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Two: Arvo
Two: Arvo
The smallish wooden motor boat cut a path across the waves of Lake Kallavesi. A man in his late 50s was steering, listening to the sound of the domestic Andros inboard motor for trouble. The motor had been acting up as of late, and the man didn't want to get stranded with a malfunctioning machine.
At the prow of the boat sat a younger man. Twenty-five at most, the boatman would have estimated the man's age, a handsome, tall man who seemed to be very sure of himself. The man carried himself like a military officer, which was rather logical given that he was also wearing the uniform of one. The uniforms of the Finnish cavalry and dragoons were among the most old-fashioned used by the country's young military, and with his black riding boots, red trousers, and grey-white ”skeleton tunic”, the man cut a very traditionally martial figure indeed.
”Can't you get this thing moving any faster?”, the younger man said with an edge to his voice, ”I don't really have the time for a leisurely Sunday outing”.
The boatman looked at the man and then at his bags, stacked near his feet, and sighed internally.
”Listen, mister warlord[1]”, he said, and got interrupted by the man.
”It's lieutenant, man!”, he snapped, indicating the two bright metal pips on both sides of his high collar, ”don't you know your ranks?”
The boatman ground his teeth and then spoke up again.
”Mister lieutenant, you could call old Rieti many things, but a milit'ry man wouldn't be among them epithets. What ever I learned during my stint in the forces, and that was them old forces, that I've already forgotten...”
He spat over the side of the boat and looked at the younger man again.
”Now, you wanted a boat to take you to Hirvilahti. You got it, mister. You wanted to get there before the next ship in the morning. You'll get that too. But this old tub ain't getting any faster with you complaining. It might get faster, just maybe, if you paid what you owed me right now, what?”
Arvo Vaara gave the boatman a poisonous stare and then turned his eyes north-west towards the home shore that was slowly creeping closer. He didn't have the energy right now to argue with the man he had hired in Kuopio to get to his family home in time. The train ride from Lappeenranta had been long enough as it was, it had sapped some of his usual vigor.
”You'll get your money when we get to Vaarala[2], all right. Just get me there”, he said with an acidic tone to his voice and left it at that.
The Vaara farm was situated right next to the shores of Lake Kallavesi, and not far from the Hirvilahti village pier itself. The farm even had its own pier, but then of course the bigger passenger vessels out of Kuopio would not stop there.
Usually, that is. Tomorrow, though, a steam ship would come directly to the farm's pier, just because everyone aboard would be coming directly to Vaarala.
For the party.
And that was why Lieutenant Arvo Vaara of the Häme Mounted Regiment[3] was coming home this time as well.
The sun was already closer to the horizon when the boat was finally tied up to the Vaarala pier. Arvo told the old boatman that if he didn't want to go back to Kuopio overnight, they could find a hayloft for him to sleep in, and there would be some food for him before that, too. The man accepted those terms, and even helped Arvo carry his bags to the farm itself.
There was nobody at the yard when Arvo and Rieti reached Vaarala. Arvo could see a lot of movement in the main building, though, and when they got to the building's door, Arvo saw Jussi, one of the Vaarala farmhands, barge out from behind the corner. The man stopped in his tracks and cocked his head.
”Well if isn't Mister Arvo come back to see us! How do you do”, the man said and smiled, ”how's the crown[4] been treating you, soldier?”
Arvo smiled at old Jussi and shook his hand with a firm grip.
”I won't lie to you – it's a lot of work, breaking in the new recruits. But I'm doing fine, I think. They promoted me too”, he said, raising his chin to make the two metal pips more visible.
The old, trusted farmhand nodded.
”Your father told us about that, congratulations, lieutenant! Seems that a military career is suiting you just fine.”
Arvo nodded, looking past Jussi towards the main house.
”Say, Jussi... Take care of Rieti here, find him something to eat and a place to spend the night...”
He looked at the boatman.
”You'll get your money in a minute, go with Jussi here and we'll settle my bill.”
That said, Arvo Vaara gathered his bags and went in the front door of the big red-painted, two-storied farmhouse. He dropped the bags in the foyer and followed the sounds of busyness to the main hall.
”...And don't forget the Karelian stew, Niina! We'll need to make sure we have enough for everyone, and that goes for the weak beer too – ask Sisko to help you with...
”Mother”, Arvo said from the door to the stout woman in her mid-40s standing in the middle of the hall, doling out orders to his children and maids, much like a particularly effective company quartermaster.
”Arvo! I was already wondering what's gone and happened to you! Now that you're here, you can take off your suit of armor and help us with the preparations... Oh, but you must be hungry. Here, eat some Karelian pastries, Sisko's just making some egg butter to go with them...”
Arvo could see his mother was so immersed in organizing her husband's party that she barely had time to greet her son.
”Mother, good to see you”, he said, ”you're busy, so I won't take your time any more than necessary”.
He lowered his voice.
”Could you send someone... to pay the boatman who brought me over? It seems I... I lost my wallet on the train...”
After that business was settled, Arvo drifted over to the kitchen, to get some of the pastries, and to be hugged vigorously by his twin sister, Sisko.
”Why if it isn't my brother the headless horseman! It must be, what, five months since I saw you. What are you now, a colonel?”
Arvo smiled and made as if to salute the first female university student in the family.
”You wish. You don't get... colonel's tabs... at 23, not during... peace time at... the very least...”, he said, shovelling some pastries with butter and eggs into his mouth at the same time.
”I am sure you're not... a doctor of philosophy... yet, either?”
Sisko shook her head.
”That – that requires some actual work, instead of, you know, waiting for some old officer to retire or to get a stroke and fall off his horse to get his spot at the top. Even the battles in the academia are slightly less bloody than what you lot might have to go through in your line of business”, the young woman said, smiling sweetly and continuing to mash boiled eggs together with home-churned butter.
”Ha.”
In the hall, Arvo's and Sisko's mother continued to give out orders for each and every member of the household she could lay her eyes on. Arvo looked around himself, making it an exaggarated gesture of searching for something.
”Where's Veli, now? Shirking Mother's orders, is he?”
”He went to the sauna, just a while ago.”
Arvo took some water from a jug and drank deep, then wiped his mouth and looked at his sister.
”Not a bad move at all, for our Veli... You know, dear sister, maybe I'll follow my brother's example”.
The young officer walked out of the kitchen, and then towards the sauna building closer to the shore. To be fair, if had been a long trip he had taken today, all the way from the barracks to Vaarala, and now the sauna would be exactly what he needed.
Arvo took the familiar tree-lined path towards the old smoke sauna, the path he had walked countless times as a boy and a man, a path taking him slightly down the hill towards the waters of Lake Kallavesi, still now, reflecting the light of the evening sun at his back. As he got to the water's edge, he could see a family of black-throated loons slowly passing him by, paddling below the low-hanging branches of the big old birch next to the sauna. A wooden rowboat had been drawn to shore under the birch, as well.
After entering the building made of heavy old logs, Arvo took off his uniform in silence, and hung it on the pegs in the sauna's anteroom. All his clothes removed, he walked to the door of the sauna proper and grasped the worn wooden handle, making the heavy door open with a creak.
Upon entering the warm, dimly lit room, its walls darkened with the smoke of ages[5], he could see the figure of a man sitting on the uppermost bench.
”Veli”, he said, nodding, and then took some cold water to pour over his head, before walking to his brother and shaking his hand.
”Arvo”, his younger brother, younger by mere five minutes, greeted him, and made some room for him on the wooden bench.
”So the cavalry let you go for a moment, then? Seems we're not going to war in the next few days, at least”, he said, matter of factly, and poured some water on the hot stones in front of the two men.
Here in the dim light of the sauna, it would have been impossible for a casual observer to distinguish the two Vaara brothers from each other. Built the same way, tall and muscular, and sharing the very same facial features, Arvo and Veli exhibited all the hallmarks of identical twins. They even wore their hair the same way, and their chins and lips were equally shaven. Really, at the moment, only their siblings and parents could distinguish the two brothers from each other by mere physical features only.
”It is only a few days, though”, Arvo said after a while, ”there's a big military exercise near Viipuri starting next week and our unit's taking part in it. I'll be leaving again right after the party...”
Arvo saw a look on his brother's face and knew what it was about.
”So I won't be here for the harvest... But I am a soldier. I've got my duty and my orders”, he said.
”I've got my duty to the Fatherland.”
Veli said nothing, only picked up the vasta made out of birch branches with leaves on them, and started lighly beating his back with it.
As much as the two brothers looked alike, in beliefs and attitudes they were very different. Arvo had been an active member of the Civil Guards since he was a boy, and later on had chosen the career of a military officer, to much divided feelings among his parents and siblings. By all accounts, he was very good at it, too.
Veli, on the other hand, was not interested in military matters at all. If he had taken part in Civil Guard training at all, it had been for the sports, a side of it he had excelled in. He had completed his military service, like everyone else, but with minimum effort. In the end, he had been released to life in the reserve as a mere private. And, after his service, he had abandoned the Civil Guards entirely. To the chagrin of his father and to the surprise of most people who knew him, at age 21 he joined the Social Democratic Party.
In fact, for all Lieutenant Arvo Vaara knew, his twin brother was now a pacifist.
The two men sat together in the silence for a while. Arvo used a vasta of his own. Veli poured some more water on the stones, making the heat attack the brothers' heads and then shoulders.
”It is good to see you, anyway”, Veli said after a while, ”if just for a few days.”
Arvo nodded.
”You too, brother.”
After a while more in the semidarkness, and after a few more ladles of water on the hot stones, the two men exited the sauna to take a swim in the cool, still waters of Lake Kallavesi.
…
Notes:
[1] Herra sotaherra.
[2] The name often used for the Vaara farm since Salomo Vaara bought it for the family.
[3] Hämeen Ratsurykmentti (HRR).
[4] Kruunu. As old-fashioned as the term is, ”crown” was very much still used in interwar Finland in reference to the state and its military.
[5] A traditional smoke sauna is slowly warmed through the day, with the smoke filling the entire room through the process. Only when the sauna is good and ready, is the smoke let out and the sauna aired.
To Be Continued...
Two: Arvo
The smallish wooden motor boat cut a path across the waves of Lake Kallavesi. A man in his late 50s was steering, listening to the sound of the domestic Andros inboard motor for trouble. The motor had been acting up as of late, and the man didn't want to get stranded with a malfunctioning machine.
At the prow of the boat sat a younger man. Twenty-five at most, the boatman would have estimated the man's age, a handsome, tall man who seemed to be very sure of himself. The man carried himself like a military officer, which was rather logical given that he was also wearing the uniform of one. The uniforms of the Finnish cavalry and dragoons were among the most old-fashioned used by the country's young military, and with his black riding boots, red trousers, and grey-white ”skeleton tunic”, the man cut a very traditionally martial figure indeed.
”Can't you get this thing moving any faster?”, the younger man said with an edge to his voice, ”I don't really have the time for a leisurely Sunday outing”.
The boatman looked at the man and then at his bags, stacked near his feet, and sighed internally.
”Listen, mister warlord[1]”, he said, and got interrupted by the man.
”It's lieutenant, man!”, he snapped, indicating the two bright metal pips on both sides of his high collar, ”don't you know your ranks?”
The boatman ground his teeth and then spoke up again.
”Mister lieutenant, you could call old Rieti many things, but a milit'ry man wouldn't be among them epithets. What ever I learned during my stint in the forces, and that was them old forces, that I've already forgotten...”
He spat over the side of the boat and looked at the younger man again.
”Now, you wanted a boat to take you to Hirvilahti. You got it, mister. You wanted to get there before the next ship in the morning. You'll get that too. But this old tub ain't getting any faster with you complaining. It might get faster, just maybe, if you paid what you owed me right now, what?”
Arvo Vaara gave the boatman a poisonous stare and then turned his eyes north-west towards the home shore that was slowly creeping closer. He didn't have the energy right now to argue with the man he had hired in Kuopio to get to his family home in time. The train ride from Lappeenranta had been long enough as it was, it had sapped some of his usual vigor.
”You'll get your money when we get to Vaarala[2], all right. Just get me there”, he said with an acidic tone to his voice and left it at that.
The Vaara farm was situated right next to the shores of Lake Kallavesi, and not far from the Hirvilahti village pier itself. The farm even had its own pier, but then of course the bigger passenger vessels out of Kuopio would not stop there.
Usually, that is. Tomorrow, though, a steam ship would come directly to the farm's pier, just because everyone aboard would be coming directly to Vaarala.
For the party.
And that was why Lieutenant Arvo Vaara of the Häme Mounted Regiment[3] was coming home this time as well.
The sun was already closer to the horizon when the boat was finally tied up to the Vaarala pier. Arvo told the old boatman that if he didn't want to go back to Kuopio overnight, they could find a hayloft for him to sleep in, and there would be some food for him before that, too. The man accepted those terms, and even helped Arvo carry his bags to the farm itself.
There was nobody at the yard when Arvo and Rieti reached Vaarala. Arvo could see a lot of movement in the main building, though, and when they got to the building's door, Arvo saw Jussi, one of the Vaarala farmhands, barge out from behind the corner. The man stopped in his tracks and cocked his head.
”Well if isn't Mister Arvo come back to see us! How do you do”, the man said and smiled, ”how's the crown[4] been treating you, soldier?”
Arvo smiled at old Jussi and shook his hand with a firm grip.
”I won't lie to you – it's a lot of work, breaking in the new recruits. But I'm doing fine, I think. They promoted me too”, he said, raising his chin to make the two metal pips more visible.
The old, trusted farmhand nodded.
”Your father told us about that, congratulations, lieutenant! Seems that a military career is suiting you just fine.”
Arvo nodded, looking past Jussi towards the main house.
”Say, Jussi... Take care of Rieti here, find him something to eat and a place to spend the night...”
He looked at the boatman.
”You'll get your money in a minute, go with Jussi here and we'll settle my bill.”
That said, Arvo Vaara gathered his bags and went in the front door of the big red-painted, two-storied farmhouse. He dropped the bags in the foyer and followed the sounds of busyness to the main hall.
”...And don't forget the Karelian stew, Niina! We'll need to make sure we have enough for everyone, and that goes for the weak beer too – ask Sisko to help you with...
”Mother”, Arvo said from the door to the stout woman in her mid-40s standing in the middle of the hall, doling out orders to his children and maids, much like a particularly effective company quartermaster.
”Arvo! I was already wondering what's gone and happened to you! Now that you're here, you can take off your suit of armor and help us with the preparations... Oh, but you must be hungry. Here, eat some Karelian pastries, Sisko's just making some egg butter to go with them...”
Arvo could see his mother was so immersed in organizing her husband's party that she barely had time to greet her son.
”Mother, good to see you”, he said, ”you're busy, so I won't take your time any more than necessary”.
He lowered his voice.
”Could you send someone... to pay the boatman who brought me over? It seems I... I lost my wallet on the train...”
After that business was settled, Arvo drifted over to the kitchen, to get some of the pastries, and to be hugged vigorously by his twin sister, Sisko.
”Why if it isn't my brother the headless horseman! It must be, what, five months since I saw you. What are you now, a colonel?”
Arvo smiled and made as if to salute the first female university student in the family.
”You wish. You don't get... colonel's tabs... at 23, not during... peace time at... the very least...”, he said, shovelling some pastries with butter and eggs into his mouth at the same time.
”I am sure you're not... a doctor of philosophy... yet, either?”
Sisko shook her head.
”That – that requires some actual work, instead of, you know, waiting for some old officer to retire or to get a stroke and fall off his horse to get his spot at the top. Even the battles in the academia are slightly less bloody than what you lot might have to go through in your line of business”, the young woman said, smiling sweetly and continuing to mash boiled eggs together with home-churned butter.
”Ha.”
In the hall, Arvo's and Sisko's mother continued to give out orders for each and every member of the household she could lay her eyes on. Arvo looked around himself, making it an exaggarated gesture of searching for something.
”Where's Veli, now? Shirking Mother's orders, is he?”
”He went to the sauna, just a while ago.”
Arvo took some water from a jug and drank deep, then wiped his mouth and looked at his sister.
”Not a bad move at all, for our Veli... You know, dear sister, maybe I'll follow my brother's example”.
The young officer walked out of the kitchen, and then towards the sauna building closer to the shore. To be fair, if had been a long trip he had taken today, all the way from the barracks to Vaarala, and now the sauna would be exactly what he needed.
Arvo took the familiar tree-lined path towards the old smoke sauna, the path he had walked countless times as a boy and a man, a path taking him slightly down the hill towards the waters of Lake Kallavesi, still now, reflecting the light of the evening sun at his back. As he got to the water's edge, he could see a family of black-throated loons slowly passing him by, paddling below the low-hanging branches of the big old birch next to the sauna. A wooden rowboat had been drawn to shore under the birch, as well.
After entering the building made of heavy old logs, Arvo took off his uniform in silence, and hung it on the pegs in the sauna's anteroom. All his clothes removed, he walked to the door of the sauna proper and grasped the worn wooden handle, making the heavy door open with a creak.
Upon entering the warm, dimly lit room, its walls darkened with the smoke of ages[5], he could see the figure of a man sitting on the uppermost bench.
”Veli”, he said, nodding, and then took some cold water to pour over his head, before walking to his brother and shaking his hand.
”Arvo”, his younger brother, younger by mere five minutes, greeted him, and made some room for him on the wooden bench.
”So the cavalry let you go for a moment, then? Seems we're not going to war in the next few days, at least”, he said, matter of factly, and poured some water on the hot stones in front of the two men.
Here in the dim light of the sauna, it would have been impossible for a casual observer to distinguish the two Vaara brothers from each other. Built the same way, tall and muscular, and sharing the very same facial features, Arvo and Veli exhibited all the hallmarks of identical twins. They even wore their hair the same way, and their chins and lips were equally shaven. Really, at the moment, only their siblings and parents could distinguish the two brothers from each other by mere physical features only.
”It is only a few days, though”, Arvo said after a while, ”there's a big military exercise near Viipuri starting next week and our unit's taking part in it. I'll be leaving again right after the party...”
Arvo saw a look on his brother's face and knew what it was about.
”So I won't be here for the harvest... But I am a soldier. I've got my duty and my orders”, he said.
”I've got my duty to the Fatherland.”
Veli said nothing, only picked up the vasta made out of birch branches with leaves on them, and started lighly beating his back with it.
As much as the two brothers looked alike, in beliefs and attitudes they were very different. Arvo had been an active member of the Civil Guards since he was a boy, and later on had chosen the career of a military officer, to much divided feelings among his parents and siblings. By all accounts, he was very good at it, too.
Veli, on the other hand, was not interested in military matters at all. If he had taken part in Civil Guard training at all, it had been for the sports, a side of it he had excelled in. He had completed his military service, like everyone else, but with minimum effort. In the end, he had been released to life in the reserve as a mere private. And, after his service, he had abandoned the Civil Guards entirely. To the chagrin of his father and to the surprise of most people who knew him, at age 21 he joined the Social Democratic Party.
In fact, for all Lieutenant Arvo Vaara knew, his twin brother was now a pacifist.
The two men sat together in the silence for a while. Arvo used a vasta of his own. Veli poured some more water on the stones, making the heat attack the brothers' heads and then shoulders.
”It is good to see you, anyway”, Veli said after a while, ”if just for a few days.”
Arvo nodded.
”You too, brother.”
After a while more in the semidarkness, and after a few more ladles of water on the hot stones, the two men exited the sauna to take a swim in the cool, still waters of Lake Kallavesi.
…
Notes:
[1] Herra sotaherra.
[2] The name often used for the Vaara farm since Salomo Vaara bought it for the family.
[3] Hämeen Ratsurykmentti (HRR).
[4] Kruunu. As old-fashioned as the term is, ”crown” was very much still used in interwar Finland in reference to the state and its military.
[5] A traditional smoke sauna is slowly warmed through the day, with the smoke filling the entire room through the process. Only when the sauna is good and ready, is the smoke let out and the sauna aired.
To Be Continued...
- DrakonFin
- Word Count: 2.2k