about their relationship,” Epp said, explaining her interest in the book.
I took the book and flipped through photos of the couple. On the last page, there was a photo of Gorbachev after Raisa had died.
“Poor Gorby, he looks so sad.” I laughed nervously.
“It’s not funny when the love of your life dies,” she said.
“I didn’t say it was funny.” Our eyes locked in tension.
Epp looked distressed. “Let’s go outside,” she said. “I need to walk with you.”
We left the other half-inebriated writers at the table and walked down the long restaurant steps to the island. The golden lights of Helsinki glowed around us as boats passed by in the night. It felt special. At last I had found a place where I felt I was supposed to be.
“What are you going to do when you go back?” Epp asked.
“I don’t want to go back,” I looked at the lights. “I want to stay here.”
“Why don’t you want to go back?”
“Will you just look at it?” I said, gesturing towards Helsinki. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Maybe you should come with me back to Tallinn tomorrow,” ventured Epp. “Maybe it will help you somehow?”
“To Tallinn?” I said, looking at the ghostly boats glowing in the night.
I had heard of Estonia before. When I was a boy my grandmother had given me a book of children’s stories from the Second World War. One of the children was from Estonia. I can still remember how the little girl in the book described rationing, and how she liked it when she had a runny nose, because the flavorless soup she ate would be extra salty. Whenever I thought of Estonia, I thought of this story.
One day during the trip, Sara and Florent, the French journalists in our group, announced that they had visited Tallinn. If they could go, I could go, too. I was also told that Estonia would “soon be part of the European Union” which somehow made it seem more safe.
I had never heard the name Tallinn before, and I felt a sort of unease when I realized that Estonia – this very Estonia where Epp was from – was only an hour and a half’s boat ride across the Gulf of Finland. I knew the location of both places, but somehow Finland’s consignment to the “Nordic countries” and Estonia’s location in “Eastern Europe” kept them far apart in my head.
At that moment, when I figured out how close Helsinki and Tallinn are, the idea of actually going to Estonia revolutionized my internal sense of geography. Estonia had seemed civilizationally different. I imagined the signs to be scrawled in Cyrillic text and onion-domed Orthodox churches looking down over its cities. I imagined pickpockets to be standing on every corner, and untrustworthy women trying to scam me out of money, maybe even Epp. I mean, how much did I really know about this Malaysian-Estonian-Mongolian woman? She was a weirdo; that was the only thing I knew for sure.
As I stood there thinking about whether or not to go to Tallinn with Epp, we were joined by Sara.
“I like you, Justin,” the French journalist confessed with her cute accent while lighting a cigarette. “I have to say that I usually hate Americans, but you are different from the others. You really seem like you are searching for something!”
In the moonlight, I thanked Sara for the compliment.
I sat later that night in front of our TV in the student hall watching mindless shows. Maybe the sexy host Kicki would come on soon. I was miserable now, knowing that our program was over.
Natalie the Brit walked into the room and saw me sitting on the couch. She had just gotten back from the bar.
“Justin, what are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Justin, will you just go see Epp,” Natalie shook her head. “I know you want to go see her. I am sure she is back in her room now. It’s our last night, do you understand?”
In my heart, I knew that Natalie was right. I hugged her and walked out of the room without saying a word. Then I took the stairs down to the second floor. I walked to Epp and Réka’s apartment and knocked at the door, hoping that Epp was still awake.
The door creaked open, and I could see her eyes and her mane of hair through the crack.
“I decided to come tomorrow,” I said.
“I knew you would come,” she whispered. “Come inside.”
All night long I stretched out in her bed, listening to our fellow program members bid adieu to one another outside in the dark – many had flights leaving that morning.
Epp meantime organized what seemed to be few personal possessions and then reorganized them again. She had piles and piles of papers littered all over the room, covered in handwritten notes. How could she spend so much time organizing?
“What are you doing?” I whispered to her impatiently at around 4 am.
“I’m still sorting my things,” she said.
I thought that organizing things was just one of her quirks. Later I would find out that it was an Estonian national pastime.
When we left the dormitory to visit Tallinn the next day, I kept my documents close at hand. Who knew who could lift them from my naive American pocket while I wasn’t looking? The Finnish border guards gave me no trouble when we left to board the ferry to Tallinn.
Epp, on the other hand, was uncomfortably scrutinized.
“What have you been doing in Finland for 30 days?” the passport control officer asked.
“I’ve been here on a program,” she said.
“Do you have any proof of your participation?”
Epp dug through her bag for several minutes. It seemed that she couldn’t find what she was looking for. Finally, Epp fished out her wallet, and showed them her press card and the agenda from the foreign ministry to prove that, no, she wasn’t a prostitute or Ecstasy dealer; just a journalist.
In Denmark, when I had studied for a few months in 2001, I had heard jokes about backward, foolish, and drunk Finns. I had even seen a few Finns who met this description. One, an old hippie named Jorma who looked like a blonde Genghis Khan, taught us a few Finnish phrases at a party.
The Danes I was with at the time looked at Jorma as if he had been raised by wolves. And here was Finnish passport control making someone different feel small. It seemed like everyone had someone they could use to make themselves seem better.
After the Finnish passport officer finally let Epp through I felt a little disappointed in Finland.
A LESS FORTUNATE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRY
As our ferry moved over the water, Epp asked me how I envisioned the Soviet Union to be.
I told her that, as a young boy, I thought of going to Europe with its colorful old towns and bustling ports and setting sail on a boat from some place like Stockholm or Copenhagen
