Trafficked

by Kim Purcell

  “Yes.” She hadn’t thought wearing cutoff shorts would attract more attention. The sweatpants Lillian had bought her were two sizes too big and would fall off if she ran in them. “I no have many clothes.”

  He stared at her as if something was bothering him. Finally, he said, “Prostitution is against the law.” He looked behind her. “Where’s your pimp?”

  She didn’t know the word “pimp,” but she understood what “prostitution” was. It was almost the same in Russian. “I am not prostitution.” She felt insulted. She wasn’t wearing the clothing of a prostitute—she was wearing the only shorts she had, walking shoes, and her monkey T-shirt. Prostitutes definitely didn’t wear walking shoes—they’d have heels on.

  He gave her a firm look. “I don’t want to see you in the streets,” he said. “That’s all. You’re a young girl. Go home.” Then he headed back to the police car.

  Go home. Wouldn’t that be nice. She didn’t even know what home was anymore.

  He got into the police car and drove off. She let out a shaky breath and ran back toward the house.

  Twenty minutes later, she opened the gate. Her face was red-hot and her chest and throat burned from breathing so hard. It was a beautiful feeling. She hurried along the walkway, pushed open the slat in the fence, and peeked into Colin’s room.

  He was sitting on his bed, drawing in his sketchbook. By his feet, at the end of the bed, there was a pile of balled-up paper, a giant bottle of Coke, and an empty bag of tortilla chips. He was wearing one of his large football jerseys and a pair of basketball shorts, his standard home clothes. To school, he often wore very baggy jeans that hung down low like he was a rapper and made him look larger than he was.

  She wished she could see what Colin was drawing, but the sketchbook was resting on his knees, tilted up. He stopped drawing and swore. Then he ripped the page out, balled it up, and chucked it across the room.

  “What are you doing?” Lillian was standing there, looking down the walkway at her. Hannah hadn’t even heard her come out of the house. Lillian was wearing a sheer white nightgown, which shimmered in the light from the back porch. She was all angles and shadow. Her cheekbones looked hollow and her eye sockets looked ghostly.

  Hannah hurried toward her, hoping she wouldn’t see the broken slat in the fence.

  “Are you meeting someone back here?” Lillian asked.

  “No.” Hannah came forward, into the light, still panting from the run.

  “You’re sweating. What were you doing?” Lillian was getting hysterical.

  “I went for a run,” Hannah said, lifting her chin up. It was perfectly legitimate. Lillian didn’t need to know about the letters.

  “A run?” Lillian screeched, as if she’d never heard the word, and then looked behind her, as if trying to find someone.

  “I went running down Santa Monica Boulevard. I need exercise.”

  “Do you really think I’m going to believe you went for a run? Shlyuha!” Lillian said “slut” so loudly, Hannah was sure Colin had heard. “You’re meeting someone.”

  “Who would I meet?” Hannah asked, trying to get past her. “Is Sergey not home? Is that the problem? You think I’m meeting him?”

  “Of course not.” Lillian pressed her lips together. “Maybe you met someone at the Russian shop or the bus. You probably go to meet him every night. This is why you are so slow in the day. Because you are tired.”

  “I’m not like that,” Hannah said. “I would never—”

  “Do you know what the police will do to you? Have you heard what the jails are like? If they catch you, you have no rights. You are not a citizen. They put you in with the men and they rape you. They’ll let you rot in prison.”

  Hannah thought about her close call with the police. “This is the only time I’ve gone out, and nothing happened.”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ve heard you out here before.”

  “I bring the garbage,” Hannah said, her heart beating fast. “Today I decided to go running. You never said I couldn’t run. I figured that nobody would see me if I ran late at night.”

  “You think you can lie to me? You’re wearing tight jean shorts for running.”

  “I have nothing else to wear,” Hannah said.

  “Whore! Nobody goes for a run at midnight. Tell me the truth and I won’t punish you.”

  Hannah stared into Lillian’s sharp hazel eyes. She was right, of course. Hannah had mailed her letters. If she told her, at least Lillian wouldn’t think she was meeting some strange man to have sex in the middle of the night, but she didn’t owe her anything.

  “You’re meeting the boy next door, aren’t you?” Lillian asked.

  Hannah’s eyes darted toward the fence before she could stop herself. “No.”

  “Really?” Lillian looked at her. “His mother asked about you the other day. She said the boy had met you on the bus, that you were welcome to come over anytime. Naive American. She doesn’t know you’re having sex with him in the backyard like a whore.”

  “I am not a whore,” Hannah spat, brushing past her. Punish me and you’ll regret it.

  She marched toward the back door, expecting Lillian to chase her, but when she reached the back door, she glanced back. Lillian had gone down the walkway to look at the fence.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The next morning, at the breakfast table, Lillian told Sergey about the broken fence.

  “I’ll fix it,” he murmured, still reading his paper.

  Hannah was at the stove, frying up some thickly sliced ham. She squished the ham down with the spatula and it sprayed up fat, sizzling angrily.

  “I caught Hannah outside last night,” Lillian continued.

  He looked up, surprised.

  “She claims she was running. After midnight.” Lillian laughed and kept her voice light, even though Hannah could hear the tension behind her words. “I think she went out to meet a boyfriend. Maybe the boy next door. Though he’s like one of those pink pigs they put on a stick.” She laughed. “It’s disgusting to think of, really.”

  Hannah glared, forcing her lips together so she didn’t tell Lillian what she thought of her.

  “You have a boyfriend?” Maggie asked Hannah, amazed.

  “No,” she said, then looked back at Lillian. “I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t want one either. I was running. I used to love running. When I was a child.”

  “You’re no child,” Lillian said, laughing again. “She went running in tight jean cutoffs.” Lillian raised her eyebrows at Sergey. Was she trying to see if this upset him?

  “They’re all I have,” Hannah said. “I’m not meeting anyone.”

  Sergey stared into Hannah’s eyes, as if he cared about the truth, and then nodded briefly. “Let her run.”

  “What?” Lillian asked. “Do you know what you’re saying? No, she can’t run.” Lillian looked at Hannah to make sure she understood who was the boss.

  Hannah knew well enough.

  “Mommy, you have to look at this collage I did in my art studio class,” Maggie said suddenly. “We used dried fruit peelings to create a picture. I made a butterfly.” Hannah wondered if she was trying to distract her mother or if she was just bored with the conversation.

  Lillian looked away from Hannah, toward Maggie, who pointed at a spot above the kitchen table. “I think you should hang it right there.”

  Hannah could just imagine old, dried fruit hanging on Lillian’s pristine wall.

  “Fruit peelings?” Lillian sounded horrified.

  “It’s really cool,” Maggie said, blinking. “Roberta’s mom put hers on their wall.”

  “Uh, I would like to see it,” Lillian managed.

  Hannah held back a smile. She loved that girl.

  Sergey stoo
d up. “Has anyone seen my keys? I can’t find them.”

  “When did you have them?” Lillian asked quickly, pouring herself more tea.

  “Last night.” Sergey looked down at Michael. “Anybody play with my keys?”

  “No, Daddy,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t play with your keys.”

  Sergey patted his head. “I have a lunch meeting. I’ll be back later.”

  “Don’t bother,” Lillian murmured, grabbing her tea.

  Sergey ignored her comment and bent down to kiss Maggie’s forehead. “Good-bye, my cherry blossom.”

  Maggie looked up, her hazel eyes widening. “You’re coming back later, right?”

  “Of course.” He smiled and his face creased into a million lines—it was the most open smile he had, the one he reserved for his daughter, and it always reminded Hannah of how her own father used to look at her. He patted her head and walked out of the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, the front door shut behind him. If Hannah could find the keys, she could get into Sergey’s office without anyone knowing. She knew she’d be able to find out more if she could just get in there—maybe even find the plane ticket. It was an open-ended ticket, good for up to one year, which meant Hannah could go home anytime. She still had her fake passport. The student visa had expired, but she didn’t need it to get out of the country, only to enter. She’d need about fifty dollars to get back to Chişinău from Romania. If things got really bad here, she could leave, and she would. Just watch them try to stop her.

  The keys weren’t in the pockets of his jeans or in his jackets. They weren’t under their bed. Michael had said he didn’t have them, but he did love keys. She decided to ask him casually, when Lillian wasn’t around. He was more likely to tell her than his parents.

  That afternoon, Hannah picked up the trains strewn around the living room and grabbed Michael’s hand.

  “Nap time.” Upstairs, she read him a short Russian book, tucked him in his bed, and then she whispered, “Were you playing with your father’s keys today?”

  He looked up at her with his big blue eyes. “No.”

  Best to try a different tactic. “Did you play any games with Papulya this morning?”

  “I was jumping on him!” Michael covered his mouth with his hand and giggled.

  “Where?”

  “On the sofa,” he said.

  Hannah’s belly tightened with excitement. The keys must have fallen out of his pocket.

  Once Michael had fallen asleep for his nap, she went downstairs to the white leather sofa and reached her hand between the leather cushions. She felt the cold hard metal of keys. Her breath stopped. They were right there! But Lillian was studying in the kitchen, just around the corner. It was too risky. Lillian would hear them.

  She popped her head around the corner. “Can I vacuum?” she asked Lillian, even though she’d already vacuumed downstairs. It would be the only way to hide the sound of the keys jingling. “There are some wood splinters from the train set.”

  If Lillian came to look, she’d be in trouble, but Lillian said, “Yes, stop interrupting me.”

  Hannah took the vacuum out of the hall closet and turned it on. Standing by the sofa, she dove her hand between the cushions, grabbed the keys, and shoved them in the front pocket of her gray sweatshirt. She turned off the vacuum and made her way upstairs.

  At the door to the office, Hannah pulled the keys from her pocket. They jingled and she froze. Lillian was only just downstairs, in the kitchen, where she could hear footsteps upstairs, but Hannah had to try. She unlocked the door to the office, hurried inside, and shut it behind her.

  Michael made a noise in the other room and Hannah remembered she didn’t have much time. He could wake up any minute.

  She glanced toward the bookshelf. Documents could be hidden in the books—she’d heard of people doing that. But then, she noticed the dust on the shelf in front of the books. If he’d moved any of them recently, the dust would be cleared away in that spot, which meant that the plane ticket was probably in one of the desk drawers.

  Slowly, she slid open the drawers but found only pens and papers and receipts. No airplane ticket. She went to the file cabinet. Locked. There were only four keys on Sergey’s key ring—two car keys, one front door key, and the office key. He had to have the file cabinet key hidden somewhere.

  She checked under the desk, on the floor, on top of the bookshelf. Ugh. Nothing. She lifted up the two yellow lined papers on top of his desk, thinking the key might be under them, but it wasn’t. She looked down at the papers she was holding, curious. He had messy handwriting. A check for over eleven thousand dollars was paper-clipped to the bottom sheet. The papers had a bunch of names and some phone numbers, some supplies, but nothing she recognized. It was as if it had been written in code just like the other paper. There were numbers and some large words she didn’t know, scientific language. Nothing about Tiraspol. And then she saw something she recognized: AK-47.

  She sucked in a quick breath. Wasn’t that a machine gun? It was some kind of gun, for sure. Did he import them? Or maybe he exported them?

  “Hannah!” Lillian was calling from downstairs.

  She dropped the paper with the check onto the desk, under the other one, just the way she thought it had been.

  On impulse, she grabbed Anna Karenina in English from the bookshelf and shoved it into the front pocket of her sweatshirt before she ran out of the room and locked the door.

  Behind her, Hannah heard a doorknob turning. Michael was up. He banged on his door. Fortunately, he couldn’t open it yet by himself.

  “Hannah, where are you?” Lillian called again.

  “I’m coming! Michael just woke up,” Hannah yelled, shoving the keys in her pocket. She’d sneak them between the cushions on the sofa later and then “find” them when Lillian was right there. She opened Michael’s door, picked him up, and threw the book in his closet, planning to grab it later. His eyes followed it curiously, but he didn’t say anything. He probably thought she was just cleaning up.

  “Hannah!” Lillian called again.

  She rushed down the stairs.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Hannah stepped out of the hot kitchen onto the back steps and breathed in the smell of turkey cooking next door. Her neck ached from looking down at a chopping board and stuffing the pelmeni with potatoes, meat, and sour cream. She could never get the edges of the ravioli-like pasta pinched together just right, and she’d had to make a second batch when the meat oozed out.

  She’d be thankful when Thanksgiving was over, she thought ruefully, but the hardest part hadn’t even begun. Paavo and Rena were due any minute.

  She’d made eleven dishes total, an uneven number for good luck, and not one of them was turkey or mashed potatoes or corn. It would have been nice to have a real American Thanksgiving meal, Hannah thought, maybe even go over to the neighbor’s house and sit at their little yellow table in the kitchen. But Lillian had declared that they were Russian and they would celebrate this day Russian style.

  Amazingly, Michael hadn’t messed up the house. He’d watched television for eight hours straight so she could cook.

  “Smells delicious,” Sergey said from the kitchen.

  She stepped back into the kitchen and grinned at him, wiping her sweaty hair off her brow. “Thank you,” she said, coming up beside him at the counter, where he was drinking a glass of water. He gazed into her eyes over the top of the glass. For once, she didn’t look away.

  He was tanned and quite handsome, for an older man. He was wearing a gray suit and a white shirt with no tie, a look she’d always liked. He put the glass down and smiled at her.

  “Thank you for all your hard work.” He reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear before heading into the dining room—it was a fatherly
kind of gesture, but one he wouldn’t have done had Lillian been in the room. Sometimes she caught him looking at her with this odd mixture of sadness and desire. She probably should discourage his random touches, she thought with a sense of guilt. Though it wasn’t really anything, and it felt nice. She missed physical touch: Katya’s arm in hers as they walked down the street, Babulya’s thick, cozy body pressed against hers as they watched their blurry television, Daniil’s warm lips kissing her ear.

  The timer on the oven went off and Hannah bent down to take the salmon out as Lillian came into the kitchen, wearing a navy blue dress that tied around the neck, leaving her back exposed. It was a beautiful color on her, but she looked frail in it, as if she’d lost weight since she bought it.

  As Hannah pulled out the salmon, Lillian strode past her to inspect the dining room.

  A minute later, she was back with the butter dish in her hands.

  “What is this mess?” she demanded.

  There was a fresh stick of butter next to a clump of soft butter from the night before.

  “I didn’t want to waste it,” Hannah explained, nervously.

  “This is not how it should be for company. You throw out the old butter and put the stick on a fresh, clean dish.” She thrust it at Hannah. “Do it right.”

  “Lilichka,” Sergey said, wrapping his arm around Lillian’s shoulders. “You look beautiful.” He kissed her cheek, but she turned away. He cleared his throat. “Aren’t you concerned about the flowers, my love?” The house was filled with bouquets of pink and red roses in every room, in odd numbers for good luck.

  “What?” Lillian’s eyes widened.

  “He’s allergic.”

  “You didn’t tell me he was allergic to flowers. Just dust.”

  Sergey winced. “It’s everything.”

  Lillian let out an exasperated groan, ran into the kitchen, grabbed a garbage bag, and tossed it at Hannah. “Throw them away.”

  “All of them?” Hannah had seen the flower bill. Lillian had spent over three hundred dollars. What a waste. Besides, she’d have to clean out all the vases and there wasn’t time. “Why don’t I put all the vases outside on the deck?” Hannah asked. “It’ll be faster. And pretty when you look in the backyard.”