Chapter 10- The Silver Cord

Chapter 10

My attempts to get Anna’s attention failed in her reverie.

With no other recourse, I followed the police down the hall to the Dean’s office. Despite my protests, I was not allowed in the room. Someone put a hand on my shoulder and I whirled around to see the Dean of the university.

“Let me go in first and intervene.” He squeezed my arm and then left me. When the door opened, I couldn’t see Anna. I cried out for her, but my voice was lost as the door shut in my face.

I turned and hurried down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor. The wood-paneled hall was divided by glass fronted doors leading to the individual offices of the faculty.

At the end of the hall, there was a cul de sac of three offices. I knocked on the one to my left. My knock was answered by an invitation to enter.

The overhead light shadowed his face as he sat bent over his desk. When I entered the room, he looked up and then sighed and then returned to the book he was studying. He looked the same as I’d remembered him, though as I stepped into the room, it became clear that creases above his brow and around his eyes had softened his chiseled features. Sprinklings of silver frosted his dark hair.

“It’s me Natalie, not Anna,” I said, stopping before his desk.

He leaned back in his chair. “I know.”

I kept in mind that they had not broken up easily. Anna had fought his rationalizations that the affair had come to its natural end with painful, sometimes hysterical entreaties that had lead to embarrassing arguments in front of other faculty. I often wondered if their breakup had precipitated Anna’s descent into her imaginary world, or whether his recognition of her decline caused him to seek an end rather than watch her fall.

“Deszo, I need your help.”

“It’s good to see you, Natalie.”

“Anna’s in trouble.”

“I don’t think I’m the right person for you to see.”

“Please, come now,” I said reaching for his hand. “I’ll explain it as we go.”

“I don’t want to get involved...”

“Deszo, she came here believing she was still a professor. She gave an enflaming speech. Damn it, this has nothing to do with your affair. I’m asking you as a friend.”

“Friend?”

“For Max,” I cried.

His expression remained implacable.

“Then do it for me.”

Deszo’s eyebrows arched and he looked at me without comment.

He stood and walked around his desk. I grabbed his arm in mine and hurried him down the hall. I explained my confrontation with the soldiers last night; the event that I believed had given Anna the impetus this morning. Deszo stopped on the landing under the light from a window and touched my forehead. “Natalie.”

“We don’t have time.” I brushed his hand away.

The crowd around the Dean’s office had subsided when we reached the door. Deszo went first and I followed.

I looked around the room, “Where’s Anna?”

The Dean nodded towards his office. “I had them put her in there. I felt it would be less stressful for her.”

“Thank you,” I said, heading for the door.

I entered the room quietly. My heart skipped as I looked around the room and found it empty. Then I heard the chair behind the desk squeak on its castors and it rolled a little closer to the window.

Walking over to the chair, I saw Anna. Her palm, splayed against the cold glass left a moist impression.

My hand stopped in mid-air at the sound of her voice.

“It’s colder than usual this winter.”

I followed her gaze to the barren trees in the courtyard outside the window. “Yes.”

“I was looking for the birds.”

“Anna…don’t.”

“There aren’t any people in the park to feed them.” Her voice took on a singsong quality.

“People are starving, Anna.”

“But who will feed the birds?” Her whisper, childlike.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“They’ll die if someone doesn’t feed them.”

“Is that why you came here this morning?”

She shrugged, but refused to turn away from the window. “Do you remember when we were little, how Marie would let us put breadcrumbs on the windowsill in the kitchen?”

Her hair had come loose from the neat bun at the nape of her neck, releasing wisps of blonde curls. She swayed in her seat, keeping rhythm to a song I couldn’t hear. Her voice slipped between the ebullient authority I’d heard only an hour before and a childish banter, as if the two warred within her for authority.

“And when we came home from school in the afternoon, we would go to the window and see that all the breadcrumbs were gone. Marie said that the birds had come while we were at school.”

I smiled and touched the collar of her jacket, letting my fingers run along the nubby tweed, wishing I could join her in this innocent reflection.

Anna continued without me. “So one Saturday I put out the breadcrumbs as we did every morning. This time, I sat by the window and waited for the birds. But they never came.”

Anna’s voice broke. “When I asked Marie why they wouldn’t come, she just laughed and said, ‘faith is the evidence of things not seen.’”

“I don’t understand your point, Anna.”

“How can there be evidence of things not seen?”

I looked out at the steel gray sky, pregnant with unreleased snow, and felt the desperate frustration of my sister. But I felt no sympathy. I sighed, exasperated. “Anna, some birds will live and some will die. We cannot save them all.”

Anna shook her head and then pressed her forehead against the glass. “If not us, who?”

“Is that why you came here this morning?” I repeated.

“Someone has to feed the birds,” she whispered. “If not us, then who, Natalie?”

Chapter 9- The Silver Cord

Chapter 9

I heard them before I saw them. Their shouts filled the air, followed by a chorus of screams and curses from the students. The air around me was thick with the movement of bodies turned from exultation to self-preservation. There was only one exit.

A doorway filled by the enemy. Many of the triumphant quickly became lambs, grabbing their books, cowering and bowing their heads in silence. A few brave souls continued to rage. They raged as they ducked.

Then there was Anna.

My darling sister.

She stood against the tide. She stood and laughed.

She continued to laugh as the police surrounded her. She laughed as they grabbed her arms and yanked her away from the podium.

“Stay” she laughed hysterically, breaking free one last time, she raised her arms above her head as if conducting her orchestra.

“Stay!” she screamed as they surrounded her and lifted her by her arms and dragged her from the room.

Chapter 8- The Silver Cord

Chapter 8

I woke to someone pounding on the front door. I bolted out of bed and found Mila standing in the hallway, staring at the door.

“Should I answer it?” she whispered.

“No, go to my room and close the door.” I pushed her down the hall and hurried to the front door.

“What do you want?” I asked through the closed door.

“It’s about your sister, I’m from the university.”

“She no longer works there,” I said my heart pounding.

“I know, but she’s there now,” he yelled back.

“She can’t be, she’s here,” I yelled. “Anna! Anna come here!”

I hurried down the hall to her room. I found the room empty; the bed covers tossed aside and the closet door open. Her pajamas lay in a jumbled pile on the floor.

I ran down the hall opening and slamming doors, looking in the bathroom, my study, the dining room, and the kitchen, all the while calling her name.

“Have you seen Anna this morning?” I asked Mila.

Her eyes were wide with fright. “I’ve only been up for a little while. Her door was closed so I thought she was still sleeping.”

I ran back to the front door, “Where’s my sister?”

The young student standing before me flinched and then straightening up looked confused. “But I thought you were, I mean, I...”

“We’re twins,” I replied recognizing his confusion. “Now where is she?”

“Oh,” he recovered. “She’s at the University.”

“What?”

His cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “She’s giving a lecture.”

“That’s not possible!” I said. “Who are you? And who sent you on this terrible practical joke?”

He squared his shoulders and his cheeks blushed crimson again. “It’s not a joke!” he cried, “I was one of her students before she left.”

“Are you sure she was there?” I asked. “This morning?”

“She’s not here, is she?” he snapped. “We don’t have time. She’s giving a lecture, they’re afraid of what she’ll say. The dean sent me to get you. Before the police arrive.”

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “Wait a moment,” I rushed to my room and explained the situation to Mila as I dressed.

She got up and hurried to the door. “I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t,” I said, grabbing for the dress I’d discarded last night. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You’ll need my help!”

“Mila, I’ve told everyone that you left with your mother, you can’t be seen.”

“But I can’t stay here.”

“For now you must.” I sat on the edge of the bed and struggled into my stockings and shoes. “I don’t have time to argue.”

I got up and met Mila at the door. Embracing her I whispered in her ear, “Please, I know it’s hard, but please, stay here.”

She didn’t respond but met my gaze with sad, frustrated eyes that reminded me that she was still a young girl.

The long hall of the university’s tiled floor echoed the clatter of our heels. We ran by classrooms that had emptied to follow the crowd down the hall. Although the location of her former classroom was familiar to me, the throng of students and professors outside the doorway was a surer indication that we’d reached our destination.

I could not see Anna over the heads of the students who stood in front of me. I could hear her voice. Pushing through the crowd, I stopped at the doorway and stared. Thankfully, she’d exchanged her ball gown for an old green tweed suit. Her wild blond hair was neatly pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her face was pale, but radiant. Her composure astonished me. Her shoulders were back, her head held high, commanding her audience. Gone was the wild, lost look in her eyes. Before me stood a woman, I’d rarely seen in the past year. In shock, I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The students sat in rapt attention. The room was silent, except for her voice. I watched in awe as she paced behind the table, her hands clasped behind her back, warming to her subject.

“War seems to be the way of the world. We read of military campaigns lead by men with maps, armies marked by pushpins, their progress shown by arrows drawn in ink. These Generals plan their assault safely tucked in bunkers of reinforced concrete. Who are we to them?”

No, Anna, I gasped. Please no. I recalled the look in her eyes last night. I saw it again before me now. “No not here!” I whispered.

Her brows furrowed in anger. “They see an aerial view of a city. Imagine the camera drops through the clouds to a building and into a window, and there watches the events of a single family. Mothers standing before dinner tables where there is no food! Fathers and sons marched off to battlefields where they are never heard from again. Children gunned down in streets where they once played.”

“On the streets!” yelled a young girl with braids wrapped around her head. “Where they are killing us!”

The students yelled their approval.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood and I waved my arm to try to attract my sister’s attention. I couldn’t let her go on. The crowd pushed me backwards and I struggled to stay on my feet. The walls of the room closed around me, the temperature rising with the crush of students. The wound on my head ached and I felt dizzy. I grasped the shoulder of the man in front of me afraid I would faint. He turned and smiled, as if I were a comrade in this charade.

Anna raised her voice to shout over the rising chorus. “Beyond the slogans, between the air-raid sirens, food must be found, sleep must be had, and just one more day survived…”

The applause began. Anna shouted over the noise. “While we wonder when the nightmare will end!”

A group in the last row began a chant of “When, when, when, when...”

Didn’t she realize what she was doing? In her efforts to speak against what had happened to me on the street, she was putting us in greater danger. Anna’s eyes sparkled as she looked around the room. Her voice rose as she brought her arms into the air.

“It is our responsibility as artists to raise our voices.”

The crowd roared their approval. I shuddered and tried in vain to yell for her to stop.

“We must speak out against those who would kill us. We must use our pens as swords!”

Anna’s bright red cheeks radiated the passion behind her words. “We will not hide from the enemy. We will not be silent! We will tell them that we have had enough of their guns and tanks and bombs!”

The crowd exploded in a chorus. “Yes!”

“To the streets!”

“Down with the fascists!”

Trying to shove my way forward, I failed as students rushed toward Anna and simultaneously began shouting down dissenters. Around the room, arguments broke out and fists raised.

I clawed my way through the hordes, screaming, “Anna! Anna!”

She turned toward my voice and then moved away to the other side of the room.

“Anna! Stop!”

My cries were lost in the melee.

Behind me, the crowd surged forward and I toppled against the rows of desks in front of me. I flung myself into the crowd that moved in the irrational ebb and flow of a tide simultaneously trying to move in and out of the room.

“Anna!”

As students pressed against her, she became disoriented. I watched her face transform as her mind opened and she slipped through a door that lead her far away. A young woman screamed and the crowd surged backwards and someone yelled that the police had arrived.

Congratulations Cormac McCarthy!

Today it was announced that Cormac McCarthy has been awarded the Pulitzer prize for his latest novel, The Road.

I just finished reading this novel last week, and with it still fresh in my mind, I concur whole heartedly with the committee's decision. In an Amazon review, I wrote of The Road:

This book describes the post-apocalyptic journey of a father and son making their way to the sea and what they hope will be a better or at least warmer habitat. Along the way they must face not only the crippling hunger that knows no relief in this blighted world, but the traveling bands of survivors, turned cannibals, that see them as one of the last remaining sources of protein.

The landscape and the relentless looking over the shoulder is oppressive...even more so is the slow deterioration of the health of both father and son, as well as the ever present gun...and the release it offers for one or both.

In all this darkness McCarthy distills a love that transcends death, and in the end the smallest glimmer of hope.


But what struck me most was the story's simplicity...it is a linear journey from Point A to Point B. But its genius is McCarthy's writing, his ability to create a horrific landscape, and yet a deeply loving relationship between the father and son.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about finding one's voice....this is McCarthy's voice. The terse, straightforward sentence. The dark voice.

Chapter 7 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 7

Jozef pressed the knife against my niece’s flesh. “Drop the saber and hand me the bag.”

“Don’t Nana,” Mila’s voice was hoarse. “He’ll kill us both.”

The memory of Deszo and Max fencing. I heard Deszo’s voice laughing as he parried Max’s thrust, “Technique always wins over brute strength, you Russian fool.”

I lifted the saber as if to hand it to him, then swiveling the blade I brought it down slashing into his arm. The edge of the saber was too dull to tear his clothing but the force of the blow knocked the knife from his hand and he cried out in pain, rolling off Mila holding his arm.

Mila reached the knife first and rolled onto her back. She scuttled across the floor using her legs like a crab. She stopped with her back propped up against the bookcase, holding the knife in both her hands, she gasped, and “You bastard, I’ll kill you.”

“You don’t have the strength,” Jozef laughed.

“Enough!” I screamed, stepping between the two. “I said, enough. No one wins here.”

Jozef leaned back on his arms, panting, as he regarded me from the floor. I realized we no longer faced any harm from him. There was something in his eyes, caution, but not aggression. He fancied himself a businessman, not a thief. Where we saw danger, he saw the opportunity to make a profit. He was as desperate as we were, but for different reasons. Max once told me that when you understood a man’s motive, you knew how to deal with him.

“We still need to find a way to safety,” I said. “At least for Mila.”

“There are no more trains out.”

“I have money.”

He got to his feet, dusting off his pants, he leaned over and grasped the sack. “So do I.”

I moved closer and tapped his back with the saber. “You won’t leave with that.”

His eyes again went to Mila. She straightened, holding the knife against her side, regarding him. Her hair had come loose from its braid and lay in loose ringlets across her shoulders. I imagined that Jozef was gradually recognizing her beauty.

He shrugged his shoulders, “For a price, I can get supplies, documents, things.”

Mila scoffed “And we should trust you?”

“You have no choice.” He smiled his dark eyes startling in their cunning and their magnetism. “You trusted me to get the tickets.”

“And you cheated us!”

“Not me,” he said, and then his smile faded. “The two who got on that train cheated you.”

I motioned him to the chair where I sat last night. “I’ll make coffee.”

Jozef regarded me for a long moment and then Mila. He started to say something and then stopped. He shrugged, sighed, carried the bag of my belongings to my chair, and sat down. “I’m hungry.”

“I don’t trust him,” Mila whispered as she helped me with the coffee.

“Neither do I,” I replied. “But that has nothing to do with his ability to help us.”

Turning from Mila, I carried a cup of coffee across the room to our guest.

Chapter 6 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 6

I fled, pursued down streets slick with icy rain, luminous against overhead streetlights. I tripped and fell scrapping my knees on broken glass. I struggled to my feet and threw myself forward. I rushed toward the familiar buildings of the university.

“Nana help me!”

Mila’s scream. Where? Ahead the street was deserted.

“Nana!”

Her cry, anguished in pain and fear.

“I’m here, Mila.” I spun around desperately trying to locate the sound of her voice. I’d reached the courtyard between the Economics and Physical Sciences buildings. Under the spotlights, shrouded in mist, I saw two men dressed in full fencing uniform, faces covered, engaged in battle. Their attack and parry interspersed with harsh laughter that belied the friendly competition.

“My point!” exulted the man on the left.

“I’m still ahead,” gasped the other man, regaining his balance and launching into an attack.

“Max, Deszo?” I shouted. “Where is Mila? Didn’t you hear her cries for help?” I rushed toward my husband, reaching out for his arm. At the same instant, Deszo leapt forward, his saber carrying the full force of his weight. A searing pain ripped through my chest, knocking me backward. I coughed, my lungs filling, drowning me with my own blood. I touched my lips and the warm liquid oozed over my hands.

Choking, I sat up in bed, bathed in sweat, my heart pounded in my chest.

I heard a crash and swearing.

I lifted my feet from under the comforter and placed them on the cold floor. I slipped toward the door. I needed a weapon. My foot stumbled on a slipper twisting my ankle; I stifled a cry of pain. I reached the door to the closet and opened it. My lungs filled with the sweet painful scent of him as I pushed aside my husband’s old suits. My fingertips felt the cold steel blade and reached up to grasp the handle of the old saber. I heard Max chuckle. During the early days of our marriage, I’d ridiculed his pursuit of this historically Hungarian sport. He’d chided me that a good Russian could handle any weapon with ease.

Pulling the saber from the closet, I weighed it in my hand. It was heavier than I’d imagined, its dull-edged blade made for fencing not slicing, but it would serve.

Books fell against what I knew to be the empty shelves that had held my china on bookshelves of my study. I hoped Anna had taken her customary sleeping pill. Mila was another matter.

I hurried to the entrance to my study. I threw on the light switch and stepped into the doorway. “You came back for the china?” I asked.

He looked now from the saber to my face. “I didn’t know who would be chosen.”

“But when you went to the station this morning and saw Bela and Ilona, you figured it out.”

“You should’ve remained in your room.”

“You’ve done enough harm.” I raised the saber to the height of his chest.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and stepped forward. “You think you can stop me with that?”

My hand shook, but I held firm. “I will.”

I stepped toward him. “What’s your name?”

“Jozef.”

“Nana?”

His eyes went to the door.

I called out, “Mila go back to bed.”

Mila’s voice carried a quiet authority. “Put the bag down and leave.” I glanced back and saw the knife in her hand.

“Jozef, my name is Natalie. This is my niece,” I said watching him.

“Nana, what’re you doing?”

“He’s the ticket seller,” I explained.

“You,” she hissed. “You tricked my mother!”

“No,” Jozef said.

“There were supposed to be five tickets.”

I held out my arm to interrupt her. “Mila, you don’t understand.”

“Your mother knew there were only two tickets,” he said.

“No!” Mila ran forward her knife thrust toward Jozef. “No! You are lying!”

He grabbed her wrist, pulling her into his chest. She screamed as he twisted the knife from her hand and it clattered to the ground. Throwing Mila to one side, Jozef stooped to pick up the knife. Mila thrust her foot in front of his hand and kicked the knife over to me. Jozef lunged across the floor as I knelt for the weapon. Mila jumped onto his back just as he grabbed the knife. I watched in horror as they rolled away from me, Mila’s fist pounding against him. With a jerk, he threw her onto her back. He pinned Mila’s arms beneath his knees and put the knife to her throat.

“NO!”

Chapter 5 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 5

I tried to gain my bearings through the fog but my vision clouded, I saw only my husband’s face. His gaze focused on my own. It was not the face he’d had when he died. This one was no longer ravaged by illness, thinned because he was no longer able to eat. These eyes were vibrant and clever. In death, my husband had returned to the beauty of the days of our early marriage.

“How could they let an old woman be beaten?” I asked.

“This is only the beginning,” he replied.

“Is this a dream?”

“No.” His eyes, so brown, knowing and warm. Like those of the old woman.

I searched for his hand. “Will I become like Anna?”

“You’re stronger.” His breath was warm against my hand, his mouth so soft.

“Take me with you,” I begged.

“No, not yet, my darling. Not yet.” Swallowed in a yellow filmy haze, his face faded into air.

“Come back!” I reached into the emptiness but found nothing.

Blinking back the throbbing in my skull, I slowly raised myself and slid up the wall. The sun had set below the buildings casting long grey shadows down the street. A man leaned over, helped me to my feet, and then scurried away before I could thank him.

My head swam with pain. I stumbled forward and then saw the old woman still sprawled on the sidewalk. I touched her face. It was cold and lifeless. I looked up as people walked by, avoiding my stare. “Dear God, have mercy on her soul and on ours for our sins.”

I managed to cross the street to the alley. There I found my basket of food untouched.

Mila and Anna met me at the door. Anna touched my cheek, “What happened?”

I handed Mila the basket of food as Anna took off my coat. “An accident,” I replied.

“Were you robbed?”

“No, it was the soldiers.”

“I heard them announcing another curfew,” Mila said. “I was coming to look for you.”

The thought of Mila alone on the streets, confronted by the Arrow Cross...meeting the same fate as the old woman. Suddenly the full assault of the day’s events caught up with me.

My eyes filled with tears and I reached out for Mila’s arm. “I need to sit down.”

Mila grabbed my arm and I leaned against her, resting my face on her head. Her hair was smooth against my cheek, so soft, I turned and kissed the top of her head.

Anna came to my right, placed her arm around my waist. She guided me to a chair and gently pushed me down into it. “Sit and I’ll be right back.” She hurried down the hall to the bathroom and I could hear her rummaging through the cabinet.

“Mila, it’s not safe for you to leave the apartment,” I said. “We have to make arrangements to get you to safety.”

Mila placed the basket on the counter and began to take the food out. “I want to stay here with you.”

I rubbed my head wearily. “Max said I should find someone to help us.”

“Uncle Max?” Mila turned and looked at me, she furrowed her brow in concern.

Anna came in and knelt by my side. With tender concern, she dabbed the wound on my forehead with a cotton swab and antiseptic. I flinched at the burning sensation.

Anna’s eyes met mine as she placed the bandage on the wound. “Tell us how this happened.”

“I was stupid,” I said. “Coming home from Mr. Nyugati’s store, I saw an old woman assaulted by the Arrow Cross. No one would help her.”

“So you did.”

“I tried,” I sighed.

“And you got this for your efforts?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What happened to the old woman?” Mila asked.

I remained silent; Anna looked at me and shook her head.

Mila persisted. “What happened to her?”

I shut my eyes, seeing the old woman’s battered face before me. “When I woke up she was gone.”

Mila turned back to the stove, but her body shuddered.

Exhausted I went to my room, closed the door, and shed my clothes, too tired to bathe. I pulled on a nightgown and slipped between the covers. I looked at the picture of Max. I picked up the heavy silver frame and clutched it to my chest. I heard him sigh from a corner of the room and I gently laid the frame on the pillow next to me. I turned on my side and let my fingers trace the edge of the sheets where he had lain next to me for so many years. “Come back to me, darling.”

Finding a voice...

Last Saturday, during my weekly visit to the library, I found an early work of Yann Martel (author of the 2002 Man Booker prize for the Life of Pi. This collection of novella/short story: The facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and other stories is touching, strange, and represents the one type of writer that I so admire, the playful intellectual....someone clearly so smart, yet un-pretentious.

I thought about this all week as I re-vised and considered my feelings about my own writing, both the novel I'm currently working on and the one I will work on after this, which will present an even greater challenge as it is currently unfinished, and then the one after that. I suppose my greatest fear is that my writing will always fall short of my expectations.

How does a writer find their voice? Is it a matter of choice or something that is as pre-determined as one's speaking voice?

Chapter 4 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 4

Anna followed me down the hall to the kitchen. We stood in the doorway and surveyed the damage. The cabinet doors were open, the shelves empty. The window over the sink flooded the room with dusty afternoon light and cast shadows across the kitchen table where a solitary jar of pickled beets still stood next to the empty pots for cream and sugar and dirty cups containing the dregs of last night’s coffee.

“Who left the kitchen in such a state?” Anna asked. “Mother will be furious.”

I looked at her and then at the wreckage. No use explaining that our mother had been dead for more than fifteen years. The events of this morning, I hoped, were just as forgotten. I stepped into the room and began to sweep the shards of broken crockery into a pile.

This morning I’d been jolted from my sleep by the sound of dishes splintering the silence of the apartment. Like a battle scene in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Bela’s baritone answered Anna’s bewildered scream. From the darkness of my room, I rushed into a wall of light, squinting as I ran down the hallway toward the sound of my sister’s voice.

Anna stood in the center of the kitchen wearing my late husband’s faded woolen robe, so ridiculously large for her thin frame that she appeared to be a child playing dress up.

“It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault.” Anna cried. “The maid told me she would draw my bath before dinner.”

“The maid’s gone and it’s morning you crazy woman,” Bela roared.

“Who will run my bath?” My sister’s arms waved uselessly at her sides. “I’m going to be late, Natalie.” Her blonde hair, tangled about her face, all but obscured the red-rimmed eyes that pleaded with me to explain.

“Get out of here,” Bela yelled. “We’re not going to wait for you.”

Anna froze in her tracks oblivious to the threats.

Bela pulled tins off the shelves looking through them, tossing them away in frustration. “Where did you put the money?”

“I gave you all the money I had.”

“I know you keep a stash hidden somewhere around here.”

My throat knotted as I pushed my way past him. My slippers crackled over shards of dishes. My sister’s feet were bare, a small pool of blood formed halos around her toes. I winced as if the pain were mine.

“My bath’s not ready.” My sister rocked back and forth in time to a slow baleful moan rising from her chest. The slivers of plate cutting into her feet drew no reaction on her face.

“Damn it,” Bela, hollered, He elbowed us aside and went to the counter and began shoving food into a knapsack. “Get that hag out of my way.”

“Natalie, why won’t he leave?” Anna looked at me reproachfully. “Deliveries are to be made before noon.”

“Here, put on my slippers,” I whispered, sliding them off. Anna looked at me and then at her own bloodied feet and her moaning rose to a piercing wail.

“Who cut my feet?” She wiped her feet back and forth in the blood smearing it in a wide circle. “Who cut me?”

“My God!” Ilona stood in the doorway clutching an over-stuffed suitcase. “She’ll get blood on the food.”

“The blood is on the floor, not on the food!” I brushed the shards from the soles of Anna’s feet and slipped my shoes on her.

“Ilona, put your case next to the door and wait there,” Bela snapped.

I straightened up and looked at Bela. “Just don’t forget to find space in that bag for Mila’s portion.”

“Mila can pack her own bag. She’s old enough to do that.”

“So is your wife.”

He shrugged and shoved another container of tinned meat into the knapsack. “She needs more help than Mila.”

I watched him, mesmerized by his greed and single-mindedness. It was clear that he planned to take as much food as possible in a sack he had no intention of sharing. “For God’s sake Bela, there are other people in this family.”

A jar of pickles crashed to the floor, its pungent liquid creating a morbid watercolor as it washed over the splotches of blood. Anna cringed. I put my arm around her shoulders as she buried her head against my chest.

Bela grabbed the knapsack and pushed past us with a parting shot. “We’re leaving.”

“Can’t you wait for Mila?” I asked.

“She’ll slow us down,” Bela said. “You bring her.”

What I knew as soon as Bela uttered those words had come true. Now there was nothing to do but sweep up the broken remains of glass and plate and begin again.

“I need to go out for a while,” I said.

Anna grabbed her coat and headed toward the door to join me. “Where are we going?”

“Stay here with Mila. I’m just going to the grocer.” I took her coat and hung it on the hook near the door. “I won’t be long. We need food, there’s none left in the cupboard.”

“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Anna’s face wrinkled with childish concern. I worried about leaving her alone, but I knew that the quick trip would take too long if she came with me. I hated that the simplest tasks had become a choice of loyalty over practicality.

“I’ll be back in a very short time.”

“How long?”

I looked at my watch and then at the one on her wrist, synchronizing the two. I tapped her wrist. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

“When will you be back?” she asked again.

I sighed, “Soon.”

“Will Deszo be with you?”

“I don’t think so.” Deszo, the professor of economics with whom Anna had been having an affair, returned to his wife when her erratic behavior threatened to expose his behavior.

“No, I guess he wouldn’t.” She shrugged her shoulders.

Anna decided to go to her room. In her usual war with lucidity, she voiced both a desire to make the final act at the opera and the need to rest. As I watched her walk down the hall in her filthy ball gown, I thanked God for the clear moments she still had left, and shook my head knowing those moments grew more infrequent as her insanity claimed a wider territory.

I grabbed my purse and shoved the money that I’d tied around my neck into it. As much as I needed to go to the grocer’s to replenish our supply of food, more importantly I needed time away from Anna and Mila to sort out my thoughts.

Trudging downstairs, I wondered why I’d been so blind to Ilona’s ruse. Passing by the door of the other apartment in this building, I wondered if I would be able to turn to my neighbors for help.

I shook my head. Mourning the past or counting on the help of acquaintances would get me nowhere. I had one task: protect Mila. I leaned against the steel door and stepped back into the afternoon sun and fresh air.

I made my way down the street to the small shop owned by Mr. Nyugati. I was surprised to find the metal gate drawn down in front of the doorway leading to his shop. I knocked and called out his name.

“We’re closed,” answered his wife. “Go away.”

I yelled through the seams in the gate. “It’s me, Natalie. Let me in. I just need a few things.”

“We have no more food to sell.”

“Please,” I pleaded. “I’ll take whatever you have.”

I heard Mr. Nyugati arguing with his wife and then the gate rolled up half way and I quickly ducked under the door.

The air was dark and warm inside the shop. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that Mrs. Nyugati had spoken the truth. The shelves were barren of all but a few cans.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The Arrow Cross soldiers were here this morning. They came in and took everything we had and didn’t pay,” Mrs. Nyugati cried.

“How could they?”

“They said we were selling to the enemy,” Mr. Nyugati replied. “So we were to be closed down. In the meantime, they would stop us by taking everything.”

“You must report them!”

Mrs. Nyugati scoffed, “To whom? The police?

“But what will you do now?” I knew the small income they made from this store was barely enough to support them.

“I’ve sent my son out to talk with their commander,” Mr. Nyugati sighed. His son had been denied service in the army as the result of a clubfoot. “I’ve given him the small amount of money I had and he will try to make a bribe that will allow us to re-open.”

“Is there anything left that I could buy?” I walked down the aisle picking up the cans of vegetables. “I’ll take whatever you have.”

“Here let me help you,” Mr. Nyugati took my basket and began to fill it. He carried it behind the counter and reaching beneath pulled out a loaf of bread, a short string of kielbasa, a wedge of cheese with bits of blue mold clinging to the edges, and a couple handfuls of potatoes.

“I greatly appreciate this,” I opened my purse to pay him. “Will you be able to get more?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Here, please go out the back way along the alley. It’s safer that way.”

I followed him down the long hall that bisected the storeroom and the stairway that lead to the small apartment where they lived with their son, Stephen, and his wife and child.

He opened the door for me and looked out to make sure the alleyway was clear before stepping aside to let me pass.

Pausing, I asked, “Can I come again?”

“It’s not safe,” he said. “I’ll send my son to your apartment in a few days.”

“Thank you Mr. Nyugati,” I pressed money into his hands.

I hurried into the alleyway and heard the door shut behind my back. The alley was nearly as dark as the store and stank of rubbish. I stepped gingerly around piles of rotting food and stifled a scream as a rat, shiny with filth, ran across my path.

At the end of the building, I stepped onto the sidewalk just as a troop of Arrow Cross soldiers crossed on the other side of the street.

The leader of the group screamed, “Halt!”

I jumped backwards into the shadow of the alley my heart pounding as I pressed against the grimy brick wall. I held my breath and strained to hold the basket in my shaking hands.

I was not their prey.

An old woman stood three paces in front of them. She froze.

I saw her flinch and offer her basket.

They laughed and knocked it out of her hands. “Show us your papers!”

She pointed to her coat and then began to fumble with her purse, searching to produce the documents.

“Who are you buying food for? Where is the rest of your family hiding?”

Sobbing, she denied their charges. They screamed at her calling her a “filthy whore”. They surrounded her, pushing and shoving her against the building. A young solider raised his fist and brought it down. Her head snapped back against the blow and she stumbled but remained upright.

Others passed by this scene with heads bowed, making a wide circle or crossing the street. Yet, no one uttered a word in protest as the soldiers joined their comrade in the beating. The woman slid to the pavement with her arms raised in futile defense against the rain of blows. Her pleas for mercy met with laughter and insults and steel-toed boots that punctured her stomach and broke her ribs.

“Stop it! You’ll kill her!”

I threw myself on top of the woman, holding her bleeding head in my arms. Her hands grasped the back of my coat as if she were drowning. Strong arms grabbed me; I continued to scream as they threw me to the side.

My hands scraped against the concrete as I tried again to enfold her in my arms. I felt the skin of my knuckles tear. My face pushed into the collar of her coat. I smelled the sweat of her fear mingled with my own. When I raised my face to hers, our eyes met.

“No,” she whispered. “Go.”

A young brute pulled me away. He threw me onto the sidewalk and I grabbed his leg to regain my balance. Instinctively he swung the butt of his rifle, striking me in the face. As I slid into darkness, I heard someone calling my name.

Chapter 3 - The Silver Cord

Chapter 3


“Nana, we going to miss the train!”
Turning from where I was desperately trying to hail a taxi, I watched my young niece run into the street.
“Mila get back to the sidewalk with Anna!”
Tires squealed and a horn blasted. Following Mila, Anna, stepped into the path of a car. The front fender grazed her, spinning her in slow motion. I shared her helpless vertigo as the world spun before my eyes, and sky and buildings and pavement swirled like a tumbling house of cards.

Anna fell with the pageantry of a well-dressed bundle of sticks, the blue silk of her ballgown parachuted, revealing spindly legs covered by stripped flannel pajama bottoms. She landed on the road in a heap of colorful fabric. My poor, delusional sister, dressed for a night at the opera, on the morning that held our last chance to escape.

We rushed to her side. Mila knelt next to Anna, wiping blood from her forehead, while I cradled Anna’s head in my lap.
“Anna, where does it hurt?” I murmured, my hands frantically groped through the yards of fabric to feel for broken bones.
“Why don’t you look where’re you’re going!” yelled the driver over the blaring horns of the stalled traffic.
“Look at my dress!” Anna moaned. “Deszo will notice the stain on the skirt.”
“He’s too much a gentleman,” I assured her.
Anna winced as she tried to raise herself. “My head hurts.”
Looking up, I yelled at the driver of the car. “We’re going to the train station. You have to take us.”
He threw his arms up in the air. “Because this crazy woman ran in front of my car?”
“Please, we have to catch a train.”
Cursing, he slammed his fist on the hood. “Get in the car.”
Mila and I lifted Anna to her feet and helped her into the back seat of the car. The driver pulled back into traffic, lurched around a corner, nearly sideswiping a delivery truck attempting the same corner from the opposite direction.
“Nana, how much time do we have?” Mila asked.
I checked my watch. “Ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes until the train leaves?” The driver shook his head, hunched over the steering wheel, the edge of his dirty wool coat rubbed against the edge of his cap. “No chance. You’ll never make it.”
The driver accelerated, and then threw on his brakes as another car swerved in front of him. He retaliated, cutting off the car in turn, while gesturing wildly and swearing.
“What’s wrong with this driver?” Anna asked. “This isn’t the way to the Opera House.”
The driver slammed on the brakes. “What?”
“Ignore her!” I cried.
He swore again and the car leapt forward. As we turned the corner, I saw a sliver of our beloved Danube, and the Parliament building, which sat on the river’s edge like a fat wedding cake. I shivered as I noticed the tanks that circled it like a line of hungry rats.
Mila leaned forward to look out the front window. “Nana, Momma wouldn’t let the train leave without us.”
“Of course not,” I said.
“She said we could take a later train.” Mila turned to me, her enormous blue eyes revealed her doubt more profoundly than her words.
The driver looked at me through the rear view mirror and shook his head.
“Anna how are you feeling?” I asked.
“I have an awful headache.”
“What were you thinking, walking into the street?”
“That’s where you were.” she smiled up at me. “We’re going to miss the first curtain,” Anna said. “I hope Deszo will wait for us.”
The traffic piled up and finally stopped. We were losing time. The train station was three blocks ahead.
“Mila, grab our bags, we’ll have to run the rest of way.” I opened
the door and helped Anna to her feet.
I handed the driver a wad of bills. “Thank you.”
He smiled sadly, “Good luck.”

We hurried through the stalled traffic and throngs of pedestrians. Three gypsy children running against the current surrounded us. With ragged smiling faces, one stretched out a hand and another surreptitiously tried to find an entrance into a pocket or purse. Anna cried out as a young boy grabbed her coat. I slapped him away. Instinctively I clutched the lapels of my coat shut. Shoved from side to side, we slowly made our way forward. Pushed out into the street we moved between stalled cars.
Regaining the sidewalk, I clutched Anna as her feet slipped on a patch of worn shiny ice and her legs collapsed beneath her. Mila was steps ahead of us, looking back from moment to moment, urging us to keep up with her. Finally, we crossed the last street before the train station.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom of the cavernous main hall. Our shoes slid against the slick marble floors. We stumbled over suitcases and bags tied together haphazardly with twine. Old women sat along walls clutching their grandchildren in one hand and their meager belongings in another. Men in military uniforms paced listlessly waiting for orders. Beggars, limbs missing, were propped against the steps, like discarded luggage. We slogged our way through the main hall toward the stairs that lead to the train platforms. To our left, we passed a waiting area, shrouded in darkness, in which rows and rows of benches were crowded with silent, hopeless souls.
“Nana,” Mila yelled pointing to a sign overhead. “The train is on track three.”
“Go, find your mother,” I shouted. “And get on the train.”
Mila hesitated.
“Go!” I shouted. “We’ll meet you there.” I watched as Mila disappeared into the crowd. I grabbed my sister’s face and our eyes met. “You must help me. We’ve got to get to the train track.”
For a moment, lucidity glimmered. “Yes, let’s go,” she whispered. We locked arms. Swept into the current of bodies pouring toward the entrance to the tracks, we struggled to keep up.

On the tracks, an explosion of cold mixed with the fetid stink from the terminal. The noise level rose to a roar. A mob surged with the desperate energy. Shouts from train conductors fought the outraged passengers without tickets. Fights broke out as people clawed and shoved their way onto to over-crowded trains. Above all of this, the monstrous hiss of engines and bone-crushing scrape of metal against metal heralded the trains’ gathering departure. My frustration and fear mounted at the impossible task of holding onto Anna while watching for Mila.
I grabbed a conductor, “Where’s the train to Geneva?”
“On the left,” he shouted. “It’s leaving,”
I grabbed Anna’s arm, leaned forward using my shoulder to wedge an opening in the throng.
“Mila! Ilona!” My shouts were swallowed by the cries of my neighbors. I saw the train and continued pushing until I reached an open space just along the edge of the platform. I had to avoid falling onto the tracks, but ahead, I saw Mila arguing with a conductor as she tried to get onto the train. I used all my strength to push toward her.
“My mother has my ticket!” She attempted to push past the conductor. “Let me on and I’ll get the ticket from her.”
I dragged Anna along with me until she refused to keep up. I dropped her hand and ran forward without a word or a look backward.
The conductor shoved Mila back onto the platform. “No ticket, no entrance. This train is full.”
The train shuddered, lurched forward and back. A loud shriek of steel and steam and I watched in horror as it inched forward. Mila’s attempts grew more desperate.
“Please let me on,” she cried, skipping sideways to keep pace with the train. “My mother has my ticket.”
Mila looked along the length of the train and then sprinted. She stopped half-way down the car and then started trotting to keep pace with the slowly moving train.
She pounded on a window of the train, screaming, “Momma!”
The window opened and Ilona leaned out. “Mila, how did you get here?”
Mila reached up and grasped her mother’s fingers. “Momma, give me my ticket.”
“I don’t have it.”
They were moving too quickly now. I ran to catch up, spellbound by the macabre drama.
Ilona looked at me and yelled, “Take her home. It’s too late!”
“Why?” Mila cried.
Ilona glared at me and then at Mila.
“Tell her Ilona! Tell her!” I shouted. “There never were more than two tickets!”
The wind whipped the hair across Mila’s twelve year old face as it crumbled in anguish. “Momma don’t leave me.”
Ilona looked at her daughter and then closed the window, her face pained, but defiant.
“Please Momma,” Mila screamed, “I love you!”

I rushed to Mila’s side and gathered her into my arms. Her limp, cold body weighed against mine. Over the top of her head I saw Anna standing in the midst of the crowd, holding our suitcase. Our eyes met and she shook her head. I wondered, and then knew from the look in her eyes, that despite her bouts of delusion, she understood what had just happened. I buried my face in the sweet tangled mass of Mila’s hair. We stood together, crying as the station continued to pulse and swarm around us.

We swam against the current, along the train platform, up the stairs to the main hall. We climbed the steps leading from this particular level of Dante’s hell and pressed through the heavy doors leading out onto the street.
The sun broke through the clouds and we shielded our eyes. It was the first real sunlight we’d seen in weeks. The brightness seemed surreal. We walked for a few blocks, regaining our bearings. Mila’s breathing steadied, though she continued to stumble along, head down, allowing us to guide her. Under the pressure of my hand on the back of her coat, the sobs that had racked her chest subsided.

Several blocks from the station, we managed to shove our way onto a crowded tram. The steamed windows made it impossible to see the familiar blocks as we re-traced our path toward home. I leaned over to put our bags on the floor by my feet and a stout woman next to me shoved me back with a curse. I realized how little our concerns mattered to anyone else.

I now understood why earlier generations believed the sun circled the earth. In our limited imaginations, that is how we lived our lives. I understood how crimes could be committed in plain view. We got off the tram at our building and trundled up the steps to our apartment.

The front door stood open, as if expecting our return.