Trafficked (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-six

T
he 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 stood 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

H
annah 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.”

Even though it was a good suggestion, Lillian looked irritated. “Fine.”

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Hannah ran into the living room, grabbed the bouquet of small yellow roses from in there and then the one from the foyer. She heard the stamping of feet outside. She hurried down the hall and into the dining room to grab a third bouquet, and then put them all on the deck.

Lillian handed her the bouquet from the bathroom down the hall. “Get the ones upstairs without him seeing.”

“Come on, Lily,” Sergey said, indicating that they had to answer the door. He strode into the living room, turned off the television and switched on the classical music, then headed to meet the guests.

Lillian blinked her hazel eyes at Hannah. “Be careful. This is an important night.”

“Okay,” Hannah said, rushing up the stairs, where she grabbed the bouquets from the bathroom, the master bedroom, and the stand in the hall.

She made it down the stairs with the strong-smelling bouquets before Paavo and Rena had taken off their shoes in the foyer. She ducked into the kitchen, went through the back door, and placed the offensive flowers on the deck. Her shirt probably had pollen on it now, which she hoped would serve to keep that man away from her. He gave her the creeps. Anyway, she figured he was lying about his allergies just so she'd seem like a bad maid and they'd give her to him to pay off their debt to him. But he didn't know who he was messing with.

Hannah stepped inside. A second later, Paavo lumbered into the kitchen, followed by Rena, whose short hair was now dyed a brilliant shade of maroon. Hannah had never seen the two of them together. He was easily three times her size.

Rena saw Hannah examining them and gave her a haughty look. Hannah turned her back on them and washed the remaining pot in the sink. She could still feel Paavo staring at her.

“Vodka or champagne?” Sergey asked.

“Vodka,” Paavo boomed.

“Champagne,” Rena said.

“Hannah, can you get two champagne flutes?” Lillian asked.

They had their special glasses in a buffet case in the dining room, but Hannah had no idea what was what. “What do they look like?” she asked, drying off the pot with a dishcloth.

“They're the thin ones,” Lillian said, rolling her eyes at Rena.

Sergey opened the champagne bottle with a pop and handed the glasses to Hannah with a brief smile. She poured the champagne, halfway, the same as wine, like Lillian had taught her, and brought them to the women. Everyone moved into the living room, and Hannah took the fresh oysters from the refrigerator and put them on a tray with lemon and vodka chasers, as she'd been instructed.

“Good for the sex drive,” Paavo laughed, swatting at Rena's behind.

She laughed. “Stop it.”

He dropped down into the sofa and took an oyster and a vodka chaser. His fingers with their long, manicured nails gripped on the glass, and he sucked down the oyster, gazing at Hannah, as if he'd like to do the same to her, but nobody else seemed to notice. At least the children were upstairs. Lillian had fed and bathed them while Hannah made dinner, and now they were in their pajamas, watching a movie in Michael's room.

Soon, everyone moved into the dining room, and Hannah began to bring in dish after dish, making sure to stay far from Paavo. Between courses, she ran upstairs to check on the children and then sat at the kitchen table listening to Paavo monopolize the conversation with lurid jokes.

Once the main courses were done, Hannah cleared the table and brought out coffee and small cakes from the Russian bakery. She poured the coffee, under Lillian's sharp gaze, making sure to keep her hand steady, but pushed Paavo's cup across the table, instead of getting too close to him. Paavo was telling a story about one of his girls who'd gotten in trouble with the police—likely one of his prostitutes at his club. He pushed himself back from the table, and opened his knees out and pressed them back together as he talked. Out and in, out and in.

She clenched her jaw. She didn't want to think about it but she did. Volva, the bad agent, he'd done that too in the taxi while he talked to her about what mistakes she shouldn't make as she went through immigration.

For the rest of her life, she'd probably hate the sound of a zipper opening. It had taken her months to get Volva out of her head, and this man brought it all back.

She had to hold it together. Just long enough to hand out the cakes. Her hand was shaking. She reached across the table with the cake for Paavo and he took it from her, his thumb brushing her hand, on purpose. She pulled her hand back.

Lillian gave her a sharp look. She remembered Lillian's words earlier:
You bow to him if you have to.

Hannah passed the sugar to Sergey, but he shook his head briefly and took a sip of black coffee. Normally he took his coffee with two or three heaping tablespoons of sugar, but perhaps he was worried Paavo would think he wasn't manly.

Paavo raised his coffee cup. “It's not full.”

It was too difficult to reach across the table with a pot of hot coffee. Slowly, she walked around the table to fill his cup to the top. Rena started telling Lillian about a sale at Barneys. Nobody was paying attention. Even Sergey was looking at his BlackBerry.

Hannah gripped the handle of the coffeepot and took Paavo's cup from him. Just as she started to pour, his hand rested on the back of her sweatpants, where no one else could see. She stepped away quickly and the hot coffee spilled on her hand. She let out a cry from the pain.

“Hannah,” Lillian barked. “Be careful. We don't want you burning our guests.”

Paavo was looking her up and down, even though his wife was right there. His nose twitched and he squeezed it. His nose twitched again and then his eyes opened wide and he looked at the chandelier over the table. Sergey and Lillian exchanged a look.

Paavo held a finger up in the air as if everyone should wait for him. And then he sneezed. Probably got the pollen from her clothes on him. Served him right. If she could cover him in pollen, so he'd be itchy and coughing and sneezing, she would.

Hannah put the coffeepot down before she was tempted to pour it in his lap, and strode around the table, trying not to run.

“Maybe you're allergic to the girl.” Rena laughed. “She probably never washes.”

Hannah glared at her as she picked up the butter dish that she'd left earlier.

“You know what they say about those Moldovans,” Paavo said. “They're so stupid, they have to jump up and down to see if there are any matches in the matchbox.”

Everybody laughed, except for Sergey. Stupid. It was just a word, she told herself, but she heard Volva in her head. “If you're not too stupid.” Hannah wanted to throw the butter dish at Paavo's head and see the butter slime down his face, but instead she turned to go.

“That is why they are the garbage collectors and whores of Russia,” Rena said, lighting up a cigarette, even though no one smoked in the house. “They can do nothing else.”

Hannah was furious. How dare this woman speak like this about her family, her friends, all the people she knew and loved? Hannah looked around the table. Lillian was smiling. Sergey shifted uncomfortably but didn't speak up for her. She opened her mouth, then shut it, and walked out of the room.

Her hands were shaking as she gripped the butter dish. No matter how much she tried to forget, Paavo reminded her of the bad agent, that Volva, with his long cat fingers, his sharp nails.

“What do you think, girl?” Paavo asked, calling Hannah back, like he owned her. Hannah continued into the kitchen, the memories chasing her.

In the other room, Paavo's voice boomed. “Hey, girl!” Hannah placed the butter dish on the granite countertop. It clattered down, making so much noise it startled her. Her hands were shaking. She was clumsy in her fear.

She'd called Volva a pig when he ran his hand over the front of her white shirt.

He'd choked her, pressing one hand to her neck. Those were the bruises Lillian had noticed on her first day. “Who are you calling a pig?” he'd said, while his other hand popped open the snap on her jeans, undid her zipper, and dove down inside.

His fingernails had been sharp like little mice claws. “You want more?” he'd growled. Tears had run down her face and she'd shaken her head, trying to breathe.

The taxi driver had stared straight ahead. The Romanian music played louder. Two women had strode by the taxi at that moment, pulling their suitcases on the pavement. One of them had commented on what a nice day it was for flying.

“Hannah?” Sergey was calling to her from the dining room, forcing her to answer these people.

She took two long, stiff steps back into the dining room and pasted a fake smile on her face. “Yes?” She pressed her shaking hands against the sides of her sweatpants.

Sergey's blue eyes creased apologetically and he tilted his head toward Paavo and Rena at the other side of the table.

“Is it true?” Rena asked, blowing smoke into the air. “Are you Moldovans too stupid to do anything but whoring and garbage collecting?”

Hannah couldn't stop herself. She stretched her shaking hands out. “I think I remembered to wash the garbage off my hands before rolling the pelmeni, but I'm really not sure.”

Silence. Rena's face whitened. Sergey smiled briefly, just long enough for Hannah to notice. “Hannah!” Lillian gasped.

Paavo let out a guffaw. “She has a mouth. But she doesn't know how to use it.”

Hannah glared at him. He probably knew what Volva had done.

Lillian reassured Paavo and Rena. “Don't worry. I made the pelmeni.”

Hannah didn't stop in the kitchen, but ran down the hall and up the stairs before Lillian could force her back into the room to apologize. She went into the upstairs bathroom, locked the door, and pressed her back against it.

She waited for Lillian to follow her, but there were no footsteps up the stairs. In Michael's room, the movie was still going, which meant it wasn't yet nine o'clock.