Chapter Text
Joosef was born on the 23rd of April to maid Eeva Järvinen and blacksmith Toivo Järvinen in the forests of Karelia. His birth was a deep misfortune upon the pair, who were already struggling with money. This child was the last thing they had wished for.
At 10 years old, Joosef was taken out of school, as his parents deemed his achievements unimpressive, Eeva would need help from her boy when cleaning her lot’s house. And Toivo’s worsening back pains would do better with a helper in his smithy. However, his lordship and his lady at the manor of which his mother worked were strict. The estatekeeper would swat the boy’s hands even more cruelly than the professor at school. If little Joosef would burn himself on the hot metal in the smithy, his father wouldn’t even offer a comforting glance.
Joosef had now worked for 2 years, and after one particularly bothersome workday, he had made his father especially cross. He was down by the stream of their small house, picking out glass from the pulsing point on his forehead. He was too anxious to ask his mother for a cloth to stop the bleeding, and he couldn’t possibly tear his own clothes. In the end he was even too frightened to lay his head down on his pillow and waited patiently outside until his mother emerged the next morning to head to the lordship’s manor nearby. But she paled at the sight of her boy sitting outside with a sullied dark crimson face and little shining emeralds sticking to his flesh and forced the child back to the stream, dunking his face into the cold morning water. Too full of rage to feel the struggling hands prying into her work dress and the repeated gags and coughs. Only was she satisfied when his face was clean and only the tiniest glass pieces remained stuck in the open wound. Despite her efforts, he was still not fit to be present at the estate.
During the summer after Joosef’s 15th birthday Toivo drunkenly drowned in the river by the nearby town after their Juhannus-celebrations. At this point in Joosef’s life, he harboured resentment far too great to mourn his father. Listening to his mother’s troubled sobs, he’d bury the man not far from their house. The day after the burial Joosef had already taken over his late father’s smithy. Driven by the grief of her husband, the now widowed Eeva Järvinen frightened her employer with her hysteria. It only took a month for her to be let go from her work as a maid. Joosef now had to take care of his troubled mother along with the busy smithy.
A night shortly before the spring that’d hold Joosef’s 17th birthday, the boy would wake up. He’d move to his sleeping mother’s bed. Gently would he unclasp the treasured golden cross necklace from her neck. The boy would put it in his small money pouch and reach for his shoes. When his mother woke up, her son would no longer be there.
Joosef would get off a train near Helsinki. He’d hope for work, a chance to start over his life. He’d first find work at a factory, but after seeing colleagues getting their arms ripped off in a machine or losing a finger to the tools used, he’d cowardly hand in his resignation letter. Second, he'd work as a waiter at a bar. But having an especially angry customer smash a bottle into the wall right next to his head, he couldn’t bear to return.
Lastly, he’d stumble across a fishing boat in the harbour. He’d think about leaving Finland. Getting a proper start elsewhere. That evening, he’d gotten a job on that ship, Marjatta.
Life on sea was not what the boy had expected. Joosef had long since known that no work was easy, but he’d never been quite as miserable. His body was not used to the constant movement of waves and he often found himself sick. As he could not swim he feared pulling the nets onto the boat. Living on such a monotone diet he found himself tired and lifeless. Not even sleep could grant him a moment’s peace. That is when the older and more experienced men on the boat decided to bestow their wisdom on the young boy - Joosef picked up drinking. The uncles on the boat talked sloppily and informally. On the boat, Joosef was Jussi. Joosef quickly stopped correcting them.
Jussi came far on the fishing boat. He learned more than he’d even done in school or in his father’s smithy. On the sea, he’d meet people from every corner of the world. He’d talk to people, he’d learn languages. The key to forgetting his sickness of the sea was to talk, to work, to interact, and to drink. He stayed there until he was 22. When their ship reached London one summer, Jussi decided to leave the crew on the ship. At this point, his body was frail, malnourished, and slim. He had no wishes of continuing his work on Marjatta, despite all that he had learned.