He told me that he could not place me on that envoy, but that if I followed him, he could show me where I could get a passage to Germany. I am not a fool, and inquired then why he concerned to exit the car and aid me. He said he harbored zero knowledge that she would be the passenger in the car. He knew if they were caught, they would all suffer from executions and he made a flee. (Anika—is it potential that she was protecting us by lying to us? She knew that if we accompanied them we might suffer to die?)
I quiered him as to why they did not take us with them. He said that in typical it’s harder to get more than one person across the border, and that Laszlo (the real Uncle Lanci) had made it arranged that it was solely her they would pick up. She was such a largely threat that they could take her and only her. (Okay, you catch my meaning of who we are mentioning, yes?)
He grabbed my arm and said to follow him if I wanted to leave, that he would really take me there. At initial, I wanted to yelp, “No! Anika is asleep in my room!” Then I did commit that, and he told me if I did not follow him, I would not depart the country ever. He said the place he was taking me would be leaving soon, and there was no time to do anything else. I compiled to follow him, and still at this juncture feel regrets that I ever committed such a thing. I should have made firmness and told him to force the car to wait for me because I had to say goodbye. But, with my father being departed until the nighttime, I made the calculation that you would awake before he returned home. I hope that you did that in peace, and assembled the courageness to depart my house, and that no one perturbed you. I worry about it every day.
The man, who would never reveal to me his name, led me to a paved entrance behind a government building. We went to a car, it was black and had shades on the windows, but was more cumbersome than a Zis, if you can envision. He opened the trunk and said, “Get in.”
I should have said no because I wanted to take shits right there. How would it be possible for me to get into a trunk of a stranger? It felt wrong, but Anika, I have to say, I am a one hundred percent risk taker. Maybe it is because I am stupid (we should not make pretends that I am a genius), or maybe it’s because I had your love in me, and it lended me foolishness (it does!), or maybe it is because I couldn’t make face with the loss of my mom, and I would do anything to reverse it. Have you ever been so desperate that you feel like survival isn’t as important as acquiring your goal? Let me explain: I felt like if I didn’t go, my life would always be missing so much. I would remain the seventy or sixty percent person, and really, that’s like being a zero percent person, because all that I miss consumes me all day. And I didn’t want to keep being defined by what I was missing, and by my sadness. So I went. Please forgive me, Anika, but I went.
The man said the drivers possessed no awareness of my presence. I had to make flees the second the car stopped in Germany. I nodded, but I really did not want to do this.
After our departure, I hunched in the trunk for hours and hours and hours as the car went forth, until I felt it stop. I commenced waiting for more hours, maybe even three. I had to reach certainty that they fled the vehicle. When none of that happened, I placed matters into my own muscle-full arms and opened the trunk. I came to face a man so terrified of my presence, he stood there without moving. Since I possessed the knowledge of why I was there, I gleaned the upper position and assumed action. I leaped out of the trunk, pushed him askance, and made my getaway to the streets.
I had presumed we were somewhere near a city, but they had convened somewhere in rural. I harbored no notions as to my location. I walked for days, Anika, until I could not decipher the difference between my feet and the ground. I found an old man on a bike. He told me, in his English to mine, that I would have to bribe someone to drive me to Munich. He possessed a farm where I worked for two weeks until I secured the money for a bribe.
When I assembled myself to leave his farm, he presented himself in front of me and outstretched his hand for his money. He would drive me. I leaped with joy and hugged him very hard. We went forth to Munich, which was only a thirty-minute jaunt. The old man trickered me, because I could have walked there.
But, now I am here in Munich and I am happy. There are too many things I want to share to you about this glorious place. The streets here don’t smell like dog piss. There is no trash everywhere, and people listen to music together in the openness.
There’s no Uncle Lanci. Instead, you simply just hear rock emitting from the radio liberally. Betwixt the daytime, I’m lost in the loveliness that is freedom. You can grow to whatever you please here and no one cares a tidbit.
At night, for the first months, I used to sleep in a park. I had a blanket that I found. I learned many facets about myself, as I grabbed the blanket across me and went through shivers. When not one other person is around who is aware of you, Anika, you can become whoever you want. The old me would have been too scared to assume any action. He would have gone home by now. He would have been weak and sad and scared. But, without a singular person near me, who knows that version, I could become a braveful man. I realized I was being Adrienne’s hero in that moment, embracing struggle to find the missing part of her life too. I was the person I always wanted.
Of course I thought of her, your mom. I keep my eyes skinned so I can foster attempts to see her. When I discover a haggard woman on the streets, I always ponder if it’s she.
I’m so one hundred percent sorry, Anika, that it happened that way. I neglected to ever trust her, and I wish that I had listened to myself. At where do you think she resides in Munich? I queried myself this often. Sometimes, I would venture to the radio building to attempt forth to get a view of Uncle Lanci, but also of her. When I passed a dark alley, I always went into it to see if she was hiding somewhere behind a trash. Once I heard a person discuss her name, and I proceeded to follow him for many lengths.
Then one day I discovered a woman drabbed in numerous coats atop a park bench. When I glimpsed her, I started to scream, internally, so vibrantly that I was one hundred percent that she would hear. It was her. Finally. She did not wear the gown of homelessness. She appeared clean, Anika, and even a man sat adjacent to her conversing. Similar to a bird, I remained to observe her until they both departed together, after thirty minutes. I regressed to that precise location multiplied times, and the precise scene occurred over and over again. She would be a perch, and the man would attend her, and then they would flee.
I followed them because of you. I knew I could not write backward until I had something to inform you. I did not possess the courageousness for her to see me though, Anika. I felt like one million birds chattered inside my gut, trying to eat it all at once as I followed her. I was abound with nerves that she would see me.
You will be so overjoyed with where they went. The man accompanied her into a building that had crowds of people just like her sitting outside of it and going into it. I went back there many times and when I finally possessed the courage, I asked a worker there what it was. She said it was a home for women who had no homes. What more could we pray for with her?