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Twenty: Veli and Salomo

…

On a dotted line you'll find the name of a travelling man

That'll bend with the ground frost when it gets cold

...


Veli

Rope.

The thought of rope came into Veli's mind out of nowhere. A coil of good, sturdy rope.

What the heck, he thought and opened his eyes. Veli sat on the driver's seat in the wagon, holding the reins of Rusko the horse. He had been deep in his thoughts for a while, not really consciously trying to use the reins the direct the horse in any way. But Rusko knew where they were going, so it didn't matter.

Horses tend to know what they are doing.

It had been sort of a heavy week for Veli Vaara. There had been the last game of the pesäpallo season, played at the sports field by the Youth Association House. The weather had been somewhat rainy, but it didn't dampen the spirits of Veli and the other HiNsU players: they had won the game against the Kaislastenlahti team in a resounding fashion and secured the club's promotion to the Provincial League for the 1940 season.

What really did hurt the spirits of the young men and women of Hirvilahti, though, were the damages many farms had suffered due to the Sylvi Storm. On Wednesday, a village meeting had been called at the Youth Association House to discuss the issue. When it became clear that there would most likely not be government action to relieve the financial losses of farmers, at least not in the near future, it had been agreed that the villagers would try to help those who had lost the most in mutual effort.

It practically meant that there would be even more work bees organized across the village than during an ordinary harvest season, to fix the practical damages the storm had done and to try to save as much of the crops as was possible. The idea that those who had suffered only slight damage to their crops would share some grain with those with worst losses was also floated, and it gained grudging support. To Veli's chagrin, his father had stood up then, to make the point of mentioning that all such help should be noted in a common ledger and any grain thus provided then reimbursed from the next year's harvest. On top of that, Salomo Vaara even mentioned how some farmers in the village already were in debt to others and that it should be made certain that any outstanding debts are paid promptly when they are due.

Veli Vaara didn't really like the looks some of the villagers gave him after his father's little speech.

And so, in the days after the village meeting, Veli Vaara had gone out of his way to help others to fix storm damage as much as possible. Together with the work he needed to do back in Vaarala, itself increased due to the storm, it had made for a rough few days. So, it wasn't strange at all that Veli might be in a risk of nodding off into slumberland as he sat there on the driver's perch, the horse leading the wagon slowly towards home.

Behind Veli in the wagon there sat Jorma and one of the two Kerman boys, Kalle. Predictably called "Pikku-Kalle" [1] as his father was also Kaarlo by his given name, Kalle was one of Jorma's best friends in the village, and there was a friendly sort of rivalry going on between the boys in many things. The two boys had been talking animatedly about pesäpallo just some minutes ago, but now it was quiet in the back of the wagon as well.

Had the boys fallen asleep, too?

For Veli, though, there was still some ways to go before he could stumble into his bed. There was one last stop he needed to take before actually heading home. At the crossroads, the tired man turned the horse and the wagon right, towards the Hyvärinen farm. Heikki Hyvärinen had been one of the farmers suffering most damage due to the storm, and by now there had been no time to help him. So now Veli had thought to drop the man a visit to tell him to hang in there, to assure him that they would get around to helping him in a day or two.

It was already starting to get a little dark when Veli stopped the wagon in front of the modest Hyvärinen farmhouse and climbed the front step to enter the building. Knocking a couple of time on the door, he entered into the hall.

”Come on in”, he heard a woman's voice from the biggest room [2] in the house, or, well, a cottage, really.

As Veli entered the room, he found the woman behind the voice. It was Heikki's wife, Kaisa, a slight woman who kept her hair in a very long single braid. Some called her ”Kyy-Kaisa” behind her back [3], and it wasn't because of this single braid. It was because of her poisonous tongue.

Sitting there on the bench, Kaisa was nursing her youngest, a tiny but loud baby by the name of Sampo.

”Good evening, Kaisa”, Veli said, removing his cap, ”is the master of the house [4] home?”

Kaisa looked at the visitor and gave him a crooked smile.

”Hah. Some master of the house it is, indeed. Heikki's out fixing the granary, ain't he? For all the good it'll do us.”

It was all classic Kaisa. Sometimes, Veli wondered what it felt like to be that woman's child. By all accounts, what ever came out of her breasts must have been so bitter that it was hardly good for you.

Veli didn't want to even consider what being married to her felt like.

Veli nodded to the mistress of the Hyvärinen household.

”I'll look for him out there, then.”

Veli took off across the darkening yard, glancing at the wagon as he did so. Rusko gave him a thoughtful look, but otherwise it was all quiet.

The two boys were sleeping, Veli thought and smiled to himself.

The granary was not far. Approaching it in the growing gloom, Veli saw that the storm wind had done a number to the rather rickety building's roof. Half of it had come tumbling down. He went around the collapsed part, and there he could finally find Heikki. The farmer was sitting on a stump of a log, apparently staring into the fields. Veli walked into what he thought was Heikki's line of sight, but it elicited no response in the man. Seconds passed. Finally, Veli cleared his throat.

”Ahem, Heikki”, he said.

Slowly, the man snapped out of what ever it was.

”Veli Vaara”, he said, in a dark voice that sounded off somehow, ”well, fancy that.”.

Veli felt unwelcome, somehow.

”Am I interrupting something?”, he asked, shifting his weight to his right foot.

Heikki Hyvärinen stood up.

”Oh, you're interrupting nothing at all...”

The man took a few steps towards him.

”Except the lone thoughts of a ruined man”, Heikki said, with a nearly breaking voice.

Now, closer, Veli thought it looked like the man had been crying.

”Your father was here a few hours ago”, Heikki said.

What the hell, Veli thought, I thought he had agreed with me that I could handle matters with Heikki myself?

”...And he told me that if I won't make my September payment in full and in time, like we originally agreed...”

Heikki stressed those words, and Veli thought he could hear his father's voice behind them.

”...He will move to seek foreclosure on the farm.”

Veli immediately understood what that meant. It was all visible in the look Heikki gave to him then.

”Because of losing my crops, I can't afford my September payment, not even the reduced one I agreed with you last month. I cant' get any additional debt anywhere, not in these conditions... And so, thanks to the great Salomo Vaara”, Heikki said, and now there was an angry edge to the man's voice, something Veli did not expect from the usually quiet and timid man at all.

”...I'll either need to sell my farm to be able to pay at least some of my debt, or just wait that he takes it away from me through a compulsory auction. The end result of both is the same – me and Kaisa and the kids, thrown out on the street, without a roof over our heads.”

Veli looked at Heikki, his hands clenched in fists, obviously beside himself. Now a measure of the man's anger had started catching him, too.

”Listen, Heikki”, the son of Salomo Vaara said to the farmer, ”I won't accept that. My old man can't do that to you.”

He stepped closer to Heikki and put a hand on his shoulder, in a gesture he thought was reassuring.

”I'll talk to him as soon as I get home. Heikki, I'll do all that I can to make him change his mind.”

Veli tried to put a smile on his face.

”It'll be all right”, he said earnestly to the older man, the father of three small children, ”I promise.”

Veli Vaara walked to the wagon briskly, with his anger giving more strength to his feet. He grabbed the reins with some force, too.

The dark countryside was now only lit by a waning moon in a cloudless sky.

”Home, Rusko. We're going home now”, he said to the horse.

…


Salomo

The chairman of the board of the Kuopio rural municipality sat in silence in his study. Outside, the evening of the third day of September was falling. It had been a gorgeous sunset, all made in various shades of red, from pink to blood. Salomo Vaara, though, had seen none of it. He had other things on his mind.

It was a matter of faith to the man that one had to keep oneself appraised of what was going on in the world. Salomo Vaara read the papers religiously. Two newspapers arrived to the Vaara farm, as did the weekly magazine Suomen Kuvalehti [5]. The man did make it clear to his children as well that following the events of the world was one of the major ingredients of making one an informed, independent thinker and a capable citizen of an independent republic, besides.

Vaara didn't mind if his children did read books as well. But he was rather partial to non-fiction. ”Everyone can make up stories that are not true”, he would tell the other members of the Vaara household, ”and so it is more, nay, most important to read the products of those who write of real things, of the sciences, of technology, of business and the economy, rather than those who make up comforting fairy tales or pamphlets full of political agitation”.

Vaara believed that he was a man of reality, a man of truth.

This week, Salomo Vaara had been reading the papers with even more interest and urgency than was usual. It was due to what was happening in Europe. The unthinkable had happened, and war had broken out. On his desk, Vaara had yesterday's Helsingin Sanomat.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN A STATE OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY AS OF YESTERDAY.

The German government has refused to call its troops back from Poland.

No news yet of military action in the west.

Salomo Vaara had bought Adolf Hitler's book some years ago. He was impressed how the man and his party had managed to raise Germany out of the prostration the great nation had found itself in after the Great War. Building German industry, building great highways, rebuilding German national pride... Salomo Vaara had been a friend of Germany and German culture since he was a boy, when Finland still was under the heel of imperial Russia. After Finland had gained independence, and after Germany had helped the young nation drive away the threat of the Red Ruskies, Vaara had been sorry to see Germany lose the war and have to accept heavy and demeaning peace terms, dictated by the victorious powers. The British and the French, especially – they had been bloodthirsty like hyenas. It was no surprise to Salomo Vaara, then, that the German people had risen against the injustice and chosen for itself a leadership that could shake off the shackles the nation had been put in. The shackles of Versailles.

As for Hitler's book itself – Vaara had been unimpressed. The man might be a great orator, but as an author he left something to be desired. It was rambling, and it was not wholly logical. Vaara agreed with the gist of it, though, as he understood it – Germany would need to reclaim its place in the sun. But then Vaara did not agree with all of the beliefs of the so-called National Socialists, of course. He was at core a supporter of democracy. Then, at the same time, he understood the need to keep the Reds down, to control the revolutionary threat to a law-abiding society. Whether the Germans had gone too far under Hitler's leadership, well, time would tell, he had told himself only some time ago. Maybe it was just a phase in the development of Germany towards bigger and better things.

But this, this was taking things too far. A war against Poland, and apparently with both Britain and France in league with the Poles, to boot? Vaara was not at all sure there was any rhyme or reason to it.

The bald man had felt angry and off-centre for almost two weeks now – due to the ill health of the president, first, and then due to the bloody accident that had claimed so many of the nation's top leaders. Not least Juho Niukkanen, an accomplished stalwart of the Agrarian League and a politician Vaara could feel was a definite asset to his party.

And then there had been the German-Soviet Treaty. Madness. What Europe should be doing would be to agree for a joint front against Stalin and his Red armies. As far as Salomo Vaara was concerned, under Hitler Germany had taken a wrong turn – come to an actual agreement with the most dangerous dictator of the day, the bloody oppressor Josef Stalin. It was nothing short of a betrayal for Western values and the civilized spirit of Europe – especially if the agreement meant that Germany had abandoned smaller nations to the Soviets as was rumoured.

Practically, though, the main thing that made Salomo Vaara ill at ease was the storm that had, in his view, ended the summer in North Savonia. The storm had destroyed much, nay, most of Vaarala's crops. And only days before the harvest work was due to start. It was an unmitigated disaster for the farm. Vaara had attended a meeting of the Kuopio Agrarians, and he had argued hard for state support for the farms that had suffered from the Sylvi Storm. Beginning with the bigger farms, of course, as like he was wont to think, the rationally-run and well-organised major farms were the backbone of the Finnish countryside. Let those farms fail, and you risk the well-being of the entire farming profession in Finland. Some smaller farms would have to fail, perhaps, but the viable bulk of the best farms of the land would have to be protected from the ill effects of the sudden natural disaster.

To cushion the losses of Vaarala, Salomo Vaara had decided to expedite the repayment of some of the loans he had given to other farms in Hirvilahti and the neighbouring villages. Just this spring, he had bought some more forest land to increase his holdings, and now his cash reserves were unconfortably low. Lower still after the sizable loan he had given to his son the lieutenant, against his better judgement. As Vaara did not want to sell his land to make up for the farm's financial losses (after all, under the circumstances he would most likely lose money in comparison to the purchase prices), right now the most palatable option was to get back some of the money other people owed him.

It was, after all, his money. And a part of the inheritance of his children, besides. A part of what the Vaarala farm was. Salomo Vaara wanted to leave a legacy.

This afternoon, Vaara had already visited some of the villagers that owed him money, to tell them that they were expected to pay off their debts according to the deal they had originally made with him. As of late, Vaara had allowed his son Veli help him manage some of these financial matters, and it occurred to him now that Veli had been rather too lenient with some of them.

Time to get things back on track, then.

In the view of Salomo Vaara, one of the most important things was trust. People needed to trust you, and you needed to trust people. That is what made society work, at the very base of it. And how can you make people trust you? You keep your word. If you make promises, you keep them.

A man who can't keep his word is not a man at all.

The men Salomo Vaara had loaned money to had given their word that they would repay him. It was all in writing, all in black and white, signed, sealed and notarised. It was as clear-cut as it was.

There was nothing ambiguous about it.

Salomo Vaara was pouring himself a glass of brandy and looking at a piece of news in the paper, about the official opening of the Eduskunta's fall session, with a photo of President Kallio in his wheelchair and the Speaker, Hakkila, when something startled him.

It was the telephone. At this hour of the evening, too.

The Vaarala household was one of the first ones in the village to get its own telephone, only a few years ago. Salomo Vaara had been the main proponent of drawing the phone line to the village, and he had also footed most of the bill. The marvel of the new age had been a subject of many discussions and frequent visits to Vaarala during the first year.

Now, Salomo Vaara picked up the receiver to hear from the operator that there was a long-distance call for him.

”Salomo, it is Pekka Heikkinen here”, the voice in the other end of the line said, ”I am sorry to bother you at this hour, but I have an important message to you...”

Salomo Vaara cocked his head and listened what the chairman of the Agrarian League had to say.

It wasn't a very long call, but it did give Salomo Vaara something to think about. The bald man was not yet ready with his thinking when he heard a determined knock on the door. Before he had the time to say anything, his son Veli walked, no, barged into the room.

”Father, I need to talk to you”, the young man said with a determined voice. There was an unusual edge to him, Salomo thought.

”Good”, Salomo Vaara said, ”there is something I need to tell you as well.”

He looked at the bottle on the table.

”Care for a glass of brandy, son?”

…


The man sat alone in the gloom. The darkness had fallen now, and he was all alone. It was not just dark outside, it was also dark inside the man, a deep, everpresent black that felt like it was sucking all life out of him.

Standing up, the man reached out for the coil of rope next to him, and then climbed on the wooden ladder on his right to attach the end of the rope to the beam above.

He had already made the noose beforehand.

Heikki Hyvärinen thought of his wife and his three little children as he stood there on the swaying ladder, his right hand holding on to the beam.

They are better off without me.

Tears were running down his cheeks now.

Heikki felt the coarse surface of the manila rope with his left hand. It was a good, sturdy rope.

As the man started putting his head through the noose, he suddenly saw the face of a younger man floating in front of his eyes.

”It'll be all right”, the man said and smiled, ”I promise.”

Slowly, Heikki lifted the noose off his head and let it fall loose. Then, he climbed down from the ladder and lay down on the ground, still crying.

Only a waning moon, shining through a hole in the roof, shed its light on a man who would not die tonight.

…

And the road is black, but the traveller's mood would be blacker

If the moon didn't shine its silver

Under the darkening skies

….​

View attachment 387613

"EVERYWHERE THEY'RE WAITING
these days for the Ilta-Sanomat to be published. The paper's fresh and trustworthy news from the war theatres of Europe have caused a massive growth in circulation. The effect of Ilta-Sanomat advertising has also increased to the same extent. Advertise in the Ilta-Sanomat and you are advertising effectively and affordably."

A front-page advert in the Helsingin Sanomat, 5th September 1939.

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