Blitzed

by Lauren Landish

  I rolled my eyes at the tired old joke. I didn't give a damn about American politics beyond how it directly affected my life and my people. "So what now? Obviously you're pissed off at me, which is why I find myself in a cargo container in what I can assume is Ukraine. But you don't want to kill me. I mean, why go to all the trouble and expense to bring me here from France just to shoot me? And where the hell is my brother?"

  The man leaned his head back and started laughing like I'd just said the funniest thing in the world. He laughed for a long time before calming down, wiping at the corners of his eyes. "Oh, Felix, I don't want to kill you. No, not at all. Instead, I plan on changing you. Your father took a crown, I'm giving them a king to be their servant."

  I couldn't help it, I laughed. "Good fucking luck. I serve no man."

  "Of course not, I wouldn't demean you to serve a man," my captor said. "You will serve my niece instead. And you won't have a choice."

  "I'd rather die," I said, and the man laughed.

  "You still think you will have a choice in the matter. No, Felix, you won’t. Since you’re going to not care about this later anyway, let me tell you what’s going to happen. You’ll be crafted, in the ways started under the Soviets but perfected by others since then. Your will and your personality will be remolded into the image and shape that I choose. You’ll serve my niece, and in fact, you’ll love her completely. You will be her loyal, willing puppy dog. You will be happy to scrub her toilets, or to lie at the foot of her bed and guard her in her sleep. You’re a handsome man, well proportioned, she may even want to use you as her living, breathing sex toy. Only then, after you’re completely in her thrall, will she make the choice if you’re to live or die. It’s of no concern to me."

  I shook my head. "That's impossible."

  "Is it?" he asked. "There’s been advancements in chemistry, brain pattern recognition, and other sciences that most people are not even aware of, or if they are, they don’t know how to put together the different pieces for maximum effect. I happen to know men who do. And if you think that you’re going to be rescued by your brother, or even if you’re wondering about him, don't. Who do you think sold you out to me anyway?"

  I felt my mouth drop open, unable to hide my shock at the simple truth in his voice. My captor stepped back and smirked. "Don’t worry, Felix. Soon enough, all of this will be nothing more than an unpleasant memory to you anyway."

  The door closed, and I heard the latch shut, sealing me in. In the inky black darkness, the next sound filled my heart with fear, as the light hissing sound of gas being released into the container came to my ears, and my eyelids started to droop. I fought it as hard as I could, but it was irresistible. My last thought was only that I had to hold onto something because I had to get back to Jordan.

  Chapter 26

  Jordan

  In the four days since Francois came back from Calais, I hadn't done much more than cry, sleep, and cry again. Francois came back, shaken up and his eyes haunted, telling me that they'd been double crossed. "One of them pulled a gun, and Felix pushed me out the door, trying to protect me. I ran for the car, hoping he would follow. I was halfway across the parking lot when the bullets . . .”

  I had been unable to focus, and Francois drove us back to Valence, telling Charani and Syeira when we got back. Syeira had clothed herself in black, her body seeming to shrink as the days passed. I hardly noticed, depression washing over me every time I came out of sleep. The dreams were better. At least there, my Felix was still with me, holding my hand as we talked about our futures, about his leaving the life of crime or the possibility of having children. I saw myself growing older, but not caring as long as my Felix was with me, father to my children and nourisher of my soul. In my dreams, I didn't have to think about life without him.

  The morning of the fifth day, I woke up to find Charani seated on the edge of my bed, a concerned look on her face. "You can’t stay in bed forever."

  "Go away please,” I groaned, trying to roll over. It scared me slightly when I realized I was so weak from lack of food and water that I couldn't even do that. I thought back, and realized it’d been at least two days since I'd eaten or drank anything. "I just want to die."

  "No you don't," she said softly, laying a hand on my shoulder. "It hurts, we’re all in pain, but you can’t give up. Francois needs you more than ever."

  At the mention of Francois, I found the strength to open my eyes again.

  "Oh, he won't say it, he's a man. His pride won’t let him admit any weakness, anything but the strength he thinks he needs to display with the position he’s now thrust into. He thinks he has to be some sort of Titan for you, for me, and for Syeira. But he’s just a man, and he needs you with him."

  "And how am I to do that?" I rasped, my throat dry as the desert. "He leaves me alone."

  "Because he doesn’t know how to help you grieve, nor does he even know how to grieve himself," Charani replied. "So you must be strong and go to him. Come, you don’t have to do it alone."

  I tried sitting up, and failed miserably. "Help . . . please."

  Charani shook her head. "Stay there, but stay awake. I will be back shortly."

  I lay on my side, trying after three attempts to roll onto my back. I could feel the bed underneath me cold and wet, and I wondered if it was sweat, tears, or if I was so weak I'd pissed the bed without knowing it.

  Charani came back in, holding a bowl of soup. "Stay there, just sip," she said, sitting back down. Setting the bowl aside for a moment, she picked my head up and slid a pillow underneath me, letting me recline. "Now, slow sips, just swallow."

  Spoon by spoon over the next hour, she fed me sips of the warm broth. There wasn't much in it, just a basic chicken broth, but it helped. I could taste the bullion cubes and the natural fats in the broth which gave me a bit of energy. "After this, I will help you wash," she soothed, helping with a dribble that escaped my lips. "Then you’ll go to Francois when he gets home."

  "Where is he?" I asked, my voice stronger than before. "I thought he’d be here."

  "He’s in town," Charani said. "The other members of our tribal group, they’re having a meeting. While by tradition Francois should take over, it’s not assured."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  Charani sighed. "When my father died, it was already a bit contentious. Felix was so young for such a position, and while the Romani respect the family tradition, there’s also reality. If he hadn’t had such a history of serious study and reflection, he might not have been made King."

  "Francois doesn’t have such a reputation," I said. "He's been trying to garner his own."

  "Which is problematic," Charani replied. "A few years ago, he would have never have been allowed to ascend. Now though, he’s older, there is a chance."

  I took another spoonful of soup, and thought. “Would it be so bad if he wasn't? I know it’d be a blow to his pride, but would it be so bad?"

  Charani shrugged. "I look at it this way. I know that Felix’s decision to leave the profession was something you liked. If Francois is made King, he’ll be too busy being both King and husband to be a thief. Would that not be a safer?"

  I nodded in agreement. "What about Syeira?"

  “I’ll take care of my sister, I’ve been with her since birth. You worry about my son," Charani replied. She spooned the last of the soup into my mouth. "How do you feel?"

  "Shattered, sad, but better than I was an hour ago," I said. "But who do I turn to when I need strength?"

  "You can turn to my sister and I. We’ll be ready when you need us. But first, lets get you cleaned up." She smiled and set the bowl aside, stroking my hair. I smiled back, knowing that while Charani wasn't the woman who gave birth to me, she was more than filling in admirably.

  "None taken. Now, how about you help me up and to the shower?"

  The night sky was filled with stars when Francois came home, his face tense and his eyes haunted. Closing the door behind him, his face immediately brightened
when he saw me sitting at the dining room table, freshly scrubbed and freshly clothed. I greeted him with the best smile I could. "Welcome home."

  Saying nothing, his eyes brimming with emotion and relief, Francois picked me up from the chair, holding me to his chest in a tender embrace. I felt feather light, and let him hold me silently. Charani and Syeira watched for a few seconds, then left the kitchen area. "I missed you."

  "I'm sorry," I apologized. "I know that you’re grieving your brother as much as I am. Probably even more."

  "That’s beside the point," Francois replied, saying nothing else as he continued to hold me in his arms. Carrying me gently, he took me into the living room area, setting me down on the couch. "My only concern this whole time has been your health. Each day I watched as you wasted away further, and I didn't know what I could do to help you. I’m not so good in emotional situations, but I’ll learn. I was feeling like I would lose you too."

  "You won’t. So what’s the news?” I asked, changing the subject. I’d stepped on a scale earlier, after being frightened by the image of my reflection in the bathroom mirror. “It’s good I hope.”

  "Nothing official yet,” Francois said with a small shake of his head. "But they’re coming around. The knowledge that I have you is helping, in fact. The other men, they feel like me being in a relationship somehow shows I’ve matured."

  "I don't know how you were before, but I can say that you’re more than ready to do what needs to be done," I said. "Francois . . .”

  "I know," he answered, reading the emotions in my eyes. "I miss him too. We’ll have a memorial ceremony as soon as the vote is completed. That should be in a day or two. I’ll shed my tears there. For now, I’ve got a lot to do, regardless of the final verdict. I also have a very serious question for you, Jordan."

  "Yes, Francois?" I asked, suddenly nervous. His face was so serious and composed, there was none of the good humor or twinkle that I had come to expect from him. Felix's death had changed him, and I wondered if that good-natured Francois, the daring one who had somehow convinced me to have sex in the middle of a forest would ever return. "What is it?"

  "Do you still want to be my wife?" he asked, setting me down and taking my hands. "I know it’d be different from if Felix was still here, but my feelings for you are the same. I can’t imagine a future without you."

  I blinked, relief washing over me unexpectedly. Had I actually thought that Francois wouldn't want me still? “Of course, my love. I need you more than ever.”

  He bent his head, looking down and blinking before looking up at me, his eyes glistening. "When you are recovered, and our tears are shed, we’ll talk about that more. For now though, let’s have dinner. You look like you need it.”

  Chapter 27

  Francois

  With a real meal sitting in her belly for the first time in days, Jordan fell asleep on the couch soon after the last of the food was eaten. Syeira was just about to go help with dishes before I stopped her. "Please, wait and talk with me."

  She nodded, and I led her outside where we could talk quietly. "How are you doing?"

  "Today was better than yesterday," she said quietly. She wasn’t a broken woman, her spirit was too strong for that, but she was severely beaten down. Even though it wasn't her fault, I thought it wasn’t too great a punishment for Syeira to bear for what she did to my mother. “Some day are worse than others. Your mother has been helpful."

  "I know, and I’m grateful for her help," I said. "Syeira, I can’t imagine your pain. I know that I can’t replace my brother, but I just want you to know, I consider you my mother too. Will you help me as you helped Felix?”

  It was true, I'd need her advice. She'd been the crown princess for all her life and knew more about how to keep up with the political side of Romani life than anyone. She thought, and nodded. "For a while, until you get settled. I just hope you and Jordan make me a grandmother. Maybe that’ll bring some joy back into my life."

  I smiled. If I decided to let her live that long, she wouldn’t be spending much time with her grandchildren, that was for sure. As mean as the thought was, I had a deep resentment not only for Felix, but for his mother as well. “One thing at a time, Syeira. One thing at a time." It was weird having these hateful thoughts at the forefront of my mind. The resentment had always been there, but I’d suppressed it for all my life.

  Later that night, as the moon was high and everyone else was sleeping, I got out of my bed. While I wished that Jordan could have slept with me, my mother was insistent that she spend the next few nights in a private bed. "The girl needs to recover her strength," Mom told me. "Not expend it in amorous pursuits with you. Give her a little time.”

  So I walked through the house well after midnight, listening to my mother and her sister snore in Charani's bedroom, sharing a bed like they did forty years earlier as little girls. Jordan was in Syeira's bed, the moonlight streaming through the window to light up her face. In the pale illumination, she looked both ethereally beautiful and fragile. She didn't really have a grasp of how much weight she'd lost during the five days she'd been inconsolable, and her cheekbones still stood out ghastly underneath her sunken eyes.

  I watched her, inside knowing that I had to just keep up the charade for a few more days. Not the charade about the stress of the ascension, that was no lie at all. But still, I had to make sure that Jordan, Syeira and Charani all thought that I was broken up about Felix's supposed death. And if I was honest with myself, I was a little bit, but I had to do what I had to do.

  I wondered, as the light shifted and Jordan rolled over, her face tense as another dream passed through her mind, if they would ever want to know what really happened to him. Then again, I wondered if I wanted to know what really happened to my brother myself. Despite having a deep jealous resentment for him, I still couldn’t help but have some feelings for him.

  In her sleep, Jordan moaned, not in passion but in sadness. "Felix . . .” she said in a low, lost little girl's voice. "Don't go . . .”

  I could have been angered, but I wasn't. Ghosts can’t hurt me, regardless of what superstitions people have. I turned and left her to her dream. Time would heal her wound, and she would be mine. Mine alone.

  The rented room wasn't exactly spacious, but our town didn't have a lot of rentable conference rooms. Valence isn’t like New York, where nearly every hotel and motel has large conference rooms available for rent. Valence was more old-fashioned European, with inns and hotels that were just that, nothing more. And by Romani tradition, the men in the room wouldn’t go onto my family's property until the decision was made.

  I looked around the room, noting that even with the passage of a few years, I was still the youngest family leader in the room. The men looking back at me were all in their forties and fifties, and all of them had children of their own already.

  "As I said yesterday, I understand your concerns and have thought long and hard about them," I said in Romani. "To that end, I spoke with my mother and her sister. They have agreed to act as my counselors and advisors, in a role similar to what they did for my brother."

  I looked around the room and continued. "For the past few years, since my grandfather became too ill, my brother acted first unofficially and then later officially as the leader of our tribe. And in those years, despite the challenges to our home nations, our tribe has flourished. We're in a more secure position economically, politically, and even culturally than we were when Felix took over."

  The discussion lasted for another few hours, but as time passed, I could tell I'd made the proper points. It was time. “Gentlemen, it’s time to make your decision. If you want me to be your leader, then take the oath."

  The oath is perhaps the only thing that really separates a Gypsy King from any other respected family leader. We don't carry a crown, we don't have security details or Secret Service or anything like that. There’s no money to it, my grandfather had a few years where he was as poor as any other member of the family.

>   The oath, on the other hand . . . that was special. It was a blood oath, the strongest there is in Romani culture, that the family leader, and, therefore, the family, would agree to the decisions of the King. It was irrevocable, with dire consequences if broken. The only way an oath could be nullified was if the King died or was deposed, and that had never happened in the history of our tribe.

  The room was silent, each man looking to the other, wondering who would stand first, if any would stand at all.

  Finally, one brave man stood. "I will take the oath."

  With the dam broken, one by one all of the other family members stood, until I was the only one left seated. After giving anyone who wanted a chance to change their minds, I stood as well. "I accept."

  Chapter 28

  Jordan

  "But why the markings?" I asked that night after Francois had gone to the barn to mentally prepare himself. His coronation, which would be another public declaration of loyalty, would take place at dawn the next day. Before swearing the oath, each family leader would be allowed four very carefully placed blows with a whip or a rod on Francois's back. "Why the need for the pain?"

  "In the old days, there was no concept of jail in our culture," Charani said, sitting quietly, pensive. She knew what faced her son the next morning, having seen it once before. "There were three forms of punishment. You could warn, a scolding if you would. The next was corporal punishment. The third, of course, was banishment or death. The marks are to show that Francois has already paid for the mistakes he’ll make when he is King."