Lamenting his ill fortune and trying to escape his overbearingbabushka, Mikhail had hidden himself in the woods close to his grandparents’ house. Instead of finding the tranquility he desired, he’d been accosted by a blonde-haired neighbor who refused to leave him alone. Mikhail smiled at the memory of Natalya’s cute button nose and freckled face peeking at him through the tree branches. He’d never met a girl who could climb trees and had been astounded. He’d also fallen from his perch and landed flat on his back while she laughed at him, her legs dangling from her branch.
What I wouldn’t give to see her…hold her in my arms right now.
He glanced at his watch then raised his gaze to the street, wondering what was keeping Rudolf. Being late wasn’t like him, and Mikhail was beginning to worry. He tugged his jacket sleeve over his watch and turned his empty coffee cup in circles.
Reminiscing about the past wasn’t healthy, and he couldn’t help but wonder how his family was faring in Montreuil-Bellay, the French concentration camp for Romani. His family had been lucky the German officials hadn’t questioned his father’s claim they weren’t Jewish. After watching what the Nazis did to Jewish friends and family, his father knew blatantly lying would save his family from torture and death at a worse concentration camp. Proclaiming his wife’s Romani heritage would save the family.So far, it had.
The fact that his father had been a well-known concert pianist, even playing for Hitler himself, had helped somewhat. He’d been given the task of playing on demand for the camp commandant, his wife, and other officers. His mother’s gift of voice allowed them to live apart from the other prisoners and receive a bit more food. They lived in a small home, basically a shack, but it had a stove that gave them heat in the winter. Summer could be sweltering, but they weren’t too far from the coast and occasionally received a small sea breeze. It was better than nothing, he supposed.
Mikhail refused to think about the time he’d spent in the camp. From the moment of his escape two years ago, he had focused solely on fighting against the Nazi war machine and finding a way to liberate his family. Even though Russia was so far away from the camp where his family was held, he thought of them and prayed for them daily.
He relaxed his fierce grip on his cup and pushed it away. Thoughts of Russia filled his mind. The first six years of his life had been spent on his maternal grandparents’ farm, so returning to Smolensk had been the natural choice for him. He shared a special relationship with his grandmother, who had been influential in helping him understand his heritage. Even in his youth, his Romani roots were strong, both nomadic and psychic, and moving around Europe, enjoying his father’s rising popularity as a pianist, had been the perfect cultivation for at least one of those aspects. His grandmother never could get him to accept the psychic ability and he fought against the visions with everything he had.
Checking his watch again, he worried about his old friend from university. Rudolf Rössler was nothing if not punctual and was one of several people who used their particular talents as resistance fighters.
“Would you like another cup of coffee, Herr Abramovich?”
Mikhail glanced up at the older waitress, the ravages of war rationing lining her thin face, glad for the interruption of his maudlin memories.
He gave her a quick nod. “And if you can spare another tiny piece of chocolate? I have truly missed the decadent flavor of Swiss chocolate.”
She glanced through the cafe’s window then back to him, and his grin widened. A blush covered her cheeks. “I think I can spare one more piece since you ask so nicely. Nowadays, most visitors just demand.” She turned her scowl to several men sitting a few tables away.
Mikhail’s gaze narrowed. He’d seen them sit but had been so lost in his own thoughts and almost comfortable sitting in front of the cozy pub, he hadn’t paid them as much attention as he should have. Now, though, he noticed how the three of them kept their heads down and never looked around at the beautiful scenery surrounding the cafe or even talked amongst themselves. It was as if they were just listening….
His jaw clenched, but before he could figure out what to do, Rudolf walked up to the table with a jaunty grin. Mikhail stood and leaned over, greeting his old friend with a quick kiss on each cheek before once again taking his seat. He hid his concern at Rudolf’s gaunt appearance. His skin carried a sickly pallor, and he seemed to have aged a decade since he’d last seen him. He also sported dark bags underneath his brown eyes.
The moment they sat, the waitress returned with two coffee cups and a plate of square cakes. Mikhail glanced up with raised brows, and the waitress blushed again.
“As I said a moment ago, most visitors aren’t nice, and my grandmother always told me good behavior should be rewarded—always. Thankfully, there is no flour or sugar in our honey cakes, so the ingredients aren’t rationed. The owner, however, insists we serve them to paying customers only.Ionly serve them to nice customers.Guten appetit, die heren.”
Rudolf smiled at the waitress. “I’m sure we will enjoy them,fräulein. Danke schön.”He raised his cup to his thin lips and, without blowing, sipped the hot liquid. His eyes widened. “Do I detect a hint of chocolate?”
“You do,” Mikhail said with a chuckle and sipped his own drink before it cooled. Cold coffee wasn’t his favorite.
“I think you gave our tired waitress one of your dashing smiles, and, as usual, she simply couldn’t resist. If I remember correctly, you had that effect on all the girls while the rest of us would stay in the shadows.”
Mikhail bit into a honey cake and groaned as he slowly chewed the sweet treat. “Yet, you are the one married to a beautiful woman, my friend, are you not?” He popped another cake into his mouth and picked up a third as he swallowed.
“Speaking of women, how is your wonderful Natalya?”
“My Talya is good, as far as I know. She was accepted into the 588thNight Bomber Unit, so she is in her element.” He placed the cake he’d been holding back on the plate. “I just pray she is safe.” A cloud-filled night sky filled his mind as he saw the small plane looking lost and alone as it sailed through the air. A brilliant flash of fiery orange-red exploded nearby, and he saw a spark light on the canvas-covered body. The material smoldered, and a dark stain spread across the plane’s side. He pulled himself from the vision as the plane’s nose dropped toward the ground.
“You have broken our cardinal rule, my friend. When we are together, we do not speak of the war.” Rudolf took a bite of his cake, chewed, swallowed, and then jabbed his finger at him several times, uncaring that he scattered crumbs over the tabletop with each thrust. “One never knows when their life on earth will end, and in these dire times, well….”
“You are right,” Mikhail agreed, still unsettled by his vision—if that’s what it was. He hoped it was just worry fueling his imagination and not something worse. “I am sorry. Now tell me, how is Olga?”
“My wonderful wife is fine, although I fear one day she may put a private investigator on me to find out if I am truly meeting you. She is, after all, a jealous woman, you know.”
Mikhail laughed. “You are delusional, my friend. Olga doesn’t have a jealous bone in her entire body, and she adores you. You are probably spending all your spare time at the library, not eating or sleeping, and she is simply worried about her husband. How is your book coming along?”
Rudolf shook his head and frowned, setting his empty cup on the table. “Not as well as I’d hoped. Living in this picturesque town provides such a backdrop for my muse, and I have nothing but trouble. I sit for hours, staring at a blank page. My typewriter, silent.”
“You are too hard on yourself. Always have been. Maybe if you had an unbiased set of eyes to read over what you have so far? I’m no editor, but creative writing was one of my better subjects.”
“You are nothing but creative, Mikhail. You have more talent in your little finger than I do in my entire body. That being said, I get more enjoyment from my research than anything else. I could read for hours on a favorite subject without realizing the passage of time, but trying to type a simple sentence in this book and I watch the seconds tick by at a snail’s pace. Maybe slower.”
“You are trying too hard.”