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A directory inside the door of her building informed me that Lazdinja was apartment 4. I climbed a flight of stairs and found a door with a 4 on it at the end of the corridor. I knocked, and the door opened, and I looked at a face I had heretofore seen only in photographs, and I realized instantly why Karlis had fallen so irretrievably in love with her. The form of a goddess, the face of an angel, sparkling eyes, flashing teeth, red lips…
I said, “You are Sofija Lazdinja?”
She said, “No.”
I don’t think I said anything; if I did, I’m sure it didn’t make any sense. I was too busy being astonished. But what she said next was, “I am Zenta Lazdinja. Sofija is my sister. My older sister.”
“One year older!” This from a voice from within.
“That is quite true,” Zenta said mischievously. “Sofija is only a year older than I. You will find this hard to believe when you see her, but it is true. Only a single year older.”
Karlis had not said that there were two of them. Perhaps he had not known. It was almost impossible to believe in the existence of one of them, let alone a matched pair.
“But you have the advantage of us,” said Zenta. “You know that I am Zenta and that my older sister Sofija is within, but we do not know your name or who you are.”
“My name is Evan Ta
“His name?”
“Karlis Mielovicius.”
A shriek from within. “Karlis!” Another goddess rushed into view, pushed Zenta aside, gripped me furiously by the arms. She was an inch or so taller, a shade more voluptuous in physique, and, as I had been repeatedly advised, one year older. “Karlis!” she cried again. “You come from Karlis?”
“Yes.”
“He is well?”
“Yes.”
“He still loves me?”
“More than ever.”
“But he has found another?”
“No.”
The pressure increased on my arms. “You are very certain of this?”
“Yes.”
“Ahhh!” She released my arms, enveloped me in her own, hugged me to her extraordinary bosom, and very nearly crushed the life out of me. I considered reminding her that I was not Karlis myself, that I was merely his emissary, but for the moment I was unable to say anything at all.
She released me eventually and led me inside. We sat down on a long, low couch, with me in the middle and Sofija and Zenta on either side. And I explained, in a great flow of words, that Karlis wanted her to come to America to be his bride, and that, if this was also her wish, I would do whatever was in my power to take her there.
Evidently it was not something she had to think about for any great length of time. She didn’t exactly say that she would like to come. What she said was, “How soon can we leave?”
And Zenta said, “I am coming with you, of course.”
“It will be some days before we can leave. Perhaps a week, perhaps longer.”
“We can wait. And you may stay here with us, it is safe here.”
“There are others with me. An old man and a young girl.”
“They will stay with us also.”
“And you must not speak a word of this to anyone. It is very dangerous.”
“I understand.”
“And I too.”
“Not a word.”
“No. The old man and the girl, where are they?”
“A few doors away,” I said. “I will fetch them now.”
I hurried back to the cafe. Mi
I had just enough rubles to cover the check. “We can go now,” I told Mi
And that, I thought, was going to be a nuisance. Giving everyone directions in a different language and having persons in the party who were unable to communicate with one another could only prove to be a mammoth headache. I’ve always disliked the notion of Esperanto, feeling that a variety of languages makes the world infinitely more interesting, and to me the myth of the Tower of Babel has always had a happy ending. But now I could somewhat appreciate the desirability of a universal language, if only to be dragged out on special occasions. This, certainly, was one such occasion.
But as we left the cafe and proceeded to Sofija’s apartment house Milan said that the food tasted good to him.
I nodded. And then did a monumental double-take because what he had said, word for word, was “Man garsho bariba.”
I looked at Milan, who was smiling shyly, and at Mi
Chapter 13
We were about as cozy as a group of five can reasonably expect to be in an apartment designed to accommodate two. I explained that I had no need of a bed, that I could more easily sleep during the day, when the others were up and about, and that most of my pla
I coped with this situation by carefully being absent at times when everyone else was present. The girls were away most of the day, and it was easy enough for me to invent mysterious missions that would take me out of the apartment during the evenings.
It was easy, in fact, to invent almost anything but an escape route out of Latvia. There were too many of us, and we were too heavily loaded down for us to get out as easily as Milan and I had gotten in. If I had come alone, and if Sofija herself had been alone, a routine of border-hopping and disguises might have worked. Now, with our party of two transformed into a party of five, that was out of the question.
And Mi
All of which meant that our departure would have to be swift, bold, abrupt.
And therefore dangerous.
We would need a car for a start. That wouldn’t be too difficult, I decided; one of the girls could simply borrow one from a friend (girls who look like that invariably have friends who are anxious to lend them cars), and we could abandon the car when the time came. That, after all, is what friends are for.
With a halfway decent car we could drive from Riga to Talli
I was unsure how wide-armed a reception we could expect in Helsinki. The Fi
I spent four fairly rotten days and nights playing with this dilemma. I don’t think I would have gotten much sleep during those days even if I had been capable of it. What it came down to, finally, was that Finland was better than any other possibility, but that any serious thought about what to do in Finland had to wait until it was established whether or not we could expect to get there.