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Chapter 1

—in which Pajala enters the modern age, music comes into being and two little boys set out, travelling light

It was the beginning of the sixties when tarmacked roads came to our part of Pajala. I was five at the time and could hear the noise as they approached. A column of what looked like tanks came crawling past our house, digging and scratching at the potholed dirt road. It was early summer. Men in overalls marched around straddle-legged, spitting out wads of snuff, wielding crowbars and muttering away in Finnish while housewives peered out from behind the curtains. It was incredibly exciting for a little kid. I clung to the fence, peeping out through the rails, and breathed in the diesel fumes oozing out of those armoured monsters. They prodded and poked into the winding village road as if it were an old carcass. A mud road with lots and lots of holes that used to fill with rain, a pock-marked surface that turned butter-soft every spring when the thaw came, and in summer it was salted like a minced meat loaf to prevent dust flying around. The dirt road was old-fashioned. It belonged to a bygone age, the one our parents had been born into but were now determined to put behind them, once and for all.

Our district was known locally in Finnish as Vittu-lajänkkä, which means something like Cuntsmire. It’s not clear how the name originated, but it probably has to do with so many babies being born here. There were five children in some of the houses, sometimes even more, and the name became a sort of crude tribute to female fertility. Vittulajänkkä, or Vittula as it’s sometimes shortened to, was populated by poor villagers who grew up during the hardship years of the thirties. Thanks to hard work and a booming economy they worked their way up the ladder and managed to borrow money to buy a house of their own. Sweden was flourishing, the economy was expanding, and even Tornedalen in the far north was being swept along with the tide. Progress had been so astonishingly fast that people still felt poverty-stricken even though they were now rich. They occasionally worried that it might all be taken away from them again. Housewives trembled behind their home-made curtains whenever they thought about how well-off they were. A whole house for themselves and their offspring! They’d been able to afford new clothes, and the children didn’t need to wear hand-me-downs and patches. They’d even acquired a car. And now the dirt road was about to disappear, and be crowned with oily-black asphalt. Poverty would be clothed in a black leather jacket. What was being laid was the future, as smooth as a shaven cheek. Children would cycle along it on their new bikes, heading for welfare and a degree in engineering.

The bulldozers bellowed and roared. Gravel poured out of the heavy lorries. Enormous steamrollers compressed the hard core with such incomprehensible force that I wanted to stick my five-year-old foot underneath to test them. I threw big stones in front of a steamroller, then ran out to look for them when it had rumbled past, but there was no sign of the stones. They’d disappeared, pure magic. It was uncanny and fascinating. I lay my hand on the flattened-out surface. It felt strangely cold. How could coarse gravel become as smooth as a newly-pressed sheet? I threw out a fork taken from the kitchen drawer, and then my plastic spade, and both of them disappeared without trace. Even today I’m not sure whether they are still concealed there in the hard core, or if they did in fact dissolve in some magical way.

It was around this time that my elder sister bought her first record player. I sneaked into her room when she was away at school. It was on her desk, a piece of technical wizardry in black plastic, a shiny little box with a transparent lid concealing remarkable knobs and buttons. Scattered all round it were curlers, lipstick and aerosol cans. Everything was modern, unnecessary luxuries, a sign of our new riches heralding a future of waste and welfare. A lacquered box contained piles of film stars and cinema tickets. Sis collected them, and had fat bundles from Wilhelmsson’s cinema, each one with the name of the film, the leading actors and marks out of ten written on the back.

She’d placed the only single she owned on a plastic contraption looking like a plate rack. I’d been made to cross my heart and promise never even to breathe on it. Now, my fingers tingling, I picked it up and stroked the shiny cover depicting a handsome young man playing a guitar. He had a dark lock of hair dangling down over his forehead, and was smiling straight at me. Ever so painstakingly I slid out the black vinyl. I carefully lifted the lid of the record player. Tried to remember how sis had done it, and lowered the record onto the turntable. Fitted the hole of the EP over the central pin. And so full of expectation that I’d broken out into a sweat, I switched on.

The turntable gave a little jerk, then started spinning. The tension was unbearable, I repressed the urge to run away. With my awkward, stumpy boy’s fingers I took hold of the snake, the rigid black pick-up arm with its poisonous fang, as big as a toothpick. Then I lowered it onto the spinning plastic.

There was a crackling, like pork frying. I just knew something had broken. I’d ruined the record, it would be impossible to play it ever again.

BAM-BAM…BAM-BAM…

No, here it came! Brash chords! And then Elvis’s frantic voice.

I was petrified. Forgot to swallow, didn’t notice I was slavering. I felt dizzy, my head was spinning, I forgot to breathe.

This was the future. This was what it sounded like. Music like the bellowing of the road-building machines, a never-ending clatter, a commotion that roared away towards the crimson sunrise on the far horizon.

I leaned forward and looked out of the window. Smoke was rising from a tipper lorry, they were starting the final surfacing. But what the lorry was spewing forth was not black, shiny-leather asphalt. It was oil-bound gravel. Grey, lumpy, ugly, bloody oil-bound gravel.

That was the surface on which we inhabitants of Pajala would be cycling into the future.

When all the machines had finally gone away I started going for cautious little walks round about the neighbourhood. The world grew with every step I took. The newly surfaced road led to other newly surfaced roads, the gardens stretched away like leafy parks with giant dogs standing guard, barking at me and rattling their running chains. The further I walked, the more there was to see. The world never seemed to end, it just went on and on, and I felt so dizzy I was almost sick when it dawned on me that you could go on walking for ever. In the end I picked up courage and went over to Dad, who was busy washing our new Volvo PV:

‘How big is the world?’

‘It’s enormous,’ he said.

‘But it must stop somewhere, surely?’

‘In China.’

That was a straightforward answer that made me feel a bit better. If you walked far enough, you’d eventually come to an end. And that end was in the realm of the slitty-eyed ching-chong people on the other side of the globe.

It was summer and roasting hot. The front of my shirt was stained by drops from the ice-lolly I was licking. I left our garden, left my safe little world. I occasionally looked back over my shoulder, worried about getting lost.

I walked as far as the playground which was really an old hayfield that had survived in the middle of the village. The local authority had installed some swings, and I sat down on the narrow seat. Started heaving enthusiastically on the chains in order to build up speed.

The next moment I realised I was being watched. There was a boy sitting on the slide. Right up at the top, as if he were about to come down. But he was waiting, as motionless as a hawk, watching me with wide-open eyes.

I was on my guard. There was something worrying about the boy. He can’t have been sitting up there when I arrived, it was as if he’d materialised out of thin air. I tried to ignore him, and drove the swing up so dizzyingly high that the chains started to feel slack in my hands. I made no sound and closed my eyes, and could feel my stomach churning as I hurtled down in a curve faster and faster towards the ground, then up towards the sky on the other side.

When I opened my eyes again he was sitting in the sandpit. As if he’d flown there on outstretched wings: I hadn’t heard a thing. He was still watching me intently, although he was half-turned away from me.

I allowed the swing to come slowly to a stop, and in the end I jumped down onto the grass, did a forward roll and remained lying there on the ground. Stared up at the sky. Clouds were rolling over the river in patches of white. They were like big, woolly sheep lying asleep in the wind. When I closed my eyes I could see little creatures scuttling about on the inside of my eyelids. Small black dots creeping over a red membrane. When I shut my eyes tighter I could see little violet-coloured fellows in my stomach. They clambered over one another and traced patterns. So there were animals inside me as well, a whole new world to explore in there. I felt giddy as it dawned on me that the world was made up of masses of pockets, each of them enclosing the previous one. No matter how many layers you penetrated, there were more and more still to come.

I opened my eyes and gave a start. I was astonished to see the lad lying beside me. He was stretched out on his back right next to me, so close that I could feel the warmth of his body. His face was strangely small. His head was normal, but his features had been crammed into far too small a space. Like a doll’s face glued onto a large, brown, leather football. His hair had been clipped unevenly at home, and a scab was working its way loose on his forehead. His face was turned towards me. He was screwing up one eye, the upper one that was catching the sun. The other was lying in the grass and wide open, with an enormous pupil in which I could see my own reflection.

‘What’s your name?’ I wondered.

He didn’t answer. Didn’t move.

‘Mikas sinun nimi on?’ I repeated the question in Finnish.

Now he opened his mouth. It wasn’t a smile, but you could see his teeth. They were yellow, coated with bits of old food. He stuck his little finger into his nostril – the others were too big to fit in. I did the same. We each dug out a bogey. He stuck his into his mouth and swallowed. I hesitated. Quick as a flash he scraped mine off my finger and swallowed that as well.

I realised he wanted to be my friend.

We sat up in the grass, and I had an urge to impress him in return.

‘You can go wherever you like, you know!’

He was listening attentively, but I wasn’t sure if he’d understood.

‘Even as far as China,’ I added.

To show that I was serious I started walking towards the road. Confidently, with an affected, pompous air of self-assurance that concealed my nervousness. He followed me. We walked as far as the yellow-painted vicarage. There was a bus parked on the road outside, no doubt it had brought some tourists to see the Laestadius House which was just a few doors away. We bowed our heads in acknowledgement of the Bible-thumping evangelist who once lived there. The bus doors had been left open because of the heat, but there was no sign of the driver. I grabbed the lad and pulled him over to the steps, and we climbed aboard. There were suitcases and jackets lying on the seats, which smelt a bit damp. We sat right at the back and crouched down behind the back of the seats in front. Before long some old ladies got in and sat down, panting and sweating. They were speaking a language with a lot of waterfall sounds, and gulping down big swigs of lemonade straight from the bottle. Several more pensioners eventually came to join them, and then the driver turned up, paused outside to insert a wad of snuff into his mouth. Then we set off.

Wide-eyed and silent, we watched the countryside flash past. We soon left Pajala behind and breezed off into the wilds. Nothing but trees, trees without end. Old-fashioned telephone poles with porcelain insulators and wires sagging in the heat.

We’d gone several kilometres before anybody noticed us. I happened to bump against the seat in front, and a lady with pincushion cheeks turned round. I smiled expectantly. She smiled back, rummaged around in her handbag and then offered us a sweet from an unusual cloth-like bag. She said something I didn’t understand. Then she pointed at the driver and asked:

‘Papa?’

I nodded, my smile frozen.

‘Habt ihr Hunger?’ she asked.

Before we knew where we were she’d thrust a cheese roll into each of our hands.

After a long and shaky bus ride we pulled up in a large car park. Everybody got off, including me and my friend. In front of us was a big concrete building with a flat roof and high, spiky, metal aerials. Beyond it, behind a wire fence, were some propeller-driven aeroplanes. The bus driver opened a hatch and started pulling out bags and suitcases. The nice lady had far too much luggage and seemed to be under a lot of strain. Beads of sweat were forming under the brim of her hat, and she started making nasty smacking noises, sucking at her teeth. My friend and I gave her a hand as a way of saying thank you for the sandwiches, and we lugged her heavy case into the building. The flock of pensioners crowded round a desk, jabbering away loudly, and started to produce no end of papers and documents. A woman in uniform tried patiently to keep them in order. Then we passed through the gate as a group and made our way towards the aircraft.

It was going to be my first ever flight. We both felt a bit like fish out of water, but a nice, brown-eyed lady with gold heart-shaped earrings helped us to fasten our seatbelts. My friend landed up in a window seat, and we grew increasingly excited as we watched the shiny propellers start spinning round, faster and faster, until they disappeared altogether in a round, invisible whirl.

Then we started moving. I was forced back into my seat, could feel the wheels bumping, and then the slight jerk as we left the ground. My friend was pointing out of the window, fascinated. We were flying! There was the world down below us. People, buildings, and cars shrunk to the size of toys, so small we could have popped them into our pockets. And then we were swallowed up by clouds, white on the outside but grey inside, like porridge. We emerged from the clouds and kept on climbing until the aircraft reached the sky’s roof and started soaring forwards so slowly we hardly knew we were moving.

The nice air hostess brought us some juice, which was just as well as we were very thirsty. And when we needed a pee she ushered us into a tiny little room and we took it in turns to get our willies out. We peed into a hole, and I imagined it falling right down to the ground like a yellow drizzle.

Then we each got a book and some crayons. I drew two aeroplanes crashing into each other. My friend leaned his head further and further back and soon dozed off with his mouth wide open. The plane window misted over as he breathed.

We eventually landed. All the passengers pushed and shoved their way out, and in the mêlée we lost touch with the old lady. I asked a bloke in a peaked cap if this was China. He shook his head and pointed us in the direction of an endless corridor where people were hurrying to and fro with their cases. We walked down it, and I had to ask politely several times before we came across some people with slitty eyes. I reckoned they must be going to China, and so we sat next to them and started waiting patiently.

After a while a man in a dark blue uniform came over to us and started asking questions. We were going to be in trouble, you could see it in his eyes. So I smiled shyly and pretended not to understand what he was saying.

‘Dad,’ I mumbled, pointing vaguely into the distance.

‘Wait here,’ he said, and strode off purposefully.

The moment he’d gone we moved to another bench. We soon discovered a black-haired Chinese girl in knee-length socks who was playing with a sort of plastic puzzle. It seemed to be fun. She laid the pieces out on the floor and showed us how you could make a tree, or a helicopter, or whatever you liked. She talked a lot and waved her thin arms around, and I think she said her name was Li. She sometimes pointed to a bench where an elderly bloke with stern eyes was reading a newspaper, next to an oldish girl with raven hair. I gathered she was the girl’s sister. She was eating a red, messy fruit, and kept wiping her mouth with a lace-edged napkin. When I went over to her she gave me a guarded look then offered me some pieces that had been neatly cut with a fruit knife. It tasted so sweet that I started to get butterflies in my stomach: I’d never tasted anything as good as that in my life, and I prodded my friend into trying some as well. He was ecstatic, his eyes half-closed. As a sort of thank you, he suddenly produced a matchbox, opened it and let the Chinese girl have a look inside.

Inside was a large, shimmering green beetle. Big sister tried to feed it a little piece of fruit, but then it flew off. Buzzing softly it flew over all the slitty-eyed people in their seats, circled round two ladies with long pins in their hair who gazed up in astonishment, investigated a mountain of suitcases with some carelessly wrapped reindeer antlers on top and headed off down the corridor just under the fluorescent lights, the same way we had come in. My friend looked sad, but I tried to console him with the thought that it was no doubt going back home to Pajala.

At that very moment there was an announcement over the loudspeakers, and everybody started moving. We packed the puzzle into the girl’s toy bag and passed through the gates in the midst of the jostling crowd. This aircraft was much bigger than the previous one. Instead of propellers this one had big drums on the wings that made a whistling sound when they started up. The noise grew and grew until it was a deafening roar, and after we’d taken off it reduced to a booming rumble.

We got to Frankfurt. And if my silent travelling companion hadn’t been taken short and started doing his number twos under a table, we would certainly, we would quite definitely, without a shadow of a doubt we would have got to China.