Papa spoke suddenly. ‘Why are you here, Oskar? It’s late. We are tired. You’ve risked our lives by coming back. Tell us what you want and then leave. If it’s money, we have none.’
‘It isn’t money,’ Oskar said. He stole another glance at me before turning back to Papa. ‘Change is coming, Erich. It affects us all, but it will affect, most especially, your family. I have come to warn you that the war is coming to Estonia.’
‘Ridiculous,’ my father replied.
‘It’s true.’ Oskar hadn’t sipped the water. He stared down into it, as if looking for answers written in the mug. ‘It has already started.’
‘The war between Britain and Germany has nothing to do with us,’ my father said. ‘Stalin and Hitler have signed a pact of non-aggression. We read about it in Postimees last year.’
Papa had shown me the clipping, complete with a picture of Hitler’s agent, Molotov, signing the treaty while Stalin looked on, smiling. The treaty had stated, in simple terminology, that if either party went to war against a third power, the other party was required to remain neutral. Papa had explained to us quietly that it essentially absolved Russia of any responsibility if the Germans invaded other countries. It was Russia’s way of keeping out of the way, and giving Germany free rein to dominate Europe.
‘The pact will not hold,’ Oskar said.
Papa’s face darkened. ‘I don’t believe you.’ He waved a hand. ‘You know nothing about what’s happening out there. How can you? Where have you been, all this time, to know things like that? I assumed you fled to Finland, like so many others. I hoped you had. It would have been best for you. For us.’
Oskar’s fingers tightened around the cup. ‘No,’ he said, his jaw flexing. ‘That’s not what happened.’ He paused. ‘I’ve been living in the forest.’
Mama drew in a loud breath. ‘All alone?’
Oskar nodded. ‘At first, yes. I had no friends to help me. I couldn’t ask you.’ He shot me a quick, apologetic glance. ‘I couldn’t risk telling you I was still out there. I knew you would feel obliged to help me. The authorities would arrest you if they knew.’
My father grunted his approval. ‘At least you had the sense not to come here.’
‘Just so.’ Oskar swirled the water in the cup. ‘I made the best of it. I lived on mushrooms and berries. I slept under the stars. Eventually, more people fled into the forest. You remember what it was like, the first weeks of the occupation?’
Papa said nothing. Did he? Was he thinking of the information he had passed on to the Partorg? When they asked him to value the farms around us, my father had complied. At the time, he had told us he had no idea they would use the information to make arrests. Now I wasn’t so sure. My heart gave a sharp, painful tug.
Although the bodies of Imbi and Aime haunted my nightmares, those memories had partially dimmed. The invasion was different. Every day, there were reminders. People starving on the streets. Young women harassed by soldiers and men beaten for jumping to their defence. I remembered the rumble of tanks on the road nearby. The day after the invasion began, we had gone into Tartu to check on Aunt Juudit. Cattle cars were lined up in the station, and families were being herded inside, men separated from the women and children. I recognised some people from our village. Councillor Karro and his wife, along with their twin girls, all wearing woollen jackets though the sun blazed overhead. Elsa Hamit, who taught handicraft at the local tech. I watched my old school teacher, Josef Tavert, help his father, a frail, limping man, up into the railroad car beside him. When he finally succeeded in clambering up, he leaned heavily against Mr Tavert, wheezing. I wanted to call out but before I had a chance, the door was slammed shut.
We watched from a safe distance, standing in the car park of the station with a knot of other people. Those who were braver fought against the crowd until they reached the cattle cars, pushing notes to their families between the bars or parcels of food for the long journey ahead. When the Russian soldiers noticed, they started shouting. One man fired his weapon into the air, causing people to scatter away from the cattle car towards the safety of the car park. The women trapped inside the train drew their children closer, shielding them with their hands and bodies. The men separated in their cattle cars could do nothing but cry out, hoping to hear the voices of their families reassuring them they were safe.
Papa’s face had been unreadable as the chaos unfolded.
‘They take the educated ones first,’ an old woman had said beside my elbow. I knew she was right. My grandmother had predicted the same thing before she died. First the government would be replaced by a puppet one, she said. Then they would arrest and deport the people who were thinkers, those who could educate or warn others about the regime to come. With that class gone, they would turn to the workers and landowners; men like my father. Communist pamphlets had already been distributed, warning us about the kulaks. The kulaks had been the richest farmers in the village. They had kept all their wealth to themselves, while those below them starved. Now their goods would be distributed to those who needed it most. Although the propaganda was always carefully worded, it was not hard to see through it when life revealed so starkly that the truth was quite the opposite. Estonia and the other Baltic countries with their rich bounty of farmland and minerals would help pay the price for the spread of Communism across the world.
‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where will they take them?’
The woman had not answered. Perhaps she thought no answer was necessary. There was only one place those cattle cars were going: out east to the inhospitable Oblasts, to Siberia and the farthest reaches of the Soviet empire, frozen tundras where nothing survived. I knew, from what my grandmother had told me about Estonia’s years under the Tsar, that people did not come back from there.
I looked to Papa, waiting for him to move, to speak out. Instead, he seized my shoulder roughly and marched me back to the lorry where Mama and Jakob were waiting.
‘Did you see Professor Kärner?’ Jakob’s skin was grey, his mouth pinched. He’d refused to leave the safety of the vehicle and Papa would not have allowed him to, anyway. The only reason Papa had taken the risk of stopping at all was to see if any of his friends were among the deportees. Jakob was lucky he was only a poor student in his first year of university and so clearly not considered enough of a threat. He wiped his hand across his pale brow. ‘And the Jurvetsons? They were marched out of class this morning.’
The door of the lorry squeaked as Papa climbed in. I opened my mouth to reply but Papa silenced me with a glare. I watched the train recede in the rear mirror as Papa drove the lorry out of the carpark. A terrible weight sat heavily on my chest. I had seen Jakob’s math professor being herded towards the train and driven inside. The Jürvetson boys, blond twins who had been in Jakob’s school year and now studied with him at the university, had been separated and pushed into different cars. I’d seen the anguished expressions on their faces before the doors closed. They did everything together. I could not remember ever seeing them apart. Now they would be trapped alone, in the comfortless dark, without each other’s company. It seemed so cruel and spiteful but there was nothing they could do or say to resist. They were as helpless as the children whose cries squalled over the heads of the waiting crowd.
I would rather run than be caged, I decided then. If the Soviets came for us, I would convince my family to take our chances in the forest. I did not want to die in some unknown place, hearing Russian voices all about me.
I knew now that Oskar had felt the same.
He was still staring down into his mug of water. ‘So many people came to live in the forest that groups formed. People began to help each other, building shelters, finding food. Some of us, the bravest I suppose, or the stupidest, the ones with nothing left to lose, suggested we should take up arms. Some people had pistols they brought with them. Others stole rifles. That was when the Soviets sent in their first patrols.’ His hands curled around the cup. ‘Women. Infants. Young boys and girls
. Nobody was spared. What crime did they commit? What offence would you assign them, Erich, knowing they had no choice except to submit to arrest and deportation or scrape a life together in the wilderness?’ His jaw tightened.
‘What did you do, Oskar?’ It was the first time I had spoken.
Oskar turned his head slowly. Something soft and wordless passed between us. I wondered if Oskar had missed my voice, as I had missed his. A beat passed before he shook himself. ‘Some of us managed to escape. We hid in a cave, waiting for the screams to stop. Eventually, they did. But the anger; that was not gone. The defiance, too. It was stronger. It was a living, breathing force now. Those of us who were left behind took a vow that we would not forget. We would honour the memory of those who were slaughtered – by killing as many Soviet pigs as we could lay our hands on.’
‘Oskar.’ My father’s voice carried a thin note of warning.
Oskar’s shoulders drooped. He looked tired suddenly. There were dark bruises beneath his eyes. I wondered how he dared even to sleep, knowing the authorities could catch him at any moment. He was an outlaw now, a criminal. According to the Russian authorities, he had murdered his mother and sister in cold blood. The penalties for such transgressions were swift and fatal. No wonder he had not sent word to us that he was still alive. The things we took for granted – food, shelter, a mattress – were things Oskar and others like him had to fight for. The burden of it might be enough to crush an older man and yet here he sat, in our kitchen. Where were all those other boys and men now, people like Josef Tavert and his old father? If they had survived the journey to Siberia, would they have fought? Would they have had the strength to run if such an opportunity came? I could not imagine Jakob, sleeping comfortably in the student dorms and eating in the cafeteria, finding the resilience to go without food for days at a time, to lie down on a bed of pine needles with only an old blanket for warmth against the bitter cold.
At nineteen, Oskar had achieved what most had found impossible after the Soviet invasion: he had survived.
‘I’m not telling you this because I want to worry your family, Erich,’ Oskar said. His head tilted slightly towards me. I caught the flicker of memory in his eyes; the promise we had made to each other to always tell the truth, no matter how painful it might be. ‘I’m telling you because the time has come for you to make a choice.’ He paused. I watched his throat ripple as he swallowed, draining the mug.
‘We’ve had help from other farmers. They were scared, at first. Of course. But they have slowly come around. There are many here who are too scared to fight openly, but they’ve been supplying us with food, some with rifles. Sometimes they pass messages for us, or provide safe houses for people who know their names are on the list. Just a bed for the night, until they can find a way to let us know we have another soldier ready to join us, or a sister who can help prepare meals and keep the camps clean. Resistance is growing. It’s up to us to fight for them.’
‘This is your war?’ Papa finally said. His eyes were narrowed. ‘A war between the many millions of Soviets and a bunch of rag-tag forest boys? This is what you would risk our lives for?’
Oskar recoiled at his words, but recovered swiftly. ‘After that first slaughter, there were fifteen of us,’ he said. His eyes had lost their soft look. ‘Fifteen left out of a hundred. Do you know how many fighters we have now, Erich?’ He paused. ‘Five hundred. More spread out across the forests. It’s not just the forest soldiers the Soviets should be worried about, either. We have support from a power far greater than that, a nation that has helped Estonia in the past. Now she is coming to our aid again.’
My father’s face was mottled pink and white as he struggled to contain his shock. ‘The pact,’ he said. His voice was less certain now. ‘The treaty. Stalin and Hitler will not abandon it. They cannot.’
‘It’s worth less than the parchment they signed it on.’ Oskar shook his head. ‘The Germans are already here, Erich.’ I heard Mama’s indrawn breath. ‘We’ve been helping them and now they are helping us, training our soldiers. Giving us weapons. Germany will march on Russia. I swear it. You’re an Estonian,’ he said. ‘That should count for something. I’m not asking you to fight. Just to turn a blind eye. To lend us your barn as a safe place for German parachuters to land when war comes. A field or three. You have a choice, Erich. You didn’t last year; none of us did. But now you do. And, with the help of the Germans, we have a chance. Will you help us? Will you choose to free Estonia from Soviet bondage?’
I looked eagerly at Mama and Papa. Had they heard the passion in Oskar’s voice? Had they been stirred by Oskar’s words?
My parents were frozen like figures in a tableau. Mama’s head was bowed, hands clasped before her. Papa stood as immovable as an ancient apple tree, hands knotted by his sides. Only his face revealed any emotion, his eyebrows drawing together until a large crease formed in the centre of his forehead. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of the young man he had been. The boy who dreamed of nothing but blankets of warm fleece and apple trees as far as the eye could see. A man whose parents had fought to emancipate themselves from the grip of Russia and the Baltic Germans. My paternal grandmother had spoken with great pride of the liberation; of how she and my grandfather, like so many others, had adopted new names for themselves in the wake of Estonia’s independence. They’d chosen surnames that reflected the natural world, a world free of human violence and greed.
My grandparents had become Rebane; the fox, a creature of great beauty and stealth, who knew how to use both cunning and wits to survive. They had struggled to survive in a world which had ignored them. Nobody had come to their aid when they fought for their independence. No allies. Those days were over. I knew Papa had made up his mind before he even opened his mouth. ‘It’s time for you to leave now, Oskar.’
Oskar didn’t move.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Papa’s voice trembled. ‘Please, leave now. You shouldn’t have come back here, bringing trouble to my door. You’ve put us all in danger. Me and Marta. Kati. I am the head of this family. It’s my duty to protect them. Nobody can win against the Russian army. Everyone knows that. If you had any sense, you’d leave now. Run off to Finland, as you should have done before.’ He mopped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘Go on. Go now.’
I closed my eyes.
After a moment, I heard footsteps, creaking floorboards, the sheep bleating nervously below in their pens. When I opened my eyes, Papa was still standing there, hands by his sides. Mama had raised her face. She looked stricken.
Oskar was gone.
Winter Berries
‘I’m going to bed.’
The floorboards groaned beneath Papa’s feet. Moments later, the bedroom door in the hallway slammed closed. Almost at once, my mother began to move, throwing the remaining cutlery into the sink, snatching up Oskar’s empty mug from the table and scrubbing it so vigorously with the dishcloth I thought it would crack.
I watched her with a strange detachment.
Mama set the upended mug on the counter to dry and took up the wet rag, scrubbing at the faint ring it had left on the surface of the table until every trace of our visitor was wiped away. She was silent, too unsettled even to hum.
As I stood watching her rag slap against the table, I heard it; a sound so much like the wind it could hardly be distinguished. A lonely bay. An animal voice crying out in the dark.
Elina. Still out there, still waiting.
The chicken bones on the table were already cold; a little gristle clung to them. I threw them into a dishcloth and folded the corners to make a parcel. The wind had come up. I heard it whistling through the roof where the thatch was thinning. My grandmother’s shawl was draped on the hallstand. I wound it around my neck, tucking it into my blouse.
I waited until Mama’s back was turned before slipping down the stairs. She hadn’t heard the wolf; all she had heard was the wind knocking against the windows like a child begging to be let in.
The ram grunt
ed when he heard me, shifting restlessly among the hay as he prepared to bed down.
‘Elina?’ I whispered, peering out. ‘Are you out here?’
‘Kati.’ Oskar was leaning against a birch, standing so still I had to wait for my eyes to adjust to discern his features. The tar scent of his cigarette reached me, sharp and sweet. As he threw it aside, the embers scattered on the ground in one final burst of orange and red.
He took a step towards me. ‘Wasn’t Elina your grandmother’s name? Why are you calling to her in the dark?’
I tucked my hands under my arms and cast about with my eyes. The yard was empty. Moonlight glimmered on the stones.
‘You must have misheard.’ I paused for a moment. ‘I was looking for you.’
‘For me?’
‘Yes.’ I could feel my hands trembling. ‘I wanted to speak to you. To explain.’
‘Does Erich know you’re out here? Your mother?’
I shook my head.
‘You’ve changed your hair,’ he observed. ‘Just one plait now, is it?’
I lifted my hand automatically to feel the braid. The weave I’d made of it this morning was still in place, but the ends were straggly, uneven. ‘Jakob said two braids made me look fifteen.’
Another step.
‘Since when did you take Jakob’s advice?’ He was so close I could smell the forest on him. Sun-warmed earth. Mushroom dankness. And something else; something chemical. The scent of paraffin. Of danger and resistance.
Goosebumps rose on my skin.
‘Kati . . .’
My name, when he said it, was intoxicating. An island, a stepping stone in a deep river. If I let it, that word would lead to more words, words I would not be able to unsay.
With an effort, I moved away. ‘You shouldn’t have come back.’
Oskar stiffened. He dropped his hands to his sides, shoving them into his pockets.
That’s it, I thought, reminding myself to breathe, to ignore the prickle of tears that threatened at the back of my eyes. Let him go.
Lace Weaver Page 4