As Michael had predicted, Milla did not want to read Mircea’s note. In a way, he was relieved – although it took him the best part of an afternoon to write, Mircea felt it wasn’t strong enough. He was happy to have another go at it, although his enthusiasm puzzled Michael. He watched Mircea write the second draft, shaking his head.
“I don’t think she’ll read this one either,” Michael told him gently. He hadn’t told Mircea that her reaction was not just to decline the paper, but to tear the note to shreds. Mircea wrote furiously, suddenly getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. He took the page with him.
Michael’s curiosity was piqued when he didn’t hear the toilet flush, or water pour into the sink. Mircea eventually came out white-faced, pressing toilet tissue in one hand and holding the folded note in the other. Michael gasped when Mircea handed him the note – there was a fresh bloody thumbprint on it.
“What have you done?” he demanded, grabbing Mircea’s hand. The man had gashed his palm with a razor, and was blotting the wound with toilet paper. “I’m getting Frau Heigl!” He pushed Mircea on to the bed before running out to get the nurse.
Frau Heigl grabbed some disinfecting wipes and bandages when Michael told her Mircea had cut himself. Her eyes widened at the sight of Mircea’s bloodied note in his hand. “He didn’t write the whole thing in blood, did he?” she asked in a low, amazed voice.
Even though Michael had seen Mircea write the note with a pencil, he checked. He shook his head and he and Frau Heigl went into Mircea’s room. They found Mircea sitting up on the bed, pale and drinking a glass of water. Frau Heigl took the toilet paper from his bleeding hand and wiped it down with disinfectant. Mircea put the empty glass on the bedside table and handed Michael a note he had quickly written. Do you think the blood will get her to at least look at the note?
Frau Heigl was doing her best to keep a straight face. “What did he say?” she asked Michael, bandaging Mircea’s wounded hand.
“He wants to know if the sight of his blood will at least get her to read the note.” Michael sighed, allowing himself a small smile. “Yes,” he told Mircea in Russian. “I think the blood will get her attention!”
“Personally, I think there should have been more, but don’t tell him that,” Frau Heigl told Michael dryly. “I’m not having the poor boy bleed to death on my watch!”
“I never thought you would have been such a fan of drama,” Michael said to the nurse. She smoothed the hair off Mircea’s forehead.
“Sometimes, you need to make a bold gesture to show remorse,” she said. “No more blood!” she admonished Mircea in German. Michael translated, and Mircea nodded obediently at Frau Heigl. He turned to look expectantly at Michael and Frau Heigl was looking at him too. “Well, go on,” she urged the missionary. “Deliver the note!” Flabbergasted, Michael wordlessly went to do as he was told.
The sight of the bloody thumbprint indeed stopped Milla from tearing up the note. She pursed her lips, and hesitantly opened the note. She read it twice, turning over the page to look at the thumbprint again. Michael noticed that there were a few drops of blood on the note itself, which hadn’t noticed before. I’ll have to tell Frau Heigl about that, he thought, watching Milla’s face. She sat down at the table in the cloister’s kitchen, thinking.
“You don’t have to forgive him now,” Michael said gently. “But he is very sorry. And in a lot of pain, and not just from his mouth.” Tears were slipping out of Milla’s eyes, and Michael dug in his pocket for a tissue. But Milla wiped her eyes with her hands, getting up and leaving the kitchen. Holding the tissue up aimlessly, Michael noticed she had taken the note with her.
Mircea was sucking down his lunch when Michael got back to the hospital. He and Frau Heigl looked at Michael anxiously. “She read the note,” he told Mircea in Russian. Excited, Mircea put the milkshake down and reached for the pad and pencil, furiously writing a new note.
“She read the note,” Michael told Frau Heigl in German. “And you’ll be happy to know there was more blood on it, which I think did the trick.”
Frau Heigl nodded, watching her patient writing away. “I don’t want to know the exact details of what he did to that girl,” she said slowly to Michael. “But the way he wants to be forgiven puts hope in my old heart.”
“If she forgives him, it will give me some hope for humanity,” Michael replied.
Michael delivered notes steadily over the following days. He brought flowers on the day the wires came out of Milla’s mouth, saying they were from Mircea, who would have sent them if he had any money. Milla put the flowers to one side, rubbing her newly repaired jaw. She asked Michael to take her to a fast-food restaurant for her first taste of solid food.
At the noisy restaurant, Milla ate slowly, either out of sensitivity for her new jaw or to savour the food, Michael couldn’t tell. He sipped at his coffee, making idle chit-chat. Milla had always been sombre, but there seemed to be a million ideas flickering silently behind her wide blue eyes as she chewed.
“When do his wires come off?” she asked suddenly. It was the first time she had asked anything about Mircea since Michael had been bringing her notes.
“A few weeks.” Michael toyed with the stirrer in his coffee. “He will need a lot of work, though. New fillings and some false teeth.”
Milla, who now had dentures, looked up with interest. “Some false teeth,” Michael clarified.
Milla sighed, pushing her half-eaten hamburger away. “So he’s not like me, then,” she concluded.
Michael put a hand over hers. “No. In some ways, he’s worse. They will have to cobble things together in his mouth, not just start fresh with new things.”
Milla looked at her uneaten food. “Will it hurt worse than mine?”
Michael gave her hand a squeeze. “Probably.” Milla nodded at this with some satisfaction. “Do you want an ice cream?” Michael asked, wanting to change the subject.
Milla shook her head. “I think I’ll stay away from ice cream and milkshakes for a while.”
“Her wires came out today,” Michael reported back at the hospital. Mircea smiled at this, then scribbled a question on his ever-present pad. What happens to her now? Michael sighed. Mircea always asked the direct questions.
The charity’s priority with Milla had always been to get her jaw fixed. Now that was done, it seemed their job was over, and Milla could expect to go home. As Michael stayed silent, Mircea wrote on the pad: You’re not going to just send her back to Vinnytsia?!
Even though the thought of Milla’s future was weighing on his mind, Michael shrugged at Mircea. “Yes, why not send her back. It is her home!”
It’s a dump, Mircea wrote with a smirk. She wants out of there – why else do you think she came to work for me? Inside, Mircea was seething. Milla knew what she was getting into when she came to the “laundry”, knowing full well where she would end up. Then the big-mouthed Church stepped in and filled her head with empty promises and stupid ideas of dignity and self-worth they ultimately couldn’t deliver on. They could tend to her wounds, but they couldn’t get her out of that miserable place.
“She could become a nun,” Michael suggested. He himself would be starting seminary soon. Milla is NOT a nun Mircea wrote so violently on the pad he nearly split the page. Michael rubbed the back of his neck, the obvious conclusion not being said, but Mircea heard it loud and clear anyway. What else can she do?
Mircea’s blood boiled with the understanding of the weakness he had earlier preyed upon. With her Ukrainian passport and lack of skills, Milla didn’t have much choice. She might even have an education, but with no money and no real employment opportunities, what could the poor girl do? She could try a life of criminal activity, but for a pretty girl in Eastern Europe, this always meant one thing. I guess she could try the legal variant, and become a mail-order bride. Mircea reflected how his fortune ultimately rested on the poor Romanian stepfather his mother had conned. Without this EU passport, Mircea’s future would look a lot less bright. He may not have an education or any real assets, but at least he didn’t have to worry about being deported out of Germany at the drop of a hat. He suddenly sat bolt upright, realising Milla did not have to apply to a marriage bureau. He wrote his idea down and showed Michael.
“You’ll marry her?” Michael choked in incredulity. “Do you really think Milla will marry the man who broke her jaw with a baseball bat?!”
I will not lay a finger on her, Mircea promised. He remembered how he had coerced her into a sex act and winced. I will not touch her!
“Then that’s not a real marriage!” Michael protested. The Virgin Mary and Joseph, Mircea countered on the pad. Michael simmered, and Mircea fought back a smile of triumph. Ask her, he wrote. Michael shook his head virulently. “No! I won’t be a part of this sham! It’s illegal!”
Like smuggling someone out of Ukraine? Mircea scrawled. Michael nearly growled in frustration. “Marriage is a holy sacrament! I will not have you make a mockery of it!”
So we won’t marry in the church. Mircea was beginning to enjoy himself, even though he respected Michael and all he had done for him.
“Oh, so now you want to lie to the German state?” Michael raged. Mircea rolled his eyes. I don’t think Germany will care if a Romanian is not taking his marital pleasures from his Ukrainian bride! Michael didn’t say anything in response, and Mircea knew he had him. Realising what he had written about partaking in an unconsummated marriage could potentially be held against him, Mircea tore the page out of the pad and began ripping it into smaller, unreadable bits. In spite of himself, Michael laughed a little. Mircea began writing on a blank page. Will you ask her if she’ll marry me? Seeing Michael hesitate, Mircea took pencil to paper again. If you don’t, I’ll get Frau Heigl or one of the nurses to. Mircea would not be stopped – the only person who could shut this plan down was Milla herself.
“All right,” Michael sighed, surrendering. “But you write her a nice proposal.” He saw the look in Mircea’s eyes, and shook his head. “No, I can’t help you there. What do I know of marriage? I’m going to be a priest, after all!” Smiling, Michael pressed his hands to his face, rubbing his tired head. What on earth had he gotten himself into with this crazy Moldovan?