The Winter Thief

19

The pitcher was empty and the fire had gone out. Vera pounded on the door and called out, “I need water. I’m freezing.” The door was of heavy wood. She could feel loops and shapes beneath her fingers. There were ornamented doors like this in her family’s home in Moscow. Was this someone’s home? She tried to remember the room as it had been when it was light, but could recall only disjointed flashes. She didn’t remember seeing any windows, but she searched for one anyway, gliding her hands over the walls around the entire periphery of the room. Surely someone would come. She squatted in a corner and waited. She stroked the cloth of her dress and coat over and over, memorizing the different textures, the feel of stitching beneath her fingertips, trying to keep panic at bay.

After what seemed an eternity, she heard a faint sound like slippers scuffing and then the key turn in the lock. The door swung open. Vera closed her eyes against the sudden light.

When she opened them, she saw a plump, frightened-looking teenage girl in a marigold-colored robe, holding a lamp in one hand, a basket by her feet. She lugged the heavy basket into the room. Seeing Vera, she came over and knelt beside her, then reached out a small white hand and stroked Vera’s hair. Vera noticed that the backs of her hands were marked with cuts, one above the other like a ladder. A strong smell of perspiration hung about her, and an unpleasant musk rose from her clothing. The girl poured a glass of water and handed it to Vera, then watched as she put it to her lips and let the cool water course down her throat.

“Who are you?” Vera asked in broken Turkish. “Where am I?”

The girl looked around, as if afraid to be seen talking with Vera, with the prisoner, Vera thought. She wondered if this girl was also a prisoner. “What’s your name? My name is Vera Arti.” She couldn’t bring herself to lie to this brutalized girl.

The girl looked surprised. “Gabriel Arti?” she asked.

“My husband,” Vera said triumphantly. “Do you know him?”

The girl nodded. “I’m Sosi,” she said in Armenian. She looked at the door and frowned.

“Do you know where my husband is?”

“Not now,” Sosi whispered, glancing at Vera to see if she understood.

Vera nodded, disappointed. The girl drew a cotton shawl around her lower face and slipped out of the room. Vera heard the key turn. Sosi had taken the lamp with her, leaving Vera in darkness again.

Vera reached out and pulled the basket closer. She felt the contents and was delighted to recognize the textures of kindling, coal, and matches. She dragged it toward where she thought the stove would be. In the process, she stumbled and twisted her wrist. Ignoring the pain, she made up a fire and by the light of the flames examined the rest of the contents. There was a loaf of bread, slices of dried meat encased in red paste, soft goat’s cheese, a ceramic pot of olives, and another of yoghurt. She drank more water, then, afraid she would drink it all, put it carefully aside and tasted the food. It was all very salty but tasted better than anything she could remember eating in a long time, except Christmas dinner with Gabriel.

The thought of Gabriel made her want to weep. She didn’t know how, but she was certain she had endangered his mission. He would worry about her when he should be concentrating on his work. She was just a fool, she berated herself, the soft daughter of bourgeois parents, brought up in a cocoon with no skills to survive by herself. She should have married the man her parents had chosen for her, a kind young doctor, instead of insisting on going abroad. Why had she gone to Geneva? She admitted it to herself. Because she had been bored. The socialist cause had given her life an exhilarating edge, a meaning greater than the books she read for class and the fashionable shoes she bought with her parents’ money. The socialist community in Geneva was her family, but she didn’t deserve them now. Kneeling by the open stove door to warm herself, she crammed cheese and bitter olives into her mouth.