The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna [39]
Kaartinen said he was setting up a six-mile ski trail from the cabin at Vittumainen Ghyll to here at Läähkimä Gorge. He produced two rolls of plastic tape from the inside pocket of his ski jacket, one red, one yellow, which he was going to use to mark out a trail for tourists. A group of official visitors was coming for a backwoods holiday even before Christmas: that was the work of the minister for foreign affairs. Several dozen VIP guests were coming, and the press, too.
Kaartinen offered to buy the hare: first he offered twenty-five dollars, then fifty, and finally a hundred. Vatanen was certainly not going to sell; he was almost incensed at the ski instructor’s offer.
Kaartinen stayed the night. Vatanen’s thoughts were occupied with the bear, and it was quite a while before he got to sleep. When he did drop off, his sleep was all the sounder.
In the morning, Vatanen woke to find himself alone. There was no sign of either the hare or Kaartinen. Kaartinen’s skis were not outside, and there were no fresh hare tracks.
How? Why? In a rage, Vatanen leaped onto his skis, pushed off along Kaartinen’s tracks, but came back almost at once, lifted the gun off its nail, and started out again. What the reindeer men had said about sacrificing was going through his head. Vatanen went like the wind.
He swept up to Vittumainen Ghyll, puffing and blowing. He was in a sweat, steaming, his eyes smarting with sweat, and black rage was burning in his breast. By the Ghyll stood what was, in effect, a handsome country hostel, a log house big enough for a hundred people at least.
Vatanen kicked off his skis and wrenched open the door. Kaartinen was at a table by the window, just having coffee.
“Where’s the hare?”
Kaartinen backed to the wall, staring in a funk at Vatanen, who was gripping a rifle. Terrified, Kaartinen stammered out that he knew nothing about the hare. He’d left so early, he hadn’t had the heart to awaken his host, who was sleeping so soundly. That was all.
“You’re lying! Give me that hare, and quick!”
Kaartinen fled into a corner. “What would I be doing with it?” he protested.
“The hare!” Vatanen roared. When Kaartinen still refused to admit anything, Vatanen lost control. He flung his weapon on the table, strode across to Kaartinen, grabbed him by the lapels, and lifted him against the wall.
“Kill me if you like,” Kaartinen spluttered. “You won’t get the hare.”
Vatanen became so enraged, he dropped the man from the wall, flung him into the middle of the room, and gave him a cracking blow on the chin. The luckless ski instructor went flying full-length across the cabin floor. There was silence, broken only by Vatanen’s panting.
Another sound became audible. A faint scratching and quiet thumping was coming through the kitchen safety vent. Vatanen ran outside, then in through the kitchen door, and wrenched open a cupboard door. Onto the floor rolled a hare, its feet tied together—Vatanen’s hare!
Vatanen cut the strings with his sheath knife and returned to the other room with the hare in his arms. Kaartinen was just coming to.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Vatanen demanded threateningly.
Then Kaartinen told his story. It was long, and not a little bizarre.
He had grown up, he said, in a very devout atmosphere: his pious parents were determined to bring up their son as a priest. When he passed his university entrance exam, he was sent to the University of Helsinki, in the theological faculty. But his studies there didn’t chime with his sensitive youthful scrupulousness: he was not as convinced by the Lutheran doctrine as he ought to have been. Doubt gnawed at him; his theological studies seemed alien. It alarmed him to think that one day, himself troubled by skepticism, he’d nevertheless have to preach the word of God to the faithful. Thus, disregarding his parents’ religious sentiments, he broke off his theological studies and enrolled at the Kemijärvi Teachers’ Training College.