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GULF OF FINLAND 14 MILES OFF THE COAST NEAR VIINISTU, ESTONIA Niklas knew that he would be late for school. He could tell by the position of the sun, hidden behind the clouds, that he was already late. But he kept the small wooden boat at half speed anyway. He hated school. Island boy. Urchin. Nik the Hick. That was the one he hated the most. The fact that he was the smallest in the class didn’t help when he wanted to fight back. He wasn’t the poorest. Everyone was poor. Why rush? he asked himself as he crossed the water toward the island of Mohni. Papa and Grampa were fishermen, and you’ll be one too. And then he screamed. Floating in the water was a body, a corpse. It was a man. He had on only blue underwear. Pants were wrapped around his neck. Niklas maneuvered the skiff next to the floating body. Should he simply pass it by? Leave it? He looked at the man’s face. He was white and pale. He appeared bloated from the water. Niklas knew what Mama and Papa would want him to do. He cut the engine. He reached to the pants around the man’s neck. He pulled them to the side of the boat. He tried to lift, but it was useless. He was far too heavy for Niklas.
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Niklas took a piece of rope and wrapped it beneath the man’s armpits. He made a knot at his chest, then tied the rope to the boat seat, so that the man’s head would be out of the water. He started the engine back up and headed for the island, dragging the body alongside the skiff. Niklas pulled up to the dock in front of his house. He tied up the skiff, then ran along the pier, through the field, and into the house. “Ema! Tule nüüd!” he shouted in Estonian. Mama! Come now! “Miks sa ei koolis?” Why are you not at school? “Tulema!” he screamed, pulling her arm. Come! They pulled the cold body onto the dock. Niklas’s mother, Liina, put her head to the corpse’s chest, then looked at Niklas. “Help me. Let’s bring him into the house.” Liina dried the stranger’s body, then built a fire in the stove, despite the heat. She wrapped him in homemade blankets. Slowly, she pressed down on his chest, a steady rhythm. Push, one two. Push, one two. Push, one two. Liina moved to the man’s head. She put her fingers to his nose, clamping shut his nostrils, then placed her lips against the man’s and began breathing. For a minute, as Niklas pressed up and down on the dead man’s chest, Liina blew air into his lungs, refusing to give up. A deep guttural sound came from inside him. A vibration started from somewhere a few moments later, and his eyes 5
opened. The bluest eyes she’d ever seen. He looked up. Water abruptly oozed over his lips and out his nose. He had a coughing fit, which produced yet more water, all over the floor. “Are you okay?” Liina asked in Estonian. He just stared at her, then fell almost immediately into a deep sleep. When Kristjan came home, Liina filled him in on the stranger Niklas had rescued. Kristjan examined the sleeping Dewey and found the bullet wound. “We need to remove it,” he said. “Should we bring him to the hospital in Viinistu?” she asked. “He’ll die.” Kristjan shook him awake. He looked into the man’s eyes. Then he pointed to his leg. He made a gesture, pretending to pull something up, like a cork. “Go,” Kristjan said in English. “Bang. Go.” The stranger nodded. Liina brought grain alcohol and forced it into his mouth. Kristjan cleaned his hands. He found bottlenose pliers and scrubbed them, and his best knife, which he heated in the open flames of the stove. He turned the stranger over to expose the hole at the back of the leg. Kristjan pushed the top of the knife in. The man made a terrible moaning noise as the blade went deeper. Blood, thick like wine, oozed out. Liina held the kerosene lamp above the leg. Kristjan placed the knife in a steel bowl. He reached in with his fingers and felt for the slug. When he found it, he looked at his wife and nodded. She handed him the pliers. He 6
pushed the nose of them down where his fingers were. He felt the hard, misshapen steel clicking against the pliers. He gripped the metal, as tightly as he could, then pulled with all his strength. Slowly, Kristjan pulled the cartridge from the man’s blood-covered, badly bruised thigh. It was nearly as long as a finger, made of brass, bent and misshapen. He dropped it in the bowl and it made a dull clank. Kristjan sewed up the incision with steel leader. Liina poured alcohol on the wound. The man stopped moaning. He made no noises. He stared straight ahead, in silence. When it was over, he shut his eyes and fell back into a deep sleep.
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