Éva dove with Patrik headlong into the wheat field. This was crazy. Surely the Germans had seen them duck in here. In a matter of moments, they would be on them.
“Crawl.”
At Patrik’s command, she wriggled forward. The wheat stalks must be shaking with their movement.
This was how the end would come. In a field in Romania. How long before their bodies would be found? Apu and Anya would never know how their daughter died.
“Just a little farther.”
The mud stuck to her dress, now thoroughly drenched, and strands of hair fell over her eyes. Maybe the end would be a blessed relief. She was so very, very tired.
“Don’t give up.”
Had Patrik heard her thoughts? Or maybe she’d spoken the words aloud.
For him, for their future, she would move forward. If not for Patrik by her side, she would give up. Surrender and take the consequences.
“Okay, now be still.”
She halted and cleared her mind. As sunlight pierced the rain clouds, birds twittered in the trees at the edge of the field. In the distance, a cow lowed, and somewhere, an infant gave a lusty cry.
No sounds of motors. No vehicles. No boots clomping through the crops.
Where had the Germans gone? Could it be?
She dared to gaze at Patrik. He turned to her and shot her a small smile. So she wasn’t dreaming. He didn’t hear the Nazis coming either.
Nem, she wouldn’t allow herself to hope. It might still be too good to be true. The guards could be playing games with them.
Patrik pulled her to his side, and she snuggled against him. If they were discovered, she would die in Patrik’s arms. That meant she would die a happy woman.
“How are you?” His whispered words sent a wave of heat through her.
“Tired.”
“We’ll sleep for a while.”
“What if they come back?”
“They won’t. Trust me.”
After all they’d come through, igen, she could trust him. Trust him enough to sleep in a wet field in Romania while being hunted by the Germans.
Her eyes flickered closed, and she dreamed of gowns of spun gold, warm breezes, and fireworks lighting the night.
She awoke to the sun blazing overhead. Beside her, Patrik snored. Is this what it would be like to wake up next to him every morning? Oh Lord, that it would be so. She sat up and surveyed him—the streak of dried mud that crossed his cheek. The caked-on dirt that covered his hands, his worn blue oxford shirt, his too-big-for-him tan pants. His sloped nose, his square chin, his long eyelashes.
How could she have ever doubted him? Not believed in him?
He stirred in his sleep and woke. She smiled at him. “Good morning. Or more likely, afternoon.”
He reached up, pulled her down, and kissed her. Though he tasted of dirt, heat raced through her. She returned his kiss, the music of it speaking of her unending love for him.
He responded, drawing her closer, tasting more deeply of her.
With a groan, she broke it off. “I’m sorry.”
“Nem, I am. I shouldn’t have started something I couldn’t finish. When I opened my eyes, there you were, like in my dreams, so beautiful, the sun behind you.”
“I don’t know who you’re looking at. I’m sure I’m a mess.”
“You’re lovely because you are with me and you are mine. Never doubt that.”
“I was wrong to ever doubt you. How could I have done that? How could you have forgiven me?”
“Hush now, no more of these questions. No more blaming yourself. I don’t blame you. The situation looked bad. These days, you don’t know who to trust. You had to protect yourself. I understand. There was never anything to forgive, because I love you. I always will.”
“You are too good for me.”
“Never, a múzsám, never. It’s the other way around.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“There is a farmer on the edge of a small town not too far from here. He’s one of the contacts I was given in Romania.”
“I forget we’re in a foreign country.”
“Not so foreign. Anyway, we’ll go to him, and he’ll be able to get us to Bucharest.”
“We have no money.”
He scrubbed his stubble-covered face. “That is a problem.”
To come so far and to get stuck because they had run out of funds. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. We have to get out of here. We’re still in German-held territory, and the Soviets will be here any day.”
“How can we go anywhere when we don’t have cash? We can’t get to Bucharest, and we certainly don’t have the money for a ship to Palestine.”
“First things first. Let’s meet my contact.” Patrik helped her to her feet. “If we stick to the edge of the road, we can take cover if we need to.”
“Do you think they’re still searching for us?”
“I doubt it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have to watch out.”
They strolled down the road almost devoid of traffic. A couple of farm carts passed but nothing else. Shadows had lengthened by the time they came upon a small thatch-roofed timber cottage in the midst of a barley field.
Patrik rapped on the back door. A gray-haired woman answered shortly and, with hands spotted with age, motioned them wordlessly inside.
“Sit, sit,” she said, pointing at two chairs behind the kitchen table. “Don’t tell me your names. I’d rather not know. Now, you both need a bath. I’ll draw the water and get it heating.” She peered at the filthy bandage around Patrik’s torn pants. “And I’ll take care of that wound. How about a hot meal?” The entire time she spoke, she bustled about the kitchen.
Patrik grasped the back of his chair. “Nem. I’ll draw the water. We thank you for your hospitality, but I have to let you know we have no money. Not a pengő.”
“For me, that’s not a problem. I don’t have much, but I’ll share what I have. For the rest of the journey? That is an obstacle for you to overcome. It may not be possible for you to go on.”
Éva rubbed her forehead. Not more trouble. Not after they had come so far.
Patrik relaxed in the metal tub of warm water, hid behind a curtain strung around this part of the kitchen to provide privacy. He scrubbed and scrubbed with the rough washcloth and the lye soap. Ah, how good to be clean.
He couldn’t wash away their one remaining barrier to true freedom, though. No cash. No resources to purchase food or train tickets or to bribe any guards should they be arrested.
He lathered his hair, dirt falling from it in clumps. When he rinsed, he was no closer to a solution. Neither was he when he stepped from the tub, dried himself, and dressed in the woman’s late husband’s clothes. At one time not long ago, they would have fit him, but now they hung on his bony frame.
When he pulled back the divider, Éva sat at the table with a mug of ersatz coffee in her hands, the bitterness of the brew stinging his nose. Her eyes had lost all their luster. This strong, determined woman was on the brink of collapse.
He knelt in front of her. “A múzsám, don’t be so sad. We will find a way out of this.”
“How?”
“We’ll earn the money.”
“But my clarinet. My music is gone. Teaching music is the only way I know to make a living. I don’t have any other skills. Not to mention that we’re in a foreign country in the middle of a war.”
True enough. The Soviets pressed in from the east. He’d heard reports of terrible Allied bombings in Bucharest. There were even rumblings of a coup. The conflict surrounded them.
Then, as if someone had suddenly pried open his eyes, he had the answer. “A concert.”
Éva stared at him, her eyes wide. “A what?”
“A concert. Think of it. We’ll play for the people in the village. Earn enough to move to the next one, and so on. We may have to creep and crawl along, but it’s the only solution we have.”
She slapped her thighs. “It’s no solution. We don’t have instruments.”
The woman breezed in from the back bedroom. “Did I hear something about a concert and instruments?”
There certainly was nothing wrong with her hearing. Patrik nodded. “Do you know of someone in the village we could borrow some from?”
“You go see the man at the tailor shop. He has a violin and a clarinet.”
Éva straightened. “A clarinet? Really?”
Patrik restrained himself from jumping up and down. “See, God provides.” While it may not be the most conventional pairing of instruments, it would do, especially for some good Hungarian and Russian folk music.
A half smile graced Éva’s lips.
“What a fine concert these villagers will have.”
The woman shuffled to the stove and pushed the kettle over the fire. “They don’t have much money, but they will give you what they can. Here, they are good people.”
The tailor was more than happy to lend Patrik the violin and clarinet. He examined the violin and stroked the smooth tiger-wood base. What a fine instrument. Though it had been a while since Patrik had picked up a violin, he should be able to coax beautiful music from this one.
Even better, stamped on the clarinet’s barrel was a rock with a cross on top of it, the mark for the Bognárs. Éva would be thrilled.
Patrik hurried to the cottage to present the instrument to Éva. As soon as she saw it, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Patrik. I never dreamed they would have one of Apu’s instruments.”
“How can you tell it’s his instead of Ernő’s or your grandfather’s?”
“See the way the barrel is curved? I recognize that line as unique to Apu. Ernő makes his just a little different, and so did Grandfather.” She swallowed hard and inhaled several times. “What a wonderful sign. When I’d begun to lose hope, God reminds me not to give up.” She caressed the gold-embossed mark.
“Hope. Trust.”
“I will. No more wavering.”
“The tailor gave me more good news.”
“I’m not sure my heart can take it.”
“No doubt, it will. He has no need of the clarinet anymore. It belonged to his daughter, who passed away. When I told him about you, he gifted it to you.”
She gasped and fingered the nickel-plated keys. “This is mine?”
A lump swelled in his throat. “Yes. To keep for good.”
“What a kind man. I must thank him, but I can never repay him.”
“He’ll be at the concert tonight. I’ll introduce you.”
“Then we had better get practicing. He gave you a violin?”
Patrik sat and flipped open the case. “A beautiful one at that.”
“Perfect. Let’s practice.”
This was more like the Éva he knew and loved. Köszönöm, Lord.
She pieced the clarinet together, lining up the parts just right. From a paper wrap, she drew a new reed, moistened it in her mouth, and fastened it on the mouthpiece. Meanwhile, Patrik plucked the strings of the violin to tune it.
He nodded in her direction. “Are you ready?”
She gave her assent, and they began, the bright tune bringing to mind Russian dancers doing the Hopak dance.
But only a few measures into the music, Éva stopped. He gazed at her. She held the clarinet across her lap. Great sobs shook her slender frame. “I can’t do it. I can’t. This was one of Zofia’s favorites.”
Patrik scooped Éva to himself and held her as she cried out all her pain and loss. In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her shed so many tears as in these past few days.
Her weeping dissolved into hiccups. “She played it all the time, the piano almost rocking.”
He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “What would she want you to do?”
“Play the music. Get to safety. Live a happy life.”
“Not five minutes ago, that’s what you told me you would do. Tonight we play for Zofia. For Ernő and your parents. For each member of my family.”
“Sometimes I forget you lost everything too, including your identity.”
The pain gripped him as hard as it gripped her. The sisters he had grown up with. Their laughter. Their beauty. Their love. Gone, probably forever. Would he ever discover their fates? If not for Éva, he would be alone in the world.
“This concert will be for them. About them. For all those who have loved and lost.”