Chapter 1
Oona Niilasová had once thought Tallinn in February would feel like a second home, a harsh and hungry cold that bit all the way to the teeth. She was wrong. The Estonian winter did not howl or roar as the storms above Inari did—it settled over the city in a damp, sour fog, leeching warmth through concrete slabs, condensing on the inside of double-paned windows. It clung to the ceilings in her student flat, beaded on the mirror above her basin. The air was heavy with fried onions and mildew and nicotine, never smoke from the hearth or the reek of singed reindeer hide. Sometimes, she pressed her face to the glass, fingers splayed, imagining the spectral glow of a northern night, the hot metal of her father’s snowmobile, the sharp, bracing smell of something alive.
The flat itself—eight square meters and, she suspected, once a utility closet—housed Oona, her meager clothes, and a backpack the size of a small wolf. The furniture was immigrant-thrift: a cot mattress set atop crates stamped with Polish fruit brands, a single, splintered chair, a chipped enamel pan for boiling water. The radiator was a false promise; it made a sound like a dying ptarmigan but radiated nothing at all. The walls sweated. The floor sweated. Oona sweated, and then shivered when the sweat cooled. She ate as little as possible, mainly marked down supermarket bread and room temperature sausage of questionable origin.
Her scholarship was enough for tuition and exactly nothing else. She had arrived in Tallinn with three hundred euro saved from berry-foraging, and after four months, this had dwindled to a pathetic jingle of coins. She wore every layer of clothing at once and, when she was lucky, doubled them with castoffs from the communal donation bin. The streets outside her block were filled with people in peacock sneakers and goose-down jackets that cost more than her village’s annual vodka supply. Oona found it all hilarious, the cult of appearance, the worship of brands and faces and newness. Still, she felt invisible and lonely.
She tried, at first, to find work. The University’s bulletin board had pages of offers for native speakers of English or Turkish or Polish, but none for someone who spoke a dialect of Northern Sami and enough German to ask for the toilet. The closest she came was a babysitting interview; the mother, who looked as if she wore perfume made from old money, took one glance at Oona’s hair and said, “Ah, looking for Osaline, part-time… good luck,” and told her the position was filled.
Oona could have called home. Her parents would have sent something, or more likely, nothing, but in either case, the pride she wore like a traditional gákti would not allow it. She was here as the face of her people, or so the village council had boasted, and she would not beg.
The ad appeared on a Saturday. Oona read it in the library, cradling a cheap coffee, using the university’s Wi-Fi because her phone plan had lapsed. She squinted at the text—her Estonian was still shaky, but she was quick with meanings.
Models wanted for photo project. Female-presenting, any background, unique look preferred. No experience necessary. Good pay for few hours. Discretion guaranteed.
The word “discretion” tickled her; it sounded like something medicinal or perverse. The website was minimal, white text on black, with only a Gmail address and an old phone number. She clicked through the sample gallery—portraits, mostly. Some girls stood in empty rooms, staring at the camera as if daring it to blink. Others smiled, a little lopsided, teeth bared in the way of people unused to smiling on command. There were some men, but most were like Oona—small, unadorned, sharply featured. She noticed the pattern at once. Nothing here was bland; nothing here looked like the stolid, pale Tallinner girls who packed the UBahn during rush hour. She considered her own reflection—a round face, cheekbones so high they looked breakable, small mouth, black hair in two tight braids. She had never thought of herself as beautiful. In the village, she’d been called fox, devil child, the accidental offspring of some wandering Russian. In Tallinn, she was invisible.
She snapped a selfie with the library computer’s webcam. The result was ghastly, but honest: flat lighting, ruddy nose, feral eyes, her hair bristling with static. She attached it to an email. The message read, in her best spellchecked Estonian:
“Hello. My name is Oona. I am interested in your model work. I am very available. I am not professional. Please tell me what to do.”
She signed it, and pressed send.
Nothing happened for two days. Then, at 2:16 in the morning, her phone vibrated with a reply:
Hello Oona, Thank you for your interest! You have the look we search. Can you come to our studio for test shoot this Wednesday, 13:00? Bring ID and wear simple clothes. We pay cash after, even for test. Address below. Sincerely, Tallinn Fantasie Films
The message was so blunt, so sincere, it must be a scam. She clicked the address. It was real—an old building in Vanalinn, ten minutes from her flat. She looked up “Fantasie Films” in every search engine. No one had been murdered there, or at least, not recently.
The night before the test shoot, Oona lay awake on her cot, hugging her knees to her chest. She tried to remember the last time she had done something for the first time. There had been the cross-border trek with her uncle, four days in the white, sleeping beneath a thermal blanket and learning which lichens taste like nothing, and which taste like frozen bile. There was the time she rode shotgun on the snowmobile to Kittilä, cursing in three languages when the engine died in minus forty. Every memory was etched with a simple brutality; nothing in her life had been gentle.
Now she was going to let a stranger take her picture. For money.
She borrowed a black turtleneck from the donation bin, washed it in the communal sink with a stolen squirt of dish soap, and dried it by draping it over the radiator. It smelled faintly of tobacco, but it fit. She braided her hair and slept in the shirt, so it would remember her shape.
The next morning, she skipped class. She ate two slices of stale rye and a raw carrot, drank a glass of water, and packed her passport and student card. For luck, she slipped a strip of reindeer jerky into her pocket. As she walked, Oona noticed how the city seemed different when you had somewhere to go. She missed her boots; Tallinners wore shoes like herders wore knives.
The studio was exactly as promised: third floor of an old brick building. A woman in a green jumpsuit was smoking on the stoop outside, eyes on her phone. Oona hesitated, checked the buzzer labeled ‘TFF Studio’. She pressed the button and a man’s voice, deeper than expected, buzzed her in.
The stairwell reeked of dust, old paint, and cheap detergent. She climbed, and as she did, Oona heard voices above—Estonian, then English, then laughter, which echoed down the shaft in a way that made her skin ripple.
At the landing, a door stood open. The woman from outside gestured her in. The space inside was black walls and white tile, hung with cables and backdrops and bright, alien lamps. A man in a tight black shirt stood behind a tripod, fussing with a complicated looking camera.
He looked up as Oona entered. His face was older than his hair, which was slicked and shone like graphite. He had the hands of a fisherman, thick-knuckled, and when he smiled, he did so only with his mouth.
“Tere, sa oled kindlasti Oona.” he said. “Come in, come in. I’m Andres. This is Vera.”
“Tere, rõõm kohtuda. Minu eesti keel on väga väike.” Hello, nice to meet you. My Estonian is very small.
“It’s ok, we all speak English, no problem.”
The woman in the jumpsuit gave a little salute. Her face was tanned, hard, her eyebrows sharp as crows. She moved like a PE teacher, swift and deliberate, and wore more makeup than anyone Oona had met.
“Sit,” Vera said in a hard Polish accent, pulling a stool out for her. “We fill the papers first, then we see what you can do.”
“Papers?” Oona asked, and then, more bravely: “What kind of photos are you making?”
Vera grinned, showing crooked teeth. “All the best kind. You will see. Fashion, art, hm…, something special, yes?”
Oona nodded, uncertain, but a little excited by the idea of anything being special.
Vera handed her a clipboard. Oona scanned the contract: Name, ID, permissions, some terms about image rights. It was all in Estonian. She signed anyway, her signature huge and looping.
“Super.” Andres said.
The studio was warmer than her flat, and the lights, when switched on, made a white, blinding sun. Andres had her stand against a paper backdrop, instructed her to look straight, then up, then left. Each time he pressed the shutter, the click made Oona twitch, but soon it became just another noise in a world of new noises.
After twenty minutes, Andres lowered his camera. “Very good. You have a gift, I think. Not afraid of lens.”
Oona smiled, honestly. Vera came over, adjusted her hair, and whispered, “Next part is more fun. You can do, yes?”
Oona nodded. She would do anything if it meant a hot meal.
Andres gestured at a clothing rack. “For next shoot, we want to see you in something different. ”
Vera handed Oona a sheer pink camisole and a pair of booty shorts so short they were obscene without even being worn.
“It is clean,” she said, as if reading her mind. “You change in there,” gesturing at a tiny cubicle with a mirror and curtain.
Oona stripped in seconds, unbothered by the exposure, and pulled the clothes on. It was cold, but when she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw someone new.
She stepped out, awkward and shy as her exposed butt cheeks flared with goosebumps, but she was reluctantly willing to try. Andres’ eyes widened a little, but his tone stayed clinical. “Perfect, perfect. Now, we do some portraits, then we see how you move. Okay?”
Oona nodded again.
As the camera flashed, Oona felt an odd freedom. There was power in standing still, in being observed. She thought of the lynx in the birch woods, how it melted into the underbrush, only to reappear and fix you with its lamp-glow eyes. Here, she might be both predator and prey. It was a small thrill.
When the shoot was done, Vera handed her an envelope. It was heavier than she expected. The bills inside were new and crisp, more than she had ever held at once.
“Aitäh,” Oona said, in decent Tallinner accent. Andres laughed.
“You come back next week? We have more work, if you like.”
“I like,” said Oona. She meant it.
She floated home on legs made of smoke, and that night, for the first time, Oona dreamed of Tallinn as a home—strange, dark, hungry, but something she could survive.
The second time Oona visited TFF Studios, she arrived with her hair braided tighter and a strange confidence that stiffened her posture. She had used some of the first payment to buy a proper meal—pork and potatoes, thick-sliced rye bread with real butter, and a beer from the corner market. She hadn’t told anyone at school how she earned it, though a girl in her anthropology seminar made a sly comment about “side gigs” that made Oona blush hard enough to feel it in her ears.
The world looked different when you had your own money. The morning of the shoot, Oona even bought a metro ticket, refusing to dart through the turnstiles like a rat. She watched herself in the U-Bahn window, the glass reflecting her with every station’s fluorescent stutter. The black turtleneck was still her only “nice” top, but she paired it with corduroy pants and, beneath, her best pair of woolen underwear. She wondered if the city would notice her.
This time, Andres greeted her with a handshake. “Oona, you are early! So professional.” There was a warmth in his eyes that was new. Vera was there too, wearing a sleeveless shirt that revealed a river of tattoos winding up her arm. She had set out coffee, and when Oona took a cup, she felt like she actually might be a professional. It lit a small flame of kinship with this odd tribe.
Vera pointed Oona toward the changing cubicle. “Today we do the lingerie, yes? Easy, nothing to it. All the new girls start here.” She handed Oona a hanger wrapped in plastic, a delicate white bralette and matching bottoms. “Try not to spill coffee on it.”
Oona snorted and changed. The lace was softer than she expected, and the fit was forgiving. She studied herself in the mirror, noticing her body as if for the first time. The angles of her arms and the bluntness of her collarbones, her flat chest and smooth belly. She wondered if this was what they meant by “unique look.” In the sauna at home, everyone was naked, grandmothers and children, bodies marked by childbirth and frostbite, no one caring at all. Here, nudity was like a trick: forbidden, but only just.
The photo set was simple—a low bed made up with gray sheets, a standing lamp, a rug that looked handwoven. Andres had her pose sitting first, then lying on her side, propped up on an elbow. Each shot was a small performance, Oona following Andres’s directions, learning to interpret his direction: “look here,” “more relaxed,” “just like that, very good.” She didn’t smile, because no one had told her to.
After the first ten minutes, Andres called Vera in to adjust something. Vera hovered behind, brushing stray hairs from Oona’s forehead, then whispering, “He will ask for more. You say if not okay, yes?”
Oona nodded, grateful for the warning but a little puzzled. She felt no threat here; the camera felt less invasive than the gaze of the university men who watched her with equal parts lust and confusion. Here, at least, everyone agreed on the terms.
The next set had her standing against a dark curtain, the lights behind so bright she almost squinted. Andres said, “We want to see natural, you know? Not too posed. Can you move, like you are just at home? Maybe fixing hair, or eating something?”
Oona shrugged. “At home we are usually outside, or in sauna. Clothes only for cold.” She picked up a fake apple from the prop table and bit it, hard enough to chip the paint. Vera snickered.
“Beautiful,” Andres said, snapping a rapid burst of images. “You are wild girl, I see it. Very fresh.”
He then asked, “Are you comfortable with no top? Many models do, but you say if not.” The phrasing—polite, but with a hint of expectation—reminded her of old men in her village, always making requests sound like suggestions.
Oona weighed the question. It was cold in the studio, but not as cold as the lake in May. She thought of her mother and the other women, their bodies loose and loud in the smokehouse, drinking beer with their breasts swinging. It seemed small, this request. She nodded, and removed the bralette, standing in just the underwear and her pale skin, goosebumps already rising.
Her chest was almost as flat as a boy’s, the skin so pale it almost glowed, with two hard, small nipples standing out sharp against the chill. The cold made every tiny hair on her arms and torso rise, but Oona forced herself to stand still, shoulders square, not caring if she looked ridiculous. She felt both exposed and untouchable, the way she had felt once jumping naked into the river, daring her cousins to look.
He had her turn, arms crossed loose at her ribs, then uncrossed, then hands on hips. The camera clicked and clicked. Vera watched from the edge, arms folded; Oona could sense her approval, quiet and rough-edged.
Andres shot quickly, perhaps sensing that the novelty would soon fade. Vera brought her a silk robe, and for a moment, Oona let herself feel cared for, as if she had sisters.
He lowered the camera and gave her a nod, like they’d finished something difficult together. Oona pulled the bralette back on, feeling oddly triumphant, and sat on the edge of the bed, sipping coffee while Vera scrolled through the images on a tablet.
“See, you are model now. Already you look like pro,” Vera said, sliding the pictures over for Oona to see.
Oona stared at her own face. The eyes were too large, and the nose was smashed by a camera angle, but there was something in her expression—an innocence, a shyness—that made her look younger than her years.
“I like these,” she said. “I don’t look stupid.”
Vera barked a laugh. “Men like this.”
Oona shrugged, but she smiled, too.
Vera’s eyes narrowed, as if assessing Oona in a new light. “If you want, there is more work. Pays more, too.”
“More?” Oona asked. “How much more?”
Vera named a sum that made Oona’s pulse jump. It was enough to pay her rent for a month, enough to buy a second-hand laptop or to mail real presents home.
“But you have to be okay with more—” Vera waggled her fingers, as if conjuring the word. “Exposure.”
Oona nodded, unsure what that entailed but wanting to prove she could handle it. “What must I do?”
Vera smiled, but her voice was careful. “We schedule you for next Friday.”
Oona left the studio with a full envelope and an odd elation that chased her down Pikk tänav, or ‘Ghost Street’, one of the oldest in Tallinn. She bought herself a kebab from the first stand she passed and ate it with both hands, licking sauce from her fingers in full view of a passing tram. At home, she lay on her cot and stared at the ceiling, the memory of the flash bulbs stuttering behind her eyelids.
She thought about what Vera had said, and wondered what exactly ‘more exposure’ meant. The next day, she washed the lingerie and hung it to dry.
