Tsura: A World War II Romance

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  Ten hours later, the overnight train approached the lights of Iași. Mihai had managed to sleep, but Tsura was wide awake the entire trip, praying fervently for the train to go faster, for it to be Luca waiting for them on the other end. Or for it not to be Luca, in case there was a repeat of what happened last time—following a tip only to arrive in time to find that the patient had already died. She finally stopped praying at all, afraid she would jinx it by praying for the wrong thing.

  When the train pulled with a screeching of wheels into the Iași station, Tsura was on her feet before it even came to a complete stop.

  “Wake up Mihai,” she shook him hard. “We’re here.”

  His eyes popped open and he hustled as quickly as Tsura did off the train and into the brisk night air. Mihai consulted his watch. “It’s four in the morning.”

  “Do you think they’ll let us in at the hospital to see him?” Tsura asked. She hadn’t even thought of it until now, but surely visiting hours didn’t begin until the morning. She felt sick at the thought of having to wait for several more hours, knowing she was so close but not being able to find out if it really was Luca or not.

  “They’ll let us in,” Mihai said, his voice steely. “One way or another.”

  After getting directions from a drowsy station agent, they set off through the darkened streets. Snow sifted down overhead but Tsura barely felt the cold. She was on fire, her blood right under her skin, singing her brother’s name. Even Mihai with his long-legged stride had to hurry to keep up with her.

  The city streets had a ghost-like quality as the silent snow fell. Iași seemed to have more churches than most, but each time she passed one of the magnificent buildings, some that were three or four hundred years old, she felt an icy chill that had nothing to do with the freezing weather. The God she’d prayed to the whole trip here was the same God the parishioners who came to these churches prayed to. And those were the same people who had massacred ten thousand souls over the space of a few days only three years ago. On these same streets. Tsura couldn’t help the picture that filled her mind as she looked down, imagining the cobblestones below her feet filled with blood and bodies. They’d heard of it even in Bucharest. Those in the Iron Guard had bragged about all the Jews they had killed. It might not be the systematized murder of a gas chamber, but the atrocity was no less horrific.

  A wave of mourning made her feel nauseous, and she wondered if the restless spirits of the murdered remained, imprinting the city with a residual echo of terror and fury that would continue to wail throughout the centuries. All of it made her feet move faster until she was actually running. She had to know if Luca’s voice was among the living or the dead, if it was Luca at all.

  Twenty minutes later they arrived at the darkened hospital. It was much smaller than the hospital where Tsura worked, only a single story complex of three buildings.

  As Tsura had expected, the man at the front desk told them they would need to come back at eight a.m. when visiting hours began. The foyer was small, with a desk and a row of chairs against the wall that Tsura supposed constituted a waiting area. The walls may have one time been white, but now were a dirty grey. When Mihai pulled out his wallet and laid five hundred on the counter, it took the man only half a blink. “Well, exceptions can be made in extreme circumstances.”

  Mihai added another two hundred lei to the pile. “These are extreme circumstances.”

  The man nodded, then called over one of the nurses. The nurse, a tired-looking woman in her forties, came down the hall from the right. She wrapped a worn yellow cardigan more firmly around her body and took a slow drag on a cigarette.

  “Direct this nice couple wherever they need to go.”

  The nurse looked them up and down. “What’s in it for me?”

  Mihai didn’t even blink. He just opened his wallet again, and then the woman led them down several long hallways to an open corridor where cots were set up every few feet, about fifty patients stuffed into the dimly lit ward. Tsura’s eyes frantically searched the faces in the cots, discarding each when she didn’t recognize the face as Luca’s. Briefly she noted that they were all skinny, too skinny. Skeletal. But Luca. She had to find Luca.

  “Whole truckload arrived two days ago,” the nurse said. “You Jew-lovers or something? You all have been in and out of here all week.”

  Tsura flinched at the woman’s callous tone, but Mihai only said, “Show us the man who’s missing half his left leg.”

  “Fine, fine.” The woman blew out a long exhale of smoke, walking so slowly that Tsura wanted to strangle her. “Over there,” the woman finally stopped and gestured. “Second cot from the right by the wall. Don’t make a lot of noise now. The patients are supposed to be sleeping.”

  Tsura ran swiftly through the lines of beds to the one the nurse pointed to. She looked down at the figure in the cot. He was emaciated. His cheek bones stuck out of his gaunt face and his skin had a sickly cast to it except for rash-like red spots on his cheeks and neck. He stirred in agitation and for just a moment, his eyes opened.

  Tiger’s eyes.

  Her world spun to a stop. And began whirling again at double speed.

  It was him. It was her brother.

  “Luca!” she breathed his name in a worshipful whisper as she crashed to her knees beside his cot. “Oh God, Luca, what have they done to you?”

  His eyes had closed again but he was breathing. He was breathing. Blankets were pulled up to his chest, but from what she could see of his shoulders and collar bone that stuck out so sharply they looked knife-like, he was little more than bones with skin stretched over them. His head was shaved and the hollows underneath his eyes seemed to swallow his whole face. A sheen of sweat covered his skin.

  She traced the sharp lines of his face. His skin was hot to the touch, feverish, but he didn’t stir. Just asleep, she assured herself. She laid a hand gently to his chest, afraid if she pressed too hard, she might crush his fragile bones. Still, she needed to feel the rise and fall that told her he was breathing. He was alive. She closed her eyes and counted his breaths. They were steady.

  Mihai swore and Tsura looked up at him. He was crouched on the other side of Luca, his head in his hands. Then he jumped back up to his feet, his face pale. “I’m going to see about getting him a private room.” He looked around at all the other prone figures in the cots. Several were coughing. One nearby had an unchecked nosebleed. Most were as emaciated as Luca. Tsura shuddered. She spent plenty of time in the hospital and had seen far more outwardly gruesome wounds. But there was something about these beds full of skeletal people that was so unnatural, it was more disturbing than a ward full of battle wounds. This was like a living morgue. She winced as soon as she had the thought, turning back to her brother while Mihai walked away.

  “It’s going to be okay now,” she whispered, pressing her cheek to his. His skin was hot against hers. “Mihai and I are here. And you know how stubborn that man is. He will force them to make you better. There is no other choice except for you to heal and then come home with us. We’re here now, my soul. Your vitsa is here.”

  Suddenly Luca’s gaunt eyes blinked open. “Tsurica?” he whispered, his voice a barely audible rasp.

  “Yes, Luca, it’s me.” She pulled away only so she could see him, caressing his face. “It’s me, I’m really here. You’re safe now.”

  Then Luca began to whisper almost incoherently in Romani. “Tsurica, I have to leave. Papa says it will be good for my future. And I want to go. I want to go so much!”

  In his delirium, he must be reliving that time when he’d gone to live with Mihai after saving his life when he was ten. “It’s all right, Luca. It’s all right to want to go,” she tried to soothe.

  “Oh little Tsurica, can you forgive me? Oh God, what have they done to you? Get away from her! I’ll kill you for hurting her!”

  Tsura was hugging him but now she had to hold down his limbs that flailed weakly underneath the bla
nkets.

  “Shh, shh,” Tsura whispered urgently. “Luca, I’m here, we’re both safe. Shh, just rest now.”

  But Luca was agitated. His eyes closed again, but he yanked one arm out from underneath the blanket and began picking at the cotton. She took Luca’s restless hand in her own. “Shh, Luca, I’m here now. You’re safe, you’re safe.”

  He settled then, but Tsura didn’t let go of his hand. As much as she wanted to squeeze him to verify that he was real, she held him gently. She’d known it was bad in the camps, but she’d never expected… this. How long had he been starved? Did they feed them at all? How had he even survived?

  “I have to get back to my soul,” Luca murmured. His eyes were still closed but his head moved restlessly from side to side. “A body should not be away from its soul.”

  She put her hand again on his cheek. “Your soul is here, Luca. You can rest now. Your soul is here.”

  Mihai came back and crouched down beside her. “It’s typhoid fever. The nurse said many on the last train have it. The night shift doesn’t have the authority to transfer him, but I’ll talk to the hospital administrator in the morning. I’ll buy them a whole new goddamned wing if I have to, but we’ll get him a private room and the best care.”

  “Typhoid fever?” Tsura asked, her eyes still on Luca’s sleeping face, hand clutching his. “What is that?” Most of her nursing duties at the hospital were still at a very rudimentary level. She’d begun reading Christine’s old textbooks and training to take on more responsibilities, but there was still so much she didn’t know.

  “From drinking contaminated water,” Mihai said. “Not surprising from what I saw when I visited the camps.” He shook his head in disgust.

  Tsura’s eyes finally flashed up to Mihai’s. “You saw them, people like he is,” she gestured to Luca’s body. “Why didn’t you tell me it was so bad? He’s barely more than bones.” Her voice broke on the last word and she sucked in a sharp breath to keep from crying.

  “I didn’t want you to worry,” he said, then added, “more.”

  “So you lied to me instead?”

  Mihai’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything. There was nothing you could do, so there was no point in putting those…” he breathed out, his eyes briefly shutting, “images in your mind.”

  Tsura was silent a long moment. “Typhoid fever. Is it…? I mean, do people mostly…” She gulped.

  He leaned over to place his hand on hers and Luca’s. “There’s a good chance that he’ll get better.”

  “How much is a good chance?” She looked at him in the dim light, his face inches from hers.

  Mihai’s jaw firming again was the only response for a time, then he said, “We won’t let him die.”

  Tsura nodded.

  No, they would not let him die.

  Chapter 16