"THE CUCKOO" "Get changed." "It's ready." "Come on, Private." "Hold it." " Who chose this place?" " Me." "Don't you like it?" "It's lovely." "Thanks." " What's he saying?" " It's a good spot for a sniper." " Leave him his glasses?" " Yes." "Sit here until we've gone." " Take the gun, and he'll shoot." " I don't shoot in the back." "They all say that, but last week Big Yussi got a bullet here." "Good luck, Private." "Goodbye." "Down by the hill, you see?" "I see." "Then where?" "Past the burned bridge, there's a ford..." "You're an honest officer." "I believe you're innocent." "Stop babbling!" "Comrade Lieutenant, for your journey!" "Let's go!" "Good luck, Comrade Lieutenant!" "Careful!" "Comrade Lieutenant, you can see the state of the road!" "Comrades, give us a push!" "Mister!" "I recognize you!" "You worked at the shooting range." "What?" "By the market." "What market?" "In Bezhetsk." "No." "Like him, but you used to have a moustache." " Stop talking to the prisoner!" " Get lost!" "Thanks, lads." "Much further?" "Much further, Captain?" "I never used this road." "Comrade Junior Lieutenant, may I..." "Comrade Junior Lieutenant, they're our fighter planes." "I can see that!" "Comrade Junior Lieutenant, can I go to the toilet?" "Ok." "Don't run off though - be a shame to shoot you." "Comrade Junior Lieutenant, have you got some paper?" "Only your diary." "But that s evidence..." "It's all about you and your friend and your anti-Soviet plotting." "If I had my way, you'd be shot without a trial..." "I won't harm you." "I'll just take a little of your strength." "The sick one needs it." "Don't worry." "Where am I?" "This amulet will help you fight the weakness in your body." "I have to..." "Don't be shy." "Go on!" "You'll get better." "Sleep." "So, Lieutenant?" "Didn't work out?" "I'll piss on your grave yet!" "Good morning." "I have to get the chain off." "I need a smith." "Do you speak Finnish?" "I want to get this off!" "Do you understand?" "You want the iron off?" "You were a prisoner?" "I don't understand you." "Do you speak Finnish?" "You're a Lapp?" "I need a smith." "Is there a man?" "I need to get the chain off!" "I can't walk like this!" "You shout a lot." "Shouting never broke an iron." "I'll have a look, my husband had some tools." "Anything you say, Madam." "Your husband?" "Sick?" "Wounded?" "Fritz." "SS..." "Russian." "I'm not German." "You think I'm from the North division?" "They make us wear a uniform, so we won't surrender." "Because you don't like Germans, especially in uniform." "Haende hoch!" "Hitler kaputt!" "It'll be hard if that's all the German you know." "Don't worry, the war's over for me." "I'll get the chain off and go home." "Do you understand?" "A cuckoo - a condemned sniper, for crying out loud..." "You were probably in that car." "I couldn't understand why the Russian planes fired at you?" "Shoot, you scum." "My lot'll put me up against a wall anyway..." "I'm Veiko." "And you?" "Ivan?" " Get lost!" " Gerlost!" "Veiko, Gerlost..." "And you?" "Anni." "I just told you my real name!" "You can put the eye on me now." "Anni, Gerlost, Veiko..." "A pleasure to meet you." "It's a shame we haven't got anything to celebrate with." "Don't worry about me chatting on - it's the nerves." "A condemned man that survived - that means a lot." "I see..." "I don't think they're pleased to see me." "I'm sorry I've disturbed your peace." "I'll take the chain off and go." "Come on." "I'll give you the tools." "These are my husband's tools." "Your husband makes Lapland knives?" "You're a sharp lad." "Probably had to fight the girls off." "Or did you have a few?" "I'll take the chain off and go." "It's my fourth year without a man." "Last night I hugged the Russian..." "He slept, but I was aching below the tummy." "You smell bad." "All men smell of iron and death now." "Yes, lots of midges." "When I was chained on the rock, I thought they'd eat me away." "Have you got a sauna?" "Can I have a wash?" "Your skin s white - whiter than any woman I've seen." "The midges bit you because you wash too often." "Four years without a man, and then two at once." "Have the spirits read my thoughts?" "He's got my skirt on!" "Why're you dressed like a woman?" "!" "Grinning, Fritz?" "Won't be grinning for much longer!" "A good knife." "Gerlost, I told you, the war's over for me." "I don't want to kill, but I don't want to be killed." "Understand?" "Go on, finish me off." "That's my husband's knife - it's mine when he's not here." "Don't go killing each other!" "I don't plan to bury you both." "What're you waiting for?" "Think I'll kill you?" "The war's over, my friend!" "Understand?" "Peace." "The war's over." "Lev Tolstoi, War and Peace." "Shoot, scum." "Lev Tolstoi, War and Peace." "Understand?" "I understand you're a fascist, you burnt Yasnaya Polyana." "I'm not a fascist." "I'm a Finn." "I was at university, then the war" " I didn't want to fight." "You Idiot!" "Fyodor Dostoevsky." "The Idiot..." "I can't understand a word..." "I'm tired of fighting!" "Ernest Hemingway - Farewell to Arms!" "I don't know Russian." "I should have studied it." "Sorry, Gerlost." "Abominable and miserable..." "It's beautiful here..." "I was a condemned man." "Chained to a rock like Prometheus." "But I thought about it, and saw how to get the chain off." "I could have made fire without the glasses." "If I'd shot into dry grass, say." "But the glasses were safer..." "You don't understand me, but that's not important." "In this filth and muck it's an honor to remain alive." "The main thing is we're alive." "You and me." "I hope people will look back in horror at what they did at war." "Maybe they won't." "Man is a strange being." "Dostoevsky said that." "You can make a lot of good things with it." "He's cheered up, the fascist." "I never shared the views of the fascists." "I'm a democrat." "Fascist, all the same." "Democracy!" "Come and eat." "Let's go and eat." "Worried I'll thump you?" "I would, if it wasn't for the concussion." "It's my second." "First was in the winter of '42-'43." "Can I have some more?" "You eat a lot." "To eat a lot, you have to work a lot." "Thank you." "Thank you, very tasty." "I don't drink coffee." "But thanks anyway." "Stupid woman." "Got a smoke?" "Got a snout?" "Bitte eine Zigarette." "If I had, I'd smoke it myself." "Thanks, fascist." "Take it off, I'll wash it." "Take that off as well." "You just love wrapping yourself up in clothes." "You're not bad." "Girls like your kind." "Fritz!" "She seems to like you." "What're you in a dress for?" "Take it off, you look silly." "Gerlost!" "Gerlost, you're shy." "The Lapps don't understand that." "They live a simple life." "You rabbit a lot." "My ears are ringing from all those words." "She hasn't got much fish ready." "The winter will be hard." "We're just extra mouths to feed." "We have to go quickly." "My eyesight's fine." "I started wearing glasses to look more serious at university." "My family had difficulty getting money for my studies." "In Stockholm they look down on Finns..." "So, I started wearing glasses." "Never thought they'd save me." "And she hasn't got much hay ready." "Maybe just enough for the deer..." "Yes, be off, chatterbox!" "Let me help!" "Don't come near me, or I get wet and want to shout!" "She's angry." "The girl's smitten." "What?" "I said she's smitten." "I'll cover the wood in clay..." "The wood will burn and make a chimney for a sauna." "We'll boil or fry them, then eat them." "You want to go to the other world?" "Drink the broth of toadstools - those will just make you sick." "Can't be bothered?" "Don't worry!" "I'll cook them." "The sergeant in my battalion cooked them wonderfully!" "Gerlost's eating mushrooms to commune with the spirits." "Maybe he's a shaman or a wizard?" "Let him rest." "He's still weak after the concussion." "I'll do it myself." "I think you're better at other things." "I wouldn't mind if you threw me down on a deerskin, lad." "I've already forgotten what it's like." "Don't kid around" " I haven't seen a woman in two months." "Now, even a hunchback looks like a princess to me." "You've got tender hands, you're not used to man's work." "You probably only know how to kill." "That's not work, just big children thinking that taking a life lengthens their own." "Put the barrel back afterwards." "Ma'am, I need salt." "I'm not mad enough to eat mushrooms!" "I see!" "In the house!" "Scum!" "The water brought a letter." "The political officer informed on me!" "Snotty-nosed kid!" "Hadn't served a week at the front, and he informs!" "I was like a father to the boy." "He writes: "I inform you that I do not share the views..."" "The water washed out the words." "The water in the stream is good." "If you put laundry in it, the next day it's clean." "Not much flour left." "I put a little wood in." "He says my poems are rubbish!" "Jealousy, maybe?" "He only writes to inform." "Yesenin himself told me to write." "My dad was a taxi-driver." "He picked Yesenin up one day." "I was reading out my poems." "He said you need to write." "He even signed a photograph..." "Your wife?" "She's beautiful." "The soldier men took my husband four years ago..." "See, it's Yesenin!" "I wrote poems about nature, to stay sane at the front..." "God knows what he saw in them." "Don't worry - you're still alive and your wife's very beautiful." "Just don't eat mushrooms, or you'll go loony." "The mushrooms'll be ready soon." "But we need some salt." "Yes." "Mushrooms are bad." "They can be poisonous." "Here I am chatting away - you can't feed the deer with words!" "You've ruined the iron." "I brought that barrel from over the hill!" "It's a bit rough, but we can wash." "It's already hot." "Gerlost, come and wash!" "You get sick because you scratch your skin off." "My husband washed in a sauna in the city." "I barely cured him, and he never got sick before that." "Even taking your rifle to the sauna?" "Come in." "Not bad, although the draught takes the heat out fast." "I don't like saunas." "I like Turkish baths, you understand?" "Oh come on, she's not bad as a woman." "Her kind are good at housework, and they keep you awake in bed." "We had a supervisor just like her." "I invited her to the cinema once, but she didn't come." "Then she got married to a friend from work, Viktor Bychkov." "Don't know what she saw in him - ugly as sin, to be honest." "I don't understand, Gerlost." "Don't you like sauna?" "I'm no specialist, I've only read how to do it..." "I haven't been lucky with women." "Married twice, and both times it was a mess..." "What are you so serious about?" "Wash, because you smell of war and death." "A crow flew over the field, Saw a herd of deer." "It began to count - one, two, three..." "Counted until daybreak." "Then it tired and crowed out:" "You're so many, and I'm but one!" "It crowed and went to sleep..." "Let's go." "Don't worry though - I cry out when I like it." "Damn!" "Don't!" "Sorry, it was a bad dream." "I didn't want to scare you." "Feeling bad?" "It's because you ate mushrooms." "I'll make an infusion for you - it will drive the badness out." "I liked you straight away..." "He's younger, but he's still a fascist." "I'll make an infusion from herbs - you'll feel better." "I must work, or I'll be like a fox in winter, eating turds." "So, you enjoyed it with him." "I heard you moaning under him." "It really hurt me to hear." "I wanted to kill you." "Forgive me for those thoughts." "You brought me back to life." "Rest." "I've got a lot of work to do." "You took my heart straight away." "I told you, Gerlost, there're no bullets." "Are you jealous because she chose me?" "Don't be." "She wanted a little happiness." "To hell with you!" "Live." "You're still young." "Haven't lived at all yet." "And I'm tired..." "Tired of fighting." "My soul's emptied by the war." "I'll go and cut some wood!" "I should go." "It's a herb infusion." "Drink, Gerlost." "What do you see in that fascist?" "He talks a lot, and you can't understand a word." "The mushroom poison will go out of your body, you'll feel better." "Tastes nice." "Eat, I want to cry out at night again." "Don't give me that look!" "Or I'll be tearing my skirts off!" "Did you drink the infusion?" "Go over there!" "Go away!" "You poisoned me!" "Go away, this isn't the theatre!" "There's a pit over there!" "Didn't you see where I went?" "What're you looking at?" "You're a wild man, Gerlost." "The infusion worked." "Not used to that many mushrooms." "Interesting?" "!" "What're you embarrassing me for?" "Bring everyone to watch then - the dogs, the deer!" "Madness!" "We have to fix the barn." "You're both big" " I have to feed you with meat." "Much better, thanks." "I'll be off..." "You're big and eat a lot." "I can't kill a deer." "Too few as it is." "Goodbye." "Thanks for the bread and salt." "Although you've got no salt." "You have good eyes, Gerlost." "But don't eat lots of mushrooms." "It's good that we've said goodbye." "I can't take anymore." "It's good here, but I'm going mad." "I must be tired of life." "Has Gerlost gone to get mushrooms again?" "Let me help!" "Where're you taking them?" "I just brought them!" "Thank you." "You really are ugly!" "Germans!" "Hide!" "Fascists." "Three of them." "One injured, and a nurse..." "One's an officer." "If I take them prisoner, we'll get the credit!" "There're no bullets." "I'm not fighting." "And there's nothing to fight with." "They'll come over the hill, and we'll be stuck out in the open." "Give me the gun!" "Well, I'll take it by force." "If it wasn't for the concussion, I'd take you out!" "The war's over for me." "What do you want?" "I don't need this war!" "To hell with it!" "I'm a man like you!" "I want to live, not to fight!" "I thought you were a cuckoo - a condemned sniper..." "But you're just a coward!" "You were crafty, throwing me in the fire." "Up all night with a bird, but still got some strength left!" "You haven't understood!" "I'm stuck with this idiot." "How can I explain if you don't want to understand?" "I'm not a soldier!" "Aren't you tired of shooting?" "If you want to fight and kill your kind, go on!" "I want a different life." "The world's not perfect, but life's no worse for that." "Perhaps you've never lived, Gerlost?" "Always fighting, and you don't know anything else?" "The world is so beautiful." "Chained to the rock, I felt it." "I wanted to write poems, music..." "even though I don't know how." "I'm off, Gerlost." "You haven't understood me, and I haven't understood you..." "More strength than you know what to do with?" "Then come help me." "She wants help." "I've seen such machines." "They never flew here though." "What's happened?" "It didn't blow up - must have run out of fuel." "Come on." "Stay here." "The infusion helped Gerlost - he's marching along happily now." "Here, read it." "Probably asking you to give yourself up." "Finland's out of the war!" "We're not fighting each other anymore!" "The war's over!" "Hello common sense!" "There's a dead pilot here." "Women shouldn't fight." "It's unnatural, painful to see." "Gerlost, I'm not a soldier and not the enemy." "It's written here that the Finns aren't fighting anymore." "Happy that your lot shot a plane down?" "Hero!" "Against these kids, you're the big hero!" "They were dropping leaflets." "We should bury them." "This is your lots' work." "And yours, Fritz!" "I'm a Finn!" "How can I tell you that I'm not fighting!" "The war's over!" "Look, Gerlost!" "I'm going to break this cursed rifle!" "You idiot, Gerlost." "Finland's signed a truce with Russia." "'This serves as a pass home.' Finland's surrendered?" "Yes, if it helps you understand." "Although I surrendered before." "Come on, lad." "Don't die." "Hold on!" "I'll carry you back in a flash." "Why can't you listen?" "Don't die!" "Don't keep quiet, groan at least, let me know you're there." "Who wounded him?" "I shot by accident." "I thought he wanted to hit me with the gun." "What happened?" "Stupid - it'll be a shame if he dies." "The Finns surrendered." "Maybe the Germans gave in too and the war s over." "Go get some water!" "He's leaving us." "I can't remember how to keep him from the land of the dead." "My granny knew how." "She'd turn into a dog and bring him back with her bark." "I'll turn my little finger into the dying one." "I'll hold his hand firm, turn you from the path of death!" "I'll stop you on the road to the land of the dead." "Hear the dog howl and come back!" "I'll hold you firm and stop you leaving your body!" "Hear the dog howl!" "It protects your hearth." "It calls you back from the path to the kingdom of the dead!" "Hear my howling!" "I'm catching up, jumping around you." "I'm biting your hands and legs, not letting you go on!" "Return to your body!" "Hear the cry of the dog!" "Turn off the road to the dead!" "I turn your soul into a floating log!" "You're carried by the waves, I'm the wind." "I'm a strong northern wind carrying you to the shore!" "Hear the dog howl on the shore!" "I drive you with my hot breath to your body lying on the shore." "Run into your body!" "Run!" "I blow your log-body to the shore!" "I take you by the roots and pull you out!" "Spirit, return to the body!" "The spirit's returned..." "Gerlost, come here!" "He's alive." "Come to me." "I need warmth and to feel a man next to me." "Anni, you just rest." "You were banging the drum and shrieking all night." "I'm not called Anni." "My parents called me Cuckoo." "People called me Lame." "My husband called me Anni." "But my real name's Cuckoo." "Gerlost, come to me." "Thanks, my dear, for everything." "For the bread and salt." "Don't be angry about anything." "You're a good woman." "Thank you, Anni." "What're you waiting for?" "I've got a lot to do." "Go." "It's not my loss." "I'm going that way." "A long way, but I'll make it!" "Good luck, Gerlost." "My name's Ivan." "Yes, that's what all Russians are called." "Gerlost Ivan." "And you get lost too." "They parted on that hill." "The snow came early that year." "They left." "One that way, the other in that direction, to their homes." "They were strong and brave people." "They'd have made good hunters." "But the war made them do bad things, and they tired of it." "They understood that, and stopped fighting each other." "They became friends, and helped me with the chores." "They always helped each other." "A bad man wounded one of them, and the other brought him to me." "I tended his wound, and didn't let him die." "One day, I realized they wanted to return to where their mothers had born them." "I sewed them warm clothing, got food for the journey." "They went to their farmsteads." "And your fathers were named like you." "Gerlost and Veiko..."