Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 “I Needed a Woman”
- Chapter 2 It Could Have Been Worse
- Chapter 3 “The Thug Copped It”
- Chapter 4 “This foul regime—a curse upon it!”
- Chapter 5 Travels from Language to Language
- Chapter 6 The Tongues
- Chapter 7 “All Potatoes Look Alike”
- Chapter 8 Religion
- Chapter 9 “Dinky Little Cunt” and the Young Communist League Secretary
- Chapter 10 Madonnas
- Chapter 11 The Sea of Youth
- Chapter 12 Never Out of Reach
- Chapter 13 Speaking Freely
- Chapter 14 Visiting Firemen
- Chapter 15 And the Word Was Made Flesh
- Chapter 16 Redemption (All Were Saved)
- Chapter 17 Betrayal
- Chapter 18 Light Beyond the Window
- Chapter 19 Early Farewell
- Chapter 20 Parents
- Chapter 21 Chicken Soup
- Chapter 22 Marina
- Chapter 23 The Spring of '71
- Chapter 24 Envoi
Chapter 14 - Visiting Firemen
- Frontmatter
- Content
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 “I Needed a Woman”
- Chapter 2 It Could Have Been Worse
- Chapter 3 “The Thug Copped It”
- Chapter 4 “This foul regime—a curse upon it!”
- Chapter 5 Travels from Language to Language
- Chapter 6 The Tongues
- Chapter 7 “All Potatoes Look Alike”
- Chapter 8 Religion
- Chapter 9 “Dinky Little Cunt” and the Young Communist League Secretary
- Chapter 10 Madonnas
- Chapter 11 The Sea of Youth
- Chapter 12 Never Out of Reach
- Chapter 13 Speaking Freely
- Chapter 14 Visiting Firemen
- Chapter 15 And the Word Was Made Flesh
- Chapter 16 Redemption (All Were Saved)
- Chapter 17 Betrayal
- Chapter 18 Light Beyond the Window
- Chapter 19 Early Farewell
- Chapter 20 Parents
- Chapter 21 Chicken Soup
- Chapter 22 Marina
- Chapter 23 The Spring of '71
- Chapter 24 Envoi
Summary
Anna was still away. The last time I had seen her, in mid–March, it was very windy, with intermittent chilly showers that tore at the trees and shrubbery in the front garden of the church as I walked in through the gate. And then she appeared from around the corner of the church, hurrying, shouting to me: “I have to rush or I'll be late for the lesson!” And then, after the wind's caesura, a sudden thrust of silvery rainy air pushed her black robe back against her body and held it tight. All her contours became sharply delineated: the breasts, the hips, the thighs; I fancied I could even make out her sharp nipples. I stopped in my tracks.
She must have noticed what was happening and intercepted my long look at her below the neckline. She blushed instantly and heavily. “Well, I'd better go in,” she said, turning her back on me and approaching the entrance. Just then, as luck would have it, another blast of wind pressed against her shoulders and back, so that her buttocks clearly showed. They seemed perfectly rounded. Throughout the lesson she was strangely quiet, hardly speaking, and I thought best not to bother her. Every now and then she'd look up at me and then again lower her eyes. In the usual boisterousness of the lesson (“They call our own dear Lord ‘Jeesis’ instead of His real name ‘Eessuhs’? Blasphemers! Shame on them!”) nobody paid her any attention.
I dreamt of her, once in an embarrassingly obvious erotic way and a few times in a beautifully veiled manner. Having read Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams —not in the faculty library reading room where one required a special pass to be able to ask for half–forbidden books but an old 1920s edition, in a soft cover and dog–eared—I could understand both the perennial sexual symbols and the fluid reality–fed images of those dreams.
I am in the wood at night; the stars are huge, circular and convex, and the nearest tree's black bark reflects their blue light. The tree sways, and I realize it is praying; then its bark slips off and the black leaves of its whole attire blow away.
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- Information
- Never Out of ReachGrowing up in Tallinn, Riga, and Moscow, pp. 115 - 124Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2015