House of the Lost

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Romania, mid-1980s

Matthew had always known his father would never be content until he found Elisabeth. He had tried to think of the cloudy-haired woman in the photo as his mother, but he could not, because he had no memory of her.

‘Your father had nightmares in those first years after your mother was taken away,’ Wilma said when they returned to Romania, and made a brief stay at their old house. ‘He used to call out for her in his sleep. He believed she was being held in one of the old gaols. I used to hear him. It was as if he could see the stone cells and the bars at the windows. I’d go along to his bedroom to wake him up, and make him hot milk with brandy in it. But if I’d guessed you were hearing all those nightmares…’

‘Only occasionally,’ said Matthew, and because it was dear, loyal Wilma, he added a careful lie, ‘I don’t remember much of it.’

They left the house after one day.

‘We daren’t stay any longer,’ Andrei’s said. ‘The Securitate could be watching; they’ll know it’s a place I’d come to.’

Matthew had no idea if the Securitate would also be watching the convent. He wondered how long they would look for an escaped prisoner. He and Andrei had been in England for almost three months, but perhaps three months was not very long to the cold-eyed men of the Securitate.

They stayed at the convent for several weeks, at first not daring to go out or draw attention to themselves, grateful to Sister Teresa who brought news of what was going on in the outside world.

‘It’s very little different from when you left,’ she said. ‘Although when I go into town, I have the feeling that people are becoming restless, that something might gradually be building up under the surface. We’ll pray for a peaceful outcome, for better times.’

Petra came to visit them the following year. Matthew saw that the attraction between her and his father was still very strong, but he thought it was not quite as strong as it had been in England. She’s letting go, he thought. She understands he’ll spend his whole life trying to find my mother if he has to, and she knows she can’t be part of that.

Even so, when Petra left, she clung to Andrei for a long time.

‘You’ll come back, won’t you?’ said Andrei.

‘If you want me to.’

‘Yes. Oh God, yes, of course I do.’

‘Then I will.’

She had returned each year, spending several weeks with Andrei in spring when Theo was at school, and often in October and November as well. Matthew had left art school by then, and taught at various schools, obtaining posts as near to Andrei as he could. But travelling was difficult – petrol was so strictly rationed it was almost impossible to obtain, and a Sunday curfew was in place. Even electricity was rationed in order to divert the supply to heavy industry, and television – for those who had a set – was reduced to two hours each day. It was whispered that phones were bugged and that one in three Romanians was an informant for the Securitate. A police state, said people, glancing nervously around to make sure they were not overheard.

Matthew managed to stay in work – education seemed to be the one thing Ceauşescu did not restrict – and he hoarded all his earnings so he could one day open his own gallery. It was his dream and his goal, but as the years went by, he wondered if it would ever become a reality.

‘It could become a reality,’ said Petra, when Matthew talked to her about it. ‘You mustn’t lose sight of it, not ever. There’s a line from one of our poets – Tennyson: ‘Follow the gleam.’ Always do that. And something’s starting to happen in this country – can’t you feel it? As if the contents of a huge angry cauldron are simmering just under the surface.’

Matthew had known this for a long time. He sometimes thought it was as if something just out of sight was beating a tattoo on an invisible drum, and the sound was gradually becoming louder and more insistent. He said, ‘What d’you think will happen?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But if I’m right, everything will change. There’s another line from Tennyson, as well. “The old order changeth, giving way to the new”. I don’t know when it will happen, that change, but I hope it’s soon.’

But it was to be another two years before the bubbling cauldron of hatred and discontent finally erupted, and when it did, Petra was back in England.

Romania, December 1989

‘Please stay safe both of you,’ Petra said, just before Christmas. ‘I think Romania’s about to reach explosion point. Those people in the streets last night, the fights and the violence…’

‘Some of the streets look like the aftermath of a war,’ said Andrei, his eyes dark with anger and bitterness. ‘Destruction, ash from burned cars, even blood on the pavements… Only this isn’t a war.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Petra. ‘Whatever it is, I think you’re about to see the last act of Ceauşescu’s reign, and if I could stay on to see it with you I would, but—’

‘But you must be back to spend Christmas with Theo,’ Andrei said. ‘Of course you must. And we’ll be safe. I’m a survivor. Matthew too.’

‘So you are,’ she said, managing a smile. ‘I was forgetting that.’ So Petra went back to England, and three days later, the dam that had held in so much anger and defiance for so many years, finally burst. A great tidal wave of rebellion cascaded across the country, sweeping aside everything in the pent-up longing for freedom from a dictator’s iron rule.

Matthew and his father were in the centre of Bucharest as people from all walks of life poured into the city from outlying districts. Martial law had been announced with a ban on groups larger than five people. But, incredibly, hundreds of thousands of people were gathering spontaneously, apparently prepared to brave the soldiers and tanks drafted in by Ceauşescu’s henchmen.

‘And helicopters,’ said Matthew, looking up at the sudden whirr of machinery in the skies. ‘They’re dropping leaflets.’

‘And d’you know what the leaflets tell us to do?’ said a man next to him. ‘To go home and enjoy the Christmas feast! Dear God, don’t the devils know we have to queue up for hours to even get a drop of cooking oil!’

‘He’s coming out onto the balcony,’ said someone else. ‘Ceauşescu himself. There he is, the cruel greedy bastard!’

As Nicolae Ceauşescu began an impassioned speech, Matthew’s father said, softly, ‘He’s not reaching them. Look at their faces, Matthew, look at the hatred and the anger. He’s lost them, and the terrible thing is that he doesn’t realize it.’

‘A few people near the front are cheering him,’ said Matthew, a bit doubtfully.

‘It’s frightened cheering. They’re probably Securitate plants,’ said Andrei, still keeping his voice low, mindful of eavesdroppers.

As Matthew listened to Ceauşescu reminding his audience of the achievements of the socialist revolution, about the multi-laterally developed society he had created, he knew his father was right. Ceauşescu was grasping at the vanishing remnants of power. His voice was taking on a strained, desperate note and the crowd was becoming restless. This is it, he thought. This is what Petra meant when she talked about the old order changing. It’s changing now, here, in this square. Something new is struggling to be born. It won’t be an easy birth and people will be hurt in the process, but if it can really happen it will be the turning point. It will sweep away the decades of dreary poverty and despair.

‘I think,’ said Andrei, suddenly, ‘this is where we step back, Matthew. Some of the crowd are moving towards the building. Over there, look. It’ll turn ugly at any minute. Let’s get into one of the side streets and out of the way. I’ll do a lot for Romania’s freedom – I have done a lot for it – but I’m not getting caught up in mob violence and neither are you.’

They moved away as unobtrusively as possible, but as they reached the edge of the square, Matthew turned back and scanned the faces. Who were they, these people, who once had bowed their heads to the yoke of a tyrant but today were shouting their defiance of him? He stood very still, letting the extraordinary atmosphere soak into his whole being, trying to print the moment on his memory, so that one day in the future, he could look back and relive it and say, That was the moment when the old order changed, that was the moment when I knew the bad years were over for Romania.

Zoia had not intended to go to the central committee building that morning, but her rooms overlooked a main thoroughfare, and the shouting and running outside was impossible to ignore. She had lived in Bucharest for two years, and at first she’d liked it. She liked the feeling of being nearer to the centre of things. She tried to continue her work for the Party even though she was no longer sure if she believed in its policies and principles. She tried to ignore the feeling that her former zeal had been because of Annaleise, but it was a feeling that came frequently to the surface of her mind these days. Her work in one of the city libraries was moderately interesting although not especially well paid. She hoped, as most of the staff did, that the promised national library and national museum of history would one day be completed and she could move there.

But today, just four days before Christmas, it was as if a huge fire had been ignited at Romania’s heart and was spreading through the whole country, raging its way into small towns and villages, licking its greedy flames inside the houses so that people were forced outside. It forced Zoia outside. She had watched for a while, then grabbed her thick coat, and ran down the stairs to join them. As she entered the square, pushed and jostled on all sides, Ceauşescu’s voice rang out over the heads of the crowds, but she could see almost at once that his words were going for nothing. He’s making futile attempts to regain his authority, she thought. He’s standing up there on the balcony as if he thinks he’s a god, but his subjects aren’t listening. They’re out of his reach.

With the thought there was the sound of explosions from the outskirts of the square, and people began to run and scream. ‘Bombs!’ cried a woman. ‘No, it’s guns – the bastard’s ordered the army to fire on us!’ shouted a man. ‘Get under cover!’ Someone with a megaphone began shouting that the Securitate was firing on the people. ‘It’s the revolution!’ bellowed the voice. The word span and bounced all round the square: revolution, revolution…

The crowd jeered and whistled, and more and more people ran into the square, turning it into a rioting, seething mass. Anti-communist chants began. ‘Down with the dictator.’ ‘Death to the murderer.’ ‘Death to Nicolae Ceauşescu and the bitch Elena!’

There was a flurry of movement on the balcony, and Zoia saw Nicolae Ceauşescu, Elena at his side, scuttle back inside the building. They’re afraid, she thought. They know the speech was futile, and they’re slinking into cover like cowards. And these, thought Zoia, are the people for whom I spied, for whom I dealt out cruelty.

She fought her way to the side streets, and walked back to her rooms, keeping near the buildings, unnoticed, unchallenged.

The fighting continued for two more days, but Zoia remained in her rooms, not wanting – not daring – to go out.

On Christmas night she watched, on the small television she had finally managed to buy, the news that the two Ceauşescus had fled Bucharest in a helicopter. Then there was video footage of the show trial in the army schoolroom, which had been hastily converted to a makeshift courtroom. She listened to the charge of genocide against the Ceauşescu couple: genocide by starvation, lack of heating and lighting, they called it. An extraordinary charge, said the news reader. Elena appeared aloof and arrogant throughout, refusing to answer the questions put to her, refusing, as well, to acknowledge the legitimacy of her interrogators. She’s not going to break, thought Zoia, leaning forward, her fists clenched, the nails digging into her palms. She’ll be imperious to the end.

But Elena Ceauşescu was not imperious quite to the end. As the police made to separate her from Nicolae, intending to perform two separate executions, she rapped out an angry order. ‘Together,’ she said. ‘We die together – together – together…’ When they bound her hands behind her back she cursed and fought, saying they were breaking her arms. The police had to use force to subdue her, and Zoia’s skin prickled with horror at the fury and defiance in Elena’s face, this woman who had caused so much suffering and who was about to be led to her death. The cameras did not follow the two, but in her mind Zoia saw them stand against a wall in a stone yard, she saw the rifles take aim and the bullets rip into their bodies. Exactly as Zoia’s mother must have looked when she stood against a wall all those years ago to be shot for a murder she had not committed – the murder Zoia herself had committed. She shivered and pushed the image away.

Back at her work in the library, she listened to the avid discussions about the events, contributing the occasional remark. She did not say she had once met Elena – that she had travelled in a car with her and helped arrest a young woman caught making illegal broadcasts. The best thing now was to get on with her work. Life went on; bills had to be paid. You lived with your ghosts as best you could.

There was one ghost that Zoia had not expected, though.

On New Year’s Day, she was crossing a street near the university, on her way to the library, when she saw three people walking across one of the squares – a woman and two men. She glanced at them incuriously, then looked again. The older man had a thin face with a small beard. He had a scholarly look about him, as if he might be a don. The younger man resembled him. But it was the woman who walked with them who drew Zoia’s eyes. Once she had looked at her she could not look away.

The years and deprivations of Pitesti Gaol had stripped the flesh from Elisabeth Valk’s bones, but she had been beautiful twenty years ago, and she was beautiful now, even thin and gaunt, her hair cropped short, her clothes unremarkable. She clung to the arms of the two men, as if she was afraid they might suddenly vanish, and she kept looking from one to the other. There was such deep love and gratitude in her eyes that Zoia felt something slam at the base of her throat. To feel like that, to have endured all that, and to come out and find your heart’s desire still there.

None of the three saw her, but she watched them until they were out of sight. Then she turned round and went on to her work in the library as usual.

The present

‘Matthew saw both his parents as heroes,’ said Petra, into the quiet room. ‘He saw them as idealists and even romantic. Two people who had wanted to save the world they lived in, and who had been hurt in the process.’

‘But she survived,’ said Theo.

‘Yes. She was frail and afraid of the world. They took her to Switzerland and she had five years with them before she died.’

‘And Andrei?’ asked Lesley.

‘He died shortly afterwards.’

‘Did you meet Elisabeth?’ said Theo.

‘Just once. It was a curious experience. I knew so much about her: what she had done, how brave and defiant she had been. What I saw was what was left after the brutality of a Romanian gaol. And yet,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘there was the impression of a light still flickering somewhere. Like seeing a flame through a misted-over window.’

Theo could not think of anything to say, and it was Lesley who reached out for Petra’s hand, and Guff who said, ‘My dear, I’m so sorry.’

‘Things heal,’ she said. ‘But I don’t forget him.’ She blinked, then said, ‘Is that the doorbell?’

It was the doorbell. It was Michael Innes.

‘You suggested I came back this evening,’ he said, looking hesitantly at Petra’s car. ‘But it looks as if you’ve got people here, and I don’t want to intrude—’ He broke off, hearing sounds of crockery from the kitchen where Lesley was helping Guff find something for supper.

‘Please come in,’ said Theo. ‘Stay to supper if you can.’ Not giving Michael time to refuse, he took him into the sitting room. Michael stopped dead in the doorway, and his eyes widened.

Then Petra said in a slightly shaky voice, ‘Hello, Mikhail. This is unfair, isn’t it? I knew you were coming – but you didn’t know I was here. Ghosts of the past gathering.’

‘Petra,’ he said. ‘I had no idea you were here. Oh God, it’s good to see you again.’ He went forward and as his arms went round her. Theo, who had thought his mother was taking this meeting in her stride, saw she was crying. The two of them stood together, locked in a tight embrace. Theo had the sensation that he was glimpsing a tiny fragment of the past: a fragment these two had known and were remembering.

‘Sorry for the melodrama,’ said Petra when she finally stepped back, still holding Michael’s arm. ‘Oh, Mikhail, it’s been so long. I should call you Michael, shouldn’t I? Can you stay to eat with us?’

‘Well, if it wouldn’t be—’

‘It wouldn’t be,’ she said. ‘Please stay. I still haven’t heard the half of what’s been going on here and I don’t suppose you have, either.’

‘And my great-uncle makes a mean omelette,’ said Theo. ‘I’ll tell him to beat up another couple of eggs.’ He went out, wanting to give his mother and Michael some time on their own.

Later, over the omelettes, he said to Michael, ‘I understand now why you didn’t seem surprised that I knew so much about Mara and Zoia and all the other things. At the time it puzzled me quite a lot, though.’

‘I assumed Petra had told you, or that you remembered hearing some of it all those years ago,’ said Michael, ‘when Andrei and Matthew were here.’ He looked back at Petra. ‘Andrei and Matthew poured it all out to you, didn’t they? About Jilava and the Securitate. The Black House. I remember Matthew telling me how patient and understanding you were.’

‘She always is,’ said Lesley and Michael glanced at her gratefully.

‘But for a time it became part of my life as well as yours and theirs,’ said Petra. ‘Remember I was there when the rebels turned on Ceauşescu.’

‘And I was safely here in England,’ he said, with a trace of anger in his voice. ‘I should have been there when they overthrew that evil creature.’

‘You had done a lot towards it,’ said Petra.

‘And perhaps,’ put in Guff, ‘it was safer not to be there.’

‘I would have gone back,’ he said, ‘but I was still at Queens – it wasn’t easy to vanish for a month or so. And there was Mara to consider.’

It was not until they were clearing the table, carrying plates to the kitchen, that Theo, keeping his voice low, said to his mother, ‘I haven’t asked you this yet, but you did meet Mara, I suppose?’

‘I met her once, while Andrei was here. Only very briefly, though. Why?’

The others were in the kitchen – Theo could hear Lesley saying she would make coffee, and Guff asking if anyone knew where the extra cups were kept.

‘I can’t help wondering exactly what Mara might be capable of,’ he said at last, and Petra looked at him thoughtfully.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I do know, though, that I always believed Michael would do absolutely anything to protect her.’

‘From the past, d’you mean?’

‘From her own particular part of the past,’ said Petra.