“Let him drink his own fox poison!”
And so they’d got a bit tipsy. Sung hymns. Expressed their devotion to each other. Given speeches.
“Here’s to Mildred,” Majvor had shouted. “She was the most indomitable woman I’ve ever met!”
“She was mad!”
“Now we’ll have to be mad on our own!”
They’d laughed. Cried a bit. But mostly laughed.
That was the funeral.
Lisa Stockel looked at them. They were eating mascarpone ice cream and praising Mimmi as she swept past.
They’ll be all right, she thought. They’ll manage.
It made her happy. Or maybe not happy, but relieved.
And at the same time: loneliness had her on its hook, a barb through her heart, reeling her in.
After Magdalena’s autumn meeting Lisa strolled home through the darkness. It was just after midnight. She passed the churchyard and wandered up onto the ridge that ran upstream alongside the river. She went past Lars- Gunnar’s house, could just make it out in the moonlight. The windows were dark.
She thought about Lars-Gunnar.
The village chief, she thought. The strong man of the village. The man who got the firm with the contract to clear the snow and plow the road down to Poikkijarvi first, before he plowed down to Jukkasjarvi. The one who helped Micke when there was a problem with the bar license.
Not that Lars-Gunnar himself drank in the bar much. These days he hardly ever drank. It had been different in the past. In the old days the men used to drink all the time. Friday, Saturday and at least one day in the middle of the week as well. And at that time they really drank. Then it was a beer or two most days. That’s the way it was. But there comes a time when you had to ease up, otherwise the only way was downhill.
No, Lars-Gunnar didn’t bother much with spirits. The last time Lisa had seen him really drunk was six years ago. The year before Mildred moved to the village.
He actually came to her house that time. She could still see him sitting there in her kitchen. The chair disappears beneath his bulk. His elbow is resting on his knee, his forehead on his palm. Breathing heavily. It’s just after eleven o’clock at night.
It’s not just that he’s been drinking. The bottle is on the table in front of him. He had it in his hand when he arrived. Like a flag: I’ve been drinking, and I’m going to bloody well carry on drinking for a good while yet.
She’d already gone to bed when he knocked on the door. Not that she heard him knock, the dogs told her he was there as soon as he set foot on her veranda.
Of course it shows a kind of trust, coming to her when he’s like this. Weakened by alcohol and his feelings. She just doesn’t know what to do with it. She isn’t used to it. People confiding in her. She’s not the kind of person who invites that kind of behavior.
But she and Lars-Gunnar are related, after all. And she can keep her mouth shut, he knows that.
She stands there in her dressing gown, listening to his song. The song about his unhappy life. His unhappy and disappointing love. And Nalle.
“Sorry,” Lars-Gunnar mumbles into his fist. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“It’s okay,” she says hesitantly. “You keep talking while I…”
She can’t think what to do, but she’s got to do something to stop herself running straight out of the house.
“… while I get the food ready for tomorrow.”
And so he keeps talking while she chops meat and vegetables for soup. In the middle of the night. Celeriac and carrots and leeks and swede and potatoes and everything but the kitchen sink. But Lars-Gunnar doesn’t seem to think there’s anything strange about it. He’s too taken up with his own affairs.
“I had to get away from the house,” he confesses. “Before I left… I’m not sober, I admit that. Before I left I was sitting by the side of Nalle’s bed holding a shotgun to his head.”
Lisa doesn’t say anything. Slices a carrot as if she hadn’t heard.
“I thought about how things are going to be,” he sighs. “Who’s going to look after him when I’m gone? He’s got nobody.”
And that’s true, thought Lisa.
She’d arrived at her gingerbread house up on the ridge. The moon cast a silvery sheen over the extravagant carving on the veranda and window frames.
She went up the steps. The dogs were barking and charging about like mad things inside, recognizing her footsteps. When she opened the door they hurtled out for their evening pee on the grass.
She went into the living room. All that was left in there was the empty, gaping bookcase and the sofa.
Nalle’s got nobody, she thought.
YELLOW LEGS
Spring is coming. The odd patch of snow beneath the blue gray pines and the tall firs. A warm breeze from the south. The sun filtering through the branches. Small animals rustling about all over the place in last year’s grass. Hundreds of scents floating about in the air, like in a stew. Pine resin and the smell of new birch leaves. Warm earth. Open water. Sweet hare. Bitter fox.
The alpha female has dug a new lair this year. It’s an old fox’s den on a south-facing slope, two hundred meters above a mountain lake. The ground is sandy and easy to dig out, but the alpha female has worked hard, widening the entrance so that she can get in, clearing out all the old rubbish left by the foxes, and digging out a chamber to live in three meters beneath the slope. Yellow Legs and one of the other females have been allowed to help sometimes, but she’s done most of the work herself. Now she spends her days close to the lair. Lies in front of the entrance in the spring sunshine, dozing. The other wolves bring food. When the alpha male approaches her with something to eat, she gets up and comes to meet him. Licks and whimpers affectionately before gulping down his gifts.
One morning the alpha female goes into the lair and doesn’t come out again that day. Late in the evening she squeezes out the cubs. Licks them clean. Eats up the membranes, umbilical cords and the placenta. Nudges them into the right place beneath her stomach. No stillborn cub to carry out. The fox and the crow will have to manage without that meal.
The rest of the pack live their lives outside the lair. Catching mostly small prey, staying close by. Sometimes they can hear a faint squeaking when one of the cubs has wriggled in the wrong direction. Or been pushed out by one of its siblings. Only the alpha male has permission to crawl in and regurgitate food for the alpha female.
After three weeks and a day, she carries them out of the lair for the first time. Five of them. The other wolves are beside themselves with joy. Greet them carefully. Sniffing and nudging. Licking the little ones’ rotund tummies, and under their tails. After just a short while the alpha female carries them back into the lair. The cubs are completely worn out by all the new impressions. The two one-year-olds hurtle joyfully through the forest, chasing one another.
It’s the beginning of a wonderful time for the pack. They all want to help with the little ones. They play tirelessly. And the rest are infected by their playfulness. Even the alpha female joins in a tug-of-war over an old branch. The cubs are growing, they’re always hungry. Their muzzles grow longer and their ears more pointed. It
