Purge (15 page)

“Now we can begin. Where were you going just now? Let’s clear that up first.”

“I was looking for the powder room.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Would you like to use the restroom now?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

Aliide nodded. The man lit a
paperossi
and started by asking if she could tell them the whereabouts of Hans Pekk. Aliide replied that Hans had died a long time ago. A murderrobbery. The man asked her this and that about Hans’s death, and then he said, “But all joking aside, are you sure, Comrade Aliide, that Hans Pekk wouldn’t tell us your location, if he were in your position?”

“Hans Pekk is dead.”

“Are you sure, Comrade Aliide, that your sister isn’t, at this very moment, telling us, for example, that the two of you have fabricated a story about Hans Pekk’s death, and that everything you are saying is a lie?”

“Hans Pekk is dead.”

“Comrade, your sister doesn’t want to be taken to court or to jail—I’m sure you’re aware of that?”

“My sister wouldn’t tell such lies.”

“Are you sure, Comrade Aliide?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that Hans Pekk won’t tell us the names of the people who have assisted him in his crimes and deceptions? Are you sure that Hans Pekk won’t mention your name among them? I’m only thinking of what’s best for you, Comrade Aliide. I would be more than happy to believe that such a beautiful young woman wouldn’t have ended up in this kind of trouble if she hadn’t been deceived into giving assistance to a criminal. A criminal so skillful at deception that he had completely turned a young girl’s head. Comrade Aliide, be sensible. I beg you, save yourself.”

“Hans Pekk is dead.”

“Show us his body and we won’t have to discuss the matter any further! Comrade Aliide, you will have only yourself to blame if you get into trouble for the sake of this Hans Pekk. Or his wife. I’ve done all I can to ensure that a beauty like you can go on with her life as normal—there’s nothing more I can do. Help me, so that I can help you.”

The man took hold of her hand and squeezed it.

“I only want what’s best for you. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

Aliide wrenched her hand away.

“Hans Pekk is dead!”

“Perhaps that will be enough for today. We’ll meet again, Comrade Aliide.”

He opened the door for her and wished her a good night.

***

Ingel was waiting outside. They left together on foot, silent. It wasn’t until Aino’s house loomed into view that Ingel cleared her throat.

“What did they ask you?”

“They asked about Hans. I didn’t tell them anything.”

“Neither did I.”

“What else did they say? What did they ask you?”

“Nothing else.”

“Me either.”

“What should we tell Hans? And Aino?”

“We should say that they asked about something else. And that we didn’t give them any information about anybody.”

“What if Hendrik Ristla talks?”

“He won’t talk.”

“How can we be sure?”

“Hans said that Hendrik Ristla was the only person he trusted enough to help us with our story.”

“What if Linda talks?”

“Linda knows that her father really did die, not just for pretend.”

“But they’ll come to question us again.”

“We came out all right this time, didn’t we? We’ll come out all right next time.”

The swallows were already gone, but the cranes plowed through the air, their necks straight. Their cries fell on the fields and made Aliide’s head hurt. Unlike her, they could leave; they had the freedom to go wherever they wanted. She only had the freedom to go mushrooming. Her basket was full of saffron caps and milk caps. Ingel was waiting at home; she would be happy with the haul. Aliide would wash them, Ingel might let her blanch them but would look over her shoulder the whole time, and she would can them, demanding that Aliide pay attention, because she would never be able to run her own home if she didn’t know how to marinate mushrooms. She might know how to brine them, but the marinade took skill. And soon there would be several jars on the pantry shelf, Ingel’s handiwork, a couple jars less hunger this winter.

Aliide put her free hand over her ear. So many cranes! That cry! She felt the autumn through her leather shoes. Thirst scratched at her throat. And then suddenly there was a motorcycle and a man in a leather coat who pulled up next to her.

“Whatcha got in the basket?”

“Mushrooms. I’ve just been out picking them.” The man grabbed the basket, looked inside, and threw

it away. The mushrooms pattered onto the ground. Aliide stared at them; she didn’t dare look at the man. It was going to happen now. She had to remain calm. She couldn’t get nervous, couldn’t show the fear swishing inside her. Cold sweat ran down the backs of her knees into her shoes and numbness started to spread over her body, blood leaving her limbs. Maybe nothing was going to happen. Maybe she was afraid for no reason.

“Haven’t you been to see us before? With your sister. You’re the bandit’s wife’s sister.”

Aliide stared at the mushrooms. She could see the leather coat out of the corner of her eye. It squeaked when he moved. He chuckled, his ears red. His chrome-tanned boots shone, although the road was dusty and he wasn’t German. Should she run? Trust that he wouldn’t shoot her in the back? Or hope that he’d miss? But then he would go straight to her house and get Ingel and Linda and wait there for her to come home. And wasn’t running away always an admission of guilt?

At the town hall, the big-eared man reported that Aliide had been bringing food to the bandits. The light shone through his earlobes. He pushed Aliide to stand in the middle of the room, and then he left.

“I’m disappointed in you, Comrade Aliide.” It was the same voice as the first time. The same man.

Are you sure, Comrade Aliide?
He stood up beside the desk, which was hidden in the darkness, looked at her, shook his head, and sighed deeply. He was very sad.

“I’ve given my all to help you. There’s nothing more I can do.”

He gestured to the men behind him and they came toward her. He himself left the room.

Aliide’s hands were tied behind her and a bag was put over her head. The men left the room. She couldn’t see anything through the fabric. Water was dripping onto the floor somewhere. She could smell the cellar through the bag. The door opened. Boots. Aliide’s shirt was ripped open, the buttons flew onto the floor, against the walls—glass German buttons —and then . . . she became a mouse, in a corner of the room, a fly on the light that flew away, a nail in the plywood wall, a rusty thumbtack, she was a rusty thumbtack in the wall. She was a fly and she was walking over a woman’s naked breast, the woman was in the middle of a room with a bag over her head, and she was walking over a fresh bruise, the blood forced up under the skin of the woman’s breast, a running welt that the fly traversed, across bruises that emanated from the swollen nipple like the continents on a globe. When the woman’s naked skin touched the stone floor, she didn’t move anymore. The woman with the bag over her head in the middle of the room was a stranger and Aliide was gone, her heart ran on little caterpillar feet into grooves nooks crannies, became one with the roots that grew in the soil under the room.
Should we make soap out of this one?
The woman in the middle of the room didn’t move, didn’t hear, Aliide had become a spot of spit on the leg of the table, a termite next to its hole, inside a round hole in a tree, an alder tree, an alder tree grown in the soil of Estonia that still felt the forest, still felt the water and the roots and the moles. She dove down far away, she was a mole pushing up a pile of dirt in the yard, in the yard where she could feel the rain and wind, wet dirt breathing and murmuring. The woman in the middle of the room had her head shoved in the slop bucket. Aliide was outside, out in the wet dirt, dirt in her nostrils, dirt in her hair, dirt in her ears, and the dogs ran over her, their paws pressing into the dirt, which breathed and moaned, and the rain melted into it and the ditches filled and the water crashed and slammed against its own course and somewhere there were chrome-tanned boots, somewhere there was a leather coat, somewhere the cold smell of liquor and Russian and Estonian mixing together and rotting and seething.

The woman in the middle of the room didn’t move. Although Aliide’s body struggled, although the dirt tried to keep her for itself and gently stroked her battered flesh, licked the blood from her lips, kissed the torn hair in her mouth, although the dirt gave its all, it wasn’t enough; she was brought back. A belt buckle jingled and the woman in the middle of the room stirred. A door slammed, a boot slammed, a drinking glass tinkled, a chair scraped across the floor, a light swayed from the ceiling, and she tried to get away—she was a fly on the light, clinging to the tungsten thread—but the belt snapped her back, such a wellperforated belt that you couldn’t hear it, more perforated than the leather flyswatter. She did try—she was a fly, she flew away, flew up to the ceiling, flew away from the light, see-through wings, a hundred eyes—but the woman on the stone floor wheezed and twitched. There was a bag over the woman’s head and the bag smelled like vomit and there was no hole in it for a fly to get in, the fly couldn’t find a way to get to the woman’s mouth, it could have tried to smother her, to get her to vomit again and suffocate. The bag smelled like urine; it was wet with urine; the vomit was older. The door slammed, boots slammed, above the boots there was a smack of lips, a clicking tongue, bread crumbs fell onto the floor like blocks of ice. The smacking sound stopped.

“She stinks. Take her away.”

She woke up in a ditch. It was night—what night was it? Had a day passed, or two, or had it just been one night? An owl hooted. Black clouds moved across a moonlit sky. Her hair was wet. She sat up, crawled up to the road. She had to get home. Her undershirt, her slip, her dress, and garters were all in place. No scarf. Stockings missing. She couldn’t go home without stockings, she simply couldn’t, because Ingel... Was Ingel even at home? Was Ingel all right? What about Linda? Aliide started to run, her legs wouldn’t hold her, she scrambled, crawled, climbed, staggered, lurched, limped, and stumbled, but always forward, every movement took her forward. Ingel must be at home; they had just wanted her this time; Ingel would be at home. But how would she explain to Ingel how it was that she had stockings on when she left and she didn’t have them when she came back? She could say she left her scarf in the village. There were puddles in the road; it had rained. Good. She would have taken off her wet scarf and forgotten it somewhere. But the stockings; she couldn’t go home without stockings. No respectable woman would go around without any stockings, not even in her own yard. The storage shed. There were stockings in the storage shed. She could get some stockings there. But the shed door was locked, and Ingel had the key. There was no way she could get into it. Unless someone had forgotten to lock the door.

Aliide focused her mind on stockings all the way home —not Ingel, not Linda, not anything that had happened. She recited different kinds of stockings out loud: silk stockings, cotton stockings, dark brown stockings, black stockings, pink stockings, gray stockings, wool stockings, sausage stockings—the shed loomed in front of her, dawn broke— children’s stockings—she had circled around the pasture to the back of the house—embroidered stockings, factory stockings, stockings worth two kilos of butter, stockings worth three jars of honey, two days’ pay. She and Ingel had done two or three days’ work at other people’s houses and each of them got a pair of silk stockings, black silk stockings with woolen toes. The silver willows rustled on the road home, the house peeked out between the birch trees in the yard, the lights were on inside, Ingel was home! Undyed wool stockings, Kapron stockings—she got to the shed, tried the door. Locked. She would have to go inside without any stockings, stay away from the light, sit down at the table immediately and pull her legs under it. Maybe no one would notice. She wished she had a mirror. She felt her cheeks, smoothed her hair, touched her head, but it felt sticky—silk stockings, cotton stockings, wool stockings, Kapron stockings. When she got to the well she drew a bucket of water, washed her hands, rubbed them with a stone, since there wasn’t any brush—brown stockings, black stockings, gray stockings, undyed stockings, embroidered stockings. She should go inside now. Could she do it? Could she lift her foot over the threshold, could she talk to them? Hopefully Ingel would still be sleepy and wouldn’t be able to talk about anything. Linda might still be asleep; it was so early.

She forced her body into the yard, watching herself from behind—how she walked, how her foot rose, her hand grabbed the door handle, how she called out “I’m home.” The door opened. Ingel came in. Hans was in the secret room, luckily. Aliide sighed. Ingel stared. Aliide raised her hand to tell Ingel not to say anything. Ingel’s eyes fell and rested on her stockingless legs, and Aliide turned her head away, bent to scratch Lipsi. Linda ran into the kitchen from the back room and stopped when she saw the edges of Ingel’s mouth, pulled deep and downward. Ingel told Linda to wash up. Linda didn’t move.

“You better mind me!”

Linda obeyed.

The enamel tub clanged, water splashed, Aliide still stood in the same place; she stank. Had Linda gotten a glimpse of her naked legs? She pulled away from her body again, enough to push herself to bed, and came back to it only when she could feel the familiar straw mattress under her side. Ingel came to the door and said that she would run a bath for her when Linda had left for school.

“Burn my clothes.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. I didn’t tell them anything.”

“I know.”

“They’ll come for us again.”

“We should send Linda away.”

“Hans would start to suspect something, and he mustn’t suspect anything. We can’t tell him.”