Chapter 23
“What a total bastard you are!” said Lidia Petrovna, trying to hide the tremor in her voice.
She was sitting up in bed and smoking, with her satin pyjama jacket open. Raim had just placed the Minox EC camera on the bedside cupboard and explained to Lidia Petrovna how to use it, and what kinds of pictures she should take with it.
For Raim the moment which followed seemed to last much longer than it actually did, because he had little experience of such situations.
But Lidia Petrovna now had two options.
Her employers would assume that she would inform them about the conversation which had just taken place, and as a consequence Raim would then be arrested, most probably followed by several of his friends and acquaintances, especially the acquaintance who had given Raim that wonderful piece of equipment invented by the Baltic German engineer. In other words, her employers would have assumed that she would betray her lover.
Her lover, however, assumed that she would put her liberty and maybe even her life on the line to join a struggle that she didn’t necessarily identify with in order to enable something to pass across the border between two worlds, something which might eventually determine the fate of many people, most of whom she didn’t even know. In other words, that she would betray her employers.
The question was which of those scenarios would result in Lidia Petrovna betraying herself.
In other words, there was no question.
In those days there was no ferry crossing between Tallinn and Stockholm. Ordinary people got there first by taking the Georg Ots ferry to Finland, staying the night with some friends, meeting up with some other friends the next day and then boarding the evening Silja Line ferry. You didn’t need to book a cabin as there was the so-called sleep-in option, which entitled you to make use of an oblong patch marked on the floor and a mattress placed there for the purpose. The next morning you would alight in the Kingdom of Sweden. However, having being found guilty of anti-Soviet activities and punished by being expelled from the country, Ervin arrived in Sweden by plane, flying on the Moscow-Copenhagen-Stockholm-Bangkok route. Such a route really did exist, and the tickets were relatively cheap too. So Ervin got his first experience of the free world in Copenhagen airport, having had to disembark with his escort while the plane refuelled. The escort was a Russian man of few words; Ervin was unsure if he was fully aware of Ervin’s role in the larger scheme of things, and he obviously didn’t choose to tell him about it. He had no money with him, just the twenty kilos of personal possessions which he had checked in.
Ervin was met at the airport in Stockholm by pleasant old dears in floppy hats holding a basketful of bananas for him and a sign with his photo and the words “Welcome to Freedom!” on it. That was a lofty phrase. Ervin nodded goodbye to his escort, who was met by a car from the Soviet Embassy, and then left with the old ladies.
“To start with we’re going to the Estonian House,” the women chirped, “you’ll get a light meal there and meet some people, Tiit and Jüri are already waiting. You’ll have an interview with our newspaper, the Estonian Daily, about the latest developments in the liberation struggle in occupied Estonia. Tonight you’ll be staying at Medborgarplatsen: Konrad Muld has promised to put you up to start with, he has a spare guest room, and he’s a single gentleman like you. But you’ll get something better pretty soon, when all the paperwork is in order, don’t you worry, it’s not like Russia here, the government actually functions.”
It turned out to be a tiring day, with nothing more than fruit juice and coffee to drink. That evening Ervin discovered to his disappointment that, to put it delicately, Konrad Muld lived up to his surname; it meant soil in Estonian, and he really was as old as the proverbial soil. He clearly had some difficulty getting round his apartment, and he constantly had a worried demeanour. Having shown Ervin the cupboard where the sheets and blankets were kept, he went into the other room to watch the news on TV. But once Ervin had finished making his bed he poked his head around the door, and Mr Muld switched off the television and offered him a cup of tea.
“Do you get the feeling,” he started to ask in a wavering voice, “that recent events indicate that Communist rule in Estonia may finally be coming to an end?”
“I certainly do,” Ervin answered, and smiled at the thought that it was possible to say that out loud without having to look around in case anyone heard.
“Well I won’t live to see it,” said Konrad with a sigh. “But I would like to see my granddaughters again.”
“Are they in Estonia then?” Ervin asked.
“Where else, yes,” Konrad replied, and stood up again. “Wait, I’ll show you a picture.” The bookshelf was full of photo albums.
“Maybe some other time,” Ervin said. “It’s been a pretty long day.”
“As you wish,” Konrad concurred. “Now then, don’t be offended, but maybe I could help you out with a bit of money?”
“That would be very kind,” Ervin said with a nod. “Maybe we could also have a little drop of something to mark our getting acquainted?”