Finland’s recent history became personal to Louise the Saturday before Christmas. She and Arnie were invited to the home of Kaarina Varila. Arnie’s aunt Aino had urged Arnie to locate the daughter of her mother’s cousin, a Vanhatalo, who she thought might still live in Helsinki. It had been this cousin who first took care of Aino when she was released from a Russian jail in 1905, just before she emigrated to America. Arnie had told Louise that Aunt Aino had been arrested by the secret police for being a Communist linked to a terrorist organization that tried to bomb a Russian army barracks. Louise had found this hard to believe. Aunt Aino made bread and told earthy jokes. Her brother, Arnie’s father Matti, was a member of the Astoria Golf and Country Club and as staunch a Republican businessman as Louise’s own father.
To find this Vanhatalo cousin, Arnie had gone to the Finnish police. The police, staunchly anti-Communist and therefore pro-American, had been happy to help, despite their government’s precarious and careful positioning regarding the Soviets. They soon determined that Aino’s cousin had died during the war, but they’d located the woman’s daughter, Kaarina, under her married name, Varila. Arnie made contact and they’d been invited to dinner.
Kaarina lived with her adult son, Pietari, who opened the door to their knock. In his early twenties, he looked like his mother, who was standing behind him in a dark-blue wool dress that brought out her blue eyes. She was wearing old-fashioned cotton stockings and laceup shoes with two-inch heels. She was a big-boned woman, not at all fat, with a wide face, thick dark blonde hair, and what to Louise was amazingly clear soft skin for a woman probably in her early fifties. She and Pietari very formally shook hands with Arnie and Louise and ushered them in.
The house was spotlessly clean—and simple. Louise was becoming used to there being no electric Christmas lights but was taken aback by the lack of what she considered to be essential household items. Standing in the living room, Louise could see into the kitchen. The floors were made of wood, so often scrubbed they had the appearance of a ship’s deck. There was no hot water faucet at the kitchen sink. A single-bulb light fixture hung from the middle of the kitchen ceiling. In the living room, a floor lamp stood by a stuffed armchair, where an open book rested on a small end table. The feeble light barely reached the walls of the room, giving it the feel to her of a cloudy afternoon.
Louise smiled brightly, remarking on the beautiful handmade rag rugs scattered on the living room’s wood floor, trying to hide her reaction to the seeming poverty of the place so as not to embarrass Kaarina. Somehow, she’d expected Kaarina’s house to be like that of her in-laws and Arnie’s aunt and uncle, in Astoria, Oregon, full of soft furniture, flooded with electric light—and warm.
The house was heated by a single cylindrical metal wood stove in a corner of the living room. The room itself couldn’t be much warmer than the midfifties Fahrenheit. She imagined that the bedrooms had no heat at all. There was a fireplace with a mantel, but it was clear that it hadn’t had a fire for some time. She imagined any wood would be burned in the corner stove; the heat was too precious to waste going up a fireplace chimney. On the fireplace mantel were two photos of young couples in late-nineteenth-century wedding clothes. There was also one of Kaarina as a bride in an ankle-length narrow wedding dress standing next to a handsome well-built man in a heavy wool suit, presumably her husband. There was a fourth photograph of three grinning towheaded boys.
Kaarina touched one of the old wedding pictures. “My parents. Father died twenty years ago. Mother,” she hesitated, “in 1940.” She pointed to another photo. “Me and my husband, Niko.” She paused just enough to keep the sadness in. “And there,” she said quietly, “Pietari when he was six, and his brothers, Oskar and Risto.” Louise suspected what would—and did—come next: lost in the war.
Kaarina turned to look at Pietari who was talking to Arnie. Pietari was a lean, robust young man in his early twenties. No longer a towhead, his hair was a thick caramel blond. “Well, not all were lost,” she said, smiling at him. “Pietari fought the Russians when he was eighteen. After the Russians forced us to fight the Germans who were trying to make it to Norway, he fought Germans.” She paused. “Now, he fights himself.” She looked on her son for a moment. “And he hates Russians and Germans.” She gave Louise a quick smile. “Complicated.”
“I know you didn’t want to be on Germany’s side,” Louise said.
“Not all of us,” Kaarina replied. “That’s not so complicated. The Russians demanded we give up several of our eastern provinces. We refused. The Russians invaded. We fought hard, but in the end, they were too big and they took our land.” She paused. “No one helped us. But you sent millions of dollars of military aid to the Russians.”
Louise was wondering if Kaarina was somehow blaming her for US foreign policy.
“So,” Kaarina went on, “when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, we accepted German help and took back our land. When the Germans started losing to the Russians, the Russians invaded us again in 1944. They took back the land they’d taken from us in 1940. We signed an armistice so they wouldn’t take the whole country. Part of the armistice agreement was that we turn on our German allies. Which we did. The Germans headed for Norway burning everything in their path. That’s why Pietari fought both Russians and Germans.”
Kaarina’s tone revealed none of her feelings, leaving Louise wondering where Kaarina stood politically. She could have been pro-German, even a Fascist. Or maybe she was a Communist like Arnie’s aunt. Louise didn’t dare ask. She already felt she was treading on eggshells.
Dinner was potatoes, cabbage, parsnips, and one roasted chicken, about half the size of a chicken they would have had back in Edmond. Dessert was just enough rice pudding topped with preserved lingonberries.
Louise’s Finnish wasn’t sufficient for her to keep up with the conversation, but Kaarina had worked for Thomas Cook and Sons as a young woman, so her English was quite good, although accented. She spoke to Louise in English, but despite that, the conversation still lagged as Pietari’s English was only rudimentary. The conversation flowed, however, when Kaarina, Pietari, and Arnie would lapse into Finn, leaving Louise feeling left out.
Kaarina brought coffee to Arnie and Pietari, who were on facing armchairs by the empty fireplace. It was clear they were talking about the war, Arnie quietly asking questions, ever the professional, and Pietari quietly and succinctly answering them.
“Come sit in the kitchen,” Kaarina said, handing Louise her cup. “It’s warmer.”
Kaarina led her to two simple wood rocking chairs next to the brick cookstove. Iron doors indicated there was an iron firebox inside the bricks. The bricks were warm. It reminded Louise of Arnie’s comment before she first met his parents. “Be patient. Finns aren’t cold, they just warm up slow.”
Louise settled back in the chair, feeling for the first time that evening that maybe there was some hope of Kaarina liking her. Then she took a sip of her coffee and nearly gagged. She stopped just short of spitting it back into the cup, but managed to swallow, trying to hide her reaction.
“How do you like the coffee?” Kaarina asked, her face deadpan.
Louise had been around Arnie’s relatives enough to know that Finnish humor and deadpan went together often. She was being gently teased.
“OK. I’ll bite. What is it?”
Kaarina chuckled. “It’s made from mushrooms. Chaga. They grow on birch trees. I haven’t had a good cup of coffee since 1939. I’m told there was a shipment arrived in Turku last February, but you need ration cards to get any. They’re rare.”
“Uh …” Louise didn’t know whether to put the cup down or keep sipping at it. “It was rationed at home, at least for the first part of the war.”
“It wasn’t rationed here during the war.”
“Really?” Louise responded.
Looking at her like she was from another planet, Kaarina said, “There wasn’t any.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know if she’d just missed some rather dry and ironic humor behind “it wasn’t rationed here” or if Kaarina was being serious and resentful that Americans had coffee during the war. “Gosh. I wish I’d known.” Should she offer to see if she could get some from the legation? Or would that offend Kaarina? She scrambled. “Uh, how do you make it?”
“I’ll show you.”
Kaarina went to a large pot sitting on the floor next to the stove and removed the lid. Soaking in water were ugly organic lumps that looked to Louise like black stove clinkers.
“You give them a good squeeze after a couple of days.” Kaarina smiled. “Then you drink it and wish for coffee.”
They returned to the rocking chairs. Louise took another sip and gently sat the cup on the brick edge that lined the iron cooktop.
“No need to drink any more,” Kaarina said. “It will go back in the pot for later and not wasted.”
Louise nodded. There was silence.
“I’m so sorry you lost your husband and sons.”
There was now awkward silence, just as with Arnie’s family when she’d gotten too personal too soon. She glanced into the living room, wishing Arnie were there to bail her out, but Arnie was still fully engaged with Pietari.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to … I just wanted … I mean it must have been so hard.”
Kaarina looked at her for what seemed a very long time but that must have been no more than a few seconds. Then, something softened. “It was hard,” Kaarina said.
“Yes.”
“Still, losing a husband and sons is not so bad as a child losing parents.”
“I hope I never have to find out,” Louise said quietly.
Kaarina smiled. “You live in a safe golden land.”
“Yes, we do. We’re very fortunate.”
There was more silence, but not as awkward.
“No children?” Kaarina asked. “Or are they with a babysitter?”
“No, just the two of us.”
“Do you want children?”
“Yes, we do. Very much.” Then she added, “I’ve”—she hesitated—“miscarried twice.” She was briefly flooded with the memory of holding the cold body of her stillborn daughter close to her sobbing chest and breaking heart.
Kaarina seemed a little taken aback at the word “miscarried.” Louise looked down at her Chaga, realizing she may again have shared too openly for a first-time meeting with a Finn.
Kaarina, however, seemed to recover. “You’re still young,” she said without emotion.
“Thirty. Not so young.”
“Well, from my perspective …” Kaarina chuckled, trying to make Louise feel better.
“I suppose you’re right,” Louise said with a slight smile.
“Did you ever think of adopting?”
Now Louise was a bit taken aback. “No. Not really.”
“We have thousands of orphans.”
“I know.”
“I work with them, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“At an orphanage. Down near the harbor.” She looked through the kitchen door to the mantel and its photographs. “It gives me comfort but also heartbreak. There are so many, and there is so little to give. We’re a bit overwhelmed.” Kaarina smiled.
Louise smiled politely, wondering if Kaarina was simply telling her a fact or was wanting her to donate money, help at the orphanage, or adopt someone.
She chose help. “Gosh. I could help. I mean once we get settled. I’m pretty good with kids,” she added hurriedly. “I could maybe help them with their reading.”
Kaarina simply nodded, then said, “They can learn to read in school.” She smiled. “If you want to help, we have more pressing needs.”
“Sure. I’d love to come by. I like to pitch in. Do things. I mean, being the wife of a military attaché … diplomat’s wife … I could use a project. Maybe two.” She felt a flicker of excitement. “What do you need?” she asked.
“Money.”
“Uh, Arnie and I aren’t—”
“I wasn’t asking you for money. I was just saying what we needed.”
Louise felt her cheeks reddening. “Of course. I didn’t think you were asking us personally.” But she knew that she had thought that and that Kaarina knew it, too.
Back at the hotel, Louise sat dumbly on the bed, waiting for Arnie to get out of the bathroom. She was looking at the wall just two feet from her face, brooding over the awkward moments in the conversation, simultaneously playing it out in her head with how the conversation would have gone if she’d been smoother. She should have jumped on Kaarina’s need for money, but she’d kept silent after her embarrassing misinterpretation of Kaarina’s statement about it, fearing she would seem too pushy. She was also a bit further troubled because the thought of adopting kept popping up.
When Arnie came out of the bathroom, half-undressed, he stopped.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Arnie waited.
“Oh, Arnie,” she finally wailed. “Why am I always putting my foot in my mouth?”
“You’re from Oklahoma?” Arnie answered with a question.
She couldn’t help but smile.
He sat down beside her, put his arm around her, and gave her a couple of short affectionate tugs on her shoulder. Then he said, “Nice wall.”
She chuckled.
“Now, what’s wrong?”
She relayed the awkward conversation with Kaarina and ended it with, “I do so want her, all your relatives, to like me.”
They both sat there, silent, Arnie’s hand across her back and holding her shoulder, staring at the wall in front of them. Then in a flat, low voice, Louise said, still looking at the wall, “Are we going to have to spend Christmas in this stupid hotel room?”
They did, but she felt OK about it. Arnie found a tiny little Christmas tree and she’d decorated it with the jewelry she’d brought with her, Arnie’s civilian neckties, and little paper rings she’d fashioned from newspaper and paste. On Christmas morning, they sat next to it, both grateful to be quiet and alone together in the little hotel room.
Since the visit to Kaarina’s, Arnie had only been back in the room to sleep. She’d spent every day looking for housing. She got no help from an overwhelmed American legation staff, and lunch with Mrs. Hamilton had been pleasant but not very helpful. Mrs. Hamilton did invite them to a nice dinner, one they had to cram into a relentless round of Christmas-season embassy parties.
Before they left America, she’d imagined herself at sophisticated parties and dinners. Instead, she found herself in an antiquated and cramped hotel bathroom trying to get dolled up for parties where she felt like the most provincial and unsophisticated woman in the room. And still with only one nice dress. She had to check herself from explaining to the other wives that it wasn’t her fault. She really did have nice clothes—somewhere. She used to envy Arnie’s easy clothing choices. It was either a uniform or his suit—with an accessory choice of wristwatch or no wristwatch. Now she was in the same position. She hated it.
Even though the parties were often fun and interesting, she felt they were a bit dampened by her constant awareness that she had to guard her speech. She just never quite knew if she was being pumped for information or simply asked about herself out of polite curiosity. During the day, that guarded feeling was amplified by a nagging feeling that she was being watched. It wasn’t like there was some sinister man in a raincoat and fedora darting into alleys and turning his back at department store windows. First, there were no department store windows. Just weren’t. No, it was something—something so subtle that she couldn’t bring herself to mention it to Arnie for fear of looking paranoid. But there was the time she returned unexpectedly to the car and saw Pulkkinen quickly slip what looked like a small notebook into his coat pocket. Then there was the man reading the newspaper just across the street from the hotel. Twice. Waiting for a bus or taxi? It was cold outside.
The briefings in Washington hadn’t all been about how to set a table either. There had been the rather sobering discussion of what to do if your husband didn’t return when you expected him. You didn’t just go to the local police. At one of the after-session cocktail hours the wife of a former military attaché to Spain when Carlton Hayes was ambassador related how, responding to a knock on her door, she’d opened it to five local police, huge men in weird three-corner hats. They’d handed her an order to be out of the country in twenty-four hours. She and her husband had hurried to Ambassador Hayes’s house to be told, not without a great deal of sympathy, that Generalissimo Franco was exceedingly upset with the help the American embassy was giving to Jews coming across the Pyrenees. Her husband had been recognized. Hayes had to sacrifice someone.
When Arnie became a military attaché, Louise knew that she became more than an army wife. She became the wife of a spy—a known and legal spy but a spy, nevertheless. She also knew that if Arnie or she made some false move they could be deported—or worse. All of it both excited and scared her.
Because there had been no US presence in Finland for most of the war, there were no sophisticated radio or human intelligence networks. Lack of the latter meant that personal connections would be a major source of information, and Louise would play a large part in making those connections. In addition, she would need to be constantly alert for any small slip or behavioral nuance at a party or luncheon that she could report to Arnie.
Knowing all this, when Arnie told her about the invitation to a New Year’s Eve party at the Soviet envoy’s residence, Louise had frozen, temporarily unable to move, an equally frozen smile on her face. She knew that the party would be opening night for her. What she didn’t know was that party would engender a series of events that would test Louise to her very soul.