The Altar Girl: A Prequel

by Orest Stelmach

  “You have anyone special on stage tonight?” I said.

  “Special?”

  “From out of town?”

  “There’s Raquel and Rafaela, the sisters from Rio.”

  “And they’re actually from Rio de Janeiro?”

  “No.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Loretta and Janice from Sturbridge, Mass.”

  I shook my head. “I mean from out of state. Los Angeles?”

  “Miss Twin Peaks. She’s from LA. But that’s next week.”

  “No one from LA on stage?”

  “Only in their dreams.”

  I returned to my car. I was parked in the deepest part of the parking lot the farthest from the entrance. Rows upon rows of cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs obscured my car from the door to the club. I’d picked my spot purposefully to afford myself some cover in case I needed it. My concern at the time was that my brother might refuse to talk to me and might have me physically removed from his establishment. In that case, I was going to stay put the entire night and follow him home. Now a combination of uncertainty about my next move and curiosity about my brother’s blatant lie were going to keep me stationary for a while.

  He’d told me he’d missed the blessing of the Easter baskets because he had to pick up a special guest from LA at Bradley Airport. He’d also said the guest was related to his business. I’d assumed he was referring to his strip club. But the XXX actress wasn’t appearing in his club until next Saturday. That left two possibilities. One, Marko had told a complete lie. He hadn’t picked up anyone at the airport. He wasn’t prepared for my question and it was the best answer he could concoct on the fly. Two, Marko had told a partial lie. He’d picked up someone else at the airport who was relevant to a different business. The other business might have been my godfather’s business. I considered it a noteworthy coincidence that Donnie Angel had found what he was looking for at the same time that Marko had lied to me. My gut told me my brother might have been involved in Donnie’s discovery.

  Marko’s lie only increased my commitment to my mission. My problem was I wasn’t sure what to do next. I sat in the car for fifteen minutes and let my pulse slow down to normal, my vision clear. A thought dawned on me after reviewing all my moves since I’d first started looking into my godfather’s death. Sometimes there was no substitute for a second pair of eyes. What I needed was someone to talk to. I’d promised Mrs. Chimchak I’d keep her apprised of my progress. It was the perfect time to call her.

  She answered on the third ring and immediately told me my call was a most pleasant surprise. I asked her if it was too late in the night—it was only 8:30 p.m., and she laughed saying it was never too late for a phone call from her favorite Plastunka. She asked me if I was making any progress. I gave her a brief update on the essential developments.

  “Did Marko tell you why he was at your godfather’s house the day he died?’

  “No. He avoided the question.”

  “And what do you conclude from that?”

  “I don’t conclude anything but I have some strong convictions. First, he didn’t kill my godfather.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I asked him and when he answered he was mad that I’d even considered it. I know my brother. He’s not that good an actor. Plus, I’ve known him all my life, and I don’t think he’s capable of killing a man in cold blood.”

  “We’re all capable of things beyond our comprehension under the right conditions. But no one knows your brother like you do. If you’re sure you’re not letting your wishes become your deductions, then I trust your judgment.”

  “I’m sure. My second conviction is that my brother was my godfather’s partner. If not partner, then business associate, at a minimum. Marko admitted he did one job for him. He probably got paid good money for a few hours of work helping deliver an object of beauty. I know my brother. He’s always looking for easy money. I can see him trying to turn it into a steady thing, and then an even more lucrative thing.”

  “That would explain why he was at his house the day he died.”

  “He was either getting paid, or there to arrange the next job.”

  “But if it were the latter they could have done that over the phone, no? Doesn’t a face-to-face meeting suggest there was something more urgent involved? Something so important to your brother that he was willing to invest the time to go all the way from Willimantic—or divert from wherever he was—to East Hartford.”

  I sighed. “Money.”

  “A man’s living is an urgent and important thing.”

  “That was it then. My godfather was a louse and a cheat. Maybe he didn’t pay Marko on time. Maybe he owed him money. Whatever the reason, Marko went over there to have a confrontation about their business.”

  “Good. That’s logical,” Mrs. Chimchak said. “And this is a perfect time to tell you that I found something late this afternoon that might be of help to you.”

  “I need all the help I can get.”

  I heard the sound of paper crinkling in the background. “I found the copy of a lease for a warehouse in Hartford.”

  “A warehouse?”

  “On Ledyard Street.”

  Ledyard Street was a mile away from the Ukrainian National Home.

  “I thought he kept all his stuff in his house,” I said.

  “So did I. This is the first I’m learning of it.”

  “How did he pay the bills?”

  “Probably the same way he paid for his meals at Fleming’s. With cash.”

  “When was the lease signed? And what was the term?”

  More crinkling noises followed. “It was a one-year lease. Signed almost a year ago.” Mrs. Chimchak paused. “If I’m reading this right . . . wait . . . let me check the calendar. Yes. I think I am reading this right. There’s only three weeks left on the lease. Three weeks from Monday.”

  “The time period—when he signed it—coincides with the timing of the Crimean business.”

  “Which makes me wonder . . .”

  “Is there anything in the warehouse now?”

  “Indeed.”

  I also wondered if Roxy knew about the warehouse. She hadn’t mentioned it to me. Was it realistic that her uncle would keep it a secret from her? She rose to the top of my list of potential coconspirators. Per her own admission at the Uke National Home, she needed the money, too.

  “Did you make any progress on the other front?”

  I heard her question but didn’t focus on it. Instead I was imagining myself skulking around a warehouse trying to get a look inside. I doubted there would be a window in front. “The other front? You think there might be a window in back?”

  A pause. “I’m not talking about the warehouse,” Mrs. Chimchak said. “I’m talking about the other mystery. The letters in your godfather’s calendar. DP.”

  I apologized for not understanding her question. “It must have something to do with his connection. With the man in Crimea. The man who used to run the Black Sea Trading Company before he passed away. Have you ever heard of a man named Takarov?”

  There was another pause. This one was longer and much heavier. “Yes.” Always the inscrutable one, Mrs. Chimchak couldn’t quite control the volume of her voice. It was a touch quieter, more solemn, as though she were desperately trying to hide the emotional resonance of my mere mention of the name. “I know the name. Is that the man who bought your godfather the plane tickets?”

  “His company did.”

  “Then it all makes sense now.”

  My pulse picked up. “How does it all make sense?”

  “There was a man named Takarov in the camps. He was NKVD. He was the man who had me repatriated.”

  This was the second time she’d mentioned her repatriation. I was so curious I had to pursue the story this time. I did so gingerly, praying I w
asn’t offending her because she’d been reluctant to discuss it further the first time.

  “I don’t want to dredge up bad memories . . . but if you don’t mind my asking . . . how did he do that?”

  “He showed me a picture of my family. My mother, father, and sister. It was a picture of them at our farm in Ivano-Frankivsk.” I knew from my geography lessons that the latter was a region in western Ukraine. “He said they were looking forward to my return home.”

  I waited for Mrs. Chimchak to follow up but she didn’t add anything else. “That’s all he said?”

  “That’s all he needed to say.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “No. He was very charming. Very persuasive. Of course he was. That’s why he was picked for the job. Anyone else, I would have known with one hundred percent certainty my family was either dead or in Siberia. But Takarov had a gift, he knew how to win your trust. He won it by not trying to win it. He did not sell. He was like a priest. He told you what you wanted to hear with a gentle voice and a soothing touch. I knew with ninety-five percent certainty my family’s fate was sealed, which means I knew. I knew, and yet . . .”

  “And yet you went. You went because you had to go. You had no choice.”

  “I had no choice. If there was a sliver of hope my family could be saved, I had to go. Truth be told, I knew deep down there was no hope. And yet still I had to go.”

  “Because you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t go.”

  Mrs. Chimchak didn’t answer, and I stayed mute. I imagined she was reliving the excruciating. I counted to six slowly before asking my next question.

  “What happened to you after you got on the train?”

  “Once we entered Ukraine, I was arrested and taken to a government building. I was brought to a room with wooden floors. It was empty except for a desk and a spotlight. The man behind the desk was courteous. He asked me to stand at the opposite end of the room facing the desk. He told me there was an X painted in white on the wood. He told me to look at my feet, find the X, and make certain I was standing on it. He was very particular about that detail. I remember him asking me to be certain I was standing on the X.

  “Then he pressed a button on top of the desk. There was a loud explosion—like a rifle shot—and I felt myself knocked backward. At the same time, the floor fell out from under me. I dropped into an abyss. I don’t know how deep it was. Ten, twenty feet. I’m still not sure. I landed on top of bodies. They were buried deep, one on top of the other. The floorboards closed high above me, but before they did a flash of light illuminated the bodies. They had red stains on their chests. I reached up and touched my chest. It too was bloody, but not over the heart. My wound was just below the shoulder. And then the floorboards closed and it turned dark.

  “I heard several men moaning, talking incoherently. Not everyone around me was dead. Later, after I’d made my escape, I realized what had happened. The NKVD had created a device where a button on top of a desk fired a rifle that was hidden somewhere else in the room. Probably in the desk. The bodies fell under the floorboard. If the shot didn’t stop the heart, the prisoner would bleed to death. There was nowhere for him or her to go. Or so they thought.

  “I am much smaller than the average man. That is what saved me once, when the shot was fired. The bullet went through my chest near the shoulder. It didn’t touch any vital organs. And then it saved me again, when I crawled around the entire basement of the building and found a water pipe. There was the tiniest sliver of light where the pipe went outside through the wall and it hadn’t been sealed properly. It turned out it was a makeshift building made of cheap wood, which was to be expected. The war had just ended. I was able to loosen the nail on one of the wallboards and slip out of the building. I managed to get back to Europe through the kindness of a few friends. They maintained an underground route from Ukraine to Germany via Czechoslovakia and Poland. This time I went to Austria, to a different camp, where I used my mother’s maiden name to create a new identity for myself.”

  It was a surreal story, the kind you read about in history books or saw at the cinema, not the kind your childhood mentor tells you she lived. It took me a moment to digest it, accept the images of her being shot and landing among a pile of murdered men, and those still clinging to life with no hope of escape. There was one question, I realized, that still needed to be asked.

  “Why did the NKVD sentence you to death?”

  “The Soviet government considered all DPs traitors. If you were in Europe, in their minds, you were a collaborator. Didn’t matter if you were forced labor brought to Germany against your will by the Nazis, or you simply had no other place to go and you were trying to survive. One woman was sentenced to death when the NKVD found her shoes wrapped in an English newspaper. She’d picked it up off the floor in a camp and used it to protect her shoes. Once she was repatriated, her luggage was examined, and her choice of wrapping was found, she was executed.

  “My sentence was a bit more justified. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought the Nazis and the Soviets. It had a unit of women who carried out missions of guerrilla warfare. I was one of those women.”

  This was not a surprising revelation. There had been rumors that Mrs. Chimchak had been a soldier. A real soldier. But to hear the admission from her lips stunned me nonetheless. I remained quiet. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have anything to say to something like that.

  “Remember how I told you that when your godfather came back from Crimea he looked depressed?” Mrs. Chimchak said. “And how he perked up only when he started spending more money a few months later?”

  “It’s as though Takarov had something on him. As though he coerced him to be an American distributor for his stolen arts and antiquities—I’m assuming they’re stolen—and then once the money started flowing in—”

  “And Takarov died.”

  “My godfather became a willing participant. But how could Takarov blackmail my godfather at his age? What could be so embarrassing to an old man with a poor reputation to start with?”

  Mrs. Chimchak took a moment to consider the question. “Ambition blinds a man to his age and reputation. So don’t assume your godfather understood how others viewed him. He probably thought he was the only person in the community that knew he once frequented houses of ill repute. And as for the basis for Takarov’s blackmail, we must remember. Time heals all wounds but guilt never expires.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m all too familiar with the concept.” I pulled out a pen and pad from my glove box. “Would you please repeat the exact address for that warehouse on Ledyard Street?”

  Mrs. Chimchak gave me the number. She told me to be careful and call her after I took a look at the warehouse. She also gave me a final word of advice.

  “Remember,” she said. “Black souls wear white shirts.”

  CHAPTER 29

  NADIA ENJOYED THE trip to the Connecticut shore with her family. Her father was in a good mood. She and her brother dug up soda bottle caps from the sand and tried to get as many different brands as possible. Their mother had made capicola and ham grinders with provolone cheese. She served them with giant pickles the size of zucchinis and chilled cans of Fanta Root Beer. Everyone was happy. On the way home they stopped for hot dogs, french fries, and butter pecan ice cream cones for dinner.

  They listened to the Red Sox in the car. It was a close game, tied 2–2 in the ninth inning when the lights went out in Fenway. Why did the lights go out in Fenway? And why was her hair wet? Most importantly, why was she upside down?

  The next thing she knew she wasn’t at Fenway anymore. Wait, she thought. She hadn’t been at Fenway. She’d been listening to the game on the radio, hadn’t she? It was so confusing. All she knew now was that someone was carrying her through the forest and rain was pelting her face. She was slung over a man’s shoulder. A woman with the face of a wild boar and the shape
of a mutant pear swung a lantern as she marched behind them, a massive knapsack resting on her hunched back. Nadia could hear the man’s lungs heave with each step.

  A few steps later Nadia understood. She understood that she’d been dreaming. She hadn’t been to the beach with her family, and she hadn’t gone to a baseball game at Fenway or heard it on the radio. She was still near the Appalachian Trail in the middle of her final night of the godforsaken survival test.

  And two strangers had taken her.

  CHAPTER 30

  LEDYARD STREET WAS a half-mile road on the commercial outskirts of Hartford. It was as cozy as the fringe of any urban area, with shot-out lights hanging from abandoned factory buildings and chain link fences surrounding auto body shops and vacant lots.

  Access to Ledyard came via the exact same route Father Yuri had taken when he’d whipped my car around the greater Hartford area. I’d driven it by myself and with my father hundreds of times. A left turn beyond Ledyard would point the driver toward Wethersfield and the Ukrainian National Home. A right turn put him a block away from Franklin Avenue and the Italian section of town. That is where Mozzicatto’s Bakery beckoned with fresh cannoli filled on the spot. It was the same bakery my godfather and mother had visited after he’d taken her to dinner. It seemed fitting that the warehouse where he’d stored his coveted merchandise was right smack in the middle of it all.

  I took a left onto Ledyard. My car twisted through a ninety-degree curve. The streetlights behind me faded into darkness. A sign for Jarosz Welding on a giant building’s façade appeared to have been stenciled by an intoxicated blacksmith. The road straightened. A custom motorcycle shop, a rivet manufacturer, and a space for lease followed. I couldn’t find a street number on any of them.