To the Hermitage (32 page)

At last I came to my final and furthest destination: the little town of . . . Well, let us call it O—. It lay somewhere high on the ice-packed Gulf of Bothnia, toward the Lappish lands and the Arctic circle. I had only one last reading to give; then I was off on the midnight express, back to the capital, then on to Leningrad. I was very tired now, exhausted by the readings, the generous hospitality, the sauna, the elk-hunting, the cross-country skiing. My head was blurred, my voice was beginning to fade away completely. I climbed down from the train into freezing temperatures and a whirling wind. My eyebrows promptly frosted, my face froze in a hideous grimace. My windpipe seized, I felt decidedly unwell. I looked around for the usual quiet librarian or schoolteacher, waiting to greet me. I noticed something different. Standing there on the station platform, in a veil of blizzard, was the entire town band, in their tassels and their epaulettes. It was not hard to guess what they were waiting for; the tune they struck up was ‘God Save the Queen’. British flags waved. A banner was unrolled. A small girl in a white folk costume ran forward to present me with a scroll.

Behind her stood a snow-dusted row of local dignitaries. There was the town mayoress, her blonde hair drawn tight and strict, formally dressed in ermine and fur. There was the provincial governor, with a feather in his hat, the police and fire chiefs, in grand uniform, the head of the gymnasium, wearing an academic gown. And there in a long civic line were the merchants, the shopkeepers, the librarian, the fair to middling gentlefolk, the sparky young wives, the town drunk, all of them waiting to greet me. The lady mayoress lifted a sheet of notes and made a warm speech of welcome, translated for me by the schoolteacher. Then, to the sounds of ‘Finlandia’, we set off in procession down the main street. Frost-bitten citizens stopped and waved at me in welcome. There, out of Gogol, was the scatter of small stores, selling horse-collars and ropes. There was the little wooden inn, with chickens in the yard. Frost-bitten citizens halted their work and gave me warm waves of welcome.

Then, ahead, was a fine provincial town square, crowded with snow-filled trees. Around them stood a fine spread of metal-roofed civic buildings. A white Lutheran church, a wooden Orthodox church. A grand old-fashioned white wooden residence with smart shutters, perhaps for the provincial governor; an illuminated stone building with a clock on it that was presumably the Town Hall. In front of this stood a Lapp in blue costume, holding two tethered reindeer. A horse-drawn sleigh went by with a jangle of bells, just avoiding the huge logging trucks laden with forest timber that constantly swept at speed through the town. The band ceased, we came to a stop . . .

‘But I thought this was about going to Leningrad,’ says Manders.

Yes, in a moment . . . We all swept into the fine Town Hall, walked up on to the platform. Practically all of the local citizens must have gathered in the big audience that sat in front of me, evidently under the illusion they were enjoying the visit of a major celebrity (I later traced this confusion to an article in the weekly paper, written by one of the writers from the Kafé Kosmos, who had seemingly confused me with William Golding, an odd mistake to make anywhere but in Finland). The mayoress rose and made a long speech of welcome, explaining (according to the shopkeeper’s thoughtful translation) how grateful they were that, of all the many towns scattered by the good Lord through the whole wide world, I had made such a point of visiting this one. Then, after reciting many lines from the
Kalevala
, she waved me to the centre of the platform to speak.

My throat now felt as if it had been filled by a thorn bush. I rose up in my silver moonboots. I croaked out a few words of grateful thanks to the mayoress and the town council, and then I began to read from my work. My voice was truly fading now; after a few moments I ground to a total halt. ‘There’s a problem . . .’ I whispered hoarsely, and then my voice box totally seized. There was nothing to do but wave my hands in despair, look round helplessly, sit down . . . The mayoress stared at me grimly. I shrugged in despair. She rose furiously, and swept off the platform. The town band struck up ‘The Swan of Haemenlinna’. The audience rose, and in moments the entire place was empty. There I was, in the grand civic room of an empty town hall somewhere up near the Arctic Circle, voiceless, a useless writer, robbed of the only thing that had brought me here in the first place: words.

I had already been told that a grand dinner and reception in the little wooden hotel across the square had been arranged that night, in my honour, or at any rate in William Golding’s. I presumed the event would now be cancelled, so I walked across the square, sat in the hotel, and ordered a restorative hot drink, resigned to wait here until it was time to take the midnight express that would take me out of town, back to Helsinki and my translator. But, as I waited in the salon, something began to happen. The entire hotel began to fill with people, all of them dressed in their best evening finery. There again they all were, the leading citizens of O—: the blonde strict lady mayoress, the sly little governor, the portly police chief, the thin fire chief, the headmaster from the gymnasium, the town drunk, the fair to middling gentlefolk, the sparky little wives. Their expressions remained a little grim and dour, but it was very evident they had no intention of missing a great evening’s entertainment. The band appeared, and struck up. I sat and watched them. No one came over and spoke to me at all: fine by me, of course, since I was totally incapable of answering them anyway. A bevy of waitresses in folkloric dresses appeared with huge clear bottles of vodka and went round the room. I sat in the corner and looked on with interest, knowing in about four more hours I would be out of here on the train and gone from this world for ever.

It was the close of the week, a Friday. Nobody had told me what happens to Finns on a Friday night. The truth is, they turn into different people. In half an hour they had gone from misery to good humour. Another half hour took them from grey solemnity to ravening happiness. Around the room everyone who was still upright was laughing at something.

‘It’s you,’ explained the shopkeeper kindly, coming over to bring me a huge vodka. ‘You have made them very happy. They are all laughing at you.’

‘Oh really?’ I attempted to croak.

‘Nothing so wonderful has taken place here for many years. We met you from the train. We provided the band for you. We all came to the Town Hall.’

I nodded sympathetically.

‘And then what did you give us? Nothing. You came a thousand miles and gave us nothing at all. Thank you. It made us very happy tonight.’

I nodded generously.

‘On Friday night we really like to relax. To amuse.’

And that did appear to be true. Something had indeed transformed the excellent people of O—. The portly police chief was dancing on a table with the drummer from the town band. The head of the gymnasium was undressing the local librarian. The sly governor was lying full-length in a corner, surrounded by a great bevy of the sparky little wives. Only the town drunk seemed unhappy, as he wandered round the place looking sober by comparison with everyone else.

Half an hour more, and they had all gone again from happiness to near-stupor, from joy to the pits of lachrymose misery. I sat there watching over a beer; by now I’d learned the menace of the vodka. And it was now, as the band played in a confused and senseless discord, that the lady mayoress came over to me. Her blonde hair had now fallen down crazily over one eye. Her dress had split. She was smiling at me warmly.

‘She wants to thank you very much for coming to our simple town,’ explained the shopkeeper.

I nodded.

‘She says you have done us a real honour. She has one small request of you, she hopes you will grant it.’

I nodded again, graciously.

‘She would like to have a child by such an eminent person.’

I raised both eyebrows.

‘It need not take long. Her house is very near. And you still have two hours before your train.’

I croaked again, pointed at my throat.

‘She quite understands, but the important thing is not your throat. She does not speak good English anyway.’

The mayoress beamed, very attractively, and said something graceful in Finnish.

‘She says it would be such a nice memento of your stay,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘When we travel we should always leave something behind.’

I looked at the fecklessly charming woman, who seemed to have become so very different after vodka time, now that her mayoral chair was off and her hair was let down, and that’s why . . .

‘I know just what you’re going to say,’ says Manders. ‘This is why you never managed to get to Leningrad. For some strange reason you were delayed that night and you missed your train back to Helsinki.’

‘Oh no, I did catch the train all right,’ I said. ‘The mayoress kindly saw me on board.’

‘The town band too?’

‘No, just the mayoress. She took excellent care of me.’

‘So this is the famous Finnish Friday night,’ says Manders admiringly. ‘We know all about that in Sweden.’

‘Yes, and then it was a Finnish Friday night on the Helsinki express too,’ I say. ‘I swear to you every single person on board, man or woman, beautiful or ugly, first class or third, from one end of that train to the other, was blind drunk as well.’

‘I believe you.’

‘There was this beautiful blonde woman sitting opposite me all the way, wearing long black furs and a splendid ermine hat. She spent the entire journey having a loud quarrel with her own reflection in the window. Then, when we rolled into Helsinki station in the early hours of the morning, the porters were all on the platform with their barrows parked outside all the coach doors, waiting to stack the recumbent passengers in large piles on the trolleys and wheel them out to the taxi rank.’

‘Does that mean you did make it to the sealed train to Leningrad, after all?’

‘Well, not exactly. My translator went, but he went on his own. They arrested him the moment he stepped off at the Finland Station. He spent the next three weeks in a Russian jail. Unpleasant, I believe, though he did say he was able to pass the time translating my book. Finally the Finns protested, or the Russians got tired of him. At any rate, they bundled him in a truck and dumped him over the Finnish border, in the snow.’

‘Did the translation ever appear?’

‘Yes, it did, the following year. It was very successful. The Finns read a lot of books. It’s the winter, you know, when there’s hardly anything else to do. The critics were very kind, and I had met most of them in the Kafé Kosmos. Some of them even called me the youthful heir of Gogol.’

‘Well, you were probably wise not to go. The Russians wouldn’t have let you out that easily. You were heading for real trouble.’

‘I expect so, but I didn’t know that then.’

‘Why didn’t you go?’

‘Oh, didn’t I say? After I got off the train from O—, I went right back to the Hotel Gurki—’

‘Gestapo headquarters in the war?’

‘That’s the one, and the next morning I woke up delirious, with swollen glands and a raging fever.’

‘Tonsillitis, no doubt. You had probably over-exerted yourself on your travels.’

‘Quite. My kind publishers got a doctor who said I wasn’t fit to travel anywhere and shot me full of antibiotics. After a couple of days they drove me out to the airport, and I returned to my family and my normal life. Except it took three weeks for my voice to come back. I’ve been to Russia since. But somehow I never did make the journey to the dandy city, always preening itself in front of Europe.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what Gogol called Petersburg. Otherwise Leningrad.’

Manders looks at me. ‘And the mayoress?’ he asks. ‘Up there in your Let Us Call It O—, by the Arctic Circle? Is there perhaps a little professor now?’

‘No, no,’ I say, feeling rather embarrassed. ‘You should understand, I was extremely moral in those distant days. In those days the world wasn’t a screwfest. We discussed the moral life all the time. It was when we believed in virtue, followed the good and the true.’

‘I suppose we all did then. Even in Sweden.’

‘Especially in Sweden. But I always felt a little rude about leaving like that. When she and the others were all being so very nice to me.’

‘I hope so. The town band and everything.’

‘Do you suppose she made an offer like that to all the visitors?’

‘I don’t know Finland all that well, but I doubt it. She was entirely taken by your charms, I’m quite sure.’

‘I must admit I was by hers. She really was a most attractive woman. I was never quite sure, though, whether she really meant it or just wanted to make sure I didn’t go home thinking my trip had been totally wasted. And I suppose at that time I was just too young and foolish to accept the irresponsibility.’

‘You know, I seem to remember Diderot said something about all this,’ says Manders, getting up and going to stare out over the rail.

‘Really? I don’t remember.’

‘Yes, in the essay he wrote about Bougainville’s voyage to the South Seas, when the French sailors met all those wonderful noble savages. I seem to recall he took the multi-cultural approach and the sexual freedom line.’

‘Do what you like, you mean?’

‘“Be monks in France and savages in Tahiti,” that was how he put it.’

‘But he did believe in the moral approach as well. The rule of virtue. Didn’t he also say: “You can put on the costume of the country you visit, but always remember to keep the suit of clothes you need to go home in.”’

‘It’s true,’ says Manders.

‘Anyway, now you can see why I feel such a soft spot for Finland,’ I say. ‘In fact to tell the truth, I wouldn’t mind a bit if we didn’t go to Petersburg and this ship changed tack and rerouted to Helsinki.’

‘I’m sorry, I really don’t think it’s going to do that,’ says Manders, leaning windblown over the rail.

‘You never know,’ I say.

‘I think I do,’ says Manders, looking out at the channel.

‘Do you see that island showing up ahead? I know that. It’s Kotlin. That’s Kronstadt castle.’