Chapter 1

1933

The longest night of the year seemed endless as I watched my mother's face twist in pain, sweat dripping down her temples as she paced back and forth across her bedroom floor in her linen nightgown. An acrid smell drifted in the air as I struggled to light the lone lantern by her bedside. Long shadows on the walls danced eerily to the shriek of the wind and the groans escaping my mother as she doubled over, gripping her overripe belly. The winter storm pelted flakes against the window, but the heat of the wood stove from the next room, serving as both our small kitchen and living room, kept the cold at bay. For the hundredth time, my eyes drifted to the clicking mantel clock; I hoped my father would get home in time through the storm.

"Get some fresh linens," Akka said to me, as she guided my mother around the room, a firm hand on her lower back making tight circles. "And take your little sister with you."

"Don't be afraid, Meri," my mother said. I nodded my head and tried to smile, hoping I looked brave for my mother. She had been in labour for hours, but these sudden, more urgent pains took me by surprise.

"Come on, Eveliina." I reached for my sister's hand. She stood spellbound with her back against the wall, watching the proceedings. In one hand she gripped the little bird Father had carved for her last summer. She took my hand and I guided her out of our mother's bedroom.

I had never seen a baby being born before, but I knew my mother was in the midwife's capable hands. Old Akka lived in the same block of rowhouses on our quiet street, within walking distance to the city's centre to the north and the Baltic Sea to the south. She'd been friendly with my mother since my parents had married and moved into town, away from their quieter life in the countryside, a few years before I was born. Although I'd been curious, Akka wouldn't even let me in the bedroom when my sister Eveliina came into the world, even though I had waited impatiently outside my mother's door with my father, begging to be let in. "This is no place for children," he'd said. "Give your mother some space."

Akka had helped many babies be born in our neighbourhood over the years and, my mother had reminded me, I had been one of them. Had my birth been like this one, so long and slow and painful? When a baby brother was stillborn a few years after Eveliina, I'd caught only a glimpse of his yellowish skin before he'd been whisked away. I'd been frightened of the little creature she'd held and saddened to know I might have had a brother to play with. Worse still was the baby who had lived for only ten days. His skin had been so pale and his limbs so scrawny, I didn't even want to look at him. When he finally took his last struggled breath, she had said, "Come and kiss your brother goodbye," but I'd refused. Only Eveliina was brave enough to kiss his forehead and whisper a few last words about meeting him again someday. Even now, the shame burned in my cheeks at the memory.