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Living Shadows

by Liliana Badd

214 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1255; ISBN 1-4120-3427-2; US$20.50, C$23.00, EUR17.00, £12.00

Based in truth, spanning continents and the epochs of historic events backdrop the true life experiences of ordinary people, the Living Shadows, how each are caught and respond to fate...

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book Two generations are reflected in the destiny of two families - one in Europe and the other in America. The story unfolds in parallel plans until a fate filled clash encounter. While Anna is sent by her parents to America to survive the horrors of the war, Lily affronts life in Europe. Her parents having perished in the Nazi cataclysm, Anna starts a new life in America - she marries Ray, connected with the mob - all her life will be the struggle of an immigrant wife and mother forced to sacrifice her faith, helpless to protect her son, Roman, from the rapacious corrupting influence of a Catholic priest, from her husband related to the mob, initiating him to a life engulfed in underworld intrigues, helpless to protect herself from her devastating passion for Ray. Lily meets her life's love in Europe, during an earthquake - together with her husband they fight the war, the cold war, strikes, political oppression, exile... When Jan, her husband dies in a political conspiracy in Paris where he had become the leader of the resistance to a dictatorship oppression, Lily sees her life shipwrecked - and becomes a Living Shadow. Yet their love was so strong that they remain connected from the beyond and Lily in her despair gets the force to survive like a Phoenix bird from its ashes, finding a second chance love in Las Vegas, an embittered one eyed artist, Anna's son, a Living Shadow himself. The seedy undercurrent of the American street scene and lewd encounters with prostitutes, Europe in the turmoil of conflicts, the shattered life of a damned one-eyed artist finding refuge in the arms of passions' flames of his Lily... Lily and her connection with the beyond, bring to vivid life passions betrayed.

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About the Author

For further information, please contact the author at:

P.O. Box 15991, Las Vegas, Nevada 89114, USA.
Phone: 1-702-227-4130
E-mail: marquisdeart@mindspring.com

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Excerpts

When the German war machine had passed their zone to throw themselves to the East front in their dementia to conquer the Soviets, Dr. Dimitri found a favorable moment to gather his troops and return to the cradle. The doctor knew it was the relative calm before the final storm. Employing all his forces in a superhuman effort, he gathered the means which would carry them back to his hospital - carriages led by horses, old war emergency cars, bicycles, provisions. The convoy was ready once more, this time to take the way back. They would travel day and night, extremely slowly, precociously, making sure their way was clear of abandoned bombs and land mines. In the shadows of the night, on the road curving between hills and mountains the convoy would fit into the forms of the twisting road becoming one with it, a long curled black moving backbone in contrast with the white snow covering the surrounding heights. The fur trees covering the hills seemed to be the only witnesses of this strange form getting its movement energy from a desperate effort to survive.

Jan would remember the image of his father riding a horse from the head of the convoy to the back, from the back forward, in a restless attempt to make sure everyone was following. While the doctor's thoughts were ahead, concentrated on one question, how had the hospital and its equipment survived the ravage, being aware other endless days and nights were to be expected.

***

The country was under the German occupation but the sons of the nation were waging the war within the German coalition. By that time, now and then the hospital started to get some official supplies, packs of soap, tooth brushes, bandages, different surgical instrumentation all manufactured in Germany, not much, but none the less it was like a drop of fresh water in a desert. By opening one of those packs of supplies, Dr. Dimitri noticed on certain sample soaps the mention: ''Made of human matter.''

In less than a second the doctor understood the horror of the tragedy lying beneath. From that day, order was given that no one was allowed to open the packs but him. He would open them himself, he would inspect carefully each item and those bearing the infamous label would be put aside. Order was given to the hospital administrator to go and bury them in the back garden under an old sycamore. Jan would sometimes accompany the hospital employee to the soap burial place.

***

On Saturdays afternoons it was confession time at the church. One would go to the confessional booth, and inside the dark place, wait for the latticed window to slide open and hear the solemn, deep low voice of the priest, ''Bless you my son, have you any sins to confess.''

Roman used to go regularly and often he would even have to invent some imaginary sins to make his confession a little bit more exciting for both himself and the priest. One day he confessed an enormous sin.

''Father...'' started he in a trembling low voice, ''Father, I've sinned.''

''I'm listening, son, I'm listening, God understands and forgives, please go on.''

''Father, my sin is so terrible that I don't dare confess it.''

''You are under the protection of God, the Father who knows all, understands all my son, speak in all quietude, a confessed sin is a half pardoned sin. God the Father is so beneficial, He pardons all transgressions. You can't hide anything from Him because he already knows everything.''

''Father, I drew in my notebook something really dirty, a dirty picture. I couldn't help it, I just did it.''

With his breath almost in suspension he was awaiting for the thunders of hell to fall upon him. To his stupefaction, the priest wanted to know more about that picture. Roman confessed it was the image of a naked woman. Roman tearfully explained he knew it was wrong and had to tear it up.

''Can you draw another one and show it to me this time? Sometimes, my son, the Father does not find a nude picture sinful, many of the great artists of the Holy Church painted the human body in all its naked glory,'' continued the priest in a hesitant and semi-approving tone to Roman's total amazement.

''Sure, Father, I'll bring you another one soon, one I will draw for you only'' answered Roman all of a sudden having become ever so valiant.

***

One day the black car stopped at the farm. The doctor was embarked. Jan thought that was the last vision he would have of his father alive. The car would stop in front of the huge building of the Communist Party. Upon arrival, the doctor was told the comrade in chief, was waiting for him. He was precipitately conducted to her office. When she saw him stepping in, she politely asked him to take a place and promptly asked him:

''Do you remember me?''

''No Comrade" answered the doctor, feeling so confused to admit he did not. She laughed loudly and started refreshing his memory.

''Well, well, Doctor, do you happen to remember that Jewish young woman who during the war, one late afternoon, came to see you at your office at the hospital, all scared, to tell you that all her family had been deported and perished in Germany? And she implored you to help her survive. And to whom you answered: ''Go to the kitchen and inform the administrator you are hired.''

''So, do you remember her now?'' continued the comrade.

''Yes, I do'' replied the doctor.

''Well, Comrade Doctor, you have that young woman in front of you and if I made you come here today is to let you know that as long as I am on this position, not a strand of your hair will be touched.''

***

Anna had acquired the certitude that her parents and family had been amongst those who had perished in the Holocaust. All the letters she had sent back home remained without an answer ever. They had become shadows in the past and it was extremely hard for her to accept that their sacrifice had materialized in her actual existence which gave her so little moral quietude. All around her was frustration. She knew she had to act before all her hopes would become a failure.

She had noticed that between Ray and Roman there had been lately a kind of complicity she would not quite fully understand the meaning and which stirred in her ambiguous worrying feelings. The boys adored their father in spite of his behavior as provoked by his acute drunkenness. Yet between him and Roman there was something more, something deeper she could not grasp. Roman was the ''apple of her eye'' and little satisfaction would he give in return.

The nuns had informed her that Roman's presence at school was irregular and that his notes had become worst and worst, almost alarming. One day, as guided by her shadows, while putting order in Roman's room, Anna inadvertently made his drawing file fall on the floor. She bent to gather the scattered drawings and it was then that she discovered the horror - a bunch of amazingly well drawn pictures mostly showing naked women in indecent postures.

Within seconds, her decision was made. She had to dig out the truth and after, gather all her forces and act.

***

On that very day Ray decided to achieve Roman's initiation for a man's life, by introducing him to, what he considered, a more exhilarating life endeavor. He started taking Roman to the bars, introducing him to the local patrons who would immediately accept him as just ''one of the guys''. Ray finding this acceptance as a promising omen, began to groom his son to be a ''collector''. Roman would bring no suspicion to Ray's activities, and the proprietors would not feel threatened by Roman's innocent youthful exuberance. Roman being now in his teen age felt a true fascination for his father who represented for him, independence, strength, virility, the image of a true man. His goal was to resemble to Ray, not seeing in him any evil, however doubting a little bit of Ray's actions. The first time Ray told him ''Son, now you're a man and I need your help, keep the secrets I tell you, maintain your honor'' made Roman feel very proud.

The work his father proposed was well paid and Roman drew a certain pride from it because his own ''family'' was enough respected to impress the district.

On certain evenings, to pursue the initiation Ray would take him to those special bars where the easy women were conducting their dealings. While Ray would retire to taste delicious pleasures in their caressing arms, Roman, waiting for him, would find his pleasure in drawing them. They would offer him the image of their lustful bodies without reticence. Roman was having real models, not at the art school but at the school of lust. Laughingly and gently teasing him they would all admire Roman's misplaced talent.

***

''Make a move and I'll kill you.''

Roman instinctively pulled the car door shut and yelled to his wife to get out of there. Roman staring directly into the barrel of the revolver, in less than a second, a shot rang out, the barrel spitted its flame as he was turning his head that very instant to see why the car was not moving.

They say one cannot see a moving bullet fired from the barrel of a pistol, but they are wrong. Roman saw the projectile, the rifling of the barrel, embroiled in the white orange and red fire encased in the barrel, surrounding the speeding metallic bullet. The glass shattered into a million pieces, the projectile finding its intended mark, a scream, and the car eventually moved.

The bullet entered Roman's head just below his right eye, and the side of his nose. Its force of impact tossed Roman against Betty-Sue, who again tried to brake.

''No, no, keep going'' Roman muttered as she was speeding off in a frenzy through the burning raining night.
''Where, where are we going?'' would she frantically cry.

''There's a hospital on this street, just follow it, just get me there,'' Roman assured her.

''Are you hurt, how bad is it?'' would Betty-Sue implore.

''I think it's bad, I think it's bad,'' Roman's shaky voice barely uttered.

***

Stalin was dead for many years, Kennedy was assassinated, the first Communist leader of the country after the war was dead as well and with him the black terror seemed to have waxed away. His place had been taken by the youngest member of the Communist Party, a former shoemaker, and under his leadership the country would unreasonably hope for quieter times. Of those times Lily would remember the seasons slowly flowing in their own perpetual rhythm. Years later she would smile remembering her rebellions, her contentions with the Communist Young Pioneers movement and notably against her mother's decision to impose upon her a tutor of English language.

One summer morning, Magda informed her daughter of her decision to take for her an English language tutor. Lily felt those lessons as an infringement of her liberties - she simply felt she had no need to learn this strange language, a useless effort, a waste of her time, her precious time of freedom, the summer months, when she could stay away from school which Lily felt like a self imposed incarceration. It is only many years later she would understand that so much argued measure was nothing else but a piece belonging to the puzzle of her life.

''I do not want an English language tutor, Mom, it's useless, I do not need to learn this language'' she would go on and on trying to convince Magda to change position.
''I'm thinking of your future, Lily, at autumn you will start this language at school and nobody speaks it in the family to be able to help you, and then I'd really like you to speak a foreign language. You may need it one day.''

''I may or I may not, I see you invest in my future but you are totally oblivious as to my needs now.'' Lily answered in a low tone, interrupting her thoughts and turning away.

''What do you mean your needs now, like what?'' Magda persisted.

''Like an ear operation'' came Lily's answer, as speedy as a bullet.

''An ear operation?'' Magda asked making her eyes as large as a plate in sign of total incredulity.

''Mom, don't act as you ignore I have the ears of a rabbit, clapping away. I hate them, I hate the way you try to cover them with my hair. I want to wear my hair in different styles, to feel free to show my ears. Diana, my school mate had the same problem, and her mother, unlike other mothers, did care about her daughter's suffering and had her rabbit like clapping ears fixed. Now Diana has the most beautiful ears ever! You can offer it as my birthday gift,'' Lily retorted in a valiant tone.

Appointment was taken some days later with a surgeon, one of Magda's colleagues from the medical school. On the day of the operation Magda accompanied her, feeling totally scared for her daughter, as however she was going to endure a surgical intervention after all, certainly without any major risks, but however an operation. Self imposed, it was true... While inviting Lily to lay down on the operation table, the surgeon nicely informed her that he had to make her an injection to put her to sleep so as she may be spared the physical pain of the intervention.

''I do not want to sleep'' Lily answered in a most decided voice. ''I do not want to sleep.''
''What are you talking about Lily, or have you changed your mind? You know, it's not too late'' Magda interfered.

''I have not changed my mind Mom, but I want to remain awake'' Lily persisted.

''But this may take hours upon hours'', Magda insisted.

''Well ladies,'' interfered the surgeon, ''if Lily really wants to stay awake, I will make her several local anesthesia injections. and that's it, she will stay awake with all the inconvenience.''

The operation lasted for several hours, Lily getting to be congratulated for her courage and valiant behavior. She finally had her rabbit ears repaired, she could finally style her hair freely, without any complex. The only temporary inconvenience of this episode was to be felt for some weeks, when she had to go back and have her bandages and surgical clamps removed. That hurt, indeed. In spite of her feeling that time was not advancing, she had become a tall and slender young girl, sensual and attractive, totally oblivious of her beauty, elegant in her movements, mysterious, quite solitary, lost in her readings and dreams. She would dream to become one day a doctor, the only profession which would fit with her idealism and soul, which would match her inner burning fire and consequently, she announced to her parents her intention to prepare the entrance exam to the medical school. Not without a fight.

''You are not made for the medical school, the medical career is not for you,'' were Magda's first words upon finding out Lily's choice.
''Being a doctor is all I ever wanted'' Lily retorted. ''I'm not like you mother who chose this profession on a mood. It's you who never wanted to be a doctor, why did you do it?''

''Things were so different, Lily. It's true, perhaps I was not made for this career, yet I am a good and respected professional, you can't deny it. Nowadays, the medical profession as many others got so degraded, so many sacrifices and so much frustration. I want for you something easier, less restraining.''

''Like what?''

''Well, I don't know, perhaps like foreign languages. Less responsibility, less stress.''

''No way Mother, my mind is made up.''

''All right Lily, perhaps you are right. Who knows. I would however give you a challenge to see by yourself whether you are made for this profession or not. I invite you to accompany me tomorrow morning to an autopsy to which I have to be present. An infant born with a malformation, the syndrome of a wolf mouth, died yesterday. If you stand the autopsy, then you are strong enough to pursue your choice. For me, even after so many years, an autopsy is an ordeal.''

''Challenge accepted'' was Lily's prompt, brave reply.

The next day, the atmosphere was cold and in the autopsy room the musty smell of death filled the air. When the doctor started his incision on the body of the dead infant, which lay stiff like a small porcelain doll only deformed by its horrid malformation, Lily stared at her mother. Magda had become a strange sight to Lily's eyes. It was clear she was making efforts to keep herself from throwing up, quiet and steadfast, restraining her emotions, becoming as one oblivious to any one around her, focused intensely, not to lose control, in the ordeal. Lily endured the scene with stoicism, in silence, transfixed, not a muscle moving on her face. When all was over, Magda, returning to herself, told her:

''Let's go and have a coffee, I do need it and. I think you made it, go ahead daughter.'' The two never talked again about the autopsy and the small deformed porcelain infant, the incident remaining embedded into the recesses of their minds.

Soon after Lily started to prepare the entrance exam to the medical school.

***

Jan and Lily in order to avoid their imminent arrest would hide themselves in different lost shelters, for weeks and months, Lily using a wig as a disguise when adventuring out to procure the minimum of survival.

In spite of these dramatic circumstances in their existence, Lily would remember those weeks when they were fugitives as the most romantic and selfishly love fulfilled. Human nature is so strange. For weeks they had to hide in a deserted house, and keep its appearance of an uninhabited place. So they got used to sleep during the day and stay awake at night. They would listen to the noises of the night and the hours would fly away, knowing every second may be their last, the possibility of being discovered consuming their thoughts. The idle, silent hours of night drifted by, and the two would embrace each other, in a while their bodies in a desperate passion were melting into each other under the caress of the moon's rays brightening the black darkness. The first rays of sun would find them in a mixture of emotions, rested after the tumultuous embrace of the night, exhausted after hours of passion in fear, ever more intense as they knew every second they were in danger and that may be their last embrace and kiss.

''I don't want you to adventure yourself anymore to the market for a loaf a bread'' Jan would insist.
''But nobody can recognize me with my wig'' Lily would try to protest.

''It was sheer luck you have not been caught by now, never mind the wig, have you thought of your hands, look at them, with their long fine white fingers they are far from being a peasant's hands, they appear more like. a pianist's, and then, have you thought of me, of my anguish, recluse here for hours, trembling with all my being waiting and fearing for you. No, the fortune food Maria is bringing us now and then when she can, is enough for both of us. Spare me the torture of the thought I may lose you. Finding you under a shroud, only recognized by your beautiful slender hands.''

Lily would smile and in a soft tender movement would caress his neck with the tip of her tongue, would promenade her fingers in his long hair intensely aspiring his handsome odor and both would let themselves driven towards the shore where their bodies would meet again and again, each time as if it was the first time, in a no man's land, without physical landmarks, as suspended in the universe, the two of them alone with their tumultuous passion mixed with dread.

''I adore you and I happen to adore being alone with you, far away from the hideous outside reality, just you and I, alone in the world'' Lily would quietly murmur, ''I wish we remained like this for ever, I love you so painfully.''

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Catalogue Information

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