‘No. All dza people gone.’
‘Too bad for them,’ Salo said. ‘We’re just gettin’ things set up around here. They weren’t too rough with you now, were they?’
‘Ah, rough, very rough.’
Rokka was scanning the room without listening to the old man. The rest of them, on the other hand, were prying the guy for every possible scrap of information about life in Eastern Karelia. He said almost nothing of his own initiative, but he answered their questions, concentrating primarily on figuring out what it was they wanted to hear. Salo was chief examiner.
‘You had any parsons around these parts?’
‘Ah, bevore, dzere vaz parzon in Pryazha.’
‘They killed him, didn’t they?’
‘Killed, killed…’
‘You got kids?’
‘Ah, had two boyz. One killed, and odzer one beaten and taken…’
‘Why’d they kill him?’
‘Ah, did not go kolkhoz.’
‘Did you have a house?’
‘Had a houze. All taken avay.’ The old man had caught on to his questioner’s delight at hearing of people being killed or mistreated, and so started steering all his responses into this same general vein.
‘Killed, killed. All killed.’
‘You’ll get that house back all right. And the churches won’t be used as stables from now on, either. Gonna be a new start around here.’
‘No more. No uzeing churchez like ztablez. Ah, dzat iz good. Dzat iz good.’
‘But where are we gonna find salt?’ Rahikainen demanded, vexed over the issue.
Rokka looked at the old man out of the corner of his eye for a moment. Then he clapped him on the back with a laugh and said, ‘You sure know how to play ’em, grampaw. You’re one crafty fella, lyin’ ’bout this, that and the other. Well, lissen, serves ’em right for pryin’ ’bout every damn thing…’
‘I thought the old geezer was taking us for pre-tty wild ride…’
Salo looked almost hurt as he said, ‘Lies? Maybe that’s what you think. But that’s what life has been like back here. And now he’ll have a chance to see a better life, in his old age…’
‘Personally I don’t see what business we have with these kinds of folks. Seems pre-tty pointless liberating them or taking them prisoner, if you ask me.’
Rokka walked over to the stove. There was a stool sitting beside it with a basket on top, covered in a sack. Rokka pulled off the sack and the old man started and stood up.
‘Lissen here, grampaw! Looks like you was cursin’ those fellas over nothin’! They left you a whole basket a bread! See? Here, take a look. Guess they must’ta forgotten’na tell you.’
The old man was trembling, but Rokka burst out in a reassuring tone, ‘Don’t you worry. We won’t take ’em from you. But if I find that salt I’m takin’ me a pinch.’
They found some up on the shelf – coarse, brown salt.
‘In’nat case, I’m takin’ my pinch. Lissen, grampaw, we’ll give you some a our soup in exchange. You can have some cigarettes too. Give ’im some, fellas.’
The men pressed some cigarettes into the old man’s trembling hands. Rokka watched Salo, laughing, ‘Lissen, let ’im keep that scrap a bread you gave ’im earlier, too. He gave you a whole song and dance for it!’
Salo tried to save face by joining in the others’ sniggering. Forcing a laugh, he said, ‘Old man sure does know how to pull a fellow’s leg. He’s studied up all right.’
They left the old man in peace and set off to cook their soup.
A column drove down the main road and Sihvonen exclaimed excitedly, ‘Must be new troops! Maybe we get some time off the line.’
New troops had been a perennial source of hope for some time now. If ever the men so much as glimpsed an unfamiliar squad, they eagerly inquired after its regiment number. The others took no interest, having been disappointed far too many times already, but Sihvonen headed over to the roadside and asked, ‘What unit?’
‘Weapons company transport.’
‘Which weapons company?’
‘First. Don’t you know your own company’s drivers?’
‘Huh… oh, right. I didn’t mean that…’
‘Well then, what did you mean?’
‘Aw, go to hell!’
‘You messin’ with me?’
‘Just go… go!’
Then Mielonen came from the command post. ‘All rrrighty, boys, we’re heading out on the offensive.’
No one said a single word. Dejected heads hung low. The soup was half-cooked. They tied the bucket to the end of a pole and carried it over their shoulders. Maybe there would be enough time to let it cook through on the next break.
Chapter Eight
‘That’s how far it is to Petroskoi.’ A dirty, black-stained finger traced the road leading to the city on a map of Eastern Karelia purchased back at the canteen.
‘Matrusa’s around here. Then there’s Polovina, then Vilka.’
‘And Pos Rudan, heehee! And the Village of the Decisive Third Kolkhoz, heehee! And Red Plowmensville.’ Vanhala was endlessly amused by the Eastern Karelian place names, which sounded strange to his ears. The new communist names were particularly hilarious, and made him laugh almost as much as the slogans in their own Information Bureau pamphlets.
‘Once we make it to Petroskoi, I’m not moving a goddamn muscle for two weeks,’ Rahikainen declared.
‘War ain’t gonna stop there,’ Rokka said. ‘You think that town’s so important Russia’s gonna collapse soon as we take it? You better not. There’s a whole lotta globe back there behind Petroskoi.’
‘Well, let there be whatever. I’m not going.’
‘No, no. No way.’
‘No.’
‘No.’
‘No.’
‘No.’
‘Well, no. Not further than that.’
Pow, pow, pow, pow… oooo… oooooo…
‘Advaaance…’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa…
‘Medii-iiics…’
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa…
Their clothes were full of holes, as were their shoes. The creases in their faces had deepened into furrows, and their sprouting, adolescent beards made their filthy skin look even darker. Somehow or other they had been hardened against everything now. Grumbling and griping were rare. Solemnly, silently, they listened as each new assignment was explained, their bodies still trembling with exhaustion from the last one. Somewhere out in front of them lay Petroskoi. That was their final destination. All questions would be resolved as soon as they reached it. And even if they weren’t, they still weren’t going beyond that point. They rallied the last of their energy on the basis of this general understanding. Petroskoi, Petroskoi, the golden city, toward which they strove, through pain and suffering, like pilgrims.
They considered it almost like the right of their regiment to remain in the city once it had been captured. All the regiments advancing toward it probably nurtured the same thought, for the same reasons: ‘We’ve been in all of the worst fighting, and besides, our strength’s run out.’
The opposition grew ever fiercer the nearer they drew to the city. The more exhausted they became, the more demanding the tasks that confronted them, and they were continually obliged to push the limits of their physical capacities. But it was becoming apparent that the bow had been stretched to the breaking point. Even the weakest counter-attacks set them back now. Their frayed nerves couldn’t withstand situations they would have dismissed as skirmishes before.
When they were about four miles from the city, the Third Company’s Commander, Lieutenant Autio, fell, shot by eleven bullets. Which is to say, that is how many bullets managed to strike him upright, before he collapsed to the ground. It was one of the most beautiful deaths they had witnessed. The men had begun to falter in an attempt to repel a counter-attack. Some had started disappearing from the line when, in an effort to restore their courage, Autio rose to his feet and yelled, ‘Remember who you are! Not one step backwards!’