Tsura: A World War II Romance

Tsura couldn’t stop staring at the portrait of Hitler.

  It wasn’t a large picture, but it was prominently placed in Elena’s living room, with a large, wooden cross hanging over it, as if God himself were looking down upon the dictator with favor.

  “No, you need to flick your wrist more,” Elena said, “watch.” Tsura tore her gaze away from the picture and looked at the butter in her bowl. Then she glanced over at Elena’s bowl, where her butter had turned into a soft froth. Tsura’s was still clumpy.

  It was three days after the air raid and Elena was teaching her to make soup with dumplings. They already had the broth bubbling in two separate pots on Elena’s stovetop and now they were starting on the dumplings.

  “How do you do that?” Tsura asked, trying to sound as if she had been thinking about butter all along and not fields of blood and chain-link fences holding people caged like cattle.

  “Magic,” Elena winked, before laughing and coming over to help Tsura. “We are lucky that here in Romania we can still get butter!” Elena put her hand over Tsura’s wrist and showed her how to flick the whisk.

  “When we left Germany at the start of the war, they had already begun rationing. Here yes the prices go up, but still we can get even meat and cheese with no problem. At least since our men work at the Embassy and can make real money, it’s no problem for us! Yes, that’s better,” Elena said when Tsura began to mimic the wrist movement with the whisk. Elena clucked her tongue. “I can’t believe your mother didn’t teach you to make a good dumpling soup.”

  Tsura was quiet a moment and then told the truth. “My mama died when I was very young. I lived with my father and grandfather and our aunt always made food for us.”

  Her ‘aunt’ hadn’t been a true aunt, but her father’s cousin, the daughter of Grandfather Besnik’s brother. She was a shrewish woman, though, so her father never forced Tsura to spend time with her, not even for the basic things a Roma girl was supposed to learn, like cooking. At least not after the first lesson when Tanti Anca had given her a beating and sent her home when Tsura burned the bread. Tati had been furious. He hugged her and said she was so smart, she’d easily pick up anything she needed to know when she got herself a husband. But then, when there was no more chance for a husband… And then Tati himself had passed. They might never have known unless their father’s good friend had not sent a letter to Luca. It arrived months after he died.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Elena looked stricken. Tsura had forgotten to school her face for a moment, but Elena must have taken the flash of betrayal she still felt at being expelled from the vitsa and grief at her father’s passing as being for her mother. Elena threw her arms around Tsura in a large motherly hug, and again, Tsura felt a sharp pang in her chest. She’d hated Elena only minutes ago and yet now for a momentary flicker, she wanted to like her. How could that be?

  Tsura backed away from Elena and waved a hand. “It was a long time ago.” She turned back to the bowl. “Is it time to add the semolina?”

  “First an egg,” Elena said.

  “Oh mama, mama, can I crack the egg?” Irmgard asked, bouncing on her toes. Brigitte toddled along after her sister, a toy stuck in her mouth, drool around the edges. Dieter was in the other room, having declared that cooking was women’s work. He was very manfully playing with blocks.

  “Yes, but remember how I taught you?” Elena said. “No one wants eggshell in their soup.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Irmgard said, staring at the egg in her hand as if it were a live grenade. Her little head just barely came over the counter, standing on a small step stool. With a precise crack on the edge of the bowl, she split the egg and dropped the contents into the bowl, then tossed away the shell in the trash. She looked up at her mother, grinning.

  “Very good, turnip,” Elena patted her head. Next she taught Tsura how to add semolina to the dumpling mix. Then they dropped it in spoonfuls into the soup to cook.

  As they worked, Tsura glanced around the comfortable apartment. It was decorated in traditional gagii style, with inviting furniture and ornate red and white tablecloths on all the tables and cabinets, along with some fine lacework underneath brass candlesticks. Delicately painted ceramic figurines of tiny fawns at play as well as a series of cherubic children dotted the mantle. The apartment showed the mix of Elena’s Romanian and German heritages. Burnished pictures of family hung on the walls. And of course the prominent portrait of Hitler.

  “So Domnul and Doamna Moculescu live on the bottom floor,” Elena continued chatting. “Be glad you live up here on the third floor, because they have arguments so loud they could scrape the hair off a cat. You think your next door neighbors are bad with the yelling, but they are nothing compared to the Moculescus. Everyone on the second floor complains about it. They’ve been married almost five decades, and Doamna Moculescu seems to get louder with each passing year, the deafer she gets. Be careful never to let her catch you in the hallway or she’ll spend at least an hour jabbering at you. But lucky for me, she doesn’t like children, so she never stops me for long.”

  Tsura forced herself to look away from Hitler and continue spooning dumpling mix into the soup.

  “Then there’s Domnul Vlaicu, he’s a bachelor, except I don’t think he’ll ever find a nice girl like Mihai did with you.” She lowered her voice and leaned in. “He always smells like a brewery, and Doamna Dobrin—remember, I told you she lives on the second floor too—she said that the landlord has threatened to kick him out more than once because he’s late with rent. He has a good job working with German businessmen who come to Bucharest to buy up Jew properties. Noble work because I shudder to think about those animals running our banks and our pharmacies, oh, think about it, the drugs we put in our bodies when we are sick, yes, my hands shake when I think about it!” Elena put out a hand and it did indeed tremble.

  Tsura bit her lip, forcing her face into a neutral mask even though she wanted to scream. She was familiar enough with the practice Elena was talking about. Luca had been working as a junior accountant at a Jewish-owned bank when it had been auctioned off to the highest bidder, an incompetent German businessman with a penchant for young, blond secretaries. To add insult to injury, he kept the former Jewish owner on as a “personnel manager,” which meant the Jewish man continued to run the bank, but at a pittance.

  Tsura’s gut suddenly churned and the smell of the bubbling soup made her feel nauseous. She swallowed hard.

  “But everyone knows,” Elena continued without pause, “Domnul Vlaicu spends his entire salary at the bars and gambling tables, and then his poor aging mother has to send him money to pay his rent. Which is sad, because he’s not a bad looking fellow. A little too hairy for my taste, but some girls like that.”

  “Daddy’s hairy,” Irmgard piped up.

  “Yes, but only on his head where hair belongs,” Elena put down the spoon she’d been stirring the dumpling soup with and tickled the girl. Irmgard giggled.

  The baby began to wail in the other room. “Turnip,” Elena said, “want to come help me with the baby?” Irmgard nodded solemnly at being given such an important task and they both went toward the bedroom. Brigitte toddled along behind them, making happy high-pitched noises.

  The door to the apartment opened and Tsura looked up, expecting to see Elena’s husband. Instead a young woman came in wearing a nurse’s uniform. She was very tall and lovely, more in a sharp-featured way than a traditional, soft-prettiness, with short brown hair that just touched her chin. She sat down heavily on a kitchen chair before looking up and noticing Tsura.

  “Oh,” she stood back up again, “I didn’t realize Elena had guests.”

  “I’m a neighbor,” Tsura crafted her features into what she hoped came off as a smile. Her stomach was still uneasy and she was ready to be done with this ‘friendly visit,’ whether the soup was done or not. She was glad for the distraction of someone else in the room other than Elena at least. “I’m Alexandra, I live across the hall.”

  The
tall woman came forward to kiss Tsura on both cheeks in greeting. “I’m Cristina. Elena’s sister-in-law.”

  “Ah, yes, she’s told me about you. Hello.”

  Cristina’s smile was warm, but tired. “I’m glad to meet you, Alexandra. I’d be more enthusiastic but I just worked a twelve hour shift. I’m quite barely managing to keep my eyes open at the moment.”

  Elena swooped back in and Irmgard launched herself at Cristina’s leg, begging to be picked up. “Tanti Cristina!”

  Tired or not, Cristina swooped the little girl into her arms.

  “Oh good,” Elena clapped her hands, “this is Mihai’s new wife from across the hall. I’ve been wanting you two to meet.”

  “So you’re new to town?” Cristina said, giving Irmgard a kiss on the forehead and then placing her back on the ground.

  Tsura nodded. “Just getting settled in.”

  “Are you searching for work? Colțea hospital is always looking for more nurses and volunteers. It’s only a twenty minute walk straight down the boulevard. Ugh, it was another short-staffed shift and I’m exhausted.” She sat and laid her head down on the kitchen table for emphasis, or maybe simply because she was too tired not to.

  Elena clucked at Cristina. “She’s recently married! Not all women want to be outside their homes everyday. I’m sure Alexandra wants to focus on her house and her husband. And on getting a little one in the belly!”

  Tsura tried to hide her wince. Cristina only picked her head back up off the table and narrowed her eyes at Elena. “This is a new century, you do realize that, yes? Has been for forty-three years now! Women are out in the world. We work in factories since the men are all fighting. Some women are even studying to become doctors, not just nurses!”

  Elena put a hand over her heart. “Lord save me from that day! This new generation knows nothing of traditional values.”

  “New generation?” Cristina laughed. “I’m only four years younger than you.”

  Elena clucked again, shaking her head. “Then you have no excuses. Why aren’t you out looking for a man of your own?”

  At first Tsura was startled that Elena would be urging Cristina to marry again when it was Elena’s brother that had bonded them in the first place. Though she supposed the battle of Odessa had been two years ago now. And Cristina didn’t seem to mind, whether Elena was being insensitive or not.

  “You will only have your looks for so long,” Elena continued. “And the men, they are not so plentiful anymore. But still, there are some good ones around.” Elena nudged Tsura. “Perhaps Alexandra here can give you some pointers since she just caught one.”

  Tsura took it this was a longstanding debate between the two women. She held up her hands, indicating her neutrality in the discussion.

  The two women went back and forth for another ten minutes until the dumplings were cooked—apparently Cristina was equally hungry as she was tired—and Elena’s husband Klaus arrived home. It took everything in Tsura not to visibly stiffen when he came through the door, wearing the characteristic brown Nazi party jacket and proudly displaying a swastika armband. He was a medium-sized man who looked like he’d once had an athletic build, but now there was a noticeable roundness to his stomach. He grinned and swept Dieter in his arms after the boy came at him in a headlong rush.

  Introductions were made and Tsura quickly excused herself. “Mihai will be home soon, I should go.” She’d had enough of friendly Nazis for one afternoon.

  Klaus offered to carry the heavy pot of soup between the two apartments. Tsura didn’t want to let him inside, but since she didn’t have a good reason for disagreeing, she led him through the door to her kitchen. Dieter followed on his heels, pestering his father about how Irmgard had tripped him earlier and should be punished.

  “Mihai will be so grateful for food that’s actually well cooked,” Tsura joked, trying to hide her nerves as Klaus set the pot on the stove. Her first inclination was to boot him out as quickly as possible, which was why she did the opposite. Though she couldn’t seem to stop her eyes from straying to the swastika on his arm. She hated having it in her apartment.

  “Good,” Klaus smiled broadly. “Though, if Elena keeps teaching you so well, then he might turn out like me.” Klaus rubbed the rounded pudge of his stomach and laughed good-naturedly. “It’s only the bachelors who are skinny.”

  “All the better for me to hold onto you, darling,” Elena said with a laugh, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his thick middle.

  “Come,” she pulled Klaus backwards. “Domnul Popescu will be home soon and we don’t want to interrupt. I’m sure he will be very grateful for the delicious soup.” She winked mischievously at Tsura, and Tsura attempted a smile that she wasn’t sure even managed to tip the edges of her mouth.

  “Thank you again, I had a wonderful afternoon,” Tsura said quickly. She waved one last time and then shut the door behind them. She leaned her head back against it and her entire body slumped with the release of tension as she breathed out a long sigh.

  As much as she wanted to leave the long day behind her, she was immediately flooded with contrasting images. The prominent portrait of Hitler. Elena making her baby giggle by blowing raspberries on his stomach after changing his diaper. How could love and hate exist within the same person? Shouldn’t the hate poison the love? Wasn’t that how it worked?

  Lord knew, growing up, Tsura had lived with a sliding scale of wrong and right. But those were petty wrongs—cheating at a shell game, stealing a few eggs from a gagii farm they passed by, or the little lies that amused or made some cash on the side. But in a war like this one, there was a right side and there was a wrong side. The wrong she meant now was the kind that led to deprivation and death. Or the attitudes that in any way contributed to those fates. That she couldn’t overlook. Or forgive. No matter how adorable Elena looked snuggling with her cherubic-faced toddler.

  Enough of this. She shook her head roughly. She thought back to the song Grandfather Besnik would sing in her ear whenever he thought she was brooding about something.

  Whenever you have sorrows, sing them!

  Whenever you have sorrows, drink them!

  She began humming it to herself, moving away from the door and swaying her hips as she headed toward the kitchen. She sang the two lines over and over, louder with each pass as she stirred the pot of soup and lit the stove underneath to keep it nice and hot. Mihai should be home any moment. She frowned at the clock. Actually, he should have already been home by now. Maybe he had called to tell her he’d be late while she’d been at Elena’s. He’d done that a few times in the past few weeks when he was tied up at work.

  When he still wasn’t there half an hour later, Tsura decided it was time to indulge in the second suggestion from Grandfather Besnik’s song and pulled out a bottle of wine. At first, she only drank half a glass.

  After two hours, with Mihai still not home and not answering when she called his office, it was half the bottle.

  After another hour, the wine was going down a lot easier and Tsura was thinking that a bottle of wine seemed like a lot more than it was. Really, it was only three and a half large glasses full, which didn’t seem like much at all. But the idea of drinking a whole bottle of wine, well, that sounded like a lot, didn’t it? And as she stood to put a different record on the player and stumbled, giggling, she supposed it felt like a lot too.

  But really, what else was she supposed to do? Mihai could go to the devil for making her worry about him. She caught herself on the counter top as she stumbled again. She frowned at her shoes and kicked them off. She left them where they fell, right there in the middle of the kitchen floor. See how Domnul Perfect Pants liked that.

  But then she looked again at the clock. Nine forty-five. Where was he? He’d never been this late before. He’d never not called.

  What was a minor annoyance suddenly seemed very, very serious. She’d been foolish, hours earlier, worrying her silly little head about her zealous Nazi nei
ghbor and forgetting that much worse things could be waiting around the corner.

  It was too easy to be unlucky in this world. Had Mihai been rundown by a car or tram when he was crossing the street? Or had he had a seizure? He took the little round pills each morning that were supposed to keep the seizures away, but she knew he still occasionally had the shaking episodes anyway. Luca’d told her they happened when Mihai was overtired. Had he not been sleeping well and she hadn’t noticed? She should have forced him to take the bed! He’d been stubborn about it, but she should have been more stubborn!

  She wrung her hands together and then went back to sit at the table. What if he was in a hospital somewhere, right now? She didn’t even know where the hospitals were, or which one he might be at. Cristina said something about a hospital. One that was twenty minutes away. Not that she could leave the apartment without identification papers or they could be right back where they started, with her being put in prison or sent off to a labor camp.

  And then another thought struck. What if Mihai wasn’t in a hospital at all? What if he was lying somewhere on a sidewalk, cold and alone? It had begun to rain earlier. What if he’d had a seizure when coming home and no one had noticed him or helped him? Was he still out there all alone, lying in some grimy, littered alleyway? Or… Tsura gulped hard, did people die from seizures? If… Tsura shook her wine-soaked head, no, when Mihai came back, she was going to ask a lot more questions about his illness. In the meantime, she would just lay her head on the table for a moment. Her head felt so heavy.

  She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep right there with her head on the table until she woke up to a horrible smell. Something was burning.

  She blinked in blurry dizziness, already feeling the pounding of a headache. The pot on the stove was smoking. She cursed and stood up so suddenly it knocked her chair backwards and hurried over to the stove. She pulled the pot off the burner, grimacing. Enough liquid had evaporated from the soup that the dumplings had settled on the bottom and burned.

  She waved at the smoke with a towel. The rain had finally stopped so she threw open the window, breathing in the fresh, rain-soaked air. After another few moments of waving away the smoke, she laughed out loud. Only she would be able to burn soup.

  But then she looked at the ancient clock hanging on the wall in the kitchen. It was midnight. Where the devil was Mihai? Her chest went tight with fear. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Her mind began spinning with possibilities again, each more horrible than the last.

  She grabbed the pot and began scraping out the burned contents into the trash. As she got the top layer out, a key turned in the lock.

  She dropped the pot in the sink and ran toward the door right as Mihai stepped inside. He was soaked through and covered in thick, stinking mud. His suit coat was gone and his normally pristine white shirt was filthy. Mud clung to his hair and streaked down his face.

  “Where have you been?” she cried, torn between fury and fear. “What happened to you?”

  He closed the door behind him and let out a loud sigh of what sounded like relief, perhaps at finally being home. In addition to carrying his briefcase, also muddy, he had a knapsack slung over his shoulder that Tsura had never seen before.

  Mihai put a finger to his lips and shook his head, nodding in the direction of the left wall behind the bed. He’d told her before that their neighbor, a reclusive elderly German man, often listened at the wall. Tsura thought the old man must be asleep by now, but she bit her tongue anyway.

  Mihai toed off his mud-covered shoes and came into the room. He deposited the knapsack and his briefcase by the kitchen table. “I was caught in the rain,” he said in a voice that was louder than necessary, “so I stopped at a café. Some friends were there and I lost track of time. Sorry dear. It won’t happen again.”

  Tsura bit her lip, frustrated with the act they were constantly required to perform. He pulled a dull kitchen towel from underneath the sink and laid it out on the table, then lifted his dirty briefcase and set it on top of it. He clicked open the mud-encrusted fastener and then went to wash his hands. Naturally, this couldn’t be done quickly. No. There was an entire process of wetting his hands, then rubbing the soap into his palms, his knuckles, then scrubbing at his fingernails, before finally sticking his hands beneath the spray to rinse. Tsura was either going to scream at him or throw open the briefcase herself, etiquette be deviled. But finally, finally he was finished and he came back to the table. He nudged the briefcase open with his elbow, then slid out a slim identification booklet and handed it to her.

  Tsura felt her eyes widen. Was this where he’d been? Getting her ID? She took it with trembling hands, still swamped by fear and relief. She looked inside. Neat handwriting spelled out her supposed birth name: Alexandra Maria Vasile. Birth date: 5 April 1922. Two years older than she actually was, but she didn’t mind the extra years. Her eyes continued looking down the page. Ethnicity: Romanian. Not Roma. That was the line that would offer her the most protection.

  A sepia picture of her taken a day before the wedding was stapled in the corner, covered on one edge by an official-looking stamp. She flipped through the mostly empty pages that made up the booklet. The writing was only on the first page, with her basic information and a pretend address from a municipality near Fălticeni. Below that her marriage to Mihai Constantin Popescu—had she ever known his middle name?—then a note of her last name changing to Popescu, and finally her address change here to the Brătianu Boulevard apartment.

  Most of it was handwritten as were all identification papers in Romania, only with an official looking stamp beside the marriage and address change notices, the former from the Bacău police department and the latter from a Bucharest section police department. It had good weight and looked and felt exactly like an authentic ID booklet. She flipped it closed. Printed on the front cover was the old emblem of a crown and across the bottom, Kingdom of Romania. It even looked worn, as if she’d been carrying it around with her for a long while. Mihai produced a small leather wallet from his case to carry the ID and handed it to her.

  Tsura blinked a few times and then slipped her new ID booklet into the wallet. She was still having a hard time taking in what this meant. She would be free of the stifling apartment. She could go anywhere in Bucharest that she wanted.

  She took Mihai’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Mihai looked startled at the touch but nodded stoically.

  “Why don’t you clean up.” She could only imagine how much the soiled clothing and mud on his face was bothering the always fastidious man. “I’ll try to find something for dinner,” she said. She almost laughed at herself, because she genuinely wanted to feed him. She was just so glad he was safe. It was bizarre to move from terror to joy in the space of a few minutes. It created a strange rush of dizzy energy.

  She needed to sit down. And eat something. All she’d had since lunch was wine, and she felt nauseated from hunger. Mihai was safe. She had new identification papers. The worst had not happened.

  Mihai grunted his assent and headed straight toward the bathroom. Within another minute, she heard the spray of the bath water begin. She went to the kitchen and pulled out some hard salami, bread, and butter. It wasn’t much, but at least it would fill their bellies.

  As Tsura put the food on the table, her eyes fell on the mysterious knapsack on the floor. Where had Mihai been all evening? He had never told her. Something must have happened besides getting her ID documents, but what? Why had he been covered in mud?

  She bit her lip. Then temptation and the leftover energy still fizzling in her blood from the scare and subsequent relief at Mihai’s late arrival overrode any other thought. She sat down in one of the dining chairs and opened the flap on the bag. The thick canvas was wet and muddy on the outside, but only mildly damp inside.

  She glanced over at the bathroom. The whine of the pipes and noise of water against ceramic assured her Mihai was still busy. She quickly pul
led items out and set them on the table. There was no hot water because of the war. Tsura could only handle cold baths during the summer afternoons when they were a relief after the baking apartment temperatures but Mihai took them no matter the time. Then again, he was most likely chilled after his soggy evening out. Would that translate into a quicker bath? Or would his love of routine mean he took as long as always? Not wanting to chance it, she moved faster, pulling out items one after another.

  She came across a bundled sheave of paper. Tsura flipped through them. All the pages were blank, but they were of slightly different sizes and coloration and looked aged, some more than others. The corners were wrinkled slightly from moisture, but overall the papers, even the more yellow pages, were in good condition. Next Tsura pulled out several bottles labeled with incomprehensible names, chemicals of some kind.

  She brought out several hard pieces of rubber. She turned them over in her hands. They were rubber stamps, some only half carved. A couple were complete—they looked like official City of Bucharest seals. One stamp had an image pasted on it, ready to be carved. Tsura ran her fingertip over one that was only half complete, the delicate outer circle finished but the lettering yet undone. Understanding dawned.

  This was a forger’s kit.

  Tsura blinked several times and then reached in again, pulling out the rest of the items even faster now. Inside a smaller canvas bag, there were two small wooden boxes. She opened one and a stack of pictures fell out. Paper-clipped to each picture was a slip of paper with a name. She gathered up the pictures clumsily, glancing toward the bathroom as she put them back in the box. There had to be fifty of them, maybe more. She was more careful as she opened the second box. Instead of pictures, though, were several wood-handled tools with delicate metal tips, along with a small magnifying glass. She’d used similar tools when she’d worked for several years doing wood carving at Domnul Bogza’s iconography shop.

  She set both boxes on the table and continued rifling through the bag until she reached the bottom. She found several other completed ID booklets. The last item she pulled out was a thick envelope. Since it was on the bottom of the bag, it was wet almost the whole way through. Mihai must have set the knapsack down on the wet ground at some point.

  She opened the envelope’s loose flap and pulled out several sheets of paper. They were sealed together from the rain. She peeled them apart carefully and then read the bleeding ink. The first page was a long list of names. About ten names had been crossed through. Tsura’s eyes snagged on the last scratched out name. Tsura Draghici. Beside it was her new alias, Alexandra Cristina Popescu.

  Her breath caught. She quickly scanned the rest of the names. Many sounded Jewish. In a column beside each name were more details, dates of birth, addresses, marriage dates, names of children, all the information you would need to fill out a complete identification booklet. Tsura glanced over at the other completed documents.

  Why did Mihai have a forger’s kit? Something must have happened when he’d gone to retrieve her ID, but what? Had Mihai confiscated it after the forger had made her ID? Did he intend to turn it in to his Nazi superiors? That sheet of names alone could prove damning evidence to anyone on it. But surely not, since her name was clearly on the list as well. Whatever else she might think of Mihai, she believed he took his vow to protect her seriously.

  “Tsura.” Mihai’s voice startled her and she looked up, feeling her cheeks redden at getting caught. Mihai had an undershirt on, but only a towel wrapped around his waist. Tsura stared, almost more startled at seeing him so exposed than at getting caught looking through the bag. He usually carried a change of clothes with him into the bathroom, but in his haste, tonight he must have forgotten. The undershirt was probably the one he’d been wearing earlier, but still exposed so much more of his arms then she was used to seeing. His shoulders seemed doubly broad and the low V-neck revealed his massive chest covered in thick black hair. So unlike Andrei’s body. Andrei’s chest was smooth and narrow. She’d always liked that about him, how sleek he looked. Mihai reminded her of a giant bear.

  Disconcerted, she averted her eyes. He strode over to her with a glare and began shoving the items on the table back into the knapsack.

  She sat back in her chair, still shying away from looking at him. But then, her curiosity won over again and she glanced up to search his face. His features were stony. Cold. As always.

  “Why do you have these things?” Tsura whispered as quietly as she could.

  Mihai shook his head as if to shrug her off. He closed the flap on the knapsack and walked over to the bed, roughly shoving the pack underneath. Determined not to be ignored, Tsura followed behind him.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered again. His eyes remained stubbornly veiled. He grabbed clothes from his dresser and went back to the bathroom. A moment later he returned dressed in a fresh undershirt and night-shorts. Usually the lights were off when he came out dressed like this, but Tsura supposed that at this hour it would be ridiculous to change into normal clothes only to change again after they’d finished eating.

  “Is the food ready?” he asked, turning away from her and heading toward the kitchen. He sat down at the table and grabbed a slice of salami.

  “I made dumpling soup,” she said in her normal voice, “but it burned while I was waiting for you to come home.”

  He grunted, but made no other comment. Tsura was suddenly livid but she held her temper. She considered it a victory. He really wasn’t going to tell her what happened.

  “Elena showed me. I spent the afternoon at her house.”

  Mihai looked up in surprise. “That’s nice.”

  “Tell me what’s going on,” she hissed under her breath.

  He ignored her and buttered a thick slice of bread. To the devil with him! He acted as if this were any other ordinary day. As if he hadn’t come home seven hours late and covered in mud.

  Tsura’s nostrils flared with frustration. Time to try another tactic. “Elena’s wonderful. I don’t know how she manages all those children,” Tsura said loudly. “They’re very sweet, but mischievous. Why just this afternoon little Irmgard brought home a bag she’d found in the park. She tried to hide it from Elena, but Elena told me she always ferrets out their secrets.”

  Mihai looked up at her sharply. “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

  “Don’t you want to hear what was in the bag little Irmgard brought home?”

  Mihai’s gaze turned steely, warning.

  “No? Well, I’ll tell you anyway.” Tsura made sure her voice was still inordinately loud. “It was the most interesting collection of all kinds of odds and ends. Stray papers, a bit of rubber, even an old envelope—”

  Mihai stood up from his chair abruptly. “You must be tired, Alexandra. Why don’t you take a bath and go to bed?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, but he took her arm and hauled her up from her chair and led her to the bathroom. It was a small space to match the small studio—short, narrow bathtub, small sink, and a modern toilet with a raised seat—there was little floor space beyond that. Having the bathroom itself was still a luxury. Many apartment buildings had communal bathrooms for each floor.

  The floor was still wet on Tsura’s bare feet from where Mihai had stepped out of the bath earlier. He let her go and then reached over to turn the tub faucet back on, making sure the spray was loud against the ceramic tub.

  Mihai leaned over and whispered directly in her ear, “When I went to pick up your papers near the river, the forger’s lab had been compromised.”

  Tsura’s breath hitched. “But you got away safely.”

  “I did. The forger didn’t.” His face went taut, the lines around his mouth tensing.

  Oh no. What wasn’t he saying? “Mihai, what happened?” She put a hand on his forearm.

  As if her touch had shattered the control he held so tightly to, he let out an explosive breath and then rubbed a hand over his face. He slumped against the wall by the sink, but tu
rned his face away from her. His voice was quiet, barely audible above the water spray. “Levi was packing when I arrived. Said his spies told him there was going to be a raid.”

  “His spies?” Tsura asked in surprise.

  Mihai waved a hand. “The Jews have almost as many spies in the police as the Germans. Some work both sides, selling the same information twice. Maybe that’s what happened today.” He shook his head once. “Within five minutes, they were at the front door.”

  “How’d you escape?” Tsura’s heart was in her throat, thinking about all of this going on while she’d been calmly cooking soup, having no idea.

  “We made it to the basement and out a side exit. Levi said I should go one way and he’d go the other.” Mihai winced. “He gave me the pack and ran before I could stop him. I knew the police would be swarming the front and back of the building.”

  “So what did you do?” Tsura had leaned in to hear him, and now their heads were so close together they were almost bumping foreheads. He’d put himself in such danger tonight. For her.

  “I scaled the balconies of the building across the way.”

  Tsura’s breath hitched. Scaling balconies? That was so dangerous. But Mihai just kept talking. “When I got to the roof, I heard gun shots.”

  “Maybe they only shot at him or near him to make him stop.” Tsura shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “It doesn’t mean he’s dead.”

  Mihai shook his head, his mouth tight again. “I looked. Levi was on the ground, surrounded by half a dozen officers.” Mihai’s breath was warm on her ear. “Blood everywhere. He was dead.”

  “But you got away.” Tsura looked back up at him. “How?”

  “I jumped a few rooftops, then dropped back down. Too many police still around, so I hid on the banks of the Dâmbovița for a few hours until I was sure they were gone.”

  So that was where the mud had come from. The Dâmbovița river had once been the heart of the city, but after portions of it were dammed up, it was only a sickly stream now, with high banks of muddy clay.

  “I walked back,” Mihai continued. “Didn’t want to risk hiring a coach and have the driver be able to describe me.”

  Tsura swallowed hard. Mihai reached to turn off the water, but Tsura stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  She stood up on her tiptoes since he was no longer leaning over. “But why did the forger give the bag full of supplies to you instead of taking it himself?” she whispered, still confused.

  Like before, he stiffened under her touch. She pulled her hand away. Suddenly she realized how indecently he was dressed. Just in his underclothes. Her stomach felt a little strange at being so close to him. She hadn’t eaten yet, that was all.

  “He was a Jew,” Mihai finally responded. “He’d be killed if he was caught with it. Said he’d arrange to get it back. He thought they’d only arrest him.”

  Mihai reached to turn the water off again, but again, Tsura stopped him. “But why would he trust you? You work for the Nazis.”

  Mihai’s jaw clenched and Tsura frowned, but the next moment his face had relaxed into indifference again and he shrugged. “I was his only choice. It was either me or leave it to the police. He was one of the last good forgers in town. The Jews couldn’t afford to let the supplies be lost as well.”

  There was something about the easy way he said it that bothered Tsura. His earlier distress was gone. He looked too calm, too put-together. Like it was a lie he’d rehearsed in his head.

  “How did you find him in the first place?” Tsura tilted her head suspiciously.

  Another shrug. “Anything in Bucharest can be found for the right price.”

  There was something he wasn’t telling her, Tsura was sure of it. “So what will you do with all those supplies now that Levi’s dead?”

  For a moment a frown passed over Mihai’s face. If Tsura hadn’t glanced up right then, she might have missed it. His bland look replaced it the next second. “I’ll dispose of it.”

  Tsura pulled away from him with what had become familiar frustration, but then forced herself to lean in again. “And what about the other completed ID papers? Those people are like me—they’re not safe without the papers.” She couldn’t keep the disapproving heat out of her voice. “You just said he gave it to you so the supplies wouldn’t be lost.”

  Mihai didn’t respond. Tsura’s habitual disdain for him threatened to flare again, but something stopped it. She frowned. “If you were going to dispose of the supplies, then why not do it right away? You could have tossed them in the Dâmbovița. There’s so much trash there already. It would’ve been the perfect place. Why bring them home?”

  Mihai stiffened slightly. “I suppose I wasn’t thinking. I’ll get rid of them soon.”

  Tsura stared at him, wondering at the uncharacteristic impulsiveness he described. He seemed unable to maintain eye contact for even more than a second.

  Suddenly an idea struck Tsura, one so foreign that she took a step back from him, her back running into the bathroom door.

  What kind of man who worked for the pro-Hitler government would know that there were Jewish spies in the police force alongside the German ones? What kind of man was so aware of his neighbor listening through the wall when he worked on the right side of the law? Why was he trusted enough by one of the best forgers of false identification documents in town—a Jew, no less—to protect forgery supplies? And why, instead of disposing of them immediately, did he bring them into his home? Where he hid a Roma fugitive.

  Mihai tensed as if he could hear her hypothesis forming.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, looking up at him through her dark lashes. The overhead fixture shone dully, highlighting the planes of his strong jaw as he clenched his teeth.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered again as the oddly shaped, incongruous pieces of the puzzle that was Mihai Popescu finally slid into place. She stared into his metal-grey eyes. “You’re a spy.”

  Chapter 10