Oh, if only she could live somewhere far from here, so that we would have a long way to walk together.
But it was not to be. In barely half an hour they were standing in front of a wooden house which looked similar to the one they had left, with a light on in one of the second-floor windows.
“That’s my window,” said Maarja. “Thank you, I had a nice day.”
“Thank you too,” said Alex.
“Do you know the way from here?” Maarja asked. “Or shall I go in and call you a taxi?”
“I know the way,” Alex said, “and I know how to get back here as well.”
Chapter 35
It was not particularly hard to read the expression on Raim’s mother’s face when she cautiously poked her head round her son’s bedroom door after giving a quick knock. But it was an expression which conveyed mixed feelings. She was bothered because someone had come to see her son, but curious as well, because the person who had come didn’t exactly fit the image she had of her son’s friends. And proud that this person, whoever he might be, had chosen to turn to her son when he was clearly in need of help. But let’s take one thing at a time.
Raim never had guests come to visit. It had been that way for ages now, ever since the last time he had a group of friends round, which had been on his birthday, probably his sixteenth, and things had ended up getting a little out of hand. His parents had decided to leave the youngsters to themselves and had gone to the theatre, after which they had chosen to continue the evening at Mündi bar, where Raim’s father was quite good friends with the doorman. They got home to find the corridor covered in vomit, and Raim wearing a slightly glazed expression. They fell out over that, because their boy was supposed to understand that even if no one could be reproached for moderate alcohol consumption, a wild booze-up like this was overstepping the mark. And a lot more had been drunk than those two bottles of Tokaji Szamorodni which Raim’s father had bought them as a gesture of intergenerational solidarity. From then on Raim no longer celebrated his birthdays at home, which was a shame, since those parties had been good fun. Somewhere in one of the cupboards they still had a short eight-mill film which they had made of one of his birthdays, probably his fifth, but since they had no projector, they had never watched little Raimond blowing out the candles on his cake and looking up with a smile. Mother might have been surprised if she’d seen the film, since over the years some of her memories had been dressed up. It wasn’t actually a good birthday for borrowing a camera because they had decided after a long discussion to give Raimond the doll which he so very much wanted, and of course you weren’t supposed to give dolls to boys. And you definitely weren’t supposed to record it on film – what would he feel if he were to see it one day? But that doesn’t concern us now. He didn’t have guests any more. And that was that. Did the man who had come round not know about that? He should have done, if he were one of Raimond’s friends. He was probably a few years older than Raimond, true, with a pale complexion, true, and a shock of black hair, but he still seemed quite decent to Raim’s mother, or at least he would have if it weren’t for what had happened to him. He looked like he’d been beaten up, maybe even more than once, since the wound under his eyebrow had already healed up but he had a fairly recent-looking black eye. But then he didn’t look like the kind of young man who loitered about town at night getting into fights: he was dressed too smartly. He was wearing what looked like a Hungarian overcoat – she’d wanted to buy one like that for Raimond, but they hadn’t had a big enough size at the shop where her friend Ülle worked. Anyway, the young man’s clothes weren’t ripped or anything. A guest like that, without the bruises of course, would have been quite welcome to pop round any time. But it was still a little odd that he didn’t seem to have anywhere else to go.
A few moments later Karl is sitting in Raim’s room and they’re trying hard to think up a reason why he has to stay there that night, since he simply can’t be on his own right now. And why he looks like he does. They decide to say that some thugs broke into his flat, beat him up and tried to rob him. They smashed up the furniture, there was glass on the floor, but the main thing is that it’s no longer safe to be there. Mother decides to believe them, although she realises that something isn’t quite right, since some of his wounds are old ones. Be that as it may, she warms up some soup, then they all watch the TV programme Think Again; that evening they make up a bed for Karl on the sofa – everyone gets into a scrape now and again, after all. And she’s truly proud of her son – his friends must be able to see something special in him if they lean on him in times of trouble. Karl must be more seriously injured than even Raimond suspects, and he looks away as he answers their questions, suggesting that there must be something else amiss, but Raim’s mother doesn’t ask about that, because it’s none of her business.
Chapter 36
The following Monday Alex asked Svyatoslav Grigoryevich for three days’ unpaid leave on personal grounds. By evening he was already on the train to Tallinn, and early the next morning he alighted at the Baltic Station. He hadn’t slept very well because there were no places available in the sleeping compartments: all he managed to get was an upper sleeping berth in second class, and it was a little small for him. When he faced the wall he found it hard to breathe, but when he turned towards the corridor the light shone into his face. Of course he couldn’t turn up at Maarja’s door at eight in the morning, so he killed some time in a canteen which he came across on his way. He had a couple of warm onion pies washed down with meat broth, and after he asked nicely, the manager allowed him to brush his teeth in the back room.
He had no idea what was going to happen next. This was the first time he’d done anything like this.
But he couldn’t wait longer than ten o’clock, and that turned out to be good timing, since he climbed the stairs and arrived on the second floor just as Maarja was coming out of her front door, carrying a small travel bag in one hand.
“Is that you?” she asked in amazement. “Here?”
“Yes, it’s me,” Alex said, suddenly feeling very foolish. Why had he thought that she would be expecting him? “Er, you know,” he added, remembering the words he had once heard her say.
“It’s certainly a surprise to see you,” Maarja laughed. “Wait, I’ll have a quick think. You know what? Come with me. I’m just off to see my grandma in Türi.”
Alex had no idea where Türi was, but it went without saying that he was happy to go there.
It turned out that you had to take the train to get to Türi, which explained why Maarja was up at such an early hour. They sat opposite each other by the window, Alex facing the direction of travel, although he only had eyes for Maarja. How could a girl be so impossibly beautiful, so pure to her very core?
As Maarja looked out of the window it seemed as if every building, every tree, every open view which passed by filled her with happiness. They chatted. Maarja’s grandmother lived alone in a large house with a garden; almost everyone had a garden in Türi. And there was a lake there too. Maarja’s grandmother had worked in a library until recently and now she was retired – but she had plenty of books of her own at home.
“And now she has enough time to read them all,” said Maarja, summing up.
The train carriage was completely full, and it was no wonder, since it was a sweltering summer day and it looked like anyone who had half the chance was escaping town. An old lady wearing a headscarf and carrying a wicker basket sat down next to Alex, and her husband, dressed in a brown suit and a white cap, sat opposite. But it only became clear they were together when the man asked the conductor for tickets for both of them, since they didn’t exchange a single word. A family sat across the aisle from them, and the little boy looked in their direction for a while until his mother told him that it wasn’t polite to stare.