WE WERE ALL TRYING to escape. From what I do not know. Some kind of cave system, or tunnel. I cannot say if it was made by man or naturally formed. What I do remember is that I was surrounded by Ingrian girls. Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe. There were just so many of them, and they were all trying to climb out of that passageway and into the daylight. I don’t know what any of their names were, or what villages they came from, but they looked like sisters. Their hair was red and their skin was milky white. Black shirts, blue trousers.
Then one of the Ingrian girls climbed up my back and sort of pushed herself over my head, as if she was doing an acrobatic trick. Another pushed by my arms. There were so many of them. They were crawling over everything. At one point in my life, I would have filled an Olympic swimming pool with these women and dived right in. Now, I had gotten my strange wish.
The only hint at civilization in the cave was a monument that had been cut into the walls. Words were chiselled into granite, maybe about the War of Independence, maybe about the Winter War. I couldn’t read anything in the darkness, but with my fingers, I could trace out the number 1918. I gripped the stone as I pulled myself into the light. A dozen Ingrian girls were already standing there looking haughtily down at me. I remember the menace of that hair, as if it was on fire and the feel of the summer sun as it at last laid its pleasant hands upon my face.
north! 