Irreal

       A newspaper clip is faded, torn at the edges as if it has been issued in the Old World and not a couple of years ago. A Swedish Officer Killed. War Declaration? the header asks. Now he knows the answer. No, the incident dissolved, drowned in the red tape. All treaties with Finland are terminated after an armed clash caused by superstitions. The subheader is still true. The article body is in a smaller font; it blurs no matter how hard he rubs his eyes with the glove cuff. It doesn’t really matter, Sune Västerström remembers each word, each stop and dash, each line in the accompanying picture. Last Thursday, the 3rd Expeditionary Unit of Cleansers, under the command of Colonel S. Nilsson, initiated clearing of yet another territory on the Finnish side of the Gulf of Bothnia, in the vicinity of Nystad (former Uusikaupunki). By the end of the day, the Finnish party demanded to stop the operation, claiming that the novel incendiary affected the so-called “spirits of nature” negatively. We have tolerated primeval beliefs of our partners as long as they haven’t interfered with cooperation between our countries. But their demand to suspend or even terminate such a large project to save some “spirits” was unacceptable, and Colonel Nilsson refused to stop operations. Next morning, the Finns repeated their claims as an ultimatum and brutally killed Colonel Nilsson’s aide and interpreter, lieutenant E. Västerström, to prove their intentions. The Colonel had to retreat due to adverse weather conditions and to prevent further casualties, as the unit was not prepared to fight the partners. The next day, HQ ordered the unit to return to the base. It is worth mentioning that Västerström’s murderer, a Scout named L. Hotakainen, participated in the first two expeditions to the Silent World with his victim, and the two were believed to be friends. That is very illustrative of the Finns’ treachery and unreliability as a nation and as individuals. That’s what we get after all the help we have provided them in cleansing their territories in the last forty years! But they forget not only our friendship but also the fact that Sweden is their only supplier of coal and metal. Currently, Iceland, as the presiding country of the Nordic Council, is— The rest of the article is cut off. Who needs political insights anyway? Everything of importance is here; the text, and the picture. A drawing, not a photo. No one had a camera ready, no one expected anything this crucial and horrible. Most probably, the editorial artist distorted the scene in some minor details to embed symbols and metaphors. The uniform of the Cleansers looks lighter and more refined than it actually is. Sune knows it for sure; he has worn it from almost age 14 until the last week, when he resigned from the Army. On the contrary, Finns are depicted as ragtag grey figures in fur capes, with rifles pointing at the Swedish side. The artist has flattered the Swedish colonel by making him more manly than he ever was. Sune saw Colonel Nilsson once or twice during inspections—a rat of a man. In the picture, the officer was staring in brave indignation at the Finnish captain’s rifle aimed in his face. And the foreground... Now there’s a strange thing: Sune perceives the black-and-white print in colour. Orange trim of the Cleansers’ uniforms, golden hair of the fallen aide, red blood marring his head and shoulder, axe blade, and hands of another ferocious Finn. And of course, he hears names instead of initials. E. Västerström is Emil, his adored cousin, kind, caring, strong, impeccably neat, endlessly beautiful. Emil, who had always a cool story out of his experience to tell to his cousins instead of bedtime fairytales, who would gladly treat them to a cake, play hairdresser salon, or even blow up something unnecessary while parents were away. Each his visit to the house in Mora was an event for Sune. It was a pity those events were so rare while he was going to school, and Emil was often on expeditions or visiting friends overseas. And even when they met, there were other people around—family, friends, colleagues—and too little privacy to muster up courage and tell Emil something very important. A thicker paper is palpable under the newspaper. It has become a ritual. When the clipping makes his vision blur and his breath hitch, he takes a photo from under the newspaper—a real photo. It is monochrome too, but who cares? Sune keeps the photo folded so as to leave just two figures on the upper side, him and Emil smiling bright and confident as always, his hands resting on the shoulders of his favourite cousin—Sune grew almost to his tie knot at that time. In the picture, Sune is still wearing the school uniform tunic. The Cleansers’ uniform is waiting yet ahead. Other people stand close, so there’s also Anne’s ponytail, Håkan’s elbow and cheek, and Mom’s coat sleeve in the visible fragment. Sune still remembers the weight and warmth of those hands, the smell of Emil’s uniform jacket, a blend of gunpowder, smoke, pungent incendiary chemicals, and flower soap. Sometimes Sune would dig his nose into his own jacket when the desire to see Emil grew beyond endurance. All components were in place: smoke, incendiaries, soap, yet something was missing. Something elusive, indefinite, like a soul if the souls had existed. The very person. He remembers his pride when he’s got to be the closest to Emil in the photo; his dreams of growing up just as cool, neat, and confident. Confident enough to tell his cousin something Sune realised only as a teenager, though it had always been there. He had always loved Emil. Truly, big time, in earnest. Didn’t Emil love him too, above Anne or Håkan, or other friends? Sune didn’t doubt it. And it couldn’t be for nothing that long ago Emil made a copy of his own haircut for Sune alone. Wasn’t it a sign of a special attitude? Since then, Sune has always demanded from his parents to have his hair done in Emil style and has decided firmly to become a Cleanser. As a child, he heard once, as his Mom said to Dad on some occasion, that Emil was only interested in himself. Later, Sune understood what his mother meant—that her nephew is an outstanding egoist. Sune didn’t care. If that’s the case, he’d be a perfect mirror, and Emil wouldn’t be able to ignore his own reflection. And who cares if they’re both men, or relatives? It’s not like they’re going to have children. And Sune didn’t notice his cousin dating girls, even though Sune’s parents tried to find him “a good match” from time to time. The dream was slipping away, though. He just couldn’t be a perfect copy. Sune outgrew Emil by a couple of centimetres at 16. And he had slightly different hair colour, not so shiny, and a slightly wider nose, and… and he won’t be a lieutenant of the First Line Cleansers, ever, because his medical record says No in the Immunity field. Yet another mistake of his stupid father. Sune strokes the face in the photo with a finger, his memory resurrects the rest: smell, voice, now soft, now grumpy, warmth of the hands, silky gloss of the hair. Imagination provides what Sune hasn’t had the occasion to experience in person. Lips touching, muscles tense under thermals, breath singeing the neck, hands pressing, sliding... Sune bits his own cheek to stop the too-vivid imagination, for his body reacts all too keenly, and the timing cannot be worse. He is in the cafeteria of the transit terminal near Bornholm, alone at his table, but it is quite crowded by passengers from the same Skutskär ferry he has arrived by, and boarding the Saimaa line may start any minute now. He must switch his mind to other subjects. For example, he can remind himself that nothing of this will come true because one freaking Finnish bastard— Sune unfolds one end of the photo. The guy behind Håkan is not as ugly as in the newspaper drawing but still far from pretty. Bones and sinews, a sharp face, pale hair hanging limp, washed-out grey eyes look absent-minded sideways. L. Hotakainen from the article is Lalli. Sune remembers this name being said in Emil’s voice. Emil believed the Finn was his friend and was taking him to the Mora house several times, but more often he’d go on overseas expeditions to the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia. Sune shudders. Back in childhood, he thought Lalli was quite a funny thing: during their first meeting, the Finn was hissing in an extremely hilarious way when the triplets pulled him by the shirt hem, and didn’t speak Swedish at all. Who knew that this thin, plain person would crush all Sune’s dreams? No, Sune won’t let it fly. He stares at the photo, though he knows each feature of that hated face by now. Imagination provides viewfinder crosshairs, the metal of a trigger under the index finger. There’s a heavy gun in Sune’s baggage; it can smite even a wolf-beast. Emil favoured this type. No, a bullet in the head is too easy for that treacherous scum. The first shot must go to the right shoulder so that he doesn’t use his rifle or knife, so that he falls to the forest mud and screams. Then, a shot or two in the legs, so that he can’t escape, so that he feels the imminence of revenge, looks Sune in the face and sees Emil, and understands for what crime the rest of the clip will be emptied into his guts... Sune comes to his senses when he almost crushes the photo in his hands. No, that won’t do. He tries to unclench his teeth and make a more casual face before passing border control. And he’d hate to damage his only photo where he is with Emil, the two of them together so close, alone (when the thick paper is folded properly). Over the past two years, his feelings have not faded one little bit—neither love nor silent despair nor hatred. It took two years to prepare for this trip. Sune would gladly take off right then, but even in the deepest rage, he realised that he wouldn’t reach Finland. With his Swedish passport, he’d bow to a ticket office and go home. The two countries severed all direct traffic and contacts. So, first he had to wheedle information and contacts of the right people from a business partner of his parents, a retired Norwegian general, and then save money for a fake Icelandic passport and for the outfit. It was not an easy task with the minimal wage rate of a Cleanser of the safest Third Line operating in winter. He’d acquire a right to transfer to the Second Line only after years of incident-free service and would never be admitted to the First Line because his father was a brainless, infatuated fool to marry non-immune Mom. Sune loved her, but, well, the lack of immunity was very inconvenient. One good thing was that he had some time to refresh foreign languages. While in school, Sune tried to study Finnish on his own (Emil did master it quite well!) but gave up when he ran into fifteen grammatical cases and countless verb forms. No, you can’t trust people who spell the same words differently in different situations! And Sune’s school Icelandic was rather rusty since he dropped out of school early to join the Army. Some recap was needed for him to pass off as a citizen of Iceland. His patience lasted only until the second anniversary of… Uusikaupunki Incident. Sune wished to get piss drunk but couldn’t afford it. Money-saving, damn it! Just a single shot of Akvavit in Emil’s memory. But it was enough to ignite an idea and enough courage to put it into action. At night, he sneaked into his parents’ house and took a couple of banknote bundles from the safety locker. The money wouldn’t stay there long anyway, Torbjörn Västerström was as lousy at finance management as ever. If there was any money at all, it was only due to his business partners. For good measure, Sune visited expedition equipment storage in the basement and took a gun with ammunition, a respirator mask with spare filters, all-season field clothing—everything he needed to search for one man amidst Finnish swamps. Hotakainen is a scout; it will be convenient to waylay him outside of a settlement one-on-one. A scout will not be afraid or suspicious of a single human in the woods. Sure, Sune will have to go out into the Silent World alone, but the risk seems minor to him. He has decided to think other technical details through on the spot. But to find that bastard, Sune must first get to Finland with a rusted junker. Boarding will be announced in… It is being announced right now. He gulps down lukewarm herbal tea and cringes. Instead of dashing to the pier, he has to wait until a group of businesslike folks goes first. He doesn’t want to run into real Icelanders. As suck would have it, they dally with their beer and riveting discussions in the lisping, guttural language of theirs about families, hobbies, and the shiny perspectives of a long business trip to the slums of the world. He’d better listen to them closely to study accents, intonations, and words in a last-ditch effort to improve his Icelandic. But his mind keeps turning to the two papers—the clip and the photo—and further to the horizon. Sune places them carefully in a small hidden pocket in his jacket. Finally, he sees through the window that the Icelanders board the vessel. Time to go. He has hidden his Swedish passport and presents a different document to a surly, sleepy check-man at the ramp. With all the reminiscence, Sune has forgotten to fret whether this fake document is good enough. The check-man stares at the double page without enthusiasm and aligns the name with the list of passengers. “Reynir Arnason”, he mutters under breath. Sune selected the name deliberately. He had to delve into the paper chaos of the first Danish expedition for a couple of days but found the name of the stowaway Icelander landing in the stupidest way in the team of researchers. Sune needed a legend. So, now he’s looking for the people who saved him long ago to thank them. For the sake of the legend, he chose the Icelandic passport over the Norwegian one. Besides, Finns are rumoured to treat Icelanders better than other foreigners after the… incident. The real R. Arnason would most certainly stay away from overseas for the rest of his days. Sure, he is the same age as Emil; he must be something near thirty now, but Sune does not intend to go deep into details and hopes that Finns don’t remember the dates of all Reconnaissance expeditions well. “Hyvaa huomenta,” Sune smiles back at him as he imitates the Icelandic accent by forcing h’s and ignoring all those dots above the letters in the guide book. The Finn grimaces, either disapproving of the abuse of his language or disagreeing that a morning can be good. At least he returns the passport with the ticket and asks the next question straight-faced, as a mere formality. “Mikä on matkanne tarkoitus?” A question about the travel purpose is obvious, and an answer was prepared long ago. “Haluan tavata ystavani.” There’s nothing wrong with a wish to meet a friend. The checkman grumbles something indiscernible and steps back to let him onto the ramp. Okay. Sune exhales. What a mess of security they have. But that’s great; it means the rest will go as planned. Sune climbs a flimsy-looking ramp and stuffs the passport and ticket into a chest pocket as he’d chamber a round. He squints at the horizon as if through a viewfinder. There’s only a grey mist over the sea, but soon it will rise to reveal a shore, rocks and forests, palisades, and one target with a face.