Read Online When the Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen - Free Book Online

it in passing, and her face didn’t shine with the happiness that Juudit expected. After all, her fiancé had come home in one piece. It felt strange that they didn’t talk about the homecomings like everyone else did. There was no shortage of talk on other subjects. First there was the lament over how the railway inspectors—they called them “the wolves”—confiscated passengers’ food supplies for their own use, and advice about how Juudit should behave if she had an inspection on her way home. They said it was a good thing her train hadn’t had to stop for any air raids. Later in the evening their talk focused on the villagemanor. It had been empty after Hitler invited the Baltic Germans into Germany, and now it was occupied by the Germans for use as the local headquarters, and they’d rigged a dove trap on the terrace above the main entrance. Apparently the Germans ate pigeons; this made the women laugh. The Germans had brought in bathtubs, too. They were very clean people, and the officers were so easygoing. The gardeners who’d stayed on at the manor and the women at the washhouse said the Germans gave the children candy, and there was only one soldier on guard at a time. But whenever Juudit caught Anna’s or Leonida’s eye in the midst of this chatter, either woman would quickly freeze her mouth into a smile. Something wasn’t right. Juudit had expected Anna to be having one of her sick spells, what with her favorite boy on the road somewhere, his whereabouts unknown. She expected her to insist that Juudit stay with them in the countryside, but Anna didn’t seem worried about Juudit living in Tallinn alone, even smiled to herself, admiring the sock heel she’d just turned. The mere fact that Roland had survived couldn’t account for such cheerfulness. Was it because they had gotten the Bolsheviks’ tenants off their land? But the farm was still in such bad condition that they couldn’t manage the work without help. That was no cause for rejoicing.
    Rosalie fell asleep before Juudit had a chance to talk with her alone, although they’d always used to talk after the lamp was extinguished. The next morning Juudit began to wonder if Rosalie had just been pretending to sleep. Her smile was tight as a sheet stretched on a laundry line, and she was in a great hurry. At the end of the day’s work, the blockade of Leningrad slipped out of Anna’s mouth, as if by accident:
    “I heard that under the blockade you can only buy half a liter of water a day, for two rubles. Ten thousand people dying every day. They’ve eaten the horses. But could the men surrounding them be any better off?”
    Leonida asked Juudit to help her break up the salt. Juudit picked up the mallet. There was a curl at the corner of Anna’s mouth, although the blockade shouldn’t give her any reason to smile. Maybe she was getting senile, or maybe she just didn’t know how to respond to Juudit’s dry eyes. Should Juudit have burst into tears at the thought that her husband might be in the blockaded city? Should she pretend to be sad and hopeful? Juudit’s mother had heard that someone had seen Edgar among the troops that were transferred to Leningrad, but who knew if any of those rumorswere true? Anna didn’t mention it, in any case. The talk was starting to weigh on Juudit’s chest. She wanted to get away, go back to Tallinn. The watchful eyes of Anna and Leonida pecked at her face, and it stung. It was impossible to talk with Rosalie alone—Anna and Leonida kept buzzing around, poking their heads in the door just when Juudit thought they’d gone to the barn, jumping in behind her when she tried to go with Rosalie to give the chickens their mash. Rosalie didn’t seem to notice anything, constantly busying herself with something, fingering the worn spot on her barn jacket where her favorite cow always licked her, avoiding Juudit’s gaze. Then she grabbed a lantern to go out to the barn, and Juudit was left to deal with Anna’s