Cabbages and Communication

Each visit to Keskturg, Tallinn’s central market, brought me back to the small stall at the back, the old man who reminded me of my great grandfather standing inside in the gloom. Keskturg had been here since 1947, and the lines etched on the old man’s weathered face made me imagine he’d been here just as long. He had the broad hands and lean muscles of a farmer and I liked to imagine that this was his retirement from working the land, leaving the back-breaking work to his children and grandchildren. In my head, I thought of him as my cabbage man, although this was unfair as he sold more than just cabbage. He also sold onions. But I certainly couldn’t think of him as the onion man.

Estonians used to refer to “ethnic Russians” as sibul, a derogatory term that literally means onion, in reference to the onion wreaths sold by the Russians at the market. It was migrating Russians who first brought the onion bulb to present-day Estonia in the the 18th century and to this day, most of the vendors in Tallinn markets are Russian speaking.

I had arrived in Tallinn in January and now I was taken aback by the changes as the winter melted into spring. The snow retreated to grey clumps in the shadowy corners of the market and the surly Russians selling stodgy root vegetables magically transformed into a colorful display of Polish strawberries and Iranian watermelons and Lithuanian wild garlic, although the Russians seemed just as surly in the weak springtime sun.

I had been working hard on other things and neglecting my Estonian studies, which meant that not only did I not have any new words to practice but I’d forgotten those that I had learned. When I tried to ask a question about the strawberries at a stall that had appeared as if by magic in the parking lot, somehow the words spilled out in Spanish. The young woman simply gave me a disparaging glance and moved on to the next customer.

My cabbage man Limited-Vegetable man had also expanded his wares, causing me to rethink his nickname, offering cucumbers and radishes alongside bruised apples and dusty potatoes.

After weighing my items, he tapped the numbers into a calculator. But rather than spinning it around to show me, like most of the other vendors did, he told me the final amount in Estonian. I couldn’t tell if he was fluent, clearly he knew a lot more than I did.

“Kaksnelikümmend.” He spoke a lot faster, too.

“Kaks…” I repeated. Two. The rest had to be change. Two something-ty. My brain ground to a halt. I handed him five euros.

He handed my change. “Kaks kuuskümmend.”

I looked at the two euros and sixty cents in my hand. Of course! Neli the elephant was four (we’ve been here before!) and suddenly I knew exactly what he’d been asking for. I shouted it out, “KAKS NELIKÜMMEND!”

Instead of saying some equivalent of “you are a nutcase,” he said “YES” in English and beamed at me as if I had just discovered gravity.

I made a point, after that, of stopping in to buy something a few times a month, just for the practice. Luckily, Cliff liked cabbage.

One day, he spotted me from afar and exclaimed in delight. “Hello! Tere! Come in!”

I looked regretfully at the bright red radishes that had attracted my attention and followed him into the corrugated hut. He picked up a paperback book and eagerly handed it to me.

It was covered in Cyrillic but it was easy to work out that it was a Russian guide for learning English.

I beamed at him. “You are learning English!”

He stared back at me blankly.

“That’s great!” I tried a few other phrases. “Good job. Very interesting.”

He took the book and rifled through it, handing it back to me opened to a specific page. There were a few general English phrases with what I presumed was translations and explanations. Nothing that I understood seemed like it would help the conversation.

“I can’t read Russian,” I told him.

That, he understood. “I read Russian,” he said, looking a bit offended. He took the book back.

“That’s good!” I smiled but he was looking at the book again. I collected a head of cabbage and brought it to the counter.

“Cabbage,” I said, trying to be helpful.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, as if I was nagging him rather than trying to expand his English vocabulary. He weighed the cabbage and then thought hard. “One thirteen,” he said. “No, one thirTY.” He paused and then tried again. “One euro and thirty.”

I have a lot of sympathy for difficulty with numbers. “I have two euros,” I said slowly, holding up a two euro coin.

“Good!” He took the coin and furrowed his brow. “SevenTY.” He handed me my change.

“Thank you,” I said, trying not to mourn the loss of my best chance of Estonian practice at Keskturg.

“You’re welcome.” And then with the biggest grin. “Russian boy learn English!”

I’m not sure our ability to communicate has actually improved but his excitement was contagious. I couldn’t wait to see what he said the next time I needed cabbages.

What actually happened was that he started calling out “Sister!” every time he saw me. Either he was younger than he looked or I looked a helluva lot older.