Midsummer’s Eve arrived. Aino made a new dress for the dance on the hand-cranked sewing machine that Ilmari had shipped from America. Maíjaliisa made her redo the first version because it was too tight. After getting her mother’s approval on the second try, she secretly tightened the dress again by hand. She’d also made small adjustments to her light cotton corset. All the mothers were constantly harping at their daughters not to pull their corset laces too tight because it was unhealthy; corsets were for modestly supporting their breasts and making their clothes hang right. All the daughters knew that if you pulled the laces tighter it accentuated your curves and made for a far greater overall effect. All the mothers knew that all the daughters knew this.
Knowing her dress fit perfectly, Aino jumped into the back of the cart covered in her longest shawl and quickly snugged down with her back to the driver’s bench, where Matti was driving, her mother squeezed between him and her father.
As soon as they reached the tanssilava—the dance site on a huge expanse of glacier-exposed flat rock several kilometers east of Kokkola—the shawl was crammed between the pillows, along with her glasses, and Aino bolted, holding her skirt up so she could run. Tapio and Maíjaliisa looked at each other quizzically. “Voitto,” Matti said. Maíjaliisa looked heavenward and Tapio shook his head, smiling. The three of them walked to join the dancers. Many of these were older men and women in traditional clothing, the young people as well as many of the adults in their Sunday clothes. Children played boys chase girls and vice versa at the edge of the tanssilava; a slightly older group played kick the can in the soft light of the midnight sun.
One of the young people in his Sunday best was Aksel Långström, at his first dance without his parents. Not yet fourteen, he’d come with his older brother, Gunnar, who was commissioned to watch out for him but who, to Aksel’s delight, had immediately abandoned him. Aksel was the last child of four. His mother would have died birthing him, had his father not skied and run over thirty kilometers to bring back the best-known midwife in the district. The woman had saved his mother’s life, but not her ability to bear more children.
Aksel had been fishing with his brother and father for years already. It told, not only in the dark, tanned face that framed brilliant blue eyes but in shoulders that stretched the Sunday tunic his mother had sewn for him just six months earlier. His Sunday trousers showed a two-inch gap above his shoes. The Långströms were Swedes, the descendants of Swedish settlers from several centuries past. Aksel, like most Swedes, although just coming into manhood was already as tall as most grown Finns.
His mother had tried to teach him the rudiments of the waltz, hambo, and schottische in the weeks leading to Midsummer’s Eve, humming and singing the music, as there were no instruments in the house. Farm chores, however, and helping his father with the fishing didn’t leave a lot of time, so Aksel hung back shyly by the refreshments table. He watched the dark-haired girl with the beautiful figure who could dance like the wind ruffling the water. Aksel loved his sisters, but they were literally pale in comparison with this girl. Her black eyes flashed.
The combination of longing and sheer joy in watching her, combined with his shyness, kept Aksel eating by the table until he thought either his heart or his stomach would burst. She was getting a lot of attention from the sons of merchants and prosperous farmers, most of whom were still in school, just as she probably was, putting her out of his reach. He’d been taught to read and write by the church, but school was beyond the family’s means. She’d been dancing a lot with that socialist, Oskar Penttilä, who was in the same political club in Kokkola as Gunnar, a club Gunnar had asked Aksel to keep secret. But now, Penttilä, who must have gone to get the girl a drink, because he had a glass in each hand, was talking animatedly with a group of young men, including Gunnar, ignoring her. Aksel could only shake his head. There she was, a beautiful girl, wasted while those idiots talked politics.
He struggled with his shyness. Should he ask her to dance? The sun had dropped below the horizon far to the northwest, making high clouds glow in shades of orange against a soft, light-blue sky. The cold, unblinking luster of Jupiter hung above his head, so bright he felt he could touch it. His star, however, was warm-orange Arcturus at the foot of Boötes, the man who chased the two great bears around the sky. Arcturus was always there for him, summer or winter. He looked for it in the cold nights on the boat and in the cool mornings and evenings of the long summer days. The planets came and went. Gunnar had caught him talking to it one night on the boat and kidded him about it but never told anyone. What was between brothers was kept between them, just like Gunnar’s club.
Aksel looked up at his star, stood a little straighter, and said to it, “This is it.”
Aino thought a man was coming toward her, but when he came into focus she saw that he was just a boy, good-looking and obviously on his way to being big, but thirteen or fourteen at the oldest. She had seen him arrive with Gunnar Långström, a comrade of Voitto’s, so he was probably Gunnar’s little brother. They did resemble each other.
The boy just stood there swallowing. Maíjaliisa had told her about this power that women have over men—and had also told her about misusing it. “It’s like that Swede’s new explosive. It’ll move mountains, but you get careless with it and it will get you into serious trouble.” Serious trouble for Maíjaliisa always meant the same thing: getting pregnant. Aino attributed it to Maíjaliisa’s seeing the heartbreak of out-of-wedlock deliveries, which her mother helped with even though Aino was quite sure Maíjaliisa would never help with abortions.
She smiled at the boy. “You’re Gunnar Långström’s little brother, aren’t you?” She said it in Finnish, even though she spoke reasonably good Swedish. Swedes had settled in Finland centuries earlier and Finland was ruled by Sweden until it was ceded to Russia in 1809 after a bloody war, so a sizable minority spoke Swedish.
The boy nodded his head. The Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking communities kept pretty much to themselves, but with written material in both languages being common as well as increasing literacy among the younger people, it didn’t surprise her that Aksel had picked up some Finnish.
“Aksel,” he said. More silence. “Aksel Långström.”
She could have made fun of him for the obviousness of that last remark, but she smiled at him instead. “My name is Aino.”
“Like in the songs.” He answered her in Finnish.
That was good. “Yes.”
“She killed herself rather than marry old Väinämöinen,” he said.
That was verging on impressive.
“She was beautiful.”
Aino could see that his cheeks were flushing. She glanced over at Voitto. Trying not to squint, she could just make out that he was talking to people and appeared to be holding her drink. Obviously, he’d forgotten her. Voitto gestured with one of the drinks, spilling some of it. It must have reminded him why he’d gotten it. He turned toward her. Perfect.
“Are you going to ask me to dance or not? It’s a waltz. You can waltz, can’t you?”
The boy nodded vigorously, then thrust out his hand. It was the first time she’d ever seen adoration in someone’s eyes. It surprised her how much the warm rush of it pleased her, even coming from someone just out of childhood. She took his hand. He escorted her properly to the inside circle of the dancers already circling the dance space. He then took her right hand in his left, placed his right hand in the center of her back, and holding himself erect in the dancer’s brace of someone who had been taught something about dancing, moved smoothly into the flow.
Aino smiled, her eyes just able to peer above the boy’s shoulders, checking that Voitto was watching them. He was. Her father had taught her how to dance, and many dark winter Saturday nights had been spent with him and Ilmari alternating on the kantele, her mother dancing with the boys and her father with her. To dance on any other day of the week would have been considered frivolous. The band was playing “Lördagsvalsen,” or “Saturday Waltz,” an old Swedish tune and one of her favorites. She knew Voitto was watching and she gave herself over to the feel of the boy’s strong arms holding her against the centrifugal force, the harmony, and the pulse of the three-quarter-time music, the Nordic twilight with its few bright stars above them, the two of them whirling beneath it as one being. She merged with it all.
Aksel escorted Aino back to the group of unmarried girls, where a somewhat irritated Voitto was standing on the group’s edge with the two drinks in his hands. Aksel thanked Aino and nodded his head toward Voitto. His whole body felt like a song about to be sung.
He had just returned to his place by the food when stillness quickly spread through the crowd. A group of five young Russian officers had appeared, two of them carrying bottles. They stood there talking among themselves, laughing a little too loudly to be carefree. They must have known they weren’t welcome. Still, Aksel didn’t begrudge them anything. They were just young men, probably unhappy about being posted so far from home. He, along with all the others, tried not to look at them, but he felt uneasy.
The dance band’s leader acted, starting a lively schottische, and the older people, including Tapio and Maíjaliisa, deliberately took the floor to ease the awkward silence. Soon the general hubbub restarted, and the Russians’ presence was, if not forgotten, being politely tolerated.
Then, two of the young Russians asked two Finnish girls to dance. The girls politely refused. A couple of the soldiers who hadn’t asked the girls to dance made fun of the ones who had, in Russian, probably disparaging their looks or their manhood, and those soldiers came right back with their own insults just like young men everywhere. The bottles were passed again. An empty bottle was thrown into the trees on the edge of the dancing area. That brought looks of disapproval from the adults, but the Russian who did it grabbed for another bottle and took a large defiant swig. Aksel’s uneasiness grew.
Still, the Russians now kept to themselves and were politely ignored.
Aksel was aware that Aino had been dancing with other boys than Voitto, and when he’d danced with her earlier, he noticed that her hand was rough and callused, both making her seem a little more within his reach. So Aksel once again looked up to Arcturus in the dawn-like silver of the summer sky for courage and walked over to ask her to dance. She accepted. It was another waltz. She moved like a sailboat responding to the slightest touch of the rudder.
On the second turn around the area, Aksel saw one of the Russians watching Aino intently. The young officer tossed down a drink, handed the bottle he’d been holding to one of his friends, and worked his way slowly through the dancing couples. When he neared Aksel and Aino, he stood there for a moment, swaying just slightly. The waltz came to an end. Aksel bowed, as his mother had told him, and started to escort Aino off the floor. The soldier stopped them, also giving a bow. He was not only an officer but, by the cut and quality of his uniform, upper class. He politely asked Aino, in Russian, if he could have the next dance.
Aino’s head went up slightly and her shoulders back and she answered with an abrupt, “Ei onnistu!” “No way” in Finnish. The Russian took it for the clear snub it was. His face clouded. Whatever he said back to Aino in Russian wasn’t good. The two stood there, glaring at each other.
Aksel started to look around for Gunnar. He and Voitto were already coming across the tanssilava. The soldier’s friends started coming from the other way. Aksel saw a dark-haired boy with the same flashing black eyes, a little older than himself, join Voitto and Gunnar. He guessed this must be Aino’s brother.
Voitto was the first to speak. “Maybe you think you own the country,” he said in Finnish. “But you don’t own our women. Nobody owns Finnish women.” The Russian didn’t understand him.
Aino, with her fluent Russian, repeated Voitto’s words and then added an earthy insult that involved the Russian going home and having sexual congress with sheep.
Two of the Russian officers burst out laughing but not the aristocrat. He slapped Aino across the face. Aino snarled and hit his face with her fist. The stunned soldier shook his head, trying to clear it. Before he could even think of retaliating, Aino’s brother was on him, screaming with rage, slugging the Russian, who staggered backward into his friends, trying to shield himself. The brother kicked the Russian in the knee and then, spinning, caught the side of his head with his elbow. Spit and blood flew from the man’s mouth. The other Russians waded in, and the fight was on.
Aksel had never been in a fight before. He picked out the nearest Russian, who stunned him with a fist to the temple. He saw stars, not like Arcturus, and found himself sitting on the ground.
Aino stood there with her mouth agape, stunned at the raw male aggression she’d unleashed.
The sound of a vodka bottle breaking stopped the fighting. The Russian with the broken bottle, clearly drunk, was sneering at Gunnar and waving it in his face. Gunnar’s hand went behind him, and he drew the long, curved puukko used by all fishermen for gutting and scaling. Matti moved next to Gunnar and pulled out his shorter and broader hunter’s puukko, more effective for skinning. Gunnar and Matti stood together facing the Russians, both slightly crouched, left arms up, right arms holding the puukkos away from their bodies. Now there was fear in the faces of both sides.
That was when Tapio stepped in, his own puukko in hand. “I’ll use it on the first person who takes a step forward.” He looked directly at Matti. “Including you.” He repeated himself in Russian and, obviously surprised that the man spoke their language, the young officers backed off.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, the accordion player started up a lively version of “Suomalainen Polkka,” and the rest of the band was soon with him. With the almost Russian-sounding minor key, the rapid two-four rhythm, and the repeating four-note figures, the tune was just right to clear the air. Eventually the mood created by the fight dissipated and disappeared altogether when the huge midsummer’s night bonfire roared high into the sky, sucking air so furiously that the women’s skirts ruffled at their ankles. Then, with a heavy crashing noise, collapsing timber sent up a column of burning cinders into the clear, pale sky. Around the circle, Finns and Russians both were cast in foreboding red.