Road To Freedom

Wind howled over the Rocky Mountains, biting at Sarah's ears. It felt like a thousand pins stabbing her all at once. "Christ, it's cold here," Sarah, muttered, hugging herself as her grandfather's casket was lowered into the earth.

"You're such a Californian now," her father, Almos draped his arm across her, providing some shelter from the wind. "Dad would have loved this weather. Such a tough ol' bird.”

Sarah laughed softly and pushed her thick cashmere scarf higher up her neck. "Yeah, yeah. Grandpa told us all about how he walked to school in a tattered coat, in the snow, uphill."

Almos eyed her shivering and laid his thick jacket over her shoulders. "Come on, California. It’s warm at the house and Grandmas made stew."

At Grandmother Eva's house, Sarah, her parents, and two older brothers, gathered around the wooden table Grandpa Marcel had built. They ate from steaming bowls of stew, dipping thick tears of bread in it, while fondly recalling family stories.

"He had quite the imagination," Grandmother Eva said and eyed a photo on the antique sideboard. "Handsome and hard working, too."

Sarah smiled at his youth. It was their wedding portrait and it had sat on that sideboard for as long as Sarah could remember.

"What are you going to do with your twenty-K?" Her brother, Eric murmured, referring to their inheritances. "That English Lit degree isn’t cheap."

"Second only to rents in San Diego," Sarah said.

"Same in Boulder and we don't even have an ocean," her other brother Jeffrey said before jabbing bread into his bowl.

"Come here, dear. I have something for you," Grandmother Eva whispered to Sarah.

Sarah rinsed her bowl in the sink then opened the box her grandmother handed her as they sat on the couch together. There was a photograph of her grandfather. He'd worked for the Hungarian railway as a young man and was ecstatic to be a member of their bike racing team. In the photo his body, like his bike, was sleek as a cat. He proudly wore his racing uniform; black shorts showcasing his muscular legs, a woolen jersey, which Sarah guessed must have been the itchiest article of clothing ever created, long socks, and hard, black shoes. No helmet. 'Didn't use them. Not much to damage.’ Grandpa Marcel would say.

'The Tour de Hongrie. Marcel Siroky', it read on the back in swirly, feminine handwriting. Sarah wiped some fine dust from its face and dug further into the box. She pulled out a bundle of hand drawn maps. Sarah gasped upon seeing them. They were remnants of the pirate game she and her grandfather would play.

"Your grandfather saved them," Grandmother Eva said.

Sarah’s bottom lip quivered at seeing the swirling crayon trails ending with a cartoonish X where Grandpa Marcel would bury loose change or trinkets from her grandmother’s hutch.

Under more old photographs and mementos was a little black book. "Grandpa’s journal," Grandmother Eva said.

"May I?" Sarah held it up.

"Of course. He wanted you to have it. But don't tell your brothers. They've always suspected you were Grandpa's favorite. No need to give them ammunition." She winked.

Sarah settled into her grandfather's recliner with a glass of wine, warming herself near the fireplace, and thumbed through the book's time-yellowed pages. Grandpa Marcel was proud that he could speak and write in near-perfect English, a trait not common in his village. Switching between Hungarian and English, his chaotic handwriting and Sarah's non-bilingual brain, made it difficult to decipher the entries. Sarah's eyes snagged on an unusual notation; 'The Tour', it read.

'Eva and her family have obtained a vacation voucher to a resort near the Austrian border.' It began. 'Not being married yet, I'm unable to travel with them and must now find my own passage. Seeing Eva's tears that day has driven me harder towards my goal. I received word that they've made good their escape and are safely within the Austrian border. This brings me much relief, but it's now springtime and I miss her ever so much.'

Intrigued, Sarah sipped her wine and curled her knees up to her chest.

29/3, 1955: The race will be here soon. I've sold everything, save for my bicycle and whatever clothes I can carry in preparation, and cleverly stashed the money in a secret coffee can, adding my railway wages when possible. My black book will record it all. If I should fail at least someone will know why this man lie dead in the forest, among the woodland creatures, with only a bike and a coffee can full of money. They can then find my Eva and give her heart the closure she'd deserve.

2/5, 1955: Been squatting in an abandoned hotel with these thieving rats. So many people go hungry, living in squalor these days. They talk of a revolution in Budapest, but I don't have time for revolt. My eyes have seen enough war. My Eva is out there and every day without her, my heart dies all over again.

5/9, 1955: The tour is nearing and training has been torture. If it rains, I ride. If it snows, I ride, if winds cause tree branches to snap like whips against my flesh, I ride. Come what may, I must ride.

20/9, 1955: I imagine many are searching for me now. Maybe they believe me dead or injured. Maybe they've learned of my escape and wish me dead or injured. Even now fear courses through me as I recall the moment I put my plan into action, reaching the furthest north/west point of the race route in Esztergom. I'd peddled faster than I ever have. Refusing to answer by body's cries to end this torture as I veered from the racecourse, unseen. You can't stop riding. You must keep riding! I will ride all the way to Austria, across the globe if that is what it takes. It is during desperate times like these, we realize what before unimagined acts we are capable of.

10/25, 1955: I've slipped over mossy rocks in this godforsaken forest for days, rationing my food, taking muddy back roads, through vast fields, anything to avoid exposure. My bike is as battered as my body. Her wheels and frame dented form those horrid rocks. Mud caked so thick, I can barely stop her when needed, but fall is coming and my mind is twisted with fear that I'll starve to death even before I can freeze to death. My feet bleed, but I cannot stop. Not until I've reached the border where I'll find my Eva once again.

20/1, 1956: Man plans, but only God decides. Today God has decided to bless my plan. I have reached the Austrian border and received word that my Eva and her family have made it all the way to America! To a town called Brooklyn. I have yet to lay my eyes on this town, but if it is where my Eva resides, it must be heavenly.

Sarah felt her eyes prick with tears as she curled up tighter in the recliner, blocking out the conversation in the dining room as she continued to read. She read her grandfather's harrowing tale of riding across Europe, getting food and shelter in exchange for a days work. Through Milan, Toulouse, Madrid until he'd reached Lisbon.

29/8, 1956: The ocean stretches out before me. Families gleefully splash in its sparkling, warm waters but I curse it. It is the one barrier between my Eva and me. I’d lied about my fishing experience and found work at a fishery. One of the young fishermen was bragging about how he'd found work on a ship taking chic Americans across the Atlantic. I didn't have the experience or the luck to get a job like that, but I befriended Joseph and one night it happened, he’s offered to take me with him! Oh thanks be to God. I have a path to America!

15/9, 1956: We’ve set out across the Atlantic. It isn't glamorous work. We clean toilets, repair things when needed. We’re made to remain below deck, only allowed outside between midnight and 6 am where we watch the black ocean sparkle under the moonlight and share rationed cigarettes. I told Joseph of my love, Eva and my journey thus far. His eyes went wet. 'I will help you', he said.

17/2, 1957: We have arrived in America! New York is where I’ll stay with Joseph and his family in a cement gray ghetto while I search for my Eva. But God has one last test for my soul to endure. My Eva had moved away! Moved all the way to Colorado. I’ve located her and we spoke on the phone for as long as I could afford. Our hearts broke all over again as we said our goodbyes.

2/5, 1957: More determined than ever, I said goodbye to Joseph and hoboed from train to train, nearly freezing to death in the airy metal cars, sleeping among hay and cow dung. To pass the time, I read a book Joseph had given me. It talked of Colorado's majestic mountains, brave French explorers, Indian tribes, and cowboys. The great American West.

25/5, 1957: I've reached the beautiful city of Denver. Worried about being held up by train robbers, or swindled by painted ladies in the Wild West world I'd read about, I held my coffee can close. With my bike and an address scribbled on a napkin, I set out to find my Eva one last time.

Sarah continued reading until the end, despite already knowing the final outcome. She checked the date of the last entry, realizing her grandparent’s married in August of that year. She noticed a piece of paper tucked into the back cover of the book and tugged it loose. It was a map, a rough layout of her grandparent’s farm with a red ink line swirling through it, presumably leading the reader to clues that would unlock the next step. Sarah chuckled as she tucked it back into the book.

"I'm going for a walk." She announced, bringing her family’s board game to a halt.

"Are you sure, dear? It's so dreary today," Cindy, her mother asked.

“I just need some fresh air."

Sarah bundled up in Grandpa Marcel’s wool coat and began walking the gravel path leading to her grandparent's fields. Following the crudely drawn map, Sarah solved clues, each one more puzzling than the last. This was definitely Grandpa Marcel’s magnum opus of maps. Sarah continued until she found herself behind the greenhouse on the far western edge of the property. She pulled out her pathetic hand shovel she'd lifted from the seed room and began to dig until she's was covered in a layer of sweat and earth. Ready to give up, she yanked her thick coat off and angrily stabbed down into the soil and a thin metal ting echoed back. Furiously clawing the dirt, she’d exposed a rusty coffee can.

“What?” Sarah laughed giddily, using her forearm to wipe dirt from her chin and pried the plastic lid back. Inside was a note and a wad of foreign money.

'My dearest, Bunny,' it started. Sarah laughed at her ridiculous childhood nickname, given to her because of her penchant for hopping around when excited. 'I imagine you've reached the end of my story. I've left your inheritance and the contents of this can for you in hopes you'll use it to turn all this into a book one day. Maybe a movie! I like to imagine you at one of those fancy Hollywood parties, receiving accolades for your work, and me being the rugged, handsome explorer in your story. I just ask that you make me a bit taller in your version.

Sarah covered her dirty hand over her mouth and laughed as she finished reading the letter to the end.

Never stop dreaming, Bunny. Love, Grandpa Marcel.

"I won't, Grandpa."