“Put her on the table.”
Linda was so quiet her eyes—
“Spread her legs. Hold her down.”
Ingel whimpered in the corner.
“Aliide Tamm, you can take care of this. Come over to the table.”
They didn’t say anything, they didn’t say anything.
“Make her hold the light.”
They didn’t say anything they didn’t say anything anything anything.
“Hold the light, bitch!”
1948
Läänemaa, Estonian Soviet
Socialist Republic
Aliide’s Bed Begins to Smell of Onions
Aliide chose Martin before he knew anything about her. She saw him at the dairy by chance. She had just come swinging down the steps after admiring the cotton wool displayed on the wall of the dairy office to show how pure their milk was. The others’ had been yellower, but their milk left the cotton just as white as always. It was really Ingel’s doing, she took the most care of the cows, but what did it matter? This was Aliide’s house, so they were her cows, too. She had puffed up her chest and it was still puffed up as she left the office and walked down the steps, when she heard a voice, an unfamiliar man’s voice. It was a hearty, decisive voice, very different from the voices of other men in the village, already frail with age or weakened from drinking from morning till night—because what else was there left for a man of their country to do but drink? Aliide went toward the road and tried to find the man that the voice had come from, and she found him. He was marching like a leader toward the dairy, and three or four men were following him, and Aliide saw how the tails of his coat thrust out like they were going to take off into the wind and how the others turned toward him when they spoke, but he didn’t turn to them when he answered, he just looked straight ahead, his brow raised, looking toward the future. And then Aliide knew that he was the man to rescue her, to safeguard her life. Martin. Martin Truu. Aliide tasted the name carefully as it was whispered around the village. It tasted good. Aliide Truu tasted even better; it melted fresh on her tongue like the first snow. Aliide easily guessed where she could find Martin Truu, or rather where Martin would find her—in the Red corner on the second floor of the manor house that had been made into a cultural center.
Aliide started staking him out, from between the busts of Lenin. She examined the books with their red covers in the shadow of the enormous red flag, and now and then as she read she would stare thoughtfully into the fireplace, its unacceptable ornamentation defaced. The ghosts of Baltic German manor ladies creaked under her feet, moist yawns darkened the wallpaper, and sometimes when she was there alone, the window squeaked like someone was trying to open it, the frame squeaked and a current of air blew toward her, although the window remained closed. She didn’t let it disturb her in spite of the fact that she still felt like she was in another person’s home, in the wrong place, in a gentleman’s house. It was a little like the feeling in the Russian church, which had been made into a grain warehouse. She had expected God to strike her with lightning when she was there, because she hadn’t risen up to oppose the men who had made grain bins out of the icons, and Aliide had tried to remember that it wasn’t her church; she couldn’t be expected to do anything about it. What could she have done? Now she just had to keep repeating to herself that the manor house belonged to the people now, for the use of the people, the ones who made it through all this, anyway. So she gazed dreamily at the smiling bust of Lenin, his head leaning on his hand, went up occasionally to examine the chart of quotas, and then went back to diligently leafing through Five Corners and Estonian Communists. Once, she dropped the book on the floor and had to pick it up from under the table and she noticed names carved into the bottom of the tabletop: Agnes, and a heart, and William. A knot in the wood where a branch had been stared out at her from the center of the heart. 1938. There was no one here named Agnes or William. The handsome rosewood table was stolen from somewhere, its embellishments had been cut away. Had Agnes and William got away, were they living happily, in love, somewhere in the West? Aliide pushed herself back upright and quickly memorized “The Tractor Song”:
Hurry, iron tractor! Hurry comrade! The field is boundless as a sea before us You and I travel across a vast land . . . Field and forest echo with our victory song.
It wasn’t enough to know it by heart. She should know it so well that she believed it. So that it sounded like a heartfelt creed. Could she do it? She had to. She thought about the teachings of Marx and Lenin—but wouldn’t it be better to let Martin teach her? The tractor driver’s song was simple enough. She shouldn’t let Martin think she was too clever.
Someone saw her in the Red corner and told Ingel. Ingel told Hans, and Hans didn’t speak to Aliide for a week. But Aliide didn’t care. What did Hans know about her life? What did Hans know about what it was like on the stone floor of the basement of town hall with the greatcoats’ urine trickling down your back? She did care a little, though, about his opinion, maybe even more than a little, but she needed someone, someone like Martin, and Martin started letting his eyes wander to the studious girl in the Red corner. One day Martin gave a talk, and Aliide went up to him, waited for the crowd to disperse, and said: “Teach me.”
She had rinsed her hair with vinegar the day before, it shone in the dimness, and she tried to give her eyes the unseeing expression of a newborn calf, helpless and unfocused, so that a desire to teach her would awaken in him immediately, and he would realize that she was fertile ground for what he had to say.
Martin Truu fell for the dewy calf eyes. He fell quite lightly. He came upon her, and he laid his great mentor’s hand on the small of her back, and he smelled.
1948
Läänemaa, Estonian Soviet
Socialist Republic
How Aliide’s Step Became Lighter
As Aliide stepped out of the civil registration office, her steps were lighter than when she went in, and her back was straighter, because her hand rested on Martin’s arm now, and Martin was her husband, her legally wedded husband, and she was his legally wedded wife, Aliide Truu. What a lovely name! Although she received a certain guarantee of security by marrying Martin, there was another important thing she gained from the union. She became just like any other normal woman. Normal women get married and have children. She was one of them.
If she had remained unmarried, everyone would have thought that there was something wrong with her. They would have thought it even though there were very few men available. The Reds would have wondered if she had a lover in the forest. The others would have come to their own conclusions about why she didn’t suit anyone. Was there some reason that she was less of a woman, a woman who wasn’t suitable for a man or couldn’t handle being with a man? Some reason that she had been passed over? Someone might have made up a reason. The main thing was that once she married a man like Martin, no one could suggest that something had happened during her interrogation. No one would believe that a woman could go through something like that and then marry a Communist. No one would dare to talk about her—say, that one’s up for anything. Somebody ought to have a go at her. No one would dare, because she was Martin Truu’s wife, she was a respectable woman. And that was important—that no one would ever know.
She recognized the smell of women on the street, the smell that said that something similar had happened to them. From every trembling hand, she could tell—there’s another one. From every flinch at the sound of a Russian soldier’s shout and every lurch at the tramp of boots. Her, too? Every one who couldn’t keep herself from crossing the street when militiamen or soldiers approached. Every one with a waistband on her dress that showed she was wearing several pairs of underwear. Every one who couldn’t look you in the eye. Did they say it to those women, too—did they tell them that every time you go to bed with your husband, you’ll remember me?
When she found herself in proximity with one of those women, she tried to stay as far away from her as she coul
d. So no one would notice the similarities in their behavior. So they wouldn’t repeat each other’s gestures and double the power of their nervous presence. At village community events, Aliide avoided those women, because you never knew when one of those men might happen by, a man she would remember for all eternity. And maybe it would be the same man as the other woman’s. They wouldn’t be able to help staring in the same direction, the direction the man was coming from. And they wouldn’t be able to keep themselves from flinching at the same time, if they heard a familiar voice. They wouldn’t be able to raise their glass without spilling. They would be discovered. Someone would know. One of those men would remember that Aliide was one of those women who had been in the cellar at the town hall. She was one of them. And all the blurring of memory she had managed by marrying Martin Truu would be in vain. And maybe they would think that Martin didn’t know, and they would tell him. Martin would, of course, take it as a slander and be angry. And then what would happen? No, she couldn’t let that happen. No one must ever know.
When a situation like that arose, she would always think of something bad to say about those women, berate and bad-mouth them to differentiate herself from them. Are you sure, Comrade Aliide?
They moved into a room together at the Roosipuu house. The Roosipuus didn’t openly make fun of Martin—they were afraid of him—but Aliide had to constantly be on the lookout for stumbling blocks and falling objects. The children put salt in her sugar bowl, pulled her clothes down from the clothesline, slipped worms into her flour bin, slathered their snot on the bin handles, and watched from beside their mothers’ spinning wheels as Aliide took a drink of salty tea or took hold of the handle, her expression never wavering even when she felt the dried snot on her fingers or recognized the sound of worms seething inside the bin. Aliide had no intention of giving them the pleasure of seeing her bothered one bit by their actions or their contempt or anything they did. She was Martin’s wife, and she was proud of it, and tried to remember that with every step, tried to put the same pride in her gait that Martin had, tried to go out the door in a way that made others yield, not her. But somehow it always missed the mark, and she had to wait, and the Roosipuus slammed the door in her face and she had to open it again. The Red soldiers who were bivouacked in the house had taught the Roosipuus how to say good morning and good day in Russian. They greeted Aliide with these freshly learned words.
There were always bits of onion between Martin’s teeth, and he had a hearty appetite. He had heavy muscles, loose skin hung from his arms, and the pores in his armpits were almost bigger than the ones on his forehead. His long armpit hair was yellowed with sweat and funguslike, in spite of its thickness, like rusted steel wool. A belly button like a cavern and balls that hung almost to his knees. It was hard to imagine that he had ever had a young man’s firm balls. The pores in his skin were full of oil with a smell that changed depending on what he had been eating. Or maybe Aliide was just imagining that. In any case, she tried to make food without onions. As time went by, she also did her best to look at Martin the way a woman looks at a man, to learn to be a wife, and gradually she started to be able to do it when she observed how he was listened to when he had something to say. Martin had fire and power in him. He got people to listen to him and believe in themselves almost as well as Stalin did. Martin’s words sliced like a sickle and struck like a hammer. His hand rose into the air when he spoke, squeezed into a fist, and shook in judgment of the Fascists, saboteurs, and bandits, and it was a big fist, a powerful thumb, a hand like the head of a bull, a hand that was good to shelter under. Martin’s earlobes were large and hanging; he knew how to wiggle them, but they still looked like they heard everything. And if they heard everything, news of any danger would stick to them, too. Martin would know about it ahead of time.
In the mornings, the smell of Martin’s armpits stuck to Aliide’s hair and skin, his smell was in her nose all day long. He liked to sleep in a tight embrace, with his little mushroom Aliide tucked tightly under his arm. It was good; it gave her a feeling of security. She slept better than she had in years, fell asleep easily and greedily like she was making up for all those years of sleepless nights, because she no longer feared that someone would come knocking on the door at night. Nobody could have pulled her out from under that arm. There wasn’t a more exemplary party organization in a single village in the whole country.
Martin was happy when he saw how sleeping beside him at night made Aliide, whose jumpiness had at first been a wonder to him, more beautiful. Having him close to her, Aliide’s jitters diminished a little during the day, her timorous gaze became more calm, her bloodshot, sleepless eyes cleared, and all of this made Martin a happy man. This happy man also arranged a job for his wife as an inspector, whose task, among other things, was to collect payments and issue payment notices in person. The work was easy, but it was awkward—the Roosipuus weren’t the only ones who started slamming doors when they saw Aliide’s bike approaching their house. But Martin promised to get her a more pleasant job when his career had advanced.
But that smell. Aliide tried at first to breathe through her nose all day. In the end, she got used to it.
Ingel had said that Aliide was starting to smell like a Russian. Like the people who appeared at the railway station and sat themselves down with their bundles. The trains kept bringing more of them and they disappeared into the mouths of the new factories.
1949
Läänemaa, Estonian Soviet
Socialist Republic
The Trials of Aliide Truu
Martin hadn’t told Aliide why he wanted her to come to the town hall that evening, so the trip there was hard for her. Are you sure, Comrade Aliide? The man’s voice came and went in her head, and she wasn’t sure of anything except that she had to hold on to Martin. Groping for her cigarettes at her front gate, she realized her cigarette case was empty and went back in the house, even though it was bad luck. She tried to refill the case and failed; they crumpled up, her hands shook, she started to cry, her shirt was wet with sweat, she was getting a chill, such a nasty chill. She succeeded in driving away a hiccup, succeeded in jamming a few cigarettes into the case, and stumbled out of the gate. The Roosipuus’ brat threw a rock at her and ran into the shrubbery; giggles could be heard coming from the bushes. Aliide didn’t turn her head. Luckily the other Roosipuus were working, no one had seen her flailing or the sweat on her upper lip except for the kid, but even the Roosipuus’ kitchen was more inviting than the town hall, and when she was on the main road she turned around twice, came back, headed toward town hall again, continued forward, and spat three times over her shoulder when a black cat crossed the road. Are you sure, Comrade Aliide? When she was halfway there, she lit a cigarette, smoked it where she stood, was startled by some birds, and continued on her way, biting her itchy palms. Scratching them just made them bloody, so she tried to tame the itch by gnawing at the places on her hands where her skin crawled. Are you sure, Comrade Aliide? Before she got to the town hall, she smoked another cigarette, her teeth chattered, she was cold, she had to keep going forward, her tongue cracked with dryness, forward to the courtyard of the town hall. The place was swarming with people. A car backfired. Aliide gave a start, her knees turned to water, and she squatted down, pretended to clean the dirt from her hem. Her galoshes, from Estonian times, were covered in mud. She rinsed them in a puddle and shoved her shaking hands into her pockets, but her fingers held tight to the payment notices for childless couples. She pulled her hands out of her pockets. Earlier in the day, she had come to the door of two childless families and three families with too few children, but none of them would let her inside. Men bustled back and forth at the lower door of the town hall carrying in bags of sand—the bags already covered one window halfway up. From the mutterings of passersby it became clear enough that a bandit attack was expected.
The building was full of people, although it was after seven o’clock. The ceaseless tapping of a typewriter echoed from somew
here in the building. Hurried, fervent footsteps came and went. Black leather coattails hummed by in her peripheral vision. Doors opened and closed. Storms of drunken laughter. A young girl’s giggle. A slightly older woman taking off her overshoes in the corridor, cute, decorative little high-heeled shoes emerging from her galoshes. The woman shook her head to straighten her curls, her earrings glinting in the dim light like a sword pulled from its scabbard.
Are you sure, Comrade Aliide?
The corridor smelled like metal.
Someone shouted, “Lenin, Lenin, and once again Lenin!”
The cracks in the pale-colored walls were hazy, as if they were moving. The smell of liquor met her coldly at the door to Martin’s office. Cigarette smoke darkened the room so that she couldn’t see clearly. “Sit down.”
Aliide located Martin by his voice, standing in a corner of the room. He was wiping his hands on a towel as if he had just washed them. Aliide sat in the chair he offered her, sweat squelched under her arms, and she rubbed her upper lip with the dry palm of her hand. As Martin came up beside her and bent to kiss her forehead, his hand took hold of her breast and squeezed it lightly. The wool fabric of his coat scraped against her ear. A damp place was left on her forehead. “There’s something my little mushroom should see.”