The Best Continental Short Stories of 1923-1924/The Smuggler

by Aino Kallas

THE SMUGGLER

By AINO KALLAS

PARBU-JAAN, the smuggler, sat on a bench in the cell for prisoners awaiting trial, expecting each moment to be called before the judge. His square-clipped sailor’s beard rested every now and then on the thick shawl wrapped twice around his throat; at each slightest movement his stiff oilskin coat crackled. Weary with waiting, he let his eyes wander over the wall of the cell, but soon desisted, finding that he knew the room as well as his own fisherman’s hut on the shore of Kihelkonna; it was the third time that he sat within these walls. He glanced for a moment at his companions—two youths playing cards at the other end of the room. In reality they were pretending to be occupied by the game, the while they watched him with grinning faces, and open, boyish curiosity in their eyes. Parbu-Jaan weighed them up a moment with keen eyes, accustomed to look far over vast stretches of sea, and to which all objects seemed too close, a frown drawing his brows together as though he weighed the two lads and found them wanting in the balance.

Quickly, however, his face, expressive of cunning and determination, became wreathed in smiles and filled with good humour. He rose and paced across the room a couple of times, saying as he passed the youths:

“Stealing wood from the manor forest, hey?”

Tolerant forgiveness of the crime and contempt for its insignificance were mingled in his tone.

“Hit the nail right on the head,” one of the youths said braggingly, and aping manliness.

Parbu-Jaan did not deign to look at them, but halted and stood tall beneath the barred window set high in the wall, his stalwart frame, over six feet, seeming to fill the room, and cast a giant shadow over all in it. His height enabled him to reach the window and to rest his chin on the ledge of stone, and for a moment he stood there motionless; then, with a gesture of disappointment, he turned towards the room. His gaze had fallen on a little, typical Kuresaare yard, one of the many which opened out between the stuccoed, steep-roofed houses skirting the ruined fort like the song birds, full of life and chirruping, cluster round the nest of the eagle-owl. He had looked down upon it all, vegetable-patches, hens picking on a refuse heap, a cock standing on one leg, a horse champing its bit. It had not escaped his notice that one hen mothered three ducklings among her chickens; he had seen at a glance the black and yellow down on their bodies and their waddling walk. How they must long for the water, he had thought, rising on his toes as if to get a glimpse of something on the distant horizon beyond the roofs, where the air quivered in the heat as behind a dim veil of glass. A-thirst for what he could not see, yearning and disappointed, the pupils of his eyes expanded, his whole body called for salt after weeks of flavourless bread and water. The air was suffocating, and what little streamed through the crack in the window-frame seemed insipid, full of whirling atoms of dust. The sea remained invisible—far away behind the entrenchments and sand dunes.

He saw it in his mind—not the smooth sand for summer visitors at Kuresaare, but the wide, lonely sand-flats of the Kilhelkonna shore. So clearly did it arise before him that he seemed to smell the rotting seaweed cast ashore by the sea, and to feel the crunching of little rosy sea-shells beneath his boots. He saw himself wading in the water, which slowly deepened—in calm, translucent water, at the bottom of which he could see the seaweed covering the rocks wave slowly in the current, and a swarm of tiny fish darting away at his approach. The water rose slowly, penetrated the tops of his high boots, saturating his trousers, rising towards his waist. . . . And then he was on board his boat anchored at the edge of the shallows. Did he not hear where he stood the restless creak of the rigging, the ceaseless beat of the waves driven against the stern by a favouring wind? But the boat lay immovable, the anchor clutched the white sand with its curved flukes, the sails drooped along the masts and the ships’ sides were mirrored in the Water.…

It must be gone—tomorrow—the day after—next week it must be in Memel. . . . His grim features become restless, his lips deep hidden in his beard no longer twitch with ready humour. His eyes glare like those of a beast of prey—behind his brow his wits are at work—he cudgels his brain striving to find a plan . . . he must be set free this time. . . . That is the haven towards which he must fight his way. He must be as sure, as certain of himself, as when he steered his smuggler’s craft past hidden rocks and watchful coastguards.

The blind alley in which he is vainly groping becomes unbearable, he turns again to the lads whom chance has given him for companions, and in their curious eyes he reads the thought that fills his own mind; they are wondering will he escape imprisonment this time or no?

“Brushwood thieves,” he grinned contemptuously at them, drawing himself up sharply to his full height, so that his broad shoulders seemed to support his body like a spar on which all else was hung.

“Boys ahoy!—what would you say was my size?” he said.

One of the youths, the one who had spoken earlier, smiled slyly, winking at the speaker.

“Too big to be held by these walls, anyhow.”

“Right,” he thundered in pleasure.

“We were playing ‘durak’ for thy luck,” the youth went on, growing bolder.

“I need no luck but my own,” he answered, with head thrown back.

“They say the judge is a new one—come lately from the Mainland,” the other lad put in hurriedly, anxious for a say in the matter.

Parbu-Jaan looked at the last speaker’s long face, at his forehead hidden by the thick hair, at the bony contours of his nose and jaw.

“Whose boy art thou?” he asked with an attempt of good humour. “A new judge,” he added thoughtfully, already forgetting the boy. “Tare Tiiu’s.”

“Tiiu’s . . . Tiiu’s,” repeated Parbu-Jaan mechanically.

He began to walk excitedly to and fro. A new judge! What if he should be able to repeat his old trick. . . . But it was too well known {{... the walls of every tavern in Saaremaa had heard it, the very forests had echoed it. . . . He was surprised himself now at his own daring, admiration for himself grew within him as for a stranger. . . . Then also he had sat awaiting trial, his feet itching to be off, his vessel eager for departure. It was then that he shut his lips to a narrow line, took on an expression grave as of one in a church and asked to be allowed to speak to the judge: “Merciful Judge-Lord, the wife is welcoming a little stranger—ale ought to be brewed, and then the baptism—couldn’t I go for a couple of weeks?” The judge hesitated—an old rascal, that Parbu-Jaan—but in the end consented. “See that you are back here in two weeks’ time.” He had raced to the Kihelkonna shore, hoisted sail, flown off to Memel for a load of rum and gunpowder. On the day agreed he had knocked at the prison door.

His thoughts returned to those old days, as if to gather strength from them. And in spite of his present plight laughter shook his frame, laughter that would free his spirit and restore his pride.

Memories tossed him up and down like a vessel tossed by the waves, tormenting and provoking him to laughter. This much he knew, that never would he be able to store too many such memories. He felt his craving for new adventures to string on to the old could never be slaked. He knew that never would he be himself again until he felt the deck planks sway again beneath his feet, with his hand upon the tiller.

An autumn evening, the land showing as a dark streak, looming up strange and unfriendly even for him, as he steers towards it. The moon unnaturally large, a rent torn in the sky, gleaming dimly instead of casting light. He can hardly trust his eyes, the spray clouds his sight as with a curtain of mist; as a rope creaks or taps against the mast he starts. He feels that the darkness that cloaks the shore is hiding something hostile, a danger of which his senses do not grasp but only some occult instinct. Suddenly, signal lights flare up on the shore . . . the coastguards! With his comrades he begins to throw barrels overboard, grimly watching them as they roll into the water and sink—everything overboard. Next his eyes take in the shore, marking trees, rocks and sand-flats in the dim darkness, drawing the place, its distance from the shore more clearly in his memory than ever did surveyor on paper. The following day they lift the barrels from the bed of the sea with hooks.

Blood mingles in his memories, the sky glows an ominous red, he sees a hand clutch the gunwale of his boat, a large browned hand with knuckles and nails of iron—a hand whose owner is nothing to him—a hand rising from the depths to prevent his journey. His anger concentrates on the hand that dares to delay his boat, to him the hand is a living entity separated from all body. His hatchet swings through the air and the hand falls into the sea.

From this whirlpool his thoughts turn rapidly. Instead he sees a bright summer day, a smooth sea with flying gulls gleaming silver in the sunshine. He stands leaning against the mast of his boat, cunning, reserved, following with his eyes the Customs officials who search his vessel, running around like rats, nosing everywhere from hold to cabin, from cabin to deck. Without moving a finger he watches them, casting biting remarks at them between puffs at his pipe, advising them of secret hiding-places unknown to them. One after the other, they crawl on deck, discomfited as though suddenly drenched with water and he bids a polite good-bye to their chief, offering him a drink from his flask, bidding him welcome another time. But as the Customs boat grates on the sand, he seizes the coil of rope on which one of the searchers had sat, and between his hands rubs its end, which crumbles into brown leaves with a familiar smell—a twisted rope of tobacco.

Again he cast a yearning glance through the window. It is the middle of August, at night the sky gleams with stars, each one a compass. It is his pride to sail to Memel or the Swedish coast without a compass, trusting only to these tiny guides, which through the night vanish, light up and shift as the yawl sails on.

“Was’t thou who said there is a new judge?” he asked suddenly, turning to the boys.

“It was I,” one of the boys replied, proud of his knowledge.

Parbu-Jaan smiled, his hand stroking meanwhile his beard. In his fancy he heard the sound of words and much talk, his own voice rising and gaining confidence, some one laughing outright. . . . His hand clenched in a tight grip. . . . Now he has gotten the idea. . . . Just that. . . . As yet he is not quite certain, the scheme is almost too daredevil, but he must close his eyes to the danger. His state of mind is that of a diver in deep water; perhaps he may sink forever, more likely he will rise again to the surface.

He looked at the boys and began already to play his new part—his keen, knowing eyes dilated and became vacant and stupid, his shoulders drooped, his hair fell over his forehead, hiding its strong, intelligent lines, the firm decision of his mouth is lost in loose, gaping lips.

“Well, whom do I look like now?” he asked, turning to the two youths and pushing his cap to the back of his head.

They stared at him startled, something of wild savagery had suddenly come over him, something terrifying and inexplicable; they looked questioningly at each other, perplexed and open mouthed.

“Like Mad-Mats,” whispered one into the other’s ear.

“Right, boys. I am not quite right in my head, remember that. All night I have talked gibberish, I can no longer tell the moon from the sun. . . . If any one asks, say that.”

The shifty eyes of the elder youth flashed and expanded, gleaming with understanding and admiration. The other stared, uncomprehending.

The elder youth bent suddenly towards Parbu-Jaan.

“What wilt thou give us?” he whispered.

Parbu-Jaan eyed him sternly, and broke into a laugh; he felt as proud of the boy as though he himself had trained him. The lad’s early developed business sense appealed to his own instincts.

“A gun and powder, of the best make,” he threw the words hastily at him as the warder’s steps sounded in the corridor. The boy threw himself with his whole weight against the door, and beat on it with his fists.

The startled eyes of the warder appeared in the spy-hole, eyes used to darkness which appeared perpetually to dread any disturbance of the everyday round.

“What has happened here?” he said in a chiding tone.

Parbu-Jaan stood in a corner, muttering to himself. The youths had drawn as far as possible away from him.

“We want to be put in another cell,” cried the elder youth. “We can’t stand him—he isn’t right here, all night we got no peace listening to him talk, talk, talk as fast as his tongue would let him.”

The warder looked suspiciously at Parbu-Jaan.

“What has happened to him here?” he grumbled. For his own part, he would have been ready to let them all go, guilty and innocent alike, but being set to guard them, what could he do?

“What has addled his wits now?” he repeated to himself.

“Let us go to the judge,” he said quietly and coaxingly as to a naughty child, laying his hand gently on Parbu-Jaan’s shoulder and pushing him out of the room.

Parbu-Jaan obeyed without resisting, not for a moment forgetting his part, his lips moving all the while in babble of meaningless words.

In the court-room the judge, a bespectacled gentleman, waited with his clerk.

“This man has gone mad during the night,” the warder humbly explained, as though the misfortune was partly his fault.

The judge cast a cold eye on Parbu-Jaan, and despite its coldness, Parbu-Jaan felt himself go hot.

“That remains to be seen,” the judge said dryly.

He read the charge in a loud voice, Parbu-Jaan listening with his eyes wandering uneasily round the room.

“Two empty coffee-sacks stamped with the Memel seal were found in the attic of Parbu’s house,” the judge finished his charge.

“Well, look now—don’t lies get found out, gracious Judge-Lord,” said Parbu-Jaan. “Sacks! As though coffee was ever carried in a sack—why, it would drip out.”

“What nonsense art thou talking?” said the judge.

“No one carries coffee in a sack—coffee’s a drink.”

“Dost thou not know coffee, man?”

“How should I know gentlefolks’ dainties?”

The judge looked at him for a while and then said:

“Come here—is not this thy compass?”

Parbu-Jaan reeled towards the table, purposely dragging his feet. With head on one side, he began to examine the compass.

“Well now, isn’t that queer? It’s moving—well, by . . . it’s dancing like anything, what’s the matter with it?”

“Man, remember with whom thou speakest. Who am I?”

“Thou art one of God’s errand boys. When God draws up the laws on the tables of stone, thou bringest them down to us.”

“Man, where wert thou last week?”

“I sat in the threshing-barn as God had created me, the wife washing my only shirt.”

“Confessest thou or not?”

“Of course I confess whatever the Judge-Lord wishes. To everything I say only yea and amen.”

“Thou wert then in Memel?”

“Certainly.”

“When did that occur?”

“It is hardly twenty years ago.”

“Have a care what you say, man.”

“That is what I’m doing, and a care for my back too. I am not altogether mad, though not so clever as your Honour.”

“Pah! I have no time for lunatics.”

Parbu-Jaan’s head drooped lower, and a smile vanished in his bushy beard. He dragged himself after the warder out of the court, the warder staring at him with respect mingled with fear. In the prison yard he paused—looked up at a window to where two youthful heads gazed curiously down at him, and waved his hand with a toss of his skipper’s beard. His nostrils dilated as though the scent of the sea had struck them.

Six hours later he was bound for Memel, in the bright moonshine of an August night—with thousands of tiny, winking stars for a compass.