Tsura swallowed hard as she stood with Mihai in front of the altar. The church behind them was full. This wasn’t how she envisioned her wedding. A sacred event, a happy occasion.
With the wrong man.
She’d never been to a gagii wedding before, well, not the official church part anyway. And the Roma rarely had official wedding rituals. If they did anything, it was a symbolic exchange of bread between bride and groom after the bride price was paid. Yes, there would be music and celebration, sometimes for days, but little as far as the ceremony itself. The marriage was the substantial thing, not the wedding.
This gagii affair, on the other hand, seemed to last forever. The priest droned on and on in front of them, lifting an ornate gold bible up as high as their faces and sing-chanting the verses to call down blessings upon their union. The priest was old with a long, full gray beard. The perfect picture of a fat village orthodox priest in his heavy ornate vestments. The church was also picturesque. Behind the altar were rows of large icons in gold gilt frames hung up the wall in ascending layers. They were dingy from grime and smoke. The priest’s voice echoed off the curved side walls, painted with more iconography that led up to the central dome of the church.
Standing behind them, the narthex was filled to the brim with people. Tsura was glad to be facing away from them. If this charade somehow fell apart, she knew that standing behind her were many young men who had once worn the distinctive green uniform of the Iron Guard. Including Bogdan. The rat-faced man had caused no trouble all week during wedding preparations, but whenever they were in a room together, Bogdan always had a warning smirk on his face, as if he knew something he shouldn’t. Even now, Tsura was sure she could feel Bogdan’s eyes boring holes through the back of her cream-colored satin gown. Though she and Mihai stood apart from the crowd, she felt suffocated in the chapel.
The priest laid the heavy gilt-lined Bible down, and Tsura noticed Mihai swallow hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He glanced down at Tsura and she froze as he caught her staring, his steely grey eyes unreadable. There was a slight sheen of sweat dampening his broad forehead. Was he as nervous as she was? No, she scoffed internally. That was ridiculous. He was just hot, trussed up in that heavy suit coat. It was a warm summer day. Maybe he felt the suffocation like she did. There was so much ceremony in this ritual, why wasn’t there a ceremonial fan for the bride and groom so they didn’t pass out where they stood, hmm?
She had to fight the urge to giggle inappropriately. She pursed her lips hard to keep it in and secured her gaze firmly back on the priest. He sang more blessings upon them and dipped an ornate silver stick into holy water, flinging it at her and Mihai so that several drops fell on their faces, saying something about how this was supposed to remind them of their baptism. For a ridiculous second, she thought, oh, water, good, maybe that will help cool me off. But then the words registered.
What a devilish mockery this all was.
Tsura’s throat tightened to hold back a scream. Beautiful light cascaded through an ornate painted window to their right. All the gold in the church glinted and reflected back in majesty. A mocking scene of purity and beauty and the union of two souls.
Tsura had always been a Christian. All the Roma she knew were. But she’d never been inside a church as a child. She used to stare at them from the outside whenever the caravan camped near one. All the gilt trimming, the ethereal noise of the bells ringing, the processions led by chanting priests swinging incense during a funeral—it always fascinated her.
When Andrei explained to her that her religion had it all wrong, that Jesus was not the promised Messiah but merely a pretender, she’d let herself be convinced without much effort. Neither Luca nor any of his friends at college believed in God at all, so what did she care if Andrei’s version of God was slightly different from the one she’d grown up with? When she’d mentioned that to Andrei he’d become angry, saying that wasn’t true at all, that she’d worshiped a false God all her life, nothing like the one he believed in. She’d put her hands on his shoulders and feathered kisses along his face and whispered, “Yes, yes, I believe you. I’ll believe what you believe.”
He told her she was like Ruth. Ruth was a woman in his holy book who, like her, had been a pagan but had adopted her husband’s God. “Where you go, I will go, and your people will be my people,” he had quoted to her. She’d nodded fervently and kissed him. Being part of a people again, especially if it meant she would be with Andrei, sounded like paradise to her.
But now here she was, making another man her husband, surrounded by men whose hands were red with the blood of those they’d tormented and even murdered, with no repercussions of any kind. Even now, she was the one in danger. If they knew who she really was…
Her focus came back to the ceremony when the priest produced two crowns and turned first to Mihai. “Mihai Popescu is crowned for the service of God,” said the priest, “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Mihai kissed the crown and allowed the priest to place it on his head. Tsura followed his example when it was her turn, kissing the crown made of tin and keeping herself still as the priest, whose breath stank of tobacco, chanted and placed it on her head.
Then the priest reached for her right hand and Mihai’s left, joining them. Mihai’s large hand was warm and heavy on hers. The priest wound a ribbon in a figure eight, securing their hands together. Tsura’s heartbeat picked up. Somehow this made it all feel more real than even the earlier exchange of rings at the start of the ceremony. “The King of Heaven thus unites the bridal couple in unity and crowns them in one flesh,” the priest said.
The priest held the ornate chalice out to Mihai. Tsura wanted more than anything for this ceremony to be over. Mihai drank and the priest then held the rim up to Tsura’s mouth. At exactly the same place Mihai’s lips had touched. Wait. She couldn’t. It would be too much like— The priest pushed the rim closer and tipped the goblet and she drank so the wine wouldn’t spill down the front of her dress. She felt her cheeks heat and couldn’t meet the priest’s eyes as the chalice was pulled back.
She squeezed her thighs uncomfortably together while the priest droned on something about Jesus at the wedding at Cana, again remembering Andrei’s touch. When you are sore as you walk down the aisle in the church toward him remember that you are mine.
Andrei said he loved her and claimed her as his. He said he would make her part of his people. Just the thought of that made her chest ache with longing.
And yet, here she was, joining herself before God and man to someone else. Suddenly she knew she had done the wrong thing. She should never have agreed to this. Andrei loved her, he had pulled her back into life from the numbing abyss when everything had lost color and meaning.
As much as she’d tried to deny it to herself, there was every chance Luca was dead. Her father too was dead and she could never go back to her caravan, if it still existed after this war. Andrei was all she had left and he wanted to make her part of his people. But she was leaving him, voluntarily binding herself to another man, betraying him—
She blinked in surprise when her hair was yanked as the priest pulled the crown away from her head. She’d been too busy thinking of Andrei to pay attention to the rest of the service. The priest stood back and spread his hands wide.
“O God our God, Who was present in Cana of Galilee and blessed the marriage there, bless these Your servants, who, by Your Providence, are hereby joined in the community of marriage.”
Her mouth dropped open, wanting to protest. But it was already finished. She and Mihai were married.
“You my claim your bride,” the priest said.
Tsura shut her mouth and her eyes popped open wide as Mihai stooped over her. He was a tall, shadowed silhouette in the bright light from the window behind him. She barely had a moment to register what was happening before his firm, warm lips pressed against her own. It was over as soon as it began. He pulled back, leaving her stunned.
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The bells tolled in celebration. Mihai tugged her forward to lead the procession out of the church, hand in hand, still bound by the infinity ribbon.
Chapter 5