Rein Raud - The Death of the Perfect Sentence

As Alex tried to absorb the full meaning of those words, the pizzas arrived, placed on the table in front of them by a young man wearing an earring.

But so what?

“I would like to know what is on those films,” Alex said.

“I should probably start a bit closer to the beginning,” Tapani said, passing Alex a knife and fork. “We are both of the view that there are positive changes taking place in your homeland at the moment, is that not so? But we also know that many people don’t like what’s happening for obvious reasons. What we are doing is intended to help those who want to change your country for the better, make it more humane, more open, a place where people don’t have to live in constant fear.”

“We don’t live in constant fear,” Alex interrupted him.

“Very well, very well,” said Tapani, taking a swig of water. “Let’s put it this way: we’re trying to help those people who want to live their lives free from lies.”

“But what is on those films then?” Alex asked again.

“They are photographs of documents, taken by certain very brave people.” So things were pretty serious then, Alex thought to himself. “They are photos of the front pages of KGB agent files. I’m sure you will appreciate that it is extremely important for us to know who’s who.”

But Alex had actually been expecting something much worse. Now it turned out that they were only talking about some common snitches. He couldn’t stand them, who could? But it was well known that the best defence was to make sure that you had nothing to hide. He knew that from experience.

“For example, it would be wise for you to bear in mind that a certain Mister Kalugin, Konstantin Zakharovich from your department is working for the secret services.” Tapani pronounced the name with great difficulty. “So be careful what you say in his presence.”

Really?

He certainly wouldn’t have expected anything like that of that drunken lecher. Of course it was natural that there would be interest in their department; they were involved in joint ventures with foreign companies after all, but if he’d been taken on to work there, wouldn’t he have been vetted already?

“How do you know that?” Alex asked.

“I just know.”

Alex didn’t have any reason to doubt him.

But taken altogether this could only mean one thing. That he was sitting and eating lunch with someone who was somehow linked to Western intelligence agencies. To those very organisations whose raison d’être was to force the Soviet Union to its knees and destroy it, as he’d been told for as long as he could remember. Up until now he had no reason to try to imagine what their agents might look like, so he was only capable of visualising them as those dogged assassins in long raincoats who chased Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor (which he’d been to see twice). So what if Robert Redford was working for the CIA as well.

But he’d been told a great many other things too, and then told that everything was in fact the opposite to what he’d been told.

How can a person remain true to himself in such a situation? Tapani didn’t seem too bothered by that dilemma himself.

“Supposing,” began Alex slowly, “that I agree with you on this. I mean, that it’s useful to know who is going to make complaints about their colleagues, and so on. You must surely understand that there’s no way I would betray my country – that’s all there is to it.”

“You know what,” Tapani replied, “I reckon that the ones who are betraying your country are the ones who want to keep your people permanently in the dark. It might sound high-flown, but that’s how things are. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“You’ll give me your word that there aren’t any pictures of any, I don’t know, airfields or port facilities on those films?”

“If my word actually means anything to you, then yes. You have my word.”

Some things just are what they are

Alex and his mother had just come back from the beach. His uncle had left them the keys to his holiday home while he was away at a conference, and it was one of the few buildings in Olgino which was close to the sea, although it wasn’t part of one of those state holiday factories. They’d walked along the wooden walkway leading inland with their towels slung over their shoulders, having decided not to get dressed on the beach as there were no changing booths nearby.

The black car was parked close to the front door, the men showed their official IDs, mother opened the door and let them in. Looking back on it now, Alex realised that the men had known that they weren’t going to find anything. It was just their way of making a point. They chucked the plates out of the kitchen cupboard on to the floor, smashing them to bits, and they pulled the clothes from the wardrobe, ripping as many of them as possible. (“Please, they’re my dresses!” – “Shut up, bitch”), but the books got the worst of it of course. There was nothing controversial amongst them, just Soviet editions of Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Blok. Uncle had bought them from the hard currency shops in Leningrad after his conferences, there was nowhere else one could get hold of them. They ripped the binding open, as if they suspected that the books contained messages other than those hidden between the lines of verse. Alex sat in his room, shaking. He was cold, still dressed only in his swimming trunks. One of the men looked in from the doorway, casting his gaze across the room with its empty walls, spartan bed, desk with no drawers, and the chair by the window, but he didn’t enter. Their gazes met like a sword striking a shield. Alex and his mother returned to Leningrad that same evening, and neither of them has gone back to Olgino since.

Alex thought things over. On the one hand he was sufficiently naive to trust an intelligence agent, on the other hand, even if he did not realise it himself, Tapani was not actually an intelligence agent at all, he just had a lot of good Estonian friends in Sweden.

“But what if I get caught?”

Tapani sighed in relief, but Alex didn’t notice.

“I can’t promise it will be completely risk-free.” He took his notebook from his pocket and looked for something inside it. “On the whole they don’t search people like you at customs too often. But if it were to happen,” he took a business card out from the notebook and handed it to Alex, “tell them that this person asked you to take the films to Finland to be developed because they don’t process that type of colour film in Estonia.”

Alex read the business card, which was in Russian. The name on it was Eduard Margusovich Põldmaa, of the Estonian Soviet Forest, Cellulose, Paper and Timber Ministry, department for foreign relations.

“He’s a KGB man,” Tapani continued. “He managed to harm quite a few people before they realised who he was. And it’s quite possible that he could have got hold of those photos too, if he was working for the other side. So if you slip up, point the finger at him: it’s only his word against yours, and they have more grounds to suspect him than you. If that happens then it will be the last time, I won’t bother you any further.”

It all sounded quite reasonable to Alex. If only his damned tooth hadn’t started to play up again.

For a couple of weeks now Ervin had been living in a room which they’d found for him, in a building which resembled a dormitory and was about ten minutes’ walk from Bergshamra metro station. He wasn’t exactly overjoyed with the place. It was a pretty grim place – a bed, chair, table and cupboard, nothing else. On top of that he had to share the kitchen with darkies who often cooked their smelly food in the mornings. But he could put up with going to the kitchen once a day to heat up the oven-ready meals he bought from the supermarket, and otherwise he didn’t have much need for it, since he had a kettle in his room.