The Mosque of Notre Dame

^{CHAPTER 4} CONFESSION WITHOUT A CONFESSIONAL

Anne Virve opened the window, and the room was instantly filled with the hum of Narva Street. This was even though the windows did not face the street itself, which was one of the apartment’s shortcomings. Another was that the streetcar tracks passed underneath the window. There was also a third—the ceilings were too low.

But what was the point of fretting, when something different cost more, and not every single woman nowadays could afford to buy a four-room apartment practically in downtown Tallinn before she was thirty? In Tallinn, a fifteen-minute walk from the towers toward Viru was not exactly on the outskirts, but still…

Anne closed the window decisively. If the air conditioner was good, the polluted street air was not necessary. In recent years, she had stopped making good money and was hard-pressed to put aside one or two hundred euros per month. And time was passing. Could a poor girl living with her parents in the poverty-stricken Õismäe quarter hope to find a decent match? Ridiculous.

Before moving in, Ana had spent a long time hesitating over whether to enlarge the kitchen by tearing down the inner partition. She would have gotten a kitchen-dining room. She finally decided against it, and she made the right choice: It was no longer fashionable to display sinks and refrigerators. It was much better to pass from the living room into the winter garden, with green plants visible through the glass wall of the small kitchen. With a smile, Ana touched the mane of the papyrus peering out from a ceramic pot. There was even room for a small bench, where one or two visitors could sip their coffee.

Oh, what a lot of money had gone into the living room! It was horrible to even imagine what it had looked like before! Wallpaper with an old-fashioned pattern on uneven walls, gray linoleum with black cracks. Apparently, the previous owners had been elderly people.

The intercom buzzed merrily. A camera in the entrance really was necessary. She would have to seek an agreement with the other neighbors.

“I’m with the Problems of Democracy International Fund,” said a young female voice in English. “And I’m conducting a random survey. May I ask you for a few minutes of your time to answer some questions?”

Ana hesitated for a moment. On the one hand, ever since Estonia joined the EU, various sociologists and public workers gave it no peace. On the other hand, it would be nice to welcome a cultured person to her new home.

“Come in,” she said, pushing a button. Her English was not perfect, but nothing to be ashamed of.

The visitor, who was a very young woman, disappointed Ana at first sight. She was thin and not particularly tall, dressed in the manner of educated female representatives of the old Europe: running shoes, black jeans, a dark-colored turtleneck, and a light, pink jacket. Her long chestnut hair fell loose over her shoulders, and she obviously hadn’t visited a good hairdresser in a while. It was difficult to conclude whether she lived in a trailer or an inherited castle. You could never tell with such people.

“Please have a seat in the living room.” It was hard to imagine that the girl, probably a student, would notice the light-colored beech furniture standing out nicely against the perfectly flat, blue walls, or the huge, 2-by-1.5 meter home theater with its LCD screen occupying almost an entire wall.

“Nice place you have here.”

“Do you like it?” Anne beamed with satisfaction. “I just moved in.”

Sitting down in a linen armchair, the girl immediately pulled out a palmtop computer from her pocket and began writing on it with a stylus. There was something odd about the way she held objects in her left hand.

“Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

“Thank you, perhaps later.” It was only now that Ana noticed the girl’s unusual voice, melodious but at the same time husky.

Ana suddenly lost all desire to show her new apartment. There was something incomprehensible about this girl, who as they talked was checking boxes on her palmtop: age, sex, marital status, occupation, favorite sports—skiing, rifle shooting. Good, at least it wouldn’t take long.

“We’re interested in the opinion of Estonia’s native inhabitants regarding the problem of the so-called Russian-speaking population. How do you see the solution to this problem?”

She needed to formulate her answer carefully—to be politically correct but to answer honestly. The old Europeans should have no illusions on this issue.

“Unfortunately, I see only one possible solution; the Russian-speaking population needs to be extradited to Russia. Russia can deal with its own.”

“And would you say that among Estonians there are many supporters of allowing the Russian population to stay and assimilate?”

“To the great resentment of all Estonians, including myself, there is a misunderstanding between the Baltic countries and other countries of the EU. The issue of the Russians is unique. The historical guilt of the Russian occupiers of the Estonian nation is too great to relegate to oblivion. We are essentially a very hospitable and friendly people. Haven’t we granted asylum to so many Muslim migrants?”

Just try not granting them asylum! The whole EU would be howling at them in fury. But that was better left unsaid.

The girl listened to Ana carefully, but something was not right.

Ana went on, “We are happy to welcome those who have done us no harm. But no matter how hard some Russians try to adapt to our way of life, and there have been such individuals, how can we forget that Russians imposed the bloody Communist regime on us in the 20th century?”

Surely that made sense.

But the girl shot back: “If you had spent less time in 1919 betraying Yudenich to the Bolsheviks, they wouldn’t have had Communism to impose on you.”

Who was Yudenich? Oh, this was in 1919!

“But the Bolsheviks had ceded territory to us!”

“How nice! They were good to you— then!”

Only now did Ana realize that the girl was speaking in Russian.

“Mina ei raagi vene!” Ana exclaimed with a fear that she did not understand. Imagine, an impudent Russian girl pretending to be a sociologist! Russians liked to behave like this when they were young, but they were quickly broken. Once they were registered by the police, employment problems were guaranteed.

Although she tried to calm down, Ana remained nervous. “All of you raagi speak English quite well when you need to.”

The girl slipped the palmtop into her pocket. Ana noted again the awkwardness of her left hand.

“How dare you intrude into my home? It’s illegal!” Ana made three steps backward toward the window, as if fleeing from the visitor.

“Don’t move!” said the Russian girl, pulling a pistol from the right pocket of her jacket. “Stay where you are, and don’t even try to get close to the alarm button!”

Something frightened Ana so badly that her hands began to tremble. It wasn’t the pistol. It was how this juvenile non-citizen knew where the alarm button was!

“What alarm button? I don’t have any alarm button here.”

“No—except for the fake switch next to the real one that opens the blinds. You still don’t recognize me?”

The girl’s right hand held the gun without trembling. The left was buttoning the pocket with the palmtop, but with effort. Only three fingers were moving. The ring finger and pinky were rigid.

“No!” Cold sweat appeared on Ana’s forehead. “It can’t be you!”

But it was her; she hadn’t even changed much. Her hair was now long, whereas before it had been short; it had been impossible to tell the color because of the dirt. Her face hadn’t grown much. Before, it had even seemed older, bloated, and ill. She now recalled the hand—wrapped in a gray rag, stained with dried blood—and an old, quilted vest over a light T-shirt. They had kidnapped her in summer and it was already November outside. A hard, dead season—the trees were bare. It was no time to work.

That was why Ana had come to visit Ahmed. She had seen the girl just a few times. But she remembered her well—a poor girl with her head bowed in fear. That’s what had made it difficult to spot her now.

“You used our occupiers’ language to babble with him while you screwed. And you did business in our language.”

“But you’re not even Russian!” exclaimed Ana.

“You even remember that,” said the girl, smiling almost amicably. “My mother was Russian, although you wouldn’t know that. And there’s Russian blood everywhere. Ask any Estonian genius, scientist or composer. Just please don’t mention Ristikivi; we have so many classics like him that the publishing houses don’t know what to do with them all. You are mono-ethnic quadrants, just like in Marquez, and in the end you’ll produce children with pigs’ tails.”

Alright, let her babble about Marquez if she wants. The most important thing was that she wanted contact. The longer the conversation, the more difficult it would be for her to pull the trigger. Talk to her, get closer. If she already knows about the alarm button, simply grab her by the hand and flip her over. You’ll beat the slender girl easily in a real fight.

“All that was so long ago… And then you just show up. What have you been doing all these years?”

“Studying.” The girl was cautious. It was too early to get close to her.

“Studying. And what have you been studying?”

“What have I been studying?” said the girl, smiling. “How to be a qualified hater. It’s a complicated program. How much effort one needs, just to examine all the possible variants of the Stockholm Syndrome! And I didn’t even know I had it. I thought it was just a fabrication by the experts. But I did have it. Oh, there are so few people who are qualified to hate!”

“But why me? Why do you hate me personally?” The girl really was insane. A fruitcake. That wasn’t good; the physical strength of crazy people sometimes exceeded the strength of their muscles.

“You? I hate everybody who was there. And everybody who could have been there. In the end, it’s all the same.”

“I was just there by accident. I’m not a Chechen. It was just business.”

“And not a bad little business, at that.” The girl motioned with her head toward the sofa, which was covered with a beautiful throw—ultramarine with an orange geometrical pattern. “One hundred dollars for a soldier, three to four hundred for an officer. So how much did that rag cost? At least three men, yes? It’s not cheap. And how many children didn’t return home because you were perched in a tree with your scope? Just so you could furnish your apartment. This place is awash in blood.”

“No, no, you’re wrong!” Ana struggled not to show her fear, knowing that it would mean certain death. But sweat ran down her spine under her light dressing gown. Big drops appeared on the palms of her hands.

“I was in Chechnya a very short time! I got most of my money here, from restitution. A big factory was built on the land where my grandmother’s house once stood!… Look, I can compensate you for moral damages! I have a bank account!”

“I have a bank account, too.” The girl was growing increasingly adult and self-confident, and most important, she kept her distance. “Money solves a lot of problems, doesn’t it?” she added. “But you can’t always buy a life.”

The girl also kept an eye on the alarm button—actually, she kept the pistol pointed at it. For some reason, Ana thought of the straw trapezoid she had wanted to hang for Christmas instead of setting up a hackneyed, too-European Christmas tree. This would not happen, it was quite clear to her now. It wasn’t the girl and it wasn’t the pistol, but something else—a strange and ugly conviction that her hour had come and that it was pointless to resist. So this was why people sometimes behaved so strangely before death!

“You’re going to kill me?” Ana did not recognize her own voice, already dead, hollow.

“I’m going to kill you. Free of charge. Move over there, against the wall.”

The art of sniping had always been just a business for Ana. She had never spoken with her targets, had never seen them close up while they were alive. However, she had heard this intonation many times. What difference could it possibly make whether she was killed in the middle of the room or against the wall? None. Or was there a reason after all?

Ana had no time to comprehend.

The girl in the pink jacket suddenly became immature again. She came up and carefully bent over the body of the elegant woman in her black lace dressing gown. Her tanned and muscular legs were spread on the shag carpet. The girl stood and looked at her for a while. Then, from another pocket, she pulled a flat plastic container with sanitary wipes. Quickly and meticulously, she cleaned everything her hands could have touched.