High Tide (27 page)

I asked Gran once if she'd ever had friends. She answered—what do you mean, friends, I had family and didn't have time for friends. Maybe what she meant was that guilty feeling, when each new person you talk to essentially uses up words meant for your husband? But can there ever be fewer words?

If something here doesn't make sense to you, then let me just say that I don't even really get it. It's simple: I've gotten to know our neighbors, that's all. That's what I'll tell myself and that's how it is!

In closing I'll write something that I keep rereading with my husband in mind.

 

God bless you!

—
Ieva

 

* * *

 

That I want thee, only thee—let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core.

As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry—I want thee, only thee.

As the storm still seeks its end in peace when it strikes against peace with all its might, even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love and still its cry is—I want thee, only thee.

 

—
R. Tagore

 

* * *

 

Holy shit, brother, I'm
18
years old! But is that a reason for us to cry?

I can't bring myself to say goodbye to you yet.

Speaking of Aksels.

Aksels has a lot of books in that forester's house. And he's read all of them.

Andrejs has read maybe one or two in his entire life—and it was probably an instruction manual for laying a brick stove. At first I used to read to him a lot—don't laugh, it was before we'd go to bed—and he'd always fall asleep after the first paragraph.

Aksels gave me a strange story to read. I'll write it down for you and then burn it afterwards, because I want to think only of Andrejs and don't want to keep strangers' letters in the house. I'll probably burn it! Yes, probably! No doubt! And if this sentimental piece had some kind of value! I don't know where he got it, if he copied it out of some book or came up with it on his own. But read it for yourself:

 

The star said it had already figured as much. And then it cried on my shoulder, probably melted bits of frost left over on its lashes from that other time. It said that it had been to see a poor poet living in an attic room. The poet often prayed to the star in the pale moonlight—he was ragged, voracious, and impassioned. And the star had gone to him. In the literal sense. In the way that only stars can go to people. But the poet? The star now sobbed more bitterly. The poet had stood bewildered—so grey, grey, grey.

“How,” he had asked, “can you truly be so cold?”

“How,” he had asked, “are you not a planet, but a little star?”

“And tell me, star, what am I to do with you?”

The star said it had already figured as much. It went and lay down on the Milky Way and, focusing all its concentration internally, exploded. Hundreds of poets saw this and said to themselves: “Oh! A falling star!” And a hundred poems with a hundred different descriptions of stars were born.

I went to see that poet, to the high windowsill up in his attic room, and looked down. And there he lay, having already frozen as he fell. The star had wooed the poet. It didn't bask in the light of adoration, but instead came and looked directly into his eyes.

People will be unintentionally destroyed by the wandering stars in their lives.

 

I'm waiting for mine…

 

* * *

 

Hi, my dear!

 

Do I even need to say that your letter gave me another fantastic emotional high? This morning Andrejs tells me—you got a letter, get excited! I went to the house immediately, put on some music—and what a relief it was to read your letter…

The way in which the prophecies come true on the ideas circulating in the skies above us at any given moment is so strange. We're on the same wave, brother. I read your letter and feel like all of it is happening to me. Even though I dare to say we live in absolutely different worlds. At least in an external, physical sense.

You've grown up taking care of your spiritual life. I've mostly let mine drift, which I sometimes regret.

Who knows how we're supposed to live? There isn't a specific formula, and now and then we feel so lonely and unprotected. Especially when we have to make tough decisions.

The weather today is nice, foggy, and warm, sprouts are shooting up out of the earth and birds are chirping in every branch. I can keep the window open and hear how newborn foals whinny loudly in the pasture and search for their mothers.

I also have a man who loves me, a baby that we both love, and we have a house—and peace and safety. They're wonderful feelings, really. And how he knows how to keep me on a leash with this peace! You could say he's almost unbreakable in his confidence—run around the world, be wild, do smart or stupid things, but no matter what, you'll come back to me when you need something real! It's like that's what he thinks, and maybe that's right. Time will tell.

You and only you are responsible for causing problems for yourself.

 

Always, your Ieva

 

* * *

 

Hello!

 

It's so superb

to be free of doubt, to not try to hide

flaws behind lace and hopelessness behind laughter

and to one night wager destiny

against everything like a trump card.

 

There—that's Amanda Aizpuriete. A fantastic poet, bright personality, and what's more, she raised four kids.

I said it, wrote it, and am now embarrassed. Is that something that can be said in a single, short sentence?

Next to me is a blue vase with blue cornflowers and yellow marigolds. There was an amazing sunset when I got your letter Saturday evening, but up here, in Heaven, they're all like that (by Heaven I mean my veranda). The sun was red, the clouds were violet and billowing, and the swallows were singing.

So where can I even begin?

Or rather: should I even?

I'm starting to think that people either take care of all the important things in one go, or else don't take care of them at all.

 

—
Ieva

 

Don't ask me what words

mean. They're

only words.

. . .
What are words? Essentially a redundant

cry from the burning house

in which I have to stay.

—
A. A.

 

* * *

 

Brother!

 

So—that's it.

. . .

I have to confess to some lies. I try so hard to stay happy! In each letter to you, and in each sentence. I tried to read some books, get lost in quotes—nothing worked. I'm actually doing horribly. I don't know what to hold on to anymore. Andrejs thinks that I'm creating an imaginary world around me, not living in reality. Maybe the books are to blame? I've read books since I was little like I was obsessed, and the words have probably taken their toll on my brain.

What's happening to us?

I mean—to all of us. It looks like the country has lost its mind. The day before yesterday they liquidated a joint-stock company's cattle-shed, you should've seen it! There are no words to describe it! Everyone rushed out like mad to find the best cow. They drove up in their compact cars and their trucks and fought loudly over the cattle. I saw respectable women, family matrons, tearing at each other's hair and spitting in each other's faces. Some men came in with a butcher already in tow to have their cows stunned with a hammer, mounted onto a hook, and skinned right there in the corridor. And there were kids around! I remember the cows' eyes, placed all in a row like a necklace stretched out on the dusty concrete. I was wading through blood, brother, and that's no metaphor.

Gran gave up her share for us to have, but I wanted to get out of there. Good thing Andrejs is so calm. “Look for a cow, not at what everyone else is doing!” he said. We noticed a younger cow by the door, greyish with a dark ridge along its back. We wrote its number down in the logbook and said we'd be back in a bit to get it. The poor thing was bucking at the end of its chain in fear from the scent of all the blood. I wanted to put a rope around its horns and get it away from the insanity as soon as possible. Well, but it would be a long way to walk and the baby was asleep in the car. We left that place behind as fast as we could. In the yard out front, a gypsy was tying a calf—ALIVE!—to the sidecar of his motorcycle and then took off down the road, the calf's head dragging along the ground.

What's happening to us?

And unfortunately, this morning Aksels asked Andrejs to come out to the horse stables. Aksels works with horses as the stable hand, and there was a horse that needed to be brought to the meat processing plant, but the stable tractor was broken.

I put Monta in the stroller and walked out to the stables. It was amazingly sunny after several days of rain.

And it was that horse!

I've already said that the stable pasture ends by our vegetable garden. Once, about a month ago, I was working in the furrows with a pitchfork when it suddenly seemed like a storm had picked up in the pastures. They were trying to break in a black horse. Later Aksels said that this horse had bad blood—the blood of a baron's horse. Horses like that are so mean that it's even rare for stronger men to be able to handle them. In order to get a saddle on this black horse for the first time, they'd called in an experienced man from a few districts over. But his expertise didn't help. The horse had pulled free and was galloping around the pasture like thunder incarnate, kicking up sand with its powerful, shaggy legs. The earth shook. The horse snorted, whinnied, and thrashed, tore at the leather bridle with its teeth. It was like the devil himself had broken out of hell, and the people just looked on helplessly.

In the end the horse slipped and crashed into one of the low iron bars enclosing the pasture.

Right into its own end.

Because, as Aksels told me, when it heaved itself back onto its feet, it broke its lower back. And that was it. They tried to nurse him back to health, but in vain. The vet said the best doctor for any animal is nature. And then I saw the black horse a few times hanging around the apple orchard. He'd been let out to be with the other horses—he was a slow-moving cripple under the blossoming trees. A victim of his pride.

Until he finally lay down under an apple tree and didn't get back up.

It was a group effort to get him back on his feet and lead him into the stables. Once there he dropped down in his stall, and everyone knew that this time he'd stay down.

What can you do? If a horse dies, it gets taken to the animal cemetery and tossed into a pit surrounded by green grass, thick blue-green fir trees, and black ravens in the branches—so shiny and robust as turkeys they can barely fly. And the giant snowdrops growing over the animals' graves!

If a horse is brought to a meat processing plant, the farm gets money, and that's no small matter when the employees haven't been paid for several months. But you have to take the horse there while it's still alive.

And I'm sure you understand, brother, that this horse couldn't just be picked up and carried to the butcher's truck. They thought and thought, then finally called Andrejs to bring his tractor, and I went with him. And that's where it all started.

The horse was lying on its left side in the same spot it had been a week before. The men strapped it into canvas belts and chains like a large rock, and Andrejs used his tractor to pull it into the corridor through the opposite window. Then he dragged it outside along the corridor. The horse stayed proud the entire time—kept its head high. It only whimpered now and then. Bits of skin and flesh from its bedsores scraped off onto the cement.

Once outside, it was dragged through the mud to the butcher's truck and lifted by a scoop into the back. Then the horse disappeared down the lane—quiet, half-raw, and with its head still held high.

At the time Aksels had asked them to sedate the horse. They said no. Andrejs laughed at Aksels, then called him a little shit who was just getting in the way. It was mean. After that I called Andrejs a bad name, almost scratched his eyes out, and then left with Aksels. And with Monta in the stroller. Along the road and away. That night I didn't even go home to milk the cows. Andrejs drove out to the forester's house completely drunk, threatening to shoot Aksels. Stase screamed at me to get back to my own house, and take my baby with me if I didn't want any trouble.

In a word, it was a complete mess. And this entire long introduction is because I want to ask you for your opinion as someone who's on the
outside
. What do you think, should I take Monta and run away to Riga to stay with Mom? I don't see this ending well.

 

Best—your sister

 

* * *

 

Brother, dear brother!

 

First I have to say a huge thank-you for the money you sent. It was an uncanny move on your part—to pick the day that I have nothing, absolutely nothing at home, and then to send me money. Things have been terrible. That's why I haven't written in so long. Andrejs lent our car to a friend, and on Friday night he crashed and flipped it onto its roof into a ditch. Now, to get it fixed, we need a lot of money. We don't have a car. We can't go anywhere. If someone were to get sick, there's no way for us to get to a doctor. Thank God Gran is staying with me right now, helping me look after Monta. But her pension isn't that big. My horrible husband isn't worried about the fact that we don't have anything to eat—everything has to go toward fixing the car.