Purge Read Free Page B

crow cawed on the gate, dogs barked in the village, but the girl was so focused on the bread that the sounds didn’t make her flinch like they had before. Aliide’s galoshes were shining like good polished boots. The dew was rising over her feet from the damp grass.

    “Well, what now? What about your husband? Is he after you?” Aliide asked, watching her closely as she ate. It was genuine hunger. But that fear. Was it only her husband she was afraid of?

    “He is after me. My husband is.”

    “Why don’t you call your mother, have her come and get you? Or let her know where you are?”

    The girl shook her head.

    “Well, call some friend, then. Or some other family member.”

    She shook her head again, more violently than before.

    “Then call someone who won’t tell your husband where you are.”

    More shakes of the head. Her dirty hair flew away from her face. She combed it back in place and looked more clearheaded than crazy, in spite of her incessant cringing. There was no glimmer of insanity in her eyes, although she peered obliquely from under her brow all the time.

    “I can’t take you anywhere. Even if I had a car, there’s no gas here. There’s a bus from the village once a day, but it’s not reliable.”

    The girl assured her she would be leaving soon.

    “Where will you go? Back to your husband?”

    “No!”

    “Then where?”

    The girl poked her slipper at the stones in the flower bed in front of the bench. Her chin was nearly on her breast.

    “Zara.”

    Aliide was taken aback. It was an introduction.

    “Aliide Truu.”

    The girl stopped poking at the stone. She had grabbed hold of the edge of the bench after she’d eaten, and now she loosened her grip. Her head rose a little.

    “Nice to meet you.”

1992
Läänemaa, Estonia

Zara Searches for a Likely Story

    Aliide. Aliide Truu. Zara’s hands let go of the bench. Aliide Truu was alive and standing in front of her. Aliide Truu lived in this house. The situation felt as strange as the language in Zara’s mouth. She dimly remembered how she had managed to find the right road and the silver willows on the road, but she couldn’t remember if she had realized that she had found it, or whether she had stood in front of the door during the night, not knowing what to do, or decided that she would wait until the morning, so she wouldn’t frighten anyone by coming as a stranger during the night, or whether she had tried to go into the stable to sleep, or looked in the kitchen window, not daring to knock on the door, or if she had even thought of knocking on the door, or thought of anything. When she tried to remember, she felt a stabbing in her head, so she concentrated on the present moment. She didn’t have any plan ready for how to behave when she got here, much less for when she met the woman she was looking for here in the yard, Aliide Truu. She hadn’t had time to think that far. Now she just had to try to make her way forward, to calm her feeling of panic, although it was waiting to break out and grab her at any moment—she had to stop thinking about Pasha and Lavrenti, she had to dare to be in the present moment, meeting Aliide Truu. She had to pull herself together. She had to be brave. To remember how to behave with other people, to think up an attitude toward the woman standing in front of her. The woman’s face was made of small wrinkles and delicate bones, but there was no expression in it. Her earlobes were elongated, and stones embedded in gold hung from them on hooks. They reflected red. Her irises seemed gray or blue gray, her eyes watery, but Zara hardly dared to look higher than her nose. Aliide was smaller than she had expected, downright skinny. The aroma of garlic wafted from her on the wind.

    There wasn’t much time. Pasha and Lavrenti would find her, she had no doubt of that. But here was Aliide Truu, and here was the house. Would the woman agree to help? Zara had to make her understand the situation