The Beggar and the Hare (24 page)

And that was where Yegor Kugar went, back to Finland, to his first real job. He was given a tax deduction card, a taxi card and an identity card. He was destined for an important role in Vatanescu’s first government.

T
he Million Merc took our hero, replete with
ready-made
honey-marinated chicken, to the city’s stony centre. From now on his meals would be prepared by head chef Ming Po, who used the finest raw ingredients in the land to create an infinite combination of wonders and specialities from the seven great gastronomies of the world. When Ming made marinades, he used only the finest natural honey from Mäntsälä, soy sauce from Okinawa and maple syrup from Canada.

Esko Sirpale drove, and Jesus Mähönen sat beside him. Vatanescu, Miklos and Pahvi were in the back seat. In its search for a suitable lap the rabbit stopped on Miklos to be scratched.

Simo Pahvi wrote on the back of a cigarette pack with his carpenter’s pencil, and smiled. His deeds were going to make populist history; this was going to alter the ship’s course entirely; it would open the North–East passage. It wasn’t a U-turn; it was a rebirth. Simo Pahvi would be remembered as the party leader who in place of narrow-mindedness,
factionalism
and racist populism chose Vatanescu. Without losing anything of the original idea of the Ordinary People’s Party, because Vatanescu was more ordinary than ordinary. The concept of positive populism had already spread from the small country of Finland to the world, and new sectors were being won over all the time. The Italian prime minister was interested in the new format, as were several parties in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Faxes had arrived from both the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States. The party’s support base had evolved from shell-suited chavs to consumers of soy sausage. With Vatanescu’s
help, Simo Pahvi had solved the problem of his own future and that of his party, while making all other parties unnecessary.

‘Everything circulates,’ Pahvi suggested as the title for that evening’s television address.

Good circulates.

‘Too flat,’ Esko Sirpale said. ‘We need something with a bit more edge.’

‘We need one more word,’ Jesus Mähönen said.

‘Three words are enough. We just need to know what they are.’

‘Ball,’ said Miklos, who was looking out of the window at the football stadium. ‘Have we got the ball with us?’

Good balls circulate.

‘Hell’s bells, Vatanescu, that’s it!’ Pahvi shouted, and wrote the phrase down on his cigarette pack. ‘You’ll be rolling that ball for the whole of your term in office! We’ve put a good ball into circulation. Let’s play ball.’

A man is a ball.

Sometimes an empty one that needs to be pumped up again.

‘Just so. Go on.’

A ball hits a wall, but bounces back again? A ball is always faster than a man?

‘Exactly.’

What does it mean?

‘Don’t worry about that, Vatanescu. The public will fill in the gaps. And the ballot papers.’

Vatanescu nodded.

‘Use your own life as an example. For everything. When they ask you for a solution to the beggar problem, tell them how it was for you.’

I wanted boots.

I also got a ball.

‘And remember who you are.’

Vatanescu?

‘You’re the future. You’re me. Remember your own value.’

What’s that?

‘Salary class: A1, competency class: A1, irreplaceability factor: A1.’

And the Million Merc rolled along Route 3 at forty miles an hour, for Esko Sirpale did not dare to drive the car any faster. But the slow speed was more imposing, more dignified and old-worldly than stepping on the gas would have been. Miklos Vatanescu scratched the rabbit under its chin, one eye on his football boots. Pahvi fished some neckties out of the Siwa bag and tried them on Vatanescu.

‘Damn. That tie looks even worse on you than it does on me. We might as well just go around in tracksuits if we want to.’

Or snowsuits.

‘I’m president. As of this evening you’re prime minister. There was a Paasikivi Line and a Kekkonen Line. We lads are going to introduce the Tracksuit Line.’

Then Vatanescu’s phone rang. He didn’t know how to answer it, and handed it to his son. Miklos pressed the green button, listened for a moment and said to his father:

‘It’s someone called Sanna.’

M
iklos was delivered at birth by his grandmother.

Anneli, in her turn, was delivered by the midwife. Exactly nine months after our train journey.

I cut the umbilical cord.

A tiny little girl, the strangest and most peculiar creature in the world, full of demands and displeasure. And yet the most familiar and self-evident one, too.

She will have everything right from the start.

A birth is not a miracle. It will be the same until the end of time, until the last human being. The need for life, and also its meaning.

What was miraculous about the event of childbirth was how much attention both Sanna and the newborn child received, how important it was that everyone stayed alive. The attention that was given to making sure that the readings on the measuring devices were correct, that the blood tests were precise. That the baby’s breathing was normal, that her appetite was growing, that her weight was increasing. That her life would continue. That another taxpayer was on the way.

Now I have a son and I have a daughter and they have all the vaccinations and toys and playsuits and football boots they need. I have a house, a mortgage and a family car. I have many more things, and stranger ones than I ever wished for. One can’t wish for what one doesn’t know exists.

T
his is not the end, for nothing in this life has an end except life itself. And even after decomposition it continues as a beautiful display of flowers or an intolerable growth of weeds, which people try to control with the help of lawnmowers and yellow gardening gloves. But poor humans can’t control nature, because man is a part of it, and viewed from far enough away each one of us is a beautiful display of flowers or an intolerable growth of weeds.

In all this, after all this, what is the place of the animal, the rabbit? Does it have a place? Does it have a role and a value?

The rabbit did not enjoy the photo sessions, the official visits and the finely laid tables. The rabbit hopped away down the long tables to hide in a cupboard when the presidents, monarchs and dictators expressed a desire to stroke and pat it. When the animal liberationists wanted to liberate it, it fled into the darkest corner. Its pulse raced, it slept badly, it put its ears back and stopped eating. When an attempt was made to take sentimental pictures of the rabbit and Anneli Vatanescu-Pommakka for the lead story in a women’s magazine, the rabbit disappeared for several days and was eventually found in an air-conditioning duct, badly dehydrated.

Above all, the rabbit did not like Vatanescu’s new duties as a father, a politician and a member of civilisation. In the hierarchy of the needs of someone living
under normal conditions, a rabbit becomes a domestic pet, a cherished one to be sure, but no longer a brother, a comrade or a travelling companion.

‘An animal can’t live the life of a human being,’ Vatanescu’s mother said. ‘It doesn’t care for luxury any more than I do.’

‘You can’t get rid of the rabbit,’ Simo Pahvi said for his part. ‘It secured you half your votes. We can’t afford to get rid of it.’

It won’t survive one more foreign trip.

‘We’ll get some doubles. Who’ll notice the difference?’

I wouldn’t exchange my children if they were frightened of the new.

But the worst was still to come. At her half-yearly medical examination it was discovered that Anneli Vatanescu-Pommakka was allergic to milk and animals. It was at once clear what caused her spots, shortness of breath and red eyes. She had been born in a world where hair was something dirty and superfluous, unlike her big brother Miklos, whose body was used to animal fur, human leavings and the significant damage caused to floors by dampness.

‘We can’t keep it,’ said Sanna. ‘You know that. We just can’t.’

It’s true.

It’s impossible.

For seven days and nights Vatanescu said not a word.

‘Talk to me,’ Sanna demanded. ‘Please don’t bottle it all up, dear. How can you have become… such a… so… Finnish?’

I can’t keep bustling around all the time; the world goes on nevertheless.

I don’t like talking.

I like pottering in the garage. I have a beer, maybe even another beer, sometimes Pykström calls me when he’s doing the same. I have a few tipples.

And even though I rack my brains about the rabbit, I can’t come up with a solution.

The rabbit will just have to take what it has to take. That’s what I did.

Soon the rabbit also began to show symptoms. It sneezed, its eyes became red and it didn’t like being outside any more. Vatanescu took it to the vet, who quickly produced a diagnosis. The animal was allergic to infant humans. Its respiratory organs would not tolerate air conditioning, let alone transcontinental flights. Moreover, it clearly didn’t get enough sleep and exercise.

‘It’s a psychosomatic syndrome,’ said the vet. ‘If it were human I’d give it a course of Cipramil. But for an animal I won’t prescribe anything. I’d encourage you to find a natural solution.’

Vatanescu returned from the vet’s more perplexed than ever, without a solution, at a dead end.

I’ve found a home and a family. Each night I get into my own bed, in my own home, because a person needs a home to leave and come back to. One can’t be on a journey all the time; a journey is something that’s temporary.

Money from one’s job, food from the supermarket, children from the kindergarten, berries from the bushes, fish from the lake, insurance from the insurance company, a loan from the bank, the wife from her dancing, treatment from the hospital.

Then home.

To one’s family circle.

Until one has it one doesn’t realise what it’s worth.

Vatanescu stroked the rabbit’s side.

He noticed that his hand was trembling, his chin unsteady.

We’ve shared our journey.

But my house can’t be your house.

Sirpale stopped the car in front of the mailbox, where a letter for Vatanescu was waiting.

V
atanescu had that letter with him when one day in August he opened the Lahti agricultural show. He ate grilled sausages with his son, drank coffee in a disposable cup and listened to the voice of the people. There was a lot of it, that voice, and it varied both in volume and in content. Vatanescu had learned how to hold his cup lightly so that his fingers didn’t get scalded, and the deposits of mustard and ketchup on the hotdog wrapping paper no longer made him shudder. Simo Pahvi had taught him the importance of mastering gestures, posture and a convincing laugh. Even though pretending, he had to give an impression of deep and real sincerity. Most important of all, he had had to master the language, so that there would no longer be any distance between him and the natives. And after several months of language courses both intensive and hypnotic, he now understood and spoke Finnish surprisingly well.

He threw away the disposable cup, sucked the inside of the sausage and ate the skin as well. He shook hands with various interest groups and let them take photographs of him and Miklos. At the exhibitors’ request, they went to look at a Karelian herd bull and a drivable lawnmower from Minnesota, and the local football club presented Miklos with a jersey that had the number ten and the name Litmanen on the back. Another cup of coffee with a talkative local councillor, and then father and son returned to the back seat of the Million Merc.

Anneli Vatanescu-Pommakka was placed in her safety seat in the front of the car, and the rabbit crouched in a corner in the back.

‘Shall I take the long way home?’ Esko Sirpale asked.

Yes. The gravel and the potholes remind me of my childhood.

‘Perfect. But I’ll have a little music. These songs remind me of my youth.’

Vatanescu had tried to understand the words, tried to catch the mood, but the sound of this land was so melancholy that it did not open up to him. Except for a few foreign songs like ‘Genghis Khan’ whose singer, Frederik, had performed at Vatanescu’s victory concert on Helsinki’s Tapulikaupunki Square. And as Frederik now sang ‘Ramaya’, Vatanescu stretched forward to the front seat to tickle his daughter under her chin. Then he tickled the rabbit’s neck. Both daughter and rabbit sneezed. Esko Sirpale wound down the front windows, and Vatanescu the rear ones.

Vatanescu looked at the countryside with its fields, its wooden churches, its cowsheds, cemeteries, shopping centres with towers that reached to the sky, its service stations, moped riders, girls with bare midriffs, boys in baggy trousers, all the things that had been totally strange to him but now were forever familiar.

They arrived at yet another village, no different from the rest except for its name and the height of its church tower. Sirpale let the car roll past the cemetery; a squirrel climbed up the trunk of a spruce tree, jumping from branch to branch.

‘If you want to see
Sports Roundup
at home we’d better go back by the motorway.’

We have a more important matter to attend to now, one that affects a whole life.

Miklos can enter the address on the satnav.

597 Forest Close.

T
he paint was peeling, but the house stood at the top of the hill, straight as an oak. It had been built with modest means, as well as possible, with self-felled timber, on gravelly soil. Reason and moderation, dream and reality. There was a small potato patch, with currant bushes at regular intervals. At the bottom of the garden was a woodshed, with two neat stacks of firewood. There was a garden hose, a lawnmower, an axe, a saw and a chainsaw.

‘What are we going to do here?’ Miklos asked his father.

The owner knows the value of things. It doesn’t depend on their age.

It’s their usefulness and their sentimental value.

No one wants to lose what’s valuable.

Whoever built that shed is afraid of losing it. So he protects it and treasures it.

On the porch sat an elderly couple with grey hair and wrinkled faces, the man in a short-sleeved shirt and the woman in a summer dress. The woman’s head rested on her husband’s shoulder and they loved each other with the same tenderness they had shown on the Stockholm ferry. The depth of their feelings was confirmed by how the sight moved Vatanescu and startled Miklos. When Pentti saw the guests, he got up with difficulty and extended his hand.