“Do you have some reason to assume that the girl would be here?”
Pasha moved farther away, it seemed. The voice coming through the wall was fragmented.
“Look . . .”
Pasha wasn’t showing her those photos, was he? But what other photos would he have of her? And when Aliide saw them . . .
Suddenly Zara belched. The taste of sperm spread through her mouth. She quickly closed her lips. Could they hear her in the kitchen? No, she could hear the even murmur of Pasha and Aliide’s continuing conversation through the wallpaper. Zara was waiting for Aliide’s shocked exclamation, because there was no other way she could react when she saw the photos. Had Pasha already spread them on the table, slowly, one at a time, or was he just going to hand them to Aliide all at once? No, she was sure he would put them on the table like a game of patience, make Aliide look at them. Aliide would stare at them and see the expression Pasha had taught Zara, mouth open, tongue stretched out, and all the pricks. And then Aliide would tell him about her—of course she would tell him, she would have to tell him, because once she saw the photos she would hate Zara. She would see that filth and want it out of her house. It was going to happen now, it had to happen—soon Pasha would open the door and laugh, standing against the light, and it would all be over.
Zara withdrew to the back of the tiny room, right up against the wall, and waited. The darkness was burning, the stubble on her head was standing on end. Aliide had seen the pictures. The humiliation tickled and swarmed tightly under Zara’s skin, as if she were covered with tense, halfhealed wounds. Soon the door would fly open. She had to close her eyes, deep within the room, to think herself to someplace else, she was a star, an ear on Lenin’s head, the hairs of Lenin’s whiskers, pasteboard whiskers on a pasteboard poster, she was a corner of the frame of the picture, a chipped plaster frame, bent, in a corner of the room. She was chalk dust on the surface of a chalkboard, in the safety of the schoolroom, she was the wooden tip of a pointer...
The photographs were printed on Western photo paper; they had a Western sheen. Zara’s bright red lips shone dim against the oilcloth. Her stiff eyelashes spread like petals against the pale blue pearlescence smeared on the skin around her eyes. She had pink, swollen pimples, although her skin looked otherwise dry and thin. Her knitted collar was flopped over like someone had been tugging on it. “I’ve never seen her,” Aliide said.
The man didn’t let that bother him. He continued, his words thudding like a large man’s boots.
“The whole world’s looking for her right now.” “Oh? I haven’t heard anything about it, and I always have the radio on.”
“It’s being kept quiet on purpose. To draw her out.
The less she imagines we’re looking for her the less careful she’ll be.”
“Ah.”
“Ma’am, this woman is a dangerous criminal.” “Dangerous?”
“She has committed multiple offenses.”
“What kind of offenses?”
“This woman killed her lover in his own bed. And in a very cold-blooded manner.”
KGB came back from the garden, stood standing behind the younger man, and dug some more photos out of the pocket of his leather coat. They laid them on the table on top of the photos of Zara.
“Here is his body. Please look at these pictures and think again. Have you seen this woman?”
“I’ve never seen her before.”
“Please look at the photos.”
“I don’t need to. I’ve seen bodies before.”
“The girl seems very innocent, but after what she did to her lover... He was very attached to her, and the girl smothered him for no reason, put a pillow over his face while he was sleeping. You live alone here, don’t you, ma’am? You’ll be sleeping peacefully, having a sweet dream, and you’ll never wake from it. It could happen any night. When you least expect it, when you’re completely defenseless.”
Aliide’s hand fumbled under the hem of the oilcloth on the table. Her fingers crooked around the drawer handle ready to ease it open. She should have had the pistol ready on the chair. The horseradish burned white on the grater in front of her and covered up the smell of the Russian’s sweat. The man who called himself Popov leaned against the table and stared at her.
“All right. I’ll call you if she comes here.”
“We have reason to believe she will.”
“Why would she come here of all places?” “She’s a relative of yours, ma’am.”
“What stories you have!” Aliide laughed, and her laugh rippled across the rim of her coffee cup.
“The girl’s grandmother lives in Vladivostok. Her name is Ingel Pekk. Your sister. Most important, you should know that the girl speaks Estonian. She learned it from your sister.”
Ingel? Why was he talking about Ingel?
“I don’t have a sister.”
“According to our records you do.”
“I don’t know why you’ve come here making up stories, but I...”
“This woman, Zara Pekk, happens to have committed murder in this country, and she has no other contacts here as far as we know. Of course she’ll come here, to meet her long-lost relative. She’ll imagine you don’t know about the murder—there won’t be anything about it on the radio or in the papers—and she’ll come here.”
Pekk? The girl’s last name was Pekk?
“I don’t have a sister,” Aliide repeated. Her fingers
relaxed, her hand flopped back into her lap. Ingel was alive. Pasha kicked over a chair. “Where is the girl?” “I haven’t seen any girl!”
The wind rustled the drying mint over the stove and stirred the marigolds lying on newspapers. The curtains fluttered. The man stroked his bald head and lowered his voice. “I’m sure you understand the seriousness of the crime this woman, Zara Pekk, has committed. Call us—for your own sake—when she comes here. Have a good day.” He paused at the door.
“Zara Pekk lived with her grandmother until she left to work in the West. She left her passport, wallet, and money at the murder scene. She needs someone to help her. You are her only option.” The powerlessness had knocked Zara to the floor.
The walls were panting, the floor gasped, the floorboards bulged with moisture. The wallpaper crackled. She felt the footsteps of a fly walking across her cheek. How could they see to fly in the dark?
Now Aliide knew.
1949
Läänemaa, Estonian Soviet
Socialist Republic
Aliide Writes Letters Full of Good News
They hadn’t heard anything from Ingel, so to keep Hans’s restlessness under control Aliide started to write letters in Ingel’s name. She couldn’t stand the questions he asked every day—had she heard anything about Ingel? had any letters come?—and the way he would speculate about what Ingel was doing at any given moment. Aliide knew her sister’s characteristic way of writing and telling stories, and it was easy to copy her handwriting. She wrote that she had found a reliable messenger and that they were allowed to get packages. Hans was delighted, and Aliide reported to him about all the things she’d managed to fit into the bulging packages to keep Ingel from any emergencies. Then Hans got the idea that he should send along greetings— something that would let Ingel know it was from him.
“Get a branch from the willow that grows by the church. We can put it in the package. The first time we met was under that willow tree.”
“Will Ingel remember something like that?” “Of course she will.”
Aliide fetched a branch from the nearest willow tree. “Will this do?”
“Is it from the church?”
“Yes.”
Hans pressed his face against the leaves.
“A wonderful smell!”
“Willows don’t have any smell.”
“Put a spruce branch in, too.”
He didn’t say why a spruce branch was so important.
And Aliide didn’t want to know.
“Has anyone else he
ard anything from Ingel?” Hans asked.
“Probably not.”
“Have you asked?”
“Are you crazy? I can’t run around the village asking about Ingel!”
“Ask someone you can trust. Maybe she’s written.” “I don’t know and I’m not going to ask!”
“No one will dare to tell you if you don’t ask. Because you’re married to that Commie pig. If you ask, they won’t think you’re...”
“Hans, try to understand. I will never mention Ingel’s name outside of this house. Never.”
Hans disappeared into the little room. He hadn’t shaved in weeks. Aliide started writing good news. What kind of good news could she write about?
First she wrote that Linda had started school and it was going well. She said there were a lot of other Estonians in her class. Hans smiled.
Then she wrote that they had found work as cooks, and so they always had food.
Hans sighed with relief.
Then Aliide wrote that because of their cooking work, it was easy to help others. That when people arrived at the kolkhoz, their lower lips would tremble when they heard what Ingel’s job was. That they would get tears in their eyes when they realized that she spent every day handling bread.
Hans’s eyebrows puckered up in distress.
That was a poor choice of words. It really emphasized a lack of food.
Next Aliide wrote that no one had a limited supply of bread. That the quotas had disappeared.
Hans was relieved. Hans was relieved for Ingel’s sake.
Aliide tried not to think about it. She lit a paperossi to get the smell of a strange man out of the kitchen before Martin came home.
1992
Läänemaa, Estonia
Aliide Rescues the Sugar Bowl Before It Falls
The sound of the car receded. The door of the little room began to pound. The cupboard in front of it started to shake, the dishes on top of the cupboard rattled, the handle of Ingel’s coffee cup struck Aliide’s glass sugar bowl, and it shook, and the sugar, packed to the rim of the bowl, started trickling down. Aliide stood in front of the cupboard. The kicking had a young person’s energy and futility. Aliide flipped the radio on. The kicking intensified. She turned the radio up louder.
“Pasha is not with the police! And he isn’t my husband! Don’t believe anything he says! Let me out!”
Aliide scratched her throat. Her larynx felt loose, but other than that she wasn’t sure how she felt. Part of her had returned to that moment decades ago, in front of the kolkhoz office, when all the strength had flowed out of her legs and into the sand. Now there was only the cement kitchen floor under her. A frost spread from it into the soles of her feet, into her bones. It must have felt the same way in the camps at Archangel. Forty below zero, heavy fog over the water, dampness that seeped into your core, frozen eyelashes and lips, holding ponds full of logs like dead bodies, working in the ponds in water up to your waist, endless fog, endless cold, endlessness. Someone had been whispering about it at the market square. It wasn’t meant for her ears, but her ears had grown large and sensitive over the years, like an animal’s, and she had wanted to hear more. The speaker’s eyes, under a furrowed brow, were so dark that you couldn’t distinguish the pupil from the iris, and those eyes had stared at her, as if the person talking had realized that she could hear. It was in 1955, with the rehabilitation in full swing. She had hurried away, her heart pounding.
Fists and feet were pounding on the door. The fog above the cement floor dissipated. Had it come for revenge?
Had Ingel sent it?
Aliide went to the cupboard and picked up the sugar bowl, which was just about to fall off the edge.
1950
Läänemaa, Estonian Soviet
Socialist Republic
Hans Tastes Mosquitoes in His Mouth
Aliide felt a vibration as she was cleaning the cold cupboard. The dishes started to rattle, the honey jar clattered against the wood, and the cup on the edge of the cabinet fell on the floor and broke. It was Martin’s cup. There were fragments of it spread across the floor, and there was a crunch under Aliide’s galoshes as she stepped on the cup handle. Hans’s howling continued. Aliide tried to think. If Hans had lost his mind, did she dare go to the attic and open the door? Would he attack her? Would he rush out, run to the village, grab someone, and tell them everything? Had someone been in the barn and climbed up to the attic?
Aliide spat out spit blackened with coal, rinsed her mouth for a moment with some water, then licked her lips and went to the barn. The ceiling was shaking, the ladder swayed, and the lantern hanging from the ceiling was just about to spill. Aliide climbed the ladder to the attic. The bales of hay were jiggling.
“Hans?”
The howling stopped for a moment.
“Let me out!”
“Is something wrong?”
“Let me out of here! I know Martin isn’t home.” “I can’t open the door until you tell me what’s wrong.” Silence.
“Liide, honey, please.”
Aliide opened the door. Hans came staggering out. He
was dripping with sweat, his clothes were wet, and his feet were battered.
“Something’s wrong with Ingel.”
“What? What makes you think that?”
“I had a dream.”
“A dream?”
“Ingel had a ladle in her hand, and someone was pouring soup into it, and a swarm of mosquitoes filled up the ladle before she could get any soup in it. I could taste them in my mouth, the taste of warm, sweet blood. And then Ingel was someplace else, the room was full of steam, and she started to take off her coat and it was full of lice—so full that you couldn’t see the fabric.”
“Hans, it was just a bad dream.”
“No, it wasn’t! It was a vision! Ingel was trying to tell me something! Her mouth opened a little and she looked right into my eyes and tried to open her mouth more, and I tried to make out what she was saying. But I woke up before I could hear what she was saying. I still had the taste of mosquitoes in my mouth and I could feel lice all over my body.”
“Hans, Ingel wrote to us that everything was all right, remember?”
“I tried to go back to sleep, to find out what Ingel was trying to say, but the lice were crawling on me.”
“You don’t have lice!”
Then Aliide noticed that Hans’s arms, neck, and face were covered with bloody scratches, and the tips of his fingers were red.
“Hans, listen now. You can’t have these attacks anymore. Do you understand? You’re putting everything in danger.”
“It was Ingel!”
“It was a bad dream.”
“I saw her!”
“It was a dream. Calm down now.”
“We have to get Ingel out of there.”
“Ingel is fine. She will come back, but you have to stay hidden until the time comes. What would Ingel think if she came here and saw you like this? Don’t you want her to have the same Hans that she married, when she comes back? Ingel isn’t going to want a lunatic!”
Aliide took Hans’s hand in her own and squeezed it. His icy fingers lay limp in her grasp. She hesitated for a moment, then she wrapped her arm around him. His muscles gradually softened, his pulse became even, and then . . . he put his hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Liide, I can’t go on like this.”
“I’ll think of something. I promise.”
Hans’s hands squeezed her shoulders.
His body felt right, his hands felt like good hands.
Aliide would have given anything at that moment to be able to take him into the little room, right to the bed, take off his clothes covered in cold sweat, and lick the scent of death from his every pore.
Aliide had always trusted Hans to know how to behave, but she wasn’t sure anymore. What if he had more visions? What if he had them when Martin was home? Martin was at work
during the day, but anyone from the village might come by the house. What if Hans refused to go to the attic? What if he made a fuss or ran out the door, maybe straight into the arms of the NKVD?
Aliide put together a little bundle and hid it in the entry behind some other things, women’s linens, things that Martin would never touch. She could grab it on her way out the door if she needed to. She was hardly likely to go out any other way. Unless Hans had an attack when she was in the bedroom and Martin was in the kitchen. She would have to climb out the bedroom window. Maybe she should make a second bundle. But even if she did have her little bundle with her, where could she go? Hans might shoot Martin the minute he opened the door to the room where Hans was hiding, but what good would that do? And what if they had guests? Even if she did get away, they would catch her before long, and interrogate her. If Martin found out, the first thing he would do would be to thrust her into the hands of the Chekists, there was no doubt about it, and the Cheka men would think Hans was Aliide’s lover, and they would want to know how and when and where. Maybe she would have to spell it out for them; maybe she would have to show them, take off her clothes and show them. They would be interested in the fact that Martin’s wife had a Fascist lover, and Aliide would have to tell them all about her Fascist lover, and since she was Martin’s wife, she would have to compare what she did with her Fascist lover to what she did with a man who was a respectable Comrade. Which one was better? Which one was harder? How do you fuck a Fascist pig? And they would all stand in a circle around her, with their cocks erect, ready to punish her, ready to educate her, ready to weed out any Fascist seed left in her body.