Sofi Oksanen - Purge

Fists and feet were pounding on the door. The fog above the cement floor dissipated. Had it come for revenge?

Had Ingel sent it?

Aliide went to the cupboard and picked up the sugar bowl, which was just about to fall off the edge.

Aliide felt a vibration as she was cleaning the cold cupboard. The dishes started to rattle, the honey jar clattered against the wood, and the cup on the edge of the cabinet fell on the floor and broke. It was Martin’s cup. There were fragments of it spread across the floor, and there was a crunch under Aliide’s galoshes as she stepped on the cup handle. Hans’s howling continued. Aliide tried to think. If Hans had lost his mind, did she dare go to the attic and open the door? Would he attack her? Would he rush out, run to the village, grab someone, and tell them everything? Had someone been in the barn and climbed up to the attic?

Aliide spat out spit blackened with coal, rinsed her mouth for a moment with some water, then licked her lips and went to the barn. The ceiling was shaking, the ladder swayed, and the lantern hanging from the ceiling was just about to spill. Aliide climbed the ladder to the attic. The bales of hay were jiggling.

“Hans?”

The howling stopped for a moment.

“Let me out!”

“Is something wrong?”

“Let me out of here! I know Martin isn’t home.” “I can’t open the door until you tell me what’s wrong.” Silence.

“Liide, honey, please.”

Aliide opened the door. Hans came staggering out. He was dripping with sweat, his clothes were wet, and his feet were battered.

“Something’s wrong with Ingel.”

“What? What makes you think that?”

“I had a dream.”

“A dream?”

“Ingel had a ladle in her hand, and someone was pouring soup into it, and a swarm of mosquitoes filled up the ladle before she could get any soup in it. I could taste them in my mouth, the taste of warm, sweet blood. And then Ingel was someplace else, the room was full of steam, and she started to take off her coat and it was full of lice-so full that you couldn’t see the fabric.”

“Hans, it was just a bad dream.”

“No, it wasn’t! It was a vision! Ingel was trying to tell me something! Her mouth opened a little and she looked right into my eyes and tried to open her mouth more, and I tried to make out what she was saying. But I woke up before I could hear what she was saying. I still had the taste of mosquitoes in my mouth and I could feel lice all over my body.”

“Hans, Ingel wrote to us that everything was all right, remember?”

“I tried to go back to sleep, to find out what Ingel was trying to say, but the lice were crawling on me.”

“You don’t have lice!”

Then Aliide noticed that Hans’s arms, neck, and face were covered with bloody scratches, and the tips of his fingers were red.

“Hans, listen now. You can’t have these attacks anymore. Do you understand? You’re putting everything in danger.”

“It was Ingel!”

“It was a bad dream.”

“I saw her!”

“It was a dream. Calm down now.”

“We have to get Ingel out of there.”

“Ingel is fine. She will come back, but you have to stay hidden until the time comes. What would Ingel think if she came here and saw you like this? Don’t you want her to have the same Hans that she married, when she comes back? Ingel isn’t going to want a lunatic!”

Aliide took Hans’s hand in her own and squeezed it. His icy fingers lay limp in her grasp. She hesitated for a moment, then she wrapped her arm around him. His muscles gradually softened, his pulse became even, and then… he put his hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Liide, I can’t go on like this.”

“I’ll think of something. I promise.”

Hans’s hands squeezed her shoulders.

His body felt right, his hands felt like good hands.

Aliide would have given anything at that moment to be able to take him into the little room, right to the bed, take off his clothes covered in cold sweat, and lick the scent of death from his every pore.

Aliide had always trusted Hans to know how to behave, but she wasn’t sure anymore. What if he had more visions? What if he had them when Martin was home? Martin was at work during the day, but anyone from the village might come by the house. What if Hans refused to go to the attic? What if he made a fuss or ran out the door, maybe straight into the arms of the NKVD?

Aliide put together a little bundle and hid it in the entry behind some other things, women’s linens, things that Martin would never touch. She could grab it on her way out the door if she needed to. She was hardly likely to go out any other way. Unless Hans had an attack when she was in the bedroom and Martin was in the kitchen. She would have to climb out the bedroom window. Maybe she should make a second bundle. But even if she did have her little bundle with her, where could she go? Hans might shoot Martin the minute he opened the door to the room where Hans was hiding, but what good would that do? And what if they had guests? Even if she did get away, they would catch her before long, and interrogate her. If Martin found out, the first thing he would do would be to thrust her into the hands of the Chekists, there was no doubt about it, and the Cheka men would think Hans was Aliide’s lover, and they would want to know how and when and where. Maybe she would have to spell it out for them; maybe she would have to show them, take off her clothes and show them. They would be interested in the fact that Martin’s wife had a Fascist lover, and Aliide would have to tell them all about her Fascist lover, and since she was Martin’s wife, she would have to compare what she did with her Fascist lover to what she did with a man who was a respectable Comrade. Which one was better? Which one was harder? How do you fuck a Fascist pig? And they would all stand in a circle around her, with their cocks erect, ready to punish her, ready to educate her, ready to weed out any Fascist seed left in her body.

Maybe Martin would want to interrogate his wife himself-to show his friends that he had nothing to do with the affair. He would prove it with a heavy-handed interrogation and let fly with all the energy of a betrayed husband. And even if Aliide told them everything, they wouldn’t believe her, they would just keep going and keep going, and then they would summon Volli. What was it that Volli’s wife had said? That he was so good at his work, that she was so proud of him. When they couldn’t get a confession out of a bandit, they summoned Volli, and the confession arrived before dawn. Volli was so efficient. Volli was so skillful. There wasn’t a better public servant in all this great country of ours.

“I’m so proud of Volli,” the woman had whispered, as ardently as Aliide had once heard her talk of God long ago. The words had rolled out of her mouth like a little halo, and her mouth shone with gold. Gold that Volli got for her. “The best husband in the world.” Aliide observed Hans closely, his eyes and gestures. The beard hid a lot, but otherwise he looked the same as before, the same Hans. And then it happened again.

“Ingel appeared to me last night.”

Hans was quite calm.

“So you had another nightmare?”

“How can you call Ingel a nightmare?” His voice had changed suddenly. He glared at her, straightening up and putting his hands on the table. They were fists. “What did Ingel say?”

His fists relaxed.

Aliide had to be careful what she said.

“She called my name. That’s all. She was in the middle of some fog or steam. There were people behind her, crowded tight around a stove, so tight that some of their clothes were catching fire. Or maybe they were drying their clothes on the stove and they caught fire. I don’t know. I couldn’t see clearly. Ingel was in front. She didn’t pay any attention to the people yelling behind her. I smelled smoke. Ingel didn’t complain about it-she just stared straight at me and said my name. Then the steam rose up around her again, and only her head was showing, and she was still staring at me, without stopping, and then the steam dissolved again and she was standing surrounded by bunks. They were all along the walls and there was a man in the bunk next to Ingel’s touching himself. And on the other side of her there was a man on top of a woman, and Ingel was in the middle and people were walking by her. And she just stared straight at me and sighed and said my name again. She wants to tell me something.”