Martin went to work; she could hear the door close. She watched him from the window until he was on the main road, then drank some cold water from the big tank and splashed her face, calmed her hot breath. This was her house now, her kitchen. The swallow that nested in the barn would bring luck to her now, and it had permission to bring good luck, real luck, all the magic of toasts that were never made for her marriage, glasses raised under the three lions of the Estonian coat of arms. They could bring such luck, and they were sure to bring it, because these lucky birds did what was right. She was rescuing this house, rescuing her parents’ house from the Russian boots, and rescuing the man of the house. Not Ingel, but him. The land might be lost, but the house remained. Strangers might take the grain from the fields, but the man of the house and Aliide, the new woman of the house, remained. Not everything was lost.
Aliide put the remains of the wedding blanket away in the wardrobe and threw the frayed yarn in the stove, but she saved a pile of it to put in the smoke. Maybe it would have been enough to just burn it, but better safe than sorry, and everyone said that smoking was better than burning. The clothes or a piece of the clothes of the object of unrequited love was always smoked—somebody or other had been smoking things in this village for centuries. There had even been a German countess in the manor house who had been seen smoking the shirt of a reluctant lover, but Aliide couldn’t remember how it was done, how the shirt was put in the smoke—was it hung up to dry in the oven or hung above the midsummer fire? She should have listened more closely to the old people’s stories when she was younger so she wouldn’t have to guess what kind of smoke would work and what kind wouldn’t. She could ask Maria Kreel, of course, but then she would know what Aliide was doing, and it was important to do it without telling anyone. There was something else that you did with the spell, too, but she couldn’t remember what it was. Maybe part of the spell would be enough to do the trick. Aliide stuffed the bundle of yarn into her apron pocket and sat quietly for a moment listening to the house—her house—and felt the trembling of the floor under her feet. Soon she would see Hans, finally sit at the table with him, just the two of them.
She fixed her hair, pinched her cheeks, brushed her teeth with charcoal, and rinsed them for a long time. It was a trick of Ingel’s—that’s why her teeth were always so white. Aliide hadn’t wanted to imitate Ingel too much before, so she had always done without the charcoal. But things were different now. She closed the kitchen drapes and closed the door to the front room, so that no one could see through those windows into the kitchen. Pelmi was running around in the yard. He would bark if someone came to the house— he would bark well before anyone came into the yard. By that time Hans would have easily made it back to the room in the attic. Pelmi was trained to be snappy, which was a good thing.
Aliide wanted to give the kitchen a homey feeling; she set the table for Hans’s breakfast and brought the dried flowers from the front room. They created a nice mood, a mood of love, and acts of love. Last of all she took off her earrings and hid them in the box in the front room. They were a gift from Martin that would only remind Hans of what was detestable to him. When she had everything arranged, she went through the pantry to the barn, opened the trapdoor to the attic, climbed up, and moved the hay bales from in front of the secret room. The new wall was perfect. She knocked and opened the door. Hans crept forward. He didn’t look at her; he just had a long stretch.
“Breakfast is ready. Martin has gone to work.” “What if he comes home in the middle of the day?” “He won’t. He never does.”
Hans followed her to the kitchen. She pushed a chair toward him and poured a cup of hot coffee, but he didn’t sit down. First he had to say, “It smells like Ivan in here.”
Before Aliide had time to answer, Hans spit three times on the coat that hung on the back of Martin’s chair. Then he started sniffing around the kitchen for the other things Martin had left—his plate, knife, fork—then he stopped in front of the sink, poked at a wet bit of soap that Martin had left on the edge of the washbasin, flicked at the block of shaving alum, with its fresh drops of blood turning brown. He splashed the ladle in the soapy, still-warm water in the slop bucket, threw the alum into it, and was about to toss in the shaving brush and razor, too. Aliide flung herself at him and grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.”
His arm was still raised.
“Be good.”
Aliide pried the brush from his fingers, put it back in its place, and the razor.
“Martin’s shaving things are still in the trunk. I’ll un
pack today and get them out, and his shaving mirror, too. Please be pleasant and sit down and eat.”
“Is there any news of Ingel?”
“I opened up a bottle of dewberry juice.”
“Did he sleep on Ingel’s pillow?”
Hans yanked the door open before Aliide could stop him, strode over to the bed, and grabbed Ingel’s pillow. “Get out of there, Hans. Someone might see you through the window.”
But Hans sat down on the floor and squeezed Ingel’s pillow in his arms, twisted it around and pressed his face against it, and she could hear from the kitchen how he wanted to get inside it, inside of Ingel’s scent. “I want Ingel’s cup in my room, too.”
His voice was muffled by the pillow.
“You can’t hoard all of Ingel’s stuff in that room!”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t! Be sensible. Is the pillow enough? I’ll hide the cup in the back of the cupboard. Martin won’t be digging around in there. Will that be good enough?” Hans came into the kitchen, sat at the table, put the pillow on the chair beside him, and poured more of Aliide’s horseradish tonic than was medicinally necessary into a glass. There was straw from the hayloft in his hair. She felt her fingers twitch with a desire to pick up the brush, touch Hans’s hair. Then Hans suddenly announced that he wanted to go into the woods. Where the other Estonian men were. Where he belonged.
“What are you talking about?” Aliide couldn’t believe her ears. Apparently the oath was still binding. The oath! The oath of the Estonian army? Why talk about an oath to a country that doesn’t exist anymore? There he sat, at her table, twirling his spoon in her honey, and the only reason he could still twirl it like that was because of Aliide. Let the other dreamers wander around the woods, with the authorities after them, hungry, in clothes stiff with dirt, cold with the horror of that final bullet. Instead here he was, a gentleman, twirling his spoon in a dish of honey!
Hans said that he couldn’t bear the smell of Martin in his house.
“Has sitting in that room addled your brains? Have you thought at all about what would have happened if someone else had come to live here? Have you seen what’s happened to other people’s houses? Would you rather have the Russians here? Would you rather have the floor of your home covered with sunflower seeds so it sounds like you’re treading on beetles? And how do you propose to get to your precious forest? This house is under surveillance, too. Oh, yes it is, yes it is. We’re so close to the woods that the NKVD is convinced the Forest Brothers come here to get food.” Hans stopped playing with the honey, took the pillow and the bottle of tonic under his arm, and got up to go back to the attic.
“You don’t have to go back yet. Martin isn’t coming home.”
Hans didn’t listen, he just kicked his own beer barrel next to the door of the little room behind the kitchen. It fell over, the oak clattered against the threshold, and Hans disappeared through the pantry into the barn and up into the attic. Aliide wrenched the barrel back upright and followed him. She felt like saying that Hans had never had a better friend than she was, but she just whispered, “Hans, don’t do something stupid and spoil everything.”
Aliide sneezed. There was something in her nose. She blew her nose into her handkerchief, and a little piece of red
yarn came out. Ingel’s wedding blanket. Then she realized that she still hadn’t looked into Hans’s eyes even once, ev
en though she’d dreamed of it for years, even though she’d watched for years how Hans and Ingel had flowed into each other in the middle of their work, his eyelashes wet with longing and his desire throbbing in the veins under his eyes. Aliide had dreamed of how it would feel to experience something like that, to look into Hans’s eyes with no risk of Ingel noticing her little sister looking at her husband with that look, and what it would feel like if Hans returned that look. Now that it was possible, he hadn’t done it. Now, when Aliide needed that look to make her bold, to make her pure again, to give her strength, he hadn’t made any effort at all. Now there was a bit of fluff from Ingel’s wedding blanket tickling her nose, and Linda’s chestnut bird stared mutely from a corner of the cupboard; Hans thought of Ingel constantly, just as before, and didn’t see Aliide as his rescuer. He just kept harping about how he was sure that England would come to save them, everything would be all right, America would come, Truman would come, England would come, rescue would come on a white horse, and Estonia’s flag would be whiter than white.
“Roosevelt will come!”
“Roosevelt’s dead.”
“The West won’t forget about us!”
“They already did. They won, and they forgot.”
“You have so little faith.”
Aliide didn’t deny it. One day Hans would understand that his rescuer was not on the other side of the ocean but right here, right in front of him, ready to do whatever was necessary, to keep going, endlessly, all for just one look. But even though Aliide was the only person in his life now, Hans still wouldn’t look at her. One day that would have to change. It must change. Because Hans was what made everything matter. It was only through Hans that Aliide really existed. The walls creaked, the fire popped in the stove, the curtains pulled over the glass eyes of the house fluttered, and Aliide forced her own expectations underground. Commanded them to stay down, waiting for the right moment. She had been too eager, too impatient. You couldn’t rush these things. A house built in haste won’t stand. Patience, Liide, patience. Swallow your disappointment, wipe away the silly idea that love will bloom as soon as the cat’s away. Don’t be stupid. Just get on your bicycle and run your daily errands and come back and milk the cows – everything will be fine. She swung her heart the other way and realized how childish the fantasies she’d been spinning over the past few days were. Of course Hans needed time. Too much had happened in too short a time, of course his mind was elsewhere. Hans wasn’t an ungrateful person, and Aliide could wait for kind words. But her eyes still filled with tears like a spoiled child and the ashes of her anger filled her mouth. Ingel’s breakfasts had always been repaid with warm kisses and amorous verse. How long would Aliide have to wait for just one little thank-you?
She found Lipsi’s body on the garden path. There were already maggots in his eyes.
Aliide had imagined that after she took Ingel’s place, she wouldn’t have to torture herself anymore with thoughts of how Hans and Ingel made a home together while she spent night after night with Martin. That she wouldn’t have to torment herself with imagining Ingel treading her spinning wheel and Hans beside her doing his woodwork while Aliide was at the Roosipuus’ trying to keep Martin entertained.
But the torment simply took on a new garb in the new house, and she thought about Hans constantly. Was he awake yet, or was he still asleep? Was he reading the paper, the new one that she had brought him? Or did he read the old ones that he had wanted to have with him in the loft room? There weren’t very many places left that still had newspapers from Estonian times. Or was he reading a book? It was hard to find the books he was interested in. He even wanted a Bible with him—the family Bible. And a good thing, too, or it would have ended up as kindling.
Martin and Aliide’s evenings in the new house continued as they had before—Martin looked at the paper, cleaned under his fingernails with his pocketknife, and once in a while read parts of the news aloud, adding his own comments. They should have better wages in the countryside! Yes they should, Aliide said with a nod, they certainly should. Kolkhoz villages! Workdays on Sundays in the summer! Absolutely, she said, and nodded, but she was thinking about Hans a couple of meters above them, and chewing on charcoal to make her teeth as white as Ingel’s used to be. Send young party builders to the countryside! Yes, definitely, she was in complete agreement; all the able-bodied people had taken off for the cities.
“Aliide, I’m so proud of you. You’re not hankering to get away from the countryside.”
She nodded. Yes, yes.
“Or does my little mushroom want to go to Tallinn? All my old friends are there and men from these parts would be very useful in the city.”
Aliide shook her head. What was he talking about? She couldn’t leave here.
“I just want to be sure that my little mushroom is content.”
“I like it here!”
Martin took her in his arms and spun her around the kitchen.
“I couldn’t have better proof that my darling wants to help build this country. There’s basic work to do here, isn’t there? I intend to propose that the kolkhoz buy a new truck. And we could bring people to the town hall to watch films about the achievements of our great fatherland, and for night classes, too, of course. It builds communal spirit. What do you think about that?”
He spun Aliide back to her chair and rattled on excitedly about his plans. Aliide nodded at the right moments, picked up some timothy grass that had fallen from Hans’s shirt onto the table, and shoved it in her pocket. He wasn’t hinting that he had been offered a position in Tallinn, was he? If he had been, he probably would have just said so directly. Aliide took hold of the carding combs again. They rasped, the fire crackled, and she examined her husband out of the corner of her eye, but he was just his usual steamy self. She was worrying about nothing. Martin had just imagined that his wife might have a yearning to go to Tallinn. And she would have, if it weren’t for Hans. Her collection rounds on her bicycle took her away too much, although she didn’t even have to do them every day. Still, she tramped home every workday with her nerves on edge—had someone been to search the house while she was away? But no one would dare to break into a party man’s house. They just wouldn’t. Martin could arrange it so she shared her job with someone else. He would understand very well if his wife wanted to take better care of their house and garden.
Meanwhile, the gold that had been carried to Siberia was turning into new teeth for new mouths, golden smiles that nearly outshone the sun, casting a great shadow, and in that shadow an immense number of averted eyes and shrinking expressions bred and multiplied. You met them in the market squares, in the roads and fields, an endless current, their pupils tarnished and gray, the whites of their eyes red. When the last of the farms was roped into the kolkhozy, plain talk vanished between the lines, and sometimes Aliide thought that Hans must have absorbed this atmosphere through the walls of the house. That Hans was following those same habits of silence as other people, the habit of avoiding looking at one another, like Aliide did. Maybe he had caught it from Aliide. Maybe Hans had caught the same thing from her that she had caught from outside the house.
The only difference was that unlike the others with averted eyes Hans still spoke as plainly as ever. He believed in all the same things that he had before. But his body changed as the outside world changed, even though he was never actually in contact with it.
1950
Läänemaa, Estonian Soviet
Socialist Republic
Even the Movie Man’s Girl Has a Future
“Why doesn’t your mother ever go to the movies? Our mom said she never goes.” The child’s clear voice echoed in the yard of the kolkhoz office. Jaan, the son of the first woman tractor operator on the commune, stared at the son of the chicken keeper, who started to break into a sweat. Aliide was about to intervene, to say that not everyone has to enjoy movies, but at the last moment she thought it best to hold her tongue. Martin’s wife simply couldn’t say such a
thing, not about these movies. She had a new job, too, a good one, half days, light bookkeeping at the kolkhoz office.
The chicken keeper’s son examined the bits of sand on the toes of his shoes.
“Is your mother a Fascist?”
Jaan was on a roll—he kicked gravel at the other boy.
Aliide turned her head and moved a little farther off. She had given the movie men a tour of the office. Martin would be bringing some people in the new truck. Apparently he had put birch trees in the corners of the truck bed. The truck looked good this way and protected the passengers from the wind at the same time—he had been beaming about it when he left for work that morning. There was going to be a showing that evening—first the Survey of Soviet Estonia would be presenting Stalingrad’s Lucky Days, and then there would be a showing of The Battle of Stalingrad for the umpteenth time. Or was it The Light of the Kolkhoz?
The projectionist was showing the projector to the kids. They rode their bikes around the truck like a whirligig, their eager eyes locked on the machine. One of them said he wanted to be a movie man when he grew up, and drive the truck and see all the movies. The bookkeeper was arranging the benches inside; the windows of the auditorium were covered in army blankets. Tomorrow at the school there would be a free showing: A Hero’s Tale: A True Story. Jaan’s mother slumped to her place in her overalls, wiped her brow, and said something about the women’s tractor brigade. They were an Estonian family who had come from Russia. But they had preserved their language—so many of those people were just like Russians. They didn’t have even a small bundle of possessions with them when they came to the kolkhoz, but now the mother’s mouth shone gold and Jaan was hunting Fascists. They had made the front room of the house they were assigned to into a sheep fold. When Aliide went to visit them there, the sheep were tied to the legs of a piano that had been left in the house. A beautiful German piano.