Hearing about women who threw their husbands off like trash, Aliide was startled, and the startle spread into a shudder, and she started to look at the young men she met on the street with new eyes, looking for those among them who had returned and recognizing something in them that was familiar to her. She saw it in their gaze, a gaze that had a kind of shadow over it, and it made her want to put her hand on their cheeks, to touch them.
Martin Truu finally collapsed in the yard, while examining a silver birch leaf with a magnifying glass. When Aliide found her husband and turned his body over to face the sky, she saw the last expression he had on his face. It was the first time she had ever seen him surprised.
PART THREE
You must be happy, the mothers said, when we come to look at you.
—Paul-Eerik Rummo
May 30, 1950
Free Estonia!
Liide quit her job—the one where she went around tormenting people with fees and quotas. She wouldn’t tell me why. Maybe what I said sank in. When I said a job like that was nothing but working for monsters. Or maybe somebody gave her a drubbing. I know somebody once let the air out of her bike tires. She brought the bike into the barn and asked me to replace them, but I refused to do it. I told her to let some tool do her dirty work for her, somebody who was already a slave to this government. So Martin fixed them that evening.
When Liide told me she’d quit her job, her eyes were shining, like she expected me to thank her. I thought about spitting on her, but I just gave Pelmi a scratch. I know her tricks.
Then all of a sudden she wanted to know if I had met anyone I knew when I was in the woods.
I didn’t answer her.
She also wanted to know what it was like in the woods. And what it was like in Finland, and why I went there.
I didn’t answer.
She asked me these nosy questions for a long time. Like why couldn’t I stay with the Germans after I had joined up with them.
I didn’t answer.
I saw things there that you shouldn’t tell to a woman.
I went back in my room.
Liide doesn’t want to let me go to the woods. She won’t agree to it. I’m the only person she can talk to who doesn’t quote Communist wisdom to her, and everybody needs somebody they can talk plainly to. That’s why she doesn’t want to let me go.
The grain is growing in my fields, and I can’t even see it.
Where are my two girls, Linda and Ingel? I’m racked with worry.
Hans Pekk, son of Eerik, Estonian peasant
1992
Läänemaa, Estonia
The Loneliness of Aliide Truu
Aliide couldn’t understand how the photo of her and Ingel had appeared in Zara’s hand. The girl said something about wallpaper and cupboards, but Aliide didn’t remember having hidden anything under the wallpaper. She had destroyed all her photos, but had Ingel stashed some photos somewhere when she was still at home? That didn’t make any sense at all. Why would she have done that, hidden a photo of the two of them together? That was indeed a Young Farmers badge on her chest. But it was so small—no one but Ingel herself would have known it was there.
When Zara had gone to bed, Aliide washed her hands and went to tap at the walls and cupboards, poke at the wallpaper, dig in the cracks in the cabinet and behind the baseboards with a knife, but she didn’t find anything. There were just clattering dishes in the cupboard and liquor coupons piled in the bottle bin.
The girl was asleep, breathing evenly, the radio rasped about the elections, and in the photograph Ingel was eternally beautiful. Aliide remembered the day they had gone to have it taken, at the B. Veidenbaum Modern Photography Studio. Ingel had just turned eighteen. They had gone to the Dietrich coffeehouse, and Ingel drank Warsaw coffee and Aliide had hot chocolate. There were cream puffs that melted in your mouth and the scent of jasmine. Ingel had bought some puff pastries to take home, and Helene Dietrich had wrapped them in white paper with a wooden stick for a handle. That was their specialty—pretty wrapping that was easy to carry. The smell of cigarettes, the rustle of newspapers. That was back when they still used to do everything together.
Aliide adjusted a hairpin. Her hand came back damp— her forehead and scalp were wet with sweat.
The coals in the stove made the photo curl. Aliide shoved in a few pieces of wood, too.
Her ear itched. She rubbed it. A fly flew away.
The morning sun shone between the curtains into Zara’s eyes and woke her up. The door to the kitchen was open; Aliide was sitting there at the table looking at her. Something wasn’t right. Pasha? Were they looking for her on the radio? What was it? She sat up and said good morning.
“Talvi isn’t coming after all.”
“What?”
“She called and said she changed her mind.” Aliide put her hand up to her eyes and said again that Talvi wasn’t coming.
Zara didn’t know what to say. Her wonderful plans were crushed. Her hope wadded up like detritus and rubbed behind her eyeballs. Talvi wouldn’t be bringing a car here. The hands jerked across the face of the clock, and Pasha came closer, she could feel the flames licking at her heels, his binoculars on the back of her neck, his car humming down the highway, the gravel flying, but she didn’t move. The light moved outside, but she stayed where she was. She hadn’t learned anything more about Aliide or about what had happened in the past. She just sat there, weak and puny, without any answers. Raadio Kukku announced the time, the news began, soon it would end, the day would go by, and Talvi and her car weren’t coming, but Pasha was.
Zara went into the kitchen and noticed Aliide give a jerk. It looked like a sob, but she wasn’t making any sound, her hands were in her lap, and Zara saw that her eyes were dry.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Zara said quickly. “How disappointing for you.”
Aliide sighed, Zara sighed, put on a sympathetic expression, but at the same time set her thoughts in motion— there was no time for guessing. Could Aliide still help her? Did she still have any cards up her sleeve? If she did, Zara would have to be pleasant to her; she couldn’t allude to the picture or her grandmother—it made Aliide hostile. She didn’t see the photograph anywhere and didn’t dare ask about it. Or should she give up the whole idea of escaping and resign herself to waiting for whatever was coming?
Grandmother would have already received the pictures that Pasha sent, of course. He wouldn’t have waited around to do that. Maybe Sasha had got some, too. And maybe her mother, and who knows who else. Pasha might even have done more than that—was everyone at home all right? No, she shouldn’t think about that. She had to concentrate on making a new plan. Aliide leaned on her cane, although she was sitting, and said, “Talvi claims she’s too busy, but what does she have to keep her busy? She sits around being a housewife, like she always wanted to. What do you want to be?”
“A doctor.”
Aliide seemed surprised. Zara explained that the reason she went to the West was to get some money for school. She was hoping to come back as soon as she had saved enough, but then Pasha came along, and a lot of things went wrong. Aliide furrowed her brow and asked Zara to tell her something about Vladivostok. Zara was startled. Was this the time for everybody to reminisce? Aliide seemed to have forgotten that Zara had men chasing her. Maybe she didn’t want to show any emotion, or maybe she was wiser than Zara. Maybe there was nothing more to do but sit and chat. Maybe it was the most sensible thing to do—enjoy this moment, when she could finally reminisce about Vladivostok. Zara forced herself to sit down calmly at the table, to hold out her coffee cup when Aliide offered her some coffee substitute, and take a piece of sour-cream pie, Talvi’s favorite, apparently. Aliide had made it the night before.
“You must not have gotten any sleep.”
“What does an old person need with sleep?”
Maybe that accounted for Aliide’s faraway look. She stood next to the table with the percolator in her hand and didn’t seem to know where to
put it. Aliide Truu looked lonely. Zara cleared her throat.
“Vladivostok.”
Aliide startled, put the percolator on the floor, and sat down in a chair.
“Tell me about it.”
Zara started by telling her about the statue with the flag in honor of those who fought on the Eastern front, the harbors, the way you could smell the Sea of Japan in the paneling, the wooden decorations on the houses, her mother’s girlfriend who made the world’s best Armenian delicacies: dolmas, pickles, fried eggplant that was so delicious, and shakarishee cookies so heavenly that when they touched the roof of your mouth they made the driving snow outside look like sugar for the whole day and into the next. They could knock the pitch out of a board! And they used to listen to Zara Doluhanova on the record player, singing Armenian folk songs in Armenian, and Puccini in Italian—all sorts of languages. Zara had been named after her. Her mother had just been crazy about Doluhanova’s voice; she was always looking for news of Doluhanova’s trips to the West, all the places she went, all the cities and countries. With such an amazing voice, she could go anywhere! For some reason, Doluhanova’s voice was the only thing that her mother got excited about. Zara got tired of not being able to talk when Doluhanova was singing, and preferred to go to her friend’s house and listen to her Mumi Troll cassette—Novaya luna aprelya—Ilya Lagutenko, the singer, was wonderful, and he had gone to the same school as Zara. Sometimes Zara’s grandmother had taken her to look at the ships on their way to Japan; it was the only place besides the botanical gardens that she was allowed to go, just to watch the ships, and the wind from the sea would strike her forehead as it pushed inland. It was nine thousand kilometers to Moscow by train, but they had never been there, although Zara would like to visit some day. And the summer. The Vladikki summer. All the Vladikki summers! One time someone figured out that if you put aluminum powder in your nail polish it would make your fingernails glitter, and pretty soon every girl in town had fingernails that shone like the summer sun.
Once she got started, Zara got carried away with her story. The words tasted good. She even missed Zara Doluhanova. And Mumi Troll.
Katia had wanted to hear about Vladivostok, too, but no matter how she tried, Zara hadn’t been able to tell her anything about the place. Only occasional images of Vladikki passed through her mind, and they were always the ones that came to mind when Katia talked, but she didn’t want to mention them to Katia—like how Grandmother had started drying hardtack around the time of Chernobyl, in case of war, and how after the accident they watched television and had no idea what was happening, and how people on television were dancing in the streets in Kiev. Chernobyl was a troubling subject, because that’s where Katia was from, and that’s why she wanted to marry a foreigner, and why she was interested in Vladivostok. She wanted to have children. If the right man came along, she planned to tell him she was from someplace else, not from Chernobyl. Zara thought it was a good idea, too. She would have liked to ask more—Katia didn’t glow in the dark, and she didn’t look any different than any other girl. Nevertheless, she had said that the less people talked about Chernobyl and the less they wrote about it and the less they knew about it the better. She was right. Even Zara didn’t want to hug Katia, not even when she cried about missing her family or after she’d had a bad customer. She preferred to comfort her by talking with her about something else, anything else but Vladikki. Thoughts of her hometown had seemed strangely wrong in that place. Like she wasn’t worthy of remembering her hometown. Like all her beautiful memories would be tainted if she let herself even think about them in that place, that situation—let alone talk about them. She had only touched the photograph hidden in her clothes once in a while, through the fabric, to make sure it was still there. Pasha didn’t know that Katia was from Chernobyl, of course, because he had picked her up near Kiev, but he had told her to say she was from Russia if any customer asked her, because no one was going to want to shove his dick into death.
Zara tried to shake Katia out of her head. She didn’t want to tell Aliide about Katia. She should stick to Vladivostok. Her chatter had almost got Aliide smiling, and she urged Zara to have another piece of pie. Zara accepted it and felt brazen. She had simply forgotten how she had been used to asking Pasha’s permission for everything. She felt brazen because she had some more pie without Pasha’s permission. She felt brazen because she was telling stories to someone that she didn’t have Pasha’s permission to talk to. She was brazen because she wasn’t supposed to be here, in a place where she didn’t need to ask Pasha’s permission to take a pee. If her head started to ache, Aliide would probably offer her some medicine, without even asking. If she started her period, Aliide would give her something, make her a bath, bring her a hot water bottle, and she wouldn’t owe her anything. At any moment this unreality could disappear, and Zara could fall back to reality, customers, debts. At any moment Pasha and Lavrenti could pull into the yard—at any moment—and she wouldn’t be able to think about Vladikki anymore, and tarnish her memories of home with that world. But she could think about it now.
“You were happy there,” Aliide said. She sounded surprised.
“Of course.”
“What do you mean, of course?”
Aliide seemed delighted all of a sudden, as if she’d just thought of something entirely new.
“Well, that’s fantastic!” she said.
Zara cocked her head.
“Yes, it is. And it was fun being in the Pioneers.”
She had never been in the best row for the marching or anything like that, but it was nice to sit around the campfire and sing. And she was proud of her Pioneer badge. She loved the red background and she used to stroke Lenin’s shining gold forehead and his golden ears.
But when Zara talked about Vladivostok, Katia kept bubbling up in her mind. She could never tell Katia about Vladikki now. She was too late when it came to Katia, and Katia hadn’t asked for much. Zara had thought that the day would come when she would make Katia a Vladivostok girl, but that day never came. Should she risk telling Aliide these secrets, even if it might mean that Aliide wouldn’t help her get away from Pasha?
1991
Berlin, Germany
A Girl Like a Spring Day
Pasha started the videocassette. The first thing to appear on the screen was a cock, red and erect, then the hanging, hairy stomach of a middle-aged man, then a young girl’s breasts. The man ordered her to squeeze her breasts, and the girl kneaded and massaged them, and the man began to fiddle with his dick. Another man came into the picture and wrenched the girl’s legs apart, spread her open, took out a disposable razor, and shaved off her hair.
Pasha sat down on the sofa, shifted into a comfortable position, and opened his fly.
“Come and watch this.”
Zara didn’t obey quickly enough, so Pasha came and dragged her in front of the screen, swore, and sat down on the sofa again, taking out his prick. The video played. Pasha jerked off. His leather coat creaked. Outside it was daytime. People were going to the store, buying bratwurst and sauerkraut, speaking German; there was a fly buzzing in the light fixture in the store.
“Watch!”
Pasha hit her on the back of the head and sat down beside her to make sure she was watching the video. He tore off her robe and ordered her onto all fours, with her rear end toward him and her face toward the screen.
“Spread your legs.”
She spread them.
“More.”
She obeyed.
Pasha jerked off behind her.
The potbellied man on the screen pushed his dick toward the girl. He was going to come in her face.
The girl had Zara’s face.
The girl’s face was covered with sperm. The other man put his dick inside the girl and started to groan. Pasha relaxed, and warm mucus ran down Zara’s thigh. Pasha zipped his pants and went to get a beer. The can hissed open. The sound of Pasha’s long gulps ricocheted around the nearly empty room. Zara
was still on her hands and knees in front of the video. Her knees hurt.
“Turn around this way.”
Zara obeyed.
“Rub your pussy. Spread your legs right.”
Zara laid down on her back and rubbed Pasha’s sperm into her.
Pasha got out his camera and snapped photos.
“I’m sure you realize what will happen to these pictures and videos if you try any tricks.”
Zara stopped rubbing.
“I’ll send them to your babushka. And then I’ll send them to Sasha, and Sasha’s parents. We have their names and addresses.”
Had Oksanka told them about Sasha? Zara didn’t want to think about Sasha anymore. But he still came to mind, a voice that said her name, Zara—it sometimes woke her up. Sometimes it was the only reason she remembered being Zara and not Natasha. Especially on the edge of sleep, in that spongy land, drunk or otherwise drugged, she would suddenly feel Sasha wrapped around her, but she would shake the feeling off immediately. She was never going to have a home of her own with Sasha, and they would never drink champagne at each other’s graduation, so it was better not to think about those things; it was better to have a drink, pop a pill, beg Lavrenti for a snort and suck it up. And it was best not to think too much, it was easier that way. She just had to remember one thing: Even though Pasha had Zara’s face on the video, the video was not Zara’s story but Natasha’s; it would never be Zara’s story. Natasha’s story was on the video. Zara’s was someplace else.