Close the cupboard.
And he began to live as if this box never existed.
The years passed.
Forests were cut down, chiefs changed, plans for logging came and went. The country was shaking for its own reasons, people in the village drank, celebrated, had weddings, funerals.
My father-in-law never told anyone about the box.
Not his wife.
Not his son.
Not his colleagues.
My husband, Stefan, knew about Gina only as “that old sin” of his father’s youth, which the grandmothers in the village whispered about
ut:
– Hristo once had another.
– That Gina, who is gone.
– Is she still alive, huh?
Nobody knew. Nobody asked directly.
Hristo had sealed the memory in metal and dirt.
When borders fell in the 90s, when people started talking freely about “escapes,” “foreigners,” and “disappeared,” he could have gone looking. He could have asked someone about Gina, used his new contacts, written letters.
You didn’t.
Sometimes, sitting on the bench in front of the house, he looked at the forest, which was visible in the distance, towards the line of hills where the coal furnace once was.
On his face was that peculiar mixture of sadness and silent acceptance that you see in people who realized that they had missed a train that would not return.
“Dad, is there anything you regret?” Stefan asked him once before he knew.
“The forests that they cut down according to plan,” he answered. “And some people that I let go.”
He didn’t specify which people.
