Read Online The Last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani - Free Book Online Page B

face in his panic-stricken snout. I found myself wondering what sort of look would come on to your face if I suddenly started kicking you. Amazement? Outrage? Fear? I’d be willing to pay someone good money to find out. Those are the depths to which I’ve sunk! No court could ever compensate me for such humiliation. But today I’m bringing Hurmo back to you, returning the last hostage of our life together. I realised too late that you only married me because you needed someone to link arms with at faculty cocktail parties, because only couples would be invited to attend the burgomaster’s ball. Unwittingly, like everyone else around you, I too served your ambitions; the only people you’ve ever wanted to have around you are those who can be of use to you in some way. The same goes for your masters. If you began to be unfaithful, it was because that too served your purposes. Your heart wasn’t really in your philandering: new entanglements just meant one more birthday, one more phone number, one more make of perfume and a bunch of flowers to be remembered. When I first discovered that you had a lover, I was surprised: you’d chosen a woman who greatly resembled me. Leena Isotalo might have been my double – an uglier version, if you don’t mind my saying so. Idiot that I was, perhaps that was why I forgave you. Unconsciously, I tried to tell myself that you just couldn’t get enough of me, that you had to surround yourself with women who were like me. They were just poor copies, idols serving to glorify me without diminishing your adoration. I was the Virgin, they were the statues. Such are the contortions the mind is capable of when it wishes to blind itself to the truth! I now see that you chose lovers who looked like me purely for practical reasons: because black underwear suits all blondes, and one more fair hair on your jacket would escape my notice. I never had the guts to check on it, but I bet they didn’t live far from us. That way you could pay them a quick visit of an evening with the excuse of taking Hurmo for a walk. You were never one to do more than the strictly necessary, you weren’t one to put yourself out. There’s not a moment of your time that isn’t put to good purpose. By the time you die, you’ll have squeezed every drop out of life. It will spit you out in disgust, it will be sick of you, will shuffle you off like some revolting worm. I, on the other hand, devoted fifteen years of my life to you. My only regret is that there is nothing to show for it. My women friends say we should have had a child. Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps a son would have made you less self-centred. Or would he just have been one more person to compete against? At least I wouldn’t be alone, I wouldn’t be getting up at dawn like a lost soul, wondering how to spend my empty day. Whereas the only living thing to have come out of those fifteen years is this wretched dog, a gift from your friend Pekka, architect and faggot. That must be why he passed it off as male, when in fact it was a bitch. But in your mind even Hurmo was to serve a purpose. He was to add to the picture of the modern young couple with a four-wheel drive and a bouncy, tail-wagging dog. Perhaps it was he who brought us bad luck. Today I’m returning him to you. He is our marriage: ugly, besmirched and past his prime.
    Margareeta.
    Margareeta left the letter inside the newspaper, counted out the change for the coffee and marched off, dragging Hurmo unceremoniously by the lead. The waiter picked up the cup and wiped under the chair, removing the puddle the dog had made. Before throwing the paper into the waste-paper bin, he cast an inattentive eye over the headlines.
    Outside, the city was coming to life. Despite the snow, in the town centre the avenues were full of cars, making their way slowly forwards with their headlights on. Nothing was going to come between them and their Saturday