Lace Weaver

by Lauren Chater

  Etti turned her head to look back. ‘That was Mama’s favourite shop,’ she said, her eyes suddenly sombre. ‘She always bought her soap there. Pine tar. It’s good for the skin.’

  She stopped so suddenly I almost crashed into her.

  ‘What is it?’ Starting to panic, I searched the road for danger. The truck had moved on, its wheels grinding on the cobblestones. It came to a stop outside an open wrought iron gate where a group of German soldiers were gathered around a dozen people. Most of them were men dressed in black suits but the few women who stood with them wore simple dresses of grey with black heels. Yellow stars like sunbursts stood out against their dark clothes. They clustered together, looking confused and wary. The tall façade of the synagogue loomed behind them, its arched windows reflecting the sky. Kati and I had passed it before, but I’d not taken much notice. We had similar synagogues in Moscow, although attending them was frowned upon as the populace was not encouraged to pursue any faith which could disrupt the teachings of communism. As we stood watching, the back doors of the truck swung open. The soldiers raised their weapons and began to drive the people towards the truck. Some of the men hesitated, while others began to do as they were bid.

  One woman refused to go.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ she demanded, thrusting her purse in front of her like a weapon. ‘Who will tell our families?’

  In answer, a ringing blow from a soldier’s hand sent her sprawling. One of her shoes came loose and rolled away into the gutter. The soldier who had struck her dragged her roughly to her feet and thrust her into the truck where her companions waited. He did not bother to retrieve her shoe. We watched the truck lurch off, leaving four soldiers behind to stand outside the gates of the synagogue, preventing anyone from going in or out.

  ‘Oh, Lida.’ Etti drew closer to me, her hand seeking mine. Her bony hip dug into my side but I did not move away. Her trembling hand communicated everything we could not say in words.

  Germany’s intentions were now quite clear. It was not enough for the Jews to be marked as other, their movements restricted. They were being rounded up and taken to who knew where? Estonia was to be cleansed of Jews; Judenfrei. Next they would target the other ‘undesirables’; those of mixed blood. The Roma people and the Russians and the Lithuanians who refused to be Germanised and had already organised a strong resistance movement to oppose the occupying force.

  What did this mean for Etti and Leelo . . . and for me?

  *

  ‘What a time you’ve been.’

  Kati’s face in the crack between door and stairwell was pinched tight. ‘I was beginning to think I would need to leave Leelo with Helle and come find you myself.’

  Leelo cried out suddenly in the timber cradle beside the window, as if she had heard her name.

  Kati crossed the room in a few steps, scooping her up and bouncing her in her hands, letting her small feet in their socks skim the floor. ‘What took you so long?’ Her voice carried a thin note of exasperation. She looked up and seemed to see our expressions for the first time.

  I imagined how we must look; Etti with her eyes rubbed raw from crying. Me, with my lace shawl askew and my hair tangled by the wind. We had hurried home as quickly as we could, taking the shortest route possible, not daring to visit the butcher.

  Kati’s eyes widened. Laying Leelo gently down on her back in the cradle, she embraced her cousin. ‘What on earth happened?’

  I glanced at Etti. She was shaking her head, her lips clamped shut. She would not talk about it. Just as she had when Juudit died, she would internalise her fear and her suffering. I watched her scoop Leelo up from her cot and squeeze her tightly, closing her eyes as if she could keep the world at bay.

  ‘Kati,’ I said, trying to speak in a normal tone. ‘Can you help me put these things away?’ Kati’s lips were white but she nodded.

  The kitchen was a small square of space with barely enough elbow room for both of us. Cooking smells haunted the corners; fried fish, cinnamon apples, mutton stew. Their lingering odours were a kind of torment when all we had eaten for the past few weeks was hard loaves of bread or bone broth or watery grain flavoured with whatever dried spices remained in Aunt Juudit’s pantry. I had barely placed the basket on the countertop when I felt Kati’s fingers digging into my arm.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, her expression grave.

  I drew a deep breath. Like Etti, I found it difficult to put into words how terrifying the scene at the synagogue had been. Instead, I told Kati about the posters, the Sicherheitspolizei and their new laws about what Jews could and could not do.

  Kati let go of me and clutched the bench top.

  ‘What will we do?’ I could hear the edge of hysteria in my voice. ‘What if we’re discovered?’ I had heard rumours about what the Germans did to ‘undesirables’. Whispers about internment camps like the gulags in Siberia, where food was scarce and the only clothing was whatever you arrived in. I wish Jakob was here, I thought. I wanted him to hold me.

  ‘We will just stay inside,’ Kati said after a long moment. ‘We won’t fetch our rations unless we need them. Surely we have enough now to last a week or so. Show me what you brought back.’

  Before I could stop her, Kati reached out and snatched the handkerchief off the basket. She drew out the wedge of crusty hard-rimmed cheese at the bottom we’d picked up at the general store and then the wax paper containing the rattling beans.

  ‘Cheese.’ Confusion clouded her eyes. ‘And . . .’ She unknotted the twine. The shrivelled brown pellets slid from their sacking onto the bench. Kati ran a finger through them and they shifted, dividing into two small piles. It was barely enough to feed a fieldmouse.

  She lifted her hand away suddenly, as if disturbing the beans might shrink them further and straightened, her mouth set.

  ‘There was nothing else,’ I said. ‘There are food shortages.’

  ‘What about bread?’

  I shook my head. My limbs felt heavy. ‘The Germans have taken everything. It’s like a cloud of locusts passed over. That was all I could find.’ I nodded at the cheese and the seeds. ‘And we were lucky to get that. Others weren’t so fortunate. I saw a woman weeping; someone had stolen the food right out of her hands and run off before she had a chance to cry out. And as for the butcher; well, we didn’t go.’

  Kati shook her head, her brow still creased. Anxiety and disapproval rolled off her in waves. My skin prickled with heat. I couldn’t stand the thought that she might think I had deliberately avoided going to the butcher’s without a reasonable cause.

  ‘There is something else,’ I said, mouth dry.

  As I poured out everything we had seen at the synagogue, I watched the colour leach from Kati’s cheeks. A look of pain crossed her face and she clutched her stomach with a knotted fist.

  ‘That was the reason we didn’t go to the butcher,’ I finished. ‘We thought it best to get home. Things are so uncertain right now; the Germans are still working out which Jews fled and who stayed behind. But they have started whatever they are planning and at some point, they will come to check on us. Oh, Kati . . . what will we do when that happens? What will happen?’

  Kati said nothing. Muffled sounds echoed through the wall of the kitchen from the new residents next door. Somebody shouted in German, immediately followed by the sound of something heavy thudding to the floor – the dizzy clunk of a bottle spinning – and then the shouting resumed.

  The sound seemed to stir Kati to life. Striding past me, she headed for the coat stand in the hallway, shrugged her worn brown coat off its hanger and thrust her arms into it. Pulling her lace shawl around her head, she grasped my coat and held it out to me, shaking it silently and warning me with her eyes not to disturb Etti and the sleeping Leelo.

  She did not turn to me until we were both standing in the dim landing. Only the small sliver of light from the open door of our apartment showed the tired angles of her face. Someone had stolen the corridor’s light bulb weeks a
go. Now we had to make our way up and down clutching the handrail and praying that no boards were loose.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I said. I wanted nothing more than to run back inside and slam the door closed on the world. I dreaded going back out into the street where the signs of German occupation were everywhere. Jakob is out there, a small voice reminded me.

  Kati pulled the belt tighter around her coat. It was already a size too large, and her wrists were bone thin. Her face was gaunt and her once-glossy hair hung limp in its plait.

  I shivered as the cold from the building seeped into my skin.

  ‘We’re going out to find help. I won’t sit here waiting for them to come. That’s what my father did; he waited too long. I’ll ask Helle to come and help Etti with Leelo while we’re gone.’ I heard her footsteps scrape along the threadbare carpet runner, then the sound of her boots descending the stairs.

  ‘What if Helle isn’t home?’ The handrail slid through my fingers.

  Kati muttered something, but I couldn’t quite catch it.

  It might have been ‘God help us’ or something dramatic, like, ‘We are damned’. I followed meekly after her and didn’t ask her to repeat it.

  In truth, I didn’t want to know.

  Teardrop Pattern

  Kati

  A misty rain began to sift down as we reached the street of the barracks where Oskar and Jakob spent their time now. People hurried past, shielding their heads with their hands. I did not raise my hands but allowed the increasingly heavy drops to strike my head like bullets and soak into my hair, worm their way through the woven shawl. I shivered in grim penance. Why had we fooled ourselves into thinking the Germans would give Estonia back so easily? That they would not bring their hateful race laws into our country, along with their guns and their tanks and their promises to help rebuild our towns?

  We wanted to believe the best.

  I imagined the words being spoken in my father’s tongue. The spicy fog of smoke from his pipe drifted across my vision. Hadn’t he wanted to believe the Russians could do no worse the second time around? That we would be better off if we gave in, protected our own, helped them to achieve what they wanted while keeping our own heritage safe? But he’d been wrong. First the farms. Then the decree that only Russian should be spoken. Travel between towns and villages restricted. Soon, even something as innocent as a lace shawl was too dangerous. It would be the same now, I realised. The Nazification of Estonia had begun.

  A cold finger of rain traced the vertebrae of my back.

  I came to a stop beneath an awning outside an old pharmacy, Lydia pausing beside me. She ran a hand through her damp hair. Her teeth were chattering. We stared together at the barracks looming on the opposite side of the street, a drab grey building of sturdy bricks. A German soldier stood at attention before the doors, a rifle resting in his hands. Even from across the street, the swastika symbols blazoned on his uniform stood out. Squinting up through the haze, I tried to spy Oskar’s face but the windows of the former gymnasium revealed nothing. Ghosts of school bells pealed out and the chatter of former pupils was almost audible beneath the patter of rain. Where were those children now?

  The Germans had requisitioned the school along with a few other buildings for their soldiers. The education of children was second to winning the war against the Russians and their new Allies.

  Thinking of Etti, I bit down on my fear and crossed the street, Lydia close on my heels.

  ‘Good day.’

  The German soldier blinked. He was a young man. Rain dripped off his peaked cap and spotted his collared shirt.

  ‘I’m looking for a man,’ I said, my voice rasping a little with nerves. ‘He’s a soldier,’ I added, the colour rising in my cheeks. ‘Oskar Mägi. One of the Estonian Home Guard.’

  A frown twitched the corners of the man’s lips, and I rushed on, gabbling my words a little. ‘And my brother, Jakob Rebane. A fellow officer. Do you think you can help us?’

  ‘Smile,’ I heard Lydia mutter near my shoulder. I sweetened my expression, imagining I was just a woman visiting her beau, but the awkward moment stretched on. The muscles around my lips began to ache.

  After what seemed an age, the soldier lowered his rifle. ‘Of course. Shall I fetch them for you?’

  His eyes travelled over my body, lingering on my breasts and waist. I shrank instinctively inwards, my shoulders hunching. I felt Lydia shift. Her fingers prodded gently into my back. I straightened.

  ‘Yes. It would be kind of you,’ I said. ‘We would be so grateful.’

  The man barked a laugh. ‘All right. Wait here.’ He turned back to proffer a lopsided grin. ‘Those Home Guard boys need to relax a little. Their gloomy faces are bringing us all down.’

  A second later, the door banged closed. Lydia and I were alone again, shivering together to avoid the rain sluicing down from the eaves.

  ‘Thank God.’ Lydia shot me a dark look.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you really so guileless?’ Shaking her head, she pressed the edge of her shawl to her damp hairline. When she pulled it away, raindrops clung to the cloth like glittering glass beads. ‘I’ve heard it said the Germans consider Estonians the most Germanic of the Baltics. Your fair hair and your pale skin. Those kinds of things are pleasing to a group of people who want to stamp the “impurities” out of human existence.’

  ‘We are not like them.’ My eyes stung, as if hot ashes had suddenly blown in my direction.

  ‘I didn’t say you were,’ Lydia huffed. ‘But at least make use of what you have.’ She glared up at the faceless windows. ‘What do you think he meant? About the Home Guard?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I tried to remember what the guard had said. That Oskar was gloomy? I was not surprised by this. Perhaps he was as disappointed with the Germans as we were. I had not seen him since the day of the procession days ago. The memory of the time we had spent in the farmhouse was enough to bring heat rushing into my cheeks; the scorch of his lips on my skin and the pressure of his hands locked around my waist ensuring my dreams were filled with pleasurable sensations.

  A fountain of rain water suddenly erupted from the downpipe, coursing down onto the cobblestones. Lydia jumped back, cursing in Russian, almost knocking into me. She mumbled an apology.

  ‘Katarina.’ Straightening up, I found the object of my daydreams standing before me. He slipped out the half-open door. He was smiling but his eyes were cold. Taking my arm, his gaze scoured the rain-washed street. ‘You didn’t send a note.’ His grip tightened.

  ‘I know. I—’

  ‘I told you not to come here.’ His voice was low, each word punctuated by another squeeze.

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Ah. You’ve found her.’ The German soldier sauntered towards us, his features twisted with amusement. ‘Good. You are a lucky man, Mägi.’ Envy suffused his face.

  ‘Yes.’ Oskar grinned. ‘Thank you, Koster. This is my wife. She’s brought her friend to chaperone and make sure I am on my best behaviour.’ He peered out at the rain sloshing down. ‘Do you think . . . I realise it’s unorthodox, but might I take the women inside, at least until the downpour ceases? We will stay in the reception room. Near the fire.’

  The German soldier shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  He gestured us inside.

  As soon as the door slammed behind us, Oskar wheeled around, releasing my arm with such force I flinched. ‘What are you doing here?’ He ran his hand through his hair. His eyes were blazing. I was only vaguely aware of the bright fire flickering in the grate, the wood-panelled entrance hall that must once have been used for student roll call. School plaques adorned the walls. It was a much grander school than the one Oskar and Jakob and I had attended on Tartu’s outskirts. Our schoolhouse had been a large timber structure, more like a barn, with a gabled roof and two fireplaces to warm the frigid air in winter so our stiff fingers could grasp the pencils. Lydia shuffled behind me, twisting her hands together. ‘An
d you brought her, too?’ Oskar threw up his hands. ‘What were you thinking, Katarina?’

  Anger bubbled up before I could smother it. ‘I had no choice but to bring her! And why do you keep calling me that?’ Tears pricked my eyes and I turned away, determined not to show him how he had wounded me.

  Oskar sucked in a breath through his nose. ‘I’m sorry.’ He spoke softly. His tone was intimate. He touched my shoulder lightly. ‘Kati. Turn around.’

  Reluctantly, I did so but I kept my chin tilted up. Oskar’s face was grave.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘It was a shock to see you. After I specifically warned you not to come. I should not have argued. Forgive me.’

  ‘Where is Jakob?’ Lydia asked.

  Oskar made a sound in his throat. ‘He’s upstairs.’

  Something about the way he said it – and the fact that we hadn’t seen another soldier in the barracks; it was eerily quiet – made the hairs rise on my arms. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  Oskar tapped his fingers against his thigh, looking from Lydia back to me. Suddenly, he seemed to come to a decision. Wrapping my arm in his again, he marched me towards the staircase. ‘Come. Both of you. You can ask him yourself.’

  Lydia’s footsteps clattered on the stairs behind us. A small wave of relief washed over me. Jakob is alive. But the relief vanished when Oskar opened the door to a narrow room, holding it back so that we could slip inside before shutting it firmly.

  Jakob sat on a bed inside, nursing his head in his hands.

  Lydia gasped as he lifted his face. His skin was as grey as ash and lined with a thin film of sweat. A deep open gash the length of my palm ran from his cheekbone down to his chin. It looked red and angry, the edges raised, inflamed. Dried blood crusted his ear, matting his hair.

  ‘Lydia?’ His eyes were glazed, slightly unfocused. They slid towards me, lingering on my wet hair. He said my name, his voice slurred as if he were half-asleep.