The Brothers (6 page)

Matters tend to diminish when the Farmhand talks about them. He is that kind of man. Even if he were on the scaffold with the noose round his neck, he would remark on the mildness of the weather. He has seen much in his time. He was even in the Pomeranian War, fighting against hussars. If you ask him about it, he says he has forgotten almost everything. I bet he could still use a gun, though, and not just for shooting rabbits.

‘I’d better get going,’ I say, standing up. ‘Don’t know whether to try and look after them or make sure I don’t get under their feet.’

‘Do both. Look after them from a distance,’ the Farmhand advises. After I have opened the door, he adds, ‘But don’t learn their lesson. Rancour is a bad teacher.’

The wind blows heavy snowflakes into my face. The forest is veiled, merely its outline visible. You can only sense the iron-grey sky. Erik is standing, sheltered, on the front steps of the house. He is immobile, just blowing his hands, staring ahead. He does not seem to notice me as I walk along the edge of the yard to reach the back door. I leave my boots by the door and make my way quietly to my tiny back chamber. A bed, a chair and a small table. They were good enough to give me blinds and a miserable oil lamp. The room is cool, the stove cold. I do not know what it is like in houses of correction but probably not much better. Still, I am not complaining. Soon, if I wish, I may brick up the doorway of my room.

I turn, ready to climb the steps leading up from the cellar, when I collide with his brooding gaze. I do not see his eyes, he is a black statue against the snow-grey light, but I sense them. I feel his fingers on my skin, on my shoulder blades. He leans against the doorpost, tall and alert. I stare at him. I step backwards and the basket falls from my hand. A turnip rolls to his feet but he does not kick it.

‘Caught you,’ he says.

‘Don’t touch me.’

He lets out a laugh: the snort of a tortured animal. ‘I mean I caught you in the act.’

‘What act?’

‘Playing the mistress.’

I decide to push past him. The doorway is too small for the two of us and he makes way for me reluctantly. Then suddenly he grabs me, presses me against himself with one hand, pushing the other inside the neckline of my dress. His hard fingers grope my neck, my shoulders, my back. My nose is filled with his smell, the sweet scent of eau de cologne and the salty scent of sweat. I slap his face and free myself from his grip. I leap up the stone steps to yard level. Down in the depths of the cellar, he laughs his hoarse laugh.

I turn and snap down at him, ‘Why did you come here? Nobody wants you.’

‘Just an impulse. I thought you at least would be pleased.’

‘Delighted.’

‘Oh, come on. Wait a minute,’ he says, his voice empty of laughter. He bends and disappears into the cellar. I breathe deeply, stare at the forest, hear the sighing trees. He reappears through the dark opening and hands the basket up to me. ‘You’ve got a lot here, for the winter.’

‘Should cover us. Can’t afford any more mouths to feed.’

He climbs the stairs and then stops, a couple of steps away from me. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not planning to stay the whole winter. Just came to visit. It can’t be that bad.’

‘I suppose not. If you behave.’

‘Don’t I always? By the way, how’s your father?’

I examine his eyes: grey, steady, mute. ‘My father’s well, although of course he’s getting on.’

‘And your siblings?’

‘They’ve all gone their different ways. Except…’

He nods once, twice. ‘Except now your eldest brother is of course the young master of the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s the usual way, isn’t it? The eldest son staying on as master.’ You can hardly detect the irony in his voice; it is like a butterfly’s wings, or a barely perceptible movement of the skin. ‘At least in respectable houses.’

‘Nobody told you to leave.’

‘But I wasn’t asked to stay, either. Since I’m here now, perhaps I should start acting the master.’

A heavy lump begins moving in my chest, back and forth, back and forth. ‘Don’t even think about it. Your mother and Erik arranged everything long ago.’

‘No doubt. Still, things can always be changed.’

‘This thing won’t change. You knew it when you left all that time ago.’

‘You haven’t given any thought to why I left.’

My breast is being crushed, it is crumbling from inside. ‘Don’t blame it on me.’

‘I’m not blaming anybody. It was all pure chance.’ His voice becomes lower and crawls, slithering, into my ears. ‘That’s what makes life so interesting, chance. You never know what’ll happen tomorrow. Just as well.’

I twist round. My feet are ahead of me, my thoughts are left behind. Snow clings to my eyes. Mauri is turning the corner to the back of the house, Erik is standing on the veranda steps. I manage to cross the yard without running. I pass Erik. He says something, but I can only hear an indistinct grunt. His twisted, restless face moves out of my sight and I pull the front door shut behind me with calm restraint.

Then I rush to the stairs and stumble up them. In our room, I throw myself onto the bed. The walls pant, the quilt quivers against my cheek. Henrik’s cold fingers are still all over my back. I am no longer here. I am in that other moment, when he was at liberty to explore my flesh for the only time. I do not regret it. I did not yet know about Erik then, I was innocent. Henrik’s man-smell, his stubble, his hands, like snakes rising up out of black soil at night. He was hideous, repulsive, wonderful. Fortunately, I did not allow him to throb inside me. Fortunately, I did not. And yet he remained there, throbbing even now. I squeeze the quilt. My clothes rot round me, the threads loosen, I am lying here naked. The walls crack and a hot wind whips me.

I sit on the edge of my bed. Time turns over, early morning dawned in the middle of the day. Now I should go downstairs and put the loaves in the oven. Everything falls apart and we merely continue with our chores. At least that means we will not starve to death.

A sharp knock makes me start. I breathe in sharply. ‘Who’s there?’

The door opens with a dry squeal and the Old Mistress appears in the doorway. She looks at me with her eyes screwed up as if she were staring in my direction from afar. The words take a while to find their way to her mouth. ‘Have you spoken to Erik?’

‘About what?’

Her gaze begins to wander. ‘General matters.’

‘We haven’t had time to talk.’

‘You should,’ she says wanly, her eyes lost. I stare at the lines etched on her face and notice that they all curve downwards. They hang down from the temples, the corners of the eyes, the sides of the nose, like the stalks of a plant that has given up. ‘He may have something to tell you.’

I stand up and go to the window. Gusts of wind disperse the falling snow, so it forms slanting trails. Smoke curls out of the chimney of the Farmhand’s hut, to yield under the heavy snowflakes and spread around the shack like mist with long tongues. Desolate and beautiful. I say over my shoulder, ‘I don’t want to know anything about the woman.’

The Old Mistress is silent for a while. I can hear her thoughts, gnawing. I sense she turns away from the door before asking, ‘What woman?’

So she has decided not to face the truth yet. The whole family is like that: treacherous and deceitful. They have been given more than most but they do not know how to appreciate it. They do not respect other people, demands for honesty, life. I often ask myself whether I, too, have become a conspirator in this house; can I be trusted any more than the other travesties of humanity hanging around here? I always conclude that I am different. It is a small crime to fail to report that one occasion, an accident involving two people that has nothing to do with anyone else.

I go down the stairs. The stove sends drowsy heat into the kitchen. I have just picked up the bread shovel from the corner when Mauri creeps out of the passage leading to the back rooms. As always, he reminds me of a whipped dog. The impression may well be enhanced by that shocking beard of his, which does not suit his round, little-boy face. It is curly, like a sheep’s fleece. He looks at me from under his ever-frightened brows and says in his clear child’s voice, ‘I thought of having some soured milk.’

‘Help yourself,’

‘I will. You’re baking bread again.’

‘Someone’s got to.’

He is clattering about in the pantry. ‘It’s good you are. Will you be making some buns, too?’

‘I may well do.’

I have nothing against him. I just cannot relate to him. I cannot even see him as Henrik’s and Erik’s cousin, firstly because he is so different and secondly because he is treated like a servant, not a family member. I never met his parents, the late master’s brother and sister-in-law, but they must have been another breed. All that is sinewy and tall in Erik and Henrik has shrunk to short, soft and slack in Mauri. Without his beard, he could be a sickly, undernourished ten-year-old. And yet he is a man. It must pain him that he looks like an overripe embryo. And then, after his parents’ death, to be taken into this house out of sheer pity, the lowest of the low for evermore: that must rankle. Now he is some kind of half-creature, half a servant, half an object of charity, and it does not occur to anyone to try and forget it.

‘Any dough left over?’ he asks.

I sigh. ‘Look in the dough tub.’

I push the bread shovel into the corner. Mauri is scraping the tub with his dirty fingers, shoving them into his mouth. I feel the filthy nails in the flesh of my cheeks. He notices my look, hesitates and tries to think something to say. He comes up with: ‘Good that Henrik was able to visit.’

I feel like laughing. ‘Is that what you think? Has he not always bullied you?’

He starts blinking defensively. ‘Well, who knows.’

‘Not that Erik couldn’t improve his treatment of you. After all, you went to war together.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’d think such a thing would bring men together. Being in danger.’

‘Yes. But I was mainly just lagging behind.’

‘You shouldn’t always be so modest. You probably did something heroic out there.’

He looks astounded and starts gulping down large mouthfuls of emptiness. That awkward, silent puzzlement often strikes him. At such times, you would like nothing more than to take a handful of words and cram them into his mouth.

‘I happen to know you’re quite a shot,’ I say. ‘They say you can hit a bullseye better than any other man in these parts.’

Suddenly he changes. He appears to grow, his lips stop their twitching, his eyelids freeze into immobility and his ribcage expands, as if a creature hidden inside were trying to get out. Something happens to his pale face: he smiles. It is not a pleasant smile. Slowly, wordlessly, he turns his back on me and glides away. I stare at the empty space he has left. I feel cold.

As usual, no one asked for my opinion. They deigned to inform me. Erik went to talk to the top army brass without saying a word to anyone about his intentions. He was absent for a couple of days. When he returned, he told me that we had been enlisted as scouts. I had difficulty following what he said. I would not have thought enlisting was as easy as that. We were standing by the corner of the chicken coop and Erik explained that the King’s army required men who knew these parts. I saw his enthusiasm and pride and tried to absorb some of it, but in vain. I was scared, even before I became a soldier.

‘When do we have to leave?’

‘We’re off tomorrow.’

‘How come so soon? The Russians haven’t got as far as here yet. You should’ve said that we haven’t done the harvest and—’

‘There’s nothing for it, we’ve got to go tomorrow,’ he interrupted. ‘We’d better start thinking about what to take. We won’t be given clothes but we’ll get muskets.’

‘We won’t look like soldiers, then.’

‘Good thing too. Won’t catch the Russky’s eye that way.’

The inevitable wailing and scolding of women ensued and made me long for war, in the end. Not that anyone cared about my fate, but women’s tearful laments are, to my ears, almost as heart-rending as the squealing of a pig up for slaughter. Consequently, I felt a degree of relief when we set off early the following morning.

You understand nothing about war until you have experienced it. And once you have seen it, you realize that there is not much else to see in this life. Maimed bodies and horse carcasses, that’s your world. The oddest thing is how you get used to war, how quickly your mind becomes indifferent. Although Erik and I were not generally on the front line, our missions were sometimes even more dangerous, but after a few weeks, I stopped being troubled by the risks. We were generally on the move at night, trying to find out what the enemy was doing. I would not have believed that a man of my years could learn not to be afraid of the forest at night, but I learnt that too. I even began to think I would not mind an eternal night. Perhaps because in the dark I did not feel like such a miserable, insignificant runt.

We reached areas unknown to us, where we were of no greater use than anyone else. We could have gone back home, but instead we went on with the others. Again, my opinion was not sought – Erik would probably have glanced back more frequently if he had been followed by a faithful dog. I began to suspect that the excursion had to have some higher purpose, that we were for some reason destined to it. I had to wait until September before the point of it all became clear to me.

The battles of Ruona and Salmi had been lost and the army was retreating towards the north. We spent the night on a hill; a river ran at its foot and you could see the Vaasa road if you craned your neck. I had difficulty getting to sleep, I was not used to sleeping at nights. It was dawn when I finally began dropping off. But suddenly I heard cannon, like thunder, and muskets, banging. The noise was coming from the outposts. Erik, recumbent next to me, also woke up.

We received an order: we were to snoop on the enemy and establish their strength. So we went in a big loop behind our own troops. The boom of the cannon and the sporadic firing of the muskets became more distant as we stalked along the forest edge, crouching, alert as hunters after a timid prey. The smell of powder trailed us in the wind, early light filtered through the tree trunks like water, everything was at a standstill and unreal and too real. Erik went ahead, as always, until we turned back and again approached the sounds of battle, stopping on a gentle slope at the edge of a long field. We had a clear view. Erik kept peering through the telescope that had been lent to him by the officers. He said, ‘They must be somewhere over there in the meadow, because I can see some of our men at the edge of the forest. And we’re bound to see better from that hillock. We should go there.’