He faced the wall and locked the brakes on his chair. A push against the armrests and there he was: standing on his own two feet, supported by no one and nothing. Alone. Standing. By himself. He was a man again. He could look other men straight in the eyes instead of ever up at them. No more a child's-eye view of existence from down there, where he was always treated as a child. Now he was up here... a man again!
"Papa!"
He turned to see Magda at the corner of the building, gaping at him.
"Lovely morning, isn't it?" he said and opened his arms to her. After a heartbeat's hesitation, she rushed into them.
"Oh, Papa!" she said in a voice that was muffled by the folds of his jacket as he crushed her against him. "You can stand!"
"I can do more than that." He stepped away from her and began to walk around the wheelchair, steadying himself at first with a hand atop the backrest, then releasing it as he realized he didn't need it. His legs felt strong, even stronger than they had felt earlier this morning. He could walk! He felt as if he could run, dance. On impulse, he bent, turned, and spun around in a poor imitation of a step in the Gypsy abulea, almost falling over in the process. But he kept his balance and ended up at Magda's side, laughing at her astonished expression.
"Papa, what's happened? It's a miracle!"
Still gasping from laughter and exertion, he grasped her hands. "Yes, a miracle. A miracle in the truest sense of the word."
"But how—"
"Molasar did it. He cured me. I'm free of scleroderma—completely free of it! It's as if I never had it!"
He looked at Magda and saw how her face shone with happiness for him, how her eyes blinked to hold back tears of joy. She was truly sharing this moment with him. And as he looked more closely, he sensed that she was somehow different. There was another, deeper joy in her that he had never seen before. He felt he should probe for its source but could not be bothered with that now. He felt too good, too alive!
A movement caught the corner of his eye and he looked up. Magda followed his glance. Her eyes danced when she saw who it was.
"Glenn, look! Isn't it wonderful? Molasar has cured my father!"
The red-haired man with the strange olive skin said nothing as he stood by the corner of the inn. His pale-blue eyes bored into Cuza's own, making him feel as if his very soul were being examined. Magda kept talking excitedly, rushing over to Glenn and pulling him forward by the arm. She seemed almost drunk with happiness.
"It's a miracle! A true miracle! Now we'll be able to get away from here before—"
"What price have you paid?" Glenn said in a low voice that cut through Magda's chatter.
Cuza stiffened and tried to hold Glenn's gaze. He found he could not. There was no happiness for him in the cold blue eyes. Only sadness and disappointment.
"I've paid no price. Molasar did it for a fellow countryman."
"Nothing is free. Ever."
"Well, he did ask me to perform a few services for him, to help make arrangements for him after he leaves the keep since he cannot move about in the day."
"What, specifically?"
Cuza was becoming annoyed with this type of interrogation. Glenn had no right to an answer and he was determined not to give him one. "He didn't say."
"Odd, isn't it, to receive payment for a service you've not yet rendered, nor even agreed to render? You don't even know what will be required of you and yet you have already accepted payment."
"This is not payment," Cuza said with renewed confidence. "This merely enables me to help him. We've made no bargain for there is no need of one. Our bond is the common cause we share—the elimination of Germans from Romanian soil and the elimination of Hitler and Nazism from the world!"
Glenn's eyes widened and Cuza almost laughed at the expression on his face.
"He promised you that?"
"It was not a promise! Molasar was incensed when I told him of Kaempffer's plans for a death camp at Ploiesti. And when he learned that there was a man in Germany named Hitler who was behind it all, he vowed to destroy him as soon as he was strong enough to leave the keep. There was no need of a deal or a bargain or payment—we have a common cause!"
He must have been shouting because he noticed that Magda took a step away from him as he finished, a concerned look on her face. She clutched Glenn's arm and leaned against him. Cuza felt himself go cold. He tried to keep his voice calm as he spoke.
"And what have you been doing with yourself since we parted yesterday morning, child?"
"Oh, I—I've been with Glenn most of the time."
She needed to say no more. He knew. Yes, she had been with Glenn. Cuza looked at his daughter, clinging to the stranger with a wanton familiarity, her head bare, her hair blowing in the wind. She had been with Glenn. It angered him. Out of his sight less than two days and she had given herself to this heathen. He would put a stop to that! But not now. Soon. There were too many other important matters at hand. As soon as he and Molasar had finished their business in Berlin, he would see to it that this Glenn character with the accusing eyes was taken care of, too.
... taken care of...? He didn't even know what he meant by that. He wondered at the scope of his hostility toward Glenn.
"But don't you see what this means?" Magda was saying, obviously trying to soothe him. "We can leave, Papa! We can escape down into the pass and get away from here. You don't have to go back to the keep again! And Glenn will help us, won't you, Glenn?"
"Of course. But I think you'd better ask your father first if he wants to leave."
Damn him! Cuza thought as Magda turned wondering eyes on him. Thinks he knows everything!
"Papa...?" she began, but the look on his face must have told her what the answer would be.
"I must go back," he told her. "Not for myself. I don't matter anymore. It's for our people. Our culture. For the world. Tonight he will be strong enough to put an end to Kaempffer and the rest of the Germans here. After that, I just have to perform a few simple tasks for him and we can walk away from here without worrying about hiding from search parties. And after Molasar kills Hitler—!"
"Can he really do that?" Magda asked, her expression questioning the enormity of the possibility he was describing.
"I asked myself that very question. And then I thought about how he has so terrified these Germans until they are ready to shoot at each other, and has eluded them in that tiny keep for a week and a half, killing them at will." He held up his hands bare to the wind and watched with a renewed sense of awe as the fingers flexed and extended easily, painlessly. "And after what he has done for me, I've come to the conclusion that there is very little he cannot do."
"Can you trust him?" Magda asked.
Cuza stared at her. This Glenn had apparently tainted her with his suspicious nature. He was no good for her.
"Can I afford not to?" he said after a pause. "My child, don't you see that this will mean a return to normalcy for us all? Our friends the Gypsies will no longer be hunted down, sterilized, and put to work as slaves. We Jews will not be driven from our homes and our jobs, our property will no longer be confiscated, and we will no longer face the certain extinction of our race. How can I do anything else but trust Molasar?"