‘How was I supposed to know who I was going to find?’ Hietanen asked, continuing in all seriousness, ‘I recognize that war is nothin’ but trouble for both sides, no matter who started it. Brings a whole lot of misery on all kinds of people who never did anybody any harm. Like all the kids, for example.’
‘And you bring ’em bread. Lissen here, Veerukka, you say we’re all a bunch a troublemakers, but Hietanen here took out his own rations for tomorrow so he could bring ’em to Tanya and Alexei.’
Hietanen flushed red with pleasure at Rokka’s praise in Vera’s presence, but his insides turned upside down when Vera then rose and, without a word, kissed him on the cheek.
He tried to laugh, but couldn’t quite manage it, and failing, directed his energies angrily toward Vanhala, who giggled as he gasped, ‘Our boys are sharing their own rations with the children of the kindred nations, who have been suffering from undernourishment under Bolshevik rule…’
Hietanen hadn’t managed to say anything before Vera flared up on his behalf. Vanhala practically froze in terror when those beautiful eyes flashed angrily at him, accompanied by a rapid fire of words uttered in a voice nearly trembling with rage. ‘You don’t give anything to children. You obviously eat everything yourself, or you wouldn’t be such a great sangia priha.’
‘A great sankia priha? What’ssat?’ Rokka asked, laughing, and Vera made a rounded movement with her hands to indicate Vanhala’s plumpness. With this, Hietanen finally regained his footing and burst out laughing loudest of all. Vanhala’s own laugh was heartiest, however, as he repeated, giggling, as if practicing the pronunciation of his new name, ‘Great sankia priha… heehee… Sankia Priha the Great!’
Hietanen boisterously started demanding music, and Vanhala began fiddling around with his gramophone, getting it ready to play.
‘What’ll we play? Should I put on Stalin’s speech?’ Vanhala had several large records of Stalin’s speeches. He played them frequently, repeating some of the more clearly distinguishable Russian words over and over to himself.
‘Hell, no. Play “Yokkantee”!’ Rokka cried, campaigning for his favorite.
‘Nah, let’s have “Army Battalyon”!’ said Hietanen, a fan of marches.
Vanhala did not reveal whose wish would be granted. Then, strains of ‘Yokkantee’ filled the air. It was a Russian-style rhythm that girls often danced to, and it was indeed with this hope in mind that Vanhala selected it just now. No sooner did the first notes reach his ears than Rokka’s whole body came alive, moving in time with the music. ‘Lissen, Vera,’ he said, ‘you dance alone. Those legs a yours move so goddamn fast.’
Vera hesitated at first, but then began. Through the slower, opening measures, it was as if she were focusing, concentrating her forces into the fast, feral movements that eventually accelerated into such a dizzying crescendo that the three of them could no longer follow what was going on at all.
For Rokka, this fiery finish was the most interesting of all, and he waited for it, exclaiming, ‘Not like that, not like that. Like last time! Quick like that!’
When Vera’s dance began to accelerate, Rokka clapped his hands and every part of him came to life, moving in time with the music.
‘That’s it, that’s it! You see, fellas, see how this girl can dance? That’s it, Veerukka! Holy Mother a God, that girl is fast.’
Vera danced. Perform she did not – rather, everything about her seemed to declare that she danced for herself alone. The music filled her entire body, which responded to its tiniest nuances, and it thrilled her, propelling her in some kind of ecstatic trance. When the dance ended, a restrained smile emerged on her face, as if proceeding from some internal satisfaction that the dance had given her.
The three crusaders sat dazed in astonishment. They didn’t understand the beauty and precision of Vera’s dance, which would have afforded her easy passage from this sitting room to the most demanding of public arenas. They were just amazed at how fast she was.
As they were leaving, Hietanen lingered by the door as Vera came to shut it. He reached out, playfully unclasping the Youth League pin from its resting place on her blouse, sitting upon her impressive breast. His little finger experienced the trembling pleasure of pressing slightly against it, and then, practically petrified, he said, trying to make his voice sound playful, ‘Think I might take this, to remember you by?’
‘Take it!’
Hietanen was immediately embarrassed at the awkwardness of his flirtation and turned to follow the others. Vera looked after him for a long time, her eyes full of compassion, but there was something in her gaze that made Hietanen sense that this could not continue. He could not quite attain Vera, and he understood that, vaguely and indistinctly. And besides, what could ever have come of it anyway?
He was feeling rather wistful and mixed up when he caught up with the others, though uppermost in his confused emotions was the tiny, minute joy of having touched Vera with his little finger. And it was this feeling that prompted him to blurt out, ‘I have to say, the women here are something else…’
‘And they kiss you on the cheek. You should’ve stayed! The tribes of Finland unite!’
Hietanen was so swept up in his own emotions that he didn’t quite grasp Sankia Priha’s joke. But it nonetheless prompted him to limit his praise of Vera to her dancing, in order to demonstrate to everybody that there was no silly sentimentality in his admiration of the girl.
‘Man! It’s crazy how a person can turn like that! Only time I ever danced, trying to turn those girls was like, I don’t know – moving one of those heavyweight plows they make over in Fiskars.’
‘Lissen here, Sankia Priha the Great!’ Rokka said, laughing. ‘We ain’t takin’ Hietanen there any more. He might git all heartsick on us and then he’d be no use at all.’
‘Heehee! The children of Kaleva reunite… Heehee! No longer lost strands blowing in the wind… Heeheehee!’
Only now did Hietanen realize that they were mocking his most sacred emotions, and he flew into a rage, vehemently attempting to defend his masculinity by making it clear that his soul certainly didn’t have anything like goodness or beauty in it. ‘Now don’t you go thinking I’m the one who’s gonna start getting all gushy first here. I don’t go in for that kind of thing at all… No way… I’m just a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. I don’t give a shit, damn it!’
Then he fell silent, figuring that he had convinced the others he was guilty of nothing so shameful as taking pity on hungry children or falling for a girl in any way that exceeded commonplace flirting.
Near to their lodgings, they came upon a group of small boys asking for bread and cigarettes. They tossed over a few smokes, figuring the children would take them back to their fathers. The boys expressed their thanks by counting off down the line all the Finnish curse words they knew. They had obviously figured out how to earn cigarettes from the soldiers, and supposed that the same trick would work as payment too. One little fellow emerged from the scuffle without any cigarettes, and so chased after them quite a way, attempting to win them over by yelling at the top of his lungs, ‘Sheeeet! Sheeet!’
Vanhala found this hilarious and tossed the kid a cigarette. As they neared their lodgings, they heard strains of an evening prayer service underway. Strains of the company’s hymns echoed through the dark city: ‘…miiiighty fo-o-ortress is our God… A buuulwark never faa-a-ailing…’
They turned cautiously down a back road so as to avoid being seen.
That evening Hietanen sat gazing out of the window, singing off-key, ‘…even in the fiercest fighting…’