Later that night, Tsura lay in bed, hugging her pillow close. Andrei. Where was he? For the hundredth time, she looked over her shoulder to the closet. The door was open. But the trapdoor hadn’t moved.
She closed her eyes and her body deflated. They’d been arguing all week. But tonight. She’d been so sure that he’d come tonight, their last night before…
A noise sounded behind her and she held her breath. She didn’t move or turn her head again even as she heard shifting and the sound of the trapdoor closing again. The soft noise of footsteps on the rug. The creak of the bed as he got onto the mattress behind her.
Then she broke and turned to fling her arms around Andrei. She kissed his neck and then his face and then his lips.
She’d been lying to herself earlier. She hadn’t been sure if he’d come at all.
When she pulled away, he didn’t look like himself. Normally his face was laughing, so ready to smile. But he wasn’t smiling now.
“I heard arguing,” he said.
Tsura nodded. “Mihai’s father. But it’s settled now.” When she’d come back from the dressmakers, Mihai’s parents were gone to stay at a hotel in town, but Grandfather Popescu assured her all was well and Ion was even paying for the wedding feast. Tsura had no idea how that had happened, other than guessing it had to do with saving face for his apparently very precious reputation.
Andrei’s jaw hardened. “So you’re going through with it.”
Tsura looked down and nodded again.
Even though her eyes were downcast, she still caught the harsh motion of Andrei’s single headshake. “No. I can’t let you marry another man,” he said, his voice rigid.
What? She thought he’d come to make peace with her. “You know I wouldn’t do this if there was another way.” Her own anger was sparked. She’d meant to be conciliatory, but how could he not see this made her as miserable as it did him? How many times would she have to explain it? “What would you have me do?”
He grabbed her hands. “We’ll run away together. You and me.”
“And go where? With what papers?”
“We’ll head north, to Russia. The Communists don’t mind the Jews. We’ll sneak rides in hay carts or go through the forests. Or we could go south and get lost in a Jewish sector in one of the big cities. We’ll live quietly, get married.”
Tsura’s heart lurched at the thought. Yes, she was tempted to say. Yes, of course I’ll run away with you.
Instead, she said, “And what about Domnul Popescu and the Weinbergs? If I run, it will cast suspicion on them. The house will be raided. Domnul Popescu and Mihai could go to prison and the Weinbergs sent to Transnistria. You know there’s no way Eva would survive the trip.”
He pulled back, breathing hard. “Do you care about everyone else more than me, Tsura? Do you even really love me?”
His words were like a knife in her chest. “Of course I love you! How can you ask me that?”
He looked ashamed then and drew her tight against his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This is all making me so crazy.”
“It’s only on paper,” she whispered. “Just until the war is done.”
“I try to tell myself that,” he rubbed his hand down her spine, eliciting a shiver. “But then I think of his ring on your finger and I want to strangle him. How would you feel, Tsura, if I married someone else? If I stood before God and pledged my life to another? Do you think you could stand it?”
She sank her face into his shoulder, not knowing what to say. It would make her insane if he married someone else, whatever the reason. He was hers. Even though they weren’t yet married, she considered him family already. She’d be blind with jealousy if he even looked at another girl. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she murmured, nestling her nose into the space between his shoulder and his jaw. She breathed him in, then pressed a kiss to his warm, soft skin. “But what else are we to do?”
“Yakira,” he cradled her face, “you know I want no harm done to you. I would cut off my own arm before I let someone hurt you. I would gauge out my own eyes. But I can’t bear to think of someone else’s hands on you.” He dropped his hands to her waist, pulling her against him.
“It won’t be a real marriage.” Tsura put her hands behind his neck and pulled him in close. “I’ll never share a bed with him. I love you. I only do what I have to do to keep us all safe. Once the war ends and the madness is done, this false marriage will be annulled. It will be as if it never was.” She caught his face in her hands. “I am only yours, Andrei.”
“Yes, you are only mine,” Andrei growled. He pushed up her nightgown and she quickly pulled off her undergarments. She needed the closeness with him now more than ever. He flipped her on her back in the same motion. In another second, with a grunt, he had shoved inside her. Tsura wasn’t ready for him and she winced with a sharp gasp. He pulled back and then pushed in hard again.
“When you are putting on your dress for him and then standing in that ugly goy church,” he bent over and growled in her ear, “you think of me, here. When you say your vows to that man, you remember that it’s me who has owned and claimed your body.” He pulled back and then slammed into her again. “When you are sore as you walk down the aisle in the church toward him remember that you are mine.”