The weather grew worse for us beyond Lappeenranta, and the unpaved road, marked red on the map, which we had almost to ourselves, widened to a hundred yards of slippery oxblood mud. Rain cut visibility until we seemed to be swaying along underwater, wind blasting from the Soviet border to the east. After a hundred miles of such piloting I turned northwest for Savonlinna, and a hotel in which the kindly Mr Reenpaa had booked a room for us. I moored the car by the pavement about midnight, and a band with singer performed in the almost empty dining room, where we were too exhausted to take in anything but soup.
Next day in better weather we backtracked to Punkaharju for a sauna at the Hotel Finlandia. Before entering the steam room the resident old lady in attendance loofered our naked bodies from top to bottom. Her job was to keep the place clean, stoke the stove and provide towels — as well as bundles of birch twigs.
We decided to introduce David to the same hot mill, on the assumption that it would be fun, good for his body and soul, and an experience to remember, but the washing and splashing and steaming and beating scared him, and he escaped outside to play in the sand, watched over by the woman.
After the ordeal I ran along the wooden jetty and went down like a naked arrow into the water, revitalised for further travelling, then through the trees for lemon tea in the hotel lounge.
Back to the future, I drove with pipe and cigar smoke drifting from four open windows. An enormous lorry, going almost as fast as myself, was there for overtaking on the empty treelined road. I glanced at the side mirrors, gauged his speed, pressed on the blinkers now fully operating, swung out, dropped gear on drawing level, and shot by with a roar. I then upped the gears to get well ahead, and settled my speed at just over seventy.
Such travelling should have brought out the supposedly eternal faculties of a writer — memory, observation, and imagination — but they weren’t apparent, my brain being empty on driving alone through new territory and having to use all practical sense to stay alive.
By now a long way from London I thought it best not to wonder how far there was still to go before edging homewards. I was a nonentity at his machine on a conveyor belt of road, churning out miles, only interested in how many I would clock up that day. People close to me had drifted away, for the moment anyway. No one was necessary to define my identity or place, which was why I had set out on the road. It was an agreeable state, that of a hermit perhaps, or misanthrope, alone at last and with few thoughts straying in.
At Hamina I went into the bus station café for lunch, and though people watched from close by I wasn’t inclined to get into conversation. I ate the meal hurriedly and left, glad to get to Virolahti where Pekko Tulkki was to meet me on his way back from a wedding. His bookshop was closed until that time, so I sat in a café writing postcards to Ruth and David, and to Ted Hughes and David Storey. I went through my address book to see who else I could send one to. No one in the place spoke English, and for the first time I used the phrase list from Baedeker, though the pronunciation must have mystified my words. But some got through when buying stamps from the post office later. The girls behind the bar talked slyly and in whispers, so that even if I’d known a fair amount of their language it would have been impossible to understand them. The situation reminded me of that in Ingmar Bergman’s film The Silence.
Pekko Tulkki was about fifty, neat, fair, balding, and amiable, his gnome-like Finnish eyes seeming to reflect the lakes and forests of his fascinating country. I recalled giving a lift to a man during our time in Karelia, who stood by the road far from house or village. Sparse woods and marsh went into infinity, the summery sky about to let down rain. He was slight of build, wore shirt, trousers, and local shoes like exotic carpet slippers. He gave no indication of wanting to hitchhike, but when I stopped he climbed in without a word and sat with David in the back. There was no common language except for him to take in where we had come from that day, and recognise the name of Koli on Lake Pielinen where we were going. I couldn’t be sure how much the placenames meant to him, yet he was keen on getting into communication. He had short incredibly white hair, and skin corked by the sun. His pale eyes glistened like opals, restless yet deep and piercing when he spoke. Though his skin was wrinkled he seemed no more than forty, and filled the car with the aura of a troll, or ghost, smiling with thin narrow lips.
David, an infallible litmus paper, was happy to be sitting by him as I drove along the unpaved road, till after about thirty kilometres he made signs that we were where he wanted to be. We also got out of the car and, being hungry, I jabbed a finger at my mouth to find out whether he cared for anything to eat, with a further sign that he was welcome to join us. He declined, but asked for pencil and paper, so I passed the current map on whose corner he wrote with some effort the shaky letters of his name: Pektti Hannolau — as far as I could make out. He wanted our names in return, so I put them down in block capitals using paper he could take away. After shaking hands we left him by the roadside, his arm lifted in farewell.
Pekko at Virolahti told me to follow his car, and led me at great speed along a smooth and narrow track through the forest. Then came bumps and curves that almost threw me into the trees as I tried not to lose sight of him. He was an architect and bookseller, who had designed and built a wooden summerhouse on an inlet of the Gulf of Finland. The Russian shore, a thousand yards across the water, was marked by watchtowers above the tree tops. Scanning them with binoculars I had no doubt that, guarding their prison or paradise, they were likewise observing me. The local Finns were long used to the situation, Pekko said, and no one on their side anyway was at all nervous. I found it strange that if Russia was a prison people were prevented from leaving, and a paradise others were barred from entering, there were no queues on either side of the frontier.
The sauna hut was set on rocks a few yards from the water. We changed after supper, Pekko bronzed and me chalkish white. The stove well lit, he threw cold water on to scorching stones, steam coiling till sweat ran from my scalp, out of cuticles and eyeballs, every nook and bend of flesh.
Swishing birch twigs disturbed the air to bring some relief, and if the pleasant smell was to be the last on earth then so be it. He glanced at the thermometer, decided it read too low, and splashed another ladle of water on to the stones, clouds billowing till I couldn’t see anything, wondering where the door was in case of a blackout.
‘All right?’
‘Fine,’ I said.
Another dollop of water took away the last vodka drunk at supper. Steam was eating me up. Having shed as much moisture as could possibly be in me, or so I thought, I was ready to wave the white flag. Birch leaves no longer helped, since the water they rested in between bouts, too warm to encourage circulation, burned on impact with the skin. I managed to control my breathing when lungs seemed about to pop like paper bags. Mr Reenpaa’s mischievous smile on telling me I would be sure to get a good sauna in Virolahti came back.
Pekko considered we had more liquid (and dirt) to lose. I climbed up on to the planks to lie down, but it was better to keep moving, so I went back to the floor as another billow of volcanic heat reminded me of cleaning the flues of a factory boiler system as a boy of fourteen, crawling along narrow tunnels to spade away heaps of still hot clinker and soot.
When by common consent Pekko opened the door I ran for the lake as if death was behind me, swimming through pink-reflecting bars of the setting sun.
He took me and his lovely daughter by motorboat around the darkening bay, careful to avoid going too far and risking a few bullets from the Russians. Pale smoke from other sauna chimneys drifted along the shore. Pekko greeted the local police chief who stood on a jetty fresh from his own bath, an immensely powerful man in his middle thirties, the space between hair and eyes narrow, but the smile wide. He looked cleaner than anyone I’d ever seen.