There they were, sitting and looking at her with elated faces, all the Jutas, Toomases, Urmases and Meelis. Inger had already told them everything she had had to say and, besides, she was afraid she might be overwhelmed by tears, so she was brief.

They should have backbone and heart so that they would be able to manage themselves and their life, they had toiled together for three years and at that festive moment they were very close.

The band struck up the final march and then, all of a sudden, the hall was filled with milling people. Everyone was pushing and jostling towards the school-leavers, their hands were shaken, they were hugged and congratulated. The festive tension found its relief in moving and milling and for some, in tears, too.

"Thank you, Teacher," said Toomas and gave the teacher a long-stemmed rose. "I'm so glad that I ... "

Toomas' father was also there, a lively man in a dark suit, white shirt and silver cuff-links. He shook the teacher's hand vigorously and emotionally, measuring out his thanks in big words, speaking a lot more although the gist of it got lost in the general hubbub. Toomas' mother, a small and slight woman, was wholly overshadowed by her sociable husband, nodding only her head in agreement to her husband's words and putting he small, narrow and gentle hand into Inger's.

Congratulations and flowers were showering from all quarters. Yes, yes, of course, quite a girl! Thank you, the same to you.

No, without fail, let her go and try, she'll pass the entrance exams all right, her pronunciation is excellent.

It doesn't matter, not at all ... will go some other time after his stint in the service.

Yes, very glad.

Thank you, thank you! Thanks!

A big boney woman was waiting for a break to shake Inger's hand. "You had your hands full with Urve, I daresay ... Well, thanks a lot! For a while I didn't believe she'd finish ... " She wiped the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief crumpled into a ball in her hand, and stepped aside.

Over the noise of voices and exclamations Soova's powerful baritone rang out,

"In a quarter of an hour we'll expect everybody to be ready for the photographer. Don't forget, the party will begin at eight here, in this hall. Please, be on time!"

Inger descended the carpeted stairs to leave her flowers in the staffroom and to get herself composed. After the stuffiness in the hall the staffroom felt pleasantly cool. The form teacher of the other eleventh form, a tall, amply-built blonde, was combing her hair in front of the mirror, her movements jerky. She called to Inger,

"Come and put your flowers here! I've already fetched a pail of water. Look, my eyes are red and my nose is shiny, speech-days make even a seasoned spinster like me have a little weep. In your place I couldn't have squeezed out a word, not on your life."

"You spoke beautifully," said Aet, sitting on the sofa beneath the notice-board and fanning herself with a folded newspaper. "I even thought I'd put it down, then it would be good and ready by the time mine would be as far as that."

Soova appeared in the doorway. "Why, ladies, ladies, what are you waiting for? Let's have the photos taken!"

The other form teacher looked at her watch. "The quarter of an hour isn't up yet, there're still seven minutes to go."

"Hurry up! Be quick! It takes time to pose a group. Come on! You're all very pretty and your hair's also tip-top!"

"Comrade Soova, can I have a word with you?" Aet jumped up from the sofa.

"Later! Later!" Soova waved his hands at her and vanished. The other form teacher clicked her pink mother-of-pearl powder-box shut, put it into her handbag, beckoned to Inger and began to move without undue haste. Through the window one could see Soova posing a group of pupils, parents and teachers on the steps. The photographer stood waiting by the red barberry bush, his tripod at the ready.

Berberis thunbergii, Inger recalled the name of the bush, walking toward the door.

"Half a mo, Inger!" Aet caught hold of the sleeve of her suit. "This blue suit of yours is very pretty ... I don't know how to tell Soova," she said helplessly, pointing at the rota of woodcutters which had been on the wall since the beginning of June and had now and then given rise to bursts of indignation among teachers. It hadn't concerned Inger so far, she had been busy with examinations.

Aet was fingering some paper. "I don't know, it's so sticky, but ... Maybe you'd talk to him. Maybe it's not quite the thing for me to carry logs ... "

"You think so?" Inger laughed and added in a frivolous mood, "In this day and age, it's just the thing for women!"

Aet, however, didn't second her jocular words, hanging her head instead.

"I've just been to the doctor ... "

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing ... On the contrary, everything's all right ... The doctor assured me that everything was perfectly all right. I'm going to have a baby."

"You are?" Inger exclaimed and whirled Aet around. "Lucky you! I'm so glad for you! Of course you can't lift logs, I'll talk to Soova. You see, and you were afraid you wouldn't ... Then all's good in this best of worlds."

"Well, yes," drawled Act. "Only mother will have two littlies on her hands to help and to take care of all at the same time ... "

"Will you go and get twins, then?" Inger smiled slightly.

"No way!" Aet's checks were colouring hotly. "But my sister's, too ... I didn't know of it before, we met at the doctor's. She could have considered me, but has she ever ... I didn't have a clue, she and Arne were out of friends with each other or something. I even thought they were going to part company. But now it seems it wasn't like that at all ... Only mother will have her care and trouble doubled. And I don't know yet whether I'll get married or not, although on the other hand, he's quite a man, mother does his wash for him ... "

Soova jumped in,

"Teacher Uunvald, what's keeping you? Everybody's ready and waiting!"

He clutched Inger by the shoulders and dragged her like a hawk carrying away a chick through the long chalk-dusty corridor, through the crowd standing on the steps, and seated her on a chair in the first row, scanned the people in the group once again and dropped down on the chair between the two form teachers. And as if from somewhere far away, through the thundering of the sea, through the howling of storm winds, as if from under the earth Inger heard the Head's demanding tones,

"Smile, Teacher Uunvald! Keep smiling!"

One of the most beautiful moments in a teacher's life ...

So Arne's wife is carrying his child, but what about me, it was I who wanted to. My hands are empty, and she's got two. Why did you do that, Arne? Why did you deceive me, took my all and left me all by myself in my loneliness crushing my shoulders like sand and shale? Now I'm like an aspen leaf in the wind, I have neither prop nor protection, my eyes are looking into a vista of empty days. My heart is torn apart, as a human being I'm of no import, again I must lock myself in my attic and listen to the winds, look at the sun, moon and stars.

I'm in pain, I can't fight it, can't ignore it. And you in your truck will ride over me and trample me into dust.

You have already trampled me into dust, I don't exist any more, I'm finished, done away with, km dust on your heels, the blue sea-air, a black wreck offshore.

Why did you do that, Arne? I waited, hoped, lived in a bitter-sweet expectance. Hope was my world, my inheritance, my life.

A crisp, cool nor'easter came from the sea and blew into her face the water was shimmering in the sun, the tops of the waves showing white.

Salt wind, love and home. One of the most beautiful moments in a teacher's life, the sentence she had heard somewhere went round and round in her head. One of the most beautiful moments, the most beautiful moment.

What then had she hoped for all those anxious months when the Dogstar shone in through her window and a man's heavy footfalls thumped on the stairs?

To be a sun-woman, to become an adult through love. Not to remain an eternal hankerer, a school-leaver who can't, isn't able to pass the life's school-leaving examination who will be evergreen, for ever barren, in both flesh and soul. To find a prop, a helpmate, to be a prop and a helpmate herself, to fulfil her human obligation and task.

How could she, that other woman, when she didn't love Arne, didn't care for him, how could she conceive a child without love, be so scheming, so mean? She's married, so what? Marriage isn't an excuse when there isn't any love. But Arne loves me!

Caraway stems were swaying in the wind and tickling her legs, alders were whispering in the park. Just here, in the bosom of nature, seeing everything in motion, swaying and changing, she was struck by a thought which there, up in her motionless room, mightn't have seemed half so piercing and painful: but how can I know that he loves me? I know nothing. Who's to say that love isn't like a white comber or a gust of wind which start moving somewhere and somewhere fade away again. In nature everything is in motion and love, too, is only a part of nature.

How can I know? He has said often enough that he loves me, but does he actually know what he is talking about, he who so often has had a difficult time communicating, he. He is the best, brown and dear. The way he came at that time in winter: calla lilies in hand, shy, shamefaced, smelling of frost, snow and petrol. But that was the outset of the dead end. He was fettered, in a clinch, he couldn't do anything.

She, Inger, was free. That's why she considered it her duty that her choice should be straight, clear-cut, conclusive and neat, and wanted others to do so, too. She was a black-andwhite person with no other shades between. She was free and had to assume responsibility.

She could well argue, judge, divide people into baddies and goodies, into strong and weak, but what choice was there for Arne and his wife she had actually never seen, didn't know, hadn't sung in the same choir, hadn't sat a parent-teacher meeting out. Nevertheless she was a woman, too, a mother, a person with her abilities, chances and justifications. What would she, Inger, have done in that other woman's shoes? If it had been she who had sensed that her husband was thinking of something at night, was restless and on edge, was drifting farther and farther away, their relationship becoming hazy like the horizon in a drizzle?

She would have given her all striving to tie the man down, to win him back, to revive the past.

And that's exactly what that woman did. She took the only wise and possible step.

Inger certainly doesn't abide her, never will, not so as you'd notice, her female nature would bridle, and anyway, would it matter? But she has to admit to her womanly wisdom and perception.

So that's why of late Arne had been so mixed up, so absentminded, obscure like a mist-shrouded sun? Almost in spite of himself he had torn the fragile thread of trust binding them, it can never be knotted together again.

Inger doesn't accuse anybody, doesn't regret, she's only feeling raw. She herself had taken no steps–out of compassion or mercy or simply sensing fatality, that's beside the point–but through her inactivity she had already forsaken Arne. She had taken her choice and at once had given it up again trapped in her goodwill and understanding. But who can tell, maybe it was wisdom she had gained unnoticed, an inkling that one can't rule human relationships by youthful maximalism or a manual of logic. She could make great demands on herself, she knew her strength, her staying power, but she had to consider the strength, predisposition and possibilities of others as well. One had to benefit by the lessons life taught and had to pound into one's pupils not only a sense of duty, but mercy, compassion, understanding and capacity for feeling, too.

One of the most beautiful moments in a teacher's life, one of the most beautiful moments, the most beautiful moment. Everything will be going on just the way it is now.

It won't, it can't.

As time goes by, this heartache and hurt will begin crystallizing, the bitterness and emptiness will evaporate and what is left is the core, a highlighted experience, compact and bright; it will stay with her for a long time, blinking a mellow light into her life and love.

But it will take time, she can't get over it so easily. Emotions will be a long time wavering between understanding and hating, between rebellion and submission.

I must go to the party, they are waiting. This is our last evening. This is my moral obligation and moorings.

Inger got up from her seat on a stone and bent her steps townwards moving with her usual slightly springy tread. In the maple avenue the sun caught her in the eyes, she squinted and thought she ought to have taken her sunglasses along.

The school-leavers were already in groups in front of the door to the schoolhouse, badges and flowers pinned on their lapels, talking in low voices and walking up and down elatedly.

"Teacher, we're waiting for you!" Toomas hailed already from a distance.

At eight on the dot Soova appeared on the steps–big, portly and festive–surveyed them all with a thin smile like a shepherd checking his sheep, executed a small sociable bow and said,

"Ladies and gentlemen, this way, please!"

He turned round, calm, firm and unchangeable like a brownie, mounted the stairs ahead of the others and flung open both leaves of the door to the hall. The blended fragrance of fresh birches, flowers, coffee and delicious dishes floated out from the room.

And then they sat down at the table and the Head suggested that they should honour the school-leavers.

The End

Christopher Marquet

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