"And your father?"
She shook her head.
"Who looked after you?"
She felt annoyed. He must have read all this in the reports. Still, she tried to keep her voice from sounding impatient, which would only bring trouble. "My grandmother raised me. My mother"s mother." Then she added before he could ask, "My father"s family was from somewhere far away."
He nodded as if she had said or done something right. Nita did not dare look at Sauers.
The man continued but he could not disguise the energy in his voice, now that he thought he was onto something. "Was there anyone unusual in your village? Anyone different than the others?"
"Everyone was unique." She kept her smile hidden; she wanted to toy with him a little.
"Yes, of course. But what I meant was would you say there was anyone living in the village who maybe did not feel they belonged there? Who might have felt like a prisoner?"
She knew what he was getting at, and she knew what he wanted her to say. He wanted her to say it was her. Instead she told him, "Yes, one man. We called him Vechi brbat. It means "ancient man"."
This was not what the grey-haired man was expecting. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him move back in his chair slightly, as if regrouping his thoughts. To her right, she heard Sauers make a small sound like a snake hissing.
They insisted she be here. They controlled her life. She had no options but this one: to play with them, as much as she could. And she would. They did not care about her, about her village, about vechi brbat. And Nita did not care about them. Not at all. What could a prisoner feel but to desire the end of her captors?
The man at the table leaned forward and scribbled in his notebook. When he looked up at her she met his gaze, forcing her eyes to reflect innocence, guilelessness. In an instant his demeanor altered and he again looked hopeful, as if he had made a good decision and even before he spoke, she knew where he wanted to go.
"Tell me about this vechi brbat," he said, badly misp.r.o.nouncing the words. And she knew he had decided to humor her. She smiled, which from his reaction he interpreted as her being more at ease with him. But of course she did not trust him. Not at all.
"Vechi brbat was old when my grandmother was young. She told me stories, what her grandmother had told her, and her grandmother before her."
"I see," the man said, jotting a note. He looked up at Nita with an encouraging smile. "Could you describe this vechi brbat for me?"
"Grey hair like yours, but brittle," she said. "He was thin, very thin, because he did not eat much, and hunched, but I think he must have been shorter than me. His eyes could not focus well, and he had trouble with light, especially the sun."
"Where did he live? In the village, I mean. Did he have a house?"
"He lived with us. In a cage in the back room. My grandmother fed him from time to time, and let him out when she felt he was not a threat."
"What kind of threat?" The man"s voice held antic.i.p.ation, as if Nita were on the edge of divulging something important.
"He might hurt someone. If he were kept weak, he could not harm us. That"s why my grandmother fed him little."
"And the rest of the villagers? Were they afraid of him?"
"No one was afraid of him."
"But if he was a danger-"
"When he was well fed. But he never was. And at night, but he was kept on chains and ropes. He was not dangerous in the day, and not when he was weak."
The man paused. "Did your grandmother ever keep you in the cage?"
"Of course not!" Nita snapped. She saw Sauers tense, ready for action. "I was not a threat. Only vechi brbat."
"Alright. That makes sense," the man said, trying to mollify her, fearful that she would stop talking to him. "Tell me more about him. Did you ever speak with him?"
"No. Why should I? There was no reason to. And besides, he could not talk. He only knew the language of long ago. He had nothing to say."
"Did he ever try to speak to you?"
She thought for a moment. "Once. When I was very young. I had gone into the woods to hunt for mushrooms too late in the day and he appeared."
"You were not afraid?"
Nita looked at him with disdain. "Of course not. I told you I did not fear him."
"And what did he do?"
"He walked up to me and reached out his hand to touch my face, but I stepped back. And anyway, the chains and ropes were caught around a tree trunk, so he could not reach me. It was dark in those woods where the trees grew close together and little sunlight got through. He might have had more power."
"What did you do, when he tried to touch you?"
"I picked up my bucket and went home."
"Did he follow you?"
"Yes, for a while, when he unraveled himself."
"Did you tell anyone about this?"
"Yes, I told my grandmother."
"And what did she do?"
"She beat him."
They were all silent for a moment. Nita recalled watching the crimson welts form on vechi brbat"s bare back as Bunic laid on the thick black leather strap. The blood was not red like Nita"s and Bunic"s but pale, almost colorless, barely pink-tinged. Vechi brbat took the beating with barely a sound coming from his lips, but his body hunched over even more until he was curled into a ball like a baby. Nita had felt sorry for him.
"How did you feel about that?"
"He had to be taught a lesson, my grandmother said. Otherwise he would cause harm to others."
The man took more notes. Dr. Sauers got up and checked the camera. Nita looked down at the shackles locking her wrists and ankles and thought that she was as much of a prisoner here as vechi brbat had been in the village. She, too, was kept in a cage. Controlled not by near starvation but through drugs they injected into her daily. She knew how much vechi brbat had longed to break free. She grew to understand him very well.
When Sauers returned to her seat and the man whose name she still did not know had finished his note taking, he turned to Nita and asked if she would like some water, or a juice.
"No. Thank you."
"All right then. Can we continue?"
She knew he did not expect an answer and she gave none. He would continue whether she wanted to or not. That was the nature of being held prisoner.
"I"d like to talk about the last time you visited your village. Back in the summer."
Her mind went to a picture. Like a postcard. An overview of the village, in shades of verdant green, with rich ochre mixed in, and the azure of the sky above. There were people: pretty, tan-skinned Oana and her four rosy-cheeked children and her belly swollen with the fifth. And Radu, her blond-haired, hard-working husband. Little Gheroghe, who played the flute so well, and Ilie who made such beautiful, well-constructed boots with his long, graceful fingers colored nearly black from the Russian cigarettes he liked to smoke. She saw them all as dabs of paint on a canvas, a human still-life, paralyzed in the thickness of time, depicted in her mind as they went about their day, as they had always done, as their children would, unless they left the village as Nita had.
"Tell me about that visit. Why did you go home?"
"My studies were complete for the year. I had gotten a position, serving food and drink in a taverna in Bucharest, but the owner did not need me for three weeks, until the tourists would come, so I went home to see my grandmother."
"Were you happy to be visiting her and your village?"
"Yes, of course."
"And how did everyone react to you?"
"They were all excited to see me. They wanted to know what it was like in Bucharest, and at the school."
"And what did you tell them?"
"That the city is full of people who dress in all the colors of the world and walk the narrow streets at every hour, and that lamp posts shine warm light at night like stars. I told them that the school gave me knowledge, and I learned about things I had not known existed."
"For example?"
"Mythologies. Legends. The stories of cultures."
The man checked a file report, obviously filled with information about her. "Ah, yes, you were studying cultural anthropology, is that correct?"
"Yes."
He closed the file folder, folded his arms on top of it and stared at her. She did not meet his gaze. "Were there legends, stories and myths in your village?"
"Yes." Suddenly she felt ashamed. Forlorn. How could she not have known what would happen?
"And one was about the vechi brbat, was it not?"
"Yes," she said, struggling to release the dark memory and keep living in the present.
"Tell me the story of the vechi brbat."
She sighed heavily, surprised at this new, even heavier weight she felt in her chest, as if her lungs had turned to pumice and the clear, pure air had trouble getting inside her.
Dr. Sauers tapped her fingernails on the table. She did not subscribe to "talk" therapy, as she called it. She believed in drugs. Sedate patients. Give them anti-psychotics. Gradually reduce their medication and see if they improved. If so, they were released. If not, up the meds. Since Nita would never be released, she had no hope in either direction.
"My grandmother told me the story of the vechi brbat. He came to our village centuries ago. He had met a girl from the village, you see, by the river, and they fell in love. They married. Then the woman died of a fever that spread through the mountains killing humans and animals alike. It reduced the numbers in our small village to twenty only, plus the vechi brbat, and the people did not know how to survive. The vechi brbat was not the oldest in the village but he held the most power and was the one with a quick brain and he should have told the people what to do, but he was caught by grief and unable to lead. Another man who had survived became the leader and managed to save the remaining livestock, and the crops, so the people did not starve and could bear more children, and their numbers increased."
"And the vechi brbat? You say he was grieving. For his lost wife?"
"Yes. He loved her very much. So much that he would do anything to be with her again. And did."
"What did he do?"
"He roamed the forest at night, calling on the bad spirits of the old G.o.ds, the ones from his life before the village when he lived with the Gypsies, before the Christian G.o.d became the one G.o.d. He begged the darkest elementals, the angriest spirits of nature to aid him. He promised them that he would do anything if they would allow him to again be with his wife."
Nita felt her heart race. She knew her eyes darted around the room, looking for what? Escape? Yes, she wanted to escape. This room, these people. The story that had gone so very wrong.
"Then what happened?"
"The storms came. The village is nestled in a valley, and the land flooded. Blinding lightning shot from the sky and struck the vechi brbat. His skin blackened, and the pale brown color of his eyes turned white, as did his hair and beard. When he returned to the village he had become...different."
"Different how?"
She tried to avoid his questions. "The villagers, they were so busy trying to save themselves, the crops, the animals, to recapture their way of life. The flood forced mud down the side of the mountain that buried much of what had been rescued. Red-streaked mud, as if the mountain were bleeding. Their numbers dwindled further. They saw it as a sign, that there were demons in the village. The vechi brbat had brought havoc to their lives when they were struggling to recover. Naturally they blamed him."
There was silence for a moment. The man said softly, "What did they do to the vechi brbat?"
Nita swallowed hard. "They could not kill him. He had been with them many years and was now one of their own. But they had to protect themselves."
"From what?"
"From the curse."
"What curse is that?"
Nita felt her legs begin to tremble uncontrollably, rattling the chains under the table. The room seemed too hot, the color of scorching yellow. "I"d like some water now, if you please," she said, trying yet again to redirect the grey man.
He got up and went to a side table and poured a gla.s.s of clear water. He set it in front of her but she did not touch it.
Once he was seated again he said, "Tell me about the curse."
Maybe, she thought, maybe if I tell it now, here, maybe someone will understand. The others before, the police, the medical men, Dr. Sauers, they had all been impatient, believing what they wanted to believe, not the truth, and she knew the truth. This man with hair and eyes the color of a vole who said he was listening, maybe he was listening. Maybe he would believe her.
She heard Dr. Sauers" nails again, tapping on the table, talons painted violent purple eager to rend flesh.
"Dr. Sauers, would you mind terribly if I spoke with Nita alone for a few minutes?"
"Why?" Sauers snarled. "This is irregular."
"Yes, it is. But I wonder if I might try a technique I"ve found that has had great success. If you wouldn"t mind..."
Reluctantly Sauers got up from the table and obviously she did not appreciate this shift in the plan.
Sauers checked the camera for film.
"Thank you," the grey-headed man said cheerfully.
The doctor went out the door, closing it loudly behind her, not acknowledging him.
When she was gone, the man turned his head and smiled at Nita. "There. Now you can take your time telling me what happened."
For some reason Nita found this both rea.s.suring and intimidating. She picked up the water with shaking hands and took a small sip, then set the gla.s.s back down, spilling a little that she wiped up with her sleeve. She held onto the gla.s.s, as if letting go might leave her floating in a colorless universe.