Read Online The Brothers by Asko Sahlberg - Free Book Online

independent Finland,’ she says. She coughs after a sip of liquor. ‘I receive letters from Turku. But I don’t expect anyone dares say it aloud.’
    Turku. She has never stopped yearning for it. It is where she came from, in a new carriage purchased by the master. She was young, voluptuous, proud, shy. Her dress was dusty from the journey. I recall her fine wrists. Next to the big-boned master she barely looked like a grown woman, but you only had to glimpse her eyes to understand that she had brought with her an unbending will. She had the patience to wait, with that will, until the man she wedded soon proved sickly and, as a consequence, unwilling or unable to manage the affairs of the house. So the town miss became mistress of a farm. At a cost. She has paid with her loneliness and with the broken veins on her cheeks. She pawned her youth such a long time ago that there is nothing left now to redeem.
    ‘Hmm, so we could be a sovereign state,’ I say. ‘I’ve thought of sovereignty myself at times, when I’ve got fed up with carving sticks out of wood.’ I try to catch her eyes but her eyelids droop heavily. ‘Is that what makes people blessed? Haven’t we been sovereign for hundreds of years, part of the sovereign Swedish realm? And now we are sovereign subjects of the Russian Emperor.’
    ‘It’s hardly the same thing,’ she mutters.
    ‘Who knows. Some of this talk is beyond me. I suppose I’m stupid, not understanding.’
    She lifts her face. Her eyes let out light. ‘Don’t worry your head about it, it’s a waste of time. You should worry about those two instead.’
    ‘Not much I can do about them.’
    A palm, still soft, descends on the back of my hand. ‘What if you were to talk to them?’
    ‘I’m the last person they’ll listen to. Especially Henrik.’
    ‘But I’m scared. I feel that anything could happen.’
    ‘Yes. Damned horse!’
    ‘You can’t blame everything on the horse.’
    ‘It started the whole thing. Had I but known, I’d have gone and stolen it myself. Or perhaps killed it, if I’d been able to.’
    I detect a melancholy smile in her voice. ‘It’s still not too late.’
    ‘Maybe not, but killing alone wouldn’t do any good now. I should…’
    ‘Kill them both?’
    ‘Yes. But Anna doesn’t deserve it.’
    ‘Of course not. And you’d never do it.’
    We sit as we often do, in silence. Perhaps we are even breathing in unison. People are welcome to their lewd fantasies about what we get up to in my cabin. In reality, we are content with the taciturnity of two people who have experienced three decades together. There is no one else round here either of us would seek out to talk to, or fail to talk to. The others all belong to a younger generation and are consequently still unaware of their sins and those of others, or else unwilling to think about them. They have not yet disrobed and said, ‘Well, if You really are hanging around up there, feel free to gawp, for this is what You made me.’ It will take them time to learn that a man does not choose his lies; rather, the lies choose him, and in him they collide with the lies of others, like shadows meeting in the yard that approach one another and all of a sudden melt together to form for a moment – or worse, for a long time – a single shadow, misshapen and fearsome. I get up, grab the Old Mistress’s cup and pour out more liquor from the jug. The shadow of my body, cast by the fire, embraces her. She smiles.
    I have barely lowered my buttocks back onto the bench when swift feet hurry to the door. It bursts open. Mauri breathes out, his voice taut with excitement, ‘We’ve got visitors.’

THE OLD MISTRESS
    The Bailiff arrives on horseback, accompanied by three soldiers. I watch them alighting from their horses in the middle of the yard. At once I get a sense of them controlling this place, owning it. The Bailiff is short and stout, ridiculous in that fur coat that reaches down to his ankles. It hangs open,