The Girl They Left Behind

by Roxanne Veletzos

  Only for a moment, Zora and Iosef exchanged a look before extending their offer. The hard work and long hours in restoring the shop, they insisted, could be a bandage to their wounds, not to mention a way to pay for their room and board. When their host agreed, they had clinked glasses and thanked him profusely, grateful for this small blessing.

  Thus had passed the first six months, about which time Zora recalled little but a daily fourteen hours of work. Once they’d reopened the shop for business, exiles and expatriates, people much like themselves who’d escaped Hitler’s wrath, trickled in and out without pause, and their own stories of heartbreak—of loved ones they’d lost and ached to reunite with—kept them going from one day to the next. All had made it to safety by some divine intervention, and in the dawn hours, as Zora and Iosef cut flowers and wrapped them in paper, their patrons’ good wishes fueled them with an energy and will to survive that they’d almost lost.

  It was this slight tilt of optimism that had caused them to take chances, to do things that had little odds of success, without seeing the obstacles that lay in their path. Zora, for instance, had been secretly sending letters to a second cousin of hers back in Bucharest, afraid to tell Iosef for fear that he might object to the dangerous plan. Danger had long stopped dictating her choices, and by now, all that mattered was that this cousin of hers—an oil-company executive who was always going in and out of the country—had agreed in unclear terms to smuggle Natalia out on his next trip. If he declared that she was his child, she’d urged in her fevered writing, that she was in fragile health, that she had lost her mother (this part, at least, was true), they might just agree to let him bring her along, even if it was only to Hungary, then, closer, to Austria.

  How she’d get from Geneva to the Austrian-Hungarian border, which was swarming with SS guards, she’d never considered, any more than that Natalia, being now seven, might not be keen on going anywhere with a man she didn’t know or remember. The whole thing was crazy, not well thought out, bound to fail. Somehow she knew it in the pit of her stomach, yet when she received word that things had not gone according to plan, that even her cousin’s last-resort attempt to bring Natalia into the Swiss embassy had gone awry, her sorrow had returned with a vengeance, taking even deeper root in her heart.

  For more than a year, she had been barely able to sleep. By then, she found it hard to get through the day or rise in the morning, even harder to help in the shop, and she barely showed her face downstairs anymore. Then, just like that, as she was sliding back into an abyss of apathy, a letter from Stefan arrived one day, and a flutter of purpose burst anew in her heart. Yes, she couldn’t be with her daughter, she couldn’t touch her or awaken feeling her body beside her, she couldn’t brush her soft cheek with her fingers, but at least she could do this one thing. Even if she was to live a lifetime without her, even if she never set eyes on her again, she could give her this one gift, which, unlike any other, was still within her grasp.

  Things did go according to plan this time and with a swiftness she had only dared to pray for. Penicillin was scarcer than ever, tens of thousands of soldiers were dying in the absence of it, yet as luck would have it, their Geneva landlord, whose shoulder she’d so often cried on, had volunteered since his retirement for the International Committee of the Red Cross and had ties in some Western circles. And the one thing she knew was that while the Red Cross could not return her daughter to her, it could at least deliver the one thing that could save her life.

  She survived. Only by a few days, but she did, and for a while, Zora felt restored in her hope, brought back to the land of the living—though that was short-lived. Once the euphoria faded, she found herself caught again in a cycle of prayer and desperation, waiting for yet one more miracle to materialize, another window to open.

  One day, the war ended as abruptly as it had started, yet for Iosef and Zora, there was no great triumph, only another dead end. As they listened to the news on the radio that day, they wept in each other’s arms bitterly, knowing that all was lost. Their hope might have survived the war, four long years of it, but it was not strong enough to breach that barbed-wire border, the Soviet blockade that would now confine their daughter forever within its depths.

  Then and only then did America become a possibility. It had opened up to them like a new oasis. In America, where a new international circle was forming, where the United Nations would be headquartered, they would be able to regain their spirit, their power to fight, and that was all they needed to bind them together again.

  Zora was quiet now, as her voice had gone raspy. She took a sip of her tea and set the mug down, not saying anything more. There was no need, for Natalia knew from John Fowley’s letter what had happened once they arrived in New York with their hopes pinned on a prayer, only to fight another onslaught of disappointments, of closed avenues, of dwindled faith.

  “So you see, Natalia,” Zora whispered. “You were never far from us. All this time, you were here within our souls, every day, every year. Leaving you there had been the hardest thing imaginable, but if we had not, none of us would have survived. Despite it all, in my heart, I always believed I did the right thing.”

  “And these children,” Natalia said in a choked whisper. “You cared for them after the void I had left.”

  Tears spilled over onto Zora’s lovely cheeks. “For both me and your father, they’ve been our salvation. We took them in when they were very young, the youngest two just babies, and somehow having to care for them strengthened our marriage. Mended over time what had been broken between us. To love is much easier than to despair, even when all of your hope has been burned to ashes. Though I do think that keeping that love alive has brought you back to me. I know this with all of my being.”

  A silence passed. They held each other tightly, cheek upon cheek, their hair intermingled in a tangle of reddish tendrils, and as the light of dawn brought the room back into focus, the demons that had haunted Natalia most of her life seemed to be receding.

  She met him a week later, on Rockaway Beach in Queens. Why she’d chosen this spot Natalia wasn’t sure, knowing only that she needed the open air. As she sat at the edge of the water, the deep burgundy of her dress (the one she realized only now with a slight detachment that she’d packed for Victor) was like a flame against the paleness of the sand. Clouds hovered above, so low that she could practically taste the rain droplets, but she was content to be there with this vastness sprawling before her, looking out at the horizon, where the sky and the ocean met in a clean silver line.

  She did not wait long. In the distance, a shape grew as it came toward her, and she knew it was him, and if she hadn’t been sitting down, her knees might have given out. Self-consciously, she observed him from the corner of her eye, smoothing sand from her lap, not wanting to stare. As he came closer, she was surprised to see he was different from what she’d imagined—not at all the towering frame that on that cold winter day had carried her on his back in the bitterness of a Romanian winter, hiding in shadows, dodging the guards. A slim man of medium height in dark rolled-up jeans, a slight effort in his walk as his bare feet sank in the sand, though he did his best not to show it. Yet when he lowered himself next to her, he took on a different dimension, and she grasped that life force resided not in a mountain of a body but in something a great deal more powerful: a will of spirit.

  “Natalia,” he said, kneeling, gripping his thighs as if he was trying to steady himself. “Natalia.”

  She couldn’t look at his face, so instead, she kept her eyes pinned on his hands. They were a workman’s hands, marred by labor, too rough to be smoothed and restored with ointments or creams. Years of hard work were scored on their surface, and something leaped inside her, not because of how rugged they looked but because they were so much like hers. The same long fingers with round, ample nail beds, the same webbing of veins. She felt a little less shy, and she did look up then and saw more of the same. His eyes were the color of hers, shaped the same wa
y, with that same tiny expression crease over his right eyebrow. The same bottom lip, round and full, thicker than the top. She never imagined that it could be like this, that she could see her features carved so symmetrically in another creature. Only his hair was a different hue.

  Iosef attempted to reach for her hand but then drew back immediately, as if afraid to touch her. She, however, was no longer afraid of what this moment was for them both, and she reached over and took his hand in both of hers. Such completeness in this simple gesture, there seemed to be no reason for words, and so they sat there for a while, silently, staring at the rolling waves.

  “There is a God,” he said after some time. “I could die in this moment a happy man.”

  She laughed, with a trace of unease. “Now, Iosef, after all this time, I think there is a much better reason to hang on.”

  The way he looked at her, with such awe, was almost unbearable. Then, from what seemed like thin air, something materialized in his hand. He placed it before her, right in the sand, and she just looked at it for a few moments, knowing that when she picked it up, she would be peeling away another layer, revealing another truth.

  A journal of sorts, old, with a cover curling around the edges. There was a mug stain in the shape of a half-moon right in the center, and the spine had been secured with a glossy band of tape. There on the first page, a photograph had been pasted, a black-and-white of a baby girl with darkish curls and fat cheeks, wearing a familiar bonnet.

  She brought the notebook up closer, closer still as she turned the page, and another, taking in the multitude of handwritten verses. There was a date at the top of each poem, exactly the same one, save for the year.

  “I wrote these for you,” he explained. “On your birthday, each one. The first one was when we were still in Bucharest, hiding out in Stefan’s attic, thinking it would be a matter of days before we could get you back. But then time stretched on, so long and so torturous, and the only way I could stay sane was to write them.”

  He let out a tremulous breath and looked into the distance. “Even after we left Europe and came here, even after I’d given up trying to find a path back to you, I kept writing them. For your mother, there were the children then, a reason to rise in the morning, more than one person to pour all of her love into, but for me . . .” He paused. “This was the way I could keep you alive. By imagining what you looked like, how you had changed, what your life was like at every stage.”

  Natalia couldn’t find words. Instead, she flipped to the end of the journal, ran her finger over the last cluster of verses, swept a few grains of sand from the page. Then, with a held breath, she began reading:

  What is a life if without you,

  The only thing that gave it meaning?

  How to endure another day,

  Without your sweet breath upon my cheek, your eyes near?

  And in the end, when I am laid to rest,

  Without your hand upon my breast,

  What will my last thoughts be if not of you,

  My darling girl of long ago?

  “I keep feeling this is a dream,” Iosef said when she’d regained her composure. There was wonderment in the way he regarded her, as if he still couldn’t believe she was there, right at his side. As if she were an apparition bathed in a halo of light. No one had ever looked at her like that.

  “Yes,” she replied, meeting his gaze. “It is a bit of a dream. And so we’ll dream it. With a little courage, we can dream it for the rest of our lives.”

  His arms went around her suddenly, unreserved, and she hugged him back the same way. To have been loved so fiercely, by so many! Could anyone be so lucky? She’d never felt anything like this—a mixture of joy and of pain, two emotions so entirely opposite yet in this moment never more harmonious. The past and the future, colliding.

  “Thank you,” she told him. “Thank you for sharing your poems with me.”

  There was so much more that she could have said, yet somehow no more was needed. They stood, stiff from sitting so long. She kissed his cheek, once, twice, then turned back toward the ocean. It was time to go—they’d been there for hours, it seemed—yet they remained motionless, gazing at the waves as she nestled against him, close to his beating chest. Then she felt the softness of a different set of arms—arms that could have only been Zora’s—closing in over her shoulders, the warmth of her cheek brushing against her chin. She did not know where she’d come from, but she was there, as were the children, the little girl in a spin of cartwheels, her blond hair brushing against the wet sand, the boys tossing a Frisbee behind them, laughing and teasing, calling them to come join in.

  Epilogue

  NEW YORK CITY IS THE place that I have called home for one year. Tonight, on the anniversary of my arrival here, I am sitting in my bay window watching the ships pass the Williamsburg Bridge. It is a proud moment, indeed, but a nostalgic one as well. Sadness seizes me as it does at times, unexpectedly, cutting my breath. But why do you feel this way, Talia? I ask myself as my gaze drifts upward toward the lights twinkling on the bridge. Why such melancholy?

  There is no reason, really, for I know only too well that happiness does not come without a price. I should not lose sight of all that I have been given, for who could have imagined that in this crowded, bustling city I would find such contentment? It isn’t much, the reason for my bliss. But it is enough for the moment. It is enough to play untuned pianos in dimly lit jazz bars downtown, to watch the pleasure the music flowing from my fingertips elicits in people’s smiles. It makes my eyes water to hear their applause, their pleas for more, the astonishment that I see from time to time on a face in the crowd. And when an offer comes unexpectedly to play in a larger bar, a more well-known one this time on the island of Manhattan, I am flooded with the conviction that this is what I am meant to do for the rest of my days and that I am lucky indeed and very much honored to have been granted the chance.

  But tonight my thoughts are not on my music. They drift instead over the ocean, to a place where a large portion of my life remains frozen in time. In my mind’s eye, I see the two-room flat I shared with the people who raised me, as vividly as if I was still there. I think of them, still asleep at this early hour. Soon they will wake and gingerly make their way out of bed. My father will slip his feet into his worn leather slippers and look at the clock. He will make his way to the bathroom down the hall in his silk striped pajamas, the same ones that he has worn since I was a little girl. My mother will wake, too, and she will come into the family room and sit on the davenport that used to be my bed. Burying her face in my old pillow, she will try to absorb the traces of a fading scent.

  Days, maybe weeks later, a worn, battered envelope stamped by the U.S. Postal Service will lie on the buffet in their family room. With trembling hands, my mother will reach for it and tear it open but then set it down, not quite ready to read it. She will know already what it says. My pleas for forgiveness repeat themselves in every letter I send them, along with most of the money I earn in tips. They are laden with promises, my letters, promises to come back for them someday.

  I will send for you, my carefully scribbled words say. I will be back for you and my papa whom I adore with every fiber in my body. Take care of him. Take care of him and of yourself until we shall be together again.

  And she will smile, my mother, she will smile with affection and pride, knowing that I have meant every word of it, that I will part the seas to get back to them.

  Months will pass still, perhaps half a year, before another letter reaches them. In this one, I write of the miracles that surround me everywhere I turn. Long past the time when I’ve stopped staring at the brightly lit storefronts, at the well-stocked butcher shops and bustling coffee shops, one sight still stirs me most. As I sit on a bench some days, book in hand, amid lush trees and buildings jutting over the dark green borders of Central Park, I cannot help but gaze at the people. They are just ordinary folks going about their lives but with such quiet optimism on thei
r faces, with such bounce in their steps, their shoulders squared and confident, their voices assertive and not hushed. Of all the wonders of New York, its inhabitants are what amaze and inspire me most. There have been many letters like these, letters that detail every aspect of my life, each thought or astounding discovery.

  Yet there is one that I cannot write, one I have started and stopped so many times that I’ve lost count. It’s not that I struggle to find the right words but that it’s taken me a while to learn how to divide my heart into two clear halves, and so I must keep it to myself. Because there is this other half now, this sliver of light that was born out of darkness, that was given back to me when I thought all was lost.

  Zora and Iosef, my blood parents. It is no secret that I have come to love them, that I’ve loved them from the moment Zora opened the door that late afternoon in July and the bouquet of flowers fell from her hands. Iosef, with his stern eyes and skin etched by a life lived too hard, Zora, with her gentle voice and the grace of a swan, even their three foster children—they have become my friends as much as my family. And so we go on. We spend Sundays in Prospect Park, and we stroll across the bridge at night just to see the Manhattan skyline sparkle and shine like something out of a storybook. Zora cooks me the most astounding dinners—golden-brown roasts sprinkled with spices, pasta with clams, dishes which she insists are quite ordinary though they explode in my mouth with a flavor so rich that I want to weep. And we do weep, though mostly we laugh. In their tiny kitchen, we talk about things we will do, places they want to show me, wonders I am still to discover in this heart-stopping city that is our home. But always I see what is in their eyes. I see what they’ve lost, the years, which not even I can bring back for them.