by Lisa Preston
She pulled out another copy of the photograph of Alex and Igor and Stefan and the other three boys in the woods, offering the print to Agnes.
She asked if Agnes wanted the camera back. She sat waiting while the woman mumbled incomprehensibly and pulled out a bottle.
“Agnes, talk to me.”
“No more,” Agnes snapped.
“But there is something more, isn’t there?”
“More, more-more.” Agnes clanked a glass onto the table, screwed and unscrewed a bottle’s cap, choosing.
She poured the gin, and both women watched the level rise from a shot to a double shot, a triple, a three-quarters-full glass. The clear poison bulged above the glass rim and flooded over.
“What happened, really, all of it?” Gillian pleaded, startled by the sureness of her instincts, by the discovery, desperate to know what else they’d hidden.
“Alexandru said we must not think of it. Stefan. To die. Alone. All alone.” Agnes wailed like a toddler, the insolent, angry cry of the wronged with no fix in sight.
“Talk about it, Agnes. Talk to me about that night. Let it out.”
“Stefan, Stefan.” The whispers sounded like prayer and mourning.
“Tell me, will you?” Gillian used Paul’s words and ways. Paul could have gotten the story out of this woman, she decided. Kevin would want it and could elicit more to show the world. Paul could collect it all and never display it.
He was a good, good man.
Surprised that she was crying, Gillian swallowed and nodded to Agnes, taking no embarrassment in her tears, making no apologies.
Agnes’s tears came from both corners of both eyes. They soaked her face, dripped into her mouth. Gillian felt her stomach lurch at the thought of the salt water and gin together. She imagined Agnes at fifteen. An orphan. A refugee. A victim of gang rape. All but forgotten, as was her brother, save the photo Gillian had developed from the Bantam Anastigmat. Gillian closed her eyes, thinking about the penny-sale camera Paul bought just because he was thinking of her, wanted to do something for her, give her something she’d love.
She thought of being fifteen and drunk.
Paul had never been drunk. Not once.
He would have been a good father. He would be a good father.
Agnes wiped her eyes and spoke in a dull, sober voice. “There were clouds, the night black. But I saw him. He saw me.”
“You saw Alex?”
Agnes shook her head. “Alexandru said it would not have worked, no future, me and him.”
“You and Alex? Alexandru? The escape? Hiding? Your heritage?” She turned her head to one side, trying to grasp what was missing.
Agnes wept and reached a sticky finger toward Gillian, saw the stiff response of revulsion. “No … no. No.”
Gillian took a breath, took Agnes’s hand. “Please tell me about it.”
The woman sniffed, coughed. “Would have worked. I … loved him.”
Goose bumps prickled Gillian’s arms as she clapped her free palm over her mouth. She wished it weren’t so cold in the Istok living room. Was a window open? The air should have been less rank with the Northwest winter slipping in, coursing through the house, chilling all.
Sure, it could have been worse, she told herself.
It could always be worse. Everything could be worse.
Agnes whispered her truth, shaking with each painful word. “I … loved … him.”
Blinking, Gillian thought hard, reordering the past in her mind, beginning to make sense of what she had misunderstood, presumed.
Agnes yelled, “I loved Stefan!”
Covering her mouth with one hand, Gillian moaned and winced. Tears pooled in both women’s eyes, then Gillian’s fell down her cheeks as she mirrored Agnes’s weeping and whispered, “Oh, Agnes.” A part of her wanted to wrap her arms around the old drunk.
“Stefan. Stefan. He was the love of my life.” Agnes reached into her gown and pulled a thumbprint-sized bit of a photograph from between her breasts, mewling as she gazed at the tiny black and white of her young man’s face.
Gillian realized Agnes had scavenged Stefan’s face from the photograph she’d produced.
“He loved me. He loved me so much. We were in love. It was love. He was my first, my only.” The tears broke Agnes’s voice. After long gasps, she managed to tell Gillian the sealing truth. “Alexandru … said he would not … let a Jew … have his sister.”
Gillian cried then for the injured young man, Stefan, facing inexplicable prejudice from a fellow orphan. Stefan, abandoned on the shores of the Black Sea while he watched his love, the teenage Agnes, weeping beside Alexandru and the little children, rowing away in the night for Bulgaria and someday, faraway lands.
Agnes blabbered and wailed and muttered. She sniffed and wiped a large glob of mucus from her nose that mixed with spit at one corner of her mouth. She said she needed a drink. She swore. She demanded her bottle.
Then, finally, Gillian cried for sad, old drunks. Drunks abandoned by their children somewhere in this city, and the one in front of her, smelly and wrinkled and miserable and poisoned by her own sorrow.
“I’m sorry,” Gillian said, letting the tears pour, stroking the old woman’s hand with hers. “I’m so very sorry for your pain.”
Yes, Agnes was a miserable alcoholic, but the misery came first, rotting her life that she medicated with alcohol. The Istoks were in a sorry situation ever since this old woman’s girlhood. Gillian shook her head at the way things had turned out for Agnes and felt no shame in her bawling. She returned the old Bantam Anastigmat camera to Agnes. “I’m so sorry for what you lost, Agnes. Really, I am truly sorry.”
At home in the darkroom, Gillian chewed on thoughts of posterity, legacy.
Stefan, on the edge of the photograph, was loved, then and now. It made a difference. She considered how to make him central. She could do something worthy for Agnes and Stefan.
She fit the old negative into her enlarger and flicked the light on, twisting and adjusting things until only one face remained. And she spoke to the image.
“You were not forgotten. You will not be forgotten.” She bowed her head. She would send the photo and all of the information on those orphans to Yad Vashem. Maybe someone else had searched for one of them, maybe someone else remembered.
Alexandru had intentionally abandoned Stefan. But Alexandru had been a boy himself. He had not created the prejudice he carried. He had borne outrageous, damaging hardship and prejudice and he had extended himself for the protection of those younger children. He had probably delivered all but Igor and Stefan to safety that they would not otherwise have received. That was three boys saved.
But still, Stefan, poor Stefan. Gillian swallowed. “She loved you. And she is so very sorry.”
She flipped the enlarger’s light off. It wouldn’t be a large portrait. The resolution wasn’t high enough to allow a quality enlargement of great size. But if she was perfectly careful and fast and accurate, she could do amazing things with this face. She might craft a spectacular keepsake.
She selected her most expensive developing paper, the Ilford, and cut card stock to protect the fiber-based, textured matte surface where she would want less light. She flipped the light off and on in her enlarger, pursed her lips, and thought some more. Seconds here, seconds there. More light, less. If she could produce and develop what she imagined, she could make this picture live. Create more than seemed to be here.
“Gillian?” Paul’s voice followed the distant sound of the garage door and she knew he’d just biked home.
“In here,” she called. She already had her red lights on inside the darkroom and in the hallway.
“Can I come in?” His voice was just outside the darkroom door. “Is it safe?”
“Yes, yes.” She opened the door, met his smile with her own, and kissed him breathlessly. “Come in.”
“You look like you’re in the middle of something.”
“I’m about to start. It’s goi
ng to take everything I’ve got. Cross your fingers for me.”
“Can I watch?”
She nodded, exhaled, noting one last time the positions of the card stock she’d use to block light, the seconds of exposure she’d allow for different slices of the print in the re-exposures. Then she took a breath, turned off the main lights, and worked in dim red. Light on, off, time it, burn, and dodge. She used every technique, concentrating exposure in the corners of the print, protecting the inner borders of the figure from excess light. She protected part of the image from more light with her fingers and slices of paper while she re-exposed the face, and finally flicked the enlarger’s light off for the last time, and all of it was done in less than a minute. Once she plunged the undeveloped print into the first bath, she looked at Paul while rocking the tray. Tray to tray, the timing and agitation were rote. Her announcement was not.
“I’m going to try to find my parents. See if they’re okay.”
“That’s … amazing,” Paul said. “I’m so proud of you and I’ll help.”
Crying, she told him she’d go to a meeting for adult children of alcoholics. She might walk out, but she’d try. Then she shared with Paul the twist of the knife she’d learned. That Agnes was in love with Stefan David, that it was mutual, that Alex was opposed to the match and broke Agnes’s heart as he left Stefan for dead.
Paul moaned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, that’s him?” He pointed to the print swimming in the bath.
A devastatingly perfect portrait of Stefan was materializing. “You did this for Agnes?”
Gillian nodded.
“It’s really beautiful.”
She blinked tears away. It was. She would still have to make the largest, best print she could of all the boys before she sent everything to Yad Vashem—perhaps someone else knew more about them or was searching for them and Gillian could contribute to their comfort—but this print honored Stefan alone. Pulling one warm, artistic face out of the group of boys, enhancing every contrast, this was entirely different than the original print. This was Stefan, a person with promise, a young man who—when they were both young—loved, and was loved by, Agnes Istok.
Thanks to Gillian, Yad Vashem would preserve the boys’ names and their stories.
CHAPTER 24
The women met on a cold day, the air gray and sticky over the city. The bistro’s fireplace was lit and garlicky scents entreated. Maddie thought the rendezvous was a pretty terrible idea but appreciated Emma’s suggestion of a locale and she was glad her mom followed her prompt on making herself identifiable to two strangers.
Tell them you’ll wear a blue silk scarf.
She’d gifted the scarf to her mom, wanting it out of the cabin, hoping for a daughter. Pregnancy had made her increasingly color-aware. It was odd. She heard sounds more acutely, too. Clangs in the bistro’s kitchen, hisses of steam, the whoosh of air as a lid was lifted off a boiling pot in another room. Emma’s white toque contrasted with her red face and Maddie wondered whether she was ruddy from the kitchen heat or the coming awkward encounter she would witness at arm’s length. Then she realized Emma was making the subtlest nod toward the front entrance.
Maddie swept to intercept the two women, one petite with long, dark hair contrasting against pale skin, the other plainer and somehow a shadow. They both looked a bit older than Maddie. She gave her best smile. This wasn’t supposed to be a confrontation.
“I’m Maddie Donner, here to keep a leash on my mother.” If the incomprehensible looks she received meant more, the two women at the foyer didn’t ask. Her mom had pulled enough data from the police report and online resources to find them and make contact. That was to be expected; her mother was very good at that sort of thing. That they agreed immediately to a meeting was unexpected.
Her mother rose in an instant when Maddie brought them to the booth. “I’m Caroline. Thank you for coming.”
“Gillian Trett. And this is Liz Brayton.”
Maddie sent the waiter away with instructions to not come back for a half hour. She watched her mother’s gaze switch from Gillian Trett to Liz.
As soon as they sat, came the question. “How could you leave him like that?”
Jesus, Mom, Maddie thought. Give them two seconds.
Liz bowed her head. “I … blocked it, him, from my mind. That sounds cold. It is cold. But it’s true. I don’t mean it metaphorically. I mean that I did not think of that night again. Not until I came home—I mean to Gillian and Paul’s house—and she was really upset. They said she’d just learned about a situation of a boy being left behind in terrible danger and I … was horrified. I’d done that. That’s when I thought of him—that little boy—”
“Greer.”
“Greer, Greer. I’m sorry. Really. When I finally thought of Greer, I was so ashamed, so sick and frightened for him.” Tears slid down her cheeks, the contours hardened by the tension in her face. “I don’t know where the worry went, where I set it aside to, for the time I was hiding in Seattle. But I know that night was blocked completely from my thoughts.”
“But you left him.” Caroline’s verdict hadn’t budged. She stared at the woman, this Liz Brayton, and did not understand.
On the other side of the table, Maddie saw a woman who realized she was misunderstood. Liz looked at them in turns. And now Gillian’s head was bowed.
“Last winter,” Liz said, “on the day I was going to die, it all stopped and a voice asked me about my people. Without people from the past, a person has to make a new family, get married. But my family used his fists. Do you understand?”
Maddie and Caroline shook their heads. Gillian’s eyes welled.
“I’ll start from the beginning.” Liz spoke slowly, measuring her words without tears, without asking for quarter while explaining. “We met online. I was lonely and he was handsome and such a take-charge person. At first, he didn’t seem to mind the baby. He’s such a good baby. And I was slim and tried really hard to please Harry.
“At first, he only yelled, never hit. And his meanness doesn’t show when he’s in a good mood. He can be so sweet. The devil and an angel in one man. But the devil ruled him more and more. And Harry ruled me.
“As time went on, he hit more and it took less for him to flare up. The guy at the clinic warned me and he gave me pamphlets and asked me to go to the police. But especially, he said to be careful in leaving. He’d told me that it’s when women try to leave that they get killed. He said leaving is the most dangerous time. Part of me didn’t believe him, but part of me just didn’t want to leave, not when Harry was nice. If only he’d stop hurting me.”
Caroline’s lips parted, but she managed no response.
Liz leaned forward and explained. “When he’d really get rough—there were times when I’d be on the floor and he kicked me—there were always a few days after where he wouldn’t touch me at all. And those really bad times, he almost always apologized for later. Sometimes even right after, but if not then, he would say sorry the next morning or in the following days. He’d send me flowers, tell me to call a babysitter and come meet him for a fancy lunch. I’d put on a scarf to hide the marks his hands left on my throat. I’d get romanced and believe his apology and listen to how he was going to treat me like a queen. But things got uglier every time he had a rage. Last summer, I wore turtlenecks a lot.
“He’d tell me the same thing afterward. ‘Sorry.’ I stopped believing he was sorry or that he wouldn’t hit me anymore. For as long as I could, I lived with it. But I didn’t want my baby scared and crying every time Harry hit me. And I didn’t want to be punched or kicked in the stomach again.” She looked around the booth, wild-eyed, and bleated, “Every time someone you love hurts you badly, it’s like a part of your soul is stolen. I didn’t have much left, couldn’t have lasted much longer. That Friday, he called at lunchtime—he works for a bank—and said he was going to work late.”
Caroline looked away.
The other woman, Maddie thought. Her mot
her had mentioned something about her boss and another woman at the bank.
“I got three hundred dollars in cash from an ATM. I packed clothes in garbage sacks. I got scared, lost my will, and wavered. I should have left earlier, but then I thought leaving as it was getting dark would be better. Then he saw me driving. In town, just before I got to the highway access, there he was, coming at me. He drives this big black Yukon. I panicked and missed the turn and went straight. The road took me into the mountains. I’d never been up there before. I followed a bunch of side roads that twisted and climbed, but I couldn’t shake him.” She curled the fingers of her right hand, then flashed them open in a wide spray beside her temple. “His high beams were in my rearview. I drove on and on and ended up on a dead-end dirt road in the middle of nowhere. His big truck was in the center of this skinny road behind me. I made a one-eighty, but I was trapped.”
A muted whimper of terror spilled out and Liz hunched her shoulders, bending at the hips, bumping her knees on the underside of the table, blinking as she recounted her story. “He yanked my car door open so hard I thought he broke it. He undid my seat belt and pulled me out and smacked me really hard. I almost blacked out, but my son was crying. I was crying and throwing up from him kicking me in the stomach. Harry was going to kill me, really kill me. He swore he would. I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want my baby to die or to not have a mother.”
Maddie looked away, weeping freely, thinking, There are women with guys who treat them like that. What does it take?
“Then Harry stopped. He stopped hurting me. I didn’t know why. But I used to think that if only someone, just anyone, said ‘no’ at the right second, in the right way, it might redirect his violence, it might actually stop him. A little voice said, ‘You go on now, have a safe trip.’” Liz took an enormous shaking breath and bawled the rest of the words, “The voice said, ‘Don’t you have people, ma’am?’”
“People,” Gillian echoed, just as Maddie and Caroline mouthed the word.
“I knew that Paul taught at the University of Washington. I was in this dark forest, so far up in the mountains I couldn’t see any lights from town. Harry’s truck door had been blocking me, but it was closed now. My chance to escape … came back. I didn’t have to be Mrs. Harold Brayton because there was just enough room for me to squeak by. It was my last best chance. I shut my mind down, dragged myself into the car, and drove away.” Liz wiped her face and looked from Caroline to Maddie.