The next Saturday, Rauha sent Aino into Tapiola to buy sugar cubes and baking soda, carefully doling out coins as if to a child. Rauha had delivered a baby. She was now a woman.
Walking into Tapiola carrying an empty canvas tote bag, Aino entered a patch of late afternoon sunlight. Shutting her eyes and holding her arms out wide, she stood there feeling the sun on her face. There was a rustling high above her. She watched the tops of the feathery hemlocks move with the wind, meeting, pulling away, returning, like girls in a dance line holding their skirts.
Just before she reached Tapiola, she tucked her glasses into the tote. She shook out her skirt, making sure that the petticoat beneath it didn’t show; pinched her cheeks; and made sure two tendrils came down from her hair piled under her wool bandanna. One never knew.
Just as she reached Higgins’s store she heard loud cursing in the new saloon, followed by two fighting loggers hurtling out the door. Several others followed, watching them until one went down, briefly unconscious, and the fight stopped. As the loggers filed their way back into the saloon, Aino realized Jouka had come outside with them and was now standing on the splintered planks of the sidewalk. He raised a glass of beer to her. She started walking toward him, admiring his blue eyes and his chest muscles pushing at his suspenders. Then he turned his head and looked up the street and her gaze followed.
It was Aksel, wearing a new pair of shoes and new wool trousers.
“Fancy new clothes,” Jouka said to him in Finnish, grinning. “Matti must be paying you well.”
Aksel nodded shyly to Aino, saying hello, and then turned to Jouka. “We just finished the Saaranpa site.” He smiled. “We’re in the money,” he said in English.
“I’ve heard he’s using a high lead with that Chinese yarder of his.” Jouka turned to Aino. “It’s no secret. Someday Reder will find out.”
“That’s Matti’s business.”
“And business is good.” He drained his beer. “Hey Aksel, I’ll buy you a beer, then you can buy me two.”
Aksel looked at Aino uncomfortably. They all knew it would be unseemly for her to go inside. “Come and have coffee with me,” Aksel said to Aino. “It’s too early to drink.”
Jouka’s body tensed and it seemed to Aino as if he got bigger. She didn’t like where this was headed. Not only had Aksel invited her to coffee without Jouka, triggering his jealousy, but he had criticized Jouka’s drinking to boot.
“You can drink with the men or have coffee with the women,” Jouka said.
Now Aksel went stiff.
She looked from Jouka, who’d thrown his shoulders back slightly, to Aksel, his brilliant blue eyes now half-hidden behind lowered lids.
Aino felt a rising panic. The locomotive was on a downhill run with no brakes. Jouka had called Aksel out in front of her. In a culture that had no other means of showing you weren’t a slave except your manhood, Jouka’s insult required a response.
“Right here. Right now,” Aksel said in Swedish, pointing a finger at the ground. Jouka coolly drank the rest of the beer and set the schooner on the boardwalk. He stepped into the muddy street. She wanted them to stop but knew if she intervened, they’d never forgive her.
At this moment, a logger came out of the saloon. Turning his head back toward the dark interior he gave a sharp whistle through his teeth and shouted, “Finns against Swedes! Right outside!”
Aksel and Jouka had moved to the center of the street, watching each other warily, both slightly crouched. Each had his puukko sheathed behind his back.
Men crowded through the door, Swedes moving to Aksel’s side and Finns to Jouka’s. Then Jouka pulled his puukko out and there was a gasp of surprise mixed with a murmur of approval for blood sport. Aino covered her mouth in horror.
But Jouka had taken it out only to toss it to the side of the street, which he did, looking steadily at Aksel. Aksel drew his own puukko and tossed it next to Jouka’s. The crowd murmured a mixture of admiration and disappointment.
They began circling each other, looking for the first opening. The crowd shouted encouragement. A couple of bets were made.
Aino couldn’t stand it any longer. She rushed in between the two, startling them.
“Get out of here, Aino,” Jouka growled at her.
She turned to Jouka and put her hands on his chest, but at the same time she turned her head back toward Aksel, engaging him even though she also spoke to Jouka. “You’re friends. You’ll hurt each other.” She turned to Jouka. “You’ve been drinking. I don’t want you fighting over something so stupid.”
“We’re fighting over you,” Aksel said.
She stepped back from Jouka and took her hands off his chest. “Don’t fight.”
Jouka nodded and stood straight; his arms came down. Aino turned to Aksel and walked toward him. The entire street was quiet, so every word could be heard. She held Aksel’s upper arms with each hand. “You’re a fine young man, Aksel Långström. Someday you’ll find a woman worthy of you. It’s not me. Jouka and I are going to be married.”
Jouka looked dumbfounded. The crowd gasped, then broke into shouts and cheers.
“Jouka gets the red!”
“Hey Jouka, did you propose or did she?”
“You’re in for it now, Jouka.”
Aino went to up to Jouka, stood on her toes, and looking him in the eye said, “My answer is yes.” She turned to the crowd, most of whom she knew. “The fool has asked twice before. You all know I don’t give in easy.”
The crowd laughed and then roared approval. Someone shouted, “I’ll drink to that!” And the loggers headed back inside, laughing and jostling each other, shouting that Jouka was buying, although no one believed anyone had enough money to do something like that.
Aksel, forgotten in the drama, stood there, hands at his sides. Jouka put his left arm around Aino’s shoulder and held out his right hand to Aksel.
Aksel’s face was stone cold. He walked over to Jouka and shook his hand. He raised his own hands up, as if to take Aino’s head and pull her toward him to kiss her, but he stopped, putting them back at his sides. Addressing them both, he said, “I hope you’re happy.” He wasn’t sarcastic and it wasn’t taken that way.
Aksel turned his back on them, picked up his father’s puukko, and walked down the street and out of town.