‘Kati?’ My brother held out his hands. Just for a moment, I hesitated, imagining they were stained with rust-coloured blood. But when I blinked, they were clean. His shirt cuffs poked out beneath the long sleeves of his fitted jacket. He looked smart in his brown uniform; a reward for the three Red Army soldiers he had killed in a raid at the edge of the forest the night after the purge. Two of the Forest Brothers accompanying Jakob had been shot that night, lured out by the soldiers who had wounded a farmer and left him crying out for help in his field. Jakob had been forced to listen to the farmer’s terrified screaming while Oskar moved back into the forest to gather more men. Jakob’s companions had raced out one after the other, trying to reach the man before the bullets of the Red Army soldiers found them. Neither of them had survived. At last, Oskar had come back and a bloody fight ensued, ending at last when the Forest Brothers were able to overpower the soldiers holed up in the farmhouse. The farmer had died of his wounds before they could save him. Back at camp the other Forest Brothers, Oskar included, had hailed Jakob as a hero. Only I knew what the transaction had cost him. Only I knew how the man’s screams pierced his dreams, just as the faces of my parents haunted mine.
He jiggled his fingers impatiently. ‘Come on. You’ve not let me hold her once. You’ve been keeping her all to yourself, just like you used to do when we’d bring kittens home or stray dogs. Do you remember?’
‘She’s not a stray dog.’ I passed her gently to him, relinquishing my hold, already missing the caramel scent of her skin and the way her tiny fingers curled around mine. With a last look of longing, I took my seat on the timber crates we had set up at the edge of the camp, as far away from the latrine as possible. ‘And you never looked after them,’ I added, unable to stop myself. ‘Once we got them home, you’d take off to go fishing and leave me to clean up all their mess. Stray puppies. Those girls you followed around, asking if you could walk them home. It was always the thrill of the chase for you.’
I saw Lydia glance up sharply from the wet blouse she was wringing. She was a different person to the one I had dragged here a week ago. Stress had sharpened her face, drawing out her cheekbones. Or perhaps it was grief. I had heard her mutter in her sleep, calling out for someone called Olga. Sometimes when I woke she was already outside, helping the other women prepare breakfast at the fire, her thick dark hair slick with water and tied with a piece of twine behind her back. So much of her was a mystery, but she seemed unwilling to talk to anyone about much except for Jakob. I’d seen them chatting together when he returned from patrol. He followed her about her chores, sitting behind her while she scraped the remnants of food from the pans into a bucket or scoured blood from the uniforms with a wooden brush.
I caught only fragments of what passed between them, busy as I was with Leelo and caring for Etti, making sure she had clean rags to staunch the blood that continued to flow in the days after the birth. Sometimes it was stories about Tartu or the games we played as children, sometimes Jakob told her jokes. I could not tell whether she encouraged him; she seemed always to wear a frown. But watching her now, I wondered how I had missed it; that bright kindling of yearning in her eyes. Jakob saw it, too.
‘All lies,’ he said quickly. Lydia’s shoulders relaxed. She pegged the blouse out on the line. ‘Kati loves to exaggerate.’ My brother held the sleeping Leelo close to his chest, nestling her into his arm. A smile flickered across his face. ‘Etti.’ He glanced over at where my cousin sat, staring up at the creaking branches of the spruce trees. ‘Tell Kati she’s a liar.’
Etti did not turn around.
Sunlight glinted on her blonde hair. The leaves on the branches sighed overhead.
Jakob glanced at me. I shrugged helplessly.
If Leelo had adjusted to the rigours of life quicker than other infants, Etti seemed to be struggling to find her way back. The loss of her mother had affected her deeply. Some nights she woke screaming, bathed in sweat, sobbing for Aunt Juudit. She would not be quietened until I stumbled from my pallet to sit beside her and comfort her with soothing platitudes. I could not tell her how hard I found it, to be woken suddenly from a deep sleep. It would not be fair to complain about the grief which shook my body each time I remembered how Mama and Papa had died. In dreams, I could pretend that my parents were still alive. Poor Etti could not even find comfort in her dreams.
Often, she would sit in the grass, staring at the entrance to the camp as if she expected Aunt Juudit to come waltzing in, singing ‘L’Internationale’ at the top of her voice. Leelo was the only thing that brought her joy, but sometimes she held the baby so tight I was afraid she would crush her, and Leelo seemed to prefer being carried to being held in one place, squeezed against her mother’s chest.
I felt Jakob move restlessly beside me, Leelo in his arms. We both wanted to help Etti, but what could we do? She needed something else to keep her busy, to hold despair at bay. I wished we had a gramophone or a kannal, the six-stringed instrument which sounded a little like a lute. Surely there was somebody in the camp who could pluck a few strings. But nobody had thought to bring anything like that. We had fled with essentials; in my knapsack were saucepans, a ladle, a sharp knife. Oskar’s gloves, which I now kept under my pillow. Nothing of comfort. Nothing that would say to Etti: Life is worth living. There is still beauty in the world.
My searching mind lit suddenly on the final addition to my knapsack: the samplers. Leaving Leelo with Jakob, I ran to the lean-to, where I unknotted my bag. I poked about inside until my fingers found the soft lace. I drew out the samplers and my grandmother’s needles and the last ball of yarn I had snatched before we fled.
I hurried back to where Etti was sitting and laid the yarn in her lap. Etti looked down. I handed her the needles, and her fingers trembled. She held them awkwardly, one in each hand.
‘Here.’ Holding her fingers carefully, I made the slipknot with Etti’s right hand and then brought her left up to meet it, the slender needle like an arrow. My grandfather had carved those needles for my grandmother from the boughs of a lilac bush. They were delicate but firm, pliable and stubborn; just like my grandmother. As I brought them together, I heard Etti sigh and felt her breath brush against my skin. ‘That’s it.’
As she began to knit, her fingers finding the rhythm, I dug through my grandmother’s samplers until I found the one with the peacock tails. Placing it across Etti’s knee, I stepped back, pleased to hear the steady sound of the needles working against each other like the ticking of a clock.
‘I was hoping you would teach me.’
I turned to find Lydia beside me, her gaze fixed on the lace in Etti’s lap. She was twisting her own shawl around her hands. I had noticed she never took it off, not even to wash it.
‘I’d be glad to teach you,’ I said. ‘But alas, there’s no yarn. Only this one ball.’
Lydia Volkova glanced down. Her fingers moved across the shawl, hesitating. Then she pulled it off her neck. ‘Could you unravel this?’
I stared at her. ‘You want to undo it?’