June 2007, Bucharest

[ellectrical]

There are three things Elle knows how to say in Romanian: hello (bună), pale man (om palid), and bitch (căţea).

Incidentally, she knows the last in eighteen other languages, as well.

It could explain why, while waiting for a next train that won't leave until late into the night, she's managed to veer off course trying to find a laundromat in Bucharest. Not knowing any of the words, and being awful at signing what she means when it's not a threat, Elle had made one futile attempt at asking directions from someone selling sandwiches back at the Gara de Nord station before wandering out into the streets for about twenty minutes, eventually collapsing with her bag on the steps of a large brick church.

She could head back to the station, or try walking through any door she can find. But the thought of wandering further doesn't seem worth it, especially when what she really wants is any place where she could lean on something and sleep, even if it's brief and light and maybe nothing more than closing her eyes with some feeling that she won't end up regretting it. It crosses her mind to find some hotel, even for a few hours, but the thought is shot down as an unnecessary risk – attention with the brief stay, the need to show some ID when she really shouldn't if she doesn't have to –

As it is, the evening is at least warm and unlike so many she'd spent in London, free of rain. The sky is streaked with a few clouds, its blue darkening as the sun has slipped behind an apartment building, sliced by the metal bars of a third-story balcony. People are still passing through the streets; it takes her longer than it should to notice quite a few are passing her, stepping around her as they make their ways up the steps on which she'd settled. It's getting attention, a few disapproving glances, and after the third Elle twists around to watch where they're heading.

The wood doors that lead into the church have been opened, light from within it cast out down the short steps and into the sidewalk. The doorway itself is not that big, though it's flanked by white columns set into an archway that's been modeled into the church's brick face, above the door a bright gold mosaic of winged figures and a mother and son. Elle knows their names, knows a few words about them, but that's all. While the people who walked beneath them looked on at their faces like those of old friends, she only saw strangers.

It might be a little ironic.

After a few more minutes, something switches in her mind, and she moves to her feet, lifting her bag over her shoulder. She doesn't really think about it as she steps in stride with an elderly couple, slowing herself to follow behind them, though only because she wouldn't know where to go otherwise. They veer off toward the wooden pews a few steps after moving through the entrance that leads into a large room with a stone floor. There's a round stained-glass window above the door behind them, but only a few panes of the geometric shapes are illuminated with what's left of the evening sun. The long hall opens in front of her, stone columns lining the rows of pews and on both sides, the walls set with paintings and stone-carved or plaster figures, with iron shelves and branches of candles left beneath them.

While most people were settling in the pews facing the other end of the hall, which was marked by a suspended cross, large chairs, and a tabled draped in cloth, a few were still collected at the peripheries, standing or kneeling in front of the paintings and statues. Elle passes a stone font full of still water without noticing as she steps to the right side of the hall, moving slowly, the only particular emotion running over her a slight thankfulness that she'd decided to wear flats today. Muffled voices and other, louder footsteps make her feel almost entirely unnoticed again; she slips past a pillar, and makes her way down the right side of the chamber.

The images grow only more unfamiliar now. Some are still similar, like the angels, though they're small, always in the background, eyes down or on the towering humans in front with sometimes literally glowing expressions. Elle begins to run out of the names she knows as she passes a stone statue of a man in long robes holding two planks of wood bound together in an X. A few people drop coins into the metal boxes attached to the shelves of candles, and ignite those that remain to be lit beneath the figures.

But there's always light. Golden circles and crowns of stars around their hair and faces, glowing outlines touching some of the angels, sunlight slipping through bunches of clouds, sometimes in direct lines of gold and white paint. It's the only thing that stands out to her. There'd been in a man in Texas a few years ago, one who appeared to make light on command. She'd remembered thinking it sounded boring, but light from no source, which could be manipulated at will – it was anything but boring in the right hands.

This guy had taken it to mean he was like the painted and carved figures that lined this hall, and went around blinding people and causing pile-ups on the highways around San Antonio before being fatally wounded in the Company's attempt to bring him in.

Elle looks at all the light and wonders, dimly, if this was how he saw himself. Halos and wings. There were a lot of miracles that had actually been the work of people like them, but it didn't make much difference in here. She took it hand in hand with her father's words about religion as unnecessary superstition and everything Anna had said about being a good person and God loving you and helping other people.

The only real light in the hall comes from the electric lamps that hang from the ceiling, the candles, and the panes of stained glass the sky still illuminates. As she meets the eyes of another mother and son, gold discs around their hair, all three explanations make Elle feel oddly lonely.

She doesn't realize the pews have nearly filled in the meantime until she turns back, and sees a few sets of eyes on her. Elle checks her watch – it's only been ten minutes. It's her first instinct to leave, and she's already taken a few steps in that direction before something catches her eye – a little more than halfway back, there's an empty seat at the end of the pew. It's not much space, but still enough that someone could sit if they'd wanted too, or just wanted more room.

It becomes clear with the small space in the pew is empty as Elle steps next to it – the whole row has been shoved out of line with the others, and she sees that anyone who sits there will have a view of the front of the room that's blocked by one of the tall stone columns that line the hall. Elle's not sure if there's much to see, but it's enough to make the others sit closer than they have to, or head for other rows.

She's not really thinking about it when she steps sideways, and takes the seat. Her duffel bag is dropped into her lap. There are people behind her, in front, to the side – still lonely, yet almost suffocating at the same time. But it's different from the train station, and as a man in white clothing she can recognize as a priest walks past them toward the front of the room Elle can't see, she understands why. Their attention is fixed, they're all here for the same reason, and they're all here.

The priest reaches from the front of the hall, and begins to speak. As what he says doesn't include 'hello,' 'pale man,' or 'bitch,' it doesn't mean anything to her except that everyone else in the room will be using their unobstructed view to look to him.

Elle slumps in her seat, and with the thin security of a distracted, but still present crowd, she curls herself inward around the bag in her lap, and closes her eyes.