"Didn't you hear us cooceing?"

"At first we seemed to hear something, but how could we know it was us who were being called."

"How long have you been sitting here at the edge of the road?" Arne asked, sounding stern.

"Since three o'clock," sobbed Kersti.

"You're sitting by the road from three to ten and can't hitch a ride back home! Heaps of time to cover those ten kilometres walking and several times over."

"We had no money," whimpered Red and Kersti added even more miserably, "We didn't know which way town is ... "

"And no cars went past? You should be birched!"

"We were afraid to ask ... "

"And would have sat in the woods till morning if we hadn't happened along?"

The girls exchanged glances and looked down.

"We're eating our hearts out, were already ready to ring up the copter service ... "

As if at somebody's orders the children burst into tears.

"Oh what snivelling! Up you go to the back of the truck. And don't you dare to stand up, sit down on the tarpaulin there," Arne ordered.

Stopping at the warden's, they took Reet's mother along, too. Soova was waiting for them on the central square. Arne jammed on the brakes and Inger called, opening the door,

"I did get them at last!"

"Well done," the Head answered, tight-mouthed, and shot a brief look into the back of the truck. "Let us all drive to the schoolhouse and thrash this thing out."

Surprisingly nimbly he climbed up to the children.

"Brace yourself for it, girl," Arne whispered in Inger's ear. "I'll see you later."

The Head pulled a big key out of his pocket and unlocked the door to the schoolhouse. "If you'd kindly come this way," he said, entering first and switching on the light in his office. He added in a dry voice, "Sit down, please." His voice promised nothing good.

Inger took a seat beneath the owl, the girls, too, seated themselves on the settee.

"Huh," muttered Soova looking at them and the frightened girls scrambled quickly up again.

Reet's mother still hovered by the door, embarrassed, arms dangling.

"You sit down," the Head bobbed his head in her direction and the woman sat down on the other end of the settee, far from the teacher, hands on her lap, tense, back straight.

"Teacher Uunvald, tell me what exactly was going on there."

Inger complied.

"Well, well," Soova muttered testily, keeping his anger in check. "You were sitting by the highway for seven hours, letting other people be eaten up with worry? ! What you want is a good spanking!"

He puffed for a while as if trying to let out surplus steam, and then said in a surprisingly calm voice,

"You, Teacher Uunvald, are excused. By the way. the staff meeting allowed all of yours to sit for their school-leaving exams."

"Thanks," Inger mumbled, not knowing herself what exactly she was thanking him for and made herself scarce. No sooner had she closed the door to the office behind her than the Head's voice thundered,

"Whatever did you go to the woods for if you didn't know how to come out again? Haven't you been told time and time again ... ?"

Arne came in the pre-dawn, sad and tired.

"I did promise ... " He kissed Inger. came down on his knees in front of the couch, put his head in the girl's lap and wound his arms tightly round her sleep-warm body as if afraid she would be pulled away.

"Girl, don't walk out on me!"

Inger felt a couple of tears falling upon her knees.

"Arne, what's wrong? What is it? Tell me. We did promise to tell each other everything, no matter what ... "

Tenderly she stroked the man's hair.

"What is it, darling?"

"Nothing, I'm plastered."

Arne scrambled to his feet, subsided into a chair at the table, lowered his head to his hands and muttered,

"I keep swaying between you and my home. Swaying, always swaying."

Inger rose from the side of the couch, went to Arne and put her hand on his shoulder. But the man shook it off and said,

"I'll go to sea. Away from it all. I'm dead beat. I'm sorry for you, my love."

Then he rested his head on the top of the table and fell to sleep.

Flowers, birds and trees–they all blossomed in the wind. Even the tin roof of the schoolhouse and its chimney seemed to be in bloom.

Is your life worth living if you can't give joy to anybody with it, thought Inger walking up and down between the rows of desks while her pupils were sitting for their examination in Estonian. While there's entropy in the world, it will subsist in man as well. Instead of emotional keenness experience will precipitate like calcium salts, like rust. Warmth and tenderness dissolve inevitably, but will it make human relationships, even if only a little, warmer, gentler, finer? There they are–Meeli, Toomas, Urve–bending over their papers, minds full of fragmentary thoughts. They are thinking, faces young and souls untried. They must generate warmth, consideration, compassion and, of course, energy. But who can tell, who can be sure that in life they'll radiate as much and as powerful light as expected? There will be quite a few of them who won't take a single step further, secondary education the apex of their mental powers, their future life a constant stagnation, congealment, coagulation, descent.

Pens were scribbling.

The gym, brown from floor to ceiling, windows screened for ballgames, was sparsely filled with tables. Inger walked on the faintly creaking floor which always shook when danced on, so that Soova who lived underneath was running scared of the ceiling falling down.

Urmas was sitting, face sickly, head between hands.

"Teacher, I've got a whopper of a toothache. Couldn't anything be done?"

Inger went to ask the chairman of the examination board if it was allowed to go and bring back something to help an examinee's toothache. Soova inclined his head.

Flowers, birds and trees, love and toothache, she had to take everything in her stride, find room for it deep within, and she did, too, leaving her even with room to spare. She remembered how she herself had sat for her school-leaving examination in Estonian. What a lot of noble impulses, lofty thoughts, quotations from Tammsaare and Goethe! What donkey's years ago it was and how strange seemed now many of the then thoughts and phrases!

But something had nevertheless survived, a kind of given key, primary colour, basic mood.

Inger loved examination times with their workload and strain, always had. But it was only now that it began to come home to her that it was easier to be an examinee than to be an examiner. Oh that they knew, were capable, could pass, she thought and was even more uptight than her pupils.

No, she loved exams.

Only Arne didn't come.

Cars went past, always past. Every single one of them went past–and pierced Inger's heart, flesh and soul. The cars crushed her.

Must I defend myself against you too, to be able to love you? Some subtle change had taken place in the man, he was so preoccupied and distant.

"I thought my girl didn't need me."

"I need you more than ever."

"I wasn't sure of myself. But now it's over and done with."

"What's over?"

"These thoughts."

"What thoughts?"

"Ah, this and that."

Inger had a feeling that he was hedging, making glib noises. And worst of all, some sixth sense forbade her to come right cut and ask what was wrong. But something strange, elusive and obscure had risen between them. Class distinctions, the man had said. A difference in world outlook? Inger had put her finger on it, but had kept silent.

Really and solely this?

They were yearning and hungering for each other as before the harbour of Arne's arms Inger wiped the slate clean of all the nagging thoughts that had invaded her mind in the meantime. They were simply all gone when she lay listening to the man's heart beating under her ear.

"Tell me, girl, how can you turn me on like that? You always make me as randy as anything ... "

Finally there was a great veneration, gentleness and peace.

But in the morning she couldn't help but know that again they had talked about nothing apart from the simplest things.

Now, prior to Midsummer Day, the islet was quite different from what it had been in autumn. Fool's parsley was in bloom, high unmown grass between the junipers sweetened the air with its scent. The junipers themselves were light green and fresh in the sunlight, the bullocks were not in sight. The sea had a warm glow, the sky was high and serene, everything was exuding something archaic, bright and radiant. Seagulls were wheeling over the beach, screeching from time to time.

Continued in Part XXXIII...

Christopher Marquet

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