“They already did. They won, and they forgot.”
“You have so little faith.”
Aliide didn’t deny it. One day Hans would understand that his rescuer was not on the other side of the ocean but right here, right in front of him, ready to do whatever was necessary, to keep going, endlessly, all for just one look. But even though Aliide was the only person in his life now, Hans still wouldn’t look at her. One day that would have to change. It must change. Because Hans was what made everything matter. It was only through Hans that Aliide really existed. The walls creaked, the fire popped in the stove, the curtains pulled over the glass eyes of the house fluttered, and Aliide forced her own expectations underground. Commanded them to stay down, waiting for the right moment. She had been too eager, too impatient. You couldn’t rush these things. A house built in haste won’t stand. Patience, Liide, patience. Swallow your disappointment, wipe away the silly idea that love will bloom as soon as the cat’s away. Don’t be stupid. Just get on your bicycle and run your daily errands and come back and milk the cows – everything will be fine. She swung her heart the other way and realized how childish the fantasies she’d been spinning over the past few days were. Of course Hans needed time. Too much had happened in too short a time, of course his mind was elsewhere. Hans wasn’t an ungrateful person, and Aliide could wait for kind words. But her eyes still filled with tears like a spoiled child and the ashes of her anger filled her mouth. Ingel’s breakfasts had always been repaid with warm kisses and amorous verse. How long would Aliide have to wait for just one little thank-you?
She found Lipsi’s body on the garden path. There were already maggots in his eyes.
Aliide had imagined that after she took Ingel’s place, she wouldn’t have to torture herself anymore with thoughts of how Hans and Ingel made a home together while she spent night after night with Martin. That she wouldn’t have to torment herself with imagining Ingel treading her spinning wheel and Hans beside her doing his woodwork while Aliide was at the Roosipuus’ trying to keep Martin entertained.
But the torment simply took on a new garb in the new house, and she thought about Hans constantly. Was he awake yet, or was he still asleep? Was he reading the paper, the new one that she had brought him? Or did he read the old ones that he had wanted to have with him in the loft room? There weren’t very many places left that still had newspapers from Estonian times. Or was he reading a book? It was hard to find the books he was interested in. He even wanted a Bible with him-the family Bible. And a good thing, too, or it would have ended up as kindling.
Martin and Aliide’s evenings in the new house continued as they had before-Martin looked at the paper, cleaned under his fingernails with his pocketknife, and once in a while read parts of the news aloud, adding his own comments. They should have better wages in the countryside! Yes they should, Aliide said with a nod, they certainly should. Kolkhoz villages! Workdays on Sundays in the summer! Absolutely, she said, and nodded, but she was thinking about Hans a couple of meters above them, and chewing on charcoal to make her teeth as white as Ingel’s used to be. Send young party builders to the countryside! Yes, definitely, she was in complete agreement; all the able-bodied people had taken off for the cities.
“Aliide, I’m so proud of you. You’re not hankering to get away from the countryside.”
She nodded. Yes, yes.
“Or does my little mushroom want to go to Tallinn? All my old friends are there and men from these parts would be very useful in the city.”
Aliide shook her head. What was he talking about? She couldn’t leave here.
“I just want to be sure that my little mushroom is content.”
“I like it here!”
Martin took her in his arms and spun her around the kitchen.
“I couldn’t have better proof that my darling wants to help build this country. There’s basic work to do here, isn’t there? I intend to propose that the kolkhoz buy a new truck. And we could bring people to the town hall to watch films about the achievements of our great fatherland, and for night classes, too, of course. It builds communal spirit. What do you think about that?”
He spun Aliide back to her chair and rattled on excitedly about his plans. Aliide nodded at the right moments, picked up some timothy grass that had fallen from Hans’s shirt onto the table, and shoved it in her pocket. He wasn’t hinting that he had been offered a position in Tallinn, was he? If he had been, he probably would have just said so directly. Aliide took hold of the carding combs again. They rasped, the fire crackled, and she examined her husband out of the corner of her eye, but he was just his usual steamy self. She was worrying about nothing. Martin had just imagined that his wife might have a yearning to go to Tallinn. And she would have, if it weren’t for Hans. Her collection rounds on her bicycle took her away too much, although she didn’t even have to do them every day. Still, she tramped home every workday with her nerves on edge-had someone been to search the house while she was away? But no one would dare to break into a party man’s house. They just wouldn’t. Martin could arrange it so she shared her job with someone else. He would understand very well if his wife wanted to take better care of their house and garden.
Meanwhile, the gold that had been carried to Siberia was turning into new teeth for new mouths, golden smiles that nearly outshone the sun, casting a great shadow, and in that shadow an immense number of averted eyes and shrinking expressions bred and multiplied. You met them in the market squares, in the roads and fields, an endless current, their pupils tarnished and gray, the whites of their eyes red. When the last of the farms was roped into the kolkhozy, plain talk vanished between the lines, and sometimes Aliide thought that Hans must have absorbed this atmosphere through the walls of the house. That Hans was following those same habits of silence as other people, the habit of avoiding looking at one another, like Aliide did. Maybe he had caught it from Aliide. Maybe Hans had caught the same thing from her that she had caught from outside the house.
The only difference was that unlike the others with averted eyes Hans still spoke as plainly as ever. He believed in all the same things that he had before. But his body changed as the outside world changed, even though he was never actually in contact with it.
1950
“Why doesn’t your mother ever go to the movies? Our mom said she never goes.” The child’s clear voice echoed in the yard of the kolkhoz office. Jaan, the son of the first woman tractor operator on the commune, stared at the son of the chicken keeper, who started to break into a sweat. Aliide was about to intervene, to say that not everyone has to enjoy movies, but at the last moment she thought it best to hold her tongue. Martin’s wife simply couldn’t say such a thing, not about these movies. She had a new job, too, a good one, half days, light bookkeeping at the kolkhoz office.
The chicken keeper’s son examined the bits of sand on the toes of his shoes.
“Is your mother a Fascist?”
Jaan was on a roll-he kicked gravel at the other boy.
Aliide turned her head and moved a little farther off. She had given the movie men a tour of the office. Martin would be bringing some people in the new truck. Apparently he had put birch trees in the corners of the truck bed. The truck looked good this way and protected the passengers from the wind at the same time-he had been beaming about it when he left for work that morning. There was going to be a showing that evening-first the Survey of Soviet Estonia would be presenting
The projectionist was showing the projector to the kids. They rode their bikes around the truck like a whirligig, their eager eyes locked on the machine. One of them said he wanted to be a movie man when he grew up, and drive the truck and see all the movies. The bookkeeper was arranging the benches inside; the windows of the auditorium were covered in army blankets. Tomorrow at the school there would be a free showing:
