‘At the farmhouse,’ I told my cousin. I felt a little frisson of anticipation shiver across my skin.
Etti was still looking at me. ‘So? You should go there.’
I hesitated. The farmhouse still held terrible memories for me. But Oskar was waiting for me.
‘You don’t need me?’ I said.
Etti heaved a long sigh that reminded me of Aunt Juudit. ‘Do you plan to make a professional career out of worrying once Estonia is restored, Katarina Mägi?’ She pushed me with her free hand, using the other to hold the sleeping Leelo against her. ‘Go!’
I made myself move, pushing people aside until I found a man with a lorry who was unloading his truck with crates that contained loaves of grey bread as hard as concrete. When I told him where I needed to go he motioned me up into the back of the vehicle. I squeezed myself between the rows of empty crates, the faint loamy scent of the bread drifting over me. The lorry started with a rumble. Seconds later, we were pulling out onto the road.
Oskar stood outside the farmhouse with one hand raised, his shirt a white smudge against the timber. The sound of hammering echoed across the clearing. As I reached the gate my foot snapped a twig in two. The sound reported like the whip-crack of gunfire.
Oskar spun around, his features tightening. Then his face broke into a smile. He dropped his arms to his sides and called out to me, the hammer still clutched in one hand.
‘Mrs Mägi. You came.’
It was strange to hear him call me that. In my mind, Imbi had been Mrs Mägi until now.
I walked slowly across the clearing until I reached the garden and the little path that led up to the house. Most of the garden had been weeded, I realised, the soil turned. I made my way to where Oskar was standing at the top of the porch.
‘I did.’ I glanced up and my breath hitched in my chest. The house had been partially restored, the broken panes replaced, new shutters folded over them. The broken front door had been removed and another of solid oak stood in its place, painted a bright cheery yellow like melted butter. The porch had been painted, too, and by the side of the door sat a new rocking chair. New thatch gleamed on the roof.
Oskar leaped down the steps and dropped the hammer in the grass. He took my hand. ‘It’s not finished,’ he warned.
I stared in wonder. ‘How did you manage this?’
I moved up the steps as if I was dreaming, running my hand along the wooden railing which stretched the length of the porch. The smell of paint and varnish filled the air.
‘You like it, then.’ Oskar’s arm encircled my waist.
‘Like it?’ I could not stop smiling. ‘It’s wonderful!’
I tried to peer into the window which belonged to Oskar’s bedroom but Oskar moved in front of it, blocking my path. ‘Not yet.’
‘There’s more?’ I pretended to peek around his shoulder, but he caught me and drew me to him and pressed his lips to my mouth. Desire leaped in my stomach. We stayed like that for a long moment, our lips joined, sunshine dancing on our skin.
When we broke apart, he looked so young, so much like the old Oskar it was almost impossible to believe how much had changed from that fifteen-year-old boy who had first kissed me in the field I could see beyond the porch railings.
‘It’s only the start,’ he said. ‘I intend to improve it further, in time, not just clean it. But I only have a few hours a week. And limited resources. What you see here is the result of what the Germans gave me in exchange for my services to the Home Guard. Whatever else I need I will have to trade or barter for. I want to fix up the garden, of course. I’ve cleared out most of the sodden boards inside. And the cobwebs are gone, you’ll notice. No more spiders.’
And no more ghosts, I added to myself, unable to stop myself thinking of his mother, his sister and Hilja. And the others. All of them gone.
‘I pity spiders.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Everybody thinks so badly of them.’ I leaned against the porch, the timber pressing against my shirt to warm the skin on my back. ‘But they’re clever. They know how to play dead, how to wait and when to feed. And of course, they make lace. A sort of lace. They’re weavers. And often overlooked. Do you remember the tale of the spider and the wind?’
Oskar raised an eyebrow. ‘I must have forgotten it.’ He kissed my hand. ‘Will you tell it to me?’
‘If you like.’ As the scent of rampant weeds and wild juniper blew over us, I told him the story of the little spider who went to find the wind and was tricked by the fly.
‘That’s a sad story,’ Oskar said, but he was still grinning.
‘At least the spider always eats first,’ I said. ‘That is her consolation. And of course, she can make lace cobwebs. Like me.’
Oskar leaned over and kissed my neck. ‘Enough about spiders,’ he said. His breath on my skin made me shiver. ‘Come in, now. There’s something I want you to see.’
We stepped inside.
I was aware of my body tensing. My eyes strayed to the corner where Imbi and Aime’s bodies had lain. But the floor was clean and dry, the cobwebs gone as Oskar had promised. Was it possible that the ghosts of the past had finally found peace?
‘Watch the boards.’ Oskar’s voice tickled my ear. ‘I’ve removed the waterlogged ones, but I haven’t replaced all of them yet.’
He guided me across the floor, nudging my leg with his knee if I came too close to a missing plank. Slowly, we made our way past the kitchen, heading towards the back of the house where the bedrooms lay. It was not so very different to skating, to moving as one across the ice while the wind blew cold enough to make our ears ache. In the old days, we had spent every winter sledding through the snow or spinning in circles across the glassy surface of the river beyond Oskar’s farmhouse. Those memories glowed as brightly as baubles hanging on a Christmas tree. They were scented with cinnamon and spiced apple, laced with Aime’s happy laughter and Imbi’s scolding when we stayed out past dusk. One night we had witnessed an amazing spectacle as ribbons of light twisted across the sky – starry violet, glacial aquamarine, pink as brilliant as the rambling wild roses that burst into bloom in summer. My grandmother had once told me that the aurora lights were reflections of a celestial marriage feast taking place in the sky. The shimmering colours mirrored their glass sleighs and gilded plates and the coats of their giant stallions racing over the land. Unable to draw ourselves away, Oskar and I had clung together, our clouded breath mingling, children marvelling at a miracle that might never occur again in our lifetime.