Witch Cradle (30 page)
Authors: Kathleen Hills
NEW DELHIâa suggestion that President Truman and Prime Minister Stalin meet in the nude for peace talks was made by the 50,000 naga (nude) sect monks and nuns.
McIntire stood back from the circle of people gathered around the grave in the newly thawed ground. The trees were still lifeless and, among the pines, patches of white gleamed in the weak sunshine. But it was over. Whatever snow fell now would be drunk up by the earth.
Accompanying herself on the kantela, Gilette Karvonen's
Finlandia
was counterpoint to the exultant chorus of frogs. Neither her plaintive song nor the naked branches could quash McIntire's spirits. The dead were at last in their proper place, the living were muddling along, and spring would not be denied.
The Reverend Peters smiled beneficently upon his congregation and turned to the bereaved husband, a signal that the formal element of the ceremony had ended.
Ended. Over. Was it over? McIntire felt that the events of the winter had only been the awakening of the seeds sown so many years before. They had yet to come into full bloom. But this respite, however brief it might be, was all the more welcome for that, and he wouldn't question it. The faces around him wore the same self-satisfied expression he felt on his own. Was it the triumph of having survived another winter? Smugness that it was not they being laid in the ground? Delight over the restoration of items lost under last autumn's first snowfall?
Teddy Falk left the minister's side and strolled to McIntire. His thin hair was trimmed short, and he wore a black suit.
“I'll be on my way now.” He spoke softly. “Thank you.”
“I'm sorry for the loss of your wife.” McIntire shook the extended hand. “And of your children.”
“They've forgot me by now.” He walked to his car, passing by the grave without a glance in its direction.
Mrs. Falk's burial would do nothing to put an end to the parade of sufferings the discovery of her body had set in motion. Erik Pelto and his family were still in exile. Teddy Falk was caught in a web from which he'd never extricate himself. Nelda Stewart was still dead.
McIntire walked the few steps to her grave.
Irene Touminen might have taken advantage of the terror that Nelda felt, but McIntire had prompted that fear. Irene, at least, had the excuse of self-preservation. McIntire had acted out of cowardice. Maybe they were the same thing.
He raised his eyes from the mound of soggy soil and its handful of decomposing lilies, and met Mia Thorsen's. Another casualty. Mia had to live with the knowledge that her father had died protecting a murderer. She held his gaze for a moment, then bent to brush the winter's debris from the flat white stone that bore her daughter's name. She stayed only a moment, then straightened up and strode, on two good legs, to where her husband leaned against a wrought iron rail.
“Thank you.”
It was Sulo Touminen. McIntire was on the verge of becoming a hero. If he wasn't careful he'd be re-elected.
“Pozhaluysta,”
he responded loudly, “don't mention it.”
Sulo ignored the suspicious word. “I could of froze to death if you hadn't come along. When Irene gets homeâ¦.” He shook his head and walked away.
“Is he really naive enough to think she'll be back?” Leonie stood at his side.
“Spring hopes eternal,” McIntire told her.
“But she tried to kill him.”
“Love conquers all.”
“I don't think that refers to siblings.”
“Blood is thicker than water.”
“I'm not sure about that.” She took his arm. “I suppose we'll find out in time.”
During the early part of the twentieth century, an estimated six to ten thousand Finnish-Americans left the United States and Canada to take part in building a socialist workers' Utopia in the Soviet republic of Karelia. The largest numbers came from the Finnish communities of northern Michigan and Minnesota. “Karelia Fever” peaked in 1931 and 1932, when groups of hundreds made the crossing. It was almost immediately apparent that the idealistic society they planned to join did not exist, and many of those who had retained their non-Soviet citizenship left within a short time to go back to North America or to settle in Finland. They typically did not return to their original home communities, nor did they speak of their experiences. The exodus, and the people who made it, was largely forgotten.
In 1986, a contingent from Duluth, Minnesota, traveled to Karelia to organize a sister-city relationship with Petrozavodsk. They were astonished to be met at the train station by an excited group of people whose families had left the Great Lakes region more than 50 years earlier. Old ties were renewed and details of their experiences began to emerge.
Life had been harsh. Hundreds of the emigrants were executed in Stalinist purges. Many more starved or died in labor camps.
One of the survivors was Kaarlo Tuomi, who'd emigrated from Rock, Michigan, at age 16 with his mother and stepfather. Tuomi's mother died of starvation and his father was taken away and executed, but Kaarlo lived and settled into the Soviet society, becoming an English teacher. In the early 1950s, Tuomi was coerced into leaving his family behind and returning to the U.S. as a spy. From the day of his arrival, he was under surveillance by the FBI and was eventually arrested and given the choice of going back and facing the KGB or turning counter-agent. Tuomi spent many years as a spy, eventually retiring, marrying a Minnesota woman, and lecturing on his experiences. In the late 1980s he was reunited with his three Russian children.
The Internal Security Act of 1950 (McCarran Act), passed over the veto of President Truman, gave the government the tools for an anti-communist crusade that affected citizen and non-citizen alike. Hundreds were called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (the Senate's equivalent of the HUAC), and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (Senator Joseph McCarthy). While the investigations resulted in few prosecutions and even fewer convictions, thousands of people throughout the country lost their jobs and their reputations.
Likewise, the government's attempts to deport aliens on charges of violating the McCarran Act mostly resulted in failure, especially when those accused had the stamina and resources to fight the order. Knut Heikkinen, mentioned in this text, editor of a prominent Finnish-American newspaper, was first arrested in 1948 and again in late 1950. The case dragged on until he was exonerated by a Supreme Court decision in 1958.
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