ON THE WAY to the airport, we stopped at the intersection of Liivalaia and what they call the Tartu Highway. We were opposite of the Stockmann department store, by the Laura beauty salon and a striptease club called Virgins. We were about to hike up the hill to the airport. It was a sunny, dusty day, and from that vantage point, the airport looked like it was a floating mirage, gleaming tall and white. It loomed up over us like the old Police Administration Building from Dragnet, the old home of the LAPD. Don’t you remember that old voice over? “This is the city: Los Angeles.” But we were not in Los Angeles. We weren’t even going there.
We had tickets printed out for a Ryanair flight to Italy or Spain. Whatever one it was, it made no difference. And we were late. I was traveling with my eldest daughter and youngest daughter, the eldest one barely a teenager, the youngest one maybe five years old. “What time is it?” I asked the older one. She looked at her wristwatch, a Swatch. “It says it’s 10:20,” she said. “Damnit,” I said. “We might miss the flight!” She had on a backpack, but the littlest one tugged along a pink-colored Barbie suitcase. The suitcase sputtered over the stones as we went.
Thus we began the hike up the hill toward the airport, traffic whizzing by from all directions. There, by the turn off for Lasnamäe, the littlest one dropped a toy down a long flight of steps. I was surprised by how steep those steps were, they descended for meters and meters, or yards and yards. She expected me to retrieve it. She was crying about her toy. I stepped down onto the first step and noticed that the stairs were not secure. Rather they started to wobble and bend, like they were made of a soft, pliant rubber. The steps had a gummy, candyland quality.
With the next step, I noticed the upper steps started to fold over the lower ones. And by applying my body weight, I could easily make the top of the staircase arch and bend in such a way, as that I could retrieve my child’s lost toy and then spring back up to the Tartu Highway. Imagine a young tree branch pulled downward then released. The steps bent in just such a way. With a few movements, the toy was in my hands, the bendy steps had bounced back into place, and we were on our way. The half Estonian child was happy, if only for a few minutes.
She clutched her lost toy like an old friend.
north! 