The Refugee Sentinel (24 page)

Yana’s hands danced in the projectors’ glow. The three days of competition had led to a finale with the trappings of cattle slaughter. No pundit could have predicted the ULE Classical Prodigy coming down to these last two: a future virtuoso, eighteen-old Yaohua Ling and this eight-something white girl.

Yaohua was a lock to win, even if they forced him to play with his toes. Some would say he didn’t have flair, but like an exacting parent, he tended the same to all notes, playing at uniform discipline and without deviation. He had just finished with his usual untouchable perfection.

Yana was going at it now. In the front row, Mitko leaned forward, the room spinning in his head; her first notes hitting him like a sledgehammer. The rendezvous of the piano with her fingers inside the Tennessee Symphony Hall on this brittle January morning filled his conscience with a déjà vu from his own youth. He leaned closer to the music and the fair-haired girl he had never seen, wishing to stop time or, at least, bottle the sensation and pop the cork on the wistful days when his physical and figurative darkness got too heavy to bear. In her unmistakable brand he detected his own influence; pieces of him from old concert halls in capitals long forgotten. She was better than he had been at her age, maybe better than he ever was. But he didn’t mind one bit and as she played, he saw color in the forefront of his brain. In his mind, her music blossomed in hues of lavender and silver, like a stream cascading from a snowy mountaintop.

Thunderous applause sucked him back into the hall where he, too, stood up and clapped and where Yaohua was a dead man. Afterward, he waited for her in the lobby. She ran to him, thumping footsteps approaching from one side.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, out of breath. “Mom held me up. And others too.”

“Of course they did, Miss Champion of the United Lands of Earth. You played beautiful. Chopin himself would have said so if he heard you.”

Yana grew silent and Mitko didn’t need eyes to tell she was blushing. “I so wish he were here too. Do you think he would have liked hearing me play?”

“More than anything in the world.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” she said. “Tonight I played for him – from the first note to the last.”

Mitko cleared his throat. “I, too, will tell you a secret. Tonight he was here and heard everything, from the beginning to the last note. Maybe he sat next to you while you played. Or helped turn your music sheets, you know how they stick sometimes and mess with your rhythm. Maybe he’s in this lobby right now, sitting a couple of tables away and taking you in.”

“I don’t want him a couple of tables away. I want him here,” her hand patted the empty chair next to her, “so I can tell him about my concert.”

“You always can… whenever you have a free moment. You can talk to him about anything else, too, and he’ll listen, I promise. Then he’ll use his super powers to help you… if you needed help.” Mitko’s hand reached out and she held it with two palms. “The only favor you could give him in return is think of him, from time to time. And one day, many decades from now, when your turn comes to go up, he’ll be waiting with a grin as wide as the sun. He changed the way of the world for you. He’ll do the same with the heavens, too.”

“I don’t want to wait that long.”

“He’d want you to wait, and will visit your dreams in the meantime.”

Yana leaned closer and hugged the blind man tight. “When will you come visit us in DC?”

“As many times as you’d have me.”

“I’ll show you around... DC is pretty when the cherry blossoms come out.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“I love you, Mitko,” she said.

“Thank you for saving my life, kiddo.”

She nudged her head on his chest and listened to his warm, steady heartbeat. Tennessee was getting ready to welcome the new day.

The figure formed in mid-air. It shifted into view and took the shape of an approaching man, one foot in front of the other. Under his footfalls the street slept, lulled by the soft moonlight. Yana couldn’t see his face yet. From afar, his silhouette seemed familiar, but she shook the thought off. Behind him, the moon formed a near-perfect circle and time slowed to a crawl. She swallowed then heard church bells inside her head, even if she had lost her faith since she was a child.

The approaching man smiled. “How are you, patte?” he said and hugged the speechless teenager. Yana clung to the embrace, while grief tumbled from her chest in a silent avalanche. The man held her, like a pillar.

“I've missed you,” Yana said, refusing to let go. Colton caressed her left cheek, with the back of his hand, then the right cheek with his palm. He straightened a lock of her hair. “I've been going to bed at nights hoping to see you in my dreams,” she said.

“I know... I've been watching you.”

“But you don't come to me.”

“Just because you can’t see me, doesn’t mean I’m not with you.“

“I have so much to tell you. It’s been so long.”

“Then tell me.”

“At times, I miss you more than I can bear.”

“Time will remove the pain.”

“How could it? How can I forget my Dad who saved my life when people, God and providence itself had looked away?”

Colton smiled. “There’s a lake in the Andean mountains where the Incas built their empire a thousand years ago. And where the bluest waters in the world shook hands with the bluest skies and the clouds threw white fireworks in the middle. This lake, Titicaca, protected its rich reserves of trout and gold with oxygen deprivation and laid so high in the mountains, that any newcomer needed months to learn how to breathe right.” Yana didn’t understand, but that was OK. Dreams held no allegiance to logic. Dreams were about the company you kept. “The ancient Inca gods, people said, stuck their fists down the foreigners’ throats and squeezed their lungs. Those who survived the months-long asphyxiation saw the lake with different eyes. You are going through the Titicaca suffocation too, but will reach the all-blue dance, in time. I’ll come to you then, without making you feel sad, and we’ll marvel at the waters together.”

“Why can’t you be alive? Why didn’t God save you for me?”

“Don’t say such things. You are safe, and that’s what matters.”

“I’m not saying this God is bad or indifferent. I'm not even saying he isn't a good God. But if you asked who is more deserving, between this God and you, only a fool would confuse the answer.”

“My love for you is deeper than that Inca lake and higher than its altitude.”

“Tell me what to do.” Yana held Colton’s hands and shivered. “I don’t want to wake. Tell me what to do, Dad.”

When she woke in the morning, she had forgotten the dream. Her pillow was soaking wet, which meant the AC had broken and she had slept hot. But she also felt alive and happy, and full of hope.

Kerry Dimitrov – for your unconditional love, always;

Ekaterina Dimitrova – for making me the person I am today;

Kendall Meadows – for being my freshman English teacher;

Jenn Seadia – for being my first editor;

Yoana Nikolova – for drawing Yana’s picture book, apologies it didn’t make it in the final draft.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, I couldn’t have finished this project without you.