Again the same low sturdy pines, juniper bushes, uninhabited places, tracks of wild animals, frost and sun. Again they were skiing down-hill and trudging up again. And when they had had enough of skiing they had a coffee break on the brow of the hill and Inger handed out her sandwiches. They were all ravenous and the sandwiches vanished as fast as mist in the morning. Eating they stamped their feet and watching them from afar one could have thought it was sonic ritual dance.

"This scene would be great in a film," surmised Sven, who had hardly opened his mouth during the whole trip, and pointed at the green thermos flask labelled Sun, standing on a stump.

"You think so?" mumbled Toomas, his mouth full of bread. "Indeed I do, snow, a thermos flask and school-leavers ... " They hadn't covered even half of their route yet when the short winter day began to draw to a close and dusk was deepening into twilight. The air was blue, chilly, the sky glowing with the pink light of the dying sun. Cold became searing, the snow beneath their skis began to sing louder. Overhead stars flowered with light.

Round the bend came a big truck with a load of timber, its chains throwing up snow. Inger stepped aside, although the truck had room enough to pass anyway. When the truck drew level with her, the door of the cab opened a crack and the driver whose white teeth were the only thing Inger had time to note gave her the time of day in a loud voice. Then the truck went on.

Very strange, thought Inger, stopping. A perfect stranger salutes you in a strange wood.

"What's up, Teacher?" Urmas was at once on the stop. "Are you tired? I'll take your rucksack."

Inger shook her head. No–well, must have been some parent or other she didn't recognize. Nevertheless it's good she isn't all alone here in this dark wood. Urmas is immediately behind her and the others, too, aren't far away.

They were back in town at nightfall, all of them cheerful and all in.

"Bye! Good night! Don't let frost bite your nose off!" Inger took off her skis and stood them in the woodshed. Her room was unheated and chilly, distant stars were looking in through the window deepening the feeling of cold even more. She shrugged off her backpack damp with perspiration, clothes and sheets in the backpack were damp, too. Hastily she put on a dry shirt and several pullovers, topping them with an old winter coat, and began to build the kitchen fire. The thermometer read 0°C. This time firewood, at least, had been brought in. Soon the range was redhot, but it took time for her shuddering and shivering to abate. Coat on, feet in the oven, she sipped piping-hot tea.

When she had more or less thawed out, she remembered there seemed to have been something white in her letter box. It was a picture postcard of a bear cub with a fir tree on its shoulder.

The season's greetings weren't signed.

She became interested in the postcard, studied it from both sides, trying to find out where it had been posted.

But there was no post-mark.

Who put it here, she wondered. Who of her acquaintances wrote such a hand?

Who was that mysterious person who had sent her warm and friendly New Year's greetings on a cold winter day? Who was this brown bear with a fir tree on its shoulder who had been here when she herself was away? Who had remembered her on such a cold day? Was it Kiur? Or some former school-fellow or fellow-student who had crossed the ice and come to the island on business? Or was it even Jaak the sailor, although his handwriting Inger knew?

She couldn't arrive at any decision.

Why didn't the person who brought it put down on it when they'd drop in again? Had they had little time, had they been in a hurry to go somewhere? To visit some acquaintance while Inger wasn't at home? Will they be back later?

One way or other, from now on this distant postcard shall be her talisman.

She went to the drawer in her cupboard and rummaged in it for a short while. At last she had the nightingale-and-lilac envelope in her hand. It had been left lying about far too long, having lost its import long ago. She shoved it into the fire-box onto aspen logs. It flared up at once and crumpled. The sea's greetings burned to ashes. Yes, time had run out for this letter.

Sailor has waited and sought for twenty-five years, she recalled. Jaak's words. You don't begin to know what's the meaning of the word people! How sometimes sailor's craving for people's company. When a wave hits you in the face you remember you mustn't drown, because you, Inger, are so damned beautiful! ...

What could have been in this letter? Tender words which long ago had lost their coverage and meaning, a page or two of some outdated stuff? And greetings, promises and signature. A life-buoy in the ocean of loneliness ...

Inger thought about loneliness or rather that even loneliness wasn't an endless, starless night, a dark abyss of hopelessness never penetrated by a ray of Life with its bolts from the blue, with its ceaseless flowing is, from time to time, apt to cast the reflection of its waves even into loneliness.

For her the postcard was a miraculous message from the snow-covered world, a shout of joy from midwinter time–somebody had, even if only in passing, thought of her. In some corner of a brain some memory had come to life, somewhere a palehad begun twisting a knife in a wound.

Somebody is wishing her a Happy New Year.

By rights, it didn't pay to think so much about it. It was like a tiny light somewhere in a window, a polite salute, nothing more. But still ...

A blizzard was howling outside.

Inger had seen her guests off and cleared coffee things from the table and was now sitting in the armchair musing. All of a sudden she heard somebody open the door downstairs and footsteps began stomping up the stairs.

These footsteps were totally unknown to her. Inger listened intently. Who's this then? The unaccustomed, heavy rhythm of the footsteps told her that the person was mounting these stairs for the first time, groping the way in the dimness. Upstairs, outside the door, the newcomer stamped his or her snowy feet uncommonly long. Then, for a minute or two, there was a deep silence as if there wasn't anybody there.

But then there was a cautious knock and when Inger opened the door, there was a burly man in a fur-lined jacket in the dimness there, two calla lilies in hand, a sheepish smile on his face.

"Good evening," he said shyly, holding out the flowers.

"Hello," Inger replied, eyeing the stranger.

The man stopped in the doorway, his whole attitude showing he had dropped in only for a moment, wasn't even coming in, perish the thought, had only stopped by to bring the flowers, this being his one and only mission. He was extremely awkward at that. Now Inger recognized him: he was Arne, the helmsman on their boating trip in autumn.

"I did promise to bring you flowers," the man said as if in self-justification.

"When?" Inger widened her eyes at him.

"On the islet ... You said there were never any flowers on your birthday, here in particular ... I remembered."

"And wherever did you find them?"

"Mainland."

"You haven't been to the mainland because of them, have you?"

"I have."

Inger was surprised, surprised and moved at the same time. The man's sheepishness made her awkward, too. She goggled at him, mouth half-open, and felt a blush suffusing her cheeks.

"Come in," she remembered to invite at last.

"Many happy returns, happy birthday!" mumbled the man, a wave of colour washing over his face for having forgotten the most important thing, and handed the flowers to Inger who had been too bemused to accept them before.

Inger took the calla lilies and quite mechanically smelled them. The man was already turning to leave.

"No, no, why, do come in ... "

"No ... yes ... " The man was in two minds, scraped then again his feet on the doormat and entered the kitchen with a shy and cagey smile on his face.

"I had no intention of intruding on you, I only came to wish you well."

"Take off your coat and step in."

Inger placed the callas in a high square vase on the table in the other room. They were beautiful and princely flowers, only a little on the cold side.

The man took off his coat outside the door and hung it on a hook on the landing, unlaced his boots and put them side by side outside the door, too, entering the room in his white woollen-socked feet.

In the room he lowered himself on the couch, rested his hands on his knees and cast an appraising look around the room. Then he fell to studying her bookshelf. Then and there his eyes lighted on the mirror propped up against the books and he took in that his hair was anyhow. With a guilty look on his face he groped in his pockets for a comb and then stood up.

"Where to?" asked Inger, bustling about in the kitchen. "The comb's in my jacket pocket."

When coffee and cakes were served, the man said,

"I have very often thought of you."

And with a candid smile he looked Inger straight in the eyes. His eyes were brown and friendly. And on the whole he was somehow brown. A brown bear.

"Was it you who brought me a postcard with New Year's greetings?"

"Yes. The idea struck me rather late in the day, but better late than never."

The man had broad shoulders and sure, calm movements.

Inger didn't remember having ever heard what exactly Arne did for a living. At that time, in autumn, Kiur hadn't said and she hadn't thought to ask.

"What are you, actually?"

The man seemed to have expected the question.

"A truck driver. I've got a wife and two children. I'm building a house. There's a garden ... "

Inger remembered the supper at the blazing comp-fire on the islet and she added smilingly,

"And there grow tomatoes."

"Yes, tomatoes too. But mostly there are fruit trees–apples and damsons."

"In what light did you think of me then?"

"I wondered what made a girl like you tick ... Yes. I did think of you ... " the man repeated and added, his eye; on his coffee cup. "Thinking of you made me feel so good ... and warm. You can't begin to think how good and warm"

The man took a swallow of the coffee hunching over the table as if it were his steering wheel.

"On the mainland I got trapped in a snowdrift. I really blew up at myself. I wanted to be quick, was afraid I'd be too late and so tried to take a short cut. And that's why I got stuck in the woods. Got the spade out and dug away, nothing else for it. It wouldn't have mattered two hoots if I hadn't wanted you to have the flowers today. I thought the door downstairs would be locked by night. Where could I leave the flowers then? If it had been summer time. I could have left them beneath your window, but now they'd, have frozen stiff in the snowdrift."

"You could have thrown a snowball at my window."

"Wouldn't have dared. Who'd be brave enough to throw a stone into a school mistress' window? No deal!"

"Wouldn't they just!" Inger gave a slight smile.

Continued in Part XXI...