Tallinn seemed distant out here in the forests. And who cared about Tallinn? Who cared about its unscrupulous businessmen or vain politicians or death-cheating drunks? Who cared about its ugly old buildings or shiny new shopping centers? Who needed Tallinn? At that moment, to me, Hiiumaa was Estonia.
I’d be lying if I told you they weren’t intimidating. They were large, fat, brown, hairy, ugly, smelly, and spread along the bay, some sitting, others standing, a few swaying down the road fresh grass dropping from their jaws. There were definitely more Scottish Highland Cattle than people on Käina Bay that day and they were looking at us like we were idiots. What kind of people would cycle across an island until their legs felt like butter and still head out for an evening ride after checking into their B&B?
It was evening and what struck me, as I dipped my hand into the dark waters of the bay at sunset and rinsed my face, was the raw sadness of it all, the vast emptiness. It had stalked me all my life and here it was again on Käina Bay. All day long I had cycled under the bluest of blue skies, almost close enough to touch. But now as the sun was about to retire, the island was swept by the same lingering melancholia that fills the air of all northern lands; that tinge of bitterness, like a raw berry that has just burst in your mouth. But I had come back here; I had come back to the sad north. I could only conclude that I liked its taste.
We arrived at our B&B when it was still light out. The B&B owner didn’t come to the door, but her neighbor did, a bucket of berries in her hand, trying to steal a few clients while her competitor was at the shop. The neighbor was blonde going on white with old blue eyes and calloused, grimy fingers, dripping with worm guts and berry seeds. She drifted into the yard in her knee-high rain boots, trying to seduce us.
“What are you paying her?” she asked with a sly smile, and I noticed she toyed with a small knife as she spoke.
“How much do you want for a night?” Epp was interested.
“Oh, nothing,” she shook her head and laughed. “You can stay for free. I could use the company.”
Suddenly, an old car rattled and coughed up the driveway, and the neighbor stepped back into the shadows of her yard, her berry bucket swinging from her arm.
“See you,” Epp waved to her.
The neighbor nodded and winked. Then she disappeared behind her house. The B&B owner emerged from her car, round and clad in a blue dress with a lion’s mane of dyed black curly hair that bobbed in the evening light.
“Just give me a minute,” the owner said, ducking inside her house to deposit an armful of groceries. She reemerged with a set of keys a second later. “Let me show you to your room.”
Ours was located in a separate barn, with its own door to the yard. It was cluttered with old furniture and flies, but I didn’t mind. Instead I sat on the edge of one the beds and undid my sandals, running my fingers along the raised patches of sore skin.
“Almost 30 kilometers,” I sighed. “And we have to ride back tomorrow.”
Epp didn’t respond. She was too busy sniffing the air. “Do you smell it? This place really stinks! It’s moldy here!”
“It is?” I took a few whiffs of the air. To me the room smelled as bad as anything else.
“You mean you can’t smell it?”
“I’m too tired to smell anything.”
“Maybe it’s the pregnancy. I read it makes you more sensitive to smells.”
“Maybe we should try the neighbors’?” I offered. “She said it’s free.”
“Of course it’s not free, Justin. It was just Hiiu humor.”
“Hiiu humor?” “It’s like they say. If you believe a quarter of what a hiidlane says, then you have been deceived by half.”
I did the math in my head. The neighboring B&B was definitely not free.
“Will you go talk to the owner?” Epp asked.
“Who? Me?” I looked up.
“Justin, you’re the man in this family. You need to take the initiative sometimes too.”
“Oh, right. But, you know, my Estonian’s not so good.”
“Fine then, I’ll go talk to her.”
Moments later we were ushered into the B&B owner’s home.
“I have another room for you down the hall,” she apologized. “It used to be my son’s room.”
The interior of the B&B was disappointing. I thought that Hiiumaa was separated by the mainland by more than just water. I expected something with a nautical theme, paintings of ships on the walls, canopies of fishing nets, a complimentary cup of clam chowder, for that added maritime effect. I thought it would be like any B&B in any New England seaside village, the ones I had known as a kid growing up. I would stay there in the moonlight, awake late into the night, listening to the beautifully freckled Irish girls who worked locally as they gathered together in the yard to play guitars and sing sea shanties.
The Käina B&B was nothing like that. It was dark and musty with the sad blue wallpaper and glossy dark Soviet-style bookshelves you found in many Estonian homes. The walls too were plastered with the same black and white photos of the same gang of bored-looking Estonian guys with identical moustaches; no smiles, no body language, not even any Hiiu humor. You could find such photos in any house in this country. You might even be able to switch photos between homes and feel secure that the residents wouldn’t notice the difference for a few weeks.
“Those are my sons,” the owner pointed at the men.
“Do they live around here?” I asked her.
“Not anymore,” she frowned. “Here’s your room.”
Our new room may have been cluttered with baskets of old magazines and dusty furniture, but I didn’t care. I just needed to lie down. I sat down on the edge of the bed and once again undid my sandals.
“It’s not pretty,” Epp shrugged after the owner left. “But at least it doesn’t stink.”
The other guests at the B&B were a German couple. He had a moustache and an expensive timepiece. She had bangs and looked very tidy. For breakfast they ate granola and flipped through guidebooks.
“What will it be today, Ulrika? Maybe start with the Rudolf Tobias museum?” he asked.
“Who’s Rudolf Tobias?”
“It says here that he was a composer.”
Germans. Why did they come to Hiiumaa of all places? Was it to bask in their former glory?
Maybe. Later, in the graveyard of a chapel, on an island called Kassari across the bay from Käina, I stooped down to rub my hands in the grooves of the old stones and crosses. Some merely said Puhka rahus4 but the older ones were inscribed in the language of the German tourists. Were these Hiiu people German? No. But in the 19th century, life was recorded in German, the language of the manor owners. Estonians were born, married, and buried in German. Many had
Rest in peace (In Estonian)
