by Kim Purcell
Hannah pressed her palm against her burning skin. Her eye watered from the pain on that side of her face. Lillian had never hit her before. She’d grabbed her and cut off her hair, but not this. Hannah had no idea she was so strong.
“Mommy!” Michael wailed.
“Shhh, my rabbit,” Lillian said. She bent down, spit on her fingers, and tried to wipe off his face.
The officer came up to Hannah, who was still holding her face. His brown eyes were flashing with fury. “Did she just hit you?”
Hannah stared at him, frightened.
“Do you want to press charges?” he asked.
Press charges? Hannah thought that meant she could go to jail. He seemed really angry. She burst into tears. “I sorry,” she said in English. “I trying to help.”
“Don’t talk,” Lillian said softly in Russian, like she was saying something kind to Hannah, and she even ran her hand over Hannah’s head, which would have looked kind from the outside, but Hannah knew she was trying to smooth her hair down somehow. She wondered where her hat had gone.
Lillian smiled at Hannah, then widened her eyes at her. A warning. She turned to the officer, switching to English. “We are okay. She is my niece. She is seventeen. We are guardians.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re her guardian; you can’t hit her.” He glared at Lillian with ill-disguised contempt, then turned back to Hannah, his dark eyes softening now with compassion. “Do you want to press charges? It’s assault.”
“Tell him no,” Lillian said in Russian. “Tell him I didn’t hit you.”
Finally, Hannah understood. He was angry because Lillian had hit her. Hannah wondered if Lillian could go to jail for slapping her. In Moldova, the police would laugh at you for complaining about something like that. But maybe police here were different—maybe he could really help her. She thought of the police officer who’d brought Colin home and the other one who’d stopped her on the street. They seemed to care.
She hesitated. The officer looked away from her eyes, up to her mutilated hair; maybe he was thinking that it didn’t look like something she’d done herself. Hannah saw the white sun hat on the ground a few feet away. It must have fallen when Lillian hit her.
“You want to go to jail?” Lillian asked her in Russian. “He doesn’t know you’re illegal. If he did, you’d be in handcuffs already.”
She was right—he couldn’t know. But Lillian did seem nervous. Maybe the laws were different here. Maybe she wouldn’t go to jail.
“Do you know what we can do to your family?” Lillian hissed. “To your precious uncle?”
Gulping down her fear, she answered the officer in English, “I am okay. She no hit me.”
“Your cheek is red.” The officer stepped forward.
“I fall.”
“What did she say to you?” he asked.
Hannah shook her head fast. “She is aunt. She is scared for children.”
“I going to call their father,” Lillian said. “He is worrying.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t witness it.” The officer gave Lillian a long look.
“I am sorry for trouble.” Lillian actually looked contrite. Her eyes were even a little glassy, as though she were about to cry. Hannah had no idea she was such a good actress. “I am good mother. I think she take my children, maybe do something to them. She have problems. She is poor girl in Russia. We bring her here, we try to help her.”
Hannah’s mouth dropped open. Lillian was saying Hannah had problems, but that she herself was a good mother. Liar. The officer was staring at Lillian, like he didn’t believe her.
Lillian wrapped her arm around Hannah’s back and squeezed her shoulder. “Elena is a good girl. We love her, but she has to learn more. It is hard to living in America.”
He nodded. “Be gentle with her. Everyone makes mistakes.”
Hannah thought of Vladi and forced herself to smile. “She is good aunt.”
Lillian gave her another side hug.
He looked back and forth between the two of them, adjusted his police hat, and finally said, “Well, you take care.” He turned and strode toward his police car.
Maggie ran out of the school, looking at Hannah the whole time, her eyes big and scared, and for a moment, Hannah thought she was coming to hug her and say she was sorry.
“Are you okay?” Hannah asked her.
Maggie glanced at her mother, and instead of giving Hannah the hug she was expecting, Maggie ducked down and reached into the stroller for the doll Hannah had wrapped up. Her teacher stepped out of the school and Maggie ran back to him.
At the door, Maggie spun around and yelled in English, “Mom, I don’t have a present for Mr. Barnes.” Hannah wondered if she was embarrassed about being Russian.
The teacher waved a hand in the air. “Oh, you don’t have to—”
“We have it in home,” Lillian said in English, her voice as sweet as blackberry jam. “I bring it when I am coming.”
The police car drove off.
“Okay,” Maggie said. “Bye, Mommy.” She didn’t even look at Hannah.
“Good-bye.” Lillian put on her fake smile. “Sorry for trouble, Mr. Barnes.”
“Take care,” the teacher said, waving before they disappeared inside.
Lillian bent down and snatched up the white sun hat. “Walk,” she said, pushing Michael in the stroller.
Hannah walked beside them, uncertain what she could do to make things better, or at least not make things worse. She felt invisible. If Lillian drove her straight to Paavo, and he stuck her into some horrible brothel, nobody would care. Michael and Maggie would forget her in a week. In the end, children always sided with their parents.
The Cadillac SUV let out its cheerful beep as the doors unlocked. Hannah had loved that sound the first time she heard it, but now it depressed her.
Lillian put Michael in the car, folded the stroller, and heaved it in the trunk. “Get in the backseat. I can’t stand to look at you.”
Chapter Forty-seven
Back at the house, Lillian jammed the Cadillac into park before it had fully stopped, causing the vehicle to jerk and let out a crunching noise. She swore and jumped out of the car. Hannah unbuckled the straps of Michael’s car seat.
Lillian opened the back door. “Did she make you eat a dirty ice pop?”
Michael nodded, his big blue eyes wide.
For months, Hannah had read to him, hugged him when he got hurt, made his favorite snacks, played blocks and trucks with him for endless hours. And this was what she got back.
Lillian picked him up and walked away from the car, calling behind her, “Hannah, I don’t know why you’re still in the car. Get inside.”
At that moment, the front door of the neighbor’s house opened. Colin trotted down the steps and walked toward his mom’s old red car, farther up the driveway, closer to his house than the Cadillac. Hannah could see the back of his mom’s curly blonde hair and her hands holding the steering wheel. The engine was on, so they were leaving. Hannah figured the safest thing to do would be to stay in the car, so they didn’t know she was there. She shrank down in the backseat.
“Get out of the car, girl!” Lillian shrieked from the front door of the house.
Colin looked toward the SUV. She had no choice. She climbed over Maggie’s booster seat and stepped out on Colin’s side. Lillian wouldn’t be able to see the signal she gave him—hopefully he would figure it out. Over the last two and a half weeks, they’d met half a dozen times, and talked about everything from the kids at his school to her parents’ deaths to his feelings about his younger brother, Jack. She always avoided the subject of Lillian and Sergey, but she figured he knew her well enough to get it. Colin’s face lit up when he saw her, but she shook her head quickly to show him that she couldn’t
talk. He looked over at Lillian by the front door and understood.
Hannah hurried around the SUV, intending to run into the house before anything else happened, but then she heard the low, whirring noise of the neighbor’s car window sliding down.
“Hello, Hannah,” Liz called.
Lillian spun around by the front door, keys in her hand, mouth open in shock. Hannah stepped back, wanting to delay a slap or whatever Lillian was planning on doing to her.
“Where are you all coming from?” Liz asked, cheerfully, but her eyes were squinting at them as if she sensed something was wrong.
“We have dropped my daughter at the school,” Lillian said, smoothing her hair back.
“I met your niece a couple weeks back,” Liz said. “She’s a lovely girl.”
“Yes?” Lillian’s mouth pressed together.
Hannah hoped she didn’t say what day. She knew she shouldn’t have left the children, and she wouldn’t have done it if she weren’t so desperate. It wasn’t her fault.
Liz talked on. “Colin has study block in the morning, so I let him stay home. It’s the last day of school before Christmas break anyway. We’re going to pick his brother up from school now. Are you doing anything for the holidays?”
“My husband is in business trip until Christmas. We stay here,” Lillian answered. “You will stay here in Christmas vacation?” Her voice took on that same fake tone that Hannah had seen at Maggie’s school.
“No, no, Colin and his brother are with me until Christmas, but they’ll spend Christmas Day and the rest of the break with their father. And I’m going to visit my sister in DC,” Liz said.
Hannah stared at Colin while Lillian and Liz talked. Christmas was a few days away, but she didn’t know if she’d get out of the house now to see him. Lillian would be watching her and she’d definitely get some kind of further punishment for leaving the children in the house alone.
“This seems to me like nice vacation,” Lillian said, squeezing Hannah’s shoulder so tight she would have winced if Liz and Colin weren’t staring at her. “Say good-bye,” Lillian said in Russian, and then switched back to English. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you,” Liz said.
Hannah couldn’t say good-bye. She wanted desperately to run to Colin’s house. But she couldn’t. She had to think of other people, not just herself. They had her uncle already. And they’d threatened to take her babushka and Katya. She couldn’t take any risks now.
“Go in the house,” Lillian said to her in Russian. “Now, shlyuha.”
Hannah glanced back at Colin. Even though he couldn’t understand that Lillian had just called her a slut, he wasn’t smiling.
“Is everything okay, Hannah?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
“Yes,” Hannah said, and then added, “I talk to you before you go with father, okay?” She wanted Lillian to know that they’d be expecting to see her so that she wouldn’t hurt her too much before her anger died down.
Colin nodded, glancing at Lillian, who didn’t say anything.
Michael tugged on Hannah’s hand. “Trucks?” he asked in Russian.
Hannah looked down at his eager face, gulped down the thick lump of fear in her throat, and followed him into the house. The door shut behind her and Lillian shoved her forward. She spoke in a low, enraged voice. “You were lying all along. What else were you lying about?”
“I wasn’t lying. He’s just a friend,” Hannah cried. “I needed someone to talk to.”
“So you can tell him all our secrets?” Lillian shoved her again.
Hannah screamed in pain and Michael started to cry.
Lillian glanced down at him in surprise, as if she’d just realized he was there. “Look what you’ve done. You’ve scared him.”
Hannah picked him up. “Shh,” she said into his ear. “It’s okay.”
“Get out of my sight,” Lillian spat, waving her manicured hand in dismissal. “And take Michael with you.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Hannah sat on the sofa in the dark garage, her head in her hands. She didn’t feel like doing anything, even though she was supposed to put long strands of red and green tinsel up around the house. It was what Americans called Christmas Eve. In Moldova, some people celebrated on December 25 and the new pro-Western president had even made it a national holiday, but most people still kept to the old ways and celebrated on January 7. New Year’s was the big day for gifts, really. When her parents were alive, they used to stay up all night on New Year’s Eve, celebrating with neighbors and family. She’d fall asleep at some point and then wake up on New Year’s Day to find presents under her pillow from Santa Claus.
In Russia, they celebrated Christmas more or less the same as in Moldova, but it looked like the Platonovs were going to celebrate in the American way, even though they didn’t have a tree yet. Maggie had been begging for one all week and Lillian kept saying that they had to wait for their father to come home. Apparently, he was coming home that night, but Hannah wasn’t counting on it.
She hoped Colin didn’t think she had forgotten about him. Maybe he’d come over to say good-bye before he went to his father’s. Not that Lillian would let her talk to him.
A car came up the driveway. Loud Russian pop music was playing on the stereo. Hannah wondered who it could be. Sergey was gone. Maybe someone was coming to visit and they’d just leave when they saw nobody was home.
Hannah listened to the footsteps up the driveway—a man’s steps. She heard the sound of a key in the lock. Maybe Lillian had given Paavo a key. Her throat clenched with fear.
She heard him switch his shoes into slippers. Strange. Paavo’s feet were too large for Sergey’s slippers. But then who was it? Sergey’s flight didn’t get in until around five o’clock. The alarm beeped. The person was turning it off.
There were footsteps down the hall and up the stairs. Not toward the garage, thank goodness. Hannah crept out of the garage and down the hall. The alarm was off. She opened the front door and saw Sergey’s BMW convertible in the driveway. He’d caught an earlier flight.
She hurried upstairs. Maybe he’d have news of her uncle. She hadn’t talked to him since that night when Lillian had cut her hair, when he told her he knew her mother. He’d barely been home since then, and when he was home, he couldn’t even look at her, possibly because he was afraid of Lillian, probably because she looked so hideous.
The door to the office was half shut. He was talking fast in Russian, something about a late shipment. She thought of the “AK-47” that she’d seen written on the paper in his office and wondered if he was talking about a shipment of guns. Her guess was he sold guns to the Russian mafia in the United States.
“We are arranging it,” Sergey barked into the phone. “Don’t go to another distributor.”
She’d overheard him talking to customers before, and he never said exactly what he was shipping. He’d say order number five or shipment two hundred, but nothing more. Was he afraid his phones were being tapped?
“Petr Sokolov can go to hell,” Sergey said with disgust. “I’m not doing it.”
Petr Sokolov. Hannah had heard that name before, but where? It wasn’t such an unusual name. Petr was a popular first name and Sokolov was one of the most common last names for Russians. She nearly threw it out of her mind as something insignificant because there had to be hundreds of Russians with that name, but then it came to her. She clapped her hand to her mouth to keep from gasping.
She’d heard this name on the day of the interrogation.
The officers had come to her family’s apartment at ten o’clock at night. She’d never forget that knock on the door. She had been sitting with her babushka at the kitchen table, drinking tea and waiting for her parents to come home from the wedding before she went to bed.
There were three sharp knocks at the door. Hannah spilled hot tea down her chin and Babulya jumped up, her weathered hands flying in the air. Even though Hannah couldn’t remember the days of the KGB, the secret police who’d ruled the former Soviet Union, a knock on the door late at night still filled anyone with terror.
Babulya fumbled with the key for a few minutes and cracked open the door. She was wearing her nightdress, but she opened it anyway. Four officers stood in the open-air hallway with their hats on.
An older officer with a thick red nose, clearly the leader of the group, introduced himself as Officer Mikhail Baryshnikov. Hannah was pretty sure it was a joke name, because it was the same name as the famous ballet dancer and this man had a round belly and the grace like an aging construction worker. But nobody was laughing.
Officer Baryshnikov asked for their identification. He looked at Hannah’s and then nodded once. “We need you to come with us to the police station.”
“Why?” she asked, her heart drumming in her chest.
“We have some questions for you.” He gave her a look that made her afraid to ask anything more. “Come.”
She was glad she was still wearing her regular clothes, jeans and a green button-up shirt. She stepped into her walking shoes, pulled on a sweater hanging by the door, and grabbed her purse with the white tassels. She followed Officer Baryshnikov into the open-air stairwell and to the elevator.
“You stay,” one of the other officers was saying to Babulya.
Hannah looked back at the open door. The other officers had gone into the apartment.
“Stop,” Babulya yelled. “You can’t take her!”
“Hey, leave her alone!” Hannah tried to go back, but Officer Baryshnikov and another officer yanked her into the elevator. She struggled, afraid they were taking her somewhere to rape her, but as soon as the elevator started rattling its way down, they let her go.
They put her in the cab of a police truck and drove through the dark streets, talking about a soccer game, of all things. They stopped in front of what looked like a regular brown house, just one floor high, unusual for any building in Chişinău, especially a government building. It definitely wasn’t the central police station. She looked around for a sign.