As the years went by, the boys grew and Arvid became so sickly and so bent that he began to resemble a big-boned bird pecking at the ground. I took up the habit of moving all the yesterdays and tomorrows discreetly to one side. I have never deceived myself in this respect: I gulp down spirits like a sailor. I have done it so skilfully, however, that I have not had to compromise on my dignity, if impeccable manners are enough for that. What else could I have done, when my closest companions for a large part of my life have been empty moments and sleepless nights that end in pale dawns? I might as well have been trapped on a remote island: a pitifully ageing white woman, the soiled widow of a pioneer, surrounded by dirty natives, grubbing pigs and tumbling, whooping bugs.
I have had my chickens, and for a time I was able to watch the boys grow up with at least distant pride. But boys are fated to grow into men, and a mother has to follow this tragedy as a silent bystander. And now it seems they will kill each other, and then this, too, can be added to my never-ending list of losses.
I know now what I will do with the musty clothes in the chests. I will ask the Farmhand to build a bonfire.
Anna will hardly even look at me. Her hips escape my hands. Her hair keeps back its scent. If I speak to her, she replies to the nearest saucepan. Does she already know? Has Mother gone and told her, after all? Should she not offer me support, particularly now that Henrik has turned up at the house, as if we did not have enough misfortunes? I feel as though, after two days’ absence from home, I have lost my wife.
This house is a cadaver. The others are too close to see it, but it has already begun to decompose. I flinch from its decay. It is as if a collection of bones had been unearthed and dressed up in fine clothing to create the illusion of a real body. The wallpaper and chandeliers make no difference. Anyone who is even slightly in the know can scent at a ten-verst distance that the ceiling is leaking, the ridge beams are rotting and the drawing-room floorboards are as bent as an old jetty.
Fortunately, I did not come here because of the house.
On the other hand, I would rather live here than in that windowless hole in a backstreet of St Petersburg. Reeking of cabbage, the building was so labyrinthine, so full of narrow passages and steep stairways, that I often had trouble finding my room. As I searched, I would have to pass doorless nooks whose occupants would put their whole miserable lives on show, without a trace of shame. In one opening, you would see a couple copulating wildly, in another, a man emptying his bowels into a wooden tub. Then there were the rats, and the pigeons that nested in every cranny of the façade, producing the slippery sludge that coated the entire front of the house and the steps leading up to it.
The place was fine if you wanted to forget. You just needed to learn the art of forgetting to begin with. I tried with vodka. The memories failed to dissolve, though; they simply went into hiding to await the soot-coloured mornings. I tried with cheap women, but that did not help, either; I was merely left with the taste of ashes in my mouth. Finally, I could resort only to loneliness, echoey with emptiness. That lasted a while, but then grew unbearably familiar. I was too glued onto myself, I was twitching in my hole to get rid of myself. Eventually, I enlisted in the army. I do not think I have ever done anything so desperate, but at least I received decent clothes and enough food to stop the howling in my guts.
How could I have known there would be a war? It never occurred to me that this godforsaken land would drive great rulers mad. I did not consider that even a peasant nation pays taxes and is good for cannon fodder, that its barren fields and swampy forests are as well suited to become part of the domains of kings and emperors as any wilderness or desert. Nor did I understand that wars are being waged all the time, that lines of men marching with their muskets are merely the visible culmination of constant power struggles, and that actual warfare takes place in salons lit by oil lamps in which liveried flunkeys pour expensive champagne into crystal glasses, and wasp-waisted women wave their ivory fans languidly, and gentlemen sitting amidst thick cigar smoke – heirs of noblemen knighted by Gustav I of Sweden, or offspring of the Grand Dukes of Novgorod, owners of tens of thousands of souls – realize that they suddenly hanker after a ninth city palace or a sackful of diamonds, or that their lives have simply become too monotonous. And furthermore, every man wages his own wars, small, grubby battles that may be as senseless as the rulers’ troop concentrations and fire commands but that he is nevertheless condemned to fight.
That is why I am preparing for my own private little battle. With my luck, he has no saddle, but that is the least of my worries. Until night comes, I will have to keep the others on tenterhooks, let them imagine that I have turned up here to demand something.
Easy. So benevolent are human beings, they are always prepared to think the worst of others.
He does not ask me, he does not even order me. He merely looks at me sideways, meaning: unharness the horse, take it to the stable, give it feed. This is the way I have been treated all these years. In another family, there would at least be a bit of respect for one’s own flesh and blood, poor or not.
Henrik, for his part, does not even deign to see me. Even so, I am not complaining. All in all it is a stroke of luck that he happens to be here. If I had had the wits to ask for anything, that is exactly what I would have asked for. In fact, he came to mind as I was standing in front of the Town Hall, waiting for Erik. I was watching the better folk of the town pass by, idle gentlemen with young ladies on their arms, felt hats on their heads and silver-topped walking sticks in their hands. One never knows, I mused. And then it struck me that if I could get them both here, I would. I am not so concerned about the Old Mistress, for she is the only one in this family who has ever shown me any goodwill.
I do not include the Farmhand in the family. If he belonged to it, I probably would not have needed to go to all this trouble.
I have finished in the stable. I walk across the yard without seeing anyone and rap my knuckles on the door of the Farmhand’s hut. I stand there for a while before he appears, looking suspicious and shading his eyes with his hand as it were a bright summer day. On seeing me, he grunts, relieved, and turns to go in without further ado. I knock the snow off my boots, follow him in and sit down on the bench. The main room is lit by the flicker of the range. A pot on the fire lets out a dark, luxurious aroma.
‘You celebrating?’ I ask.
‘I was planning on saving it for Christmas,’ the Farmhand replies. ‘I didn’t know this day would come first.’
‘Must be chicory in there.’
‘Nothing in there but the real thing. Roasted it myself and ground it just now.’
‘You know how to live, all right. Like a lord.’
‘You can have a cup. Just don’t put it about that we live like pigs in clover round here. Or should I say like emperors. Or kings.’
He pours some of the black beverage into two cups. I warm my fingers with it, take a sniff, sip the coffee carefully. I say, ‘What’ll happen? Will they just go for each other, you think?’