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Six: Arvo
Six: Arvo
Lieutenant Arvo Vaara of the Häme Mounted Regiment took a deep breath, inhaling fresh August country air. It was full of the scents of high summer, and then already laced with an undertone of inevitable corruption and subtle hints of the fall.
Arvo had taken Emma Kerman back to the dance in the hayloft and left her with the rest of the young people of the village. He thought Emma was a nice girl, she was literally the quintessential girl next door, and it had been a pleasure to see her again after several months of not visiting Hirvilahti. Emma was pretty and she had character. A few close dances and a bit of kissing - why not?
But beyond that, though, Arvo was not really interested in the girl. He had a girlfriend in Lappeenranta as it was. And besides, he didn't have the time right now. At the moment the young man had a lot bigger fish to fry.
He lit up a cigarette and started walking towards the farm's main building, the big two-storied farmhouse his father had bought in a slightly run-down condition, repaired and then enlarged over the years. By now, it was the biggest and finest house in the village, earning among many the moniker "the Vaara Manor"[1]. Salomo Vaara hated it when people called it that himself - he still fancied himself a small farmer, not as the lord of a manor, even though his holdings were by now some of the biggest in Hirvilahti and the nearby villages as well. The old man had used his information about which landowners were in debt or otherwise financially inconvenienced and done some good deals for farmland and forest over the years. The main part of the farm he had been able to buy for a song over 20 years ago, from the farm's drunkard heir who by now was living in a rented room in Kuopio, subsisting on odd jobs in between his repeated benders.
Feeling animated both by the alcohol in his veins and his success with Emma, Arvo flicked the cigarette butt away and strode towards the main entrance, his boots hitting the front steps hard. Walking on, he soon arrived in the main hall. In the big room the like of which was the heart of most Finnish farmhouses, he then spotted his mother sitting in a corner with four other women, chatting. The ladies turned to look at him when he entered.
"Good evening, ladies, Mother", he said with a carrying voice, and then realized it was probably a bit too loud. He was not taking cavalrymen out for a drill, now.
"Ah, Arvo", his mother said, her face slightly red. She had by now partaken in a bit of punch herself.
She turned towards the ladies.
"My son Arvo, the lieutenant. Oh, but you met him already before."
The women nodded in unison, and smiled to the young officer.
"Your sons are so handsome, Mrs. Vaara", the oldest one of them said, "and so brisk and manly, too. You've done a good job raising them, you and your husband both."
Alma Vaara beamed.
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Heikkinen", she told her and then turned her eyes towards her son.
"Arvo, could you join us for a moment - the ladies would like to ask you something about life in the military..."
Arvo smiled and then looked around.
"Maybe later, Mother. Right now, I need to see Father. Where could I find him?"
While the four ladies looked disappointed, Alma Vaara nodded towards the left.
"He's in the library with the gentlemen."
"Thank you, Mother", Arvo said, pulled himself up to attention and smiled and nodded to the five women.
"Ladies."
Only now, when he walked towards the library room, did Arvo start feeling apprehension about his business with his father tonight. Only now, was his bravery sapped a little. He could feel some cold sweat start rising to his forehead.
Damn.
The library room was one of the most recent additions to the big farmhouse. In the recent enlargement, Salomo Vaara had wanted to create for himself a slightly more public room than his personal office was, for leisure as well as for receiving guests - for occasions very much like this. That it should be, specifically, a library, was probably an attempt to boost the impression of himself as a man of letters, a self-taught intellectual as well as a successful small farmer and a primus motor of provincial cooperative banking. A true self-made man.
A real man to look up to, the words of Heikkinen's speech still rang in Arvo's ears when he entered the room.
Inside, four men sat around a table, surrounded by bookcases. Two of them were smoking cigars and all had cognac glasses in front of them. One more man sat in the corner, absentmindedly holding a glass and listening to the conversation.
"...what you print in your so-called newspaper!", a thin man in his sixties was telling a lively-looking younger man, pointing his cigar at him.
"I say, really! Like during the elections – pure drivel, utter vilification and calumny!"
The younger man merely smiled and spread his hands.
"If you are not happy with the editorial line of the Savon Sanomat, you can always send a letter to the editor. I promise that it will get published the very same day!", he said and winked.
It appeared that some of the most influential guests were still left - the cream of the crop. The man seemingly riled up about the quality of the local press was Edvard Lyytinen - a school teacher and the long-time chairman of the Kuopio town council. A member of the National Coalition Party. And the younger man was Martti Suhonen, the director of the Savon Sanomat Press company, the strong man behind the ideologically Agrarian, growing local newspaper.
In the farthest corner, the older, stout and balding man looked at the two men arguing and smiled a slightly inebriated smile. This was, Arvo knew, Gustaf Ignatius, the long-time governor of the Kuopio Province, a man who it was said was just due to retire from his post among the strange and crafty Savonians and leave Kuopio to return to his family home in the nation's capital.[2]
Ignatius was the first to notice the man in the doorway.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen", the old man said with a widening smile, "if you won't settle down, I will ask the lieutenant here for a military intervention - as my position still empowers me to do, should the situation otherwise prove untenable."
Now all the others turned their eyes towards Arvo, too, including the man of the hour himself.
Salomo Vaara leaned into the light and looked at his son.
"Arvo. Good of you to join us. Take a seat and pour yourself a drink."
Arvo was surprised about his fathers invitation to join the gentlemen in the library, and not in a bad way. Under ordinary circumstances, he might have even accepted the offer. Now, though… Now he had to follow his plan as long as he had the willpower left to go through with it.
There’s no other way out.
”Good evening, gentlemen”, he said, trying out a smile, and then paused for a while.
”...And thank you for the offer, Father. But no thank you, not right now. Ahem…. If it’s alright, I’d like to speak to you.”
Salomo Vaara looked at his son in silence.
”Of course. Go ahead.”
Arvo looked around the room, to the men who had gone quiet.
”Alone. Please, Father.”
A moment passed. And then Salomo Vaara stood up, slowly.
”Very well.”
”I am sorry, gentlemen. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Arvo and Salomo left the room filled with cigar smoke and walked together to the older Vaara’s study. When in the room, the man with the steel-rimmed round spectacles sat down behind his big oaken desk and steepled his fingers.”
”All right son. Sit down.”
Arvo took a seat in front of the desk. The room was uncomfortably silent, and the younger man could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
”So, you have been giving some thought to letting go of this military silliness and coming back home to look after the farm?”, the master of the Vaara household asked his oldest son, with a slight hint of hope in his eyes.
Salomo Vaara had not at all liked that his son had embarked on a military career, and he had let Arvo know this. Quite vocally, and several times. In Salomo’s opinion, the place of his first-born son was here, learning to become his successor after the older Vaara could no longer look after his domain. After Veli had gone through his conversion to Social Democracy, Salomo had redoubled his efforts to make Arvo return home.
To no avail.
And now, now Salomo believed that the reason Arvo came to him now, the overriding reason he had to discuss with his father on the evening of his 50th birthday, even while the man had important visitors, was caused by him deciding on abandoning his dreams.
Arvo shook his head.
”No, Father”, he said slowly, ”I am still holding on to my vow to serve and defend the Fatherland, and I am still committed to be a career military officer.”
Arvo saw his father’s face shift to a harder countenance. The silence in the room was ominous.
”Father… I came to ask your help. I am very good at what I do, you know it. But being a military officer, and all it entails… It is very expensive. The uniforms, the gear, upholding my social position in Lappeenranta, and so on…. It costs a lot of money.”
Salomo Vaara’s eyes narrowed.
”Surely the Finnish state is paying you, well, a salary, son?”
”Well, yes. But it is a pittance, a niggardly compensation for the work of men who would put their lives on the line for Finland to defend the nation against our enemies.”
Arvo went silent for a while, and looked at his father who was regarding him with an icy stare.
”In fact, Father, due to all my expenses, I have already accumulated some debt, and I am finding it impossible to stay… afloat financially with these expenditures and this income.”
Salomo Vaara’s eyes flashed in anger.
”So – reduce your expenditures! It’s basic household economy, boy!”
Arvo felt like grinding his teeth together. A rage was starting to boil inside him.
”I can not. That is the problem. I must either get more money, to pay off my debts and continue to be able to pay my expenses… Or then I must give up my position as an officer in the Finnish Army. These are the only options.”
”Well then”, the old man said, ”it seems that the decision is made for you. Come back home.”
Arvo felt like jumping up from the chair and shouting to his father. He barely restrained himself.
”No. Please, Father. I ask of you – help me to pay my debts so I can continue my career, for the good of the Fatherland, and to bring respect to the Vaara name, too. I am not a quitter and a coward.”
Salomo Vaara’s stare was now drilling holes into his son, or that was how it felt like to the cavalry lieutenant.
”So, son. How much would you need?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Arvo Vaara thought. Too late to stop now.
”100 000 marks.”
His father did a double-take and experienced as he was in financial matters, his eyes went wider.
”One hundred thousand? Jesus Christ, are you serious? That’s four years’ wages for a good professional logger!”
”It is just enough for me to pay off my debt and continue to pay my way through the next year.”
Looking like a calculating automaton in human form, Salomo Vaara pulled a leather-bound ledger book out of a drawer, opened it and studied some figures for a while.
He then looked up, with a measuring look on his face.
”One hundred thousand is way too much. I’ll give you fifty thousand - ”
”Father, that is not...”
”50 000, no more. That should be enough to settle your outstanding debts. And it is a loan, you understand. I expect you to pay it back to me – in five years’ time.”
”Father, I...”
Salomo Vaara stood up from behind his big desk.
”Take it or leave it, Arvo. I am ready to do this much to preserve your precious military career. And to finance any unsavoury hobbies you might have, as well. Not many fathers would be ready to do that. I won’t even charge you interest. But that’s it. You won’t get one bit more. The rest is on you. ”
The old man continued to drill holes into his son with his spectacled eyes.
”And should you choose to come back to join us in taking care of the farm, committed to continue my work here… Well, then I am ready to forget the loan entirely.”
Lieutenant Arvo Vaara of the Häme Mounted Regiment sat frozen in the chair.
Inside him, rage continued to boil, even with hotter flames than before. His father had made him an offer, an offer in the form of a threat with a bribe baked into it.
Salomo Vaara was nothing if not a businessman.
But then Arvo knew his father well enough to understand that this would be the final offer.
There is no other option.
Feeling like a high pressure steam engine missing a safety valve, a red hot machine ready to explode, Arvo Vaara looked at his father and stood up.
”...Alright.”
”What are you saying, Arvo?”
”Alright! I’ll take your offer.”
Salomo Vaara nodded.
”I thought you would. I’ll draw up the papers.”
Arvo did not understand.
”Papers? Why do we need...”
Salomo Vaara looked at his son, with a poisonous glare in his eyes, and dipped his pen in to the ink pot.
”Of course we need papers. It is a real loan, son. In my eyes, and in the eyes of the law. After I finish writing it down, we’ll sign it….”
The old man kept scribbling while he spoke. Arvo knew that he wrote with a neat, meticulous, very distinct hand.
”...And then we’ll ask the men in the library to witness it.”
...
Notes:
[1] Vaaran kartano.
[2] Ignatius had been the provincial governor in Kuopio since August 1918. He has started his career as a civil servant already in the times of the Finnish Grand Duchy. During the Civil War he worked with the Finnish White government (the Svinhufvud Senate or the Vaasa Senate) and prior to leaving for Kuopio directed the effort of the courts that sentenced the Red prisoners in the postwar camps for treason. He also served as the minister of the interior in 1925-1926.
Six: Arvo
Lieutenant Arvo Vaara of the Häme Mounted Regiment took a deep breath, inhaling fresh August country air. It was full of the scents of high summer, and then already laced with an undertone of inevitable corruption and subtle hints of the fall.
Arvo had taken Emma Kerman back to the dance in the hayloft and left her with the rest of the young people of the village. He thought Emma was a nice girl, she was literally the quintessential girl next door, and it had been a pleasure to see her again after several months of not visiting Hirvilahti. Emma was pretty and she had character. A few close dances and a bit of kissing - why not?
But beyond that, though, Arvo was not really interested in the girl. He had a girlfriend in Lappeenranta as it was. And besides, he didn't have the time right now. At the moment the young man had a lot bigger fish to fry.
He lit up a cigarette and started walking towards the farm's main building, the big two-storied farmhouse his father had bought in a slightly run-down condition, repaired and then enlarged over the years. By now, it was the biggest and finest house in the village, earning among many the moniker "the Vaara Manor"[1]. Salomo Vaara hated it when people called it that himself - he still fancied himself a small farmer, not as the lord of a manor, even though his holdings were by now some of the biggest in Hirvilahti and the nearby villages as well. The old man had used his information about which landowners were in debt or otherwise financially inconvenienced and done some good deals for farmland and forest over the years. The main part of the farm he had been able to buy for a song over 20 years ago, from the farm's drunkard heir who by now was living in a rented room in Kuopio, subsisting on odd jobs in between his repeated benders.
Feeling animated both by the alcohol in his veins and his success with Emma, Arvo flicked the cigarette butt away and strode towards the main entrance, his boots hitting the front steps hard. Walking on, he soon arrived in the main hall. In the big room the like of which was the heart of most Finnish farmhouses, he then spotted his mother sitting in a corner with four other women, chatting. The ladies turned to look at him when he entered.
"Good evening, ladies, Mother", he said with a carrying voice, and then realized it was probably a bit too loud. He was not taking cavalrymen out for a drill, now.
"Ah, Arvo", his mother said, her face slightly red. She had by now partaken in a bit of punch herself.
She turned towards the ladies.
"My son Arvo, the lieutenant. Oh, but you met him already before."
The women nodded in unison, and smiled to the young officer.
"Your sons are so handsome, Mrs. Vaara", the oldest one of them said, "and so brisk and manly, too. You've done a good job raising them, you and your husband both."
Alma Vaara beamed.
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Heikkinen", she told her and then turned her eyes towards her son.
"Arvo, could you join us for a moment - the ladies would like to ask you something about life in the military..."
Arvo smiled and then looked around.
"Maybe later, Mother. Right now, I need to see Father. Where could I find him?"
While the four ladies looked disappointed, Alma Vaara nodded towards the left.
"He's in the library with the gentlemen."
"Thank you, Mother", Arvo said, pulled himself up to attention and smiled and nodded to the five women.
"Ladies."
Only now, when he walked towards the library room, did Arvo start feeling apprehension about his business with his father tonight. Only now, was his bravery sapped a little. He could feel some cold sweat start rising to his forehead.
Damn.
The library room was one of the most recent additions to the big farmhouse. In the recent enlargement, Salomo Vaara had wanted to create for himself a slightly more public room than his personal office was, for leisure as well as for receiving guests - for occasions very much like this. That it should be, specifically, a library, was probably an attempt to boost the impression of himself as a man of letters, a self-taught intellectual as well as a successful small farmer and a primus motor of provincial cooperative banking. A true self-made man.
A real man to look up to, the words of Heikkinen's speech still rang in Arvo's ears when he entered the room.
Inside, four men sat around a table, surrounded by bookcases. Two of them were smoking cigars and all had cognac glasses in front of them. One more man sat in the corner, absentmindedly holding a glass and listening to the conversation.
"...what you print in your so-called newspaper!", a thin man in his sixties was telling a lively-looking younger man, pointing his cigar at him.
"I say, really! Like during the elections – pure drivel, utter vilification and calumny!"
The younger man merely smiled and spread his hands.
"If you are not happy with the editorial line of the Savon Sanomat, you can always send a letter to the editor. I promise that it will get published the very same day!", he said and winked.
It appeared that some of the most influential guests were still left - the cream of the crop. The man seemingly riled up about the quality of the local press was Edvard Lyytinen - a school teacher and the long-time chairman of the Kuopio town council. A member of the National Coalition Party. And the younger man was Martti Suhonen, the director of the Savon Sanomat Press company, the strong man behind the ideologically Agrarian, growing local newspaper.
In the farthest corner, the older, stout and balding man looked at the two men arguing and smiled a slightly inebriated smile. This was, Arvo knew, Gustaf Ignatius, the long-time governor of the Kuopio Province, a man who it was said was just due to retire from his post among the strange and crafty Savonians and leave Kuopio to return to his family home in the nation's capital.[2]
Ignatius was the first to notice the man in the doorway.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen", the old man said with a widening smile, "if you won't settle down, I will ask the lieutenant here for a military intervention - as my position still empowers me to do, should the situation otherwise prove untenable."
Now all the others turned their eyes towards Arvo, too, including the man of the hour himself.
Salomo Vaara leaned into the light and looked at his son.
"Arvo. Good of you to join us. Take a seat and pour yourself a drink."
Arvo was surprised about his fathers invitation to join the gentlemen in the library, and not in a bad way. Under ordinary circumstances, he might have even accepted the offer. Now, though… Now he had to follow his plan as long as he had the willpower left to go through with it.
There’s no other way out.
”Good evening, gentlemen”, he said, trying out a smile, and then paused for a while.
”...And thank you for the offer, Father. But no thank you, not right now. Ahem…. If it’s alright, I’d like to speak to you.”
Salomo Vaara looked at his son in silence.
”Of course. Go ahead.”
Arvo looked around the room, to the men who had gone quiet.
”Alone. Please, Father.”
A moment passed. And then Salomo Vaara stood up, slowly.
”Very well.”
”I am sorry, gentlemen. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Arvo and Salomo left the room filled with cigar smoke and walked together to the older Vaara’s study. When in the room, the man with the steel-rimmed round spectacles sat down behind his big oaken desk and steepled his fingers.”
”All right son. Sit down.”
Arvo took a seat in front of the desk. The room was uncomfortably silent, and the younger man could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
”So, you have been giving some thought to letting go of this military silliness and coming back home to look after the farm?”, the master of the Vaara household asked his oldest son, with a slight hint of hope in his eyes.
Salomo Vaara had not at all liked that his son had embarked on a military career, and he had let Arvo know this. Quite vocally, and several times. In Salomo’s opinion, the place of his first-born son was here, learning to become his successor after the older Vaara could no longer look after his domain. After Veli had gone through his conversion to Social Democracy, Salomo had redoubled his efforts to make Arvo return home.
To no avail.
And now, now Salomo believed that the reason Arvo came to him now, the overriding reason he had to discuss with his father on the evening of his 50th birthday, even while the man had important visitors, was caused by him deciding on abandoning his dreams.
Arvo shook his head.
”No, Father”, he said slowly, ”I am still holding on to my vow to serve and defend the Fatherland, and I am still committed to be a career military officer.”
Arvo saw his father’s face shift to a harder countenance. The silence in the room was ominous.
”Father… I came to ask your help. I am very good at what I do, you know it. But being a military officer, and all it entails… It is very expensive. The uniforms, the gear, upholding my social position in Lappeenranta, and so on…. It costs a lot of money.”
Salomo Vaara’s eyes narrowed.
”Surely the Finnish state is paying you, well, a salary, son?”
”Well, yes. But it is a pittance, a niggardly compensation for the work of men who would put their lives on the line for Finland to defend the nation against our enemies.”
Arvo went silent for a while, and looked at his father who was regarding him with an icy stare.
”In fact, Father, due to all my expenses, I have already accumulated some debt, and I am finding it impossible to stay… afloat financially with these expenditures and this income.”
Salomo Vaara’s eyes flashed in anger.
”So – reduce your expenditures! It’s basic household economy, boy!”
Arvo felt like grinding his teeth together. A rage was starting to boil inside him.
”I can not. That is the problem. I must either get more money, to pay off my debts and continue to be able to pay my expenses… Or then I must give up my position as an officer in the Finnish Army. These are the only options.”
”Well then”, the old man said, ”it seems that the decision is made for you. Come back home.”
Arvo felt like jumping up from the chair and shouting to his father. He barely restrained himself.
”No. Please, Father. I ask of you – help me to pay my debts so I can continue my career, for the good of the Fatherland, and to bring respect to the Vaara name, too. I am not a quitter and a coward.”
Salomo Vaara’s stare was now drilling holes into his son, or that was how it felt like to the cavalry lieutenant.
”So, son. How much would you need?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Arvo Vaara thought. Too late to stop now.
”100 000 marks.”
His father did a double-take and experienced as he was in financial matters, his eyes went wider.
”One hundred thousand? Jesus Christ, are you serious? That’s four years’ wages for a good professional logger!”
”It is just enough for me to pay off my debt and continue to pay my way through the next year.”
Looking like a calculating automaton in human form, Salomo Vaara pulled a leather-bound ledger book out of a drawer, opened it and studied some figures for a while.
He then looked up, with a measuring look on his face.
”One hundred thousand is way too much. I’ll give you fifty thousand - ”
”Father, that is not...”
”50 000, no more. That should be enough to settle your outstanding debts. And it is a loan, you understand. I expect you to pay it back to me – in five years’ time.”
”Father, I...”
Salomo Vaara stood up from behind his big desk.
”Take it or leave it, Arvo. I am ready to do this much to preserve your precious military career. And to finance any unsavoury hobbies you might have, as well. Not many fathers would be ready to do that. I won’t even charge you interest. But that’s it. You won’t get one bit more. The rest is on you. ”
The old man continued to drill holes into his son with his spectacled eyes.
”And should you choose to come back to join us in taking care of the farm, committed to continue my work here… Well, then I am ready to forget the loan entirely.”
Lieutenant Arvo Vaara of the Häme Mounted Regiment sat frozen in the chair.
Inside him, rage continued to boil, even with hotter flames than before. His father had made him an offer, an offer in the form of a threat with a bribe baked into it.
Salomo Vaara was nothing if not a businessman.
But then Arvo knew his father well enough to understand that this would be the final offer.
There is no other option.
Feeling like a high pressure steam engine missing a safety valve, a red hot machine ready to explode, Arvo Vaara looked at his father and stood up.
”...Alright.”
”What are you saying, Arvo?”
”Alright! I’ll take your offer.”
Salomo Vaara nodded.
”I thought you would. I’ll draw up the papers.”
Arvo did not understand.
”Papers? Why do we need...”
Salomo Vaara looked at his son, with a poisonous glare in his eyes, and dipped his pen in to the ink pot.
”Of course we need papers. It is a real loan, son. In my eyes, and in the eyes of the law. After I finish writing it down, we’ll sign it….”
The old man kept scribbling while he spoke. Arvo knew that he wrote with a neat, meticulous, very distinct hand.
”...And then we’ll ask the men in the library to witness it.”
...
Notes:
[1] Vaaran kartano.
[2] Ignatius had been the provincial governor in Kuopio since August 1918. He has started his career as a civil servant already in the times of the Finnish Grand Duchy. During the Civil War he worked with the Finnish White government (the Svinhufvud Senate or the Vaasa Senate) and prior to leaving for Kuopio directed the effort of the courts that sentenced the Red prisoners in the postwar camps for treason. He also served as the minister of the interior in 1925-1926.
- DrakonFin
- Word Count: 2.5k