Now Aliide knew.
1949
They hadn’t heard anything from Ingel, so to keep Hans’s restlessness under control Aliide started to write letters in Ingel’s name. She couldn’t stand the questions he asked every day-had she heard anything about Ingel? had any letters come?-and the way he would speculate about what Ingel was doing at any given moment. Aliide knew her sister’s characteristic way of writing and telling stories, and it was easy to copy her handwriting. She wrote that she had found a reliable messenger and that they were allowed to get packages. Hans was delighted, and Aliide reported to him about all the things she’d managed to fit into the bulging packages to keep Ingel from any emergencies. Then Hans got the idea that he should send along greetings- something that would let Ingel know it was from him.
“Get a branch from the willow that grows by the church. We can put it in the package. The first time we met was under that willow tree.”
“Will Ingel remember something like that?” “Of course she will.”
Aliide fetched a branch from the nearest willow tree. “Will this do?”
“Is it from the church?”
“Yes.”
Hans pressed his face against the leaves.
“A wonderful smell!”
“Willows don’t have any smell.”
“Put a spruce branch in, too.”
He didn’t say why a spruce branch was so important.
And Aliide didn’t want to know.
“Has anyone else heard anything from Ingel?” Hans asked.
“Probably not.”
“Have you asked?”
“Are you crazy? I can’t run around the village asking about Ingel!”
“Ask someone you can trust. Maybe she’s written.” “I don’t know and I’m not going to ask!”
“No one will dare to tell you if you don’t ask. Because you’re married to that Commie pig. If you ask, they won’t think you’re…”
“Hans, try to understand. I will never mention Ingel’s name outside of this house. Never.”
Hans disappeared into the little room. He hadn’t shaved in weeks. Aliide started writing good news. What kind of good news could she write about?
First she wrote that Linda had started school and it was going well. She said there were a lot of other Estonians in her class. Hans smiled.
Then she wrote that they had found work as cooks, and so they always had food.
Hans sighed with relief.
Then Aliide wrote that because of their cooking work, it was easy to help others. That when people arrived at the kolkhoz, their lower lips would tremble when they heard what Ingel’s job was. That they would get tears in their eyes when they realized that she spent every day handling bread.
Hans’s eyebrows puckered up in distress.
That was a poor choice of words. It really emphasized a lack of food.
Next Aliide wrote that no one had a limited supply of bread. That the quotas had disappeared.
Hans was relieved. Hans was relieved for Ingel’s sake.
Aliide tried not to think about it. She lit a
1992
The sound of the car receded. The door of the little room began to pound. The cupboard in front of it started to shake, the dishes on top of the cupboard rattled, the handle of Ingel’s coffee cup struck Aliide’s glass sugar bowl, and it shook, and the sugar, packed to the rim of the bowl, started trickling down. Aliide stood in front of the cupboard. The kicking had a young person’s energy and futility. Aliide flipped the radio on. The kicking intensified. She turned the radio up louder.
“Pasha is not with the police! And he isn’t my husband! Don’t believe anything he says! Let me out!”
Aliide scratched her throat. Her larynx felt loose, but other than that she wasn’t sure how she felt. Part of her had returned to that moment decades ago, in front of the kolkhoz office, when all the strength had flowed out of her legs and into the sand. Now there was only the cement kitchen floor under her. A frost spread from it into the soles of her feet, into her bones. It must have felt the same way in the camps at Archangel. Forty below zero, heavy fog over the water, dampness that seeped into your core, frozen eyelashes and lips, holding ponds full of logs like dead bodies, working in the ponds in water up to your waist, endless fog, endless cold, endlessness. Someone had been whispering about it at the market square. It wasn’t meant for her ears, but her ears had grown large and sensitive over the years, like an animal’s, and she had wanted to hear more. The speaker’s eyes, under a furrowed brow, were so dark that you couldn’t distinguish the pupil from the iris, and those eyes had stared at her, as if the person talking had realized that she could hear. It was in 1955, with the rehabilitation in full swing. She had hurried away, her heart pounding.
Fists and feet were pounding on the door. The fog above the cement floor dissipated. Had it come for revenge?
Had Ingel sent it?
Aliide went to the cupboard and picked up the sugar bowl, which was just about to fall off the edge.
1950
Aliide felt a vibration as she was cleaning the cold cupboard. The dishes started to rattle, the honey jar clattered against the wood, and the cup on the edge of the cabinet fell on the floor and broke. It was Martin’s cup. There were fragments of it spread across the floor, and there was a crunch under Aliide’s galoshes as she stepped on the cup handle. Hans’s howling continued. Aliide tried to think. If Hans had lost his mind, did she dare go to the attic and open the door? Would he attack her? Would he rush out, run to the village, grab someone, and tell them everything? Had someone been in the barn and climbed up to the attic?
Aliide spat out spit blackened with coal, rinsed her mouth for a moment with some water, then licked her lips
