by Lisa Unger
“She said she doesn’t like Americans,” Ales explained with a sneer. “She thinks you’re all pigs.”
“That’s nice,” said Jack. “Great.”
Ales laughed, finding some humor that eluded us. By the time we’d arrived at the orphanage, I was demoralized and exhausted. By the looks of him, Jack wasn’t feeling much better.
“I wonder what it’s like to grow up in a place like this,” he said when Ales left.
I looked around at the gray institutional walls, the heavy metal doors, the harsh fluorescent lights.
“Lonely,” I said.
A young woman emerged from behind a closed door. Petite and pale, with blond hair pulled back dramatically from her face, she wore strangely garish red lipstick, though her outfit—narrow gray pencil skirt, white oxford button-down, and plain black pumps—was very conservative, professional.
“I’m Gabriela Pavelka, the director here. Can I help you?”
“You speak English,” I said, relieved. I didn’t want to have another conversation through Ales.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. I could tell in the way her shoulders squared that she was proud of this fact. “Are you a journalist?”
“No,” I said, looking back at Ales, who was leaning against a railing talking to a young girl with a tattoo on her face, something tribal looking around the eyes. She was smiling at him, took a cigarette he offered.
“Our guide misunderstood. Is there someplace we can talk?”
“May I ask what this is about? I am not at liberty to discuss anything with the media.”
“It’s about a private donation.”
“We can talk in my office,” she said, moving toward the door that led back into the building. I glanced over at Jack who lifted a hand indicating that he’d stay where he was, then I followed the director. I assumed Jack felt the need to keep his eye on our guide and the rental car, which didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
Gabriela escorted me to a small drab office. The first thing I noticed was a wedding photo—her in white lace, kissing a handsome man with a wide jaw and short-cropped brown hair. Then, a small diamond ring and thin gold band on her slender finger. On her desk: A cup of coffee gone cold. A shiny red BlackBerry. A copy of British Vogue, hastily stuck under stacks of files. There was another picture of her in a frame with a dark-haired child on her hip. I recognized the background as Central Park.
“You’ve been to New York,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I was an au pair for three years after college. This is where I learn better English.”
“Your English is excellent,” I told her, meaning it but also playing to her pride in the matter.
“Thank you,” she said, her professional smile suddenly seeming more genuine. “You’re American. From New York?”
“Yes.”
She picked up the picture and gazed at it. “I miss it. I loved it there.”
“Why did you come home?”
“Because too many young people are leaving the Czech Republic and not coming back. If we all leave, what happens to this country? I wanted to do something important with children, so I came here to run this orphanage.” She swept a hand around her.
“It’s important work.”
“Yes,” she said gravely, looking down at the picture for another moment, then returning it to her desk. “Now, the matter you wanted to discuss …”
From my bag, I extracted the copy of the transfer order Detective Crowe had attached to the e-mail, held it in my hand. I stared at it for a moment while she waited.
“Have you ever been lied to?” I asked her. I saw her eyes shoot over to her wedding picture.
“Everyone’s been lied to,” she said with a shrug. “That’s life. People lie.”
I told her what happened to me, leaving out some of the gory details. I saw her inch up in her seat as I spun the tale for her. By the time I was done, she was practically lying on her desk, she had leaned so far forward.
“I’m looking for him now,” I said. “I don’t know if you can help me, but this is the only connection I have.”
She shook her head slowly. “It’s terrible. I’m sorry. But I don’t know what I can do.”
“Do you know anything about the man who makes these donations?”
“I know of the donations, of course,” she said. “To us, this is a lot of money, forty thousand U.S. dollars a year. The donations come anonymously. The rumor is that the man who makes them lived out his boyhood here, applied for scholarships to the U.S., and left to go to school there when he turned eighteen. That now he is very rich and successful and wants to help other orphans like himself. But this is just a rumor.”
Outside the window, there was a wide expanse of flat land. In the distance, a large black bird flew a low wide circle in the air. I felt myself coming to a dead end. Yes, the money had come here. But so what?
“My husband’s real name is Kristof Ragan. He has a brother named Ivan. Do you have old records?”
She was already shaking her head before I finished speaking. “Since the fall of communism, all new records are being computerized. Old records were incomplete, nonexistent, or destroyed. In recent years there’s been a lot of purging.”
“But there must be something. Maybe someone who has been here for many years.”
“By purging, I don’t just mean old records. This is a privately run orphanage now but once orphanages like this were run by the state. The practices were archaic, the officials corrupt to an extreme. We’ve had to distance ourselves from those old ways to better serve the children in our care.”
She must have seen the despair on my face, offered a sad smile. What had I hoped? That someone here would know him, that they’d have a current address? That they’d open up old records for me and I’d find something there? I don’t know. I realized how pointless this trip had been. My husband was gone. His history was lost. Had he grown up in a place like this, in a communist orphanage, afraid and alone? Had anything he’d told me about himself been true? I had to face the fact that I might never know.
“I’m sorry,” the young woman said. “I don’t know how to help you. You know more about our anonymous donor than I do.”
I MUST HAVE looked dejected on returning to the waiting room, because Jack rose to his feet quickly.
“What did you find out?”
“Nothing, really.” I recounted the conversation for him as we exited and moved toward the car.
“Where’s our guide?” I asked. We looked around. The wind had picked up and the chill in the air deepened. All the kids who had been scattered about had disappeared.
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “But we better find him. He has the keys to the car.”
I returned to the staircase and sat on one of the low steps.
“I saw Ales talking to some young girl,” I said. Jack walked a restless circle around the car.
“Do you think Marcus grew up here?” I said.
“It would explain a lot.”
“I suppose it would.”
The cloud cover was growing thicker, the sky taking on the silver gray cast of threatening snow. I wrapped my arms around myself against the cold. But the chill I felt came from within. Nothing would warm me.
“I have a bad feeling, Jack.”
He came to stand in front of me. The wind tousled his hair and played with his coat. Behind him, I saw Ales emerge from the trees. The girl I saw earlier followed at his heels. She had dark black hair and a thick frame, wide shoulders and narrow hips. Her eyes were black and the tattoos on her face looked like a mask. She’s hiding, protecting herself with that, I found myself thinking. Tattoos are armor; they keep the world from seeing what’s beneath them. Her hair was mussed. There was dirt and dried grass on the back of her jacket.
“We’re ready to go,” Jack said to Ales as he approached. “Where did you go with her?”
Ales nodded toward the girl. “She think she knows where you can find the man you’re loo
king for.”
When I looked past the tattoos and heavy, dark eye shadow, I saw someone very young, very scared, and I wondered how many different ways a girl like this had been violated. I felt the urge to wrap my arms around her. But everything about her—her appearance, her attitude—pushed me away.
“How?” I asked, looking at her. She bowed her head, refused to return my gaze.
“She doesn’t speak English,” Ales said. “But she says Kristof Ragan and his brother, Ivan, are like legends here. That they lived here during communism but then went to the U.S. and are now famous and successful businessmen, rich and living in big houses. They send money back to this place. That’s why they have computers and good school-books here.”
The girl kept her eyes to the ground. I had the strong feeling I was being played—whether by the girl or the guide, I couldn’t be sure. But I was just desperate enough to play along.
“Kde?” I asked her. Where? She looked at me, startled. “Prosím,” I said. Please. “Kde je Kristof Ragan?”
26
Kde je Kristof Ragan?
Then there is just this eerie quiet where all I can hear is my own scrambling over the snow, my own labored breathing. Before me a curved cobblestone street, disappearing beneath the falling snow gathering on steps and window frames. Two more shots ring out and I hear a whisper past my left ear and realize it has come that close. I turned to see him, a black tower against the white.
He is unhurried and yet still gaining as I limp, moving slowly uphill past a closed café, a leather shop, a store of children’s clothing. I start pounding on doors, yelling. But the city seems to swallow all sound. No one answers or comes to their door. Up ahead, there are two black iron doors ajar, opening onto a square. I move inside and pull the doors closed behind me. I can’t run anymore. I have to hide.
The wind is captive in the square, howling around the four corners. I edge along the perimeter, trying to walk where no snow has fallen so as not to leave a trail. There is an open door that leads into darkness. I reach it and enter just as I hear the creaking of the door from the street opening. I remember what I said to Jack, I’d rather die in the dark alley than bask a lifetime ignorant in the light. I didn’t mean it.
“Isabel!” he calls. He sounds so even, so measured. He could be calling me to ask if I remembered to buy razors or did I steal his gym socks. But that’s not why he’s calling me. I lean against the cold stone of the wall; the space behind me echoes. I hear water dripping. I am unarmed, trapped. I close my eyes and try to harness my breathing.
“Isabel, let’s talk. I’ll put the gun down.” I peer out the slim opening in the door and see him lay his weapon in the snow, raise his hands into the air. Every instinct in my body screams to stay still, to stay hidden, to move further into the darkness, to hide. But that one question, the one that drives me, the one that is responsible for every bad decision I’ve made over the last few days, forces me forward. Even with all he’s told me, I still don’t have the answer. I still want to know. Why?
I push open the door and it emits a loud groan. He turns to face me and the wind picks up, howls around the courtyard, lifts a flurry of snow. The world is gray and white and black. He looks different, somehow. He has let his hair and his beard grow and it looks darker as a result, closer to brown than the dark blond I was used to seeing. We stand there for a moment, regarding each other. He drops his hands to his side, then stuffs them in his pockets.
I wonder if I look as strange to him as he does to me. I am self-conscious of my tattered clothing, my one shoe. I fold my arms across my chest. He gives me a sad smile.
“Isabel,” he says. “This has always been your problem. You’re too trusting.”
Before I can ask him what he means, he’s pulling another gun from his coat, and all I really see before a white-hot, mind-altering pain in my center is a muzzle flash. The cold of the ground is shocking as I hit it hard and the sky is an impossibly silvery gray. There is another color in the world now. A deep red. The only thing I hear is the muted sound of his footfalls. He’s walking slowly away.
“KDE JE KRISTOF Ragan?”
I hear the sound of my own voice asking that question. Before that, we were still safe. If I hadn’t asked that question and the girl hadn’t answered, I’d probably be on a plane home to New York right now. I feel elevated above the pain, risen high above the fire in my gut. Not far away, I think I hear the sound of gunfire. But I can’t be sure what’s real—it might just be the beating of my heart. I watch the snow fall in big, wet flakes, a starfield through which I’m traveling. The events of the last few hours play back for me.
THE GIRL WITH the tattoos on her face answered Ales in Czech. She spoke softly, quickly. I couldn’t understand her at all.
He nodded and looked at me. “She says she can take you to a place where they’ll know.”
Jack gives me a look; it’s a warning. “This is a bad idea.”
“What does she want?” I asked.
“What does everyone want?” said Ales, lighting another cigarette. “Money. Two hundred U.S.?”
“Fine.”
Jack took hold of my arm, pulled me away from them. “This is crazy. Let’s go. I’m not letting you follow this girl to wherever. Think about it. They’re playing you.”
He looked at Ales, not releasing my arm. I could tell that he’d reached the end of his patience with what he considered a flight of my fancy, a desperate act he’d expected to yield nothing. Now he was afraid. Afraid that I might actually find what I’d come here to find.
“Make her tell us where he is,” he said. “She can still have her money. But we’re not going with you unless she tells us right now where she wants to take us.”
Ales relayed Jack’s words but it seemed to me that the girl understood, was looking at Jack with a sullen resentment. She uttered a curt sentence in Czech.
“There’s a place where they know him. You can get what you want at this place—drugs, guns, whatever,” Ales translated.
“What kind of place?” asked Jack. He was angry now, sounding hostile. His neck was shading red, and a vein was starting to throb next to his eye.
The girl turned, muttered something else to Ales, and then started to walk away. Ales shrugged. “She says forget it. She doesn’t have to help you. She doesn’t want your filthy American money.”
“Good,” said Jack, physically moving me toward the car. “Let’s get out of here.”
He stopped, still holding on to my arm, and looked over at Ales, I suppose remembered that we stupidly let our guide hold the key.
“What about you?” Jack said. “Do you want our filthy American money?”
Ales just looked at him with that same bitterness I saw everywhere overseas these days. He gave a slight nod.
“Then let’s go.”
“Wait!” I yelled after the girl. She was already halfway across the large lawn. She stopped and turned back toward us. I wrested myself from Jack and ran after her.
“Isabel!” Jack called.
“Jack. Please. Wait with the car. I’ll be right back.”
He put his head in his hands, leaned up against the Mercedes. I heard him talking to himself but I didn’t hear what he was saying.
“You speak English,” I said to her. Not a question.
“A little.”
“Can you help me?”
She nodded. “I can help you find him.”
I remember thinking she might have been pretty before all the tattoos, a series of black swirls around her eyes, across her nose, framing her mouth. I wondered how badly it hurt to have your face tattooed, where she’d gotten the money to have it done. She smelled of cigarettes and sex. Was it allowed at the orphanage to do this type of thing to yourself? Were there no counselors? Did no one care? There was something dead to her eyes, something flat and empty like the eyes of a cat. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. Under other circumstances I probably would not have, but desperation made me stupid
.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We returned to the car. Jack and I argued for fifteen minutes, while Ales and the girl looked on from a distance, smoking, smug and superior. Eventually, Jack and I were so angry at each other, there was nothing left to say. We climbed into the car, and a moment later the other two joined us. As the girl climbed in, I noticed that she clutched a small nylon bag.
“Don’t you need to ask someone if you can leave?” I asked her. I glanced over at the building, expecting to see someone come out, ask us where we were taking the girl, but the whole place suddenly had an aura of desertion to it, even though I knew there were plenty of people inside. She gave an unkind little laugh.
“What is your name?” I asked the girl. But she’d gone back to not speaking English, just looked at me blankly.
“Her name is Petra,” said Ales from the front seat. He was pulling from the drive onto the long, winding road we traveled to get here. The sun was sinking; it was late afternoon. And there were no other cars as far as the eye could see ahead or behind us.
“She can just leave the orphanage whenever she wants?” I asked, still fixating on this, wondering if we’d just kidnapped a child.
“She’s not an orphan,” said Ales finally, impatiently. “She doesn’t live there.”
“Then who is she?”
Petra and I sat in the backseat, with Ales and Jack up front. Jack, who had been staring out the window, not talking—sulking—turned to look at our driver.
“Then who is she?” he repeated.
Ales opened his mouth to answer, when the car seemed to lose power, to slow to a crawl, and then silently die. He deftly maneuvered it to the side of the road.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jack, sitting forward. He had a hard, suspicious frown on his face.
“I don’t know,” said Ales. Our guide reached down and pulled a lever and I watched the hood pop open. Jack got out of the car, too, and they were both obscured by the open hood. I moved to exit as well, suddenly feeling that I didn’t want Jack out of my sight. But Petra caught my arm. I looked at her; she was smiling, shaking her head. I saw the gun then.