MEETINGS WERE HELD in the house weekly. Or more like lectures or seminars. It was an old wooden house in an older wooden district of the town. I happened to be walking by through the snow when some friends saw me and invited me to come along. The staircase up to the second floor was creaking and crooked, but the seminar room had been renovated. It was full of listeners. I found a spot on one of the long couches. That was when Esmeralda walked in.
Esmeralda looked bored and tired and taciturn. She was not particularly happy to see me, and I wondered if she at all understood how much I liked her. She must have had some idea or hint, because she sat down right next to me in her red sweatshirt. Quietly, silently, taciturnly. If that is even a word. Oh you, and your Baltic Finnic jõnn. What did I even see in this girl? Esmeralda said to me, “I feel a bit cold. I should have brought a blanket.” I left to find one for her at once.
I left the house, walked some ways down the street. Eventually I reached the house of my grandmother, who had just passed away. My father and mother and daughter were inside, sorting through baskets of my grandmother’s possessions. I promised them I would be back soon, and found a yellow blanket from the linen closet downstairs. I went back to the house, this time taking a public transit bus. It was winter still, cold and dark, and snow was falling.
Inside the house, the meeting was still going on, and Esmeralda was sitting there, as taciturn as ever. I came into the room and put the warm blanket on her. She curled up beneath it, sighed and yawned. We sat there for a while, just the two of us, watching some PowerPoint presentation. She said nothing to me. After some time, I said, “If you want, you can lie down next to me.” Esmeralda didn’t answer, but she slowly lowered her head and stretched out on the couch. I didn’t say a word to the beautiful girl. Nothing. My movements were slow and deliberate. I dared to not even look at sleepy Esmeralda. I could only watch her breathe.
north! 