking for my wild song. I imagined the future opening up ahead of me, like a deep adventure, winding far to the north.
‘I hope you do that, Niilo. This is just the beginning. You’ll travel far. You will find your wild song. I know it. Then you will help others to find theirs.’ He gestured to the dark sea ahead. ‘The Baltic could do with its song too.’
I stared out to the moonlit sea and thought of my island. I thought of the creepy hut, and the black seal. I thought
of Tuomas and his ‘find my brother’ poster. I thought of my mum calling me her beautiful son. I thought of Dad saying how he would consider it an honour if I called him Dad. And I thought of the nightmare I had had for as long as I could remember, and how it had turned into a dream where a boy just like me tumbled down through the water, and turned into a black seal, and a man who drowned trying to save him somehow turned into a man called Hannu who came to work at the Wild School, with his stories, and his crazy notion of teaching me to swim in the sea.
‘Thanks, Hannu,’ I said, turning to look at him. ‘You really helped me.’
‘It works both ways, Niilo,’ Hannu said. ‘Thank you.’
And we sat like that for a few minutes longer, me and Hannu on a rock, listening to the deep song of the sea. Until a door swung open behind us and the sounds of the party spilled out into the night.
Saara stepped up behind Hannu and put her hands over his eyes. ‘Guess who?’ she whispered.
‘My wife,’ Hannu said, laughing.
Just then hands slipped over my eyes too. ‘And guess who?’
‘Mum,’ I said, and I laughed too. While Hannu and Saara walked back to the wedding party Mum sat down on the rock next to me. The moon was glinting silver on the sea.
‘It’s beautiful, Niilo,’ Mum said in a hushed voice. ‘I was always afraid of the sea, but it feels so peaceful.’
Just then my seal lifted its head from the water. It was a round black shape in the silver moon path. It made a low trumpeting noise and I heard Mum gasp. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s watching over us.’ Then another seal next to that seal lifted its head from the water. Now two seals were watching us. It felt like the spirits of Nilse and Isku. I was going to say that, but Mum said it first.
She spoke their names – the names she’d kept locked up inside her for years. ‘Nilse,’ she whispered. ‘Isku.’
It felt like a long time we sat there, me and Mum, gazing out at the two seals in the Baltic Sea. The words of Hannu’s song played in my head –
everything was going to be all right
. It really felt like that. Then the seals made one long, deep sound.
‘That’s their wild song,’ I murmured. Their song put a shiver right through me. Then the seals flicked back their tail fins and slipped under the water.
I got to my feet then and so did Mum. We turned away from the sea, and there were Dad and Tuomas, standing by the door of the restaurant. They were lit up with sparkling lights and waving to us. ‘Hey, Niilo!’ Tuomas called out. ‘Come and join the party!’
Me and Mum walked together over the grass towards the wedding party. ‘What do you say, Niilo?’ she said.
I looked at her and smiled. ‘Yes.’