Popular Music from Vittula (30 page)

Dad was getting worried and pointed at the three blokes on the sofa. They were ashen, motionless. He asked me to check if they were dead. I went over to them, grasped their blue-veined wrists and took their pulse: nothing. Oh, yes, a faint pecking.

Niila and Holgeri came back in smelling of diarrhea, and shivering with cold. They asked for some coffee to clear their throats, and I handed them a thermos flask. At the same time I noticed that the downy moustache had stopped laughing. He was slumped in his chair and snoring, just like the guys he’d been laughing at. He was about to collapse onto the floor, so I dragged him away and deposited him next to the previous three, looking young and red-cheeked alongside the gray old-timers.

Somebody wanted a taxi, staggered over to the telephone, and ordered one. Somebody else marched shakily over to me and started yelping—it sounded like a puppy sucking at a bone. It was an age before I realized he wanted some assistance in phoning his wife and asking for a lift
home. I asked him for his telephone number, but couldn’t understand what he said. Instead, I looked him up in the phone book then held the receiver to his ear. The old lady answered after the eighth ring—no doubt she’d been asleep in bed. The man tried hard to concentrate:

“Issshh … lissshhh … msssorrriter trubbbbell …”

She slammed the phone down although she’d certainly recognized his voice. I myself could feel the floor starting to rotate, and went over to Niila. He was sitting with his eyes half-closed, a blaring transistor radio pressed to one ear. He could hear the voices of the dead on medium wave, and had just heard an announcement in Tornedalen Finnish. It sounded exactly like his uncle who’d died the past autumn, a voice whispering,
“Paska … paska …,”
followed by a mysterious silence. I suggested there might well be a long line for the toilets up there in heaven, but Niila told me to hush. Listened hard, looking somewhat confused.

“Hang on, there’s somebody else there!”

“I can’t hear a word.”

“It’s Esperanto! She says that I … wait … that … I’m going to die …”

At that point the taxi turned up. A couple of the men steadiest on their feet tried to wriggle their way into their overcoats and staggered out of the door. A third fellow, very portly, explained to me in sign language that he’d very much like to take part as well. I propped him up and helped him down the steps and into the snow. Halfway to the car he uttered a drawn-out, horse-like whinny. Then his body imploded as if pricked by a pin. He collapsed on the spot, his bones giving way as if his skeleton had shriveled. I tried to hold him up, but didn’t have a chance. Three hundred pounds of old man’s flesh and blood.

I took his pulse. The man was unconscious, not of this world. His body was steaming like a meat casserole in the arctic cold. The taxi was waiting, its engine ticking. I took hold of the guy’s feet and tried to drag the pile of bacon toward the taxi through the uncooperative snow. The old fellow’s shirt splayed out and acted as a brake. The snow melted against his back, but not even that could wake him. He was as heavy as
a corpse. In the end I gave up and signaled to the taxi, which disappeared in a flash. Moaning and groaning, I started dragging the body back where it had come from, back to the house. I kept slipping, and could feel the sweat breaking out on my spine. Inch by inch. He was still alive, I could see the steam puffing out of his nose and mouth. A thin column of breath spiraled up to the starry sky, outlined against the porch light.

I was forced to pause and draw breath. And at that very moment, when I looked up, the Northern Lights blossomed forth in all their glory. Big green fountains growing and swelling, waves of sea-fire foaming forth. Quick red axe cuts, violet flesh just visible inside. The light grew more intense, more lively. Billows of phosphorous in frothing maelstroms. For minutes on end I simply stood and enjoyed it. Suddenly thought there was some faint singing from up above, as if from a Finnish soldiers’ choir. The voice of the Northern Lights. Or maybe it was the engine of the taxi being projected through the severe cold. It was all so beautiful. I had the urge to go down on bended knee. What splendor, what beauty! Too much to bear for a small, shy, and drunk boy from Tornedalen.

Somebody slammed the front door behind him. Erkki stumbled over to me, unzipping his fly. I pointed to the drunk lying at his feet. Erkki registered the fact with a degree of surprise, took a couple of steps back, and fell over. Stretched out comfortably in the snow, he took out his dick and peed as he lay. Duly relieved, he closed his eyes. I suggested he should abandon any thought of slumber, the stupid bastard, and kicked some snow into his face. He started threatening a bloody punch in the kisser, but struggled to his feet even so. Between us we managed to drag the old devil back into the house and place him at the end of the impressive row of bodies on the floor.

Dad and Grandad were sitting at the kitchen table looking pale, and stammered something about the old fellows on the sofa having died. I took the pulse of all three. Their bald heads were leaning in various directions, their skin yellow and wax-like.

“Yup, they’re dead,” I said.

Grandad cursed at the thought of all the problems there’d be with the authorities then started sobbing as old folk do, snot dripping from his nose and into his glass. Dad launched into a solemn if slurred speech on the glorious death of heroic Finns, listing suicide, war, a heart attack in the sauna, and alcohol poisoning as the most common examples. And tonight this trio of beloved and respected relations had chosen to walk simultaneously, side by side, through the Pearly Gates …

The thin one in the middle opened his eyes at this point and asked for some more schnapps. Dad was stopped in his tracks and could only stare. Grandad handed over his snot-filled glass and watched it being shakily drained. I laughed so much at their faces that I nearly fell off the chair, and said it must be a pretty good party if even the dead join in and drink.

Peace began to settle in all around the house. The old boys lined up on the floor hadn’t moved since I laid them there, deep in a dreamless drunken stupor. Others were crawling around like tortoises with slow, stiff movements. Niila was sitting with his back to the wall, his face green all over. He was trying desperately to remain upright, drinking occasionally from a pail of cold water. Holgeri lay beside him in the fetal position, twitching. Most were now silent and introverted as their livers worked overtime to clean up the poisons and their brain cells died like swarms of midges. Erkki had half-fallen off his wooden chair, but his jacket was caught on the back. The only one still going strong was a wiry sixty-year-old moose hunter who had propped himself up on the table and was doing gymnastic exercises with his legs. Stretching them forward, upward, and to the side in complicated oriental patterns. He always did this when he was drunk, and everybody left him to get on with it.

I could feel the intoxication reaching its peak inside me. It was bubbling away in the background as I sat studying the old devil’s leg movements. The party was over already, even though it was barely eleven
o’clock. In less than four hours the moose hunters had downed more than two pints of moonshine per head, but even so not a single one had thrown up, a sure sign of long and dedicated practice.

A car was heard approaching, and its headlights played on the wallpaper. Before long I heard the stamping of feet on the porch. In stormed Greger, and caught sight of me.

“Jump in, let’s go!”

Then he stopped dead. Turned slowly around and stared wide-eyed at the impressive battle field.

I shook some life into the boys; we carted the equipment out into the car, and drove off. Greger was whistling merrily and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel until we asked him to stop.

“Boys,” he said with a smile, “I’ve been on the phone all evening. You’d better starrrt practicing.”

“Eh?”

“Learrrn some new songs.”

“Songs?” we repeated stupidly.

Greger just laughed.

“I’ve fixed your first tourrr. A few schools, a youth club, and then a festival in Luleå for amateurrr bands.”

* * *

We pulled up outside the school. Greger unlocked the deserted music room and we carried in the amplifiers. We were all still elated and dazed by the news, so when Greger went home we stayed behind and played. It sounded awful, but it came from the heart; it was rough and raw, exactly like we were. Niila did his homemade riffs, and I improvised a few songs and began to feel like a rock star. The cold had put Holgeri’s guitar out of tune and his fingers were fumbly, but perhaps that was why he produced fantastic solos, distorted and lopsided bellows, fluttering swaying tones. Finally we played our old favorite, “Rock ’n’ Roll Music,” at least ten times. We didn’t pack it in until Erkki had snapped both his drumsticks.

It was just after three in the morning. Pajala church village was desolate in the winter darkness. We crunched home through the powdery snow under the softly buzzing streetlights. The cold streamed into our lungs, our ears wrapped themselves around the silence of dawn. Inside our mittens our fingertips were aching, thanks to the sharp strings.

“We ought to run away,” proposed Niila, “Just clear off.”

“Stockholm!” said Erkki.

“America!” yelled Holgeri.

“China,” I said. “I’d like to see China one of these days.”

It was so silent. As if everyone in the village had frozen to death. We started walking down the middle of the road, four abreast. There was no traffic. The whole place, the whole world was motionless. We were the only four people alive, four pounding hearts in the innermost hollow of the winter taiga.

We stopped when we came to Pajala’s biggest crossroads, the one between the hardware store and the newsstand. We were all hesitant, as if we felt we’d arrived at our goal. That it was here something else was about to begin. We looked around uncertainly in all directions. The road to the west led to Kiruna. If you went south you came to Stockholm. Eastward took you to Övertorneå and then Finland. And the fourth stub of road led down to the ice on the River Torne.

After a while we went back out to the middle of the road and sat down. Then, as if by mutual agreement, we lay down in the middle of the crossroads, right across the carriage way. We stretched out on our backs and gazed at the starry sky. There was no traffic noise, everything was still. We lay there side by side and breathed up into space. Felt the chilly ice under our bottoms and shoulder blades. Then finally, peacefully, we closed our eyes.

* * *

And this is where the story ends. Childhood, boyhood, the first life we led. I’ll leave them there. Four boys on their backs at a crossroads with
their faces turned up to the stars. I stand quietly beside them, watching. Their breathing grows deeper, their muscles are relaxing.

They’re asleep already.

Once or twice every year when I can’t control my longing any more, I travel up to Pajala. I get there as evening is drawing in, and wander out onto the new, circus-like pylon bridge that spans the River Torne. I stand in the middle and gaze out over the village and the pointed spire of the wooden church. If I look around I can see the forest on the horizon, and Jupukka Mountain with the blinking sewing needle that is the TV antenna. Way down beneath me the river flows wide and neverending toward the sea. The low roaring sound rinses the din of the city out of my ears. My restlessness melts away as dusk gathers.

I let my eyes wander over the village. Memories come flooding back, people who’ve moved away like me, names that flash past. Paskajänkkä with its Kangas, Karvonen, Zeidlitz, Samuelsson. Texas with all the Wahlbergs, Groths, Moonas, and Lehtos. Strandvägen’s Wilhelmsson and Marttikala, Äijä and Tornberg. Vittulajänkkä with its Ydfjärd, Kreku, Palovaara, Muotka, Pekkari, Perttu, and many, many more.

I rest my hands on the cold parapet and wonder what became of you all. People I once knew, people who shared my world. My thoughts pause for a while with my friends in the band. Holgeri, who went to technical college and now works on the mobile phone network in Luleå. Erkki, who became a supervisor at LKAB’s pellet factory in Svappavaara. And me, who became a Swedish teacher in Sundbyberg with a sense of loss, a melancholy I have never managed to overcome completely.

On the way home I pass by the cemetery. I have no flowers with me, but I pause for a while by Niila’s grave. The only one of us who went in for music. Who really went in for it.

The last time we met was during the Pajala fair, he’d flown in from London and was scratching absent-mindedly at little sores on his wrist.
That night we went fishing at Lappeakoski. His pupils were as small as drawing pins, and he was buzzing away manically:

“The breaking up of the ice, Matti, that time we stood on the bridge and watched the ice breaking up, by God, it was awesome …”

Oh, yes, Niila, I remember the ice breaking up. Two little boys and a homemade guitar.

Rock ’n’ roll music
.

The taste of a boy’s kiss.

MIKAEL NIEMI
grew up in Pajala in the northernmost part of Sweden, near the Finnish border. Among his published books are two collections of poetry—
Näsblod under högmässan
(“Nosebleed during Morning Service”) (1998) and
Änglar med mausergevär
(“Angels with Mausers”) (1989)—and a young adult novel,
Kyrkdjävulen
(“The Church Devil”) (1994). His most recent book is
Svålhålet
, a collection of short stories.

LAURIE THOMPSON
has translated some fifteen novels from the Swedish, including books by Stig Dagerman, Peter Pohl, Henning Mankell, and Kjell-Olof Bornemark. He was editor of
Swedish Book Review
from its launch in 1983 to 2002. He lives in West Wales.