Popular Music from Vittula (14 page)

And then it was all over, darkness fell. And the fire went out at last.

* * *

When we woke up, we were curled up in the moss, freezing cold. The forest was all around us, gray and raw. The stained knife was visible in the light of dawn, but there was no trace of the penis.

“The
nopat,”
Niila groaned.

I shuddered and nodded. The old bastard had spiked our coffee. We drove home, frozen stiff. We had to stop several times and make little bonfires at the side of the road, longing to be in our warm beds.

The following week we got our first pubic hair.

Where two pig-headed families are joined by marriage, on which occasion muscles bulge and a sauna is taken

My old man was a silent type. He had three aims in life and he had accomplished all of them; he sometimes oozed a degree of self-satisfaction that annoyed me more and more, the older I grew. His first aim was to be strong, and his work as a lumberjack gave him bulging muscles. His second was to be financially self-supporting. And his third was to find a wife. As he had succeeded in all these, it was now my turn to follow suit, and I could feel the pressure on me growing by the day. Strumming a guitar was not an activity rated especially highly, no doubt about that. On the other hand, he liked to make me saw wood with the bluntest saw he could find, to build up my muscles. He would occasionally check to make sure I didn’t cheat, thrusting out his clog-shaped jaw and adjusting the peak of his cap, which kept slipping down his low, sloping forehead. His facial hair was sparse and thin, something you often see in men from Tornedalen, and hence his cheeks were pale and pudgy, almost like a baby’s. Sticking out of the middle of this doughy mass was his nose. It looked like a radish somebody had thrown, but it had landed at a slight angle. I always felt the urge to grab hold of it and straighten it up.

He used to stand there without speaking while I sawed away with sweat pouring off me. Eventually he would reach out and feel my biceps between his thumb and his index finger, and conclude that I ought to have been a girl.

Dad was broad-shouldered, just like his eight brothers; they all had the same rippling shoulder muscles and the same enormous bull neck jutting forward in a way that made them seem slightly hunch-backed. It’s a pity I didn’t inherit more of that trait, if only to avoid having to listen to the old bastards’ comments when they got drunk at family gatherings. But no doubt most of the muscles were due to the hard manual labor they’d all been doing from the age of thirteen, just like my old man.

That was when they’d all started working in the forests. Chopping and sawing and dragging the logs through the snow to the frozen river in winter, spurred on by the piece-work rates. Then accompanying the logs downstream when the ice melted in spring, sorting out the log jams on the way. Their summers were spent haymaking in the fields and in the bogs, and digging ditches in order to qualify for state subsidies; in their spare time they chopped down enough trees to build themselves a cabin, and often worked all night long, hand-sawing planks. Drudgery like that made them as tough as Swedish wrought iron from Kengis.

My youngest uncle, Ville, had always been a bachelor, and many people thought he’d remain one for life. He’d often been to Finland to do some courting, but never managed to find himself a bride. He couldn’t understand where he was going wrong. In the end a neighbor gave him a tip:

“You should buy a car.”

Ville followed the advice and bought an old Volvo. Then he went to Finland again and got engaged straight away. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of such an obvious ploy long ago.

The wedding took place in the middle of summer when everybody was on holiday, and the family home was flooded with relations. I was
nearly thirteen, and was allowed to sit at the table with the grown-ups for the first time. A solid wall of silent men, shoulder to shoulder like huge blocks of stone, and here and there their pretty wives from Finland, like flowers on a cliff face. As was normal in our family, nobody said a word. Everyone was waiting for the food.

The first course was local crispbread and salmon. Every single one of the men turned his piece of crispbread upside down, so that the holes were underneath. That way they would save butter, just as their impecunious parents had taught them. Then on with the freshly cut slices of sweetly spiced gravadlax, prepared from salmon netted by poachers near Kardis. Ice-cold beer. No unnecessary comments. Only the newly-wed couple at the narrow end of the table urging everybody to take more. Crunching of crispbread in bull-like mouths, broad hunched backs, knitted eyebrows and concentration. The catering ladies in the kitchen lugged up barrels and bottles from the cellar. The bride’s mother, who was from Finnish Kolari and so knew the local customs, said she’d never seen working men eat such tiny portions, whereupon everybody took a second helping.

Then came the pot of meat stew, steam rising as if it were on fire, tender lumps of reindeer meat that caressed the palate, golden turnips, sweetly spiced carrots and buttery yellow diced almond potatoes, the ones northerners dream about, in a rich broth tasting of sweat and forests, with circles of fat on the surface like rings made by nibbling char in a tarn one breezeless summer’s night. A dish of newly cooked marrow bones was served up on the side. The ends had been cut off, and we poked out the gray, greasy fat inside with elongated toothpicks, the long strings of marrow so tender that they melted on the tongue. The men betrayed no trace of a smile, but their skin assumed a lighter hue and they emitted furtive sighs of relief at being served with food they recognized and appreciated, food that filled the belly and delivered nutritious juices as well as strength. On festive occasions, and not least at weddings, even the most reliable and sensible members of the family
were liable to get silly ideas into their heads about what was appropriate and what was classy enough, and start serving grass that they called salad and sauces that tasted like soap, and they’d set out far too many forks and serve up a drink called wine, something so sour and bitter that your lips shriveled up and convinced you you’d pay a king’s ransom for a glass of buttermilk.

And so the slurping and gobbling got under way. The ladies in the kitchen were inspired by the lip-smacking and slobbering. Guests devoured the spicy stew, the meat reared and matured in Tornedalen forests, the root vegetables nurtured and ripened in their native soil, spitting out gristle and bones, sucking out marrow, fat dripping down from their chins. The catering ladies scuttled around with bowls of locally baked rieska bread, imbued with the smoke of the birchwood that fired the ovens, still hot enough to melt lumps of butter, and made from corn grown in northern fields, ripened in the northern wind and sun and heavy rain—a full-bodied bread that made simple peasant souls pause and worship, eyes uplifted to the heavens, while the serving ladies exchanged justly proud looks, and smiled contentedly as they clapped their hands to get rid of the flour still clinging to them.

Now was the right moment for the first schnapps. The bottle was conveyed with due solemnity to the table by the old biddy who was the least religious of those present. The men paused, swayed gently from side to side, farted, brushed the debris from their chins, and followed intently the progress of the relic. In accordance with instructions, it was still sealed; but now in everyone’s presence the cork was lifted and the foil broken with an audible click so no one could doubt that they were being served with the real thing and not moonshine, that no expense had been spared. The bottle misted over and drops clinked into glasses like pearls of ice breaking the devout silence. Broad thumbs and index fingers caressed the frozen jewels before them. The bridegroom forgave the sins of his brothers, whereupon they all leaned back and flung the icy potion down into the depths of their being. A murmur rustled
through the congregation and the most loquacious of the brothers whispered Amen. The old biddy with the bottle shuffled around the table once again. The deep bass voice of the bride’s mother was heard to declare indignantly that it was typical for her daughter to marry into the fussiest family in the whole of the Finnish-speaking land mass when it came to food, and that food was there to be shoveled down your throat in case nobody had realized that around here. Whereupon the serving ladies marched in with new sizzling pots of meat stew and dishes of marrow, and everybody took another helping.

The men took their second schnapps, and the women as well, apart from those who would have to drive. Sitting opposite me was a stunningly beautiful Finnish woman from near Kolari. She had brown, almost Arabian eyes, and raven hair; no doubt she came from a Lappish family, and she wore a large silver brooch on her neckband. She smiled with her sharp white teeth and slid her half-glass of schnapps over the table to me. Not a word, just a bold, frank look, as if she were challenging me. All the men paused, their soup spoons dripping. I could see my dad in the corner of my eye warning me not to touch it, but I was already holding the glass. The tips of the woman’s fingers stroked the inside of my hand as gently as a butterfly’s wing, it felt so good I almost spilled the precious contents.

And now at last the men started talking. For the first time all day something approximating a conversation broke out. No doubt it was the drink that had thawed out the frost in their tongues, and the first thing they discussed was whether the young whippersnapper would vomit or cough up the schnapps all over the table, in view of how puny and feeble he looked. Dad made to stand up and stop me, despite the expectant looks on the faces of his brothers, and I knew it was now or never.

I leaned quickly back and poured the whole lot down my throat, a bit like taking medicine. And it sunk down into my body like a jet of piss into snow, and the men grinned. I didn’t even cough, I just felt a melting fire in my stomach and a desire to be sick that didn’t show on
the outside. The old man looked furious but realized that it was too late, while the brothers reckoned the lad was one of the family after all. Then they started to boast about how much drink our family could hold, and proceeded to justify the claims with a series of graphic tales and episodes. When the subject was exhausted, which took an awful long time, the conversation turned to how incredibly tolerant of saunas our family was, and equally comprehensive proof was provided. One of the men was sent out to start up the sauna in the yard outside, and consternation was expressed as to why such an obvious thing hadn’t been thought of earlier. Someone mentioned the absolutely amazing capacity for hard work that was characteristic of our family and a matter for incredulous discussions on both sides of the border, and in order to prove that this was no mere boast or exaggeration, we were presented with an appropriate selection of the stories people told about us, whenever two or three were gathered together.

The bride’s relations were starting to show signs of mild impatience. Some of the sturdier men had evident ambitions to loosen their tongues. Eventually one of the most talkative of them opened his cakehole for the first time that evening for a purpose other than eating. He delivered an astonishingly sarcastic address on families that are too big for their boots and blather on and on in public. Dad and his brothers ignored that contribution to the discussion and became engrossed in how one of their forefathers had carried on his back a hundred-pound sack of flour plus an iron stove and his rheumatic wife for all of thirty miles without even putting down his luggage when pausing for a pee.

Now the ladies marched in with gigantic trays containing mountains of home-made delicacies. Sugar buns as smooth as a maiden’s cheek, crisp white Kangos biscuits, perfect Pajala puff pastries, succulent sponge cakes, glazed buns dusted with icing sugar, sponge rolls with stunning Arctic raspberry filling, to name but a few of the delights. And that wasn’t all: bowls brimful of whipped cream and newly warmed cloudberry jam tasting of sun and gold. Masses of
china cups were rattled onto the table and sooty black coffee poured from gigantic coffee kettles, any one of which could have serviced a major prayer meeting. Golden coffee-cheeses as big as winter tires were rolled out over the table, and then the
pièce de résistance
among all the sweetmeats: a hard, brown lump of dried reindeer meat. Salty slices were cut and placed in the coffee, chunks of coffee-cheese stirred in, and white sugar lumps were held between the lips. And then, fingers trembling, we all poured the coffee mixture into our saucers, and slurped our way to heaven.

The moment I got some coffee inside me, all traces of feeling sick melted away. It was like the sunshine after the storm. A misty cloud of rain evaporated and the beauty of the countryside was suddenly revealed. My eyes felt like warm balloons, the round, bull-like skulls of the men on all sides inflated and grew to enormous proportions. The coffee changed its taste inside my mouth, became blacker and more tarry. I had an irresistible urge to start boasting. Then I burst out laughing, I couldn’t help it, it simply welled up inside me and couldn’t be restrained. I caught sight of the wonderful Finnish woman and my mind filled with pussy, it just happened, her beauty was almost dream-like.

“Mie uskon että poika on päissä
. I think the lad’s pissed,” she said in a deep, slightly hoarse voice.

Everybody roared with laughter, me as well, so much that I almost fell off my chair. Then I chewed some dried meat and coffee-cheese and spilled coffee from my saucer and thought Hey, I’m a racing driver. The bride’s mum went on about all the shrinking violets around the table who didn’t dare to eat properly, she couldn’t understand how a clan so scared of filling their stomachs could manage to reproduce, and she’d never heard of such a disgraceful failure to live up to the hospitable reputation of Tornedalen since the King of Sweden declined a glass of schnapps in Vojakkala. Everybody immediately helped themselves to more. But the bride’s mum complained that if that was the best they could do, pretending to be polite, they might as well stuff the cakes up
a different orifice, as even her patience had its limits. Everybody was on the point of bursting by now, belts had been loosened to the last hole, but even so everybody took another helping. And more coffee, and still more. But in the end the limit was reached, the final limit. Absolutely impossible to force down a single crumb more.