The Last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani Page A

his charge but a little disappointed still not to have heard the lateral affricative with labiovelar overlay.
    Margareeta didn’t even wait for Hurmo to stop urinating. She dragged him brutally through the snow, where he left a yellow trail. This was the third time she had walked round the block and rung her husband’s doorbell, to no avail. Yet his car was parked in front of the house, and Jarmo never went anywhere without his car, not even to the university which was two steps away. Perhaps he had spent the night with one of his cheap prostitutes or was sleeping it off on a friend’s sofa. Was it or was it not Saturday morning? Or perhaps he had seen Margareeta from the window and, guessing her intentions, was pretending not to be at home so that he would not have to take the dog. Before the evening was out, either that dog would be reunited with its master, or it would be found the next morning outside the main door, rock-solid as the statue of Haavis Amanda. The weather forecast had proved correct. By the time dawn broke, a bank of cloud was already darkening the sky towards the east. The wind was sending increasingly dense swirls of snow rustling against the window panes. Margareeta decided that it would be wiser to take refuge in some café and eat a nice slice of cake, waiting for the blizzard to die down. She would go back later, hoping to catch Jarmo by surprise; she wouldn’t ring the bell, but have herself let in by a neighbour. The Kluuvi Shopping Centre was still empty at that hour. The first shops were rolling up their shutters and the salesgirls were putting on their uniforms. A newspaper vendor was hanging up advertisements for the dailies outside his kiosk. Inside the bar, the television was on, but without the sound. Margareeta bought a newspaper and sat down at a table amidst waiters who were still mopping the floor. Hurmo huddled miserably under her chair, his snow-covered fur leaving a little puddle beside him.
    The Laplander stopped half-way down the corridor. He opened a door and, after a short delay when Ivan stood obstinately on the threshold, trampling the thick moquette, hustled him in. The room was windowless; a lamp, swathed in scarves, gave out a ruddy light, revealing dark-papered walls, a chest of drawers of varnished wood and a bed with the covers pulled neatly back. The Laplander thrust the Silja Line ticket into the Vostyach’s pocket, took a plastic bottle and two glasses out of the fridge, put them on the bedside table and left the room. Ivan looked around him. Two tubular metal light fittings hung from the ceiling, connected to a wire which ran all round it, giving out a dull, unsteady light; they jingled slightly when the Laplander closed the door. The wall at the foot of the bed was entirely covered by a poster depicting a tropical beach. A fish tank containing little coloured fish was gurgling on a console table. Ivan stared at them in delight, and they stared back. A small stick of incense, in a brass brazier shaped like a dragon, gave out a slight thread of smoke. Ivan heard a rustling noise and a sound of running water, coming from behind a curtain. From the other side of the wall came the low cackle of a radio. Somewhere else, a heating pipe was clicking away, giving out a smell of dry paint. Suddenly the curtain twitched, then opened, and a sturdy middle-aged woman appeared, with extremely black hair and a heavily made-up face. She was wearing a black lace leotard, open at the front, revealing red underwear, dangling suspenders and a deep-set belly button in a fleshy fold of skin.
    â€˜Hello!’ she said, sidling towards Ivan in her little silver clogs in a manner suggestive of some tried and trusted ritual; but then a whiff of rankness, sudden as a slap, brought her up short and forced her to retreat, to collapse abruptly on to the edge of the bed, seized with a fit of coughing, until she could recover herself. Regaining her composure, she adjusted her