The first months of the new year passed peacefully in Tsura’s small sphere. She knew it was a mirage to think that way. She read the biased papers and questioned Mihai constantly for a truer accounting. The Germans lost more and more battles and the Eastern front moved closer. Antonescu had agreed to repatriate more deportees from Transnistria, but still he refused to send out the order to recall them all. January slid into February and then into March.
Tsura volunteered five days a week at the hospital now. After a long shift in early March, she and Cristina walked home together since their hours had coincided. It was full dark at five o'clock because of winter. Tsura clutched her coat tighter as they made their way down the icy sidewalks. Her woolen stockings were worn and too thin, doing little to combat the freezing air. Everything had become more expensive over the past month, and luxury items like stockings were harder to find. Even the feast they’d had a few months ago for New Year’s would be difficult to manage these days since meat was priced incredibly high.
“What’s going on with you and Radu?” Tsura asked. To her surprise, after New Year’s, Cristina and Radu had begun dating. But Cristina wasn’t like Radu’s normal women. For one, he’d been seeing her for more than two weeks, the longest any of his previous relationships had lasted. He and Cristina were going on two months at this point. Second, Cristina seemed immune to his charm.
Cristina huffed, her breath expelling a puff in the night air of the dimly lit sidewalk. Only a few lamps illuminated the wide street, but it was still busy enough that Tsura felt safe, or as safe as she ever did. They stayed on Brătianu Boulevard the entire twenty minute walk home. They could take the tram, but both of them hated to waste the extra lei unless it was too bitterly cold, they were especially exhausted, or it was late at night and they were traveling alone. But since they could walk together and it was warmer tonight—only five degrees below freezing—they were braving the walk.
“Who knows?” Cristina waved a hand. “He’s such a little boy. Like a puppy, all energy and running over things and begging for attention.”
“But charming,” Tsura said, nudging her friend in the hip.
“Ha!” Cristina said. “That boy has too much charm. That’s his problem. He’s gotten everywhere in his life with that charming smile of his. He barely takes anything seriously!”
Tsura nodded. She could see Cristina’s point.
“But sometimes,” Cristina went on, her voice softening. “I think there’s more to him than that. He’s good to his friends. Loyal. He’s funny but never mean. I think he has a good heart. By the way,” she shot Tsura a sideways look as they paused at an intersection. Cristina pulled out a cigarette and lit it, drawing in a long pull and then letting out the smoke with a small groan of satisfaction. They started walking again when there was a break in traffic. “He says you’ve been very good for Mihai.”
“What?” Tsura couldn’t help her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. She hadn’t expected this conversation to turn around on her.
“Oh yes. He says Mihai was a man driven like a demon before he married you. Cared only about his work and responsibilities. But then you come and he’s gotten softer around the edges.”
This time it was Tsura’s turn to scoff. “Mihai? Soft? Not likely.”
Cristina made a noise of disagreement. “I don’t know. I see the way he looks at you. I’m good at reading people. He looks one way at the rest of the world and then he looks at you and it’s hardly the same man. Whenever you’re not around he looks hard, almost cruel. Then you walk into the room and…” she waved her hand, as if looking for the right phrase. “Well then I guess he looks like a man in love. He gets this brightness to his eyes.”
Tsura bit her lip to keep herself from scoffing again or assuring her friend that it wasn’t like that at all, but kept her mouth shut. If she were a normal girl, and hers were a normal marriage, hearing these things would have made her feel happy. But she was not, and their marriage was not, and if Mihai got a softness around his eyes when he looked at her it was because he was seeing his best friend Luca and wanting to protect the only part of him that he could.
And if Radu had noticed anything, it was only that some of the easiness was back between Mihai and Tsura. Tsura had still not forgiven him for not helping the old Jewish man, and certainly not for knocking her out and dragging her back to the apartment like a caveman. But she’d come to a place of acceptance that he was who he was and they were stuck with each other for the duration of the war. They weren’t intentional strangers to one another any more. In the evenings they worked or read peaceably in the same room. Tsura didn’t joke with him like she had before but still it wasn’t a bad kind of quiet. It was the kind of silence you didn’t feel you had to fill, because even without words, there was that pleasant feeling of not alone. Companionship, she supposed was the word for it. An easy companionship that made silences full instead of empty.
“Maybe they are right with that saying that opposites attract,” Cristina concluded. “You and Mihai, me and Radu.” Then she shook her head and laughed. “Or maybe not. I keep thinking every time I go out with Radu will be the last because he’ll finally do that one thing that drives me so crazy, I’ll end it.”
“But then you don’t,” Tsura said, glad to get the conversation back onto less confusing territory.
“But then I don’t.” Cristina’s smile faded and she took another long drag on her cigarette. “I’ll have a day like today, where I spent three hours sponging down a man who was burned from head to foot, his skin black in some parts and coming off on the sponge.” She shuddered. “Then I go see Radu and he’s so silly with that big, dumb smile of his and…” she shrugged. “I forget everything else for a little while.”
“And the hours of forgetting make everything else bearable,” Tsura finished for her.
Cristina nodded, then dropped her cigarette to the ground and looped her arm through Tsura’s, planting a big kiss on Tsura’s temple. “And that, my friend, is why I like you so much. You understand things.”
Five minutes later, they were at their block, still arm in arm, when Tsura heard her name, well, her false name, called out. Mihai walked toward her, briefcase in hand. He must just be getting home from work. He gave Cristina a nod.
“Darling,” he leaned over to kiss Tsura’s cheek. “We need to talk,” he whispered in her ear.
She pulled back and nodded. They walked with Cristina up to their floor, then said goodbye to her and walked in their apartment.
“What is it?” Tsura asked as soon as she shut the door.
Immediately Mihai was in action. He turned on the radio loud and then hurried to grab their suitcases from underneath the bed. “We need to pack.” His voice was quiet but urgent. “I got another message about a man among the latest batch of returned deportees. It could be Luca.” He looked up and met her gaze. “Or it might be another dead end like last time. But if we hurry, we can make the six o'clock train.”
Tsura all but ran to her dresser. Oh God, oh God, Luca. She grabbed three dresses and several pairs of woolen stockings and underthings, then shoved them in the suitcase. “What did they tell you about him?” she whispered feverishly. “Did they ask if he was named Luca?”
“My contact didn’t know anything else, just that there was a one legged man who had darker skin among the latest group on the train back from the camps.”
Tsura’s heart jumped. “Is he sick? Why is he in the hospital?”
“The contact didn’t say.” Mihai’s face darkened as he rolled up a pair of pants and put it in the suitcase. “But if it’s anything like with the last refugees I saw, well, none of them were in very good shape. They were all very thin, many sickly. Most of them needed medical attention.”
Tsura dropped the suitcase, closed and latched it. Her heartbeat was suddenly racing a thousand times a minute.
“Tsura,” Mihai put a hand on her arm. “It might not be him. It probably isn’t him, in fact.”
Tsura snatc
hed her hand away and shoved the suitcase handle at him. “There’s only one way to find out.”
The next second they were out the door. Tsura was already halfway down the first flight of stairs when she realized Mihai wasn’t with her. She looked back and saw him knocking on Elena’s door. Before she could ask what he was doing, the door had opened and she heard Mihai’s voice. How could he be speaking so calmly at a time like this?
“My grandfather is ill, so we are going immediately to see him. Klaus already knows since I got leave from the office, can you have Cristina notify Alexandra’s work? We’ll be gone for a few days.”
“Oh no, how horrible!” Elena said. “I’m so sorry! I’ll light a candle and pray for him. Are you leaving right now?”
Mihai nodded.
“Have you eaten dinner? Do you have anything to take with you?”
“We’ll be fine—” Mihai said shortly, but Elena cut him off.
“Wait here for one second. I baked pretzels this afternoon, you must allow me to give you some.”
“We really must be going—” Mihai started, but Elena had already whisked away from the door. She came back carrying four large doughy pretzels and wrapped them in a cloth as she reached the door.
“Thank you Elena, that is so thoughtful,” Tsura forced herself to say from the stairs. All she wanted to do was fly to the train station as quickly as possible.
“Yes, yes. Safe journey.”
Mihai hurried after Tsura. They were both silent all the way to the train station. Tsura walked so fast she was almost running. It won’t be Luca, she tried to tell herself. Don’t get your hopes up for nothing. You will bring bad luck if you assume it’s Luca. But she couldn’t help that dangerous blooming bud springing to life in her chest: hope. Because what if it was Luca? She rubbed her chest. Hope was an aching thing, a pleasure pain, because wanting the best was countered by the equal weight of fear of the worst.