Sofi Oksanen - Purge

Aliide wanted to give the kitchen a homey feeling; she set the table for Hans’s breakfast and brought the dried flowers from the front room. They created a nice mood, a mood of love, and acts of love. Last of all she took off her earrings and hid them in the box in the front room. They were a gift from Martin that would only remind Hans of what was detestable to him. When she had everything arranged, she went through the pantry to the barn, opened the trapdoor to the attic, climbed up, and moved the hay bales from in front of the secret room. The new wall was perfect. She knocked and opened the door. Hans crept forward. He didn’t look at her; he just had a long stretch.

“Breakfast is ready. Martin has gone to work.” “What if he comes home in the middle of the day?” “He won’t. He never does.”

Hans followed her to the kitchen. She pushed a chair toward him and poured a cup of hot coffee, but he didn’t sit down. First he had to say, “It smells like Ivan in here.”

Before Aliide had time to answer, Hans spit three times on the coat that hung on the back of Martin’s chair. Then he started sniffing around the kitchen for the other things Martin had left-his plate, knife, fork-then he stopped in front of the sink, poked at a wet bit of soap that Martin had left on the edge of the washbasin, flicked at the block of shaving alum, with its fresh drops of blood turning brown. He splashed the ladle in the soapy, still-warm water in the slop bucket, threw the alum into it, and was about to toss in the shaving brush and razor, too. Aliide flung herself at him and grabbed his arm.

“Don’t.”

His arm was still raised.

“Be good.”

Aliide pried the brush from his fingers, put it back in its place, and the razor.

“Martin’s shaving things are still in the trunk. I’ll un

pack today and get them out, and his shaving mirror, too. Please be pleasant and sit down and eat.”

“Is there any news of Ingel?”

“I opened up a bottle of dewberry juice.”

“Did he sleep on Ingel’s pillow?”

Hans yanked the door open before Aliide could stop him, strode over to the bed, and grabbed Ingel’s pillow. “Get out of there, Hans. Someone might see you through the window.”

But Hans sat down on the floor and squeezed Ingel’s pillow in his arms, twisted it around and pressed his face against it, and she could hear from the kitchen how he wanted to get inside it, inside of Ingel’s scent. “I want Ingel’s cup in my room, too.”

His voice was muffled by the pillow.

“You can’t hoard all of Ingel’s stuff in that room!”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t! Be sensible. Is the pillow enough? I’ll hide the cup in the back of the cupboard. Martin won’t be digging around in there. Will that be good enough?” Hans came into the kitchen, sat at the table, put the pillow on the chair beside him, and poured more of Aliide’s horseradish tonic than was medicinally necessary into a glass. There was straw from the hayloft in his hair. She felt her fingers twitch with a desire to pick up the brush, touch Hans’s hair. Then Hans suddenly announced that he wanted to go into the woods. Where the other Estonian men were. Where he belonged.

“What are you talking about?” Aliide couldn’t believe her ears. Apparently the oath was still binding. The oath! The oath of the Estonian army? Why talk about an oath to a country that doesn’t exist anymore? There he sat, at her table, twirling his spoon in her honey, and the only reason he could still twirl it like that was because of Aliide. Let the other dreamers wander around the woods, with the authorities after them, hungry, in clothes stiff with dirt, cold with the horror of that final bullet. Instead here he was, a gentleman, twirling his spoon in a dish of honey!

Hans said that he couldn’t bear the smell of Martin in his house.

“Has sitting in that room addled your brains? Have you thought at all about what would have happened if someone else had come to live here? Have you seen what’s happened to other people’s houses? Would you rather have the Russians here? Would you rather have the floor of your home covered with sunflower seeds so it sounds like you’re treading on beetles? And how do you propose to get to your precious forest? This house is under surveillance, too. Oh, yes it is, yes it is. We’re so close to the woods that the NKVD is convinced the Forest Brothers come here to get food.” Hans stopped playing with the honey, took the pillow and the bottle of tonic under his arm, and got up to go back to the attic.

“You don’t have to go back yet. Martin isn’t coming home.”

Hans didn’t listen, he just kicked his own beer barrel next to the door of the little room behind the kitchen. It fell over, the oak clattered against the threshold, and Hans disappeared through the pantry into the barn and up into the attic. Aliide wrenched the barrel back upright and followed him. She felt like saying that Hans had never had a better friend than she was, but she just whispered, “Hans, don’t do something stupid and spoil everything.”

Aliide sneezed. There was something in her nose. She blew her nose into her handkerchief, and a little piece of red

yarn came out. Ingel’s wedding blanket. Then she realized that she still hadn’t looked into Hans’s eyes even once, even though she’d dreamed of it for years, even though she’d watched for years how Hans and Ingel had flowed into each other in the middle of their work, his eyelashes wet with longing and his desire throbbing in the veins under his eyes. Aliide had dreamed of how it would feel to experience something like that, to look into Hans’s eyes with no risk of Ingel noticing her little sister looking at her husband with that look, and what it would feel like if Hans returned that look. Now that it was possible, he hadn’t done it. Now, when Aliide needed that look to make her bold, to make her pure again, to give her strength, he hadn’t made any effort at all. Now there was a bit of fluff from Ingel’s wedding blanket tickling her nose, and Linda’s chestnut bird stared mutely from a corner of the cupboard; Hans thought of Ingel constantly, just as before, and didn’t see Aliide as his rescuer. He just kept harping about how he was sure that England would come to save them, everything would be all right, America would come, Truman would come, England would come, rescue would come on a white horse, and Estonia’s flag would be whiter than white.

“Roosevelt will come!”

“Roosevelt’s dead.”

“The West won’t forget about us!”

“They already did. They won, and they forgot.”

“You have so little faith.”

Aliide didn’t deny it. One day Hans would understand that his rescuer was not on the other side of the ocean but right here, right in front of him, ready to do whatever was necessary, to keep going, endlessly, all for just one look. But even though Aliide was the only person in his life now, Hans still wouldn’t look at her. One day that would have to change. It must change. Because Hans was what made everything matter. It was only through Hans that Aliide really existed. The walls creaked, the fire popped in the stove, the curtains pulled over the glass eyes of the house fluttered, and Aliide forced her own expectations underground. Commanded them to stay down, waiting for the right moment. She had been too eager, too impatient. You couldn’t rush these things. A house built in haste won’t stand. Patience, Liide, patience. Swallow your disappointment, wipe away the silly idea that love will bloom as soon as the cat’s away. Don’t be stupid. Just get on your bicycle and run your daily errands and come back and milk the cows – everything will be fine. She swung her heart the other way and realized how childish the fantasies she’d been spinning over the past few days were. Of course Hans needed time. Too much had happened in too short a time, of course his mind was elsewhere. Hans wasn’t an ungrateful person, and Aliide could wait for kind words. But her eyes still filled with tears like a spoiled child and the ashes of her anger filled her mouth. Ingel’s breakfasts had always been repaid with warm kisses and amorous verse. How long would Aliide have to wait for just one little thank-you?