29 June, 10:15 AM, Czernograd, Hotel Casino
“About last night...” he started.
“Sorry about all the spooky stuff,” Marina said.
“Remember, you told me to stop being sorry?” he said. “So practice what you preach and all that. In any case, I meant-“
“It was a crazy night,” she shrugged. Jake couldn’t see her face; she was standing with her back to him, looking out of the window of his hotel room onto the square below. Was she embarrassed now, regretful, or perhaps suddenly and uncharacteristically shy?
“It was a crazy night indeed,” he smiled. “But thank you; for introducing me to your family and all that. And showing me the real Ruthenia and Galicia, outside Czernograd...”
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Marina turned around. She was smiling back. He was not sure if he was disappointed or not by her evasion. Maybe it was wise under the circumstances.
In the morning they said goodbye to Uncle Nicu, his family, and the rest of the clan. In the bright light of day it again looked so... ordinary, even a bit squalid and sad, now that he thought about it. But definitely normal. The wooden crosses were gone too. And so too would the tabor, soon. Uncle Nicu mentioned that in a few days time they would pack up and move again. The field they were staying at belonged to an old widower living alone in a hut somewhere in the forest, and they were paying him to stay on his land, but the old man was getting more difficult to deal with. So it was time to hit the road again, maybe this time somewhere closer to a village or a town. Proximity bore risks, but also opportunities. It has always been so, it would always be so.
“What’s your next step?” she asked, now all serious again.
It caught him off guard and for a moment he was not sure what she was talking about.
“With your grandfather, I mean,” she added.
Back to business.
“Well, Maciejewicz promised that he would try to hurry the Customs,” Jake said. “But I might give his office a call. With a gentle reminder. If I can find his business card.”
“And in the meantime?”
“I could chain myself outside the Customs building in protest, demanding the return of my grandfather’s remains. As a foreigner I think I could get plenty of media attention.”
“I’m serious.” She was.
“What do you think I should be doing?”
She stepped away from the window and started pacing up and down the room, in front of him, within an arm’s reach, but very far away.
“I think we should go back to Stare Duszki,” she said.
Jake scratched his head. “Haven’t we only just-“
“If that spot, that part of the country meant so much to him that he wanted to return there for the last time, there must be some link,” she said, arms crossed, focused. “Somebody there, somebody old, might remember him. We could show them some photographs... You do have some photographs of your grandfather?” she asked, in an almost accusatory tone.
“Actually, I don’t,” Jake said. “Not on me here, anyway.”
“But your family?-“
“I’m sure there are some photos of grandfather floating around, but probably as a much older man. I don’t know if that would be much help. People change...”
“Well, can you ask your family if they have any photos of your grandfather as a younger man? That would really help.”
She seemed to be deep in her thoughts, more distant. Not like last night, he thought, somewhat wistfully.
“You seem to be more interested in finding out about my grandfather than I am,” he finally said.
She looked up at him, stormy clouds racing through her forehead. “And you don’t seem to be interested at all.”
Jake sighed and sat down on the bed.
“Marina, you have to understand; he’s like a stranger to me – to us,” his hands were gripping the edge of the mattress as if to steady himself before an abyss. “Actually, it’s worse than that, because I only have a few memories of him, and the ones I do have are mostly bad.”
“You can’t just put the whole past behind you like that, lock it away,” she said, exasperated. It was the first time he was seeing her agitated and impassioned and it jarred with him. He got so used to the effervescent persona that greeted him that first time, not concerned at all that he had mistook her for a hooker. He missed her already.
“Marina, we’ve build the whole country on running away from the past. See how it’s worked out for you guys over this side of Atlantic, and then see how it’s worked out for us.”
She frowned and shot him an angry stare.
“So OK, he was not the grandfather that you would have liked to have,” she was not going to give up. “Maybe he wasn’t the sort of grandfather I would have liked to have. I don’t know. But at least if you search, maybe you’ll find the truth, maybe you’ll know what made him the way he was. Wouldn’t that be something worth knowing?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Some people are simply born the way they are.”
She turned around and stormed off to the window. Silence. As much as he has enjoyed her company, shouldn’t he now tell her to mind her own business and stop injecting herself into his life? It was, after all, his life, his past, not some sort of a riddle for her to crack. And for what? Did she lack enough excitement in her own life?
“OK,” he finally said instead. “I was going to say I’m sorry but you told me to cut it out-“
“There are some valid exceptions,” she said, but she did not turn around.
“You are right, I don’t know much about grandfather, I don’t know about his past, I don’t know what made him tick. When I landed here with his ashes a few days ago, I couldn’t have cared less...”
“So it is all about money?” she said. “You all hated him but are now quite ready to dump his ashes as quickly as you can and lay your hands on his fortune?”
There was a feeling of déjà vu to this discussion. Haven’t they covered all the same territory before? Jake thought. But this time she seemed more insistent, even angry, and he had no idea why. What remained unsaid was this: it was not that he was not actually getting curiouser every day about the man whose unknown life and unexpected death have started him on this misadventure. It was more the that he was starting to get concerned what he might find if he digs too deep and upturns too many stones. There was the Volvo incident; still a big question mark, and somewhat off the radar since the last time the police called with updates. Almost slipped his mind now, and it appeared to slip hers. So maybe there was nothing to it, or maybe that was just wishful thinking. But he never told her about his hotel room being searched. Twice. Or about being followed around. He enjoyed it when her paranoia – or was it simply a finely honed native survival instinct? – lay asleep. He was quite sure that the more he knew the less he would want to know; he was also quite sure that with her it would be the opposite.
And yet. All his mental contortions about telling or not telling Marina everything, about the difference between not wanting to find out the truth and being too scared to find out the truth, and about keeping her happy and under control rather than angry and even more suspicious and determined, all these things were really just rationalisations for one simple fact that has dawned on him slowly sometime over the past day or two: namely that he wanted her. He wanted her badly.
Way to go, Jake. Way to go.
“OK,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do about a photo.”
“Good,” she turned around, another quick victory won. “And in the meantime, I’m going to show you the Czernograd that not many tourists get to see. Tonight.”
Her ability to switch gears was quite something. Another survival skill perhaps.
“The Czernograd not many tourists get to see?”
“You’ll find out. Tonight.”
Way to go.
Photo by Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash
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