My dearest Ana,
How good of you to write and tell me of the safe delivery of your little girl. Lydia. A beautiful name. And Volkova! The wolf. I know she will be a strong girl. I am so pleased to hear you are both fine. How does she look? Is she dark or fair? Does she have your eyes? I’m sorry. Too many questions. You must forgive me. I do feel I know you, after so long. Does she sleep? Is she a good child? Enjoy this special time. In a year’s time, you will not know her. I can tell you this because I already see my own granddaughter changing. When she was born, she slept much. Now she is always watching, always reaching, wanting to touch and experience the world for herself. She loves best to watch me knit; she thinks the needles are playthings. One day she will hold them herself. I look forward to that day. I look forward to teaching her to make shawls, as I taught you. I suppose you don’t knit now. You must be too busy. But I hope that when you wear the shawl I helped you make you recall our time together with fondness. I too miss those days. I miss Haapsalu, its little winding streets and the promenade and the bandstand where the musicians played. You were a good pupil. You had the eye for patterns. Such a shame we did not get to spend more time together. I encourage you to write again, when you feel stronger. And remember you are always welcome to stay with us if you visit Tartu. I hope our paths will one day cross again.
The letter ended with an address in Tartu I did not recognise. But at least the missive revealed the link between my mother and Elina, the mysterious woman who had taught her to knit and gifted her the little book of poetry.
I stared at the letter a moment longer. It was strange to read about myself, even stranger to imagine Mamochka sitting at her writing desk, penning the story of my birth to this woman, her friend. How tragic that Mama had never seen her again. I could almost feel the burden of her sadness as she waited and waited for a reply, then the hope when the letter arrived.
I tucked the letter back into my pocket and touched the shawl at my throat.
It was time for me to go.
Every minute I stayed, I was risking the women’s lives, exposing them to danger. Had Etti been through so much only for me to jeopardise Leelo’s survival with my presence? Had I learnt nothing from what happened to Joachim?
‘Lydia?’
I froze.
‘Lydia, from the train station?’
I squeezed my eyes closed, then opened them.
Jakob Rebare stood before me. I recognised his face at once, the soft curls of his hair. Only, this time he did not look like a dishevelled student on his way to class. His features were sharper, his look wary. In his hands, he carried a gun. Blood flecked his jumper. It coated his hands and made tide marks up his wrists.
‘It is you. Isn’t it?’
We stood very still, facing each other. ‘Yes,’ I said, at last. ‘It’s me.’
I thought perhaps he might raise the gun. Would that be so bad? I felt the bite of the bullet nicking my skin, the sting as it buried into my flesh. My heart beat slower, anticipating the flow of blood from the wound.
‘Hilja said there was a Russian here.’ He blinked. ‘I didn’t expect it to be you. My sister Kati told everyone you were one of Etti’s friends who’s been living in Leningrad. Why would she do that?’
‘Kati is your sister?’ I shook my head in wonder. Is this a sign, Mamochka? My mother had told me Jakob was important. Did she want me to stay?
‘You will have to ask her.’ I nodded over his shoulder at the hut, relief and excitement mingling. ‘She’s in there. With Etti. And your new baby cousin. For want of a better term.’
Jakob’s eyes widened. ‘Etti’s baby…’
‘Has been born.’ I wiped a tired hand across my eyes. ‘Yes. And she is beautiful. Like her mother.’
He shook his head in wonder.
‘I am going to clean up,’ I told him, aware of the blood soaking my clothes. ‘I have not told anyone else of my connection to Captain Volkov. You can shoot me. Or report me. The choice is yours.’
I turned towards the water tub.
When I looked back, he was staring after me. But he neither raised his gun, nor called for Hilja.
The water in the tub was brown. A thin layer of grey scum floated on the surface. I hesitated a moment, before plunging my hands in. This was life now, as Hilja had said last night in the cottage. There would be no warm scented baths in porcelain tubs. There would be no soft mattresses and no dresses with collars of Ukrainian lace. I let the water soak over my arms, lathering with the tiny scrap of grey soap beside the tub. Something crawled across my neck. I reached up and felt behind my ear. My skin tickled. I pinched my fingers together and drew out a tiny brown spider which had been hiding beneath the dark-red mass of my hair. Its legs were drawn up over its body, its many eyes blinking. I flicked it away, horror tugging at my stomach. My scalp prickled. I could feel more of them shifting there; my fingers had disturbed them. They’d probably leapt on me as I stood beneath the trees. Before I thought better of it, I plunged my head into the cold water, relishing the rush of the liquid across my tingling scalp, trying to obliterate the insects along with the guilt in my heart.
Refugees continued to flood into the camp as the day went by. We watched them stumble between the rocks, many of them bleeding. Most of them were women wearing shocked looks on their faces and dragging exhausted-looking children behind them or carrying babies wrapped in blankets, towels or tablecloths. Anything they had been able to find at the last minute before they fled. The few men who did come were elderly folk assisted by their daughters or wives. Some of them brought suitcases, others knapsacks. Some brought nothing at all, just their aching bodies and their tears, their stories of watching their husbands and sons loaded into police wagons before they ran into the forest, not knowing what awaited them but unable to turn back for fear they would be dragged off and shot or thrown onto the trains headed east. One adolescent girl told us about seeing the train pass through town and about the notes which had littered the sleepers in its wake; balled up bits of paper containing scrawled letters to loved ones who had not been able to say goodbye. The young girl had collected as many as she could with her mother and brought them to the camp in her knapsack, hoping she could reunite them with their intended recipients, assuming some of them had made it to the camp where we were staying. Although the women all gathered around her, each one of us taking a letter to decipher, it seemed like a hopeless task. Thousands of Estonians were being deported all over the country. Not just in Tartu, but in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital city, and other places I had never heard of. Reuniting their letters with those left behind seemed too great a challenge when survival was at stake.
‘Here.’ I handed the scrap of paper back to Kati. I felt sick to my stomach. ‘It’s for a woman called Arina.’
Kati took the letter in her hand. Her eyes skimmed the page. She bit her lip as if she might cry, before placing it in the growing pile of papers on the floor of the lean-to.
It was from a woman called Noora whose children had been staying at her sister’s farm when she and her husband were arrested. The letter was addressed to her sister.
We are in a train, the woman wrote, which sat at the station for four hours before it finally left. It is hot and airless. There’s no food and no water. Babies cry because their mothers’ breasts are empty. We do not know where we are headed. Please keep my children safe for me. Kiss them each night. Tell them I will never forget them.