Even in the parson’s estimation, an improvement of some sort had taken place over the course of a generation. So, if now, in his drunken revelry, the Koskela boy was humming the Red Guards’ March, the parson was none the wiser, and even if he were, he would certainly have forgiven him. The rebels’ anthem sounded curious indeed in the mouth of an officer, but Koskela just kept asking for more and the slap-happy Vanhala kept it coming:
There Vanhala’s song ended, as he was unable to continue, having dissolved into chortles of laughter. The lynching minions and raging chaos cracked him up especially, and he kept repeating the words over and over between fits of giggles. It was as if he could just taste the hopeless naïveté of the lyrics and wanted to suck out every last drop of their sweetness.
And so the celebrations continued until at last the home brew ran out, and they moved outside. They played Vanhala’s gramophone now and again, belting out their own bastardized renditions between songs. Koskela himself didn’t sing, but urged the others on all the more insistently for all that. He listened closely, as if there might be something remarkable in there, amidst the din. He had never really been interested in songs and such, and indeed, his expertise in such matters was rather weak. He didn’t even know the names of the songs, which was why he kept having to say things like, ‘Guys, do the one with Lotta Lundgren and the stable nags!’
A miserable melange of belches and bellowing rang out:
Echoes rang through the densely wooded grove, mingling with explosions of artillery fire in the background as the cannons boomed in the Marshal’s honor.
‘Hey lissen, Sankia Priha the Great! Play “Yokkantee!” I’ll dance. I’ll dance like Veerukka in Petroskoi… You fellas remember?’
Hietanen dug Vera’s pin out of his wallet and started swinging his head back and forth as he hollered, ‘I I I I remember!!!!!!!! Hahaa… Do I remember!!! The pin of the Soviet Socialist Republics… Take a look, boys… I remember all kinds of things… Hahaa!’
Vanhala played and Rokka danced, attempting a rather peculiar rendition of Vera’s spinning, but demonstrating marvelous virtuosity in doing so. Hietanen spread his arms out and shouted, ‘Hahaa! Listen, everybody! Big shot here’s giving a speech! I am the defender of our homeland. We didn’t want anything at all ’cept to build our houses and saunas in peace. And build up this country… Hahaa… Hink hank hoonaa… Niemi’s big bull climbed the Santaranta hill, his big ol’ balls a-dangling… Blessed are the airheads, for they will never drown…’
Rokka spun faster and faster. ‘Yokkantee an’ Yokkantee… Aw shucks, that’s swell! Suslin’s on leave… gonna bring me back a package from the missus… Yokkantee an’ Yokkantee… Looka here, Hietanen, watch me dance…’
Hietanen was completely gone. He staggered about with his arms stretched wide, shouting, ‘Look, boys! I’m an airplane!’
He swerved around back and forth, vrum-vrumming his lips. ‘Look out, boys, Messerschmitt coming in!’
At that point Vanhala’s gramophone went silent and its operator, bubbling with delight, joined in the airborne antics. ‘I-16 swooping down on the left, engine’s howling at max rotational speed, pow pow pow! Vicious air combat… Warriors of the skies in the thick of battle, pow pow pow pow pow… The last knights of war, pow pow pow pow!’
They veered around each other, arms extended, vrumming and pow-pow-ing, and in between Vanhala would shout, ‘Heroes of the great blue skies… with their engines roaring, eyes sharp, hands firm, and hearts steeled, our fearless aviators take on enemy predators… pow pow pow pow pow pow pow…’
Hietanen tripped on an alder stump and crashed down. And there he remained, unable to get up. Vanhala swooped round in an elegant whoosh, engine roaring, and yelled, ‘Pull the parachute! The plane’s going down! Heeheehee…’
‘Plane’s going down! Whoa, I’m dizzy… Everything’s spinning like my head’s turning round,’ Hietanen slurred, pawing at the grass as he tried to grasp it in his hands. Vanhala yelled into his ear, ‘You’re in tailspin! Jump! There’s no way you can turn it around…’
But Hietanen’s plane was falling with ferocious speed, spinning and whirling through its descent. No longer in a position to leap, its pilot fell with his plane into a fog and then, complete darkness. Vanhala left him there, disappointed that their battle had been cut short.
Somewhere off to the side, Määttä, Salo and Sihvonen were sitting around on a rather large boulder. Salo was lecturing the others gravely, his hair flopping in his eyes, ‘In our county the will-o’-the-wisp is real bright…’
Sihvonen turned his head away and swatted his hand as if fending off mosquitoes, ‘Oh please, come off it…’
‘Well, I think it’s true. Old people’s seen it. There’s even crossed swords over the spot where it appeared.’
‘Oh, stop it… Lapland witch tales. Maybe way up north they have some of those wonders.’
‘But who here’s from way up north, then?’ Määttä asked. ‘I mean, where I’m from’s so far up, we brew our coffee over the northern lights.’
Määttä had been totally silent the whole time, and even the home brew didn’t appear to have had much effect on him. Now he stared at the rock and proposed, ‘Now that there’s a rock. What do you say we lift it?’
‘I don’t think so… that one’s not comin’ up.’
Määttä circled the rock, contemplated it in silence, then grabbed hold of the corners that offered the best grip. The rock was almost as big as the man himself, but lo and behold, up it came, a few inches or so. Määttä straightened himself up, clapped the dirt off his hands, and said, ‘Didn’t I say it’d come up?’
Sihvonen estimated that his odds were just about nil, but Salo took hold of the rock and gave it a yank. The rock didn’t budge, but Salo suddenly grabbed his back with both hands. ‘I pulled something in my back. Shit! If the damn thing hadn’t turned like that, I think I’d a gotten it up.’
‘You just lifted it the wrong way if you put your back out,’ Määttä said, gazing at the rock with an air of calm superiority. But Salo was still holding his back, his face contorted with pain. Maybe he actually had sprained his back. Hadn’t his foot started to hurt too, after he mentioned it?
Rokka had stopped dancing. Vanhala was playing Stalin’s speeches to himself and Koskela had started off toward the command post.
‘Koskela! Where you goin’?’ Rokka called after him.
‘Jerusalem!’ Koskela was groping his way uncertainly along the path, beltless and hatless, the front of his combat jacket undone.
‘You goin’na the command post?’
‘I am going to the Führer’s Headquarters.’
They inquired no further, gleaning from Koskela’s evasive replies that he wasn’t about to tolerate other people’s meddling in his affairs.
He set off decidedly, though not without a swerve off the path here and there. Stiff and unflinching, his blue eyes stared into the grove of alders. Between hiccups. Then he stopped and belted out, ‘O, crash! Lake Oooonega’s waaaters…’