Popular Music from Vittula (15 page)

Then more brandy was served. Most guests declined, apart from some of the Finnish women. However, if there were just possibly a drop more schnapps they wouldn’t say no, as
kirkasta
had the remarkable quality of not taking up any room in one’s stomach—indeed, on the contrary, it was good for the digestion and for one’s general well-being, and helped to combat the lethargy that often overcame those who had just partaken of a good dinner. The bridegroom once again gave the nod to the least Christian of the serving ladies who disappeared into the kitchen with all the empty bottles. When she came back a miracle had taken place and they were all full again; but when I held out my glass I received a painful rap on the wrist from the old man.

Somebody suddenly remembered a topic of conversation that had been inadequately covered, and immediately all the brothers were at it again. Such as the time when Grandad’s horse had gone lame on him, and he’d pulled the sledge laden with tree trunks all the way home himself, with the horse strapped on top. Or the cousin who was only eight when he punted the fifty-odd miles upstream from Matarenki to Kengis. Or Grandma’s aunt who was confronted by a bear while picking berries in the forest, killed it with the axe she had with her for cutting firewood, butchered it, and carried the meat home on her back, wrapped in the knotted pelt. Or the twins who had to be tied down to their beds every evening in the lumberjacks’ cabin to prevent them from chopping down all the trees in the Aareavaara forest. Or the cousin who was regarded as feeble-minded but had been taken on to help float the logs down-river at half wages; the very first night he had single-handedly broken up the hundred-yard-long log jam at Torinen. The fact of the matter was that our family had no rivals when it came
to strong, persevering, persistent, patient, and, above all, modest workers, no one could match them in the whole of the Finnish-speaking world. The brothers drank noisily to that, then proceeded to recall all the gigantic boulders that had been shifted, the enormous areas of bog that had been dug out, the horrific endurance tests while doing national service, the truck that broke down and had to be pushed twenty-five miles from Pissiniemi to Ristimella, the endless meadows that had been scythed in record time, all the blood-curdling fights that had ended up in the family’s favor, the five-inch nail that had been hammered home using only a bare fist, the skier who had overtaken the iron-ore train, and all the other unsurpassed exploits achieved with the aid of axe, pick, plow, handsaw, spade, fish-spear, and potato fork.

Then another toast was drunk. Not least to the women in the family and their amazing feats in hand-milking, butter-churning, berry-picking, weaving, bread-baking and hay-raking that had set similar unbreakable records in the field of women’s activities. The likes of these staunch, willing wenches had never been seen outside this family of theirs. The men also congratulated themselves on being smart enough to pick wives from Finland, since they were as tough as oak trees, as patient as reindeer, and as pretty as birches by blue northern lakes, and they also had large backsides that enabled them to give birth to fine healthy babies easily and often.

The bride’s male relatives had sat in silence, as Finns do, getting worked up while all this was going on. The biggest and baldest of them, Ismo, stood up now and declared that he’d never heard so much twaddle spoken in Finnish since the days of the Fascist Lappland Movement. My dad responded in aggressive fashion, totally out of character, claiming that everything the brothers had said was universally accepted fact, and that if some families felt envious or inferior as a result, he was the first to feel sorry for them.

Ismo insisted that nobody could cut so many acres of meadow in just one morning, nobody could pick a hundred liters of cloudberries
inside three hours, no creature of flesh and blood could fell a bull moose with one punch then skin it and butcher it with the lid of a snuff box. Uncle Einari, the eldest of the brothers, maintained frostily that felling bull moose was nothing compared with the other matchless feats accomplished by the family’s fists, especially at weddings, and especially when some big-mouthed pompous ass starts throwing out accusations of lying. He’d have gone on to say more as well, he was just getting into his stride, but his missus clamped her hand over his mouth. Ismo responded by laying his arm on the table. It was as thick as a telegraph pole. He maintained that fisticuffs was risky and haphazard as a test of strength, but that arm wrestling always produced rapid and reliable results.

There was a moment of complete silence. Then the brothers rose to their feet as one man, Dad included, and surged forward like growling bears. The preliminaries were over, the talking was finished, at last they could get down to flexing and using their laborer’s muscles. Einari was first to the seat opposite Ismo: he took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeve. His arm was almost as thick as his opponent’s. Coffee cups and schnapps glasses were hastily removed. The two men grappled with each other, their hands closed like pincers. A sudden jerk from both bodies, blood rushed into their faces, battle had commenced.

It was clear from the start that it could go either way. Their arms swayed like two pythons with trembling heads, welded together. Slight, almost imperceptible quakes were transmitted through the kitchen table and into the pine floorboards. Their backs, broad as stable doors, were arched forward, their shoulder muscles swelled up like rising pastry, their heads turned blood-red, criss-crossed with protruding black veins, sweat poured off them and dripped down from their noses. The brothers crowded around, shouting and urging. At stake was the family honor, dignity, pride: now was the time to put the incomers in their place and earn the respect that was our family’s due. Their opponents echoed these sentiments. The fists trembled and
started to lean to the left. Yells and shouts. Then a fight-back, a leaning to the right. The lads were jumping up and down in excitement, passing on advice, flexing their own muscles in the hope it would help. When it became clear that this contest was going to go on for some considerable time, their patience ran out. Hormones were pumping and couldn’t be restrained, lumberjack bodies demanded action. Soon the whole table was covered in fat-veined tree trunks swaying back and forth as if in a gale. Now and again one or two would come crashing down, causing the table top to sag. The victor would grin contentedly, only to be challenged by the next in line. The women were also getting carried away, and started yelling and shouting. Some of them had been on the schnapps after all, and the others were intoxicated by the testosterone-laden atmosphere. Soon two of the elderly Finnish women started finger-pulling, their middle fingers entwined, tugging and jerking, each determined not to be the first to let go. All the time they spat out ancient, almost forgotten curses. They dug their hook-toed shoes into the wooden floor, groaning and grinding their false teeth, and one of them peed herself but kept going even so, splashing around in the pool under her wide skirts. Their fingers were speckled brown and wrinkled, but as hard as pincers. The bride declared that she had never seen stronger fingers, here were women hardened by milking cows and men; her fellow-women chimed in, eager to pronounce the superiority of women over men when it came to endurance, dexterity, persistence, patience, thrift, berry-picking techniques, and resistance to illness, all of which proved they were superior to the good-for-nothing male sex. Then one of the women, Hilma, won with a ferocious jerk and fell flat on her bottom, but managed not to break her thigh bone, which everybody thought was lucky. Flushed with victory she started challenging the men, always assuming there were any present, which seemed doubtful. Dad and the rest of them were now busy huffing and puffing over a prestigious championship involving a bewildering system of quarterfinals and semifinals with everybody getting
the results mixed up and shouting at each other. In the middle of it all sat Einari and Ismo clutching each other’s hand, the match still undecided. Uncle Hååkani suggested the old woman should keep her mouth shut as that was the main role of women in this vale of tears, especially when men were present. That made Hilma even more furious, she thrust forward her colossal bust, sending Hååkani stumbling backward, and informed him he was welcome to suck her tits if he had nothing more sensible to say. The women cackled and guffawed in delight, while Hååkani blushed. Then he said he would only pull fingers with the old bitch if she had a drink first. She refused as she was a Christian. They argued and argued. In the end, shaking with fury, Hilma took a large glass of moonshine, emptied it in one gulp, then stretched out her long claw. Everyone fell silent and stared in horror at the old woman. Laestadius rotated twice in his grave in Pajala churchyard. Hååkani was shaken but threaded his plump middle finger into her hook in order to show who was boss, and raised his arm. She was sturdy but short and was lifted up like a Lappish glove but hung on to the finger, dangling in the air. Hååkani put her down again and started jerking from side to side instead. Hilma was hurled and twirled from wall to wall but still hung on. Hååkani was getting annoyed, and paused to think. The woman suddenly flung herself backward with all her weight and with a fierce wrench broke Hååkani’s grip and fell back on her bottom once again. The women clapped and cheered till the walls shook. In the end they began to wonder if she really had broken her thigh bone this time, as the old girl hadn’t been as quiet as this since she had the anaesthetic for her goitre operation. Then she turned her head to one side and spat out the schnapps in one long jet. To deafening applause she assured the assembly that she hadn’t swallowed a single drop.

I started working my way through the throng, wondering how I could get more drunk without the old man noticing. I eventually saw a bottle with a few drops left in the bottom, picked it up together with
several empties, and pretended to help the serving ladies clear away. Then I sneaked into the entrance hall. In the semi-darkness I nipped my nose and started to swill it down.

As I did so a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves round my chest. I dropped the bottle. Somebody was standing behind me, breathing down my neck. I was scared, twisted and turned, but couldn’t break loose.

“Let me go,” I gasped,
“päästä minut!”

The nearest I got to an answer was to be picked up and shaken like a puppy. I felt something tickling my face. Hair. Long, dark hair. Then a giggle and I was dropped with a thud.

It was her. Soft as fur as near as this. Like a cat. I waited for the teeth biting my neck. She was breathing heavily, smiling with luminous lips. Then she tore open my shirt and stuck her hand inside. It happened so quickly I had no time to defend myself. I felt her warmth. Her caresses, the soft tips of her fingers stroking my nipples.

“Do you get horny when you’re drunk?” she asked in Finnish, and kissed me before I could reply. She smelled of perfume and fresh underarm sweat, and her tongue tasted sausagey, of
lenkkimakkara
. Moaning softly she pressed herself up against me, it was amazing that a woman could be as strong as this.

“I’ll give you a good hiding!” she whispered. “I’ll kill you if you so much as mention a word of this!”

Then she opened my trousers and whipped out my erection before I could draw breath. Just as rapidly she lifted her skirt and pulled down her pants. I helped her, her pants were wet. Her skin was shimmering white, her thighs as long as a moose cow’s, with a black tousled bush between. I knew that if I touched it, it would bite me. She stroked me and was just about to guide me in when the dam burst, the world split open and collapsed in a cascade of wet rags and became red and sore, and she swore and pulled down her skirt and disappeared into the kitchen.

I was still too young to produce sperm. My dick went limp and all
that remained was a pounding memory, like when you’ve peed against an electric fence. I buttoned up my trousers and thought I didn’t dare go back into the kitchen ever again.

The next moment the door burst open, and the entrance hall filled with men jostling and butting like a herd of reindeer. They were all drunk, staggering about and leaning against the walls. Last to arrive were Einari and Ismo, who had reluctantly agreed to a tie; their arms had been so closely intertwined that they had to be prized apart. The old man instructed me to come along, as the sauna hero was about to be selected. The front door was flung open and everybody surged expectantly down the steps. Within seconds the yard was inundated with dozens of serious streams of pee. Grandad kept going longest of all and was pilloried by his sons, who wondered if he was pissing snot, considering the rate at which it was emerging; or if the old bloke had caught foot and mouth disease after screwing the heifer; or if his last shot had got stuck in the barrel of his rifle, in which case they maybe ought to pierce it with a knitting needle. Grandad muttered bitterly something about it being all right to make fun of the old, but not of invalids, then declared that he would have done better to tar and feather his prick than to sire a generation of bastards like this one.

The sauna was made of wood, and was the old-fashioned type, a so-called “smoke sauna.” As was the custom it was some way away from the main building, in case it ever caught fire. The wall over the door was black with soot. There was no chimney, the smoke from the stone-box had to find its way out through the smoke-holes in the walls. The men started to hang their clothes on nails, or put them on the wooden benches outside while the mosquitoes ran riot all over them. As head of the house and the sauna host, Grandad went in first and shoveled the remains of the embers into a tin bucket. Then he threw several scoops of water into the stone-box in order to clean the air. Steam bellowed forth, attached itself to the smoke particles and continued out through the door and the three smoke-holes. Finally he removed the sacks that
had been protecting the benches from soot, and stuffed rags into the smoke-holes.