The Keep

Why didn't he hurt?

After watching Gle

Papa had been cured, and that was wonderful. But at what price? He had changed so—not just in body, but in mind, in personality even. There was a note of arrogance in his voice she had never heard before. And his defensiveness about Molasar was totally out of character. It was as if Papa had been fragmented and then put back together with fine wire ... but with some of the pieces missing.

"And you?" Papa asked. "Are you going to walk away from me, too?"

Magda studied him before answering. He was almost a stranger. "Of course not," she said, hoping her voice did not show how much she ached to be with Gle

" 'But' what?" His voice cut her like a whip.

"Have you really thought about what dealing with a creature like Molasar means?"

The contortions of Papa's newly mobilized face as he replied shocked her. His lips writhed as he grimaced with fury.

"So! Your lover has managed to turn you against your own father and against your own people, has he?" His words struck like blows. He barked a harsh, bitter laugh. "How easily you are swayed, my child! A pair of blue eyes, some muscles, and you're ready to turn your back on your people as they are about to be slaughtered!"

Magda swayed on her feet as if buffeted by a gale. This could not be Papa talking! He had never been cruel to her or to anyone, and yet now he was utterly vicious! But she refused to let him see how much he had just hurt her.

"My only concern was for you," she said through tight lips that would have quivered had she allowed them to. "You don't know that you can trust Molasar!"

"And you don't know that I can't! You've never spoken with him, never heard him out, never seen the look in his eyes when he talks of the Germans who have invaded his keep and his country."

"I've felt his touch," Magda said, shivering despite the sunlight. "Twice. There was nothing there to convince me that he could care a bit for the Jews—or for any living thing."

"I've felt his touch, too," Papa said, raising his arms and walking in a quick circle around the empty wheelchair. "See for yourself what that touch has done for me! As for Molasar saving our people, I have no delusions. He doesn't care about Jews in other lands; only in his own. Only Romanian Jews. The key word is Romanian! He was a nobleman in this land, and he still considers it his land. Call it nationalism or patriotism or whatever—it doesn't matter. The fact is that he wants all Germans off what he calls 'Wallachian soil' and he intends to do something about it. Our people will benefit. And I intend to do anything I can to help him!"

The words rang true. Magda couldn't help but admit that. They were logical, plausible. And it could be a noble thing Papa was doing. Right now he could run off and save himself and her; instead, he was committing himself to return to the keep to try to save more than two lives. He was risking his own life for a greater goal. Maybe it was the right thing to do. Magda so wanted to believe that.

But she could not. The numbing cold of Molasar's touch had left her with a permanent rime of mistrust. And there was something else, too: the look in Papa's eyes as he spoke to her now. A wild look. Tainted...

"I only want you safe." It was all she could say.

"And I want you safe," he told her.

She noted a softening in his eyes and in his voice. He was more like his old self for a moment.

"I also want you to stay away from that Gle

Magda looked away, downward to the floor of the pass. She would never agree to give up Gle

"Is that so?"

She sensed the hardness creeping back into Papa's tone.

"Yes." Her voice sank to a whisper. "He's made me see that I've never really known the meaning of living until now."

"How touching! How melodramatic!" Papa said, his voice dripping scorn. "But he's not a Jew!"

Magda had been expecting this. "I don't care!" she said, facing him. And somehow she knew that Papa no longer cared either—it was just another objection to fling at her. "He's a good man. And if and when we get out of here, I'll stay with him, if he'll have me!"

"We'll see about that!" There was menace in his expression. "But for now I can see that we have no more to discuss!" He threw himself into the wheelchair.

"Papa?"

"Push me back to the keep!"

Anger flared in Magda. "Push yourself back!" She regretted her words immediately. She had never spoken to her father that way in her entire life. What was worse: Papa did not seem to notice. Either that, or he had noticed and did not care enough to react.

"It was foolish of me to wheel myself over this morning," he said as if she had not spoken at all. "But I could not wait around for you to come and get me. I must be more careful. I want no suspicions raised about the true state of my health. I want no extra watch on me. So get behind me and push."

Magda did so, reluctantly and resentfully. For once, she was glad to leave him at the gate and walk back alone.

Matei Stephanescu was angry. Rage burned in his chest like a glowing coal. He did not know why. He sat tense and rigid in the front room of his tiny house at the southern end of the village, a cup of tea and a loaf of bread on the table before him. He thought of many things. And his rage grew steadily hotter.

He thought of Alexandra and his sons and how it wasn't right that they should get to work at the keep all their lives and earn gold while he had to chase a herd of goats up and down the pass until they grew big enough to sell or barter for his needs. He had never envied Alexandra before, but this morning it seemed that Alexandra and his sons were at the core of all his ills.

Matei thought about his own sons. He needed them here. He was forty-seven and already gray in the hair and knobby in the joints. But where were his sons? They had deserted him—gone to Bucharest two years ago to seek their fortunes, leaving their father and mother alone. They had not cared enough for their father to stay near him and help him as he grew older. He hadn't heard from either of them since they'd left. If he instead of Alexandra had had the work at the keep, Matei was sure his own sons would now be at his side and perhaps Alexandra's would have run off to Bucharest.

It was a rotten world and getting rottener. Even his own wife did not care enough about him to get out of bed for him this morning. Ioan had always been anxious to see that he got off with a good breakfast. But this morning was different. She wasn't sick. She had merely told him, "Go fix it yourself!" And so he had fixed his own tea, which now sat cold and untasted before him. He picked up the knife that lay next to the teacup and cut a thick slice of bread. But after his first bite he spit it out.

Stale!

Matei slammed his hand down on the table. He could not take much more of this. With the knife still in his hand he marched into the bedroom and stood over the prone form of his wife still bundled under the covers.

"The bread's stale," he said.

"Then bake some fresh for yourself," came the muffled reply.

"You're a miserable wife!" he cried in a hoarse voice. The handle of the knife was sweaty in his hand. His temper was reaching the breaking point.

Ioan threw the covers off and rose to her knees on the bed, hands on hips, her black hair in wild disarray, her face puffy with sleep and fired with a rage that mirrored his own.