JESS: Journal of Estonian Short Stories (Pilot Issue) by villaneraamat

JESS Journal of Estonian Short Stories

Pilot Issue

Villane Raamat MTĂ&#x153; Tartu, 2013

JESS: Journal of Estonian Short Stories Print Version ISSN 2346-6456 Digital Version ISSN 2436-6464 Published by Villane Raamat MTĂ&#x153; Printed at the Estonian Printing Museum

Contents

Priit Kruus

Foreword

Lota Carolina Aisling

“Albert the Magnificent”

Tobias Koch

“The Curse of Being a Poet”

Vallo Pooler

“Long Drive Home”

Anete Kruusmägi

“Sailing Down the Timeline: 19 Correspondence with Nick Drake”

Berit Renser

“Daddy”

Ingrid Scott

“My Tuljak”

Foreword

Dear Reader, You are holding in your hands the pilot issue of JESS, the aim of which is to lay a foundation to new channels of literature and to be a fulfilling addition in local literary journalism. What is particularly exciting about this is the promise to branch out internationally. “To be a platform to budding authors connected to Estonia, to introduce Estonian literature abroad, to bring attention to Estonian expatriates and people from other countries living in Estonia in the literary landscape” – that is how the representatives of the publisher Villane Raamat MTÜ have phrased their endeavours. According to plans, ELLA and JESS will be published biannually, both of them containing 12 stories. ELLA and JESS would join in the cultural landscape with a collection of phenomena with different forms but a singular goal, for example the Estonian Literary Magazine, focused on critics and introducing authors, the Estonian Literature Centre and its continuous endeavours to market Estonian literature in literary conventions and festivals abroad, and why not the master’s programme for the translators of Estonian

literature at Tallinn University. It is good that there will be an additional means to reach abroad purely for the publication of fiction. The sociological net balance of modern Estonian literature is in a very good state. Throughout the last twenty years, Estonian literature has been a bustling and teaming landscape, where dozens of communities and their publications have appeared: groups like Noorte Autorite Koondis, Erakkond, Tallinna Noored Tegijad, the community for Russian-speaking Estonian writers Tuulelohe/Vozdušnõi Zmei, publications like the ET and the Urdu, web-based communities like People&Poetry and ThePression, larger literary websites like KLOAAK and POOGEN, printed publications like the Värske Rõhk and its book series Värske Raamat. The release of a new (cultural) journal is of course a joyous occasion, but can create a certain amount of anticipation – how will the new phenomenon fit with others, those who are already in the picture; what kind of contacts and possibilities will this enable; what kind of additions will it bring and on what level? Dear reader, you have this chance to kick off in the wind of a new publication and answer all these questions together with other readers and authors. As one of them has already written in ELLA: ... mingi ürgne jõud ässitab sind takka ja praegusest jahihooajast kannustatuna leiad motivatsiooni teekond ette võtta. Kuigi su kolba sees lõhub väike vihane mees ja karjub: mis kurat siin õige toimub? Millesse on meid segatud?! Sa ei suuda näha oma teo tulemusi, sa ei oska ennustada tulevikku, vaid aeg võib sulle seda näidata ja tema ei hooli sinu kannatamatusest.*

Priit Kruus Teacher of Literature, Editor in Chief at Värske Rõhk, 2005-2007

... some primal force stirs within you, and urged on now by the hunting season you find motivation to set off on the path. Even though a small angry man trashes around in your skull and cries: what the hell is going on here? What have we been put into?! You cannot see the outcomes of your action, you cannot predict the future, but time can show it to you and it does not care about your impatience.

JESS Journal of Estonian Short Stories

Albert the Magnificent Lota Carolina Aisling

When I got Emen as my flat mate, I didn’t know I was about to perform a world class balancing act. With her orange curls and rainbow outfits, I was sure I’d have many world saving meetings taking place in my home. Instead I saw my band hanging out more often than was suitable. Flat mates have their quirks and out of many possible choices, hers seemed the easiest to endure. I was close to accepting my place turning into a passage yard thanks to her, but then my silver jewellery began to disappear. Nothing made of wood, nothing plastic, only precious metals. It took me a week to understand this wasn’t the sort of problem that went away by itself. After one very long Thursday, I finally gathered up my courage over the long bus trip back home to go and have that dreaded conversation. I hated it, because if I’d got it wrong, I’d mess up our so far rather good co-existence. “I’ll start by asking if she has seen any of the missing bangles,” I decided, climbing up the old badly painted stairs. This seemed a solid plan until I got home and the first thing I saw after entering were someone’s big feet upside down right at my eye level accompanied by humming. “What are you doing?” I asked, eyes fixed on the cheap toe ring swaying before my eyes. “Oomm – oomm – oomm – meditating – oomm – oomm … ”

Meditating! How can you disturb someone, who is meditating? Or get them out of it so you can have a proper talk? I needed her orange hair to understand what I was about to say. “Look,” I began, still searching for words how to best serve her the accusations, when a scratching running sound pulled my attention away from her feet. I jumped, screaming from the tip of my lungs – running across my dark floor was a giant grey rat! Both of my grocery bags landed on the floor and I threw at it the first of two nearby plastic birds. Emen was immediately right side up, blocking my view and grabbing the next plastic bird from my hand. “Sharon! No!” she screamed over my shrieking. “You can’t! Stop!” I stared at her in disbelief, assessing her sanity. “I can’t do what?” I asked while trying to return my breathing to normal. Standing there in silent awe while the girl dived after the monster, for a moment I was blessed with a perfect view of her rear end. “You can’t,” Emen cheeks flamed up and she sprang back, rat seated meekly in her hands. “I beg your pardon? I can’t do what?” My lungs were still desperate for air. “It’s a rat! I’ve never had a rat problem before!” Emen nodded. “What are you nodding about? It’s a … it’s a … ” I was lost for words how to even describe that over grown shaggy rug. “How dare you? First you steal my jewellery and now I find a sewer rat in my flat?” As I blurted last few words, my eye locked onto the odd gleam coming from the rat’s mouth. It was my so far not lost earing. “This must be a joke, I closed my jewellery box!” “I’m sorry! Albert is, in his cutest small way a kleptomaniac.” Emen apologised, inhaling hard. She pried the stolen treasure out of his mouth. He was keen on keeping it, but after small battle it was free and handed over to me. “In what way? A what?” She helpfully gave me the dictionary explanation that made my temples twitch. “I know what a kleptomaniac is.” I cut it short.

With my original reason to be mad lost, I found it really hard to stay angry. What’s the point if the pickpocket turned out to be a rodent? I scratched my head disappointedly, but relieved. This wasn’t a conversation I’d wanted to have in the first place. I was glad it wasn’t Emen. And, with each moment it seemed even stupider that it was actually a rat with a miniature blue dog collar. I turned my back to them, eyes travelling around the shelves as if that was supposed to help me come to a decision. I grabbed the bags from the carpet in one hand, gathered the fallen things in my lap and took them into the kitchen. Emen followed me cautiously; shoulders slumped and sniffing her nose, like a kid who wasn’t allowed to keep a puppy, eyes slightly moist and big. I observer her quietly for a while, tempted to ask something very unladylike in return for hiding him. Despite my original surprise, I did grow up with guinea pigs and a golden hamster. I wasn’t so partial to the wild rodent population, but home groomed species did have their advantages. “OK then,” I said, settling my back against the table, “will you introduce him to me?” “Huh?” “I know he’s magpie in a rat’s skin, but that’s about all I know.” Her eyes narrowed, but I let it slide. “And considering that my bangles began disappearing about two weeks ago, I’m guessing that’s the time when that fur ball arrived. Am I right?” Emen blushed. Extraordinary – a rare instance! “Have you always known about the rat?” she asked shyly. I shook my head and urged her back on topic. “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?” Her face bloomed and it dawned on me too late I had unleashed her childish love to respond to the exact question asked. “Alright! So! First there was Earth and … ” “Not that far back!” I interrupted quickly. “Let’s skip the prehistory and start from the day this … ” I gestured to the rat. “Albert.” “ … Albert arrived on our doorstep. He doesn’t look the most youthful and I can’t remember him from the day you moved in. So the

first question would be – from where?” “Because he’s not actually mine?” My eye twisted in response. “I mean,” she corrected herself quickly, “at first he wasn’t mine, but then Jo had to go to Germany and she asked if I could keep him and I agreed! But then I forgot all about it and I forgot to ask you! And then suddenly she was already here and said that now she’d have to leave and she was weeping so badly that I couldn’t say no and … ” “Breath!” A little more and she’d have a heart attack. “Who’s Jo?” She fell silent. Albert spent his time pushing his head far out trying to sniff me. I tried to find any reason in my head why I should say no to that pink nose. Just for show, because it was obvious to me that this pet was going to stay around for as long as he lived. I still had to come up with something bossy, just for the sake of it. She had to understand she couldn’t turn our tiny apartment into an animal shelter, no matter how much that tiny voice inside her screamed. There are proper places for this. I reached my left palm for him to sniff before I started scratching the soft fur under his chin. I glanced past them and through the open door of her room, at her bright pink walls with green feathers often flying around from her exquisite one-of-a-kind pillows. “Those past weeks – where did you keep him?” “In my room.” “And when I wasn’t home – the entire apartment?” Emen nodded. “I thought as much.” I continued scratching his tiny chin, because he seemed to like it a lot. “For starters, we can’t have him living only in your room.” Emen’s face fell long. “Why not?” “He’d go nuts. Besides, I’d prefer that kleptomaniac under our noses at all times. I propose we bring his cage to the living room. But first we shall find every possible place he can hide his stash and seal them.” Emen’s face brightened up and she nodded eagerly, thankfully clueless about the magnitude of work ahead of us. “I loved those earrings dearly and I want them back.” I said more to

myself, pressing the lonely zircon glad silver button in my hand. “Now put him back in his cell! Go!” “Yes, ma’am!” Her sudden eagerness to please me was disturbing. “Ok!” she ran back to the rug, pulled on her slippers and went to fulfil my order. Suddenly her entire body twisted, as if electrocuted. “I think I found the first loot.” She said with a grimace. The slipper was gently skimmed off her foot and turned around, spilling Emen’s ring with big shiny fake diamond and the matching earring to the one I was holding. We spent the entire evening turning the house upside down, going through every hole with a flashlight to find hidden metals from their shine. I got back almost my entire collection of golden earrings, except one ring. While we were hunching over the hole under the corner table, my ears caught a heavy clatter as if he was dragging my … “Ring!” I yelled from the top of my lungs, shooting the flashlight straight in the face of the thief. Emen had no time to react while I was already on it, grabbing the chain I kept Corin’s ring on and whisking it off in the air along with the rat who found it to be most unfair to lose his loot. I swung him on the chain back and forth until his jaws couldn’t hold much longer and he softly fell on the ground. Though he remained unharmed, he landed his teeth into my slipper. “He bit me!” I said factually, looking after the leaving rat. “Was it very painful?” Emen sounded concerned. “No, the teeth didn’t come through. Gee, he really protects his foray!” “I’m sorry.” “Eh, what are you apologising for? It’s the rat!” “Well yeah, but Albert … ” “When you got him, you didn’t know he would be like that, did you?” She shook her head and I tugged the slipper back on my foot. “Great.” “What do we do now?” “Go hunt some rodent.”

Lota Carolina Aisling is a history student from Tartu, Estonia. Her main job is helping students with their daily problems. Her spare time is divided between writing short stories, reading literature studies and making colourful small concrete items for constructions. She is the author of a Web blog, Lota of Nettleweed, where she adds stories both in English and in Estonian.

The Curse of Being a Poet Tobias Koch

He's new in town. An international. Accompanying a group of other internationals he ends up getting drunk in a bar. I had never been to that bar. It's a pretty hip place. There are many people around, and I have the feeling that they have all come looking for something which they most probably will not find tonight. It's so crowded inside and outside, people even sit on the roof of the bar. Stupidly staring around and pretending to be enjoying my beer, which is cheap and serving its purpose, I join the crowd. The alcohol makes it a lot easier to talk to people. I roam around a bit and go from one group to another. I find myself talking to locals, internationals just like me and the ones that are said to be my compatriots.

Night has fallen and the darkened sky is just providing a small outlook to what is expecting him later that year. The lanterns' lights are weakly illuminating the drunken faces. Autumn is in the air. A church bell rings in four o'clock, the time of the night when I usually go home because my body and mind have been drowned by beer. I feel my body being heavy and bloated. I keep stumbling and don't, however smart I might have felt before, remember which way to go. There's a street going to the left and another one to the right. Two-storey wooden houses to the left and to the right. Being confused I decide to go to the right. Nothing around appears familiar to me. The town, that seemed so small before, has emerged as a confusing network of turns and alleys. It will remain a secret to him how he actually got around town and found his way home. My mind tricks me into believing that the group of people I went with earlier was led by a magician that opened secret doors and made hidden stairs appear behind bushes and oak trees. But then I finally get that I started off the wrong way. The street is completely empty. I blame the cobblestones for my unstable walk, but, I keep on walking. Noticing the change of the surface beneath my heavy feet, I take a look down and discover that the forest floor is covered with colourful yet black leaves. Confused and drunk he finds himself far from home, in the middle of an impressive, ancient building. I'm surrounded by something that reminds me of a castle or a 8

church. Gazing at the architecture I stand for a while and wonder how long it took to build it. There must be millions of red bricks, stacked upon each other to form arches over arches, but no roof. I can see the dark sky through the missing roof, while my drunkenness makes me walk in circles. Spinning around I get lost in the now blending red and black of the surroundings, and the little orange light that comes from an invisible source somewhere around. I feel small, but the building doesn't oppress me. I feel like I'm floating through the open roof and can take a look over the town. Losing control, I end up falling to the soft, humid ground. Gravity has taken hold of me again. I crawl to a spot that is not soaked and sit down on a blank and cold surface that also provides something to lean on. I fall into a light sleep, since I'm not completely awake when a boyish voice starts mumbling next to my ear. My mind is still blurry and I can hardly understand, even though the tone of the voice seems familiar: “Noormees! Mida sa teed siin? Miks küll istud mu jalgade peal, ise nii raske? Ja mis siin nii imelikult lõhnab? Palun lahku, sa segad mind!”† The high register of the voice rings in my ears. Sitting up straight and pretending to put my clothes in order my mouth opens magically and spits out a few words in a so far unknown fluent manner. “Kuidas palun? Ma mõtlesin, et ma olen siin üksi. Kellega ma rääkin? Ma ei näe mitte midagi, persse küll.”‡ “Siin, sinu taga. Kas sa ei arva, et oleks parem, kui sa järgmine kord jääd oma raamatutega koju ja õpid? Ja kes sa üldse ise oled?”§ I can hardly take the squeaky but mad tone of the voice seriously and have to struggle with my ambition to remain polite, but somehow overcame the beat of the voices’ high register: “Mina küsisin esimesena! Ütle mulle kes sa oled! Miks see †

“Young man! What are you doing here? Why are you sitting on my feet being so heavy? And what's that malodour? Please go away and stop bothering me.” ‡ “I'm sorry, what? I thought I'm alone. Who am I talking to? I can't see shit. Fuck.” § “Here. Right behind you. Don't you think you're better off if you stay home with your books and spend some time studying. Who are you yourself?”

language keeps flowing out of me? And don't tell me you never drink!”** “Well, I'm delighted to meet you. You can call me Jaak! I suppose it must be my presence that allows you a certain level of proficiency in my mother tongue. But what about you now?” the boy named Jaak answers. “Oh, that's great. I should stick to you then. I would love to be able to speak it as well as you do. By the way, I'm John, I'm from England!” “As long as you get up at some point and stop bothering me with your malodour, I wouldn't mind if you actually hung out with me from time to time. It is a very noble endeavour that you would like to learn my tongue. I have to admit that I do feel lonely once in a while.” “That sounds good! Usually when I talk to locals about my plan to learn their language, they're really astonished. They're like 'What are you gonna do with it?', 'It's so useless to speak that language – there are so few people speaking it'. But hey, thanks a lot for your support! Anyhow, what are you doing here? It's late at night and you actually bother talking to a young, drunk Englishman? Why don't you just go?” “I'm thinking. And I cannot move. I'm stuck to this very place,” Jaak answers shyly. Unexpectedly my excitement about my new mate fades away and the drunkenness takes the lead again. I can hardly focus on the conversation anymore. “What an exciting business. You get paid well by any chance?” “Indeed I do. Even though my costs of living aren't incredibly high hence I can put a lot aside.” When I get up on my feet again I can't help realising that Jaak sighs a little. I'm looking a bit closer at my mate. It strikes me, that he is really tall and that he is holding a heavy-looking hiking stick in his giant hands. Scottie Pippen and other basketball players instantly appear in my blurry mind, I remember having read something about **

“I asked first. Tell me who you are. Why does this … ”

their giant hands being some kind of evidence for the irresponsible use of anabolics. I wonder if Jaak also does drugs? “Mate, you're tall. What's the weather like up there?” “Oh, bugger off. I'm tall and I need a stick to be able to stand up straight. I guess that is what it takes to make my living.” “Alright”, I say sympathetically, “How old are you?” “I'm 22.” “Why don't you study instead of standing around?” “I have.” “Yeah, it is a pain these days to get a job, right?” I answer drunkenly. When he wakes up a couple of hours later, he can hardly remember anything. Taking a look around he needs to hold his head, as if it is about to fall off. His shoes are covered with mud and there are splashes on his pants and jacket. He is disgusted, he can't believe that he has just begun the year abroad and continues the way he stopped back in England. There is a church made of red brick next to him. It does not have a roof; you can just walk through the building, look up through the pillars and arches and see the blue morning sky. A few small clouds move slowly above the ruin. Like lightning the name Jaak comes to his mind and it echoes “You can call me Jaak, Jaak, Jaa, Ja ... ” He's stumbling and about

to fall, but manages to grab a massive hiking stick. He stands on a small podium, gazes up and spots a face at the top of the body that stands firmly behind the stick. To make him feel a bit better, he pokes the statue: “Jaak, how has your night been? We had some fun, right?” No answer. Swearing to himself he jumps off the podium. About to hit the road, his eyes are drawn to some lines of poetry on the front of the podium:

Kas siis selle maa keel / laulu tuules ei või / taevani tõustes üles / igavikku omale otsida? †† The words go straight to his head, wind rustles through the trees and their fragile branches, some leaves glide to the ground and add some fresher colour to the autumn carpet.

Tobias Koch is a writer and freelance translator from Danish and English into German. He publishes regularly (mostly in German) on the platform www.fridtjofspatz.blogspot.com. Tobias spent a year at the University of Tartu and maintains strong ties with Estonia. His time in Eesti made a profound impression upon him, in both a professional and personal manner. The figure of Kristjan Jaak Peterson has fascinate him from the beginning. The combination of culture, especially literature, nature and the people of Tartu and Estonia continuously contribute to his work and interests. ††

A verse from the poem “Kuu” by Kristjan Jaak Peterson: Cannot the tongue of this land / In the wind of incantation / Rising up to the heavens / Seek for eternity?

Long Drive Home Vallo Pooler

It was 4 in the morning. Silence engulfed the world, if not to account the noises of rough sex from the neighbouring apartment, rain battering on the windows and the silent, yet persistent static hum from the television set. The scent of bourbon and cheap cigarettes lingered in the air. The world was asleep, but not he, and of course, the neighbours who were on it hard enough to tear the damn wall down. But that is not important. He looked in the mirror and was disgusted by what he saw. Not with his looks, no, he was quite confident about those and there was a naked babe on his bed, sleeping like a drunken angel, to prove he was right. He was disgusted about all those wasted years and what was about to happen next. He picked up his car keys from the floor, along with his pants and a Glock. He went outside, not bothering to lock up after himself. There was no need to. He reached his blue, beaten up Impala. By the time he reached it, he was already soaking wet. It was cold but he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care. The car struggled to start at first, but eventually the engineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s roar split the night. It was time to go. He lit a cigarette and shifted the car

into gear. It was time to leave this town. He took a big gulp from the bottle of bourbon he had lying on the passenger seat. It burned like gonorrhoea but he had bigger things on his mind. It was perhaps 8am but he was nowhere near his destination. It was time to take a piss behind a cactus. He had to be careful not to fall on the mentioned cactus. He was drunk enough to perform major surgery on himself and not feel it. Under no circumstance was he fit to drive a car. He didn’t care. All he wanted was revenge, a new start and a hamburger, but there didn’t seem to be a diner anywhere. So much for a hamburger. These men, they had taken everything from him. His father, his brother, his own life. It all started when he was 16, his father decided to take him and his brother Johnny to work. As you might guess, his father was not a factory worker, not a teacher, not an insurance salesman. The old man was a criminal. The boys’ mother died in a car accident when they were young and school was not half as appealing for them as money. So they followed in their old mans’ footsteps. Johnny started with doing small time errands and moved up to moving drugs between Mexico and here. He was an enforcer. There is not much left of the crime ring now. The head honchos are either jailed or dead and nobody cared to pick up the slack. The rest just took what they learned, what they knew and a new wave of cruelty and crime hit the town, like a hurricane – chaotic, unorganised. Vince was last seen selling crack to teenagers, Vinnie smoking it with them. A diner just materialised on the roadside. It actually materialised sometime in 1935 when a crew of men built it, but for him it just came into existence some few seconds ago. His stomach was already making clear signals – feed me or there will be hell to pay. He got out of his car and went in the diner. The damn place hadn’t changed much since it was opened. The only thing that had changed since then was the people. He sat down at the counter and demanded a hamburger the size of toddlers’ head; with extra bacon. He lit up another cigarette and took a sip of the coffee he had also ordered. It tasted like dish water. The cigarette burned as the minutes passed and the burger was nowhere to be seen. Maybe was it just a bizarre dream. Maybe he was still just 16, having a life ahead of him, having more to offer than just shattering some poor guys’ kneecaps for money. He was just waiting to wake up. He didn’t. The burger arrived. Finally! The lady behind a counter was in her

fifties, obese and named Becky. What a gross lady. The hamburger didn’t taste any better than the coffee, the salad between it looked like it had been sitting in a toilet bowl for a while. He ate the edible parts of the burger, tossed 10 bucks on the table for the meal and slapped the gross-looking salad on the window. It was time to go once again. This time the car started on the first attempt, if it should concern any of you. His brother died in Mexico during a drug run. The cheap bastards gave him fake money for the deal and he got busted. He also got a bullet between his eyes. His father was responsible for this. It was his idea – just to cut costs, what harm could it do? How could it ever go wrong, fucking with the god-damn Mexicans? Not exactly a father of the year candidate if you ask me, but the poor old fellow couldn’t stand the guilt and also put a bullet in his head. He was the only one left. He had a mission. He had an epiphany while fucking a babe with big boobs he picked up at a dive bar. He realised that all those wasted years, all those mistakes, all that self-destruction could be tracked down to the loss of his mother; to not having her around. He was going to hunt down the bastard who killed her. He was on a mission; there was nothing that could stop him now since he had nothing to lose. The engine roared as he shifted gear and hit the accelerator pedal hard. There was no hurry, he just liked speed. He lit up another cigarette, knowing that it was bad for him but it had no meaning anymore. The man was hollow inside, there was no turning back. The police might’ve found him that way, you know, for murdering that prostitute the other week since she was not submissive enough. Rage is almighty. But that’s another story. The hours passed as the miles rolled by. It was a long drive. He had somehow scavenged the information about his mothers’ killer, not to say, beaten it out of someone. With a bat! He lit up his last cigarette and was enraged by the fact. There wasn’t a gas station or a convenience store for miles, nor was there any sign of life. The car was also running low on go-go juice; will it even make the next gas station? He decided that a bathroom break and a nap was in order, so he stopped the car on the roadside, crapped in the woods and took a nap. He felt lazy. When he woke up, the sun was already completing its majestic arc over the sky and slowly yet steadily crawling behind the horizon. The air was getting

colder and the world was once again quieting down. Once more the mighty roar of the engine split the silence. He had time to think; that was bad since the only things that went through his head were fuck-ups of the past, murders and was that whore he fucked last night clean. Probably not. The dark thoughts engulfed his mind and soul, wrapped it in a dark cloud of misery and regret. There was no way back now. He had to find the bastard who killed his mother; the fuck was probably in his eighties by now. But he intended to show no mercy, he knew that he would make the old man suffer. Just like the diner, a service station materialised on the roadside. The faint glow of the neon signs and a streetlight created a bubble of illumination in the otherwise dark world. He killed the engine and everything became quiet again. Sweet silence, too bad it killed the poor mans’ soul even more. An older gentleman stepped outside to see who dared to trouble him at this late hour. It was the owner of the service station; an old, wrinkly man, resembling a flesh-coloured raisin with a white crown of hair. The top of his head was bald and the name tag on his overalls read “Otis”. The fellow looked a bit odd, but he decided to be polite with him and asked for a full tank, some cigarettes, bourbon and something edible. Breakfast of champions and it was probably breakfast time somewhere anyway. He was back on the road. There was not much to go anymore, maybe a hundred miles or so. He took another sip of bourbon and hit the accelerator hard; adrenaline rushed and the familiar burn hit his inside, but now it was also mixed with anxiety. It was all about to end soon, he thought. The desert was behind him, so were his home and his past. The desert had changed him a bit, made him more mellow, yet determined. He was anxious to end it all. The faint glow of first light, combined with the halo of the streetlights illuminated his destination. He was so close and now talking to himself, laughing maniacally. It might’ve been the booze talking; it might’ve been dementia from the years of living in denial. He was finally here and stopped in the parking lot of yet another diner. Those damn places look all alike, but this one wasn’t going to be open for the next hour and a half. He wanted a cup of coffee and a pie badly, no revenge on an empty stomach. So he sat on the hood of his car, lit up a cigarette and waited. It was clearly becoming a routine.

The diner finally opened its doors and he walked in, again sat at the counter and ordered coffee. Damn routine. Only this time the waitress was named Linda and was in fact, hot. He wanted to bend her over right there and then; more than he wanted the pie. But the pie arrived first, as did more people at the diner. The world was starting its every day cycle again, mailmen delivering mail, teachers teaching and children learning, politicians lying to people and so on. Even the local sheriff arrived to the diner to get a nice cup of coffee. Everything seemed so ordinary, so common, even the hatred and emptiness seemed all right for him. And then, a figure sat next to him. Just as he finished his pie and was getting up to leave. But the figure stopped him from doing that. “You are Abe’s kid, right? Tommy, isn’t it? How have you been all these years?” The figure, an old man, seemed to know him. He just looked at him, sat back down and listened. “So you have finally come for me, to be my grim reaper. Well, I got news for you kid; I have waited for this day and I welcome you like an old friend.” “Who … who are you?” Tommy stuttered. “Don’t act like you don’t know who I am or why you are here. Let’s go into the woods, you can finish your quest there. I won’t fight you.” “How do you know … wait, that doesn’t matter, why aren’t you fighting back, trying to run, when you know what awaits you?” The old man just took another sip of coffee, looked at the clock on the wall; it was broken. “Why don’t we go in the woods and finish this damn thing already. Or maybe you’d like to sit here and listen to what actually happened on that evening in October all those years ago.” Tommy just stared at him, half-angry, half-surprised. The anger made his blood boil, the curiosity kept him from taking his trusty Glock and make some new holes in the old mans’ head. He decided to wait with making the old man look like a block of Swiss cheese. “Your father loved you all. I suppose so did your mother. But she knew too much and I don’t know, maybe it was her conscious that turned her to work for the police and betray your father and his so-called co-workers, or maybe it was just humanly greed. She was becoming a threat so we had to kill her. I was the unlucky bastard who got the task. I’ve never liked blood, guns or killing. I was just an accountant but I

messed up so I had to do this to make up for my mistake. I had to eliminate your mother, for all of our sakes. I started a new life shortly after that here, worked in the steel mill until I was too old for that. I have lived a long life; I had to do it with great guilt, for taking a mother from two young boys. So do what you need to do, what feels right for you, maybe you’ll feel better after that.” Tommy just lit up another cigarette. Again. He felt even emptier, for all of his life he had thought that his mother was killed by a demented armed robber for some nickels and quarters. But that was not the case. He wished he could just kill the old man and be done with it, but that would not have changed a thing. That wouldn’t bring back his mother and all those years. So he just stood up and went to his car. He drove in no particular direction; the confusion, regret and a mix of other emotions filled his head. He picked up a hitchhiker, a young girl. Damn was she hot. He talked to her, passed on some wisdom he had learned the hard way, along with some bourbon and rough, drunken sex on the back seat. He was still empty inside and had nothing to go back to. He was too stubborn to try again, like the old man did. There was a headline in the mornings’ paper: “Car drove off a cliff, driver dead.”

Vallo Pooler has a Y-chromosome; 21 years young or old, it's a matter of perspective. Born and raised in Tallinn and its vicinity. He's seen a lot, done a lot; finished art school and currently studying electrical engineering, being a mix of two worlds and trying to live in the fringe area. He's previously worked as a journalist for a computer magazine and works as a movie theatre projectionist at the moment. Countless other jobs between those two. Not-so-secretly passionate about photography and art, secretly stuck in the 1930s-1970s, somehow. Orange is a pretty colour.

Sailing Down the Timeline: Correspondence with Nick Drake Anete Kruusm채gi

Dear Nick, I know you will never read it, but I just need to tell you the story that has led me to you. It all started on a rather snowy February afternoon, far away from London in a university city of Estonia: small and buzzing, quite oldfashioned Tartu. There I spent my undergraduate years; that should relate to your time in Cambridge perhaps. But differently from you, I managed to break through the narrow walls of the student hall and escape with my best friend to live in a 1911-built house. It was an era of searching and unnamed relationships. On a grey afternoon in February I asked my friend Kristjan to visit me, because I loved him. That was the only thing I was sure of at that

time. The truth was I barely knew him. Just like I barely know now what love is! He looked quite like you. He was tall and thin, he had long hair and full lips, he wore a white shirt and on top of it he had a loose beige jacket that reminds me of your loose grey suits. He looked kind of cool, just like Patrick describes you. He didn’t say much, his presence was enough. Everybody looked at him when he entered the room. Girls liked him. And he played the guitar. He was as a mystery to me for a long time. On this particular afternoon we walked up along the winding staircase to my place and sat down in the kitchen. I made tea and he asked for milk, which is highly uncommon in Estonia. Nobody drinks white tea there. After a couple of slices of white bread with jam, a couple of comments about the nice and rusty house – “It’s good that it doesn’t look too shipshape,” – he closed his hands around the cup; we were off to listen to my records. We put on your record, that my friend had given me just a couple of days earlier. On the cover there was a pink bird foetus resting on a pink flower. Asko used to make, and actually he still makes, the most amazing gifts ever. I had never heard about you before. But quite soon, me and my roommate, found your voice so haunting, that there wasn’t a night when we went to sleep without you singing for us. Snowflakes, huge as cornflakes, fell down slowly. It must have been -10oC outside and completely dark. We listened to the ending of your “Cello Song”. Do you remember? The one that ends with the drums? We sat in complete silence. I can remember somebody’s foot, drumming along to the rhythm. What I can’t remember is, was it his or mine. I presume it was his, because at the time it felt somehow significant. This memory of that cold winter night never leaves me when I listen to you. Anete

Dear Anete, My life has been quite the same as always, we are working on Bryter Layter and you would love it. It’s bright, like you while wearing your

pink clothes. I think it’s like that because of the flutes; they really add light and hope to the songs. Your letter made me think of my own relationships at the moment. I think I’ve told you about Linda, haven’t I? The one who was later engaged with Joe and eventually married Richard? Well, she was an Island artist as well. You said that the guy, Kristjan, reminds you of me. It’s funny that you think so. Do you really think I’m cool or posh? I mean I wouldn’t mind to give this kind of impression, but I think I am way too shy to look any kind of cool. You know, I’m no party person; I’m just a quiet observer. But what I wanted to tell you about is Linda. I’m really not sure how to call the thing that we have. Others seem to know much better. Sometimes they say “your girlfriend” and I get really confused, because I don't have the slightest idea who are they referring to, and then they explain and I go like “Ah ha” ... and then I’m rushing to explain that I really don’t know who we are to each other. But well, my situation is still different. I mean we cuddle sometimes, but I most definitely wouldn’t call it love. It’s something different, very special and comforting indeed. I visit her quite often now. She has this really lovely apartment in Notting Hill. Have you ever heard about it? I suppose you have, because the film should be out by now. Come to think of it, it must have been out for quite a long time already, like ten years, or even more. Anyway, it’s a neighbourhood whose atmosphere you must feel yourself. It has so many faces, you know – when you just step outside the Notting Hill Gate station you have all these lovely record shops and stuff that seem to be there forever and people sitting in cafes and you think this is it! This is Notting Hill! Exactly as I have imagined it! But no, you haven’t seen it, not in the slightest bit. The truth is that even if you go a bit further down to Portobello Road and find yourself in-between these nice pastel-coloured small houses, you’re still not there. You still need to go on to get the picture. At this moment I need to warn you though. There will be many slums and West Indians. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but you just need to be careful. It’s just better not to get in the middle of these race conflicts. Just lately there was some Swedish woman who got beaten because she married some West Indian. In these situations you really think that we shouldn’t complain about anything in our lives, at least there is nobody who thinks that the way we live is wrong and starts

to organise it. That was exactly what I was thinking the last time I went to Linda’s. It’s easy actually, just me and her, and all I need to do is to show a bit of initiative. Everything is in my hands. But I’ll come back to that. Now I just want to show you that Notting Hill doesn’t have just one face. It always shows you something different. At times I can even enjoy the market, all the busy streets, selfservice Asian supermarkets, smells of all kinds of food, smoke, swearing, black families passing by, girls in overalls and long skirts, stockings with holes in them, children playing on the pavement, cakes, canned vegetables, mechanics around the corner, a car wheels up, the smell of gasoline, laughter, nurses, railway workers returning home, small handbags, light blue gowns, tired faces, shops were they sell whole foods, people, people, people, everywhere and no rest. And of course the music. Since they won’t let the black people in the pubs, they need to find their own ways to socialise. Lots of people are just sitting outside in the evening sun. But they don’t really play music outside. So you can only slightly hear some beat from a basement if you walk by: reggae, ska, blue beat, and above them you hear blues. There is no place for silence, for sad thoughts; just the beat that carries you on. I’m not crazy about the market though. It’s far too crowded and I feel when people are in a crowd they lose their personality, they melt in. They seem to go with the flow, they seem to wander around aimlessly and that is something that drives me absolutely mad. You need to have an aim, even if it’s a vague one. You can’t just turn off your thoughts and go, for me it’s the end of existence. Or maybe it’s just me, and the fact that I’ve read too many books by existentialists. The other day though I saw this bald-headed boy sitting next to me. I don’t know why but he reminded me of a dog. Maybe because of the warm sand-coloured clothing he wore, or because of those round blue eyes. Anyways I recognised something. He was just sitting there smoking, stopped in the middle of all this movement. Completely out of the picture. And it wasn’t that quick 5 minutes cigarette that you can’t even finish. No, he finished his cigarette and stayed for quite a while, watching people, watching his hands, exchanging a couple of words with an older man who drank lemonade. It was a funny recognition. He’s like me. We could easily exchange our bodies and go on and nothing would change. I smiled while I tried to imagine myself working in one of these

shops, having breaks. No, I probably couldn’t do it. I put out my cigarette and went on. Usually I never go that far though, I only do it when I’m a bit early, when I know that she is still in the city, recording or doing her grocery shopping. Then I need to kill time somehow. Usually I just go straight to hers and that was exactly what I did last time. She lives in this nicer neighbourhood with pastel houses and sweet-smelling cherry blooms, not far from station. It’s surprisingly nice there; I think there were some laws or something that forced people to refurbish their houses. And if they didn’t, because they only had money for paying rent and sending home 10 pence from every earned pound, they had to leave their homes. So white people came and started to buy houses. It’s not that far away of Buckingham palace and Chelsea after all. When I walked there it was getting dark already and I was pretty sure what would happen next. I was dressed up, which meant that I wore my best clothes and Cuban heel boots; they gave me some confidence. I imagined how I would go there and how we'd sit down and maybe listen to something, and she would go to kitchen to make some tea, and when she came back the music would stop and she, without giving me a look, would wait for me to go and put the new record on. Then I wouldn’t do it and instead I would just say “Listen, Linda, I really like it at you place, and I really feel good around you, and I was just wondering, how do you feel about me?” and she (with her grey sweater) would come sit next to me, and she would put her arm around me and watch out of the window as she does when she tries to put her thoughts into words (she thinks it’s much easier to just to sing and I feel exactly like that, you know, as if conversations would be the lines of the song). And eventually she would say that she feels the same and she wants to be with me forever. And you know we are so comfortable around each other that there seems to be really nothing, nothing to stop us. And so I stood there, behind her door, full of hope and some strange fragile happiness. But when she came to the door it felt like somebody’s cold hand had grabbed me. She felt distant in real life, in real life I wasn’t so sure at all that she wanted to be with me forever. She looked tired; she looked as if she had had another visitor. Of course she hadn’t, but something in her betrayed that her mind was busy with something else. She opened the door for me and let me in, being as far from the present moment as one could possibly be, having just her body here. And I went in quietly,

feeling guilty, feeling as if I’d come to disturb her. But I knew I didn’t disturb her. It was just the way she was, she probably just needed time to get out of her being alone with her thoughts only to be around me. And then she went to the kitchen. We had a cup of macrobiotic tea and I went to put on some record that she had left next to the gramophone. She didn't have anything good today, I remembered thinking, nothing that could fit the moment ... or had the moment already passed? She played some blues and sat next to me, and I felt that the moment had definitely passed. I shook my head and she rose to change it and so it went on all night and all night I felt so comfortable around her. I felt as if I’m alone even if I am with her. This is the quality I like the most about people – when they don’t disturb you, they leave you enough space to be and still, they are there. Just perfect. And then I fell asleep. Next morning I found myself on the floor, covered with blanket. I had woken up, because it was too hot, the sun was on my face. I saw her back; she was standing next to the window, drinking tea, wearing the same blazer as yesterday. She should have had a cat I thought, it would fit her. Then she walked me back to the station. All of a sudden there were too many people. Night had gone with its slight smells and dusk and melodies, warmness and soft words. Now everything was naked. Too real again. She gave me 10 pounds for a cab. So you see, nothing happened, even if I would have wanted it to. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be then. Maybe it is something else, something much more beautiful. Nick

Dear Nick, Lately I’ve been thinking about romantic heroes and all this myth that comes with you. I’ve been thinking about industrial romance. How time passes, but people are still the same. Strange, isn’t it? We are used to thinking that time changes us, aren’t we? That we grow with time, that we are not the girls with their needle works, endless tea drinking and novel reading, the girls who chewing dried plums in their pastel coloured rooms and can’t wait to get out of them already.

Nowadays girls and boys have all the possibilities to entertain themselves, nobody sulks into the boring flow of dreams anymore. And, can there be romance anymore? Is there anybody left out there who is still searching for the essence of life? Who sits on the stairs and has a self-sorry cigarette? Who can listen to mellow music all night long, because thoughts don’t let her sleep? Yes, these people exist, no matter what the century is and where they are located, the last hippies, tragic heroes, girls who suffer an everlasting sadness. But they are rare, rare finds who we probably pass sailing down to the Northern Line. And you, I believe, were one of them. You were solitary, lived quietly and tried to reach the bottom. You wore life off. You observed and absorbed it into you and turned it into music until there was nothing, absolutely nothing left. If I come to think of it, I see that the university town was full of characters like you, the ones whose presence transformed the environment for me forever. There are still benches in Tartu that make me shiver when I pass them, like ghosts. And the industrial romance is possible. It was spring; the air was mild like cream. We came out of the class, minds full of rubbish. The professor stood there at the bottom of the lecture hall and told us that people are not meant to be alone. I looked back to the boy I fancied and he was writing and he agreed. After class he sat on the windowsill of this huge building that held the zoology museum and bible classes. I couldn’t really understand how these things went together. The only thing that came to my mind was the ship of Noah. He wore a burgundy red shirt that matched his dark long hair. My friend Asko, tall and skinny, told me that he reminds him of a dramatic hero, sitting everywhere alone, on the windowsills, benches. “Girls like it,” he said. He smiled and we went to the shop to buy some gummy bears. We didn’t have a place to go. Home? You mean the room where nobody’s waiting? No way. The city was our solace. It was dusk, but still not cold, mild I would say, and we kept each other company sitting on the edge of the fountain near to the library. The city was our playground. Then it was time to say goodbye, and from there the story began. I don’t know how we found our way home, but I remember we couldn’t go in. There was my flatmate ... but we weren’t finished yet, we weren’t even started. So we sat down on the winding stairs and started to talk

without knowing what to say, we just needed to keep talking. I remember I sat on my bag, trying not to sit on a bag of milk, while you asked me if we are going to go the same way, or different, or maybe the ways are just crossing. At this point you kissed me and the city melted into a dream. We didn’t sleep. We went for a walk. The spring was like a new species in the zoo. It was effusive like an impressionist painting. The park was empty, it was early morning, wasted for most of us. On the corner of a street we saw an epileptic man. One second, he was cleaning the streets, the next lying on the pavement, spitting white foam. At this moment I knew, something told me that we are bound through pain. Pain of your fingers while they were stretching guitar strings. Angst. Fate. We left the man to cross the bridge. You kissed me and told me, when we go to Tallinn we are going to the cafe and the zoo. We never did. The bridge was demolished years after. The city has never been so heartless before. He was the one who gave me your record. The almond-eyed boy who went for solitary walks in wintertime, because something wanted to come out of him. Anete

Dear Anete, I read through your letter with the biggest fear. You have turned everything into a myth. I knew you went for walks to find me, you dug out the places to meet me, as if I would be still standing near to the brick wall. You know all about my depression and still you wonder what this smile was. Anete, I don’t want to destroy the romantic image of yours, but it’s a fiction, a staging, let me tell you how it all really was. Your story of industrial romance, broken bridges and romantic souls strolling alone in Tartu’s streets is something I’m jealous of, because I’ve never lived in these kinds of stories, and neither have I ever been a romantic figure. Yes, true, I’ve loved to give an impression as if I am, but it was mainly for songs and photographs, because I was made to love magic, but London lost this magic many, many years ago. But lis-

ten, it was more like “I was made to love no one, no one to love me.” I bet you'll tell me now that this is the essence of the romantic soul, to be alone and left for his fate, but I assure you there wasn’t anything romantic in my day to day life. The truth is, all my days were a struggle. I woke up and felt like I had no energy to live another day. And London was a dull place for me – a place towards which I had almost no nice feelings. It definitely had its magic for me when I was let's say 17, escaped from school to discover the music scene in Soho that was like red lipstick on London’s grey face, or the time when I first saw my album in the record shop window. I was excited, but the feeling got lost bit by bit until I was completely broke, wearing broken shoes and feeling like a parasite of the city. I felt I was living and consuming the goods without giving anything back because my soul was empty and emptiness is the worst feeling in the world. Keith didn’t take the photo sessions very seriously. He let me to decide what I wanted to be. And to play the solitary romantic type was the easiest solution. But the idea to bind industrial to romantic, I don’t even know whose idea this was, it just came naturally. I bet this was the pose that fitted me the best, and he had an eye for great backgrounds. In-between the recording period, I lived my usual life, I had breakfast and I wandered around quite aimlessly and yes, I did go for quite long walks in Hampstead and up and down my street and everything, and I did it alone, but anyone can do it, right? Without being accused of being a romantic hero? The last session we did, I wasn’t in the mood at all. I felt especially low that day. So I didn’t really intend to go out at all and if I felt like that, d’you know what I did then? Even if somebody knocked on my door, I just ignored it. But I couldn’t get away so easily at that time. I guess I was just too annoyed. Somehow the knocking reached into my head and was only thing that existed in my world and then I guess I got really scared and I went to the door. He said something like what took you so long, and he had some girl with him, and I needed to go to the car and after couple of minutes we were off to Hampstead Heath already. I felt sleepy, slightly dizzy, if I tried to collect my thoughts, but I had a headache, so I tried to take it easy and hoped it would be over soon. We took a lot of pictures, even though it was the shortest session. I remember my sister liked the bench

picture, because for her it looked as if I didn’t pose at all, which was for her some kind of ideal. I guess it’s an actors’ thing: even though they love to transform like chameleons, the absolute perfection is still pure you. Maybe they have just forgotten what the true essence was and they are just constantly trying to find it again. Who knows? I think Keith’s favourite was the dog picture. Me and the dog walking towards the river. It wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t in the right mood for all that and the weather was especially grey. And the solitude – it happened mainly because it was a weekday morning and that is how Hampstead looks at that particular time – empty. If we would have gone on Saturday we would probably have had to fight for the place with socialising families, drinking couples, happy builders on their day off or other boys with guitars. Who knows? So it was pure chance. Talking about getting the full essence of life, reaching its core ... you might be right, I wanted it, but in doing so, sadly I cut myself off of everything else and that was what probably killed me. Though sometimes I feel like I didn’t live at all, but life lived me, to the fullest. Nick

Dear Nick, Thank you for your letter and I’m sorry if I insulted you by cultivating the myth, but it just felt to me that you were kind of romantic. But okay, let’s forget that. It has been years since I last listened to you. I mean I haven’t forgotten you, but I just haven’t gotten around to listening to you properly. I don’t know, maybe I’m older now, maybe music doesn’t give the same feeling anymore, it doesn’t guide my life in the way it used to, it doesn’t swallow me inside, doesn’t tell me what to do. It has its own separate world now that I sometimes visit, but not too often. It happened when I was fairly far from my university town. I did my exchange semester in the USA and I met a girl who told me that I should visit her anytime I fancied a party. On this particularly sunny Tuesday evening I felt like going out.

I had my large black hat, green top and striped skirt. I took PRT (Personal Rapid Transportation) to the centre and walked all the way to South Park. In this little town the spring never came. One moment I was sloshing in knee-high snow, the next everything was in bloom, we had Chinese and it was +30oC. I was full of life, I felt that the greenery outside is now in me, I was growing, life was exciting, everything was new. It was my first time to visit her. Their house was rather big. She cooked deer and showed me her cooking diary. What a great idea, I remember myself thinking. In the middle of the dining room there was a huge table, and my friend Emma, her housemates Taylor and Polly and I all gathered around it. We talked about whatever came to mind: the piano burning event next Thursday, Taylors' 90th theme party outfit, who had had her first sunglasses tan, Emma’s trips to Mexico. I felt weird, I felt at home, I didn’t know why, but something there reminded me of Tartu. It was something different from all these dull house parties, where I used to go, sitting in our small cell-like student hall rooms and drinking. The room was homey, the girls had strange interests; the house was full of spring. And then all of a sudden I hear you singing “Been waiting too long” and I knew why it felt like home. Anete

Dear Anete, It was lovely to read your last letter. It’s great that you had this feeling of home, so far away from it and I’m happy that I could be part of it. For me the concept of home is pretty much similar to yours. It’s not the physical place you actually come from, but rather something to return, pieces from life-passed, evidences that I have really lived. Here in London, I haven’t felt at home yet. At first, straight after Cambridge, after the cell-like student hall room, I was happy with everything really. The first word that came to my mind after stepping out of the underground in Earls Court was “massive”. Suddenly I was in-between these huge houses. I could barely see the sky. I remembered the huge chandelier from somebody’s living room windows and I felt this was even too

much for me. Am I really going to live like a king? Yes, I would describe this place as a kingdom. Since then I thought I knew cities, but this was just something beyond my imagination. I saw children playing in-between these huge houses and these houses, they reminded me of the ruins of castles. It was surreal. I had my small leather suitcase and a guitar. Quite light luggage, because I didn’t need much, all I needed was in my head, in my notebook and in the guitar case. I had of course some practical things like soap and laundry, but I didn’t even remember having them, they were just to survive. I remember myself walking on a street where all the houses were white and then turning to another street and it was all made of red houses. It felt odd, like I had been smoking for too long, but I hadn’t seen a single joint for a couple of days. So this was it, this was London. And how awfully masculine it was. Betting houses, tobacco shops, cans of beer, pubs, black people, sporty people. Nothing that you could see in the small town where I’m from. No plaited curtains, no smell of homecooked food, no friendly old people. Just Asians outside of their businesses. Suddenly I saw a pelican on a window. I couldn’t help but stare. What was all that? Ah ha, a sculpture, but why? I guess in big cities you shouldn’t wonder about things – they were here before you, so shut up and fit in. I didn’t go to live in a house with chandeliers of course. “Hello!” exclaimed my flatmate, holding a can of beer in one hand and opening the door with the other. I got the room in basement. It was the smallest bedroom I’d ever seen. But it was alright. Really, I came here for making music and for nothing else. When I had just sat down on a bed with my bag next to me, I heard a weird animal sound from the next room. A dog, maybe, was all I thought, and I went to the living room to see the third tenant of the flat. I saw a record player that turned around and a little monkey having a ride on it. So I called this first place in London a circus and thought it’s wiser not to tell the whole truth to my parents who had so generously helped me find it. I couldn’t stay there for long and so it happened that I moved again, far north this time, to Haverstock Hill. Have you ever fancied living alone? Sleep as much as you want to, stay indoors and talk to neighbours only? Live beneath the floors? Well I have. I felt that I had had enough of merry-go-round monkeys and

chit-chats in the kitchen. I packed my books and guitar and went to find my perfect concept of home. I wanted something ascetic, something quiet and empty. I wanted to work and I wanted no one to disturb me. Well, what I got was a weird combination of two extremes. Yes, the room I must say was good; with a light bulb hanging, a single mattress on the floor, but the house itself was a bit too full of life. At first sight I could barely see the house. It was a huge Victorian one, but buried in greenery. You basically needed to pass through the jungle to get there and the windows were massive as well. It all had this abandoned gothic feeling that you’re probably aware of from horror movies. I dropped my books and record player, put some posters on the wall and it looked a bit better, a bit less heavy. But if I closed my eyes in the evenings just before going to sleep, looking up to the hanging shadows above my head and thinking how I’m lying here beneath the floors, then I felt the heaviness again. So I kind of wanted to shake the heaviness off of me and, surprisingly even to myself, I found myself outside, playing guitar, writing lyrics in-between the hanging laundry, as soon as the weather let me do it. And I think Bryter Layter is kind of an attempt to escape from this heaviness, from the shadows, from that house and its heavy stairs. And I felt lighter, music helped, it carried the spring breeze towards me and kind of lifted me up. But it didn’t last for long. I think I should have found a friend then. People I knew used to take me out to the countryside now and then and every time I felt that I was back to life, and every time I returned to Haverstock I felt buried alive. But I didn’t have a good friend. The only one I met regularly was Joe Boyd, but then he went to Hollywood and I didn’t feel like going anywhere. In one moment it felt like even waking up was too difficult a task, because what was there waiting for me? A big emptiness filled with so many I-should-do-this-and-thats that it felt impossible to manage. I’d better stay in bed. And I closed my eyes again and stayed in. I stopped caring about food or bothering myself with washing. Everything rolled down. Music was all that mattered, but this was an unreachable distance away from me. Guitar and record player stood untouchable in the corner. They were too far – I didn’t find the strength to stand up. The outside world was every day less and less important. It diminished until it was gone. Can you believe that? The whole of London was gone. It transformed into a strange unnecessary

rhythm of changing light, occasional noise from the streets, lights endlessly turning on and off in the house next to mine. I wasn’t myself anymore while doing my last album. I worked at nights and closed the curtains from daylight. There was only music that still ran through my head all the time. And then it stopped and the shadows closed in. Nick

Anete Kruusmägi: “I’m an Estonian girl, who likes to touch the boundaries of the world. That’s why I travel far, read a lot and love to meet new people. I love learning, challenges and discoveries. Right now I work as a journalist in Tallinn. I got my MA from University of Westminster in London. I’ve also lived in Italy, USA and Indonesia. I’ve published my poems in Estonian literary magazines and participated poetry readings in Estonia and abroad. Currently I work on my novels.”

Daddy Berit Renser

It was the sensory overload that stunned me the most; though they said they'd take me to a peaceful place. There were photos on walls that cast back reflections and lonesome cars of pearlescent blue. There was chewing gum tasting like coffee and grapes cracking under the teeth. There were sounds of laughter from the bedroom when they watched TV. There were no smells of old, but just of the new, mixing the scents of lately tanned leather with a fresh apple shampoo. Only borders were lacking from this world I didn't know. I could move from my chamber and proceed to the dining room. I could sit at the table or lie on a couch or wander around the kitchen. I could open the door and stand there, on the porch, to examine the limitless portions of land. No fences, no gates, no padlocks. I could follow the footpath, or even gallop around and lose my flimsy reason. So I did, sometimes. I ran. I ran. I ran. I ran and I cried. And I ran. And I cried. And I cried. And then they came and took me back to my bed, fondled my long and

tousled hair, told me again and again and again that I was fine, here was fine and that everything was just so fucking fine. They were so compassionate and caring that it even felt strange, but I was nice to them, that's what my daddy had taught me. They never screamed, never shouted, never raised their hands, never trivialised my feelings. They never punished me for being indifferent, slow, oblivious, morose. Instead, they would guide me on walks around the garden, along the river, to the forest and toward the flocks, and they would always recount tales and spill some beans of wisdom: “We call it a buttermilk, but it doesn't have butter inside; people of your age now study at school; hot water is heavier than cold; you should try making some pen friends; be careful when handling tools; we too were imprisoned – by the Soviet forces; sugar candies are bad for your health; don't be afraid to face your past; this house has burned down three times now; social workers are for helping people; stars are actually planets far, far away; you should listen to modern music, one day you will join some parties and you'll need to know how to dance.” This was nothing like my daddy had taught me and he was a smart and glorious man. He warned me from this world of liberations. He said, “Lyrics are polluting your pure mind,” so I switched off the radio. He said, “Don't look at the boys, they will only abuse you,” and I restrained myself from talking to them. He said, “Your friends are turning you against me”. I didn't want to upset my daddy, so I never went to play in the streets again. Then he said, “You will not return to school, they teach you things you'll never need,” and he started educating me as he found best. I always trusted my daddy, he was a smart man. I didn't want to puff cigarettes at the back doors of dirty nightclubs; I didn't want to get drunk and lose my way home; I didn't want to show off my purses and cars and mobile phones to compete for attention. So I stayed at home, had no friends, had no school but I had my daddy. But times changed. My daddy came home from work, looking wornout and reciting me news. There were bad people around, he said. There were protests in the streets, cars were burning, people were fighting, girls were raped. It was a revolution outside. The world of danger, fear and terror. So I had to hide myself in a cellar. It was cold and humid and silent

and dark but I learned to love this place. At least I was protected. My daddy brought me a bed and built me a shower and gave me blankets to keep me warm. He came to see me each day and sometimes even brought me presents. He gave me red woollen socks one year and postcards with pets on them another. Then he even brought me a teddy bear and I imagined how it was alive. Sometimes I washed it, bathed it, combed its hair, put it to sleep once night fell. I told him of my fear of the war and hopes for the better, my loneliness, my happiness and I imagined it would grow older with me when the years passed by. My daddy also brought me photos that he had cut out of magazines and I attached them to the concrete wall. There were some pictures of beautiful dresses from 1987's Burda and some covers of National Geographic from 1989 that he had found in a trash bin. He also showed me the dark sides of the world that by now had been lasting for longer than I remembered. There were soldiers, crying people, abandoned kids, starving families, houses on fire, overbooked hospitals, tanks in the streets and the dark grey misery that had landed on the country. I had a block of paper and some colour pens, I sketched the horrors of the outside world to remind myself of how blessed I was with my daddy taking care of me. I loved how he said that I was such a sensible child and I wished I could always keep him pleased. But of course sometimes I wished I could run outside like I used to, to see the sun, to feel the air moving, to see behind those concrete walls. But then he went mad. He screamed and shouted and said that there's nothing worse than to be free in this world of competition and terror. So I never blamed him when he beat me or punished me because it was all my fault. I failed to control my desires, I failed to obey his orders. One morning I woke up and daddy told me to be very silent. Of course, when daddy told me something, I followed â&#x20AC;&#x201C; he was a smart man. The soldiers had reached the house, he said, and I had to hide for my life. I sat silently in my bed, sobbing with fear and praying that no one would find me nor hurt my daddy. I heard running steps on the stairs and men shouting and my daddy begging them to leave him alone and to get out of his house and then suddenly everything was silent. Someone opened the padlock and descended to the cellar. I screamed and shouted and cried and said I didn't want to die, but she took me in her arms and said it was fine. That I was free. And I walked out of the

house and the sun was so bright and the people were smiling and I wondered, is that how beautiful a war really is? Berit Renser is the author of two books: a travel novel Seven Worlds (Estonian language, Petrone Print, 2009) and a humorous short story collection Kamu Indonesia Banget Kalau (Indonesian language – 2013, Transmedia). She has written a popular Estonian travel blog Avantourists for over six years and done freelance travel journalism in the meanwhile. “Daddy” is her first short story in English, written during a creative writing course at Deakin University in Melbourne.

My Tuljak Ingrid Scott

For as long as I could remember there was a place where the moon was larger, summers lazier, flowers more scented than where I was. In the South Pacific I felt my life was rather second rate. Far to the north beyond oceans and continents lay the country where I should have been, where snow lay luminous and deep, woodlands were enchanted, and families coherent. Rivers, lakes and the sea froze in winter. A sleigh and six horses would thunder across the Pärnu laht, frozen to the shallow bottom. I ought to have skated like a ballerina over that mirror of ice, there, where my family originated. Mu isamaa, emamaa, kodumaa … Bears prowled those woods and children dared gather metsmaasikad and murakad, so delicious that a person could lose themselves amongst the pines and birches, wander into soo and drown so completely they’d never be found. Wolves lurked there too. In soft winter light you might see one and, as if in a fairy tale, chance upon a leaf shaded cabin grown into a tree. Who could say what else you’d find? My great aunt and grandmother’s eyes looked into a distance when

they spoke of home. Their tones in sült and rukkileib, jää and lumi held promise, but meat, bread, ice and snow, were every day. So many words didn’t translate. Kübar was neither a straw hat nor chapeau, but I knew exactly what it was. Vahva was something I could not explain but shivered with pride if I was that. It was a great deal more than the differences in language. It was the layer of mist that shrouded the speaker and her expression of longing and sadness under the words. There was also pride and resistance. I was endlessly curious, yet constantly wary of asking too much. Pärnu and meie ajal meant more than the place and the time because I saw a creeping pain. I understood with certainty that out of the stories they told, there were many others I’d never hear. It was not only the impossible distance with the miles between us and Eestimaa, it was the Soviet era. Over there everything was different. I took much for granted, too young to be told the hows and whys. I came to Eesti for family nostalgia. My mother had died some years earlier, my great aunt and grandmother before that. I knew they had wanted to return here even when they shook their heads as if such a thing was foolish to contemplate. They longed for kodumaa. One day. I came with documents – folders of baptismal and birth certificates, school reports, my parents’ wedding photographs, my grandparents’ confirmation certificates, old passports and so on. As my mother was born here I had a right to citizenship and the passport; its blue/black cover almost indistinguishable from my New Zealand one. Applications had to be made in person and it was a long way to come. In Auckland, hearing a stranger speak Estonian was so rare and unaccountable that I’d stop them to ask who they were. There were no Estonian tourists but occasionally they came from elsewhere. If they knew Pärnu I’d assail them with questions. I could not resist. From the moment I arrived in Tallinn I was at home. I even looked like people around me, my fair skin and blue eyes, my size and shape, my gestures. People spoke my language! I was thrilled and astonished. I had arranged accommodation in vana-kalamaja, the old dockland area of Tallinn, dilapidated but exotic and, despite the occasional burned out building and iron roof near collapse, I felt safe. I crossed paths with drunks and destitutes when I walked from the old town via Baltijaam to my rooms, but I never felt threatened. The proprietor of my room was a wiry old woman, pisike ja tragi.

“Oled maalt pärit?” She asked after a while. “Ei, kasvasin üles Uue Meremaal. Ma pole kunagi käinud siin.” “Tubli. Hasti räägite.” I was finding words from my childhood. “Vanatädi, vanaema ja emaga rääkiseme alati.” “Tore,” she said. “Lapsepõlvest ikka.” “Ah nii. Väga hea.” At first she’d thought I must be Swedish or a Finn, never a New Zealander. So, I had come to collect family inheritance? A house? Perhaps a farm? Not at all, I told her. Since the second independence, properties were being claimed by pre-Soviet owners, resident or not. Oh no, I’d come to apply for citizenship and also for laulu and tantsupidu. Oh yes, she said. But of course, Väliseestlased came by the planeload for laulupidu. I was just one of the many. “Ilusat päeva,” I said as the pause drew out. “Ja. Päikest,” she said, and I was dismissed. The immigration office was on the other side of the old town, a good walk away but every stone wall and church spire spirited me back to its era, from the 13th century and on. I walked the worn steep streets my ancestors trod. I took my bearings from Pikk Herman’s castle tower and the steeple of Niguliste kirik. I didn’t wish to draw attention to myself. I tried to appear nonchalant, as if I knew exactly where I was going but I was amazed and emotional at every turn. My people came from here, generation upon generation. I’d never thought of such a sensation. I’d lived in European towns, in Canada, the UK and the US but this was my country. It was early for tourists but as I left the old town I kept guessing who was local and who was on his way to work or market. Tourists were obvious, local old men and women also. Young men and women in jeans and t-shirts could have come from anywhere. At the Lastekodu immigration office I read the options carefully before taking a number. I could tell there would be a long wait, but I had all the evidence I needed. I waited, read, wrote my diary, wandered outside between groups smoking or leaning wearily against the old building. Inside, people paced or sat with hardly a murmur. When my number flashed, my heart pounded as if I was about to take

an exam. I presented myself purposefully to the clerk. He wore wirerimmed glasses and I stood over his thinning, flattened hair. He nodded a reply as he sifted through my documents, scanned them closely, moved each aside with precision and thrust irrelevant papers back to me – my uncle’s school report, my parents’ wedding photos and others. Then he pushed his chair away and disappeared into a back room. When he returned he gave me an address and envelope. I needed further documents. The archival office would deal with them. I scurried toward the old town to reach the office before it closed but I arrived as the doors were being locked. I would have to come by in the morning. At breakfast my landlady scuttled between guests checking plates, removing them when empty. I was vegetarian I admitted and with sighs and exaggerated effort she removed the meat and brought me extra cheese. As I left my room I grabbed Tõde ja Õigus. I’d never allocated time to read the classic. Perhaps today was the day. The archive offices were open, the floor shone, the glass doors sparkled! The receptionist jumped up to greet me with a smile. She smelled of gardenias and shook my hand firmly. I sensed she was older than I and quite youthful. I relaxed on the leather sofa and watched her move gracefully in her bright white blouse and slim navy skirt. You will get your pass, she predicted giving me an envelope at last. This is nothing, she said. At Lastekodu I handed over the envelope then took a number. I wrote my diary and struggled with Tõde, glancing up every few pages to check the screen for my number. Clerks spoke in hushed tones, wrote information and occasionally rose to find something in the mysterious back room. Babies cried and fed, toddlers ran about, families huddled and waited speaking Russian, Estonian, English and German. I could not leave. I had come a long way and a day or three of waiting was as much time as I’d spent travelling. I had to wait. I thought about my mother, how her heart must have ached when she left not knowing if she’d see her family again. My great aunt would have agonised over her decision to leave. She chose to go to Dresden, an open city towards the end of World War II, where she had cousins. My grandparents remained in Pärnu. How astonished they’d all be to see me with my Eesti pass. But my journey was for far more than gaining citizenship – it was restitution, acknowledgement of my blood, affirmation that I came from

this soil, that I belonged here. I’d envied childhood friends who had carloads of cousins, closer than best friends, almost brothers and sisters; families who came and stayed without warning, for meals, overnight, even for weeks. They kissed and hugged, fought and laughed, the house full of noise and constant pandemonium. My family was old and sensible and appreciated quiet. Like every young väliseestlane I had learned Kaerajaan but seeing how the teenagers danced made me long to be a grownup. I watched in awe when my sister and brother partnered for tuljak. I held my breath for the finale crescendo, the pounding rhythm erupted and the man thrust the woman to his shoulders to hold her for moments, her arms stretching to the sky. Despite our small numbers, in Auckland, we mustered a tantsurühm to perform one day a year – Vabariigi aastapäev. If she was looking down, Vanaema would smile. Vanatädi would reach trembling hands to me with aga uskumata, she'd say. Ema had lived to see the Eesti lipp held aloft in the Olympics. We stayed up late to see proof of victory, of reason and the power of song. When the team entered the arena beneath the colours, she cried. I hoped she was speaking to the hearts of the immigration officers as I waited. My number flashed red! I advanced, my hands sweaty. It was hot in the crowded office and I was nervous. “Yes, everything is filled out.” “Thank you.” “Yes, there is a problem,” the clerk said without expression, behind his glasses. “But my documents … ?” “Please come back tomorrow. We are studying them. Good day.” So I would explore Tallinn. I could do nothing more. I would be patient and optimistic. I searched my diary for family addresses and found the hospital where my brother was born replaced by an office building. I walked along the street where my father had lodgings, where he met my mother; he coming from Canada where he’d farmed after World War I, she fresh out of high school. I paused at street corners nearby where they must have strolled, held hands and perhaps stolen a kiss. I tilted my head back to see the windows of the rooms where they first lived when they married. When my mother became pregnant my father brought rum babas home to her. I smelled the air. I filled myself with it.

Daylight faded but it was never dark. Ambient light felted the air. I could not sleep. It was a fantasy to hear birds twittering all day and night. At last I fell asleep very late and woke too early, unsettled, weary with nervous energy. Every day promised more exploration, new sights but I could neither focus nor relax. I scurried toward Lastekodu as the town awoke and on the way, planned my celebration. A glass of wine in a Raekoja plats café. Perfect. Many cafés opened onto the square. I would buy a stack of postcards and send cheery messages to my friends and family announcing my citizenship. “Proua,” the balding clerk said guardedly, his eyes rolling up to me above his glasses. “We cannot grant you citizenship. There is a problem, as I can show you.” My heart turned to sült. “Oh no, that’s not right! My mother was Estonian, born here, so I am too! These are the rules!” “But no. Here you have a problem.” The clerk showed me the date on my father’s passport. “Your mother took British citizenship here, on this date. When she married your father she willingly gave up her Estonian citizenship.” “Yes, but only to marry, not for political reasons! Besides, did she need a reason? People were fleeing. My parents too!” “Excuse me. Your kodakonsus is denied.” “Yes, Ema had travelled on my father’s passport to flee the second Soviet invasion but her legitimacy was never a question and I was her daughter!” “You were born in New Zealand?” “Yes!” “To British subjects?” “No! I’m Estonian!” The clerk was not listening. He waited for me to go. He glanced down at his desk then back up at me. “Thank you. This is the case,” he said. After my mother left Eesti my grandmother and grandfather stayed, waiting in the hope their son would return from the war. Borders closed, Germans and Soviets advanced and retreated. Many Estonians fled. Many stayed despite fears of another Bolshevik invasion, despite

transports to Siberia. At last Vanaisa and Vanaema packed their suitcases and in a small fishing boat, under cover of darkness, escaped to Sweden. The clerk repeated himself. “Your mother gave up Estonian citizenship. You have British status. Olete Suurbritannia kodanik.” That had never entered my head. Olen Uusmeremaalane! A dull look. “Vanaisa oli arst sõjaajal. Vabadussõjal. Ja kaitseliidu arst!” I said, though I would never boast. My family would be horrified, but this moment required it. The immigration office should know this. No reply. “Räägin eesti keelt!” “Head aega.” I glanced over my shoulder at the Russians who spoke not a word of Estonian despite having lived here for generations. “Tead, mõistan kaerajaani. Laulan teiele! Kuule. Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm!” Silence. “Kui kaunis oled sa!” Not a sound in the room. “Ei leia mina iial teal,” I sang. The clerk’s expression never changed but others stared, pens stabbing the air, a smile brushing lips. I sang to the end of kaks karu jahimees ka, my voice rising. Vanaema and Vanatädi would be proud, Ema, cheering me on. “Sauna taga, tiigi ares!” I sang even louder. I stretched out my arms as if I was singing to the arena at laulupidu. I almost climbed onto a bench. “Mängis Miku Manniga!” I sang. Now every face in the hot crowded room had turned to me. Jaws dropped, people snickered, a man, probably Russian, began to clap in time. “Püüdsid väiksed konna poegi,” I sang. The clerk with the flattened hair twitched. He shook his head and leaned toward the ear of the clerk in a grey buttoned-up dress. They conferred. I sang the last verse, wracking my brain for another I knew all the way through, one that vanatädi had sung to me. Every Estonian child knows Sauna taga and Metsa läksin ma. I needed something more profound. I could hardly dance a kaerajaan alone.

“Mu koduke on tiluke,” I began but now the clerk was beside me ordering me to leave. “Küllalt proua! Jääta maha. Olge rahul!” “Palun!” A clerk with red curled hair had come to my other side. Her curves were squeezed into a taffeta skirt and her sweater clung to bursting. Probably Russian. She shook her head of wavy hair but her look was motherly. “Nii, nii. Rahu, rahu,” she said. I wondered if I might be sent to my room and locked in. “Vaikust! Politsei tuleb, viskab teid välja siit, kui te vaiksemalt ei saa!” the bespectacled clerk warned. Still I had a chance. “Mats alati on tubli mees ei kedagi ta pelga, ei kummarda ta saksa ees, ei tõmba küüru selga,” I let out. The half bald clerk took one arm and spun me outside. “Ei jää, ei jää, ei meie kimpu jää!” I finished with an emotional tremor. So now it would be either klink or a thorough review of my case. Or more likely, down the toilet with it. But it was none of those. Both clerks propelled me outside, watched by the smokers and loungers who left off chatting to see the next move. Faces peered out from inside the stuffy office. “Nii, nii, rahu, rahu,” whispered the red head as though she might lead into a rest home. I stood embarrassed and chastened. My outburst was completely out of character, I explained rapidly in ever-improving Estonian. It was my great desire to have citizenship and important for my ancestors. Ema would have giggled. Vanatädi would have been shocked. Vanaema would have wept. “Is it possible for another immigration officer to review this? I won’t sing! But I’ve come from the other end of the earth, you know. I’m a very good Estonian!” I said. The woman whom I decided was not at all Russian as there were plump, red haired Estonians, spoke. “You might wait for the consul to come to the South Pacific. That is an option. You never know. You may apply on his visit. It’s possible.” “Ma tänan teid,” I said gathering my dignity and tucking my

documents in my bag. Defeated. Surrendering. “Aitäh,” I managed though I seethed and boiled and needed to cry. So much for celebrations. But I would have champagne. And I would tell everyone about this travesty. I stamped toward the old town, tears dribbling down my chin, my nose running like a stream. Now I would go somewhere beautiful, quiet and be still. Somewhere my mother may have once sat. Somewhere I would convince myself that all was not lost. In a lane off Raekoja Plats I found the spot. I wiped my face and blew my nose and for a moment became a 13th century rebellious chatelaine. I slid my hand down the iron handrail and descended the steep rock steps into a dungeon. But kolme näoga mees was no gaol. Velvet lined, gloom lit by candles set in wire and ruby filigree I entered the 1920s, the era my mother was born, the naughty fringed, kneerevealing flapper time when Estonia blossomed in independence and culture. Art nouveau upholstery covered the wrought iron furniture. A tableau of pastries, salads, herring and onion sandwiches lay temptingly behind glass. A willowy woman in a clinging film of georgette and beads smiled me a greeting. I ordered a sparkling red wine and herring in sour cream. I could not have been any more extravagant. I took one sip. I licked cream from my fork. I sliced into my herring. My optimism leapt. There it was. I would write the winning Eurovision song for us. No! I would endow a history museum. Perhaps not. I would research our oral traditions! Or publish the myths and legends as no one before, illustrating them divinely. I could develop exquisite photographs of wild toadstools and mushrooms and publish them beside mouth-watering recipes. I would work for the breeding stables of the Old-Tori horses to preserve their unique characters. There were so many ways. I would become worthy, inspired by my grandmother, a respected actress, exponent of Libahunt and Ibsen’s Doll’s House – as courageous as my great aunt who, long before women held bank accounts, established a salon in Rüütli tänav. Oh, if only my mother had kept up her kodakonsus. But then, perhaps she’d have been unable to leave. She might never have married my father so I would not have been born. So then ...

I opened my diary, flattened it on the velvet tablecloth. I took another sip of wine. I was hardly aware of the murmur of Talllinna rahvas mingling over coffee and schnapps. Outside on the square, evening colours would be softening on stone and iron, on church windows and cobbles. The sun would be hovering over the horizon. In a few days I would see laulu and tantsupidu and once again, tuljak. One day, one day, I would dance it myself. Ingrid Scott grew up in New Zealand in a family of Estonians and her British father. Her first language was Estonian. She has lived in Switzerland, UK, Canada, Australia and the US and worked as a teacher (art and ESL). Ingrid has published interviews and articles in The Canberra Times, The New Zealand Herald and Listener, The Seattle Teated and in a number of San Francisco environmental periodicals. She has completed a historical novel set in Estonia and Russia which traces her family history and events from 1905 to 1919.

Made with the support of Raili Lensmann.