When the Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen Read Free Book Online Page A

time, or even better, to stay there. Juudit had to go, even though she knew she’d have to listen to Anna worrying over whether a young wife like her could manage alone in town, and talking about Edgar, her favorite, telling her howspecial he was, decreeing what they should cook for him when he came home. Anna wouldn’t talk about her own husband. Juudit was almost sure he would never return—Rosalie had told her that the mice had come back to the farm in June, and mice never lie.
    ALTHOUGH MOST of the train traffic was transporting soldiers, now and then the boys would pick up ordinary travelers along the way. That was why Juudit dressed up more than was necessary for the difficult journey. The soldiers’ whistles as they helped her onto the train put roses in her cheeks. She had a black-market travel permit in the pocket of her muff, and she smoked her last papirossis even though she was in a public place. The whole way there she worried that Anna would see through her, see right through to her traitor’s heart. Hadn’t she pretended to be a happy wife at the beginning of her marriage? Hadn’t she done her best to look like a normal newlywed? She had, in fact, only fought with her husband once, after a year of marriage and just two attempts at sexual activity of any kind. Juudit had thought for a long time about how to ask him if he’d been to a doctor or even a healer. The words fell with a thud onto the dinner table, in the middle of their cutlets. He was dumbstruck, put down his fork, then his knife, but kept chewing. The silence trembled in the gravy dish. He switched to his dessert spoon. “Why would I?” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
    “You’re not normal!”
    Her chair fell over, the plywood scraping across the floorboards, and Juudit ran to the bedroom, closed the door behind her, pushed a chair under the latch. Their medicines were kept in a box in the washstand, but all she could find there was some Hufeland’s powder. She poured all of it into her mouth, grateful that Johan and his wife were away visiting relatives.
    Her husband knocked on the door.
    “Open up, darling. Let’s straighten this out.”
    “Come with me to the doctor.”
    “Is something troubling you?”
    “You’re not a man!”
    “Darling, you sound hysterical.”
    His voice was patient. He spoke slowly, told her he was going to get her a glass of sugar water, like his auntie had always made when he was little and woke up from a nightmare. It would calm her down. Then they could talk about taking her to a nerve doctor.
    JUUDIT MADE an appointment at the Greiffenhagen private clinic. Doctor Otto Greiffenhagen was known for his competence with men’s diseases and his clinic was definitely the most modern one in town. If he couldn’t help her, no one could. At the appointment, Juudit’s voice cracked as she sputtered out her problem.
    The doctor sighed. “Maybe you should both come in. Together. Or your husband could come alone, as well.”
    Juudit got up to leave.
    “Ma’am, there are various preparations you could try. A dose of Testoviron might help, for instance. But first I would have to examine your husband.”
    But Juudit couldn’t get her husband to come to the clinic. There would be no Testoviron, no treatment of any kind. She would never fly in an airplane. Not long after that she stopped going to her English conversation group and abandoned the daily French practice she had taken up during her engagement, back when she’d thought that a pilot’s wife needed to be cosmopolitan and keep up her language skills.

Taara Village, Estland General Region, Reichskommissariat Ostland
    W E COULD HEAR the rush and crackle of the sleigh from far off. My cousin Edgar was returning with great fanfare from his excursion to town. As soon as the sleigh came to a stop at the cabin, the flood of German stories would start. I knew that, and shut my mouth tight. That morning I had suggested in passing that we go to