The Altar Girl: A Prequel

by Orest Stelmach

  “Marko, what kind of job?”

  He appeared to choose his words carefully. “He was doing a deal. He needed someone to watch his back.”

  “Watch his back? What does that mean?”

  “What do you think it means? You’re the college graduate. You need me to write you a definition?”

  “Was it dangerous?”

  He pressed his eyes shut and shook his head with disgust. My interpretation was that I should have known better than to have asked. If it hadn’t been dangerous, there was no reason to inquire. If it had been risky, he couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about any details.

  “At least tell me what kind of deal? What was he into?”

  “His business. The antique business.” He pronounced it “an-ti-q.” “He was delivering a big package to a client at midnight. I met him at his house. He rode shotgun. A few of my boys went ahead to the delivery address and had the place staked out ahead of time.”

  “Where was the delivery?”

  “Avon.”

  Avon was one of the tonier suburbs west of Hartford. Not a place dealers typically needed protection, or one where deliveries were made at night.

  “Big estate,” Marko said. “Lots of stone. Pool, vineyard, the works.”

  “Vineyard?”

  “Maserati in the driveway, though. You can’t trust anyone that drives a Maserati. It pretends to be a Ferrari but it’s not. What does that tell you about the owner?”

  “What was being delivered?”

  “Big crate. Don’t know what was inside. I assume it was some sort of antique.”

  “Big like a table, or an old piece of furniture?”

  “No. Big as in the shape of a mirror.”

  I pictured the wooden box. “Or a painting.”

  Marko shrugged.

  “Did you see the man who took delivery?”

  “What makes you think it was a man?”

  “It was a woman?”

  “In tights, boots, and a ski jacket. Tights. In the dead of winter.”

  “And this was a one-time thing?”

  He nodded. “Never heard from him again.”

  “Then I don’t get it. Why do you say it proved my godfather was a bad man in business, too?”

  “I didn’t say he was a bad man in business. I said he was a complete scumbag in business, too.”

  “I got that. Why?”

  “He tried to sell me on stealing Mama’s jewelry box.”

  His mere mention of the box turned my body temperature up. I pictured its rubies and emeralds. They’d been the catalyst for my trespass against my big brother. My face burned.

  His didn’t. Instead he sat looking out the window again with puffy indignation. That mollified me a bit. Much as my act was unforgivable, his face should have turned an even darker shade of red.

  “That I do not believe,” I said. “There is no way he would have asked you to steal from our mother.”

  “Call it what you want. He took a picture of it when he was visiting her. Must have shown it to a client or something. Said to offer Mama twenty grand for it. Said he’d split the profit with me fifty-fifty. You know he was lowballing. Thing was appraised twenty years ago at what . . . seventy-five grand?”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  The thought occurred to me that my godfather would have made such an offer to my brother only if he thought he was a kindred spirit, someone with the same ethical makeup. But I decided to keep that observation to myself. I also wondered how I could have been blind to my godfather’s true character all those years growing up. But I guess sometimes parents depict a person to be a certain type, and by the time we’re capable of forming our own conclusions, we’ve lost touch with that individual.

  “You ever hear him call someone DP?” I said.

  Marko appeared genuinely flabbergasted. “DP? You mean by someone’s initials?” His frown intensified and his tone took on a note of extreme incredulity. “In English?”

  “Wouldn’t matter if it was someone’s initials . . .”

  “I can’t even remember hearing him speak English. Whenever I was around him it was always Ukes . . .”

  “. . . or if the letters meant something else entirely.”

  “I heard him say hello to that woman that bought the crate, but everything else was hush-hush in the corner—Wait. You mean DP as in Displaced Person?”

  Hearing those words roll off his lips made the hairs on the nape of my neck stand up. “Why? Does that make more sense to you?”

  He burst out laughing. It wasn’t a complimentary chuckle in appreciation for having been entertained. It was a derisive sneer intended to insult and belittle. “Nothing you’ve said since you so rudely walked in here has made any sense. Just as nothing you’ve done in the last ten years has made any sense to me.”

  That made two of us. I felt some pressure behind my eyes and jumped to my feet. It was an instinctive move. An act of emotional preservation. Apparently, my brain was telling me that there was no information worth the humiliation of having Marko see tears in my eyes.

  “Did you ever hear him call anyone by that nickname?” I said. “Could have been a Uke.”

  Marko turned pensive for a moment, as though he were contemplating my question. Then he drained the rest of one of his beers and lit a cigarette. As a plume of smoke twisted into the air, he regarded me with contempt.

  “Ten, twenty years ago, I would have asked you what you’re up to. I would have gone back to your first comment and wondered if Donnie Angel is involved in whatever it is you think you know, and what some DP might have to do with it. I would have wondered if you’re playing Nancy Drew and sticking your nose where it might get cut off. But now, I honestly don’t give a shit.”

  I felt hot and thirsty, as though I might faint any second.

  “No. I never heard him call anyone DP,” Marko said. “Now I’ve done you the favor of answering your questions. Can you do me a favor in return?”

  A ray of hope. Of course I would do him a favor. Short of breaking the law—and even that might not have stopped me—I would have done absolutely anything for him at that moment.

  I tried to form a word but couldn’t. Hope overwhelmed me. The best I could do was nod in the affirmative.

  “Fuck off,” he said.

  Leaving was an out-of-body experience. I didn’t feel any of my limbs. The only sensation I had was of my brain instructing me to put one foot in front of the other, to lift my hand and grasp the door handle, to get out into the parking lot.

  But before I could make my exit, the bitter stench of cigarette smoke filtered through my nostrils. It reminded me of summer camp when I was eight and Marko was a fourteen-year-old counselor. There were rumors that the counselors snuck out to the lake to smoke, but I didn’t think my brother was one of them. One day he returned with the others, and when he put his arm around my shoulders, I smelled the nicotine on his breath. I had to fight back the tears. I assumed that even one cigarette would cause lung cancer, and the thought of my brother dying was unbearable. I walked around depressed for days.

  I never thought I could have felt worse.

  But now I did.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE FLASHES OF light grew brighter as the person approached. The footsteps came rapidly.

  “Who’s there?” Nadia said. She tried to sound tough but knew it came out shaky, the way it did when Mrs. Wall made her stand up and speak in front of the whole class. Everyone laughed.

  No one answered. The footsteps stopped at the perimeter of the camp behind a thicket of trees.

  A voice called back from behind the trees. “Yo, Nancy Drew, how’s things in River Heights?”

  Nadia couldn’t believe her ears. Was that her brother? Marko was the last person she expected and the one she most wanted to see. The sound of his v
oice made her want to jump up and down. “Marko?” she said.

  Marko stepped out from behind the trees, shined a flashlight at his own head, and made a goofy face. “The one and only.”

  Nadia was so happy she wanted to run up to him and jump into his arms, but she didn’t. Their family didn’t do silly things like that. No hugs and kisses and other stupid things that weak people did.

  Marko drew closer. “I said, how’s things, Nancy Drew?”

  “Rough,” she said. “How’s things with you?”

  “’Bout even.”

  “Where’s Father?”

  “Having a reunion with his old friend, Johnny Walker Red. What happened to your fire?”

  Nadia explained that she’d used all her matches the first night, and that the fire had died after she’d left camp to help an injured hiker.

  “You lost your poncho, too?” Marko said, setting the large, square flashlight on its end so that it shone upward.

  “No poncho, no matches, no water, no food.”

  Marko handed her his canteen. She took a long swig while he pulled a box of strike-anywhere matches out of his knapsack.

  “Wait,” Nadia said, placing her left hand on her hip. What the heck was he thinking? “You can’t do that.”

  Marko gave her the flashlight while he added kindling to the ashes. “Do what?”

  “Any of this. You can’t give me any more matches. You can’t help me at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would be cheating.” Nadia stomped her right foot. “I’m not a cheater.”

  “It would be cheating if you went outside of camp and got some matches. Got some water. Stole some food. This, this is not cheating.”

  What a load of crap. “It feels like I’m cheating.”

  “Nancy Drew, I’m tired and it’s dark. So I’m going to light myself a fire here right now and make it a little more comfortable for myself. Is that okay with you? Are you going to deny a brother a fire?”

  Nadia imagined a crackling fire: its warmth, comfort, and security. Marko had a point. She hadn’t asked for help. If he was cold and he needed to warm up, who was she to say no?

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “Good. Then make yourself useful and bring me some firewood. We’ve got to get this thing lit fast because I brought some friends with me. And they’re a bit antsy to come out of hiding.”

  Oh, great, she thought. Had some troublemakers from high school joined him to drink beer and smoke cigarettes? Or had some hippies hooked up with him and brought pot, LSD, or some other drugs? That seemed unlikely, too, except that with her brother, anything was possible.

  Nadia prayed it wasn’t drugs.

  When they were finished building the fire, she sat nervously on a rock. Marko stood before her near the fire with his knapsack in his hands.

  “Ready to meet my friends?” he said.

  Nadia wasn’t sure she was ever going to be ready. Still, she nodded. “Are they in the woods behind you?”

  “Nope,” Marko said, pointing to his knapsack. “They’re in here.”

  “In there? In the knapsack? Oh, no. Don’t tell me you have a dead animal in there. Don’t tell me you’re going to make me eat snake again. That was . . . so gross. It wasn’t like chicken the way you said it would be. It really wasn’t.”

  Marko reached into his bag and pulled out a candy bar. “Say hello to my little friend, Baby Ruth,” he said.

  “Baby Ruth?” The mere mention of chocolate and peanuts brought Nadia to her feet. “You brought Baby Ruth with you?”

  Marko reached into his knapsack again. “And her good friends and protectors, the Three Musketeers.” He pulled two Three Musketeers bars out of his bag.

  “Wow! What a stash!”

  “Hey, I’m not done yet.” Marko overturned his knapsack. Ritz Crackers, Cheez Whiz, Red Devil Chicken Spread, Pop-Tarts, and a six-pack of canned juices fell out of the bag.

  “Oh my God,” Nadia said, as she fell over and almost did a reverse somersault. The fat around her belly kept her from rolling over. When she straightened up, her conscience prodded her. “But it’s cheating, isn’t it?” she said.

  Marko sat down on a rock beside her and opened the Ritz Crackers and the chicken spread.

  “Well, let’s talk about that,” he said. “Your job is to survive in the wilderness for three nights and three days. You’re supposed to live off the land. Does the land include this knapsack and what’s inside it?”

  Nadia shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Of course you do. What, it doesn’t exist? It’s not right here in front of you?”

  “I guess so. But I’m supposed to do this on my own.”

  “You are doing this on your own. You didn’t ask for help. But when someone offers you some food, you have to take it. Because let me tell you something, little sister, and listen good.” Marko stopped spreading chicken on the cracker and looked Nadia in the eyes. “You’re a tough chick. But even a tough chick can’t make it on her own. Everyone needs a little help from somebody every once in a while. Everyone.”

  “Even the Three Musketeers?” Nadia asked, reaching for a candy bar.

  “You bet.”

  They sat beside the fire and ate. Nadia told her brother about the hikers and that she’d used her poncho to create a stretcher for their wounded friend.

  “Good job,” Marko said. “Losing your poncho is not good but you had no choice. That was the right thing to do. I’m proud of you.”

  Nadia wasn’t sure what she enjoyed more. The whipped nougat in the Three Musketeers bar or her brother’s praise. One thing was certain: the combination was unbeatable. She really was going to pass this stupid test, she thought.

  They ate and talked for another hour. Marko told her that he and their father had gone on personal walkabouts before joining up again at their camp, which was half a mile away. During the day, Marko had hiked nine miles to civilization and bought supplies at a 7-Eleven. He’d waited until their father had drunk his fill of scotch and fallen asleep before escaping to check up on Nadia.

  “Oh, I saw Mrs. Chimchak,” Nadia said.

  Marko looked at her as though she were crazy. “Up here? No way. She’s on vacation in Florida.”

  “Uh-uh. She was here. Checking up on me to make sure I was okay.”

  “For real, she was here?”

  “Yeah, yeah. For real. One second I looked up and she was here, next one she was gone. She acted weird. Like, all emotional, you know?”

  “Yeah. I hear you. She doesn’t have any children. You know?”

  Nadia bit into a Baby Ruth. “Yeah, I know.”

  When they were stuffed, Marko poured all his water into Nadia’s canteen and sealed the food in kitchen storage bags.

  “Remember,” he said, “you’re not taking these. I’m leaving them. They’re part of the land. Only a fool won’t live off the land when it’s right there in front of him.”

  Nadia shivered as her brother stood up to leave.

  “I’d give you my poncho,” he said, “but it’s camouflage and yours was puke green. If Father came by and saw it . . .”

  Nadia shrugged. “I don’t need it.” She screwed her face tight and tried to sound as tough as she could. “I don’t need no stinking poncho.”

  Marko laughed. He didn’t laugh or smile too often, but she’d reminded him of one of his favorite movie lines from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Her satisfaction over making Marko laugh, however, quickly gave way to reality.

  He was leaving.

  She wanted him to stay. Better yet, she wanted to go with him, to feel safe and have fun, not be scared alone at night. But she didn’t dare tell him that, lest she disappoint him and make him think she was still a weakling. She had to be strong for him.

  “Thanks fo
r the matches,” she said, trying to pepper her voice with enthusiasm. “And the food. I mean, thanks for putting a lot of good stuff on the land.”

  He turned back and shined the flashlight on his face so she could see him.

  “Keep the whistle close to you. And don’t be afraid to use it. I’ll be around. Not too close, but not too far away.”

  “That’s good to know,” Nadia said, fighting back the tears.

  After he left, Nadia crawled into her sleeping bag and stayed there for twelve hours. She woke up constantly throughout the night, sometimes so hot she had to pop out of her sleeping bag, sometimes so cold she trembled inside it. She thought it was the sugar from the food she’d eaten, but when she woke up the next day some of the fever had stayed with her.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing could bring her down now. When Nadia emerged from her lean-to, the morning sun shone through gaps in the trees. Marko had visited her. Marko had taken care of her. She had water, fire, and food.

  She was certain the worst was behind her.

  CHAPTER 18

  I ATE A late lunch at a Wendy’s in Rocky Hill. It boasted a highly visible parking lot surrounded by the Silas Deane Highway on one side and busy office buildings on the other. I parked near the driveway with the nose of the Porsche facing out. There was no way a van could block my exit or a couple of thugs could kidnap me without attracting attention.

  After devouring a spicy chicken sandwich and a vanilla Frosty—a child’s size, just enough to take the edge off my stress—I called my friend Paul Obon. He ran the Duma Ukrainian bookstore in the Lower East Village of New York. He was my source for information on all things Ukrainian. I needed his help because I knew nothing about post–World War II DP camps in Europe. Our parents and grandparents didn’t discuss them, presumably to protect us from the pain and suffering of their past. But that always struck me as the partial truth. In fact, our elders preferred to keep this part of their lives shrouded in mystery for reasons unknown, or so I’d always thought.

  Obon gave me the basics. After the end of World War II in 1945, five million refugees from the Soviet Union found themselves homeless in Western Europe. The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union signed agreements at the Yalta Conference that required the repatriation of all Allied nationals, by force if necessary. The Soviet refugees consisted of slave labor moved to occupied Western Europe by Hitler, concentration camp survivors, and people who’d fled west during the war.