The Land of Sad Songs – Stories From Protect and Survive Finland
- Thread starter DrakonFin
- Start date
Really ?
I thought they'd have a few turboprops left and that would be it. Nearly 30 years after such a catastrophy and with limited domestic and global industries restored, I severely doubt anyone would have the spare parts or time to start repairing or building jets.
I think that it depends on how much the planes are used and how important it is considered to keep even a small number of them operational as long as possible. If they for some reason want to fly a lot with a (comparatively) lot of planes in the 80s, I doubt planes would survive even beyond the early 90s. On the other hand, if only a small number of planes of one or two types is in use, and only a few hours per month/year, then the rest could be kept in storage and that might mean some could remain serviceable into the 2000's.
Sweden will have retained some capabilities for building and maintaining aircraft, and could help with keeping at least some of the Drakens flying. And the Vinka is a domestic product and if the plant that made it survived, even new parts for the planes could be made for some time. There would be also capabilities to maintain the Hawk as it was built locally. They would also have at least some stocks of spare parts at Halli for different planes, especially the Vinka and the Hawk.
The main problem might be with parts that don't "keep" but would degrade naturally over time, even if not in use, and could not be obtained anywhere. Not being an expert I don't know which parts these would be, though. At least things to do with the electronic systems, I'd imagine. Also obtaining the right fuels, oils and soforth would present problems.
Maybe someone with more expertise than me could weigh in?
If I chop the firewood smaller
We can warm the cottage
If I can connect the lights
Pushing the plug to the wall
Feeling by hand in the dark
It thaws the mittens too
The whole sauna cabin burns down
As I again got us into trouble
(chorus)
(Oh no) How can we last through the winter?
(Oh no) Where the hell do we wash our hair?
(Oh no) At least we can wash our clothes in the lake
(Oh no) Or is the lake frozen over too?
(Oh no) And where to we hang them in the cold?
(Oh no) So desolate and dark is the winter night
...
Leevi and the Leavings: Koko talvi kesämökillä (1990)
XXVIII. So Desolate and Dark is the Winter Night(PART I)
Interview nr. 248, 17.03.2010. JHA.
Subject: Man, 60 (M192)
Occupation in 1984: Electrical Engineer
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[The subject is an older man of normal weight. He is pale to the point of looking sickly. He wears dark trousers and a cardigan with a FNA Ministry of Transport and Communications ID pinned at the front].
[Thank you for taking part in this interview and our project, sir. You did sign the papers, right?]
Yes I did, after my department head looked them over first. Please remember that I can't talk about anything to do with my current job, just what happened at the time of the Exchange and immediately after that.
[Yes, I understand your position. You can talk about what ever you like; in fact anything beyond the late 80s is altogether outside the scope of our project.]
I see. [Looks relieved] So, where do we start? [Sips from a mug of tea.]
[Could you tell me what you remember from early 1984? Before the Exchange, I mean.]
Well.. I was working with the Wärtsilä shipyard in Helsinki, had been for some years. I was designing parts of the electric systems for the ships we were building. Part of that work was of course ordered from subcontractors, but some of it was made in-house too. Wärtsilä was a big and important company, then, and seeing strong growth. Me and my wife, Anja, had just moved to our new house in in Espoo. Tapiola, that is. My older daughter had started school there in the fall.
[How did the threat of war affect your work?]
It played merry hell with the work situation at the shipyard, I can tell you that. Beginning from September 1983, projects had been postponed and then cancelled altogether. This affected especially the ships we were making to the Soviets at the time. And then there were the sudden refits we had to make on passenger ships and icebreakers, from November and December. At the same time, of course, we were losing workers and designers to the Defence Forces and other state organisations. But like I said, we were an important company, and could use that to hold on to a lot of qualified personnel.
[Your bosses had some pull with the state authorities, you mean?]
You could say that. Wärtsilä was in an important position when it came to many economic and technical aspects of the mobilization. That is what saved me, probably.
[What do you mean?]
In January our department had only half the number of people working there as normally would have been, due to the war. And it seemed the work on the shipyard was being discontinued entirely, for the time being. I had not been called up by the Defence Forces, probably because I had been a Navy conscript and there was a lot less need for naval personnel at the time. So, one day in mid-January I was talking to some of my colleagues by the water cooler when the department head, an old guy due to retire that year, came around and escorted me to his office. He made a show of closing the door as we got in. He told me that he had received an order from upper management to choose people from his department to be placed on official evacuation lists, to be sent to the countryside. The company, you see, could do that. And I was one of the people my boss had chosen, from a shortlist; he said his decision was unnegotiable. ”Think of it as a holiday”, he said and patted my shoulder.
I, of course, did not think the situation was all that bad that it would call for leaving behind my home and my job. How wrong can one be, you could say now. But then most people believed that there would be no war. Amazing as that sounds now. So I was angry for what had been decided for me. They still say those evacuations were ”voluntary”. Voluntary my ass. When they sent people away from Helsinki in January 1984, it was all about the state and a handful of important companies attempting to cover their behinds by stashing away a part of what they thought was key personnel. As I realized that sending me away meant that someone considered me important it stroked my ego a bit, admittedly. But I was still mad when I got home and told my family. They, you see, would be coming too.
[How was the evacuation handled in practice?]
We were told to pack up and gather at selected places, to wait for a bus. The amount of stuff we could take along was quite small – when my wife heard that, she also became mad. A delayed response, I'd say. And the bus took us and our meagre belongings to the railway station where a specially scheduled train was waiting to take us north. The train was not full, not by a longshot. And there was not a lot of waiting. What I heard, it was quite different for the later evacuations. [Clears his throat] Say, do you mind if I go and get another mug of tea? My throat's a bit sore.
[Not at all, go ahead.]
Would you like something?
[No thank you.]
...
[So, we were talking about the evacuation. Where were you taken to?]
The train dropped us off at Mäntyharju, a bit south of here, and again we boarded a bus to continue our journey. We were taken to the municipal hall where there was a sort of briefing. The local mayor and the chief of Civil Defence bid us welcome. There was coffee, and sweet rolls. [Takes off his glasses ans wipes them off] So civilized and matter of fact, it was. A different world indeed. [Shakes his head.]
[What do you mean?]
We knew so little of what would come. It was like we were just playing this game called National Emergency. Everyone was suitably solemn, sure. Reserved and efficient, after a fashion. But we really had no idea what we were getting into. We were divided into groups and each was assigned a local member of Civil Defence as a contact person. Ours was a youngish woman, a local teacher. She was very nice and you could see she was the type of person that ran things in these kinds of places. Knowledgeable, resourceful and level-headed. No children. Her husband was a teacher, too, but being a reserve officer he had been called to the army in December.
We were taken outside the municipality centre and to our new home – a wood-warmed summer cottage. It was not exactly what I had expected, and Anja was stunned to see it. Elisa, our local minder, was also a bit apologetic about it. But there was nothing to be done about it – this is where would live from now on, until further notice. For our hygiene needs, there was a separate sauna cottage and an outhouse. We had the needed kitchen utensils and things made ready for us, there was firewood and a water pump. A pantry full of food, and Elisa told us that there was a place where we could get more food and necessaria, only couple of kilometers from the cottage. ”And do remember your rationing cards”, she said smiling smartly before she left to take care of other new arrivals.
To be honest, while Anja was gloomy and even cried that night, and so did your younger daughter, for me it really was a bit like being on holiday. I realized it after a few days of playing with my kids and reading them old Donald Duck magazines I had found in a corner, carrying firewood, making food on the stove and keeping the cottage and the sauna warm. I kept the radio closed, those days, and I guess I could escape what was happening in the world for just a while.
Another family from the capital area had set up in the next cottage, and we got to know them while doing things together. Jorma, the father, was somewhat older than me. He was an engineer too, with Mobira, engaged with that new line of work... walkie-talkies or mobile telephony, one might call it. It was cutting edge stuff, and I couldn't quite understand what it exactly was he was doing. I have a better idea now. He was taking the evacuation pretty badly, being irritable and snappy at first, but later sort of... resigned. [Takes off his glasses and wipes them again.] Our kids played together on the yard while I spent one afternoon after the sauna draining a bottle of brandy with him. His boss had given it to him as a going away present. After the bottle was empty, Jorma suddenly threw it to the wall, startling me. I took it as my que to leave.
[Subject stays quiet for a while, staring at the wall.]
[So were you still at the cottage during the war and the Exchange?]
[Subject looks as if just returning from somewhere far away. Nods.]
Yes. Jorma listened to the news religiously, and after he tipped me off I also opened the radio and after that knew whatever was to be known through the YLE. A couple Civil Defence guys also came over to tell us and to help prepare our shelter – a simple cellar dug into the ground. Our neighbours had a similar one.
It was through the radio we got the news about the nuclear alarm. The shelter was ready, there was food and all we needed and in we went. When I was closing the door, I saw Jorma at the yard, with his wife and son. They just stood there, he smiled and raised his hand to greet me – I did the same before sealing us in to the dark cellar smelling of earth and mold.
And we spent more than two weeks down in the cellar. I admit I snuck out for a few minutes a day after the first fortnight or so. Our strict rationing regime worked, because when Elisa and a colleague came around to knock on the door and to tell us we could now spend some time per day outside or in the cottage, we still had some food left. I went together with our visitors to knock on the door of the neighbouring cellar. It opened when I knocked on it. There was no-one in the dark underground space.
When we returned to the yard, puzzled, we found the neighbouring cottage's curtains drawn and door locked. Feeling apprehensive, I knocked on the door. There was no answer.
[Had the neighbours left in the meanwhile?]
Oh, no. When we got inside after breaking the locked door with an axe, we found the family in the living room. Apparently, they had returned to have coffee, sweet rolls and brandy for the grown-ups. And after that, Jorma had... taken the old hunting rifle and... you know. [Shakes his head] An extended suicide, they would call it later. The Civil Defence guys, I mean. This wasn't the only one they saw when they went around to check on the houses and cottages those days. I made sure my daughters didn't see when the bodies were carried out.
[What happened after the Exchange?]
Life continued. We spent a part of the day in the shelter, but made food in the cabin and used the sauna, too. There was no electricity anywhere and no broadcasts on the radio. The only people we got any news from was Elisa and the locals. The news was both alarming and encouraging. Apparently, the nearby town of Kouvola had been bombed with a nuclear weapon and that there had been a lot of fallout. And that there had been a lot of bombs and missiles falling down in many other places. But on the other hand, the locals were in contact with the provincial centre in Mikkeli, some tens of kilometers away and it had not been bombed.
People had started arriving from the south, we were told, and they were very poorly off. The municipality was taking every available space into use to house them and to care for the sick and wounded. They were also asking us evacuees if anyone had first aid training and if we could come to the municipal centre to help. It was now harder to get food or anything else, really, even with rationing cards. A new family was brought to the neighbouring cabin. They seemed sick and shell-shocked but were seemingly otherwise alright. They didn't want to say anything about what had happened to them or where they had come from. I didn't press the issue.
So, days went on and everything seemed to slowly turn worse. There were now also soldiers coming from the south, looking like something out of a WWII documentary about the Eastern Front. Finnish soldiers, mind you, but sick, injured, weak and demoralised. They just drudged on throught the snow towards Mikkeli.
There was some fear there would be deserters who might use their weapons against the people to steal food. The locals started carrying rifles or other weapons as a rule. They were getting desperate, also in trying to help the arrivees. I saw Elise transform in a few weeks from a keen and competent organizer into a tired wreck of a woman looking almost like a zombie. Really. Me and Anja were helping the locals now, too, even if in just small ways. I volunteered to cut firewood for the municipality – had I not done that, I believe they would have ordered me to do something. It was heavy work, but I was still healthy and fit enough to do it, and I had warm clothes.I lost a lot of weight, nevertheless, with the food I was eating.
[How long were you living at the cottage?]
In the end, not for more than three weeks after we got up from the shelter. You see, one morning we woke up to someone banging on the door. I took the axe I had started to keep by the bed and went to open the door, just a bit. There were soldiers there, with a minibus behind them. Military police. I was confused about this sudden invasion, even moreso when the young Corporal raised his eyes from a stack of papers and asked if I was so and so, prattling off my social security number. These guys were here to get me, and others that had been evacuated the same time, specifically. They asked about Jorma, too, and were seemingly more concerned about not making it back with their full quota of engineers than about the death of a man and his family. They ordered me into their minibus and told my wife that I was being taken to Mikkeli and that another vehicle would come back later to bring her and the girls.
[And off you went. Say, I am sorry to stop you but can we continue this interview tomorrow? I am interested to know what happened to you later, but I am also sure we are both tired and hungry by now. I'll buy you something to eat at the canteen.]
Alright, I can live with that. Let's go, but don't forget your nice little recorder. Leave it here, and no-one will know where it disappeared during the night. This is the Ministry of Communications, after all. We are interested about these kinds of things.
[Thank you, I'll be sure to remember that.]
End of PART I - Stay tuned for PART II.
We can warm the cottage
If I can connect the lights
Pushing the plug to the wall
Feeling by hand in the dark
It thaws the mittens too
The whole sauna cabin burns down
As I again got us into trouble
(chorus)
(Oh no) How can we last through the winter?
(Oh no) Where the hell do we wash our hair?
(Oh no) At least we can wash our clothes in the lake
(Oh no) Or is the lake frozen over too?
(Oh no) And where to we hang them in the cold?
(Oh no) So desolate and dark is the winter night
...
Leevi and the Leavings: Koko talvi kesämökillä (1990)
XXVIII. So Desolate and Dark is the Winter Night(PART I)
Interview nr. 248, 17.03.2010. JHA.
Subject: Man, 60 (M192)
Occupation in 1984: Electrical Engineer
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[The subject is an older man of normal weight. He is pale to the point of looking sickly. He wears dark trousers and a cardigan with a FNA Ministry of Transport and Communications ID pinned at the front].
[Thank you for taking part in this interview and our project, sir. You did sign the papers, right?]
Yes I did, after my department head looked them over first. Please remember that I can't talk about anything to do with my current job, just what happened at the time of the Exchange and immediately after that.
[Yes, I understand your position. You can talk about what ever you like; in fact anything beyond the late 80s is altogether outside the scope of our project.]
I see. [Looks relieved] So, where do we start? [Sips from a mug of tea.]
[Could you tell me what you remember from early 1984? Before the Exchange, I mean.]
Well.. I was working with the Wärtsilä shipyard in Helsinki, had been for some years. I was designing parts of the electric systems for the ships we were building. Part of that work was of course ordered from subcontractors, but some of it was made in-house too. Wärtsilä was a big and important company, then, and seeing strong growth. Me and my wife, Anja, had just moved to our new house in in Espoo. Tapiola, that is. My older daughter had started school there in the fall.
[How did the threat of war affect your work?]
It played merry hell with the work situation at the shipyard, I can tell you that. Beginning from September 1983, projects had been postponed and then cancelled altogether. This affected especially the ships we were making to the Soviets at the time. And then there were the sudden refits we had to make on passenger ships and icebreakers, from November and December. At the same time, of course, we were losing workers and designers to the Defence Forces and other state organisations. But like I said, we were an important company, and could use that to hold on to a lot of qualified personnel.
[Your bosses had some pull with the state authorities, you mean?]
You could say that. Wärtsilä was in an important position when it came to many economic and technical aspects of the mobilization. That is what saved me, probably.
[What do you mean?]
In January our department had only half the number of people working there as normally would have been, due to the war. And it seemed the work on the shipyard was being discontinued entirely, for the time being. I had not been called up by the Defence Forces, probably because I had been a Navy conscript and there was a lot less need for naval personnel at the time. So, one day in mid-January I was talking to some of my colleagues by the water cooler when the department head, an old guy due to retire that year, came around and escorted me to his office. He made a show of closing the door as we got in. He told me that he had received an order from upper management to choose people from his department to be placed on official evacuation lists, to be sent to the countryside. The company, you see, could do that. And I was one of the people my boss had chosen, from a shortlist; he said his decision was unnegotiable. ”Think of it as a holiday”, he said and patted my shoulder.
I, of course, did not think the situation was all that bad that it would call for leaving behind my home and my job. How wrong can one be, you could say now. But then most people believed that there would be no war. Amazing as that sounds now. So I was angry for what had been decided for me. They still say those evacuations were ”voluntary”. Voluntary my ass. When they sent people away from Helsinki in January 1984, it was all about the state and a handful of important companies attempting to cover their behinds by stashing away a part of what they thought was key personnel. As I realized that sending me away meant that someone considered me important it stroked my ego a bit, admittedly. But I was still mad when I got home and told my family. They, you see, would be coming too.
[How was the evacuation handled in practice?]
We were told to pack up and gather at selected places, to wait for a bus. The amount of stuff we could take along was quite small – when my wife heard that, she also became mad. A delayed response, I'd say. And the bus took us and our meagre belongings to the railway station where a specially scheduled train was waiting to take us north. The train was not full, not by a longshot. And there was not a lot of waiting. What I heard, it was quite different for the later evacuations. [Clears his throat] Say, do you mind if I go and get another mug of tea? My throat's a bit sore.
[Not at all, go ahead.]
Would you like something?
[No thank you.]
...
[So, we were talking about the evacuation. Where were you taken to?]
The train dropped us off at Mäntyharju, a bit south of here, and again we boarded a bus to continue our journey. We were taken to the municipal hall where there was a sort of briefing. The local mayor and the chief of Civil Defence bid us welcome. There was coffee, and sweet rolls. [Takes off his glasses ans wipes them off] So civilized and matter of fact, it was. A different world indeed. [Shakes his head.]
[What do you mean?]
We knew so little of what would come. It was like we were just playing this game called National Emergency. Everyone was suitably solemn, sure. Reserved and efficient, after a fashion. But we really had no idea what we were getting into. We were divided into groups and each was assigned a local member of Civil Defence as a contact person. Ours was a youngish woman, a local teacher. She was very nice and you could see she was the type of person that ran things in these kinds of places. Knowledgeable, resourceful and level-headed. No children. Her husband was a teacher, too, but being a reserve officer he had been called to the army in December.
We were taken outside the municipality centre and to our new home – a wood-warmed summer cottage. It was not exactly what I had expected, and Anja was stunned to see it. Elisa, our local minder, was also a bit apologetic about it. But there was nothing to be done about it – this is where would live from now on, until further notice. For our hygiene needs, there was a separate sauna cottage and an outhouse. We had the needed kitchen utensils and things made ready for us, there was firewood and a water pump. A pantry full of food, and Elisa told us that there was a place where we could get more food and necessaria, only couple of kilometers from the cottage. ”And do remember your rationing cards”, she said smiling smartly before she left to take care of other new arrivals.
To be honest, while Anja was gloomy and even cried that night, and so did your younger daughter, for me it really was a bit like being on holiday. I realized it after a few days of playing with my kids and reading them old Donald Duck magazines I had found in a corner, carrying firewood, making food on the stove and keeping the cottage and the sauna warm. I kept the radio closed, those days, and I guess I could escape what was happening in the world for just a while.
Another family from the capital area had set up in the next cottage, and we got to know them while doing things together. Jorma, the father, was somewhat older than me. He was an engineer too, with Mobira, engaged with that new line of work... walkie-talkies or mobile telephony, one might call it. It was cutting edge stuff, and I couldn't quite understand what it exactly was he was doing. I have a better idea now. He was taking the evacuation pretty badly, being irritable and snappy at first, but later sort of... resigned. [Takes off his glasses and wipes them again.] Our kids played together on the yard while I spent one afternoon after the sauna draining a bottle of brandy with him. His boss had given it to him as a going away present. After the bottle was empty, Jorma suddenly threw it to the wall, startling me. I took it as my que to leave.
[Subject stays quiet for a while, staring at the wall.]
[So were you still at the cottage during the war and the Exchange?]
[Subject looks as if just returning from somewhere far away. Nods.]
Yes. Jorma listened to the news religiously, and after he tipped me off I also opened the radio and after that knew whatever was to be known through the YLE. A couple Civil Defence guys also came over to tell us and to help prepare our shelter – a simple cellar dug into the ground. Our neighbours had a similar one.
It was through the radio we got the news about the nuclear alarm. The shelter was ready, there was food and all we needed and in we went. When I was closing the door, I saw Jorma at the yard, with his wife and son. They just stood there, he smiled and raised his hand to greet me – I did the same before sealing us in to the dark cellar smelling of earth and mold.
And we spent more than two weeks down in the cellar. I admit I snuck out for a few minutes a day after the first fortnight or so. Our strict rationing regime worked, because when Elisa and a colleague came around to knock on the door and to tell us we could now spend some time per day outside or in the cottage, we still had some food left. I went together with our visitors to knock on the door of the neighbouring cellar. It opened when I knocked on it. There was no-one in the dark underground space.
When we returned to the yard, puzzled, we found the neighbouring cottage's curtains drawn and door locked. Feeling apprehensive, I knocked on the door. There was no answer.
[Had the neighbours left in the meanwhile?]
Oh, no. When we got inside after breaking the locked door with an axe, we found the family in the living room. Apparently, they had returned to have coffee, sweet rolls and brandy for the grown-ups. And after that, Jorma had... taken the old hunting rifle and... you know. [Shakes his head] An extended suicide, they would call it later. The Civil Defence guys, I mean. This wasn't the only one they saw when they went around to check on the houses and cottages those days. I made sure my daughters didn't see when the bodies were carried out.
[What happened after the Exchange?]
Life continued. We spent a part of the day in the shelter, but made food in the cabin and used the sauna, too. There was no electricity anywhere and no broadcasts on the radio. The only people we got any news from was Elisa and the locals. The news was both alarming and encouraging. Apparently, the nearby town of Kouvola had been bombed with a nuclear weapon and that there had been a lot of fallout. And that there had been a lot of bombs and missiles falling down in many other places. But on the other hand, the locals were in contact with the provincial centre in Mikkeli, some tens of kilometers away and it had not been bombed.
People had started arriving from the south, we were told, and they were very poorly off. The municipality was taking every available space into use to house them and to care for the sick and wounded. They were also asking us evacuees if anyone had first aid training and if we could come to the municipal centre to help. It was now harder to get food or anything else, really, even with rationing cards. A new family was brought to the neighbouring cabin. They seemed sick and shell-shocked but were seemingly otherwise alright. They didn't want to say anything about what had happened to them or where they had come from. I didn't press the issue.
So, days went on and everything seemed to slowly turn worse. There were now also soldiers coming from the south, looking like something out of a WWII documentary about the Eastern Front. Finnish soldiers, mind you, but sick, injured, weak and demoralised. They just drudged on throught the snow towards Mikkeli.
There was some fear there would be deserters who might use their weapons against the people to steal food. The locals started carrying rifles or other weapons as a rule. They were getting desperate, also in trying to help the arrivees. I saw Elise transform in a few weeks from a keen and competent organizer into a tired wreck of a woman looking almost like a zombie. Really. Me and Anja were helping the locals now, too, even if in just small ways. I volunteered to cut firewood for the municipality – had I not done that, I believe they would have ordered me to do something. It was heavy work, but I was still healthy and fit enough to do it, and I had warm clothes.I lost a lot of weight, nevertheless, with the food I was eating.
[How long were you living at the cottage?]
In the end, not for more than three weeks after we got up from the shelter. You see, one morning we woke up to someone banging on the door. I took the axe I had started to keep by the bed and went to open the door, just a bit. There were soldiers there, with a minibus behind them. Military police. I was confused about this sudden invasion, even moreso when the young Corporal raised his eyes from a stack of papers and asked if I was so and so, prattling off my social security number. These guys were here to get me, and others that had been evacuated the same time, specifically. They asked about Jorma, too, and were seemingly more concerned about not making it back with their full quota of engineers than about the death of a man and his family. They ordered me into their minibus and told my wife that I was being taken to Mikkeli and that another vehicle would come back later to bring her and the girls.
[And off you went. Say, I am sorry to stop you but can we continue this interview tomorrow? I am interested to know what happened to you later, but I am also sure we are both tired and hungry by now. I'll buy you something to eat at the canteen.]
Alright, I can live with that. Let's go, but don't forget your nice little recorder. Leave it here, and no-one will know where it disappeared during the night. This is the Ministry of Communications, after all. We are interested about these kinds of things.
[Thank you, I'll be sure to remember that.]
End of PART I - Stay tuned for PART II.
Last edited:
I hope this stuff is as period-appropriate as possible. I would have been very young at the time myself, so it is probably somewhat hit and miss.
About the characters in this post: Elisa is directly modelled after a relative of mine with almost the same name, living at Mäntyharju at the time. And although Jorma is completely fictional, he has a real life counterpart[1]. Anja, well, you can blame on Gösta. I have not yet chosen a name for the interviewee himself, but I was toying with "Veikko Benjamin Virtanen".
[1] No, not Ollila.
Judging from the latest updates it is fair to say that while Finland may have overall been more lightly hit than say Britain or France. The combination of overall disorganisation, a very severe climate and no clear authority have had very negative effects on Finland overall.
Reading between the lines I have a feeling that the resulting Finnish National Government is fascistic or authoritarian. I wonder if they won't try to "regain" the lost Finnish territories in Karelia in some form or another. After all since the Soviets are gone, the opportunity just beckons ...
It is very interesting to see how climatic zones and geographic positions will affect the recovery of the various European countries. France and Britain have the Atlantic Ocean nearby and the resuling trading opportunities with whatever of the world is left. They also don't have to contend with snow and frost to a large extent.
Finland on the other hand is in the middle of almost nowhere and in the snow and frost belt of Europe ...
Reading between the lines I have a feeling that the resulting Finnish National Government is fascistic or authoritarian. I wonder if they won't try to "regain" the lost Finnish territories in Karelia in some form or another. After all since the Soviets are gone, the opportunity just beckons ...
It is very interesting to see how climatic zones and geographic positions will affect the recovery of the various European countries. France and Britain have the Atlantic Ocean nearby and the resuling trading opportunities with whatever of the world is left. They also don't have to contend with snow and frost to a large extent.
Finland on the other hand is in the middle of almost nowhere and in the snow and frost belt of Europe ...
It was just here but it went away,
Deny or demand, it can't come back again.
They had a door open to their souls,
Their poison to our throats from a bonfire of books.
Did horns grow to the foreheads of rulers.
Do you see the burn marks on the faces of poets.
Rome was not built in day, they boasted,
Singing the La Paloma in a day it was destroyed.
Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa.
Who decreed that, where was that order received from,
Doves were set free, the people locked up,
Friedship lavished to the deceased.
I hate the mean one, he who pushed the button,
It is easy to be the one who sets the traps,
On the campfire echoed the march of nations.
Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa.
(Chorus)
I never adapted to that environment,
We all belong to this minority.
I never adapted to that environment,
We all belong to this minority.
"Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa."
Never adapted to that environment.
"Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa."
We all belong to this minority.
Juice Leskinen: Kuumaa tuhkaa (1980)
XXIX. So Desolate and Dark is the Winter Night(PART II)
Interview nr. 249, 18.03.2010. JHA.
Subject: Man, 60 (M192)
Occupation in 1984: Electrical Engineer
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[Interview with M192 continued from previous day (see INT.248). He wears the same, almost threadbare cardigan. ]
[Good afternoon Mr. [REDACTED]. Are you ready to continue the interview?]
Certainly. My throat's still sore, though, probably the flu coming. But I'll tell you if it gets so bad I'll have to stop.
[Have you remembered to ”Notify your supervisor!”?][1]
Ha. My superiors know all about my ailments, I can assure you.
[Oh, sorry about that, a poor attempt at a joke.]
It's all right. [Smiles slightly.] Where would we be without a joke now and then, right?
[True. Well, yesterday you were telling about how the soldiers came to get you from the cottage in... Mäntyharju... to take you somewhere. Could we continue from that?]
As you wish. Right. So there we were in a nearly full minibus, a group of bearded men in winter clothes, a bit groggy being woken up early and ordered around all of a sudden, you know?
[Yes.]
We started north, following a military off-road Sisu truck. Hardy things, those. Must be some of them around still. It was carrying a squad of ordinary soldiers on the back, with assault rifles. Ghostly in the gloom, in their winter clothes, hoods up, masks on. There was no talking in the 'bus. All staring at the road and the black or ashen-grey fields and forests around us. The driver snapped the radio on, and I was kind of startled to hear a familiar voice from before the war, that radio announcer you know.
"… from Mikkeli at 94,6 Mhz. The time is 8.40. Next, official bulletins from the authorities. The Ministry of the Interior has issued..."
The radio would drone on for the rest of the journey. The reception was pretty good this close of Mikkeli, but the signal got weaker fast the farther one went those days. That was one of the problems that had to addressed pretty soon.
”… remains at high levels in many parts of the country. Specific warnings by province to follow. All citizens are urged to spend at least the night and no less than four hours during the day in an appropriate shelter. Protective clothing must be worn at all times when going outside, not forgetting to cover the head, face and hands. Personal decontamination measures...”
It was very hard going at first – the road was in a poor condition. We passed the municipality centre, carefully passing a tractor with a snowplough and another one hauling firewood. There were armed Civil Defence men around, watching over people standing in two food lines, next to a parking lot filled with military-style tents, partly covered by the grey snow. There was snow rising from the tent chimneys.
”… by the provincial and municipal Rationing Boards, who have been empowered with the right to summary confiscation of foodstuffs and fuels. Military units will assist the civilian authorities in these measures. The failure to report existing food and fuel stocks to the authorities will result in...”
But when we got to the highway some miles away, the road was better. It had in fact been recently opened, and when we made our way north a convoy of trucks in winter-camouflage white as well as civilian colours passed us going the other way. Later I thought they were provincial troops on their way to establish one of the first so-called transit camps. Might have been one of those operations to secure important resources, too.
”… declared disaster zones or areas reserved for military operations. Local commanding officers have...”
More snow was falling all the time. There were vehicles abandoned by the side of the road. Ordinary cars, mostly, often with scattered bags around them being covered with snow, but also a few wrecked military vehicles and one fire truck with its doors hanging open. There were bodies. But I think the snow covered most of them, too.
”... in the Province of Etelä-Savo includes highways 13 and 15 south of Ristiina, highway 13 north-west of Kangasniemi and highway 5 north of...
When we had gone on for about ten minutes, we passed a heavy road grader in pre-war TVL colours and a matte-white truck with a snowplough, with what looked like a AA machine gun bolted to the back. It was manned.
The short, dark haired man beside me asked the soldiers if we were under arrest. There was no answer.
[Sorry to interrupt you, but do you really remember the radio broadcasts so well?]
I can't say that is what was said exactly. I might be remembering later or earlier stuff, too. But that was the general tenor of the broadcasts.
[All right. What happened then?]
We arrived to town in some minutes. The street lights were working, then. That was not a usual occurrence those days, I learned later. Some of the streets were blocked by civilian cars packed with people and their belongings. There were policemen and military police routing them to parking lots, only eyes visible below masks and pieces of clothing covering their faces. Groups of men, civilian and military, were shovelling snow. Trucks went past, with what looked like evacuees or soldiers on the back. On one of them, the soldiers were armed with WWII era rifles and Suomi SMGs.
We went past the centre, stopping in front of what looked like a school. Which it was, with military tents and housing containers spread around the yard – I noticed one of them had crushed a swing set below it. There were soldiers standing on the yard, obviously waiting for us. Another NCO with another clipboard called our names and we went inside to the school gym, through ”decontamination”, top clothes brushed off and sprayed with a chemical solution. Once inside, we were still made to strip and take a shover. Bars of soap, tiny military-issue towels and disposable shaving kits were handed to the shivering, bearded men standing in an awkward line.
After a while, we where clustered in the gym hall, sans beards. There were more men here than our small group. Some women, too. All dressed in similar civilian-style clothes we had been handed by the soldiers, eying each other suspiciously. There had even been a short medical checkup for most. Mugs of blueberry soup and cheese sandwiches were handed out. But still no explanation why we were here.
Three men entered the hall, two in suits and one in an officer's uniform. They went to the front of the hall and one of the suits cleared his throat and addressed the hall.
”- Welcome to Mikkeli, gentlemen.. and ladies, too. I am sorry for the inconvenience and rush, but it was necessary. My name is Hakkarainen and I work for the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Due to the nuclear attacks our ministry as well as several others have been relocated here, as you might have heard. There have also been some new ministerial appointments, due to tragic circumstances. I am sorry to tell you, but it seems both President Koivisto and Prime Minister Sorsa, as well as some other ministers died in the Helsinki blasts...”
That got some murmurs out of the people. Thinking back on that later, I don't think that would be admitted in the radio broadcasts for some time after that.
”- ...given the relocation of both the cabinet and the parliament, as well as extensive damage to several towns, especially in the south, the government has undertaken many different emergency measures. And that is where you come in. Under the provisions of wartime legislation regarding...”
If the man wanted to intimidate us by bureaucratic browbeating, he succeeded in it. The people in the hall were very quiet.
”- ...and you have been called to the service of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, per work duty requirements. You are all professionals in civil and electric engineering – the Finnish state needs your expertise during the current national emergency.”
The same dark man who had spoken up in the bus raised his hand and, before being even acknowledged by Hakkarainen, spoke
”- You bring us here like criminals, make us jump through hoops and then tell we have to work for you. What if we refuse?”
There were some nods and low murmuring among the men. Mäkinen looked to the men beside me and cleared his throat again.
”- Certainly you have your options, Mr...”
”- Karhumäki.”
”- Mr Karhumäki. Three options to be exact. Join the ministry, and you will be given work suited to your training and abilities. The pay's nothing special, but you'll get accomodation and food, for your family too. You will work here in Mikkeli or on-site in different projects around the country as soon as we get to that. That is option number one. Option number two is that you join the Defence Forces. Speak to the Captain here about that. Military engineers are very much in demand and will be responsible for much of the work we authorize at the ministry. I believe some of you are reserve officers, too.”
I only now realized the officer had the patches of an Engineer. He held a clipboard as well.
”- An then there is option number three. If the ministry and the military are not to your liking, you can leave through the door behind you. But if you do that, remember that you'll be subject to the general work duty requirements. You will be expected to do society-supporting work, very likely including manual labor. You'll also have to abide by the general emergency housing and rationing. There will be no special rules.”
He looked around the room and allowed some time for that to sink in.
”- I am afraid I have to ask you to make your choice right now. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we are to help the Fatherland out of this mess we are in right now, and we have to start this work right away.”
There were desks at the side of the hall, where a few men sat and started to read out names. As I waited for my name to come up, I picked up another sandwich and saw three men approach the Captain to ask him about the military option.
Nobody took option number three.
And that is how my career at this ministry started. Like the man said, we went to work immediately. Despite the promises, I only saw my family again after almost three weeks. And when Anja and the girls got to Mikkeli, my younger daughter had caught pneumonia. She was never healthy after that. She died to the flu later that winter.
[I am sorry about that. What about your wife and older daughter?]
I lost Anja to cancer in '87. My daughter, Noora, is very much alive. She is a section leader in Lotta Svärd[2] these days. I have to say I am very proud of her.
[I am sorry about your wife, but it is good to hear your daughter is doing well.]
Well, Noora... She is like a lot of the younger generation. Very serious and sort of driven. Like many of those who have lived most of their lives after the War, she does not know much about how the world was... before. And to be honest, while she wanted to hear stories about that when she was younger, I have always tried not to tell her everything about how well things were. How healthy and rich we were. I think knowing those things would just make her generation more bitter. I have talked about this with other older people, relics of the Good Old Days, and there seems to me to be some agreement about that. We all know there is enough sadness and hopelessness in this country as it is. Sickness and disease. Violence and suicides. No reason to poison the young with our nostalgia, not after all the other things we poisoned them with.
Interview nr. 219, 09.03.2010. TBF.
Subject: Man, 48 (M177)
Occupation in 1984: Politician
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[Interview with a former FNA bureaucrat continued (see INT.215)]
[You said previously that rebuilding the government was a huge task...]
That is an understatement. The Exchange wrecked the higher state bureaucracy, partly because the evacuations amounted to both too little and too late. And our legitimacy was also an issue. Before the arrival of Väyrynen's posse, there was only one pre-war cabinet minister in Mikkeli. Had the Väyrynen convoy ended up in another town or had Seinäjoki taken another tack, there might have easily been three centres claiming highest national authority – and we would have had the weakest claim to that.
State authority... After seeing what I have seen, and being an outcast like I am now, I must say it is an illusion, a chimera. A bluff, if you may, or a long con.
[What do you mean?]
Being a national government amounts to one group of people claiming that they hold the right to decide over the life and death of all the others and the majority of the others accepting that claim. That is how it works. ”Legitimacy” is a made-up concept, because when you are the government you can also make the laws, or at least choose which ones to evoke for your own good.
It was accepted among what would be called the Mikkeli Cabinet from the early days that essentially they are just playing a government. Acting ministers. But it was what had to be done. A nation without a functioning government is not a nation for long. Not after a nuclear exchange. Not this north. There was no time to learn to walk. We had to start by running and then take flight.
So it was all about perception management, in a way. You had to look like the real deal. That is why the radio broadcasts were important. That we had a well-known radio voice among the YLE staff was an unexpected boon. That is why we recruited all the provincial bigwigs and the surviving business leaders. Even pop stars and actors if we could.
For example in rebuilding the ministries we could draw upon provincial and military archives to identify suitable personnel. Evacuees, for example, moved to the rural municipalities around Mikkeli. Local middle management and professionals. And we had to break them in fast. So we used threats, blackmail and bribery, suitably applied.
And the Defence Forces had to be reorganised fast and the new General Staff based in Mikkeli. Staffing it was pure politics, promoting those Colonels to high positions who commanded the strongest and most functional units, for example. Making sure the soldiers were fed before the civilians, to the point of making the food distribution system a military fiefdom.
Securing the support of the armed services, authority figures and professionals was of course important. But in the end even the army will follow your orders only if they believe in you. Lose that belief and you lose control. At the end of that line lies anarchy.
What we did was to go all in. Don all the trappings of state power. Titles, names of organisations, letterheads, legal jargon. They are means to an end. Invocations, really, ways to conjure up the spirit of state authority. That spirit does not reside in bayonets or legislative assemblies, it lives within the imaginations of men and women.
If you say you are a provincial government, people and soldiers will second-guess you and overrule you. But say you are the national government and they will, well, still sometimes second-guess or overrule you. But they will be much more careful in doing that. And if you play the part well enough, say and do all the right things, wear the right clothes and attitudes, to the point of believing it yourself... Eventually, they will accept your authority and follow you. ”The strong hand at the helm of the Ship of State”, like they used to say.
That is how we kept our domain together through the early years after the Exchange. Finns have always been a people of a legalistic bent. We almost instintively trust and follow duly constituted state authority, even if the people might grumble about its demands among themselves. We are not openly rebellious, by nature or by choice. We only used that, for the sake of national survival. It was a necessary thing to do, and in the end I am sure my boss and the others were damn lucky their gamble paid off, their bluff worked.
But it was not without cost.
[Can you elaborate on that?]
The National Authority is a direct continuation of the Emergency Cabinet. In the end, it bases its legitimacy on the same claims. You must have seen it follows an almost mythological form of ”Finnishness”. It is very formal and militant. Seemingly frozen in time. The problem is that it has made its outward, explicit form a sort of a fetish, something to be preserved at all costs, while on the inside it is slowly rotting. We used the form of the Finnish state, as we remembered it, to allow the nation to live. For the Authority, the preservation of that form is a goal in itself, and it has become a facáde behind which they hide their abuses of power, their poverty and the sickness of the people and its leaders.
[I see. But can we get back to 1984, if you don't mind? The rebuilding of the state apparatus?]
Certainly. Like I was saying, it was all about appearances and perception. The right forms. And for that, the man that arrived was a major problem...
Notes:
[1] Refers to a common FNA poster.
[2] The neo-nationalist ”volunteer” organisation for women named after its WWII-era near-equivalent, active in both the FNA and the PPO. Connected with the similar youth organisations for boys and girls.
Deny or demand, it can't come back again.
They had a door open to their souls,
Their poison to our throats from a bonfire of books.
Did horns grow to the foreheads of rulers.
Do you see the burn marks on the faces of poets.
Rome was not built in day, they boasted,
Singing the La Paloma in a day it was destroyed.
Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa.
Who decreed that, where was that order received from,
Doves were set free, the people locked up,
Friedship lavished to the deceased.
I hate the mean one, he who pushed the button,
It is easy to be the one who sets the traps,
On the campfire echoed the march of nations.
Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa.
(Chorus)
I never adapted to that environment,
We all belong to this minority.
I never adapted to that environment,
We all belong to this minority.
"Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa."
Never adapted to that environment.
"Hot ashes, aa-aa, hot ashes, aa-aa."
We all belong to this minority.
Juice Leskinen: Kuumaa tuhkaa (1980)
XXIX. So Desolate and Dark is the Winter Night(PART II)
Interview nr. 249, 18.03.2010. JHA.
Subject: Man, 60 (M192)
Occupation in 1984: Electrical Engineer
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[Interview with M192 continued from previous day (see INT.248). He wears the same, almost threadbare cardigan. ]
[Good afternoon Mr. [REDACTED]. Are you ready to continue the interview?]
Certainly. My throat's still sore, though, probably the flu coming. But I'll tell you if it gets so bad I'll have to stop.
[Have you remembered to ”Notify your supervisor!”?][1]
Ha. My superiors know all about my ailments, I can assure you.
[Oh, sorry about that, a poor attempt at a joke.]
It's all right. [Smiles slightly.] Where would we be without a joke now and then, right?
[True. Well, yesterday you were telling about how the soldiers came to get you from the cottage in... Mäntyharju... to take you somewhere. Could we continue from that?]
As you wish. Right. So there we were in a nearly full minibus, a group of bearded men in winter clothes, a bit groggy being woken up early and ordered around all of a sudden, you know?
[Yes.]
We started north, following a military off-road Sisu truck. Hardy things, those. Must be some of them around still. It was carrying a squad of ordinary soldiers on the back, with assault rifles. Ghostly in the gloom, in their winter clothes, hoods up, masks on. There was no talking in the 'bus. All staring at the road and the black or ashen-grey fields and forests around us. The driver snapped the radio on, and I was kind of startled to hear a familiar voice from before the war, that radio announcer you know.
"… from Mikkeli at 94,6 Mhz. The time is 8.40. Next, official bulletins from the authorities. The Ministry of the Interior has issued..."
The radio would drone on for the rest of the journey. The reception was pretty good this close of Mikkeli, but the signal got weaker fast the farther one went those days. That was one of the problems that had to addressed pretty soon.
”… remains at high levels in many parts of the country. Specific warnings by province to follow. All citizens are urged to spend at least the night and no less than four hours during the day in an appropriate shelter. Protective clothing must be worn at all times when going outside, not forgetting to cover the head, face and hands. Personal decontamination measures...”
It was very hard going at first – the road was in a poor condition. We passed the municipality centre, carefully passing a tractor with a snowplough and another one hauling firewood. There were armed Civil Defence men around, watching over people standing in two food lines, next to a parking lot filled with military-style tents, partly covered by the grey snow. There was snow rising from the tent chimneys.
”… by the provincial and municipal Rationing Boards, who have been empowered with the right to summary confiscation of foodstuffs and fuels. Military units will assist the civilian authorities in these measures. The failure to report existing food and fuel stocks to the authorities will result in...”
But when we got to the highway some miles away, the road was better. It had in fact been recently opened, and when we made our way north a convoy of trucks in winter-camouflage white as well as civilian colours passed us going the other way. Later I thought they were provincial troops on their way to establish one of the first so-called transit camps. Might have been one of those operations to secure important resources, too.
”… declared disaster zones or areas reserved for military operations. Local commanding officers have...”
More snow was falling all the time. There were vehicles abandoned by the side of the road. Ordinary cars, mostly, often with scattered bags around them being covered with snow, but also a few wrecked military vehicles and one fire truck with its doors hanging open. There were bodies. But I think the snow covered most of them, too.
”... in the Province of Etelä-Savo includes highways 13 and 15 south of Ristiina, highway 13 north-west of Kangasniemi and highway 5 north of...
When we had gone on for about ten minutes, we passed a heavy road grader in pre-war TVL colours and a matte-white truck with a snowplough, with what looked like a AA machine gun bolted to the back. It was manned.
The short, dark haired man beside me asked the soldiers if we were under arrest. There was no answer.
[Sorry to interrupt you, but do you really remember the radio broadcasts so well?]
I can't say that is what was said exactly. I might be remembering later or earlier stuff, too. But that was the general tenor of the broadcasts.
[All right. What happened then?]
We arrived to town in some minutes. The street lights were working, then. That was not a usual occurrence those days, I learned later. Some of the streets were blocked by civilian cars packed with people and their belongings. There were policemen and military police routing them to parking lots, only eyes visible below masks and pieces of clothing covering their faces. Groups of men, civilian and military, were shovelling snow. Trucks went past, with what looked like evacuees or soldiers on the back. On one of them, the soldiers were armed with WWII era rifles and Suomi SMGs.
We went past the centre, stopping in front of what looked like a school. Which it was, with military tents and housing containers spread around the yard – I noticed one of them had crushed a swing set below it. There were soldiers standing on the yard, obviously waiting for us. Another NCO with another clipboard called our names and we went inside to the school gym, through ”decontamination”, top clothes brushed off and sprayed with a chemical solution. Once inside, we were still made to strip and take a shover. Bars of soap, tiny military-issue towels and disposable shaving kits were handed to the shivering, bearded men standing in an awkward line.
After a while, we where clustered in the gym hall, sans beards. There were more men here than our small group. Some women, too. All dressed in similar civilian-style clothes we had been handed by the soldiers, eying each other suspiciously. There had even been a short medical checkup for most. Mugs of blueberry soup and cheese sandwiches were handed out. But still no explanation why we were here.
Three men entered the hall, two in suits and one in an officer's uniform. They went to the front of the hall and one of the suits cleared his throat and addressed the hall.
”- Welcome to Mikkeli, gentlemen.. and ladies, too. I am sorry for the inconvenience and rush, but it was necessary. My name is Hakkarainen and I work for the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Due to the nuclear attacks our ministry as well as several others have been relocated here, as you might have heard. There have also been some new ministerial appointments, due to tragic circumstances. I am sorry to tell you, but it seems both President Koivisto and Prime Minister Sorsa, as well as some other ministers died in the Helsinki blasts...”
That got some murmurs out of the people. Thinking back on that later, I don't think that would be admitted in the radio broadcasts for some time after that.
”- ...given the relocation of both the cabinet and the parliament, as well as extensive damage to several towns, especially in the south, the government has undertaken many different emergency measures. And that is where you come in. Under the provisions of wartime legislation regarding...”
If the man wanted to intimidate us by bureaucratic browbeating, he succeeded in it. The people in the hall were very quiet.
”- ...and you have been called to the service of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, per work duty requirements. You are all professionals in civil and electric engineering – the Finnish state needs your expertise during the current national emergency.”
The same dark man who had spoken up in the bus raised his hand and, before being even acknowledged by Hakkarainen, spoke
”- You bring us here like criminals, make us jump through hoops and then tell we have to work for you. What if we refuse?”
There were some nods and low murmuring among the men. Mäkinen looked to the men beside me and cleared his throat again.
”- Certainly you have your options, Mr...”
”- Karhumäki.”
”- Mr Karhumäki. Three options to be exact. Join the ministry, and you will be given work suited to your training and abilities. The pay's nothing special, but you'll get accomodation and food, for your family too. You will work here in Mikkeli or on-site in different projects around the country as soon as we get to that. That is option number one. Option number two is that you join the Defence Forces. Speak to the Captain here about that. Military engineers are very much in demand and will be responsible for much of the work we authorize at the ministry. I believe some of you are reserve officers, too.”
I only now realized the officer had the patches of an Engineer. He held a clipboard as well.
”- An then there is option number three. If the ministry and the military are not to your liking, you can leave through the door behind you. But if you do that, remember that you'll be subject to the general work duty requirements. You will be expected to do society-supporting work, very likely including manual labor. You'll also have to abide by the general emergency housing and rationing. There will be no special rules.”
He looked around the room and allowed some time for that to sink in.
”- I am afraid I have to ask you to make your choice right now. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we are to help the Fatherland out of this mess we are in right now, and we have to start this work right away.”
There were desks at the side of the hall, where a few men sat and started to read out names. As I waited for my name to come up, I picked up another sandwich and saw three men approach the Captain to ask him about the military option.
Nobody took option number three.
And that is how my career at this ministry started. Like the man said, we went to work immediately. Despite the promises, I only saw my family again after almost three weeks. And when Anja and the girls got to Mikkeli, my younger daughter had caught pneumonia. She was never healthy after that. She died to the flu later that winter.
[I am sorry about that. What about your wife and older daughter?]
I lost Anja to cancer in '87. My daughter, Noora, is very much alive. She is a section leader in Lotta Svärd[2] these days. I have to say I am very proud of her.
[I am sorry about your wife, but it is good to hear your daughter is doing well.]
Well, Noora... She is like a lot of the younger generation. Very serious and sort of driven. Like many of those who have lived most of their lives after the War, she does not know much about how the world was... before. And to be honest, while she wanted to hear stories about that when she was younger, I have always tried not to tell her everything about how well things were. How healthy and rich we were. I think knowing those things would just make her generation more bitter. I have talked about this with other older people, relics of the Good Old Days, and there seems to me to be some agreement about that. We all know there is enough sadness and hopelessness in this country as it is. Sickness and disease. Violence and suicides. No reason to poison the young with our nostalgia, not after all the other things we poisoned them with.
Interview nr. 219, 09.03.2010. TBF.
Subject: Man, 48 (M177)
Occupation in 1984: Politician
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[Interview with a former FNA bureaucrat continued (see INT.215)]
[You said previously that rebuilding the government was a huge task...]
That is an understatement. The Exchange wrecked the higher state bureaucracy, partly because the evacuations amounted to both too little and too late. And our legitimacy was also an issue. Before the arrival of Väyrynen's posse, there was only one pre-war cabinet minister in Mikkeli. Had the Väyrynen convoy ended up in another town or had Seinäjoki taken another tack, there might have easily been three centres claiming highest national authority – and we would have had the weakest claim to that.
State authority... After seeing what I have seen, and being an outcast like I am now, I must say it is an illusion, a chimera. A bluff, if you may, or a long con.
[What do you mean?]
Being a national government amounts to one group of people claiming that they hold the right to decide over the life and death of all the others and the majority of the others accepting that claim. That is how it works. ”Legitimacy” is a made-up concept, because when you are the government you can also make the laws, or at least choose which ones to evoke for your own good.
It was accepted among what would be called the Mikkeli Cabinet from the early days that essentially they are just playing a government. Acting ministers. But it was what had to be done. A nation without a functioning government is not a nation for long. Not after a nuclear exchange. Not this north. There was no time to learn to walk. We had to start by running and then take flight.
So it was all about perception management, in a way. You had to look like the real deal. That is why the radio broadcasts were important. That we had a well-known radio voice among the YLE staff was an unexpected boon. That is why we recruited all the provincial bigwigs and the surviving business leaders. Even pop stars and actors if we could.
For example in rebuilding the ministries we could draw upon provincial and military archives to identify suitable personnel. Evacuees, for example, moved to the rural municipalities around Mikkeli. Local middle management and professionals. And we had to break them in fast. So we used threats, blackmail and bribery, suitably applied.
And the Defence Forces had to be reorganised fast and the new General Staff based in Mikkeli. Staffing it was pure politics, promoting those Colonels to high positions who commanded the strongest and most functional units, for example. Making sure the soldiers were fed before the civilians, to the point of making the food distribution system a military fiefdom.
Securing the support of the armed services, authority figures and professionals was of course important. But in the end even the army will follow your orders only if they believe in you. Lose that belief and you lose control. At the end of that line lies anarchy.
What we did was to go all in. Don all the trappings of state power. Titles, names of organisations, letterheads, legal jargon. They are means to an end. Invocations, really, ways to conjure up the spirit of state authority. That spirit does not reside in bayonets or legislative assemblies, it lives within the imaginations of men and women.
If you say you are a provincial government, people and soldiers will second-guess you and overrule you. But say you are the national government and they will, well, still sometimes second-guess or overrule you. But they will be much more careful in doing that. And if you play the part well enough, say and do all the right things, wear the right clothes and attitudes, to the point of believing it yourself... Eventually, they will accept your authority and follow you. ”The strong hand at the helm of the Ship of State”, like they used to say.
That is how we kept our domain together through the early years after the Exchange. Finns have always been a people of a legalistic bent. We almost instintively trust and follow duly constituted state authority, even if the people might grumble about its demands among themselves. We are not openly rebellious, by nature or by choice. We only used that, for the sake of national survival. It was a necessary thing to do, and in the end I am sure my boss and the others were damn lucky their gamble paid off, their bluff worked.
But it was not without cost.
[Can you elaborate on that?]
The National Authority is a direct continuation of the Emergency Cabinet. In the end, it bases its legitimacy on the same claims. You must have seen it follows an almost mythological form of ”Finnishness”. It is very formal and militant. Seemingly frozen in time. The problem is that it has made its outward, explicit form a sort of a fetish, something to be preserved at all costs, while on the inside it is slowly rotting. We used the form of the Finnish state, as we remembered it, to allow the nation to live. For the Authority, the preservation of that form is a goal in itself, and it has become a facáde behind which they hide their abuses of power, their poverty and the sickness of the people and its leaders.
[I see. But can we get back to 1984, if you don't mind? The rebuilding of the state apparatus?]
Certainly. Like I was saying, it was all about appearances and perception. The right forms. And for that, the man that arrived was a major problem...
Notes:
[1] Refers to a common FNA poster.
[2] The neo-nationalist ”volunteer” organisation for women named after its WWII-era near-equivalent, active in both the FNA and the PPO. Connected with the similar youth organisations for boys and girls.
Are there elections in the FNA?
The state seems an all encompassing and ever-present structure in society (it's reminding me of some 1920/30's traits).
It seems by the words of the interviewee Nr. 219 that people are starting to become fed up of the lack of legitimacy of that government.
Keep it up, DrakonFin!
The state seems an all encompassing and ever-present structure in society (it's reminding me of some 1920/30's traits).
It seems by the words of the interviewee Nr. 219 that people are starting to become fed up of the lack of legitimacy of that government.
Keep it up, DrakonFin!
Hey
See how quietly
Everything goes
But the years are short
And as the moon and the sun are together in the sky
I'll take everything to the yard and burn
So
The books and the papers
Perhaps also
The furniture and the memories
All the lies that come in the way of life
All the good that keeps you from seeing
It is rust
(Chorus)
Smoke licks the ruins
I'm sure you know how it feels like
To warm your hands
In the ashes of burned-down homes
Hey
See how quietly
It rains again
Dust over the mountains
Perhaps even these hands of a murderer seek for a head
To caress and to feel the weight of the world
It is rust
(Chorus)
Smoke licks the ruins
I'm sure you know how it feels like
To warm your hands
In the ashes of burned-down homes
CMX: Ruoste (1994)
XXX. The Weight of the World
Fragment 129.
Logged 12.09.2011
GEB
[This fragment includes handwritten text in a notepad. It was recovered by Minne personnel somewhere in Central PPO. The reliability of the text is a matter of debate.]
As the line snaked slowly forward, I kept ladling soup to the canteen the soldiers were holding up. My comrades were making another batch of soup just behind me, I could smell it in the air. There was not much chicken in it.
There was a short gap in the line, and men who came up looked to be from a different unit. Some were stomping their feet to keep warm. Pulling scarfs more tightly around their faces. Next to me, pieces of dark bread were handed out too.
”- Are you from the 3rd?”, I asked from the Sergeant coming up first.
”- No, the 2nd. The 3rd's still some ways back. Make sure they'll get some soup, too”, he said, winking. The inter-unit rivalry was no news to anyone.
The sun was shining brightly, but it was near the horizon and I could see some clouds slowly creeping up from the west. It would soon be dark again.
He was opening up another big can of chicken. Poured it to the soup. Today the smell of soup made me nauseous, though I couldn't say why.
I looked at my comrade.
”- Are you all right? You look like you're freezing.”
His face was going blue and there was frost in his eyelashes.
”- I am fine.. Just a bit cold. You know staying out for too long does it to me. At least you ought to know by now,” he said looking at me mock-accusingly.
The line would not stop. The men were even more ravenous today than before. A scuffle broke out when someone was accused of trying to cut in the line. The Sergeant had to step in to restore order.
Now it was getting dark. Everything in the field kitchen was getting a reddish tint from the fire. But the line of soldiers would not stop. I could hardly see the men anymore, only hearing them wolfing down their food in the gloom. There was something disconcerting about it.
An older man came up to help us. He looked vaguely familiar and had a funny accent. When he smiled, his teeth were almost black.
”- More meat for the soup,” he said and started to open another can. Flicked his lips. There was something wrong with his uniform. It was ancient, and I couldn't recognize the insignia.
He poured the contents of the can to the cauldron. The pieces looked like... fingers... and little feet... The men in the line reached out with their hands. They were bony, and gray. Somehow I was quite sure the line would never end.
I turned around to Pavel, who stared at me with his face all white and icy. I could see straight through his stomach. He smiled.
”- I blame you, Fedja”, he said.
The old man dropped something bigger to the soup. I looked to the cauldron to find it was a human baby. As it slowly sank to the boiling liquid, it opened its eyes and looked at me.
”- When can we go home?”, it asked.
That is when I woke up.
Slowly, the form of the sinking baby resolved into the small dog, who was looking at me mournfully. Sorry yet again Sharik my friend, I though.
He wasn't feeling well, my travelling companion. And neither was I. I was feeling weak, and I knew it was not just hunger. I had a bad cough. Yesterday I had caughed up blood.
We had been on the move for a long time now. I had lost the count of days. But certainly it had been at least three weeks since I left the old man's house. I had been making my way roughly west, if at all possible. By foot, mostly, but I had managed to hitch on a vehicle now and then. It was slow. I had had to double back several times. My road map was breaking apart.
I was not the only one on the roads, not by a longshot. Ordinary civilians and refugees were making their way towards supposed help and shelter on any major road, travelling to all directions. On foot, on various vehicles if they had fuel. Often carrying their meager belongings, sometimes nothing. Most looked pitiable, in some way. Most were cold, sick and weak. Some were crazy. There were dead and dying people along all major roads.
People on foot were trying to hitch to any passing vehicle. Once I saw a young woman who I though was trying to get a lift launch herself in front of a heavy military truck. There was something impossibly graceful in her leap to the oncoming headlights, as if her weakened body knew this was the last bit of strength it would ever have to use again. The truck did not even stop as the woman was thrown, lightly, to the snowbank by the road, a ragdoll in slow motion.
I had learned a lot of things during my stay in Finland. For one thing, it was possible for a solitary man to fall through the cracks and evade suspicion and capture. This was the most important lesson. There were many men like me about, and mostly the military or any authorities wouldn't bother with them. For now, at least. Stay out of the way, stay quiet, move slowly forward, keep your head down and do as you're told. This all came as a second nature to a Soviet citizen.
The second thing was the importance to predict what the authorities were doing. I was listening to what people told about where to go and where not to. My Finnish was improving all the time. Generally, nobody bothered you if you moved towards south, for some reason. But going north you could easily attract the attention of the military or men with the VSS armband. Avoiding major centres was important, because that was where any functioning authority was based. All roads with heavy traffic, all that were recently opened were to be negotiated with caution.
Sometimes I was able to insert myself into groups of refugees. People tended to approve my presence if I seemed harmless enough. That way I could get a night's sleep at a refugee camp and some food from a food line. But once it also led to getting scooped along by a military squad that inexplicably and at gunpoint took the group I was with along with their truck several kilometers to a small side road, just to dump us on an abandoned rest stop with no further instructions. It cost me two days' walk.
It was easy to see the Finnish authorities were in disarray: they seemed to be acting as if on autopilot. And inconsistent at that. I saw two military convoys meeting on a road, followed by a curse-riddled parlay between two officers before one of the convoys followed the other in the opposite direction. I saw soldiers beat up a man with the butts of their rifles, I saw others share their lean rations with two families. I saw officers and civilian leaders solemnly quote laws and ordinances, and others clearly breaking the same on a whim. I saw a young soldier with a guitar sing soft, mournful songs to a group of refugees before a senior officer walked up, grabbed the guitar and smashed it on the icy ground.
That day I had chosen what looked like a small side road snaking its way roughly west. There were no vehicle tracks on it, only some footprints.The snow was so deep I had to again carry the dog. For a small wonder, I saw some ephemeral rays of sunshine slip through the clouds a few times – I swear I hadn't seen anything like that since the Exchange. Despite the cold and my constant, nagging hunger, I felt lighter when I could see that the sun at least still existed. That didn't last long, as maybe an hour later a dull headache set in and then slowly got worse.
I had just reached a small industrial property, incongruously apprearing in the middle of a forest, when I heard some noise in front of me; the dog heard it too. Stumbling a bit but by now well rehearsed in these sort of activities I went into hiding behind some trees, wiping some of my tracks in the snow off with a spruce branch. Shuddering, crouched in the snow, with even some snow in my mouth to mask my breathing I waited for whoever was up the road.
Coming from the opposite direction I noticed two men in military clothing and two women looking like refugees. One of the men had a military police armband and looked very sure of himself, though he was quite unkempt. The other looked like a ordinarily miserable young conscript, with an unstable gait. Of the women, one was apparently young and the other older, and the latter seemed erratic in her movement, being helped by the other. The men were leading the women towards the industrial building.
” - It's over there. We'll have some food when we get inside. I think the Sergeant will allow us some rest after this patrol, wouldn't you say Mikkonen?”, said the older man loudly, gesturing towards the building. There was a tone in his voice I didn't like.
” - Umm.. Yes, I guess so.”, said the younger man, unsure.
” - It's Corporal to you, Mikkonen, remember that when were out and about.”
” - Yes, right, Corporal.”, said the man casting his eyes to the snowy road. This man, I could tell, was terrified. Of what, exactly?
My head really hurt, and I struggled to keep myself from coughing out loud. To no avail, because suddenly the dog growled and barked. Just once, but the damage had already been done. The group stopped and the older man pointed his rifle towards my hiding place.
” - Come out, whoever you are, or we'll shoot!”
As the younger man struggled to get his rifle off his back, the Corporal took a step of my direction.
” - I'll count to three and then I'll open fire! One..”
I was outnumbered and I couldn't run. I stepped to the road with my hands up. The older man caught the sight of me and looked at me appraisingly.
” - You alone?”
I nodded.
” - Just me and the dog.”
” - What's your business here?”, he asked, still aiming at me with his assault rifle. His comrade had also his rifle in hand but was not aiming at anything. I assured the men that I was just passing through and would be on my way if it was all right with them.
” - I am afraid I can't let you go so soon. Orders, you see. I have to take you along with these women to the... command post. Let my superior decide what to do with you. Come here and keep your hands where I can see them. We'll move on to yonder building.”
He nodded towards the small factory. As we started moving, I caught the eyes of the younger woman. She seemed sullen, but there was a definite spark of light there. Defiance. She reminded me of my younger sister, a hellraiser of a teenage girl. A girl I would surely never see again.
As we walked I though I could hear a faint noise behind me, perhaps a comrade of this funny duo? Nothing there to see, though. The older man kept talking this and that, in measured tones. There was something off about him, though I couldn't put my finger on it. His easygoing exterior seemed like a mask.
”...more guests than we have had in days. The Sergeant'll be overjoyed. It's so lonely patrolling out here in the woods, lonely and tedious I say. Now, to the left and around the corner, if you may.”
We went in through the side door. The inside of the building looked very much like the exterior, that of an abandoned factory. Wood products had been made here: there was sawdust and nails on the floor. On through a couple of corridors we went, to a largish, dark factory hall. It was very quiet and a nasty smell was lingering in the air. But the dark seemed to help my headache.
” - Sergeant, sir, were back!”, hollered the Corporal while his nervous comrade kept his eyes on the floor.
Off to one side in the dark, I could make three figures around a table, seated. The Corporal led us towards them and made a salute.
” - That's right, Sarge,” he said, ”visitors from the cold world. Let me introduce you to them. No need to get up.”
The smell was even worse here, and the dog whimpered in my bag. The men around the table sat still, looking at us with cold eyes. I saw the younger woman stumble a few steps back as she realized the same I did: the three men were quite dead. Had been for some time. There was dried blood on their clothes, and one of the corpses had a hideous wound in its face.
Despite the fact that the older woman started weeping loudly, the Corporal continued with his monologue.
” - This is Sergeant Jalkanen, my superior. He's been a bit under the weather recently, and not able to take part in patrolling duties. Misters Vilhunen and Koski here suffer from the same affliction, don't you? I'd say maybe Koski is shirking from duty, though. It's so like him, eh?”
He flashed a winning smile towards the corpse with glasses propped up at the end of the table. This was apparently his Sergeant.
” - Please take a seat”, he gestured to us, ”I'll put up some food to -”
He stopped abruptly as if the dead man at the end of the table had just spoken.
” - Really, right now? Yes, Sergeant, sir. Mikkonen, would you be so kind as to watch over our guests here. I'll have to do a... security search on the younger woman.”
He seemed almost apologetic when he moved towards the woman and grabbed her arm. The woman didn't budge.
” - You will come with me. If you don't, I'll break your arm first, and then move on to more vital organs,” he growled with an altogether more menacing voice. He twisted her arm and led the struggling woman off to the side.
The old woman was crying loudly now.
” - Don't hurt my mother,” she said miserably.
Me and the younger soldier looked at each other. He had a desperate look in his eyes, but pointed the muzzle of his rifle towards me. The younger woman struggled to get off from the Corporal's grip, and he slapped her hard. As she fell to the concrete floor, the younger man looked away from me for a while.
In a moment of madness, I jumped and tackled him to the ground.
The Corporal was too occupied with his victim and distracted by the teary pleading of the older woman to notice our struggle at first. Even though I hit my knee sharply on the floor, the man just barely missed a punch at my jaw. I managed to wrest the rifle from him, surprisingly easily. I struck him with the butt keep him down. He didn't seem interested in getting up from the floor anyway.
” - Stop that or I'll shoot”, I shouted to the Corporal pointing the rifle at him. Checked the safety was off.
He had already torn the young woman's trousers partly off, but he left her alone and quickly turned to me, grabbing his own rifle from the floor.
I pushed the trigger.
Click.
” - Ah,” he said, ”alas, there is no ammunition in that weapon. Mikkonen, you see, has been too... unreliable recently that we could allow him to have any.”
He shrugged his shoulders, looking to me and the women in turn, backing away a bit.
” - And here was I, thinking we could get along like civilized people. Shame on me. I should have known you have no respect for the military. So, it is up to us to pass a cursory sentence on you.”
He looked towards the table to listen. Then he nodded.
” - I agree with you, Sergeant. There can only be one sentence for this transgression.”
He took careful aim at me, and a shot rang out.
I saw the surprised look on his face as he fell on the floor, his rifle clanking on the concrete. Two men emerged from the shadows to our right. From the raincoats and armbands they were wearing I could instantly see that these were Civil Defence men.
” - I am sorry we couldn't get to you sooner”, a bearded man with a hunting rifle said to us as I helped the younger woman up from the floor.
” - We have been looking for these... deserters for a while now. They have been preying on passing evacuees for a couple of weeks, but only now we could pinpoint their... base.”
He looked at the seated corpses and then at the young soldier, disgust in his eyes.
” - Madness. Sheer madness. Taking imaginary orders from a dead man, orders to rape and kill innocent people.”
He had a quick talk with his comrade.
” - What we do now is to take this wretch here - ”
He kicked the man in camouflage uniform sharply.
” - to the military authorities. They'll know what to do with him. And the rest of you, officially we would have to take you to the municipal centre to find out your identity and your evacuation status. What we'll do instead is let you move on, if you like to. We don't need any more mouths to feed than we have already. You can go through the stuff these crazies have – had – and if there's any food or other necessaria you need and approve of, take that with you. I wish you luck.”
He looked pityingly as the younger woman tried to console what surely had to be her older relative, by their common looks. But then he seemed to steel himself and frog-marched his prisoner out of the factory.
As we got outside of the building, the younger woman spoke to me.
” - Thank you for standing up to those men,” she said. ”My name is Anne and this is my mother, Raili. You can see that she isn't fully with us anymore.”
She caressed her mother's hair gently. I introduced myself, and the dog.
”- From what I have seen and what I feel, I don't think anyone is really in this world these days”.
Anne told me she was heading east, and I tried to give her an idea of safe roads and areas to that direction. She had also some news to tell me about the way west. As I watched the women slowly walk away from me, I could only admire the tenacity and fortitude of Anne, travelling with her mother who acted like a seven year old, on foot across the broken land.
As I walked along the snowy side road, not venturing any closer to the municipal centre than necessary, my headache started to slowly get worse again. Only closing my eyes seemed to help a bit. After a while it was getting dark. Was it night already? I begun to look for a place to spend the night, any place. After a couple of kilometers I saw an abandoned-looking barn along a fork in the road. That would do.
Turning towards the barn I was suddenly very, very tired. Everything went black around me. Very slowly, it seemed, I fell to the snow. Soft, soft snow.
As I drifted to the darkness I could again see all those grey, bony hands, reaching out to me.
See how quietly
Everything goes
But the years are short
And as the moon and the sun are together in the sky
I'll take everything to the yard and burn
So
The books and the papers
Perhaps also
The furniture and the memories
All the lies that come in the way of life
All the good that keeps you from seeing
It is rust
(Chorus)
Smoke licks the ruins
I'm sure you know how it feels like
To warm your hands
In the ashes of burned-down homes
Hey
See how quietly
It rains again
Dust over the mountains
Perhaps even these hands of a murderer seek for a head
To caress and to feel the weight of the world
It is rust
(Chorus)
Smoke licks the ruins
I'm sure you know how it feels like
To warm your hands
In the ashes of burned-down homes
CMX: Ruoste (1994)
XXX. The Weight of the World
Fragment 129.
Logged 12.09.2011
GEB
[This fragment includes handwritten text in a notepad. It was recovered by Minne personnel somewhere in Central PPO. The reliability of the text is a matter of debate.]
As the line snaked slowly forward, I kept ladling soup to the canteen the soldiers were holding up. My comrades were making another batch of soup just behind me, I could smell it in the air. There was not much chicken in it.
There was a short gap in the line, and men who came up looked to be from a different unit. Some were stomping their feet to keep warm. Pulling scarfs more tightly around their faces. Next to me, pieces of dark bread were handed out too.
”- Are you from the 3rd?”, I asked from the Sergeant coming up first.
”- No, the 2nd. The 3rd's still some ways back. Make sure they'll get some soup, too”, he said, winking. The inter-unit rivalry was no news to anyone.
The sun was shining brightly, but it was near the horizon and I could see some clouds slowly creeping up from the west. It would soon be dark again.
He was opening up another big can of chicken. Poured it to the soup. Today the smell of soup made me nauseous, though I couldn't say why.
I looked at my comrade.
”- Are you all right? You look like you're freezing.”
His face was going blue and there was frost in his eyelashes.
”- I am fine.. Just a bit cold. You know staying out for too long does it to me. At least you ought to know by now,” he said looking at me mock-accusingly.
The line would not stop. The men were even more ravenous today than before. A scuffle broke out when someone was accused of trying to cut in the line. The Sergeant had to step in to restore order.
Now it was getting dark. Everything in the field kitchen was getting a reddish tint from the fire. But the line of soldiers would not stop. I could hardly see the men anymore, only hearing them wolfing down their food in the gloom. There was something disconcerting about it.
An older man came up to help us. He looked vaguely familiar and had a funny accent. When he smiled, his teeth were almost black.
”- More meat for the soup,” he said and started to open another can. Flicked his lips. There was something wrong with his uniform. It was ancient, and I couldn't recognize the insignia.
He poured the contents of the can to the cauldron. The pieces looked like... fingers... and little feet... The men in the line reached out with their hands. They were bony, and gray. Somehow I was quite sure the line would never end.
I turned around to Pavel, who stared at me with his face all white and icy. I could see straight through his stomach. He smiled.
”- I blame you, Fedja”, he said.
The old man dropped something bigger to the soup. I looked to the cauldron to find it was a human baby. As it slowly sank to the boiling liquid, it opened its eyes and looked at me.
”- When can we go home?”, it asked.
That is when I woke up.
Slowly, the form of the sinking baby resolved into the small dog, who was looking at me mournfully. Sorry yet again Sharik my friend, I though.
He wasn't feeling well, my travelling companion. And neither was I. I was feeling weak, and I knew it was not just hunger. I had a bad cough. Yesterday I had caughed up blood.
We had been on the move for a long time now. I had lost the count of days. But certainly it had been at least three weeks since I left the old man's house. I had been making my way roughly west, if at all possible. By foot, mostly, but I had managed to hitch on a vehicle now and then. It was slow. I had had to double back several times. My road map was breaking apart.
I was not the only one on the roads, not by a longshot. Ordinary civilians and refugees were making their way towards supposed help and shelter on any major road, travelling to all directions. On foot, on various vehicles if they had fuel. Often carrying their meager belongings, sometimes nothing. Most looked pitiable, in some way. Most were cold, sick and weak. Some were crazy. There were dead and dying people along all major roads.
People on foot were trying to hitch to any passing vehicle. Once I saw a young woman who I though was trying to get a lift launch herself in front of a heavy military truck. There was something impossibly graceful in her leap to the oncoming headlights, as if her weakened body knew this was the last bit of strength it would ever have to use again. The truck did not even stop as the woman was thrown, lightly, to the snowbank by the road, a ragdoll in slow motion.
I had learned a lot of things during my stay in Finland. For one thing, it was possible for a solitary man to fall through the cracks and evade suspicion and capture. This was the most important lesson. There were many men like me about, and mostly the military or any authorities wouldn't bother with them. For now, at least. Stay out of the way, stay quiet, move slowly forward, keep your head down and do as you're told. This all came as a second nature to a Soviet citizen.
The second thing was the importance to predict what the authorities were doing. I was listening to what people told about where to go and where not to. My Finnish was improving all the time. Generally, nobody bothered you if you moved towards south, for some reason. But going north you could easily attract the attention of the military or men with the VSS armband. Avoiding major centres was important, because that was where any functioning authority was based. All roads with heavy traffic, all that were recently opened were to be negotiated with caution.
Sometimes I was able to insert myself into groups of refugees. People tended to approve my presence if I seemed harmless enough. That way I could get a night's sleep at a refugee camp and some food from a food line. But once it also led to getting scooped along by a military squad that inexplicably and at gunpoint took the group I was with along with their truck several kilometers to a small side road, just to dump us on an abandoned rest stop with no further instructions. It cost me two days' walk.
It was easy to see the Finnish authorities were in disarray: they seemed to be acting as if on autopilot. And inconsistent at that. I saw two military convoys meeting on a road, followed by a curse-riddled parlay between two officers before one of the convoys followed the other in the opposite direction. I saw soldiers beat up a man with the butts of their rifles, I saw others share their lean rations with two families. I saw officers and civilian leaders solemnly quote laws and ordinances, and others clearly breaking the same on a whim. I saw a young soldier with a guitar sing soft, mournful songs to a group of refugees before a senior officer walked up, grabbed the guitar and smashed it on the icy ground.
That day I had chosen what looked like a small side road snaking its way roughly west. There were no vehicle tracks on it, only some footprints.The snow was so deep I had to again carry the dog. For a small wonder, I saw some ephemeral rays of sunshine slip through the clouds a few times – I swear I hadn't seen anything like that since the Exchange. Despite the cold and my constant, nagging hunger, I felt lighter when I could see that the sun at least still existed. That didn't last long, as maybe an hour later a dull headache set in and then slowly got worse.
I had just reached a small industrial property, incongruously apprearing in the middle of a forest, when I heard some noise in front of me; the dog heard it too. Stumbling a bit but by now well rehearsed in these sort of activities I went into hiding behind some trees, wiping some of my tracks in the snow off with a spruce branch. Shuddering, crouched in the snow, with even some snow in my mouth to mask my breathing I waited for whoever was up the road.
Coming from the opposite direction I noticed two men in military clothing and two women looking like refugees. One of the men had a military police armband and looked very sure of himself, though he was quite unkempt. The other looked like a ordinarily miserable young conscript, with an unstable gait. Of the women, one was apparently young and the other older, and the latter seemed erratic in her movement, being helped by the other. The men were leading the women towards the industrial building.
” - It's over there. We'll have some food when we get inside. I think the Sergeant will allow us some rest after this patrol, wouldn't you say Mikkonen?”, said the older man loudly, gesturing towards the building. There was a tone in his voice I didn't like.
” - Umm.. Yes, I guess so.”, said the younger man, unsure.
” - It's Corporal to you, Mikkonen, remember that when were out and about.”
” - Yes, right, Corporal.”, said the man casting his eyes to the snowy road. This man, I could tell, was terrified. Of what, exactly?
My head really hurt, and I struggled to keep myself from coughing out loud. To no avail, because suddenly the dog growled and barked. Just once, but the damage had already been done. The group stopped and the older man pointed his rifle towards my hiding place.
” - Come out, whoever you are, or we'll shoot!”
As the younger man struggled to get his rifle off his back, the Corporal took a step of my direction.
” - I'll count to three and then I'll open fire! One..”
I was outnumbered and I couldn't run. I stepped to the road with my hands up. The older man caught the sight of me and looked at me appraisingly.
” - You alone?”
I nodded.
” - Just me and the dog.”
” - What's your business here?”, he asked, still aiming at me with his assault rifle. His comrade had also his rifle in hand but was not aiming at anything. I assured the men that I was just passing through and would be on my way if it was all right with them.
” - I am afraid I can't let you go so soon. Orders, you see. I have to take you along with these women to the... command post. Let my superior decide what to do with you. Come here and keep your hands where I can see them. We'll move on to yonder building.”
He nodded towards the small factory. As we started moving, I caught the eyes of the younger woman. She seemed sullen, but there was a definite spark of light there. Defiance. She reminded me of my younger sister, a hellraiser of a teenage girl. A girl I would surely never see again.
As we walked I though I could hear a faint noise behind me, perhaps a comrade of this funny duo? Nothing there to see, though. The older man kept talking this and that, in measured tones. There was something off about him, though I couldn't put my finger on it. His easygoing exterior seemed like a mask.
”...more guests than we have had in days. The Sergeant'll be overjoyed. It's so lonely patrolling out here in the woods, lonely and tedious I say. Now, to the left and around the corner, if you may.”
We went in through the side door. The inside of the building looked very much like the exterior, that of an abandoned factory. Wood products had been made here: there was sawdust and nails on the floor. On through a couple of corridors we went, to a largish, dark factory hall. It was very quiet and a nasty smell was lingering in the air. But the dark seemed to help my headache.
” - Sergeant, sir, were back!”, hollered the Corporal while his nervous comrade kept his eyes on the floor.
Off to one side in the dark, I could make three figures around a table, seated. The Corporal led us towards them and made a salute.
” - That's right, Sarge,” he said, ”visitors from the cold world. Let me introduce you to them. No need to get up.”
The smell was even worse here, and the dog whimpered in my bag. The men around the table sat still, looking at us with cold eyes. I saw the younger woman stumble a few steps back as she realized the same I did: the three men were quite dead. Had been for some time. There was dried blood on their clothes, and one of the corpses had a hideous wound in its face.
Despite the fact that the older woman started weeping loudly, the Corporal continued with his monologue.
” - This is Sergeant Jalkanen, my superior. He's been a bit under the weather recently, and not able to take part in patrolling duties. Misters Vilhunen and Koski here suffer from the same affliction, don't you? I'd say maybe Koski is shirking from duty, though. It's so like him, eh?”
He flashed a winning smile towards the corpse with glasses propped up at the end of the table. This was apparently his Sergeant.
” - Please take a seat”, he gestured to us, ”I'll put up some food to -”
He stopped abruptly as if the dead man at the end of the table had just spoken.
” - Really, right now? Yes, Sergeant, sir. Mikkonen, would you be so kind as to watch over our guests here. I'll have to do a... security search on the younger woman.”
He seemed almost apologetic when he moved towards the woman and grabbed her arm. The woman didn't budge.
” - You will come with me. If you don't, I'll break your arm first, and then move on to more vital organs,” he growled with an altogether more menacing voice. He twisted her arm and led the struggling woman off to the side.
The old woman was crying loudly now.
” - Don't hurt my mother,” she said miserably.
Me and the younger soldier looked at each other. He had a desperate look in his eyes, but pointed the muzzle of his rifle towards me. The younger woman struggled to get off from the Corporal's grip, and he slapped her hard. As she fell to the concrete floor, the younger man looked away from me for a while.
In a moment of madness, I jumped and tackled him to the ground.
The Corporal was too occupied with his victim and distracted by the teary pleading of the older woman to notice our struggle at first. Even though I hit my knee sharply on the floor, the man just barely missed a punch at my jaw. I managed to wrest the rifle from him, surprisingly easily. I struck him with the butt keep him down. He didn't seem interested in getting up from the floor anyway.
” - Stop that or I'll shoot”, I shouted to the Corporal pointing the rifle at him. Checked the safety was off.
He had already torn the young woman's trousers partly off, but he left her alone and quickly turned to me, grabbing his own rifle from the floor.
I pushed the trigger.
Click.
” - Ah,” he said, ”alas, there is no ammunition in that weapon. Mikkonen, you see, has been too... unreliable recently that we could allow him to have any.”
He shrugged his shoulders, looking to me and the women in turn, backing away a bit.
” - And here was I, thinking we could get along like civilized people. Shame on me. I should have known you have no respect for the military. So, it is up to us to pass a cursory sentence on you.”
He looked towards the table to listen. Then he nodded.
” - I agree with you, Sergeant. There can only be one sentence for this transgression.”
He took careful aim at me, and a shot rang out.
I saw the surprised look on his face as he fell on the floor, his rifle clanking on the concrete. Two men emerged from the shadows to our right. From the raincoats and armbands they were wearing I could instantly see that these were Civil Defence men.
” - I am sorry we couldn't get to you sooner”, a bearded man with a hunting rifle said to us as I helped the younger woman up from the floor.
” - We have been looking for these... deserters for a while now. They have been preying on passing evacuees for a couple of weeks, but only now we could pinpoint their... base.”
He looked at the seated corpses and then at the young soldier, disgust in his eyes.
” - Madness. Sheer madness. Taking imaginary orders from a dead man, orders to rape and kill innocent people.”
He had a quick talk with his comrade.
” - What we do now is to take this wretch here - ”
He kicked the man in camouflage uniform sharply.
” - to the military authorities. They'll know what to do with him. And the rest of you, officially we would have to take you to the municipal centre to find out your identity and your evacuation status. What we'll do instead is let you move on, if you like to. We don't need any more mouths to feed than we have already. You can go through the stuff these crazies have – had – and if there's any food or other necessaria you need and approve of, take that with you. I wish you luck.”
He looked pityingly as the younger woman tried to console what surely had to be her older relative, by their common looks. But then he seemed to steel himself and frog-marched his prisoner out of the factory.
As we got outside of the building, the younger woman spoke to me.
” - Thank you for standing up to those men,” she said. ”My name is Anne and this is my mother, Raili. You can see that she isn't fully with us anymore.”
She caressed her mother's hair gently. I introduced myself, and the dog.
”- From what I have seen and what I feel, I don't think anyone is really in this world these days”.
Anne told me she was heading east, and I tried to give her an idea of safe roads and areas to that direction. She had also some news to tell me about the way west. As I watched the women slowly walk away from me, I could only admire the tenacity and fortitude of Anne, travelling with her mother who acted like a seven year old, on foot across the broken land.
As I walked along the snowy side road, not venturing any closer to the municipal centre than necessary, my headache started to slowly get worse again. Only closing my eyes seemed to help a bit. After a while it was getting dark. Was it night already? I begun to look for a place to spend the night, any place. After a couple of kilometers I saw an abandoned-looking barn along a fork in the road. That would do.
Turning towards the barn I was suddenly very, very tired. Everything went black around me. Very slowly, it seemed, I fell to the snow. Soft, soft snow.
As I drifted to the darkness I could again see all those grey, bony hands, reaching out to me.
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Stand aside
And go drink the coffee from your thermos
I made it before the revolution, it is still good
Soon your child's first drawing will be thrashed
But civilians are not needed yet
Later on, you'll get to cheer the tanks
That ceremonially crawl along the decked-out main street
Some come running as power changes hands
There's a strange smell in the air, that wakes livestock
That kills the rose
Some come running as power changes hands:
The doctors' swords are sharp
And those of age are called to Lotta Svärd
(Chorus)
Some come running and get a stamped envelope
And some are brought by force
When they need you, they'll take away your civilian clothes
And bring you new ones
It was a dark year,
When nobody washed their paws and half of Europe died
The theatres closed down 'cause of the plague, except the Official one
It was a dark puppet,
When you could see the strings through the show
…
Absoluuttinen Nollapiste: Eräät tulevat juosten (2002)
XXXI. Heroes of the Reconstruction
Interview nr. 223, 26.03.2010. TBF.
Subject: Man, 48 (M177)
Occupation in 1984: Politician
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[Interviews with a former FNA bureaucrat continued (see INT.219)]
Now, this is the new gadget. So I'll speak directly into this thing, right?
[Right.]
Ahem. That morning, I had been to the meeting with the Council, in a secretarial capacity of course, and...
[I am sorry, ”the Council”?]
The Council of Trade and Industry. A lofty name for a harried group of men and a few women put together from what ever representatives of various companies they could find in Mikkeli and the surrounding province. Strategically important companies, at this point meaning any firm that had anything to do with food, fuel, raw materials, manufacture, repair, et cetera. It included people ranging from a couple upper management types from the south – early evacuees – to secretaries and a glorified janitor. This group, meeting in school classrooms appropriated for the purpose provided what we had started to call our ministries with much of the information they operated on, regarding transport, food acquisition and distribution, maintenance and all that. The Sorsa cabinet had had something like this put together during the mobilization, of course, and what we had now was a mere shadow of what that had been. But it represented continuity, too, in a way.
But that is not what we were talking about. After the meeting, I was taken by the two MP:s – who were now following me when ever I had to leave the shelter – back through the town that looked more like a combined military-refugee camp by the day. The traffic around the market square was blocked by an overturned field kitchen and a small semi-riot caused by that event, and when one of my minders could not get the crowd moving even by stepping out and waving his pistol about, we turned back and took another route to Naisvuori. A police Volvo passed us going to where we came from, followed by a squad of provincial troops, probably on the way to pacify the crowd.
The shelter had now become a cabinet headquarters. The Acting Prime Minister's office was here, as were still some of the other ministers, though some were in the process of moving out to various properties around the town centre. What had seemed like a spacious shelter when we arrived now crowded, stuffy and ridden with stacks of paper. They were everywhere, machine-typed sentences outlined in blue ink, adorned with newly official stamps and, more often than not, rings from coffee mugs. The reconstruction of the cabinet and the state apparatus had been started here, and there had been by now too little time to move out the prime mover, as it were.
As I walked towards the inner office, the air smelled of male sweat, chemicals – due to the decontamination measures – and coffee. Thank God there was still coffee, because back in the day the nation literally ran on caffeine. I don't know how it is in Sweden, but here the younger generation wouldn't understand that. They've only known our... domestic approximations of coffee. Funny, when you think about it. That vile stuff is really only consumed by the old, by those who really do know better. After the Exchange, for the mere mortals outside, going cold turkey was soon the only option. But for us that controlled the food distribution, if only tenuously, the drug was still available in comparative abundance.
[The benefits of pre-war stockpiling, huh?]
Indeed. Buying up coffee from the world market had been a high priority in '83. [Shakes his head.]
But I'm digressing. The boss was having a meeting in his office. So I poured myself a mug and sat down to wait for the door to to open , listening to a couple of former provincial bureaucrats now upgraded to the national level talk about the recent rumours. It was now becoming gospel that a renewed official contact with the Swedish would be announced soon. I knew something was happening on that front, but it was still nothing I would talk about with these guys. They were miffed, as usual, when I didn't confirm or deny anything. Being young as I was, I felt good showing off any fleeting power I had through my humble position. Even if it amounted only to the power of pissing off some of my erstwhile colleagues, people much older than me and wiser in the ways of the world.
When I could finally enter the office, my boss was sitting there with Voutilainen, now the Acting Minister of the Interior and Rinne, the same for Labour and Social Services. As was to be expected. The Triumvirate, some had taken to calling them. But not to their faces, certainly.
Even I knew things were not that simple.
My boss asked me to sit down and I started to go through my report about the meeting. It was pretty technical and included a lot of numbers, but that was the kind of thing he was interested in; his university degree was in Statistics. Voutilainen, on the other hand, stood up after a while to excuse himself. Right then, there was a knock on the door.
It was one of the secretaries.
” - Sorry to disturb you, but you wanted to know when the doctors are back”.
” - This is important” said the Acting Prime Minister to me, ” I am afraid well have to return to your report in a bit.”
” - Should I leave?”
” - No, it's OK.”
Two men came in, one in a bulky sweater and the other wearing a stained white coat. I had seen them before. The first one was a member of the local emergency leadership, psychiatrist by training, the other a doctor of internal medicine working for the central provincial hospital. Both had been under tremendous pressure since the Exchange. It showed.
” - So, gentlemen,” said Voutilainen, to the point: how are they?”
The two men looked at each other to decide which would answer. The white coat opened his mouth first.
” - It depends who we are talking about, sir. Lindblom, well, he looked the worst when they arrived. They had to carry him from the car, remember. He is in a very poor condition, and we'll lose him soon. I'd give him a week at the most. Kaskeala, the aide-de-camp, also seemed bad but I think he'll pull through. If those bloody soldiers let him rest and stop trying to squeeze information out of him, that is.”
He stopped to remove his glasses and wipe them off with his coat sleeve.
” - The rest, well, they are better off than we expected. We don't know exactly why. Suonio is in the best condition; while I'd like to keep her under observation for a while, there is no reason she wouldn't make a full recovery. Puhakka, well, is almost as good but he's got pneumonia and that complicates it somewhat. If we get that under control, his prognosis is good as well. And Väyrynen... He's making a great recovery. It is almost unbelievable, considering how bad he looked when they arrived.”
The room became very quiet. Then the other man spoke.
” - The thing is”, he said, glancing at his colleague, ”we'd like to keep him in the hospital for a while longer. Maybe give him a private room.”
My boss looked puzzled.
” - But he just said that he's recovering very well!”
” - Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, and I agree with him."
It still impressed me to hear someone use the title. That it was uttered aloud spoke volumes, it said we were doing something right.
" - But it is not the Minister's... oh, that's right, the Acting President's physical condition I am worried about. It's his mental stability.”
” - What do you mean?”
” - While he is lucid and what he says is logical, after a fashion, I think he's become detached from the reality. Something in that ordeal made his mind cross a certain threshold, I'd say.”
” - Please do elaborate, doctor.”
” - In simple terms, one could say he's having a manic episode. He's talking loudly all the time, fidgeting, even pacing the room despite his condition. His confidence and self-esteem are enlarged. And he's got extravagant plans. An official inauguration, with a military parade, for one. An international peace conference, preferably together with the Swedish. General elections in a few months...”
” - And, considering who we are talking about, this is news how?”, said Rinne.
The doctor looked at him wearily.
” - Sir, this is not a laughing matter. Should I remind you what we are talking about here? The bottom line is that what ever his physical condition, I don't think that man I have in the hospital is fit to prosecute the office of the President of the Republic. At least for the time being.”
The Acting Prime Minister stared at the wall for a while in silence before turning his eyes back to the doctor.
” - All right. Thank you for bringing us this information. We'll have to talk about the situation amongs ourselves. For the while, if at all possible, do find him a private room. And make sure someone you trust keeps an eye on his door at all times.”
” - Done and done, Mr. Prime Minister”, said the doctor, and the two tired men excused themselves.
The three men in the room launched into a discussion. I sat in the corner, as if forgotten there. Like on other occasions, I was like furniture to these men, in some ways a nonentity but nevertheless one that could be trusted, apparently.
Not one of the three men had any special love for Väyrynen. It may be fair to say my boss loathed him. Before the war and even during the mobilization the Centre Party chairman had been constantly politicking to enhance his own position. There had been rumours Väyrynen had conspired with the Soviets to get their support to the Centre Party candidate during the 1982 presidential elections. There had been a hushed-up confrontation between Sorsa and Väyrynen about the Bilateral Defence Commission in December when Väyrynen had demanded that the Soviets should be allowed more information about the Finnish Defence Forces, ”in the spirit of the FCMA Treaty”. He had lobbied to be sent to Moscow to ”defuse the situation”.
Now the dilemma was that the arrival of the remnants of the cabinet would have to be publicized soon. Too many people knew it already. There would be problems with Seinäjoki: if the SDP parliamentarians understood we were sitting on the news, they would get suspicious. Liikanen, the party secretary, was already demanding more positions in the Emergency Cabinet for his party.
” - You know”, said Rinne, ”we might as well tell things as they are. That Väyrynen and the others have arrived here and will be taking their positions when they are fit enough. We need their names for credibility.”
” - Sure,” said my boss, ”but what about the man himself? He's like a sword hanging on our every effort.”
Rinne looked at him and Voutilainen.
” - I think you understand that Väyrynen will only be President if we allow him to be.”
He allowed that to sink in for the moment.
” - You heard what the doctor said. I am sure we could get him, or someone like him, keep the man hospitalized as long as it is necessary. As long as he can't hurt the nation anymore.”
It was quiet in the room. Voutilainen played with a letter opener with his fingers.
” - So what you are saying is that we should use him, his position, to get ourselves enhanced legitimacy and credibility while keeping the man himself sidelined indefinitely for health reasons? That would make me, what, an Acting Acting President?”
” - That is it. Under the conditions, we hardly can afford another Kekkonen, another president who is so detached from reality it actually works against the Fatherland.”
I think my boss made the decision right there and then. I had talks with him later about that.
” - So be it. You know when I first started my work as a minister, on the first day, I saw and cut out a saying from the morning's paper. It seemed apt, and it always is. ´You play the cards you're dealt´, it said. These are the cards we have. I'd so much like to have a better hand, but we must play this one. There's really no option.”
He stood up.
” - I hope you all understand this discussion stays in this room.”
He looked at me while saying that. I guess I have now betrayed him. But since all those three men are dead now, and I owe nothing to the FNA anymore... I don't care no more. The FNA's made a semi-deity out of my boss. He wasn't infallible, he was a pretty ordinary man. Not a bad one, as men go, but he made his share of mistakes.
Not that I believe this decision was one of them.
And go drink the coffee from your thermos
I made it before the revolution, it is still good
Soon your child's first drawing will be thrashed
But civilians are not needed yet
Later on, you'll get to cheer the tanks
That ceremonially crawl along the decked-out main street
Some come running as power changes hands
There's a strange smell in the air, that wakes livestock
That kills the rose
Some come running as power changes hands:
The doctors' swords are sharp
And those of age are called to Lotta Svärd
(Chorus)
Some come running and get a stamped envelope
And some are brought by force
When they need you, they'll take away your civilian clothes
And bring you new ones
It was a dark year,
When nobody washed their paws and half of Europe died
The theatres closed down 'cause of the plague, except the Official one
It was a dark puppet,
When you could see the strings through the show
…
Absoluuttinen Nollapiste: Eräät tulevat juosten (2002)
XXXI. Heroes of the Reconstruction
Interview nr. 223, 26.03.2010. TBF.
Subject: Man, 48 (M177)
Occupation in 1984: Politician
Location: [REDACTED], Central FNA.
[Interviews with a former FNA bureaucrat continued (see INT.219)]
Now, this is the new gadget. So I'll speak directly into this thing, right?
[Right.]
Ahem. That morning, I had been to the meeting with the Council, in a secretarial capacity of course, and...
[I am sorry, ”the Council”?]
The Council of Trade and Industry. A lofty name for a harried group of men and a few women put together from what ever representatives of various companies they could find in Mikkeli and the surrounding province. Strategically important companies, at this point meaning any firm that had anything to do with food, fuel, raw materials, manufacture, repair, et cetera. It included people ranging from a couple upper management types from the south – early evacuees – to secretaries and a glorified janitor. This group, meeting in school classrooms appropriated for the purpose provided what we had started to call our ministries with much of the information they operated on, regarding transport, food acquisition and distribution, maintenance and all that. The Sorsa cabinet had had something like this put together during the mobilization, of course, and what we had now was a mere shadow of what that had been. But it represented continuity, too, in a way.
But that is not what we were talking about. After the meeting, I was taken by the two MP:s – who were now following me when ever I had to leave the shelter – back through the town that looked more like a combined military-refugee camp by the day. The traffic around the market square was blocked by an overturned field kitchen and a small semi-riot caused by that event, and when one of my minders could not get the crowd moving even by stepping out and waving his pistol about, we turned back and took another route to Naisvuori. A police Volvo passed us going to where we came from, followed by a squad of provincial troops, probably on the way to pacify the crowd.
The shelter had now become a cabinet headquarters. The Acting Prime Minister's office was here, as were still some of the other ministers, though some were in the process of moving out to various properties around the town centre. What had seemed like a spacious shelter when we arrived now crowded, stuffy and ridden with stacks of paper. They were everywhere, machine-typed sentences outlined in blue ink, adorned with newly official stamps and, more often than not, rings from coffee mugs. The reconstruction of the cabinet and the state apparatus had been started here, and there had been by now too little time to move out the prime mover, as it were.
As I walked towards the inner office, the air smelled of male sweat, chemicals – due to the decontamination measures – and coffee. Thank God there was still coffee, because back in the day the nation literally ran on caffeine. I don't know how it is in Sweden, but here the younger generation wouldn't understand that. They've only known our... domestic approximations of coffee. Funny, when you think about it. That vile stuff is really only consumed by the old, by those who really do know better. After the Exchange, for the mere mortals outside, going cold turkey was soon the only option. But for us that controlled the food distribution, if only tenuously, the drug was still available in comparative abundance.
[The benefits of pre-war stockpiling, huh?]
Indeed. Buying up coffee from the world market had been a high priority in '83. [Shakes his head.]
But I'm digressing. The boss was having a meeting in his office. So I poured myself a mug and sat down to wait for the door to to open , listening to a couple of former provincial bureaucrats now upgraded to the national level talk about the recent rumours. It was now becoming gospel that a renewed official contact with the Swedish would be announced soon. I knew something was happening on that front, but it was still nothing I would talk about with these guys. They were miffed, as usual, when I didn't confirm or deny anything. Being young as I was, I felt good showing off any fleeting power I had through my humble position. Even if it amounted only to the power of pissing off some of my erstwhile colleagues, people much older than me and wiser in the ways of the world.
When I could finally enter the office, my boss was sitting there with Voutilainen, now the Acting Minister of the Interior and Rinne, the same for Labour and Social Services. As was to be expected. The Triumvirate, some had taken to calling them. But not to their faces, certainly.
Even I knew things were not that simple.
My boss asked me to sit down and I started to go through my report about the meeting. It was pretty technical and included a lot of numbers, but that was the kind of thing he was interested in; his university degree was in Statistics. Voutilainen, on the other hand, stood up after a while to excuse himself. Right then, there was a knock on the door.
It was one of the secretaries.
” - Sorry to disturb you, but you wanted to know when the doctors are back”.
” - This is important” said the Acting Prime Minister to me, ” I am afraid well have to return to your report in a bit.”
” - Should I leave?”
” - No, it's OK.”
Two men came in, one in a bulky sweater and the other wearing a stained white coat. I had seen them before. The first one was a member of the local emergency leadership, psychiatrist by training, the other a doctor of internal medicine working for the central provincial hospital. Both had been under tremendous pressure since the Exchange. It showed.
” - So, gentlemen,” said Voutilainen, to the point: how are they?”
The two men looked at each other to decide which would answer. The white coat opened his mouth first.
” - It depends who we are talking about, sir. Lindblom, well, he looked the worst when they arrived. They had to carry him from the car, remember. He is in a very poor condition, and we'll lose him soon. I'd give him a week at the most. Kaskeala, the aide-de-camp, also seemed bad but I think he'll pull through. If those bloody soldiers let him rest and stop trying to squeeze information out of him, that is.”
He stopped to remove his glasses and wipe them off with his coat sleeve.
” - The rest, well, they are better off than we expected. We don't know exactly why. Suonio is in the best condition; while I'd like to keep her under observation for a while, there is no reason she wouldn't make a full recovery. Puhakka, well, is almost as good but he's got pneumonia and that complicates it somewhat. If we get that under control, his prognosis is good as well. And Väyrynen... He's making a great recovery. It is almost unbelievable, considering how bad he looked when they arrived.”
The room became very quiet. Then the other man spoke.
” - The thing is”, he said, glancing at his colleague, ”we'd like to keep him in the hospital for a while longer. Maybe give him a private room.”
My boss looked puzzled.
” - But he just said that he's recovering very well!”
” - Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, and I agree with him."
It still impressed me to hear someone use the title. That it was uttered aloud spoke volumes, it said we were doing something right.
" - But it is not the Minister's... oh, that's right, the Acting President's physical condition I am worried about. It's his mental stability.”
” - What do you mean?”
” - While he is lucid and what he says is logical, after a fashion, I think he's become detached from the reality. Something in that ordeal made his mind cross a certain threshold, I'd say.”
” - Please do elaborate, doctor.”
” - In simple terms, one could say he's having a manic episode. He's talking loudly all the time, fidgeting, even pacing the room despite his condition. His confidence and self-esteem are enlarged. And he's got extravagant plans. An official inauguration, with a military parade, for one. An international peace conference, preferably together with the Swedish. General elections in a few months...”
” - And, considering who we are talking about, this is news how?”, said Rinne.
The doctor looked at him wearily.
” - Sir, this is not a laughing matter. Should I remind you what we are talking about here? The bottom line is that what ever his physical condition, I don't think that man I have in the hospital is fit to prosecute the office of the President of the Republic. At least for the time being.”
The Acting Prime Minister stared at the wall for a while in silence before turning his eyes back to the doctor.
” - All right. Thank you for bringing us this information. We'll have to talk about the situation amongs ourselves. For the while, if at all possible, do find him a private room. And make sure someone you trust keeps an eye on his door at all times.”
” - Done and done, Mr. Prime Minister”, said the doctor, and the two tired men excused themselves.
The three men in the room launched into a discussion. I sat in the corner, as if forgotten there. Like on other occasions, I was like furniture to these men, in some ways a nonentity but nevertheless one that could be trusted, apparently.
Not one of the three men had any special love for Väyrynen. It may be fair to say my boss loathed him. Before the war and even during the mobilization the Centre Party chairman had been constantly politicking to enhance his own position. There had been rumours Väyrynen had conspired with the Soviets to get their support to the Centre Party candidate during the 1982 presidential elections. There had been a hushed-up confrontation between Sorsa and Väyrynen about the Bilateral Defence Commission in December when Väyrynen had demanded that the Soviets should be allowed more information about the Finnish Defence Forces, ”in the spirit of the FCMA Treaty”. He had lobbied to be sent to Moscow to ”defuse the situation”.
Now the dilemma was that the arrival of the remnants of the cabinet would have to be publicized soon. Too many people knew it already. There would be problems with Seinäjoki: if the SDP parliamentarians understood we were sitting on the news, they would get suspicious. Liikanen, the party secretary, was already demanding more positions in the Emergency Cabinet for his party.
” - You know”, said Rinne, ”we might as well tell things as they are. That Väyrynen and the others have arrived here and will be taking their positions when they are fit enough. We need their names for credibility.”
” - Sure,” said my boss, ”but what about the man himself? He's like a sword hanging on our every effort.”
Rinne looked at him and Voutilainen.
” - I think you understand that Väyrynen will only be President if we allow him to be.”
He allowed that to sink in for the moment.
” - You heard what the doctor said. I am sure we could get him, or someone like him, keep the man hospitalized as long as it is necessary. As long as he can't hurt the nation anymore.”
It was quiet in the room. Voutilainen played with a letter opener with his fingers.
” - So what you are saying is that we should use him, his position, to get ourselves enhanced legitimacy and credibility while keeping the man himself sidelined indefinitely for health reasons? That would make me, what, an Acting Acting President?”
” - That is it. Under the conditions, we hardly can afford another Kekkonen, another president who is so detached from reality it actually works against the Fatherland.”
I think my boss made the decision right there and then. I had talks with him later about that.
” - So be it. You know when I first started my work as a minister, on the first day, I saw and cut out a saying from the morning's paper. It seemed apt, and it always is. ´You play the cards you're dealt´, it said. These are the cards we have. I'd so much like to have a better hand, but we must play this one. There's really no option.”
He stood up.
” - I hope you all understand this discussion stays in this room.”
He looked at me while saying that. I guess I have now betrayed him. But since all those three men are dead now, and I owe nothing to the FNA anymore... I don't care no more. The FNA's made a semi-deity out of my boss. He wasn't infallible, he was a pretty ordinary man. Not a bad one, as men go, but he made his share of mistakes.
Not that I believe this decision was one of them.
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