When the Doves Disappeared: A Novel

by Sofi Oksanen

  Gerda’s company lightened her spirits, and a few cocktails lightened them more, but as they were walking back to the dining room, she still looked around. She’d grown used to doing this from the very first evening, though she rarely ran into anyone she knew in the places that Germans frequented—least of all Roland, the one thing she couldn’t talk about with Gerda.

  AS JUUDIT LIFTED her drink to her lips over the white tablecloth at Du Nord, Roland was pretending to read a sign on Roosikrantsi Street that had Vacant Rooms painted in large letters at the top. He knew every posted notice fluttering in the wind. From the doors of the nearby hospital came a drifting odor of carbolic acid, waiting, and frustration. He even knew the footsteps and voices of the nurses and ambulance men hurrying inside, the staff in the German commissaries, the clerks marching to the supply room. Although his landlady was almost deaf and blind with age and took no notice of him, there were always Germans tramping down the street, and as the sound of every step quickly became familiar to him, he assumed that the sound of his own would soon be familiar to others, so he’d decided to change lodgings. He would move to the attic of a villa on Merivälja Square. He had to be cautious, living underground, and he’d had enough of watching the guests and outings of Juudit’s German. From the reports he’d received from their contact at B4, there could be only one conclusion: the Germans were as twisted as the Bolsheviks, who had sucked the country dry and done it all aboveboard, according to Soviet law. When the Soviet forces had left the Kuressaare castle, Richard had been among the first to witness the piles of bodies, the women with their breasts cut off, their corpses full of needles. The walls of the Kawe factory cellar had been painted with blood. And the same thing was going to happen, just as much within the law as before. The Germans would do whatever they had to in order to keep Rosalie’s case from becoming public, if only to create the illusion of legality. Roland was beginning to be certain that he was about to witness the same kinds of acts that the Bolsheviks had perpetrated, and his hands shook as he wrote about it that evening. A messenger would take the letter to Sweden:

  SS-Sturmbannführer Sandberger and his puppet leader Mäe believe that Germany has to regain the trust of the Estonians. The Jews who fled here from Germany and elsewhere during Estonian independence have done so much counterpropaganda that the pogroms that worked beautifully in Lithuania and Latvia couldn’t possibly get the same result here. Sandberger sensed this immediately and thus understood that the Sonder command had to be kept as invisible as possible, and that no illegal violence should be tolerated. This method and their emphasis on obedience to the law has shown Sandberger’s wisdom and psychological insight. Any measures taken will be in strict accordance with German law.

  Reval, Estland General Commissariat, Ostland National Commissariat

  I REMEMBER WHEN the Shore Club opened. Those were long, white nights. They sold cocktails until three in the morning, can you imagine?”

  Juudit had arrived. Her talk reminded me that she was different from Rosalie, from a different world. She’d spent her youth lapping up cocktails and circling buffet tables, twitching to the beat of swing tunes.

  We sat silent for a moment and listened to the music from the Pirita Shore Club and I hid my relief. It had been a lot of work to arrange for the short time off and there was a line of men ready to take my job at the harbor. I’d been sure that she would miss the meeting again and I hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed like I had been so many times before. Too many times.

  “Do you miss the countryside?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what she was getting at. The cobblestones of the city didn’t suit me any better than they would my horse, and she knew that. But I tried to behave, to tamp down the anger seething inside me from all the nights I’d tailed her with no results. When I’d finally seen her coming and she was alone, relief and fury battled within me. The glass eyes of her silver fox wrap had been as unfeeling as her own, eyes that had forgotten Rosalie, but even so I managed to control my emotions. I shouldn’t frighten her too much—just enough. We didn’t have a single contact in Juudit’s position, and in spite of everything I trusted her more than any of the Germans’ other tarts.

  “Where are you staying these days?” Juudit asked.

  “It’s best that you don’t know.”

  “Right. Many of the Merivälja villas are still empty, I’ve heard.”

  I looked at the people walking on the shore, a dog running after a ball, women in bathing suits, their legs so shiny-wet that my eyes hurt, couples strolling down to the water arm in arm, wiping waffle crumbs from each other’s mouths. Their happiness rippled with the waves, piercing my chest. I was incapable of further small talk.

  “Have you found anything out?”

  My question made Juudit flinch, although I’d asked the same thing every time we’d met, and her mouth snapped shut. I squeezed my hand into a fist.

  “Why do you even come here if you don’t have anything to tell me?”

  “I could have stayed away, you know,” she answered, and scooted farther down the bench.

  I understood instantly that I’d said the wrong thing. The hope that always sprang up when I saw her had disappeared again, and in trotted those same thoughts that tortured me every night, rattling their bits between their teeth even as I awoke. Juudit looked at my fist, slid all the way to the end of the bench, and looked at the water as if there were something of interest to see there. I shuddered. Juudit was like everyone else. She wouldn’t hear a bad word about the Germans, not now that the sharp edge from poorer times was disappearing from her cheekbones. Even if I’d told her what I knew, she would have called me a liar. After the victory at Sevastopol there was no doubt that Germany would succeed, and although the Germans were the only ones who could save us from a new Bolshevik terror, our forces believed in Churchill and the Atlantic Charter—the return of independence when the war was over, the promise that territorial changes would not be made against the wishes of the citizens. Our couriers were constantly bringing material to Finland and Sweden—my reports among them—and we were getting newspaper clippings and news analysis from around the world. There was no indication that the Germans would abide by our wishes in spite of their public pronouncements. But so many wanted to believe them, including Juudit, who’d gotten a taste of cream.

  “I just keep house there,” Juudit said. “I don’t hear about anything important from the staff. Besides, he doesn’t investigate crimes, only sabotage, and his office only has jurisdiction over Tallinn. I’m sure he doesn’t even have access to information pertaining to the rest of the country. Don’t you understand? I’m no use to you.”

  I’d heard the same explanation so many times, the same lousy excuses, even though I’d stressed that any information at all could lead to Rosalie’s murderer, even the smallest petty crime. Time after time she denied the rumors, the bullying and misconduct. I didn’t believe the Jerries adhered strictly to rules and discipline, and her dogged insistence that they did made me screw my mouth up tight, hoping she wasn’t as bad at lying to her German. I could understand her choice of a lover. Her marriage situation wasn’t a normal one. But I couldn’t understand having to remind her about Rosalie.

  SHE WAS CLEARLY getting ready to go, raising her padded shoulders and prying at the Bakelite clasp on her sweater until her fingertips turned white. She did have news—suddenly I was sure of it. The realization helped me control my feelings. I kept my voice steady: “Here’s a phone number. If your German leaves town, place a call to this number and say that the weather is good. I want to come and look at his office. Any small scrap of information could help our cause.”

  Juudit didn’t take the paper from me. I shoved it into her purse. She laid a wadded handkerchief down beside me and stared out at the sea.

  “Roland, you have to leave the city immediately.”

  She spoke quickly, her gaze fixed on the water. The Feldgendarmerie knew that there were fugitives and draft d
odgers at the harbor. They were going to use that as a pretense to get into the factories there and search for someone behind a recent attack. Hellmuth Hertz had learned that there were such men hiding among the dockworkers.

  “The target was Alfred Rosenberg, his train, when it arrived at the station. It wasn’t you, was it?” she said, her mouth snapping shut.

  I looked at her. She was serious.

  “You have to leave,” she said. “Rosalie would have wanted you to. Take this money.”

  She got up, leaving the handkerchief bundle on the bench, and marched away. That’s what she had to tell me? That’s why she’d come? I was disappointed, but at the same time suddenly alert. I hadn’t heard about a failed assassination attempt, but if Juudit had been serious when she asked if I was involved, someone else might be wondering the same thing, and the plot would no doubt lead the Germans to tighten their security protocols. I wouldn’t be going to the harbor in the mornings anymore.

  Although papers were often inspected on the tram, I got on the next one to save some time—I had to get back to my room and pack in a hurry. Up until that point my new documents had worked perfectly and the altered birth date had never been noticed. I kept them in my breast pocket, where I used to keep Rosalie’s picture, and as I rode the jam-packed, rattling tram I realized that my hand hadn’t reached to touch it in a long time. Although I’d shredded the photo long ago, for the first time I felt that it was really gone and I’d never get it back again, not even in my imagination. In place of Rosalie’s face were forged identity papers, and in my ears the echo of Juudit’s retreating high heels. Her steps made the wrong sound as she left—real leather soles and the clack of metal heels—and her hips made her skirt swirl against her legs. I had almost thrown the wad of money after her. For a moment I regretted that I hadn’t used the opportunity to hurt her. I hadn’t told her what Richard had learned at B4: her brother Johan had been taken to the Kawe factory cellar by the Bolsheviks, and although the jail was supposed to be a temporary housing facility, his trail ended there. There was no information about his wife. I hadn’t told her because I’m bad at consoling women. And because Juudit was extremely volatile. If she didn’t want to work with me when I returned to Tallinn, then I could let her know what Richard had seen when he walked into that cellar, Johan’s last known location. The cellar was empty, but the walls were stained with blood. This wouldn’t turn Juudit against the Germans—quite the opposite—but maybe it would take some of the champagne bubbles out of her head and make her wonder why the Germans hadn’t informed Johan’s family of his fate. Maybe it would remind her of the importance of what we were doing. I needed weapons like that, even despicable ones, because it wouldn’t be easy to find another source like her. Juudit warmed in the company of those men, which was a reason to keep an eye on her. I knew that she wanted to stay with her Jerry; I could see that she’d fallen in love with him, that she was walking on rose petals. That was her weakness. I had to learn to use it.

  JUUDIT’S HEAD WAS lowered as she went up the stairs. Roland’s painful questions had stripped away what little honor she’d once had. Didn’t he understand that not everyone could find love through honorable means? As she stepped onto the soft carpet of Hellmuth’s entryway, her head was already held high, and she handed her hat and her shopping to the maid as if she’d been raised that way, with servants to meet her when she came home. She marched to the buffet cabinet to squeeze some lemon, lit a cigarette to go with her cocktail, and burned the phone number Roland had given her while she was at it. The world was different now and Juudit had a different future, a better life than she’d ever had before, and she wasn’t going to let Roland, who’d lost everything, ruin it. No, Roland wasn’t going to pull her down with him, take away what she’d managed to achieve—she had waited so long for someone to love her, someone to want her completely, someone she suited, a man like Hellmuth, waited all her life for a chance to be sick with love from one day and night to the next, to taste milk and honey under her tongue instead of sulphur and rust. Hellmuth wasn’t even bothered by her marriage. Juudit had told him just what kind of marriage it was, how it wasn’t a union at all. And he hadn’t left her, just caressed her ear, and when his tongue found some sugar there from her beauty scrub the night before, he told her she was the sweetest girl in the Empire.

  Hellmuth didn’t torment her with constant demands to tell him what the Estonians were saying about the Germans. They had conversations, not interrogations, and Hellmuth respected her opinions, even on political subjects. That morning the two of them had pondered the reasons why the Propagandastaffel’s photography exhibitions hadn’t attracted as many visitors as expected. The empty galleries had been embarrassing. She said it was hardly fitting to the prestige of the Reich to organize exhibitions that didn’t draw an audience. It might give the impression that the people didn’t support the Germans!

  Hellmuth laughed. “You’re clever,” he said. “But the Propagandastaffel’s projects are part of the Wehrmacht. The military always messes things up. But perhaps these matters are a bit boring for you, my love.”

  Juudit had shaken her head vehemently. The more Hellmuth listened to her opinions, the more responsibility he gave her, the more fervently she loved him. And he did give her responsibility: she’d become his secretary, a job that involved translating, interpreting, and stenography, as well as giving presentations on Estonian folk traditions and religion to visiting scholars from Berlin and arranging séances for the officers who wanted them. Because of his busy schedule, Hellmuth left certain visitors entirely in her care, and Juudit managed them easily—she simply contacted Mrs. Vaik, who arranged sittings with Lydia Bartels. Hellmuth thanked her vociferously, said she was positively Germanic in her efficiency, and gave her a hatpin with agate roses as a gift. He trusted her, and she could never betray that trust; she worked ever more diligently, organized parties ever more masterfully, pored over German women’s magazines that Gerda recommended, even retrieved the Housewife’s Handbook from home and studied the instructions for seating charts and place settings. She tried to train the maid to fold the napkins better, searched for the best staff for dinner parties. With the help of the cook she created a recipe for squab that was unrivaled, happily shared it with anyone who asked, and enjoyed every moment, because by taking great care in all these domestic matters she was finally living the life that she’d prepared for through her whole girlhood, she was making use of her education and her social skills, and she was busy—she didn’t have time for Roland. That’s why she had invented the story of assassins hiding among the dockworkers. She’d learned to lie better than some might have thought—her marriage had taught her that.

  Juudit made sure that the maid was in the kitchen—she could hear the girl giggling with the handyman—and went into the bedroom. She pulled open the closet, her head defiantly thrown back and her spine ramrod straight. The felt boots in the back of the closet were made with good leather, their soles and seams carefully greased, their surface polished with a wool cloth. Used with galoshes they would get her through any kind of weather. When Leonida had sent two pairs, Juudit had thought she would set one aside for Roland, but his demands had grown even darker and more threatening than the man himself. In the morning she would throw them to the soldiers in the street. No. Why wait? She opened the window and tossed them out in a great arc. They would make someone a very good pair of boots—she’d had enough. Soon Hellmuth would be home, and they would go out with Gerda and Walter, and they would have fun, more fun than she’d had in years, and in the meantime she would have one more sidecar, and style her hair into gentle waves, and she wouldn’t feel the slightest bit guilty. Just one drink and then she could darken her eyelashes with mascara without any fear of it running.

  After her third drink Juudit was ready to sit at her vanity table and pick up her hand mirror, but her hair refused to obey her and she threw the curling iron down on the table. Her gown for the evening—tulle and violet—was on a h
anger, and in the dresser drawer lay a new one for the following evening, crêpe de chine, tucked inside tissue paper. But her mood hadn’t lightened, and it was because of the mice. Or rather their absence. She had set traps in the corners of every room and every closet, but the traps were still empty. Sometimes she woke up at night, imagining she heard a squeak, and she was always wrong. The mice never failed to come to warn of the death of a relative, so Juudit was certain her husband was still alive. The last time the mice had warned her was when Rosalie died, although at the time she had hoped it was a portent of her liberation.