The Year of the Hare (16 page)

Ah, what a sight!

Vatanen took the bag off his back and moved it around to the front; he pushed the hare’s muzzle to the window, showing it the grandiose landscape.

“Look, boy, look.”

The hare looked, sighed, and then huddled against its master’s chest; it tucked its legs together in the bag, crouched into a fetal position, and went to sleep.

Immediately bright lights came on in the cabin. The cockpit door opened, and there stood a naked helicopter captain.

“We’re on our way to Sodankylä. Flight time twenty minutes. I ask you to please keep calm. And then . . . could anyone lend me a little clothing?”

He was given a haphazard collection of items. Meanwhile, the equally haphazard collection of people, about twenty of them, began taking a closer look at each other and peeking out of the windows. Vatanen noticed that opposite him was the private secretary, sitting tightly squeezed between two women, and looking distinctly ill at ease. When the official realized who was sitting opposite him, he said quietly, in a voice resigned to adversity: “You here, too. I might have guessed.”

He had no shoes. His bare feet were obviously icy. Vatanen took off his own shoes and offered them to the secretary, saying: “Here, take these. Go on.”

The American military attaché’s wife, who was sitting next to the official, noticed the hare; she pointed to it and said sweetly: “What an adorable creature! How lovely it is! And always with us! May I stroke it?”

The helicopter was heading almost straight into the sun; the snowy wilderness was speeding by underneath. Back at Sompio, thick clouds of smoke could still be seen by craning the neck. The deserted forest glided vibrating below them. As they flew over Läähkimä Gorge, Vatanen could see the tracks left by the bear hunt. Nearer to Sodankylä he caught sight of a solitary figure plodding far below after a long trek; the tracks were like a mouse’s, but the maker of them was black and heading southeast. Vatanen looked so hard, his eyes began watering. He came to the definite conclusion that it was Läähkimä Gorge’s bear: it couldn’t be anything else.

He said nothing. He brushed the drops from his eyes and stroked the hare. The smoke of Sodankylä was coming into view.

T
he helicopter touched down in the forecourt of Sodankylä Garrison Hospital. It was quite a spectacle when the diplomats disembarked into the snow wearing their heterogeneous medley of borrowed clothes. A doctor came to receive them and shook each person by the hand, including Vatanen. The arrivals were ushered into a ward and given a medical examination.

The last one off was a naked airman. He lurked behind the chopper till most of the women had gone into the hospital, then made a dash for a nearby welfare center. The doctor ordered clothes to be sent over to him: they’d been requisitioned.

Vatanen sat in the waiting room with his hare and his knapsack. Soon various civilian clothes, shoes, underclothes, everything, arrived in a delivery van from Mannermaa, the department store. Everyone could select what he needed from the mounting pile on the waiting-room floor and go away to try things on. The private secretary picked out suitable footwear for himself and then returned Vatanen’s shoes, thanking him.

Once his shoes were on, Vatanen left the waiting room and hitched a lift to the main street in the Mannermaa delivery van. The driver had heard the news on the radio and asked Vatanen so many questions he began to feel weary.

Vatanen was fed up with the recent days’ happenings. He got himself a hotel room and called the chairman of the Sompio Reindeer Owners’ Association.

“I don’t suppose the Läähkimä Gorge bunkhouse went up in flames, too?” the chairman said.

“No. But, listen, it’s time to pay me off now. I think I have to be on my way. There wasn’t much peace and quiet up there in Sompio, after all, you know.

“I believe you. Sure, I’ll settle up with you.”

The hare didn’t seem very well. It lay in the bag looking miserable, and when Vatanen let it out into the room, it hopped listlessly over to the bed and closed its eyes.

Vatanen rang the Sodankylä vet to ask what might be wrong. The vet came and examined the hare but couldn’t say one way or another.

“These wild animals can be funny, you know. Tamed, they can die for no special reason. Maybe that’s the case now. The only place that might be able do anything for it would be the National Institute of Veterinary Science. They could analyze some blood samples—if they thought it worth their while, that is. But you’d hardly want to go all the way to Helsinki for the sake of a hare, would you? And, of course, they don’t take private cases.”

But with the hare in such poor condition, Vatanen was determined to do anything he could to help it get better. He managed to sell all the equipment he’d left behind at Läähkimä Gorge, including his skis, to the Sompio chairman, then hired a taxi to Rovaniemi and took the flight to the Seutula Airport at Helsinki. At Seutula, he took a taxi straight to the National Institute of Veterinary Science.

Vatanen walked along the institute corridors without arousing any attention: for once he was in a place where a man wasn’t stared at for carrying a hare.

With no difficulty, Vatanen found his way to a research professor’s office; he rang the bell by the door and, when the green light showed, carried his hare in.

Shuffling papers at his desk sat a white-coated, oddly grubby-looking man, who rose to his feet, shook Vatanen’s hand, then invited him to sit down.

Vatanen said he needed help, or, rather, the hare did, because it was unwell.

“So what’s this hare, and what’s the matter with it?” the professor said, taking the hare in his lap. ... “Hm, it might well have some parasite, I think. It couldn’t have been in contact with any foreigners, could it? Or eaten some unwashed vegetables?”

“It might well have,” Vatanen said.

“It’ll have to have some blood tests; then we can tell.”

He wrote an admission note on a yellow slip and handed it to Vatanen, adding: “The hare’s from Evo, of course.”

Vatanen nodded.

He took his form to a laboratory and gave it to an assistant, who produced several hypodermic needles and took two or three samples from the trembling hare. The assistant said the results would be available in a couple of hours.

Vatanen went for a meal in the meantime and was allowed to leave the hare behind while the tests were being run. A couple of hours later, Vatanen had more than a hare on his hands: a mass of papers, forming a sort of case history. He carried the documents back to the professor’s study.

“As I expected,” the professor said. “Intestinal. A couple of injections’ll do the trick. I’ll make out a prescription, and you can take the medications with you to Evo.”

The hare was inoculated, and Vatanen was given several ampoules and disposable needles.

“Something ventured, something done,” the professor said and took off his white coat. It was five o’clock.

“I’m driving to town. Come along, if you like, if you don’t have a car with you.” The grubby professor was being most amiable. Vatanen got into the car, and the professor headed for the city center.

“It should have lots of fresh water, but nothing to eat for two days. Then it can be fed as before. It’ll certainly recover. I can drop you off at the train on my way, if you like—you did come by train, didn’t you?”

Vatanen couldn’t help replying, “I came by plane, actually.”

The professor was nonplussed, then gave a laugh. “But there’s no plane from the Evo Game Research Institute!”

“I came from Rovaniemi, in fact—and before that from Sodankylä.”

“Not from Evo! But what . . . !” the professor said, completely disoriented.

Vatanen began to tell his story. He pointed out that the hare was indeed from the south, though from Heinola, not Evo. Then he described his travels around Finland with the hare: Heinola, Nilsiä, Ranua, Posio, Rovaniemi, Sodankylä, Sompio, back to Rovaniemi, and now here. The professor had pulled up the car across from the Sokos store in the midst of the Mannerheim Road rush-hour traffic. Parked by the curb, he was listening to Vatanen with obvious disbelief. From time to time he interjected, “Impossible.”

When Vatanen had reached the end of his story, the professor said sternly: “Excuse me, sir, but I don’t believe a word of it. Quite a tale, I admit, but why you’re spinning it I can’t imagine. Now, take that hare back to the Game Research Institute, and I’ll phone there in the morning.”

“All right, if you don’t believe me, call. I don’t attach any importance to the stories.”

At the Sokos corner, a tired reindeer was tugging and pulling at its leash, while a broken-down old Father Christmas gave it a nasty kick on the hooves. The reindeer kept its eyes closed, probably in pain. The deer was surrounded by squalling children, whose tired mothers were having to repeat over and over: “Jari, Jari, stop trying to get on its back! Come on, Jari. Jari, listen. ...”

Vatanen began to feel profoundly depressed. He begged the professor to drive on. The car turned down toward the station.

Stopping again, the professor said: “No, I must relieve you of that animal. This won’t do. I can’t imagine who made you responsible for it. Now, go back there. I’ll send a man to Evo with it tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll look after it myself, at home.”

He had not come from the Evo Game Research Institute, Vatanen insisted.

“Look, this is not a small thing,” the professor said, and moved to take the hare. The car, parked by the snack bar, was causing an obstruction.

Vatanen held on to his hare, but it was getting like the tale of the chalk circle: two women are pulling on a child by its arms and legs; the one who pulls the most ruthlessly wins the tussle, but the child really belongs to the one who lets go. Vatanen let go. His thoughts went to the permit. Where was it? Somewhere in the bunkhouse at Läähkimä Gorge. Then he said: “I’ve got a suggestion. Call the vet in Sodankylä. That’ll settle it. I’ll pay for the call.”

The professor pondered for a moment. “All right, let’s see. My apartment is close by, in Kruununhaka. I’ll telephone from there. I don’t really believe you, and you’ll find you can’t trifle with a hare. I love animals. They can’t be left in just anyone’s hands.”

“Yet you perform vivisection.”

“That’s science. Nor is it your concern. It’s my profession.”

The call was made. The Sodankylä vet confirmed Vatanen’s story as far as the morning consultation in the Sodankylä hotel. He was amazed, however, that the person concerned had already proceeded to Helsinki.

Slowly, the professor put down the receiver. He gave Vatanen a very quizzical look. How much did the call cost? Vatanen asked. The professor seemed not to hear. He said: “I’d like to hear your story once again. I’ll make us a sandwich. You’re not in a hurry, are you?”

“Not particularly.”

H
e became aware he was lying on the floor, rolled up in a carpet. He was bilious: acid griped his stomach and rose into his throat, and he felt like vomiting. He didn’t dare open his eyes; he heard nothing, but, focusing his mind, he could detect all sorts of sounds: borborygmi, whistlings, tinnitus. Again a yellow bile gushed into his mouth.

He lay still. The slightest motion, he knew, and he’d puke. He gulped back the bile. He didn’t dare move enough to put his hand to his forehead, but he knew it was bathed in sweat.

He must smell vile, he thought. His explored his mouth tentatively: a thick tongue encountered a palate coated with glue.

And his heart? It did seem to be beating, though rather arbitrarily. His pulse was sluggish, like the plod of a bored sentry; but occasionally it gave a spurt and produced a couple of enthusiastic beats that almost burst his chest and reached his toes; then it stood stock-still a few seconds, totally arrested, pounded out a few short clouts, and then continued its sluggish plod. He had to get a tight grip on the carpet: the floor had taken off, and he was floating around the room; drops of sweat trickled down his neck; suddenly he felt feverish; the mat was weighing insufferably on his sweaty torso.