‘Do you remember these?’
I forced myself to stare at the objects Oskar was holding out in his open palms. The gloves, one in each hand. Red wool, threaded through with a white pattern of winter berries.
‘Yes.’
They were the last things I had knitted for Oskar before Imbi and Aime were murdered and he disappeared. An early birthday gift. I’d left them on the doorstep of the farmhouse on my way into Tartu, knowing Oskar would find them and divine they were from me.
Oskar closed his hands around them and I watched them disappear back into his pockets.
‘I take them with me everywhere. Even when it’s too warm to wear them. They’re my good luck charm.’ I could not raise my head to look at him. ‘I thought you would be glad to see me, Kati,’ he said softly.
I brought my head up sharply. ‘I am. I never believed those rumours. But we couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t safe. Papa said they would come for us.’
‘Then he’s not as foolish as he appears.’
‘Papa is no fool.’
Oskar grunted. ‘He thinks he doesn’t have to choose sides. That he can go on pretending nothing has changed.’
I watched him plunge his hand into his pocket and bring out another cigarette. He let it rest between his lips as he struck a match and lit it with steady hands. The cigarette flared in the darkness, splashing light across his face.
I was suddenly aware of how old he seemed. How changed. He had never smoked before. Imbi Mägi would have switched his backside as soon as she caught a whiff of tobacco on his clothes. I was alone, in the dark, with a stranger who wore the familiar features of my childhood friend. My heart still yearned for him, as if it could remember the time he had once dived into the freezing river to retrieve Maimu when I dropped her in the river. The time he had shown me how to freeze milk into discs and hang them up so they would last all winter long. The time we had danced together at Raimo Vagula’s barn-dance when we were fifteen and he held me close, one arm cradling my back, until I felt the tingling burn of desire creep up my body and excused myself, afraid of the depth of my feelings, the need to hold back when all I wanted was to give in.
I shook my head when he held out the cigarette, drawing my shawl close around my shoulders. He merely shrugged, flicking the match with his fingers until the flame was extinguished. ‘You know, you could come with me,’ he said.
‘And live in the forest?’ I wanted to laugh, but the sound caught and died in my throat. ‘You know I can’t.’ I turned away. The scent of the cigarette was unsettling. ‘I’ll speak to Papa. About your proposal.’
‘He won’t change his mind.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘And you’re still the same. Still your father’s girl. Too afraid to say no.’
‘I’m not afraid!’
Oskar scoffed. ‘Did you even protest when they decided Jakob should be the one to go to the university?’
‘Of course I did.’ My voice was as dry as skeleton leaves.
Oskar’s hand found mine suddenly in the darkness. It was so startling I drew in a breath. His palm was rough and warm. Familiar and yet different, the bumps and creases a roadmap of our youth. ‘We promised never to lie to each other.’
Carefully, I drew my hand back. I thought I heard him sigh, but it might have been the wind in the trees. The pale light brightened as the clouds shifted above, revealing the thin wedge of the moon, circled by stars.
Oskar moved away from me, his shoulders stiff, a stranger again. ‘Speak to your Papa, then,’ he said coolly. ‘If he waits too long, decisions will be made for him.’
A cold leaf, shaken free from the birch above, plastered itself on the bare spot at the back of my neck. I reached up to pluck it off, but the cold remained, worming down through my skin and into my bones.
I was suddenly afraid. ‘Are you threatening us?’
Oskar dragged on the cigarette and then exhaled, issuing a plume of smoke that curled in the air between us. ‘I would never let them hurt you, Kati. But the Germans are determined. They want to succeed. At any price.’
A pulse beat faster in my neck. ‘I should warn him.’
‘Why do you think I came back?’
Our eyes met. For me.
But I didn’t dare speak my hopes aloud. I watched Oskar take a last puff and grind the cigarette out beneath the heel of his boot. He straightened up and gave me a curt nod. I felt the distance gape between us, stretching like a frayed shawl. Whatever was left of what we had once felt was not enough.
‘Take care, Kati.’
I tried to make my mouth form the word. Goodbye.
Something soft pressed into my hands and I looked down. The gloves were still warm. I balled them up and tucked them in my pocket.
Then Oskar turned and drifted away into the trees. I watched him go, my stomach aching as if I had not eaten all day, that old familiar feeling of hunger, of gaining something but never being satisfied.
I’d lost him again. We’d not even spoken about his mother, or Aime and the violence which had ripped them from both our lives. But there was no more time to linger here with ghosts; I needed to catch what little rest I could.
I turned in time to see her emerge from the shadows at the end of the stone-strewn drive. Elina. My wolf.
Her eyes caught the light in silver crescents. We stared at each other, unblinking. Her yellow irises had become milky, and the sleek dark grey of her wolf coat was patchy, peppered with white hairs. When I had first seen her the day after my grandmother’s funeral, her coat had bristled with shiny fur that glowed a dusky red against the patina of moss-covered boulders at her back and the curtain of willow submerged into the river’s depths beside the bank. Her presence had been startling. When I heard her footsteps, I assumed Jakob had followed me, thwarting my desire to flee into the forest to be alone.
At that time, I had not wanted to believe the truth; that my beloved grandmother had finally gone. Nothing would be the same again and I wanted to join her, in the deep, damp earth.
My cheeks were flushed from running. I had followed a twisted path all the way to the river, where the rushing of water over stones would drown out my sobs. When at last I looked up, I had seen the wolf watching me from only a few yards away. Her eyes were a brilliant yellow–green, the same colour as the leaves that wavered and danced in the wind. For a moment, we were frozen in time. I was aware of her body, the taut muscles below the flesh, her warm heart beating within its bower of bones. But I was not afraid. Hadn’t my grandmother warned me she would return?
After some moments, the wolf turned and disappeared into the trees, and the colours of the world seemed to bleed back in. She did not return. Since then, I had seen her a handful of times – always at a distance. Once, picking her way along the ridge of trees at the edge of our field. Another time, during winter, shaking the powdered snow from her coat as she followed the frozen path of the river into the forest. But she had never come so close again.
‘Here.’ I opened my parcel and scattered the bones at her feet. She fell on them, her eyes never leaving mine. As we stood taking the measure of each other the wind died down, falling away until there was only empty silence and the crunch and snap of her jaws grinding up the bones.
Fear gripped me. What would happen if my wolf perished, too? I would be all alone. The knowledge that she was out there had always comforted me, her appearance so soon after my grandmother’s death too coincidental to be anything but saatus: fate. Yet here she was before me. Not a spirit: flesh and blood. She was as real as I, as fragile and fallible as the heroes of old tales.
Suddenly, there was a rustle and a frightened squeak in the hedge bordering the path, followed by a desperate thrashing. An animal – probably a rat – had caught itself up between the gnarled tangle of twigs. In one fluid movement, my wolf launched herself across the path towards the sound with the grace and agility of a much younger animal. I watched her streak into the darkness, heard the scuff
le of battle and then a satisfied crunch.
I waited a few moments longer, but she did not emerge again. The barn doors were heavy, the hinges rusted with age. I braced my shoulder against the timber, grunting with the effort. Slowly, the doors heaved closed.
‘Farewell, Elina.’
Mystery Stitch
Lydia
June 1941
I stood inside the entrance of the Volga Cinema, waiting for Joachim. The wallpaper of the lobby was dull, the ceiling stained yellow like the ivory piano keys in the Kremlin’s musicians gallery. Faded posters plastered the walls, showing advertisements for films released a few years before: Volga Volga and Alexander Nevsky The Shining Path, one of my favourite films, a Cinderella story about a humble servant girl who astounded her superiors with clever cleaning methods and rose through the ranks to become head of the factory.
A few patrons milled about, slurping ice-cream cones or flicking through the latest edition of Pravda. None of them glanced my way. Beneath the glass doors, the sounds of the street trickled in: the chime of trolley-car bells, the hum of traffic from Stalinskaya Parade.
The lobby looked exactly the way it should; a little shabby and careworn from its former life as a theatre for Bolshevik stage plays. It was neither the grandest nor the most popular cinema in the city; instead of the latest films, it showed re-runs of old favourites, which was why we had chosen it.
Nothing was odd or out of place. There was no reason to be afraid. I was just a young woman waiting for her beau on a typical spring day in Moscow. So, why could I not shake off the sensation that something was wrong?
Mamochka, I whispered. Are you there?
Nothing. I squeezed my gloves hard in my hand. Some might think it odd to speak to one’s dead mother, but I liked to imagine she was still with me. It seemed as if everyone else had forgotten her, apart from Olga, my once-nursemaid and now companion in the strange existence I occupied as a ward under my uncle’s care. It was a dull life enlivened rarely by official party functions and visits to State-sanctioned entertainments on my uncle’s behalf like the ballet or the theatre. I was not only my father’s representative in Moscow but my uncle’s. It had been pressed on me since I was a child that it was my duty to fulfil the role my mother had once occupied. To smile and feign interest, to amuse visiting dignitaries with poems and songs I had learned by heart; those of Pushkin and the great speeches of Lenin. To be winsome and charming. Although I did my best, I was not sure that I always succeeded. I was too shy. I did not have a sparkling wit or a quick sense of humour. Mama had been a wonderful entertainer, Olga said, with an uncanny ability to make her guests feel comfortable. Strange, then, that nobody ever mentioned her name now, especially in my uncle’s presence.
Was it the talk of war that made my stomach clench? War was on everybody’s lips these days. It was impossible to sit in the trolley car without overhearing somebody mention it. ‘Did you hear about what happened in Greece?’ the old woman in front of me had said to her friend as I took the tram earlier that morning from Red Square. ‘Yes,’ her friend had replied. ‘A whole factory destroyed by the Germans in under an hour!’ War was the flavour of the month and had been for some time. People wondered aloud if the treaty between Russia and Germany would hold. And yet despite these musings, things were not as terrible as one might fear. People went about their lives. There were some shortages. That was to be expected. It was more difficult, according to Joachim, to find matches and salt. The queues for shoes were always lengthy. Joachim complained about having to line up for hours to buy tinned peaches only to find when he reached the front that the shop was selling caviar he could not afford.
Everyone knew that if war did come, it would end swiftly. I, along with many people, still remembered the film If War Comes Tomorrow, released four years ago but quietly shelved since the signing in 1939 of the non-aggression pact. Its depiction of the Red Army driving back Germany’s troops, of German peasants rising up to greet the victorious Soviet soldiers as their saviours had stayed with us. There was no reason to think that life would change so much. War meant sacrifice. It might mean wearing the same evening dress half a dozen times or arriving a little late at functions because there were not enough workers to drive the State’s fleet of cars. It might mean doing my hair myself, instead of going to the salon to let them style it for me.
I’d already begun practising in secret, with mixed results, trying to coax it to resemble the glossy waves modelled by my favourite American film star, Greta Garbo. Olga insisted my hair was deep brown, almost black, but I liked to think it was more of a dark red, the same shade as the amber liquor she sometimes slipped into her coffee after meals. It was so long and thick it took an hour to separate and a dozen attempts to smooth down each section and clamp it to the curling spring. Beauty treatments aside, things would get much worse if the war playing out across Europe drew in the Soviet State. But the Russian people were strong. Endurance was in our blood. If it was war Germany wanted, Russia would comply but there was no doubt at all that the Soviets would triumph.
My uncle had told me so himself.
A sudden flood of warmth fanned the air as one of the cinema lobby doors was pulled back and Joachim sauntered in.
I watched the smile fade a little on his face as he scoured the room, a frown forming between his dark brows. He was dressed in a white shirt and grey suit, a tie knotted loosely at his throat; the same outfit he’d been wearing when we met in the courtyard of the Café Stolovaya months ago. The suit had been his father’s; a gift from the film institute to congratulate him on the release of his third film. Sorkin Snr had worn it to the film premiere and then passed it on to his son. If it hung a little loose on Joachim’s thin shoulders, what did that really matter? His pleasing features more than made up for his lack of muscles. Dimpled cheeks. A slightly crooked nose. A dazzling smile with just a hint of sardonic humour lurking behind it. My breath shortened. Pins and needles spread in a tingling arc down my back and made me shiver. Seeing him always evoked the same reaction; a mixture of excitement and pleasure, underscored by guilt.
A twist of hair fell over one eye; he smoothed it back, his gaze lingering for half a second on two girls about my age giggling and flirting with a soldier nearby while their ice cream cones dripped unnoticed onto the carpet. One of the girls leaned forward boldly and kissed the soldier on the mouth, which led to more giggling. I saw Joachim’s lips compress and knew exactly what he was thinking.
Young fools.
With the possibility of war threatening like storm clouds on the horizon, could anyone really afford to make attachments they did not intend to keep? Love was a dangerous game. It was not for the faint-hearted. Only the strongest relationships would survive something as ugly as the separation of war. It was lucky, then, that what Joachim and I felt for each other was more than just a passing attraction. The very moment our eyes had met as he introduced himself in the café, it was as if a rebellious longing had roared to life inside me. Until that moment I’d been sitting alone in the café’s courtyard, waiting for an old school friend who had not shown up; not altogether surprising, considering my past history. As my uncle’s ward, I was used to people getting cold feet or staying away because they were afraid I would feed information back to him. Often, they would cancel at the last second or make up stories about traffic delays. I knew what I would find when I returned home; a note in a cream envelope, hurried lines of apology. It was nothing new at all but it did not stop the disappointment from blossoming as I drained the bitter coffee in my cup and prepared to leave. That was when I noticed him walking towards me, the first moment I felt the spread of pins and needles down my back.
He’d paused beside the table and asked if he could sit down.
When I told him my name, who I was, his eyes had widened just for a moment, and I felt my muscles tense as I waited for him to make excuses and leave. When he stood up, I stayed sitting, determined to preserve the little dignity I still possessed. Instead of
walking off, he threw down some roubles and asked if I would stroll with him to the Tretyakov Gallery on Lavrushinsky Lane. In a blissful dream, we spent the afternoon chatting until the ring of the guard’s bell alerted us that the gallery was closing. We’d parted after agreeing to meet for coffee and a movie the following week and I had taken the trolley home in a daze, unable to remember any of the paintings we’d seen, my thoughts too preoccupied by the handsome, mysterious young man I’d just met, who did not care at all who my uncle was or how he could benefit by association.
Three months had passed since that day. I knew now that he was not only handsome but principled, too, and interesting with a dry sense of humour. What I liked most about him was that he was living his own life the way he wanted, shunning his parents’ comfortable apartment in favour of a communal flat. He wanted to live the same way ordinary people did, without the comforts awarded to the privileged few. It made him more attractive, in my eyes. I wanted nothing so much as to be normal. Being with Joachim made me feel as if such a thing might one day happen; as if it were not such an impossible dream.
‘There you are!’ He crossed the room quickly, his cheek grazing mine. He leaned back to admire me. I felt a blush creeping up my neck. I’d chosen my outfit carefully. It was a sweet cotton dress with a pleated skirt that fell to my knees and a frill of Ukrainian lace at the collar. None of my clothes came from the Main Universal Store. They were all specially made by a tailor in Pokrovka Street; a favourite of my uncle’s. At least I’d been allowed to pick the colour; a bright cornflower blue which matched my eyes. I’d matched it with a pair of flat sandals, instead of my usual heels, thinking wisely of the walk to the trolley car stop. It was the perfect outfit for meeting my girlfriend Sveta for coffee in the warm weather. But of course, I was not meeting Sveta. Although my hair was not as smooth as I’d hoped, I was pleased to see Joachim’s eyes darken with desire. ‘You were hiding from me,’ he said. ‘Where is Kirvenko?’
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