When the Doves Disappeared Read Online Free PDF Page B

Another said that her husband wouldn’t leave her in peace even when it was time for her woman’s troubles, which was terribly unhygienic, and even dangerous, and another suspected that her husband had a venereal disease. Juudit’s situation was unusual, but she had finally figured it out: gonorrhea, syphilis, chancre. Of course! That had to be it! Her husband was just too ashamed to tell her! She had to get him to a doctor, but how? She couldn’t tell him that she thought he was carrying a disease.
    She put down the book. The photograph of the foot of an infant with hereditary syphilis brought back a memory from her childhood—a woman she’d seen once when she and her mother were out walking. Her mother had slowed her steps as soon as she saw the woman, steered Juudit down a different street, and said they could go to the import shop some other time. The woman had a trouble that bad women get, maybe from using the same dishes that a sick person has used. Her mother had been right about that—the Housewife’s Handbook said the same thing—but then wouldn’t Juudit have symptoms, too? She could still remember the woman’s face. It was clean, no signs of illness or cocainism, even though when they had been to visit the family doctor he had whispered, “The medical association claims that cocaine sickness in the country has decreased, but the number of psychopaths and neurotics hasn’t decreased, and those are the very people who are carriers. One can only imagine how many of them there must be.…”
    The Housewife’s Handbook didn’t tell her whether the sickness would affect her husband’s capabilities. She couldn’t bring herself to think anymore about it. Syphilis, the most serious and frightening of the venereal diseases. She couldn’t have such terrible luck. She must be wrong. Her husband’s eyes weren’t red and he didn’t have sores in his mouth or on his legs, or any deformities. And anyway, how could she be sure he had it, that he had kissed bad women, or maybe even done something worse; and if he had, what did that mean? And how could she know whether he’d been to a doctor?
    Juudit started examining herself, checking her tongue, her limbs, every day, panicking at a bug bite, the swelling that followed, a pimple on her chin, a callus on her foot, wondering if she’d had sores she hadn’t noticed, if she was in the symptomless phase that the Housewife’s Handbook talked about. Everyone had already started dropping hints about a little bundle that was on its way, had started to wonder about it, because they’d interpreted her hurry to get married as a sign that she was in a family way—Anna Simson in particular had whispered about it, knowingly, reproachfully. Finally Juudit got up her courage. She had to know for sure. The doctor was friendly, the visit awkward, even agonizing. It ended with him telling her she had nothing physically wrong with her, no disease.
    “My dear,” he said, “you were created to give birth.”

Western Estonia, Estland General Region, Reichskommissariat Ostland
    W E TRAVELED FOR a week through woods blighted with fighting, made our way around seething horse carcasses and bloated corpses, avoiding bombed bridges, trying to interpret the rumble of the destruction battalion bombers. Eventually the forest started to look familiar, restored to health as my longing for home was soothed and we came upon the road to our old mail drop. I left Edgar shivering at the edge of the woods as lookout and approached the house warily, but the dog recognized us from a long way off and ran to meet me. I could tell by the way it scampered around that there was no danger, so I relaxed and, accompanied by the dog, went to the window and gave the knock we’d agreed on. The woman we called “the mail girl” opened the door immediately, smiled broadly, and told me the news: The Bolsheviks were still in retreat, the eastern front was crumbling, and the Finns and Germans were hunting