Ervin looked at his friends – because they were still his friends, despite everything that had happened – and experienced a feeling which was strange but not exactly unpleasant. He was the only one in that room who knew that there was now an invisible line running between them, separating them from each other. Of course he knew that what he’d done could not possibly fit into their shared conception of right and wrong. And, believe it or not, he still wanted to belong to their group, to be one of the few who dared to stand up and say how things really were, to proclaim the imminent arrival of freedom, in which no one would be imprisoned over their convictions or force-fed through a tube when they went on hunger strike. Or at least part of Ervin felt like that. The other part, which normally showed itself at night, or when he was hung-over, was quite sure that their activities were hopeless and pointless, that the enemy was tolerating them just for the sake of appearances. Because the enemy knew it could crush them flat as soon as it deemed necessary. Shave off Ervin’s red locks and chuck him into a dingy cell or send him to Siberia, from where he would return a different person. Ervin knew that would be a senseless sacrifice, and he was not prepared to make it. Anyway, what kind of nation entrusted the struggle for independence to a handful of young lads, who had still not learned to stand upright, to say nothing of falling in love, or mourning the dead. And what kind of nation then skulks off to its comfortable-enough den, its soft-enough bed, under its warm-enough blanket, to watch their struggle from a distance. He envied those friends who were prepared to stand to the last, and he wished he felt the same way. But there was nothing he could do. That’s just how things were. And it was now especially strange to listen to their joshing, after what he’d done today. This was no longer his world. Of course, when Madisson and then Bötker were exiled to Sweden, he realised that the career of a freedom fighter could actually conclude quite pleasantly. Why not follow them there? And if, contrary to any logic, things were to turn out as his wonderful, naïve friends thought – intoxicated as they were by their collective self-deception – and some sort of Estonian Republic were to make a comeback, then at least he would have made a contribution. As well as standing in the picket, he’d drawn swastikas on Soviet statues at night and had been on lookout duty a couple of times when Hangman’s gang went to nick the wheels off the commies’ cars. Just like that night when they were caught – and he was offered the chance of getting off more lightly.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t sometimes get the urge to admit everything to the others. They were his friends after all, they would understand, they would forgive him, fuck Sweden, we’ll go there some time later, they would say. And anyway, they could use the situation Ervin had got himself into to further the cause. The KGB now trusted him and could be fed all sorts of rubbish, be steered on to any old idiots, who would find themselves at the headquarters on Pagari Street instead of him and his friends.
But no. Ervin stayed quiet, in an exemplary fashion.
He still does.
Chapter 13
I remember one time back in 1988 (or was it 1989?): I was reading some information about the freedom movement on the wall by the Pegasus café when I came across the name of a man I had once fleetingly encountered a dozen or so years previously, back at middle school, when I took an interest in Esperanto. Let’s say this was him: clean-shaven but with a thick head of hair, chubby, his cheeks always rosy, which gave him a rather comical and utterly benign appearance – like the funny friend of the protagonist in romantic films, or the sad clown in the circus.
In the end he didn’t quite succeed in becoming a politician.
And he is dead now, as I discovered when I tried to track him down.
His name was Valev. He was soft-spoken by nature, but when he got worked up he had the habit of waving his arms about without even noticing he was doing so. He never gave out his own number; he would always phone you.
There were two of them walking along, one of them taller, with broad shoulders and a chin which jutted determinedly forward, he was walking a bit slower. The other was older, shorter, but more edgy and animated, evidently his companion’s mentor, the one who was in charge. They walked back and forth along the road between the Victory Square underpass and St Charles’ Church, making sure that no one was watching in front or behind. Raim was speaking while Valev listened with a worried expression on his face.
“It’s a real drag, that’s for sure,” Valev said, casting a quick glance over his shoulder, “and I hope that Karl bears up. It’s going to be really tough for him. I’m afraid that if they don’t let him go after a couple of days that means that they’re getting properly stuck into him. They’re particularly brutal at the moment.”
A passer-by looked in their direction and Valev fell silent for a moment.
“Because we’ve actually won already, you know,” he said. “I found out – don’t ask how – that an order was sent from Moscow, from the head of the KGB himself, telling them to work out a plan for going underground. Including cover stories for their own people and contact points for transferring funds in the future. And of course a network for blackmail operations.”
“Aha,” said Raim.
“That means two things,” Valev said. His voice almost became a whisper, and his cheeks started to flush. “Firstly, that we’ll get our country back, sooner or later. That’s certain. No doubt about it any more. But secondly, because there is a secondly as well… if their plan succeeds, we might end up with a maggoty apple. You understand what I mean, an apple full of maggots.” Raim thought he could see Valev trying to trace the shape of an apple in the air. “A maggoty apple.” Then his arms fell limply on either side of him, he cleared his throat and recovered his voice: “That is if we don’t do anything to stop it.”
“So what can we do?” Raim asked.
Valev started to explain. He looked around again and then took an object wrapped in yesterday’s paper from inside his coat.
It was a miniature camera, originally invented by one Walter Zapp, an engineer of Baltic German extraction who had lived in Tallinn’s Nõmme district in 1936 before moving to Riga. Now known as the Minox EC, it had been significantly improved in the intervening years, was being manufactured in Germany, and had earned renown as the world’s smallest photographic device, capable nevertheless of producing very high-resolution pictures.
And he also had a name to give Raim. Someone who had been stirred from the silence of the shadows: Gromova.
But now, dear reader, something more pleasant awaits us: let us leave behind this weary land for a while.
This journey is not an easy one, but it is not the first time that we embark on it, and we even have foreign passports for the purpose, kept in a safe place at home. A few years ago the authorities took them away from anyone who had travelled overseas as soon as they got home, with the exception of a few especially trustworthy persons. But in recent times it is no longer so rare for people like us to have our passports in our possession all the time. We have also managed to get hold of multiple-entry Finnish visas, arranged by our old acquaintances from the Friedebert Tuglas Society in Helsinki who have been visiting Estonia for years now, bringing with them coffee, books and tights, together with anything else necessary for a dignified existence. We have known them since we were teenagers, and have practised the Finnish we learned from television with them. The last time we were in Finland we even stayed with them in Espoo, feeling a little embarrassed that we arrived from the event we were at quite late and a little tipsy, although we managed not to wake up their grandchildren.