by Rein Raud
“Well, no great loss,” the lawyer said, spreading his hands wide. “Simmermann’s coming in on the afternoon train, perhaps we can strike a deal with him.”
“If you ever need a player again and you’re considering inviting me next to Simmermann, then don’t waste your time,” the long-faced man said, standing and putting on his hat. “Good day.”
“Thank you,” the banker said from the corner. “Actually, you’ve already done your job.”
The long-faced man tipped his hat to him shortly, and left.
“So,” the notary said, “what you win will belong to you, but what you lose, we’ll cover ourselves. We’ll additionally pay for your travel expenses, but there’ll be no other compensation. I hope that these terms are acceptable.”
“Not a problem,” Simmermann said, smiling. “I’ll sure milk him dry—don’t worry, I’ve got quick little fingers.”
“Then it’s settled,” the banker said.
“Maybe we should call it quits,” Brother said when Simmermann placed the pack of cards on the table for a third time in order to go fetch more money.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we both know that your little tricks aren’t actually changing the course of the game. But you’ve started to repeat yourself, so it’s getting progressively more boring. It’s already late, too. And what’s more, I don’t especially need your money.”
“If you say so, then fine,” Simmermann said somewhat defeatedly.
“Sixteen thousand,” the lawyer moaned, “sixteen thousand just gone up in smoke.”
“In reality, he didn’t do anything but merely prove what we’d already heard before,” the notary agreed.
“Easy, now,” said the banker. “Everything’s been taken care of.”
One streetlight had been smashed in the narrow alleyway behind the pub, and that’s where they lay in wait. There were actually three of them, but only two shadows could be seen in the weak light emitted by the next streetlight about ten yards away; the third was standing concealed in a doorway ahead, as quietly as a mouse.
“Hold up there, brother,” the heavyset goon who stepped out in front of him said. “Gotta lighten your wallet.”
Brother’s eyes flitted across the first man’s bearded face, and then he peered over at the second—a somewhat shorter man stepping out of the shadows, whose straight hair was combed into bangs and who was wearing an elegant silk shirt, incongruous with his comrade’s. He was snickering and rubbing something between his fingers, probably a knife.
“I got lucky at the card table today,” Brother said. “I can surrender my winnings, no problem, but if you try to take what I brought from home, then I’ll have to defend myself.”
“What do you think?” the thinner man asked the stocky one.
“I recommend you consider the offer,” Brother continued. “There’s almost sixteen thousand here; it should be enough to last for quite a while.”
“Let’s take the money and be done with it,” the thinner one proposed.
“You imbecile—then there’ll be nothing left for us,” the stocky one said. “We’re taking everything.”
“Can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Brother said, and shrugged.
Viking, who was supposed to have attacked from behind, was the first to regain consciousness. The kick to the head had caught him by surprise and knocked him onto his back, so he hadn’t witnessed the rest of the fight. He pushed himself to his feet with difficulty and heard Siskin groaning somewhere nearby—the boy’s nose was busted and gushing blood. Cupboard was lying in the middle of a puddle, his face flat against the pavement and Siskin’s blade embedded in his thigh. It took a great deal of effort, but he managed to drag them up to the wall. Siskin was forced to rip his shirt, which was already drenched in blood anyway, into strips for a bandage while Viking, who had maintained just a slightly more decent appearance, went and fetched a cheap bottle of rum from the pub. He poured some down Cupboard’s throat, and it was only when his friend’s Adam’s apple began to bob evenly that he realized nothing all that bad had actually happened.
“And overall, Mikk,” his wife said, “I think it’s time for us to change the furniture in the house, too. At least in the living room.”
“Why’s that, Milla?” the man asked, setting the newspaper aside. “It’s stylish. It’s got history.”
“But not our history,” his wife countered. “What isn’t your own is only nice for a short while. When I was little, we didn’t have this kind of a sideboard or this kind of a chiffonier or a tea table with curved legs like this, or chairs with monograms stitched into the backs, and no one I knew had any of them, either, and I can bet that you didn’t have anything like them at your home.”
“No,” her husband replied, “we didn’t. But that doesn’t mean . . .”
“I’d like to have something here that’s truly ours,” his wife continued, “I mean—truly. Even if the garden is redone to be the very same way it once was, then at least we’re paying for it, so it’ll be just like it’s our very own, since it hasn’t been the way it is right now for all that long, has it, and I want designer furniture in the rooms, from Milan, for example, and Oriental rugs, and in place of these strangers’ paintings, I’d like something that I myself pick out.”
“We’ve paid for these paintings and this furniture, so it’s like they’re our very own, too.”
“Oh, Mikk, you do understand what I’m trying to say,” his wife said, her voice turning syrupy. “Let’s sell all of this, and let me look for something to replace it—something that smiles back at me, not glares. Why on Earth do you want to deny me that?”
“Did that oddball put that idea in your head, too?” the man asked, growing more and more irritated.
“No,” the woman answered with unexpectedly biting self-assurance. “I came up with it entirely on my own.”
“Two or three days, most likely; maybe a little more,” the antiquarian had said. He had been leaning against the heavy swan four times larger than life (that no one would ever buy, anyway), and although he really had every reason to be in good spirits, he still looked a little dour.
“Then everything’s just fine,” is what Laila replied. The impatient honking of Felix’s horn sounded from outside.
“Yes,” the antiquarian had said and sighed, “everything’s fine. I’ve no doubt that you’ll manage everything in the store just brilliantly meanwhile.”
Laila had been tasked with minding the store alone for an entire day before, when the owner had been asked to go appraise old items in a nearby town, and naturally he couldn’t turn down his son’s invitation to come and visit—not after all those years. Genuinely, though, it had never been two or three days at a time. But the antiquarian was right. She would manage.
“You seem worried about something, even so,” Laila had dared to ask.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” the antiquarian said dismissively, as if all problems could resolve themselves by saying it.
That had been morning; now, it was evening.
The truck drove up to the door about ten minutes before closing time, and Laila felt her heart sink when she saw what kind of a load it was bringing. The driver had been paid only for delivery, and not for hauling the cargo inside. The sky was heavy with clouds and a couple of drops fell onto the sideboard and the chiffonier and the tea table with curved legs, while Laila searched for any loose bills that might have accidentally slipped underneath the cash register. Offerings like that had helped before, on occasion.
“The rest’ll be coming next week,” the driver said. “Get ready.”
Brother found her sitting in front of the store only later that evening; luckily it hadn’t started to rain, after all. The ground level of the store was soon so packed that you couldn’t squeeze through it anymore, and the heavy swan four times larger than life (that no one would ever buy anyway) was even more in the way than ever it had been. Some things needed to be carried up to the office, some things down to the cellar, som
e other things could simply be re-arranged. It would all take some thought.
He stared. Approaching from the direction of the Villa, the clearing had suddenly erupted in front of him: after plodding a short distance down the dusky allée lined with tall oaks on either side, he inadvertently halted when everything around him was suddenly bathed in light. The back garden—bounded by a coppice and half overgrown with shrubbery, half with a thicket—rose immediately before him.
There was a lot of work to do here, in any case. One could only guess where the paths meandered and where water might have flowed in the garden’s early days. The grass was taller in some places, shorter in others, thus leaving the lighter and heavier lines crisscrossing the space somewhat visible; although it would take some time to restore them to their actual form. All that was clear was that four wider paths traversing the copse began from the left edge of the garden, but nothing broke up the dense thicket growing on the right side.
He observed further. What was apparently a deeper and more linear ditch ran between the first two paths that started on the left-hand side, and a second, slightly narrower ditch had to be crossed to even reach the beginning of the path—however, the one closest to him immediately forked. Another line, maybe a footpath this time, connected the rear branch of the ditch with another set slightly downhill, so viewed as a whole, they formed something akin to a majestic letter M. Somewhere, sometime, he had seen something like that before.
He walked down the left-hand side of the hill and cut himself a path toward the first two of the four tracks. He became snarled up in the grass while jumping over the ditch and almost fell into the mud, but luckily only got his knees wet. Yet the path that now extended before him didn’t actually lead anywhere—it was simply a long and likewise overgrown marshy track that extended just about as far into the thicket as the distance that now separated him from the Villa’s allée. The remaining three paths also turned out to be identical marshy indentations in the overgrowth—the next one longer, the last two somewhat shorter.
The ground at the other end of the garden was less saturated. Only the rearmost straight ditch actually extended to the edge, but was already narrow enough there to be easily traversable.
Now, he had done a ring around the garden. Now, it dawned on him.
The garden was a hand, and the Villa stood at the tip of its thumb.
Over the course of the entire next day, Laila didn’t touch a single piece of furniture that had been brought there from the Villa, even though she knew she should have. It was a new sensation for her, as she had always felt pleasant around old things, and old things had felt pleasant around her. But now, she was uncomfortable around them. She recoiled before them. They were like former lovers who have had children with strangers meanwhile. Their proximity was torturous. And because of that, she felt even more awkward: they had still come back to her; they no longer had anyone else. She should at least listen to what they had to say. Maybe they were sick and broken and needed her help.
Then, in the morning, she pulled herself together. She wiped down the tea table with the curved legs using a barely-moistened rag and dusted the shelves of the sideboard one by one; she brushed off the upholstery of the chairs with monograms stitched into their backs, cleaned the attractive old paintings, and then set herself to rubbing the chiffonier with furniture polish. It was that last of these tasks that took the most time. The piece’s drawers and doors budged only with difficulty; it was obvious the chiffonier didn’t want to share its contents with just anyone.
The reason why became clear somewhat later.
The chiffonier’s large bottom drawer didn’t want to open more than barely four inches or so. It seemed the previous owners had given up on the drawer, as Laila could glimpse balled-up packing paper and very old newspapers tucked away inside. Trying to open it by force did not yield results, so Laila cautiously slipped her hand in through the crack to see if something was perhaps causing the drawer to stick from inside. Something was. A metal bolt in an unexpected place had jiggled loose deeper inside and above the drawer. Laila had to remove all of the upper drawers piece by piece from the complex frame, and only then was she able to get her hands on the bolt. Now, the entire chiffonier was disassembled in front of her, naked like at a physical check-up, defenseless to her whims. A couple of brittle, dried leaves from an autumn long since past dropped to the floor from between two of the drawers.
Then she noticed it.
The bottommost drawer was a good six inches shorter than the others.
She flopped down onto the floor and reached her arm deep into the gaping opening in the chiffonier (barely reaching its rear wall), brushed the tips of her fingers back and forth across the unfinished plywood, and discovered that the rear wall was divided into two—that half of it was actually a door, which could be slid open over the other side.
That door wouldn’t open easily, either. Laila had to fetch a flashlight to see whether she could find a grip for her fingers anywhere, and indeed there was a small opening cut into the upper left-hand side of the wood, but it demanded a great deal of strength all the same, and Laila didn’t want to damage the chiffonier at all or use anything other than her own hands. Finally, the door gave way and revealed a nook, which contained a rounded, elongated object packed in white paper. Laila carefully worked it free of the space, closed the door to the hiding place again, and placed the package on a table. Before unrolling it, she stared at the item for a few moments and thought: Just a short while ago, I didn’t believe that I would ever still have days ahead that would divide my life into what has been and what is to come. But now, they’re coming one after another, and it’s not impossible that today is one of those days as well.
The package contained fifty large, heavy gold coins with age-old writing inscribed on them. And a message slanting across wrinkled paper, greeting her with blindingly familiar handwriting: “My little girl. I hope that you receive my gift when you know what to do with it.”
The handless clock on the wall struck, but it didn’t hurt.
The consequences manifested before long. The notary had been the first to make his move, and therefore was also the first to take a blow. It was a trivial oversight, a mistake, the kind that happens every now and again: the sale of an apple orchard behind a dairy farm was drawn up incorrectly. The contract lacked the farm owner’s sister’s written consent. The sister didn’t actually have anything against selling the land to a brewery, and what’s more, she wasn’t even expecting money from it—no matter that the orchard was legally a joint inheritance shared with her brother—and she would have gladly appeared at the notary’s office to confirm her stance on the matter as well, but she hadn’t been summoned. The entire affair could have been organized anew, but the farm owner had sold off all of his assets precisely in order to move closer to his wife’s relatives in Australia; naturally, he had already received the money and relocated. No one knew where to find him. But as it turned out now, all he had left behind was a void piece of paper, and somehow, a certain group of mean and cankerous university students from the capital had gotten wind of the transaction—they didn’t understand the least thing about local life and were adamantly opposed to the brewery ordering all of the apple trees razed and building its new production plant on the site. They could certainly drink beer, but brewing it wasn’t allowed. The brewery was angered by this, of course (it had paid the money, in full), but couldn’t do anything about the situation, and although they rationally understood that the notary was not to blame for anything more than a tiny instance of carelessness (if it even really was that—how was he to know that the dairy farmer’s sister had her own say in the matter), there was nowhere else to find a scapegoat, and so they had to unleash their rage upon someone. A shiver rippled its way down the notary’s spine. He could still keep the situation under control at the moment, somehow, but instinctively sensed that this was only the beginning.
The new balance of things found its way to the lawyer more s
lowly, and although the initial blow wasn’t all that painful, he was subsequently that much more torn up from within. Barely five years earlier, the lawyer had divorced his wife, whose gloomy nature and husky build wouldn’t allow her to transform into the kind of a companion required by her husband’s rising position in society. On top of that, the woman’s tendency to tipple on rum during long evenings at home alone was already leaving its mark on her features. Afterward, the lawyer started showing up at public functions in the company of a gorgeous creature with golden locks and the waistline of an ant, and who was—true—close to twenty years his junior, but obviously head over heels for him. Their wedding shaped into the nonpareil event of the season. The couple arrived at the church on horseback—the lawyer’s dapple-gray stallion trotting a couple of paces ahead, whinnying impatiently, its rider wearing a snow-white tailcoat and a top-hat, grandly holding the reins taut, while the bride was atop a black horse with an old-fashioned women’s side-saddle, so the edge of her long and silvery glinting dress dangled nearly to the ground. The lawyer wasn’t ordinarily in the habit of making unreasonable expenses, but the next day, even the painters renovating his house woke up with headaches pounding in their temples (which they were only able to remedy with the aid of cheap beers), at the same time as the happy groom popped a bottle of champagne in the third-floor master bedroom, only for the couple to once again celebrate the start of their new life together. Up until now, everything had indeed gone well for him—he hadn’t wanted children, and he was capable of handling everything else brilliantly. But now, his new wife decided to abandon her embroidery hobby (which irksomely strained the eyes) in favor of something that would keep her body in better shape (which was an admirable move in and of itself), and started taking tennis lessons. A couple of days after the notary was struck by the news of his own professional slip-up, the lawyer noticed that his wife wasn’t wearing the large-diamond ring that he had given her as a present for their first anniversary, and which she had otherwise never taken off except for when going to bed in the evening. When the lawyer inquired about it with an emphatic tone of indifference, the woman suddenly began to stammer, turned pale, and trembled like an aspen leaf, explaining that the ring had started to pinch lately, and so she had taken it to a jeweler to be made a size bigger. This sounded credible in itself, since they ate well, but other details abruptly appeared suspicious to the lawyer: for example, that his wife sang in the shower at home after her tennis lessons, which she had never done before, or that she had been asking for a little more money for personal expenses lately. Even so, what could he say—prices were consistently rising, and even he himself had recently had to increase his legal office’s fees. But he needed clarity. At the same time, it was a matter that he couldn’t entrust to anyone else, because no matter how confidentially he might have tried to arrange it, rumors still couldn’t be entirely ruled out, and right off the top of his head, he was unable to guess what might be more ruinous for his social position: a young wife’s carnal ingratitude, or the public revelation of his own thrashing in a web of petty, unjustified suspicions. He had decided on several occasions to secretly follow his wife on her way to tennis practice, but as luck would have it, work obligations had always gotten in the way—major meetings of strategic importance, his personal attendance at which was by all means necessary. But even while sitting in his own conference room, it had become harder and harder for him to stay there mentally. He felt as if he was going crazy.
