The Beggar and the Hare Read online

  Simo Pahvi said nothing for a long time. Jesus Mähönen said nothing for a long time. Esko Sirpale whistled to himself and put his hands behind his head.

  ‘You see,’ Pahvi said. ‘There isn’t anyone like that.’

  ‘Of course there is,’ Sirpale said. ‘If history has taught us anything, it’s that no job remains vacant for long.’

  Jesus Mähönen nodded in agreement.

  ‘Show me the way,’ Pahvi demanded. ‘Tell me where I can find a man like that.’

  And Jesus told him.

  His perpetual motion stopped on the seventh floor of Meilahti Hospital, in an intensive care ward with special surveillance

  I can feel the stitches in my side.

  I’m full of holes.

  So this is the end of a wonderful life, then?

  I don’t know if it’s daytime or night-time, I’m being fed through a tube.

  The policemen took three shifts in turn. There was always someone on guard.

  To watch me?

  To protect me?

  From whom?

  It was Yegor.

  Did they arrest him?

  The medication gives me strange dreams.

  I dream about Harri Pykström picking mushrooms in the forest with Arto the writer.

  They’re waving to me from the other side of the river.

  I go to join them. To a quad bike, a boat, a bottle, a sauna, to float logs, to build factories, hurl lightning, give the Son of Man a brotherly pat on the back. Men’s work. Real jobs.

  A man.

  Am I a man?

  Is that what I am?

  What sort of man is it who can’t get a pair of football boots for his son?

  When Vatanescu was able to speak, he asked first about the rabbit. No one had any firm information, but the policeman said he was afraid it might have ended up as tiger food at Korkeasaari Zoo. He promised to investigate the matter.

  If the rabbit dies, I will die.

  ‘Now, don’t let’s exaggerate. Everything will be all right.’

  If I die, the rabbit will die.

  If I’m deported, they’ll kill me.

  The medication kept the pain at bay, but it also affected Vatanescu’s mind, which swayed and undulated. He had lost all sense of time and place, and grey specks and graphic elements swam before his eyes. He asked if there was any news of Sanna Pommakka, but the name was not familiar to the hospital staff.

  Did she never exist at all?

  Do I?

  Each day a doctor checked his condition to see if he could now be interrogated and the process of deportation begun.

  At last the day came when Vatanescu was able to eat unaided. Raised up in his hospital bed, broth and sour milk.

  ‘You’re in trouble with the taxman. You had a wild animal with you, which you took into restaurants, an employment agency and a hospital. You performed magic tricks on a train without an entertainment licence. You took part in an unsanctioned demonstration…’

  As a punishment Vatanescu received day-fines and was told he would be deported back to where he had come from. He could take with him only what he had arrived with.

  Nothing.

  I had nothing.

  The football boots would have been enough.

  ‘Perhaps there’s an alternative.’

  I haven’t any money. I can’t offer any bribes.

  ‘Your crimes are worth peanuts. There’s one thing that is important.’

  The rabbit.

  ‘Kugar. You’re our only witness against him. What was your connection with him?’

  If I tell them I may get off lightly.

  If I tell them I may die.

  ‘What do you mean, Vatanescu?’

  Even if Yegor goes to prison, there are others like him who will continue his activities. His post won’t stay vacant. It will be filled in the blink of an eye.

  To that gang I will always be a stool pigeon.

  ‘How long have you known Kugar, Vatanescu?’

  A dead stool pigeon.

  ‘He’s a human trafficker, a drugs trafficker and an arms trafficker. You’ve no reason to protect a man like that.’

  No, but I must protect myself.

  And my child. And my mother.

  ‘We know that… your sister…’

  My sister?

  ‘…is safe. In a refuge. A clandestine brothel was uncovered in Poland; all the girls are safe. But she left Romania in the same group as you, and her testimony will also be useful to us. We can guarantee to protect your family.’

  You?

  You personally?

  A Finn? You can protect my family in Romania?

  ‘Yes. Or here. As you wish.’

  Yegor Kugar was driven to a cell at Pasila police station and from there to a maximum-security prison somewhere in the wilds of Finland. Captivity did not dismay Yegor Kugar; he was calm, had obtained his revenge, accomplished his mission. The handcuffs did not hurt him, the Finnish prison system had the softness of the womb. In Finland, prison was an easier and more decent option than freedom in most other countries. So everything had worked out fine for Yegor Kugar – or had it?

  ‘Damn damn damn damn damn fucking damn! The beggar wasn’t dead. Between yours truly and Vatanescu it was a question of market value, and I had tried a little takeover bid. Even that went tits up.’

  In prison Yegor Kugar encountered a hierarchy where only a rabbit-killer occupied a lower status than that of the sex offenders. For like the rest of the country the prison population had followed the journey of Vatanescu and the rabbit, and it had brought solace to their lives. From Vatanescu’s free roaming as a vagabond they derived hope. In him they saw what might be possible. A man who had broken away from society and even then had become successful, gained the undivided attention and respect of his contemporaries.

  At his very first meal, Yegor Kugar had to defend himself with a tray and a cup of hot coffee. Screwdrivers came at him from two directions, and only the swift intervention of the guards saved him.

  Yegor Kugar wanted to be put in isolation, and put in isolation he was. The man who could not sleep alone now preferred to be as alone as it was possible to be in this world.

  ‘I saw it as a chance for spiritual growth. So that when I eventually got out I’d be both softer and harder in the right proportion. I didn’t stick porn pictures on my walls like the wankers in the neighbouring cells. I wanted the real thing, or nothing at all. And I wasn’t taking the train to brown town either. It’s a matter of smells, curves, softness and contrasts. Chasing some George in the next cell who was just the same cold-balled shit as I was, no thanks. I need to get the skin, the smell, the frizzy hair, the titties, the original heat of rutting sex, I need to tickle the nipples till they’re upright and then go to the limit, nearly to the point where I come. And stay like that for half an hour or so. And only then let the sauce fly.

  ‘But anyway, why do I write stuff like this? I’m getting a hard-on. And I don’t know why anyone would want to publish it.

  ‘My screwing was over and gone.

  ‘And my time had not yet been done.’

  Thus did Yegor Kugar moulder and meditate in his solitary cell, coming out to stretch his legs for half an hour once a day, gazing at the walls and the sky. Yegor Kugar had no aims in life. Just one wish.

  ‘The worst thing would have been for me to be sent back into the arms of my motherland where they would dig up all kinds of things – in addition to my knifing the beggar. I definitely wanted to remain a client of the Finnish prison system.

  ‘I tried to find Jesus. I stuck an icon on the wall, but I couldn’t see anything in it. I got a telly; I could see a lot more on that, but of course there were those goddamn daily reports on Vatanescu’s health. They remembered to show my name and my mug and to say that the stabbing had become a serious diplomatic incident.

  ‘On the news there was never anything about my background, I hadn’t told anyone anything, and I’d been wiped from the
files of the security police, that’s for sure.

  ‘During my questioning I played the role of a real idiot, saying, I dunno, and what’s that, and eh, how should I know.’

  In his solitude Yegor Kugar began to write his memoirs. At first in secret on graph paper, because he imagined it was forbidden. When a friendly warden from Askola saw what was keeping Kugar busy, he got him a typewriter and paper.

  ‘I want to tell this story of mine for one simple reason: so that no one will ever go down the road that I did… My ass. I’m doing it for the money. I could get a book deal. Or Bild might want to publish an exclusive interview with me. It wouldn’t be bad if a 7 Series BMW was waiting outside the prison for Yegor Kugar, as it ought to be. I think the Finns ought to be giddy with anticipation for Memoirs of a People Smuggler, seeing how they lap up all those ramblings by old homos, lesbians and heteros about their cultural struggles. I dare to believe that the true struggles of a true Russky would find a place in the Christmas book market.’

  As Yegor Kugar wrote, his case went forward. The trial was held in an air raid shelter, far away from anywhere, as it was suspected that international crime stood behind Yegor Kugar, and there were fears that too public an occasion might bring the noiseless helicopters and noisy SWAT teams of certain countries to land on the premises of the court.

  ‘I got the best lawyer there was, a guy named Limpola. He said he was sorry he hadn’t been alive when the Nuremberg trials were on, as he would have loved to defend Nazis. Out of pure provocation. And almost in the same breath he told me he was one-quarter Roma. Out of pure provocation. I couldn’t have cared less, as long as the guy got me a lighter sentence, i.e. a better deal. After all, that was business, too, to let them know what sort of agreement, based on the prevailing conditions, we could accept.’

  But even the best lawyer was to no avail, because one night the hour of Yegor Kugar’s departure arrived. The diplomatic negotiations had reached their conclusion, and it was time to fetch the boy home. Were the men from the security police or were they from the Organisation? Probably both, wearing two hats. A black hood was placed on Yegor Kugar’s head, and the warden from Askola could only stand by and watch.

  ‘Someone had grassed me up good and proper. Vatanescu had told them what I’d been doing. I was whisked off home before I could appeal to international justice. Hopefully I will at least get my name in large letters. In the tabloids. On the Web. On my gravestone.’

  When Vatanescu’s wounds had healed up, he was moved from intensive care to a normal ward. A plain-clothes policeman remained in the corridor to guard or protect him, depending on whether he tried to leave the ward or someone else tried to get in. The days were long, the future uncertain, but fortunately there was a television set where he could watch endless amounts of news and decent football.

  To Vatanescu’s bedside came a man and a woman – a CID detective and a mediator from the immigration office. They held out a document which said that Vatanescu was to be deported to his homeland.

  You promised… That man. The one who interrogated Kugar.

  ‘I don’t know about any promises others may have made.’

  He promised my sister.

  My mother.

  My rabbit.

  The man told Vatanescu that he ought to be glad he had got off so lightly. There were quite a number of charges against him.

  I was drawn into it against my will…

  There are surely bigger criminals in the world…

  The mediator tried to console him with the thought that he was, after all, going home.

  You have a home.

  I don’t even know if my home village is still standing.

  Vatanescu was made to sign a bundle of documents, the contents of which were unknown to him and which no one took the trouble to explain to him. After a medical examination in the morning he would leave the country. He could choose either to travel by plane with an escort or in an old van, which he would have to drive back to his homeland himself. If he chose the latter he would receive a mileage allowance and daily expenses on which he would be able to live quite well in Romania for a couple of months.

  The man and the woman shook hands with Vatanescu, nodding to him in a sympathetic way that said it wasn’t them; it was the law and the system…

  ‘Get your own country into shape and then we’ll go there as tourists,’ the woman said.

  ‘I used to visit Bulgaria quite often during the Soviet era,’ the man said. ‘Good night then, Vatanescu. May I take one more photo…? My son wanted me to take one of you when he heard I was going to see you…’

  My crazy useless journey…

  ‘And if you could put your autograph on it, please. For Väpi.’

  Now that I’ve talked, I have no value.

  Life is a market.

  Yegor was my only currency.

  They’ve taken my future away.

  I want the football boots.

  Vatanescu heard the door of his room being locked for the night. He put the pills from the little cup in his mouth, took a sip of water and lay down. Within half an hour the medication worked, the pain in his stomach subsided, and reality dissolved in a grey mist.

  Six hours later he was woken by the sound of chewing. Someone was eating Vatanescu’s last democratic bowl of porridge. Vatanescu rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up on his bed. The sun filtered through a small window; there was coffee in a thermos flask and also, this morning, some slices of ham and cheese.

  ‘Morjens. Guten Morgen. Good morning.’

  My escort?

  ‘No, it’s Pahvi.’

  Are you going to take me on the plane back to my homeland?

  ‘Pahvi, Simo. Simo Pahvi. Let me shake your hand.’

  Limp.

  Sweaty.

  Now he’s pressing. Firmly. Will he look me in the eye?

  Yes.

  Something was moving in Simo Pahvi’s inside pocket. He tut-tutted and opened his jacket. Then the rabbit leapt across his knee to the floor. For a moment it slipped on the linoleum, then bolted into Vatanescu’s arms.

  My friend.

  Tired tears flowed from Vatanescu’s eyes.

  I thought…

  …they told me that…

  …you’d ended up as tiger food.

  ‘They got it wrong, a misunderstanding,’ Simo Pahvi said. ‘They told me you’d been moved to the police cells, but you were here in the hospital all the time.’

  We didn’t die.

  Vatanescu took the rabbit’s face between his hands and looked into its eyes. It smacked its lips; it looked back at Vatanescu with the kind of trust that only a child can show towards its father. Or was it Vatanescu who looked at the rabbit that way? At any rate they were now together again and ready to meet the next incomprehensible sequence of events.

  Simo Pahvi wiped his hands on his trousers and dislodged with a matchstick a grain of porridge that had got stuck between his teeth.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked in English.

  No idea.

  Simo Pahvi explained that he was the tribal chieftain of this land. The king. Il capo di tutti capi. He had a lot more power and authority than Yegor had ever had. Yegor’s patch was tiny and it was rented. For four years Simo Pahvi owned every inch of the entire country, from lake to lake, from lowly housing estates all the way to the upmarket villas of Espoo’s Westend.

  I’ve already said all there is to be said about him.

  ‘About Yegor Kugar? That fellow doesn’t interest me one bit. He’s the concern of Interpol now.’

  My sister. There was talk of my sister.

  ‘It’s all right. I have a message from her.’

  At Simo Pahvi’s feet there was a Siwa supermarket plastic bag. It contained a video cassette. The hospital’s recording systems were ten years behind the times, so it was not very hard to find a video cassette player. Pahvi studied it for a moment, unsure of which way to insert the cassette. The tape began to turn.
/>   My sister.

  Her hair is a different colour from when I left.

  She’s at an airport with signs in German.

  My sister says that she is going as far away from Central and Eastern Europe as she can.

  She thanks me.

  But doesn’t intend to join me, doesn’t intend to come to a Nordic country. Has saved all the money she earned with her body, which isn’t much, because seventy-five per cent went to the Organisation. But something, all the same. It was such a filthy job that she wants her money’s worth now. She owes it to her body.

  She’s going to start a fitness centre.

  Isn’t going to start a family.

  She’s going to take out a bank savings bond.

  Isn’t going to succumb to drink or drugs.

  Hopes that all is well with me. Hopes I will come and visit her. Hopes that I’ve managed, even though she hasn’t been there to keep an eye on me.

  Then the recording stopped; for a moment there was a hissing, and then some footage of an ice hockey match from several years back. Simo Pahvi turned the television off with the remote control. Vatanescu pressed the rabbit against his chest: swallowing all this was like eating nuts and bolts with pink iced doughnuts.

  ‘Everything’s all right there,’ Pahvi said, opening the carton of milk that was part of Vatanescu’s breakfast. ‘But what interests me is you.’

  Me?

  Who do you think I am? What’s the matter with you all?

  ‘You’re not a criminal, Vatanescu.’

  I never have been.

  ‘Not in my eyes, and not in the eyes of the people.’

  I’ve been a beggar. An investor. And a concrete layer.

  ‘You, Vatanescu, are the highest form of existence.’

  A magician?

  ‘A celebrity.’

  Vatanescu sat in the back seat of the Mercedes. The car was new to him, but every Finn knew it as the ‘Million Merc’. It had been bought new at a time when support for the Ordinary Smallholders’ Party stood at more than fifteen per cent. The Merc had seen the party’s rise and fall and ruin; it had seen its revival and present success, as had the driver, Esko Sirpale. The ‘million’ referred to the number of miles the car had done. In the Merc they had planned election campaigns, mourned the defeats of ice hockey teams and discussed the growing pains of children. Simo Pahvi called it his office.