Domestic Violence – A Christmas Carol (of Sorts)

Snow is coming down heavily – a big blizzard is raging in the area. The news on the radio is accompanied by statics: “Due to global warming CRSHHHHHH arctic circle CRRRRSSHH Finnish-Russian border region SSSHHHH Korvatunturi mountain broke open CSHRCK” The hissing and crackling made our dog leave the kitchen and join our children in the living room.

“Korvatunturi, isn’t that where the kids send their Christmas letters for Santa?” I say to my wife.

“Shh,” she says, putting her hand over my mouth, “Shut up, there is more. Listen!”

“CRSHH Finnish scientists believe CRCK something ancient was in that mountain SSHHHCRRR has disappeared CRSHHHCKRK town of Korvatunturi SHCRSHCK destroyed by an unknown force.”

So what?! I ran out of dead rats’ arses a long time ago, I don’t give them anymore.

Later that night, I am lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying not to fall asleep. I am waiting for the children to drop off, though. Next day is Christmas day and this year I am responsible for the presents. And the presents are all waiting in the wardrobe, the drawers and under the bed to be put around the tree in the living room. My wife still insists on this tradition. I suppose the Santa-puts-presents-under-the-Christmas-tree-tradition is more important to her and myself than to the kids. Because I suspect even the little ones to have already figured out our little seasonal charade. But anyway, it is nice and I really like this little custom of ours, it puts you in the mood, you know?! If it only wasn’t for my eyelids being so heavy tonight.

Okay, where are we? Ah yes, thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening. Me, in the middle of the night, waiting for our offspring to doze off, so I can put the presents under the tree, pretending to be Santa Claus. Outside the storm is still raging and howling. Inside, I am just on the upper landing, on my way down to the living room when I hear something on the roof. A song comes to my mind. Hark! What is that sound I hear? There are big thuds, little tiptoeings and long skiddings.

And then I see them. Little boots are dangling down in front of the window. In those little boots, there are little hairy legs. The little hairy legs stick out of little manky pants. The little manky pants have the same dirty colour as the filthy overcoats. Out of the scruffy sleeves of the filthy overcoats stick tattooed arms and hands, which cling to the wonky gutters. Between those pairs of tattooed arms, there are fierce faces. Those fierce faces have edged knives between their jagged yellow rotten teeth.

And then I see that they see me. One of them lowers his hand, reaches for the knife and throws it at me. The blade pierces the wooden window frame. And that is when I run down the stairs into the living room.

There, under the Christmas tree, next to the open fire, are already all the presents for the family. I am a bit confused, someone must have put them there earlier. I walk over to the tree, but I am thrown back by a huge deflagration and a dust cloud coming out of the fireplace. Something just came down the chimney and smashed into the still glowing embers.

It wasn’t something, it was someone. Someone rather short. This hideous little creature builds himself up in front of me. His pointy ears stick out from under his grimy hat.

What the hell is this? Is this a fucked-up version of a Christmas elf? There are more like him coming down the chimney and out of the fireplace. With them, they bring a thick cloud of something deeply unpleasant. They all reek of booze, cheap Scandinavian vodka, I can tell. The first one in front of me comes up with his knife in hand.

“Joulupukki has been woken, and he is very angry!” he says with a voice made for cutting glass. First, I believe the language to be something Eastern-Scandinavian, but I seem to understand it, which absolutely amazes me. Must be globalisation then, or something else. My brain is racing because I am trying to place the word Joulupukki. I have heard the name before. It must be …

I stop thinking because the evil elf has thrown a knife at me. It has pierced my slipper between my toes and is stuck in the wooden floorboard.

The little shit looks at me in surprise and shrugs his shoulders, then turns around and gestures something to the crowd gathering behind him, whereupon they storm off and throw themselves into the pile of gift boxes. When one of the little bastards finds my presents for my other half, I get in on the act, as well. He plays around with the hairspray can and sprays it against a Zippo lighter with my initial on it. The DIY-flamethrower sets the tree and the nearby drapes on fire. The whole place descends into absolute chaos.

A blood curdling and glass breaking scream from their leader makes them all turn to him. All at once, they shout: “Joulupukki! Joulupukki! Joulupukki!” A war cry and a summoning of sorts. Because outside the stamping has taken on enormous proportions. I can’t see anything but the snow is shaken off the branches with every thud.

“For Joulupukki!” They shriek once more and throw themselves at me. I duck down to the right and roll over to the torn-up boxes and get my hands on another spray can. As a matter of fact, I am looking for something completely different but for now, I can render a few of them harmless with an ordinary pepper spray.

I call out for my wife. And even though her name consists to three-quarters of vowels, which are supposed to make a word resonate vibrantly, she doesn’t seem to hear me. All quiet on the upper floor.

I don’t know much about the challenges pubescent girls have to go through in their early innocent lives, but this year my eldest daughter had a rather unusual request. I see it in the corner close to the stairs. I throw myself sideways, get hold of the handy tool and manage to take them out one by one. Click, click, click, TSSSSSSS. Click, click, click, TSSSSSSS. The new Taser X3 allows you to have three shots in a row before you need to reload. One last shot and another one bites the dust. TSSSSSSS.

Their battle cries have shattered all the windows, at least on the ground floor. Through the big living room window, I now can see a pair of gigantic hairy feet coming closer, stomping the yard.

And then there is this gargantuan beast of a man in front of the house. At least twice as tall as the three-storey house itself. A shadow descends from above and a huge hand knocks gently on the front door. The elves and their quite convincing knives make me step out on the snow-covered lawn. Although they are less than half of my size, the elves lift me up and carry me over to Joulupukki, and present me to him. He bows down again, grabs me by the feet and lifts me up.

On my way up, I see – upside-down – that he is a rather skinny and wiry fellow. An old haggard man with a sunken face and a thin white beard, which makes him look like a goat with human features. Thin legs in torn-up pants, skinny arms in a stained Bordeaux coloured overcoat with white fur lining. He is also wearing a huge flapping t-shirt with “Korvatunturi – Home of Father Christmas” written on it. And then I connect the dots loosely. According to Finnish legend Korvatunturi is the home of Joulupukki, the Laplandic version of Santa Claus. Only, he is not always a nice guy, he comes to punish the children for their misbehaviour during the year.

Joulupukki, it seems, is also not a man of many words. Without much ado, he just lifts me above his head and lowers me into his mouth. Before the sight of his rotten teeth and his obnoxiously strong breath knock me out, I manage to press the actuator on the pepper spray can one more time. His screams will haunt me until the day I die.

Then, surprisingly, I wake up. My feet are on the couch, but the rest of my body lies on the floor. I turn my head to the left. Everything is quiet and peaceful. The living room is all fine, nothing burnt or broken. However, our dog is lying in front of the fireplace with six probes in his body and wires that lead from the probes back to the Taser within reach of my left hand.

Flabbergasted, I turn my face up. My wife is towering over me with a sad but also angry look on her face. Her bloodshot eyes make her look like she has been crying exhaustively. A numb feeling in the wrist of my right arm, makes me turn in this direction, just to see that my spouse’s left foot is keeping down my right hand in which I am still holding a pepper spray can.

The City

She is not just a city but an entity of some kind. And yes, she is like a magical carbuncle growing on the back of an ancient reptile. In a gentle pace, though. She is not one of those fast-growing megacities with their repulsive stretch marks. On the contrary, she is a beauty even when I refer to her as a boil. She is a benign growth. The lump of lanes, streets and alleyways has something organic about it. Nothing is forced, everything is where it belongs. And all this casts a spell over you. As Kafka once said about her, “She never lets you go … this old crone has sharp claws.”

It was July back then and it is the same month this time. We have picked the date in accordance with our first trip here almost a decade ago. It was around Tereza’s birthday, which is also our anniversary; and so it is this time.

She is sitting next to me here in the big square in the centre of the old town. We are just across from the old town hall with the astronomical clock everyone flocks to and takes pictures of every full hour. This time we are well able to afford lunch at the restaurant, back then we weren’t. Time has passed, and so many things have changed but not the city – thank heavens. She is still as captivating as she ever was.

If European cities were necklaces, she would be a diamond among pearls. I am trying to get away from the precarious situation we are in. Earlier this morning, Tereza found the expensive beads on a string that I put around her neck awfully pretentious and called them a misplaced attempt to fix a thing that needed shattering, not mending.

In my thoughts, I cross the river by way of the old iconic bridge and walk the narrow lanes up to the castle and the palace. Up here, my eyesight suddenly has improved significantly. From here I can clearly see her staring at me, while I am still having my eyes pinned on the medieval clock on the town hall wall – trying to figure out what time really is about.

There is nothing I possibly could say to her, nothing I actually want to. Just going back to a place from a happy past won’t rewind the clock, turn back time. It was a stupid idea. But it was our idea.

The night we arrived here, we briefly returned to our passion from our first visit in the same hotel and even lived up to it – for a short while. Only to fall into a deep hole the next morning. There was no foundation left. Not anymore.

Before we left the hotel, the pearl necklace discarded on the bedside table, Tereza was lying on the bed, naked, staring at me. “Tomáš,” she said, “would you please come over here.” But I kept staring out of the window, brushing my teeth. I knew what she wanted, and even though I wanted it too, I could not do it. Strange, isn’t it?! But she kept talking.

In the distance, now I am a scary gargoyle on the castle church’s roof, I see a three-legged television tower on which black plastic babies climb up and down on the outside. This futuristic mark of shame is defiling the city’s charming suburbs.

I wonder if she can smell the chimney cake just around the corner from here. The first time we came here, she loved it. The roll covered in sugar and cinnamon and filled with chocolate cream. For her, it was the icing on the cake, as the expression goes. I am more into savoury stuff, the local version of goulash and dumplings made it for me. I can still remember the taste and I even passed the restaurant, where we had them back then, on my way up to the castle.

She has now started to talk to me, even though I am not listening, I just can’t. But when I eventually turn to her and ask her in an irritated voice to stop, since this is distracting me from enjoying the city, which I actually do not dare to verbalise, Tereza says “For you it might be a disturbance, but I am trying very hard to make conversation.”

That probably is the fundamental difference between women and men, I suppose. “Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious. Both are disappointed.” says Lord Illingworth in the third act of A Woman of No Importance.

The Man Who Came in from the Cold

 

A heavy blizzard is raging outside the lodge, which is clinging to the steep mountain face close to the snow-covered and famous Thorong La pass. Inside, the open fire is lively crackling away, giving off some precious heat. Only a few guests have found their way up to the rustic chalet that night. Outside, a single man is running towards a faint glow of light in the white hell of driving snow. His legs sink knee-deep into the snow with every step he takes. He is running away from something. Something that is hard on his heels.

When he finally hammers on the heavy wooden door, he still has to wait for quite some time until he is let in. Now everyone is staring at the sturdy door frame. Underneath, the dark silhouette of a man – who came in from the cold – surrounded by a flurry of snow. Therefore no one is paying attention to a single shadow that is passing by the window.

“Look what the cat dragged in, man! Tris, is that you?” Pim says, squinting his eyes and lifting his head from the cushion he had put on the table to support his heavy head while spacing in and out of his consciousness.

“Joder!” Álvaro says, “What the hell are you doing here, Tristan? We thought you’d come up here tomorrow.”

“I am being followed! A monster is after me! We are not safe here!” Tristan says, panting heavily.

“Who’s following you? And where are the others, are they with you?” Álvaro says.

“No, they are not. I was alone until I followed some weird footprints into a cave full of human and animal cadavers.”

“A cave full of gnawed off bones? Hahaha!”

“Yes, believe me, white bones everywhere. And then there was this giant beast right in front of me. A hideous white creature!”

“No, not this again! Seriously?!” Álvaro says, “The abominable snowman, Tristan, of course?! And he is after you? Sure thing!”

“What are you talking about?” Pim chimes in, “The Jedi? – Out of your fucking mind, you are! Yes, hmmm.”

“Shut up, Pim. No, I am not talking about the Jedi! But yes, I saw the monster! I am dead sure about it!”

“Oh, Bun Manchi, eh?” the hostess, who was eavesdropping, says, “You talk about yeti, eh na?!” She gestures to her husband and says something in their common tongue. Then she ushers him away and disappears into the nearby kitchen. The husband hobbles towards the main door and vanishes into a hole in the floor.

A couple of minutes later, the host reappears from the basement with a dust covered wooden box wrapped in a white Tibetan prayer flag. The hostess rushes over from the kitchen and snatches the box out of her husband’s arms and puts it on the nearby table. Then she opens the box ceremoniously, unwrapping the prayer flag and lifts the lit.

“Mi-goi head,” she says, “hair from the wild man.” The hostess beams at the spectators. Inside the chest, there is something that looks like an ancient, lice-ridden hairpiece. The scuffed thing sports an old fashioned middle parting. And after a few seconds of silence – to let the impression sink in –, she leans over to her guests and says mysteriously, “Local legend has it that he who sees one, dies or is killed.” Then she puts the ugly piece back in the box again and indicates her man to put it back where he got it from.

“This is ridiculous, there is no such thing as that wild snowman. It’s just a myth. A fairy tale. Nothing else.” Álvaro says.

“A myth! A fairy tale! Of course, you know it all, you’ve seen it all!” Tristan says, “But it was all like in that book I’ve read.”

“Tintin in Tibet, I gather?!” Álvaro enquires. “He and Captain Haddock are after the obnoxious snowman. Yeah, what an enormous piece of evidence for the snowman’s existence that is! Like that shaggy wig in the box. I am overwhelmed!”

“Really funny, Álvaro! The book I mean is by that mountaineer guy from Italy. The title of the book … I have it at the tip of my tongue … it is ‘My Quest for …”

A bearded guy in the corner close to the fireplace, who himself bears some cunning resemblance to the hairy beast in question, gets up from his stool, knocks it over and turns around, away from his Sherpa. He says with a booming voice, “No it is not a myth. It is not that easy, either. But yes, I have seen one, too. It was long ago. You probably weren’t even born, back then. We were just on the way back from the Everest, me and my friend Tensing here,” he points to the old and extremely weathered man by the fire “when we ran into the beast. My first impulse was to get the camera out and take pictures, but then it was heading straight at us. So, instead I pulled the rifle from the holster Tensing had on his back.” the guy goes on, “I shot it right between the eyes. And when we came closer, we saw that it was not the monster, but an enormous bear. Probably a Tibetan blue bear or even an endangered Himalayan brown bear.”

At that, Pim, suddenly, begins to recite: “When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride.”

“Pim?”

“He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.”

“Shut up, Pim!”

“But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.”

“For fuck sake, Pim!”

“For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.” Pim finishes the first stanza of the poem and goes back resting his head, heavy with thoughts, on the soft cushion again.

“Anyway, it’s all in my book. It’s called ‘My Quest for the Yeti’.” Reinhold Messner says, turning back to Tensing, his Sherpa, resuming the conversation from where they had left it.

Outside the blizzard had eventually died down. Now the crunching of the snow is clearly audible. The one shadow from before is now accompanied by many more. And then all of a sudden there is an impatient rattling at the door and the glass in the tiny windows shatters.