The Girl They Left Behind

by Roxanne Veletzos

  Perhaps looking after Victor gave Anton a chance to heal the wounds of his own youth, she thought, gazing absentmindedly out the window. Perhaps that was why Anton dropped off food on Victor’s doorstep when there was so little to spare, why he checked in on him nearly daily to see if he had enough oil for his kerosene lamps, enough ink for his pens, enough money to get to the university on the trolley and not have to walk on foot. Why he spoke of him with the affection of a father.

  But what truly surprised Despina was that Natalia, too, had come to expect Victor’s visits just as eagerly. Her daughter had never taken more than a lukewarm interest in any of their friends—or many adults, for that matter. Yet she was the first to greet him at the door when he knocked once, then two more times rapidly to announce his arrival, bearing the usual bouquet of flowers—lilies and daisies and wild roses that he had most likely collected from a park on his way. She shrieked in delight when he swung her overhead in the doorway and carried her into the house on his back as easily as he might a half-empty knapsack. A trace of pride gleamed in Talia’s eyes whenever he crouched down next to her to watch her play various pieces that she was becoming quite good at, pieces from Beethoven or Chopin which she had practiced all day to impress him, to soak in the stunned pause between her ending and his applause. When she spoke, Victor’s attention was on her, solely on her. No one ever treated her with such consideration or paid her as much attention. In a short time, Despina realized, Victor had done more for the girl’s self-esteem than her family had in all the years she had been living under their roof.

  Despina often wondered, how was it that someone as sensitive as Victor could be so utterly alone? Not lonely, for he hardly seemed the type to need anyone’s company, but devoid of people in his life. Where were his parents? Did he have siblings or relatives? Certainly, he was good-looking enough to have attracted the attention of some young lady by now. With his sharp, decisively masculine nose, his high forehead, and full, sensual lips, there was no denying that he was quite attractive. But something about his wiry frame and slightly stooped shoulders, the pallor of his skin, and the exceedingly angular cheekbones gave him an air of fragility or ill health that at first glance might have inspired pity rather than awe. And he was always absorbed in thought, his eyes bearing the forlorn look of someone who was pondering a difficult problem or mathematical equation. No, Victor was not an open book, Despina knew, but she had no doubt that someday he would accomplish great things. She, for one, took great comfort in knowing that in a city that had gone up in flames, the devotion of a man like him was the one thing she could still count on.

  The trolley lurched forward and came to an abrupt stop, catapulting Despina out of her thoughts. She grabbed her bag in one hand and Natalia’s hand in the other, and they descended in a hurry, just as the trolley’s engine revved up, ready to loop around the cul-de-sac and resume its trip back to the city. Despina wanted to get to the house quickly. A day like this was not to be squandered, and she intended to make the most of it, especially now with the scent of autumn already in the air. It was not until they actually arrived at the house and opened up all the French windows overlooking the lake that she knew the garden was where they needed to be, the garden filled with lilies and dahlias and rosebushes, all of which would be dormant in less than two months’ time.

  “Come, Talia,” she said, grabbing a blanket and placing a makeshift lunch inside a picnic basket. “Come outside.”

  Underneath the glorious canopy of an ancient oak, they stretched out side by side, hair loose, shoes off, grass tickling their skin. Natalia was humming a melody, and soon her voice softened, until it stopped and only her breath hummed in Despina’s ear. She was overcome with something in that moment—a feeling of ecstasy as much as certitude, that all the beauty in the world was here, in this moment, that she already had everything that could ever give her life meaning. Things would turn out all right. The war would pass, the sirens would eventually stop, the falling of debris would cease, and in the end, their lives—as Anton had promised not long ago—would get back to normal.

  Sometime later, she would wonder if in that instant she’d tempted fate. To be so complete, so serene—had she tempted the gods? Had she drawn proof that bliss was a fleeting state, one that could vanish at the snap of a finger? It came so softly at first—surely no more than a colony of bees hovering over her rosebushes—and she closed her eyes against it, ignoring it. But then it grew and expanded, and soon there was no denying that what she was hearing was a siren.

  Jolting upright, she tried to make out the direction. It sounded far away, not as acute as usual, and for a moment she thought it would not affect them after all, that it would pass. But she barely had time to shake Natalia awake before three tiny dots appeared above them. Circling in the flawlessly blue sky, diving down lower like eagles hunting for prey, the fighters came into view.

  “Get up, Talia, get up now!” she screamed, pulling the girl upward, dragging her to her feet. “We have to go!”

  Startled, Natalia scrambled to her feet, stepping on a sharp shrub. She yelped, but her mother kept pulling at her, and she had no choice but to hobble along even though her foot was bleeding.

  “Where are we going? Where, Mama?” she screamed, for they were running not toward the house but toward the front gate, and she couldn’t hear a thing.

  “There’s no time,” Despina mouthed. “This way.”

  Up and down the sidewalk they scrambled, searching for a place to take refuge, an entryway, an alcove of any kind. It was a split-second decision, driven by panic or impulse, and Despina feared now that she’d made a mistake. But she couldn’t think straight, her head was spinning, and her pulse was tearing through her like a freight train. Natalia was pulling on her sleeve, shouting something, and as a shadow passed through the sky, she looked up and saw the Luftwaffe come at them with such speed that she fell to her knees.

  “Happy thoughts, Talia, remember? Think of something happy,” she managed to utter, bringing Natalia down with her and covering her body with hers. As the sky exploded in a sheet of glass and roof shingles, in a cloud of ash, her only hope was that Natalia—as she had taught her to do in the shelter—was able to pluck from her memory something that had once filled her with joy.

  When it was over at last, when the ominous silence had gone on long enough for her to know that the fighters had gone, Despina did not have the strength to rise. At first, she thought she’d been hit, but there was no pain anywhere, no blood seeping from any part of her body. Crimson rivulets ran down to her ankles over her torn silk stockings, but other than that, she appeared unharmed. Breathe. Breathe. You are still alive, she willed herself, struggling to get some air into her lungs.

  Underneath her, Natalia was murmuring incoherently, saying something Despina couldn’t understand. It was only when she brought her ear close to her daughter’s lips that she realized the girl was mumbling a prayer. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” she heard her say.

  In the end, when they stood and began ambling down the sidewalk like marionettes pulled by invisible strings, nothing looked the same. Despina could not recognize a single residence on this block, even though she had passed them all a hundred times before. Before the war, she and Anton often strolled down this very street on summer nights, sneaking away for brief moments from their constant weekend guests. Now she could not tell one house from the next. The facades had all crumbled, and large piles of stucco and cement had overfilled the sidewalks, burying the once ornate iron entrances. The broken windows were like gouged eyes, ugly and dark and pleading, and not a sound emerged through them. There were no voices, no cries for help, no barking dogs. Only silence.

  Not quite at the end of the block, Despina came to a sudden halt and let go of Natalia’s hand. She stood there in her chalky, ash-covered dress, eyes blank with incomprehension, staring ahead, coughing, choking on the smoke.

  Through a gaping hole in the facade of what had once been her bea
utiful lake house, sun rays filtered through a cloud of ash, illuminating the ravished interior. On the back wall, an intricate Turkish tapestry still hung next to the green velvet chair, and on the side table next to it, the telephone rested unharmed.

  “Mama?”

  Despina stared blankly into the middle distance.

  “Mama?”

  Natalia watched helplessly as her mother crumpled at the edge of the sidewalk and wept in a strange way, a way she had not seen before. She wept without making a sound. When she looked up at last, her fingers had left tracks along her temples, where soot had collected like black snow against the ivory paleness of her skin.

  18

  THERE HAD BEEN NO CHOICE for Despina but to agree to leave for the country. She cried and pleaded and threatened, kneeling at Anton’s feet, but he would no longer relent. After Despina and Natalia had only by a miracle escaped the bombing at the lake house, he was no longer willing to compromise or take chances.

  “You have to go. You have to take her and go. You owe it to me, to her, for Christ’s sake!” He practically leaped from the sofa, his voice escalating with unusual force. “You cannot stay, not after what’s happened, Despina!”

  Despina went over to him and rested her hand on his shoulder, but he pulled away roughly. Then he tossed the rest of his cigarette into the fireplace.

  Wide-eyed, Despina regarded him silently, then turned and headed for the door. She was almost out of the room when his voice followed, a little calmer.

  “I will come and see you every weekend. No bombs can keep me away, you know that.”

  When she spun around to face him, her eyes were blazing. “It’s forty kilometers, Anton! Are you going to travel that far on foot? Every weekend?”

  “I won’t need to walk,” he replied softly. “I can catch a train, be there by lunchtime. We can go on picnics, we can watch Natalia swim in the river, we can laugh like we used to, breathe some much-needed fresh air. Why should all of that seem so uninviting to you?”

  She laughed then, but it was a shrill, forced laugh. “Anton, we both know that the trains will stop running soon. And what if they bomb the train station? How will you get to us then?”

  It was his turn to storm out of the room. Despina watched him whirl past her and slam the French door so hard that the glass squares rattled in their frames. She sighed and fixed her eyes on the ground. This was not her husband. This was not her peaceful, loving, accommodating husband. She had to do something.

  It wasn’t so much that Despina was adamantly against leaving her life in the city; whatever remained of it now was hardly enough to keep her here. She knew it was the wise thing to do, the sensible thing. But the idea of parting from Anton at a time like this seemed inconceivable. Perhaps she should have listened to him earlier. If she’d agreed to leave months ago as he had wanted, he might have been able to join them. Now he was stuck here in this cemetery of crumbling, incinerated buildings in case the army needed him to take part in the war’s dying throes. Not that it was likely that the Germans could sustain their efforts much longer. With France liberated after four years of Nazi occupation, much of Europe was quickly slipping from Hitler’s grasp. But war was still war, and there was no telling how much longer it would go on. And while the war was still a reality, Anton could not leave the city for more than a couple of days.

  It would be weeks before she’d see him again, this Despina knew in her heart. Yet he was more determined than her these days, and she could no longer resist his wishes.

  The following Sunday, Natalia watched her parents say their farewells from the backseat of the town car her father had hired to take them to the train station. She listened to their voices whispering, rising and falling like waves crashing against a shore.

  “I will see you and Talia in a few days,” her father was saying, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. It was only midmorning, but the sidewalk was already blistering, the heat radiating off the melting asphalt. “Try not to get accustomed to getting on without me.”

  Leaning against the cool leather of the backseat, Natalia sighed and smoothed out her dress. It would be as wrinkled and sweaty as an old rag, and if they went on like this much longer, she’d have no choice but to go inside to change. This had to be the longest farewell in history. Even the driver had checked his watch more than three times and was drumming his gloved fingers on the wheel.

  Feeling a tinge of embarrassment, Natalia rolled down her window. Trying to ignore her mother, who was now weeping openly in her father’s arms, she shouted cheerfully, “Good-bye, Papa, we’ll miss you!”

  That got her mother into the car, where she slid in next to her and put on a pair of sunglasses. When the car pulled away, only Natalia turned to get a last look at her father. She saw him standing near the curb with his hand held up in a gesture of good-bye, growing smaller in the tinted back window.

  “You are here! Oh, goodness, I was beginning to worry!” Ecaterina appeared in the massive oak entrance of her three-story villa, which resembled a medieval castle more than a country house, with its steeply pitched roof, half-timbered stucco walls, and massive windows. Pushing the servants out of the way, she hurried down the long, curved stairway. Climbing out of the horse-drawn carriage that had been sent to fetch them from the station, her mother straightened her skirt and fingered her pearl strand as if she was being deposited at a gala, not in the middle of a farmland. Natalia hopped down as well and embraced her aunt, who, despite the resemblance to her mother, looked like she belonged to another century in her leather slippers and peasant dress, which fluttered about her sturdy bare legs like a tent. Even her mother seemed shocked to be hugged with such ferocity.

  “Hello, sweethearts,” Ecaterina sang, clasping a hand to her mouth as she turned to Natalia. “Look at how much you’ve grown!” She clucked her tongue. “But too pale, too thin! Well, we’ll have to fix that! At least you’ve come to your senses, Despina. How long have I been asking you to come out here? How long?” Motioning to one of the servants to unload the bags, she placed one arm around her sister, the other around Natalia. “Well, let me tell you. It will take a moment or two to get used to the country life, but it’s really so much better! I mean, who needs all that dust, all that”—she stopped and made a forward gesture—“pollution? I will take care of you both, don’t you worry! And the girls, they are so excited to spend time with Natalia! You will love it here, I promise. Don’t you like this place already? Don’t you?”

  An hour later, as they dined on the outdoor veranda, Despina had barely spoken at all. She had not touched her plate, waving off whatever was placed in front of her by a florid young girl wearing a bright blue maid’s uniform, and only taking small sips of her wine. Natalia and Ecaterina’s girls—waifish twins who had studied their fingernails all through dinner—had decided to pass on dessert and went off to play cards and listen to records.

  Now that it was just the two of them, Ecaterina was filling the space with endless stories, talking nonstop about things that for Despina held little interest. She was so tired and consumed, and she could not get respite from her thoughts, from what lingered constantly at the back of her mind. Just now, she realized, the sirens would be sounding over the city. Just now, the shells would begin raining down without much warning, obliterating what was left of Bucharest. The fighter planes would destroy more streets, more blocks, maybe theirs this time. An image sliced through her. She saw Anton shielding his eyes as he gazed in awe at an expanding sphere of light and smoke billowing over their terrace. She placed her napkin alongside her untouched dinner.

  “Excuse me, Ecaterina, I think I need to go lie down. Would you mind?”

  “Of course not, darling. Florina will show you to your room. You just need some rest, that’s all.”

  Despina pushed her chair back and smiled sadly. “If that could only be the cure. Please make sure the girls don’t stay up too late. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The first thing Despina noticed when s
he entered the guest suite was that it did not possess the same dark, oppressive aura as the rest of the house. Near a corner on the far side of the room, a spacious cedar armoire had been emptied and left open. A few of her favorite books had been placed on a shelf above the bed, and on the side table a bouquet of white lilies was carefully arranged in a vase next to a water carafe. She poured herself a glass and sat on the edge of the quilt. Ecaterina had gone out of her way to make this room as homey as possible, but it only made her miss her own home all the more.

  Yet even back home, things were hardly the same. Their lake house was gone, and she was no longer surrounded by the company of her sisters, and she and Maria had quarreled. Just thinking about what had taken place the afternoon before their departure felt like a blade twisting inside her heart. It wasn’t so much the words that had been exchanged when Maria handed her that letter, which threatened to ruin everything she had ever fought for, everything that made her life complete. It was the way Maria had regarded her with those soulful eyes when after reading it, she’d meant to tear it to pieces. But that look had been enough to stop her from destroying the one thing that could strike at the heart of her family. And for that she did not know how to forgive Maria.

  The empty glass trembled in her hand as she went to the French doors. She flung them wide open and stood there leaning against the doorjamb, letting the evening breeze linger over her face. Could Natalia’s biological parents come back for her? Would they come back, searching for their lost child, leaving no stone unturned, once the war ended? It wouldn’t be difficult, after all. All they had to do was follow the thread back to where it had started, back to her very own cousin.