Life Will Have Its Way (11 page)

Most of the light in the back part of the room came from the street lamps outside and reflected through a row of murky windows that ran along the back wall. I squinted and blinked my eyes trying to readjust to the semi-darkness. Anja felt through the air in front of her and grasped hold of another string hanging from the ceiling, with a gentle tug the back half of the room was filled with more dingy, yellow light. She directed my attention to an opening in the wall, a dark hole about four or five feet tall and perhaps two feet wide. There, next to it, was a large somewhat thin piece of wood, painted a dull, grey-brown color to perfectly match the walls of the cellar. I stared into the empty hole that led to a long tunnel. She moved her flashlight about in the opening, the light’s reflection danced off the dirt and I could still see the imperfections in the walls created by the small chops and chisels of a pick ax or shovel driven with persistence into the body of the earth. 

“What is this?” I asked.

“Well”, she started, as she stuck her light back into the hole, trying to illuminate father down the tunnel. “That over there is part of the old drainage system.” She angled the light to point toward the top of the tunnel, “See there, when it rains, the water comes through openings in the gutter to be
collected here and then the runoff is carried outside the city.”

“Outside the city? Where?”

“Oh, you know somewhere outside town, in the country somewhere, near the edge of the forest.”

“But why does
this
cellar connect to a drainage system?”

She looked at me through half closed eyes, like she was trying to decide if it was possible that I really didn’t understand.

“My father and his friends dug that tunnel so they could get people out of here.”

I leaned in to take another look, “But… where did they go?”

“Well, of course they went outside of the city… to the country… to the forest,” she replied with a tone that suggested she was still trying to figure out why I was having so much trouble comprehending the tunnel. “It’s all really very simple.”

“Okay, I guess it is, but I don’t understand what the people did once they got out of the city?”

“Well, I really don’t know. All my father told me was that it would be pre-arranged for them to meet with partisans who were supportive of their cause.”

“So, the partisans just helped the people pass through the forest, or what?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I mean, that’s what I would have thought before, but as we have just so recently learned,” she pointed to the part of the ceiling that sat below her apartment, below the room in which the children were sleeping, “obviously some of them decided to just stay put in the forest.”

“Wait a minute. You’re trying to tell me they’ve been hiding in the forest all this time?” I looked at her in dismay. “That would mean some of them would have been there for at least forty years!”

“That would seem to be the case,” she said, tugging at the cord hanging from the light. The back half of the room was suddenly wrapped in darkness and we worked our way toward the stairs.

“But how? How could they really stay hidden out there for so long?”

“Well you might not realize this, but that forest covers thousands of acres. People have been unintentionally lost out there for weeks at a time… one could only imagine it would be a pretty darn easy place to get lost on purpose.”

Worn out by a long, strange day, we flopped onto the couch in the living room. “This was my mother’s favorite,” Anja said as she ran her hand back and forth across the red velvet cushion, the tips of her fingers sank into the plush covering and left trails in the fabric behind them. I felt myself drifting off and realized I was becoming slowly hypnotized by the repetitive movement of her hand as she drug it back and forth across the empty seat between us. She shook me gently and suggested I get to bed. 

It must have been after eleven before I finally made it back to my apartment. I slipped into nightclothes and threw open the window. As cold as it was outside, I’d grown accustomed to sleeping with the windows wide open. It was a habit picked up from my dad who’d always insisted on fresh air while we slept, always, year round, no matter how cold it might get. I set my alarm and fell into bed, it seemed unusually warm and comfortable, more comfortable, I thought, than it had ever felt before. I found myself wondering if I would be willing to get up out of it in the event of an air raid. I pushed back into my over stuffed pillow, I wasn’t so sure.

Clouds rolled quickly across the sky forcing what was left of the sun behind them. The air grew warm and muggy and the unmistakable scent of pine filled the forest and mixed itself with the distinctive scent of rain that’s actually strongest before it rains. When the children’s grandfather first learned that the boys had gone off on their own, it hadn’t given him cause for alarm but as the light grew low and the early winds of the storm whipped their way through the trees he started to feel concerned about where they might be.

Erich and Lukas were experienced trackers who were well familiar with the forest, he’d made sure of that, but he also knew how they, like everyone else feared the woods at night. No one, not even himself, wanted to be caught in the open forest after the sun had retired. Tiny nocturnal beasts took to the sky, their distinctive silhouettes fluttered chaotically, darting about in sporadic patterns, unpredictable, and hard to avoid. Unidentifiable creatures rustled behind the branches that lined your path and the suffocating closeness of the trees always made it feel as though you were being followed.  

Uncertain of his next move, their grandfather paced back and forth between a pair of trees he’d watched grow from the time they were saplings. He looked toward the long row of houses, their silhouettes cutting a line across the firs that towered behind them. It was one house in particular that made a sudden sadness well up in his chest, that made his eyes wet with tears. The simple, but sturdy wood structure that had once been his home, the cabin he’d passed to his daughter when the size of her family was growing and the size of his shrinking. Taken quickly by the wind, the swirling grey smoke that usually puffed lazily into the sky blew sideways from the chimney. A brown-gold light flickered behind closed curtains where his only daughter was curled helplessly on the couch with a blanket pulled nearly over her face, not wanting to move or to think, just waiting for something to happen, just waiting for someone to tell her something, to tell her anything.

During the day, Brena had experienced a wide range of emotions, going back and forth between bouts of despair and wild optimism. Early in the morning and to the surprise of everyone around she’d pulled herself together and set to work tidying the house and garden, washing and hanging the linens and baking fresh cookies for her children who were soon to return. But deep inside, she didn’t feel the least bit strong and once the artificial exterior was peeled away it revealed a scared, desperate mother who wanted nothing more than to lie undisturbed on the couch where she hoped time would pass without her.

A heavy gust of air whipped through the trees, birds streaked nervously across the sky and the low grass shivered, confused and not entirely certain about which way it should blow. The children’s grandfather turned in the direction of the forest, tuning his ears to the sound of approaching voices. He had hoped that it was his grandsons but knew by the slow, weighted steps that brought the voices closer that it wasn’t. A pair of men from one of the search teams became visible beneath the low hanging branches of the nearest tree, they looked haggard and worn, and showed the obvious consequences of a long day spent in the woods. “Maybe this will help,” one of them said unfolding a piece of dirty, crinkled paper. “We found it on the far side of the meadow.”

The children’s grandfather read it quickly, a reassured smile crept across his face, “Tell Brena I’ll be back with the kids.” 

I raised my head from the pillow. A dim glow, shining intermittently as my curtains blew in the breeze, lit the area in front of my closet. I couldn’t take my eyes from the gently flashing light. A thin mist filled the room and it appeared as though my eyes were covered with thin, silver gauze. Was I still sleeping? Dreaming? Why did I feel like I was waiting for something, for someone? I pushed up my pillow and leaned into my headboard, I doubted I would be able to go back to sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about Katherine, both in this life and the one after. I couldn’t stop thinking about her father and Anja’s graphic description of him and his grief. I was relieved she’d never shared their story before and wished she never would have. I found it nearly impossible to stop thinking about them.

The room felt suddenly cold and I remembered that I had heard spirit visitors can bring a feeling of cold air to a room. I waited, wondering if Katherine would appear, expecting her to, both hoping she would and hoping she wouldn’t. My head felt full and every sound became magnified. I tensed and listened. There. There it was, a noise in the garden. In all of the time I had lived in the apartment I’d never heard noise in the garden after dark and my imagination ran wild with thoughts of those buried beneath it.
I jumped from the bed, wincing as my bare feet hit the ice-cold floor. Please tell me it’s not the police again I thought as I pulled open the closet and began pawing through clothes. It wasn’t unheard of for them to show up unannounced while their victims were sleepy and disoriented. I grabbed a terry sweat suit and turned toward the bathroom just as a robust cough came from the courtyard below.

Creeping slowly to the window, I pulled back the curtain just enough to see out. We were on the first floor but the height of the foundation sat us about a half story above the ground. The rain had finally stopped and the sky was awash with the white-yellow haze of a full moon. The garden was unusually well lit making it easy to distinguish the shapes of the arbor, the benches, the fountain, the small trees and bushes. It took a second to register the fact that there was something foreign amongst them. I scanned the landscape again quickly, a dark silhouette
moved about near the bushes. It was a man. He turned his head slowly in my direction. I dropped the curtain and jerked myself back to be shielded by the wall. After waiting a few minutes, I carefully pulled the edge of the fabric away from the window again with my fingertips. I watched with amusement as the man in the garden moved about casually, as though he was an interested observer of a travelling botanical display rather than someone wandering around an empty garden in the middle of the night.

He leaned over and pulled something from his leg, from the area just above his boot. The edge of the metal shimmered when he moved it and I could tell it was a knife. He took hold of one of the branches of Anja’s favorite bushes and cut through it. I was confused, the flowers, although delightfully fragrant, had been gone for months. When he’d finally finished inspecting the entirety of the garden he walked toward the arbor and took a seat on the bench beneath it. He leaned back stretching his feet in front of him then threw his arm over the back of the bench and his fingers rolled casually along the top. He too seemed to be waiting for someone.

I continued to watch him through the corner of the window as I slipped into my sweats, he turned in the direction of the building, his head rose and moved side to side as he took his gaze from window to window. The wind caught my curtain just as he got to mine. It was too late to move. I had already been seen. He rose up from the bench, reached his arms well over his head in an exaggerated stretch then sauntered confidently to the building stopping just below my window.

“Haven’t seen any kids around here, have yuh?”

I felt like laughing. Maybe I felt like crying, I wasn’t yet sure. “I think I know who you’re looking for,” I whispered down. “You must be their… grand… father?”

“I am, I am,” he yelled back up, “where can I find those little critters.”

The volume of his voice confirmed the fact that he wasn’t from the city. I was starting to feel uncomfortable, worrying that someone upstairs or even in the opposite building might be awakened by his loud, indiscreet style of conversation. I held my finger over my lips. It didn’t seem right to shush him, so I hoped he would notice the gesture and pick up on the fact that I was trying to whisper.

“They’re inside, my neighbor is watching them.”

I tried to look up to see if any lights had been turned on above us. They were all still out but that was no guarantee that someone wasn’t watching.

“You need to get out the garden,” I whispered down to him, “you have no idea how dangerous it is here.”

He laughed and waved his hand dismissively, “Trust me,” he said, “I know how dangerous it is here.”

I told him to come inside and rushed out my door to the back exit to meet him. I was a little scared, but at the same time, oddly exhilarated. The feeling was new to me. Ever since the girl had arrived I’d felt an excitement I’d honestly never known, her presence pulled both Anja and I from the grey, dreary spaces in the universe we’d been assigned. Our ordinary lives had given us little to distinguish one day from the next, nothing new, nothing different, it was all the same and I hated the feeling of living a life that consisted of little more than passing time. We used our calendars to behave like prison inmates scratching lines in a wall to mark another passing day. I wanted there to be more, I had always imagined there would be more, but reality had forced me to come to terms with the fact that life would never really be what I had expected.

He stopped on the stoop, removed his rain soaked hat and struck it against his thigh, over and over until every last drop of rainwater must surely have been expelled. I tensed and looked around behind me, he was being so loud, no one in their right mind would have ever dared behave so brazenly this late at night, there was never a good reason to attract so much attention. I felt my insides winding tighter and tighter, wondering what would happen when the spring broke and the tension was released. He put his hat back on then started stamping his boots on the landing. Oh my God. Oh… my… God! What is he doing? It was so loud, so incredibly loud, the stamping grew even louder in my mind. I closed my eyes and took a few long breaths. I was screaming inside. There was no way the neighbors weren’t hearing this. No way. They were probably watching everything. The police were probably half way there. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so absolutely annoyed, yet, for some reason it felt as though it would be entirely out of place for me to say anything and I continued to let him make the noise.

“We should probably hurry,” I said, gritting my teeth beneath a forced smile. I cringed as I pushed my door open, waiting for a squeak, a squeak I had never heard before but waited to hear now. I stood against the frame holding the door, waiting for him to go inside, instead he reached out to take the door himself, nodding to indicate that I should enter first. My chest felt tight, yes, I was still screaming inside, perhaps a little louder now. Apparently he didn’t realize we had no time for good manners. 

He quickly removed his water soaked jacket and boots and held them out awkwardly along with his hat. As I reached out to take the wet heaping pile the branch he’d cut from the bush stuck out of one of the pockets and rubbed against my cheek.

“What’s with the branch?” I asked.

“Ah, that,” he laughed, looking like a child that had just been caught hiding a second piece of candy in his pocket after he’d been told to take only one. “Funny thing,” he said, “that smell, it’s one of the things I miss most about this place.”

I half nodded, half shook my head. I wasn’t sure what you could do with a single branch of a lilac bush that clearly didn’t have any flowers.

“To plant,” he said, “I wanted to take it back home and plant it, see if I could get it to grow.”

He was definitely an interesting character, as annoying as I had found him in the hallway, I was quickly drawn to his warm, natural magnetism. He must have been about sixty but had the air of a younger man simply spending time in an older man’s body. His thick grey-brown hair was combed straight back and his square jaw framed a perfectly symmetrical face, I could imagine he was quite used to getting attention for his looks.