Tourmaline

by Paul Park

  They spent the night in Macin, and in the morning Miranda caught the ferry before dawn. Ludu Rat-tooth was inconsolable as they stood upon the dock. "You will not leave me here?" she cried. "Last night I saw my father. He was in the branches of the death tree and the blood was on his face."

  "I promise I won't leave you. I'll see you in an hour."

  Why had she come? Why had she chosen this detour? First, it was because every choice now seemed like a detour, and she was searching in the past for a pattern that made sense. And she was grasping at the story she had first heard from her mother's letter—how when she was just a few days old, she had smuggled out the plans for an invasion near the town of Kaposvar. Her aunt had hidden them in her diaper. What condition were they in when General Antonescu unfolded them upon his table?

  Second, she had a mental picture of Anna Djourek, the Russian attachee. She imagined a yellow-haired, dark-eyed girl, dressed in an embroidered smock in Oberammergau, which in her mind was not a town at all, but a pasture full of wildflowers, and Anna Djourek appeared in the middle of it like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music—no, that was not it. That was an illusion, conjured out of nothing and maintained over another picture to cover it.

  Miranda had shot a man. The moment it had happened, she had scarcely paused to notice, because of all the chaos of that day. But in the night she lay awake and thought about it, how the man had flailed his arms and staggered backward and collapsed, how he had dropped his gun and fallen. His knees had given way. He had lain flat on his back with a small, dry, singed, neat hole through his shoulder. Later, the hole had filled with blood.

  And perhaps that shot had killed him. What had he said, that he would rather die than be brought back and tortured in Berlin or Bucharest? Maybe that was happening to him now. Miranda could not think of that.

  "You won't leave me?" said Ludu Rat-tooth.

  Miranda had woken with a headache. And she felt no better when she stepped aboard the boat. The ferry had a small, uncertain, internal-combustion motor, which gave out clouds of greasy smoke and a sound like the firing of a gun. Packed in with people and animals, Miranda saw nothing of the trip across the water—the sky was still dark. In any case, alone among Roumanians, she was too nervous to pay attention to her surroundings. She was afraid of being recognized, even though she'd taken off her bracelet and put it in her pocket. Still, she kept her head down; it was not until she'd reached the other side, and coaxed the black horse up the ramp onto the dock, and swung herself into the new, high saddle, that she looked properly around. Ludu had told her the way. She took the river road into Braila, which was scarcely more than a village at that time, and one of the prettiest places in all Roumania.

  Built near the confluence of several rivers, it stood over a great system of marshland. Flights of water birds passed overhead. On Miranda's right hand stood a line of shooting lodges—tin-roofed, gaily painted, so she now leaned back and slapped her horse upon his croup—not that he needed urging. Raising his head, he pounded up the slope into the village.

  There Miranda had to pull him back, because of the chickens pecking in the dirt. The road was lined on either side with wooden duckboards. Well-dressed men and women promenaded. Braila was the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, and there were many naval officers. The women wore long dresses and carried parasols. Up ahead was a bronze statue of the naked Venus rising from the shell. Bronze dolphins played.

  In this quaint border town, delegates had gathered to resolve a trade dispute. For most of the past month, Crimean fishing boats and gunships had blocked the entrance to the Danube, in violation of the Treaty of Alibej. The Roumanian government had been slow to respond. The German maritime commissioner had asked for caution.

  Zelea Codreanu was there for the Roumanians. Miranda saw him take the air in front of the town offices, surrounded by his secretaries. The street was crowded now with horses and carriages. Miranda turned her head as she walked the horse past. There was no reason, she hoped, for him to recognize her in the daylight. He himself looked heavier, more solid as he peered over the tops of his half-moon spectacles at a small man in uniform. He wore a silk top hat. He carried a sheaf of papers under his arm.

  She did not see him turn around to stare at her retreating back.

  Miranda walked her horse through the jostling traffic. She didn't know what she was looking for. But up ahead she saw a narrow wooden house set back from the road. A flag hung breathless from the roof of the porch, a double-headed eagle, which was also stamped on Miranda's gold coins.

  What was she to do with the horse? In Western movies, in front of the saloon there was always a wooden rail. Or there had been a courtyard to the hotel at Macin, and Ludu had arranged everything with a couple of barefoot grooms. Here on one side of the house was a cobblestone alley where the horse didn't want to go. Instead Miranda slid out of the saddle and led him through the wrought-iron gate into the garden, and left him to eat the tallest flowers. She'd only be a few minutes, she thought.

  She had with her Alexei de Witte's insignium. He'd pressed it into her hand. It was a simple agate brooch, set in a ring of carved silver. As she came onto the porch, she slipped it from her pocket and gave it to the woman at the desk inside the front door. She asked for Anna Djourek, and then waited as the secretary disappeared into the back of the house.

  After a few minutes a woman came down the staircase. Dressed in a blue gown, she was holding the brooch in her palm. Her hair and skin were dark. Miranda was surprised to see she was quite fat.

  She blinked as she approached, as if she'd come out of a closet into the bright light of the hall. Her eyes were slightly crossed. "S'il vous plait?" she asked.

  "I have a letter from a friend of yours," Miranda said in English, while the woman blinked at her. She seemed baffled, so Miranda repeated herself in French.

  "Ah, a friend?"

  "Yes. He wants to say he's safe. Please, is there a place for us to speak?" Miranda turned her shoulder to the secretary, who had reappeared now at her desk by the door. She was staring out the window at the horse in the garden.

  Miranda held the letter out, but the woman in the blue gown did not take it. "Please?" she said again.

  Miranda gave the three pages of typescript a suggestive waggle. "Alexei de Witte gave me that brooch. He said you'd . . ."

  Anna Djourek interrupted. "Ah, I do not know this name."

  Again Miranda made a gesture with the letter. "Please, he said it would all be clear if you would read this. He said it was a message for your government. . . ."

  "My government?"

  Miranda clenched her teeth. She had not anticipated that the woman would be an idiot. "Follow me," she said, and walked into the house toward the staircase, away from the secretary by the door.

  "Please, you cannot go there," said Mlle. Djourek.

  Miranda turned back. "He gave me that brooch and said you'd recognize it. He gave me this letter, which is a message for your government. I know you will find it interesting."

  Now, finally, the woman took the three typescript pages and held them up.

  "It is in German?" she asked. "I do not have my glasses." She peered briefly at the embossed seal of the German Republic, and read a few words before looking up. " 'Streng Geheim . . .' What is this, please?"

  Miranda came close to her. "It is the order of march for the Third Army Corps," she murmured. "They will cross the Russian border at the Cosmesti Bridge."

  Anna Djourek smiled at her and wrinkled her nose, as if these words meant nothing. In fact they meant little enough to Miranda, who was losing patience. She was here for the sake of the man she had shot. "Alexei de Witte," she said. "He told me to tell you you were in a blue embroidered dress in Oberammergau, when you came from the university. . . ." And there was Julie Andrews in her mind.

  But in Braila, in the house of the Russian delegation, Anna Djourek screwed up her face. She raised her hand and pushed Miranda in the chest, pushed her away so that she stagg
ered back against the wall, which was covered in green-and-white flowered paper. "Quel salaud—what a disgusting pig!"

  The brooch was in her hand, and now she threw it down. "And you also. Who are you to know these things? Who are you—his lover, eh? What is your name?"

  She raised the typescript pages to a few inches from her nose, glared at them for a few seconds, and then crushed them into a ball. "What are you telling me? He is disgusting, I tell you—what do you know of these ridiculous accusations? The Cosmesti bridge? It is absurd. In any case I have no military function. Oh, who are you, who are you? Oberammergau, how can you say this word? What does it mean to you? Irina"—this to the secretary at the desk—"you summon the police."

  But the police were already on their way. Codreanu had dispatched them.

  THAT SAME MORNING, IN GERMANY, the Elector of Ratisbon received a message. He sat in his apartment at the top of his house. His delicate, small hand followed an ancient crack in the surface of his table. Over the centuries the grain had receded into the wood, leaving a marbled and uneven texture that gave him pleasure.

  On the table was a square of mirrored glass. Now as he watched, slow, printed letters appeared on its smooth face, one after another. Impatient, he looked away, forcing himself to examine an arrangement of columbine and wheat stalks in a heavy, stoneware vase. He counted to five hundred. Then he looked back.

  MY FRIEND I LOOKED WHERE YOU TOLD ME AND I FOUND HER NOT FAR AWAY. SHE EVEN SAID HER NAME. I GAVE HER A HORSE AND SENT HER ON HER WAY BUT YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED. IN THIS WORLD THERE IS IRONIC COINCIDENCE AND LUCK. YOU WILL BE VINDICATED I THINK. SHE WAS THERE WHEN POOR OLD ALEXEI DE WITTE REACHED THE END OF HIS RACE. BUT I THINK HE DID NOT FUMBLE THE BATON.

  After a few moments the letters faded and the surface of the looking glass was clear. The elector sat staring at the image of his face, where the words had been.

  There was a time when he had avoided the sight of it, had lived in a world without reflection. Managers of the great European hotels, when he had booked a suite of rooms, had had the looking glass removed even in the bath. But he had not been abroad in many years. Nor had he attended many of the social and political gatherings where once he'd been ubiquitous.

  When he had last come out of Roumania, he had been brought before a court of inquiry, accused of conjuring and prestidigitation. But because his father had been a high-ranking diplomat, and because he was related through his mother to an influential French family, the legal process had not gone further. His passport had been revoked and he'd returned home.

  Since then he'd scarcely left the confines of his house. As a matter of patriotism and convenience, with all his strength he'd tried to break himself of dangerous mental habits. He had pursued a new physical regimen and a course of study in literature, philosophy, and art. But because he spent so much time alone—his parents were dead, and he had no wife or children—all mental paths inexorably led back to the source of his disgrace: the hidden world, which after all exists, although his government had tried to subjugate all knowledge of it as a matter of national will.

  They were fools. They left themselves vulnerable and unguarded. The democratic traditions of the country, though they had led to prosperity and strength, also had this disadvantage: the suppression of superior men such as himself, who had been maimed and rendered worthless in the public eye. Yet surely there was still a way for an intelligent and modern man, a citizen of the future, so to say, unencumbered by vain social and religious constraints, to offer service to his country.

  He sat staring at himself in the mirrored glass. The childhood disease that had broken his face into chaotic lumps and splotches—it was not the enemy. Often now through hours of staring he had come almost to love himself, love the way he looked. Sometimes the entire house of his ancestors, vast as it was, was still not big enough to contain his love.

  BY THE CLOCK ON HIS wall it was almost noon. But in her private suite of rooms, Clara Brancoveanu was enjoying a late supper. All day the princess, as she sometimes did, had fasted, taking nourishment from lemon water and the appetite of her young friend. Now she was eating crackers, while he finished a salad of asparagus spears.

  He stopped and wiped his mouth. Distressed by something in her face, he cocked his head to the side. He smiled, then frowned, then tried to amuse her with a series of absurd expressions until she burst into tears. Then, "Oh my mother," he said. He came around the table to her side and went down on his knees before her chair. He pressed his cheek against her hands.

  Light came from tall, yellow candles. It flickered on the crystal and the intricate silk tablecloth. The princess tried to smile. "I am a foolish woman, Felix. Don't mind me—the fancies of a foolish woman. I'm afraid I will not leave this place."

  Her hair, coiled in soft braids, was gray. Her face was soft and wrinkled. "I think I've been a prisoner for half my life. At first it didn't matter after the prince was dead. And when Aegypta took the baby, where would I go? Only she was brave enough to stay at home. Always I'd expect this man to let me live someplace in Paris or in Alexandria—it didn't matter. Now I think he must have lost his mind. What purpose does this serve after these years? Or maybe he has died and they've forgotten us."

  The boy looked up at her. "Mother, will you give me my piano lesson tonight?" Then in a moment, "Did you have any children besides me?"

  She tried to smile. "Haven't you been listening? She was living in Mamaia with my sister. She'd be a woman now if she were still alive. Where is she lost in the wide world? I saw her only once when she was one day old. Aegypta said it would hurt less, but she was wrong. We smuggled the paper in her nappy!

  Oh, how we tweaked him by the nose! In all my life it was one thing to be proud of—haven't you heard this story? Haven't I told you this?"

  "No, mother." Felix pressed his cheek against her hands.

  "Now I wake up and I cannot breathe. Buried alive, that's what I am. And I think I'd give up everything if I could find my way to Great Roumania again. If I could see the lake at Mogosoaia or smell the salt air. My family had a hunting lodge outside Braila—oh, it was beautiful in the old days. And then of course the house in Kronstadt—Brasov—in the mountains. That's where I saw my husband for the first time, when he had come back from the military college in Berlin."

  After a moment Felix squeezed her hands. "Mother, will you give me my lesson new?"

  Princess Clara smiled. Pulling away, she dried her eyes with her thin knuckles. "Yes, I'd like that—never mind about me. Aegypta said I'd have to be the bravest, but it's never felt so brave to me. Just that I am dying, and I'm afraid I will die here. You won't let that happen, will you, child?"

  THAT DAY THERE WERE OTHERS who were thinking of Roumania, if only as an image of freedom or a place far away. They coveted the sights and smells and sounds. In Adrianopole in the courtyard of the Eski Seray, Peter Gross backed slowly from a big man who was dangling a chain. Across town, not far away, in a restaurant with covered windows, Andromeda sat back against the wall. Sick to her stomach, she examined the dealer's jeweled hands as he laid a line of cards upon a green baize surface. Her pale eyes were closed to slits.

  But in Roumania itself, there were some who wanted to be elsewhere. In a room at Third Army headquarters in Dobric, Lieutenant-Major Arslan Lubomyr, dressed in the dark blue uniform of the German general staff, stood holding a square of mirrored glass. By this means he had sent his message to the elector, but now the words had faded. The reflection showed his thin, ascetic, Tartar features; he put his hand over the glass as if to block them out. Then he raised his eyes to the map on the wall, where the Cosmesti bridge north of Focsani was circled in red ink. From there his gaze slid up the Russian border a thousand kilometers to the town of Sestokai in Lithuania. That crossing was also marked in red.

  Insula Calia

  IN ADRIANOPOLE, IN THE justice house on Sarayici Island, Peter stood in a line of prisoners. His hands were tied behind him. Men shuffled forward one at a ti
me to stand before the cadis, the judges in their cubicles at the front of the high room. Peter thought briefly of the line in the airport terminal, once when he'd flown with his father from Albany to Raleigh-Durham.

  At the front of the line he had to wait. In front of him three wooden cubicles protruded into the hall—the offices of the three judges who decided these cases. Around the perimeter, next to the open doors and glassless windows on the north and west sides of the hall, stood old men in brown uniforms. They wore bandoliers of cartridges and carried old-fashioned muskets. Veterans of Roumanian wars, Peter imagined. Maybe a generation ago they had fought against the Chevalier de Graz. Peter found himself staring at one, a thick-jowled man with a gray crew-cut and a bristling gray moustache. He had a belly, and between the stretching buttons of his tunic Peter could see patches of his undershirt.

  It was a sweltering morning. Drops of sweat ran down Peter's sides. Before dawn he had been brought here with a dozen others in a covered, horse-drawn cart. He had been happy to leave the prison, and that happiness had lasted to the front of the line.

  In the days of his imprisonment, no one yet had told him of the charge against him. Always he had reassured himself it must be something minor— stealing a chicken, improper documents. Or they'd question him about Andromeda. Already he had had his punishment. No sane judge could disagree.

  So he was optimistic as he waited, and it was only as he approached the front of the line that he began to worry. Who knew what was going to happen, after all? In his mind, to soak up nervousness, he had been going over a long poem he had learned when he was young. But he couldn't quite remember the final verse. A thought occurred to him—was he the only person in this world who knew this poem? And was the end of it now gone for good? And if he fudged the ending, and wrote down the poem, and tried to sell it as his own, would he make enough money to cross the border to Roumania? If so, why stop at Tennyson? He could do Shakespeare, e. e. cummings, Yeats.