The Rhythm of Memory (6 page)

When Toivo returned with the boys, he saw that Sirka was not herself. Her eyes shone with pain and her forehead was wet and white. In a panic, he told the boys to be quiet and fumbled for his crutch.

“I will go look for help,” he told his frightened wife, who begged him not to leave.

“The baby is coming,” she said, and in the blue light of winter she looked like a small, terrified deer.

She felt too modest to inform him that her dress was now soaked underneath the blanket, and that she imagined icicles forming around her knees. She remembered that her other children were born only a few hours after her water had broken, and that this child seemed far more eager to be born.

The boys began to grow rowdy. In his despair, Toivo told them sternly to leave the two of them and to play a few meters beyond.

“I could go find a doctor,” he said as he reached to hold his wife’s hand. She smiled at him and told him that she’d rather give birth here in the cold than be left alone.

So he took the woolen blanket and draped it on the snow. And extended his one free arm to guide her from the sleigh to the ground. A little over an hour later, her legs covered by her husband’s sheepskin coat, the drops of blood dotting the snow crimson, she gave birth to a beautiful, green-eyed daughter.

A daughter that, two years later, she would be forced to give away.

When Sirka held her daughter for the first time, she noticed that the child’s hair was white, while the three boys had been born with red. She wrapped the child in her sweater. She examined the girl over in her entirety. She studied the child’s limbs, the moon-shaped fingernails, and the half-closed eyelids, to make sure that she was properly formed, and sighed with a mixture of exhaustion and relief as she brought the child to her breast.

Even with the shortage of food, the little girl had not been a problem for the first two years of her life. Sirka nursed her, and Toivo often watched her suckle the child, trying to mask his own hunger and desire. She knew he secretly wished that she could feed the entire family at her breast. And sometimes, at night, he would reach underneath her gown and drink from her, before falling away disgusted and ashamed.

The little girl, however, was beginning to grow weary of her mother’s milk, and Sirka saw how the child had already begun to steal scraps from the table.

But still, she was small for her age. Tiny, pale, and white. Her favorite thing was a small toy bear, whose ear she sucked on at night.

Sirka insisted, as all mothers do, that she loved all of her children equally. But, in her heart, she knew that she loved her daughter just a little bit more. She loved the boys too, but the three of them had grown so fast and wrestled themselves further away from her with each passing year. She saw how they had their father’s hair, his unusually dark brown eyes, and his passion for the outdoors. But this little girl was hers completely.

She had the same blond hair and green eyes. When Sirka cradled her in her arms, she saw her own features in miniature. The cupid bow of her mouth, the straight line of her nose, and the roundness of her brow. She relished the child’s sweetness, her curiosity, and the sheer joy she displayed from discovering the simple things around her.

So, when Toivo came home one evening with the newspaper in hand and a bouquet of winter violets, nothing could have prepared her for what he was about to ask.

He showed her the paper’s headlines: “Swedish Government to Accept Thousands More Finnish Children in a Gesture to Its Scandinavian Brother As War Continues.”

“The children who went there in the first wave were very happy,” he whispered to his wife. “It won’t be permanent, just until the war ends.”

“No, Toivo. No—” she pleaded. “How could you even suggest such a thing?” In the lamplight, her face revealed her despair, her brow quivering as she spoke. “She is our only daughter…”

“This is no life for our daughter. For anyone.” He slid into one of the chairs and propped his leg on a low wooden stool. “We have no food now. The Russians are pushing farther west. Our soldiers are basically fighting on skis in our backyard! What kind of life is this? And nobody knows when it’s going to end!”

“It will end, Toivo. Eventually.” She began to cry.

“The women who are volunteering for the war effort in town, the
lottas
, are taking names of children to be sent on the SS
Arcturus
in the next few weeks.” He paused. “I put Kaija’s name on the list, Sirka,” he said as he covered his brow with his hand.

She knew even before he said her daughter’s name that she would be the one he would choose. For, not only was Kaija the only girl, she was also young enough to forget them. But, for Sirka, it
would be far more difficult. No mother could erase the memory of any of her children. Particularly this little girl with the white hair who asked for nothing but the love of her mother, her milk, and the company of her small bear.

Sirka wept nightly and the violets beside her bed soon wilted and died. Outside their modest home, the snowdrifts piled high and the sun shone for fewer hours each day.

Three weeks later, Toivo arrived home with lowered lids and hunched shoulders. “One of the
lottas
will be coming to pick Kaija up for the transport,” he said as gently as he could.

She heard him, his words veiled in a whisper. She turned from him so her back faced him and her eyes wandered to the window.

“The
Arcturus
leaves Friday,” he said sadly. “We must leave her in God’s hands now, Sirka.” He embraced her. “God will watch over her while she’s in Sweden, and we will know that at least there she will be safe.”

That Friday, she packed a little bag for her only daughter. She washed her only dress, a little blue-checkered smock with a small white collar, in a bucket of melted snow and dried it by the fire. She folded two sweaters and a pair of woolen tights and placed a small prayer book on top of the small red suitcase. Inside the prayer book, she placed a letter.

She wrapped the book in a small blanket and tucked it into the valise, along with the only photograph she had of herself. Her wedding portrait. A black-and-white photo of her and Toivo, with her in her mother’s white dress and a crown of flowers in her hair.

Lastly, she removed her mother’s wooden crucifix. She held it one last time in her palms, traced its straightness with her finger, and pressed the smooth center close to her lips. If only her daughter could retrieve her kiss, she thought to herself, as she placed it in the bag.

Toivo stood in the threshold of the bedroom watching his young wife. He came over to her and rested his large palm on her shoulder as she knelt to shut her daughter’s little red bag. Through his palm, he could feel her shudder as his wife began to weep softly. And she begged her husband once more not to make her send Kaija away. He buried his face in her shoulder and pleaded for her not to ask him again. For all of this seemed far worse than death. Sending your child to a home, a country, you did not know. Where you knew they could never love her as you had loved her. For she was your own.

Overhead, the sirens blared and the red lights stretched over the snow with scarlet beams, as Toivo went to fetch young Kaija, who slept quietly in the kitchen. The young
lotta
stood in the doorway,
her navy coat and hat appearing incongruous with the rustic surroundings.

Sirka buried her head in her pillow, unable to endure the pain of watching this stranger take her daughter away. But from her bedroom, she heard her little girl calling, “
Minun nalle karhun, minun nalle karhun
,” “My bear, my bear.”

As Sirka rushed to the doorway to hand Kaija her little stuffed animal, she met the eyes of her daughter one last time. The little girl, sensing her mother’s despair, began to wail.

And through her flannel gown, Sirka’s milk began to run.

K
ARELIA
, F
INLAND

J
ANUARY
1942

They had rounded the children up. Confiscated their suitcases and burned the clothes their mothers had packed for them for fear of lice. Kaija’s dress and socks were thrown on the fire, but the photograph, letter, and crucifix were all repacked into the little red suitcase with far less care than Sirka had originally placed them.

Kaija’s tiny body was stripped and examined by a medical doctor, who wrote notes on her physical condition and inserted them into her file. She was reclothed in a new outfit that was donated to the war-effort program and given a new woolen coat with a matching navy hat.

As with the hundreds of children who would be joining her on the SS
Arcturus
from Abo to Stockholm, an identification tag was placed around her neck detailing her name, hometown, and date of birth. She stood there completely bewildered, her green eyes stricken with fear and confusion, her blond curls damp underneath her woolen cap.

The children were encircled with a long white rope to ensure that they didn’t separate from the group. Their small hands were encased in mittens, their feet in shiny new boots.

“Come now,” one of the
lottas
spoke softly to tiny Kaija as they boarded the boat. “You’ll be going to a wonderful new home.”

In the dark cavern of the boat’s belly, she understood nothing of what was going on. Her tiny bear pressed to her tearstained face. The other children crying as the boat rocked back and forth, the lights of the airplanes circling overhead, the sound of sirens, the crush of the boat’s bow breaking through the ice.

In Stockholm, she was the last of the children to be chosen. A little blond girl in a bright blue dress, holding nothing but a small bear and a red, round valise. Pinned on her jacket was a piece of paper with the name
Kaija
inscribed in neat black letters.

The childless Swedish families who had arrived with the expectation that there would be a Finnish boy or girl there for them with bright eyes and a wide smile, each came and left with a toddler matching their wish. The throng of children who had arrived off the boat and stood with their names attached to their coats whittled down to one. One little girl by the name of Kaija.

She stood there alone. Her eyes betraying her confusion. She did not understand the bustle of the administrators and families around her or the strange language they spoke. Men searched for their fountain pens to sign the necessary papers so their wives could bring home the new children, who now dangled from their arms, as quickly as possible and make them their own.

Only one couple remained. Having arrived late, they had missed the selection. The husband was the first to remark about the sweet little girl who stood all alone, somewhat frightened, clutching her bear.

“There seems to be one child left, Astrid,” the man hollered out to his wife, who was rushing only a few steps behind. “Aren’t we lucky!”

The tall man, slender and modestly dressed in his Sunday finest,
pushed through the departing crowd to the ropes that had been set up to corral the children. He had already taken off his hat and was wiping the perspiration from his brow when he knelt down to get a closer look at the little girl. “She certainly looks sweet,” he called back to his wife, who was now close enough to see for herself.

“She looks sad and sickly, Hugo! We arrived too late!” Her annoyance at her husband was obvious and her voice cranky and stale.

“Look at her, Astrid,” he said pointing to Kaija, “she’s only frightened. She’s all alone.”

“I thought we agreed we wanted a boy.”

“I never said that; any child will do.”

“I wanted a boy. We can come back next week when the next boat arrives. Next time we’ll be on time.”

But her husband had already made eye contact with the little girl, and he felt that it would be cruel to abandon her.

“Come on, Astrid,” he pleaded. “I think having a little girl around would do us a world of good.”

The shiny blue car drove home, the handsome driver smiling triumphantly, the two female passengers lost in dissimilar sadnesses. The little girl in the blue dress holds her bear to her cheek, her two blond braids, like two woven ropes of straw, pushed back behind her ears. She no longer weeps, her tears having dried on the bear’s paws hours before. Yet, now she is gripped with the most terrifying fear. She does not recognize the two faces who are taking her away. She does not know where she is going. She wonders where her mother is.

In the large rearview mirror, Kaija sees the handsome man who less than an hour before reached out to hold her small, pink
hand, smiling at her. Beside him, his wife stares out the window, her small, veined hands rocking restlessly in her lap.