The Shadow Land

by Elizabeth Kostova

  “That must have been very sad for you, too,” said Bobby.

  Alexandra, looking at him, thought suddenly: You could get a stone to talk.

  We were sitting at an outdoor restaurant in Burgas, Miss Radeva said. It’s in the old Sea Park, the Morska Gradina. If you go to Burgas, you will see it—a lovely place above the beach, although not as nice now as it once was. It had tables outside, on a terrace with a big stone balyustrada and a huge view of the water and sky. I was seventeen, and I had not been to the park since a day two months before when I was called to the hospital to hear that my parents had been brought there dead, and to receive their wet clothing in a bag. I had not been even to the beach since then. When I saw the outdoor restaurant again, with the evening sun over the big bay, the tables shining, and the stretch of blue water, I thought that I really did not want to sit down there. But my uncle seemed determined we would do it and I followed him. He held my chair, which he had always done for my mother but never before for me. That made me sad right away.

  Uncle Milen ordered me a glass of wine, although I was too young and he didn’t like to watch women drink. He ordered rakiya for himself and wished me health in a shaky voice. I could suddenly see that his straight dark hair, which was so thick when he was young, had begun to look frosty and thin. His eyes were red around the edges, maybe not from tears so much as from exhaustion. I had worn my favorite green dress and some shoes I liked with it, to thank him for taking me out, and he complimented me on my appearance. I had always felt I was his child, his favorite, because he had no children of his own and had not even married. He had told me once that he’d given his heart when he was young to a woman who couldn’t really love him, but that he had never regretted it.

  We sat eating and talking about unimportant things in the warm evening, and for a while I could believe that we were just out to dinner, uncle and niece, and that he would take me home to my parents later instead of to my grandmother’s apartment, where I had been living since their deaths. The trees were fully green, the best time of year, and there was a wonderful saltiness in the air instead of the stink of the refinery plant. I had thought many times since that day at the hospital that the beautiful weather was very strange—the sky had stayed blue and the sun kept coming up over the sea in the morning and going down behind our backs every evening. It had been a lovely day when they drowned, just very windy.

  Uncle Milen spoke for a while about his work, which had not been going very well, and asked me a little awkwardly how things were at my grandmother’s. He asked me if he could do anything for me, and to spare him from hearing the truth aloud, I said that he could take me out again to dinner in the Sea Park now and then. That made him smile—we always have known how to laugh and smile together, although he is also a serious and sometimes even grumpy man—and he said that with such good company he would want to come back often. He kept ordering small glasses of rakiya, and we ate the good food, and eventually I realized that he was a little bit drunk, or more than a little, since he stays calm and polite if he drinks. I was feeling somewhat off from the wine, myself, because I had rarely had a full glass and now I’d finished almost two.

  I thought about asking him what my mother had been like at my age, because I was hungry to know everything I could about my parents, now that they were gone. Instead I asked how the Lazarovi were, since we had often been at their place over the years and they were our great friends, almost like family. I knew that they must miss my parents, also. Neven was still living with them, studying at the chemical institute. “I suppose Stoyan will be disappointed to get an engineer instead of a musician,” my uncle had said to me once. Stoyan had tried for years to teach his son to play the violin, with no particular luck. Neven could play lots of pieces, but slowly and without expression. When we were children together, we both dreaded the end of each afternoon, when Neven would be called in from the street to practice his violin. He very much preferred playing ball, and we also had a large secret collection of foil wrappers—you know, from candies and other things. We spent hours smoothing them out, which makes them even shinier, until they get too fragile and crack.

  In any case, my uncle said that Vera and Stoyan were all right, but he thought Stoyan was a little ill. Not ill in body, he said, but in heart. Sad. “He gets this way now and then, in spite of his music.” My uncle sipped his rakiya. “You should have seen him before his arrest. So lively—not a noisy person, but full of life from his head to his shoes. Completely energetic.”

  I had never heard before that Stoyan had been arrested, and my uncle didn’t seem to notice my surprise, so I stayed quiet and let him talk. He was sitting back with his arms folded over his stomach, shaking his head. He said, “Stoyan was not the same after. I remember the time they came for him in Burgas. I was actually there, God help me.”

  He drank off some more, and again I didn’t try to stop him from speaking—or drinking.

  “Well, you know,” he said, “it was many years ago and we were all still more or less young, when they first moved to Burgas. I went to have dinner with Stoyan and Vera one evening, as I often did. I brought them some jars of pickles I had received from my grandmother in the village that week. It was an evening when Stoyan did not have to play in the orchestra, and we were all sitting at home in their front room. They had a section of an apartment, with an old couple living in the back room, hardly enough space for a young family. Vera had made it nice, with curtains she had sewn from some bright-colored material. After dinner we sat around talking. Stoyan said he would play for us, which he rarely did at home, and I remember that he played some of that Italian he liked so much, from memory, sounds like a—I don’t know how to describe it, very numerical and neat but also like water running down a slope. I can’t remember the composer’s name, just now, but I will think of it. Fantastic. I suppose I need a little more rakiya. Vera looked incredibly beautiful, sitting on their divan in the light from the lamp. Little Neven was away with his grandparents and it was like old times.

  “After Stoyan played, we sat talking some more and I began to think about getting home in time for the curfew, although I never liked to leave, and my own apartment seemed bare to me whenever I had been with them. But then there was a strong knock at the door. Their apartment was on the first floor, in an old building. That was a little strange already, because it was past eleven o’clock and the street had been quiet for a while. Vera got up to answer, looking worried. Stoyan sat with his face set and still, as if the sound had frozen him. He said, quietly: Pak. Again.

  “Then he lifted his violin, which he had been holding across his knees, and put it into the case with its bow, and swiftly put the whole case behind the divan before Vera even opened the door. When she turned from the person at the door her face was white. She and Stoyan looked at each other, and I felt as if I was not in the room. She stepped aside, and an officer in a plain uniform came in without speaking. Stoyan and I both stood up. For a minute I understood that this was some kind of summons but thought it might actually be for me, possibly something I had done wrong at work without knowing it.

  “Then Stoyan stepped forward. The officer took out some papers but still he didn’t even have to speak. I tell you, Stoyan went forward as if drawn toward him by a rope. The man put a hand on the gun at his belt, actually a bulge under the jacket, just for a second. I almost missed it, that gesture. Then he turned back to the door and Stoyan followed him. Vera was clenching her hands together and I knew she wanted to run to him. Stoyan turned around, and without looking at Vera at all, he said to me, Take care of her.”

  When my uncle reached this point in the story, he pinched the top of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and didn’t speak for a moment. “And I swear I did try,” he said. His voice wobbled. “I did try to do that. I admired him more than anyone I ever knew.”

  “What was he arrested for?” I asked him, hesitantly, because I had never thought of Uncle Stoyan as someone who could be in trouble. He had alw
ays seemed to me just a quiet person, a musician, hardworking, not many smiles but not any harsh words, either. He was not my idea of a criminal, but I knew that in earlier days people were sometimes arrested even when they were not criminals.

  Uncle Milen didn’t answer. His nose looked red. Instead he said, “I should not have told you this. I know I should not. You must never tell anyone.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “But Aunt Vera must have been glad to have him back safely.”

  That appeared to reassure him a little. He knew I would not speak about it outside our family. “Yes, she was very glad, when he came home.” And he ordered coffee for himself, and pancakes with cherry jam for me. That’s all I remember.

  Bobby sat with his arms folded, face thoughtful. “And he never told you anything else about Stoyan?”

  Miss Radeva shook her head. “No. Not about his being in trouble with the police. It must not have been bad trouble, because I didn’t hear any more about it. I would have been six or seven when it happened, and I remember only that Uncle Stoyan was away from home for a while. Of course, Uncle Milen told me some ordinary things about Stoyan, over the years, too—like that they had studied in Sofia at the same gimnasium, although my uncle was younger and they had not met then. They became acquainted later, when Stoyan returned from studying in Vienna and before Uncle Stoyan and Aunt Vera got married.”

  Miss Radeva was playing with a wisp of her dark hair that had escaped from the knot. “My uncle knew Aunt Vera’s family for years, too, because they lived in the same neighborhood in Sofia. They all loved music. And he told me that Stoyan liked to nap at lunchtime, so Neven and I should not be noisy at their apartment if we played there then.”

  Alexandra took a last sip of her coffee, thinking about Stoyan Lazarov, a musician who napped during his lunch hour and had been called away from his beautiful wife to the police station more than once. She imagined him coming back the next morning, dirty and tired, maybe even with a bruise on his face. Or had he been away for months, that time? Years?

  “Why did he say that—‘Again’ ?” Bobby asked.

  “Again?” Miss Radeva frowned.

  “Yes,” Bobby said. “Do you know why gospodin Lazarov said ‘Pak’ when they arrested him, in your uncle’s story?”

  Miss Radeva shrugged. “Nobody talked about these things. But I have heard that in those days if a person was arrested once, he was often arrested again, because he was under suspicion for the rest of his life. Now that I am thinking more about it, I remember that Uncle Stoyan was actually away several times while we were children and teenagers—one time for two years. Aunt Vera always said he was working in another part of the country.”

  Bobby and Alexandra glanced at each other. “We actually know,” Bobby said, “that he was arrested and sent to a labor camp, before Neven was born.”

  She shook her head, slowly. “They never told me that. But it explains a great deal.”

  Bobby hesitated. “We came here as quietly as we could, but we must tell you a little more now. We have been followed recently, and threatened with graffiti—or perhaps it is the Lazarovi and your uncle who are being threatened.” He told Miss Radeva everything else about the events of the previous five days. She looked increasingly distressed, twirling the lock of hair around her finger.

  “We’re sorry to involve you,” Alexandra said. “Please be careful. If you see anything that makes you nervous, call Bobby right away.”

  “Or if you remember anything else about Stoyan Lazarov that you think we should know,” Bobby added.

  “I will do that. But please, please—let me know, too, if you hear anything about my uncle, or any of them.” Miss Radeva stood, still graceful. Bobby and Alexandra got up, too, to tell her goodbye.

  “Blagodarya.” Bobby kissed her on both cheeks. “Of course we will call your mobile immediately if we hear something.”

  “Thank you,” Miss Radeva said.

  Alexandra put her arms around Miss Radeva’s slender shoulders and clung to her for a moment, although she knew this wasn’t the thing to do. Miss Radeva lifted Alexandra’s long hair gently in her hand and then let it drop. “Please drive carefully,” she said.

  Bobby and Alexandra watched her walking out the door, graceful in her heels. They sat down again for a moment while Bobby counted out money for the coffee and put it in a pile in the middle of the table. Just as he set the last coin on top, his phone rang.

  “It’s Irina,” he said. Alexandra could hear the old lady telling him something in Bulgarian, agitated. Bobby was alert at once, and when he hung up, he turned to Alexandra.

  “Bad news,” he said softly. “Very bad. Atanas Angelov has been found dead, in Irkad. She heard about it only a few minutes ago, from his son.”

  Alexandra could not make sense of this. “You mean gospodin—Irina’s artist? From yesterday? Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no, no.”

  Bobby clenched his hands on the table. “Yes. He was found this morning in the forest near Irkad. It looks as if he went there by himself to meet someone after we left—his son did not see him all night and was very worried. A man from the village found him.”

  “He went to meet someone?” Alexandra said stupidly.

  Bobby squeezed his hands together. “Someone who cut his throat.”

  “Oh, my God,” Alexandra said. Her breathing seemed to have shut down. She felt she was looking again at that quiet brown face, the tears trickling along its wrinkles but falling now into a wicked gash.

  “This is because of the urn,” Bobby said harshly. “It must be.”

  “Oh, no—it’s me,” Alexandra said, and she began to cry. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t taken it to the police and tried to find all these people. Or if I hadn’t kept it to begin with. This is the way I mess things up.”

  Bobby turned suddenly and, reaching out, shook her by the shoulders. “Stop that,” he said. She could see the fear in his face; she remembered how Angelov had been saddened by the fate he’d read there. “Stop that or I will slap you, Bird.”

  “What?” Alexandra said, outraged, but his tone was so angry, so affectionate, that she dried her eyes.

  He put his forehead against hers for a moment, right in the middle of the café, then straightened. “Irina is very upset and I am even more afraid for her safety, and Lenka’s as well. I told her we will go back to her right away.”

  1949

  We were divided into three groups and assigned to men they called our brigade chiefs. The brigade chiefs looked to me more like prisoners, in their torn garments and ill-fitting shoes, and I soon learned that they were just that: prisoners who had been promoted. They carried clubs, which they did not need just then; we went quietly with them to the cement washroom in our new divisions. Among the men with me, I knew the drunk from Sofia, who was dazed beyond speech. I also recognized from somewhere, but by face only, a gentle-looking young man with a brown beard and soft brown eyes. He moved quietly and gave me a glance so full of dignity, pain, and outrage that I felt we’d had an entire conversation. We might have met, in the old days, in a café or library in Sofia, where we would simply have nodded to each other.

  In the washroom, we were ordered to strip. I saw welts on the bearded man’s back, scabbing over like garnets. Our brigade chief looked so elderly that I wondered if he would be able to keep order among us, and also how he’d survived the horrors of this situation. Then I realized that he was not old but had simply lost almost all his teeth, so that his face had shrunk into itself and his eyes had drooped toward his cheeks. He told us that his name was Vanyo, but nothing more. He searched us while we were naked, in a businesslike way, taking a wristwatch from one man and an icon on a chain from another. He stuffed the watch into his pocket and dropped the icon into a slop bucket in the corner.

  Next he ordered another prisoner to help us shave our heads, which was painful, and check for lice; this they accomplished with old razors, buckets of cold water, and coarse lye soap in woo
den trays. I never saw my clothes again. They gave us piles of shirts and undergarments and trousers to choose from and watched as we traded feebly for anything that might fit: dead men’s clothing, we were all thinking, although it was at least relatively clean when we received it. There were some odd socks and shoes, not enough for all; some of the men with larger feet remained barefoot the first night. I found a pair of torn leather street shoes that stayed on if I tied the laces tightly.

  Our new brigade leader took us out into the yard again and distributed pans of bread and a pot of bean soup among us; it was foul, especially the soup, but we ate hungrily. He told us we would work and sleep together and that we must be ready to join our barracks, because the workers were returning soon. He did not say what work. Twilight had settled into darkness now and some of the guards switched on electric lights in the guardhouse; the rest carried lanterns, setting one outside each barrack door.

  Then we heard shouts, tramping steps, and a weird sort of horn, like a muffled army bugle, and the workers were coming through the gate, guarded with guns and clubs. I could hardly believe my eyes. The figures that moved into the light of the yard did not look like men but living skeletons—eyes hollowed out as if by giant spoons; heads patchily bald; clothing falling from their bodies and covered with soot, rock dust, machine grease, so that it no longer resembled fabric. And yet these figures moved forward, toward the pans of bread and pots of reeking soup; they pulled battered tin cups and bowls from under their rags and fed themselves ravenously.

  With a surge of horror, I remembered the etchings in my grandfather’s book of Dante, the masses of dead souls in the halls of the Underworld. These men did not glance at us. I had thought we looked disheveled and broken, but compared with these apparitions we were well and whole. I saw with fresh dismay how damaged their hands were, too—many of them wore grimy or bloodstained bandages, or were missing digits. How long had they been here? I put away, carefully, my belief that I would return to Vera in a matter of days; I didn’t want even to glance at it anymore.