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2 October, 1982Dear Liz,
I am here, and it’s just as I remember it: birch trees everywhere, same smoky smell to the autumn air, and the people still shy as teens. Forty years later, and nothing’s changed except me.
Matti’s brother, Paavo, picked me up from the airport. I wish I knew ahead that they looked exactly alike—I thought Matt came from the grave to spook me back on the plane, back home. Seems like something he’d do. But their resemblance is only physical. Paavo might as well be mute, even by Finnish standards. His wife, impossibly, is even quieter. The silence is welcome, though. I’m not here to talk.
Paavo drove me around Keskusta this afternoon, and then we went to the University of Oulu, where he teaches. For a man who doesn’t talk, he somehow opened his big mouth about my coming. When we got to his office, every member of the English Dept. was there, fawning in his strange Nordic accent. I had no idea they’d know me way out here. But don’t worry, Liz; I was polite. I smiled and signed their books (which apparently were translated into Finnish. That’s news to me. I’ll have to buy a couple before I leave.). I was not okay, however, when they began inviting themselves out to Paavo’s cabin, the place where I’ll be working. At this point, Paavo stole me away and marched us down the hall, apologizing the entire drive back, as if his tongue were stuck in a loop.
Jesus, I miss you. Writing you from this distance, from any, is horrible. I haven’t written you a letter since what? High school? It feels that way; missing you this much and writing about it feels adolescent. A cold stone in the stomach.
Listen, I know my coming out here raises all those bad memories. You didn’t say anything—always the goddamned gracious wife, you bit your tongue, helped me pack, kissed me goodbye. I feel like a bastard, so you know, for leaving the first time and leaving now. What can I say but that Matt’s death awoke some things I need to sort out? I know that sounds stupidly mysterious, but it’s a mystery to me, too. When I figure it out, I’ll explain it all.
This is when I say I love you. Regrettably, this is when I apologize.
Tom
♥♥♥
16 October, 1982
Dear Liz,
Thank you for the package. The circus peanuts were a hoot. The only candy they eat here is actually salty—they call it salmiakki. They do, however, make a good liquor flavored the same way. Paavo and I have become good friends over it.
Your timing is perfect as always. The package came in time for me to wear the knee brace on our hike near the Russian border. I tolerated the walk well for an old fart, but I’m sore in every crick today. Paavo tried to get me into the sauna (Every house here has one.) to help the pain. He doesn’t understand why I won’t go in, and I don’t know how to explain it to him.
The other day, I picked up a book called, The Kalevala. It’s Finland’s version of The Odyssey, a very strange epic poem that oddly enough speaks to me. And to you. Here’s a passage from its beginning:
Long my tale’s been in the coldYour last letter made it clear that I should not take the tale out of the cold, or at least, that I should keep my trap shut about it. Perhaps you’re right. My attempt at honesty is selfish. But the poem addresses another. You asked who came out here, the writer or your husband. You know how to hit it, Liz. It’s both. Your Tom is all knotted up in this, and I’ve come out to untie him.
for ages has lain hidden:
shall I take the tales out of the cold
scoop the songs out of the frost
bring my little box indoors
the casket to the seat end
under the famous roof beam
under the fair roof
shall I open the word-chest
and unlock the top of the ball
untie the knot of the coil?
The first snow of the season has just begun. The flakes are the big fluffy kind, like cloud chunks, and the sight of them riddling the gray afternoon reminds me of the days with you and the kids along Chittenango Creek. I think I’ll brace my knee, tough out the pain, and take a walk. I will bring you along.
Much love, Tom
♥♥♥
31 Oct, 82
Dear Liz,
Not surprisingly, I was atrocious over the phone. It was great to hear your voice, but awful to listen to myself bumble assurances. Hell, I’m sorry, Liz.
Let me clarify what I was trying to say on the phone. First, I’m glad you’re reading The Kalevala, as well—it bridges one of many gaps between us. The parallels you drew between our epic hero, Väinämöinen, and me may be accurate. But be assured: my quest here will not last an epic period of time. I don’t intend to start and finish an entire novel while here. I’ll be lucky if I even start it! And while I admit to having some demons to exorcise, I will not turn that into a mythic saga. So, I’ll repeat the date when I’ll be coming home: February 15, in time for my birthday.
Tomorrow, we set out for the excursion I came here for. We’ll be staying in Paavo’s family’s cabin near the Norway border for the remaining three months. And yes, all the Finns from the English Dept. are coming along. I decided they may be of some use after all. Unfortunately, the cabin is too remote to receive mail, let alone electricity or running water. But Paavo assures there’s a town about ten miles away with a post office, so when I get there, I’ll send you another letter with the new PO box address.
Liz, I hate myself for putting you through this, just as I hate the sound of my apologies, like Paavo stuck in a loop. When I return, let’s go somewhere tropical, perhaps Hawaii or Saint Martin. We’ll sit on the beach and drink cold beers under palm trees and talk of nothing but nonsense. Conjure this up the next time my stupidity fouls your mood. Lie down to bed with it nights, and so will I.
I love you, Tom
♥♥♥
1 November
Liz,
Eleven of us van-prowling through Arctic twilight, steady line of purple snow racing out the window, distant mountains gradually growing. Meanwhile Abba and Meatloaf blare from the radio, Finns singing along happy or oblivious.
I am here.
Have you gotten to the part in The Kalevala where Aino drowns herself because she was forced to marry Väinämöinen? Her mother was so leveled with grief, her tears forming rivers, sprouting birches, birches keeping cuckoos who call out reminders of Aino’s fate. (And our hero, Väinämöinen, broken by grief.) I wake up to cuckoos, Liz.
Survival here is a basic struggle. We hack away at wood, we haul lakewater from a hole axed in ice, we shovel walking paths, we shiver in bunks, then add another log. Then, there’s downtime: a scary Nordic beast—three hours of daylight, noon to three. Candles always going, oranging the commons room. The Finns—they play cards, they drink hard, they use Sauna, and they are fascinated by me. I don’t know what they will do when those things wear thin.
Me, I am thrilled by the conditions. There’s time to write and read. Time to experience and fiddle with knots. To study cuckoo song. Then, there’s time to think late-night, when the Finns sleep and cold creeps, and my mind wanders into the woods passing through trees, trudging through snow, peering down the slope at the frozen lake, listening for the stirring beneath the ice. Listening too hard.
The candle wax is a puddle, the flame going. This is not the way I wanted to end the letter. I’ll give you a better one next time.
Yours
♥♥♥
11/82
Dear Liz,
Thank you for the photograph—that catfish is nearly as big as Ryan. I often wonder what creatures roam this lake. Nights, I stand on the ice and peer into the hole, expecting to see the spiny back of some prehistoric lake monster. The water is blacker than anything you’ve ever seen. It stirs up the imagination; it scares the hell out of me. There’s folklore to water, a timelessness that intrigues (Ever wonder why we’ve always lived near it? Either the ocean or the creek?). This lake is thick with meaning—its story sung in gurgles, poetry its only interpreter. Väinämöinen couldn’t translate the song and suffered the grief. Then, he had his second chance in his arms when Aino took mermaid form—he was about to carve her up for meal, but she rebuked him for not recognizing her and swam off, this time for good. My second chance may be slithering out of my arms, as well, standing too much on the ice, peering too long into the hole.
I did not write you drunk, Liz. You caught me in the early stages of adjusting to the Arctic element, so I’m sorry for the bad poetry. Cabin living is especially challenging. We wake up after sleeping in sweaters and pants, cut wood to rewarm the cabin, fetch water, make breakfast (which consists of very strong coffee and makkara, or sausage, maybe a slice of dark bread and a hunk of cheese if any’s left over from the once-a-week trip to town), have downtime, maybe hike if it isn’t snowing, prepare sauna (It takes a couple hours to warm.), eat dinner (sausages, bread), sauna (not me, Liz), downtime, bed. Even for the Finns, this cabin is too unrelenting. After only two weeks, two of the ten have left, perhaps because my novelty wore off. Ironically, it’s Petri and Sirpa, the two American Lit. professors—they exhausted their questions about my novels. I honestly don’t know what keeps the others, for what keeps me is entirely different. Unless we all have our lake monsters.
Love, Tom
P.S. You still reading The Kalevala? What the hell is this Sampo Väinämöinen seeks?
♥♥♥
12/82
Liz,
No, I don’t have the Oxford Edition, and I’m glad for it—the translator’s conclusion that we must accept the Sampo as mystery would cause me to chuck the book into the fire. That’s lazy interpretation.
It’s been vibrating my brain alert nights; I’ve been going over and over its few appearances in the epic: In “Forging the Sampo,” dejected Väinämöinen meets Louhi, mistress of the Northland, who promises to return Väinämöinen to his home (and his sauna), as well as bestow her daughter on him, if he can forge this Sampo. He tells her he hasn’t the ability to forge it, but he knows the smith who can, Ilmarinen, the one who crafted the sky. Väinämöinen brought this challenge to Ilmarinen, who took it up, persuaded by the maiden gift, and after four failures—forging a crossbow, a boat, a heifer, and a plough—finally forged the Sampo with its triumvirate mills: one for corn, another for salt, the third for money. Once finished, Ilmarinen faced his promised maid, but she turned him down, saying she had work to do in her own land. Much later in the epic (in “Stealing the Sampo”), Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen steal the Sampo from Louhi when Väinämöinen lulls her army by playing his kantele. They take the Sampo on their boat, and Louhi sends the fog, which Väinämöinen disperses with his sword. Then, she sends the sea monster, the Gaffer’s son. Väinämöinen threatens it, telling the monster never to return, to which it agrees if spared. The poem then shifts to fable, saying the monster has never since, and never will, show itself to mankind. This is the strange story of the Sampo.
My poor companions are being bombarded with Kalevala questions. If they gave me better answers, I’d leave them alone. Only Paavo and Anja are Scandinavian Lit. professors, and both teach the theories of the Sampo you mentioned but don’t have a particular opinion (or don’t care to tell me). Pia, the only historian, will talk extensively on the subject (usually after the vodka’s open), but it always shifts into shouting about Finland’s independence.
One request does get satisfied nights, however, and that is to have The Kalevala read to me in Finnish. This is typically done by either Paavo—who seems to feel some guilt at not having more to offer on the subject of the Sampo—or Tipu, the one grad student who came along for some sort of credit, and as such, is willing to do just about anything no one else wants to do (which includes reading to me).
It’s a spell, Liz, a haunting chant. I sit back in the firelight and listen to the crooked cadence, the cumbersome, mesmerizing music, imagining meaning into the words, each pronounced syllable triggering an action in the epic, tickling the prehistoric part of my brain that understands this language. By the conclusion of the reading, I feel wiser on the subject, but hardly smarter.
It has become my quest to demystify the damned Sampo once and for all. The other night, I finally braved the first step.
I’ve been avoiding sauna this entire time. (Perhaps you’ve noticed?) Well, I took it on, much to my group’s delight—they’ve been pressing me about it nightly, and my acquiescence might have actually delayed many of their leaving.
It was a difficult return. You know how it feels, Liz, to visit a childhood place after decades of absence (neglect) and how the smells—perhaps the pine of a grandmother’s yard, or the must of the back of her closet—rip you back so hard and fast, your stomach rollercoaster aches? It was the very same, triggered most mercilessly by smell: the cedary redolence of hot wood, the burning scent of steam—the violent transition of lakewater tortured upon scalding rocks. But there’s more to it than smell. The sensation of enduring pain in the form of heat, sucking fire into your lungs, water pouring out your skin as if bleeding it, posturing your body to tolerate the heat, the pain, the sweat. This is an ancient ritual for Finns, and yet it’s personal. An internal struggle.
Still, the Sampo remains somewhere at the bottom of that lake. My nights remain busy peering into the hole, cursing my fear.
(Is this something I can even tell you about? I question everything I tell, since you scrutinize the slightest slip of my pen. Hopefully, you won’t begrudge sauna description; I desperately want you to know at least something I’m experiencing here.)
Yours, Tom
♥♥♥
Liz,
I couldn’t wait for your response to write again. I’ve been thinking about the idea that sauna is the only way to include you, and since I did not describe it right in my previous letter, I’m going to give it another try.
I’m taking you in with me.
The ritual begins late afternoon. It takes a couple hours to get the rocks good and hot, so you have to start packing the stove with wood to get the fire going early. The ones assigned to this chore will also fill all the pails with lakewater for ladling. Then, you eat dinner. On occasion, some of the Finns have taken their makkara into sauna, cooking them in foil on the rocks. Then, a snort of cognac or vodka to warm you up, and it’s time.
As I’ve mentioned, sauna is in a separate cabin, just up the slope. As we walk over to it, look down to your left, and you’ll see, through the trees, an imposing field of ice arresting the firs. You’ll also notice, reflecting off the frozen lake, a motion of colors—blue, pink, and green—and perhaps, if we pause our march, you’ll hear a cosmic whisper above our heads. If you catch a break in the trees, you’ll glimpse the Northern Lights swirling the sky. Long ago, on a night like this, Matt told me the legend of the Lights: the Great Nordic Fox swipes snow up into the sky with his tail, and what we see are the flakes catching the moonlight. This has always married itself to the image of Matt (and many, many years later, his younger brother, Paavo), hacking away at the ice with a long ax, the noise of steel to waterbone mixed with mangrunt, and—leaping up into his face and into the sky—ice splinters by the thousands.
Just inside the cabin, in a small room on the left, is where you remove your clothes. It gets tight in here when everyone’s undressing at the same time—knees and elbows knocking. So you feel more comfortable, I’ll introduce you to everyone. It’s an unnecessary formality, as you’ll truly get to know these people when suffering heat as a community. Regardless, this is Paavo, Anja, Saana, Outi, Erkki, Kimmo, Pia, and Tipu.
Before we enter, prepare for how hot it’s going to be. If at any time it becomes too much, just step out on the porch and cool off. It’s not a sign of weakness. There’s no reason to try to prove yourself in front of the Finns. (I know how stubborn you can be.)
Ready?
Feel the wave of heat wash over your face, down your shoulders, your arms, torso, legs. It feels good, like getting into a hot shower after working out in the cold.
Right now, you’re probably very aware that you’re naked, and you don’t know where to settle your eyes because you want to look at everyone else’s body—not out of any sexual desire, but because it gives you a more complete picture of that person. Nothing is hidden now, and you want to match the color of one’s eyes to the shade and size of her nipples; the thickness of one’s fingers to the girth of his penis. You want to look, but know you shouldn’t; but neither do you want to appear uncomfortable, making it obvious that you’re not looking. All I can tell you is in a few minutes, you’ll be distracted by the heat.
The first ladle of water is poured on the rocks, which will fire off a scorching steam. You’ll notice how focused you are on the pain, on your breathing. You concentrate on your fingertips, watching sweat bead off. But the heat keeps coming, and then, it plays with your mind. You hurt, so all the hurt you’ve ever experienced is recalled. And while you’re not alone in sauna, you’re alone with pain, and sometimes it beats you, and you have to leave; sometimes you win, but it’s only a victory for that night. It starts all over your next visit to sauna.
This particular night, I stepped outside for a moment to piss off the porch into the snow. You are there with me: young and exotic. It’s December deep in the Arctic Circle, and we’re completely naked and standing in the frozen world, sweaty arms locked up, feeling magical with the cosmic light folding above us. We are in love for those moments. They are the quietest moments I’ve ever known. And then, they were ruined.
♥♥♥
Liz,
My prematurely sent letter has thrown off the order of our correspondence. I’m not even sure to which you are responding—I don’t think it was the most recent. If I had any sense, I’d wait for you to catch up.
I need to keep writing you.
We’re a sweaty herd stamping down the slope toward the frozen lake, where the sky’s spectacle reflects phantomlike on the powdery surface. We aim for the black blemish, a hole axed in ice. We crowd around it, waiting for the one who’s done it before, Paavo (brother of the one who did it first), to show us it can be done. We are filled with crazies, laughing and terrified.
He plunges in, and we crowd the hole to steal a glimpse at the disappearing act, holding breaths. Only a second later, he resurfaces, gasping and shrieking and holyshitting in his language, leaping out the water, disappearing off the ice, up the steps, back into sauna.
It can be done. Could it be done again?
My turn is coming as the others imitate the first. There is little thought as to how this will work. The madness, the cold coming, feet sticking to ice, lights slithering across the sky, makes it hard to think. And then I’m alone, the last one, standing with my toes curled over the purple-white lip of hole, staring into the roiling black eye of the lake. This is when my logic returns and reminds me of the danger, tells me to fear. There are things in that lake that have been waiting for me, and there’s no telling what they’ll do.
I step off the ice and plunge in.
This is where things go black. How do I describe it to you? What lake-words but bubble and deep do I know? This is the logic gap that needs filling, for when I tell you that the Tom who comes out—who limps off the ice and up the slope, and who settles back in sauna, gasping for air—is never the Tom who went into the lake, can you really believe me? When I say, therefore, your Tom is not returning, can you understand?
♥♥♥
Dear Liz,
Thank you for the Christmas gift, but by now you know I can’t take the Hawaii trip with you. It troubles to read your optimistic letter, written before you learned I can’t return. It is strange to hold an artifact containing your bliss, while, at this moment, on the other side of the planet, you must be in turmoil.
And yet, what do you know? Nothing, because you won’t let me tell it. So, I have to find another way.
The lake—I’m being a coward, splashing around on the surface. I need to go down if I’m ever to get it right.
Submerging—the muted roar of water rushing ears, the squeeze of volume resisting displacement, slicing assault of cold colder than ice, and then: submerged—the strange peace of drifting in this stygian underworld. This is when my eyes come alive, because I’m searching, because when the body disturbs the ancient water, the maze of bubbles blazing with Northern Lights mesmerizes; the magnificent ice-ceiling that glows and pulses shades of pink stupefies. But down is where I’m drawn, to where even my wildly treading feet are lost in the black. How many millions of miles deep, how many prehistoric monsters below: stirring lake giants snapped to attention—a translucent eye popping open, a meaty flipper pushing off the muddy floor—slithering up toward the pale, squirmy intruder? The physical dangers don’t concern me as much as the phantom leviathans ghosting around in the depths, the cursed souls barking out their rages, blackening the water. This is what I baptize myself in nightly.
What I encounter when I submerge, Liz, is a stupid boy who fears me and fights me and flees deeper into the lake every time I draw near. The shadow of his retreat and the scorned expression when our eyes meet are enough to shy away. But I’ve never been good at shying, so I return again and again, having to dive deeper and deeper to refind the boy and try to yank him out. He’s been too long chilling in these waters, also searching, and afraid of the change that’s awaiting him on the surface. The last thing he saw was a braid of golden hair twisting down into the pitch, and he’s forever grasping at it in his nightmares.
But this is hardly all of it, for I’m contending with all of the me’s who have made their visits previous nights, frozen in the quantum fabric of the lake. I have to wrestle through them each time, just to begin searching for the boy. These Toms are thick and tumbly at the surface, daft as manatees, battling themselves for space, crowding the hole in the ice, making it increasingly difficult to get out. But there is always hope. There are always the lights to show the way out, either dazzling the bubbles or pulsing the ice pink.
When I emerge, however, as the first time, and I crawl off the ice and make for sauna, I am never the same. This, I need to make clear to you. This, I have not yet begun to make clear. Another time, way.
Tom
♥♥♥
Dear Liz,
Deeply, painfully sorry.
Maybe I am writing in metaphor; it’s hard to tell anymore. But regrettably, my meaning is literal. And certainly, I can’t call. To do so, I would have to leave this lake, drive into town, and I cannot leave this lake. (Faithful Paavo, the only one remaining, goes to town to deliver/pick up mail.) But the problem lies more in talking than leaving. I’m overwhelmed with all these possible ways to tell you what I need to tell you, all of those ways wrong but all ways that could crowd each other, block out any language, and there I’d be on the phone, mumbling out the dissonance. I’m sorry, but writing you is all I can do now, and now even that is failing me. But I’m not surrendering. I still have the fight in me.
Coming out: I swam for the lights—a ladder of color bending in the black. I would have never gotten out otherwise. Then again, I didn’t come out. As punishment, the lake took me hostage, and this other Tom crawled out the icehole, alone. My gasping echoed on that expanse of ice, got lost in the firs—my fingers, changing colors before my eyes. Recalling nascent instincts, I knew to get off my hands and knees and walk. And I knew where to walk to: sauna, warmth. The lake was slowly pouring out my ears and untinting my eyes, revealing a sudden reality stingingly. I was moving, alone, transitioning to take up the new Tom who was waiting in sauna for me to slip into: head drooped, shivery, crying into his frozen fists like a baby mourning the loss of the womb.
I waited too long in sauna that night. Truth is, I didn’t know how to go along as this new person, and held out as long as possible. Then, I did leave, went to the cabin (the others fast asleep), got in bed without saying a word, somehow slept, awoke before the others seeking evidence of dream. I visited the lake, and the hole was frozen over.
I could tell no one, Liz, not even Matt. The story was at the bottom of the lake, wrapped in a braid, my tongue frozen dumb. I left that place, returning—up to recently—only in dream. When I got back, I went back to you, and we married. If it never happened, I would have never come back. I still don’t know what to make of that.
♥♥♥
Dear,
I should have never taken you down I forced you I lost you losing you. You’ve become more than girl you’ve become folklore you’ve become cuckoo song and mermaid you’ve become Sampo. But you were once a girl I lost:
Down the slope steps hand in moist hand sky ablaze with foxtail dazzles the young writer finding his experience. As a group, we’d done it the night before. Seemed simple then: in and out like penguins. Now, we are alone. Sauna heat is leaving us, cold coming on. Ten toes curled over the lip of the hole. A black mouth stretching its icy jaws to eat up two.
Ready?
You say no. That’s what you’ve been saying, but I haven’t been listening. I’ve been dipping you into the lake night after night; each attempt at telling a tale sunk you deeper. Losing you, and now I’m chasing two braids both retreating quickly into the dark.
Then hope arrived, handed over by faithful Paavo (He’s leaving tomorrow with or without me.). It was your letter, your words. I’ve been reading them aloud for the past hour, a saving mantra. These words especially:
And then there’s the other part of me, the one who would spend the rest of her days trudging through the snow and ice until she found her man, wherever he is, whoever he became.Trudge at me? Trade in your Hawaii ticket and trudge at me, as old as you are, as lost as I am? No. I’ll find my way out—I’ll follow bubbles, paddle toward ladder of light, pull myself up, stand alone on ice, an old man, a sonofabitch writer on a layer of ice no thicker than his phony novels, a sonofabitch husband shaken by his wife’s words “trudging” “rest of her days” because she wants this last walk to be with him, not at him, even if it’s walking off this ice together, hand in hand, toward sauna.
I was trying to tell it when it didn’t have a language. My whole life, it’s what I’ve been trying, but it can’t be told. So, I’ll do what the bard did at the end of the epic after speaking so long:
I’ll wind my tales in a ballI’ll leave it all in the lake, Liz, let the ice close the hole, claim my failure, and turn it into folklore. I’ve given it plenty of material.
in a bundle I’ll roll them
put them up in the shed loft
inside locks of bone
from where they’ll never get out
never in this world be free
♥ End ♥
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