Then Sigita had had to hurry up and change into her Sunday best, so that they wouldn’t be late. On the outside, everything was the way it had always been. On the inside, the world had come to an end.
THE CHURCH OF St. Kazimiero was silent and nearly empty now. Two older women were busy cleaning. Volunteers, probably, like they would have been at home in Tauragė, thought Sigita. One of them asked if Sigita needed anything.
“Thank you, no,” said Sigita. “I just want to sit here for a while.”
They nodded kindly. The need to “sit for a while” was understood by any true believer. Sigita felt like a fraud. She was no longer a believer of any kind.
If that is so, what are you doing here? whispered the voice inside her.
She couldn’t explain it. She felt as if she was standing at the edge of an abyss, but she was in no way counting on God to rescue her. On the contrary. I don’t believe in any of it. Not anymore. But when she looked up at the image of the Holy Virgin, she could no longer hold it back. The Madonna cradled the Baby Jesus tenderly, her face aglow with love. And Sigita fell to her knees on the cold flag stones and wept helplessly, hard involuntary sobs that echoed harshly under the vaulted ceilings. Esu kaltas. Esu labai kaltas.
SHE HAD ONLY just left the church when her mobile phone started vibrating in her bag. She fumbled through the contents onehandedly, with the bag hanging from her plaster-encased lower arm, until wallet and makeup purse and throat lozenges tipped out onto the pavement and rolled in all directions. She had eyes for nothing except the phone. The call was from Darius, she noticed, as she snatched it from the ground.
“What’s up with you?” he said in his usual happy warm voice. “You’ve called about a mllion times.”
“You have to bring him back here. Now!” she snapped.
“What are you talking about?”
“Mikas! If you don’t bring him back, I’ll call the police.” She neglected to tell him that she had in fact already done so. They just didn’t want to know.
“Sigita. Sweetie. I have no idea what you’re talking about. What is wrong with Mikas?”
Years of training had made her an expert. She was able to tell, by now, if he was lying or telling the truth. And the confusion in his voice sounded one hundred percent genuine.
Strength drained from her legs like water from a bath tub, and she dropped to her knees for the second time, in the middle of the sidewalk, surrounded by the debris from her bag. A distantly tinny Darius-voice was shouting at her from somewhere: “Sigita. Sigita, what is it? Where is Mikas?”
She was no longer at the edge of the abyss. It had already swallowed her. Because if Darius did not have Mikas, who did?
5:10 P.M.
Whose turn was it to pick up Anton today? Suddenly Nina couldn’t remember, and felt a long, cold tug in the pit of her stomach, as though she was about to be pulled under by some deep, chill current. The after-school child care program provided by the city would have closed at 5:00. Her son might be standing by the gate right now, accompanied by a seriously cross member of the staff.
She had seated herself on the couch with the unknown boy half in her lap, his bare white body curled against her. A few damp streaks had appeared in his hair. His skin felt warmer now, and after the fluid had begun to run into him, he seemed more alive. Not awake, but alive, at least. Once, he whimpered in his sleep, turned a wrist, moved his leg a bit. It had to be a good sign, thought Nina. She had done the right thing in staying away from the hospital, and even though she had felt her resolution firm every time she thought of the furious man at the railway station, it was still an enormous relief. The boy hadn’t died. He lived, and she could tell by the tiny twitches beneath his eyelids that he was on his way back up from the deep darkness he had rested in.
Yet mixed with the relief was a new sense of panic, as thoughts beyond mere survival started to surface. What on earth had she been thinking since she fled from the railway station?
Not a damn thing, she thought sardonically, running a finger under the strap of her