The Sojourn - Andrew Krivak [63]
It was that very evening when she noticed a soldier, a young private, lingering on the periphery of the caravan, and when she went to speak to him, he said that he had been (as she suspected) sent by the lieutenant to find out all that he could discover about her, and not to return until he knew who she was, where she was from, and where she was going. So she told the private to tell his commanding officer that she and her family were to stop in the city of Eger on their way home and visit cousins there. She could slip out at the evening meal, when she wouldn’t be missed, and they could meet at the fountain in the square near the castle. She pulled a flower from her blouse, gave it to the messenger, and said, “Give this to him, and tell him that he need only to come and he will find out all there is to know about who I am, where I am from, and where I may or may not be going.”
Days later, after they had strolled from the fountain, through the square, up to the castle, and onto a secluded rampart, their kisses turned to his promises of marriage, and they made love, “without even so much as his coat for a pillow, and only the night above,” she said, and she never saw him again.
When she discovered that she was with child, her mother confined her to housework and cooking—most of which she did anyway—but away from everyone except the old woman who talked only of the dead. All the while, her mother kept saying that when the child was born, it would go straight to the orphanage in Miskolc.
One night, her favorite brother sneaked in to see her and she told him what had happened, and that she was convinced her prince was alive but couldn’t come to her because he was at the front. A few days later, her brother returned at night and took her to the house of a fortune-teller, who said she could see the young officer clearly, could see that he was stricken with love for his princess, and that he longed in his heart to be reunited with her, if only he could survive the war. Brave men often died in battle, and this man was one of the bravest, the fortune-teller assured her. The girl was beside herself with grief, so much so that her brother began to fear for her and the child. It was then that the fortune-teller added that she could see faintly the young man walking the streets of what looked to her like the old town of Ljubljana, although she couldn’t be certain. He wouldn’t be there long, however, for his orders back to the front for the empire’s final, victorious push were imminent. If the girl could get there before his leave was over, she would find the happiness she desired.
“I must tell you, though,” the fortune-teller moaned from her trance, “the journey is an impossible one. But for love, nothing is impossible.”
Keeping their escape a secret from everyone, including their mother, the girl and her brother borrowed what gold and other dowrylike possessions they could the following day, and then stole out of their village under cover of night.
“Maribor was far behind us,” she said, “and I swelled with the expectation of seeing my prince again, until those soldiers caught us at dusk, when we were tired and off guard. My poor brother fought as bravely as he could, but I knew when I saw them, and smelled them, that the fortune-teller had lied.”
And although we never spoke at length again about that or any other story (she never once wanting to know more about my father, or my mother, only asking me occasionally where it was I—a boy, she kept calling me—learned to do the things only women were allowed to do in her village), we were rarely out of sight of each other, unless I went into the forest to hunt, and when I returned, she would embrace me and scold me for having been gone for too long, before turning back to whatever chores occupied her.