had not been to North America, or even to Western Europe, she had seen his land on television and in movies and knew how it looked, how people acted. He would have no such markers for her world. She could tell him anything and he would believe it. Of course, Sauers knew her village, or claimed to. The doctor was probably German or Austrian but clearly she spoke the language well and must have lived in Romania for some time. But even if she didn't know Nita's village, she would know the region; she would have passed through villages like Nita's. Although there was no village like Nita's, of that she was quite certain.
'A fi honest,' Sauers said slowly.
Nita stared at the camera, the most humane element in the room to her thinking. At least the camera eye of God was not judgmental today. Or analytical. It recorded what was, without interpretation or hidden agendas. The way she had learned to think at the university.
'The village I grew up in was like many. Small, the people simple, kind and generous. They looked after one another. The people were old because the young ones moved away, like I did.' She felt a short, sharp pain in her heart. An image floated to mind of the village, colorless, empty of living beings, the houses abandoned, the cold mountain breezes blowing through broken windows, forcing wooden shutters to bang against walls, the yards littered with the bones of dead chickens, paper and fabric rushing across the ground and into the nearby woods. A village of ghosts. She felt tears forming in her right eye and looked down. She did not want either of these two to see her vulnerable.
'How many people lived there?' he asked.
'One hundred, no more.'
'Your parents?'
'My mother…died when I was a child.'
'And your father?'
She shook her head.
'Who looked after you?'
She felt annoyed. He must have read all this in the reports. Still, she tried to keep her voice from sounding impatient, which would only bring trouble. 'My grandmother raised me. My mother's mother.' Then she added before he could ask, 'My father's family was from somewhere far away.'
He nodded as if she had said or done something right. Nita did not dare look at Sauers.
The man continued but he could not disguise the energy in his voice, now that he thought he was onto something. 'Was there anyone unusual in your village? Anyone different than the others?'
'Everyone was unique.' She kept her smile hidden; she wanted to toy with him a little.
'Yes, of course. But what I meant was would you say there was anyone living in the village who maybe did not feel they belonged there? Who might have felt like a prisoner?'
She knew what he was getting at, and she knew what he wanted her to say. He wanted her to say it was her. Instead she told him, 'Yes, one man. We called him
Vechi brbat. It means 'ancient man'.'
This was not what the grey-haired man was expecting. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him move back in his chair slightly, as if regrouping his thoughts. To her right, she heard Sauers make a small sound like a snake hissing.
They insisted she be here. They controlled her life. She had no options but this one: to play with them, as much as she could. And she would. They did not care about her, about her village, about
vechi brbat. And Nita did not care about them. Not at all. What could a prisoner feel but to desire the end of her captors?
The man at the table leaned forward and scribbled in his notebook. When he looked up at her she met his gaze, forcing her eyes to reflect innocence, guilelessness. In an instant his demeanor altered and he again looked hopeful, as if he had made a good decision and even before he spoke, she knew where he wanted to go.
'Tell me about this vechi brbat,' he said, badly mispronouncing the words. And she knew he had decided to humor her. She smiled, which from his reaction he interpreted as her being more at ease with him. But of course she did not trust him. Not at all.
'Vechi brbat was old when my grandmother was young. She told me stories, what her grandmother had told her, and her grandmother before her.'
'I see,' the man said, jotting a note. He looked up at Nita with an encouraging smile. 'Could you describe this
vechi brbat for me?'
'Grey hair like yours, but brittle,' she said. 'He was thin, very thin, because he did not eat much, and hunched, but I think he must have been shorter than me. His eyes could not focus well, and he had trouble with light, especially the sun.'
'Where did he live? In the village, I mean. Did he have a house?'
'He lived with us. In a cage in the back room. My grandmother fed him from time to time, and let him out when she felt he was not a threat.'
'What kind of threat?' The man's voice held anticipation, as if Nita were on the edge of divulging something important.
'He might hurt someone. If he were kept weak, he could not harm us. That's why my grandmother fed him little.'
'And the rest of the villagers? Were they afraid of him?'
'No one was afraid of him.'
'But if he was a danger-'
'When he was well fed. But he never was. And at night, but he was kept on chains and ropes. He was not dangerous in the day, and not when he was weak.'
The man paused. 'Did your grandmother ever keep you in the cage?'
'Of course not!' Nita snapped. She saw Sauers tense, ready for action. 'I was not a threat. Only
vechi brbat.'
'Alright. That makes sense,' the man said, trying to mollify her, fearful that she would stop talking to him. 'Tell me more about him. Did you ever speak with him?'
'No. Why should I? There was no reason to. And besides, he could not talk. He only knew the language of long ago. He had nothing to say.'
'Did he ever try to speak to you?'
She thought for a moment. 'Once. When I was very young. I had gone into the woods to hunt for mushrooms too late in the day and he appeared.'
'You were not afraid?'
Nita looked at him with disdain. 'Of course not. I told you I did not fear him.'
'And what did he do?'
'He walked up to me and reached out his hand to touch my face, but I stepped back. And anyway, the chains and ropes were caught around a tree trunk, so he could not reach me. It was dark in those woods where the trees grew close together and little sunlight got through. He might have had more power.'
'What did you do, when he tried to touch you?'
'I picked up my bucket and went home.'
'Did he follow you?'
'Yes, for a while, when he unraveled himself.'
'Did you tell anyone about this?'
'Yes, I told my grandmother.'
'And what did she do?'
'She beat him.'
They were all silent for a moment. Nita recalled watching the crimson welts form on
vechi brbat's bare back as Bunic laid on the thick black leather strap. The blood was not red like Nita's and Bunic's but pale, almost colorless, barely pink-tinged. Vechi brbat took the beating with barely a sound coming from his lips, but his body hunched over even more until he was curled into a ball like a baby. Nita had felt sorry for him.
'How did you feel about that?'
'He had to be taught a lesson, my grandmother said. Otherwise he would cause harm to others.'
The man took more notes. Dr. Sauers got up and checked the camera. Nita looked down at the shackles locking her wrists and ankles and thought that she was as much of a prisoner here as
vechi brbat had been in the village. She, too, was kept in a cage. Controlled not by near starvation but through drugs they injected into her daily. She knew how much vechi brbat had longed to break free. She grew to understand him very well.
When Sauers returned to her seat and the man whose name she still did not know had finished his note taking, he turned to Nita and asked if she would like some water, or a juice.
'No. Thank you.'
'All right then. Can we continue?'
She knew he did not expect an answer and she gave none. He would continue whether she wanted to or not. That was the nature of being held prisoner.
'I'd like to talk about the last time you visited your village. Back in the summer.'
Her mind went to a picture. Like a postcard. An overview of the village, in shades of verdant green, with rich ochre mixed in, and the azure of the sky above. There were people: pretty, tan-skinned Oana and her four rosy-cheeked children and her belly swollen with the fifth. And Radu, her blond-haired, hard-working husband. Little Gheroghe, who played the flute so well, and Ilie who made such beautiful, well-constructed boots with his long, graceful fingers colored nearly black from the Russian cigarettes he liked to smoke. She saw them all as dabs of paint on a canvas, a human still-life, paralyzed in the thickness of time, depicted in her mind as they went about their day, as they had always done, as their children would, unless they left the village as Nita had.
'Tell me about that visit. Why did you go home?'
'My studies were complete for the year. I had gotten a position, serving food and drink in a
taverna in Bucharest, but the owner did not need me for three weeks, until the tourists would come, so I went home to see my grandmother.'
'Were you happy to be visiting her and your village?'
