I shivered, remembering the stories my grandmother had told me about Kalevipoeg, the guardian of the underworld. In Estonian mythology, he was a great fighter, renowned for his resourceful use of weapons to defeat his enemies. In the most ancient versions he was a giant, a titan with the ability to slay men and beasts. With a sharp jolt, I remembered, too, how he had met his fate: bleeding to death at the hilt of his own sword after giving the wrong directives to his followers. Even demi-gods could make mistakes.
Hilja’s face sobered. ‘So you see, he is needed to keep everything turning. Oskar’s mind needs to be sharp. I simply think it would be unwise for you to expect—’
I cut across her, my temper flaring. ‘I expect nothing.’
The light from the candle shuddered. A puddle of wax was already slipping down the side of it, bleeding onto the floor.
I took a deep breath. ‘We are friends, Hilja. That’s all. I told you. Nothing more. There was never any time . . . and . . .’ I shook my head, unable to find the words. A moth sailed suddenly past my face. Its wings whirred in my ears. I watched it soar on a current of air towards the flame of the candle, attracted to the glow. ‘When we knew each other before, things were different. We were different. Children, I suppose. The past year has changed everyone. It would be foolish to pretend that things could go back to the way they were. It would be like asking the moon to shine during the day. Impossible.’
Impossible.
As the words left my mouth, I felt the weight of them crush me like a giant fist laid on my heart. This was the new truth, I realised, a reality I had not wanted to imagine, preferring to think that Oskar would want me in the way that I had once wanted him. When I had entertained ideas back then of marriage, perhaps even of children, my parents had always been in the background, able to offer guidance, to counsel us when challenges arose or when we quarrelled, as we inevitably would. Every couple did. My parents’ presence was something I had taken for granted, just as I assumed Oskar’s mother would always be around, ready to sweeten our lives with her concoctions and ease any misunderstandings with her belly laugh. I had imagined my mother, her back bent from years of apple picking, sitting in the orchard with her grandchildren, showing them how to count out the pips.
Now all that was gone. Oskar and I were alone in our pain. More than alone. We were facing a future fraught with uncertainty. Love had no place in such a world.
It was only by being apart that we could hope to survive.
The moth was still dancing, but slower now, as if the light had drained it of energy. It circled in slow, lazy loops around the slippery wax.
When I looked up, Hilja was watching me, her chin thrust forward. Something about my face must have satisfied her, because she relaxed back against the wall again, bending her knees and drawing her legs up to her chest. Her trousers rode up, revealing the space between her shins and her boots. The skin there was puckered with dozens of round scars.
‘Cigarette burns,’ she said, following my gaze. ‘They’re all over my body.’
She smiled, showing crooked teeth. ‘And the others wonder why I don’t smoke.’ She held out the back of her hands for me to see. They too were covered in shiny brown spots, crowded together over the surface of her skin like the mottled pattern on a leopard’s fur.
Although I wanted to turn away, I forced myself to look at them; to acknowledge her suffering.
‘I felt nothing after a while.’ Hilja folded her scarred hands over her knees. ‘Nothing. They kept burning me. They wanted to know where the others were hiding. But I stopped screaming. That’s when they brought Luksa’s body in. I didn’t realise they had caught him already. His body was ruined. Torn apart by bullets. Decomposing. They told me . . . to make love to it.’
Another woman’s voice might have broken. Hilja’s did not change.
She picked at a scab on her hand, peeling away the crust and flicking it into the darkness beyond the candlelight.
‘Sometimes it’s better.’ She looked at me evenly and it was only now, with the light shining directly on her, that I realised the creases in her face were not age lines but small scars, made lightly with an instrument like a scalpel. A sharp blade that would leave only the barest marks. The hand that had made them had been tender, like a lover’s caress, but every stroke had ensured that she would appear wizened forever, her youth nothing but a distant memory. ‘It’s better not to love at all. You don’t know the things you will do. The things they can make you do.’ She touched her face gently, running her fingers over the creases. Then she sniffed and leaned forward, batting the moth from the candle with the back of her hand. It whirled away, confused, into the dark. ‘When the others arrive,’ she said, ‘if they make it this far, that is, you will need to think of nothing but running. The camp is a little way from here; we’ll need to move as quickly as we’re able. Patrols may come. They know we will try to get as many people into the deeper woods as possible. You must prepare yourself.’
‘What if there are children? Old people, like Oskar said.’
Hilja blinked. ‘Help them. Of course.’
‘But if they can’t run . . .’
‘Do what you can.’
‘What if they fall or get left behind?’
Hilja gave the slightest shake of her head. ‘Just keep moving. Not everyone makes it, Kati.’ For the first time I saw an expression of pity in her eyes. It made her ravaged face seem young again. ‘Not everyone survives.’
Birch Pattern
Lydia
‘You will be transported to Tartu station. From there, you will begin your journey to your new home. You have been granted an allowance of one suitcase each. Anyone who resists will be arrested.’
The soldier’s voice boomed in the street. Despite the cacophony of noise, his words were clear, ringing out over the heads of the people being steered into police wagons and shoved into the back of trucks. Timber crates lay heaped and broken on the footpath, cleared out so the trucks could accommodate as many bodies as possible. All the soldiers had lists. As each person came forward, they were to give their name to be checked off and then bundled into the wagon where their families were already waiting.
Ahead of me, I saw Etti freeze, her shoulders lifting as if someone had shone a spotlight on her face. But the soldier closest to her had already turned away, distracted by a question from his colleague. We hurried past him, Olga holding fast to my arm as if I might be swept away on the river of people being ferried towards the police wagons. In turn, I reached out to hold onto Etti, anxious not to lose her in the crowd. My fingers knotted in the weave of her shawl; we moved slowly until the deportees peeled away and it was just the three of us, making our way towards a courtyard surrounded by apartment blocks.
When we reached the courtyard, Etti groaned, coming suddenly to a halt, both hands pressed flat against her belly. My grip on the shawl slackened.
‘What’s the matter?’ Olga said. Her face glittered in the light from the streetlamp. She lifted an arm, swiping at her face with her sleeve.
Etti was bent double, her breathing ragged. I wound my arm around her shoulders. ‘Etti, do you need to rest?’
She shook her head. Her mouth was pinched, her face screwed up in pain. She let out a long exhalation of breath. ‘There’s no time. It’s just ahead.’ She jerked her head towards a doorway harboured on either side by boxed geraniums. The noise of the streets – the clop of horse hooves, the grind of wheels – seemed muffled here. Nobody wailed with fear or shouted instructions. The sounds were muted, as if the blank walls and darkened windows of the townhouses clustered around the courtyard had absorbed them. Or as if there were nobody left inside.
Olga’s face appeared beside me, knotted with worry. ‘Perhaps you could wait here,’ she said to Etti. ‘Lydia and I can go.’
‘No.’ Shaking her head, Etti tried to push herself to her feet. Swaying, she let out a sharp gasp.
‘Lida, you take that side,’ Olga said, slipping shoulder benea
th Etti’s arm. ‘Come now. Quickly!’ I obeyed, helping to heave Etti to her feet. Together, we half-dragged her across the courtyard, her breath coming in short gasps. When we reached the doorway, she seemed to rally, shaking us off to stagger inside unassisted.
Although the stairwell inside was dim, lit only by a single bulb, I could smell the dust that clogged the carpet, the tobacco that had soaked into the wallpaper from years of tenancy. Together we struggled up the stairs, Etti stopping every few steps to lean against the wall, panting.
At last, we reached the landing. ‘In here.’ Etti reached past me, gripping the handle of a door painted a faded blue. I heard her gasp. Bracing myself, I followed her inside.
The apartment was full of women. At least, that was how it seemed. Their pale faces stood out in the glow of an oil lamp on a sideboard. Their shadows stretched behind them, making dark impressions against the wallpaper. They huddled in the centre of the room as if knitted together by an invisible thread. The puddle of light thrown out by the lamp created a wide circle around them. At the edges were shards of gleaming china, pieces of glittering crystal that lay in a heap like jagged jigsaw bits.
As we entered, the women let out a sigh and broke apart.
‘Dearest!’ An old babushka wobbled forward, hands clasped together as if in prayer. She was as thin as a bird, her stockingless legs poking out beneath a grey housecoat belted around with an old piece of flowered fabric. Her faded slippers crunched on the glass fragments and she halted, looking down as if afraid to go any further.
Etti moved towards her, catching up the old lady’s frail hands. ‘Helle! What happened?’
The old woman’s face crumpled. She began to cry noisily. The other women shrank together, murmuring uneasily like nervous hens in winter when the foxes circle round. They all wore plain dresses and white shawls around their shoulders. The ripe scent of sweat and onions rolled over me, mingled with the fumes from the oil lamp sitting on the floor at their feet.
‘It was the Russians.’ Helle dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her shawl. Her eyes lingered on Olga and me curiously before shifting back to Etti. ‘They came into the building and took away the Saar family. All of them! We heard them being ordered to dress and march downstairs. Those poor children.’ Her voice cracked. She pressed the back of her hand in front of her mouth.
‘They said Papa Saar was carrying out subversive activities,’ one of the younger women volunteered. She pushed back a loose brown ringlet that had fallen across her eyes. ‘You know he was assigned to work in the bread shop last year. They said he was favouring the Estonians, giving them the better bread while the Soviets were given bread made with sawdust and old papers.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Etti’s face flushed. ‘How can that be possible?’
The young woman lifted a shoulder helplessly. ‘Etti, your mother argued with them!’
‘She was a force to be reckoned with.’ Helle lifted her chin. Only the slight tremble of her mouth betrayed her. ‘She said the same thing you did. That they were obviously mistaken. But oh, Etti . . . they took her.’ Fresh tears leaked from her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry. Your mother tried to fight them off. That only made it worse. They didn’t even give her time to pack a case or take her coat. Animals.’ A flash of anger suffused Helle’s tiny pointed face. ‘Then they came back in here and took everything of value they could find and smashed the rest. We gathered here to wait for you.’
‘Where did they take her?’ Etti’s face had blanched.
‘Same place as all the others.’ Helle shook her head. ‘The train station.’
Etti gasped and swayed, holding onto her belly as if it were a lifeline.
‘Perhaps they will hold everyone there until morning,’ I said, thinking quickly. ‘There are so many. It’s surely too hard to organise so many people onto trains in the middle of the night.’
The women turned to me. I felt their interest sweep over me like a searchlight in the dark. I could almost hear them thinking, who are these Russian women?
Helle moved towards Etti as if to protect her from us. Her voice was wary. ‘Etti?’
The Estonian woman drew in a long, ragged breath and waved a hand. ‘They are friends, Helle. Trying to help. Lydia and Olga. You can trust them.’
Helle’s shoulders relaxed. ‘If you are sure, dearest.’
‘I am.’
A train whistle shrieked suddenly, shrill and insistent, the sound cutting through the night. All the women turned towards the window. The lamplight picked out the sharpness of their cheekbones.
‘Too late.’ Etti’s voice was dull and mechanical. She sank slowly to the floor and remained squatting there, hugging herself. ‘She’s gone.’
‘She’s not gone yet,’ I said, but Etti did not seem to hear me. Her head was bowed, her shoulders slumped in defeat.
My mind was racing, searching for possibilities. Etti’s mother was not imprisoned yet. She might not even be on the train. If we could find someone to speak to, a guard . . . Lieutenant Lubov’s face leaped into my mind.
Kneeling beside Etti, I brushed the sparkling shards of a crystal vase to one side so that only the glittering dust remained. ‘I know someone, Etti. Someone who could help us.’
Etti raised her eyes to mine. Deep pain was etched there, but the shock of it all was keeping despair at bay.
I squeezed her shoulder.
‘You’ll have to come with me to the train station. But if this – person – is there . . . If he is where I think he will be, there’s a chance we could save her. Our only chance.’
‘We will all go.’
I looked up to find the little old woman, Helle, shuffling forward, adjusting the shawl on her shoulders, pulling it up so that it shrouded her hair. The other women did the same. They looked like brides going to church to meet their husbands. Helle shrugged at my raised eyebrows.
‘If there is a chance we can save Juudit, we must go. We will all stay together, in the shadows, and look after Etti. Juudit will be easy to spot.’ Helle sighed. ‘She’ll be the one shouting, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Are you sure you would not rather stay here?’ Olga said.
Helle’s small mouth thinned to a determined line. ‘Impossible. Juudit Koppel is one of us. And the train station is not far.’
The train whistle shrieked again.
My skin tingled and sweat prickled at the back of my legs. How could I lead these women out into the chaos of the night? What had I ever done that was brave, that had prepared me in any way to march off and demand that a woman I did not even know be spared when so many others were resigned to their fate? They were all watching me, even Olga, her face a wrinkled map.
The answer came unbidden in my mother’s tongue. You can do anything.
The lace shawl around my throat was a warm caress. I touched it with my fingers, the tiny holes, the bobbles. My mother’s hands had made it and she had loved it. Like the lace shawl, I was her legacy.
‘My mother made this shawl,’ I said softly. ‘She was Estonian. From Haapsalu.’ I heard the women’s intake of breath. ‘She would not want me to stand by and do nothing. Perhaps we will be safe together. But Etti should stay.’
I knew she would protest. ‘My mother is strong headed,’ she said. ‘You may need me to reason with her.’ I threw an exasperated look at Olga but she shook her head, so I reached down and offered Etti my arm. A small grunt escaped her lips as she stood up but her face was set in determination.
‘Mama needs us,’ she said. ‘Let us go and find her and bring her home.’
*
‘Have you seen my husband, Meelis?’
The woman grabbed at me. Her fingernails scratched at my arms. ‘He is a tall man with blond hair and a birthmark here.’ She lightly traced the skin beneath her right eye with a shaking hand. The glare of the floodlights the Russians had set up around the small, overcrowded station gleamed on her face and on the fox-fur sable arranged fashionably about her neck. ‘He’s a police
man. They came for him a half-hour ago.’ She turned her head to look out at the long line of railway cars that ran the length of the station platform, coupled together like the ones that took oxen from their homes to the slaughterhouse factories. The doors of the railway cars were open, and the ones at the front of the line were already half-full. Rows of waiting people stood before them while uniformed guards consulted their lists.
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘We have only just arrived.’
The woman released me. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t belong here. Do you think they might have taken him elsewhere?’
Before I could reply, a dozen more police wagons pulled up nearby. The woman staggered towards them, craning her neck, searching for her husband among the deportees spilling from the doors.
‘This is madness.’ Olga’s mouth was pursed. ‘Madness,’ she said again, her gaze sweeping the thousands of people waiting to be herded into cattle cars. More trains waited in the sidings, half-hidden in the shadows. The noise was terrible; worried mutterings, the howls of children who could not be pacified, the rough scrape of shoes on gravel as the deportees shuffled forward to be assigned a train carriage. Then there were the noisy sobs of those who had come to bid goodbye to their families; some men, but mostly women in shawls, mothers and grandmothers who had not yet been ordered to leave but risked the displeasure of the Soviet authorities by following to say farewell. Olga hugged the bear coat closer around her even though the breeze that blew along the platform was warm and the press of bodies around us made sweat gather on my lip. ‘How do you hope to find one woman, amid all this?’
‘We’ll find her,’ I vowed, although my heart was already sinking. Etti’s arm was tucked into my own. It felt limp, as if the bones in it had been removed. When I dared to glance at her, her mouth was turned down. She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears.
Olga was right. Finding one woman amid this chaos would be impossible.
Unless.
I scanned the crowd again, trying to separate the grey uniformed men from the sea of deportees. When I spotted him, he turned his head, as if even from such a distance he could smell my fear. I fought the urge to fling myself behind Etti, behind Olga, and disappear into the crowd. But our gazes connected. I saw his eyes widen and then narrow. As much as I wanted to, I did not look away. I let the harsh light from the flood lamps illuminate my features. I even moved apart from the others, letting go of Etti’s arm, finding a little space of my own so that the cluster of women would not shield me. The breeze lifted my hair off my neck, teasing the tendrils that had worked free of their pins.
Lace Weaver Page 20