by L. A. Robbins<\/p>\n
\u2018Why didn\u2019t you tell me he was in hospital?\u2019 I half-whisper as I follow Florin into the garden potting shed. \u2018That he\u2019d had a mini stroke? And then another?\u2019<\/p>\n
In the long rectangular space, my brother jerks out a wooden stool, sets it down with a bang, takes a seat on another, ten feet away. He\u2019s next to the workbench, its surface scattered with trowels and rusty spades; my back is against the opposite wall. There\u2019s a smell of fertiliser and damp soil. We\u2019ll have privacy here, away from our parents, who are inside. He hasn\u2019t invited me into his house, which means he doesn\u2019t want Ana-Maria to hear either.<\/p>\n
\u2018I called,\u2019 he snarls. \u2018I told you that Tata was poorly. And you\u2019re here.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018He\u2019s seriously ill. His kidney. I hope he recovers. But he\u2019s 88. What chance do the doctors give him? He should have stayed in hospital after he collapsed last week, after he hit his head \u2013 a basal skull fracture.\u2019 I tremble.<\/p>\n
\u2018The doctors said he could come home,\u2019 Florin spits out. \u2018I know what he wants; he told me. He wants to be home, if necessary, to die at home. I\u2019m respecting his wishes.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Three strokes. They may have been avoided. Now he can\u2019t speak, he has no balance. He\u2019s disoriented. Anxious and exhausted.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Who are you to damn me? To criticise what I decide?\u2019 Florin slams a fist into his open palm. \u2018You abandoned us thirty years ago. I stayed here in Ploie\u015fti. I have lived next door on the same street, all this time. I\u2019ve seen him and Mama almost every day.\u2019<\/p>\n
My beloved father; it\u2019s too late. I want to scream. My throat is tight, teeth pressed hard together. The late afternoon sun\u2019s rays shoot onto my blouse, make a shadow of my livid brother. It should be the other way around; me, the dark devil, and Florin, the golden angel. I am the damned one who left Romania in the 1970s with my husband and child when Ceau\u0219escu\u2019s draconian repression threatened to starve us all. Now the scales of justice have tipped at the great weight of my trespass. Of course, they\u2019ve been slanting against me for decades, surfacing in Florin\u2019s flippant remarks, in his silences. I knew all along and I didn\u2019t know. Anguish wrenches out my words: \u2018I could have come, long before I did. There was only you to tell me. Mama is deaf and doesn\u2019t use email \u2013 how could I have learned from her?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Sure, you could have come. And that would have prevented this? What are you, some kind of magician? He had a fucking kidney infection. The pain was intense. He blacked out and fell. Hit his head.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I am your sister, his only daughter \u2013\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018What kind of a daughter?\u2019 His face is red, contorted. \u2018You and Max swan in from Switzerland a few times a year, the golden couple, with jolly stories of your adventures. Tata and Mama make such a fuss. Huzza Huzza! F\u00eate you like visiting dignitaries,\u2019 he snorts.<\/p>\n
Florin has exploded. All these years he\u2019s been nursing a poison. He was always the resentful younger brother, barely controlling his jealousy. I look away. There\u2019s nothing I can say or do to atone, no words to fetch me pardon. My breath has stopped, my heart too. When I find my tongue, I speak. \u2018I\u2019ve begged you for years to let me be more a part of their care, to meet their doctors rather than just speak to them on the phone, to help make decisions. You wouldn\u2019t. You\u2019ve had everything under control.\u2019 My breathing is forced and rapid. Anger and nausea parry like circling binary stars.<\/p>\n
\u2018Noble efforts, Ioana, but you\u2019re only here once in awhile \u2013your interference would only confuse the doctors; I am his power of attorney, the one who has the medical directive if he can\u2019t decide for himself. I am here.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I come whenever I can get away,\u2019 I interrupt, but he is speaking over me:<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m the one who found their doctors, who takes them for assessments and appointments. Caring for them is becoming a full-time job as more and more goes wrong. Tata has struggled with looking after Mama ever since she lost her hearing. She\u2019s clingy and dependent, a child at times, you see it. Now his body has taken the toll.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m looking into better hearing aids for Mama,\u2019 I rock back and forth on my stool.<\/p>\n
Florin unscrews the top of a small flask he takes from the lower shelf of the workbench. He puts it to his lips, pulls at it. \u2018Deafness is irreversible and happens to older people; you know that, Ioana.\u2019 His words are bitter. \u2018Why throw money away on new equipment?\u2019 His phone buzzes; he takes it from his back pocket, raises it to his ear. His long strides take him past me into the garden. \u2018Ja, Drago\u0219 \u2026\u2019\u00a0 He tells his caller that Tata is poorly. The rickety shed door begins to swing shut. I prop it open an inch with the tip of my shoe. \u2018He\u2019s managing on one kidney.\u2019 A pause. An expletive. \u2018Yes,\u2019 Florin says angrily. Something about collecting arrivals from Odessa. Through the dusty window, sunlight illuminates a philodendron on the workbench. The undersides of its heart-shaped leaves are fuzzy, their edges, white gold.\u00a0 I inhale and exhale.<\/p>\n
My brother returns. It\u2019s time to talk about what to do now. I swallow. \u2018I was expecting the nurse to come this morning, but Ana-Maria came over instead and we washed Tata together.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Yes, we cancelled the help you organised for them. We\u2019re back. We can do it.\u2019<\/p>\n
I blurt out my shock and anger. \u2018You don\u2019t realise what\u2019s involved now. Until a few days ago he wasn\u2019t moving in the mornings. I needed help to change him and wash him. The last stroke robbed him of strength and balance. He could fall. I couldn\u2019t leave them on their own. He needs \u2013 they both need \u2013home support. Even before the strokes, help would have given you more time.\u2019<\/p>\n
Florin and Ana-Maria have just returned from a week\u2019s sailing on the Danube. We\u2019d arranged that I come take over, the week that they were away. But he\u2019d summoned me a day early. Tata had fallen and hit his head, then the strokes. \u2018Yes\u2019, Florin had interrupted brusquely when I remark that the strokes had incapacitated him, yes, they were still going on their annual sailing trip on the Danube, that\u2019s where he was calling from. Ana-Maria was home looking after Tata. She\u2019d leave when I came. They\u2019d just brought Tata back from hospital.<\/p>\n
\u00a0A week ago, when I first arrived, Ana-Maria had held open the door to my parent\u2019s house, hugged me. Mama\u2019s eyes shone, she asked after Max. In the kitchen, Tata rose unsteadily and came toward me, smiling, his face, white as the bandage taped to his skull, hand on his heart. Ana-Maria made us tea, served raspberry pastries on the patio. She had new blonde streaks in her hair, a fancy watch strapped to her wrist on which she checked messages. Her packed suitcase stood by the front door. I shifted my gaze to the backyard. A few rows of my father\u2019s vegetable patch remained: straggly stalks slanting this way and that, curled brown leaves dangling and twirling in wan sunlight. Ana-Maria explained how Tata had improved, how creatinine levels were back to normal, his kidney, functioning, so the hospital let him come home. While he\u2019d lost a fair amount of blood when he hit his head, the wound was healing. Ana-Maria asked my parents to excuse us: she would show me where things were.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Inside bungalow she pointed at medications and supplies. She had stocked the fridge, replenished cupboard foods. She apologised for not inviting me to her house, did I see the scaffolding? They\u2019re having a conservatory put on the end; it\u2019s a tip inside the house. She led me to the hallway outside the bathroom and pointed to the short iron pipe at the side of the radiator where Tata\u2019s head struck. Thank heavens she and Florin were home that morning. An ambulance had taken Tata and Florin to the emergency room while Ana-Maria devoted three hours (three!) to scrubbing away the blood that was everywhere. She gestured at the walls, the carpet, the baseboards, metres from where skull made contact with iron. A dark shadow the size of a backpack near the pipe remains: testament to copious blood loss. I nod, eyes large, remembering that he takes warfarin, a blood thinner.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u2018Tata was walking around yesterday; this morning he took longer to get out of bed.\u2019 Ana-Maria looked around the hallway as she said they\u2019d be back soon, would I manage? I had nodded; I could handle this. False assuredness: flickers of fear darting like a school of small fish.<\/p>\n
In the week that I am with Tata and Mama, I am alone. Max is home in Geneva, preparing for a conference in Bucharest; he\u2019s a Romanian lawyer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (UNHCR) He\u2019s coming to be with us before the proceedings begin. I wish he were here now. My dear Tata, robbed of voice and spirit, and there\u2019s no one to talk to. My heart aches. The first morning after Mama washes and dresses herself, she murmurs \u2018breakfast\u2019 and begins preparations.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I roll up sleeves to tend to Tata. I smell his wet diaper before I pull the sheet down. I reach fingers to help him up; he puts out a retaining hand. Is he telling me he can manage? Or that he cannot? Tata is six feet one, heavier than I am. How would I lift him? I\u2019m in my sixties, without strong muscle power, recovering from Covid (negative test results). Little fingers of worry oscillate, my breath is shallow. I blink. Strong urine and sweat will stew in the late summer heat, never mind the effect they may have on Tata\u2019s skin. I excuse myself, retire to the kitchen, call Tata\u2019s doctor\u2019s office and local home help organisations. I can\u2019t move my father, change his nappies, bathe him safely, I tell them. I agree to pay a high price for emergency care today and tomorrow and a standard rate, going forward. The head nurse remembers me; I have called over the years. She asks why Florin was not willing to keep Tata at hospital longer; they could have watched him. I want to ask the same thing.<\/p>\n
While I wait for this morning\u2019s nurse, I change Tata\u2019s bandage. I smooth a paper towel on the pillow beneath his head, turn it one way and carefully unstick the adhesive tape, then the other way, to loosen and remove it. I press gauze soaked in betadine to the inflamed train track of black stitches that run through bristles of shaved white hair. I speak to him softly. \u2018The wound is dry, (nearly true), and healing, (probably true)\u2019. His luminous eyes follow my movements. The left side of his face sags.<\/p>\n
When an emergency nurse arrives an hour later, I could kiss her. Together we roll him to one side and untape the soaked nappy. She puts a bowl of warm water and mild disinfectant soap next to his waist; I sponge his torso with the cloth. He props his knees so he can wash between them himself. We gently push the knees to one side so he can wash behind. While he\u2019s on his side, the nurse places a folded fresh nappy next to his pelvis, unfolds the left half, rolls him to his other side to unfold the right half. I tape the nappy on. I learn to use my body as a counterweight to help him sit as he swivels his legs off the bed. I feed his legs into his trousers, drape a shirt on his back. Tata buttons the front. He stands and I pull up the trousers, fasten them. I hand him his cane. He wobbles to the bathroom to shave. I give him a hot cloth to wash his face. He brushes his large yellow teeth. In the bedroom, the nurse is changing the bedsheets and disposing of the soiled nappy. I start to comb the thin thatch over his balding pate; he takes over.<\/p>\n
I walk Tata to the kitchen for breakfast. Seated with my parents at the kitchen table, I allow a triumphant exhalation to escape. It took fifteen minutes but look what we have produced: a clean father with smooth cheeks, fresh underwear and his day clothes. The nurse leaves as we finish breakfast.\u00a0 I do the dishes with Mama, then book a cleaner to come, starting Thursday. We put in a laundry and I prepare meat and vegetables, nothing too difficult to chew, for our dinner. Starting tomorrow, a nurse will come first thing, to help wash Tata.<\/p>\n
The days pass, me, speaking, Mama, lip-reading, both parents nodding. The routine imposes a structure; it comforts me, and them too, I hope. Most mornings, the sturdy young nurse comes, and twice a week, a cleaner. Afternoons, we sit in the garden. Mama weeds and reads. By Friday, though gaunt and pale, Tata can dress himself and walk to the bathroom where the nurse and I help him sit in the shower while he bathes his privates. He is more active, moving from house to garden, from sitting room to kitchen. My heart skips along unevenly as I talk to him, make cheery signs to Mama, print what might be misunderstood on a small whiteboard that I find. Besides being chief cook and bottle washer, I see that I am a breath of fresh air. I tell them how Max and I have begun trekking with a local group, that we are building muscles. No, we are not tackling the Alps, I add. I am quietly grateful that I no longer live in this polluted rust-belt collection of cheap, pop-up bungalows.<\/p>\n
When the cleaner comes, I run errands, shopping for groceries and newspapers, bandages and creams. Tata\u2019s appetite is erratic, as is his energy. He dozes in the late afternoons. Mama sees this. What she doesn\u2019t know \u2013 she sleeps in another room – is that he has started to prowl the house at night. The thump of his cane on the floor boards jerks me awake. I rise, disoriented, in my old bedroom upstairs and go down to him, terrified that he will trip in the dark; there is too much furniture in their little house. The Friday night, when he first does this, I try to talk him into going back to bed. In the sitting room, he canes across the carpet, squints at framed photos of our family, stares into the moonlit garden, blinking. I hug myself in the doorway. Is there pain? He wouldn\u2019t tell me if there were, or if it is spectres of the hereafter that flit through his mind.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In the daytime, I humour him. I bring the photos to his armchair and point to the one of our family seated on a blanket in the meadow. \u2018A blustery day for a picnic,\u2019 I say, remembering how I shivered in my cotton top. \u2018You shared your big cardigan with me. We walked to the edge of the forest. My son had laughed at us, a four-legged monster in a woolly fleece.\u2019 Beneath the fringe of tall trees, Tata had swept aside curled leaves with his shoe to uncover chartreuse spears of crocus, white stripes down the centres of their blades. \u2018Don\u2019t be cold. It\u2019s coming, the spring.\u2019 He had squeezed me to him. Tata taught me how to tie my shoes, how to whistle. He was the steady, encouraging support, holding the bike frame as he ran along beside me when I first peddled a two-wheeler.<\/p>\n
One morning when the nurse comes, I ask her to help me bring a huge box of black-and-white photos down from the attic. The night before, I had pulled down the trap door, unfolded the zigzag ladder affixed to it, then climbed up into the musty loft space. I\u2019d found the box close to the hatch. Later, Mama and Tata and I spend happy hours looking at little me and Florin, at Tata\u2019s crop of blimp-sized courgette after my parents returned from a short summer holiday, at all four of us in evening clothes for a concert in Bucharest.<\/p>\n
When Florin texts that they will be back the following afternoon, I invite him and Ana-Maria to dinner, despite feeling part-zombie from lack of sleep. Mama and I make polenta pie with sheep\u2019s cheese. I put a fried egg and peppercorns on top of each serving and a salad of lettuce and beetroot alongside: Mamaliga<\/em>\u00a0is a childhood favourite. Mama insists that we make Placinta du Mere<\/em>, a cinnamon apple pie for dessert. I humour her. Cooking keeps us busy. My brother and his wife arrive. She is tanned and windswept; Florin\u2019s face is puffy and flushed, the whites of his eyes, faintly bloodshot. He\u2019s wearing a watch like his wife\u2019s and cordovan boots gleam on his feet. Ana-Maria waggles her eyebrows at the polenta pie. My brother makes a toast to good health, looks pointedly at my father as he holds his glass aloft. The way Florin\u2019s upper lip rises as he swallows tells me it\u2019s not water in his glass. My pie goes down a treat. They are all smiles when I describe how we looked at family photos, how Mama remembered Gin Rummy and is teaching me Whist. The smiles morph into quick nods when I talk of the nurse who comes to help with father, the cleaning lady who comes while I shop for food. I explain that I could not have looked after him on my own at the start, I would have dropped him, fallen myself. As I serve Mama\u2019s apple pie, still warm from the oven, I am about to remark that Tata now needs help, surely they had noticed, that everyone will benefit. But I don\u2019t say it. A look passes between my brother and his wife; the care I have set up is not appreciated, in fact, they disapprove.<\/p>\n \u2018Tell me about your sailing, Florin,\u2019 I change the subject.<\/p>\n \u2018Good,\u2019 he grunts, putting a forkful of pie to his mouth, chewing.<\/p>\n Ana-Maria saw sea gulls, she tells us, and a huge white bird, an albatross, maybe.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u2018When is Tata\u2019s next appointment with the kidney doctor?\u2019 Florin asks her. He leaves at seven-thirty that evening to recommence his night shift as a local taxi driver. Mama and I do the dishes.<\/p>\n The following afternoon is the scene of the final judgment in the garden shed. Me, wondering if Tata\u2019s subsequent strokes occurred because he was home instead of in hospital?\u00a0 Would his body have spiraled down anyway, no matter what Florin did or didn\u2019t do? Florin, reinforcing how are things to be by dismissing the carers; I am to butt out. I haven\u2019t been there all this time; I\u2019m not welcome now.<\/p>\n Max arrives Wednesday evening. My husband looks good for his sixty years. His white hair frames an open face; he wears steel-rimmed glasses over intelligent eyes. He has no family anymore and dotes on me. In the kitchen we sip sparkling water while Tata rests in his room. Florin and Ana-Maria are bringing us a take-away dinner. When Mama goes to the bathroom, Max reaches across to take my hand. Pent up heartache and exhaustion spill with my tears. I wipe them hastily before Mama returns.<\/p>\n Max has something for her, for both of us, he says, rising to open his small suitcase. He hands a paper sack to Mama. She extracts an enamelled wooden box decorated with silver threading that frames and links pieces carved coral.<\/p>\n \u2018A Berber jewellery box, from Alphonse, at my office. It was his mother\u2019s,\u2019 Max says.<\/p>\n I admire intricate pattern.<\/p>\n Mama opens the lid and takes out a small black plastic box. Inside, two hearing aids sit in padded depressions: shiny, flesh-coloured paisleys. \u2018Cutting edge,\u2019 Max says, his chest out. \u2018Pronak, made in Switzerland\u2019, states the container. Mama\u2019s fingers hover.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u2018Alphonse swears by Pronak,\u2019 Max tells me. \u2018He\u2019s the new tech support at UNHCR. He also works as a part-time distributor of hearing aids; he\u2019s trained to fit them. Virtually deaf before he started using his own, a year and a half ago. \u2018They\u2019re ranked highest in Europe for the most clarity. With the best ability to cope in noisy situations.\u2019 Max unfolds a piece of paper, offers it to Mama. She lifts her glasses and skims a professional review putting a hand to her ear as if apologising for the current device, that does nothing.<\/p>\n I want to ask how will it help Mama to have a Swiss hearing aid in Romania. It would need fitting and adjusting. Max is speaking. \u2018Alphonse arrives in Bucharest tomorrow. He\u2019s the tech man at our conference. He can come here in the evening and adjust them.\u00a0 How would that be?\u2019 He looks at me and Mama.<\/p>\n I address Mama. \u2018A present from Max\u2019 \u2013 my lips form the words slowly. I scribble on the margin of a newspaper: to be adjusted here by audiologist tomorrow. A half smile beneath Mama\u2019s uncertain eyes. Max is bright with expectation. \u2018Can you find her last hearing test? We could show him.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Yes.\u2019 I pause. \u2018Could we give them back if they don\u2019t work?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Yes. I told Alphonse her current hearing aids don\u2019t work. He persuaded me to try. He gave me the music box to store them in. That way they won\u2019t get lost if they\u2019re not in her ears.\u2019<\/p>\n They will in this house, I think, surveying the clutter. Kind of you both.\u2019 Mama hasn\u2019t been able to hear for over two years; I don\u2019t want to get her hopes up. But I don\u2019t want to mar Max\u2019s enthusiasm. \u2018So, Alphonse has no other plans tomorrow night?\u2019 I ask.<\/p>\n \u2018None. He always stays late at the office; he lives alone.\u2019 Max hands me a block of Lindt dark chocolate. He grins. I loosen paper and foil, tap it into pieces with the end of a knife and offer it around. I kiss his cheek. \u2018Mmm merci, mon amour<\/em>.\u2019 My favourite. Chocolate warming in my mouth, I exhale. Everything feels possible.<\/p>\n Florin and Ana-Maria bring a take away Turkish dinner. Hugs for Max. Afterwards, Florin drives away for his night shift. He\u2019s dropping Ana-Maria off for a bowling evening with friends. Alphonse arrives just after they leave. He\u2019s a swarthy, heavy-set man in his thirties. With a hairy black monobrow over bulbous green eyes, he looks like an intelligent bullfrog in his green T-shirt. The black hair on his head is combed back, gelled in place. Behind his ears jet black hearing aids gleam.<\/p>\n \u2018How do you like working for the UN?\u2019 I ask him in English.<\/p>\n \u2018\u00c7a me plait beaucoup,\u2019 he nods. \u2018I can speak French in Switzerland.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018And before?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Until last month, I worked for Netherlands Labour Authority.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Ach, difficult Dutch!\u2019 I make a face.<\/p>\n \u2018I can\u2019t speak it. But my mother\u2019s Algerian. Her family immigrated to France in the 60s and she met my father. French for me. I\u2019m alright in Romanian too.\u2019<\/p>\n Max smiles. \u2018Alphonse is an expert on asylum seekers; he showed me an article about human trafficking in Romania. He helped with the findings.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I was working for NLA and CoMensha then,\u2019 Alphonse sniffs. \u2018English is fine; everyone speaks it. But knowing the local language \u2013 knowing several languages \u2013 is really useful, if you\u2019re looking at labour exploitation.\u2019 The big man\u2019s hands shake slightly as he reaches for the raspberry roll I offer and pops it into his mouth. He sets his briefcase next to Mama\u2019s little box of Pronak on the table, leans forward then takes a sip of his tea before he opens the case. He loses his grip on the mug; Max catches it before it can spill. \u2018Merci, je m\u2019excuse<\/em>.\u2019 Then: \u2018Let\u2019s have a look,\u2019 as the clasps snap open. Inside the briefcase are cushioned headphones and a metal box with an LCD screen. Alphonse positions his chair behind Mama\u2019s. He squirts disinfectant into a palm, slathers it between fingers, then opens the Pronak box and fits the earpieces behind Mama\u2019s ears. When the headphones are over top, he connects the cable to the little machine, flicks a switch. I am starting to tell Max about Tata\u2019s night wanderings when I hear a gasp.<\/p>\n Mama is wide eyed, her lips parted, hands fluttering upward. She is speaking Romanian. Will it last? Is it a mistake? How?\u2019<\/p>\n I am staring. Whatever sound Alphonse is piping into her ears, she is hearing it. Mama twists around to look at him.<\/p>\n Alphonse nods. \u2018At her current level of hearing, this will continue to work. If her hearing deteriorates, we can adjust it up, to a certain point. And there\u2019s a Pronak hearing centre in Bucharest.\u2019 He removes the headphones and asks me to say something to my mother.<\/p>\n \u2018I love you, Mama,\u2019 I say.<\/p>\n She inhales. Her lips tremble. Tears form in her eyes. I tell her what Alphonse explained about their efficacy. Alphonse shows her how use a finger to close the earplugs when the room is noisy and open them when she\u2019s having an intimate conversation, without removing them. She goes to the bedroom to demonstrate to Tata. I thank Alphonse profusely. Hands in prayer, I nod at Max. Mama returns, her smile, wide as the sky.<\/p>\n When Alphonse rises to leave, he stumbles over the cardboard box of photos. I apologise, I\u2019d meant to move it. Will the two men take it back up to the attic, please? Though we only managed the top third of the contents, there\u2019s nowhere to safely store the big box in the crowded bungalow. Better that I bring down small batches, one at a time. Alphonse and Max lift it and move into the hallway. I hear the creak of the spring as they pull down the ladder. A loud thump prompts me to hurry into the hallway. They\u2019ve disappeared; I see their shadows moving on the attic ceiling. I call up to them.<\/p>\n \u2018All fine; we lost hold of the box; we\u2019re just putting everything back.\u2019 Max\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n The next day, Max leaves before dawn for the conference. When he wakes, Tata is visibly unwell. He gestures: his back aches. His legs and ankles are swollen, his hands, mottled purple. When he begins to vomit, Mama and Florin and I take him to hospital. The slide downward is swift and irreversible. He loses consciousness. His kidney has stopped working, his body is shutting down, say the nurses. Florin and I sign a \u2018Do Not Resuscitate\u2019 order. We take turns at his bedside, me and Mama, Florin and Ana-Maria. In the late afternoon, the head nurse tells us to go home; they will call if there\u2019s a change for the worse.<\/p>\n Max comes home long after Mama and I have finished dinner, a first in two years where we have been able to have a conversation. He eats the dinner I have kept warm for him, nodding as Mama says there are many things she hopes to share with Tata. I hold her hand.<\/p>\n At three in the morning, I am jolted out of sleep by the telephone\u2019s shrill rings in the hall. When I answer, Florin says they will meet us in the hospital. I wake Mama gently and Max and I hurry to put on our clothes. On his hospital bed, Tata\u2019s long frame lies still except for a faint rise and fall of chest. His papery cheek is cool and dry when I kiss him. A nurse tells us he has not recovered consciousness, that, while he\u2019s not in pain, it is unlikely that he will wake. There is no point in thinking \u2018if only\u2019, no point in \u2018would have and should have\u2019. My eyes are gritty and dry, my chest, hollow. I try to breathe deeply, to be present. I put my arm around Mama whose tears follow one another down her cheeks.<\/p>\n The two weeks after Tata\u2019s funeral Max stays with me in my parents\u2019 house on compassionate leave. Florin sorts post-mortem legal and financial arrangements, nothing to do with me. We sit with my mother on the patio, linger over breakfast while pieces of her heart break off and she cannot put them back. I have found local organisations to support her. She will remain in their little house, with Florin and Ana-Maria next door. A volunteer driver will take her to a community centre that offers games and crafts for the elderly. She came home exhilarated and tired from a first event, presenting me with a crocheted potholder. We go together to a morning Tai Chi group that exercises in a church hall, a ten-minute walk away. We follow the demonstration I find online; at home she can practice what they do, I tell her cheerily. Her old friend Magdalena will collect her for weekly lunches with a small group of friends. While her heart is not in it, she has promised to continue with these events; now that she can hear, a world of opportunity is blossoming; she knows this.<\/p>\n And then Max and I are in my old bedroom packing to leave. I am standing at the bedside, thanking him for his kindness toward Mama. I put a folded cardigan on top of my trousers. \u2018Florin spoke well at the funeral service. It was a loving speech that captured much of Tata.\u2019 My voice is a soft whisper so that Mama won\u2019t hear. \u2018I wasn\u2019t surprised when he didn\u2019t ask me to participate. But I didn\u2019t have the energy to press for this.\u2019 I look over at Max<\/p>\n He is perfectly still, his back against the door, eyes closed. When he knows he has my attention, he opens his eyes and begins. \u2018Ioana, I\u2019m sorry to bring this up. I waited. But I don\u2019t know how long I can wait.\u2019 He inhales. \u2018In the attic, remember that crash? Alphonse lost hold of the box of photos as I passed it to him. At the bottom are bundles of passports. Maybe thirty of them\u2019<\/p>\n My eyebrows are together. \u2018Passports?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018We were surprised. Two of them were loose; one landed face down. When he picked it up it was open to the portrait page: a young Ukrainian man. He opened the other: another Ukrainian man. He suspects \u2013 that your brother is involved in \u2013 human trafficking\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I sink onto the bed. The air siphons out of my lungs.<\/p>\n \u2018I think he\u2019s right,\u2019 Max says. \u2018I went up again to look at the other passports. All are of fit Ukrainian men.\u2019 He lifts his chin, looks at the ceiling. \u2018It\u2019s common practice to take ID \u2013 threat of exposure to immigration authorities forces illegal workers to behave if they want them back. They can get across the border, that\u2019s EU law since the war. But once they get across, they need ID to find work.\u2019 Max looks at me, walks to his suitcase and stands, staring into it. \u2018Alphonse says they\u2019re construction workers \u2013 lifting heavy blocks, manoeuvring beams, tiling roofs. Long days, starting at first light. On shady terms \u2013 they\u2019re subcontracted; there\u2019s a high turnover. Who knows? Maybe they\u2019re removing asbestos without proper protection. Employers are up against deadlines so they cut corners.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018But Florin\u2019s a taxi driver.\u2019 I feign misunderstanding.<\/p>\n \u2018He also moves Ukrainians at odd hours, Alphonse thinks. Who have come here to work. And he stores their identities.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Why would their passports be in Tata\u2019s loft?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018In case some anti-slavery commission suspects Florin. Stages a raid on his house, Alphonse says. They\u2019d find nothing there. He\u2019d look clean. A taxi driver rather than a human traff\u2013\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018What \u2013 will Alphonse report Florin?\u2019 I interrupt. A wave of nausea rises.<\/p>\n \u2018He was worked-up at the conference. Talked about it every day: merde<\/em>. We were presenting to the Brits \u2013 following up a police investigation about organised crime here. Operation Cardinas \u2013 some 500 Romanians were involved. Three years ago.\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0I press my teeth together, barely breathing. Florin\u2019s anger and greed. He\u2019s fallen in with an unsavory band of ne\u2019er do wells. Whether it\u2019s voluntary complicity or there\u2019s been coercion, a dark certainty churns in my stomach \u2013 the phone call from Drago\u0219 \u2013 arrivals from Odessa. Part of me feels dizzy, the other part, vindictive. Let Florin face charges. Then I am ashamed for wishing this on anyone, much less, on my brother.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Later that morning Max and I board the plane back to Switzerland. I lean my shoulder into his arm, close my eyes, empty my lungs, breathe in, sigh again. Max gently presses into me. \u2018Bitter as you feel that your brother has shut the door on you, in an odd way, he has given you freedom. To live your life, apart from them. For now, at least, he is there, next door to Mama. And you can speak with her. Often\u2019<\/p>\n When he points out the window I look down on the fields and low mountains, the roads and rivers between countries, remembering the endless bus ride thirty years ago when we fled from Ploie\u015fti through Hungary and Austria to Zurich. Hand to heart, I recall the tremulous moments when we crossed borders, fear and guilt, bright as blood in my veins. \u2018Florin is assisting asylum seekers,\u2019 I say. \u2018We are asylum seekers, too.\u2019<\/p>\n Max looks at me. \u2018Ionically, you and I are native Romanians, who escaped the very country they seek asylum in. The difference between us and the Ukrainian labourers that Florin may be \u2013 exploiting \u2013 is that they are desperate. They need money; that\u2019s why they\u2019re looking for work. We had support, bless your father. Don\u2019t chastise yourself.\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0I sigh. \u2018Tata understood our decision to leave Romania \u2013 it never meant I loved him less.\u2019\u00a0 Of course it didn\u2019t. His secret gift to me was what made our flight possible. I honoured the thread that bound us by journeying home, again and again. My final vigil, sharing memories, cleaning and feeding him, watching his restless wanderings in the night, could be further testament, if it were needed, that I cherished\u00a0him.\u00a0 Suddenly my eyes widen. \u2018Could Florin have found out?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t know. I know only that he\u2019s not struggling financially, the way he once was. If he\u2019s involved in a group, this would explain it.\u2019 There\u2019s a flat finality in Max\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n I see the conservatory Florin has commissioned, the highlights in Ana-Maria\u2019s hair, Florin\u2019s fine boots, their do-it-all digital watches. Something stopped me from remarking on these novelties; I\u2019m glad now. My brother has what he always wanted. Does it puff him up? What of his affiliation with Drago\u0219 and the men \u2013 has he jettisoned his conscience, along with his old boots? Does he numb unwelcome thoughts? My voice is small and hollow when I say: \u2018If he thought we knew what he was doing, Florin would worry.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018He doesn\u2019t know,\u2019 Max answers. \u2018Alphonse has not reported him. Your father\u2019s death ensured that. And he sees how your brother supports your mother. We can\u2019t know what Alphonse will do, going forward. We\u2019ll have to hope he does nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by L. A. Robbins \u2018Why didn\u2019t you tell me he was in hospital?\u2019 I half-whisper as I follow Florin into the garden potting shed. \u2018That he\u2019d had a mini stroke? And then another?\u2019 In the long rectangular space, my brother jerks out a wooden stool, sets it down with a bang, takes a seat on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1872,77],"tags":[1873,1123,1912],"class_list":["post-16383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-89-90","category-english","tag-egophobia-89-90","tag-english","tag-l-a-robbins"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-4gf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16385,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16383\/revisions\/16385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}