Mari Saat - The Saviour of Lasnamäe

“But five hundred’s not enough for you, is it?”

“No, it isn’t. I was thinking about it all day yesterday. A whole grand isn’t enough for me either, about halfway through the month I tend to get down to my last penny and have to go and cadge it – I’ll just have to do a lot more pestering. It’d be no hardship to them to shell out another grand a month, it’s just that Dad thinks that money should be earned… Because he lived really frugally during the Russian time, at least that’s what he’s always rubbing my nose in anyway…”

Before Sofia visited Rael’s grandma for the first time, she dreamt she was sitting on a park bench next to an elderly lady, thin, once perhaps fairly tall, but now with a stoop, her hair as white and sparkling as snow swept into a tall bun on the back of her head, and her eyes sparkling like pieces of the morning sky through which the sun was gleaming. So much so that it hurt to look into them. And with one hand she held on her lap a small black puppy which occasionally whimpered and wriggled and was eager to be off, but in the other she held a cardboard punnet of wild strawberries. The strawberries were tiny, slightly squishy yet slightly dried, and she offered them to Sofia…

Rael’s grandma was just like that, except she didn’t have a puppy and she didn’t proffer any strawberries and you could look as long as you wanted into her eyes – as grey-blue as a murky sky – but you would find no curious sparkle to them…

“This is Sofia,” Rael explained to her grandma, “we sit at the same desk and she’s a really good student, nearly always gets just about full marks. I’ve brought her with me today to read the paper because I’ve got a bad throat and a bit of a cough…” and she coughed twice in evidence, “otherwise there’d be no one to read you the papers…”

“Oh it’s marvellous how you always worry so about your grandma,” said Grandma, although Sofia thought she detected something of a knowing tone. Was there not perhaps a slight jibe in there? Had she seen through their plan?

And to Sofia she said, “Ah, so this must be Sofia…” with a hint of coldness, as if she already knew what to think of her… and then added in businesslike fashion, “Right then, perhaps we should make a start… What first: Maaleht ? Or perhaps Äripäev ?”

Rael’s grandma had a large round table in the centre of the room piled high with papers and magazines – the older ones underneath and the newer ones on top, each in a separate stack. There were Maaleht and Äripäev, Newsweek, Nedelya, Financial Times, National Geographic and Der Spiegel…

“I don’t read the dailies,” she explained importantly, “there isn’t the time – and who’d ever get through reading me that lot. I have to listen to the news on the radio or the telly. If I put my ear up close, I can make it out all right…”

It became apparent that she didn’t have to read articles at random, instead Grandma had sifted through the papers and magazines with a magnifying glass, reading the titles and introductions in the largest type. All she wanted read were the articles she’d selected. Sofia started with a Russian article: “…last week the Russian securities market was again seized with panic …” she read and sneaked a look out of the corner of her eye in Grandma’s direction. At first, Grandma appeared to be very pleased – she nodded from time to time, her eyes half-closed and a slight smile on her lips. Gradually the nods became deeper and her breathing slower – was that her snoring?

Sofia suddenly stopped reading without being asked, but Grandma immediately said, “Read on, read on, speak up a bit!”

“Most probably, the interest rate will be held at 6.5% at the next meeting of the US Federal Reserve Board on 19 December. What Alan Greenspan says is important…”

Grandma’s eyes had gradually closed again, but this time her head was resting on the headrest of the armchair and she really was snoring gently. But it could be deceptive, like a trap, it wasn’t worth trusting to it…

“If the issue is the need to tackle inflation …” she continued.

“Bullshit!” shouted Grandma suddenly, almost making Sofia jump off her chair.

“Surely you must see that oil prices are so high that Greenspan himself has lost the plot! You read well but what you’re reading is bullshit…”

Sofia didn’t understand whether Grandma was reproaching her for reading such “bullshit”… She remembered the story that Genghis Khan had slain messengers who brought him bad news – had broken their spines…

“Don’t worry,” said Grandma as if in encouragement, “whatever rubbish your eyes are reading, just let it all come flowing out of your mouth, otherwise if you read quietly in a corner you’ll just drink it all in yourself. Let’s try Maaleht instead!”

In Maaleht , an Estonian agricultural weekly, Grandma had highlighted a story about foot-and-mouth disease. Sofia found it bizarre that a grandma who looked so small, with a long, thin face and the daintiest of long fingers, and had lived in a city all her life had any interest in Maaleht at all, let alone in foot-and-mouth disease…

“The epidemic has resulted in pyres of thousands of animals all over Europe,” Sofia read. “Culling animals because of foot-and-mouth is evidently the most effective and quickest method. Vaccinating would create a situation where animals carrying the virus may be left alive. A vaccinated animal can remain a carrier for up to one year. To prevent this confusion most countries in the world have imposed their own import regulations to the effect that countries with which they have reciprocal trade relations must not vaccinate livestock against foot-and-mouth disease. That is the requirement in the European Union. If the situation were otherwise, the European Union would not be able to compete with cheaper meat products from the United States. The culling of infectious animals is the most economically effective approach: if we started vaccinating animals, we would wipe out the export opportunities for Estonia’s meat and dairy products for the next three to four years…”

“What an abomination!” Grandma suddenly exclaimed in a piercing voice. “They’d kill their own mothers. Just for better opportunities for competition. Why do we, the Europeans, have to be at war with the Americans – why on earth do we have to produce more meat than we eat? It’s madness. Why are we wearing our land out? The Estonians are becoming as ridiculous as the rest of Europe!”

Then she leant towards Sofia and said quietly as if disclosing a great conspiratorial secret, “Foot-and-mouth isn’t generally fatal, it’s like the flu for humans – it can be cured if you look after the animal. Stalin himself cured foot-and-mouth, and even nowadays they cure it in Russian animals… but not for love of the animals – no – it’s for their meat, there’s not enough meat in Russia, not enough to go round… Everything’s run on greed!” Her voice had now swelled with a stern and piercing tone, and then just as suddenly it faded…

Sofia wondered whether to continue reading, but then Grandma said quietly, as if in a ghost story, just like the voice in the dream earlier, sending chills up Sofia’s spine, “This world is going to perdition, going to perdition… the deserts are coming… the world over… deserts, deserts…”

“Why deserts?” asked Sofia almost in a whisper because she found this hoarse prediction so frightening. Grandma was indeed listening – there was no deafness there now.

“Because,” she said suddenly goading, almost knowingly, “deserts come from evil, from evil thoughts, the earth cannot tolerate it. The earth is in pain – deserts are scorch marks on the face of the earth… All humans, all peoples, all of them are burning the earth with their devilry… The cows are earth’s teats; through cows the earth feeds people with its milk, the cows are holy, cows are the earth’s motherhood, cows must not be molested, but look what man has done to them – they tend them in small pens… And when they have worn them out they slaughter them… Look how many evils the Americans have committed! Like when they killed the bison in their droves! Why do you think that was? Just so that the Indians wouldn’t have anything to eat any more and would starve to death… they’ve still to pay for it… but the rest of humanity’s no better – the Germans, the Russians… they grow up on milk but kill each other… Not even the Jews are blameless, otherwise Hitler wouldn’t have been given the power to thrash them… What power would Hitler have had otherwise…”