Eventually, there was a rustling sound in the hallway, then a child’s fussing. “Kathy?”
I walked out, closing the door behind me.
Beth had Dylan on her hip, her purse slung over her other arm, an expression on her face that was almost like fear. She drew me into a hug. “Is she…”
“No, she’s still alive.”
“Oh, thank God.” Dylan’s face was red, as if he’d just been crying, and she ran her fingers over his cheeks. “What’s going on?”
“I have to go somewhere,” I said. “For a while. I’m sorry to ask—you don’t have to, but could you…”
She put the child down, and he clung to her leg. “Check up on her? Sure, when do you need me?”
“I’m…things are a little unclear right now. Maybe—maybe you could call my parents tomorrow? If it’s not too much trouble?”
“Of course, hon.”
“You’re wonderful.” The words felt inadequate, but they were the only ones I had. “Thank you.”
Dylan pulled at her jeans and began making thin sounds, as if he were considering crying again. As she moved his hands away, something about the way the artificial light of the corridor struck her face showed me a thing I hadn’t seen before.
“Are you…”
She gave me a long, sad smile. “Yeah. I’m pregnant.”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t do anything more than look at her.
“Yeah.” She looked away. “When Mark was here on leave—we really didn’t want this—I definitely didn’t—but—well.” She ran a hand through her hair, lifting her shoulders. “I’m due before he’s even back. Isn’t that—well, it’s crazy. So, our big back-to-school dream wasn’t going to work out anyway, I guess.”
“I’m—” I was too disoriented from the speed at which everything was happening to know what to say. “I’m sorry. I mean, congratulations. But also I’m sorry.”
She gave a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s just about it, isn’t it?”
I wrote down some numbers for her, and she took them, already looking older and more tired. Reaching for me, she wrapped me in a hug again, her hair pressed against my cheek.
“Do I need to worry about you?” she said. “Don’t get mad at me for asking, but have you gotten mixed up in something you shouldn’t have? Where exactly are you going?”
“No, I promise. And I’ll tell you everything in a few days.”
“All right, baby girl.” She rubbed my arms. “You go enjoy your freedom.”
At the gas station, I filled the tank, then began the drive west, back to my grandmother’s house. The sun was almost down, the clouds black and low on the horizon, edged with a last tinge of heavy blue. The mountains loomed in the distance, and I looked up at them. The car radio was playing, but I turned it off, watching the long chain of peaks pass by in the silence. When I got to the intersection in Centerville, I stopped, sitting with my headlights cutting swaths of light across the road.
There was something in the air, something that came with the changing of the seasons, leading a person to have thoughts that would normally be unthinkable.
I looked down at the glowing panel of gauges, the clock. The fields outside were vast, open, looking somehow new. I drew the night air into my lungs, letting it slowly back out again.
Then I turned away from home and kept driving, back up the mountain, toward the brick building that loomed in the darkness, lost among the trees.
4
The next morning, the telephone in the store rang.
The dawn had brought a clear day, the light extending its first fingers through the windows of my grandmother’s house as I’d roamed through it, quietly stuffing clothes into plastic bags, making the bed, putting away the dishes. The gravel had crunched under my feet as I’d walked to the mailbox, the sun illuminating the red flag that stood proudly above it. Reaching into the box, I’d pulled out a pile of bills and junk mail. Perhaps superstitiously, I had thought there might be a letter from my brother, but there wasn’t.
Back in the house, I’d placed the bills on the table, unopened. Then I had left, turning a key in the front door that, in my lifetime, had never been locked.
I was calm, much more so than I’d expected to be. Returning from the hostel to my grandmother’s house very early that morning, watching the headlights pass over fields that were otherwise swathed in darkness, I hadn’t known what to think—about the stranger, about any of it. In some ways, I didn’t want to think about what had just happened at all—the way his face had looked when I’d reappeared; the drawn curtains in the upstairs room; the silence; the way he’d run his hand over my skin, the smooth places and the scars. It was something too strange, too enormous to be looked at. So I didn’t. I put it away in the back of my mind, like a mysterious object I’d found in the street, to be taken out and considered later.
Thankfully, no one had been waiting for me at the store; it was still early. Shouldering my purse, I’d pushed my way inside, turning on the lights. I still had enough cash for another two or three tanks of gas, a bit more for a sandwich here or there. I didn’t think about what would happen after that.
The sound of the telephone tore through the air like an electric shock.
I stared at the receiver on the wall next to the ice cream case. How long had it been working? Why hadn’t anyone told me?
“Hello?” I said uncertainly.
“Kath, it’s Martin.” He sounded breathless. “Could you come up here for a minute?”
I hung up and hurried out, letting the door slap shut behind me.
Martin was standing behind the front desk, face devoid of expression, back hunched like a question mark. With him were two police officers I didn’t recognize, both men.
“Is this her?” one of them asked Martin. He had sandy hair and tanned, smooth features, like a high-school track coach. Martin, by contrast, looked haggard and shriveled. There was a hammer on the desk, and he was turning a long, shining nail over in his hands, not looking up.
“What do you want?” I asked, with a feeling of deep dread.
“We just took your friend into custody,” the other officer said.
I looked from them to Martin, who looked back at me, his face empty and devastated. The room seemed to close in on itself, the air suddenly cold.
“My friend?” I forced myself to say, my voice sounding flat and far away.
“Come on, don’t play dumb,” the sandy-haired one said. “The foreigner.”
I glanced from one of them to the other, struggling to hide my shock.
“We’re aware of your relationship with the minister,” the same cop went on. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about him, if that’s all right.”
It took me a moment to absorb the words.
“The minister?” I echoed, confused. Martin lowered his head again.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” the sandy-haired one repeated.
“No, I don’t think so.” I took a step back. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about. I don’t know any minister.”
“I’m talking about your friend,” he said patiently, as if talking to a small child. “The, uh…” He pulled a leather-bound notepad from his pocket and consulted it. “The Deputy Minister of the Interior, or whatever he is. We picked him up here about half an hour ago. Somebody called in with an anonymous tip this morning. Seems he’s been hiding out here for a while.”
“He’s in a whole lot of trouble,” the other cop said. His trooper’s hat was pulled low over his eyes; I couldn’t see his face clearly, although it looked round and pink. “They’ve called the FBI in for this one,” he went on. “They’ve called in the State Department. Our phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. People from Washington. Whoever this guy is, he’s somebody’s big catch, that’s for sure. And that’s not gonna make things any easier for you if you decide you don’t feel like cooperating.”
My legs began to ben
d under me, although I managed to step sideways and sit in one of the chairs that were pushed against the wall. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Deputy minister? What is this?”
“This guy, lady.” The same cop, the one with the face like an Easter ham, reached into an envelope and held out a photocopy. The black-and-white picture showed a serious, thin-lipped man with a puffy face and neatly trimmed hair, staring straight at the camera with long, narrow eyes. He wore a suit and tie, and was holding a briefcase in one hand, a sheet of paper in the other. There were tables in the background, a patterned carpet, as if he were in some sort of fancy restaurant or ballroom. A shining clip held his tie in place over his rounded stomach.
“I don’t know who that is,” I told them, pushing the photocopy away.
“Look again.” The cop held it out in front of me. “He looks different now. He’s obviously lost a lot of weight. But you know him. He’s been here for months.”
“I don’t know who that is,” I said again. “I’m not lying.”
“That man is responsible for a lot of things, ma’am. At least that’s what we’re told. He ran the detention centers in Uzbekistan. He oversaw—”
I rose to my feet, bracing myself against the wall.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said harshly. “And frankly, I don’t either.”
“Come on, don’t bullshit us,” the Easter-ham cop said.
I rounded on him. “You don’t know the first thing,” I said, my voice forceful. “You don’t even know where Uzbekistan is. I’d bet money on it.”
They looked at one another.
“I’ll be in my store,” I said. “If you want to talk to me, bring me a piece of paper that says I have to.”
Without looking at Martin, I left and walked briskly back down the hill. Inside the store, I locked and bolted the door, closed the shutters, and sat down on the stool. My fingers pressed to my lips, I kept still.
The hours passed. Someone knocked, hesitant and hopeful-sounding, before giving up and going away. I stayed where I was, watching the squares of light from the windows as they crept across the floor, leaning and elongating as the sun moved west.
After a long time, the knob twisted, and I heard Martin calling.
“Kathleen,” he said.
I remained motionless.
“Come on,” he urged, more loudly this time. “Don’t scare me. I know you wouldn’t do that to me. Open up.”
Slowly, I slid one leg to the floor, then the other.
I thought he might have given up by the time I appeared, but he was still there.
“Come on,” he said. “Come out here with me. It’s better than sitting alone in the dark.”
I gave in. He sat on the bench on the porch, and after a moment, I lowered myself next to him.
The minutes passed.
“Do you think it’s true?” he said, just when I’d decided neither of us was going to say anything, that we were going to just sit there forever.
“Do I think what’s true?”
“This deputy minister stuff.”
I looked away. “It doesn’t matter.”
He kept his eyes on me for a long moment.
“It didn’t look much like him,” he said finally.
“What’s it to me, whether it was or wasn’t him?”
“Come on, Kathleen. It’s not like I’m not upset, too.”
My shoulders sagged, and I turned my head away. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
We lapsed back into silence, gazing down at the ruins of the furnace stack.
“We did our best,” he said eventually. “We did what we thought was right. And it was right. No matter who he was. Is. I don’t doubt that.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No. I don’t.”
I kicked a shoe against the cement.
“‘For I was hungry,’” he said softly, “‘and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’ Matthew twenty-five.” He looked out at the yard, the stone furnace. “It’s a beautiful chapter.”
“I don’t need that bullshit right now,” I said. “No offense.”
He went silent.
“I mean, yeah, those are some nice words. But…” I rolled my head back. “Well, anyway, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t what?”
“I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. Or rather, I did something I shouldn’t have done.” I picked at the edge of the bench. “I think. I don’t know.”
“You mean helping him?”
“No. The opposite of that.” I felt myself grow heavy. “I was angry with him. He told me…something. Not what they told us today, but something. And I…”
I found I couldn’t finish.
“Listen,” he said, and surprised me by touching my hand. “That anonymous tip.”
My stomach turned. “Yeah?”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Of course it wasn’t.”
“And it wasn’t you.”
Flinching, I pulled my hand away and gazed at the roof of the porch, frowning.
“They said it was some guy who called this morning,” he said gently. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t either of us.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said.
“It was a man,” he said again. “They told me.”
My vision began to blur. I wiped my eyes tiredly, looking away.
“Then it was Jerry.”
“Who?”
“Jerry Calaman.”
“Jerry Calaman? What’s any of this got to do with him?”
“He was angry with me. And he knew something was going on.”
Martin ran a hand over his face, pulling the skin down. “Listen to me. When they arrested Danya, he was in his room. He wasn’t in the basement. He was sitting there on his bed with his suitcase packed.”
“So?”
“I think—well, I think it’s pretty clear what happened.”
“Yeah, he was waiting for me to pick him up.”
“No.” He sighed. “Well. Maybe. But I don’t think so.”
“What are you trying to say?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“I think he turned himself in,” he said quietly.
I fixed him with a long stare. A kind of jerk, or shudder, ran through my body. He looked away.
“Why would he do that?” I said.
“Because there were risks he decided he couldn’t bear to see you take on his behalf.”
I stood up rapidly and walked to the edge of the porch, crossing my arms.
“Or because on some level he always meant for this to happen,” Martin went on behind me. “Or both.”
“What do you mean, always meant for this to happen?”
I heard the creak of the bench, could picture Martin hunching forward, staring down at his feet. “Regardless of what he is or isn’t,” he said slowly, “I think that man was carrying around some heavy burdens. And even though he was hiding here, he wasn’t really hiding. He was running, but he also wasn’t really running. I think—” He stopped before going on. “I think we may have been watching someone do slowly what many people do a lot more quickly. People who feel guilt. People who feel sadness. People who don’t know how to ease either of those things. You didn’t see it, and I didn’t see it.” His words grew softer. “Or maybe I did see it, but I didn’t do enough. I wish I had.”
I left the porch and walked onto the grass, to the edge of the hill, looking down over the trail and the park. Wrapping my arms around myself, feeling my own body under my clothes, I stared down at the blank stretch of the picnic grounds.
In my mind’s eye, I saw the stranger as he had stood before me the previous night, turning his head away shyly, covering his nakedness with his hand. The image was more than I could bear.
Martin came and stood beside me.
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The spring breeze passed over us, over the trees, stirring everything around us invisibly before fading and disappearing.
We were quiet for a time, side by side, the descending sun shining into our faces.
“I’m going,” I said then.
He studied me for a moment before answering. “Okay.”
“No, I mean I’m really going. I’m leaving.”
Closing his eyes, he straightened as if bracing himself.
“All right,” he said finally. “Where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He took a deep breath. Then he motioned toward the hostel. “Come with me.”
“No.” I suddenly felt too exhausted to stand. “That’s okay. Some other time.”
“Oh, just come on. It won’t take long.”
He turned and walked up the hill, and I followed him.
I was afraid we would go down to the basement, but we didn’t. Instead, he led me to the top floor, the one with the dormitory-style rooms that gave a view of the trail as it disappeared into the woods. The bunk beds inside had been pushed back against the walls, leaving a large space in the middle, and a strange contraption stood there, something with multiple wheels and bars and a set of protruding gears. There was some sort of seat in the middle of it, set at an angle, long and black. I thought I saw a handle jutting up somewhere, but I couldn’t be sure. The linoleum around the thing was smeared with grease.
I stood in the doorway.
“I don’t understand,” I said after a pause.
“It was for you,” he said. “If you wanted it. I had to guess your height, but I did my best.” He stepped forward, placing a hand on what seemed to be a pair of pedals.
“But—” It was difficult not to feel as if I were moving through a dream. “What is it?”
Ways to Hide in Winter Page 24