“I sympathize completely with everything you say.”
“Yes. But then just betrayal. He is arrested, for what? Enemy of the people, saboteur. Divorce as we planned, but not right, immoral. And no use. If he, Russian, blameless, is arrested, why then not me? You cannot imagine such terror. I thought only of saving us. Me and my son. Then I got chance—I cannot tell you how or through whom …”
“Of course not!”
“… but I got chance, without my son. And I was so terrified, I deserted him. I thought: in Finland we can arrange exit visa for him, legally, with help of legation. Selfish, wrong! Then came the war, all diplomatic relations broken. Five years! I can never forgive myself.”
“For pity’s sake! If you had stayed you would have been arrested yourself. You’d have disappeared like so many others. Your son would have lost his mother anyway. Now at least you have a chance of getting back in touch.”
“Thank you. Yes, that is rational thinking. But think of the child. Abandoned by his mother, completely alone in the world. He doesn’t think like you. He has simply been abandoned.”
“Do you know anything about the people you left him with? Your husband’s relatives?”
“No. Strangers at that address, no contact. Unable to trace father’s parents either. Maybe also arrested.”
“The Finnish Consulate?”
“Yes, father has certain contacts. A brave person rang the bell of the apartment where I left him. Other people there. No information about earlier residents. Nor about father’s parents at their address. But otherwise Finnish legation in Moscow very cautious. We must not provoke great powerful Soviet Union that swallows us in next war.”
“I suppose you’ve tried to contact orphanages in the Leningrad area.”
“Yes, but you understand—evacuations. And I’m glad for that. Otherwise the boy would not have survived the siege. But it meant chaos in documentation.”
“He’s a teenager now. Maybe he’s tried to find you? He knows that you came from Finland. He knows your maiden name, maybe even remembers the name of his grandfather. If he contacts the Finnish legation … Or no, he doesn’t know you fled, and it can’t be easy for an adolescent in the Soviet Union to contact a foreign legation.”
“His parents are enemies of the people, Finland an enemy in the war. How could he, a fifteen-year-old boy?”
“No, that was silly of me, too optimistic. What I mean is later, in the future. But it’s now you need to make contact.”
“I don’t even know if he’s alive. If he is alive—a boy at the worst age. If we saw each other now, it might not be a happy meeting. Accusations, hate towards me. Hate towards Finland.”
“You can grieve about that later. What’s important now is to find out if he’s alive and how he’s getting along. Everything else follows from that. My dear Doctor Gyllen, I will keep all of this in my mind and in my heart. You may well believe that there is nothing to be done, and for the moment perhaps you’re right. You’ve thought of everything, you have contacts that I can’t even imagine. But believe me, it helps to talk about things, the person you talk to can keep his eyes and ears open and perhaps stumble across something that proves to be useful. Things happen all the time that no one ever expected.”
“Miracles?”
“Forgive me. I know you don’t believe in them. Neither do I, but I hope for them. Allow me to do so for your sake. Please don’t take it the wrong way, Doctor Gyllen, but I’m going to pray for you. For your reunion. Privately, of course,” he adds quickly.
“Yes of course, naturally. What can I say? Thank you.”
They both smile. The pastor is not going to embarrass her by saying a prayer at the table. She is not going to depress him by telling him how she feels about religion. She is happy that she’s been able to maintain her self-control. No tears, no turgid self-accusations. On his side, he has not been unnecessarily pious. He gets ready to stand up and smiles apologetically. “Remember you can always talk to me. My vow of silence is absolute and includes even murder. You have your own medical confidentiality. Oh my, it’s only two months now until we both face our respective examinations. Thank you for talking to me, but now we have to study.”
“Thank you for coming,” she says, finding it absolutely impossible to say anything more.
“Don’t mention it. My wife and I owe you a huge debt of gratitude, you know that.”
She stands in the window and watches him as he cycles homewards. Before he’s out of sight, he stops at some bushes and eats raspberries. Only then does she realize how totally absorbed she was by her own problems when he was talking to her. Örlanders never let anyone leave without offering food or drink. Even when food is scarce, Russians never forget the rules of hospitality. She should have given him coffee! She should have bought a coffee cake at the store now that such things are available again. He tried to give her hope, and she sent him away hungry!
The pastor has added Doctor Gyllen’s son to the list of things he prays for, and he prays a first prayer as he rides. He thinks of Doctor Gyllen, unnaturally self-controlled or perhaps petrified and frozen to the core after all she’s been through. And he thinks about what it would be like to have to leave Sanna and Lillus, to suddenly not come home one day. If it was a matter of saving their lives, certainly, but if it was a question of saving his own? A terrible choice, and slim comfort he came up with for Doctor Gyllen: that under present circumstances she would have been separated from him in any event. But which sounds better to an adolescent? My parents were liquidated, or, My mother abandoned me and fled to Finland? Doctor Gyllen lives with this every day. Dear God, let her be reunited with her son.
Chapter Seventeen
A YEAR AND A HALF AFTER HIS ARRIVAL on the Örlands, Pastor Petter Kummel is about to make his first trip to the mainland. It is the end of September, beautiful Indian-summer weather. Bareheaded, because his handsome head of hair lifts his hat off his head, light topcoat not used since his arrival, cassock in his suitcase. His dissertation sent on ahead, notes about it in his briefcase. Since the trip is a long one—boat to Mellom, steamboat to Åbo, train to Helsingfors, bus to Borgå—there is reason to believe he’ll have time to rehearse a number of fine points in church law and theology and polish his prepared sermon, so his briefcase is stuffed with abstracts and other papers of every kind. The heart inside the shirt is relatively calm. In his free moments, he has actually managed to read a great deal and has real faith in his ability to elucidate a variety of topics. And it would be presumptuous to believe his dissertation the worst ever written!
The postal boat leaves in the evening to meet the night boat from Mariehamn at Mellom. All three of his girls are down at the church dock to wish him a good journey. Lillus is asleep in her carriage and, like so many times before, it is Sanna who clings and kisses and Mona who says brightly, “Now don’t worry! You’re going to do beautifully. But watch out for the traffic. You haven’t been on a city street since May 1946 and cars aren’t like cows. And give our love to the Helléns and tell them we’ll all come to visit next summer.”
The verger rows him over to the steamboat pier, and when he turns his head in the rowing boat, he sees them smile and wave and then turn and go back to the parsonage, for the evening air is chilly and it’s time for Sanna to go to bed. He holds out hope nevertheless and, sure enough, when half an hour later Post-Anton passes Church Isle, Mona and Sanna are standing up on steeple hill like dark silhouettes against the light sky, waving. He can almost hear them calling, “Have a good trip! Good luck!” Everyone on the boat smiles, because people don’t do this on the Örlands. Here you’re gone when you step into the boat and at home when you step ashore.