The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat and Other Stories from the North

ICE (extract from the novel) ^{ULLA-LENA LUNDBERG}

SHE CAME TO FINLAND on foot across the ice, through the forests, tied to the underside of a freight car, in a submarine that surfaced for one short moment by the outermost skerries where a smuggler’s speedboat waited. She jumped into the Carelian forests by parachute. She changed clothes with a Finnish military attaché and rode to Finland first-class on his diplomatic passport. Once over the border, cars with dimmed headlamps waited on secret forest tracks. Signals were flashed. Finally—Papa! General Gyllen, without whom there would have been no hope.

Well and good. The more versions the better. How it actually happened, no one will ever be told. Except for Papa, the names of the people intentionally or unintentionally involved will never be revealed. The fact itself is momentous enough—in 1939, Irina Gyllen was the only known case of a former Finnish citizen managing to flee to Finland from the Soviet Union. If any other human being is ever going to do it again, it is of the utmost importance that no one ever finds out how it all took place.

Irina Gyllen sleeps alone. If she has to spend a night among other people on a boat, she doesn’t sleep. When she goes to bed, she takes a pill. Which makes her hard to wake up when she has to deliver a baby. The Örlanders know this, it is one of her peculiarities, along with the fact that her medical licence is Russian, so she cannot practise in Finland until she has taken the necessary Finnish examinations. In the Soviet Union, she was a gynaecologist. In Finland, she took a course in midwifery and has now taken this job on the Örland Islands while she studies for her Finnish medical certification.

The Örlands are safe. Mama and Papa have spent their vacations there and know that the locals have boats that can get to Sweden in any weather. They also know that no stranger can slink in unseen. Persons that Irina Gyllen has reason to fear never come ashore without the islanders reporting on their every movement. For much of the year no one comes at all.

It is quiet. You can hear your own heart, your breathing, your digestion. All in good condition, though she’s already into her second life. She lost a lot on the other side; she hardly looks like a woman any more. Tall and angular without any visible softness. A sharply sculptured face, feet that have walked and walked, hands that have worked and worked.

Her body has smoothed over the fact that she has given birth, but people on the Örlands know that Irina Gyllen has left a child behind. A son.

When she wakes up, she takes a pill. Her hand is then steady, her mind adequately dulled, her memory manageable. It is then she works, writes and keeps her records. She lives in the Hindrikses’ little cottage while the community builds a Health Care Centre with the help of a Swedish donation. The people are good—friendly and considerate—but they make no attempt to treat her as one of them. They call her doctor, although she assures them she is not one, and they do not gossip about her in the village. It is only much later that she realizes the reason they don’t is that their silence implies that they know things which can’t be told.

The Hindrikses are good people—happy, talkative, lively. Being always greeted with friendly smiles, always getting an analysis of the weather before she goes out, being praised for having the sense to dress warmly, eating her meals with the family and not forgetting to thank them for the food—all of it helps to keep other things at a distance. There is nothing to see on the surface. Or is her closed expression striking evidence of unnatural self-control?

Of what, exactly? Of the terrible desire to live that forces people to sacrifice everything. As a doctor, you have no illusions. Early on, you notice the hope in dying patients, see how they take note of the slightest sign of improvement, refuse to admit that it’s only a matter of days. The will to live is stronger than any pain or affliction—even medical students make that sober observation. It adjusts to any reality if it means that life can be augmented by one small measure. Just a few more moments, during which salvation may appear.

In theory, Irina Gyllen had understood the situation precisely. In practice, the feeling ambushed her and knocked her senseless. All she could think about was saving her own life. They took her husband first. For the boy’s sake, she did what they had agreed on. Repudiated him, filed for divorce. Continued to work, because the regime always needs doctors; doctors are not something they could afford to discard. Except he was a doctor too. Yes, but surrounded by informers and jealous men. As if she wasn’t. Born in Russia, father a Finnish general.

Working isn’t enough. Even the best disappear. There is no way out except Finland. Even that exit is closed because she has given up her citizenship. But Papa has connections, contacts, and she can still be in contact with Papa through the Finnish legation. Which in recent years she has not dared to visit. But there are employees whom, with her heart in her throat, she can run into on the street.

Papa Gyllen is also a former officer in the Imperial Russian army. The reason she will be arrested, that she should already have been taken, even before her husband. Will he be pressed to inform on her? Just a matter of time. No.

You live out your final days, you prolong them—if you can hold out, one more day, a week, then something may save you. You think only about saving yourself, everyone else can be sacrificed. It’s why people become informers. The only reason Irina Gyllen doesn’t become an informer is that she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself.

In order to save yourself, you can also abandon a child. You don’t even take him to your husband’s parents and entrust him to their care. You just run over to the neighbours, whom you hardly know, and ask if he might stay with them for an hour while you run to the hospital. In his pocket, he has a slip of paper, fastened with a safety pin, with the address of his paternal grandparents. It’s like pushing him out onto the Nile in a basket of reeds. Maybe he’ll be sent to his grandparents, themselves deeply compromised, perhaps about to be arrested. Maybe he’ll be put in an orphanage where his identity will be erased. Maybe they can be reunited quite soon. Through the Red Cross, now that the war is over.

He was eight, understood a great deal. Had stopped asking about Papa, knew that was best. Don’t think about what he’s going through now. Above all, don’t think about what he’s thinking and feeling. Think instead about how adaptable children are, how they manage to adjust to every new situation. Remember how they’re able to find pleasure even in small, irrelevant things. Don’t forget for a moment that they can so easily grow attached to new people, that they forget. Don’t forget that they forget.

Don’t think about the fact that seven years have passed, half his life. That he is now a difficult teenager, nearly an adult. All further contact impossible, grandparents unreachable, evacuated during the war, gone. Broken diplomatic relations during the war made all efforts impossible. But now that there’s peace, there’s hope. The Red Cross, new personnel at the legation, sooner than you might think.

Yes. But Papa Gyllen is old, retired, so too are his contacts. The new people look at them with suspicion. You have to hurry slowly, arm yourself with patience. If the boy made it through the war, he’ll make it now, in peacetime. Become an independent person. Do what he likes. May not want to have anything to do with her. Entirely understandable. But there must be some way to find out where he is.

But what if he is not? A helpless child dying alone in an epidemic hospital, frozen, starving, not even thinking “Mama”. Then she takes a pill. It’s quiet on the island, everyone is friendly, the women giving birth are brave and capable, she likes her work. It was a piece of luck that someone told her about this job. Nice that Mama and Papa, who’ve grown so old during the war, like it so much out here and rent a place every summer. Everything has worked out much better than she might have feared.

She saved her own skin. An odd expression. It makes her think of skin and bones, which is all she is—tall and gaunt and stiff. Her skin and her bones are the crutches that keep her going, and it’s going well, it’s all going very well. The main thing is that you have something to keep you busy. Of course, she gets called out as a doctor sometimes, though she’s always careful to point out that she has no medical licence and no right to treat patients or make decisions that should only be taken by a licensed physician. Yes, yes, they say, we know, but, Doctor, if you would just please come, it’s impossible to get to the hospital in Åbo. Well, all right, she supposes she can come and have a look, maybe give some advice, a bit of help, as long as it’s understood that it’s unofficial, the way old women through the ages have helped those who sought them out.

That’s an argument they understand. Yes! That’s the way it’s always been. The previous midwife, who’d never been to medical school, was a thousand times better than the nearest doctor! Suddenly she’s swamped with effusive stories about the previous midwife’s miraculous cures. And she herself? She does indeed answer their calls, and soon the stories about her own deeds begin to make the rounds. They are seldom difficult things—cuts and wounds that need stitches, broken bones that need to be set and splinted, simple remedies for pneumonia and catarrh, medicines for pain. She sends thrombosis to the mainland, and when she finds cancer, she persuades them to take the boat to Åbo. They have an operation, come home and eventually die. Good practical experience for Irina Gyllen, who plans to be a general practitioner. She gets daily practice in diagnostics, and the stories they tell in the villages confirm that she is always right.

She treats a relatively rugged population, sheltered from epidemics by the islands’ winter isolation, surprisingly well nourished during the war years thanks to their healthy diet of Baltic herring, their mental state robust. When she sometimes commends them for eating sensibly and not coddling themselves, they are as pleased as punch.

But they cannot understand why she has such a strong Russian accent and often has trouble finding the right Swedish words, although General Gyllen speaks fluent Finland Swedish and even her Russian-born mother manages well enough. Why does Russian cling to her speech although she wants to forget it? Why can’t she find her way back to the language that was her father’s native tongue? Why does she have such a frightful accent, even though she spoke Swedish as a child? Why do the Russian words come more quickly than the Swedish ones, even though she lives in a completely Swedish environment? As soon as she opens her mouth, Russian jumps to her lips and renders her monosyllabic and abrupt.

Of course, people speculate. For example, that maybe she’s not Irina Gyllen at all but a completely different Russian, a famous spy smuggled into the country perhaps, or a defector, a female scientist that Russian agents are looking for, a person whose head is full of Russian state secrets! Someone who’s taken Irina Gyllen’s identity, with General Gyllen and his wife standing surety. Because does she really resemble them? No, not a bit. Papa Gyllen is a head shorter and stout, Mother Gyllen is taller and thinner, but not like her in any other way. There is definitely something fishy, because “Irina Gyllen” speaks Swedish like a Russian.

Undeniably. But whoever she is, she has a good name on the islands, and whoever she is, the Bolsheviks have been outsmarted and taken it in the chops. Which is excellent and makes people proud and protective. Not that she can’t take care of herself, if it comes to that.

Yes, she can and does take care of herself, and she works hard at being normal, although it doesn’t come naturally. Out here you’re supposed to be full of fun and jokes, and that’s the hardest part for her. The loss of her sense of humour is perhaps the most striking evidence of everything she has left behind. Large parts of her are missing as she moves among the people and tries to generate interest in the local chatter, at the moment all about the newly arrived pastor and his wife. Eyewitnesses have seen him at the Co-op and shaken hands, and the coastguard has seen her on Church Isle—a woman with get-up-and-go. They also mention that there is a one-year-old among the household goods and give her a meaningful look, warning her in good time that she may have another expectant mother to attend to. Now every last one of them will be going to church on Sunday to hear him and have a look at her. There will be several boats going from the village, and Dr Gyllen is heartily welcome to ride along!

A difficult point, this. She who’s been saved from the godless Soviet Union is supposed to throw herself into the arms of the Church. Of course, she’s thankful to be in a country with freedom of religion. And if she really was a stranger who’d taken on Irina Gyllen’s identity, she would be a devout member of the congregation. But Irina Gyllen doesn’t believe in God. On the contrary, she sees what has happened to Russia as proof that a benign Divine power does not exist. Truth to tell, the very young Irina Gyllen was a freethinker even before the Revolution, and what has happened since has not given her any reason to reconsider her views.

Religion is an opium of the people. The Örlanders go to church. Irina Gyllen takes a pill. Opium is what all of us need. So in essence, perhaps, she’s a friend of the church. Here, where she lives very visibly among the people, she will stand out less if she occasionally goes to church on the major holidays or, like now, when the new priest is going to be closely examined right down to his buttonholes. She’s going to have a lot to do with him, for the pastor is usually the chairman of the Public Health Association. And the priest’s little daughter will be coming to have her regular check-ups with her mother. So why not, yes, of course, she’ll go. There will be a lot of people, and she likes that better than when the pews are nearly empty and everyone looks around at her to see if she sings along and reads the general confession and how she reacts to passages that they imagine will be painful to her.

“Yes, thank you,” she says. “I think if you have room in the boat, I’ll come.”

Her Russian accent thickens whenever she’s conflicted. That doesn’t escape them, but they look at her sunnily and say there’s always room for the doctor, and she’s heartily welcome to ride along.