White Hunger (Chance Encounter Series) by Aki Ollikainen Read Free Book Online Page B

it.
    ‘I’ll leave you here. You’ve got to go on from here by yourselves. I don’t believe you’ll ever make it to St Petersburg. You’d be better off going back where you came from,’ Retrikki runs on. He gives a quick shout of farewell and smacks his lips to get his gelding going.
    Marja looks at the spire: a thin, powerless finger pointing accusingly at the sky. Then she takes Juho by the hand and they begin trudging along the road. She stops by the last houses. She does not know the name of the village. Where she is, where Mataleena remains. She has brought her child to utter anonymity; her name is not even recorded in the Book of Life.
    Marja stares at the deserted road ahead and presses Juho tightly to her breast. A group of beggars walks past; they join the end of the line.

The Senator
    They are the ghosts of this winter, the statues of snow that the wind knocks up on the icy open sea. The ship never came; winter came, without warning, overnight.
    ‘No point questioning my conscience. I know who they are, those spectres herded by the wind. I too have buried a child.’
    By way of a response, the senator feels an icy breath on his face.
    He spent the whole of yesterday leafing through the Bible, reading about Joseph’s prophecy, about those seven lean and seven fat cows. Years of crop failure have now passed, one after the other, but there is no sign of the fat cows on the horizon. Has his incessant talk of Finland’s bountiful forests been in vain? Are these people good for nothing, apart from tearing bark off trees to supplement their bread?
    Somebody has to see further, beyond the horizon. Through those pallid spectres. Ultimately, it always comes down to bread; if anyone understands that, he does. He has formed the leaven; it is the size and shape of a copper coin, not to be eaten even to satisfy the worst of hungers.Because once lost, it is gone for good. His task is to make sure that the leaven is passed down to future generations, so that they will not always be reliant on foreign bread.
    It is the world’s loneliest fate, not being able to afford to take wrong decisions. There are the gentry, upset by the hordes of beggars, afraid of the disruption to their comfy little lives. They run round like dogs chasing their tails, demanding money and food from the state to put out by the roads, so all the poor devils on the move will be pacified and return to their homes.
    And then there are those who agree with him because they always agree with him. They cannot think with their own heads; he has to think their thoughts for them.
    The procession of the snowy dead vanishes. The senator looks at Katajanokka. That is where his sampo , his magic source of wealth, lies. It is a treasure trove, at the moment still surrounded by those miserable hovels, smothering dreams of future riches.
    The senator closes his eyes and imagines Katajanokka one day sinking into the waves, then, washed clean, surfacing, with proud stone houses rising into the sky.

December 1867
    Here lies Dr Johan Berg.
    Lumps of frozen soil thud against the lid of the coffin. On the horizon, a pale-red streak wages a hopeless war against the weight of the sky, in defence of the dead man’s soul. Finally, it is sapped of strength, and heavy clouds shroud the last rays of the sun. The shadows on the mourners’ faces grow darker.
    ‘I bet the gravediggers cursed, digging this hole,’ Matias Högfors says.
    ‘I just hope that wooden lid holds,’ Teo replies.
    They interrupt their digging and wait to get their breath back. The mourners, dressed in black, had been standing motionless at the graveside. Now they turn away and begin drifting towards the cemetery gate. Only a small woman, bent over by grief, remains standing a short distance behind them. The minister approaches the woman and puts his hand gently under her elbow for support.
    Högfors lifts up more soil with his shovel. A heavy stone causes the whole load to fall off before it reaches