Sofi Oksanen: Purge

“Zara, there’s nothing to worry about.”

The girl stood in front of the stove as if to shelter the burning clothes. The housedress was buttoned crooked.

“How about a bath? I’ll put some water on to warm,” Aliide said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Aliide came toward the stove slowly. The girl didn’t move. Her panicked eyes flickered. Aliide poured the kettle full, took hold of the girl’s hand and led her to the chair, set a hot glass of tea on the table in front of her, and went back to the stove. The girl turned to watch her movements.

“Let them burn,” Aliide said.

The girls eyebrow was no longer twitching. She started to scratch at her nail polish, concentrating on each finger one by one. Did it calm her down? Aliide fetched a bowl of tomatoes from the pantry and put it on the table, glanced at the loaded mousetrap beside the pile of cucumbers, and inspected her recipe book and the jars of mixed vegetables she’d left on the counter to cool.

“I’m about to can tomatoes. And the raspberries from yesterday. Shall we see what’s on the radio?”

The girl grabbed a magazine and rustled it loudly against the oilcloth. The glass of tea spilled over the magazine, the girl was frightened, and she jumped away from the table, stared at the glass and at Aliide in turn, and started to rapidly apologize for the mess, but messed up the words, then nervously tried to clean it up, looking for a cloth, then wiping the floor, the glass, and the legs of the table, and patting the already-ragged kitchen mat dry.

“It’s all right.”

The girl’s panic didn’t subside, and Aliide had to calm her down again-it’s all right, there’s nothing to worry about, just calm down, it’s just a glass of tea, let it be, why don’t you fetch the washtub from the back room, there should be enough warm water now. The girl dashed off quickly, still looking apologetic, brought the zinc tub clattering into the kitchen, and rushed between the stove and the tub carrying hot water and then cold water to add to it. She kept her gaze toward the floor; her cheeks were red, her movements conciliatory and smooth. Aliide watched her at work. An unusually well-trained girl. Good training like that took a hefty dose of fear. Aliide felt sorry for her, and as she handed her a linen towel decorated with Lihula patterns, she held the girl’s hands in her own for a moment. The girl flinched again; her fingers curled up and she pulled her hand away, but Aliide wouldn’t let her go. She felt like petting the girl’s hair, but she seemed too averse to being touched, so Aliide just repeated that there was nothing to worry about. She should just calmly get in the bath, then put on some dry clothes, and have something to drink. Maybe a glass of cold, strong sugar water. How about if she mixed some up right now?

The girl’s fingers straightened. Her fright started to ease, her body settled. Aliide carefully loosened the girl’s hand from her own and mixed up some soothing sugar water. The girl drank it, the glass trembled, a swirling storm of sugar crystals. Aliide encouraged her to get into the bath, but she wouldn’t budge until Aliide agreed to wait in the front room. She left the door ajar and heard the water splashing, and now and then a small, childlike sigh.

The girl didn’t know how to read Estonian. She could speak but not read. That’s why she had flipped through the magazine so nervously and knocked over her glass-maybe on purpose, to keep Aliide from seeing that she was illiterate.

Aliide peeked through the crack in the door. The girl’s bruised body sprawled in the tub. The tangled hair at her temples stuck out like an extra, listening ear.

One day, a black Volga pulled up in front of Zara’s house. Zara was standing on the steps when the car stopped, the door of the Volga opened, and a foot clothed in a shiny stocking emerged and touched the ground. At first Zara was afraid-why was there a black Volga in front of their house?- but she forgot her fright when the sun hit Oksanka’s lower leg. The babushkas got quiet on the bench beside the house and stared at the shining metal of the car and the glistening leg. Zara had never seen anything like it; it was the color of skin; it didn’t look anything like a stocking. Maybe it wasn’t a stocking at all. But the light gleamed on the surface of the leg in such a way that there had to be something there-it wasn’t just a naked leg. It looked as if it had a halo, like the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, gilded with light at the edges. The leg ended in an ankle and a high-heeled shoe-and what a shoe! The heel was narrow in the middle, like a slender hourglass. She’d seen Madame de Pompadour wearing shoes like that in old art-history books, but the shoe that emerged from the car was taller and more delicate, with a slightly tapered toe. When the shoe was set down on the dusty road and the heel landed on a stone, she heard a tearing sound all the way from the porch. Then the rest of the woman got out of the car. Oksanka.

Two men in black leather coats with thick gold chains around their necks got out of the front of the car. They didn’t say anything, just stood beside the car staring at Oksanka. And there was plenty to stare at. She was beautiful. Zara hadn’t seen her old friend in a long time, not since she’d moved to Moscow to go to the university. She had received a few cards from her and then a letter that said that she was going to work in Germany. After that she hadn’t heard from her at all until this moment. The transformation was amazing. Oksanka’s lips glimmered like someone’s in a Western magazine, and she had on a light brown fox stole, not the color of fox but more like coffee and milk-or were there foxes that color?

Oksanka came toward the front door, and when she saw Zara she stopped and waved. Actually it looked more like she was scraping at the air with her red fingernails. Her fingers were slightly curled, as if she were ready to scratch. The babushkas turned to look at Zara. One of them pulled her scarf closer around her head. Another pulled her walking stick between her legs. A third took hold of her walking stick in both hands.

The horn of the Volga tooted.

Oksanka approached Zara. She came up the stairs smiling, the sun played against her clean, white teeth, and she reached out her taloned hands in an embrace. The fox stole touched Zara’s cheek. Its glass eyes looked at her, and she looked back. The look seemed familiar. She thought for a moment, then realized that her grandmother’s eyes sometimes looked like that.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Oksanka whispered. A sticky shine spilled over her lips and it looked like it was difficult to part them, as if she had to tear her mouth unglued whenever she opened it.

The wind fluttered a curl of Oksanka’s hair against her lips, she flicked it away, and the curl brushed her cheek and left a red streak there. There were similar streaks on her neck. It looked like she’d been hit with a switch. As Oksanka squeezed her hand, Zara felt her fingernails, little stabs into her skin.

“You need to go to the salon, honey,” Oksanka said with a laugh, rumpling her hair. “A new color and a decent style!”

Zara didn’t say anything.

“Oh yeah-I remember what the hairdressers are like here. Maybe it would be best if you didn’t let them touch your hair.” She laughed again. “Let’s have some tea.”

Zara took Oksanka inside. The communal kitchen went quiet as they walked through. The floor creaked, women came to the door to watch them. Zara’s down-at-the-heel slippers squeaked as she walked over the sand and sunflower seed shells. The women’s eyes made her back tingle.