‘It’s the shawls. Papa says we have no more wool. The knitting circle will have to be disbanded. At least until we can find another source. Or until the Soviets leave.’ I allowed myself a bitter laugh. The idea was so ludicrous. The only way they would give up the Baltics was through war. A war that, it now seemed, was imminent.
Etti worried at the fringe of her shawl.
Aunt Juudit was silent. Then she nodded slowly. ‘Is that the only thing that’s troubling you?’ She fumbled with the shawl around her neck, her thin fingers unknotting the lace. A sea of peacock tails danced as she waved it at me. ‘Tell me, Kati, what do you see?’
I frowned. ‘Peacock tails?’
Aunt Juudit laughed. ‘No, Kati. You’re being too obvious.’ She draped the shawl across her arm. ‘Look. Do you remember when your grandmother showed me how to knit peacocks? Do you remember what my stitching was like, before she helped me?’
‘You picked it up so quickly.’ I shrugged. ‘I can hardly remember what you were like before.’
‘Can’t you?’ Aunt Juudit flung the shawl around her neck, knotting it nimbly at her throat again. ‘Let me remind you: I was dreadful! Etti remembers. Don’t you, dear one?’
Etti nodded.
Aunt Juudit pursed her lips. Bending down, she grasped my hands firmly in her own. ‘Now listen to me. Selling these shawls was never about money. Yes, the money helps. But we will all share what we have. We will survive. We’ve survived so far, haven’t we? So. What this is really about is you.’ She paused. ‘You’ve helped us. Since your grandmother’s death, you’ve kept this group together. Even after last year, even after everything that happened with the Russians. Helle, Viktoria, even Etti here. We have all kept going because you are there to give advice when needed, you are there to show us how and why we knit even when our spirit fails us. Do you understand?’
Her eyes bore into mine until I nodded. It was the reason my grandmother had left me in charge. She would be proud of what we had achieved.
‘Good,’ Aunt Juudit said. ‘Then let’s have no more talk about disbanding the knitting circle. It isn’t necessary. I’ll speak to your father myself. He can’t object if we aren’t making any sales. What will we do if we have no more yarn? We will unpick all our old shawls and start again. We will teach ourselves to be better. Then, by the time we have found more wool, we will be masters like your grandmother. Like you.’
I blinked hard to force back my tears.
‘Good.’ Aunt Juudit released my hand, satisfied. ‘Now if I can only convince Etti not to call my grandchild Hezekiah or Mikaela, I will consider my duty done.’
Etti’s mouth tightened. ‘It’s my decision, Mama. I think David would have wanted the child to have a Hebrew name.’
‘I understand,’ Aunt Juudit said, her features softening. ‘But perhaps a mixture of both first and middle names? There are so many fine Estonian names. Your grandfather for instance: Endel. Or Erich, like your uncle. Or Evi or Leelo, if it’s a girl.’
Etti touched her belly lightly. ‘Well, I will give it some thought. What do you think, Kati?’
I opened my mouth to reply but before I could, Etti moved suddenly. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, bending double to clutch her belly, her mouth stretched in a wide grimace. I watched her face convulse with pain. After what seemed like a lifetime, the pain receded. Her features unknotted and she sagged. ‘I’m sorry. It happens more frequently these days.’ She placed her hands on either side of her belly. ‘You haven’t felt her kick yet, have you, Kati?’
I shook my head. I allowed my cousin to place my hand on her belly. For a second, there was nothing, but then I felt something press against my palm, something solid and forceful that said, Don’t ignore me. I am here. Etti laughed at my sharp intake of breath.
‘She’s relying on you to teach her,’ she told me as the kick came again, knocking against my hand. ‘By the time she is our age, she will be the best lace weaver in Tartu.’
‘Perhaps she will be a fighter,’ I suggested, ‘with a kick like that.’ It was only afterwards, as Aunt Juudit linked arms with Etti and they moved towards the balcony doors, that my own words sent a chill along my spine. The burden of secret knowledge weighed heavily on my heart. What kind of world would Etti’s child enter? What would happen to us if Oskar’s prophecy of war came true?
Ring Pattern
Lydia
‘Freedom!’
At first, I thought I’d imagined it; the catchcry of my own heart, the result of exhaustion, of too many hours spent travelling and too much introspection. But it was real, as was the sudden burst of gunfire, deafeningly loud – rat-a-tat like the first moment a wireless radio is flicked on and static floods the airwaves.
Through the window, smoke drifted across the platform. Figures moved like shadows behind a glass lamp. Every few seconds, the smoke would clear to show the timber posts scaffolding the station platform’s roof, or a person running past.
‘Lida? What is happening?’ Olga’s voice was hoarse with fear.
‘I don’t know.’
Our train had paused at the small station platform in Tiksoja to drop off passengers before the final leg to Tartu. The whistle had just blown before the rattle of gunfire sent everyone into panic.
I pressed my face against the glass. A cloud of smoke was dispersed by a puff of breeze, revealing the body of a Soviet train guard lying motionless, face down on the platform, a pool of dark blood puddled around him. I drew back sharply, my stomach churning.
‘What is it?’ Olga cried.
I shook my head, unable to answer. I had never seen a dead body like this before. Mama’s corpse in the funeral house had looked almost real, her features smoothed by the embalmer’s hands. There’d been no trace of blood, no real evidence her spirit had fled except the lack of movement and the coldness of her skin. This was altogether different. There was a rawness to what I’d witnessed, a sharp edge to the vision like a blade touching skin. I fought the urge to look again, horrified but compelled.
The gunfire resumed. People screamed. Boots thundered in the hallway, and Olga and I clung to each other as the door to our compartment was flung open.
A man in an unfamiliar brown uniform stood before us, hefting a rifle in his arms. ‘Out, out!’ he yelled. ‘Leave everything behind.’
I threw off the heavy fur coat and we obeyed, filing into the narrow corridor with the other passengers. Most of them were sobbing. One woman tripped and fell. Nobody moved to help her. Instead, people stepped over her outstretched limbs, ignoring her pleas for help. Once outside, we heard more voices shouting. The rattle of gunfire was louder, relentless. The stink of it lodged inside my nose. Passengers flung themselves to the ground, and Olga and I did the same.
Small pebbles dug into my cheek. Raising my head slightly, I swivelled my head in time to see boots clomp past.
‘Olga!’
‘I am here.’ Fingers clutched my wrist, digging in. I felt a hand snake around my waist, Olga’s leg pressed against my own.
As suddenly as it had begun, the gunfire ceased. Dust floated down amid the sounds of muffled whimpers.
‘Is it over?’ I whispered.
Olga’s arm tightened around my waist. ‘Be quiet.’
More boots filled my vision, moving past us. I dared to raise my head a fraction, and saw that the boots belonged to a group of men, all dressed in the same brown uniform as the man who had boarded the train. Bandits. They were running in and out of the train, emerging with their arms full of suitcases and carpet bags. Some were openly rummaging through the luggage, discarding anything not of value. Most had rifles slung over their shoulders. A few stood guard, guns ready, their gaze sweeping the station, watching for any sign of resistance or retaliation, but nobody moved. Nobody resisted. The bodies of the Soviet guards who had been riding the train with us were strewn about the platform.