During the months Karl was in hiding, Estonia continued to change. Banks were closed or taken over. Churches were restricted. Prominent people were arrested. Statues and portraits of Lenin and Stalin appeared in public buildings, along with Soviet flags bearing the hammer and sickle.
One night the following spring, Ralph's cousin Uno came to the house with a message.
Karl wanted to see Ralph.
Late that night Ralph and Uno took a train to the home of an uncle, where Karl had been hiding in a crawl space beneath the house. Karl had decided to turn himself in. He wanted to say goodbye. After that night, Ralph never saw his brother again.
* * *
Ralph also told me a story about the origin of his family name.
Estonia had spent much of its history under the control of larger powers. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, while much of the land remained controlled by Baltic German landlords.
According to the story passed down in Ralph's family, Estonian peasants did not commonly have surnames. When surnames were assigned, German landlords or officials sometimes chose names based on occupations, places or personal characteristics.
One of Ralph's ancestors was known as a particularly stubborn man who resisted those in authority. He was given the name Kand, which Ralph said meant the root or base of a tree stump—something firmly planted and difficult to move.
Ralph said this ancestor later took part in an uprising against the German landlords. Men involved in the revolt were severely punished, and some were killed. According to Ralph, that man was his great-great-grandfather.
Whether every detail had survived the generations exactly as it happened, I could not know. But Ralph knew the story well, and he was proud of the name. Kand meant something that would not easily be moved.
* * *
Ralph's cousin Uno was a regular visitor. So was Ludi, the older brother of Eitzi. Ralph had first met Eitzi through Ludi, who was one of Karl's closest friends. Karl and Ludi had joined the police force together in 1938.
Now Karl and Ludi were gone. So were Eitzi and Mutti. Most days the house belonged to Ralph and his mother. Ralph's father had died several years earlier. Estonia had been independent for barely two decades when the Red Army arrived, and daily life was changing quickly.
Ralph and Karl had kept a radio hidden upstairs under a bed. At night they would listen to the BBC for news from outside Estonia. Soviet-controlled newspapers and radio could not provide the information they wanted.
They followed reports about the war in Finland. The Soviet Union had invaded Finland in November 1939, beginning what became known as the Winter War. The fighting interested young Estonians for an obvious reason. Finland was a small neighboring country fighting the same power that was tightening its control over Estonia.
Some young men left the Baltic region to help the Finns. Ralph and Karl talked about doing the same. Their mother put an end to the idea and they stayed home.
After Karl disappeared, Uno sometimes joined Ralph in listening to the radio.
On one occasion, before Karl surrendered, the NKVD again surrounded the Kand house and came inside looking for him.
They knew Karl might be armed. The radio was playing upstairs. Ralph realized they had not turned it off. The NKVD men moved rapidly through the house with their pistols drawn. Ralph stood listening to their boots on the floor and the sound of the radio upstairs. The men searched the house but did not find Karl. Then they left.
Afterward Ida said something Ralph remembered for the rest of his life.
“Did you see their eyes?” she asked. “They were as scared of us as we were of them.”
Ralph hadn't noticed. He had been too frightened himself. His mother had.
Potatoes were a regular part of the Kand family's meals, and Ralph had become a fussy eater. His mother often scolded him for leaving the potato skins on his plate. Ralph didn't like them. His mother told him to eat them anyway. Before the war was over, Ralph would remember those potato peelings for a very different reason.
Ralph also remembered an argument during one of the family gatherings before Karl disappeared. Mutti wanted to know why Estonia had allowed itself to be occupied without fighting. The question had become harder for him to accept after watching what was happening in Finland.
“I want to know why we didn't fight,” Mutti said. “The Finns are fighting to the death. Estonia simply surrendered.”
“Mutti, Estonia has no army,” Karl replied. “What could we do? Our leaders did what they felt was best.”
“What kind of army does Finland have?” Mutti answered. “They will fight and they will stay free.”
Ida interrupted them. “Boys, you don't know what you're saying. Do all young men think fighting and dying will fix everything?”
CONTINUES
RELATED
UPROOTED: Intro and Part One
UPROOTED: Part Two
UPROOTED: Part Three
No comments:
Post a Comment