THE WEATHER WAS WARM but overcast, so I decided to take a bike ride through the Old Town. I got as far as the Town Hall Square, but didn’t see anyone, not a single soul. The Christmas market had been dismantled, and there were shipping pallets stacked up on the street corners. A few pigeons pecked about, but there were no people there. Not one person. All of the shops and restaurants were shut, as were the beer halls, puppet theatres, and amber dealers. Everything was closed, locked up tight. Even the Depeche Mode bar. I was mystified.
I rode my bike up toward the train station after that. This was the street called Nunne, but it looked different. Some hipster cafes were open, and chairs and tables were scattered across the street, but there was nobody seated in them. All of the empty chairs made it hard to pass by. But that wasn’t the only thing that was off. At the end of Nunne Street, I saw that there was now a canal separating the Old Town from the Baltic Station. There had always been a pond there at the foot of Toompea, called the Snelli Tiik, but this had flooded over and expanded.
The canal was quite wide and deep.
“A few elevated wooden platforms had been erected across the canal, but these were almost flooded over, with all of the runoff from the melting snow. The wood was also coming apart from the regular wear and tear. I was reminded of an article I once read written by Jaak Juske, about how there used to be a canal in the middle of Tallinn, but that they had filled it in sometime in the middle of the 1930s. I walked my bike across one of the bridges alone. Halfway across, I noticed that one of my tires was flat and I decided to pump it right there — I had a bike pump in my bag — but a pedestrian behind me, a blonde woman with a bunch of shopping bags, was annoyed with me. “Do you mind?” she said in Estonian. “You’re in the way. Tule eest!”
“Tule eest, yourself lady,” I y and continued pumping away. “Wait, you’re the only person I have seen all day. Where is everyone else?” I said. “There’s a big sale on at Viru Keskus,” she replied. “Major discounts in all the outlet stores, plus you can get a good deal at the new restaurants!”
The closer she got to me, the lower the canal platform sank. Finally, with the weight of all those shopping bags, the canal bridge collapsed into the green waters. The blonde shopper swirled in the rapids. I could see her outstretched arm and the bags from Zara and Sportland.
Then she was gone.
I swam briskly to the other side, pulling my bicycle across with me. The pump went floating by and I grabbed that too. Then I got up on the other bank of the canal, finished pumping my tires, and cycled away. I needed to make that last train to Viljandi. It would be leaving soon.
north! 