“Not before now, only today,” I replied.
“But that’s terrible. Just think what would have happened if you’d said the same thing to me at the lunch table. It would have been really horrible.”
“Love is sometimes horrible.”
“Love should be beautiful,” she affirmed.
“It is beautiful, it’s so beautiful that it gets horrible.”
“So beautiful that it gets horrible,” she repeated to herself slowly, as if pondering whether these words hid some idea, or whether they were just like so many other words.
“Love is beautiful and it makes you happy,” I said. “Walking beside you and talking like this, I’m happier than ever before, I’m the happiest person in the world.”
“Do you really believe what you’re saying?” she asked, with a sort of happy sigh.
“My words are only a little drop, a tiny speck, of what I feel for you, for the fact that you exist at all, that the two of us are together. I don’t have words to say what’s inside me. If I were a poet, a singer, composer or anyone, and I could express it in any way at all, what I feel and how, then I would be world-famous overnight, we’d both be carried aloft, we’d be drowned in gold.”
“Do Estonian girls talk about love like that too?” she asked, as if she wanted to draw me down from the heaven of emotions into the earthly everyday.
“I don’t know,” I replied, “I only know I said those words for the first time.”
“But you said at first that you’ve loved before, declared your love before.”
“Please don’t ever remind me of that,” I said. “There is only one real love in anyone’s life, and nothing else counts.”
“There is only one real love in anyone’s life,” she repeated like a distant echo, and I felt her drinking in and tasting every word, every syllable, every letter, every sound. After that she asked me in quite a different tone, “But what did they reply to you, the ones you declared your love to?”
“I’ve never declared my love in quite that way before,” I replied.
“You must have said something!”
“Please – I can’t answer that today, maybe some other time. I can’t even think about that today.”
“Now you’re becoming a Korporant, a gentleman again,” she said, “now, just when things are getting so interesting. I’m so sorry about that. But what’s even worse is that grandfather is waiting at home, I have to go.”
“Right now?” I asked, and my voice and actions must have betrayed alarm, because she started to laugh and said, “Now, now, it’s only till tomorrow, tomorrow at the lunch table we’ll see each other. But it’s terrible – what faces we’ll have tomorrow! The landlady is bound to read everything in them.”
She reached out her hand to me, I took it in my own two, and pressed it to my lips with such force as if I were about to leave her forever there. Her long fingers crunched a little, and were shot through with a pulsation, from pain or some other cause, I do not know to this day.
“You shouldn’t kiss my hands,” she said, making a slight attempt to draw it back, but she let it rest on my lips, “they’re what I use to scrub the floor with.”
“I’m ready to kiss those floors that this hand has scrubbed,” I replied in a kind of drunken stupefaction, when she finally released her hand from mine.
She turned and left. I stood as if dumbfounded, staring after her. After a few steps, though, she looked back, and seeing me still there, she stopped, as if uncomprehending. I don’t know what I concluded from that, but the very next moment I leapt towards her.
“Tomorrow I’ll try to tell some lie to grandfather,” she said with a shameful smile, “and then we’ll have a little more time – shall I?”
“Erika, you’re an angel!” I cried, calling her by her name for the first time.
“Good heavens, not so loud, other people will hear!” she implored. “And don’t hope for too much; grandfather won’t let me be alone for very long.”
“I could climb to the top of Oleviste spire and shout to the whole town that you promised to lie to your grandfather for my sake!” I declared, without curbing my enthusiasm.
“You’re frightening me!” she said, starting to laugh, and ran off. I stared after her until she vanished behind the next street corner.
Yesterday Erika had expressed the fear about how our faces would look when we appeared at the lunch table, and all evening and half of today I had assured myself that I wouldn’t come to lunch at all, because I might not have the right amount of control over myself, but when lunchtime arrived, my feet led me unthinkingly into the dining room. Yet it all went more easily and smoothly than either of us had dared to suppose. Today the landlady paid no attention to us, because she was preoccupied with cooking and food preparation.
“Well, my dear masters and porkers,” she began, full of good cheer, “today I’ve made you a joint of roast veal, so hold on to your tongues – otherwise they’ll go into your stomachs when you start eating. Each of you can toss on your oat gruel as much salt and butter as your heart desires, I did it myself just for the children; otherwise the boys will empty the box before the older folks even get a look at it.”
And there was nothing to be done; even if the boys wanted to put their own butter on it, promising to do it very sparingly, they had to be content with what their mother gave them.
When the roast appeared on the table, the landlady turned to Erika and said, “Miss, let your plate be the first one today.”
“My lady, what about the children? I can wait,” replied Erika.
“No, no, young miss,” said the landlady, “today you’re the first, because it’s for your sake I’ve been slaving over the roast. On other days the children can get served first, and then the grown-ups.”
Erika’s face coloured as she handed her plate to the landlady, no doubt fearing who knows what bomb exploding with the woman’s next words. But nothing came that was worth worrying about. Today the landlady was extremely delicate and polite.
“You’re not interested, young lady, in why I’ve taken so much trouble and devotion just for you over the roast today?” she asked, adding, “Carrot and turnip as well? White beans? Today I’ve put a double portion of brown butter on them.”
“No, my lady, I’m interested in why today I have the honour of…”
“Not honour, but gratitude,” interjected the landlady. “And not only to you, but gratitude to all German ladies.”
“But I’m not a lady at all yet,” laughed Erika, breaking into the landlady’s words.
“If you aren’t one already, you will become one, because a nice young miss like you will never be an old maid; men simply won’t leave you alone, you’ll see. And once you’re a lady, then remember today’s roast, the cabbage and carrots, the beans and everything else that’s still to come. They’ve been made from your recipe. Not yours personally, of course, but German ones in general, I mean, from German ladies in the good old days. From when my mother sent me into service with them, more or less like you now, with us. Not that we were in desperate need of it, because we had our own nice little home then, but my mother said to me, Off you go, you’ll get to know things that’ll make you smarter, and you’ll learn about what you need in life. And I’ve never regretted that I went into service. Whatever was bad about it I’ve forgotten, because that’s how I was – not used to carrying bad thoughts in my head – and what was good I’ve held on to. So if today’s meal, miss, is at all tasty for you…”
“Everything is marvellous, my lady,” interjected Erika.
“Well, so it should be, because it all comes from German ladies and the good old days. And finally…”