The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [16]
“It’s a question of such moment that I can only beg you to give serious consideration to what I’m now going to tell you, and I insist that you never give me away.”
It was apparent that Hannikainen had a burning need to share his secret. He screwed the vodka cork back in the bottle, pushed the bottle into some moss, and walked briskly to the cabin. Vatanen trailed after him.
Hanging on the cabin wall, between the window and the table, was a large, battered brown suitcase. Vatanen had seen it the evening before but had paid no attention to it. Hannikainen lowered the case onto a bunk and snapped the catches open. The lid sprang upward, revealing a store of tightly crammed documents and photographs.
“I haven’t yet done the final sorting out on this archive—the research is still incomplete. But most of it’s here. With the help of this, you’ll reach a conclusion without much difficulty.”
Hannikainen started extracting documents from the suitcase: thick, typewritten leaflets, several books, and photographs all showing President Kekkonen in various settings. The books, too, concerned Kekkonen: they included editions of his speeches, Skytä’s books on the president, and several other accounts, including a book of anecdotes. The documents included many graphics, which also, Vatanen saw, centered on Kekkonen.
Hannikainen produced several drawings on graph paper, showing careful longitudinal sections of human crania.
“Take a look at these,” Hannikainen said, showing two cranium pictures side by side in the pallid light of the window. “Do you see the difference?”
At first glance the pictures looked exactly alike, but on closer inspection they differed slightly in detail.
“This on the left shows Urho Kekkonen’s cranium in 1945, just after the war. Then there is this one. It shows his cranium in 1972. I’ve prepared these drawings to show the changes with the years. My method has been to project outlines of ordinary photographs onto a screen—in different positions, naturally—and then transfer the outline of the cranium onto the graph paper. For Kekkonen this procedure offers no complications, thanks to his complete baldness. The method is extremely painstaking and demands unusual precision, but I have, in my view, achieved exceptionally good results. I’d say these are far more accurate cranial mensurations than are normally achievable. Anything more accurate would have to come from a pathology laboratory, where the skull itself is at the researcher’s disposal.”
Hannikainen selected another cranium picture.
“This is Kekkonen’s cranium at the time of the formation of his third government. As you can perhaps see, it’s precisely the same as the 1945 cranium. And here is the cranium of 1964, again the same.
“Now! Look at this: the cranium of 1969! What a difference! If you compare this, though, with the picture from 1972, you’ll see that they have a great deal in common.”
Hannikainen displayed his drawings excitedly, with burning eyes, smiling triumphantly. Vatanen studied the pictures and had to admit that Hannikainen’s drawings were exactly as he said: the crania were different, the older crania from the more recent ones.
“The change occurred sometime during 1968, perhaps toward the end of 1968, but in the first half of 1969 at the latest. I haven’t yet been able to pin down the time factor more precisely than this, but I’m continuing my studies, and I’m sure I’ll arrive at within a month or two of the precise date. In any case, I’ve already been able to prove, convincingly, that a change has taken place, and that the change is significant.”
Hannikainen paused. Then he said with emphasis: “I tell you straight, these cranial outlines are not diagrams of one and the same head. The difference is too marked, incontestably so. These old crania—from the time when Kekkonen was young, that is—are somewhat sharper on the crown, for example. In these recent pictures the cranium is flatter in formation; the crown is clearly rounder. And look at the jawbone. In the older pictures Kekkonen’s jaw is noticeably receding. In