Dusk in Kalevia: Chapter 8

“They took him to some gulag up north,” Kaija whispered. She struggled to keep her voice down as she remembered the night that had ended her normal life.

“As a child of defectors, I wound up at a state orphanage where I got the shit kicked out of me on pretty much a daily basis. Not just by the orphans, either–mostly by the jerks who ran the place.”

She heard Vesa sniffle in the dark, and felt his arms tighten around her.

“No use crying over it now,” she continued. “When I got the letter a few years later that told me my father was dead–it just said that he’d died in prison–I was pretty much finished. I would’ve had nothing to live for if not for one thing.

“One of the older boys in the orphanage told me about some people who could get information about defectors over the border. His parents had been executed during the purges, and he was the one who first led me to the Forest Clan. Pyry was my best friend, like a brother to me… He kept me alive by telling me my mother was probably living in Helsinki.” She paused. “I wanted to be just like him.”

“What happened to him?” Vesa asked.

“I…don’t know. One day, he was just…gone.”

“Oh, Kai…”

“Kai is my father’s name. My real name is Kaija.”

To her surprise, she felt herself start to cry when she said it, the tears hot spilling onto Vesa’s jacket as he held her. She stroked his face and discovered it was wet with tears of his own.

She was suddenly desperate to let go of all the sorrow bottled up inside her–the misery she had suppressed in her stoic battle for a greater cause. She gripped him, shaking, and wept into his shoulder, relinquishing years of pain into the solid comfort of his arms.

She sobbed until she exhausted herself, and then simply lay against Vesa’s chest, listening to beat of his heart. A strange calm descended on them. She felt lighter somehow, empty and clean, transported far away from the little hole at the center of the lion’s den.

“Kaija.”

“Mmm?”

“Kaija, I need to tell you something.”

“So tell me.”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Her mouth opened in surprise, her chest tightened with hope. Elation prickled at the edge of her tumbling thoughts.

“Even though I’m an enemy of the state?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Who kidnapped you? Who wants to destroy everything your father stands for?”

“Um…I mean…” His voice hardened. “Y-yes. Yes.”

She kissed him lightly at first, then again, deeper, tasting the salt on his lips. For a moment, neither of them moved, poised in a delicate equilibrium, and then he pulled her back down to him. Her lips tingled as her tongue shyly explored his; she fumbled in the dark, forgetting everything but the boybeneath her. Her tense body melted into him as she breathed through his mouth, her pain eased by the heat of his skin. When they parted, her mouth found his ear, and she whispered to him the only words remaining.

“I loved you from the day I met you, Vesa Uusitalo.”

**

Kaija sat at the table, periodically shining her flashlight beam on the cheap windup clock that counted out the minutes until she was supposed to wake up the rest of the men.

Once Vesa had fallen back asleep, she’d felt a languid calm come over her–her ignored exhaustion. It had been torture to force herself back awake and leave him breathing softly in the dark, but her brothers couldn’t discover that she’d abandoned her post to sleep in the arms of their hostage.

As the time crawled by, she stared into the darkness and relived the kiss in her mind. How had she made it to seventeen without ever having done that? She had thought about it often, of course–fantasies fed by books and the chaste kisses in the cinema–but none of it had prepared her for the physical immediacy of the real thing. The way it had filled her senses, her blood rushing hot and fast though her body as the taste-scent-touch of Vesa consumed her… It had been wonderful, and she hoped it would happen again.

First, however, she had to remove the chance of Vesa’s life being used as a bargaining chip. Her chest tightened as she realized that he needed to go alone; escape would only be possible if she freed Vesa without anyone knowing she was involved, a daunting “if” that rumbled like a storm cloud through her head. No, she would stay with her sworn comrades, protecting Vesa from within the ranks of the rebellion. She berated herself for dreaming about kissing when she had gravely dangerous plans to make.

But try as she might, no plan seemed remotely workable. Letting him out through the main hatch would be too noisy, and would no doubt wake everyone sleeping below. Even if he managed to slip through, he would still be trapped by the blizzard, forced to struggle through the snowy woods with no guide–and they were far from civilization. She knew she couldn’t stop the Forest Clan from hunting him, and if she even tried to stall, she ran the risk of them suspecting that she’d directly aided his escape…and she would be as good as dead.

As Kaija agonized over her decision, she glanced at the clock and realized her watch had ended long ago. Grabbing a tin cup from the table, she banged a spoon against it until groans came from the bundles of ragged blankets around the room.

“Wake up, it’s morning.” She lit a lantern as the men rose blearily from their bunks.

Klaus clomped up behind her, scratching his belly through his old flannel shirt. “How’s the prisoner,” he asked.

Kaija’s heart performed some strange acrobatics, but she survived with her deadpan exterior intact.

“No trouble. I gave him some water before. I think he’s asleep.”

“Did you check the chimney at all?”

The chimney pipe, concealed in the base of a hollow tree, was shielded from the snow–but if they let snow accumulate over both the chimney and the vent, they all stood the risk of being poisoned by smoke from the stove.

“No. Haven’t been out yet.”

One the twins volunteered himself for the task.

“I’ll go up top, make sure it’s not covered up,” he said, pulling on his hat and gloves. “I’ve gotta piss, anyway.”

Klaus motioned to both brothers. “You two, go scout the area, see if the snow’s still falling, and report back.”

They threw him a lazy salute and disappeared up the hatch. The men began to slice rye bread for their breakfast ration and pour spirits into their mugs, communicating with single words and grunts, gradually transitioning out of their nocturnal stupor. One peered into the crawl space to check on the sleeping Vesa, shrugged, and continued his morning routine.

It was not five minutes later that Tomi threw open the door and stumbled down the stairs in a shower of snow. His face was white with horror as he threw himself toward Klaus, waving his arms wildly as though he no longer knew what to do with them.

“He’s dead! They shot him!”

“What?”

“The army! They followed us here! He’s dead, my brother’s dead…!”

There was an outburst of disbelief and anger, the men rising to their feet.

“How could they follow us in this storm?”

“Maybe they didn’t,” said Taisto quietly, his scarred face somber in the lamplight. “I smell a rat.”

The implication of an informer in their midst sent a wave of unease through the bunker. Kaija’s heart leapt to her throatas the men grumbled and regarded each other with sudden suspicion.

“Enough!” Klaus roared. “It’s not the time!”

He grabbed a rifle from the wall and held it aloft in a gesture of defiant leadership. “We know these woods better than any Red soldier. If they came looking for trouble, it’s trouble they’ll get–when we fight, we fight as one! Now arm yourselves and go!”

The chastened men obeyed, and climbed up into the perilous world outside. Kaija reached for a rifle, but Klaus held out a hand to stop her.

“Kai, you stay down below. I’m giving you the most important job–guard the hostage.”

Kaija’s stomach churned as he reached for the table. He grabbed the pistol the American had given her and placed it in her hands. “If you’re surrounded, you know what to do.”

Kaija stared down at the weapon. I won’t, her heart cried out. I can’t.

“Secure the door!” shouted Klaus as he ran up the narrow stairs. “We’ll hold them off as long as we can!” He disappeared out into the fray.

Kaija dashed up to bolt the hatch. Men’s voices, muffled by the earth, cried out to each other above, followed by–to Kaija’s horror–the crack of rifle fire.

She ran down the stairs and wrenched the panel away from the crawlspace. Vesa crouched there, wide-eyed and alert.

“They’ve come for me,” he breathed, a sense of wonder in his voice at the scale of the conflict he had birthed. He fell into her arms, and she was taken aback at the fear in his eyes. His rescuers approached, and his captivity was nearly at an end; what was there to be afraid of?

“Don’t let them find you here,” Vesa whispered in terror, his face buried in her coat.

A strong blow struck the bunker door, shaking a rain of dirt onto the floor below. Kaija froze and looked up.

Surrounded, the one exit blocked, there was nowhere for Kaija to run. It was at that moment she remembered something she had been told when she’d first seen the bunker–a bit of vital information that might prove her only chance of escape.

“The vent!” She dashed to the back of the room pried a screen from the wall. It revealed a small tunnel in the earth, built to reduce the risk of asphyxiation from the stove and provide an alternate route to the ground above.

“Come on!” She reached her hand toward him. “Come with me!”

He shook his head. “No. I have to go back. It’s the only way to end this.”

Her heart broke as she looked at his earnest face. The romantic outlaw notion of escaping together was doomed to failure, but for a brief second, she still hoped for it. The whole world would be their enemy, but they could run together and see how far they could get before it destroyed them both–even that was better than never seeing him again.

Reality boomed against the bunker door again, dashing the dream from her mind. She nodded, and it physically pained her.

“This is it, then,” she said. She threw her arms around him and pressed herself to his chest. She stared deep into his eyes the moment before he closed them in anticipation. “Goodbye.”

It was a ferocious, hungry kiss, open-mouthed and wild–as though to satisfy all the future passion they would never be able to express. Kaija felt his teeth graze her lip as her tongue darted into the soft sweetness of his mouth. Her mind was a fiery blank, filled only with the feelings that raced through her body, urging her on, telling her that if she were to die in this moment, she would die happy.

The dull thud at the door came again, along with the crack of splintering wood.

“I’ll be fine, just go!” Vesa pushed her away, hiding his breaking voice in gruff bravado, tears glinting at the corners of his eyes.

She dove into the hole, scrambling rabbit-like on all fours toward the surface. She concentrated on the tiny pinpoints of light barely visible ahead of her in the darkness. The passage narrowed and she fell into an army crawl, her belly bruised by rocks and hard-packed soil, until she finally felt the winter cold breathing through the branches that camouflaged the entrance.

She reached through the foliage–barely feeling the pain as pine needles pierced the skin of her fingers–and felt the freezing air nip her skin as she pushed it aside. She dragged her body forward and burst into the swirling white of the dawn blizzard.

Liberated from the subterranean bunker, she took her first gasp of fresh air in what seemed like forever. She turned her face up to the sky, letting the snowflakes fall upon her closed eyelids as she pulled herself the rest of the way out of the tunnel. She counted on the storm to hide her from the soldiers, hoping that she could flee to safety aided by the blinding snow.

Behind her, shots split the air, and she heard men calling to each other in battle. A shout of triumph accompanied by the crash of breaking wood signaled the final breach of the bunker’s door. Refusing to look back, she stumbled up from her knees and ran, bent double, zigzagging through the trees.

Just as she began to feel the heady rush of freedom, a figure leapt from the shadow of a tree into her peripheral vision.

“Freeze!”

Kaija had no time to react. In the next instant she was staring down the barrel of a rifle, waiting for the shot.

To be continued in Chapter 9.

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