Purge

Martin was happy when he saw how sleeping beside him at night made Aliide, whose jumpiness had at first been a wonder to him, more beautiful. Having him close to her, Aliide’s jitters diminished a little during the day, her timorous gaze became more calm, her bloodshot, sleepless eyes cleared, and all of this made Martin a happy man. This happy man also arranged a job for his wife as an inspector, whose task, among other things, was to collect payments and issue payment notices in person. The work was easy, but it was awkward-the Roosipuus weren’t the only ones who started slamming doors when they saw Aliide’s bike approaching their house. But Martin promised to get her a more pleasant job when his career had advanced.

But that smell. Aliide tried at first to breathe through her nose all day. In the end, she got used to it.

Ingel had said that Aliide was starting to smell like a Russian. Like the people who appeared at the railway station and sat themselves down with their bundles. The trains kept bringing more of them and they disappeared into the mouths of the new factories.

1949

Laanemaa, Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

The Trials of Aliide Truu

Martin hadn’t told Aliide why he wanted her to come to the town hall that evening, so the trip there was hard for her. Are you sure, Comrade Aliide? The man’s voice came and went in her head, and she wasn’t sure of anything except that she had to hold on to Martin. Groping for her cigarettes at her front gate, she realized her cigarette case was empty and went back in the house, even though it was bad luck. She tried to refill the case and failed; they crumpled up, her hands shook, she started to cry, her shirt was wet with sweat, she was getting a chill, such a nasty chill. She succeeded in driving away a hiccup, succeeded in jamming a few cigarettes into the case, and stumbled out of the gate. The Roosipuus’ brat threw a rock at her and ran into the shrubbery; giggles could be heard coming from the bushes. Aliide didn’t turn her head. Luckily the other Roosipuus were working, no one had seen her flailing or the sweat on her upper lip except for the kid, but even the Roosipuus’ kitchen was more inviting than the town hall, and when she was on the main road she turned around twice, came back, headed toward town hall again, continued forward, and spat three times over her shoulder when a black cat crossed the road. Are you sure, Comrade Aliide? When she was halfway there, she lit a cigarette, smoked it where she stood, was startled by some birds, and continued on her way, biting her itchy palms. Scratching them just made them bloody, so she tried to tame the itch by gnawing at the places on her hands where her skin crawled. Are you sure, Comrade Aliide? Before she got to the town hall, she smoked another cigarette, her teeth chattered, she was cold, she had to keep going forward, her tongue cracked with dryness, forward to the courtyard of the town hall. The place was swarming with people. A car backfired. Aliide gave a start, her knees turned to water, and she squatted down, pretended to clean the dirt from her hem. Her galoshes, from Estonian times, were covered in mud. She rinsed them in a puddle and shoved her shaking hands into her pockets, but her fingers held tight to the payment notices for childless couples. She pulled her hands out of her pockets. Earlier in the day, she had come to the door of two childless families and three families with too few children, but none of them would let her inside. Men bustled back and forth at the lower door of the town hall carrying in bags of sand-the bags already covered one window halfway up. From the mutterings of passersby it became clear enough that a bandit attack was expected.

The building was full of people, although it was after seven o’clock. The ceaseless tapping of a typewriter echoed from somewhere in the building. Hurried, fervent footsteps came and went. Black leather coattails hummed by in her peripheral vision. Doors opened and closed. Storms of drunken laughter. A young girl’s giggle. A slightly older woman taking off her overshoes in the corridor, cute, decorative little high-heeled shoes emerging from her galoshes. The woman shook her head to straighten her curls, her earrings glinting in the dim light like a sword pulled from its scabbard.

Are you sure, Comrade Aliide?

The corridor smelled like metal.

Someone shouted, “Lenin, Lenin, and once again Lenin!”

The cracks in the pale-colored walls were hazy, as if they were moving. The smell of liquor met her coldly at the door to Martin’s office. Cigarette smoke darkened the room so that she couldn’t see clearly. “Sit down.”

Aliide located Martin by his voice, standing in a corner of the room. He was wiping his hands on a towel as if he had just washed them. Aliide sat in the chair he offered her, sweat squelched under her arms, and she rubbed her upper lip with the dry palm of her hand. As Martin came up beside her and bent to kiss her forehead, his hand took hold of her breast and squeezed it lightly. The wool fabric of his coat scraped against her ear. A damp place was left on her forehead. “There’s something my little mushroom should see.”

Aliide wiped her upper lip again and wrapped her ankles around the chair legs.

Martin let go of her breast, pulled his breath away from her ear, and fetched some papers from the table. He handed one of them to Aliide-her hands were reluctant under its weight. She stared straight ahead. Martin was standing beside her. The paper dropped into her lap, and her thighs started to burn under it, although the continuing chill had made her skin numb and turned her fingertips white. Martin’s breath moved through the room like a breeze. Aliide’s mouth filled with spit, but she didn’t dare swallow. Swallowing would betray her nervousness.

“Look at it.”

Aliide let her gaze settle on the paper.

It was a list. There were names on the list.

“Read through them.”

He didn’t stop watching her.

She started to arrange the letters into words.

She found Ingel’s and Linda’s names in the first row.

Her eyes halted. Martin noticed it.

“They’re leaving.”

“When?”

“The date’s at the top of the page.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because I don’t keep any secrets from my little mushroom.”

Martin’s mouth spread into a smile; his eyes shone brightly. He lifted his hand to her neck and caressed it.

“What a beautiful neck my little mushroom has, slender and graceful.”

When Aliide left the town hall, she stopped to say hello to a man smoking in the doorway. He said it was a peculiar spring. “Awfully early. Don’t you think?”

Aliide nodded and slinked away to smoke her own cigarette behind a tree, so she herself wouldn’t seem to be peculiar, smoking in public. A peculiar spring. Peculiar springs and peculiar winters were always frightening. Nineteen forty-one was a peculiar winter, terribly cold. Also 1939 and 1940. Peculiar years, peculiar seasons. There was a buzzing in her head. So here it was again. A peculiar season. A repetition of the peculiar years. Her father had been right- peculiar seasons bode peculiar events. She should have known. Aliide tried to clear her head by shaking it. This was no time for the old folks’ stories, because they didn’t say anything about how to behave when a peculiar season came along. Just pack your bags and prepare for the worst.

It was clear that Martin wanted to test her, test her trustworthiness. If Ingel and Linda escaped now or if they weren’t at home on the night in question, Martin would know who was responsible. The ache in Aliide’s teeth intensified and moved to her jaws.

Ingel and Linda were going to be taken away. Not Aliide. And not Hans. She had to think clearly, think clearly about Hans. She would have to demand that Martin arrange for them to move into Ingel’s house after she had been taken away; no other house would do for Aliide. Not a finer one or a larger one or a smaller one-no other house would do. Aliide would have to be on fire for the next few days, blooming, making Martin dizzy on their