He nodded, not looking at me.
In the ensuing silence, Clive said, “I found Aliz’s family.”
“You did?” I put my feet down and turned to him.
“He found them almost at once,” Vlad said. “He was giving me space to remember and talk about my wife.”
“Thank you for sharing your memories with us,” I said, wiping my face dry.
Brushing off my sympathy, Vlad stood. “Where are we going?”
Clive rose as well. “There’s a graveyard beside a small church up in the hills. Darling, meet us just inside the metal door. Vlad and I will go retrieve Aliz and bring her to you.”
“Did you learn nothing from my tale?” Vlad said to him. “I’ll get the child. You stay with your wife.” He left, closing the door quietly behind himself.
Clive opened his arms and I walked into them.
“It’s so sad. All of it, Aliz, Ilona, Léna.” I hugged him tightly and felt his kiss on my head. “Give me a minute.” I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Grabbing a washcloth, I dried off and bucked up. We had work to do. Aliz needed to go home.
When I went out, Clive was waiting by the door. He opened it and we walked silently past all the doors on our way to the main hall.
Is anyone watching us? I asked him in my head.
I assume there’s always someone watching.
Paranoid much?
Realistic, he responded.
When we reached the door, he pulled a tiny can of mechanical lubricant out of his pocket.
Always thinking, you are, I said. I hated the damn screeching door, letting people know where I was, but I hadn’t thought to fix it.
He sprayed the hinges, opened the door a couple of inches, and then sprayed again. We slid through a narrow opening and then he sprayed the hinges from the inside. Placing the can on the earthen ground to the side of the door, he said, In case you need it again.
A moment later, Vlad slid through the now quiet door with a small duffle bag in his hand. He saw me staring at it and said, “There wasn’t a better way to transport the child when we’ll be running through the streets.”
I hated it, but he was right. We went through the tunnel, out past the dumpster, and then Clive swung me up on to his back and we were racing through streets. It wasn’t long before we left the town proper and were crossing fields into the hills.
Vlad said something, but it was too low for me to hear.
What did he say? I asked Clive.
He said he scents wolves. As do I. We may be on pack grounds.
Before too long, we came to an abandoned wooden chapel in the woods. Windows were missing, as was some of the roof. Vegetation had overrun the tiny church. Clive put me down and we walked around the side. Headstones, cracked, moss-covered, and leaning, were lined up in drunken rows.
Silently, we walked in different directions, trying to read the worn stones, looking for Csonka. The markers were so different from American ones. These looked like stories, like sentences about the deceased. I had no idea what was written, but it felt more personal than the simple names and dates on ours. Not knowing Hungarian, I had to just scan, looking for the right letters in the right order.
“Here,” Vlad whispered.
Clive and I went to him, and we studied all the stones in this section with that name, looking for dates that might coincide with her life, her family.
“Here,” Clive murmured. Reading the Hungarian, he said, Here lies Csonka Lenci, Born in Szentendre, Daughter to Takács László and Klara, Wife to Medárd, Mother to László, Keve, Aliz. Rest in peace.
Yes. I squeezed his arm. We need to bury her with her mother.
Clive knelt and began to dig, with Vlad dropping to help. I should have been paying attention to our surroundings. Instead, I was holding the duffle bag with Aliz’s bones, hoping she’d been reunited with her family on the other side long ago. As I’d never seen her ghost at the asylum, I hoped it was so.
