She could hear muted voices from above. Men arguing. They would come down into the cellar to help her. They would drag Komarov away. But Komarov’s hot breath blew on her face as he shouted, his voice enraged and insane.
“Don’t come down! That’s my order! If you do, you’ll be shot!
She’s armed!”
It was all happening too fast. Only seconds had gone by. The arguing from above continued. No one came.
He was behind the flashlight, breathing heavily. She could smell his foul breath. When she tried to push the flashlight away, she felt a sharp pain on her abdomen.
“Lie still.” His voice was calm again, a voice seemingly coming from a different person. “I have a knife. I’ll push it all the way in if you move.”
He turned and again shouted, “Fools! Don’t interfere! She’s armed!”
The knife was at her. Not inside yet, but pricking the skin of her abdomen. Her baby! What about her baby? She needed something to strike him with. She reached out slowly, not moving, not really.
The light stayed in her eyes until she stared above the light where she could now see his eyes in the dim light above the flashlight.
Dirt would be futile. She stretched her arm outward, and this seemed to draw him closer. Then she felt something. Cloth. Damp cloth. A soiled diaper from Mariska’s baby. She pulled it in with her fingertips, pulled it closer and dragged it to her side where he could not see it because his eyes were close to hers. He spoke.
“How young you are, and beautiful. I thought you would have reminded me of other Gypsy women. Your hair is lighter than I thought it would be. You are neither Barbara nor Tamara. I’m paying you a compliment when I say you remind me of Gretchen.”
She considered pleading with him. Maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe he was really after someone called Gretchen. Maybe if she reminded him she was not Gretchen. No! Reason would not do. He was insane. She could see it in his eyes. And if he was insane, maybe she could make him think she was Gretchen, if only for a moment.
She slowly moved the diaper closer and felt more pressure on the knife. When she opened her eyes wide, the pressure lessened.
She kept her eyes open wide and forced a smile. She said, “I am Gretchen. I have something for you.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he moved his face back when she began unbuttoning her blouse with her free hand. The flashlight lowered, and she could see him looking at her breasts. The look on his face changed slightly. A smile began to appear. As she unbuttoned her blouse, she had his attention. But what would she do after this? And what would he do?
For the first time since he’d held her down, she felt a slight lifting of his weight. Then, when she felt the pressure of the knife at her abdomen ease even more, she pushed the soiled diaper into his face and rolled sideways.
He screamed, and she kicked out her legs, kicked against something. She scrambled to it, swept the floor with her hands until she found it.
When he threw aside the foul-smelling rag, he could still smell it and feel it. Urine, his face soaked, his lips tingling. A sudden image of Dmitry and his lover using the cellar for lechery flashed before him. A wave of nausea threatened to overcome him, but he regained his senses.
He spit and turned in the direction she had crawled. He reached for her. He wanted her beneath him again. But where was his knife?
The knife!
Yes. There it was. He found it. He found it! It was… in him.
It felt hot, as if it had saved up all the heat of its victims.
Were there voices? Did he hear voices? Was it his wife and Dmitry come to see him in hospital? Had time moved ahead faster than he realized? Yes, Grigor Komarov, the hero, taking visitors in hospital. How did it happen? asks the visitors. And he tells them how he was forced to kill the woman in self-defense because… because Captain Brovko had come down into the wine cellar and been killed by her? Yes, it could have happened that way… there were so many ways, so many rungs on the ladder…
But the voices… the voices. Like being on his back porch in the dark, someone creeping up on him. Was it his father and mother?
Had they come to join him in seeking vengeance upon the Gypsies?
Then the voices became a thousand faces, and he tried to scream but could not.
Nikolai saw that Captain Brovko was uncertain about what to do.
The captain had started for the hole several times, only to step back.
Then, when it seemed he’d made up his mind to go down into the hole and he actually leaned in, he stepped back, his eyes open wide.
When Nikolai saw the look on Brovko’s face, he stared at the entrance to the hole as if it were a living thing.
A blood-soaked hand gripped the edge of the cellar entrance.
There were gasps from the other men as the rest of the bloody arm appeared; then another hand, not bloody; then Juli Popovics climbing out of the hole under her own power.
“Juli!” shouted Detective Horvath.
Captain Brovko stepped back as Juli Popovics saw Horvath and ran to him. She knelt before the chair and hugged him, looked into his eyes as she touched his face with her hands, both of them ignoring the blood on her right hand and arm as they stared into one another’s eyes and wept.
Captain Brovko came to Nikolai, handed him a key, and motioned to the couple. Nikolai stooped down behind the chair and unlocked the handcuffs so Detective Horvath could embrace Juli Popovics.
35
Captain Brovko ordered them to remain in the house. Men were posted at the front and back doors and at all the windows. The three men assigned to stand guard inside the house told Mariska and Nina to care for Lazlo and Bela.
Juli’s wounds consisted of a few bruises and a shallow cut on her abdomen. After she was searched, and Lazlo’s money along with the keys to the Skoda were taken, she went into the bathroom to change out of her blood-soaked blouse and wash Komarov’s blood from her hands and arms. When she came out of the bathroom, both Bela and Lazlo held wet towels to their faces and said they felt much better.
But when Lazlo closed his eyes to rest and she could no longer look into his eyes, the terror in the wine cellar returned. The memory of total darkness, suddenly replaced by Komarov’s eyes, momentarily paralyzed her.
She went to the sink in the kitchenette. She gripped the edge of the sink and took several deep breaths. She had killed Komarov! She had killed Komarov, and she and Lazlo had survived. She turned on the faucet and began moistening another towel for Lazlo.
Outside the window, she could see the open trapdoor to the wine cellar; the open lid of the box resembling a coffin had become a coffin. As she watched, Captain Brovko and the man whose partner had been killed in Visenka climbed down into the wine cellar.
It seemed so long ago, yet only a month had passed since the Chernobyl explosion. Juli knelt beside the daybed, applying the wet towel to Lazlo’s face. Nina handed her a glass of water. When she took it, Nina looked at her for a moment. Then Nina turned away and wiped tears from her eyes with her sleeve.
The little girls, Anna and Ilonka, came from the bedroom and stood with their mother. The older daughter, Anna, asked, “Mommychka, is she going to marry Uncle Lazlo?”
“I don’t know,” said Nina. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Anna came close to Juli, but instead of speaking, she stood silent with her hands behind her and watched as Juli applied the towel to Lazlo’s swollen eyes.
At first, because of the way Captain Brovko went into the wine cellar and hurried out in a frenzy announcing Komarov’s death and ordering men about, Nikolai thought the brutality might continue.
But after Horvath and the others were in the house and men had been posted at every possible exit, Brovko grew calm and asked Nikolai to accompany him into the wine cellar.