“The epidemic has resulted in pyres of thousands of animals all over Europe,” Sofia read. “Culling animals because of foot-and-mouth is evidently the most effective and quickest method. Vaccinating would create a situation where animals carrying the virus may be left alive. A vaccinated animal can remain a carrier for up to one year. To prevent this confusion most countries in the world have imposed their own import regulations to the effect that countries with which they have reciprocal trade relations must not vaccinate livestock against foot-and-mouth disease. That is the requirement in the European Union. If the situation were otherwise, the European Union would not be able to compete with cheaper meat products from the United States. The culling of infectious animals is the most economically effective approach: if we started vaccinating animals, we would wipe out the export opportunities for Estonia’s meat and dairy products for the next three to four years…”
“What an abomination!” Grandma suddenly exclaimed in a piercing voice. “They’d kill their own mothers. Just for better opportunities for competition. Why do we, the Europeans, have to be at war with the Americans – why on earth do we have to produce more meat than we eat? It’s madness. Why are we wearing our land out? The Estonians are becoming as ridiculous as the rest of Europe!”
Then she leant towards Sofia and said quietly as if disclosing a great conspiratorial secret, “Foot-and-mouth isn’t generally fatal, it’s like the flu for humans – it can be cured if you look after the animal. Stalin himself cured foot-and-mouth, and even nowadays they cure it in Russian animals… but not for love of the animals – no – it’s for their meat, there’s not enough meat in Russia, not enough to go round… Everything’s run on greed!” Her voice had now swelled with a stern and piercing tone, and then just as suddenly it faded…
Sofia wondered whether to continue reading, but then Grandma said quietly, as if in a ghost story, just like the voice in the dream earlier, sending chills up Sofia’s spine, “This world is going to perdition, going to perdition… the deserts are coming… the world over… deserts, deserts…”
“Why deserts?” asked Sofia almost in a whisper because she found this hoarse prediction so frightening. Grandma was indeed listening – there was no deafness there now.
“Because,” she said suddenly goading, almost knowingly, “deserts come from evil, from evil thoughts, the earth cannot tolerate it. The earth is in pain – deserts are scorch marks on the face of the earth… All humans, all peoples, all of them are burning the earth with their devilry… The cows are earth’s teats; through cows the earth feeds people with its milk, the cows are holy, cows are the earth’s motherhood, cows must not be molested, but look what man has done to them – they tend them in small pens… And when they have worn them out they slaughter them… Look how many evils the Americans have committed! Like when they killed the bison in their droves! Why do you think that was? Just so that the Indians wouldn’t have anything to eat any more and would starve to death… they’ve still to pay for it… but the rest of humanity’s no better – the Germans, the Russians… they grow up on milk but kill each other… Not even the Jews are blameless, otherwise Hitler wouldn’t have been given the power to thrash them… What power would Hitler have had otherwise…”
Then she added, suddenly quiet, knowingly sneering, “I shouldn’t be talking like this… I’m not a Jew, I care little for religion…”
Sofia did not know quite what to make of that last sentence; for some reason she asked instead, “But what about the Estonians? There’s so few of them?”
“The Estonians?” said Grandma slowly, and asked, almost suspiciously, “What have you got to do with the Estonians?”
Sofia felt her face reddening – she didn’t know if it was because Grandma had realised somehow that Sofia wasn’t Estonian – did she still have a Russian accent then? Or had Rael told her? But Sofia sensed that no one had to tell Grandma anything – that she could see everything for herself when she stared intently like that – she could even see her secret…
However, Grandma did not require any more replies from her, she merely said, slowly and knowingly, “The Estonians… the little ruffians…” and sniped as if with a knife, “just look what they did to Sigtuna!”
The whole conversation drove Sofia into a state of utter confusion. But the thing that dismayed her most was that the earth might be in pain; could it be true that somewhere beneath their feet, under the tarmac, there might be a great being, immeasurably larger than an elephant or a dinosaur, who really might groan and suffer at the hand of the tiny creatures that were forever plaguing it?
“What did the Estonians do to Sigtuna?” she asked Rael on the way home.
“To what?” asked Rael.
“Sigtuna?” Sofia repeated, falteringly – she wasn’t sure whether she’d remembered the word correctly.
“Haven’t the foggiest,” Rael said, “what makes you think they did something to whatever it was?”
“Your grandma said, ‘look what the little ruffians did to Sigtuna’… That’s it, and by ‘the little ruffians’ she meant the Estonians…”
“Oh well, if that’s what Grandma said then they definitely did something dreadful to whoever it was… broke his neck… or disembowelled him, if it was a really long time ago… They disembowelled a priest once – the Estonians were no angels, you know… Grandma takes in everything she reads, and remembers anything she’s read, even if it was a hundred years ago…”
Perhaps the history teacher would know, although Sofia wasn’t sure that she’d remembered the name Sigtuna correctly – could it have been “Sigulda”? She’d heard of Sigulda – it was in Latvia…
“Do you believe everything your grandma says?” she ventured again.
“Such as?”
“Well, for example, the idea that the earth is actually alive? And that it could be transformed into desert… Made into desert by bad ideas, that bad ideas make deserts grow?”
“Ah, Grandma’s been telling you that load of old rubbish then!”
“But haven’t we just been learning about deserts growing all the time?”
“Well that’s because, because there are simply too many people… That’s why we need to irrigate and cut down the forests… You shouldn’t believe everything, you know… Anyhow, Dad says that anything might happen, it’s just as likely that a comet will smash into the earth and we’ll all be for it, but we can’t live as if that’s actually going to happen – if we’re scared of everything then we’ll never get anything done. Much better to live as well as you can, for as long as you can.”
Rael was right, of course. But if her grandma was telling the truth and everything was as she said, after all, that was how it had sounded when she’d said it, as if there were no doubt about it, in a voice that sounded like a messenger from the bosom of the earth, gloomily reporting what the earth had to say…
Sofia was suddenly overcome with distress: if it really was true, then were they and their lives so pointless, what was the purpose of her having braces so that she didn’t have to spend her life going round with crooked teeth and her mouth half-closed… What was the point of it? And yet Grandma’s story also offered some solace because if they were so pointless, then it wouldn’t really be of any import whether she became president or not, much less president of the little ruffians… There was no one in the world who was good, no good nation – even the tiny ones had inflicted harm on someone and if they hadn’t, then it was only because they hadn’t had the strength – and if there were a God in heaven… What if he really did exist? If he did, then why did he allow people to do harm to the earth? What was the earth guilty of? All it did was spin. It span on its course – why did it have to suffer? Mum’s friend Lyuda, the lovely, plump, ever-immaculate Lyuda had a dog, a small beige long-haired little dog that Lyuda always described as almost a full pedigree Pekinese. The little dog had caught fleas once and kept scratching itself and whining. “Where could he have picked them up?” Lyuda had wailed with an aggrieved expression, lips pursed and her fat soft cheeks a-wobble, and why did the poor animal have to suffer like that… Why, oh why do the innocent have to suffer?