me for a moment with mouth agape. Then, he began to laugh.
“No, my young friend,” he said gently. “Anna is my fiancée. We travel to Czernowitz to be married.”
“Oh,” I said quietly, trying to cover the embarrassment of my social faux pas. I could feel Charles’s disapproving glance. No doubt at some point in his extensive social training he would have learned not to ask such a question unless the answer was sure. I had received no such instruction.
“Czernowitz must be special to you, then,” Charles said with a smile.
“Oh, it is. It is my home, or it was, many years past. Before I came over the mountain to seek my future and fortune. My fortune I secured long ago, and now that I have Anna,” he said, turning to stroke the young girl’s cheek, “my future is in hand, as well. So I will return to the place of my birth, and there I shall live until I die.”
“Wonderful,” Charles said with a smile, pulling out a cigar and lighting it with a match from his pocket.
I glanced from Vladimir to Anna. Vladimir had the look of a man who pursued what he wanted relentlessly and tended to get it. Anna simply looked empty. I wondered what had brought her here, with him. I had come from a place where people married others of their own choosing, where little girls grew up expecting to fall in love. Anna probably never had that dream. She grew up waiting to be sold. And Vladimir had bought her. No doubt a girl of her beauty had fetched quite a price.
I looked over at Charles. He was listening thoughtfully as Vladimir described his business as a merchant. I wondered what Charles thought of all this. He came from a different world than I, and no doubt such things were common there. Vladimir was just another powerful man in a long line of powerful men he encountered, and his ways were, no doubt, common to them all.
I turned again to the window of the carriage. Something struck me then, struck me as clearly as a bell ringing at noontime. This was a dying land. While the world moved on, this place remained, falling slowly behind, growing more decadent, more decrepit. Even nature had followed suit, and I knew as I stared out into the dead forest beyond the road with its chalk white trees driven into the ground like the bones of some ancient race of giants, that I should never have come here.
* * *
We rolled along like that for several hours, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. The sun had climbed high in an empty sky when I felt the coach jerk to a halt. The sound of our driver’s heavy footsteps as he exited the box preceded the sudden opening of the door.
“We stop here,” he said. “We will eat now. The mountain climb begins here. Eat well. We will not stop again until the morning.”
The driver gathered wood from the edges of the forest and then, with apparently no fear that anyone would be following, built a fire in the middle of the road. Drawing water from a stream that ran just at the road’s edge, he brought a large pot of water to boil. I watched as he added vegetables and slices of meat from the large knapsack he had carried from the tavern. It wasn’t long before we had a thick, hearty soup to eat. It was filling, and it needed to be. If our driver truly did not intend to stop until we had descended the mountain, it would be long before we would eat again.
As I finished my soup, I noticed our driver standing at the head of the coach, staring up the road. I wondered what was in his mind, what he was considering, what dangers lay ahead. But there was little time for such thoughts, as shortly he had turned back and commanded us to re-enter the coach. Before he closed the door, he handed us a bag.
“Some bread and some cheese for the journey. Sorry I not have more, but this will do. We climb the mountain now. We will go straight through, up and over. We will not stop until first
“No, my young friend,” he said gently. “Anna is my fiancée. We travel to Czernowitz to be married.”
“Oh,” I said quietly, trying to cover the embarrassment of my social faux pas. I could feel Charles’s disapproving glance. No doubt at some point in his extensive social training he would have learned not to ask such a question unless the answer was sure. I had received no such instruction.
“Czernowitz must be special to you, then,” Charles said with a smile.
“Oh, it is. It is my home, or it was, many years past. Before I came over the mountain to seek my future and fortune. My fortune I secured long ago, and now that I have Anna,” he said, turning to stroke the young girl’s cheek, “my future is in hand, as well. So I will return to the place of my birth, and there I shall live until I die.”
“Wonderful,” Charles said with a smile, pulling out a cigar and lighting it with a match from his pocket.
I glanced from Vladimir to Anna. Vladimir had the look of a man who pursued what he wanted relentlessly and tended to get it. Anna simply looked empty. I wondered what had brought her here, with him. I had come from a place where people married others of their own choosing, where little girls grew up expecting to fall in love. Anna probably never had that dream. She grew up waiting to be sold. And Vladimir had bought her. No doubt a girl of her beauty had fetched quite a price.
I looked over at Charles. He was listening thoughtfully as Vladimir described his business as a merchant. I wondered what Charles thought of all this. He came from a different world than I, and no doubt such things were common there. Vladimir was just another powerful man in a long line of powerful men he encountered, and his ways were, no doubt, common to them all.
I turned again to the window of the carriage. Something struck me then, struck me as clearly as a bell ringing at noontime. This was a dying land. While the world moved on, this place remained, falling slowly behind, growing more decadent, more decrepit. Even nature had followed suit, and I knew as I stared out into the dead forest beyond the road with its chalk white trees driven into the ground like the bones of some ancient race of giants, that I should never have come here.
* * *
We rolled along like that for several hours, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. The sun had climbed high in an empty sky when I felt the coach jerk to a halt. The sound of our driver’s heavy footsteps as he exited the box preceded the sudden opening of the door.
“We stop here,” he said. “We will eat now. The mountain climb begins here. Eat well. We will not stop again until the morning.”
The driver gathered wood from the edges of the forest and then, with apparently no fear that anyone would be following, built a fire in the middle of the road. Drawing water from a stream that ran just at the road’s edge, he brought a large pot of water to boil. I watched as he added vegetables and slices of meat from the large knapsack he had carried from the tavern. It wasn’t long before we had a thick, hearty soup to eat. It was filling, and it needed to be. If our driver truly did not intend to stop until we had descended the mountain, it would be long before we would eat again.
As I finished my soup, I noticed our driver standing at the head of the coach, staring up the road. I wondered what was in his mind, what he was considering, what dangers lay ahead. But there was little time for such thoughts, as shortly he had turned back and commanded us to re-enter the coach. Before he closed the door, he handed us a bag.
“Some bread and some cheese for the journey. Sorry I not have more, but this will do. We climb the mountain now. We will go straight through, up and over. We will not stop until first
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