Unknown Soldiers (Penguin Modern Classics) by Väinö Linna

Author:Väinö Linna [Linna, Väinö]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 9780141977058
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-05-13T21:00:00+00:00

IV

Life was good as an occupation unit. A fellow could explore the city at will and amass all kinds of fascinating experiences – such as rounding up all the city’s madmen after some drunken soldier released them all from the mental hospital, for example. If they were liberating the city, he protested, they were supposed to free everybody behind bars! That was his story, and what could you do? The explanation was perfectly logical. Walking the streets, they were amazed to encounter young Russian men wearing civilian overcoats over their army uniforms: fellows who had abandoned their units and taken it upon themselves to resume life as civilians. The Finns couldn’t really hold it against them – seeing as they would happily have done the same.

The men had been explicitly ordered to protect the houses against theft, but what difference did it make who owned each old vinyl record, Russian string instrument, button and knick-knack these thieves rounded up? There wasn’t anything decent to be found in the whole town. They had to protect the residents, but once the keg of liquor had been destroyed and almost all the other units had left the city, life was so quiet that even that wasn’t much of a burden. They tried to make friends with the local residents, who took a little while to get over their initial shyness, but then began interacting with them quite freely.

One or two of the men had already found himself a girl – Rahikainen first, obviously. His urban existence was like a chapter unto itself. It was as if everything in that conquered city had been made expressly for him – scraps, hungry residents, women, labyrinths, massive army depots. He played the businessman to a T. Not so much because it would get him anything in particular as because it was just his mode of operation. He didn’t know what to do with himself unless he had some scheme or other in the works. And here, where greater opportunities presented themselves to the enterprising entrepreneur, well – he pounced. His principal operation consisted of procuring food for the hungry inhabitants, generally against payment in the form of young women’s services. He scrounged up some icons for some art-connoisseur military official, even if he did think the man was nutty to give him money for those mildewy pictures. The older and less entrepreneurial privates could safely turn to him with their needs regarding women, as he already knew all the ones willing to sell themselves for bread. He sold the mother of his own seventeen-year-old ladyfriend to some guy from the veterinarian unit in exchange for two packs of cigarettes.

They enjoyed life. They had no duties to perform, save the occasional round on guard duty. And the fact that they were cleaning out a Russian barracks for their housing indicated that this state of bliss was likely to continue.

The city was no longer Petrozavodsk, nor even Petroskoi – it was now Fort Onega, Finland. Lenin’s statue had

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