Chapter 37
Maarja’s grandmother was tiny, a whole head shorter than her granddaughter, but she had large eyes and a clear gaze, and she clearly took good care of herself and her home. Alex and Maarja had bought some meat and vegetables at the market by the station, since her grandmother didn’t know that Alex, with his larger appetite, would be coming – although she anyway tended to make too much for Maarja alone. When she was introduced to Alex she replied in surprisingly good Russian, even if it did sound slightly reminiscent of Russian literary classics. The reason for her strange way of talking immediately became clear: when she was young she had the wife of an émigré White Army officer as her nanny. She’d once known French pretty well too, but there hadn’t been much use for it in Siberia.
Later Alex and Maarja went for a short stroll around Türi: first they walked by the lake and in the church grounds, then they followed a sudden whim of Maarja’s and got on a bus to go and see Laupa Manor. From a distance it looked like yesterday’s cake, but it somehow didn’t want to fit into the viewfinder of the tiny camera Alex had bought in Finland. Let’s be honest, there was really only room for Maarja in his photographs anyway. They ended up being late for the bus back to Türi and had to hitch a lift. Alex found it a little strange that the driver didn’t ask for any money, but Maarja assured him that that was how things were done in Estonia. Meanwhile, Grandmother had surpassed herself and the table was laden with a lavish banquet. After all, her granddaughter didn’t come to visit very often, especially not in the company of a young man, even if he did happen to be Russian.
“I’ve made up two rooms for you upstairs as well,” Grandma said, when all of them had eaten their fill. “Seems like a fine chap you’ve got there, although you could have tried to find yourself a decent Estonian lad.”
“He’s just a friend,” Maarja laughed. “And I haven’t known him for long at all.”
How was she supposed to tell everyone? How could she explain to her dear grandma, her classmates, her playmates from the yard, that it was not light or dark hair, blue or brown eyes, nationality, citizenship, or even political views which made you a person, but the other way round. It was only when you were already a person that your hair, your eyes, your nationality and your convictions had any kind of meaning. But when Maarja looked at her grandmother again she realised that she didn’t need to say anything. Grandmother was just carping as grandmothers always do. She understood everything very well. Without any need for explanations. Sometimes things were just what they were.
And it was true: Grandma knew very well that when something feels right there is no place for rational decisions, there never has been and never will be. That’s just the way things are.
“Oh come off it,” Grandma chided good-naturedly. “I’ve seen a thing or two in my time, you know.” Then she switched to Russian. “I don’t suppose the young man plays cards? In the old days visitors from Russia were pretty good at préférence, I don’t know how things stand now?”
Alex had actually been a strong card player since his university days, although he hadn’t had the opportunity to play for ages. Since they needed a third player, they had to explain the game to Maarja. It turned out that Grandmother’s and Alex’s understanding of the rules differed slightly, but that didn’t matter, Maarja just laughed when they started arguing, and Alex could have listened to that laughter forever.
Alex couldn’t sleep. Not because he was in a strange place: by now he was used to sleeping in a different bed every night. But he still couldn’t quite explain the situation he was in to himself. Who were they, he and Maarja, and what kind of future did he want for them? There was certainly no doubt that he wanted there to be a future. And it seemed that Maarja did too. But what about this country, these people? It was as if they didn’t really inhabit the same time and place as Alex did. Either that or he didn’t belong here. Of course he had seen the occasional familiarly ugly building in Türi too, but they seemed like plants which had been put in the wrong flower beds, where they hadn’t taken root properly. He didn’t want to share the fate of those buildings. But he vaguely sensed that Maarja’s laugh could purify him of everything which separated him from this place. Maarja’s hands. Maarja’s hair. Maarja’s lips. Yes. Maarja’s lips. He hadn’t had feelings like this about either of those other girls he’d been all the way with. But this time he knew that he couldn’t just behave like an animal, like a machine. He got up from the bed. What’s happening, what am I doing? He pushed the door, it opened silently, he stood in the doorway, and at that very same moment another door across the corridor opened, and there in that doorway stood Maarja. What’s happening, what am I doing, she thought. I hardly know this man, how can I be so sure that he is the one, the one I have been waiting for all these years? They took a few steps towards each other, and then Maarja’s nightgown felt so strange to Alex’s touch, less familiar than her skin. They said nothing at all to each other because they needed their mouths for kissing. Then they collapsed on to Maarja’s bed and tore off everything which came between them, a little clumsily perhaps, but that didn’t matter now. Alex was surprised and happy to discover that Maarja was not the type of girl who had been too generous with her affections: she had belonged to no one before, she had waited just for him. I am the only one who will be purified by that ringing laughter, Alex thought. Then he whispered the perfect sentence into her ear.
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Chapter 38
He spent the first waking moments in a state of shock. Me, her, here? He felt Maarja’s hair gently tickle his chest; she was holding him tightly in her arms, as if he might otherwise disappear, evaporate into thin air. But that could not happen. Maarja was in his eyes, in his nostrils, in his flesh. Alex tried to remain motionless so as not to wake her, but she stirred, her hair brushed against his nose, and he sneezed.
Maarja opened her eyes.
The smell of pancakes was coming from downstairs.
The smile that should have promised summer
Years later Alex’s fingers still chanced across that photo from time to time when he tidied his desk drawers; understandably he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. What went wrong? Had it been his fault? At first that question had so tormented Alex that he didn’t know what to do. He could behold that image for hours on end, staring at the photo itself, or imagining it in his mind’s eye. They had been rowing on the lake, Maarja was sitting in the boat, her arms outstretched either side for support, looking directly into the camera and smiling. The photo had been taken at slightly the wrong angle, towards the sunlight, and the little camera wasn’t anyway the best. To tell the truth Alex wasn’t the most expert of photographers either, but that wasn’t the main problem. Maarja’s smile was clear to see. Alex was in the picture too, at least his finger was, having let his finger wander into the field of the lens on the tiny camera. So at least they were still together in the photograph. But not anywhere else. Alex didn’t know how to read that smile. It had promised an eternity. It had promised summer would never end. But things had turned out differently. So maybe he should have been able to make out something else in that smile as well, something which foreshadowed loss. But for as long as he looked, he couldn’t find it. Oh well, he’d been young then. His whole life had lain before him.