How Huge the Night

chapter 14





Wake





Niko came back to herself slowly, floating up through the darkness of her mind, floating like thistledown on water. Was she dead? She couldn’t move. She was in a bed, under heavy covers.

She was at home in her bed with the yellow bedspread; she would open her eyes in a moment and see her mother’s painting on the wall, the little house between the trees, the yellow flowers. Soon Father would call her: Nina, Nina, it’s your turn to make breakfast, herzerl, get up …

No. She wasn’t Nina; she was Niko. She had no father, no mother; everyone was gone, even Heide, even stupid, stupid Friedrich; everyone she’d loved right or wrong except for Gustav was gone. They were homeless, they had no papers, they were nothing.

Why was she in a bed?

Her eyes flew open, and she sat up in bed. Gustav, where was Gustav—a room she had never seen before … a narrow, crowded room, white walls and a low curved ceiling, bric-a-brac everywhere. A long rope strung from wall to wall with clothes hanging on it, dark clothes, red shawls—she had seen women wearing those, bright-eyed, dark-haired women, their hands quick as birds, speaking some guttural language. And Gustav! He’d been with them; he was here! She remembered them … forcing her mouth open, pouring bitter-tasting liquid down her throat … and soup, she remembered soup. And music, from outside—the light of a fire, and a woman’s voice singing a high, quavering song, and drums. Gypsy drums. Gypsies.

No, he had said, I won’t let you die. And then he had told them where she was.