The Year of the Hare (15 page)

The bear-hunting women had gone off to change their clothes and now reappeared from the other, narrower end of the house. The hors d’oeuvre was a choice fish canapé. Vatanen noticed that a couple of chairs were empty at the general’s end of the table. He seated himself in one, for he was feeling hungry.

The private secretary gave Vatanen an angry look but said nothing. The officer from the Defense Department, a major-general, gave Vatanen a soldierly greeting.

There was both rosé and white wine. Vatanen accepted the rosé. After the canapé, soup was served, a slightly gooey bisque extracted from canned shrimp, but delicious.

The conversation turned to the day’s happenings: in particular
,
the Swedish and American ladies were questioned endlessly about their bear hunt. They went into detail
,
especially the Swedish lady. The listeners sighed with horror at her ordeals and courage
,
and everyone was in ecstasies about her extraordinary luck. She also mentioned the hare
,
which by now had almost been forgotten. It was hastily produced and put into the lady’s lap. She lifted the frightened animal onto the tablecloth and began to stroke it.

“I can never, for the rest of my life, be parted from this adorable
,
brave creature! The bear would have killed me
,
I’m absolutely certain
,
if this poor innocent darling had not been in my arms.”

The major general asked Vatanen if it was true that the hare was his. Vatanen said it was and whispered that he had no intention of letting the lady have it as her darling.

“Might be a little tricky to get it back now,” the general whispered.

The lady gave the hare some lettuce, and it began eating voraciously. Its mouth went like a mill. A cry of delight went around the table. The hare was sharing a meal with the other members of the hunting trip! The company was audibly moved.

The general buzz alarmed the hare. It released a little cascade of pellets onto the tablecloth. Some went into the Swedish lady’s soup. The hare wriggled out of her hands and bounced along the center of the table, knocking over a candlestick and leaving panicky droppings among the knives and forks.

The guests leaped to their feet, all except the general and Vatanen. The general did pull his soup bowl onto his knees when he saw the hare hopping to his end of the table.

Vatanen grabbed the hare by the ears and put it on the floor, where the poor creature escaped into a corner. The guests seated themselves again. There was silence for a while.

The Swedish lady was more than a trifle on edge. Her left hand was fiddling with a lettuce leaf as if it were a napkin; she then sipped several spoonfuls of soup till she noticed the hare droppings floating on the surface. She became still more uneasy, stared at her plate, and then began delicately spooning the pellets onto the rim, as one might dispose of some unwanted black peas in pea soup. Once the pills were on the edge of her plate, she gave a nervous smile, dipped her spoon a couple of times, but without appetite, and then suddenly dropped the spoon onto the tablecloth. She wiped her mouth with a lettuce leaf and said in embarrassment: “Oh, how stupid of me ... May I have another plate of soup, please.”

Her plate was removed. The hare droppings on the table were discreetly swept off, and a new cloth was spread. While all this was going on, a glass of vermouth was offered.

Then the dinner was resumed. The conversation seemed to be avoiding the hunting episode. The Swedish lady did not even toy with her fresh soup: she stared at her bowl, saying something inconsequential to her neighbors from time to time. And then it was time for the main dish: It was hare. What a coincidence!

The hare was delicious, but not many took a second helping; the situation was too confusing. Dessert was hurried along—Arctic cloudberries in whipped cream—and then people rose from the table. The cloth was removed, coffee was served, with liqueurs and brandy, and only now did the atmosphere begin to relax.

Through the window, soldiers could be seen skiing past in all directions; army trucks were rumbling across the twilit landscape. The guests looked out with bored stares, as if the window were a television screen someone had forgotten to switch off during a tedious program. Soon there was darkness outside, as if something were wrong with the tube: the picture slowly dimmed until complete blackness prevailed. Only the sound was still working: the battle cries of the charging soldiers, the muffled reports of the blank cartridges, and the rumblings of the vehicles. The sounds penetrated the log walls of the Vittumainen Ghyll guesthouse, where the VIPs chatted urbanely about this and that.

A
t bedtime, Vatanen was settling down with his hare and his knapsack to sleep on the floor of the men’s side of the Vittumainen Ghyll guesthouse when the private secretary appeared and said: “As I see it, you’re sort of out of place here . . . Mr. Vatanen—that’s your name, isn’t it?—I suggest you take yourself off with that damned hare of yours and don’t put in an appearance again. That is undoubtedly the best solution for all concerned. I’ve spoken to the Swedish attaché, and he’s of the same opinion. He tells me his wife is no longer so set on retaining the hare as she was yesterday.”

Vatanen began collecting his gear.

“I do find it a little astonishing that you were able to bring yourself to take a place at the official dinner. Was that a deliberate act? And the animal—please, get it out of here. It’s already caused more harm than you can imagine.”

“But it was the lady who decided she couldn’t do without it,” Vatanen muttered.

“It was your damned hare that caused all the trouble. And don’t permit yourself to refer to the lady or what she wants. Now get out. Here’s fifty dollars, or a hundred, if you want. I’d like want to get this business completely off my hands.”

Vatanen accepted the bills and asked: “Do your require a receipt?”

“Get out of here, for God’s sake.”

Vatanen had packed up his gear. He slipped the hare into his knapsack, its head poking out the top. Before going to the door, he offered his hand to the official, who merely sucked in his breath through his teeth angrily. Outdoors, Vatanen followed a path to its end, and then went a couple of hundred yards or so farther, to some soldiers’ tents. He climbed into a platoon tent and found a place to curl up and sleep. The weary soldiers were making tea and offered Vatanen a mug. No one asked any questions. The guy on fire duty threw more wet birch logs into the black stove, and someone moaned in his sleep.

In the early morning hours, an alarm sounded, but no one left the tent. Someone dug out a pack of cards. Vatanen perked up at that and said he wanted in—if anyone felt like playing?

He plunked the hundred dollars on the blanket, saying where it had come from, and the whole tent joined in a poker game. An hour later, the money had made the rounds. A soldier took a turn outside and came back with the news that one of the diplomats’ wives had been sipping hare-shit soup the evening before.

An order came through that camp had to be struck by six o’clock.

No one made the slightest move to carry out the order. In the dark outside, some night assault was evidently under way. The contribution of the men in the tent to the war game outside was to yell assault cries at the tops of their voices. The war was still going on: vehicles started to rumble and roar; tired shouts came from somewhere.

Around nine o’clock, Vatanen emerged from the tent. It was still more or less dark, but the war games had now livened up somewhat—enough, at any rate, to put a stop to the tent life. Nevertheless, the tent had still not been struck.

That was perhaps as well, for the Vittumainen Ghyll guesthouse was up in flames. It had evidently caught fire quite a bit earlier, and the flames were now out of control. The sleepers had woken up, and the windows were being blown out by the flames. Military men in underclothes, and their wives, were crowding out of the log building; shouting was getting vociferous. Flares were shooting up in the air; the conscripts’ war had taken second place.

Vatanen parked his knapsack, with the hare inside, on the branch of a tree and dashed over to the building. The forecourt was crowded with people wrapped in blankets, bemoaning the crisis in a babble of different languages. The fire had probably started in the kitchen, for the center of the kitchen roof had caved in, but it had now spread to the whole building. The major general had taken charge: he was standing in stockinged feet in the middle of the chaos, bellowing out orders. He kept picking up one foot after the other: the snow was melting under his socks. He was wearing army trousers, but he had no tunic. In spite of that, everyone knew he was a general.

People were still jumping out of the narrow end of the house, including women, panicking and screaming. Vatanen recognized many of them, one especially: someone was leading the Swedish lady out of the smoke into the forecourt. She was naked in the frozen snow, weeping bitterly. The blazing flames threw her figure into silhouette, and she looked extremely beautiful picking her way through the snow, supported by two soldiers; then a blanket was thrown around her. The whole building was now a mass of flames; soldiers were shoveling snow in through the windows, but someone swore it was going to melt the helmets on their heads.

The helicopter was standing at the verge of the forecourt and looked in danger of bursting into flames. The general bellowed for it to be taken away. Where was the pilot? A naked man ran to the helicopter, burned his hand as he touched the metal side, but managed to squeeze in, lower a window, and shout: “Too cold! Can’t take off yet!” His naked body was visible in the window, and sparks from the shell of burning logs were flying against the chopper’s hot metal sides like pinecones in a storm.

The window shut as the general yelled: “Take off! Come on! Get a move on!”

The private secretary ran into the forecourt, also half dressed. He asked the soldiers for jackets and shoes. Soon his arms were piled with clothes and boots, which he spread on the melting snow and distributed to the naked women covered in nothing but blankets. One woman received a pair of boots, another socks; tunics and great-coats were thrown over the women’s shoulders, till they were as fat as queen bees; white camouflage hoods came down to their white shoulders.

The battalion’s Sixth Company came up, on the double. Exhausted, they stopped at the edge of the melting snow. An officer hollered, but it was a very ragged semicircle the men formed around the burning building. Their stained white snowsuits flickered red in the blaze of the fire. The men’s faces, black and frostbitten, looked improbable, hardly human; they were more like a chain of Moomins sent to close off the area. “Got a match?” someone asked. A cigarette lighter passed from hand to hand as the soldiers leaned on their ski poles.

The heavy army helicopter began thumping and throbbing, and soon there was a full-throated hammering, as the great blades began slowly churning the burned air. Doubled up, the general ran over to the flight cabin, signaling that more people ought to be taken along. The private secretary, realizing what he meant, began leading women to the juddering chopper. Vatanen resorted to the tree and collected his knapsack from the branch, whispering soothingly to his hare, which was frantic after hanging so long on a branch, in a bag, in all this pandemonium.

Vatanen tossed the knapsack on his back and returned to the scene of the fire. The hare whined in its bag but made no further efforts to escape; in any case, the cord would have stopped it if it had tried.

The private secretary led some women under the helicopter blades; the door opened, and hands pushed on the women’s bottoms, thrusting them, wrapped in thick army clothes, into the cabin. The helicopter pilot and his number two, stark naked at the door, were giving a hand to help them inside. The general lit a cigarette. Vatanen decided to go and help with the loading, too. He jumped into the machine and lifted struggling people in till the helicopter captain said to him: “That’s it, Lieutenant. We’re off. Not one more. Door closed!”

Lieutenant!

Vatanen was about to get back out, but the naked electronics engineer grabbed his arm, fastened the door in his face, and clapped earphones on: “OH 226, OH 226, over ... Do you hear me? About to be airborne. Destination Sodankylä Garrison Hospital. OK, roger, out.”

The helicopter’s windows were spotted with condensation, but, giving the nearest window a wipe with his hand, Vatanen saw the heavy blades starting to flash around with accelerating force. That sent a new blast of wind into the burning building, and the furnace spouted up ninety feet high. The tempest the helicopter was stirring grilled the collapsing log stories to a new brightness: in the pale morning light they glowed like Bengal lights. Then the machine became airborne.

From the ground, the general was semaphoring: he spread his arms and closed them at intervals. The people down there were getting farther and farther away, and the ears of those in the cabin were being pounded by the drumming. Soon the figure of the general, standing in his suspenders, became very small; the glowing building diminished, and the machine rose so high the sun blazed into view.