Seven-Euro Sausages

Winter turned to Spring turned to Summer and I continued to shop at Keskturg, belligerently ignoring the fact that most of the vendors didn’t seem to actually want my business. Even my Estonian friends lost patience with me. I told a visiting friend that in Estonian, there was no difference between blueberries, blackberries and black currants, they were all known as mustikad. For the first time Sash, who has treated me with much more patience than I deserve, lost her poise. “That’s simply not true!”

“But–”

“Mustikas, põldmari ja must sõstar,” she said.

“But, at the market–”

She gave me a long look. “Are you trying to learn Estonian from Russians?”

I had to admit that this was possibly not the best way forward. And yet, when I discovered that chanterelles at Keskturg were half the price of anywhere else in Tallinn, I rushed back.

Although I had been using flashcards to learn my numbers in Estonian, I still found it difficult to keep up when they were used quickly. I got my mushrooms but it was a struggle to understand how much I needed to pay for half a kilo, even though she said it very slowly, even though the price was clearly marked.

I was grumpily thinking how ‘living in Estonia’ really needed my full-time attention if I was to progress, when I saw the woman selling sausages.

It was a lovely selection: smoked sausages and fatty sausages for grilling, clearly marked as turkey and chicken and pork. I chose some very German looking pork sausages, partially because their price was very plainly displayed as 3.99€.

The woman cleared up her counter for a minute but just before I lost patience, she asked me what I wanted.

“Two pork sausages, please,” I said in my best Estonian, pointing at the ones I wanted.

She held up the sausages and counted out two very carefully and then took them over to the scales and weighed them. She said something which I didn’t quite get.

I stepped forward to try to look at the electric scale. If she had keyed in the price, I would see exactly what it cost and even if she hadn’t, I would at least know how much the sausages weighed.

Then I thought, No, Sylvia. You didn’t even try to listen. You know your numbers. Work it out.

I mentally repeated what she had said. Seitse. Seven. Seven euros for two sausages? She had to be joking.

Our conversational options were limited as we didn’t share a language in common. It went something like this:

Me: [Expression of confusion]Her: [Expression of concern]Me: [Expression of unhappiness]Her: [Expression of confusion]

I stepped away and looked at the price of sausages again. The sign said 3.99 but didn’t actually say per kilo. Could it be 3.99 per sausage? But that would be outrageous. There was another number on the card, 27. So maybe they were 27 euros a kilo? I fought off the desire to just pay and get out of there. Maybe I misunderstood.

Or maybe she was just taking the piss. Certainly it wouldn’t be the first time. This had happened to me too many times before and each time, I’d accepted it as my mistake.

I took a deep breath. I was not paying for this. Not this time. No.

I said just that, No, in English, shaking my head.

She said something in Russian.

I held my hands up in the air as if I were defending myself. My voice was firm. Nyet. Spasibo. No. Thank you.

She stared at me in disbelief, having worked out that I no longer wanted her sausages. She said something else, a question. It was almost certainly ‘Why in the hell not?’

How do you say ‘too expensive’ in Estonian? I had no idea. The stress of the situation killed any language capability I had. I shook my head and then rubbed my fingers together, hoping she’d understand this symbol of change, money, expense.

She was clearly upset by this, maybe even offended. She waved at the scale as if to say really? You won’t buy two sausages?

The glowing number on the scale display caught my eye.

0.77

I was right, she had said seitse. In fact, she said seitse seitse: seven seven. If she’d said seventy, I might have caught it but as it was, when I replayed her words in my head, I dismissed the repetition.

Two sausages.

Seventy-seven cents.

“OH MY GOD” I said, several decibels louder than I meant to.

She stopped muttering and looked at me, worried. It had clearly just occurred to her that I might be insane.

I tried to explain in a terrible mish-mash of English and Estonian with a Russian ‘yes’ thrown in just for good measure. “Da! Vabandust! I’m so sorry, I thought it was seven, I thought seitse euro!”

She blinked but somehow she understood. She burst out laughing. Seitse eurod? For two sausages? Ludicrous!

I was already handing her a euro repeating sorry in every language that I speak. By now, she was laughing so hard, she could barely take my money. I couldn’t help but laugh as well, still saying sorry.

She shook her head as she carefully counted out twenty-three cents in change, saying please, you’re welcome, thank you. And then she pressed the copper coins into my hand and waved me away, calling out “spasibo”, thank you, one last time as I left.

I’m pretty sure that last heartfelt ‘thank you’ was for giving her the best laugh she had all day.