House of the Lost (25 page)

Zoia had not been prepared for that. She asked if they were all going in.

‘No. Elena and I will go in with Vasile. If we need you, we’ll call.’

So Zoia waited in the car, the strong winter sunlight shining down on the quiet street, making the wireless transmitter glint like the betrayer of secrets it was. Nothing much stirred. Once a black-scarfed woman went hurrying along, her head bowed, a basket over one arm, and once a couple of youths on bicycles clattered along. They looked curiously at Zoia, but continued on their way. The church clock chimed the half hour, then the hour and Zoia wondered if she should go into the house in case they needed help. But as she reached over to open the door Elena appeared. She looked up and down the street, then looked back into the house and nodded. Zoia sat up straighter, anticipating a struggle, because Elisabeth would surely not give in without a fight.

But she did not fight. She came out between Vasile and Annaleise, both of them holding her arms, and they pushed her into the back of the car, wedging her between Zoia and Annaleise. Vasile got back into the driver’s seat and the car moved off.

For a while Elisabeth did not speak, then she said, ‘I suppose you’re going to lock me up somewhere. Well, you can imprison me, but you won’t imprison the cause I’m fighting for. There are others who will keep fighting.’

‘Your husband, d’you mean?’

‘My husband knows nothing of this,’ she said at once, and Zoia heard the sudden fear in her voice, and guessed she was lying to protect him.

‘And your small son?’ said Annaleise, and Zoia half turned her head, hearing a menacing note in Annaleise’s voice.

‘How do you know I have a son?’

‘We make it our business to know.’

‘You’ll never imprison my son,’ said Elisabeth, glaring at Annaleise like a small feral cat. ‘Andrei will kill you all first.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Annaleise softly, and this time Elisabeth flinched visibly.

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Pitesti Gaol. We’re driving there now.’

Zoia felt as if something had struck her across the eyes. Pitesti Gaol, she thought. Oh God, is that really where we’re going? An old, deeply buried memory stirred uneasily.

Elisabeth was staring at Annaleise, and for the first time there was fear in her eyes. ‘Pitesti,’ she said. ‘Pitesti means “to hide” because the town is hidden between hills. And it’s as well it does hide, because it’s said to be the worst place in the world – the place where people become lost for ever. It’s where gaolers brainwash the prisoners until they have no memories of their real lives.’

‘It’s called re-education,’ said Elena at once, glaring. ‘Brainwashing was outlawed years ago.’

‘Whatever you call it, you know as well as I do that it’s a very particular kind of mental torture,’ said Elisabeth. ‘I
know
what goes on inside Pitesti.’ Huddled next to her, Zoia thought, Oh no you don’t. Not everything.

‘But one day the prison walls will be torn down,’ said Elisabeth, her voice full of anger and contempt. ‘And then the world will see all your cruel secrets.’

Elena said, ‘Pitesti’s a useful place. It’s where troublesome cats like you are put. Once inside, you’ll be forgotten by the world.’

‘You’re so naive, aren’t you?’ said Elisabeth. ‘Don’t you know there is no such thing as ultimate forgetting – that traces, once impressed on the memory, are indestructible.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ said Elena tersely. Elisabeth shrugged and turned up the deep collar of her coat as if to shut them all out. In the strong sunlight her profile was fragile and her skin like ivory. Zoia could not help staring at her, because she had forgotten how small and fragile Elisabeth was, and how extremely lovely. She glanced at Elena and knew a moment of doubt. Was this really right? Shouldn’t people be allowed to speak out against what they believed to be injustices? Zoia knew, of course, that nothing really unjust was going on – Annaleise would not ally herself with anything wrong or unfair – but it was not so long since people had fought wars for the right to speak their minds. Wasn’t that all Elisabeth had been doing? And what about her husband and her little boy who would be left without a mother? The boy could not be much more than a baby.

Then Annaleise, who had been looking out of the car’s window, turned her head and sent Zoia a smile. It was their own private smile, and Zoia relaxed because, of course, this
was
all right. The Valk creature was dangerous and rallies and protests against the government and the Party could not be allowed. Elisabeth’s husband would have to get on without his wife. He would look after the child like other men had to look after children.

The car sped down the lonely road with the thick forests and smudgy mountains beyond. Bright winter sunshine still flooded the road, bathing the trees in emerald brightness. Zoia’s head began to ache from the glare and from the knowledge that they were approaching Pitesti with its dreadful history. She closed her eyes against the dazzle, but the headache increased and she started to feel sick from the jolting of the car. As they rounded a sharp curve, nausea rolled over her in such insistent waves that she sat upright and cried out in panic that they must stop and let her get out.

Stumbling to the roadside, she bent over, retching miserably, sobbing with humiliation because it was dreadful, degrading, to be sick like a drunken beggar with Elena and Annaleise watching. But after a few minutes the spasms ceased and she mopped her face as well as she could with her sleeve and climbed back into the car, saying she was sorry, so sorry, but the journey had been such a long one.

She sank into an uncomfortable half slumber, only dimly aware that they had reached Pitesti itself, although she roused sufficiently to notice that it was clean and attractive and there were churches and pleasingly laid-out parks. Elena’s voice said, ‘We are here,’ and Zoia opened her eyes and saw the rearing bulk of the gaol in front of them.

Something black and bitter closed around her. Pitesti Gaol. The prison of the lost ones. Rearing walls and rows of small mean windows, and a massive double door at the front – an ogre’s front door, thought Zoia with dim memories of childhood fairytales. It was wreathed in a shimmering heat haze. If you were shut away behind those stone walls you would bake in this weather. You would not survive very long in this place. Sickness lurched in her stomach again, but this time she managed to fight it down.

She stayed in the car while the others got out, but she wound down the window to get some fresh air and see and hear what happened.

And now, at last, Elisabeth fought. She kicked and struggled, and clawed at Annaleise’s face. When Elena and Vasile grabbed her arms, she sank to her knees and tried to curl into a defensive ball, the dark hair falling over her face. The three of them grabbed her and hauled her to a standing position, and between them carried her towards the huge doors. She was screaming by this time, still fighting them, but Vasile had her shoulders and Elena and Annaleise her legs. Even so, she tried to kick out at them. Then, across the heat and the listening silence of the gaol, she shouted, ‘So this is your revenge because I wouldn’t have you in my bed, is it, Madame Simonescu? This is what you do to people who reject you!’

I didn’t hear right, thought Zoia, staring at Elisabeth, but the cold sickness was washing over her again, and she knew she
had
heard right. It was a spiteful lie, of course, Annaleise would tell her that afterwards. But she found she was clutching the windowsill of the car so tightly she had drawn blood from the palms of her hands.

Annaleise and Elena both ignored Elisabeth’s angry accusations. Annaleise released her hold on Elisabeth for long enough to reach for what Zoia thought was a bell pull. She heard a faint jangling deep inside the prison, and then a small inset door opened. Elisabeth was dragged inside and the door clanged shut.

Romania, early 1960s (continued)

The sounds of Elisabeth Valk’s screams and the clanging of Pitesti Gaol’s doors stayed with Zoia for a very long time. Sometimes she woke gasping and covered in sweat, hearing again the desperate screaming. Did she still scream from within whatever cell they had put her? Did she plead to be set free so she could be with her husband and child? But she shouldn’t have plotted against the Party, argued Zoia. She should have remembered her responsibility to her son and not taken those massive risks.

Annaleise did not refer to Elisabeth’s accusations. At first this worried Zoia, but then she realized that, of course, Annaleise would consider it beneath her to justify anything. Annaleise was clearly delighted with Zoia for having helped track Elisabeth down and Zoia could cope with any number of nightmares about screaming revolutionaries in order to please Annaleise. She could even cope with that image of Pitesti itself, crouching between the hills.

The evening after they took Elisabeth to Pitesti, Annaleise gave Zoia an expensive and luxurious dinner at a restaurant. Zoia had done immensely well for the Party, she said, pouring the wine. Once Zoia would have said it was the purest luck that had led her to Elisabeth’s illegal broadcasts – a chance remark by a customer in the bar – but she had learned to slant the truth in her favour, so she smiled in a deprecatory way, and asked what would happen to Elisabeth.

‘She’ll be kept in Pitesti most likely,’ said Annaleise. ‘She’ll soon be forgotten.’

After the lavish dinner, they went back to Annaleise’s apartment, and lying in the big soft bed, warm and replete from the lavish dinner and the love-making, Zoia wondered if this was one of the times when Annaleise would let her stay the whole night. She loved to lie watching Annaleise sleeping, and when it grew light she liked to slip out of bed and make breakfast. Once she had picked a flower out of the window box and laid it on the tray, but Annaleise had said, Good God, were the flowers wilting and falling onto the plates, so Zoia had not done it again.

The apartment had been newly fitted out since Zoia’s last visit, and the rooms were all in shades of gunmetal grey, ebony black and soft sensual ivory. Zoia thought it very smart and sumptuous, and tried not to compare it with her own rather meagrely furnished set of rooms or to wonder how Annaleise could afford such beautiful things. Weren’t there waiting lists for quite ordinary things these days? Zoia herself had been waiting six months for a kitchen stove for which she had diligently saved almost three months’ wages from her wine-bar job.

As they lay on the bed she listened with attention to Annaleise talking about Elena, saying now her husband was First Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party he and Elena were people of considerable importance. Nicolae Ceau
escu had, in fact, recently met President Tito in Bucharest. The first of a series of what would be yearly meetings, said Annaleise, with unmistakable reverence. Zoia said it was gratifying that she had been able to help Elena.

‘I work with Elena a good deal,’ said Annaleise at once, ‘so I get to know quite a lot about what’s going on within the Party. We’re very close, she and I.’

Zoia felt a spear of jealousy go through her at this, but managed not to show it.

‘She’s very pleased that we were able to close down that radio station. In fact, Zoia, she wants me to put forward an idea for your future.’

‘What is it?’ said Zoia, prepared to be suspicious.

‘The Party have recently acquired a very large old house.’ Annaleise’s voice was deliberately offhand, and Zoia thought, Ah yes, we all know what ‘acquired’ means when the Party is involved. ‘It’s known locally as the Black House,’ said Annaleise. ‘I don’t know what it’s original name was – I don’t think anyone does. It’s one of those places whose name seems to have been lost or forgotten.’

As Elisabeth Valk’s name is to be lost and forgotten. Zoia asked where this place, this Black House, was.

‘Only about fifteen miles from here,’ said Annaleise. ‘Quite close to Resita. You remember Resita? We drove through it on the way to the Yugoslav border.’

Zoia did not say she knew Resita quite well because she had lived near it as a child. She said she remembered.