The Language of Sparrows (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

As Nick pulled up to the curb of his old man’s house, he was surprised to find April’s car parked in the driveway, and behind it, a work truck. Surprised, but not displeased. He had no call to spend time with April, and he knew she didn’t want his company, but he still found her sunlit smile gave him a reason to smile. The fact that she didn’t want him perversely made him want to be around her more.

At the door he heard voices and laughter. He let himself in and found a work party in progress. Plastic sheets wreathed the chairs and side table, and the smell of new paint permeated the air. Sierra and a boy Nick recognized from school sanded the paneling next to the floor. Dad sat at the table through the archway into the dining room, looking dazed, while April perched on a ladder next to the far living room wall, now a blazing red. Next to her stood a man Nick didn’t know.

Everyone was laughing. Sierra and the boy were laughing. The man and April were laughing together. A lightning strike of jealousy flashed through Nick. She’d told him she didn’t want him, and she was free to find someone she did want. Still, the thought of her with someone else soured his day.

April turned, her mouth forming an O of surprise. “Nick!” She climbed down the ladder with a hand from her friend. “Just in time. Your dad’s agreed to a little update of his house.”

His old man stood and gave a bewildered shake of his head. “A few cushions and something to hang on the wall, she said. And two days later she is painting my wall red and making a new house of it.”

Nick could tell he wasn’t really annoyed. The house was festive and his old man practically glowed.

With a nod to the stranger, April said, “Oh, Nick, please meet Enrique Salinas. Ricky, this is Luca’s son, Nick. And that’s Sierra’s friend, Carlos.”

Nick forced a polite smile toward Ricky and nodded at Carlos. “What can I do to help?”

She put him to work painting a second coat on the higher reaches of the accent wall while she laid out some pictures on the dining room table for his father to see. Before Nick started painting, he noticed the teens had stopped sanding and were working with a pencil.

He crouched next to them, inspecting the pencil marks. “What’s that you’re doing, Sierra?”

“We’re stenciling in a design. I found it on a website about a Romanian castle. It’s the etching on the wood gates. We’ll paint it later.”

Nick knew better than to admire the idea too much. But it was impressive. In addition to Sierra’s brilliance with languages, she’d obviously picked up her mother’s artistic talent.

“She’s got the whole world in her mind, this one,” the boy said. Nick liked him immediately, the more so because he’d found a compliment Sierra could take.

“That she does,” Nick agreed.

The two turned back to their work. Nick began painting, and Enrique came over to paint from the other end of the wall. “She’s a nice lady.”

Nick gave a nod meant to choke off any conversation. He didn’t intend to discuss April’s merits with her new boyfriend.

“Just lights up a room, doesn’t she?”

Nick kept painting.

Enrique chuckled. He angled his left hand for Nick to see his wedding band.

Nick pretended he hadn’t noticed, but a slow grin worked its way to his mouth and wouldn’t be quashed.

“You got it bad.”

“Guess I do,” he admitted. There was no point in hiding it. Nick brought the paintbrush against the wall in long, careful strokes.

Enrique didn’t give up. “You should’ve seen her smile when she saw you. The lady needs someone. Ask her out.”

Nick didn’t answer, but Enrique kept at it. “Why not, man?”

Not that it was anyone’s business, but to stop the train of conversation, he said, “April loves me like a brother. Her words.”

Enrique squinted into the dining room where April still arranged pictures on the table, gave a shrug, and turned back to painting. “If you say so. I’d be a little weirded out if my sisters looked at me like that, though.”

Nick turned the brush sideways to paint the corner. It was true. Her glances were just a few seconds too long or a few seconds too short. Her smiles were too golden for someone she viewed as a brother.

That didn’t mean she wanted a relationship. So why didn’t she tell him the truth? “I like you …” but what? “Teachers aren’t my type?” “I want a man who makes six figures?” Or more likely, “I’m not ready to move on after my husband’s death.”

He glanced at her standing with Dad and found her looking back. Like a schoolgirl, she looked away, pretending it hadn’t happened. Her lie stung more than the rejection itself. If nothing else, he believed he was the kind of man she could be honest with. He turned back to the work at hand, swabbing crimson up to the top edge of the wall.

After they finished the second coat of paint, Enrique clapped Sierra’s friend on the back. “We’re going to get going. Nice to meet you, Nick.”

“Hey, Mrs. Wright, do you mind if Sierra comes home with us for dinner?” Carlos said.

Sierra looked up at the kid with big, adoring eyes. Nick noticed Sierra hadn’t once spoken to his old man, and her encounters with April had been cool. But she had her attention on a boy her age. That was a sign of progress, right? After April gave her approval, they were gone.

While the wall dried, Nick pulled the plastic sheets off the chairs. April brought framed pieces of ornate woodwork, the wood rich in red hues, and laid them on the floor. It would look good against the wall, and like Sierra’s stencils, brought to mind the old gates you might see in castles or monasteries in Romania. Then she went to the side table, and placed two framed photos on it—one of Dad with Mom just before she died, the other of Dad with Nick on his shoulders back in Romania.

He looked for Dad to see what he thought about the photos, but he had busied himself in the kitchen, determined not to see, as usual.

He came to her side. “It’s been a while since I saw those.”

“I thought it was time you did.”

She had a speck of red paint on her cheek. He used his thumb to rub it. She looked at him, away, and back again. It gave him a dark pleasure to see her squirm. She knew exactly how he felt about her. Would it be so hard to come clean with him?

“Guess it will take more than a finger to remove the spot. Dad’s got turpentine in the shed, but I’ve heard margarine works as well.”

She scooted by, walked to the fridge, and pulled out a tub of margarine.

He followed her. “Allow me.” He reached for a paper towel, dabbed it in the margarine, and rubbed it against the smudge, letting his hand linger just a little too long against her skin. “There, all gone.” And he held up the stained paper towel as proof.

“Thanks,” she said weakly.

“My pleasure.” He was probably laying it on thick now, but it was fun.

Dad rummaged in the kitchen drawer and pulled out a cutting board. “April and Nicu, go in the backyard, if you please. It is a fine evening, and I do not want help cooking.”

April looked at her watch. “Oh, I should probably get home and fix dinner myself.”

Laying out pickled tomatoes on the board, Dad said, “I heard your daughter say she would eat with Carlos and Enrique.” By his suppressed grin, Nick gathered Dad was in on the game. A first, their siding together on something.

“Only fair to stay for dinner, April,” Nick added. “Free labor has to be repaid some way. It’s an old Romanian custom.”

They’d hemmed her in, but she didn’t complain. April sauntered next to him to the backyard. In this old part of town, yards stretched out, leaving room for kids to play or gardens to be planted. The scent of honeysuckle filled the air, sharp and sweet.

April stopped to give him one of her too-brief glances. “I never properly thanked you for getting Sierra to retake her finals. I can’t tell you what it meant to me.”

He laced his hands behind his back, shrugging off the disappointment. It was a safe subject, something he couldn’t turn around to the subject he wanted to talk about. But he needed to talk to her about Sierra anyway.

“No thanks needed.” He waited, seeking her gaze. “I wonder if you know just how bright Sierra is. I deal with a lot of kids, but I’ve never come across one who’s got such a mind driving them.”

A battle-ready look rose to her face, and she went tense. What had he said? He thought he’d complimented her daughter.

“I’ve talked to a couple of her teachers,” he went on. “Every now and then she’ll turn in something absolutely, wonderfully brilliant. It’s college material, publishable even. But give her review questions or a work sheet to complete, and she won’t even try.”

“Nick, I know all this. Sierra … she’s so brilliant it terrifies me.”

Since when was God-given brilliance terrifying? “Have you thought of getting her into a school for gifted kids?”

“Oh sure, I’ve thought of it. From the beginning, I’ve thought of it. When I found her reading
A Little Princess
to herself in kindergarten. When she wrote a collection of fifty-something original stories with a made-up world of fantastical creatures in third grade. When she read a history of the Incas in Spanish without ever taking a language course. But now, I don’t think she’d be able to pull it together, even if the school were tailored for her. Her mind is somewhere else.”

“What about homeschooling? There’s nothing more tailored than that.”

April drew to a stop. He could tell he’d somehow said something else to offend her.

When April didn’t answer, he went on. “Your daughter could give herself a far better education than she’s getting at school. And with her abilities, she’d have no shortage of experts who would mentor her.”

April pressed her hands together until her knuckles turned white. She lifted her chin. “Sierra needs structure. She doesn’t need exceptions.”

Why wasn’t he getting through to her? April was too bright not to understand what he was saying. “I wasn’t thinking of it as an exception. She would be doing more work than the other students, not less.”

“You don’t understand!” Her words came out as a cry.

Her distress sent a shudder through him, and he let a few seconds pass. “Okay, April. Why don’t you help me understand?”

“I’ve seen the adult side of unfettered brilliance, and it’s not pretty. What happens when she gets to college and gets assigned something she feels is beneath her, or gets a job and the work isn’t challenging enough? She needs to learn how to get along with normal people and live a normal life.”

“Give her some freedom first. She’ll move inside the lines when she has to.” Nick waved a hand in the air. “Or she won’t. I was never a fan of the lines anyway.”

She glared.

“Why does she have to adapt?” Nick said. “The library is filled with books by and about people who drew their own lines—inventors and poets and people who turned history on its head.”

She didn’t respond. He spoke quietly, hoping she’d hear him in the gentleness of his voice. “April, she won’t pull through this way. Ignoring her genius won’t make it go away. Sierra
isn’t
normal. And she’s starving—mentally starving—at school.”

That hit home. He could see the shock register in April’s eyes, but still, she shook her head.

April was more open-minded than this. “Speak to me, April. Please.”

She let out a deep sigh and looked up at the sky. “Sierra is … Sierra’s dad … I wish …” New energy filled her face, and her eyes blazed, even as she looked away from him. “I can’t.”

The refusal set off a fuse inside him. She didn’t owe him anything. But he’d been her friend before he kissed her. According to her, he was still a brother to her. And all he was doing was trying to help her struggling daughter. A little honesty would be nice.

He rolled his shoulders. “Your secrets are yours to keep or tell. But I’ve yet to find silence solving much of anything.”

She smiled. Always the dazzling smile, but it didn’t fool him this time. Her dark eyes hinted at the story, even though her words wouldn’t. She loved Sierra too much to refuse her the help she needed.

He reached for her hand, but she stepped back.

“Nick …” She stared hard at the roof behind him. “It’s so complicated. I wish a simple conversation would solve everything, but it won’t.” She dropped her arms to her sides and didn’t go on.

That was it. She wasn’t going to explain, though Sierra’s father seemed to be part of it. Something about unfettered brilliance.

He rubbed his temple. It hurt down to his bones. She didn’t want his touch. She didn’t want his counsel. She didn’t want him.

Finally, he said, “Fair enough. Why don’t I go see if dinner’s ready?”

He swung toward the back door, his only thought to get away. In the living room, the red wall, the gold cushions, the photos brought him to a halt. What a difference an afternoon had made to the house. Color, art, even Dad’s history decked the house. April had brought life to the empty shell.

A movement from the library door caught his attention. His old man sat in an armchair, his eyes reflecting Nick’s own regret. Nick knew his frustration must be written on his face for anyone to read, if Dad, who’d been immune to the ups and downs of his life, found something there to sympathize with.

“If we could make everything better with only a paintbrush,” Dad said.

Nick let out a bitter chuckle. “Not so easy with people, is it, Dad?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The March sun warmed the air. April spent her days off at the park or taking Sierra to outdoor cafés rather than setting up another interview with Luca. She could almost see him growing frailer before her eyes. Unquestionably, it was the memories taking a toll on him. There didn’t seem much more of the story to tell anyway since he wasn’t willing to discuss prison.

Finally, Luca called her and asked when she was coming. She paused. There was no point in stalling. “Today,” she said.

He led her into his backyard, where the grass had come to life, sparrows chirped, and the pear tree near the kitchen was beginning to flower. His yard gave her a taste of Eden. She could only hope the lovely weather would keep his mind from straying too long near the world of his Romanian prison.

“Are you sure?” she asked him one last time, as she took a patio chair across from him.

“I am sure.” She turned on the recorder.

He cupped something in his hands—a piece of newsprint, she thought—as he began to speak, carrying her back to the Romania of 1976.

“It was a simple decision to make. Nicu was young, and he needed his mother. Tatia would never survive prison. I left the hospital and turned myself in to the authorities waiting outside. I told them, ‘She did not want to speak of God to children. I made her do it. And because she loved me, she did so.’

“I cannot say if they believed me. I think they did not. But they agreed to let her return home to Nicu, and I was sentenced to five years of reeducation. That is what they called imprisonment. I did not even get to say good-bye to them.”

Luca paused and began to talk again.

“My cell mates were priests and missionaries imprisoned for preaching illegal sermons and evangelizing Romanian youth, political dissenters, men who had kept secret printing presses and held revolutionary meetings. I had no place there. Who was I? Only a man who had tried to protect his wife and son.”

April smoothed her skirt and started to switch off the recorder.

“Are you done so soon?” he said with a tinge of amusement in his voice.

“You said you would not talk of prison, Luca.”

“I did say this, but we are telling the story for Nicolae. The story will mean nothing without this part.”

“Luca? You’ve exhausted yourself already.” It was true. His face was gray, and he hadn’t even told her of the torture to come.

But he stood and trained his eyes on her. “I am too exhausted, am I? Exhausted?” He leaned on the back of his chair. “You are right. I
am
weary. Five years I spent in prison, and it has consumed the remaining years of my life! I am exhausted from turning my head from those memories. I will face them now.”

She sank farther into the patio chair as he stood up and paced in a circle. She had never seen Luca so passionate.

The sky clouded over, and a chilly breeze raised the hair on her arms.

Luca looked at the sky with wry amusement. “I am going to tell what happened in prison,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Will you listen?”

April nodded, her throat dry. “Of course, Luca.”

He came back to his chair and turned the newsprint carefully over in his hands.

“You think at first there is some inner core no horror can touch. My body became ill from a diet of oily soups made from rotten vegetables. Bread was given only once a week. I had diarrhea. There was no privacy. My cell mates had seen it all before, but I tried to find some bit of self-respect.

“‘It is no use,’ a man in the corner of his cell said to me. He seemed very old, but they all did. It only takes a year, a few months of prison, to bring a young man to old age. ‘If you will survive here,’ he said, ‘you will do it by accepting there is nothing left for you. No health. No wholeness as you know it.’

“I glared at him. If I was to survive for my family, I should have to be very strong. How dare this man discourage me before I began to try?

“‘Our only strength here,’ he said, ‘is to be the broken body of Christ.’ I learned later he was an Orthodox priest, Father Mihael.

“At night, men sobbed. They prayed aloud. They called out to their wives and mothers. But other men reached out. They held the sobbing men like babies. And when I was that man, when I came from being beaten, when I cried out in my sleep for Tatia, it was my turn to be held and prayed over.

“The guards forced us to stand with backpacks full of rocks all day long. They made us lie with four men on top of us. They beat us. In winter, they put us in cells with ice dripping from the walls. They commanded us to jog for ten hours, twenty hours. They would entice prisoners with the lure of freedom if they would beat other prisoners or urinate on them.

“They forced me to say that I and my friends were guilty of dozens of violent crimes by questioning and threatening for hours, days sometimes, until I began to believe it was possible I had done every terrible thing they said I had done. I lost my name and became only a number.

“They took pleasure in breaking us. Father Mihael was right. You could hold on to nothing worth having. I was angry I was not braver. I was humiliated for the men who cried out and for the men who held them.

“The first Sunday, the guards gave out bread. I was so hungry, I almost swallowed my piece whole. I did not even taste it. But most held on to their bread. This was to make it last, I thought. Then Father Mihael began to say a prayer, and each man brought his bread to him, and he blessed it. In this terrible place they were having the Eucharist!

“One man turned to me, tore off a chunk, and offered it. I looked at it greedily, wanting to fill my stomach with one more piece of bread, but I shook my head. This was idiocy.

“I listened to their prayers, but I felt I should go insane if I joined them. How could one think of God in a place He had abandoned to the devil?

“So I worked out difficult equations. I recited passages of poetry I recalled. Above all, I remembered Tatia and Nicu. My only prayer was for their safety.

“I had been in prison for some time. I cannot say for how long, because days were lost to me. One of the guards came to visit me.

“‘Your family is dead,’ he said. ‘They are no more.’ And he walked out.

“Tatia and Nicu ... They were all I had been holding on for. I had foolishly believed I could protect my family, and now they were dead. I was already broken. What was left to break? There had been a small part of me holding on, hoping I could survive for them until I was freed. This part of me was now gone. I was thankful. I could surrender to death now.”

April kneaded her hands together. Luca’s eyes faded. His shoulders slumped. She could see that living through the memory again had cost him.

“Luca, you can stop now. If you want.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He seemed locked in his prison. But he must have decided that the only way to freedom was to find the other side of the memory.

He sighed and began speaking again.

“There were saints in my cell. When a broken man was called for a beating, a stronger man would pretend to be him. When one man went insane, others brought him back with their care. They even prayed for the guards who beat us. But I was not a saint. I wanted only to die. You think when you live in such a place all you must do is give up. Illness and death surrounded me. Torture was daily.

“I provoked the guards for extra beatings. I gave other men my soup. It would be soon. But I did not die. My body, young and still strong, refused to cooperate.

“In my sleep, I heard a boy crying. I woke thinking Nicu was in the other bedroom. I wanted to go to him, but I had no strength to get up. Then I realized it was not a boy crying. It was me.

“Father Mihael handed bread to me and made the sign of the cross. ‘Confess your sins, Luca. You can find God’s goodness in this place, most especially in this place.’ Thinking of the secret communion after my wedding, I confessed my sins and ate. He handed me his water. ‘We have no wine, but Christ is able to turn water into wine, if He chooses.’

“If I was unable to die, I did not take to life either.
I am like the hermits of old,
I thought.
I will give myself to prayer.
I thought of Tatia teaching Nicu his prayers. And I found solace in the prayers, but I was not a saint.”

“You sacrificed yourself for your family!” April said. “You endured that terrible place without turning against God. Isn’t that enough for sainthood?”

He let out a bleak laugh. “To be a saint, one must overcome the world. I overcame nothing.”

As if speaking to the trees, he turned away from her and went on with his story.

“The guards mostly ignored the religious services. But there was one who liked to provoke us. One day he came into our cell with … it was sacrilege. Human waste.

“‘Bless this, Father,’ he said. ‘Here is the holy Eucharist.’ Father Mihael did not move. His eyes, large in his thin face, were full of pity for the guard. The priest stayed very still. Only his lips moved in a quiet prayer.

“After some time of yelling and coercing, the guard saw Father Mihael would not be threatened into blessing it, and he began to beat him in front of us all. I sat by and allowed it. What choice did we have in such a place? But I thought of Father Mihael’s wife and children—four sons and a daughter—whom he prayed for daily. At the crack of splitting bone and the sound of his head hitting the stone floor, I thought of them.

“The guard stood to wipe the sweat from his face, and something came alive in me. My arms and legs found strength. I moved quickly. When he looked back, I stood between him and Father Mihael.

“The guard laughed at my small act of bravery and tried to shove me away, but the harder he tried to reach Father Mihael, the more determined I became. The priest was forgotten. He turned his attention to me.

“‘You want to be a martyr. Very well,’ he said to me.

“The guards tied rope around my hands until they burned, and they secured me to the beams above, with my hands stretched out and my feet together. ‘You are a martyr now,’ they laughed. ‘Just like your Jesus.’

“I felt the struggle to breathe, the bruising of my ribs, the stinging of my hands against the rope.
I will die now,
I thought, but my lungs refused to stop fighting for air.

“The men, the priests and the Christians, prayed under me and over Father Mihael lying wounded on the floor. They recited the Beatitudes and the Psalms and prayers recounting the passion of our Lord. They prayed through the afternoon and then the night and the next day without sleep. Even now, I wake sometimes hearing the sound of those prayers.

“The evening guards took me down, I tried to spread my arms, but they would not lift.

“‘You have not killed me,’ I wanted to say. ‘Only God can take my life.’ But my tongue was swollen, and the guards laughed at the croak that came out of my mouth.”

April started to speak, but she could find nothing to say. She blinked away her tears. What could she possibly say? So she only reached out to him and covered his hand with her own.

He looked up at her blankly.

She opened his left hand, massaging the scars. “Luca. Oh, Luca.”

With his other hand, he offered her the newsprint. It took her a few minutes to gather enough strength to look at it. It was in Romanian. “What does it say?”

He looked off into space, not at the paper. In a raspy voice, he said, “‘Father Mihael Bălanescu died peacefully in his bed on the eighth of August, 2007.’ His son, a priest also, sent it to me.”

“You suffered for something so important, Luca. You gave him back to his family and to his church. When did the communist government fall? 1989? That’s almost twenty years he had because the guards didn’t kill him that night.”

She closed her eyes briefly and opened them to find Luca inspecting her. “I believe you know something of what I experienced,” he said.

She shook her head. It was an unworthy comparison. Coping with a depressed husband hardly ranked with five years of torture.

But he gave her a firm nod. “Sacrifice is sacrifice, however it is done.”