The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [38]
They had come via the cabin at Vittumainen Ghyll. Kaartinen, they said, had been living there.
They spent the night with Vatanen. After they’d gone, Vatanen was hard at work on the roof for a couple of days before the chimney was sturdy enough to last a few decades. When the mortar was dry, he removed the chimney’s tent. Then he swept the snow off the roof and began nailing new asphalt felt on top of the old, worn-out stuff. The subzero frost made the felt stiff and difficult to handle without cracking it. Vatanen had to carry boiling water onto the roof and pour it over the felt veneer, standing on the ridge. The hot water softened the asphalt, and, working quickly, he was able to spread the felt out smooth and nail it firmly to the roof.
It was a conspicuous activity: the boiling water steamed into the frosty air, enveloping everything, and floating high off in the clear sky. From a distance the site looked like a steam-driven power station or the kind of old-fashioned railroad engine that swallowed water and puffed out steam. Vatanen resembled some engineer trying to get a huge engine going under freezing conditions. The blows of his hammer were like the knockings of an engine cranking up. But the bunkhouse was no machine, nor was it going anywhere. Once, as Vatanen straightened his back and waited for the clouds of vapor to disperse, his eye fell on the far slope of the gorge below. There were tracks leading up to the tangled thickets on its far side. Something had been walking there.
Vatanen got down from the roof, took his rifle, and climbed back up. Now the steam had dispersed and he could see clearly through the telescopic sight. He pressed the gun to his cheek and took a long look at the opposite slope, occasionally giving his eye a rest. Finally, when his eyes were beginning to water, he lowered the weapon.
“It can’t be anything but a bear.”
He went down into the cabin, ushered in the hare, and started cooking. He pondered: Now I’ve got a hibernating bear as a neighbor.
The hare fidgeted around the room. It always did that when it noticed its master had something on his mind.
At first light, Vatanen skied across the gorge to look at the tracks more closely. The hare sniffed them and began to tremble with fear. No question, a bear had been there, and a big one. Vatanen followed the tracks to a treeless slope and, farther on, to a dense thicket of pines and fire. He skied a wide circle around the thicket but didn’t see any emerging tracks. So the bear was in the thicket, and now he’d skied all the way, around it. Quite clearly, the bear had made a den for itself in the thicket and was sleeping heavily.
Vatanen skied into the thicket. The hare didn’t dare follow him, even though Vatanen tried to coax it in a low voice. It remained on the open slope, looking insecure.
The bear had wandered around in the thicket, searching, no doubt, for a suitable lair. Difficult to know where it was. Vatanen had to ski deeper among the trees. Then he saw a tree that had been felled by the wind; the bear had crept under it. Not much snow had fallen on the lair as yet, and a little vapor was trailing up from under the tree trunk. So that was where it was lying.
Vatanen silently turned his skis and glided out of the thicket onto the treeless slope, where the hare hopped up joyously to greet him.
Back at the bunkhouse, Vatanen realized he had a visitor. Factory-made cross-country skis were leaning against the cabin wall. Inside sat an athletic-looking young man in skiing clothes. He offered his hand in greeting—a somewhat odd custom in Lapland. It was Kaartinen, whom Vatanen had heard so much about.
Kaartinen was entranced with the hare. He tried to stroke it and pat it, and Vatanen had to ask him to stop because