The Unsettled Dust Read online

  ‘The next three or four of the houses were locked up and empty, or looked like it, and I walked down to have a closer look at the jetties I’ve mentioned. It was the usual story. In the first place, they had been very heavily built of wood, like the bridge and many of the fences, but all of them seemed fallen to pieces, and really pretty dangerous anyway with children around, as there were. There was nothing to stop anyone going out on to them, and there was the swift current sweeping past to the narrows. In England, the local authority would have compelled them to be cleared away and the waterside fenced. And I had been right in what I thought when I looked across from the other side: there wasn’t a boat in sight, not even a sunken boat, as far as I could see. Probably the current was enough to carry away a small boat that had been neglected.

  ‘And then I came upon a wooden house painted in faded blue, where there was still another of those parties. I was getting used to them by now, and didn’t suppose there was much more I could learn by just staring in from a distance through the front windows. But I stopped and looked for a moment all the same.

  ‘I saw at once that this time there was a face looking back at me. It was a small, round, white face, which was peeking out watching the darkness fall. At the other houses everyone had been too busy with the festivities to do a thing like that. They had all been looking inwards.

  ‘It was a child, which had somehow detached itself from the general goings-on. And this time there were rather special goings-on. The child caught my eye and waved to me through the glass with its little white hand. It was wearing some kind of dark tunic, buttoned right up. I waved back.

  ‘As far as I was concerned, the things happening behind the child were very interesting. Believe it or not, in the room was another of those figures that I had seen come out of the house on the ridge above; very tall, very wide, all black, just the same; but this time I had some idea of the answer: it was an Orthodox priest, in his black robe and high black headdress. I had seen pictures of them, but I had never seen one in real life, and if you had asked me before that moment, I should have answered for sure that they had died out long ago. As I realised what it was, I felt better once more. The figure I had seen coming out of the house on the ridge had upset me badly.

  ‘This man was occupying himself in handing something out. All the people at the party seemed to be getting one of these things. The last corners were formed up in a queue. Every time the priest handed out, the recipient, whether a man or woman, gave a kind of bob and passed on. I saw it happen about three times before the child at the window waved to me again. I presumed that he had already received his object. I imagined that the children might have come first, as there seemed to be none of them in the queue. On the other hand, there were no other children near the window either. I could not be sure whether the child who waved was a boy or a girl, but I thought it waved like a boy.

  ‘Again I waved back, and then thought it was time to move on. I was very interested in the priest and the distribution, but it would have been rude to go on peering. When the child realised that I was going, it made the most violent gestures inviting me into the house instead. You know how vividly children can do it. In this case, it was just as well from one point of view, because we were unlikely to be able to communicate in any other way.

  ‘All the same, I shook my head. It was hopeless to think of going in and probably being unable to speak to a soul, especially as I should have had to begin by explaining what I was doing there, with that handout going on. I might have been in real trouble and taken for a thief.

  ‘Still I found it difficult to proceed on my way and disappoint the child so badly. There was a kind of urgency about the little lad which made one care. And there was the foreign factor too. I didn’t want to make some social blunder.

  ‘I smiled as broadly as I could manage, pointed to my watch, moved my shoulders as if I had to hurry off to an engagement, and tried to look sorry. I must have done it fairly well because the next thing that happened was that the child jumped down from whatever it was kneeling on at the window and came running out down the garden towards me. It was indeed a boy, about ten I should say, dressed not in shorts but in breeches, which little girls didn’t wear in those days. He also wore boots up to his knees. I was a trifle concerned about what was likely to happen next.

  ‘The boy somehow got through the gate, though it looked both heavy and collapsed, and at once proceeded to offer me something. Yes, it was the medal you’ve seen. That was what the priest had been giving out. Blessed medals: I mean medals that had been blessed. The boy grabbed at me, but of course I couldn’t understand a word. “English”, I said, rather hopelessly, and of course wouldn’t take his medal from him.

  ‘He snatched hold of my hand to prevent my getting away, and went in for more dumb show. I can’t tell you how good he was at it. He made me understand quite clearly the blessing that went with the medal, the luck if you like. He imitated all sorts of things going wrong, and how the medal would save me and make things go right again. The only thing I had to do was have the medal always with me and cross myself at the moment of need with it in my hand. He had let go of me because he saw that now I shouldn’t just walk off. He showed me again and again. And all without a single further word. He made me feel it was a matter of life or death. Which of course it was, as you have all seen for yourselves.’

  ‘We have that,’ said the barman reverentially.

  I saw a flash of impatience pass across Rort’s face, but he did not comment.

  ‘Not that I believed anything of the sort at the time,’ continued the old man. ‘Naturally. All the same, I was terribly struck by the boy’s cleverness and his sincerity. What reason had he to care about me, like that?

  ‘In the end, I took the medal, supposing that he could always get another one for himself, and did everything I could to say Thank you. He just stood there with his boots close together on the mud track and smiled at me, like the boy scout on the poster who has just done his good deed. And yet more than that: the boy had his own way of smiling. I daresay it was just that he was a foreigner.

  ‘I wondered if there was anything further. Apparently there wasn’t. So I then went through the same kind of pantomime to say Goodbye. I felt that just an ordinary casual goodbye would hardly do. But I didn’t have to worry. Goodbye, the actual English Goodbye, was an expression the boy knew.

  ‘Before walking off, I looked back at the house. The priest in his high black hat and long black robe had come out and stood all by himself under the porch, looking at us down the length of the weedy garden path. I now saw that he had masses of white beard. It covered his entire face, so that you could see only his sunken eyes. As you probably know, Orthodox priests do not disfigure the image of their Maker. The priest stood quite still, and I had no idea as to whether there was something I ought to do. But I couldn’t think what, so I smiled feebly and just shuffled off. The boy didn’t stop to watch me. Immediately I turned, I heard him dash back into the house. I did look behind me through the mist after a minute or two, but I could see nothing of the festivities, not even the lights. Owing to the house being set back among the trees. Nor were there any more houses with parties. All the rest of them that I saw were shut up like tombs.

  ‘Although the mist was at its thickest on the bridge, and although it was almost night anyway, I had no trouble at all in getting across. I just watched steadily on until I reached the other side and didn’t worry about the loose planks and the holes. Only when I arrived safely did it pass through my mind for a moment that I had had my medal to protect me. But the crossing was not really dangerous if you used reasonable care, as you will have gathered: so I gave no further thought to the notion.

  ‘When I got back to our hotel I realised that I was actually ahead of the time I had settled with Mr. Purvis, though so much had happened to me that this seemed incredible. When the moment came, I knocked him up (he was flat out with his boots off), and we had something to eat, despite all the eat
ing we had done already, but I said nothing about my adventures. Mr. Purvis, fine man though he was, wouldn’t have taken much stock in things like that. I merely told him I’d been for a longish walk; which helped to explain how I had managed to get up another appetite.

  ‘Inevitably, Mr. Purvis asked me whether I had seen any likely houses. Young and ignorant though I was, I had by now begun to feel rather differently about the idea of Mr. Danziger buying up my island, with me getting a cut. I don’t think I could have said why I felt different about it, but I knew very well that I did. All the same, I told Mr. Purvis something of what I had found: not laying it on at all, and not making it sound extra attractive.

  ‘Mr. Danziger wouldn’t care for a place like that,’ said Mr. Purvis.

  ‘He spoke to settle the matter. I can almost hear him now. He went on to say that Mr. Danziger wasn’t looking for an investment: that when an investment was among the things he was looking for, he never failed to indicate that fact to Mr. Purvis. I felt, even then, that Mr. Danziger, if he was the successful business man everyone took him to be, would probably be glad to be put in the way of a promising investment at any time, even when he wasn’t expecting it. But Mr. Purvis had not brought me to Finland in order to argue with him, and, in any case, I was really relieved that the island would remain undisturbed, as far as my influence went. Nor am I saying that Mr. Purvis was necessarily mistaken in his view of Mr. Danziger. Probably he was quite right. In any case, he seemed pleased with me, because he ended our meal by buying me a Finnish liqueur called Lakka. They make these different liqueurs out of berries picked in the Arctic, and very good they are. I’ve never met with better liqueurs anywhere.’

  ‘Can you get them in England?’ asked Gamble.

  ‘No, no. Like many good things, they don’t travel,’ replied the old man.

  We waited for him to resume.

  ‘Curiously enough, in view of how firm he had been with me the night before, it was Mr. Purvis who raised the question of my island and the houses on it, the next morning with Mr. Kirkontorni. I should not myself have mentioned the matter again, however much I thought about it.

  ‘Mr. Kirkontorni knew at once what Mr. Purvis was talking about, and didn’t have to ask me for details.

  ‘“They’re the houses of the Russians,” he said.

  ‘“How’s that?” asked Mr. Purvis.

  ‘“In the days before the war,” said Mr. Kirkontorni, “Finland was very popular with the Russians in summer. They used to build villas on the coast and on the lakes, and Unilinna was one of the places they liked best. The families spent the summer here, and a very gay time they made of it. I can remember them myself. Though I was only a child at the time, I’ve never seen or heard the like of their great dinners, and musical parties, and dances. Unilinna has never been quite the same place since they left; either for the money they brought or for the fun either. We had mixed thoughts about them at the time, but most of us have missed them badly since they went. All day they scattered gold and all night they sang. Not that what I’ve said is popular everywhere politically. And people are right there too: at politics the Russians have never been good.”

  ‘“I suppose there are none of them left now?” asked Mr. Purvis. I had not told him one way or the other, but only about the island itself and the empty houses, so you can imagine how I waited for Mr. Kirkontorni’s answer.

  ‘“There are supposed to be a few,” said Mr. Kirkontorni; “but we don’t have anything to do with them any more. Politics again. Finland used to be a kind of Russian colony, as you know, and we didn’t like that, though most of us had nothing against the Russians personally. And since then we’ve had our civil war, when we starved, and they tried to enforce Bolshevism here and would have done if we hadn’t had assistance from the Germans. Today most people want to hear no more of the Russians than they can help. In fact, their houses are supposed to be unlucky, and no one goes near them. If anyone did, he wouldn’t be very popular either.”

  ‘“Who owns the houses now?” asked Mr. Purvis.

  ‘“I really couldn’t tell you. I should think it’s a matter for international law, by this time. No one’s ever bought them from the Russians: first because it wouldn’t be thought right; second because there’ve been no Russians to buy them. Very much not, as we all know.”

  ‘“It makes you think,” said Mr. Purvis.

  ‘“It’s another reason why our people say the houses are unlucky.”

  ‘“You can’t wonder at it,” said Mr. Purvis.

  ‘“Miehen on mela Kädessä, Jumala venettä viepi,” said Mr. Kirkontorni. That’s a Finnish proverb, meaning man holds the paddle, but God does the steering. I heard it several times on our way home, when we idled about for a few days, and visited several Finnish townships.

  ‘They said no more on the subject of the houses, and a little later Mr. Purvis and I were tramping round Unilinna again in the full heat of the sun, eating a lot, drinking a lot, sweating a lot, and stumbling over the language, to say nothing of the map, which Mr. Purvis would keep for himself. I have an idea it was on that day that we found the place Mr. Purvis recommended to Mr. Danziger, and that Mr. Danziger liked so much. It must have been, because by the evening Mr. Purvis was so done up that he kept me hanging around him, fetching the waiter up to his room and the chambermaid, and on the final day we took it very much easier. On that third evening, the one I’m speaking of, I couldn’t get out at all. When Mr. Purvis wasn’t wanting things from the hotel staff, with me acting as intermediary, especially with the language, then he was dictating notes to me about the places we had seen, while he soaked his feet in a footbath, that had to be just the right size not to get cold, and even then had to have more hot water added to it about every five minutes, and more funny salts too, that the hotel had advised and that I’d had to scour the town to find. Mr. Purvis kept changing his mind about the notes, and particularly about what was suitable for Mr. Danziger to hear about. Mr. Purvis always said that manner of presentation to the client was quite as important as what was presented, and often more so: and of course he was quite right. When it came to the matter of the hotel, he was a proper traveller of the old school, who knew his rights, and expected to get value for his money. Altogether I had my hands full that evening. I was not left under the impression that I was travelling only for pleasure.

  ‘The next day, as I’ve said, wasn’t very serious. If we’d happened to come upon Windsor Castle offered for a song, I doubt whether Mr. Danziger would have heard much about it. Mr. Purvis made a point of always knowing his own mind, and I’m sure he’d made it up by then. At one point, during the hot afternoon, he even suggested that I take him to have a look at the houses on the island, just for the jaunt and I suppose for the breeze off the lake, but I told him about the dangerous bridge and what a long walk it all was, and he settled for a short steamer-trip instead. We crossed to a tiny lakeside village, all set around with conifers and red rocks, and there, in the small, stone church, we saw a Finnish wedding, with the bridal couple in national dress and the dark building as full of lighted candles as a grotto. We didn’t go in, but watched from outside the west door, which they’d left open, as it was so sunny, though the sun hardly entered the church at all. I noticed that the officiating pastor, who stood behind the altar rails, was not in any way like the black figures I had seen on my island. This gave me a surprise; but of course I said nothing about it to Mr. Purvis.

  ‘When we got back, Mr. Purvis was all smiles, and suggested that I have a further look round on my own for a bit, while he took a rest. “You’re only young once,” he said, as if I’d been holding back. I arranged to call for him later, as I’d done two nights earlier.

  ‘Of course I went down at once to have another look at my island. Mr. Kirkontorni had said it was an unpopular thing to do, but I could hardly worry much about that, as I didn’t live in Unilinna or even Finland. I was still frightened of the island, but I had an idea that a return visit would clear
various things up, and that Mr. Kirkontorni’s information would enable me to look at it with new eyes, and add some queer items to my small stock of knowledge. But, given the chance, I couldn’t have kept away from the island anyway. What I did hope was that I shouldn’t meet one of these black priests. I had realised of course that they were probably quite the usual thing in Russia, and the thought of them was not as bad as it had been, but I still did not care for them at all.

  ‘I had also realised that the peculiar writing on the medal I had been given must be Russian. It was only a guess, because until then I hadn’t known that Russian was written in a different script. I remember taking the medal out of my pocket and looking at it as I walked down the empty street to the northern waterfront. It was not very encouraging to think that apparently people didn’t like living even where they could see the island. It was a different thought from the one which had struck me on the island itself, as you may remember.

  ‘I can’t say there was anything remarkable this time about the way I crossed the bridge. I just went carefully and watched where I put my feet. I was earlier than on my previous visit, and the late afternoon mist was only beginning to rise. The island looked very beautiful, with its huge trees, and the fanciful houses sticking out here and there. From the bridge you couldn’t see how badly they needed painting. The faded paint probably made them look prettier, as it often does from a distance.