The Death of the Perfect Sentence

by Rein Raud

  Maarja is standing in front of the mirror, looking at her reflection. She has almost learned the English text off by heart now: Hello. My name is Maarja Pilv. I am an activist of the anti-Soviet underground. I need political asylum. The main thing was not to start laughing, even if it did sound so silly.

  By boat to Finland, on from there to Sweden – they don’t check the passports on the boats in Helsinki. And then her new life would begin. It was high time now.

  It’s all a little like a dream. And it’s best that way, since as soon as the real world impinges then the panic will return, the fear which extinguishes all will to live, which abides no other feelings. How else could she have expected to leave this place? But look, now you really can. It’s simply that one life has come to an end, the life which promised all those things, all those things which nearly came.

  So everything which is happening is for the best.

  She messes up her words several times, but at least she can laugh at herself, more so today than ever before. Now she is allowed to. Who ever doubted that laughter can make the world a better place?

  Hello. My name is Maarja Pilv. I am a simple girl. I believe in love. Whatever happens. I need nothing. No stupid Alex. Hello. My name is Maarja Pilv. I need nothing. Except love. Except life. A new life. Nothing political. Hello. My name is Maarja Pilv. Hello. Maarja Pilv needs a new life.

  The sound of the news in Finnish is coming from the television in the other room.

  “Mr Prime Minister,” the journalist starts to ask, “you know the new president, Mr Yanaev, very well from your previous contacts. What kind of person would you say he is?”

  “Given the current situation I would prefer not to comment on that,” the prime minister says in response.

  Out on the street there is silence too.

  As a child Fyodor Kuzmich had never dreamed of becoming an astronaut, because no such thing had existed back then, but later in life he was presented with a real chance of becoming one. Once at the polytechnic institute he and two of his course mates were invited to a discussion on that very subject. By then Gagarin had already completed his mission, and conquering the cosmos had become the first thing since the taking of Berlin which the great Soviet homeland could take pride in. All those glory-seeking young men found it hard to think of much else.

  But unlike his two course mates, one of whom did eventually get to orbit the earth, Fyodor Kuzmich was faced with a tough choice: space or mushrooms. Or to be more precise, the mushroom pies which Valentina made. In every other respect she was just like any other girl, but she was the only one in his world who knew how to make those mushroom pies which once tasted left you no way back. Especially if you happened to be someone like Fyodor Kuzmich, who had a special relationship with mushrooms. Back then he could sometimes disappear into the autumn forest for days on end, to return with bucketloads of beauties. He had no equal in hunting out the spawning grounds of the common-place boletus mushroom, but he also knew how to find rarer specimens – the kinds which you would find no mention of in the handbooks yet Fyodor Kuzmich’s grandmother would certainly have been familiar with. These mushrooms would then be duly transformed into incredible delicacies in Valentina’s frying pan. This special relationship with mushrooms had survived to this day. He always took his holidays in autumn and spent them at his cottage in Laitse. His Ukrainian neighbour, a retired two-star captain who despite his advanced years still boasted a strong head of curly black hair, simply couldn’t understand why Fyodor Kuzmich was constantly sloping off to the forest instead of enjoying the barbecues, vodka and good company at his place.

  Mushrooms are older than humanity, he would say to himself, and somehow he felt that just recognising that fact could justify all manner of things in a person’s life.

  He didn’t like living in Estonia. He wouldn’t have had anything against watching a thriller which took place there, and he would tell his childhood friends from Volgograd that he liked the fact that everything was clean and orderly, but he knew he wasn’t even kidding himself. He just couldn’t understand the things he saw going on around him. He couldn’t understand those houses or those streets or those people who walked down them. In fact it would be right to say that Fyodor Kuzmich understood Estonians about as well as Estonians understood mushrooms. Because if Estonians had the faintest idea about mushrooms then he wouldn’t have been able to find such huge quantities in all their variety there in the forest near Laitse. In the same way that Estonians had a vague idea that some mushrooms could be tasty, even very tasty, while others were poisonous, so Fyodor Kuzmich believed that some Estonians were more or less loyal to the Soviet state, while the rest of them kept their fingers crossed for Finland when they played the Soviet Union at hockey, and did not accept the official reason for the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan. And who knew, there might even be ones like that amongst his own subordinates. Which made the situation even more complicated, since they certainly didn’t dare say anything controversial to his face. But if they weren’t working with the requisite belief and commitment, then clearly they were nothing more than scum. Anyway, he didn’t know how to tell one from the other. For example, he would never have believed that the quiet nerd Särg was such a model communist that he was prepared to snoop on his own son. But nor could he believe that a model communist family was capable of producing a son who needed to be snooped on. Fyodor Kuzmich did not trust anyone whose behaviour was anything less than completely predictable. The years had taught him that things are not always as simple as they seem, and that it is often wiser to rely on a cynical careerist than an enthusiastic idealist, but that didn’t essentially change anything. He could not countenance other people doing things which he did not approve of in his soul. By soul he of course did not mean the same thing that a priest might talk about in church, but something completely different … probably. But he preferred not to take that thought any further.

  “Bring it on, Comrade Major,” he said to Vinkel.

  “Yes sir,” said Vinkel, sitting down and putting the file on the table. “I can report that the enemy agent within our ranks has been identified and neutralised.”

  For some reason this did not provoke any reaction in Fyodor Kuzmich, which surprised Vinkel. Colonel Kuzmich even seemed strangely apathetic. Now that the KGB was picking up the reins of power he had every reason to be happy, didn’t he? The military convoys were just about to arrive in Tallinn, after all.

  “Well I never,” said Fyodor Kuzmich eventually, as if reacting to something inconsequential. “Was it an Estonian?”

  “Not at all, Comrade Colonel. It was Gromova, Lidia Petrovna, the typist.”

  For some reason that seemed to make Fyodor Kuzmich even sadder. So you couldn’t even trust your own lot these days.

  “Well, Hardi Augustovich, you’re an intelligent person, you must know yourself that the game’s up for us now,” he said.

  “Why’s that, Comrade Colonel? This was just a one-off event, these days there is only good news coming from Moscow,” Vinkel said in surprise. “At long last there will be an end to all this nonsense.”

  Fyodor Kuzmich shook his head.

  “They’re not up to the task. They’re just digging their own graves, nothing more.”

  He had seen Yanaev’s face and trembling hands on the television; that was no way for someone to look if he wanted to lead a successful coup. A rioting crowd is like a pack of dogs: if you show any sign of fear then the nearest mutt will have its teeth in your shins before you know it.

  “I’m going back home to Russia,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll find something for me to do there. What about you?”

  “Where is there for me to go?” Vinkel said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “That’s exactly it,” Fyodor said, taking a bottle of brandy and two glasses from his cupboard. “That’s what we’ve got to think about now.”

  Maarja liked the Harju coffee shop. They made really nice pastries there (I can vouch for that myself). And
now this coffee shop was going to be the first stop in the journey which was just about to start, a journey which would be packed with pleasant surprises, and would go by the name of a new life. She had with her a small suitcase made from blue and red checked material with nothing too heavy inside it, just a few drawings and a couple of notebooks, her middle school graduation certificate just in case, one warm jumper, a toothbrush, and of course her teddy bear Pontu. Raim had told her not to take too much with her, just the most important things. She had her large handbag slung over her shoulder, with her passport containing the freshly issued Finnish visa nice and safe inside the zipped-up internal pocket.

  All the bad things would be left behind.

  She knew that she had to hurry, but she knew just as well that she would not be able to walk down this street again for some time, if ever again. So she wanted to take as much with her as possible: the grey arch of the doorway to her left; the typically high second floor windows with the sound of the piano coming through them; the famous fishmonger’s a little way off, where the walls were adorned with those magnificent large paintings by Jüri Arrak – possibly the only fishmonger’s in the world to be decorated that way. And of course the people as well: the old granny hobbling towards the shop with her net bag full of empty milk bottles; the young bearded father with lank hair and square-rimmed glasses, pushing a pram across the cobblestones towards her; a middle-aged man whose coat was clearly too long for the weather; two Russian girls standing on the corner examining a map of town. She preserved all of them in her mind, and they all became part of her. And part of her new life.

  But that new life was in danger of ending even before it had begun.

  It couldn’t be. But yes it could.

  Maarja glanced upwards for a moment. As if she wanted to make sure that the coast was clear.

  But no, it was not.

  There was a man sitting at the table by the window, an unforgettable man who was forgotten, or nearly forgotten by now: a Russian man, that special man. One of their men. Looking in the opposite direction, towards Old Market Street, as if he were waiting for someone. Maarja realised that it must be her that Alex was waiting for, that he was expecting her to come from the direction of her house, through the Baltic railway station, past the Schnelli Park ponds, then the puppet theatre and the Pearl coffee shop, across Town Hall Square, round the town hall building, from whichever side, so that eventually she would arrive at Old Market Street and appear from that direction, and he would spot her from a distance.

  That could only mean one thing. Maarja turned pale and reached to the wall for support. They’d been betrayed, and now the situation was even worse than they feared.

  “Excuse me, are you feeling unwell?” the old granny asked.

  “Unwell?” the gloomy middle-aged man snapped back. “She’s dead drunk, got no shame at all, in broad daylight as well!”

  But Maarja saw something else: suddenly the old woman pulls a revolver from inside her coat and waves it at the two Russian girls, who throw the map on to the ground and adopt combat positions… The young father pulls a machine gun out of the blue pram… The gloomy middle-aged man sneers and pulls his coat wide open to reveal a mace… They are all ready, just waiting for Alex to raise his hand, and now he is already raising it, the signal will come any moment. By now Maarja has dropped her case and has started running as fast as she can back the way she came, certain that someone will shoot her in the back, or that another agent will emerge from the grey doorway and stick his leg out in front of her. The sky is purple, the people’s faces are green, and the cobblestones are glinting orange with dots of coal black.

  Another five minutes and I’ll go, decided Alex, otherwise I will miss the boat. There could be all sorts of reasons why that woman didn’t turn up; let’s hope she hasn’t been arrested.

  Long, warm underwear, woollies, soap. Her toothbrush got left behind in her suitcase, and she doesn’t have a spare.

  They are in a heap on the bed and Maarja is sitting next to them, watching the door.

  Because very soon someone wearing heavy boots is going to come through it.

  She can’t hear what’s happening outside the room.

  The hubbub which had suddenly ceased a couple of days earlier is slowly returning to the yard outside. A man in a vest has come out and is prising open the door of the shed. What does he want from there on this warm late-August day? We don’t know. Helmi is hanging up the washing to dry. “Hey, Annika, have you heard?” someone yells out of the window. “About what?” comes the reply. Something about Yeltsin. There is music playing somewhere, someone must have guests round. Robert takes the rubbish out. “Hey, Robi, come and see what’s up with this door,” the man in the vest calls out. “The same thing that’s always up with it,” Robert says, going to investigate.

  Maarja knows nothing about all that. She is watching the door of her room.

  The pain in Raim’s father’s temples becomes unbearable at exactly the moment when the phone rings. Why does it always have to ring with the same intolerable bone-rattling jangle? And say what you like but whisky can give you one hell of a hangover. He and Raim drank a whole bottle of it yesterday, but he still couldn’t understand what the appeal was. You were supposed to slowly savour it in some special way, not just down shots, which is generally the most sensible way to consume spirits. But they didn’t keep any vodka in their house, that was more of a Russian thing, although they made an exception at weddings and funerals of course. Raim’s father wasn’t much of a drinker. Nor was Raim, judging by the look of him now, sitting there at the other end of the table, evidently in the same crapulent state as his father. It was good to talk to him, even if he didn’t tend to share his problems much, which was understandable – he was a young guy after all. So that’s it, then. It’s all over. At that point Raim’s father didn’t know that at any moment his wife would appear at the dining room door and tell him to switch on the television. Swan Lake is over for now, there are people out on the streets in Moscow, Yeltsin is their leader, Pugo has shot himself, and here in Estonia the Supreme Soviet and Estonian committees are meeting on Toompea hill. All of this nonsense is over, over.

  Maarja knows nothing about all that. She is watching the door of her room.

  Fyodor Kuzmich was trying to keep his cool. He’d just finished a long phone call with Moscow, or to be precise, most of the talk came from the other end, he just listened and said, “Yes sir” now and again, but his television was on at the same time, and he was watching a direct broadcast of Yeltsin’s speech. It was all very clear, even with the volume turned right down. He was experienced enough to draw the right conclusions – nothing which was happening surprised him. Vinkel was standing in the doorway watching television while Fyodor Kuzmich spoke on the telephone. Damn, now it’s all going down the pan. Fyodor Kuzmich put the telephone down and beckoned him to come closer: they still had so much to do, and only a matter of a few hours in which to do it.

  Maarja knows nothing about all that. She is watching the door of her room.

  And me, what am I doing on that day? I step out of my front door and the people I pass on the street all have the same look in their eyes: they want to hug everyone they see. Although it does remain just a look – we are talking about Estonia, after all.

  But it’s a free Estonia now, that’s true.

  1 Translator’s note: Särg means “roach” in Estonian.

  2 Translator’s note: Pontu is a common name for dogs in Estonia.

  Ten Years Later

  There’s a young mother standing in front of the Konsum store on Narva Street. She has one child in a pram and another standing by her side, and her open coat reveals that a third is on its way. A man who is slightly over thirty, his face incongruously tanned, approaches from Viru Hotel at a brisk pace, and nearly walks straight past her.

  “Oh,” he says in English with a barely noticeable accent. “I almost didn’t recognise you,”

  The young mother looks
at him in momentary amazement and then bursts out laughing, with that same ringing laughter which the years have done nothing to dull.

  “Alex! It’s you! Can it really be? What brings you here?”

  “I’m at a conference,” he says. “I live in England now, Oxford.” He tells Maarja how he followed his aunt’s advice and managed to get a place to do a doctorate at Oxford University, following which they kept him on to work in a research group dealing with transition economies. “And how are things going with you?”

  “Quietly,” Maarja says with a smile. “We’ve got our own company now: we import fluffy toys. I design the advertising. But I still paint now and then,” she adds hurriedly, “or when I can, as you can see I don’t have much time for that now…”

  At that moment a fit young man with a healthy, ordinary kind of face comes out of the shop carrying two large bags, and quickly walks up to Maarja. No denying it, it would be hard to find a more decent Estonian lad.

  “Let me introduce you,” Maarja says, “this is Kristjan, my husband.”