The Altar Girl (15 page)

“My memory is infallible once fortified by a steak and a good Napa cabernet. He wanted to order French but I told him it was unpatriotic.”

“Says the priest driving the German car.”

“It’s not my name on the registration.”

The light turned, he mashed the pedal and turned right onto Wethersfield Avenue headed toward Hartford.

“Did he offer any other clues?” I said. “About how he was earning the money.”

“No, but there were rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“It’s hard to keep a secret in a small community.”

“Such as?”

“There were rumors he was making money along the lines of his usual business. Art and antiquities. But that he had a connection in Ukraine. And he was getting rare artifacts into the country with the help of some questionable characters and selling them for big money.”

“Questionable characters?” I said. “Anyone I know besides Bohdan Angelovich?”

“You have enough to worry about with him, don’t you?”

I couldn’t argue with Father Yuri on that score. The rumor he’d shared with me jibed with Mrs. Chimchak’s revelation about his life changing since he’d visited Crimea. I imagined a dispute arising about profit. I could picture my godfather demanding a higher cut, or Donnie Angel insisting on part of my godfather’s cut. Donnie could have pushed him down the stairs himself, or had an accomplice do it. The horror was that I couldn’t be sure my brother wasn’t that accomplice.

A minute later, Father Yuri pulled into my original parking spot in front of the church. He slid the gear into neutral and lifted the emergency-brake handle, but left the engine running. It was his way of telling me he wasn’t inviting me into the rectory to answer any more questions. Instead he turned toward me with a stern look.

“Walk away,” he said.

I avoided his eyes and stared at the glove box.

“Walk away while you still can and go to the police. Ask for their protection.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? I’m still not clear on that. I know you loved your godfather and all, but please. Be real.”

“I can’t walk away. That’s all I know.”

He sighed, closed his eyes, and said a quick blessing, making the sign of the cross in my direction as he spoke. It was a quick request for God to watch over me. I crossed myself and thanked him.

He pushed the seat back as far as it would go and flung the driver’s door open. I stepped out of the passenger seat while he hauled himself out of the vehicle.

“Anything else you can tell me, Father?”

He hesitated.

“Anything?”

Father Yuri considered my request. “I still remember when we were left with one altar boy. When your father suggested a girl, I thought, why not? You, with your excellent Ukrainian, perfect manners, and that boyish haircut. Will I see you at the blessing of the Easter baskets tomorrow?”

I hadn’t even stopped to think about it. I remembered Donnie Angel telling me he used to attend with his mother. Of course, his mother had passed away and he was now a completely unrepentant criminal. The odds he’d be there were zero. Still, I couldn’t see how attending the ceremony was going to help me find my godfather’s killer.

“I’m sure your mother would be thrilled if you and your brother came,” Father Yuri said, before I could answer. “And it would be a great opportunity for you to talk to your brother.”

Father Yuri’s words struck fear in my heart. I’d asked him if he could tell me anything else that would help me, and he’d just done so. He’d told me to talk to Marko. It was the advice I needed but didn’t want to hear.

“Yes,” I said. “You’ll see me tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 23

I
TRIED TO
find my brother before returning to the
motel. First I called Brasilia. A woman told me he wasn’t working, which I found strange. I assumed Friday night was a profitable night in the strip club business, and that an owner-operator would want to be present. When my call to his house rolled to the answering machine again, I decided to drive to Willimantic and see both places for myself. My drive was for naught. The lights were off in his house and no one answered the doorbell. Meanwhile, Brasilia overflowed with breasts, butts, and beer-guzzling revelers, but Marko wasn’t among the men maintaining order.

On Saturday morning I called my mother at 7:00 a.m. sharp. I had a personal rule not to call anyone before 8:00 a.m., but I’d long since passed the point of worrying about etiquette. Much to my shock, my mother welcomed the call. She’d been up all night baking
paska
—the special Easter bread—and
babkas
. Yes, she said, Marko had promised to be at the school hall behind the church for the blessing of the Easter baskets at 2:00 p.m. I told her I was coming over to her house and driving her to Hartford, and hung up before she could answer.

I got to within a mile of her house when I saw the white Honda parked discreetly beside a Dumpster at a twenty-four-hour food mart. It was one of the two modified cars I’d seen idling outside my godfather’s house. Then, after visiting my mother, I thought I’d spied it again as I’d raced up the entrance lane to the highway. The suspension had been lowered close to the ground, fiberglass skirts had been added to the body, and the wheels were black. I suppose there could have been a third such car in the Hartford area, but it would have been an incredible coincidence.

I could see two figures inside the car as I took my turn perpendicular to the corner where they were parked, but the windows were tinted and I couldn’t make out their faces or bodies. By the time I reached my mother’s house, I’d deduced that either Donnie Angel had multiple teams of men covering my likely destinations, or he knew where I was going this morning. The only way he could have known where I was going was if my mother had told them. No one else knew I was coming to pick her up. No one.

I was prepared for some verbal punishment for hanging up on her, but when I stepped inside she hugged me as though we were soul mates. For a brief moment, all my concerns vanished. The white Honda, Donnie Angel, my godfather’s death, Marko’s possible involvement in his business or murder, my job loss, and the personal dissatisfaction I had to overcome every morning to get out of bed. None of it mattered as my mother held me. Only when she let go did a voice of reason remind me she had to have had an ulterior motive for her most uncharacteristic display of affection.

“I’m so happy to see my beautiful daughter,” she said. “You know, my children are my pride and joy. I’m so thrilled you’ll both be with me at the blessing today. The entire community will see us as the family we are. The other women will be so jealous of me. Come in, my kitten, and help me arrange the basket.”

I realized her enthusiasm was a function of appearances. Or perhaps a combination of love and appearances. Yes, I thought. This sounded more logical. I understood it might have been a delusion, but I settled on it nonetheless. After all, it was the day before Easter.

We went to the kitchen.

“You said both of us will be joining you. Did Marko call? Did he call to confirm?”

“He told me a few weeks ago he’d be there today.”

“You mean he didn’t call to confirm?”

“Your brother’s a con artist, a bum, and a degenerate sinner, but he’s my son and I have no reason to doubt his word. You want some green tea?”

I shook my head. “So you didn’t call him.”

My mother looked at me as though I were an idiot. “Do I ever call my children? I don’t want to bother either of you. I don’t want to be one of those old women who’s a pain in their children’s butts. You think we should take all these colored eggs or leave the black one out?”

“You painted an Easter egg black?” I’d never heard of or seen such a thing.

She held it up. It was black as tar.

“My hairdresser has all the magazines,” she said. “Black is the new black, didn’t you know that? I’m just trying to bring fashion into the Easter basket. I thought you, Miss New York, would understand.”

Only the Black Widow would put a black egg in her Easter basket, I thought. “Of course, Mama. You’re right. Take the black egg. It works for you. But we’re going to leave my car and take your Buick, okay?”

Her face fell. “Why?”

“I’m low on gas. I didn’t have time to stop at a station, and I don’t want to take any chances. I know how you hate it when a car isn’t fully fueled and there’s a risk of running out.”

“Shame on you for not planning ahead. The one time your mother gets a chance to drive in a sexy car . . .” She bit her lip. “Pity. I would have looked so good in it pulling up to the church.”

It was a lie, of course. There was plenty of high-octane in the 911; I wanted to switch cars. I doubted it would be of much help. Even if I lost the boys in the white Honda, I was headed straight to the heart of the Uke community. I couldn’t have made myself more conspicuous. Still, the mere thought of being in another vehicle lowered my blood pressure. At least I was changing my routine a bit. At least I was doing something differently.

We arranged the breads, colored eggs, ham, sausage, a mixture of horseradish and beets, butter, cheese, and salt in a wicker basket decorated with an embroidered cloth. My mother spent no less than fifteen minutes rearranging the items until the presentation met with her approval. Afterward, we packed the car and I drove us to church.

I held my breath as I approached the food mart where I’d seen my followers, but the Honda was gone. It was also nowhere to be seen in the rearview mirror. I wondered if a second car would pick up my trail any moment, and if there were even more than two vehicles following me. Then I wondered if they knew my mother drove a Buick. Perhaps I was alone for the first time in days. Perhaps I’d actually lost them.

My mother may have liked the idea of sitting in a sports car, but she didn’t enjoy traveling at high speeds in any car. She scolded me twice and told me to slow down before I ever got on the highway. I apologized and reduced my speed. I needed her to be cooperative. I also wanted to ease into my intended topic of conversation but couldn’t figure out a way to do so quickly. I had no time for small talk.

“We were talking about the DP camps the other day,” I said. “Someone told me quite a few priests made it out of Ukraine during the war and ended up in the camps. I imagine Easter had special meaning back then. The resurrection of Christ, the Savior. It was probably a big deal in camp, wasn’t it?”

She glanced at me as though I was trying to poison her. “You’re going back there again? Give me a break. I thought I’d be sitting pretty in that little Porsche of yours. Like James Dean’s girlfriend. But no. You want to go cruising down memory lane in my old American jalopy instead.”

“That makes two of us. Wanting to cruise down memory lane.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to the blessing of the Easter baskets. Together. Where all your friends will see us, Mama. And remember us as a family growing up.” My mother was the world heavyweight champion of quid pro quo. I was certain she’d understand. “Was Easter a big deal in the DP camps?”

She turned away from me and looked out the window. I gla
nced in her direction and saw her fidgeting in her seat, her head bobbing sideways and making little circles the way it did when she was irritated, digesting bad news, or contemplating something serious. In this case, it was all of the above, I suspected.

She turned back toward the windshield. She leveled her voice and sounded eerily calm. “Of course it was important. I was just a child but the adults did everything they could to give us structure and keep our spirits up.” She talked about the day-to-day struggles and tedium for a minute. “Fear lingered in camp. From the war, from the Holocaust. And eventually, from the screenings.”

“The screenings?”

“The screenings were a time of terror.”

“What screenings?”

“We all felt the tension. Even the children. It hung in the air like a noose waiting to fall on anyone’s head. You just prayed it wasn’t your parents.”

“What screenings?”

“People weren’t simply allowed to enter the DP camps. They had to prove they were legitimate refugees. Everyone in camp was interviewed. The interviews took upwards of a year. The interviews were conducted in Russian, English, and German, regardless of whether the people being interviewed spoke any of those languages. It was chaotic. There wasn’t enough room for all of us. Of course, the Russian officials were NKVD. Their real mission wasn’t to help administer the camps. Their purpose was to persuade the Americans and British to reject as many people as possible. Anyone whose story didn’t check out—anyone who changed a date from a previous interview, any charge of collaboration with the Nazis—and the person would be thrown out of camp.”

“And then what happened to them?”

My mother fired a look of disapproval in my direction, as though with each question I was making her delve further into a topic she preferred to forget. “What do you think happened? Most of them ended up on trains going back to the Soviet Union.”

“But I thought forced repatriation lasted only for a short time. I was told Eisenhower and his generals put an end to it.”

“I didn’t say anyone forced them to get on the trains.”

“You mean they went voluntarily? Why? I thought that was the last place they wanted to go?”

“It was. But the NKVD rounded them up one by one. They kidnapped them off the streets if they had to, and then made them offers they couldn’t refuse.”

“What kind of offers?”

“Go back to the Motherland where you belong and the family you left behind will not be sent to a labor camp. Or murdered.”

“Extortion? The Americans and the British allowed that?”

“The Americans and the British didn’t understand the Russians. Plus they had their hands full managing the camps and trying t
o figure out where all the hard-core DPs would go. The ones who survived the screenings. The Americans and the British had no idea that SMERSH even existed.”

“Did you say SMERSH?”

“Vindictive men with a vindictive spirit.”

“I heard that name in a James Bond movie once. That was real? I assumed that was something Ian Fleming made up.”

“You did? Well, so much for your college education. Stalin thought of the name.
Spetsyalnye Metody Razoblacheniya Shpyonov
.” Special Methods of Spy Detection. “He created SMERSH to prevent the Gestapo from infiltrating the NKVD. In the camps, SMERSH used bribery, blackmail, and threats to repatriate as many DPs as possible to the Soviet Union. After the camps were disbanded in 1950, they stayed in Europe and became the foundation for the Soviets’ European spy network.”

“And the DPs that went back because they were threatened. What happened to them and their families?”

My mother snickered. I could tell it wasn’t directed at me. She was staring out the windshield remembering a scene from her past, or one that she’d imagined.

“The Soviet officers would gather around the trains that were leaving and make it look like a big party. They would clap and cheer and wish all the DPs a pleasant journey back home. But when the train crossed the border into Russia, all their bags would be seized and they would be greeted as traitors.”

I darted into the exit lane for Hartford. It was the same exit Father Yuri had taken last night in my car, but we were coming from the opposite direction. It occurred to me that ever since I’d started digging into my godfather’s death, I was increasingly discovering the truth to be the opposite of what I had thought it had been. In this case, my mother didn’t sound like my mother. She sounded lucid, logical, and authoritative. She sounded like someone else’s mother. That thought shook me to the bone.

“How do you know so much about this, Mama? I mean, I know you lived it and all, but you sound . . . You sound incredibly knowledgeable on the subject.”

My mother looked out the side window again. “What? Your mother isn’t the idiot you thought after all these years?”

We sat in silence for a minute as I negotiated some gridlock. I took a right onto Wethersfield Avenue and headed toward the church. I tried to connect what I’d learned to the DP entry in my godfather’s calendar.

“Did SMERSH or the NKVD ever try to turn one DP against another?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they tried it, but I never heard of anything like that. Our community was our strength. It’s how we survived. Where is that coming from?”

“I found out my godfather was a bit of a scoundrel.” I remembered my brother’s assertion that my godfather had made sexual advances toward my mother. “Where business is concerned,” I quickly added. I didn’t want to embarrass her. “Do you think he could have discovered something about someone? Someone who was a DP but pretended he wasn’t, or someone who was a DP and hurt the community. Do you think he could have been blackmailing someone? I know it’s a stretch but it is possible.”