Young Writers Society

Yen

Fragments from my great grandfather's diary


Prussia, 1915
It will be soon be a year from the day I left home. I can still very vividly recall the last night I spent amongst the family: it was one of those beautiful Saturday evenings in June when the cicada concert was filling the warm air with vibrations and the evening sun was gilding the treetops. My little sister Miina returned to the house, her cheeks rosy from the heat of the sauna. On her way back she had picked dozens of wild strawberries and had put a straw through them. As she was offering this little composition to me, she spoke shyly: this is for the road. My younger brothers, ceaseless troublemakers, were walking around with bowed heads; in part because a fine companion and a knowledgeable helper in studies was leaving, in part because of a fear they shared with Ma and Pa: who knows, maybe he will never… After all, the Great War had broken loose in Europe and I, along with many other young men of my generation, was fretfully anticipating the day I was to become a frontman. Juhan, my older brother, kept me company throughout the whole evening. My dear brother! My dearest childhood playmate, calm and clever, in many ways bearing resemblance to my father who was teaching him to become the next man of the house. I often think about Juhan and miss him even more than Ma and Pa. But, still, how heartbreaking it was that night to look at Ma wiping her eyes with a kerchief while filling my backpack with rations and other small things she considered necessary. Pa gave me a splendid Swiss army knife, the one my mates and I would always admire in the local hardware store. I felt special, somewhat proud yet immensely sorrowful.
Now we are set here in Prussia, led by the great Samsonov, fighting to protect the western borders of the great Russian empire. A few lads are from my village and, as the unit is comprised mostly of fellow Estonians, we trust in one another. We prepare as our situation requires us to. Here, a bullet lands between your eyebrows instead of anyone asking if you’re ready to raise a gun or not. That is what older and more experienced Russian solders in our unit keep saying as they recall the days of the Russo-Japanese war. We believe in their words and consequently, in the guns by our sides.
Only God knows what’s going to happen to us. If only He were here to help us.

Better days are yet to come,
Karl


Russia, 1918
Again, I got a hold of some ink and paper to take notes of the days past. Was it help from the above or was it not, that same month I was able escape the crossfire. The following night some Estonian comrades and I burrowed in a bog so lonely that not even an owl’s calling kept us company. Samsonov’s great army was beaten like a helpless little pup; many of our comrades lost their lives in that bloody battle. ‘Treacherous’ non-Russians, we Estonians could already visualise the sand and gravel roads around our village. Home was all we could think about.
Home was all we couldn’t get. We were deported to somewhere in the middle of the vast Russian empire to help carry out the Red Revolution. Some refused to comply with the new rules – and were never seen again. All we could do was to work hard and hope to stay alive. Here I am on a train to Ukraine where a coup is about to take place. I wish I had something to read. I am afraid I am forgetting how; years of military service are nullifying all my efforts at the village school.
Life is a villain and the smell of yesterday’s cabbage broth, strong and sour, still lingers in the air.

Unfaithfully,
Karl



Germany, 1920
At last! I have obtained a few sheets of paper upon which to record recent events. It is now my third year in Germany. The story of my arrival in this country is full of obscurity. Captured in Ukraine by the whites, I was sent here to work in a concentration camp. Life at the camp was miserable: the men were skinny, grubby and in rags. Everyone’s hair was full of lice…
After my arrival, I descended into deep despair. I saw no escape, heard nothing but unknown tongues spoken around me, and broke my back working from day to day. War prisoners from many different places in Europe lived in large poorly constructed barracks. I found kindred spirits and made friends. My most memorable friend was Gunnar, a young man from Northern Sweden, an area where they speak both Finnish and Swedish. Thanks to the strong linguistic similarities between Estonian and Finnish, he and I quickly found a ‘shared tongue’ which was Finnish with occasional Estonian and Swedish vocabulary in it. I shared with him the poor rations of food that everyone received on a daily basis. Gunnar seemed to need that food more than I did. He had always been frail, but this prison food caused him to become death-like, pale and almost transparent. Once he fainted whilst digging a ditch. We the others ceased working, rushed over to him and lifted him out of the soggy, muddy bottom of the ditch. Such events were not uncommon in our camp.
Besides Gunnar, I remember well a fine lad from Italy named Lucio who enjoyed singing, even after months and months and exhausting physical work with not a day of rest. His singing gave us hope and eased our sorrows.
I got along with the Frenchmen also. As two years passed, I could speak conversational Swedish, had a good comprehension of Italian and French, and had become practically fluent in German.
One day, something happened that turned the lives of many of us around. We – I along with a couple dozen other men – were stripped down to our undershirts and locked up in a barn somewhere in Germany’s vast forestland for a week’s time with no provision of food or water. It was the last week of September. The chill and damp snuck into our bones and made us feverish and weak. Many of us caught a cold and died. Lucio, the bringer of merry spirits, didn’t even make it to see the morning light on the third day; a strong fit of cough suffocated him. Sitting close to each other in a tiny heap of hay on the floor, Gunnar and I survived.
As the week passed, terror began. The Germans came to us, bearing buckets of porridge made out of pea flour. Men, stupefied by hunger, dug their palms deep into the porridge and stuffed their mouths over and over until they were completely full. Gunnar and I held ourselves back, eating a little bit and then retreating from the buckets as they were being emptied by the others. We were forbidden to make contact with the others in any way, so there was no way for us to stop the others from wolfing down the deadly nourishment. Later on that night, the big eaters developed severe stomach pains as the cereal inside their guts expanded in size. By the dawn of the next day, most of them were dead. Released from the barn, the survivors were sent out all over Germany. I never saw Gunnar again, but my thoughts are often with him.
My place of residence is now Mecklenburg, where I work as a farmhand on a little farm just like Pa’s, except that here the farmhands and servants sleep in the stables and earn not a penny of salary. The farm-owners think kindly of me as I can speak with them in their mothertongue.
I have regained a bit of weight while being here. I have also rediscovered my appetite for life. My dear parents and the rest of the family is often on my mind,. What could be happening in Estonia, that place far away from where I am but where I left my heart five years ago? Is Juhan already running the farm? Is Miina happily married to some gentleman who lives in the town? Are my naughty little brothers wearing nice clothes and going to high school? How are Ma and Pa? Do they still believe that their son Karl is alive somewhere in this big world, and do they know I am missing them so much that it often makes tears fall from my eyes?
I am restless in the nights that are so dark and silent here. I need to leave.

Remaining the most humble servant to my homeland,
Karl


***

It is late August in 1931. The sun is still eager to spill its warmth; rye grain is ripe on the fields. Harvest has begun. It is a busy time for farmers. Many helpers are needed to clear large fields quickly, as no one knows what the weather will be like on the days to come. The fields sound with happy chanting as young people try to overcome the tediousness of the tasks set for them.
Amidst the hills of Southern Estonia, the work has ceased for a short lunch-break. Harvesters go down to the river to sit in the shade of the willow trees. The meal is simple and light: some buttermilk and a slice of bread. The housemaster and his wife sit, too, holding up a quiet conversation. Temporarily hired farmhands – mostly university students from Tartu, a town in the south-east – are cooling themselves in the slow-flowing river, chatting cheerfully amongst each other.

Suddenly, a stranger appears on the hilltop. As he approaches the people by the river, they notice how his light cotton uniform has stains of sweat around the collar and in the armpits. The housemaster and his wife step forward to introduce themselves. They shake hands with the stranger who turns out to be a policeman from Tartu. The policeman asks them if any members of their family have gone missing within the last twenty years. The housemaster looks down and murmurs in his juicy southern dialect that yes, they have indeed lost a relative, Karl, in the Great War, in a battle they say no man escaped. The policeman, seemingly indifferent to this information, asks how old that son had been upon his departure for the war. As he hears the answer, he asks the man for his name.
‘My name is Juhan, son of Jakob.’
The policeman keeps asking one thing or another and eventually asks them to come with him to Tartu. They are alarmed, but cannot say no to an officer, even in the middle of the busiest harvesting season. Before leaving for town, the housemaster bathes briefly by the well and puts on better clothes.

They arrive in Tartu later that evening. Juhan, son of Jakob, is taken to the jailhouse to identify the person who calls himself Karl, son of Jakob. Karl tells for the third time the story of how he came all the way from Germany to Estonia on foot. Only his own incautiousness caused him to be caught by the officials on the border between Latvia and Estonia. After some observation and a short conversation, one son of Jakob recognises the other one. Karl’s eyes are still the same shade of blue as they were in Juhan’s childhood memories, although his face is no longer bare and pale as it used to be.
On the way home, the two brothers have a long talk. Karl feels immense sadness to learn that both their parents have passed away, but rejoices to hear about his sister’s marriage and his brothers’ careers in the town. He asks a lot about the farm that used to be Pa’s and now belongs to Juhan; he nods approvingly as Juhan talks about all the new buildings constructed, the trees planted, fields created for grain cultivation, and the large cattle feeding on the surrounding meadows.
‘Brother,’ he says to Juhan in a restrained voice, ‘This feels good. A bit overwhelming, but… holy.’
Juhan takes his brother’s hand and doesn’t let go of it for the rest of the way.

The sun has long disappeared behind the horizon when the brothers finally arrive at their home. Karl wants to walk through the lands and visit all the places he held dear in his childhood. He takes a long time. Juhan’s wife and children are already sound asleep in their beds when the door hinges creak to indicate Karl’s return. Juhan, challenging his exhaustion, has stayed up to welcome his brother back and show him to bed. A couple of words are spoken between the brothers about work that needs to be done tomorrow, and then housemaster Juhan leaves for a night’s rest next to his wife.

Early next morning, everyone awakes to meet Juhan’s younger brother, a family member well known to everyone through the housemaster’s stories and family photographs. In those photos he is standing tall next to Juhan whose resemblance to his father is not as conspicuous as Karl’s is to his mother. That morning, however, finds Karl’s body cold and still in his bed. His face bears a smile so peaceful and lucid that it almost speaks the words: ‘This feels good. This was all I needed.’