If this had happened on one of the first occasions, then Alex would have been very worried about having to spend a whole twenty-four hours hanging about this side of the border with the suspicious films in his pocket. But by now he was used to it. What’s more he was carrying Eduard Margusovich Põldmaa’s business card in a safe place in between the pages of his notebook. By now he knew him to look at as well, and you couldn’t tell he was a spook by his appearance. He looked more like the boisterous joker type, the life and soul of the party, and was certainly popular with the girls from Leningrad Paper Industries.
So now they had to stay in Tallinn a day longer, which meant that they had a free evening. The ministry booked them some tables at the Viru cabaret, but there weren’t enough spaces for everyone and it was made pretty clear to Alex that he would have to entertain himself. He could think of nothing better.
He set off on the familiar route from Kadriorg Palace to the Black Swan, wondering if that same girl would be there this time. Or maybe this Wednesday was exceptional in every way, and she hadn’t managed to get to the park to sit and doodle in her sketchbook. But no, there she was, sitting there looking as if she were waiting for him.
“Hello again.”
He put his coffee and meringue down on the table without asking. He knew that he didn’t need her permission any more.
“Are you expecting anyone?”
“You,” the girl said with a laugh, but Alex couldn’t work out whether she was joking or not.
And thus it transpired that on that fine July evening, there in the ruins of the Pirita Cloisters, the Finnish pensioners who were waddling about between the walls of the church building which was burnt down during the Livonian War were joined by two young people. What’s more, these young people dared to clamber on to the unearthed cell walls, up on to the half-collapsed roofs, walk up the steps which were worn smooth, and sit on the as yet untouched grass mounds, which must have hidden all kinds of secrets.
Maarja had studied Tallinn’s architectural history at art school, so she could show Alex the rooms where the monks and nuns had lived and where the line which separated them lay. And so they stood either side of that line and imagined that there was an invisible wall between them, and that their outstretched fingers were touching the wall exactly opposite each other. They looked into each other’s eyes as they did so, and naturally their fingers found the right place at the first attempt, and they held that position for a long time, or to be more precise, for a length of time which was impossible to measure.
Will I spoil everything if I kiss her now, Alex thought. Will I spoil everything if I let him kiss me now, Maarja thought.
What will each lover think of the other, when the infatuation has faded?
They strolled towards the exit, hand in hand.
Chapter 34
Alex and Maarja walked on in the direction of Merivälja, stopping to buy a few bottles of beer from the pink shop on the corner, and then headed for the beach. It was a midweek evening so there weren’t many people left there now, only one or two walking their dogs or just hanging about. The weather had been nothing to shout about, and although the sun was now shining again, it was still cool. Alex took his jacket off and laid it on the ground, and it was just big enough for both of them to sit on. He used one of the bottles of beer to lever the cap off the other, a feat which impressed Maarja. They spoke in a strange mixture of Russian and English, but Maarja knew them both equally badly, and so as she searched for the right words between sentences she would say, “er, you know” in Estonian, but they got by somehow. They knew each other better now: for instance, that in Alex’s world, men always wore ties, while in Maarja’s, people would only get up before midday if they had to catch a train or something similar. But when they looked up at the clouds stretched out across the horizon, they saw the same animals. There’s a get-together in town tonight, you can come if you like, said Maarja. Sure, said Alex.
Ties and the system
One of my friends read the draft of this book and as well as making some helpful comments he asked why I often depicted people with Soviet sympathies wearing a tie but the freethinking Estonians without. As far as he could remember, it had been the other way round. Scholars who visited Tartu University from Moscow, for example, were surprised to see how formally dressed the Estonians were, while the Estonians, who considered themselves standard-bearers of pre-Soviet Estonian culture, were quite critical of their guests’ scruffiness. Maybe it depends on which period we have in mind. When I was at university in Leningrad you could spot a Komsomol activist by the fact that he didn’t even take his tie off at the dormitory parties. I’ve personally had a fraught relationship with that item of clothing ever since middle school, where ties took over from red pioneer scarves as the system’s favoured method of strangulation. Looking back, it could have been that a pro-Estonian education official introduced that requirement into the school system as a small act of defiance. But it was to inevitably take on the opposite meaning floating further up the sewage pipes of power.
And so there they were, sitting side by side on the floor in a smoky room on the second floor of a wooden house with a creaky staircase, where the toilet was outside on the landing. They were listening to one young man strum a guitar, while another played a small exotic-looking drum, and two girls sang, all of them sitting in almost complete darkness. Alex was the only one who could hear Maarja singing along, very quietly. They were holding hands tightly, getting a feel for where the boundaries lay between them, although they both knew that these boundaries were not fixed for good. Alex was confused, and this feeling had taken him unawares. Although he’d known Maarja for some time, he never dared to hope that they could be so close, and didn’t know what to do next. She might be so free-spirited that she would be generous with her affections, but Alex was not sure if he wanted to be with the kind of girl who was generous with her affections (even if his body was telling him that he did). Maybe he would never experience another moment like this? The stars whizzed round at such incredible speed up above and might never be positioned exactly as they were today, right here and right now. But what would come next? Meat and two veg, a cup of tea, and TV? The blinding radiance would not last forever. A person has to know how to recognise the moment when it comes – to avoid living a life broken by regret. Bit by bit the darkness took Alex’s world from around him, so that eventually only he was left, far from home, surrounded by forest, the sky and stars up above.
He must think that I’m one of those hippy girls, easy prey, already halfway to becoming just a pleasant memory, Maarja thought, although she somehow no longer fitted into her old self either. Then someone switched on a light in the corner, the musicians started to look a little tired, someone opened another bottle of wine. Tonya sat down at Alex’s right-hand side and they spoke for a while in Russian. She was wearing a long dress, and when she sat down she hugged her knees and pulled them in towards her. Maarja knew that Tonya was prettier than her, that the red flush in her cheeks was completely real, that she knew how to talk to boys, it all just came naturally to her, and of course that splendid plait of hers was always on show. Alex told her about his work, the same things he’d told Maarja earlier in the day, but this time his performance somehow seemed more engaging, more inspired, and Tonya seemed better at showing an interest.
“I’m going to go now,” Maarja said. “It’s already late.”
Without needing any prompting Alex got up too, poured Tonya another glass of wine, and then went out into the corridor with Maarja, where they found their coats in the big pile, and their shoes on the floor nearby. Outside, Alex took Maarja by the hand again. He felt her warmth against his palm.