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There’s faint but distinct singing coming from one of the side alleys. The tune is carried by two children’s voices – a young boy’s clear treble and an older girl’s alto.
Steinberg stands still for a moment, listening. The song is not in any language he knows; there are entirely too many vowels, and the consonants are unusually soft; yet there’s something warmly familiar about its sound.
“Is this in Estlish?” he asks.
“Yes,” says Rhoden, and smiles in a way he doesn’t often. “It’s Yoldia meri on mu arm – a traditional part of the summer song festivals.”
There it is – the same gentle lilt that Steinberg recognized in the children’s voices; recognized because it belongs to Rhoden.
The alley runs down the hill from the thoroughfare they were following. Now that they’ve left the thoroughfare behind, this part of Reval looks like a village rather than a city. The houses on both sides of the street are surrounded by large lilac bushes, and the yellow mud on the unpaved road smells sharply of wet clay.
It’s clearly a poor neighbourhood. Some of the houses have fallen into disrepair, and at least one has disintegrated completely, leaving behind a mournful-looking wooden skeleton overgrown with nettles.
The children whose song they heard sit on the grass nearby: a little boy and his older sister, from the looks of it. There’s a wreath of daisies and forget-me-nots on her head, and she’s busy adorning her brother with flowers, too: a lilac bloom behind the ear; a golden hawkweed star braided into his chestnut-brown hair.
At the sight of them the austere lines of Rhoden’s face soften into something almost like happiness.
He approaches the children carefully and lowers himself onto his haunches to diminish the difference between his own towering height and theirs. Then he says something in Estlish, and the girl smiles at him shyly and with surprise.
Steinberg doesn’t understand the words, but that is of no consequence to him – he knows this intonation. It’s the same tone of respect and unwavering kindness Rhoden has used with him whenever he needed friendship and comfort.
The girl produces another handful of flowers from the front pocket of her blue canvas dress. She carefully picks out a foamy cluster of lilacs and reaches up to put it behind Rhoden’s ear.
Rhoden laughs, inclining his head to allow her better access. It’s a simple scene; and yet there’s something about it that almost makes Steinberg’s eyes prickle with tears.
“Steinberg, come here,” Rhoden calls, beckoning him closer with his gloved prosthetic hand. Then he says something else to the girl, his crow’s-feet wrinkles deepening in another smile.
“Her name is Kairi,” he says, for Steinberg’s benefit. “She gave me flowers because I’m a part of her festival now. I told her that you’re my guest, and that you need some flowers, too.”
Steinberg can feel himself blush with embarrassment, and then blush more because he’s noticed himself blushing. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle and he’s mostly reconciled himself with it.
Kairi seems to find his bashfulness highly amusing. He bends down towards her, and she sticks some hawkweeds into his hair; then surveys the results of her efforts with the critical expression of a jaded art connoisseur and adds a sprig of white lilac.
“Now you just need to sing, kid,” says Rhoden, patting him on the shoulder.
“You first,” Steinberg parries. Truth is, his heart is close to bursting with affection and with the emotion of it all, and he’s not sure there’s a song in the world he could get through right now. “I’m sure Kairi here would be delighted.”