The Girl They Left Behind 1 Bucharest January 1941 THE GIRL SITS ALONE IN impenetrable darkness. Shivering, she wraps her arms around her tiny body and buries her face in the collar of her wool cardigan. Out here on the building steps, she tries to remember exactly what her mother had told her. Did she say how long she'd be gone? It was still light out when she last saw her parents rounding the corner, her mother with her shoulders slumped forward, trembling in her thin dress, her father shuffling down the frozen sidewalk just steps behind her. A chill tears through her as she places her palms on the icy concrete beneath her. The winter wind bites into her flesh, slashing mercilessly at her bare legs, and she wishes she had a blanket or mittens, or at least her bonnet, which somehow she has lost. Still, she'd rather be out here in the frigid cold than inside that dark, musty lobby. The smell of cooked cabbage coming from one of the apartments made her stomach growl with hunger, even though at home she always refused to eat it no matter how much her mother pleaded with her. Drawing her knees to her chest, she looks up at the building's three stories and its vast, rounded balconies looming above. Certainly, she's never seen this building before. She has never seen this street, this vacant, dimly illuminated street on which a single lamppost casts a glint of light over the blackened snow. There isn't a person in sight. It is as if someone has turned out the lights on this once lively city, forbidding any strolling, greeting, or laughter. Her parents will be back any minute, she thinks, glancing up the length of the street again. She tries to recall her mother's soft voice telling her not to be afraid, that if she is a brave girl, all will be well. Still, she knows that she shouldn't be out at this hour. Just the other day, she overheard her parents talking about the curfew, how the Iron Guard were patrolling the city, arresting anyone still on the streets after sundown. How they'd shot someone in front of their own building, right there for all the neighbors to see. She heard them talk about other things, too, things they didn't want her to hear, whispering in the room next to hers after she'd long gone to bed. Their words were muffled, indistinguishable, but the desperate edge in their voices made her shudder in her warm bed. There are noises in the distance now--shouting, shrieking voices intermingled with the rhythmic thumping of boots and windows slamming shut in the night. This has been happening for the last few nights, but this time, the sounds are accompanied by a strange smell, something like burnt coal but sickly sweet, which makes her stomach turn. Waves of nausea rise inside her, and she pulls the edge of her cardigan over her face to get relief from the stench, forcing her thoughts to her home and her bed with the pink satin quilt, the familiar light creeping through the door left ajar between their two bedrooms. Tears well up in her eyes, and she can no longer fight them. She is ashamed, because she knows she is not brave after all, even though she promised her mother that she would try her hardest. I will be good, Mama. I will be patient, she'd said, but now those words seem as if they were spoken a lifetime ago. In the crook of her arm, her sobs spring free, knifing through the silence and echoing through courtyards and alleyways. Although she knows she should be quiet, there is no way to contain whatever it is that has come loose inside her. She cries until there is nothing left, until even her jagged sighs have melted away, becoming one with the wind. Lying down on the concrete landing, she curls herself up into a ball and finally lets herself slip into a bottomless chasm. Suddenly, sturdy arms embrace her, lifting her in the air. She is startled awake, and looking up, she sees the face of a woman she doesn't know--hair pulled back in a silvery bun, random strands falling about her lined, rounded cheeks. The faint scent of starch and perspiration envelops her as the woman folds her against her chest, so tightly that she cannot break free, even though she tries with all her might, flailing her limbs. Yet there is something tender in the woman's grip, something comforting, and the girl is too cold and tired and weak, so she buries her face in the woman's bosom and begins to weep. Opening the entrance door with her elbow, the woman carries her back into the lobby. The girl wants to ask if she knows about her parents, if they are coming to get her soon, but when she opens her mouth, only a long, sharp wail escapes from her lips. "Shh . . ." whispers the woman in her ear. "I've got you. Shh . . . You are all right. You are all right." In the transient light of a passing car, the woman's face shines pale and wide like a moon visible amid passing clouds, her eyes like that, too, sparkling and moist. As if sensing the girl's gaze, they lower to hers, but an instant later, the light is gone, and they disappear from her again, sliding back into nothingness. Only the woman's arms remain, soft and solid all the same, and that scent encircling her in waves. "Such a sweet thing," she thinks she can hear the woman murmur as if to herself in the returning darkness. "Such a sweet little thing." There is a cluck of her tongue. "What a pity." Twenty years she's worked as a concierge in this building. Twenty long years, during which she's gotten to know every family on the block, and so she can practically swear that this little girl does not belong to any of them. No, she is most certainly from a different part of town. Perhaps her parents were visiting someone in the building when the girl slipped away without their realizing. But who would let a child wander off in the middle of Dacia Boulevard? Who would leave a child of three, maybe four, in the middle of gunfire and the curfew and dead bodies lining the streets? In disbelief, in disgust, she shakes her head. She isn't the most educated woman, but she does know human decency, and she realizes this is an aberration. Even in her sleep, the poor thing is clutching her hand so tightly that she finds it impossible to move from the stairwell between the lobby and the first floor, where she's been cradling the girl in her lap. Just when she thinks she can try to lift her, the girl goes rigid, writhing and twisting, and all she can do is still her with her own failing body, folding over hers in a prayer. A prayer that she repeats again and again hours later, when she's managed at last to bring the child down to her basement room and the wavering light of a winter dawn trickles in through the sliver of glass that is her window. The girl wakes and sits up on the narrow bed. Her eyes roam unfocused about the tiny space, taking in the old dresser with its peeling lacquer, the kitchen half visible behind the threadbare curtain, the rusted soba in the corner in which a few sputtering flames leap like overgrown moths. Gathering the blanket closer around her, she scoots over to the far corner of the bed, but there is no fear on her face now, only confusion. "Where's my mama?" she utters after a silence. Her voice is small, hardly audible. "Is she coming to get me soon?" The woman's hands are cold, so cold as she looks down at them, the way they keep rubbing each other as if they have a mind of their own. In the wood-burning stove, the embers flare and pop, and it is only when they've turned completely to ash that she raises her eyes. "No, my sweet girl," is all she says simply. "No." Excerpted from The Girl They Left Behind: A Novel by Roxanne Veletzos All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
