“Wait a moment!” Maarja hollered to the others and she handed her folder to Liisi. The first note she found in her pocket was a five-rouble one, which was not actually worth anything any more. She crossed the road and stuffed the note into the glass jar, trying her utmost to contain her laughter. Those funny, taciturn young people had earned it after all.
I probably already mentioned that it was evening by now, and the road was completely free of cars.
Damn that Raim, Indrek thought, when he saw his friend’s broad shoulders nudge forward. Some people were happy to look from a distance, but he just goes and takes what he wants (but Indrek was wrong, there was another reason for Raim’s behaviour).
Maarja hadn’t got back to the other side of the road when one of the young men, a sporty-looking guy with blond hair, probably a few years older than she was, started to run after her.
“Wait a moment!” he cried out, and Maarja turned round, although she wasn’t at all sure if he was addressing her.
“Come back tomorrow,” the young man said, “I’ve got something I want to tell you.”
That lovely girl, with her button nose, who walked as if she were hovering ten centimetres above the pavement, clearly already had plans for the evening. Anyway he was also busy, he had to go and buy a cake and some flowers, and so forth.
But that girl could be just right for Valev’s plan.
Like a bird’s nest
Ever since she was little Maarja had had a strange, almost symbiotic relationship with that creaking twostorey wooden house which was the only place she had ever called home. It was as if they’d grown to be part of one another. When the rain drummed against the tin roof, she felt her hair get wet, and when the sun shone through the windows into the dim kitchen, she squinted. And the same went for the smells. It didn’t matter that the house smelt of old people, whenever she got out of the bath she felt as if those smells had faded for awhile. That was why she had always washed herself thoroughly ever since she was little, without ever needing to be told, and she washed her hair more than she needed to too. Later, after Estonia regained independence, after her parents got divorced and she was living in Lasnamäe with her mother, she always came by this house if she was in the Kalamaja area, and since there was no lock on the front door she would always peek inside. When she moved out of her mother’s place she wanted to rent a room here, but there were none available. But her memories didn’t go anywhere, and haven’t to this day. That house no longer physically exists, it was restored to relatives of its original owner who had no links to it; for them all that counted was the location. The disappearance of the house was a blow for Maarja, and it gave her no sense of release, in fact it weighed on her. Not many people would find it easy to go through life dragging a demolished house with them. But all this was still to come. For now those smells are still there, together with the rain and the sun.
Clearly Raim did not ask where Valev had got hold of the information about Lidia Petrovna Gromova, but in the interests of clarity let it be explained. As it happened the source of that information was the same woman from the block where Lidia Petrovna lived, the one who had helped her find work in the security organs. Which had also come about by chance. A certain very handsome man used to visit this woman to comfort her during her husband’s long drinking binges and other absences. He didn’t wear a uniform, but he carried a work-issue gun with him at all times. And this woman was happy to be helpful in other ways too. One time the man told her about a well-paid vacancy, obviously hoping that she would apply; unfortunately she couldn’t type, but she knew that Lidia could turn her hand to that kind of work. Later, when it turned out that this man was only interested in getting information about her husband’s colleagues, they fell out badly. After that another man started to come round and console her. He was no less handsome, but he had completely different views, he was one of the leading figures among the local Russian nationalists. Lidia’s former neighbour was happy to be helpful to him in every way possible too. And this nationalist really liked those plump women with pale skin and a slightly motherly appearance, so they were well suited to each other. You might not believe it but back in those days the Estonian and Russian nationalists got on marvellously, united as they were by a common hatred for the Bolshevik regime – although the Estonians believed that the Soviet occupation which started in 1940 was a much worse crime than the execution of the last Russian tsar and his family, as ugly as that might have been. At the necessary moments they’d helped each other out of trouble before. Moreover, the Russian nationalists thought that if copies of KGB files made it through to the West, then it would be a great help for their cause too.
In addition to Lidia Petrovna’s name, two other names reached Valev’s organisation in the same way, but it proved impossible to make an approach to them. And the fact that Lidia Petrovna had once worked at Raim’s school was certainly going to be useful.
Valev knew nothing more about her. And that was for the best.
At the precise moment that Lidia opened the door of her apartment – dressed in her dressing gown and feeling some trepidation, since her doorbell rarely rang – Raim had still not thought up the words with which to address his former Russian teacher after all those years.
But when he saw the immediate, complete and unambiguous look of recognition in her eyes, he realised that sometimes it was not necessary to think – only to be.
He closed the door behind him, put the cake and flowers on top of the cupboard in the corridor, took hold of Lidia’s shoulders, pulled her gently towards him, slid his hands under her dressing gown, across her naked back, and pressed his lips on to hers.
In other words, he did exactly what he’d always wanted to do every single time he’d seen Lidia Petrovna.