By Blood We Live

Nita's vision of the past cleared returning her to the present. The man had spoken and she had no idea what he was asking her.

"I'm sorry. Could you repeat that, please?" she said.

"Wake sus!" Sauers snapped.

The man said gently, "I asked if we could begin at the beginning. If you would be willing to tell me about how you came to be in Bucharest."

Nita knew this man had read her file and was aware of every bit of information about her that the courts and the doctors had been able to ascertain. Why he wanted it now, she did not know.

She was about to ask him this when Sauers ordered, "

Completat!" and Nita decided that complying was in fact the easiest way to go. Once this was over she could return to the vomit-green cell they called her room in this small asylum and fall into the world inside her, where they could not penetrate.

"Let me ask you specific questions," the man said. "It might be easier that way. Why did you come to Bucharest?"

"To go to school."

She could see him struggle to recall the information from her files. "I seem to have read that you did very well in school. Exceptionally well."

"Yes. My grades were excellent."

He smiled. "It's unusual for a girl from a small mountain village to be accepted at university."

"I studied with my grandmother. She taught me to read three languages, and to learn numbers. She wanted me to be modern and well-educated."

"Your grandmother must have been very proud of you, earning a scholarship."

"Yes. The whole village took pride in me."

"I see. So you came here for university."

"No, I studied first at the secondary school level. I then matriculated to the university."

"I see."

She wondered if he saw much of anything. His dove eyes revealed nothing. Did he understand how life could be? How her life had been? Could he sense a clash of worlds? She doubted it.

"Did you enjoy school."

"Yes."

"Did you make friends?"

"Yes. A few." When she said no more he waited and she filled in the blank space hovering between them. "I had two girlfriends, Magda and Anya, and a guy, Toma. We all went to coffee houses together and clubs. We listened to music and danced and talked a lot. More than I was used to." She felt exhausted from talking now, as if all this depleted her. And to what end? She knew she was destined to be a name in some research study that a girl her age would read about in a text book one day.

"Did you have a boyfriend."

"No."

"What about the young man you just mentioned?"

"Toma and I were friends. Only friends."

"And the girls? Were you just friends as well?"

She did not know what he was implying and at first could not form an answer. Finally she took the easiest route. "We were friends only."

"Close?"

She hesitated. "I suppose."

"And did you confide in them?"

"Confide what?"

"Anything. Your thoughts. Feelings. Anything about your life. Your past."

He said "past" as if she might have accidentally conveyed to Anya or Magda a dark secret, or even Toma, but they had not talked of the past, only the present. And the future. A future that no longer existed. "We talked of school and movie stars and music." She hoped that would satisfy him, and it appeared to.

"Tell me, Nita, while you were in Bucharest, did you miss your village."

"Of course. Sometimes, not all the time. I had my studies."

The man had been making notes on a pad of paper and now turned the page. She wondered why he made notes when he would have the videotape.

In the pause, Nita snuck a glance at Dr. Sauers. The woman's manure eyes pierced her and threatened retribution but Nita did not know for what. Nita looked down again, but a small smile spread her lips apart as she thought to herself, "We all must dance with him one day."

"Nita, I'd like to hear what your village was like. Can you tell me something about it? I'm from North America, so this is all new to me."

She stared at him as he tried to look sincere. Yes, her village would not be known to him, and yet she wondered if he truly appreciated the differences. While she 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.