by Rena Rossner
“Valeriu, sir. Constantin Valeriu.”
“A strong name,” Papa said.
Not a Jewish name is clearly what he thought.
“Yes, sir,” Constantin said.
“What is it you do?” Papa asked.
“I am commander of the voivode’s army,” Constantin answered.
“I see,” Papa said. I looked at him, hoping to see acceptance. But all I saw was fear.
And then it hit me. My father was never going to approve this match. But he would say yes, because he couldn’t say no.
Constantin is not a man that people say no to.
Everything about this meeting suddenly felt wrong. I only wanted to relieve the burden from my parents, not force their hand. How was I so blind?
Nothing has changed about our situation, even though this is Constantin and not Jakob. History will repeat itself. The son of a duchess, the commander of an army… I am a curse on this family.
I cried. It was the only possible response. How could I have been so blind?
“Anna, is this what you want?” Papa looked at me.
I could tell that Constantin was concerned by my tears.
I looked at my mother, and her face fell.
“Yes. This is what I want. It’s what I want with all my heart,” I said. “Forgive my tears. From the minute I met Constantin, I knew that we were meant for one another.”
I must face the only future I can see. My heart will fall and fall again. It is the way of things for me.
I tried to empty my head of all the negative thoughts that threatened to destroy this moment which was supposed to be joyful.
“Are you sure?” Papa asked.
“I will wait for you,” Constantin said, “if you are not ready.”
“I’m ready.” I met his gaze steadily.
Perhaps a night with Constantin will help me to erase the only night I ever had with a man who loved me—a man I loved. It is a night I need to stop reliving over and over and over again in my nightmares. Constantin is sweet and kind—perhaps he is my angel in disguise.
I rubbed the goosebumps that dotted my flesh.
“I will take care of your daughter, sir. She will want for nothing,” Constantin said. “We will raise fine strong young boys and girls together.”
“If this is what my daughter wants, I will not stand in her way. You have my blessing,” Papa said.
My mouth opened with shock. I knew he didn’t have a choice in that moment, but those words from my father, his approval, meant so much to me.
Constantin reached his hand out for mine. He touched his lips to my palm, then looked over at me. I swallowed hard. He pulled me into an embrace.
“Thank you,” he said, “for trusting me. I will take care of you, and your family. I promise. I’m so happy that you’ll be mine, mireasa mea—my bride.”
Constantin wiped the tears from my face with his thumbs. “Don’t cry,” he said, as he kissed my salty lips.
It may not be what my parents once wished for me, but neither was Jakob.
Yet if it means safety and protection for everyone I love, perhaps it is more than enough.
Laptitza
I go early
the next night
to wait for him.
I bring the clothes
and the blanket,
the food
and the shoes.
I am determined
to stay all night
if that’s what it takes.
Desperate to see him.
Aching at the lack of him.
I open my hand to the sky,
gather light
in the center
of my palm.
I send it out,
like I saw
my father do
in the forest.
My light
like a siren song.
I don’t wait long.
A long silver arm
reaches down.
A body follows.
He takes
my hand
in his
I pull him
down
from the firmament.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“So sorry
I didn’t
wait for you.”
My lips
shower his face
with hot white kisses.
“I was only trying
to get closer to you.
Kiss.
I am yours now.
Kiss.
Only yours.
Kiss.
Stay with me.”
He presses my hand
to his lips.
Knuckles silver
in the light.
I tremble
at his closeness.
I want to feel him
inside me.
He plucks a star
from the heavens
places it
in my palm.
It dances
in a ring of light
and then turns solid.
He slips
the silver ring
onto my finger.
We kiss as silver tears
fall from his eyes.
The ring burns.
My body glows with light
as he enters me.
The sky bursts
in constellations
of sensation.
Back home
in my bed,
I twirl the silver band
around and
around and
around again.
“I have married a star,”
I say out loud.
And it sends
a new rush
through me.
What have I done?
I giggle.
I, Levana Solomonar,
have married a star.
I rub the spot
on my finger
where I know
he placed the ring.
But it’s gone.
I sit up in bed.
I rub my eyes
in panic.
Was it only a dream?
Where did it go?
But I can still see
the stars
behind my eyes—
white-hot specks
against a black sky
of sensation.
I know it happened.
I can still feel
the gaping echo
of his absence
between my thighs.
I am not
a maiden anymore.
I have married
a man from the sky.
Even if no one else
can see the ring
that binds me to him,
it’s there.
He was here,
inside me.
Some of the most
powerful things
in the world are hidden—
and secrets
sometimes begin
as tiny hope-full stars.
All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. So it is with wisdom. So it is with the endless light of God.
—The Book of the Solomonars, page 147, verse 4
Once there was a queen named Marghita who always believed that her daughter would be empress. When it seemed like her daughter’s life would go a different route, the queen became bitter with envy and she called on the only power she still was able to control: a smoke-walker. The spirit of the Black Dragon.
Stanna
The morning before Anna’s wedding, we all wake up early. There’s much to do to prepare. Bread to bake and food to make, a floral wreath to weave for her veil.
“Stanna!” Mama cries as she opens the front door. “There’s something here for you.”
I find her standing by the door, startled by a package that’s been left there with my name on it.
“What is it?” she asks. “Who’s it from?”
I shrug, which does n
othing to allay Mama’s fears. We haven’t been here long enough for misfortune to follow us, I can almost hear her say. There is only one person the package is likely to be from, but I won’t speak her name to my mother, who knows nothing of our trips to the forest. She thinks Anna met Constantin by chance in the field. There is no truth between us anymore—it pains me, but I am not the same person, and neither is she, and there are things about who I am becoming that I’m not ready to reveal to my parents yet.
I open the gift. (For that’s what it is, I’m sure of it.) A wedding gift? The linen that it’s wrapped in is finer that anything we own; I see Mama eying it. Inside, there is a note, and folded fabric. I put the note aside.
“Who’s it from?” Mama asks again, but I don’t answer.
I lift the fabric up and see it is a dress the color of dusk embroidered with silver vines that look like branches and lily-of-the-valley flowers.
“For you,” Mama reads, and I try to snatch the note back from here, but she continues. “My lăcrimioare.” She turns it over. “That’s all it says. It must be for Anna, from Constantin. Anna!” she calls.
I’ve never held a dress so fine before.
“No,” I say. “It’s not for Anna. It’s for me.”
“From whom? How?”
“From someone who knew I needed something to wear to the wedding,” I say. “Mama, don’t worry. All will be well, I promise. This land is bringing us back to ourselves. Isn’t that reason enough to rejoice?” I kiss her cheek and take the dress to the room I share with my sisters. I lay it out on my bed and run my hands over the flowers. But this kind of finery feels like something too good to be true.
Theodora stands beside Constantin that night at the wedding. It is strange to see her in a dress. She’s commander of the voivode’s army—she should be standing by Constantin’s side dressed in full military garb. Instead, she is wearing a dress that looks like silver and starlight. Like tears.
The ceremony takes place inside the church that abuts the Basarab stronghold. I have never been inside a church before. My heart beats to the rhythm of the songs the crowd sings—all foreign—and I mumble my lips to make it look like I know the words and the tune. My eyes seek my parents’ faces, but they have eyes only for Anna. Laptitza gazes up at the arches above. Does no one else find this strange? Once, my father would have forbidden us to enter such a structure, and now we stand here, family of the bride, and I’m about to watch my father give his daughter’s hand in marriage to a Christian. “How the mighty have fallen,” I hear the words of King David in The Book of Samuel.
No part of the ceremony is recognizable to me, but Anna seems to know what to do. Just when I thought that my sister and I had become closer than ever, we are drifting apart again. This is not the sister I once knew.
After the ceremony, we go out to the square in front of the church and everyone is smiling and laughing, congratulating the happy couple. Theodora finds me in the crowd and her hand closes over mine. She squeezes so tight I wince in pain.
We are invited to the wedding feast held in the court itself, and all the guests make their way inside the high walls.
“My mother wants to marry me off to the governor of Lovech, Ivan Alexander,” Theodora whispers into my hair. “She says that dark winds are rising from the south and she fears it is time to form an alliance before the winds of war reach here. Some say he will be the next ruler of Bulgaria. My stepfather has agreed.”
“What? No,” I whisper back. “That can’t be possible…”
“The decision is made; nobody consulted me. I must go. I’ll see you inside.” She walks away to join her mother and stepfather, who accompany Constantin and Anna at the front of the procession.
My heart feels like it stops beating completely. I want to move, but my feet are rooted in place. I opened myself up to Theodora. I showed her the truest part of myself. And now she’s leaving me. Just like Guvriel—she’s too good to be true.
Anna
15 Tammuz I 5122
Constantin’s chest rises and falls in the bed beside me, but I’m awake, my mind racing, my body humming with a glow I haven’t felt in months—a glow I never got to feel because it too quickly turned to fear.
Everything about this man is different than Jakob. Everything about the wedding was too. He wore a white wool tunic embroidered in black and red leaves and flowers, and my bridal veil nearly fell to the floor. It was embroidered with strawberry blossoms—a gift from him before the ceremony.
The village priest joined my hand with Constantin’s, but only after I converted in the church. I didn’t tell my parents about that ceremony. I know what God I believe in—our Elohim, it matters not to me what name He goes by.
My parents held tall white candles in their hands and stood off to the side of the altar. Everything was decorated with sprigs of flowers. The priest placed golden crowns on our heads. Stanna and Laptitza handed out white flowers to all the guests—a custom from his town, Constantin told me. I went along with everything. I cared nothing for the ceremony. What mattered was that soon my family would be safe.
I could tell that my parents were uncomfortable, but they put on a good show. They must have taken comfort in the traditions that were similar to before: the candles they held as they walked me down the flower-strewn aisle. The hora dances before the ceremony—so very similar to the way we would have danced at a Jewish wedding that it was almost easy to forget it was a priest, not a rabbi (not my father) who officiated.
The wedding was a joyous affair. Except for the priest’s blessings, everything was accompanied by raucous music, and Constantin’s men were so happy for him. After the last blessing, our family and close friends danced around us. Constantin and I kissed, and everyone threw white flowers into the air.
Everyone cried. Mama. Even Papa. New traditions replaced
old ones.
Constantin picked a flower off my veil and tucked it behind my ear. He kissed my cheek and whispered something in my ear that I didn’t quite hear, but it made my face flush.
The villagers danced, forming a circle around us. Mama danced with Papa. Laptitza danced with Nikolas. Stanna danced with Theodora. Everyone was happy. When the wedding feast began, I lifted a white cloth off a loaf of ring-shaped bread on the table. Almost like we used to cover challah, I thought. Almost. A woman broke off a piece and gave it to me. “It’s a symbol of fertility,” she said as I fed it to Constantin.
“My blushing bride!” Constantin waggled his eyebrows at me, then he leaned over and we kissed. Those that saw let out a cheer.
After, he led me to the farmhouse that he’d built with his own hands. He carried me inside, his lips locked to mine.
We made love and he was achingly slow and tender. Both of us cautious, both of us scared, but trying to move beyond pain, beyond fear.
“I’m so happy,” he said afterward, tears glittering in his eyes, “and I’m so sad that I’m happy.”
“Are you worried that we’ll always be comparing?” I said, my head on the same pillow as we stared up at the ceiling as though we could see what was written in the stars beyond it.
“No,” he said. “Never comparing—layering a new experience over the rawness of the old one.” He took my hand in his and kissed it. “I always wanted to find someone who would be kind and gentle with my heart.”
I looked over at him. “Those are the words that I’m supposed to say,” I said, marveling at the feelings contained in this bear of a man.
I should have been happy. But I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed shivering. I’d been to two weddings in the space of a year—both my own.
I won’t breathe or sleep until morning comes and there’s no knock at the door. So I sit and write. If Constantin knew, he’d have stayed awake with me, but I didn’t tell him.
This vigil is something I must see through alone.
Laptitza
When most of the dancing
has died down,
I wander away from
the revelry.
I sit alone in the town square
on an overturned barrel.
I watch the sky
and absently rub my ring finger.
I don’t like the dark clouds I see.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Oh!” I jump to standing;
it’s Nikolas.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,”
“No, no, that’s okay.
I just needed some air.”
“Did everything work itself out the other night?”
“Oh, oh yes, thank you”
I say, when I remember
how I fled.
“You really do prefer
the company of the stars.”
He nods at the sky.
My cheeks flush when I think
of the company I’ve been keeping.
“I understand,” he says.
“I too prefer
the solitude of night.
I don’t like crowds.”
“That must be difficult
in the palace,” I say.
“Indeed,” he agrees.
“May I sit?” he gestures
to the barrel.
I move over
to make room for him.
When I look at the sky,
he looks at me,
then up at the sky.
“It is said that every soul
is a candle
that lights the heavens.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say,
“but I believe it.”
“May I tell you
a story this time?”
“Yes,” I say,
but I don’t look at him.
I’m afraid I’ll miss
something important.
He rubs his hands
on his pants and takes
a deep breath.
“Okay,” he says,
and leans back,
resting on his elbows
to better see the sky.
There was once an emperor and an empress and more than anything they wanted to be blessed with a child.
