by Cathy Lamb
Dmitry was white. “But let’s get this straight. I am the son of your torturer.”
My father closed his eyes. “You are my son. Our son. You are not my biological son, but the son of my heart. I loved you from that first day.”
“You are our love son,” my mother said. “The son of our souls.”
“I am the son of your torturer,” Dmitry said again, his face twisting. “The son of the man who tortured, starved, beat, and killed your father and who almost killed you.”
“You are a Kozlovsky. A Kozlovsky,” my father said, his face insisting that Dmitry understand. “We are a proud family, and we are proud of you.”
“When I held you in my arms, Dmitry, I felt the same as your papa,” my mother said. “It was as if you were always supposed to be with us, always, a son who came to us later, a gift.”
“No. I don’t believe this,” Dmitry said, his face flushed, the tears falling. “How can you love the son of the man who did what he did to you, to your father?”
“Because you are not his true son,” my father said. “You are mine. Mine. Our son. Rurik did not deserve you. He did not treat you as a father should. He did not treat your mother with love and kindness.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner? You knew. You both knew my struggle. I knew I had a mother. And I remembered someone else, someone who scared me. That would have been my father. I remembered blood.”
“I didn’t tell you the truth, son, because this is a story that rakes your soul over coals and back again. Your poor mother, killed by her husband. I didn’t want this blackness, this well of hate and violence, to have any place in your mind. You were so young when you came to us. I wanted you to forget. I thought it would be better if you thought you were from an orphanage. As a boy, you used to ask me where your mother was, and I said that she loved you and gave you up because she couldn’t care for you. That is a hard story, but it is a better story than this one. This one is much more difficult to live with.”
“We wanted you to put everything in the past, to shut the door,” my mother said. “To never think of it again. You were young. We thought you would forget, that you would block it all out, but you didn’t. Parts of your life have followed you.”
“Dmitry,” Ellie said. “You’ve always talked about a woman with golden hair. Papa, did Rurik say what color her hair was?”
My father’s face sagged. “Rurik said his wife had hair like gold.”
“I have seen that gold hair my whole life,” Dmitry whispered. “I remember bloody golden hair.”
“That must have been the night he killed her, son.”
It was a nightmare. Dmitry’s past was a nightmare.
“What is my last name?” Dmitry asked. “What is it?”
“It is Nikonov,” my father said. “Nikonov.”
“And what ...” He choked on his loss, his eternal loss. “What was my mother’s name?”
“Nelly.” My father’s eyes were so sad. “Your beautiful mother’s name was Nelly.”
Our parents heaved out long, tearful sighs, then my father got up and removed a picture from the living room wall.
“Papa?” I said.
Behind the picture was a safe. I had no idea there was a safe there. Neither did my sisters or brother.
My mother did, though.
My father started turning the lock. He pulled out a piece of paper. There was a Russian address on it. He also pulled out a tiny white box and handed it to Dmitry. Dmitry lifted the lid. We all gasped as he held up a golden, heart-shaped locket and opened it up.
Dmitry tilted his head back, a mixture of grief, relief, and devastation on his face. On one side was a picture of a baby, on the other side a picture of a blond, smiling woman.
“On the way out, I saw that necklace, on a table. I grabbed it,” my father said. “I knew it was your mother’s, and I took it, for you, and later I realized that I shouldn’t give it to you, because I wanted you to leave your life in the Soviet Union behind you, those memories behind.”
Dmitry stared at the picture of his mother, then he wiped his eyes. He stood up, walked unsteadily to the door, and put on his shoes.
“Please stay, Dmitry.” I grabbed his arm.
“Don’t take off again,” Valerie said. “We’ll miss you. We always miss you.”
“Be with us. Let’s talk,” Ellie begged.
“Son—” my mother said, then cried, ragged sobs.
He hugged my mother, he hugged my father, who had a hard time letting him go, then us. He left, closing the door behind him quietly, the golden locket with photos of his mother and himself in his hand.
He would wander, he would travel, as if the pain would not go away without it, as if he walked long enough, searched long enough, wrote enough poems and songs, he could bury it down, further than a grave next to a rock and covered in cement.
“He is gone again, my son,” my father wailed, his voice defeated. “I only just got him back, Svetlana, and now, gone. Is he gone forever this time? Will I see him again? He hates me, I know he does. I cannot blame him. I killed his father.”
“You killed the man who killed your father,” my mother said, wrapping him in a hug, still sobbing. “You did not know, my love, that he was a father, too.”
My father had aged years in an hour. I had never seen him like that before, as if life had finally pushed him down so hard, he couldn’t get up.
“See what revenge does,” he said. “Revenge is toxic. It spreads. It never ends. Rurik killed my father. I killed him. I took Dmitry and Dmitry leaves me. Rurik has had his revenge on me.”
“Dmitry will come back,” my mother said, her voice a raspy whisper, her tears running into his. “He will come back.”
My father cried until I thought he would run out of tears.
* * *
I told Nick that night what happened. He listened, holding me close, and we went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. In the morning, he took me out on his boat and we watched the sunrise. He brought coffee and bagels and jelly.
We hardly said anything. He knew I needed the sunrise, the color, that vibrant sign of life, to even begin thinking about starting my day.
Dmitry was the son of my father’s torturer, my grandfather’s murderer.
He would hate himself for it, though he had no connection at all.
“I love you, Dmitry,” I whispered. Somewhere out there, I hoped, with all that I had, that he felt that love.
* * *
“That’s it, Toni, I’m done.” Boris’s cheerful voice came over the phone as I sat at my cubicle at work, editing an article on a home that had been built with all recycled materials.
“Done with what?”
“Stealing, uh ...” He coughed. “Borrowing a car now and then from the wealthy and spoiled. I have three full-time mechanics working with me and I’m running an honest shop.”
“Perfect. I didn’t like seeing you in jail. The orange jumpsuit didn’t go well with your coloring.”
“Orange doesn’t go well with anyone’s coloring. I cannot wait to see what’s upcoming in the next opera season, can you?”
No, I couldn’t.
I chatted with Boris.
I missed Dmitry. Having him gone again felt like a slash against my heart.
* * *
“I’m leaving my business, Toni. Shutting it down. Doors closed.”
“You are?” Lindy and I were making two apple pie crusts in my kitchen, rolling out the dough.
“Yes. I’m tired of it. I don’t want to have so much sex anymore. I don’t want middle-aged and old men touching me. It’s disgusting now.”
“Glad to hear it.” Wow. Boris, now Lindy. Lucky week. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to become a librarian.”
I stopped rolling out the dough. I envisioned that. Lindy, a librarian. Yep. It would work.
“I loved your idea,” Lindy said. “I love books. I read all the time, as you know, and I love lib
raries. I love the smell of books. I love the feel of books.”
“You’re a book addict.”
“Yes. A book addict. I can help anyone find a book. Even my clients ask me for book suggestions sometimes. I loan my books out to them. They always bring them back. Plus, I love research, love studying. So I’m going to college to become a librarian. I want to work at a university.”
“I think that’s a dandy idea, Lindy. I do.”
“A dandy idea. I like the way you say it.”
“You’re supersmart and you know a whole bunch about everything.”
“Not about everything, but I do have this need to learn something new each day. Being an expensive call girl, that profession, I didn’t learn anything. Same old, same old. The men want to talk, they want you to listen, they want to think that their sticks are bigger than other men’s sticks, so you lie and tell them yes, they are, praise them, make some noises, and they think they’re Superman in bed. Like I said, I never learned anything new.”
“It’s important. Learning, I think.”
“Me too, and thanks, Toni.”
“For what?”
“For saying that I’m supersmart.”
“You are supersmart. You’re a brain.”
“I think I’ll use my brain instead of my secret passageway from now on.”
“I think it’s your dream job.”
“Me too.”
We used our hands to scoop up chopped apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg.
“I really like you, Toni.”
“I like you, too, Lindy. And I’ll definitely come and check out books at your library.”
“I’ll waive your late fines for you.”
“You’re a true pal.”
* * *
On a Monday night, at eight o’clock, reading a book in bed, hoping it would distract me from a prison in the Soviet Union, a sadistic jailer, and a house out in the country with a little boy slipping in blood, I heard Valerie in my head.
Help me, Toni. Help me.
I closed my eyes as my whole body tightened, my breath coming to a halt. I blocked everything out, even warm and cuddly Nick snuggled up with me. Where are you?
I’m in a cellar. House across the street is 12756.
Valerie? Valerie?
“What is it, Toni?” Nick sat straight up. “Are you all right?”
My lungs lost air. I felt dizzy.
“Can you breathe, Toni?” Nick leaned over me. “Baby, can you breathe?”
I hit my chest with my hand and dragged in air, sagging. “Valerie needs help. She’s going to get hurt.”
“What? How do you know?”
“There’s one thing I haven’t told you, Nick.” I flew out of bed and started to dress.
“What is it?”
“I can hear Valerie and Ellie in my head. Now and then. Rarely. I just heard Valerie.”
I told him what I knew. He looked as if I’d hit him with a two-by-four.
“Please, Nick. We’ll talk about it later. You have to believe me.”
“Okay.” He made a call, then another, getting dressed.
I called Kai. He said that Valerie had said she was going by the restaurant. “She said she’d be home by nine-thirty.” His voice was sharp, worried.
“Where are the kids?”
“They’re here.” I told him what I heard.
“I’m calling Chief Crighton.”
Ellie called me. “12756. We have to go now to the police station. Now!”
Nick and I raced down the dock to his black truck and met Ellie and Kai at the police station. Chief Crighton was there. There were police officers and detectives buzzing around, working the computers, on the phone, trying to find Valerie. Valerie’s security officer had been found knocked out and bleeding in the back corner of Svetlana’s Kitchen parking lot.
“Look for 12756,” I told them. “It’s the address of a home across the street from where Valerie is being held.”
“She called you?” Chief Crighton asked. Crighton was a tall, strong, tough, honest man. I knew him from my work at the newspaper. I liked him.
“No.” I saw his confusion. “It’s ... it’s weird. It’s down our family line. From the Sabonises. We have it. We have a language, only in the worst circumstances, we can ...”
“You can ... ?” the chief prodded.
“We can hear each other in our heads.”
Everyone in the room froze. I could feel their disbelief, ridicule from a few of them.
The chief stared at me. He evaluated.
“Believe her,” Nick said.
And that was it. Nick knew the chief, too. Chief Crighton said to everyone, “We’re working this from all angles. We’ve got people at Svetlana’s, we’ve got addresses and cell phones for the Barton family, we’ve got officers going to their homes now. And we’re going to investigate this number, 12756. Joe, Ismael, Sierra, you’re on it. Move.”
In minutes there were a number of addresses up on computer screens. The chief looked at them, yelled them out to officers. There were houses with the number 12756 all over the Portland metro area. “Go. Remember it’s across the street,” the chief said. Officers ran out of the room with their addresses, along with Kai.
“One more,” one of the officers called out. “This one.”
“12756 SW Moreland Lane,” the chief said. “Looks like it’s in Schollton, out in the country.”
Another two officers took off.
Valerie! Are you in the country?
It was weak, dim, hopeful. Yes.
“She’s in the country,” Ellie said.
We sprinted out of that police station.
* * *
Nick drove Ellie and me in his truck, following the police car as it rushed through the city, lights and siren on, down a freeway, out onto winding rural roads, the countryside black except for occasional lights from homes.
“Almost there,” Nick said, looking at his GPS.
The police officers turned off the lights and siren, then slowed in front of a house with the number 12756, its porch light on. It was well manicured, painted light blue, flowerpots hanging from the porch.
The lights in the dilapidated house across the street, and down a short dirt road, were all off except for one dim light in the back. The curtains were closed. The front porch tilted. There were broken-down cars in the front yard, a lopsided trailer in the back, stacks of wood, and piles of trash and junk.
The police officers hid the cruiser down the road, behind a grove of trees. Nick parked in back of their car.
I didn’t wait. I clambered out of the truck and slid through the shadows to the house. Nick and the police officers ordered me to stop, to get back in the truck. I didn’t listen, because I had to get to Valerie. It was primal sister pull. That faint yes made me think she was dying or believed she was going to die. That the Bartons or one of their sewer-dwelling friends had her made that a distinct possibility.
I scrambled down low, hiding behind hollowed-out cars, a refrigerator, and a metal shed as I moved toward the house. Darting through the shadows came second nature to me, as if I were back in Moscow, after pickpocketing someone, and I needed to escape, quick as could be.
Nick, the officers, and Ellie were behind me. I searched for a cellar window, a slit near the ground that would have allowed Valerie to peek out and see the address of the house across the street.
I’m here, I told Valerie. Where are you? Valerie? Was she hurt? Was she dead now? “Valerie!” I whispered, as loud as I dared.
“Toni!” A faint voice. “Toni!”
Relief swept through me as I hugged the edge of the house, Nick, the police officers, and Ellie right behind me. Several bricks had been pushed out around a six-inch opening next to the ground. I knelt and peered into the darkness.
“Valerie,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. No. Toni,” she whimpered. “They’re coming back.”
“Oh, my Lord, you’re bleeding.�
�� She had blood on her face and one eye was swollen shut.
“Bashed me up. It’s the Barton gang.”
“We’re getting you out of here, Valerie,” an officer said. She was very calming. “Hang on.”
I put my hand through the opening and held her hand. Ellie did, too. “I love you. Everything will be fine.”
The police officer behind me called for backup. The other one had her gun out and was crouched protectively in front of me. Nick was beside me.
“Car,” Nick said. “Everyone down.”
The headlights zoomed down the highway, too fast, swerving. Drunk, I thought. Nick pushed me down lower. Ellie flattened out on the ground. We did not let go of Valerie’s hand.
One of the officers slid behind a tree, her gun gripped in both hands. The car turned, screeching, sliding, and then ground to a halt in the driveway, hard rock music blaring. Two men stumbled out of the car. They were swearing and smashed. I recognized them from the trial. Wasted away. Matted, long hair.
“Backup on the way,” the police officer whispered. “Unless something happens, then we’ll be going in immediately.”
“Valerie,” Nick said, getting his gun out and lying in front of the opening. “If the men come downstairs, I’m going to shoot them. You will need to move out of the way, i.e., onto the floor, and cover your head. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She looked at Ellie and me, tears spilling out. “Promise me.”
“We will,” we assured her. We knew what she was talking about: her kids.
The minutes while we waited for backup were some of the scariest of my life. We did not let go of Valerie’s hand. We knew we would have to let go if those hellions came through the door, as Nick would shoot.
“I’m scared,” she whispered, her voice wobbling. The men in the house turned music on. Suicide music, that’s what I called that banging, clanging crap. They yelled and swore, a bottle broke, then another. I heard one of them say, “I want a crack at that bitch.” Another said, “Yeah, you first then me, brother.”
I saw a look of cold fury in Nick’s eyes.
“Everything will be fine,” I said to Valerie.
