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.”
1947
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.
“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.
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
