Chapter Twenty-Seven

When April dropped by Luca’s midmorning, no one answered the door. She never had seen a car in his driveway, so she doubted he’d gone far walking. After his last spell, it surprised her he could leave his house at all.

She sat on the porch, enjoying the crisp morning. A breeze wafted through the trees, leaving the air clean and tangy. It wasn’t long before Luca walked up the street. He was carrying a single grocery bag.

She met him at the curb. “Maybe it’s a bad day for your story. If you’ve already been out, maybe it’s too much for you.”

He had a twinkle in his eye. “Any day Mrs. Wright visits is a good day for me.”

April laughed. Was the man actually bantering with her?

He let her into the house, which was tidy and bare, as usual. She could do something with the place, given half a chance. A few splashes of color on the walls, some artwork …

Luca coughed. “A man should always worry when a woman comes into his home with such a gleam in her eye.”

He’d caught her in her designs. “I can’t fool you, Luca. I was thinking what a treat it would be to turn this place into a home.”

“A home? Is it not already a home?”

His voice was sharp, and she realized too late her words might offend. Maybe he didn’t realize how bare his house was. “It’s a house,” she said softly. She waved at the empty walls. “Seriously, Luca, a monastery would have more decoration.”

He smiled, clearly not irritated, so she went on. “A little paint to mirror the colors in your garden and some knickknacks could really give your house some life. It has such sweet lines already.”

An answering glint came into his eye. “If you like. It has been a long time since I have had a woman’s touch about, but do not spend much money. I do not care for luxury.”

“I might have guessed that. I’ll keep it simple.”

April went into the kitchen and poured water into a kettle. He watched her turn off the heat under the kettle and put tea bags into cups, but he appeared lost in some faraway land of thought.

She inclined her head. “What is it, Luca?”

His gaze returned to the here and now. “There is more than friendship between Nicu and yourself, I think.”

April couldn’t help the startled laugh that escaped. “What gave you that idea?”

“Perhaps I am weak, but I am not blind. I have seen you together, and I saw something—some desire, some feeling. Was I mistaken?”

“Yes,” she finally said. “And no.”

“Ah.” He retrieved a lemon and began to cut it into sections. “It is good to let time take its course. It is wise to tread cautiously with bruised hearts.” He moved his hand through the air, as if erasing an imaginary blackboard. “But this old man must be careful not to imagine dreams that have no foundation.”

He paused and his voice grew faint. “It is only that when I first saw Sierra, she brought my daughter to mind. And I could not help but hope.”

April had begun to pour the water and almost dropped the kettle. Its sides sent a bracing heat through her hands as she steadied it on the heat pad. How many surprises did he mean to spring on her today?

“Your daughter?”

His mind had gone to that faraway place again. “I was not allowed to see her. But I imagined her to have Tatia’s dark hair and fair skin. I imagined her to have the intelligence of one raised in the Prodan home. Someone much like Sierra.”

April removed the tea bags and squeezed the lemon into the tea. Together, she and Luca moved to his library. He didn’t come to sit across from her. He stood by the window, closing his eyes, as if convincing himself to return to Tatia crumpled on the floor.

She retrieved the recorder from her purse, switched it on, and sat down to wait. Half turned from her, Luca began to speak.

“I sat by Tatia’s side. She would not speak to me of this thing that made her scream at her husband’s touch. I raised her sleeve, a long sleeve, though it was warm outside. Her arms were bruised. Earlier she had cut her lip and sprained her wrist. A fall, she said, and I believed her. Why wouldn’t I?

“At last she said, ‘It is not what you are thinking, Luca.’

“‘What then?’ I said. Her words did not put me at ease.

“‘Don’t ask me, Luca. There are some things that are better not to know.’

“In Romania, we were great secret keepers, but it had not been so between us. We argued in harsh whispers that night so the neighbors would not hear us. I pleaded. But she would not tell me. How could it be best not to know what had left my wife battered and frightened?

“It was Nicu who told me at last. He had nightmares, and I went to his room late one night to comfort him. He shoved me away at first, as if I were the culprit who caused his mother’s misery.

“Quietly, I began to ask him questions. Then he wrapped his little arms around me and told me the whole terrible story.”

Luca came to sit across from April. “A mountain of a man with a scar down one cheek, Nicu said, had been visiting his mama. I knew right away who he meant. The Securitate man who drove me home. He slapped her. And threatened her. He beat her. It was because I was a bad man that he treated her so, Nicu said. I made her do bad things. My four-year-old son watched his mother be struck and berated in my name. It is no wonder he recoiled from me.”

April closed her eyes. Did Nick remember? Or was it a black hole deep in his subconscious eating away at him?

“When I told Tatia I knew the Securitate had been questioning her because of me, I wept. I was so ashamed to have brought her harm.

“‘No Luca,’ she said. She put her finger against my lips to quiet me. ‘You were so brave. So brave to speak to your students. Dear Luca, so many children do not have parents brave enough to tell them that there is truth. To them, the only god they know is Ceaşecescu. And the only act of bravery they know is to spy on each other for the state. So many children have never heard the story of the Good Samaritan. They have never heard of Jesus praying to forgive His murderers or of the Good Shepherd looking for His lost sheep. Luca, they do not know.’

“I was confused. ‘I have not spoken to my students of the things of God,’ I said.

“She did not look away. She did not answer me. A chill came down my arms. ‘You have been evangelizing children.’

“She did not deny it.

“‘The Securitate knows,’ I said with certainty. ‘They are interrogating you.’ She was fortunate. Others who had taught religion to children had been sent to prison. Some had never been heard from again.

“‘Luca,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t want you to know of it. You have enough worries, and if they asked, it would be clear you did not know what they were speaking of. But they are saying now you are the nonconformist, and you are making me do it.’

“The solution was clear to me. ‘They will leave you alone if you stop,’ I said to her. I suppose this also is why she did not tell me what she was doing. I drew the attention of the Secret Police by my carelessness, but I would never encourage her to do anything so bold.

“‘What of Nicu? What of the baby?’ I said to her.”

April moved to the edge of her seat. “She was pregnant?”

He looked away. “Yes, she was pregnant. Perhaps over halfway through her time. It was a difficult time for Tatia. She did not eat well. She did not sleep well. She continued to be ill after the nausea should have passed. As her belly grew, Tatia covered it with her hands as if she would protect the child. But I had seen the same look in her grandfather’s eyes. He also defied the state for God’s sake. She knew the consequences.”

April had no right to ask, but she could not help herself. “What happened to your baby girl, Luca?”

He did not answer her immediately, but when he did, he shut his eyes. “Tatia talked more of the Bible to our neighbors, and there was another interrogation. Our daughter was born the next day. Luciana weighed only a kilo. She died … that same day.”

He gripped the arms of the chair as he prepared to go on.

“I came to see Tatia in the hospital after the birth. It was the first time I saw her after the interrogation. Tatia sat in her bed in the hospital ward. ‘Black and blue’ you say in English. Yes, her skin was black and blue and green and red. One of her eyes was swollen half-shut. Her arm hung limp. This is how they questioned us in Romania. I leaned down to her so the other patients in the ward would not hear us. She choked out a whisper. ‘Say I did the right thing, Luca. Our neighbors are God’s children too.’

“I told her what she wanted me to say, of course, but I did not mean it.

“Tatia’s tears pooled in her eyes, but she smiled at me with the radiance of a saint. I do not believe she knew that there were Securitate men outside waiting to take her away from her living child as well.”

April swallowed. What pain for one man to bear.

Luca had turned waxy.

“Please rest now,” April said, quietly. “Nick won’t forgive me if you get sick.”

“Do I look so terrible then?”

April offered him a watery grin. It felt strange, yet right, to smile after the dark memories they had relived, as if they were able to open the curtains to sunshine after a stormy night. She took his hand and led him to his bedroom. “Lie down, Luca. I know you’ll probably give me a poor grade on my cooking skills—they’re nothing like yours—but I’ll make something for you to eat when you wake up.”

April prepared a simple casserole from noodles she found in Luca’s cupboard and leftover beef tips and tomatoes she found in his fridge. She mixed a fruit salad, covered it, and put it in the fridge. Hopefully, his stomach would be able to tolerate the meal.

She wiped the counters with a damp cloth, seeing not the Formica, but the streets of Bucharest as she imagined them.

As the casserole baked, she curled up in a chair with a notepad, jotting down ideas for Luca’s house. It wouldn’t take much—an accent wall, embroidered cushions, a few ornaments. Possibly, she could even convince him to put up a photo or two, maybe the one of Luca with little Nick on his shoulders.

April exhaled. She could make his house sparkle. She had the skill to bring a house to life, but not a home and certainly not a heart. Gary and Sierra gave evidence to that.