Purge Read Online Free PDF Page A

movements.

    “Let them burn,” Aliide said.

    The girls eyebrow was no longer twitching. She started to scratch at her nail polish, concentrating on each finger one by one. Did it calm her down? Aliide fetched a bowl of tomatoes from the pantry and put it on the table, glanced at the loaded mousetrap beside the pile of cucumbers, and inspected her recipe book and the jars of mixed vegetables she’d left on the counter to cool.

    “I’m about to can tomatoes. And the raspberries from yesterday. Shall we see what’s on the radio?”

    The girl grabbed a magazine and rustled it loudly against the oilcloth. The glass of tea spilled over the magazine, the girl was frightened, and she jumped away from the table, stared at the glass and at Aliide in turn, and started to rapidly apologize for the mess, but messed up the words, then nervously tried to clean it up, looking for a cloth, then wiping the floor, the glass, and the legs of the table, and patting the already-ragged kitchen mat dry.

    “It’s all right.”

    The girl’s panic didn’t subside, and Aliide had to calm her down again—it’s all right, there’s nothing to worry about, just calm down, it’s just a glass of tea, let it be, why don’t you fetch the washtub from the back room, there should be enough warm water now. The girl dashed off quickly, still looking apologetic, brought the zinc tub clattering into the kitchen, and rushed between the stove and the tub carrying hot water and then cold water to add to it. She kept her gaze toward the floor; her cheeks were red, her movements conciliatory and smooth. Aliide watched her at work. An unusually well-trained girl. Good training like that took a hefty dose of fear. Aliide felt sorry for her, and as she handed her a linen towel decorated with Lihula patterns, she held the girl’s hands in her own for a moment. The girl flinched again; her fingers curled up and she pulled her hand away, but Aliide wouldn’t let her go. She felt like petting the girl’s hair, but she seemed too averse to being touched, so Aliide just repeated that there was nothing to worry about. She should just calmly get in the bath, then put on some dry clothes, and have something to drink. Maybe a glass of cold, strong sugar water. How about if she mixed some up right now?

    The girl’s fingers straightened. Her fright started to ease, her body settled. Aliide carefully loosened the girl’s hand from her own and mixed up some soothing sugar water. The girl drank it, the glass trembled, a swirling storm of sugar crystals. Aliide encouraged her to get into the bath, but she wouldn’t budge until Aliide agreed to wait in the front room. She left the door ajar and heard the water splashing, and now and then a small, childlike sigh.

    The girl didn’t know how to read Estonian. She could speak but not read. That’s why she had flipped through the magazine so nervously and knocked over her glass—maybe on purpose, to keep Aliide from seeing that she was illiterate.

    Aliide peeked through the crack in the door. The girl’s bruised body sprawled in the tub. The tangled hair at her temples stuck out like an extra, listening ear.

1991
Vladivostok, Russian federation

Zara Admires Some Shiny Stockings and Tastes Some Gin

    One day, a black Volga pulled up in front of Zara’s house. Zara was standing on the steps when the car stopped, the door of the Volga opened, and a foot clothed in a shiny stocking emerged and touched the ground. At first Zara was afraid—why was there a black Volga in front of their house?— but she forgot her fright when the sun hit Oksanka’s lower leg. The babushkas got quiet on the bench beside the house and stared at the shining metal of the car and the glistening leg. Zara had never seen anything like it; it was the color of skin; it didn’t look anything like a stocking. Maybe it wasn’t a stocking at all. But the light gleamed on the surface of the leg in such a way that there had to be something