When the Doves Disappeared (40 page)

Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union

T
HE SMOKE OVER
the table was so thick that Evelin couldn’t make out the faces of the people introducing themselves. One with too much beard, three girls wearing pants, one with overgrown bangs. She forgot all their names immediately and before she had time to even sit down she was already involved in a conversation. The Lithuanians had their own man in the Kremlin who knew a lot, knew how to go along with the authorities, but not too much. We should follow Lithuania’s example. They didn’t have hordes of Russians coming into their country like Estonia did. What had they done right? Poles were pouring into Lithuania. Just Poles. Imagine!

“We didn’t kill enough Russians, that’s why. There’s not a Russian left who would dare go to Lithuania.”

“And all those new factories—they only accept Lithuanians, no Russians. Why can’t we do that?”

“If we act like Lithuania, the situation might change. Get all the young people into the Party, like they did there.”

“Just like in Lithuania.”

“That’s the only way to fix our own country. There’s no other way.”

“No other way.” A sigh went around the table. “No other way.”

Evelin kept quiet; she didn’t have anything to say. Rein’s fingers had let go of hers. They fluttered over the table in rhythm with the excited talk. A few hours earlier he had pressed his lips against her hand on Victory Square and blown air between their palms, said that was where their shared heart was, where it would always be warm and loving. His good mood blew through Evelin’s hair like the summer wind at Pirita Beach and he smoothed her curls and they laughed and Rein invited her to Café Moskva to meet some of his friends. Evelin had looked at the glass door of the café just a stone’s throw away. She would be spending an evening there. All because she had told him that she’d written to her mother and said that Rein would be coming to visit after exams. He had stopped in his tracks, and at that moment Evelin was sure she’d made the right decision. Nothing could go wrong from now on. After this she would never have to reassure Rein that she loved him, that she was serious, not toying with his feelings, not teasing him, would always be his. Rein would start telling her the things he told his friends, about the books recorded on microfilm that the man in the spectacles developed for him in the darkroom at the gray house. She would find time to arrange things at home for Rein’s visit. She had to. Maybe during haying her father wouldn’t have time to drink. Her grandmother could be sent to visit relatives. Her mother was sure to understand that it wasn’t good for a young couple to be apart all summer. Now Evelin was in Café Moskva in her best blouse but she didn’t know what to say although she was trying feverishly to think of something, anything. The talk around the table was strange. She didn’t like the way they whispered, spoke in lowered voices. She felt a tightening in her throat and tugged Rein’s sleeve. She wanted to go home.

“But why? The night’s just started.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“Not from the cognac, I hope.”

“I just don’t. Sorry.”

Rein walked her to the stairs and she glanced out of the corner of her eye at a man they had been talking about at the table. KGB. Naturally. Good God. These people were crazy. Her Rein was crazy, too. She should have known, should have guessed from all the precautions he took, all his secrecy. As she walked past the KGB man’s table he tapped his stack of papers, not looking at her as his hand brushed the tablecloth and dropped
a crumpled truffle wrapper onto the floor. Evelin could see the dandruff on his forehead, the sharp part in his hair, his shiny nose, his pores, a little scar on his cheek, and she felt weak and squeezed Rein’s hand. It was dry. Rein wasn’t worried. He was used to being watched by the KGB every evening. Lunatics. Evelin pictured her mother’s horrified expression if she’d known what kind of company her daughter was keeping.

COMRADE PARTS COULD STILL
feel sleep pressing against his eyes and he decided to go to the men’s room to wash his face while the Target sent his pasty fiancée home with a pat. He would have plenty of time. It would take the Target a while to placate her. Parts had never seen the girl in the café before, but the Target’s behavior showed that this was the kind of girl he could introduce to his parents, the kind he could marry. She was different from the other girls at the café: dressed up for the evening, careful of her clothes, like a girl from a poor family who knows she won’t get another dress until next year. Her demeanor was slightly tense, her face watchful, her expectations high. Parts was certain that the Target wouldn’t take the time to walk her all the way home, even though he should, even though most girls would be terribly hurt by such neglect, but she was one of those girlfriends who were always ready to forgive, and the Target was one of those young men who were well aware of the bottomlessness of that forgiveness. Couples like them rarely offered any surprises. They were always the same. It was just a matter of time before the Target managed to enlist her into his foolishness.

Just as Parts was pushing the men’s room door open and inhaling deeply so he could hold his breath as long as possible from the toilet stench, his ears caught something. Two of the boys in the Target’s circle were arguing in a corner of the leaky, slippery room. Their talk cut off when he walked in, but he had already heard the word and the phrase that followed it, and although something lurched inside him, he walked over to the sink like any man would, turned on the tap, waited for the water to bubble into the basin, wet his hands, patted his face, and went into one of the stalls. He closed the door and leaned against it. The lock was broken. The young men left. Dog Ear. He knew he’d heard it. One of them had
clearly said that Dog Ear’s new collection of poems had already been sent to the West and had garnered a lot of interest.

Parts stared at the graffiti on the stall wall, the curve of the letters, the obscenities and counterrevolutionary quips. Some of the handwriting was easy to recognize. It made him feel sorry for his colleagues who had to hunt down the culprits. He wasn’t one of them and he never would be. That fear had faded in a moment. He knew he was on the right track again. He stepped out of the stall, rinsed his hands, and threw a ruble to the washroom attendant, making a mental note of her face but unable to tell if she was someone who might work with him. Maybe. Could Dog Ear be so stupid that he always used the same name? Or was this Dog Ear an imitator of the original? Even if he was, an imitator would have to know something about his predecessor. Parts would figure it out. As he walked back into the dining room, he was already smiling, and every step had a little more bounce in it. He should never have lost faith that scum will pile up in one place all on its own.

Tallinn, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union

T
HE WASHROOM ATTENDANT WAS
no use to him. She was a religious old lady and apparently a sincere one, or she wouldn’t have been assigned to watch over the lavatory. But Parts had better luck at the student apartments. He met his new informant at Glehn Park, not far from the dorms. The informant arrived limping, complaining of an injured leg. Parts barely managed to listen civilly to her, tried to get her to hurry up and spit it out. She had proven herself surprisingly capable and patriotic, so there was no reason to pretend friendship anymore. In addition to collecting mail, she had copied the Target’s telegrams in neat black letters. Parts thanked her effusively, promising to return the bundle in a week as he slipped it into his briefcase, leaving her to rest her shaky legs with the Russians spending the day among the shady shrubbery, unwrapping the newspaper from their boiled eggs and chomping on their onion tops, the students studying for exams, the couples making love in the ruins of Glehn Castle. The Office never would have shown him copies of the letters the Target received—or at most would have given him selected excerpts, typewritten—unless they’d wanted him to start up a correspondence in the Target’s name, and he wasn’t going to get that kind of assignment, at least for the time being. There were a few letters from the fiancée in the
bundle, but Parts didn’t dare to hope that any of them would mention Dog Ear. He didn’t believe she knew very much, but even a few pages would be enough for a handwriting sample, and maybe something else of use would turn up. Then he could forge letters as evidence or lure Dog Ear out of hiding.

AS HE CAME IN
his own front door, he stumbled over a pile of his wife’s shoes. His wife’s footwear bulged where her corns were and although she could manage with sandals in the summer, in the winter she needed boots, and it was impossible to find any. She would rub her aching feet in the entryway and nag him about it, demanding to know when they were going to get access to the restricted shops—in the next life?—making snide remarks about how in spite of his big talk the only new development she could see was the downward trend of his career; he couldn’t even get them any rat-free ground meat. Parts untangled his slippers from a sandal and threw it in the corner. She was right. The situation had to be remedied before it was too late. If nothing else worked, he could buy some bismuth salt and put it in the Target’s letters. If he remembered correctly, American spies used something similar. The lab at the Office would find it and increase their surveillance.

PARTS WENT INTO
the kitchen, lit the stove, and waited for the water to boil, closing his ears to the clomping sounds upstairs. There was nothing particularly interesting in the telegrams. The Target’s fiancée just told him of her daily routine. The informant had also made a list of visitors and random notes about what she felt was suspicious activity—unusual clothing, for example. Those were completely useless, too. Nothing about Dog Ear. Parts flipped through the addresses on the envelopes. Evelin Kask, Tooru Village. The handwriting was round and even, the pen tip pressed on the paper just right, not too hard, the ink not smudged anywhere, the letters standing narrow within the words. A nice girl’s handwriting. He steamed open the envelope. Childish, random observations and descriptions: “I studied hard for the exams and everyone here is waiting for the results, even my neighbor Liisa. My mother wants to send you her own
birthday card, but I ought to warn you about my grandma—she’s peculiar. She’s sitting across the table from me now and asking a lot of questions about you.” There were roses on the birthday card. Parts flicked it across the table. The letter was full of longing and prattle and Parts didn’t believe that even a foolish girl like her would bore her boyfriend with such tedious descriptions of the countryside and trivial village news. It had to be a secret code, and to break it he would need a lot more correspondence. Something was up, but what? And what did it have to do with Dog Ear? If he did find Dog Ear before the Office did, and it was the same Dog Ear as in the diary, would he be able to squeeze any information out of him about the identity of the Heart?

THE WATER IN THE KETTLE
had boiled away. Parts turned out the light and went to the window. The dead trees outside had melted motionless into the dark. He was in dangerous waters. Opening the letters wasn’t his job. He wasn’t supposed to know the whole picture—just his own small part—he wasn’t supposed to go out of bounds. Maybe they were writing a report on him right now, pasting new pictures onto cardboard, recording his personal information, his file bulging; maybe they were considering the best tools to use based on the descriptions in that file, Postal Control already activated, of course, and home surveillance. He remembered the hair he’d left between his papers, how it had disappeared while he was out. Maybe he was wrong to suspect his wife. Perhaps it was just his imagination. He turned on the light and reached for the sprat sandwich, then set it down again. The can of sprats had been opened yesterday. He got an unopened can from the pantry, and a fresh loaf of bread, bought today, from the bread box. No more mistakes.