The Girl They Left Behind

by Roxanne Veletzos

  A while longer Despina stood there, staring out at the nearly black horizon. In the distance, over the city, the searchlights crisscrossed and moved in a rhythmic dance as the sound of antiaircraft gunners rose over the tireless tune of the crickets, far away but acute in Despina’s ears. As the curtain of darkness fell deeper and more pronounced and the world sank into a bottomless slumber, Despina’s heart pounded on, filled with longing for Anton and a new sensation that had imbued her, inexplicably. Her world was changing, and she couldn’t control it, but she would try to rise up to it, with the last breath in her body.

  19

  SINCE EARLY MORNING, NATALIA HAD been waiting for her father at the estate gates. She curled up on the strip of grass lining the graveled driveway and rested her forehead on her knees. Perhaps he would not be able to come after all. The roads had been barricaded, and civilian trains had stopped running. Just this morning, she’d heard her aunt and her mother discussing it out on the veranda and knew it was true.

  “I’ve seen them with my own eyes,” Ecaterina had said. “There are lines and lines of soldiers waiting on the platform, waiting for the next transport back to Bucharest. You should see them, Despina. You should see the state they are in, dirty and hungry and without proper bandages.”

  Her mother had gotten up from her chair and begun pacing, but Natalia knew it was not the state of the soldiers that had gotten her so worked up. Even she understood that it would be nearly impossible to return to the city now that the railroads were used strictly for military transport.

  “We are trapped, then,” her mother had uttered with sheer frustration. “God only knows when we will be able to get back home.”

  “Perhaps it’s for the best,” Ecaterina had said in that elder-sister tone of hers. “Maybe now you will give up your crazy notions of leaving.”

  Despina had turned and shot her a look, then stormed back into the house, nearly bumping into the maid, who was carrying out a platter of cookies. Carefully, the girl had placed the arrangement on the table, then backed toward the door, wiping her hands nervously on her apron. Natalia had given her a small, sympathetic smile. It is not your fault, she’d wanted to tell her. It is not your fault that she is like this. The temperance her mother had shown thus far was fading. And they hadn’t seen her father in weeks.

  In the beginning, he did manage to come, traveling the forty kilometers that stretched between the capital and Snagov in any way possible. He took cabs, hitched rides to the outskirts of town, walked as long as his feet would carry him. Sometimes he was able to get rides from peasants transporting goods in their horse-drawn carriages along the country roads. He rode in the backs of animal wagons, with cows and chickens, happy for the chance to catch his breath, to rest a little without delaying his progress. Most Sundays, Natalia knew her father had arrived long before she could see him at the top of the gates. His presence was signaled by the squealing and laughter of small children who trailed him all the way from the main road, devouring the rock candy that he doled out for them from his rucksack as he made his way up to the big house.

  But this Sunday, like the Sunday before, there was no sound of the children, and as the hours clicked by, her hope began to dissolve. Soon it was simply too hot, and she was too hungry, so she stood up and began walking back toward the house, kicking the pebbles in her path. Halfway there, she heard her name being called out.

  “Talia! Hey! Want to come down to the river?”

  Her face brightened, and she spun around. It was one of the village kids she’d befriended, poking his sunburned face through the slats of the gate. The time she’d spent in their company—climbing the vines of the church tower to ring the bell, sneaking into the neighbors’ orchards—had been the most fun she’d had in this place, and today in particular, she could do with the company. At least she wouldn’t have to be at the house, where her mother’s anxiety would drown everything in its wake.

  “Yes!” she yelled, and ran back toward the gate.

  “Bet you can’t keep up!” the boy taunted. He bolted down the hillside a moment later, knowing that she’d be right on his heels.

  It was late when she rose the next morning. Close to noon, she could tell from the stark light that had invaded the room. It wasn’t the first time she’d overslept, but where were her mother and her cousins? Why hadn’t they come to wake her sooner? Throwing off her covers, she tried to get out of bed, but a heaviness held her in place. Her nightdress was wet, clinging to her skin like a sodden ship sail. Propping herself up, she noticed a haziness in the room—even the clock seemed to spin in her vision—and she couldn’t make out the time. Certainly, the village kids had come looking for her long ago and had left. Deflated, she let herself fall back onto her pillow. Now she would have to pass the day with the twins or, worse, helping with chores around the house. But she couldn’t even keep her head upright, put her feet on the ground. Maybe if she slept for a moment longer, her strength would return, so she closed her eyes again.

  She heard her mother’s voice. It was cooler now in the room, though she was burning and needed a drink. Something cold touched her forehead, making her gasp. Talia, she kept hearing. Talia, sweetheart, are you all right? Are you all right? Fire lashed at her throat, and she put her hand up against it, then, curling herself up, she turned to the wall. She watched the shadows of poplar trees play on the wall over her bed, their branches swaying and twisting in the breeze and slowly, slowly disappearing.

  When she opened her eyes again, it was dark. No one was calling her name now, it was cold, and all she could hear was the clink of her mother’s knitting needles, tapping, going around and around. There was no day and no night; there was only a chasm that kept pulling her into its depth, pulling her down. Where was I? she thought in that final moment, trying to hold on, to bring herself back to where she’d left off. All that came back was the end of that dusty trail, her thirst after the long run. And how sweet was the water she had drunk from the old well that all the kids said might be spoiled—how sweet and how cool.

  20

  JUST BEFORE SUNRISE, DESPINA HAD dragged their trunk to the front steps, where Natalia’s dolls had already been stacked haphazardly next to her traveling case. No more than an hour before, Ecaterina had returned to the house alone.

  “I’m sorry, Desi, it’s no use. All doctors have been deployed to the city hospitals. There isn’t one left in the entire province. And I couldn’t get anyone to take you back to Bucharest. It’s simply too dangerous.”

  Despina looked at her incredulously. “It’s forty kilometers! Forty kilometers that Anton has covered on foot on more than one occasion. How dangerous can it be?”

  “The city has been blockaded, Despina. The fighter planes can be seen circling from here. Be reasonable,” Ecaterina said, glaring at her in exasperation.

  It was all true, Despina knew. Even Anton, with his determination of steel, had not been able to penetrate through the circle of fire in the weeks past. She could not forget the last time he had shown up, looking so haggard that she barely recognized him when he stumbled in the door at half past midnight. Only the smile buried beneath the thick stubble, the gleam in his sunken eyes, had kept her from falling at his feet, weeping. But how could she make her sister understand? How could she explain that nothing would keep her from doing what she had to do? That it didn’t matter if the city was evacuated and the train station was abandoned, that she would get back to the city even if she had to carry Natalia in her arms?

  “Ecaterina, look out there, at the field,” Despina said, gesturing toward the predawn blackness that stretched out before them. “There are hundreds of peasants working on this land every day. Surely one of them will be willing to help.”

  Ecaterina wanted to protest, to point out that Despina wasn’t being rational, but she knew it would do no good. A few times in the past weeks, she had seen this look in her sister’s eyes. As she sat down next to her and examined her upright stance, her profile, steady and fixed
on the horizon as if she was willing the sun to come up, Ecaterina had the sudden sensation that she was looking upon a stranger. Where was the fragile beauty who at a time like this would have fallen into her arms, weeping with despair? Where was the girl who always sought her advice, who hung on her every word? Whether it was the separation from Anton or the loss of her summer house or just war itself that had caused this shift in her, Ecaterina was sure of one thing: her younger sister did not need her advice or her arms to cradle her.

  “All right, Desi. As you wish,” she said, rising with an air of resignation. She went into the house, closing the door softly behind her.

  Relieved to be alone at last, Despina sat on the porch and waited. She watched the workers gradually populate the field below, their straw hats bobbing over the sea of golden husks in the light of early dawn. When there were enough of them, she marched down the graveled driveway, the pebbles crunching under her steps. At the edge of the field, she took off her shoes and strolled on ahead through the freshly plowed earth, her sandals dangling at her side.

  The first farmer she approached would not look her in the eye when she explained that her daughter was ill, that she needed a carriage to take them back to the city.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “There’s too much work to be done here before the rains.”

  She got the same response from the next one and the one after that. Young ones and old ones and everyone in between, they all shook their heads and politely declined her offers. No amount of money seemed to be enough for what she was asking. One after the other, the peasants refused her, even as she pleaded and begged and threatened, her fury turning to desperation.

  Soon there was no one left. Cowards, Despina thought. She wanted to scream it out loud. But just as she surveyed the field once more, she spotted a familiar face not far from where she was standing. It took her a moment to realize it was the same man who had given her and Natalia a ride from the train station when they had first arrived in the village. Straightening her back, she strolled toward him, slipping off her wedding ring along the way.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling.

  The farmer turned, a little startled.

  “Miss Despina,” he replied politely. He remembered her name. This was a good sign.

  “Yes, you remember me? Do you remember my daughter, too? Talia?”

  The farmer nodded. He had to be at least sixty, Despina realized. Deep lines were etched in the leathery skin of his face, like scars from the slashing of a knife. Perhaps he wouldn’t be as afraid as the others. Despina reached out and took his large callused hand in hers. She felt him flinch but did not let go of it. Without a word, she pressed the sapphire-and-diamond ring inside his palm and held it there for a moment. Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she could not look him in the eyes, afraid of the answer she might see in them.

  “Please, please, give us a ride back to the city. My daughter needs a doctor.”

  The farmer regarded her for a long moment with his old, soulful eyes, then gently pulled his empty hand away.

  “I will take you to the train station, ma’am,” he said softly. “But that’s as far as I go.”

  The station was deserted. Ecaterina had been right about that. Cradling Natalia in her arms, Despina sat on the sole bench on the platform. It was nearly noon, judging from the position of the sun, and her absolute conviction from earlier was weakening. For the first time, she wondered if she should have listened to her sister. If what she had done had indeed been foolish. Yet they were fairly close to the city, and a train of some sort was bound to come through sooner or later. Certainly, she was not expecting a civilian one, but there were still cargo and animal transports all over the countryside and soldiers returning from the front and Red Cross convoys bringing the wounded to the city hospitals. And even if there was no train at all, she would get back to the city somehow. She would carry Natalia along the highway until she found a carriage of some sort. For a moment, she believed it could be done. For a moment, before her fingers trailed over the hollow at Natalia’s throat, where her pulse fluttered faintly, irregularly, like the wings of a moth.

  Bending down over Natalia’s tiny body, she placed her cheek close to the child’s. Her breath was so shallow, a featherlike whisper grazing her skin. It reminded her of that first time in the cellar, when she had held her just like this in the dark, as a curtain of artillery rained down around them. She had been able to mask her fear then, to remain calm for her, even though she had been terribly shaken herself. Well, she was even more afraid now. The uncertainty of what would come next terrified her more than those bombs.

  In late afternoon, when the sun beat down ferociously and there was no water left in the flask she had brought along, she looked around for a little shade. Across the rails, she spotted a patch of grass underneath an oak tree. Lifting Natalia, careful not to jolt her, she made her way toward it, stepping gingerly over the tracks. It was then that she felt it, a slight tremor under her feet, barely perceptible. There was a rustling of sorts, too, far off in the distance, like a tumble of weeds. It may have been no more than that, but she was already running, she was running recklessly, at full speed, toward the empty horizon, waving her scarf frantically in the air.

  At first, she did not know if she was still alive. Open your eyes, she willed herself, feeling the heat from the engine so close that it was scalding her face. Her heel had caught on a rail just as the train came into view, and for a moment she had been terrified that it wouldn’t stop in time. Perhaps it was only because she had been pinned in place, unable to move out of its path, that the locomotive had come to a screeching halt.

  Shaking still, struggling to keep herself upright, she began crawling alongside the windowless cars, banging on the metal walls with her fists. “Help! Somebody, help!” she shouted, her frantic voice slashing through the silence.

  At last, one of the doors rolled open. Despina ran ahead and stopped in front of it, peering up into the partially open wagon. There had to be at least a hundred men standing shoulder to shoulder in near darkness. The wagon had no seats of any kind. A strong stench like that of sweat and dried blood wafted toward her, and she turned her head. She heard some words exchanged but could not make them out. Was it German or Russian? On the platform, a pair of black leather boots shined to perfection materialized. She took a step back on the gravel.

  The officer could not have been older than twenty-five, but he was high-ranking, no doubt. She could tell from the way he jumped down onto the rails and strode toward her with his hand on his pistol. She recognized the symbol on his sleeve. The swastika.

  “Madam, how can I be of service?”

  Piercing blue eyes gazed at her from underneath his green cap. With great relief, Despina realized that she had understood him perfectly. For the first time in her life, she was grateful for her German-school education, for being forced all those years to learn a language she did not see much reason for knowing. Certainly, she hoped that she would remember enough of it now.

  “Please, sir, my daughter is very ill. I must get her to Bucharest. She needs a doctor. Please.”

  For a moment, she thought he might not have understood her, for he just stood there with his arms crossed at his chest. But then he walked over to where Natalia lay motionless in the grass. A shadow of sadness or pity passed over his face as he looked down at her, cocking his head to one side. Perhaps he thought she was already dead.

  “Madam, do you realize what you are asking? This is not a civilian train. These are soldiers retreating from the front! Besides, I don’t think you’d want to ride among them. They’ve been on this train for days,” he said, gesturing toward the cars.

  “Perhaps you might find some help in the village,” he went on when Despina did not move, when her eyes refused to leave his. Then he turned and began walking back toward the open wagon.

  “Please, officer.” Despina’s voice broke behind him. She picked up Natalia and began half sprinting, half runnin
g after him. “Please, I beg you!”

  But already he was inside the wagon, the metal door sliding shut. It clattered loudly, like a death sentence. A moment later, the train began moving out of the station.

  This is her life, Despina thought as the last ounce of hope faded. This is her life, and it’s slipping out of my hands. This train is leaving and taking her life with it. Then something changed, so unexpectedly that she could not make sense of it at first. As the train puttered by her, no more than an arm’s length away from where she was standing with Natalia in her arms, she spotted the officer again on the gangway between two cars. Their eyes met for a moment. For a moment, he looked right at her, and she did not know why, she did not understand, until he leaned out and tore Natalia out of her grasp. His move was swift and decisive, like the slash of a sword.

  And then it made sense all of a sudden, it came to her like a bolt of lightning, and she was running alongside the train, trying to keep pace with it, just long enough, just fast enough for the officer to reach down for her hand. We live or die together, we live or die now, she thought, catching a flash of terror in his eyes as the train picked up speed. When he leaned down lower, his hat flew off, and she noticed the deep vein across his forehead from the effort. She closed her eyes, expecting the inevitable, expecting her knees to hit gravel, her body to tumble in the wake of the speeding locomotive, but instead, she felt herself being hoisted, extracted from what might have been her final moments. When she opened her eyes again, the station had vanished from view, and the officer’s arms were wrapped tightly around her, holding her back from the edge of the platform.