The Girl They Left Behind

by Roxanne Veletzos

  Carefully, Natalia folded the paper and placed it back inside the envelope.

  Everything contained in those lines was absolutely true. She was indeed loved, even worshipped, by the best parents any child could hope for. What would she have been if it weren’t for them? An orphan, a stray, someone who might have ended up selling flowers in the plaza alongside the gypsies. These parents had saved her from a life of ruin, and to them she belonged. This other woman, this stranger who had written this letter with such pathos, had left her on a doorstep to freeze in the middle of winter. She did not have to look far for the truth.

  And so it was really quite simple: she would not give this letter another thought. There was no room in her life for question marks, for what-ifs. There was only here and now and her parents who needed her this very moment. Whatever awaited at the end of this chapter, whatever was to come, it would always be just the three of them.

  The relief was extraordinary, sweeping through her in waves, bringing her back to the attic with its flurry of dust, the stamp album with the glossy leather cover that gleamed at her—a reminder. She ran her fingers over the smooth surface, wanting to open it one last time and flip through its pages, admire each gorgeous stamp like she used to do under her father’s desk at the store, but the doorbell downstairs kept ringing, and it occurred to her that she might not have heard it before. She flew down the steps, barely taking the time to lock up the attic, one prayer, one prayer only, resounding in her mind. When she opened the front door, her uncle was there.

  “Thank God, dear girl, thank God,” he said, and let out a long breath, as if he’d been holding it the whole time.

  31

  HE WAS BEING SENT OUT of the country. For how long he couldn’t say exactly, but it was sure to be weeks, maybe months. Budapest first, then Warsaw. Then maybe Moscow. Victor’s words as he spoke were urgent but low, and Anton had to lean in to hear fully what he was saying.

  “Months?” Anton repeated, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, which he’d worn on the day of his arrest. It looked strange, surely, to be wearing one in the middle of May, yet he couldn’t stop trembling and was glad for its warmth. He’d been shivering for weeks, it seemed, inside that cold cell—four, to be exact, according to Victor—and it probably didn’t help that he’d lost so much weight.

  “I know it seems like a long time,” Victor replied quietly, turning away from the grayish building with no windows from which both men had emerged only minutes earlier. There was a formality in his posture, yet in the shadow of overhead leaves, his features beamed with a joyful affection.

  Anton’s gaze drifted a moment, misty all of a sudden. “Of course, I understand, Victor. We would love to see you. Anytime.”

  They parted with a fleeting handshake, one designed for the eyes that no doubt were watching them. There was so much that Anton wanted to say, needed to say, but he knew this was not the right time. Instead, he stood there very still, watching Victor as he darted across the street to catch a trolley. Then he drew in a long breath and began in the direction of home.

  Slowly, he walked, taking his time. As much as he burned with desire to see his wife and daughter, his legs were weak, and they couldn’t carry him any faster. Besides, he needed time to think, to process what he could hardly believe himself. He had just been released from a place that no one ever emerged from to see the light of day. No one.

  He owed Victor his life. That was for certain. Yet it seemed implausible that Victor had single-handedly put a stop to the daily interrogations, the prewritten statements that they were trying to force him to sign, and that he had arranged for Anton’s unconditional release. Had the Security Police grown tired of his resistance? That was even more unlikely.

  Certainly, he had not caved. No matter what they threatened him with, he had confessed nothing. He would have never admitted to those preposterous charges—that he had plotted against the Party, that his wife had intended to harm a Soviet officer because they were counterrevolutionaries, enemies of the people, bourgeois loyalists. To do so would have meant death. So in one interrogation after the next, Anton held steadfast, sticking to the same set of facts. He had purchased a gun simply for his wife’s protection. The shooting had been an accident. He even went so far as to state that he was, in fact, a staunch supporter of the new regime, and although not a Party member himself, he had always sympathized with the cause. Yet even that did not seem to abate the tide that had turned against him.

  Three days after his incarceration, they had transferred him to a basement cell, where he was held in complete darkness. He was given no food or water, and there was one daily bathroom break with a loaded gun at his back. He could feel the cold steel poking him between the ribs as he made his way to the Turkish toilet at the end of a long hallway lined with metal-sheeted doors.

  A tall, wiry man whose face bore a perpetual expression of indifference came into his cell every morning. Not bothering with greetings or even so much as an acknowledging glance, he would drag the sole chair from the corner of the room and position it directly in front of Anton, who usually sat leaning against the wall.

  “You will die in this cell, or you will confess to the charges before you,” the man would utter each time, stretching his legs out to indicate that he was in no rush at all. “This here is your only salvation.”

  Out of his breast pocket, he would extract a folded typewritten paper and a pen. “You can sign it now if you’d like. Personally, I think it would be wise. Later you will beg for the opportunity, but it will be too late. Because by then your fate will be sealed. You will be facing the firing squad, or you will be sent to dig up the Danube Channel for the next fifty years. Either way, you will never see your wife or daughter again.”

  Still, Anton refused. He knew that admitting to the crimes they were accusing him of would guarantee him a trip to the wall, regardless. There would be no trial, no pardon; he would never see the outside of this prison. Yet the man came back, day after day. Each day, he left in frustration, swearing and threatening more. Then one day, Victor arrived in his place.

  “Leave us,” he ordered the guards who had unlocked the three bolts to let him in. “Take a cigarette break, and close the door behind you.”

  He swiveled the chair around and placed it near Anton, just as the interrogating officer did every morning. His steel-toed boot grazed Anton’s leg as he bent down to whisper:

  “Anton. How did this happen?”

  Anton managed a small, resigned smile, his first one in days. “Victor, I am so happy to see you. Somehow I knew that you’d come.”

  “Don’t be happy, Anton. This is quite a serious situation you have gotten yourself into. Start at the beginning. And don’t leave anything out. I need to know every detail.”

  And so Anton began, without any sort of suspicion that Victor had already been briefed before his visit and already knew the gravity of the charges. That a plan had been set in motion, a plan of which he could know nothing for the time being if it was to work.

  “You are very lucky that your wife is alive, that you are all alive, you know,” Victor remarked in a pensive tone when he was finished, and Anton nodded sullenly.

  Yes, he knew only too well what happened to people like him, people of his background caught in circumstances far more trivial. A casual remark, a whisper to a trusted friend, an offhand comment, and you could be permanently silenced. He knew several people who had disappeared in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. Their families had not even been given an explanation for their disappearance, much less a body to bury. Death was all around, and the lives of people like him were cheap—that he knew.

  “Well, it’s done with, at least for now,” Victor resumed in a low voice, leaning in closer. “I’ve arranged for your dismissal. They have agreed to a fine, a substantial one, but it’s the best that we could hope for under the circumstances. You will have to turn over the firearm to the police, of course.”

>   For a moment, Anton stared at him in disbelief. It was not possible that he would be let go, not after all that he had been subjected to, after all he had seen in this place. But looking at Victor and the faint smile that played on his face, he grasped that he was not mistaken. And so he would be set free, after all. But at what cost? What was the cost of a life such as his?

  Anton was aware that he had grown hot, his hair damp around the temples. He tried to cobble together something to say but found that he could not. What words would be sufficient at a time like this? What words could render what was inside his heart? What he wanted to do was to fall at Victor’s feet, to kiss his boots. He nearly did, but just then, there was the click of the peephole, and one of the guards looked in.

  “Is everything all right?”

  Not glancing in the direction of the door, Victor made a dismissing gesture. Anton rested his forehead on his bent knees to hide the wave of emotion that had overtaken him. It was only when he was certain they were alone again that he looked up, his eyes brimming with tears.

  “Be careful,” Victor said, already on his feet and buttoning his leather coat. He picked up the chair and placed it back in the corner. “It’s not entirely over, you know.”

  “I will, Victor. I will live the rest of my life to repay you. I will do all that I can to show you my appreciation. No price will ever be enough.”

  “You already have, Anton,” Victor replied, rapping his knuckles on the metal door. “It is I who am repaying you. The debt was on my part.”

  The guard stood at attention and saluted Victor as he walked out of the cell. Then the door slammed with a harsh clang, and the last thing Anton heard before the familiar silence engulfed him was the sound of Victor’s boots echoing down the empty corridor.

  32

  “MY FRIEND, WHAT A SURPRISE!” Natalia heard her father say in the entryway, full of such buoyant energy that one might think King Michael himself had stopped by for a personal visit. The front door clicked shut, and another voice followed, one that she recognized instantly.

  “Anton, it is so good to see you.”

  “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it has, it has, indeed. I’ve been traveling a bit, as you know. I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner.”

  The voices drifted away from the foyer and became less distinguishable as they moved into the house. Five months too late, Natalia thought. Her father had been waiting for Victor for almost half a year.

  Her heart, however caught in a flutter, was filled with an acute indignation. How many times had her father checked the mailbox hoping for a sign of life? She almost pitied him now, the way his voice betrayed no anger at all, no reproach whatsoever, for being so utterly forgotten. Well, not Natalia. Her mother had gone out on her Sunday errands, so no appearance was required of her at all; she could just stay up here, read a book, be spared some superficial excuses that only her father would believe. Yet no more than ten minutes passed before a feeling of a different kind overtook her, and she found herself standing in front of the mirror over her dresser, examining herself disapprovingly.

  The brush caught in her curls, and she winced as she tugged it all the way through. Her hair, which had darkened to a chocolatey auburn, was so thick and long now it was impossible to tame, evidently much like the rest of her. Peeling off her nightgown, she glanced at the mirror in profile, thinking as she had over the months past that she hadn’t one thing to wear. The onslaught of changes had come rapidly, more rapidly than their budget could be stretched to allow for a new wardrobe. It wasn’t unusual in such moments—when catching sight of the full blooming of breasts, the rounding of hips—to have the strange sensation that she wasn’t looking at herself at all but at a complete stranger.

  Rifling through her armoire, she settled on a navy-blue dress with a lace collar that made her green eyes look almost blue and that had once been loose enough around the torso that it still allowed her some room to breathe. She slipped on her gold ballet slippers and gathered her hair in a loose ponytail. Cool and collected, she commanded herself, coming down the steps quietly, save for the volcano that had erupted in her chest. Halfway down, she nearly changed her mind and turned back around, but Victor had already spotted her through the open French doors.

  “Talia,” he called out to her, smiling affectionately, holding out his hand over the back of the sofa.

  She stopped, her palm suddenly moist against the wooden banister as her other hand came up in a gesture of hello. Now there was no choice but to continue the rest of the way. Slowly, she descended to the bottom of the stairs and approached the doorway to the parlor.

  “Talia, how have you been?” Victor asked, his lips curling up in that small, ironic smile of his. “How’s school?”

  “School is great,” she lied, lowering her eyes. School was, in fact, far from great, but she did not think that he wanted to know the details. He was just trying to make polite conversation.

  Oh, how she hoped he wouldn’t notice her obvious discomfort, the sudden heat that rose to her cheeks! She looked ridiculous, no doubt, standing there as if a hole had opened at her feet and she was about to fall into it. He, on the other hand, had never looked more at ease, in his white silk shirt opened casually at the collar and dark gray trousers. No tie. His black hair was slightly longer, wavier, but still perfectly smoothed back from his forehead. Casually, he crossed his long legs and extracted a silver lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. The lighter clicked several times as he cupped a deeply veined, sculpted hand around the flame, like that belonging to a count in a baroque painting. She watched him take a long drag and hold in the smoke for a moment before exhaling it through half-parted lips.

  But why in the world had she not stayed upstairs? It had been something insignificant, something so absurd now—a small retaliation she’d planned, to act indifferently, making him pay for his absence. A mistake that had backfired, for she was now suffocating in the tight grip of her dress.

  Then, as if things could get any worse, her father’s voice cut through the room, jolting her out of her stupor, and to her utter embarrassment, she heard him say, “Talia, darling, if you’re just going to stand there, would you mind bringing in some ice water, please?”

  “No, please, don’t bother. I don’t want to impose. Besides, I can’t stay long,” Victor replied, looking directly at her, causing her blood to spike again to the very tips of her ears. “Thank you anyway. I just wanted to drop by to see how your father was doing.”

  Her father, Natalia could not help but notice, was doing more than well at the moment. He had not seemed so animated, so full of enthusiasm, in as long as she could remember. As if he had not heard Victor at all, he was already on his feet and was crossing the length of the parlor with the sprightliness of an adolescent.

  “I have a perfect wine that I have been saving for a special occasion. I can’t think of a better time to enjoy it! Just give me a minute while I go grab it from the cellar.”

  “Please, Anton. I really cannot stay. Maybe another time.”

  It was as if all the air had gone out of the room. For a moment, he stilled, and then he turned and walked back toward the coffee table, with shoulders slightly drooped and his bright smile faded. When he sat down again, neither her father nor Victor spoke, and in the ongoing silence, Natalia sensed a startling change. She could not recall a single time when the two of them had been at a loss for words.

  And the other odd thing: Victor seemed intent on ignoring her. He’d barely spoken two words to her, had hardly even acknowledged her presence. A shard of terror ran through her as she wondered if somehow he was able to read her thoughts, but then she realized that couldn’t be, and the terror melted into a slight sadness. Memories tugged at her, glimpses from years before—the way he used to twirl her around in the entryway when he came to visit, the way he sat so still while she played her piano, as if he would never tire of it. Once, down by the lake, where her mother had sent him
to keep an eye on her while she swam, she’d told him a joke. It was something she overheard in line at the grocer’s, and even though she didn’t fully understand it herself, he laughed as if it was the most amusing thing on earth. “Talia, you are one funny girl,” he had said, shaking his head as they sat side by side in the dewy grass. “You are going to break someone’s heart one day.” But now it was as if she wasn’t even in the room. All of Victor’s attention was focused strictly on her father.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked now, leaning forward onto his elbows, his gaze intent on Anton’s face. “I’ve been worried about your health. You looked so thin last time I saw you.”

  “Oh, I’m getting by. Despina has been feeding me well, even though it’s not easy these days. The shelves are empty, you know. It’s impossible to get fresh bread if you’re not in line by four in the morning. She insists on going herself so I can get some extra rest. Rest for what? I ask her, but she refuses to let me go. It’s hard for her, you know.”

  Victor nodded. “These are strange days, Anton. How’s the store?”