The Death of the Perfect Sentence

by Rein Raud

  If only he’d thought to come here before, and not for the reason which had eventually brought him.

  In the town which Lidia Petrovna originally came from, wherever it was (Voronezh, Suzdal, Irkutsk, some other Russian town, Raim couldn’t remember exactly), they believed that the vocation of Russian teacher was well suited to a pretty, decent girl who had the good sense and motivation to take seriously her studies at the local pedagogical institute. All the more so that with her looks there was slim chance she would be one of those long-serving teachers who end up as shrewish old maids. They taught her how she was supposed to understand those obscure poems, and she even got to stand in front of a class a bit before getting herself fixed up with a man and leaving. Naturally, her love and respect for the great language of Pushkin, Turgenev and Mayakovsky did not go anywhere. And wherever she lived they would beckon her out from the four walls of domesticity to go and follow her vocation. After all, there were schools everywhere, and a shortage of good Russian teachers – here in Estonia too. How could she have known that by choosing to come and live in this country she was getting herself caught up in someone’s grand project, a project which aimed to deprive all those clumsy, lanky boys and precocious plaited-hair girls, together with their parents, uncles, aunts, neighbours, relatives and their colleagues of that strange, incomprehensible language which they spoke amongst themselves? But gradually she started to realise that something was not quite right. It was evident from the way some of them started looking at her in the classroom or corridor, as if she were a guest who had outstayed her welcome. It was evident from the way in which the other teachers suddenly stopped talking when she entered the staffroom. Why didn’t they realise that she was not the problem? She wanted to explain, but somehow she couldn’t get her mouth round that strange and incomprehensible language; it was as if it just didn’t want to give up the sounds it was used to. So she preferred to stick to her wonderful mother tongue, which she spoke beautifully, and she knew that they understood, so it was easier for everyone that way. But some things remained unsaid of course. Over time she got used to the situation, just like everyone else. She comforted herself with the thought that Pushkin, Turgenev and Mayakovsky would stay who they were regardless of what was said in their beautiful language in sepulchral tones on the nine o’clock news on television every night. She didn’t know that not a single one of those lanky boys or plaited-hair girls, nor the women who fell silent when she entered the staffroom, ever watched those news programmes. She took pride when one of her students occasionally saw themselves reflected in the heroes and heroines of Russian literature and she saw a spark of comprehension in their eyes which spanned the gap between two worlds. The chance of that happening made her life worth living. And at home she had her books. She went to the ballet, and sometimes the opera. And to concerts. Occasionally the cinema. There wasn’t much else.

  And the situation remained the same when she left her position at the school. She used to shrug off any doubts about the nature of her new work; she didn’t have anything to hide. Anyway, the salary was nearly two times bigger, the hours significantly shorter, and she didn’t have to wear a uniform. She quickly got used to leaving gaps in the right places, and she was quite happy that she was not authorised to know what the papers were about. It was other peoples’ business to fill them in.

  But sometimes things take many years to reach their culmination, and if the outcome is a good one, then why not be happy?

  Raim was in the eleventh grade back then. He was standing in front of the class, and Lidia Petrovna was saying nothing. Strictly speaking, Raim had been caught out, but there was something about him which resembled a budding exhibitionist who was savouring being completely naked for the first time.

  Raim was good at drawing, especially pictures of things which were important to him. He’d gone to art class for six years before his father decided that it was better to be good at one thing than mediocre at many, and so Raim had chosen volleyball – there was no other way, he was already captain of the team by then. But of course he kept on doodling away for his own pleasure. And the picture which he had accidently left in between the pages of his Russian exercise book was a really good one. An Art Institute lecturer wouldn’t have expected anything better from one of their student’s life drawings – except this picture was not drawn from real life but from imagination, from desire, from adoration.

  Lidia Petrovna was lost for words. She raised her eyes and looked at this boy – to be honest he was virtually a man already – who had seen her like that in his mind’s eye. It was clear that the picture had been drawn from the purest and truest of motivations. Of course she knew where to draw the line of propriety, but she couldn’t restrain a fleeting thought which sent a shudder right through to the tips of her toes.

  She knew very well that she would have to handle the situation like a normal person. Not like a teacher. If she wanted to remain a normal person, that is. Because she would still be a teacher whatever she did.

  “Sit down,” she said with a slightly hoarse voice, and gave the exercise book back to Raim. That was it. She kept the picture, and never raised the subject again.

  But Raim would have been happy to know that the very same evening Lidia Petrovna stood naked in front of her mirror for a while, looking at herself. And for the first time in ages she liked what she saw.

  In fact Raim had come to Lidia Petrovna’s block two days earlier, but without going in. He remembered the address from his school days; one evening he’d followed her all the way to her front door, without her even knowing. It was strange, but after all those years he still mentally referred to her by her first name and patronymic, Russian style. He’d just got used to it. Of course the other students had called her Lidia Petrovna too, because that was required as a sign of respect, but when her back was turned everyone knew her simply as Gromova, and that was who she remained, since not a single nickname stuck. Everyone apart from Raim that is, who knew her as Lidia Petrovna, even in his thoughts.

  Raim wasn’t sure that his former teacher would still be living there, but Lidia Petrovna was very happy in her small Pelgulinna flat. She had moved there after separating from her husband, part-exchanging it for her three-room Mustamäe apartment, which had left her with enough money to decorate properly and even to buy herself the occasional dress to go to the opera in – so that the men who saw her wouldn’t think she was one of those culture widows. Maybe her new place wasn’t as comfortable as the old one, but she couldn’t stand the sympathetic looks of her husband’s former colleagues who lived in her old block. And she’d got used to the new place by now.

  And now, it should be added, she certainly didn’t want to move anywhere else.

  Raim had stood on the other side of the street, trying as hard as he could to think up what he would say on the off chance that Lidia Petrovna’s flat was not occupied by new inhabitants who might have her forwarding address. But when Lidia Petrovna appeared at the front door he recognised her straight away. Fortunately she didn’t glance in Raim’s direction but headed straight off towards town. Beautiful, majestic and completely her own woman, just as if all those years had never passed.

  “I’ve been living here for ages,” said Lidia Petrovna, “and you only just found me.”

  It was actually a question, but Raim didn’t yet know how to answer.

  “I still have that drawing of yours somewhere,” Lidia Petrovna said with a grin.

  The Lenbumprom delegation travelled back by air, since Gennady Vassilyevich had to be sure to return in time for his son-in-law’s birthday party that evening. As soon as they arrived back at Pulkovo Airport he said goodbye to the rest of the group and headed straight for the VIP channel; if they’d gone by train he would have had to wait with the others while customs went through everyone’s bag. The procedure always took more time coming back from Finland.

  Alex collected his small suitcase from the luggage carousel and headed for the customs queue. Unfortunately
a large number of passengers from Finnair’s New York flight had transferred on to their flight, and they had trolley-loads of cases and bags with them, so it looked like they had a long wait ahead. Alex was tired and sweaty, and by now the effects of the wine he’d drunk during the pre-departure lunch were starting to wear off, which wasn’t a particularly pleasant sensation. He wasn’t afraid of anything happening at customs, since he had hardly anything of any interest with him apart from a couple of Miles Davis albums. He noted with a sigh that the other queue, which the majority of the Leningrad Paper Industry people had decided to join, was now moving slightly faster, but there was no point in changing queues.

  The customs desk gradually got closer and closer, until finally the rather elderly Jewish man who was standing in front of Alex started to lift his cases with New York luggage tags one by one on to the conveyor. First the big ones, then the smaller ones, and then the duty-free carrier bags at the very end. The old man was sweating a lot more than Alex.

  There were two customs officials: one to look at the contents of the cases on a screen, the other to rummage about in the cases which had been opened.

  “Do you fancy a beer?” the second customs official asked his colleague when the duty-free bag had finally come out of the other end of the X-ray machine. The old man was standing there holding his passport and customs declaration in one hand, and trying to work out whether he was now allowed to put his things back on to the trolley.

  “See what he’s got,” the first customs official said, without lifting his gaze from the screen in front of him.

  The duty-free bag had come from a shop at Helsinki Airport.

  “Nikolay,” the second customs official said, yanking himself a can from the six-pack and opening it.

  “Ah, I’m not so keen on Nikolay, it always gives me a headache,” the first one said.

  “Excuse me,” the bag’s owner said in Russian which had a heavy Odessa accent, “is bringing beer into the Soviet Union banned now?” He was still holding his passport and the customs declaration in his hand.

  “Hey, no one was talking to you,” the second customs official said in his direction, taking a long swig from the can.

  “I was just asking,” the old man said in a fluster. “But how about a stamp, do I get a stamp in my papers now?”

  “Ah, he was just asking,” the customs official sneered. “Maybe he thinks he’s got rights or something?”

  “He’s an émigré now this one,” the other one sniggered from behind the screen.

  “We’re still dealing with you,” the customs official informed the man, pointing at the largest of his suitcases. “Show us what’s in this one!”

  With shaking hands the man turned the case on its side and snapped the lock open. Inside were neatly packed dress shirts, a stripy wool jumper and a large teddy bear with a pink ribbon around its neck. The customs official pulled it out of the case.

  “Hey, Vasya, we had some sort of tip-off about drugs hidden in soft toys, didn’t we?” he shouted over to the first official, without taking his gaze off the man.

  “We sure did,” the other one laughed.

  “Now then,” the official announced, placing his beer on the conveyor belt and taking a pair of scissors from the drawer. “Will you cut it open yourself, or should I?”

  “Please, comrades, stop it, take all my beers instead, that bear is a present for my granddaughter!” said the old man in alarm, but the customs official had already stabbed the bear in the stomach with the scissors, sending filling material flying in all directions. The official then made a show of rummaging about inside the bear’s stomach for a bit before throwing it back to the man.

  “Please accept my apologies on behalf of the Soviet Customs Committee,” announced the official with a broad smile. “There was a mistake, you can go now.” He picked up the stamp and marked the man’s customs declaration.

  “That’s just incredible!” said the old man, unable to restrain himself any longer. “You’re some kind of … I don’t know what…”

  “Yes Comrade Citizen, I’m listening…” said the customs official. “Maybe we should do a full body search on this one?” he added to his colleague.

  “No, leave the fucker alone, Sanyok,” grunted the man behind the screen. “I’m not struck on poking around his fat arse.”

  By now the people in the queue had grown more and more edgy, and a woman standing behind Alex had furtively fished a twenty-mark note out of her pocket and placed it between the pages of her passport.

  “Gather up your bits and bobs old man,” said the customs official in an almost friendly tone. “The homeland awaits.”

  “And what exactly are you looking at?” the other official asked Alex coldly.

  “Nothing,” Alex said in a similarly flat tone, and he placed his suitcase on the conveyor.

  “Please tell me the grounds on which I am being detained,” Karl demanded. “And whether I am entitled to see a lawyer.”

  He was making a point of behaving calmly and politely, but he looked quite different to the last time he’d been sitting on that stool by Särg’s table. He had a large bruise under his left eye, his right brow was badly messed up and his knuckles were bloody. Arrangements had been made so that Karl was not held in the investigation cell with everyone else, where information could leak out, but in a separate room, which also happened to house two alcoholic ex-boxers.

  “You see, even a petty Soviet criminal can’t stand a suspected traitor,” Särg said.

  “How did you reach that conclusion?” Karl asked. “I dropped the soap and slipped over.”

  “Do you want medical treatment?”

  Karl shrugged.

  “Not yet,” he mumbled. “But I would like to see a lawyer, like I said.”

  Särg leant across the table in Karl’s direction. He knew that Fyodor Kuzmich demanded results; he also knew that they wouldn’t get any today, if at all, but he had to work with what he was given.

  “You yourself claim that the Soviet Union is not a law-based state, isn’t that so?” he said quietly, looking Karl directly in the eyes. “So then, we’ll let you spend some time in the version of the Soviet Union in which you and your friends believe. To start with, you are aware that there is no paperwork to prove that you are here at all? On the one hand that gives us more options. But then it gives you more too. If we come to an agreement then you’ll get a genuine medical note to take to work to say that you have been in hospital all this time, that you were taken there unconscious following a car accident. What do you reckon?”

  It seemed that Karl hadn’t been listening to what Särg said at all.

  “Now I remember where I have seen you before,” he said. It’s nice when a person has something other than work and family in his life. For Särg this was his stamp collection.

  He first got involved in this hobby some years earlier, and quite by chance. An international criminal network had been using rare postage stamps to move money across the border. The stamps were almost impossible to discover in customs checks, but it was subsequently not too difficult to turn them back into money using well-established channels. Since Särg was known for being the best amongst his colleagues at memorising large amounts of information, and for actually enjoying it too, he was given the assignment of infiltrating the stamp-collecting community. The first thing that came to Särg’s mind was a crime novel by the Polish writer Andrzej Piwowarczyk, which he’d read several times at university, called The Open Window, in which one captain Gleb chased a criminal who was operating amongst a group of philatelists. The very first time he read the book Särg had felt an urge to start a stamp album, but he couldn’t allow himself such an expensive hobby while he was studying. Things were different now though: the security services allocated him some money for the purpose, and he was also given a couple of confiscated stamp collections to use. He was able to put together a few items from these collections to start his own, which meant that he would be taken seriously at
the club which met at the Teacher’s House and among those men who gathered under the arch beside the stamp shop at the Pärnu road end of Lauristin Street (now Roosikrantsi Street). From then on Särg seriously caught the stamp-collecting bug. The first things he made sure to get were the Zumstein and Yvert et Tellier catalogues which were gathering dust in the windows of the second-hand bookshop on Mündi Street so that he could establish the overall value of his collection. Then he bought a number of full series from the stamp club – a couple of rarer items with pictures of President Konstantin Päts, some with a mail pigeon on them, and some Soviet stamps bearing a Pernau postal mark, which stayed in circulation for a short time during the German occupation, before the “Estland/Eesti” series was issued. They cost a fair bit, since people hadn’t managed to send many letters in that short period of time, so the stamps were obviously rarer and more sought after. Some time later, when he and his collection were already better known in stamp-collecting circles, he would slip it into conversations that he could arrange the sale of some Elva stamps to anyone who might be interested, since he’d been offered them but wasn’t keen. These were the rarest stamps in Estonian postal history, some of them worth thousands of dollars. It was likely that the people he was trying to track down would be interested in precisely those kinds of stamps. But much to his superiors’ surprise, Särg refused to interrogate the criminals once they were caught, justifying this by his desire to protect his reputation in the stamp-collecting world. Who knew when his connections there might become useful again? There were a lot of murky goings-on in the stamp business. His superiors could see his point. Naturally he had to hand over the collection which had been bought with KGB money, but by then his own personal collection was actually better than that one, and so he carried on going to the Teachers’ House on Sundays before meeting Galina in front of Sõprus cinema.