by Rein Raud
I didn’t make that story up, by the way.
Alex didn’t bother trying to work out what the argument was about, assuming this was just the typical scene when a tour group departs. He was given a room on the seventeenth floor, and he glanced out of the window overlooking the town a few times. The decision of Lenbumprom’s management – to organise the paper production in cooperation with the Estonian branch of the Soviet Forestry, Cellulose, Paper and Timber Ministry, rather than in the Leningrad region as originally planned – had at first seemed a little unwise, but now he was sure that it was perfectly sensible. He had a view of the old town which was out of this world, although even the most ordinary things, such as the sea, looked somehow different.
This was his first time in Estonia, and he already agreed with those who had told him it was a clean and orderly place with quite a high standard of living.
His final conversation with Tapani was still bothering him a little. The last time he’d been in Finland, Alex had called Tapani and thanked him for arranging the interview. He’d probably done so in the spirit of defiance, after the conversation with Vladimir Vladimirovich, to demonstrate, at least to himself, that he wasn’t going to be pushed about by some fisheyed guy; and he’d been a little bit tipsy as well. He’d travelled to Helsinki with Svyatoslav Grigoryevich and the trip wasn’t strictly speaking necessary, but Svyatoslav Grigoryevich’s son was doing graduate studies at the Institute of Technology and desperately needed one of those new personal computers which were impossible to get hold of in the Soviet Union. That only became clear later, because when it was announced that Alex was going on a work trip, Konstantin Zakharovich and Olga Anatolyevna were terribly put out, both being higher up than Alex in the food chain. Svyatoslav Grigoryevich had evidently set things straight with them later, since they stopped making faces at Alex. Svyatoslav Grigoryevich promised to buy a bottle of Ballantine’s for Konstantin Zaharovich, and for Olga Anatolyevna, Alex had to go to Stockmann supermarket’s cosmetics department clutching a piece of graph paper with a brand of perfume written on it. That suited Alex fine since Tapani had invited him for coffee at a place just across the road, behind the Swedish theatre, and he had no reason to decline. But the perfume took a little longer than expected. Despite Svyatoslav Grigoryevich’s assurances that the brand in question really did exist, Alex had to have a long discussion with the shop assistant about whether “Mazhi nar” meant Imaginaire or Magie Noire. In the end they decided in favour of the latter, and Olga Anatolyevna later confirmed that this was the right choice. Alex was therefore a little late and stressed out when he got to his meeting with Tapani. Svyatoslav Grigoryevich had gone to a shop at Annankatu with a man from Karelia Trade to locate the right computer (he ended up with a very good model, a whole twenty megabytes of hard drive and two disk drives, as he later boasted), and they’d brought it back to the hotel on Kaisaniemenkatu by taxi. Alex had had to wait there to help lug two large boxes up to the third floor, which was after all the main reason why he’d been invited to come. Anyway, Tapani turned out to be very talkative, and told Alex lots of funny stories about the kinds of things which happened in joint ventures, and Alex had made a mental note of them so as not to bring shame to his country if similar things happened to him. But then he realised that he had to hurry back to the hotel, since he and his boss still had one meeting to go to, so he made his apologies to Tapani. Ahaa, of course, Tapani had said, gesturing to the waiter – but before you go I have a small favour to ask. Naturally Alex stayed seated. Tapani continued – they tell me that you are going to Estonia to do some business with one of the ministries, I’ve got an acquaintance in Estonia, would you be able to bring me a small package from him? Nothing too big, it should fit into your jacket pocket. It may be that I don’t need your help at all, I’m asking just in case. You agree? That’s great, someone will get in touch with you when you arrive.
When the big boss walks past,
the wise peasant bows low
and quietly farts.
(Ethiopian proverb)
At that moment Alex didn’t have any problem agreeing to Tapani’s request, particularly since he was in a great hurry. Fortunately he’d arrived back at the hotel room just a few moments before Svyatoslav Grigoryevich phoned from the ground floor. But now he was in Estonia, and after a short drive from the hotel to the ministry he was sitting at the far end of a long table, with a cup of weak coffee and a flaky biscuit with a dot of chocolate on top. By now he’d started to think that he may have agreed a little too hastily. Granted, no one had yet sought him out, but it did seem a little odd to be asked to deliver something from a complete stranger to someone else with whom he was only slightly acquainted. What if customs asked what it was? He didn’t even know himself. On the other hand, he now had a bit more experience of going through customs, and he hadn’t had any bother before. His blue official passport tended to have the desired effect on officials, especially if he was travelling as part of a delegation and his superiors were ahead of him in the queue. And anyway, Tapani seemed like a nice chap; surely there was no harm in doing a small favour for him.
They were sitting round the table, and a girl with dark bushy eyebrows handed out the folders containing the documents which explained what the Estonian side was proposing to contribute to the joint venture. When Alex arrived she leant down towards him and whispered into his ear: “There is a letter for you here as well,” and then hurried off.
She didn’t know for sure what was in the letter, but she was happy to carry out Uncle Valev’s request.
Alex had problems keeping up with what was being discussed at the meeting, but he still managed to restrain himself from opening the letter until he was back in the hotel room.
Written on a slip of paper was the following message: “Tomorrow at Kadriorg Palace, 1400, Oskar Meering’s Kalevipoeg statue.”
Is it not entirely natural that having arrived in Estonia from Leningrad, a Leningrad Paper Industry worker – and withdrawn bachelor – should be more interested in the local art museum and Peter the Great’s home than in Tallinn’s main department store? Even if he is the only one? At least that is what Alex was thinking as he left the Viru Hotel after the group lunch and boarded the tram. They’d already checked out of their rooms but there was still three hours left before they had to be at the port. It was a sunny day and there were plenty of people walking in the park, but once he’d entered the palace and bought a ticket he discovered that he was almost the only person in the exhibition rooms.
But of course this wasn’t exactly the Hermitage. The outskirts of Leningrad were as packed with palaces like this as an autumn forest is packed with mushrooms.
He carefully read the name tags of all the sculptures he could see, since he didn’t have a clue who or what this Kalevipoeg might be. This became tiresome, since it was already several minutes past two and he was worried that the person who was supposed to pass him the package would give up waiting. But as he walked past the sockknitting old granny and came to a standstill in the middle of the room he simultaneously realised two things: that the whopping great stone man in the corner of the room must be the Kalevipoeg he was looking for, and that no one was waiting for him there.
Why was that?
He walked up to the sculpture to make sure that this was indeed the right Kalevipoeg. Yes, there was the name Oskar Meering, 1890-1949. What next?
If he hadn’t been so sharp-sighted then he might not have noticed the tiny package at all.
Hmm.
As I write these words my thoughts continually return to the same subject: the divide between two different worlds. For my children Soviet Estonia is like a distant planet. That’s fine. I understand why, and it’s better that way. Buying butter and vodka with rationing coupons is as far removed from today’s everyday experience as the Second World War was for me during my childhood.
But those who do remember don’t need much to bring that period back to life for them, together with all its sounds
and smells, albeit fainter now. People who weren’t there want more. And maybe they’re disappointed when they don’t see what they expect to see: pictures of Lenin the size of buildings, shops with empty shelves, and Soviet soldiers on the streets, smashing up the violin belonging to the little boy in glasses.
There were pictures like that, but we only saw them a couple of times a year, on the Communist public holidays. And neither were the shelves empty, it was more that no one wanted to buy any of the stuff which was available. It was true that you could only get hold of cars and other big items through work and waiting lists, or by paying twice as much (the “market price”), which the majority of people couldn’t afford. But as far as I remember those wretched coupons were only around for a couple of years, when the regime was already on its last legs. As for smashed violins, you can see them in Soviet films, although they tended to depict the fascists doing the smashing.
Of course the Russian soldiers got up to all sorts of stuff here as well. And it wasn’t just them. I recall one time when I was coming home on one of those dark winter nights after a school party – I must have been twelve or at least at the age when we had dancing at our parties – my hair was long, much to my father’s consternation, and I was walking back carrying a plastic bag full of records. They were compilations of big band music performed by the James Last Orchestra and released by the Soviet Melodiya company’s Riga studio: my friends and I thought that the music was very cool, and those records weren’t at all easy to get hold of. At that time there was a Russian-language maritime college next to our house, and the drunken would-be sailors often made a racket round the neighbourhood. They weren’t really genuine “occupiers”, like the soldiers, but they still wore naval uniforms. Anyway, on this occasion I was walking home down the empty street when one of them approached me and, without much ado, grabbed hold of my throat and pushed me up against the wall.
“Now then, let’s see what you’ve got there.”
“I haven’t got any money on me,” I replied, “please let me go.”
“No, no. Let’s see what you’ve got there,” he said.
At that moment I truly believed that he wanted to take my records off me (maybe that says more about the particular historical period than anything else). But then, through his glazed expression came the dawning realisation that despite my long hair I wasn’t actually a girl. And so he let me go and staggered onwards, while I went in the opposite direction, shaking.
To tell the truth, one can’t say that this episode was unique to the Soviet Union. A drunken yob is a drunken yob whether or not he’s wearing a foreign uniform. But back then I naturally held the Kremlin directly responsible for that brutish behaviour.
In the 1970s we took pride in believing that here in Estonia we were more cultured than in Russia, and we never normally had any reason to feel ashamed. In those days we were a cultural vanguard and not the backwater we are today. True, I know plenty of people who still feel disgusted when they see any kind of Soviet designs, because they are permeated with negative associations. And vice versa: on one of my first trips to Sweden, at roughly the same time as the events in this novel, I came across a shop selling fashionable clothes bearing perestroika slogans, amongst them was even a red cap with the letters “KGB” written on it in yellow. Evidently someone wanted such things.
There is no need to explain how different life would be in Estonia if we hadn’t lived under the Soviet yoke for fifty years. Without the night-time knock-knock at the door. Tens of thousands of early deaths would have been avoided, countless homes would still exist, the Estonian nation would not have been scattered far and wide across the planet. But still, there are some things which would have been the same, or almost the same. True, in place of Soviet Sajaanid lemonade, we would have had Sprite. All of that time would not have been wasted in queues, money would have actually been worth something. And yet our parents and grandparents would still have yearned for light-coloured furniture in the 1960s and dark furniture in the 1970s, and miniskirts would still have come into fashion when they did. Equally I don’t think it’s right that our urban spaces are covered with garish advertising hoardings, just as our once virtually bare town centres would feel like some kind of aberration.
But our everyday life was different in some fundamental way back then.
What was different was a certain feeling. How we felt inside. Even those of us who were born decades after those night-time knocks on the door.
It’s hard to explain if you weren’t there.
“Now then, Comrade Captain, I’ve got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news,” Vinkel said to Särg with a sneer. “And I’m guessing you want to hear the bad news first as usual.”
“So you’ve found out where to get hold of bison shit then,” Särg said gruffly.
“Right.”
The two of them were standing by the window in the spot where the younger members of staff took their cigarette breaks, at the end of a corridor which was painted the repulsive shade typical of Soviet state institutions, although the paint was already flaking off. There was a glass jar full of cigarette butts on the windowsill, bits of white paper label still stuck to it where the glue had proved particularly stubborn.
Särg was waiting.
“I’ve got something on your son,” Vinkel said hesitantly, almost reluctantly. “You really should keep a closer eye on him, to be honest.”
Just in case you haven’t heard this anecdote
The American Indian chief Winnetou was a character in the novels of Karl May (1842-1912), a popular German writer and a notorious trickster. A series of films based on these novels was shot in 1960s West Germany, with the lead role played by the French actor Pierre Brice, and the films proved extremely popular in the Soviet Union.
Anyway, the anecdote goes like this:
Winnetou gathers his tribe and says: “I’ve got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”
“The bad news, oh Winnetou.”
“The bad news is that we’ve used up all our food, so we have to start eating bison shit.”
The tribe grows despondent and starts to wail, then one of them asks what the good news is.
“The good news is that I know a place where we can get hold of bison shit.”
Believe it or not, people found that joke pretty funny back in those days.
You may not believe it, but the news came as a complete surprise to Särg. After all, he’d never had any reason to worry about Anton. He always got good marks at school. He’d finally started doing sport. He hadn’t tried smoking, he didn’t drink. He even declined champagne at New Year. It was true that he didn’t particularly like talking about what he was up to, but he would always come home at the agreed time, and then just sit and read in his room.
“Really? Are you sure it might not be some mistake?”
Vinkel nodded.
“And what exactly is it related to?”
“It’s that same case we’ve been dealing with.” Vinkel tried to avoid sounding condescending, but the expression on Särg’s face was so foolish. “Your Anton is consorting with our young insurrectionists.”
“I find that very hard to believe!”
“So you think I’m lying then, do you? Eh?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. It could just be a mistake, human error; maybe it’s just someone with the same name?”
“We’ve got photographs,” said Vinkel with a shrug. “I’m amazed that someone could be so blind to the truth.”
As we know, Särg was actually pretty sharp-witted.
“I reckon I can guess the good news myself,” he said.
“Right,” said Vinkel with a smile.
“It goes without saying that I will do everything within my powers, Comrade Major,” Särg assured him. First he just needed some time to think.
Alex met Tapani the following day. Tapani had called in the evening, as soon as Alex had arrived at the hotel f
rom the port, when he had still been pretty worked up. What do I actually know about this man? Who exactly is he? On top of that a colleague had treated him to a toffee in the bar on the boat, which had caused a filling to come out of one of his upper teeth with a sudden crunch. That evening everything had been fine, but at night when he was asleep the tooth had suddenly started hurting so badly that it became unbearable. He had some tablets with him, which he always took with him because he knew that when toothache strikes you have to nip it in the bud. It wasn’t like a headache, when you could just wait, hoping it might go away on its own. Fortunately he’d taken the tablets out of his bag and put them on his bedside table the previous evening. He got out of bed and took two tablets, but in his sleepy state it took him a while to find the bathroom door, and by then he was fully awake. He got back into bed, but he couldn’t get back to sleep. The sounds of night-time Helsinki coming through the window certainly didn’t help. What was going to happen? What if someone found out? I’m only twenty-six, damn it.
The following day Alex was free until two, and his toothache gave him a good excuse not to go trawling the shops at the Itäkeskus with the rest of the delegation. Tapani had invited him to a pizza place at one o’clock, and he had to eat something since all he’d managed to force down for breakfast was coffee and frankfurters; the scrambled eggs weren’t nearly as nice at this hotel as the previous one, in fact they were downright disgusting.
His Finnish friend was already waiting for him at the restaurant, leafing through the menu with a jug of water and two glasses on the table in front of him.
“The Capricciosas are pretty good here,” he said once Alex had sat down. “I ordered one for each of us, I hope that’s OK.”
Alex didn’t care about that. He took the package containing the film from his pocket and pushed it across the table towards Tapani.