The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna Read Free Book Online Page B

again! We come to the year 1968: the curve suddenly leaps a couple of centimeters. Kekkonen is in fact, all at once, nearly a hundred eighty-one centimeters. From then on the curve continues unchanged till this point, 1975, with no change in sight. A sudden increase in height in his latter days—something rather remarkable there, don’t you think?”
    Hannikainen thrust the chart of the president’s height aside. Somewhat frenziedly, he sought out a new chart. It was a careful record of Kekkonen’s weight.
    “Of course, these figures are nowhere near as conclusive, but they do add certain indices. Kekkonen’s weight has changed very little since middle age. He has persisted in a certain annual cycle. In the autumn Kekkonen’s weight goes up. He’s sometimes as much as ten pounds heavier than in the spring. At the beginning of summer he’s without exception at his lightest, returning again in the autumn to his maximum weight. I obtained these figures from the Occupational Health Institute in Helsinki, and so they’re guaranteed accurate. But to follow the pattern decade by decade and compare the years with each other, I had to calculate Kekkonen’s average weights for each year, and those are what this chart shows. Now, you see, from 1956 right up to 1968, Kekkonen’s average annual weight is one hundred seventy-five pounds. After 1968, it is one hundred eighty-five pounds. The ten-pound increase continues from 1968 to this day, absolutely steadily, apart from the seasonal cycle I referred to. All in all, only the first two presidential election years show an exception on the curve, a couple of pounds, and such a weight loss, even though diminishing the whole year’s average, is quite natural and doesn’t disturb the curve substantially.”
    Hannikainen turned to additional evidence.
    “I’ve drawn up a lexicon of Urho Kekkonen’s vocabulary. Here, too, we see the same divergence after 1968. Before 1968, Kekkonen’s vocabulary was notably more limited than later. There’s an increase of, by my reckoning, twelve hundred words in active use. The reason could of course be that after 1968 ‘The New Kekkonen,’ as I call him, was employing new speechwriters, but even so, an increase in vocabulary of that order is extremely indicative. In addition, I’ve established that a considerable alteration took place in Kekkonen’s opinions after 1968. From 1969, Kekkonen’s views were becoming increasingly progressive, quite as if Kekkonen had been rejuvenated, by ten years at least. His logic, too, was noticeably improving. I’ve analyzed his performance here with extreme care, and, again, a clear change for the better occurs during 1968. Also, during 1969, Kekkonen was becoming somehow more boyish. He was getting up to tricks in public that he’d never have attempted before. Quite clearly, his sense of humor was developing, and he was becoming, as it were, much more tolerant toward the people of his country.”
    Hannikainen shut his suitcase. He was now completely calm. There was no sign of his recent fervor. He seemed happy.
    The two went out. A curlew’s cry came from the lake. For a long time they were completely silent. Finally, Hannikainen said: “I’m sure you understand now that it would be unwise in the extreme to set about publishing research like this.”

8
    Forest Fire
    T he hare took to the lakeside life. It came along on Hannikainen and Vatanen’s lake trips, hopped boldly into the small boat with them, though it clearly feared water. It grew longer, plumper, and stronger.
    Hannikainen discoursed at length on President Kekkonen. The hare looked up at the men from the bottom of the boat its head to one side. Its droppings rolled among the fish. In this manner, the days went by on the forest lake, and no one felt a need to go anywhere else.
    One morning toward the end of July, the hare became restless. It lurked at the men’s heels, and in the evening it hid away in the sauna, under a