"Perhaps," Magda said. "But what of us? Why are we an abomination?"
He turned away from the window at last. "I don't know. I don't think anyone really knows. We are good citizens wherever we go. We are industrious, we promote trade, we pay our taxes. Perhaps it is our lot. I just don't know." He shook his head. "I've tried to make sense out of it, but I cannot. Just as I cannot make sense out of this forced trip to the Dinu Pass. The only thing of interest there is the keep, but that is of interest only to the likes of you and me. Not to Germans."
He leaned back and closed his eyes. Before long, he was dozing, snoring gently. He slept all the way past the smoking towers and tanks of Ploiesti, awakened briefly as they passed to the east of Floresti, then dozed again. Magda spent the time worrying about what lay ahead for them, and what the Germans could possibly want with her father in the Dinu Pass.
As the plains drifted by outside the window, Magda drifted into a familiar reverie, one in which she was married to a handsome man, loving and intelligent. They would have great wealth, but it would not go for things like jewelry and fine clothes—they were toys to Magda and she could see no use or meaning in owning them—but for books and curios. They would dwell in a house that would resemble a museum, stuffed with artifacts of value only to them. And that house would lie in a far-off land where no one would know or care that they were Jewish. Her husband would be a brilliant scholar and she would be widely known and respected for her musical arrangements. There would be a place for Papa, too, and money enough to get him the best doctors and nurses, giving her time to herself to work on her music.
A small, bitter smile curved Magda's lips. An elaborate fantasy—and that was all it ever would be. It was too late for her. She was thirty-one, well past the age when any eligible man would consider her suitable for a wife and prospective mother of his children. All she was good for now was somebody's mistress. And that, of course, she could never accept.
Once, a dozen years ago, there had been someone ... Mihail... a student of Papa's. They had both been attracted to each other. Something might have come of that. But then Mother had died and Magda had stayed close to Papa—so close that Mihail had been left out. She had had no choice; Papa had been utterly shattered by Mother's death and it was Magda who had held him together.
Magda fingered the slim gold band on her right ring finger. It had been her mother's. How different things would have been if she hadn't died.
Once in a while Magda thought of Mihail. He had married someone else ... they had three children now. Magda had only Papa.
Everything changed with Mother's death. Magda couldn't explain how it happened, but Papa grew to be the center of her life. Although she had been surrounded by men in those days, she took no notice of them. Their attentions and advances had lain like beads of water on a glass figurine, unappreciated, unabsorbed, leaving not so much as a hazy ring when they evaporated.
She spent the intervening years suspended between a desire to be somehow extraordinary, and a longing for all the very ordinary things that most other women took for granted. And now it was too late. There was really nothing ahead for her—she saw that more clearly every day.
And yet it could have been so different! So much better! If only Mother hadn't died. If only Papa hadn't fallen sick. If only she hadn't been born a Jew. She could never admit the last to Papa. He'd be furious—and crushed—to know she felt that way. But it was true. If they were not Jews, they would not be on this train; Papa would still be at the university and the future would not be a yawning chasm full of darkness and dread with no exit.
The plains gradually turned hilly and the tracks began to slope upward. The sun was sitting atop the Alps as the train climbed the final slope to Campina. As they passed the towers of the smaller Steaua refinery, Magda began to help her father into his sweater. When that was on, she tightened the kerchief over her hair and went to get his wheelchair from an alcove at the rear of the car. The younger of the two Iron Guards followed her back. She had felt his eyes on her all during the trip, probing the folds of her clothes, trying to find the true outline of her body. And the farther the train had moved from Bucharest, the bolder his stares had become.
As Magda bent over the chair to straighten the cushion on the seat, she felt his hands grip her buttocks through the heavy fabric of her skirt. The fingers of his right hand began to try to worm their way between her legs. Her stomach turning with nausea, she straightened up and wheeled toward him, restraining her own hands from clawing at his face.
"I thought you'd like that," he said, and moved closer, sliding his arms around her. "You're not bad-looking for a Jew, and I could tell you were looking for a real man."
Magda looked at him. He was anything but "a real man." He was at most twenty, probably eighteen, his upper lip covered with a fuzzy attempt at a mustache that looked more like dirt than hair. He pressed himself against her, pushing her back toward the door.
"The next car is baggage. Let's go."
Magda kept her face utterly impassive. "No."
He gave her a shove. "Move!"
As she tried to decide what to do, her mind worked furiously against the fear and revulsion that filled her at his touch. She had to say something, but she didn't want to challenge him or make him feel he had to prove himself.
"Can't you find a girl that wants you?" she said, keeping her eyes directly on his.
He blinked. "Of course I can."
"Then why do you feel you must steal from one who doesn't?"
"You'll thank me when it's over," he said, leering.
"Must you?"
He withstood her gaze for a moment, then dropped his eyes. Magda did not know what would come next. She readied herself to put on an unforgettable exhibition of screaming and kicking if he continued to try to force her into the next car.
The train lurched and screeched as the engineer applied the brakes. They were coming into Campina junction.
"There's no time now," he said, stooping to peer out the window as the station ramp slid by. "Too bad."
Saved. Magda said nothing. She wanted to slump with relief but did not.
The young Iron Guardsman straightened and pointed out the window. "I think you would have found me a gentle lover compared to them."
Magda bent and looked through the glass. She saw four men in black military uniforms standing on the station platform and felt weak. She had heard enough about the German SS to recognize its members when she saw them.
TWELVE
Karaburun, Turkey
Tuesday, 29 April
1802 hours
The red-haired man stood on the seawall feeling the dying light of the sun warm against his side as it stretched the shadow of the piling beside him far out over the water. The Black Sea. A silly name. It was blue, and it looked like an ocean. All around him, two-story brick-and-stucco houses crowded up to the water's edge, their red tile roofs almost matching the deepening color of the sun.
It had been easy to find a boat. The fishing around here was good more often than not, but the fishermen remained poor no matter how good the catch. They spent their lives struggling to break even.
No sleek, swift, smuggler's launch this time, but a lumbering, salt-encrusted sardine fisher. Not at all what he needed, but the best he could get.