“Radu, we start tomorrow, my dear,” Greta winked. “You will like it, I promise. Just me and you. No other children or stupid recitations. We will begin with picture cards, alright? How would you like that?”
The boy nodded indifferently. He would be willing to appease his new keeper as long as she kept feeding him the delicious yellow cream pudding they called custard. Radu had no intention of staying long, certainly not indefinitely. Much as they spoiled him, much as he enjoyed not having to suffer the cold or struggle for food, it was simply not in his nature to be domesticated like a puppy. He was a wolf. Always, since he was a little boy, he likened himself to a wolf, a wild and free creature that would rather suffer the elements and roam where he wanted, than to be kept as a pet and have no choice in his own fate.
His bedroom was not to be altered, Frau Heller told him. She would have it decorated according to the things she taught him and nothing else. No childish nonsense or celebrities. Radu thought the German was a little off her rocker. Why would she be so concerned what he made of his room? But she insisted that his bedroom be decorated only with what she put there, so, with a shrug Radu agreed.
Soon, however, Radu discovered just how pedantic Greta Heller was about his surroundings, especially after their first day. It was a sunny Saturday, but instead of letting him go for a swim in the indoor heated pool as he wished to, Frau Heller sat him down in the seclusion of her office and study.
Her massive mahogany desk by the window was covered by a lacy white cloth, resembling some sort of Catholic altar he had seen in Cluj before. Nothing was on it and two beautiful wooden chairs were placed on the left and the right of it. The tall window ushered through the morning light that illuminated the edges of the drawn drapes like a halo.
“Come. Sit on that side. I’ll sit here,” she invited, but her tone was undeniably rigid. He knew he had no choice.
“Can I go swimming after this?” Radu asked, his hands fidgeting.
“If you complete the lesson. Maybe. But you have to concentrate on your work first,” she said plainly as she seated him. She walked around to the other side of the table and sat down with a shoe box full of teaching aids.
In their first tutoring session she started with cue cards. No words were written on them, which was a major relief for the boy. Each card had a picture on it, depicting one or the other scenario or item.
“Now, are you ready?” she smiled. He nodded while leaning forward curiously to see over the edge of the shoe box. Greta wanted to make it exciting for the child, so that he would pour more passion into it. Nothing would come of all her teaching if he stayed this indifferent to it as he was. One by one, slowly she laid out four cards.
“Now we will see how smart you are,” she said, deliberately using reverse psychology to challenge him effectively. It worked.
“I am smart. I’ll show you,” he defended eagerly. “What do you want me to do?”
Greta was thrilled at his response.
“On each card there is a picture, correct? I want you to rearrange them so that they make a story. Can you do that?” she asked gently, keeping her demeanor positive and supportive.
Radu leaned on his elbows and scrutinized the colorfully sketched options. In front of him the cards depicted a boy, a car, a tree and a ball. It was dead silent in the study where Greta had disconnected her landline from the wall to give them uninterrupted privacy. She watched the Roma boy zealously, his black eyes darting from one card to another, his bottom lip caught between his teeth and his fingers twitching slightly as he contemplated his move.
There was no rush. Excited as she was to see what he came up with, she gave him time on the first try. By the fourth or fifth round she was certain that he would be more familiar with the game and would react faster.
Suddenly he started arranging the cards. He placed the car first, next the tree, then the boy and finally the ball. When he was done he cast his eyes up to her in anticipation. Greta looked at the order in which he had arranged them and asked, “Why did you decide on this sequence, Radu?”
“Is it right? Did I get it right or is it wrong?” he asked.
“There is no right or wrong, silly,” she played, hoping the lack of specific answers would encourage him. “Look at your cards. Now, tell me the story you made from it.”
“Well, the car drove up to the tree, like the park where I used to play, and the boy climbed out of the car and played with his ball.”
“Well done!” she cheered, clasping her hands together favorably, although she was hoping for better, darker, stories. “Rearrange them to make another story — a different one.”
Radu frowned at the request, but then put his mind to task. A shorter time passed before he replaced their positions. The boy, the ball, the car and the tree came in sequence.
“Tell me the story,” she said in the same tone she ordered him with. “Make it interesting.”
“The boy kicked the ball into the street. The car swerved to miss it and smashed into the tree,” he said hesitantly. It was all he could think of at the time and hoped that she would not be angry because of the accident. But she was very impressed. Greta jumped up and applauded.
“That is a very interesting story!” she laughed. Radu beamed at her, proud of himself at her reaction. It was wonderful to be able to entertain Frau Heller like this! For the first time in his life he felt intelligent and important, that such a high class lady would be so impressed by something he created. Radu liked this game. He could not wait to play more.
Chapter 18 — Confessions and Revelations
“Hey, who said you could smoke here?” Sam snapped in a whisper, startling Nina into a surge of cuss words. Her reaction amused him no end. He had followed her as she snuck out to the third floor hall balcony for a quick smoke before bed. Behind her silhouette, slightly lit by the exterior lights of the building, the sky reached from horizon to horizon in a visibly curved, star strewn dome. By the face of the sky it seemed that the stars of a hundred galaxies chose this night to gather over the Brdy Forest.
“Geez, look at that,” Sam remarked when the breathtaking panorama caught his eye.
“I know, right? How amazing is this view? Imagine living here permanently,” Nina marveled as Sam took the halfway smoked cigarette from her to take a drag.
“Aye. I don’t think these owners fully appreciate what they have here. They are so used to it,” he answered. Sam looked at Nina while she gazed up at the midnight sky, her head tilted dangerously far back. A thin knitted blanket graced her shoulders and hung down to her knees to guard against the cold. In front of her chest she held the two edges together with her hand while the woodland breathed its night wind over the magnificent old structure and occasionally compelled the blanket’s fringe to lift in corrugated cadence.
“I have been meaning to ask you how your treatment is going,” Sam said matter-of-factly, not bothering to notice that he had now annexed Nina’s smoke. “Are you still having episodes or have they disappeared?”
Nina sighed. She did not want Sam to know that she had been suffering from the strange time-loss dips and that she could hardly tell reality from dreams sometimes. Still, he was always her trusted confidant and she could share anything with him without fearing judgment.
“It is nearing the end, which is a relief,” she chose to say.
“My god, Nina, are you going to make it till Christmas? Because I have already bought your present and I’d hate to have to return it,” he jested, teasing her choice of words. Nina reached a hand from under the blanket and dealt him a hefty tap in the gut, which had him groaning.