The Last of the Vostyachs (3 page)

‘
Vostyach! Rony noxeita pedeya!
'

Ivan still had a good stock of squirrels' tails. The woman had been kind to him. She had given him bread and had not called the soldiers. So he left his hiding-place and went towards her.

From that day onwards Ivan started to go down to the inn and speak into the little black box the woman placed before him. He would get the best squirrels' tails down from the walls of his yurt and take them to her. On sunny days he would go into the wood with her and call out the names of all the plants and animals they came upon as they walked. The woman would write them carefully in a notebook the same colour as the one belonging to the doctor who came each summer to inspect the barracks in the mine and who would scatter white lime over the plank beds. Ivan felt pleased as the pages gradually filled up. By now he was proud of all the words he knew. He felt as though he were the owner of a personal treasure-trove. He carried on for as long as they continued to come into his mind, even adding some invented ones of his own, to please the fair-haired young woman who listened to him smilingly. He was saddened when he realised that his knowledge had been exhausted, that he couldn't tell her the names of the things that were in the inn, nor the instruments used by the woodcutter in his hut with its corrugated iron roof. But then, gradually, the young woman herself started to talk his language. Ivan did not know all the words she used, but he understood many of them all the same; it was as if he had known them for ever. They prompted him to remember others, which he would shout out loudly, as though he had been groping for them for years, and it was only then that they had come back into his mind. With more words at his disposal, Ivan could tell the woman many more things. He told her about the mine, about his father being murdered by the soldiers, about fishing for whitefish in the lake, about the yurt encampment which he had been unable to find when he returned to the Byrranga Mountains. He told her how deer is hunted, how its flesh is dried, how to build traps for wolverines. The fair-haired woman was surprised to learn that Ivan did not skin beavers, but would roast them by tossing them, gutted, into the burning coals. That seemed to set her thinking, and she dashed off several pages in her notebook. Ivan was happy at last to be able to tell someone about the minutiae of his days. Only now that someone knew he was alive, and was able to talk to him, did he feel truly free, reborn to a new life where the mine had never existed. He was sure that sooner or later his people too would return to life, would emerge from the wolves' lairs and begin to talk. Sooner or later, Korak, Häinö and Taypok would come back to hunt with him. This was the only subject he never succeeded in explaining to his new friend. The woman seemed to understand everything Ivan told her. She would nod and write, copy down the words she heard, dividing them up by subject. But when Ivan tried to explain to her about the other Vostyachs who had become wolves, she would shake her head and was clearly mystified:

‘
Tyonya? Miwa tyonya?
' she would ask, frowning.

She would draw a wolf in the notebook, make a circle around it and hand the pencil to Ivan, who would make deep marks on the white paper, then go over them with his fingertips.

Ivan felt strangely peaceful in her presence. Sometimes her affectionate face would appear to him in dreams of when he'd been a child, living in the yurt. But then she had a different smile, and a more fragile look, which somehow frightened him. She looked like the cork masks hanging from the walls. On snowy afternoons, while she was going through her notes, seated at a table in the inn – which would be empty, except for the odd snoozing drunkard, propped up against the wall – Ivan would settle down on a skin next to the stove, and wait for her to finish. He listened to the crackle of the flames, the sounds of her writing and rubbing out, the whirring of the black box as it unleashed his words into the empty room, exactly as he had spoken them to her. Only in her presence would he feel his muscles relax, feel again that melting sense of utter security which he had had as a child, curled up in front of the fire, watching his father making arrows for hunting coot. The fair-haired woman was deeply engrossed in her writing, sometimes pausing to gaze into the empty air. But every so often she would also cast a glance in Ivan's direction, a look so tender and protective that it almost hurt, from which he could not look away. That unknown woman was the only being in the world who wished him well, who, by calling him by name, also caused him to exist. As he did with his wolves. Ivan sensed this, and it amazed him. He explored the feeling in his heart, both fascinated and horrified at the knowledge that one day it would be taken from him.

Professor Jaarmo Aurtova crossed the floor of his study, making the parquet creak. He stopped in front of his desk, between the portrait of Marshal Mannerheim in full-dress uniform and an old map by the Arab geographer Ibn Al-Idrisi. He cleared his throat, lifted his chin and embarked, not for the first time, on the concluding speech he was to deliver at the XXIst Congress of Finno-Ugric, trying to keep his eyes from the typescript he was holding in his hand.

‘My warmest and most respectful greetings to you all – to the minister, the rector, the mayor, to my distinguished colleagues, my illustrious guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great honour for me to present my report to this XXIst congress of Finno-Ugric languages which, after so many years, is finally being held here in Helsinki. Essentially, our city is the capital of the Finno-Ugric World, the symbol of the political and economic success of this culture of ours which has for too long remained unjustly little known. It is Finland which has brought
homo finnicus
into Europe, no longer as a slave but as a free citizen. Furthermore, the arrival in Finland of such an illustrious body of scientists is confirmation of the high standard of our university research and our country's dominant position in a science which has always been particularly dear to us – perhaps more so than to any of our linguistic cousins. Now at least we are no longer alone in this corner of Europe, because Estonian is at last being spoken and taught again in Tallinn. And every Finno-Ugric language which is saved from extinction is tantamount to a promise of eternity for our whole culture.'

(Probable applause), his secretary had written in brackets in the margin, marking the spot with an asterisk.

‘It's true that we are glad that the Gulf of Finland is there to separate us from our Estonian friends and shield us from all their “tuds” and “tabs”. But perhaps with time, as we get to know each other better, we shall at least be able to convince them that “stopp” can also be written with one “p”, without in any way dishonouring the rule of the doubled consonant!'

(Wait for probable end of laughter), also in brackets, also with an asterisk.

‘As we shall see over the course of the next three days, the study of Finno-Ugric languages has made great progress over recent years. The opening of frontiers that were once impassable, together with great advances in science, has enabled us to know more and more about our languages and the history of the peoples who speak them. Today, it is increasingly clear that the Ugro-Finns were by no means a pack of hunter-gatherers lacking in all civilization, as one school of thought continues to maintain, against all the evidence. As early as the Bronze Age, the Ugro-Finns had reached a level of development equivalent, if not superior, to that of the Mediterranean peoples. They practised advanced forms of agriculture and cattle-rearing. Furthermore, as we now know, thanks to the much milder climate of the time, our ancestors were also able to cultivate the vine. Who knows, had it not been for the glaciation of the Neolithic Period, today the finest “millesimes” might be maturing in the cellars of Uusimaa, and Laplanders might be quaffing champagne. So, long live the greenhouse effect! With good use of our saunas we could heat the entire planet! In a hundred years, what today is regarded as the chilly outer edge of Europe might be transformed into the garden of Eden, and our language might have become what it should rightfully always have been: the Latin of the Baltic!'

(Further laughter and applause), as suggested by an asterisk.

‘As to the question of our earliest ethnic origins, recent studies have been conclusive. Faced with new evidence, even our Russian colleagues will be obliged to think again in connection with a well-established falsehood to which they have clung desperately over the years, and which has been made use of by an ideology which died away much more speedily than our languages: for what was once mere supposition is now a certainty. Recent archaeological discoveries in Ingria and Scania, corroborated by carbon 14 dating, confirm that the Ugro-Finnic civilisation did indeed develop beyond the Urals, but they also prove that it migrated towards Europe very early on, reaching the lands where it is found today at the same period as the Indo-European peoples, and many centuries before the Slavs. So that the alleged kinship between the Ugro-Finnic and the Ural-Altaic branches, from which the Mongols and Eskimos descend, is to be excluded once and for all. The so-called Eskimo-Aleutian hypothesis has been proved to be baseless. Recent discoveries in this field prove that the Uralic linguistic melting-pot was more extensive than had originally been thought, and indeed cast doubt upon the very concept of Indo-European languages. Indo-Europeans should more properly be referred to as Indo-Iranians, and it is they who are the true Asiatics of Europe, not us. Right from the dawn of history we have belonged geographically to the continent of Europe, indeed we might say that we are the first Europeans, we, the Finnic peoples, and that Finnish is Europe's oldest language!'

Whenever he reached this part of the speech, Aurtova would always become flustered. He would imagine the inscrutable faces of the Russian linguists, that of Juknov in particular, always in the front row, dressed in black, the headphones with the simultaneous translation clapped firmly to his ears, his unforgiving gaze obscured behind his glasses. Then he would see Olga Pavlovna's mocking smile, her know-it-all expression. He knew that she would enjoy discomfiting him by quoting his old articles, written with her when she was still an unknown researcher, burning with idealism. This made him jumpy, he would start to strike the wrong tone, mumbling his words, rather than pronouncing them clearly, one by one, in expectation of the effect they would have on the wizened faces of his adversaries.

Professor Aurtova turned off the lamp, stuffed his typescript into a drawer and struck a match to light the table-candlestick. He liked the smell of wax, the flickering of the candles in the darkness. He slipped a hand behind the big Finnish dictionary and pulled out a bottle of cognac and a crystal glass. He poured himself a drink and walked over to the large French window. Below, the cathedral square was covered with snow, the street lamps were all lit and the windows of the houses were festooned with strips of little lights. The trams slid by noiselessly, sending out showers of blue sparks. It was the harshest winter for decades. The temperature had gone down to minus 30, and the whole bay of Helsinki was frozen up, all the way out as far as the lighthouse at Harmaja. This year perhaps we might be able to go on foot all the way to Tallinn, he thought to himself. He enjoyed the feel of the biting air as it whipped his face, the grandiose vista of his city, the white vastness that lit up the northern night. Snow always has a sense of wildness about it, and the footsteps of the passers-by on the flight of steps outside the cathedral gave the professor a pleasing feeling of mystery, as though they were unknown spoors met with in some wild wood.

He took a sip of cognac, and felt a welcome shudder at the instant burst of warmth which ran through his veins. Then came a sudden knock at the door, and his secretary entered the room.

‘You didn't collect your post, professor,' she said, putting an envelope down on the table.

‘I completely forgot!' he said, lifting a hand to his forehead.

‘If there's nothing else, I'd quite like to be off...'

She lingered on the threshold, peering owlishly at Aurtova from behind her thick glasses.

‘Of course, Leena, go by all means. And have a quiet day tomorrow, because from Sunday it'll be all work and no play.' He moved back to the table without closing the window.

‘Yes indeed…Goodnight, professor,' she said, retreating from the cold.

The envelope contained just one letter. It had a Russian stamp, and the address was written by hand. He recognised the writing.

Dear Jarmo,

I'm passing through Moscow and I'm sending you this letter so that I can be the first to give you a sensational bit of news. I've just spent a few months with the Nenets and Nganasan, making recordings of local speakers. As you know, my passion has always been the northern Samoyedic languages, so I paid another visit to those parts on the track of some minor dialect to record before it died out. Over the last few years I really think I've catalogued them all! At the end of November I found myself in a remote village in the Tajmyr Peninsula. I was waiting for the weather to improve so that I could get to Norilsk, where I was to take the plane to Saint Petersburg, but I was left stranded by a blizzard, so I had to resign myself to a long wait. I spent my days copying out my notes in a dismal room in the only inn, when one afternoon my guide came into my room in a state of high excitement. He knows I speak Nganasan, so he never addresses me in Russian. But I have difficulty in understanding him when he talks in that Polustrov dialect of his, so I went off with him somewhat unwillingly, not really knowing what he wanted. He took me to the floor below, the bar-room I suppose you could call it, which was strangely lively for the time of day. And there, surrounded by a muttering crowd, was a truly weird individual. Physically, he looked like an Inuit, but more athletic, and darker-complexioned. He was entirely dressed in skins, had a bow slung over his shoulder and was holding a string of squirrels' tails. At his feet was a sack of skins. When they saw me come in, everyone stopped muttering. The guide pointed at the man and whispered in my ear, in Russian: ‘We can't understand a word of anything he says!' I went up to him and tried addressing him in Vogul, thinking he might belong to some Eastern Ugric tribe. He listened to me carefully, but then frowned in puzzlement. Yet I noticed that those sounds were familiar to him, even if he didn't understand them. He looked at me questioningly, waving the string of squirrels' tails. He put them on the table and began unstringing them, so that I could see them better. He must have already repeated himself several times without making himself understood. At first I could understand nothing: just a blurred flow of Uralic sounds. I thought it was some Dolgan dialect which had eluded me, and I was almost irritated at the thought of having to deal with yet another one. I didn't even feel like going back up to my room and fetching my tape recorder. But the more he talked, the more I realised that this was another language entirely. It might be some localised variant of Jurak, but I was unconvinced by the coup de glotte. At first it was the schwa which unsettled me: I'd never heard it so unvoiced before. Nganasan has one that is very similar; but when I noticed how the man pronounced his velar affricatives and above all his retroflex palatals, I was no longer in any doubt: the man I was listening to was a Vostyach!