flying all over the room.”
This hurts. “How many people did Valpo detectives kill in Stalag 309?”
“Some dozens, maybe a hundred. Toivo and I killed maybe half of them. The SS guards found it soothing to see us take part in their cause and show solidarity, but not too often, because if we did the shooting instead of them, it ruined their fun.”
I was wrong. I didn’t need to hear this. “I don’t want to know any more.”
He nods understanding. “Don’t judge Toivo. Or me. You don’t have the right. Those were different times. Strange times. I don’t feel guilty about them. On the contrary, I’m proud of what we did for our country. Our patriotic duty. Toivo was a good man and a good friend. I still miss him.”
My temples pulse migraine, but the evil creatures in my head lie dormant. “I miss Ukki, too,” I say. “You remind me so much of him, in a way it’s hard to be around you.”
Arvid smiles. “I always wanted to be a grandpa. Ritva and I had two boys. Cancer took one. The other died in a car wreck. Neither one made it out of his teens. You’re a good boy and a detective to boot. You can call me Ukki if you want. Maybe it will make you feel better.”
The idea seems silly. I question his motivation for suggesting it, and it makes me suspicious, so I play along. “Okay, Ukki. Why did my grandpa move to Kittila?”
Despite my mistrust, calling him Ukki feels good, makes me feel like I’m a kid again.
“He was braver than me. I was afraid of persecution by the new Red Valpo. I thought they would execute me or at least put me in prison. I fled the country and moved to Sweden for a while, then to Venezuela. I had a farm there and didn’t return until the late 1950s, after the amnesty. I met Ritva and settled down. Toivo was furious about the settlement with the USSR, called it a betrayal. The Kittila area had a lot of Red partisans. Toivo moved there and joined an underground network of White partisans. They stockpiled weapons and hoped the tide would turn. They wanted to overthrow the government and slaughter the Reds. It never happened, so he lived out his life as a blacksmith. We exchanged letters, I visited a couple times. His disappointment over the war was bitter, but in general he was happy enough.”
Sixty-five years later, Arvid’s fears of persecution are renewed. It disturbs me.
Ritva sets the table. Arvid carves the roast. “A friend of mine killed a big moose and gave me a lot of it. Take some home with you if you want.”
I find myself liking Arvid more and more, and I’m less and less certain I care about what he did in the Second World War. A lifetime ago. “Listen,” I say. “After what you told me, I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid you’re in real trouble.”
“I’m afraid, too,” Ritva says. She’s been quiet today, looks like she’s not feeling well.
Arvid ladles gravy on baked potatoes, carrots and turnips. “Here’s what we do. You go back to the interior minister, and tell him to fucking fix this or I start telling state secrets.”
He’s ninety years old, and his secrets must be from the war. I can’t imagine that they carry much weight anymore. “Can you give me some examples?”
“Things contrary to Finland’s perception of its own history. Unpleasant things. Most of it has been written about in one place or another by historians, but often disputed or discredited, called surmise or conjecture, because no one wants to know the truth. I’m a national hero. I’ll write a book and give this unpleasantness the official stamp of veracity.”
I’m still doubting. Arvid and I compliment Ritva on the moose roast.
“What do you think of Finland’s great Lord and Savior, picture of moral rectitude and man of supreme honor?” Arvid asks.
“You mean Mannerheim?”
“The one and only.”
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. Descended of Swedish royalty. Imperial Russian army officer. Commander in chief of Finland’s defense forces in the Second World War, and later the nation’s sixth president.
“He was a great man,” I say, “a great leader. Finland might not exist today without him. The Russians or the Germans or both would have destroyed us.”
“That’s correct. Much recent historical research has taken up the question of the extent to which Finland protected Jews during the war. Mannerheim is lauded for his efforts.”
“You’re the one they’re going to accuse of being a Jew killer, not Mannerheim,” I say.
“I killed Communists. I didn’t give a flying fuck if they were Jews or not. Jewish prisoners of war were concentrated in the middle of Finland, near the Second Central POW camp in Naarajarvi. Can you think why that might be?”
“History books say they were placed there for their own protection.”
“Wrong. They were placed there in case it was necessary to sell them off to the Gestapo.”
“Sorry,” I say, “but how could you possibly know that?”
“Bruno Aaltonen was friends with the head of the Gestapo, and they discussed it at length. My father was friends with Aaltonen. He told Dad about it. Dad told me. And besides, it was a common topic of discussion among Valpo detectives.”
“You’re telling me Mannerheim was an anti-Semite and prepared to take part in the Holocaust.”
“No, I’m telling you he was a pragmatist, faced with weighing the lives of a few hundred Jews against the liberty of Finland, a country he protected at all costs, and the lives of its citizens, which at that time numbered about four million. I’m telling you great men don’t become great without getting their hands dirty.”
“It’s hard to believe,” I say.
“You believe fabrications in history books. You’re brainwashed. Our relationship with Germany was rooted in ideology as well as shared military goals. The Continuation War was about expansionism. Through Valpo, we only handed over about a hundred and thirty people to the Gestapo through extradition. But the military turned over about three thousand, mostly Red Army. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because we wanted slave labor. Germany had an enormous number of prisoners of war. We were trading our Red Army prisoners for their Finnic and especially Finnish-speaking prisoners so we could settle them in Karelia, which we had captured from the Soviet Union and which we intended to ethnically cleanse of Russians. It would have eased the labor shortage on the home front. It was an ideological decision. Nationalists had dreamed about the opportunity to occupy Eastern Karelia since before I was born. Mannerheim signed off on this. He refused to send our troops to attack St. Petersburg with the Germans. Giving the Gestapo three thousand POWs was a way of smoothing that over.”
“What about Jews?” I ask.
“We gave the Gestapo latitude. If they requested extradition of a particular person, like as not, we wouldn’t inquire about the basis for the request. We knew goddamned good and well though, that an extradition was a death sentence.”
“This is powerful stuff. How could it have been kept secret for so long?”
“Near the end of the war, Valpo saw trouble coming. We destroyed as much documentation as we could.”
I’m in over my head. I’m a detective, have no business in the political realm. “You’re asking me to relay a threat to blackmail the Finnish government into protecting you.”
“It’s not a threat. I am blackmailing them. Tell the interior minister that I’ll also discuss our treatment of POWs.”
“The death rate in our POW camps was high,” I say, “but be fair. We didn’t have food to adequately feed ourselves, let alone them.”
“We held sixty-five thousand POWs. About thirty percent died. That rate was surpassed in Europe only by Nazi Germany, with its death camps, and by the USSR. Stalin was just as bad as Hitler. The death rate here wasn’t so high until we decided to use already sick and starving POWs for forced labor. Then they started dropping like flies. And we could have made sacrifices, fed them better if we wanted to. We just didn’t want to.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think anyone will believe all of this, even from you.”
“Boy, you’re naive beyond words. We shared the Nazi vision. Expansionism and room for the nation to grow. An agrarian paradise populated by ethnic Finns. That dream lives on. Don’t you watch TV?”
