"How can you give me your question like that, girl?"

"I don't know. I'm afraid."

"The only thing I am scared about is that you'll jilt me. One fine day I come again and the door's locked–my girl has locked me out. What shall I do then?"

"You'll knock louder, what else? So that your girl would hear."

Inger was pie-eyed with happiness and love and beaming to all the world. When she woke up she felt she was joyfully balanced. Her home, this narrow attic, was again roomy and pleasant. It was the same room she had dreamed of as a child, as a pupil at school and even as a student at the university, a small quiet on-her-own-ness, away from acquaintances, where she can read and dream undisturbed, make coffee, listen to the music, sit idle, do nothing at all, he happy and harmonious.

But that balanced and satisfied state was rather unstable. There was the room, there were books, she was cut off from the outer world by the sea, far away and a stranger to her former acquaintances, she was deep in the books but then, all of a sudden, it turned out that all this wasn't enough. Even a great love was not enough. A strange restlessness wormed its way into her heart and unsettled her. At times it made her enthusiastic, happy, unselfish, at other times it made her bristle turned her into a hedgehog. Then she felt as if she was an illiterate trying to read Faustus. Suddenly life had become complicated. What should she actually do, on what footing should she be with life, what should she expect and hope for? The book reflected the wisdom of old dignified thinkers, it was given to suggesting reconciliation. None of them spoke about love or i1 they did, it was something else again. There wasn't anybody Inger could spill her heart to or seek advice from.

In theory it was ever so simple: yes or no. But here one was dealing with living, breathing people, not with some chessmen or coloured pieces of paper Aet had once cut discs out of, arranging them in two stacks: red discs here, black ones there. Taking a closer and more thorough look at the situation, all her enthusiasm evaporated, anxiety and doubt crept into her heart and her feeling of illiteracy and ineptitude intensified still more.

Wasn't it Arne who, just now, walked past her house with his wife and sons, talking in a low voice? Did that woman say that to live here in that small house might be pleasant? A nice attic, everything within walking distance, almost in the centre of the town.

Arne, it could easily be your home.

And what would that woman, the chessman, the black disc say? What would she say to that, I wonder? Something placid, commonplace: of course, Arne, but we've got a house of our own, we've got a garden, we're doing all right you can easily build a room in the attic all for yourself.

Giving her all, Inger tried to imagine what Arne, her brown one, her very own, would answer.

Her own? She has become an owner, a feeling prompted by love. Her very own–and what would he answer? Why is he silent like he always is lying here in her arms, tired and blissful?

But what if that woman wins him back? What then? Wives have chances galore and every trick in the book to chain their husbands to their homes, to keep them chained for ever. One needs only a little cunning and patience.

Again fear was raising its head. Nothing can vouch for love, there's no guarantee given. Everything is so precarious, changing from mood to mood, love must be created over and over again, ceaselessly, it should be improved and grown. But what can she do, is capable of, nothing can help Inger, she has got only her little room and herself. Nothing is a help to her, there are no facilities, habits, labours of love, a hundred and one trifling everyday events joining people together. Effectively that other woman tips the balance. And then lots of memories, shared moments, shared springs, summers and winters, children, ten years of worries and care–all these things together make a tear-proof twine, a tightly woven web. No, the situation was as good as hopeless, to change it one wants very much strength.

Had Arne got it? And did she have it herself to help the man, to live it down?

"The day is blue today ... "

"Blue, you think so?"

"Yes. And the sun is a big red ball. Girl, I've thought of something. I'll teach you to drive."

"When?"

"Just now. Get some clothes on and let's go."

Inger began to pull on her boots.

"But where's your truck? I didn't hear it ... "

"You certainly didn't," the man laughed. "My truck's at the other end of the street. Now, I'll go out first, alone, and take it in a roundabout way into the street parallel to yours. You come straight across the square, well meet there, in the most dimly-lit spot. Should you meet somebody you know, walk calmly on, i'll find you all right,"

Inger was glad at the change. She was tired of being cooped up in her room, of fruitless speculations. Besides, such secrecy and hiding were even thrilling. She rustled up a small sandwich, put on her coat and wont out. The sun had just gone down. Outside, dusk was well under way, street lights were on, a fading rosy glow was still streaking the north-western part of the sky. In the ditch beside the road water was gurgling, a few stray sounds came from town. Inger was walking at a quick pace and thinking what she'd say if she met Riina or Aet in the street and was asked where she was going. At once she got angry with herself–why ever should she answer!

Arne was waiting for her in the shadow of big alders. Sighting Inger he soundlessly opened the door of the cab, the girl slipped in and the truck cased off.

They drove out of town. A few cars, their lights on high, came from the opposite direction and Inger was worried lest she should be noticed in the truck.

"Can you see who's sitting in their cab?" The man chuckled. Nevertheless Inger felt ill at ease when some oncoming car flooded them with light. It was very much the same feeling one has when on the seashore the beam of the searchlight sweeps over you.

"Where shall we go?"

"Anywhere. Where there are no people and we could take a walk."

The man nodded his head and turned down a woodland road between pine trees. For a while they rode on in silence, then inclining his head towards the trees, Arne said,

"Know the place?"

"No."

"This is the very place you passed me at on skis in winter."

Inger looked at the birches showing white in the dusk. Here was the place where it all began, nothing out of the ordinary, a perfectly common woodland road with trees standing still, expecting night to fall.

"If Toomas hadn't wanted to take the coast road ... "

"It wouldn't have changed anything," the man smiled smugly. "This had started much earlier. It started with Kiur's coming and saying he'd like to go fishing, taking a couple of fillies along. One, of course, would have done hint nicely, but that one wouldn't come alone and that's why he had to take the other one along, too. But having another girl made you take another man along, too. Besides, he wouldn't be able to manage the boat single-handed. I said I could come all right, I liked fishing, as a blind date, however, I wasn't up to much, not my line." Arne laughed, shifting gear for the rough road. "Don't know anything about the courtship technique. Can't fathom out how I was able to fill the bill when it came to taking a wife. One day it was an established fact and that was that. Mother-in-law might have had a finger in the pie. She's that kind of woman, equal to anything, now she's pushing her younger daughter." The man shrugged his shoulders, puzzled. "So we hoed our own row and I couldn't have begun to think there could be some other way of living. And how on earth could you when day in, day out you have your work cut out for you. Come what may, but now, at least, I know."

Sturdy island pines came to an end, the truck arrived at open sands. Yonder the sea showed grey. They went out to the sea, to the desolate beach.

It smelt of kelp, brine and tar, although there weren't boats anywhere in sight. Inger took hold of Arne's hand.

"Let's walk."

The stars lit up one by one, a huge round moon rose over the sea. Far away, across the bay, the town was twinkling and glowing, all things were exuding peace and beauty. Here they belonged to each other and to Nature. Sand was creaking under their heels. Only going walking far, far away, becoming one with darkness, dissolving into peace, hand in hand, free from anxiety and doubts.

"I've never taken a stroll with my wife. She's always liked to go for a ride," Arne remarked more to himself.

Ahead, at the water's edge, something loomed black, some pillars and beams. And a higher, gravelled road went up to them.

"What's this?" Inger asked.

"Once there was a harbour here."

Now one could clearly make out the stones of the pier, too.

"Let's sit down here for a while."

Up there they found three beams of the pier still in one piece and sat down on them, side by side, letting their legs dangle.

The sea was already free of ice, grey water was slapping softly at the remnants of the jetty. The moon was altogether red now. Arne had flung an arm around Inger's waist, was gazing across the sea, sighed and said,

"I was just about knee-high to a grasshopper when my father was taken away from here by ship. Mother and I were seeing him off. I stood waving on the beach and wept. Look, over there! This path is now overgrown with grass."

"Did your father return?"

Arne shook his head.

Your boys would be weeping in the same way if their father were taken away from them, even if not by ship, even if not to a foreign country, Inger thought. In the name of love and justice your marriage should be broken up, but what about compassion, then? Man doesn't live, first and last, to enlarge the circle of sufferers for the sake of his personal gain.

Arne's teeth gleamed in the darkness, he smiled ruefully and meekly and spoke, still gazing down the corridor of memory,

"Mother and me, we had only one pair of galoshes between us. When I was at school, she was at home in her bare feet. I couldn't go on to secondary school, no way. I wasn't that dumb, I'd have managed all right. This winter I entered my name for correspondence courses. What do you think, they do teach some literature at a technical school, don't they? All those books, you know. Or else I'd be nothing but a dullard beside you. English I can't master any more, haven't any head for it. But my boys must study everything. I've thought that next year when my older boy is through with the village school, I'll bring him to town, to my sister-in-law's. He'll learn English under you. The younger one has still a couple of years to go ... "

The thought gave Inger a jolt. How will she teach Arne's son, what stand should she take towards him? And he towards her?

"Do the boys take after you?"

"The elder one is a spitting image. Only a little lighter of hair. I, too, was tow-headed as a child."

"You weren't!"

"I was," he asserted. "But the younger one is a real handful. Takes it into his head not to go to school and sits in the woods. Says he doesn't like choral singing. Doesn't obey his mom and granny at all. But the elder one is painstaking, kind of quiet, earnest."

"Likeable boys both."

"Why, yes," Arne said sheepishly, "that they are."

"How on earth would you be able to bring yourself to leave your boys?"

The man sighed and peered at the dark water before his feet.

"There's always that to consider. Other than that, no problem at He let the silence hold for a short while, and then went on in his habitual placid manner. "But I've thought when they've already grown tip ... If you could wait for me that long."

"For ten years, then?"

"Eight," the man pinned it down.

Oh, my God! Then I'll be already old, a real crone, he won't want me any more, despaired Inger. Then I'll have crow's-feet under my eyes, lines on my forehead, wrinkles on my face, and even my body won't be the same. Disappointment and bitterness will have made me peevish and spiteful, being lonely and having an urge to take care of somebody, I'll have acquired a dog, a mutt without a pedigree, and in the morning, before classes and ill the evening after meetings I'll go and exercise it and let it pass water at the central square and my pupils will give me some vicious nickname.

She sat in silence for a long time, tortured with the mental scenario of her pitiful future and dangled her legs.

Eight years all alone, no, that's inconceivable. It would be quite another story, quite another story if–Inger went red at her thought–she had a little brown-eyed dark boy, brown all over, Arne's son, and. if the two of them were waiting together. Then she mightn't need a dog, she certainly wouldn't, for what's in a mongrel against a child? How she would cherish him, play with him, teach him and train him, watch over his every step, rejoice at his each new tooth, at every added centimetre.

But no whisper of her wishful thoughts did she dare to voice to the man. Arne might think she was simply planning to have a go at tying him down. Compassion and mercy, understanding? It might well be that Arne could understand her. But she couldn't forget the envy that had stirred in her when Arne was so warmly speaking of his sons.

Continued in Part XXVII...

Christopher Marquet

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