Maybe Martin would want to interrogate his wife himself—to show his friends that he had nothing to do with the affair. He would prove it with a heavy-handed interrogation and let fly with all the energy of a betrayed husband. And even if Aliide told them everything, they wouldn’t believe her, they would just keep going and keep going, and then they would summon Volli. What was it that Volli’s wife had said? That he was so good at his work, that she was so proud of him. When they couldn’t get a confession out of a bandit, they summoned Volli, and the confession arrived before dawn. Volli was so efficient. Volli was so skillful. There wasn’t a better public servant in all this great country of ours.
“I’m so proud of Volli,” the woman had whispered, as ardently as Aliide had once heard her talk of God long ago. The words had rolled out of her mouth like a little halo, and her mouth shone with gold. Gold that Volli got for her. “The best husband in the world.” Aliide observed Hans closely, his eyes and gestures. The beard hid a lot, but otherwise he looked the same as before, the same Hans. And then it happened again.
“Ingel appeared to me last night.”
Hans was quite calm.
“So you had another nightmare?”
“How can you call Ingel a nightmare?” His voice had changed suddenly. He glared at her, straightening up and putting his hands on the table. They were fists. “What did Ingel say?”
His fists relaxed.
Aliide had to be careful what she said.
“She called my name. That’s all. She was in the middle of some fog or steam. There were people behind her, crowded tight around a stove, so tight that some of their clothes were catching fire. Or maybe they were drying their clothes on the stove and they caught fire. I don’t know. I couldn’t see clearly. Ingel was in front. She didn’t pay any attention to the people yelling behind her. I smelled smoke. Ingel didn’t complain about it—she just stared straight at me and said my name. Then the steam rose up around her again, and only her head was showing, and she was still staring at me, without stopping, and then the steam dissolved again and she was standing surrounded by bunks. They were all along the walls and there was a man in the bunk next to Ingel’s touching himself. And on the other side of her there was a man on top of a woman, and Ingel was in the middle and people were walking by her. And she just stared straight at me and sighed and said my name again. She wants to tell me something.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“Aren’t you excited about this at all?”
Aliide had an unpleasant feeling. It was as if Ingel were there, right in the room with her. She saw Hans’s gaze move to the wallpaper behind her. She forbade herself from turning to look.
“Ingel’s not in any trouble. You’ve read her letters, haven’t you?”
Hans stared past her.
“Maybe she can’t tell us everything in her letters.”
“For God’s sake, Hans!”
“Don’t get worked up, Liide, honey. That’s just our Ingel. She just wants to see us and talk to us.”
Hans had to get a passport as soon as possible. He had to come to his senses. But if he did get away from here, what would Aliide do? Why shouldn’t she leave, too, take the risk, and leave? It might get them both killed, but was there any alternative?
The crows were screaming like lunatics in the yard. Läänemaa, Estonia
Zara Finds Some Dead Flowers
Zara put her ear to the crack of the door, but the kitchen was silent. Even the radio was mute, no sound but the pounding pain in her head. She had given herself a headache in the last few minutes by whacking her head against the door, which was stupid of her. She wasn’t going to get Aliide to open the door. Pasha and Lavrenti would come back, that was clear. But would they come inside? They would make Aliide talk. Maybe she would tell them voluntarily. Maybe she would ask for money from Pasha and use it to have her field plowed. She had been complaining that now that there was no liquor ration she didn’t have anything to pay the few able-bodied men who were left. Zara couldn’t guess what Aliide was up to. There was an apple and a couple of acorns in the pocket of the housedress Aliide had loaned her. Zara was keeping them as souvenirs for her grandmother, seeds from Estonia. Would she ever get to give them to her?
Zara stood up. Although the air was stifling, there was a draft coming in from somewhere. There were a quilt and some baskets in the corner, and there was enough space that she could move a little. She was afraid to explore the place with her hands, so she started with her feet first, poked at the baskets—something clinked behind them. She pulled the object toward her with her foot. It was a plate. Next to the baskets there were some papers, magazines. A vase. There were dried flowers in it. Above the vase there was a little shelf. On the shelf was a candlestick with the stub of a candle in it. Above the shelf was a nail with a frame or a mirror hanging from it. Zara’s fingers brushed against the shelf, and her thumb came to a bracket that had papers shoved behind it, the corner of a notebook. What was this room used for? Why was it hidden behind a cupboard?
Läänemaa, Estonia
Aliide Is Almost Starting to Like the Girl
Aliide went and stood outside the room and stroked the cupboard with her fingers, then the wall next to it; then she started to move the cupboard, slowly, centimeter by centimeter. She could hear the click of her vertebrae, her joints cracking. She felt her whole skeleton, as if her sense of touch had moved into her bones and left her flesh numb.
She was a relative. This Russian girl. A girl who looked Russian. This family produced Russian girls. Not just little Pioneers like Talvi, not just little girls with short skirts and big bows on their heads, but real Russians, the kind of Russians who came here looking for a better life, messing things up, wanting, demanding. Russians like all the other Russians. Linda shouldn’t have had children. Aliide shouldn’t have, either. No one in their family should have had children. They should have just lived their lives to the end.
Aliide straightened her back, left the cupboard where it was, poured herself a glass of vodka, and tossed it down her throat, then wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Like a Russian. She still didn’t know what to do or how this worked. She smelled spruce, and the birch water Ingel used to wash herself, to wash her hair—the heavy smell of birch that had always come wafting suddenly into the air whenever Ingel loosened her braids. Another glass of vodka didn’t dispel the stench of birch. Aliide felt sick to her stomach. Her thoughts dimmed again, they started sloshing around in her skull like it was an empty space, then they gelled for a moment, then sloshed around again. She noticed she was thinking of the girl as “the girl”—her name was strangely missing; she didn’t know how to use it. The girl’s fear had been real. Her escape must have been real. The Mafia men were real. And they weren’t interested in Aliide, just the girl. Maybe the Mafia men’s story was true, maybe fate had tossed the girl into Tallinn, and she had killed a customer and run away and hadn’t known where else to go. It was a believable story. Maybe the girl didn’t want anything. Maybe she didn’t want anything or know anything except that she had to get away. Maybe that’s how it was. Aliide certainly understood what it was like to just want to get away. It was Martin who had wanted to be political. Aliide never had, although she marched by his side. Maybe the girl’s story was as simple as that. But Aliide had to get rid of her— she didn’t want the Mafia coming here again. What should she do? Maybe she shouldn’t do anything.
If nobody missed the girl, Aliide could seal up the air holes to the little room.
Something swelled up in Aliide’s brain. The curtains flapped like crazy, the clips that held them jingled, and the fabric snapped. The crackle of the fire had faded, and the tick of the clock remained, beneath the sound of the wind.
Everything was repeating itself. Even if the ruble had changed to the kroon and there were fewer warplanes flying over her head and the officers’ wives had lowered their voices, even if the loudspeakers on the tower at Pika Hermanni were playing independence songs eve
ry day, there would always be chrome-tanned boots, some new boots would arrive, the same or different, but a boot on your neck nevertheless. The foxholes had been closed up, the shell casings in the woods had tarnished, the secret dugouts had collapsed, the fallen had rotted away, but certain things repeated themselves.
Aliide felt like lying down, laying her heavy head on a pillow. The door to the little room was on her right; the girl inside had quieted. Aliide lifted the kettle of tomatoes and onions off the stove and put it on the floor—the jars should be filled up hot—but such a big chore felt impossible, the stones on her earrings were heavy, and the crows’ racket came all the way inside. She managed to put the horseradish in the jars, pour vinegar over it, and screw on the lids. She would have to do without the tomatoes, and the garlic still waiting to be ground. She washed her hands in the used water, wiped them on her hem, and went out to sit on the bench under the birch trees where she had planted gladiolas, the Russians’ flower. The noise of the crows continued farther off, in the silver willows.
The girl really was a better liar than Aliide ever had been. A master.
She had almost started to like her.
Hans’s granddaughter.
She had Hans’s nose.
What would Hans have wanted her to do? To take care of the girl, like he had wanted her to take care of Ingel?
1950
Läänemaa, Estonian Soviet
Socialist Republic
Why Can’t Hans Love Aliide?
Hans’s gaze turned inward. On the days when he could spend more time in the kitchen, when Martin was away for the night, he would be engrossed in counting the leaves or playing with Pelmi. Sometimes he would give Aliide a sly look, press his chin to his chest, and wrap his arms around himself as if he were trying to protect something inside him. Aliide rattled the jars, checked on her tinctures, tried to get Hans to drink what she felt were appropriate teas, simmered them all day, but Hans didn’t care for them, and Aliide tried not to be nervous, waved a dishcloth, poked at the fire in the stove, bustled and puttered, did laundry, and fed the chickens so much that when they’d emptied their dish they would doze the whole following day.
Hans didn’t tell Aliide about his visions anymore. Maybe her behavior had annoyed him, or maybe he was afraid that Aliide would be a threat to them if she knew about them. Aliide tried to think of a way to ask him about it, but she didn’t know how. How’s Ingel? Have you seen Ingel lately? No, nothing worked. And she had no way of knowing how he would react if she brought up the question in the wrong way.
Hans had to be out of here before winter came. In the winter, she wouldn’t be able to escape through the attic window—it would leave tracks in the snow. She could steal a blank passport from the militia, but would he know how to fill it out so that it would look authentic? Should she find someone who would know how? Where could she find such a person? What kind of news would it be if a party organizer’s wife was arrested in a dugout in the woods, looking for a counterfeiter? Or if a story got out that she was running around the village asking where to find the best man to make a passport? No, they should get a real passport from someone living. Or get someone to lose one.
“Hans, if I get you a passport...”
“If ? You promised you would.”
“Will you do what I tell you to do and go where I tell you to go?”
“Yes!”
“They need all kinds of workers in Tallinn. And the
factories have their own dormitories. I doubt I could arrange an apartment for you, there’s such a shortage, but I could get you a place in the dormitory. The railway, the shipyards, there are all sorts of possibilities. And if you bring the dormitory housekeeper and manager a pig from the kolkhoz, they won’t even ask what kind of man you are. And I can come visit you in Tallinn. Just think of it, we could go for walks, to the park, along the shore, anywhere at all! We could go to the movies! Imagine that, you could walk around there, just like any other free man! Be outside, see people...”
“Someone would recognize me.”
“No one would recognize you under that beard.” “It’s surprising what people will recognize—the tilt of the neck, the way you walk.”
“Hans, it’s been years since anyone’s seen you. No one will remember. Admit it, Hans, it sounds wonderful.” “It sounds wonderful.”
He looked at Ingel’s chair.
It was as if he were winking at it.
Aliide grabbed her work coat from the hook and went to the barn. She kept her eye on the nearby pitchfork when Hans came after her and climbed up to the attic. Salty sweat trickled through her eyelashes, and she could taste manure in her mouth. She used the fork to fill the wheelbarrow and then climbed up to push the bales of hay back in front of the attic-room door. Her back popped again as she pushed them in place. What was it that Leida Haamer did when her son started coming to her in her dreams? He had been surrounded in his dugout and tried to escape, tried to run away without any boots. He was buried without his boots, too. Every night Leida had the same dream, that her son was complaining that his feet were cold. Maria Kreel had advised her to get some boots that were her son’s size, and the next time there was a funeral in the village, Leida should put the boots in the coffin and include a tag with his name on it. The nightmares had stopped when she got the boots and the name tag into the grave. But Ingel was alive. How did it work with a living person? Or did the visitations from Ingel’s spirit mean that she was no longer alive?
That evening Aliide took the piece of Ingel’s wedding blanket she had saved and shoved it up the stovepipe so that it would be thoroughly smoked.
1992
Läänemaa, Estonia
What Did Ingel Tell the Girl About Aliide?
Evening dimmed the kitchen, and Aliide sat in her place, in her own chair. Had Ingel told the girl? Of course not. Or Linda? No. Of course not. That would be even more insane. But the girl had lied. What kind of help did she expect from a relative who didn’t even know she was family? Or had she intended to tell Aliide but then changed her mind? Did Ingel know she was here? And what about the photo—had the girl lied about that, too? Had she brought the photo with her, had she got it from Ingel?
The rooster crowed. The clock ticked. The tea mushroom in its jar seemed to be staring at her, although it looked more like a shelf fungus thrown in a jar than it did an animal. She could hear a scratching on the floor in the secret room; it sounded just like her old dog Hiisu’s claws. The Mafia men might come back again. If she didn’t open the door they would break it down. They would burn the house down. For all she knew they were right there on the other side of her woods. Maybe the girl had realized that her relative in Estonia would soon own some woods and thought she could sell it in Finland. Maybe she was using the Mafia men to take care of it and the whole business had gone awry. Had Ingel sent her to make the land deal? Maybe the girl had been gullible and thought she was going to get money from the Mafia men that belonged to her but then realized they were going to take it all. Anything was possible. Everything was up for sale in this country now.
She had to remain calm. She would get up from her chair now, turn on the lights in the kitchen, close the curtains over the windows, lock the door, go to the secret room and open it, and let the girl out. It wouldn’t be so difficult. Aliide was much more tranquil than she might have been in this situation. Her heart hadn’t stopped, her thought process was bumpy, but she wasn’t absolutely unhinged. She was in her right mind, even though she’d just learned that Ingel was alive—assuming that the Mafia men were telling the truth.
What had Ingel told the girl about her?
Russian or not, the girl had Hans’s chin.
And she was quick to slice tomatoes and quick to clean berries.