by Kim Purcell
Sergey passed her and unlocked the door. Inside, the house was really dark. He waved his arm to usher her forward. She stepped past him into the house. The front door banged shut behind her.
It was pitch black. Hannah glanced over at Sergey. He was coming at her, reaching for her neck. She shielded herself with her arms and screamed.
Chapter Four
In the dark, Hannah listened to Sergey’s raspy breathing. He stepped back and cleared his throat.
“I was turning on the light.”
She could smell his sweat. She’d scared him. Her voice came out of her in a whisper: “Okay.”
He reached past her to flick on a switch, lighting up the foyer with a glamorous chandelier. She felt foolish, like when she turned on a light after a nightmare and realized it was a bad dream, nothing more.
Sergey laughed, but it sounded forced to her. “You see?”
She did see. If this was a brothel, it was a brothel for very rich clients. There were no strips of wallpaper peeling off the walls, no cracks in the hallway closet door, no water spots on the ceiling. To her left, there was a large, winding oak staircase to a landing where she could see an enormous bouquet of what she knew were fake flowers because otherwise she’d smell them. Past the foyer, she could see an enormous living room with wall-to-wall white carpeting, a large white sofa and armchair, two matching glass end tables, and a glass coffee table with gold legs. On the far wall, there was a black entertainment center, huge speakers, and a gigantic flat-screen television.
All that white furniture would turn black with two children running around, but it didn’t have a single mark on it. “Where are your children?” she asked in a high-pitched voice.
“They are coming now.” He glanced at the front door, as if he wished they would appear at that moment. “They were at a friend’s house with their mother.”
“Oh.” She looked around furtively for toys or something that would belong to a child.
“You can find some slippers in there, I think.” He waved at the hall closet but kept his distance as if he were afraid to get too close.
She took off her black dress shoes, opened the closet, and crouched down to place them on the mahogany rack beside the other shoes, which were lined up perfectly, toes in, heels toward her. And then she saw them. Tiny blue running shoes and pink sandals with little flowers on them. Slowly, she stood up.
Sergey kicked his shoes off into the closet, not bothering to place them on the shoe rack. She noticed he was wearing clean black socks without holes. Socks told a lot about a person.
She was so embarrassed, acting like a fool, screaming at this nice man. Not all men were like that bad agent. “I haven’t slept for almost two days,” she rushed, trying to explain herself. “There was a television playing for the entire overnight bus trip from Chişinău to Bucharest.” It had played episodes of the popular Russian soap opera My Beautiful Nanny, in which the nanny falls in love with the father, so she didn’t tell him what she was watching. “And of course I couldn’t sleep on the airplane.” She wanted to say that she was sorry she’d screamed, but it was so embarrassing now that she hoped he’d just forget it.
He laughed good-naturedly. “I remember those televisions. So loud. You can never get anyone to turn them off.”
At least he didn’t seem to be holding her erratic behavior against her. She reached in the closet for a fluffy pair of pink slippers. “Your wife won’t mind if I use these?” she asked.
It was customary in Moldova to have extra slippers on hand for guests, but she didn’t know which ones were for guests and which ones belonged to his wife.
“Go ahead, she’s not an ogre,” he said.
That was a strange thing to say, Hannah thought, sliding her feet into the slippers. They looked new. Maybe there was an older pair.
“I have to get changed for dinner.” Sergey gestured to the living room. “You can sit.”
With that, he hurried up a curved oak staircase off the foyer. Hannah stood at the arched entrance to the living room, hesitating. The white leather sofa was so pristine.
A car engine sounded outside. She knew she should wait, but she was curious. She opened the front door and peeked outside. A large navy blue SUV was coming up the driveway. A blonde woman gripped the steering wheel, beautiful in her stoniness. In the backseat were two children. Hannah squinted at the shield on the grille of the car. Was that a Cadillac? Her father would have loved seeing all the cars here.
Hannah stepped back inside the house and closed the door, her heart beating faster now. She felt awkward in this woman’s house with her husband upstairs before she’d even met her. It was a backward way of doing things and felt wrong somehow.
One of the car’s doors opened and then another, and Hannah heard a shout and little-person shoes running up the outside steps. A curly-haired blond boy, around two years old, burst through the door and stopped just before he slammed into Hannah. He looked up, feet planted together, and stared into her face, his large blue eyes widening.
“Privyet,” Hannah said, “hello” in Russian.
He let out a loud, terrified scream.
She stepped back. “Ah!” she cried. The little boy ran out.
“Ah-yai-yai, zaitchik,” the mother said in Russian at the bottom of the steps outside, softly, calling him a little rabbit. Hannah smiled. Her own mother used to call her that too. The woman strode into the house, holding the boy, whose face was buried in her bouncing honey-blonde hair. The woman’s nose was one of those perfect noses, not too long like Hannah’s. It had no bumps or curves, and the nostrils were evenly shaped. Hannah chose not to see this as a bad sign, because the woman was smiling and she had the most beautiful hazel eyes with specks of amber in them, and laugh wrinkles in the corners. She looked American, not Russian at all, Hannah thought. She wore little makeup, just some mascara and pale pink lipstick. Her yellow blouse was tucked into jeans with a shiny black belt cinched in tightly; black heels matched the belt, and she had a short yellow silk scarf tied around her neck like a movie star.
The mother ran her hand over the little boy’s curly hair. “I see you have met Michael. He’ll warm up, don’t worry,” she said in Russian. Then she held out her hand to shake Hannah’s. “I’m Lillian.” Even though she spoke in Russian, she used the American version of Liliya.
Hannah reached out her hand and tried to squeeze tightly, as Sergey had shaken her hand earlier, but Lillian’s handshake was like squeezing bread dough.
“You must be tired from your trip,” Lillian said, examining her with the kind of sharp eyes that were perfect for a doctor. “Would you like to have a shower?”
Hannah knew her body was casting off waves of sour odor—she could barely stand herself. “Yes, please, if it’s all right with you, ma’am, I would like that,” she said, using the polite form of “you” in Russian.
“Don’t be so formal,” Lillian said, meaning she should use the familiar form. They were so much friendlier than she’d thought they’d be. It was a tremendous relief after all the warnings from people back home.
A girl of around eight or nine marched through the front door. She had hazel eyes just like her mother, and her dark hair was pulled back with two matching fabric barrettes. “Do you like rap music?” the girl demanded in English.
“Uh,” Hannah stammered, “y-yes.” This girl was so American. It was hard to say why Hannah thought this; maybe it was the relaxed but emphatic way the girl moved her body, or maybe it was her casual yet expensive-looking clothing: jeans and a green shirt with a large ragged purple flower sewn on the front. Hannah hoped this girl was less spoiled and more disciplined than the American children she’d seen on television.
“This is our daughter, Maggie,” Lillian said in Russian, and then chastised Maggie. “No English. Elena doesn’t speak English.” Hannah wanted
to correct her about the name, but it wouldn’t be polite in front of her children.
Hannah switched to English. “It is nice to meeting you, Maggie.”
“I’m eight—how old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
Lillian rested a soft hand on Hannah’s arm. “Russian only, please.”
Hannah looked at Lillian, alarmed that she’d already done something wrong, and switched back to Russian. “Of course.”
“She gets so much English in school,” Lillian explained. “I’m afraid she’ll lose her native tongue. We speak only Russian at home.”
Only Russian? She hadn’t come to America to speak only Russian, and clearly the girl preferred English.
“Sergey!” Lillian called.
Sergey came into the entranceway and took a pair of black dress shoes from the closet. “Ready?” he asked his wife.
Lillian rolled her eyes in frustration. “We can’t go.”
“Why not?”
She gestured at the little boy, who was still burying his head in her neck. “We can’t leave Michael with her yet. He’s scared of her. You know how he is.”
Hannah felt terrible that she’d already scared the boy. She’d never been the girl with swarms of children around her. The one time she babysat for her cousin’s baby, it was a disaster. The baby cried for three hours straight.
“Come on, Lily.” He gave her a look of exasperation. “I’m starving.”
“There will be plenty of time for us to go out once he’s used to her. Why don’t we take him and pick up food? Michael can fall asleep in the car and the girl can take a shower.”
Hannah pressed her arms harder against her sides and wished she’d taken a moment to run into the bathroom when she first arrived at the house. Lillian probably thought she always smelled this bad.
“I’m staying,” Maggie said, planting her hands on her hips.
“Fine. You can show her around,” Lillian said, then turned to Hannah. “Don’t give her any candy. It’s too late and it will go to her brain.”
“Mo-om.”
“Russian, Maggie,” she said.
Sergey picked up Michael and walked out the door with him. Lillian shook her finger at Hannah and Maggie. “Be good,” she said, then closed the door.
Maggie looked up at Hannah and grinned.
Chapter Five
“You want to see my room?” Maggie spoke English with a perfect American accent. “My mom just had it redecorated.”
Hannah nodded, even though she had no idea what Maggie was talking about.
“Come on.” Maggie grabbed her hand and tugged her up the spiral oak staircase.
“Your mother said we have to speak Russian,” Hannah reminded her in Russian, though she was secretly glad Maggie seemed willing to break the rules.
“She said you can’t speak English, remember?” Maggie said in English, glancing back, her hazel eyes sparkling wickedly. “She didn’t say I couldn’t.”
“True.” Hannah decided to stick to Russian for now, at least until the family was used to her.
At the top of the stairs, Maggie pulled her down a hall with a long, expensive-looking Oriental rug, threw open the door to her bedroom, and flung her arms out. “Ta-da!”
She had a real pink princess room, the kind of room girls in Moldova only saw in American movies. In the center of the room there was a pink canopy bed with sheer pink curtains around the outside, and cozy white pillows and a white duvet inside. And one entire wall was filled with small, pink wooden cubes, each holding a separate doll—there had to be at least fifty of them. It was the biggest doll collection Hannah had ever seen.
“Wow,” Hannah said, in English, entranced. She walked across the room and reached for a particularly old doll, maybe even an antique. The doll had pink cheeks and thick blonde hair, curled under and stitched in at the scalp, and a frilly yellow dress that looked handmade.
“Don’t touch that!” Maggie screeched in Russian.
Hannah pulled away her hand fast, as if the doll had burned her. “Why?”
Maggie continued in Russian, “You can’t move them.”
“You don’t play with them?”
“I play with them, but I have to put them back in the right cube, and if you mix them up, it’s going to take me ages to figure it out, and they can’t be messed up.” She blinked her bright hazel eyes, obviously upset, though Hannah still didn’t understand why.
“They’re only dolls,” Hannah said.
“My mom doesn’t like it.”
But everyone’s house got messy. Hannah thought of the piles of junk they’d had on the balcony of their old apartment back home.
“I’ll show you my brother’s room.” Maggie grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the room.
“He has his own room?” That was strange. In Moldova, all small children slept with or near their parents.
Michael’s room was painted dark blue with a poster of a red Porsche on the wall, and he had his own television and DVD player, like an American teenager.
Maggie waved at a room down the hall. “That’s my parents’ room.”
Hannah glanced through the open door at the biggest bed she’d ever seen. She wondered where she was going to sleep.
“That’s my father’s office,” Maggie said, pointing at a closed door. “You’re not allowed to go in there.”
“Why not?” Hannah said.
The door looked like an outside door; it was the kind that locked with a key. She’d never heard of such a room inside a house.
“You’ll get in trouble,” Maggie said.
“No one is allowed to go in?” Hannah asked.
“My mother just said you’re not, in case it’s not locked.” Maggie blinked her long, dark eyelashes. “But my father doesn’t usually let me and Michael come in either.”
Next to the office, there was a small, pretty room with a single bed covered with a red and yellow flowery bedspread. Hannah paused at the doorway. “Is this my room?” she asked, figuring it must be, since it was the only room left.
“You’re going to sleep in the playroom downstairs.” Maggie tugged her past the pretty room and down the elegant staircase. “Well, it was a garage and now it’s a playroom.” That explained why Sergey didn’t park in the garage, Hannah thought. Maggie switched back to English. “Cool, huh?”
Hannah nodded, though she’d never been in a playroom, and she didn’t really want to sleep in a garage.
“Come on. I’ll show you the kitchen,” Maggie said, dragging her the opposite way down the hall.
“That’s the bathroom.” Maggie waved at a closed door next to the kitchen.
Hannah realized she was desperate to pee. She’d been holding it for too long. “Wait,” she said. “I have to use the bathroom.”
“I’m hungry,” Maggie said.
“I’ll be fast.”
Hannah grabbed her suitcase from the front door, walked down the hall, and went into the bathroom, which she knew her mamulya would love. She’d always wanted a nicer bathroom. Hannah could imagine her mother clapping her on the back, saying, Good for you, Hannah. Mamulya had never been one of those people who were happiest when they were miserable. She’d go on about the crisp white tiles and hot water, and she’d laugh with delight at the white American toilet paper. Moldovan toilet paper was brown and stretchy so that ten inches could be expanded to twenty if you were desperate.
Hannah locked the door and sat down on the toilet, amazed at how much extra space she had for her legs. In her old apartment, they had a separate small room for the toilet, and her father used to complain that he couldn’t even sit down without his knees banging against the door.
“Hurry,” Maggie said in English, leaning against the door. “I’m hung
ry!”
Hannah stood up, undressed, and folded her dirty clothes beside the sink. Her body was sore from what had happened in the taxi before she got on the flight, and when she looked at herself in the clear mirror, and inspected the damage, she felt the horror of it rush upon her like a blast of city wind filled with the debris of the street. She shook her head. No. She would not think of it.
Taking in a shaky breath, she glanced at the huge bathtub. A nice, long bath was just what she needed, but she’d have to wait. Instead, she washed herself off in the sink and then used one of the hanging green towels with lace to dry herself.
Maggie’s body banged on the door and Hannah panicked that she was going to burst in while she was naked. Quickly, she pulled on a fresh pair of underwear and her other bra, which had a tear in the front, but at least it was clean. Maggie let out a long, low groan.
“One more minute,” Hannah called, as she took her toothbrush and toothpaste out of her makeup bag and brushed her teeth.
“Are you taking a bath?” Maggie called back through the door in English. When Hannah didn’t answer immediately, she asked the same question in Russian. Hannah noticed her Russian didn’t seem quite as fluent as her English.
Hannah spit out the toothpaste. “I’m just washing up.”
“Don’t use the towels with lace,” Maggie called. “They’re for decoration.”
The lacy green towel was now wet and wrinkled. Hannah smoothed it out, hoping it would dry before the parents got home. When she stepped out of the bathroom wearing her new American jeans and the green button-up shirt that matched her eyes, Maggie looked her up and down, examining her. “Cool shirt. Come on. I’m starving to death.”
Carrying her suitcase, Hannah followed Maggie into the largest kitchen she’d ever seen. It had slick granite countertops, new wooden cabinets, a central island, shiny silver appliances, and pristine white tile floors. They even had a dishwasher! She couldn’t wait to tell Katya.
Even Katya’s family didn’t have a dishwasher, and they had the nicest kitchen Hannah had ever seen, with cupboards her mother had ordered from Italy. You could put wet plates on the bottom shelf and the water dripped down into the sink. Very high-tech. But Katya would be impressed with this kitchen for sure. Hannah’s family’s apartment was rented, so it had old cupboards with fading varnish, peeling wallpaper, and a small counter with a crack running through it. Their kitchen was always clean, though, and the dishes were put away, even though many of them were cracked. Somehow, Hannah doubted this family had cracked dishes.