“What was the worst outcome you could have had from your search? Finding out that Michael was dead?”
“No,” she said. “It would have been not knowing. It would have been searching every tent, looking into every face and never finding the one I was looking for. It would have been following every lead, combing the country top to bottom, and never turning up any trace of him.” She could see tears in her eyes on the television. “Spending the rest of my life wondering what had happened, never knowing, never getting closure. Never seeing his face again, or hearing his voice.” On screen, Sophie had stopped talking because she was crying. Sitting on the couch with Michael, she felt the tears sliding down the sides of her face. He wiped them away and kissed the top of her head, holding her close. Michael, Michael, Michael. He’s here. He’s safe.
On the other side of the room, Carter blew his nose and pulled Janet closer to him.
“But you did find him.”
“Yes. Just in time.”
“Just in time because – Michael, you had contracted a bacterial pneumonia that had broken out in the camp?”
“Yes. I fell ill very rapidly, having been living hand to mouth for several weeks before arriving at the camp. The fever took me so fast that I was incapable of making rational decisions within hours of becoming ill. The men I shared my tent with were suspicious of the Soviets, and did not take me to the medical post that had been set up. I would have died on the floor of my shelter had things gone differently. The last thing I remember was an aid worker entering my tent, asking my name.”
“And then?”
“And then I woke up in a clean, warm hospital bed on the Soviet side of the border to find Sophie giving me a hard time,” he said with a grin.
“He makes that sound easy, but I have the feeling it wasn’t,” Annabelle said, turning to Sophie. “How did you get him out of Parnaas?”
She could see herself pause and collect her thoughts on screen for a split second. They’d all agreed it would be best if she presented a sanitized version of her encounters with the Commandant on this program.
“I told lies. Lots of them. Good ones,” she said. “The Commandant did not want any of the refugees to leave Parnaas. But in the end, I persuaded him.”
“How close did Michael come to dying from the pneumonia?”
“Our medical director figures he might have survived another twelve hours at most. He had a 107 degree temperature when we found him. I didn’t recognize him.” On screen, Sophie touched her finger to the corner of her eye, and Michael leaned over to kiss the side of her head. She hadn’t realized they’d caught that moment on film.
“You are together now. Romantically.”
“Yes,” Sophie responded.
“For the first time in your eleven-year friendship.”
“That is correct,” said Michael.
“Many people find it difficult to believe that you haven’t been involved prior to this.”
“Ah, but that is a complex story,” he said, smiling. “We have been in love for a very long time, but we had many reasons why we could not act upon it. School. Our careers. Geography. Culture.” He smiled teasingly. “For a while we did not speak to one another.”
“You fought?”
“Oh, yes,” Sophie said. “We fought. Constantly, especially as teenagers. We still do. Only now, we’re better at compromising and making up.”
“What finally changed after all this time to bring you together? Was it the war? The threat of losing one another?”
“Not in the way most people would think,” Sophie said. “It certainly added a sense of urgency. But we would have gotten together even if the war had not broken out. It was time. After all these years, it was finally time.”