Rein Raud - The Death of the Perfect Sentence

Because no, she couldn’t speak that language. Which still bothered Särg a little.

She had the utmost respect for the Estonian people and their culture of course. “Kalevipoeg”, Tammsaare and all that. And the Song Festival. And unlike most in her circle of acquaintances she could say, “How’s it going?” and “Well, thanks” with a quite acceptable Estonian accent, and she could understand the numbers up to one hundred when a shopkeeper used them. But the rest of it was completely beyond her; there was no point in pretending otherwise.

“Anyway, a woman’s language skills aren’t her most important quality,” she would say coquettishly to Särg, to which he had no choice but to concur. They managed just fine, after all. Särg’s Russian had got much better from constant practice. What bothered him more was that their son Anton’s first words were in his mother’s and grandmother’s language, whereas he responded to anything his father said with funny cute noises which his wife’s side of the family said sounded exactly like Estonian, and made them laugh heartily. Which Anton of course took as encouragement.

They rarely visited Särg’s parents in the countryside; he knew very well that he could never bring himself to tell his father where he was now working.

Anton did not in fact learn to speak Estonian as a child at all. Särg’s working days were long and he often had to be away at weekends, so he played a modest part in his son’s upbringing. In any case, whenever he did have some free time Galina would claim it for herself, and they would go to Sõprus cinema and then to Gloria restaurant for dinner, since Särg’s mother-in-law was quite happy to look after Anton. All four of them would go on holiday to the Crimea together, where they always rented two rooms, and Anton would be in one of them with Grandma.

The problems started when Anton got older, when he began playing outdoors and found himself caught between two camps. He was in the same predicament at school. Anton attended Middle School No. 47, where they were fostering friendship between the peoples by having the Estonian and Russian classes together in one building, with a full set of teachers for every subject in each language. Anton didn’t mix with the Estonian boys, and while the Russians tolerated his presence they didn’t treat him as one of their own because of his surname. Anyway, they needed someone to tease, and he fitted the role very well. In fact that probably wasn’t because of his name, but because he was short in stature, just like his father wore thick-rimmed glasses due to his poor eyesight, and wasn’t particularly sporty. The main thing was that he would never tell on them to teacher. Anton himself saw things differently of course. He didn’t understand why being a little bit Estonian was such a problem for the playground bullies. Nor why he always had to play the role of fascist in their war games.

If we always knew in advance what was going to happen, we would behave like machines. So in a sense it is the unexpected things in life that make us who we are.

But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as they say.

As a teenager Anton gradually grew further apart from his parents. Their world was of no interest to him, nor did he want to share his world with them. But his parents saw no cause for worry: his marks were good and he was even sent to take part in the Estonian Soviet Republic’s Physics Olympiad – although he’d actually started to get more interested in history, especially after his two history teachers, the Estonian one and the Russian one, had a shouting match in the staffroom that nearly came to blows. And by now he’d begun studying Estonian diligently, although he still found it difficult, and he didn’t use it at home with his father. To be honest, he didn’t speak much with his father at all.

Anyway, what would a true Estonian man have to say to a Russified spook?

It had already gone five when Ervin, Tarts and Pille appeared through the cellar door; Anton had to go straight home. They didn’t know what Indrek wanted to tell them, so they’d kept him waiting. They were in a jolly mood when they arrived since their collection jar had ended up quite full by the end of the day, much fuller than the previous week.

“It started raining in the end,” Tarts said. “We’ll probably have to make some new posters. And paint some new freckles on to Ervin.” They all laughed. At least they now had enough money to buy some card and paints.

Once they had heard out Indrek and Raim they realised that they had much bigger problems on their hands. Things were pretty bad. But then, although they didn’t forget their friend for a moment, the customary tone started to return to their conversation: that jaunty banter, that self-belief. If only they could believe it within themselves, then they really could be free, right here and right now.

Ervin looked at his friends – because they were still his friends, despite everything that had happened – and experienced a feeling which was strange but not exactly unpleasant. He was the only one in that room who knew that there was now an invisible line running between them, separating them from each other. Of course he knew that what he’d done could not possibly fit into their shared conception of right and wrong. And, believe it or not, he still wanted to belong to their group, to be one of the few who dared to stand up and say how things really were, to proclaim the imminent arrival of freedom, in which no one would be imprisoned over their convictions or force-fed through a tube when they went on hunger strike. Or at least part of Ervin felt like that. The other part, which normally showed itself at night, or when he was hung-over, was quite sure that their activities were hopeless and pointless, that the enemy was tolerating them just for the sake of appearances. Because the enemy knew it could crush them flat as soon as it deemed necessary. Shave off Ervin’s red locks and chuck him into a dingy cell or send him to Siberia, from where he would return a different person. Ervin knew that would be a senseless sacrifice, and he was not prepared to make it. Anyway, what kind of nation entrusted the struggle for independence to a handful of young lads, who had still not learned to stand upright, to say nothing of falling in love, or mourning the dead. And what kind of nation then skulks off to its comfortable-enough den, its soft-enough bed, under its warm-enough blanket, to watch their struggle from a distance. He envied those friends who were prepared to stand to the last, and he wished he felt the same way. But there was nothing he could do. That’s just how things were. And it was now especially strange to listen to their joshing, after what he’d done today. This was no longer his world. Of course, when Madisson and then Bötker were exiled to Sweden, he realised that the career of a freedom fighter could actually conclude quite pleasantly. Why not follow them there? And if, contrary to any logic, things were to turn out as his wonderful, naïve friends thought – intoxicated as they were by their collective self-deception – and some sort of Estonian Republic were to make a comeback, then at least he would have made a contribution. As well as standing in the picket, he’d drawn swastikas on Soviet statues at night and had been on lookout duty a couple of times when Hangman’s gang went to nick the wheels off the commies’ cars. Just like that night when they were caught – and he was offered the chance of getting off more lightly.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t sometimes get the urge to admit everything to the others. They were his friends after all, they would understand, they would forgive him, fuck Sweden, we’ll go there some time later, they would say. And anyway, they could use the situation Ervin had got himself into to further the cause. The KGB now trusted him and could be fed all sorts of rubbish, be steered on to any old idiots, who would find themselves at the headquarters on Pagari Street instead of him and his friends.