by P. W. Child
“Yes, no, I prefer to take care of it myself,” she said; then she lowered her head to Sam’s face and asked, “What’s on it?”
“It’s in the cabinet, Nina. First things first. Take it now. And put it in your bag and don’t let anyone get wind of the fact that you are in possession of that thing. It could cost you your life,” he whispered urgently, all the while savoring the sweet smell of her hair. His lids fluttered open at the onslaught of the white light and he saw that she did as he told her.
“So…what is on it?” she repeated, her eyes dwelling to the blood stained bandage on his chest and upper arm. She wanted to touch it, but she refrained. Her big brown eyes searched his for an answer and Sam remembered how nice it was to be in Nina’s company.
Really close to his face, she relished the scent of Sam’s skin as he recounted the whole awful business to her and why he was now being hunted, why she needed to get his camera out of Germany as soon as possible. She nodded as he explained, but his eyes strayed from her pretty face momentarily and Sam stopped talking altogether.
“Sam?”
He stared past her, his face a mixture of shock and disappointment. Nina turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing that could provoke such a reaction.
“Sam, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“Where the fuck is Radu?” Sam asked out loud, exasperated.
“Who?” she asked, trying to calm her friend who was clearly upset, trying to get out of bed.
“Nurse! Nurse!” Sam shouted, and a nurse quickly entered the room to see what was going on. She asked him to stay in his bed, but he refused to comply.
The timid old man was the only one who did not stare at Sam’s outburst. All he wanted was a cigarette, but his daughter shook her head vehemently. Behind her the teenager watched Sam and Nina like a kindred, almost as if she was a caged captive behind the unseen bars of her parents’ control. She tucked her smokes deeper into her pocket to avoid her grandfather seeing it.
Finally, Nina apologetically lifted an open hand to the onlookers and visitors while Sam settled down at the nurse’s threat to call his doctor. He knew the doctor was only too keen on drugging him, so that was not something he wanted to test.
“Radu was discharged this morning, Herr Cleave,” the nurse informed him. “Don’t worry, he is fine.” She smiled now, hoping that her news was good, thinking that Sam probably thought the worst when he had seen the young boy’s bed empty.
“Discharged? This morning?” he gasped. It dawned on Sam that he had been sleeping the whole day. It was visiting hours, yes – evening visiting hours! Then he looked at the confused Nina and placed his good hand on the nurse’s forearm. Sam stammered, “Where to?”
“Of course that information is privileged, you understand,” the nurse replied while she drew the curtains and checked Sam’s bandage briefly. Nina found it odd. Patients were not normally checked up on during visiting hours, especially not with visitors still seated by the bed, as she was.
The nurse nervously darted her eyes from Nina to Sam and back to Nina once more. She did not know who this petite Scottish woman was, but she was evidently in Herr Cleave’s trust, so the nurse did not hesitate to include her in the conversation.
“Radu was adopted rather quickly by a prominent philanthropist and business woman, Greta Heller,” she whispered to them with a frightfully unhinged look which told both Sam and Nina that she was afraid of sharing the details.
“Adopted?” Sam asked.
“Yes. He is a homeless boy from Cluj, he told me,” she explained, rushing her words and constantly checking through a space in the screen curtain to make sure she would not be discovered. Her English was good, but when she spoke this rapidly her accent was a bit difficult follow. Nina gestured with her hand for the young nurse to slow down.
“Cluj? Where is that, exactly?” Nina asked.
“Romania,” the German nurse answered. “I am worried for the boy because my father had always been in stern opposition of Heller’s ventures. She is a very well-liked dignitary, you know, so there is no proving that she is up to more nefarious practices, but I tell you, we have reason to worry for that boy.”
“I have the same feeling,” Sam said softly. “I have had that feeling since I saw him and the people who constantly came to check on him…while he was sleeping.”
Sam has feelings about stuff? That’s a new one, Nina thought, but she kept her serious face on.
“Exactly,” the nurse replied. “He doesn’t even know them, Herr Cleave! How come they wish to adopt him? How come they can facilitate the adoption so swiftly? What would Greta Heller want with a little Romanian hobo when she already has a beloved son of her own? It is not as if she needed a child, particularly at her age, you see?”
“It does sound very suspicious,” Nina agreed. “And you are telling us this, because…?”
“Yes, you could lose your job by getting involved in this,” Sam warned under his breath. The nurse gave him a steely look.
“I am already involved.”
“How?” Nina asked, intrigued.
“Is it because I bonded a bit more with the little guy? Is that why you want me to do something about it?” Sam asked her. The nurse looked through the curtain with a look of agitated determination.
“Herr Cleave, my name is Clara Mueller. Last night my father and brothers were attacked and tortured for helping you.”
Sam felt a sledgehammer rupture his chest. It was too late to get Paddy and his MI-6 buddies in, it seemed.
“Please! Please god, tell me they are alive,” Sam implored, but the nurse started shaking, her eyes filling with tears and he expected the worst. Nina’s hand fell over her mouth in shock, although she did not know Herrn Mueller. But that did not take from the atrocity of the news.
“What I am trying to tell you is…”
“Nurse Clara! Are you in here?” the nurse in charge asked suddenly. She was already in the room and pulled aside the curtains with a strong swipe to see what was going on. Before her she saw that the patient was chatting to Nurse Clara while she was cleaning his wound and checking his stitches while the visitor was pouring him some water at the basin by the window.
“”Oh, I see you’re busy,” the grouchy nurse noted.
“Oh, yes, nurse,” Clara replied with a smile, “Herr Cleave complained of some seepage, so I had to check it immediately.”
“Of course.” She gave Sam a leer, folding her arms. “His doctor has been having her hands full with his restlessness. No wonder you don’t heal properly, Herr Cleave. You are just too…” she raised her eyebrow in discontent and took her time to pick the perfect word, “…animate.”
Sam flashed her one of his charming, naughty smiles and said, “There will be enough time to be inanimate when I’m dead.”
“Indeed,” she agreed, her smile not as friendly as smiles were intended to be. “Hopefully you will remain animate for at least another Christmas.” With that chilling hint she turned and walked off, reminding Clara that she had rounds to do as soon as she was done. Nina narrowed her eyes at the insidious charge nurse.
“What the fuck does that mean?” she said loudly, voicing her protest to the threat to her friend while trying not to stir up a hornet’s nest doing so and drawing unnecessary attention to Sam. “Bitch,” she said a lot softer, just to say it.
“Listen; just see if you can find the boy. Even get someone to kidnap him if you have to. Something heavy and ugly is on the rise and I have a feeling he is in the center of it all. There is just no way a child, a stray like Radu, would be that important to a millionaire from another country,” Nurse Clara whispered as she gathered up the dirty bandages and disposed of them in the bin, which she picked up with both hands. One more time she gave Nina and Sam an imploring look, nodded and walked out of the room.
“Visiting hours is over,” another nurse called from the corridor.
“Nina, you have to get out of here. If that pack of animals who hunt
ed me got to Herrn Mueller, they will know that I am here. They will be coming for me,” Sam said in a hard whisper, latching his hand onto Nina’s arm. “I want you to go. NOW!”
“And you?” she frowned, annoyed by his stubborn recklessness.
“I have nowhere to go. If I walk out of here they’ll know I am running, and…” he sighed in vexation and stared Nina down, “…I…I don’t want them to hurt you. Almost losing you in Russia did it for me, I think. There is no fucking way I am letting them find you.”
Nina’s heart skipped and she could feel the reddening of her skin, but she was Nina, therefore she had to dismiss his soppy caring.
“Like you have any say in my decisions,” she challenged. Sam scoffed and threw his head back at her hardheadedness, not that he expected anything else. She could see his annoyance and wanted to calm him down before he got really angry with her.
“Sam, come with me. I am on my way to the Czech Republic to do some consulting on an excavation at Chateau Zbiroh! Come with me, as my assistant. That way you will move under their radar, we will be out of Germany and we can regroup there. From there we can see if we can locate the whereabouts of this kid you are so worried about and we can ask Patrick to get a background check from Interpol on this Heller chick. What do you say?” she pitched, sincerely hoping he would agree to come with her. Not only would it save his life, but she needed his company, wanted it. Nina took Sam’s hand and caressed his skin with her warm fingertips to impress upon him how much it would mean to her.
He was no fool. He understood her intentions perfectly and had to admit that the alternative was dire. Besides, he loved her, whether she knew or not, whether she cared or not. Sam wanted to be around her as many times as he could be afforded that. For a long while they just stared at one another, and it was not awkward anymore to do so.
She left him a thick, warm sweater she bought him on arrival in Weimar, should he dismiss himself at night and she could not get to him immediately. Nina winked at Sam just before she left at the urging of the nurse.
“A pack of Marlboro’s,” she whispered as she slid it into the sweater’s fold, “for your health.”
Chapte r 13 – Radu’s New Home
“Where are we going, Frau Heller?” Radu asked from the backseat of the Heller’s’ Volvo as they travelled through the streets of Dresden.
“We are going home, Radu. Your new home,” she smiled without looking back at him from the passenger seat where she fixed her make-up in the vanity mirror. Her husband was driving, keeping quiet with a stern eye on the road. Heinz was not happy at all. He had no idea what was going on with his wife these past few weeks and he was certainly not ready to play daddy for another ten years. But out of respect towards Greta he elected to rather stay out of everything instead of speaking his disgruntled mind.
Radu, a wily judge of facial expressions, could tell that his new father was not at all impressed with his presence.
“Why can I not stay in my own country?” Radu asked, his eyes fixed on the stern and sullen big man behind the wheel. He could see Heinz perk up at his question, as if he too wished to hear the answer.
“Because in your country you were abandoned to the streets, darling. And if you stay on the streets you will keep committing crimes to survive and that will just have you ending up dead or in prison. Now, is that what you want?” she asked in her usual tactful tone.
Her husband cleared his throat and blinked his eyes a few times, again eager to know the response. Radu read his face carefully, but played along to ascertain Heinz’ position in the whole thing.
“At least I was free,” the boy answered and saw how Heinz nodded almost imperceptibly. That was when he knew that he had an ally in the Heller home, someone who condoned his absence from it and would welcome his disappearance.
“Do not be so ungrateful, Radu. I have allowed you to keep your own name and you are now living in luxury. You will never be hungry again, think of that!” she said, but her smile had faded at the thought of the young boy’s free spirited insistence. All the more she did not want her husband to hear the child say things like that, lest he step in with his support of giving up Radu to the authorities, as he had wanted to from the start.
“I am grateful, Frau Heller,” Radu smiled to please her rising temper.
“And please refrain from calling me Frau Heller. I am your mother now,” she objected.
“But you are not my mother,” the boy retorted rebelliously, his voice rising slightly in volume by the mention of the word reserved only for his own mother.
“Watch your tone,” the big man thundered, finally saying something. His voice was deep and angry, abrupt in its reprimand.
“It’s alright, Heinz. Remember, he is not used to a family,” she said with her hand on her husband’s arm as they stopped at a traffic light.
“I had a family,” Radu said. “But my father vanished and my mother is dead. I know all about families and I don’t like it. If I cannot have my real parents, I don’t want any.”
“How dare you?” Heinz roared, turning in his seat to scare the life out of the brat with his cold eyes staring from the driver’s seat. Radu recoiled.
“Heinz-Karl!” Greta barked. “You will only scare him off even more. Now both of you, settle down. We just don’t know one another yet, Radu. You’ll see how much fun it is to stay with us.”
She turned to face him over the back rest of the seat.
“I travel to many great places all over the world!” she smiled, sounding as excited as she could to impress him. “You can go everywhere with me!”
“Are you going back to Romania, then?” the boy asked her nonchalantly and it infuriated her that he was so persistent in his mindset, but the philanthropist in her refused to be drawn into an emotional showdown.
“Maybe later in the year,” she sighed, acting bored. With her people skills she was well aware that this would not only satisfy the boy that he would see his country again, but he would also stop insisting – at least for now. If he knew she was powerful in the political world, he would soon come to realize that she was an authority figure and not some good hearted pushover. He would come to see her as a reasonable, accommodating mother who still held the scepter in her household…and everywhere else.
Radu was quiet now, as Greta had predicted. Her phone rang just a few blocks from their home and when Greta looked at the screen, a previously unprecedented look of annoyed worry crossed her face again. Heinz pretended not to see it. Cunningly he looked in the rearview mirror with a frown, as he had been doing to supposedly keep an eye on Radu. But in actual fact the stern man was stealing glances to his wife, even though he knew he would not be able to see the identification of the caller.
“Ja,” she said simply, trying to maintain her usual kindness while asserting her power to the caller. Heinz was not an idiot. Every time she took this tone, he knew she was speaking to a person he was not supposed to know about. Little did he know that the smart young boy in the car held the same habits as he, to pay attention to detail, to absorb certain tones and mannerisms in a voice that would betray the intention of the speaker. Radu did not understand German, but he understood emotion and body language and that was universal.
She was very uneasy, not because of the person on the other side of the line, but because she did not wish to share a secret. It was clear as day to both her companions in the car. Greta could not converse now and she could not explain the caller to her husband, so she had to distance herself from their prying ears. Faking a sneeze, the sly Greta dropped her phone, letting it fall between her feet where she pressed the button to switch it off as she picked it up.
“Ah, Scheiße!” she exclaimed with a perfectly executed annoyance which fooled no-one.
“What does that mean?” Radu asked.
“Nothing,” Heinz answered rapidly, not wanting the boy to distract his wife from her ruse so that he could see how far she was willing to push the deceit. They pulled up to the toweri
ng white iron gate that guarded the driveway up to the great manor. A security guard emerged from the shelter of the enormous pine trees to check the car as per Greta’s instructions on all vehicles entering the premises.
Young Radu pressed his cheek hard against the window and looked up at the massive dark trees that lined the garden outside the fence. He had never been here before, but they evoked in him the feeling that he somehow knew this, as if it were a memory. It always fascinated him, these memories he had of things that had never happened. His mother used to shrug it off as a previous life or something he just did not recall dreaming of. But Radu remembered specific things of these places, even the scents and temperatures. The timber giants bent forward over the vehicle as the voices of the adults and their strange tongue melted into the background while his ears only heard the whisper of the forest. Creaking, their branches reached out to him as if they beckoned him home, but his home was not a garden full of trees. It was the streets of Cluj, the parks of the city and the quaint little shops on the sidewalks. Was it not?
He may have been mistaken; he was not sure, but he could have sworn that he could see a great clearing through the trees where a group of long haired maidens were dancing. They wore skirts like his mother used to wear and even their hair flew like hers, but he could not understand them. They sang out loud, their eyes rolling in ecstatic worship to the trees that surrounded them while their slender marble hands, adorned with silver coins, spoke a language of gesture. It was sublime and Radu could not peel his eyes from them, even when the car started moving.
Finally they disappeared behind the fence. His neck hurt from being turned at such an unnatural angle, Radu had to relent and leave the dancing girls behind him. When they parked in the garage, the sudden silence deafened him.