Much seemed repaired. We discussed the distinction between Anne, demure as milk, and Anna, vivacious, bold. ‘Both’, she tossed her head like an Anna, ‘odious.’We almost managed gaiety at more radio news. A Department of Employment had rendered most of its clerks unemployed; a Finnish urban council had found Donald Duck’s common-law marriage morally loose; an American DA was prosecuting a journalist for writing ‘Junkie’ instead of ‘Disadvantaged’.
Interrupting, in some accusation and as if expecting denial, she stated, ‘You are thinking of someone else.’
True. The self I had not achieved.
As to complete another sentence begun silently, and, more amiably, she said, ‘I would throw sticks into the river to help it go faster. I never wondered where it was going, but it seemed scared.’
I fancied she was attempting to say more than she found possible, but she relapsed into the pose always worth a connoisseur’s glance, one bare arm resting on a ledge, one hand stroking away hair, head tilted, eyes in another world.
Without speaking, we agreed that music would best suit a mood still difficult. Not Wagner but a grave, plangent Corelli sonata. We were not truly musicaclass="underline" my appreciation was too literary, finding not formal design but unruly stories, preventing concentration; hers was sensuous, seeking motifs for dance. Nevertheless, we sat contented, her face ruminative, puckered; now the child striving to succour the river, now anxious to please Corelli, while I unmethodically pondered the origins of music. Hunters’ cries, trappers’ animal imitations, warriors’ shouts, girls mooning over babies.
Afterwards, she was apologetic, to Corelli. ‘I was imagining…’
As though on cue the telephone rang. Often we ignored it, but at once she jumped up, as if for Mr Graves, lifted the receiver, looked back at me with what I thought some unease, murmured a dismissive ‘Yes’ and unhurriedly moved to the garden, pausing under an arch, glimmering between dishevelled roses, vanished into massed shadows.
For the rest of the day I did not see her and, always respecting the need to be alone, I removed to Alain’s. At breakfast she did not appear, and by evening it was apparent that she had gone with the cat on another professional trip.
Her room seemed as usual, tidy, the girlish straw hat lying on the gold-and-cream quilt, like a joke.
Unpossessive, I would miss the drama of an unexpected kiss, the movement towards my bed, the sudden playful suggestion. No more. By the end of the week, however, I had worry, still faint as shuffled silks but near a foreboding that I was no longer protected and that love remained a trap.
SIX:
HOME
The crowd is vivid, many in nationalist peasant costumes, 1918 uniforms, jeans, with banners of Baltic heroes, all ages united in power of action, yet with outbursts of ribald song. Pre-war posters of Päts, Laidener, Poska, Pisp hang on tents, alongside demands for an anti-Soviet Popular Front, National Sovereignty, the restoration of Estonian in schools and verses celebrating the Baltic Way. More banners are woven with Independence, Freedom, We Too Are Europeans. Also, Perestroika, Glasnost. National badges, religious emblems, factional ribbons are flaunted, leaflets swapped, dates announced for festivals of native dance, music, poetry and democratic rallies. Gypsies in red kerchiefs argue in their own tongue or, passions quickened, link arms with strangers. No official, Russian or Estonian, is seen.
Following the muted anniversary of the Nazi–Communist Pact, two million Balts are massed in the Human Chain, unbroken for four hundred kilometres across the three republics, prepared to face Red Army invasion. The dedicated, courageous, reckless, obstinate. Initiates wresting freedom from Fate; coppersmiths beating out pure lines.
We watch the lilac horizon for a swirl of dust, blur of tank or bomber. A shout rises, loudening along the front,’ Hakka Astuma… Russians Out… Keep Standing…’ At intervals bells clang, slowly, solemnly, kneading the warm air. They still, then resume, faster, merry, almost syncopated.
Other names flutter. Heldur, Armo, Pille, Leenia, mostly forgotten, mere growls to the numerous children brandishing toy pistols, flags, darting for buns and lemonade. All are part of the revolt, daily expanding, enflaming Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, after the spontaneous, exultant heave that toppled the Berlin Wall. The jokes, slang repartee, sharing of pastries, chocolate, vodka, kvass, the hymns and patriotic choruses climax a week rhetorical, resounding, purposeful. From this heath of brown sedge, sallow scrub, Ivask’s verse rebounds:
The days succeeding loss of Nadja were a flurry of instincts, disconnected images, a tearing mish-mash sustained by Alain’s supply of valium. Fenris swallowed the sun, Meinnenberg children savagely fought to devour a magazine illustration of cake, an egg dissolved into a sneer, red petals to Katyn Woods, John Wayne folded into rubber. Daytime was dream, nights sleepless. I lived in metaphor: empty highway, polluted waters, abortionist’s table.
At first I had struggled against suspicion of abduction or amnesia. Wilful desertion was unthinkable. She must be delayed by a Phoenician maze or Ligurian shrine. Certainly not swept off by some soft, seductive Prince Florizel or Duke de Morny. Mean betrayals and complaints were not her way; neither of us treasured grudges or smouldered with unuttered resentment. We enjoyed the stable, unhurried, disliked the sensational. Wherever she was, she would leave our intimacies intact.
I soon knew, without wholly accepting, that she would not return. She had vanished without fuss, on no inauspicious date, staging no lachrymose letter on the mantelpiece, no dramatic telegram. As if after burglary I began noticing certain absences: notebooks, a favourite miniature, a few discs.
Attempts to track her would be futile, also insulting. The Fête, riot, explosion might have probed some shrouded trouble, started as a strange gamble. Or none of these, but something deeper, darker, in which I was intruder, a comrade loved but, in the last coil of a labyrinth, useless.
Already I was thinking of her in the past tense. Still seeking clues, I reconsidered her Etruscan studies. Mesmerized by particular numbers, these people apparently became obsessed with conviction that a blessed period had ended, another, grimmer one beginning, so that they lost will to resist upstart Rome. A tiny incident now swelled, blotting out all else – in an afternoon of gaiety she had, with no warning, murmured a Hungarian line: The aspen sheds leaves, I part from my lover.
I had assumed too much. We subsist on belief that cars will halt at the red light, train drivers obey signals, the correct stamp guarantees delivery, the referee’s whistle prevails. But there is the famous uncertainty principle. A Baldur is killed for no cause, merely from spite. Serial murderers may lack definable motive. Events can be haphazard, results unforeseen. What should occur often does not. Marvellous are thy ways, O Zeus.
We had both jested about lingering too long in gardens. But I was penalizing myself uselessly. Reading a book backwards, finding happiness misting, silences deepening, the plot crumbling. Explanations could only mislead. Chance or Fate? But Hector was dead, Anna Karenina lay under the train. Bombs explode, planted by the crazed or bleak; lovers start noticing each other as furniture; a girl runs, urging herself towards whatever, perhaps not knowing why.