Inga Abele - High Tide

A lone milk truck rounds the bend and turns into the driveway of the Branku house. A dog barks, milk cans clank, the glare of sunlight, the squeaking of the milk cistern lid. Then the milk truck comes into view again and slowly drives off up the hill. Again there is darkness and wind. The road to the Zari house stays empty. There aren’t any more cows or people; not a single living sound can be heard coming from there. Only the grass will grow up through the threshold come spring.

Finally, a pair of headlights reach out from the pine forest and a bus approaches the crossroads. The driver has picked up a lot of speed, but sees them and tries to brake. The bus slips along the road like a giant fish and eventually stops a ways down from where they’re standing.

They hurry toward it. The door opens. Warmth. Tickets. A few sleeping passengers.

The driver gives them an apologetic look over the rims of his glasses.

“It slides like it’s on ball-bearings. This is my first time on this route.”

They drive through the village, where cows will roam the streets in the morning fog in summer.

Then the turn by the lake, where the shoemaker Mārica’s house stands. When the shoemaker died, he’d given his blessing for the house to be turned into a točka— a trade-house for distilled spirits.

In the darkness, the headlights of the bus reveal a thin old man on the side of the road hugging a white rucksack and a crumbling pretzel to his chest. The bus driver brakes hard again, and this time he succeeds and stops right in front of the old man.

The doors open.

A dirty parka, a bare and absurdly skinny neck, a drooping mustache, and a red nose. Surprised at the unexpected attention, the old man stands staring like a fox caught red-handed in the henhouse.

The driver says:

“Hop on board, sir!”

The old man rubs his knotted, red fingers over his knit cap and then waves them at the bus driver as if in farewell. He turns sideways and continues his way down the path to Mārica’s house, bumbling:

“No, no, I’m headed there, y’see…”

“Pff, you!” The driver shouts and shuts the creaky bus door. “Why’re you hanging out like some ghost on the side of the road?”

The bus drives on and a dark veil once more falls over the landscape. But the dawn has already torn a red seam in the east.

Why am I not going back to the seaside and Gran’s, to the west? Ieva thinks. What’s pushing me in the opposite direction? What will I find there? I don’t know anything.

All I know is that back is back there and forward is up ahead. Right now it’s time for the road ahead. Life’s desires have fermented in my veins and formed strength, much like birch sap will ferment in a bottle to form a champagne that can shoot out even the strongest cork. The time will probably come when I’ll spend summer sitting peacefully in a lawn chair finding joy in the flowers, and I’ll use the long northern winter nights as a black cover, a hiding place, a fen, so I can regrow my clipped wings.

The time will also probably come for low tide. When I’ll skulk back to Kurzeme, to my birthplace — in the dark, along the sandy dirt roads, by smell. Along the seashore, the manure, the blue anemones, the fragrant paths of thundering storm clouds, clutching my last, crumbling pretzel to my chest. And some early morning bus driver will notice me, pull me out of the eternal night with glaring headlights, blind me, stop and open the doors in welcome.

And I’ll say to him — No, no. I’m headed there, y’see.

Pāvil!

Hello, hello, hello! The college that accepted you doesn’t even realize yet how lucky they are!

You’re going to fly for the first time — and all the way to America… Hm… You’re going to starve to death because, if we’re brother and sister, then we have a lot in common, and I can tell you one thing for sure — I CANNOT eat in planes! Hopefully it’ll be totally different for you, you’ll stuff yourself full of hamburgers one by one.

I know you’re getting ready to leave, so I won’t bore you with a long letter. Just one juicy quote — yesterday some of the local women were teasing Roberts when he looked at them: Roberts is so old that the only sexual organ he has left is his eyes. Hoho!

Also — I went to a Student Symphony Orchestra concert, Inguna’s friend played first flute. And in the “style of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue!”

Really, really hope to hear back from you!

— Ieva

P.S. I think Troyat’s Les Eygletière is an awful book. There isn’t a single protagonist! It’s the first time I’ve noticed one missing. Maybe my realization is to the book’s credit?

P.P.S. The meaning behind our initials: I — tension, emotionality; P — shyness, distance, loneliness. Does that fit?

* * *

Greetings, American!

How are you? Are you already placing your hand over your heart when you hear the national anthem?

“When the euphoria of a first meeting fades, you must quickly find a new acquaintance to maintain happiness and so life doesn’t lose its edge. Year after year passes by in smiles and tired jokes, and the road is littered with hundreds of temporarily — for a week or two — amused people.”

As you can see, I’m reading the ocean book again. Doncho and Julia. All alone in their watery wanderings.

If Gran and Roberts were to finally kick me out and I’d somehow have to get through life on my own, I don’t think the results would be good — I’d make it to the bottom of the front steps, and that would be it. I don’t know anything about the world! So many people know what pain is (right now the time is 13:10 and the radio just started to play Dārziņš’s “Melancholy Waltz”—how perfect!), what misfortune is, but they live on and shine, and are happy. I’m spoiled rotten. I have everything, but I’m always depressed. Sad. Brother, it’s awful. I want to understand: what’s wrong with me, who am I, why is this happening?

“. . people are not limited in their abilities, but are rather limited in what they demand of themselves. In a moment of need, or even if we’ve made the conscious decision to, each of us is capable of mustering the kind of strength we never even thought we could possibly possess.”

Hm… It’s a nice thought, I’m waiting for that moment of need. I could even get angry at myself in the end. If I could… The book has answers to all of my questions, and simultaneously reprimands me for them. Because I believe books. Maybe unnecessarily?

“Fear is a product of either nerves that are shot, or a stupid upbringing.”

I don’t want what I immediately write down, but my hand moves like a sailboat across the paper, on its own accord. I think my fear comes from somewhere deep down. From the day Mom and Dad decided to split us up and left me with Gran and Roberts. I can’t imagine a better childhood than what I had. Books, books, books, the sea, and Gran with her muddy boots and white handkerchief in the potato field.

But each time I see Mom and Dad I suddenly feel a horrible emptiness tearing through me somewhere deep, deep down. Like in a desert. I’m not condemning their decision, I know about Mom’s illness and your condition, but I still can’t entirely understand the separation. We’re polite, but say nothing, and I’m really scared that I’m not loved. So be it, I think, it’s not within our power to end it. I’m glad you got in touch with me, and were so sincerely and from the bottom of your heart able to convince me there was no reason to be afraid. The desert sprouted plants. Now you’re my flower, my brother. A wonderful gift.

I hope you’re not tired of reading all these whiny letters — I can’t, I don’t want to, I don’t know how… The only people who I respect are probably you and Gran. And Jonsy, the woman from Iceland who I met on my trip to Sweden. She’s so courageous!