UNSEEN

Mark Graham

Copyright © Mark Graham 2013

Kindle Edition

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

Published by Bumblebee House Ink Publishing

2933 NC HWY 39 N | Louisburg, North Carolina, 27549 USA | 1.919.622.8284

www.bumblebeehouseink.com

Book design copyright © 2013 by Bumblebee House Ink Publishing. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Mark Graham

Published in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-0-9893248-3-0

1. Fiction, General, Suspense, Literary

2. Fiction, Multi-Cultural

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

Mariupol, Ukraine

The grounds-keeper caught the director watching him from behind the tall white linen curtains of her office window. He had seen her do this for many years and drive by him on his daily long walk to the bus-stop. He sensed her still observing him as he ambled to the newly installed nine foot high steel front gate at the entrance to the orphanage. He let himself out first, double-wrapped the chains, and relocked it. He stood there for a while looking at what had been his place of work for the past thirty-two years, the old large three-story building of imperfectly placed sandy bricks. Located central to one of the many Soviet era apartment sections of town, the orphanage was surrounded and blocked from all sides. The whole of the property, his kingdom, surrounded by a low endless and expansive wall of the same brick. He had given his best to it, inside and out, to make it appear less like an industrial warehouse. But at each day’s end, the view of it and his efforts disappointed.

His last day. He was still trying to believe it. It would be months before he started receiving his pension and he had made no other plans for the gap. He never even considered his pension, only assumed he would work until his body gave out completely.

Directors came and went over the years, one or two that were good and the rest bad. This latest one being the worst. Many children came to know him well and he always focused on the ones, the few, who could potentially find work when they left. But he was a learner. A man who read and thought. He learned to only invest himself in certain ones eventually and worked to build them up, making them assistants and getting them duty with him in the gardens or strapping on them a tool-belt to follow him around with, cleaning and fixing. Hoping they would grasp something lasting from his ethic and take on some confidence. It had become to him his real job.

He turned from the building. He had eleven blocks to walk to the bus stop. His longevity was in part due to this exercise blended with the breeze coming from the nearby Sea of Azov. At the corner of the fourth block he would normally stop into the store, buy a paper and meet his friends. His friends used to include the customers but that had changed over the years.

He passed the storefront by this evening.

As he walked, he thought of the empty flat that awaited him at the other side of town. His wife had died long ago and too young. He was without children; they had wanted children so badly. When no one was around he would still speak to her about all their children that he tended to. About his love and dreams for them. Each year he looked to celebrate a day when he helped one of his children get a job. Or when he found one had gone off to University on a government scholarship. He bought the little store out on those days. There were six such celebrations in his years at the orphanage. The past five years had been hopeless because of the new director. He managed his work around the other bad ones, but this one was different, maniacal and unpredictable. Also she was in total control while pretending to be at odds politically with some workers and administrators. It took him several years before he understood her act, her lies. And another couple of years to keep himself from the bottle when he returned home.

Part of him was relieved that he witnessed what he had on the second floor, while the part of him, concerned with paying his rent now, wished he had not stayed to listen and been found out. The work was so hopeless anyhow. And the director’s future would probably outlast the remainder of his life. But he had seen them and heard them. He had some skills and sober many years so he did imagine he might still find work, even at his age.

The grounds-keeper reached his stop and was surprised to see her alone there sitting under the canopy. He had been so much in his thoughts that he had not noticed her shiny new car parked in front of the bus-stop. He was certain she had not passed him on the walk, he always noticed that. And her new car was the latest talk of her around the orphanage. He approached her cautiously and sat down at the opposite end of the bench without acknowledging her.

“You know I had to fire you,” the director said.

He did not answer.

“Those girls have a roof and some money. That’s more than they would have on the street and you know it. And they don’t pay for anything.”

The grounds-keeper leaned his body slightly more away from her.

“I know you heard us talking. I don’t need to know how much you heard, you understand. That is enough to know.”

“Why are you talking to me?” he asked.

“I want you to know how serious this is. You know the cook – she was here only six weeks.”

He did remember. The woman had simply disappeared one day. But she had made friends in her short time and they tracked her down to her home town in time to attend the funeral. Because she had accidentally drowned three days before. Drowned in a river she had grown up swimming in every summer of her youth.

The bus pulled up to the curb and the man stood with no intention of a response. Something in him, some primal survival message, told him to speak before boarding the bus. “I understand,” he said.

“Good. Very important.”

“Da,” he replied.

The man stepped onto the bus, found his window seat and dropped into it. He knew she was looking at him but he could not look back. The bus moved and after some time he found the interest to look out the window as they passed the city port and then flowed through downtown Mariupol. The bus slowed and he peered down at two policemen talking it up with each other. He recognized the short one from a day in the director’s waiting room. The grounds-keeper had been there replacing a telephone the director had ripped from the wall and thrown against another wall. The short policeman had been there to get paid for turning a blind eye. When he was young, he believed the uniformed men were really something. They were the people’s refuge and ambassadors of the law. He knew now that the Soviet dream was just a prelude to a nightmare. His people were stronger than that and their heritage deeper. He had always imagined his last days to be of respect and honor. But the image was only four hours old and remained with him. He had been on that wing of the second floor a hundred thousand times before. This day was just unfortunate.

Three blocks from his Kiev hotel, he stood in front of the doors. The doors to the shop were obviously locked but Martin Johnson shook them anyhow. His need for caffeine hoped in any possibility. Even that which was seen with his eyes was not necessarily true, not absolutely. Dawn was breaking but the shopkeepers were not yet active. He turned around to see only old men slouching on park benches, chatting, feeding pigeons breakfast, and one set playing chess. Martin remembered Benjamin Franklin’s saying of “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”. From the looks of the men, Martin learned that health and wealth had very subjective and circumstantial definitions. He had left a note for his wife, Jenny, early in the morning that he would be venturing out alone and scribbled down the number to his new cell phone. He started to approach the old men but changed his mind. Six months of hard study prior to this trip and he was still not confident in his Russian enough for random conversations.

This first cool morning in-country, an overwhelming pang settled in his gut as he left the storefront to walk the city sidewalks. It was mostly because of his need of coffee but he could not ignore the fact of his new anxiety. The last time he felt something like this was prior to his wedding day. Not a foreboding, instead a kind of concentrated gravity, deep in meaning and personal.

Martin didn’t like radical change or discomfort of any kind. Joining up with the little group on their mission to help an orphanage was something he had committed to for a lack of something better to do. He was diligent in this and in life to always count the cost, to never blindly leap into anything new. With all of his preparation, and being just a day into Ukraine, it did not feel like a honeymoon. He couldn’t even get coffee the instant he wanted it and feared that there might be more inconveniences that lay ahead.

As he walked the endless broken and cracked asphalt sidewalks of Kiev, the mix of grand Stalin period buildings with their tall columns, carved stone window frames and inlaid with first floor cheaply built modern store-fronts enthralled Martin. He worked his mind away from his normal inclinations and passions, thinking of prayer but without praying. This thing prayer only came to him in times of extreme distress or boredom. He crossed a river; the bridge’s entry way was marked by tall stone posts, topped with golden hammer and sickle ornaments. Martin passed over to the island and then meandered down towards the left embankment of the Dnieper River. A whole community of Soviet period apartment high-rises nestled in place on what his map said was an historic artificial island called Rusanivsky. Nothing was open there either. He continued on carefully down cement steps to the canal level and rested on what was left of a green painted wooden park bench at the water’s edge. He would wait the shopkeepers out. Looking out to the new light expanding across the algae infested water, he ran through the questions burdening him, questions he had not been used to asking. Why was he so tense? What lay ahead for him in the next 10 days? No matter, he was happy just to not be working wherever he might be. If nothing else, he planned to make a vacation out of it all.

Martin looked at his watch and thought of the meetings and ledgers he would normally be entertaining at work at that time. For the 15 years since leaving college, he had been an accountant with the small company. A job he also did simply for lack of interest in something else to do. Most of his promotions were generated by attrition and had been fittingly anticlimactic. It was rumoured that he was on a short list for the future position of comptroller. He knew he didn’t “get along” as well as others, so this had surprised him. Then he remembered the time difference. He’d actually be fast asleep if back home. Martin looked to his map and bits of history knowledge drifted to the forward of his thoughts but the power of their certainty fizzled. The “Evil Empire”, the name he’d been taught from his youth, clearly did not fit this place, or the people. They struggled, maybe, under an overtly oppressive government, but were not partakers of that power. Not folks like him anyhow. In fact, so far it seemed much like his Oklahoma but in an alternate universe. A universe without an EPA, building codes, or fast food and large grocery chains every hundred feet. Martin tightly clamped his eyes and pressed his thoughts out into a single desire and plea to have the wretched question of his anxiety answered. He waited as if for a miracle cure to cancer. But nothing. An hour later, nothing, the pressure of an unspoken purpose was still enveloping him.

He trudged himself back the way he had come and slowly passed one lone old man sitting on another bench. The man, in his 80s, leaned forward with his arms folded over his crossed legs. Martin estimated that his wide-lapelled plaid suit coat must have survived for at least forty years. He was compelled to stop before the man and felt strangely at home near him. The man looked at him as someone pleased, a kind of lonely old uncle expectant of company.

“Hello,” Martin said in his uncertain Russian.

“Hello, friend.”

They remained in silence for a time, what seemed like a very long time to Martin. The man never dropped his aged but alert piercing blue eyes from him.

“You are American,” the man said in English.

“You know?” Martin asked.

“Yes. You are bold.”

“Your English is good,” Martin replied. Bold?

“Thank you. You see that ship there? By the crane.”

“Yes,” Martin answered.

“It’s named after an older riverboat. I worked on that one.”

“Providence.” Martin said.

“Very good. You read Russian.”

“Well, I know the alphabet. You know where I can get coffee?” Martin again gestured as he struggled with words, forgetting the stranger knew perfect English.

“A good ship can take you safely somewhere. But sometimes it is the ship that is the destination. You understand?”

“No. I’m sorry. I need to get going. It was nice talking with you.”

“Okay. You have hryvnia?” the man asked.

The man held his shaking hand out. Martin handed him 10 hryvnia and smiled a goodbye. The old man had seemed extraordinary in the way he had opened up so directly. From Martin’s short experience from the airport to there the man seemed un-Ukrainian.

He called Jenny, telling her that he would meet the group at the Alliance Children’s Foundation compound. From his map, he could tell it was doable without a taxi. Martin, determined to find coffee, wanted more time to shake off the pressure he felt from the inside out.

Along the way back he witnessed shops opening for business. People filled the streets and sidewalks finding their way to their jobs. Many other people appeared to wander about without real direction. Probably unemployed. Martin passed a group of teens that likely should have been in school or at work. Books did not exaggerate the amount of street kids in Kiev. The numbers of homeless youth astounded him as he walked, walked in a way to avoid them. He caught the eye of a couple gang members as he went. Each time their eyes and expressions were identical – he offended them by having some place to go, some place to be. He ducked into the first open café and stood in line for his coffee. The Babushka in front of him turned her head back to look at him. Martin then realized that he had naturally made, with an American sense of space, the only gap in the line.

The Alliance Children’s Foundation compound was immense and was centered in one of the most expensive real estate quarters of Kiev. Inflation was in place and the rental property was a relative match to Manhattan. Martin walked through the stately gates of the A.C.F. feeling uneasy. His ideas of second-world ministries were nothing like he had observed. He knew there were people in the field, missionaries who suffered along with those they ministered to. This was not it. This was where they organized and networked all those missionaries. They also networked with hundreds of other non-profits in the country through what they called “partnerships.”

The A.C.F. resembled to Martin a little of the American government in the way that they were the dispenser of major funds, allowing them a far-reaching oversight of likely too many things. His little rag-tag group had gathered outside one of the doors on the third floor. He reached them and heard that he missed the tour of the state-of-the-art television studio. Apparently it was breath-taking.

He couldn’t have been less interested if he had desired to be. Why he came all this way in the first place, Martin wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t to meet-and-greet TV personalities or ogle electronic equipment in a studio. He took a place next to Jenny and they followed the team down the many stairs and out into the parking lot. The chief of the A.C.F., recognizable to Martin from his previous fretful Internet searches, walked out of the building with a couple of his aides following close behind. The man seemed bothered, a bitterness masked by a smile that Martin had seen before from so many salesmen.

The leader of the mission led the group closer to the chief and by the van that was to take them to the train station.

“Hello, everyone. Welcome to Ukraine. Translated, it means Borderland and you guys are headed to our southernmost border region today. I tell you, I envy you your work in Mariupol. Word has gone ahead and the children are very excited. The director is as well. I have known her for many years and I think they will be as much a blessing to you as you are to them. Thank you again for your heart for the Ukrainian children.”

The chief gave more energy to his final smile, waving before disappearing back into the building.

“What’s his name, again?” Martin asked.

“Chip Stiles. He’s really nice,” Jenny replied.

“So just his little speech sucks?”

“Stop it,” she whispered.

“Fine.”

On their way to the train station Martin had made it his goal to try to understand the Ukrainian traffic signs and rules. Was driving and parking on sidewalks okay all the time or just at certain hours? They encountered a traffic light at several intersections where the rule seemed to be that all cars met in the middle and fought their way across.

It was early evening by the time they arrived at the Kiev city train station. Their group was guided into the station, a place as bustling inside as outside. The airport had nothing like the volume of people in this place which showed to Martin that this country relied heavily on the train. Looking around the entryway he saw that the ceiling reached at least 100 feet high, held together with giant and ornate stone columns. Hanging from this incredible height was the largest chandelier he had ever seen with large baroque style fresco paintings bordering the highest rim full around the room. Did they have Soviet symbolism in the same way Masonic temple buildings back home had mystical meanings?

Jenny tugged him along with the rest of the herd to the window where they could exchange their money. These little currency exchange stations seemed to be everywhere. Martin had little interest in the people on his team before today, but now they made themselves pronounced, annoying, and embarrassing. An older couple bickered with the exchange agent and between themselves. Another man still complained about his having missed lunch. And one woman spoke loudly of how she was so humbled by the poverty she had seen on the way to the station.

Martin finally found the words to pray, but the answer was apparently ‘no’ because they were all still talking.

“These people, Jenny.”

“Stop it. It’s fine,” Jenny said.

“Yeah, okay. But come on.”

“You don’t like groups or crowds. You don’t like anyone taking care of you. It makes you crazy.”

“Da,” he said and laughed.

“Oh, the language. You have to have an interpreter. That must be killing you. I’m sorry, it’s not funny.”

“It’s like I’m a baby, you know.”

“You’re my baby.”

The A.C.F. people walked them all to their track where they boarded four to a cabin. Martin had not thought ahead to how this would play out, the men sleeping in one room and women to the other cabins. He had a book though, his salvation. The pretty stewardess appeared at his door to take drink orders. The word for coffee was so close that he did not have to offer help in translation for the other members of his group.

As she turned and walked out of the cabin, Martin watched as all eyes of the cramped cabin followed her out. Two of his cabin mates stood and followed her out of the cabin, pretending some other purpose. One of the men intensely read a wall placard written in Russian, and the other man pretended to be interested in the view out the window, glancing repeatedly back at the stewardess as she walked down the corridor. Martin smiled for the first time in days. Even landing this job must have been competitive and the woman’s looks had likely been her salvation.

When she returned with his coffee, he took it to Jenny’s cabin, interrupting her chat with the other women. She always looked so happy to him, so excited about most everything they did. This adventure might as well have been one of her weekend shopping trips to Tulsa with her girlfriends.

They linked hands, walking a few cabin doors down.

Jenny stopped them and spread the curtains on a window. She squeezed his hand while he stared at her looking out at the passing urban landscape.

“We’re almost out of the city now. What are all those metal boxes? Mini-storage?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so. Those are assigned car garages for the nearby apartment buildings.”

“Oh. That makes sense. There are a lot of small cars here.”

“Really? Whatever.”

“What?”

“Look at those garages. How can you validate them? They’re ugly welded steel boxes. And the apartments are worse than our ghettos at best.”

“What’s your point, Martin?”

“Nothing. I feel weird here. Everybody zipping along a never-ending junkyard and acting like everything is normal.”

“This is their normal. Get some sleep,” Jenny said.

She smiled and kissed him good-night.

Back in his cabin, Martin climbed into his top bunk. He lay there; face three inches from the ceiling, struggling to breathe for several hours. Though brochures declared some trains were now fitted with air-conditioning, his was not. The train shuddered through several slowing-to-stop experiences. One seemed to take longer to slow than others as outside lights flash-filled his cabin. Sensing the big city he saw on the map earlier and still in his clothes, he crept quietly out of the compartment and out onto the terminal platform.

A monotone Russian female voice echoed through the air reading something informative and boring over the station loud-speakers. The tone reminded him of that hollow flat gong and dull sound of the Greenwich Mean Time statement on short-wave radios. The kind his uncle gave when he was a kid. The one he had fiddled with in lieu of having friends. The station was surprisingly quiet and empty in the darkness of early morning for a city as large as Dnepropetrovsk. He walked along the long line of makeshift kiosks made of old cargo pallets covered with large canvas and plastic tarps. Some kiosk owners slept curled next to their sales-stands, wrapped tightly in blankets and Persian carpets. He imagined how busy they would soon become, full of smiles and desperate sales pitches. All of them running back and forth from train to train to make change.

A large cement slab stage separated train tracks, providing Martin ample room to pace and stroll. All the trains were painted solid blue, each with a long yellow stripe along the sides, matching the colors of the national flag. Most of the boxcars were newer, maybe ten to twenty years old. The older trains interested him more as he imagined early cold war drama around them. Never leaving sight of his train car, Martin counted the cars as he walked. His home was on the other side of the planet while here he was a stranger. He felt the sudden loneliness of that fact.

Jenny had urged—and he had planned to follow her suggestions—to take many pictures and make diary entries, interacting with as many locals as possible to deepen his travel experience. But his poor disposition concerning change and the stress of it was too much. Every time he thought to follow her recommendations, he simply did not have the energy. He was into day two of ten and had no more interest in anything than getting to day ten and ending the trip. To get back to the life he had neglected to reflect upon and appreciate. But at the same time, Martin knew he was wasting something good for himself, something lasting.

The question burned from his chest, “Why do I do what I don’t want to do? Why don’t I do what I want to do?”

The woman’s voice came over the speakers again. This time he associated the sound of it to a scene in Doctor Zhivago, adding another layer to his surreal experience. She mentioned the transit number for his train and he double-checked his ticket. One of the attendants of his train hung from the edge of the steps, waving him over.

It was accommodating to have their assistance in getting back to the right car quickly, but it annoyed him. He certainly didn’t need anyone’s help.

Chapter Two

Berdyansk, Ukraine

Dima woke, like most every morning, to his spastic cat attacking his feet. He punted the cat off the bed and rolled himself upright, carefully setting his feet to the floor, wary of another ambush. He reached one hand behind him, habitually, to feel his wife at rest. The power had come back on in the middle of the night so the radio and TV competed for his attention as he moved through his second-floor one-room flat. On his way into the kitchen, he stopped to silence Lady Gaga and the Ukrainian version of the sitcom The Nanny. The room was divided by a wooden fold-out panel he had devised from lumber found near the complex dumpster. For this, as with all his ideas, he was inspired by a need. In this case the idea was prompted when his daughter became a teenager and needed her privacy. In recent years it also helped for when his brother-in-law would sometimes stop over, uninvited, to sleep off his vodka binges.

In the kitchen he parted the yellowed linen curtains and pulled open the windows. He had installed them to open inwards so they would stop banging against the steel bars attached to the window frame outside. Dima didn’t trust the city tap water except to water his wife’s plants along the windowsill. He watered them now, as he did every morning. He set down the watering cup and turned to the kitchen counter to plug in his sheet-metal electrolysis contraption, and poured the tap water into the attached filter. The white and yellow sediment that dropped to the container’s bottom always fascinated him. Dima broke open a packet of oatmeal and poured the clean water into a separate tin pot to boil. Warm oatmeal and a banana for breakfast. He sat at the table and waited, sipping on thick black Turkish coffee made from water saved from the day before.

He was almost happy this morning because he had gotten some guaranteed business. Looked like it would be a solid day’s worth of carting an American around town. They tipped better than anyone, but it was never in a haughty way like the way some of the Europeans did. Sometimes it was worse, though, because Americans often conveyed a kind of desperate compassion that reminded him he was in need.

His daughter was getting dressed for work at the kiosk on the boardwalk. The tourist season was about to hit and half of Kiev and Moscow would descend upon them. She walked into the kitchen and Dima forced his eyes to his bowl for as long as possible.

“It’s not supposed to be that hot today,” Dima croaked.

“Papa, please. These are normal clothes.”

“What clothes?”

“Papa!”

Dima inwardly berated himself again for the early years. The neglect, driving the trucks. Always gone. Food, the need of it always on his mind. Did whatever it took to get them the food, maybe some education. In the end his daughter was as skinny as a bamboo rod and probably had read three books in her life. He stared at his bowl with intense disdain. This is life. He left the bowl half-eaten and went to the room to get his jacket. On a hot day everyone would know why he wore a jacket. People need only to think he carried a knife or gun to keep him safe from unknown troubles. His wife was up now and came to the hall to thank him for boiling the water. She placed his prized cap on his head. For a moment they held each other’s gaze. When he was feeling lonely or worried he would indulge himself in that moment. And she was faithful to be present and engaged. She would burn a kind of truth, a peace from God, into him. His thoughts of her would come to him throughout the day. A memory, a word, or a laugh. Each moment fresh to him again until he returned home. It was not always that way but he was older now, and they needed each other for so much more now.

Dima distracted the insane cat with food in order to leave the apartment. At first, when his daughter had found the cat he had told her they could not keep it. He informed her that as a patriot, a man of the community, he mustn’t take ownership of the cat. And how Ukrainian neighborhoods pride themselves on how fat they can make their strays. But she so wanted to keep the cat and they took it in because he always held before himself all that he had never provided for her.

He left the apartment, locking both its interior and exterior steel doors. He walked the long damp concrete hall to the building entrance and down the broken steps to the army-green steel entryway. He unlocked both bolts on that door and stepped out to relock them. The morning light reminded him that he lived like a coal-miner. In a full circle before him were five other nine-story structures exactly like his. Falling apart, like his. He put on his sunglasses and lit a cigarette. He caught movement around the center courtyard of the complex. Boys carried on a football match, never disturbing the handful of sleeping homeless men scattered about on the grounds of mixed asphalt, concrete and dirt.

Dima took a moment to look back at his building remembering how this was not always so rundown. When the complex was new, in 1985, when he worked the factory job he earned in military service. The courtyard had clean-cut grass and the city provided free outdoor films every weekend. The playground was newly painted and filled with young, well-dressed children laughing in the swings, not with prostitutes flicking cigarettes and killing daylight boredom. He sighed, stomped out his own smoke, and buried it into the dirt while he reordered his mind for work. This is life.

The 1982 Volga was a solid metal box coated with a mix of faded yellow paint and sea-air rust, and always unlocked because no one messed with the taxis. Dima had taken a loan five years earlier to buy it off an army buddy who had stolen it from Kazakhstan. The loan officer in Kiev, who only had a first name, had printed off papers that magically made the deal legal.

It was Dima’s now, mostly, even if he had to keep a ‘roof’ on it by paying protection fees to the local police every month. And he was also, despite his efforts to avoid it, part of an unofficial union that might call on him to transport cargo at any time. Though that had only happened once, he hoped it never would again.

Dima switched the fuel line to the two natural gas tanks in his trunk. It hurt his passenger luggage space, but liquid fuel was expensive. Most of his passengers didn’t own luggage anyhow, just the usual favorite plastic bag that every Ukrainian carried everywhere. He kissed his fingers and pressed them against the icon of Mary and Jesus glued to the center of his dashboard. Then he habitually checked the one of Saint Augustine on the visor.

The night rain had filled the many pot-holes along his way, but the holes were not hidden to Dima. They were mapped in his mind. A friend once joked that Dima drove left and right more often than straight. But in this, Dima was a serious man. A tire or axle could set him back a week’s pay and cost him a month of weekends to make it up.

The train station was typical of a mid-sized city station in America in the 1930s, when passenger trains were not yet unimportant. Unlike the larger cities, the Berdyansk station was clean and organized. Where the Kiev station had a marketplace atmosphere, mostly no one was here unless involved in travel. Dima parked outside the front entrance with the rest of the local competition. Someone had called him from Kiev needing a taxi available to babysit his American for the day. He still wasn’t sure how the man who called about the American got his number, but he sounded young and a little educated. However any lack of swear words qualified as that for Dima. The caller said the man would have red hair and would pull into the station at 10:30. An easy find.

So many bags, Americans. He worried as he looked around at the other taxis. Their foreign cars had the room for the bags and the man could change his mind. He left his taxi and walked through an exiting crowd to be ready. He would only have to watch maybe five people at a time to catch any with red hair. He barely caught the hair under an expensive ball-cap, but the man only had a small duffle bag. Italian? Then he remembered the man was just in town for the day, and maybe he had sense about him. Dima pushed his way through to the man and stepped in front of him, hat in both hands. “Excuse, sir,” he said.

“You my guy?” the man asked.

“Dima. I spoke your boss on phone. To pick you up.”

“Okay. Good. You speak English. He’s not my boss. The word is facilitator.” He averted his eyes when he spoke. “It doesn’t matter.”

Dima took the man’s bag and led him to the car. He realized he still had a cigarette in his mouth and quickly spit it out.

“This is it?”

“Da, sir.”

“Whatever. Take me to the Hotel Berdyansk. I need to check in and gonna need you to run an errand. You understand?”

“Da.”

On the drive to the hotel Dima opened his mouth to ask the usual, expecting the usual. He stopped himself not knowing why, only knowing that he was uncomfortable. Normally, he would ask why they were here and the plain-spoken Americans would say they were on a church mission trip. Or students there for a conference. Sometimes a stressed couple to adopt a child from one of the orphanages – there were three.

Dima sensed that this man was different. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and found the man staring back at him, directly. Dima bounced his eyes back to the road and straightened the icon on his dash as an excuse to touch it.

“Dima, right?”

“Da.”

“Dima, I’m on a tight schedule. Here is what I need. I may need you to translate for me at the hotel, maybe not. Then we make a stop at the courthouse. You know where that is?”

“Da. Khomyak Street.”

“Good. While I’m there you go to Soba. Have them reserve the best table, flowers, best wine. All that. For 4:00 dinner, okay?”

“Da.”

The drive was silent until they reached the hotel. Dima waited outside, paced, smoked. He was relieved that the man didn’t need him inside. He walked towards the hotel lobby windows, mostly to see if some of his associates were there. He saw two drivers he knew sitting in the lounge playing on their Nokias. After counting the number of prostitutes inside he guessed his friends were doing pick-ups from late-night drop-offs. He called his wife and talked about his daughter, as they lately often did.

“Dima, she’s missing three days of clothes, which is almost all she has. I’m scared she’s …”

“Katya is always trading clothes with her friends. You worry too much,” Dima said.

“Will you check on her?” his wife asked.

“Da, da.”

His passenger planned on running him hard, but he would make it work somehow.

The man finally came out and, already behind schedule, opened his own door to get into the taxi. Their next stop was five blocks away and traffic was not as bad as it would be soon when the town broke for lunch.

“Stop there. That store.”

Dima obeyed.

“Get me a good box of chocolates,” the man said. He pushed 20 hrivna at Dima, who took it as he moved out of the taxi.

Dima returned quickly and watched the man place 400 American dollars into the box. They arrived at the courthouse just as government workers were leaving for their early lunch.

Not early for them though, as the man removed his cap and combed his hair, seeming to force his whole demeanour into a more relaxed frame. As he slowly stepped out of the taxi, he perplexed Dima by saying, “Please go to Soba now. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

That was enough time for Dima to drive by the kiosk as he had promised. Seeing his daughter where she should be, he called in a quick report to his wife. The restaurant was fast work and gave him time to stop by a coffee vending machine – they had mochas that he liked for 2 hryvnia – before driving through lunch traffic back to the courthouse. He had fifteen minutes to spare. Fifteen minutes to think.

The man reminded him of a Lieutenant he had hated in Afghanistan. A man he almost killed. Trust was something Dima felt for most people on some level. To his way of thinking, many people had trust breaking-points. So it was life circumstances that had really failed him along the way. The wrong people in the wrong situations.

But this is life. Some men, like that officer and this man, did not present even a kernel of trustworthiness. He couldn’t relate to someone like that, no door to open to it. He checked all his mirrors. The man’s bag was still there. He hadn’t dropped it off at the hotel. Dima checked the mirrors and courthouse entrance again.

He isn’t one of the trusted. He doesn’t need my trust. It’s not a problem. Dima leaned into the backseat and unzipped the bag. A shirt, deodorant, shaving stuff. Train tickets, two. For that night at 6:00 to Kiev. Plane tickets. Dubai. Dubai? Time was up. He felt it. He zipped the bag and turned forward, working through possible excuses, but the man took another five minutes.

When they were on the road again, the man informed Dima he had two hours to kill before dinner.

“Take me somewhere where there are no people. No noise. You can keep the meter running.”

Dima suggested a section of the beach with an abandoned shipyard where it was often quiet and the cell phone reception was still good.

“Sir, I ask. What business you do?

“Nyet.”

“I understand,” Dima replied.

“Good.”

The man walked to a broken and graffiti-painted boardwalk bench, sat, and pulled out his cell phone. The solitary state seemed to fit the man, a cold and friendless object.

Dima found his thoughts returning to Afghanistan again as he habitually rubbed at the tattoo on his upper right arm. This day was becoming very unhealthy for him – he could feel it. He could ditch the man since he had paid at every stop they made. He wouldn’t really lose anything, just anything more. And maybe he could stop at the Market on the way home and catch a few rides to help cover the loss. But something compelled him to remain, something other than the money.

Did he hate himself as much as he did that Lieutenant? He caught his own confusion. This man is not the Lieutenant. I’m losing some reality. He lit a cigarette and calmed himself. He noticed the wind was blowing with unusual strength. That would be a problem for the man’s cell phone reception. Dima took satisfaction in that while he sat down in his taxi to call his wife.

“Katya doesn’t answer her phone,” she said right away.

“She is always running out of Bee-Line cards. Go to the store and email her. You know she is at the hotel ten times a day using their internet.”

“Yes. I will.”

“You are crazy today. She is fine. Please.” He laughed, subduing his own fear. “My American is back. Bye.”

Dima drove them to Soba by way of his daughter’s kiosk. She wasn’t there. Probably on break and at the hotel to check her email. When they parked, the man gave him American dollars.

He hesitated before taking it, knowing this would mean something.

“I need you to watch from across the street. Maybe twenty minutes. I will come out to smoke. I’ll give you an envelope to take back to the courthouse. Understand?”

Dima nodded, already reaching for the large tip.

Arriving at the courthouse with the envelope, Dima took in the details of the building. An odd faded green with ornate white trim. The front façade was 1950s, Stalin-Georgian, and the real building behind pre-Bolshevik. Leaning against his taxi, he took a final drag on his cigarette. He trudged up the gray stone steps and through the chipped-paint goliath wooden doors. As he entered the great hall, his gaze was drawn to the double staircase pressed against the far back wall, the black iron handrails leading to the visible second floor hall from both sides. The ceilings were much higher than he was used to seeing in government buildings. The open space was a shrine to the former days, the Soviet years. The tall, draped, deep-red window curtains and blood-red display table-cloths set against the dark browns of the wide-board flooring and custom hand-carved paneled walls. Those walls were a museum of military history. Soviet heroes with uniforms hidden somewhere under the medals. Dima had thirty years to reflect on his war and wondered who they thought was still in the market for this fantasy. He guessed that he once must have been.

Looking to the packet in his hand for the first time, he read, Ministry of Records. He found directions on the wall and climbed the stairs to the upper hallway. Down the hallway, the office entry was more modern, bringing him into the early 1970s through the overwhelming presence of plywood wall paneling. The woman behind the pressed board counter took his packet without looking up from her ancient computer monitor. She opened the paperwork and for a lack of anything to consume his mind, he read some of the paper in her hands. Suddenly, he was interested. The first name of a woman was much repeated. Katya.

He leaned forward, fishing for a last name, but his movement caught the eye of the seasoned bureaucrat.

She quickly shuffled the papers into an official manila folder.

All worries about his Katya came rushing in on him, “Excuse me, what was the last name for Katya on that form?”

“It is not for you. I know, because I issued the form to the petitioner this morning.”

“Right. But I work for him,” He said with pleading eyes. “Please, what was the last name?”

“What is the petitioners’ name?”

Dima hated himself. Why didn’t I know a passenger’s name? I should have demanded to know his name. I always know names!

“The marriage certificate is filed. We are closed now.”

“Yes, but…”

“You are very sweaty. We are closed.” She stood and walked deliberately to a back room.

Marriage? Dima fought to keep his thoughts straight as he jogged out of the building. He searched, groped for the next steps. The train in an hour. Dubai? Wait…why a hotel room when the train leaves today, leaves now?

There was traffic as Dima sped through the asphalt maze of potholes. He needed help. Sasha! He’s in deep with the union now. He’ll know. He snatched the Nokia from inside his jacket pocket and dialed, misdialed, swore, then dialed again.

“Sasha. Quick, what is the Union doing at the Hotel Berdyansk!”

“Dima?”

“Da!”

“You know what they do there. It’s about seventy bedrooms.” Sasha laughed.

“No. Look, an American was there this morning. He didn’t get a room. Why the hell was he there?”

“Oh. Okay, they work the Internet Café there. They have girls who do internet dating online with Westerners. Easy money.”

“He filed a marriage license today. But he just got to town!” Dima honked his horn at anything in front of him now.

“Dima, sometimes that is the transaction. You don’t want any part of that. You need money? I can get you scheduled on some drops, no problem.”

“That’s not it. No. Okay. Too much to tell.”

“Dima?”

He hung up and suddenly got a flash of hope, but no one answered at home. He gave up trying five minutes from the train station and placed the cell phone in his front pocket. He had to commit to the worst possible outcome. Be ready and committed.

The task was clear to him now, and simple. Katya would come home with him or he would go to prison. This is life. He parked and reached under his seat.

As Dima walked, the station interior released greater light and sound through the windows. Each concrete step to the entrance was important. He was aware of the feel and weight of each step he took. Each movement and sound inside was vivid: the woman arguing with the teller over her compartment assignment, the Polish chatter from the line at the currency exchange, a babushka snapping at an overactive child, the flick of a lighter and associated smells of smoke in the air. Dima pushed through all the pews and people.

Once on the platform, he slowed his pace to match the calm that now filled him, checking each car for the number he had read on the man’s ticket. By the time he reached the train car, all his acute senses had melted away. He was no longer in the present. His mind was fully fixed on the impending confrontation and in believing, with all faith, he was in complete control. Get the girl. Go home.

Once inside, Dima walked, floated, through the aisle. He found the man making up his bunk.

The man’s confused expression pleased him and further fuelled his confidence.

“What the… what do you want? Was there a problem with the papers?”

Dima didn’t see a point in answering questions.

“What?” The man said, spreading his arms.

“Where is Katya?” Dima asked. Get the girl.

“None of your—”

Dima pulled the knife from his inside jacket pocket.

“The bathroom. She’s in the bathroom.” The man backed away, raising his hands outward.

The news forced Dima from his singular, emotional path, to one that demanded some level of thinking. He pointed for the man to sit as he sifted through the problem. Each Ukrainian rail car had two bathrooms, one on each end. He could ask, but the man could lie. He could walk the man out, but anything could happen with less control. He would wait.

The man’s lips moved but Dima didn’t hear him speak. Scared and agitated, the man’s movements were more like an abstraction to Dima.

Dima placed a finger to his lips and the man stilled. “I may kill you,” Dima said. “It will be quick.”

Footsteps drew near and Dima braced himself for the hard, but was ready for the easy. He stepped to position himself beside the cabin door. Due to training, he could not turn his focus from the man. As the door slid open, he grabbed the long hair on the head as it graced the entrance.

Get the girl. He swung her to the bunk opposite the man, ready to grab her up again. Go home.

But she wasn’t his Katya.

The woman opened her mouth to scream.

He moved his knife to her. He stood before them both for an eternity.

“Where is this man taking you?”

“America. He is my husband!”

“Show her plane ticket.”

“What?” the man asked.

“Nyet! Now!”

She read the ticket and let out angry rapid-fire questions too fast for the man to respond to. Dima watched her rage for what seemed a full minute before regaining control.

“Enough!” Dima saw she needed only a little prodding.

Dima waved her to the door with his knife. Still covered in anger and tears, she grabbed her bag, and stomped past Dima. He lifted the man from his bunk and brought him to peer through the window, watching her run from the train, through the station, and away into darkness. Pushing the man towards the bunk, he backed himself out of the cabin and into the aisle.

“Go home,” Dima commanded.

He reached his taxi and sat for a time, watching the parking lot lights flicker their way into solid beams, one by one. Taking out the knife, he paused briefly to regret the need of it, then tucked it under his seat. Dima rolled down his window and leaned his head back, taking his cap off for a moment to wipe the sweat from his face. He turned his head to face up in resignation to the stars above. The moon was partially covered and illuminated clouds tinted in a toxic green and dark orange.

For the first time in many years he took time to smell the old air of salty sea mixed with fifty years of factory soot. From it he breathed in a moment of comfort. Dima truly loved Ukraine and his city. Despite how his youthful dreams and those of Ukraine had not turned out as planned. He straightened his small icon of Saint Augustine, almost smiled. A priest once told him something Augustine had said about the church. In the moment, he thought it fitting for his Ukraine. Ukraine, sometimes you’re a whore, but you’re still my mother. He lit a cigarette, started the engine, and pulled out his cell phone. Twelve messages from home. Dima pulled away from the station before calling.

“She’s home, Dima!”

“Da, I know. Good. Tell her I said she is not to leave the Kiosk tomorrow and I will get her for lunch. And no going to the hotel checking emails.”

Chapter Three

Mariupol, Ukraine

Their train trip South had ended in Tokmak where Martin and Jenny were then loaded onto a bus with the rest of the group. A small crowded bus with passengers shoulder-to-shoulder and standing in the isles. It was an unexpectedly quiet 3 hour ride for Martin. Once in the town of Mariupol he began to reflect on the city that would be home for nearly a week. Almost eternally overcast and misty, it was now a sleepy former Soviet port of call in the Sea of Azov. It’s recovery from the Russian falling away of 1991 moved between slow and static. The mafia, known as Bratva (brotherhood), quickly filled the void of that time, growing in influence year by year until no one in the city operated completely disconnected from the Bratva. Especially government workers and bankers, who would come to dominate all nowadays.

Three taxis awaited them at the train station to take them to their hotel and then to the orphanage. Martin and Jenny had been assigned to the oldest looking taxi. Martin had to keep his luggage on his lap because the car had natural gas tanks stored in the trunk. But it was worth it when they found the driver, Dima, so pleasant and approachable.

“I take you through Old Town. Best results.”

He gave them a tour of the city that was compelling and detailed. The short ride to the orphanage was almost fun for Martin.

The orphanage of 300 children, or more at any given time, was a principle example of government ministry bonding with the Bratva, police, and business. Through the façade of respectability all the town became a stage. Martin Johnson was aware of none of this when he first walked through the front gates of the local orphanage and under a sign reading ‘Boarding School’. Scanning the condition of the complex made Martin wonder at how good the classes were inside.

An administrator met the small mission team at the broken concrete front steps. Only having been in-country for three days, Martin was still not used to the ever-present brokenness. He had thought it would end in Kiev, in the next taxi or building or town. Or maybe a government waiting room would have new furniture. Or around the next street corner or bend in a road he would see something intact, complete. Nothing.

None of this increased any hope in Martin for the condition of the young broken-hearted people he expected to soon encounter. He stood in the back of the group to wait out the introductions, being the typical quiet kid in the back of the class. When not being the smart-aleck in the back of the class.

The woman was obviously important enough to meet them, but he had learned from customs control at the airport to here, and every stop in between, that every place in Ukraine had an inner-sanctum. A place where someone waited impatiently to exercise power.

The Administrator stood formally in her flowered dress, the cool wind pressing it against her wide frame. Her prematurely aged face, mouth with smiling rows of gold teeth below dark piercing eyes, combined to be cunning in an odd way. She, as so many older government workers, had stalled in time somewhere around the Brezhnev period in fashion and demeanor. The woman finally walked them into the building.

Martin slowed, taking in the view of the large system of rusty external pipes that ran along the building in straight lines. In bad need of paint, they broke pattern only at the doorway. The grey and brown brick ran without order up three stories and about a football field along the length of the building. Spotting government buildings was easy as all were designed without a care for any form of aesthetics. The low standards set to allow residual tax monies to flow through the government official’s bank accounts, had not yet stopped overwhelming him.

Dodging intermittent bursts of child crowds, fending off the noisy attacks in front and from behind, they walked the long connecting hallway towards the director’s office. The meeting was different than others in that the official was quick to be gregarious after the formalities ended. She showed off all the trophies “her children” had won and scores of artwork. Her office was like a giant family refrigerator.

Martin noticed his team leader suddenly become embarrassed, staring at his feet. It seemed to Martin that only he and that man were aware that the director was odd to show so much and force them to page through her photo albums with her. Martin understood this woman’s tears and attending compliments to the ‘good Americans’ were cheap theatre. He supposed she was attempting to up the ante of their eventual donation.

The meeting, as so many did for him at his work, turned to a background noise for his thoughts. Martin moved unnoticed across the large office to the seat near the window.

Jenny followed him and took his hand.

Movement outside on the unkempt soccer grounds caught his attention, pulling his interest like gravity. He watched the lone girl slowly kicking a torn and patched ball about the gravel and grass of the courtyard field. Solitary, head down, she managed the ball skillfully, controlling it at all times.

She was troubled by something, angry and sullen. He had caught that impression generally when walking the hallways to the director’s office. Some of the children looked that way; the child in them was ripped clean away leaving behind unnatural permanent furrowed brows.

Yet many others were just being children abandoned to pure play all day.

“Martin, she is so sad,” Jenny whispered.

“Yeah. She looks like the age group we will be working with. Something about that one, Jen.”

“I know.”

The orientation finally concluded and they were free to roam the town for the rest of the day. On their way out of the building, Martin stopped, taking a closer look inside a room with older looking fourteen-foot high doors. He grabbed Jenny’s reluctant hand and pulled her into the room with him.

The old musty smell of the room instantly overcame him and he knew he was on holy ground. The room was a shrine to the former days, the Soviet years. The deep red curtains and blood red display table-cloths flowed against the dark browns of the wide-board flooring and custom hand-carved paneled walls. These walls were adorned with paintings of the greats of history and former local party leaders. Medals and plaques filled the tables that clung to every inch of wall in the room. In the center of the room stood a long fold-out meeting table with an army of wooden fold-out chairs last popular in the 1930s. Martin imagined the meetings that had once taken place there in the past. This was the ideological utility room. Instead of generators and heating units, this would have been where the workers fueled up with propaganda before the day’s work. The darkness of the space repelled Martin, making him feel out of place, unwelcome. The room had been unlocked but seemed to him in some way forbidden.

The two looked to each other instinctively, caught hands again, and fled the room. They walked out of the building with alertness and speed normally reserved for an escape.

Jenny took the lead when they reached outside until Martin slowed their pace.

“There she is again,” he said, pointing.

“Let’s ask her name,” Jenny said.

“Okay. My Russian is good enough for that.”

They ambled over to the ancient and rusted playground monkey-bars she was climbing. If she feels pursued she might be frightened off. Martin locked eyes with her and pulled Jenny closer to himself as if they were bird-watching and had just come across a rare breed, careful not to scare it away.

“Hello,” Martin said slowly in his best Russian.

She flashed a huge smile at them, almost robotically. Martin glanced to Jenny who told him by her expression, “Yes, this is the least genuine smile I have ever seen in my life.”

He pressed on telling her their names and why they were there. That they would be playing many games. An older teacher appeared suddenly and began yelling something at the girl. Martin tried to make sense of it, tie her presence on the playground to some kind of disobedience. But there was nothing, mostly it was a repeated admonishment to not speak.

“I’m sorry,” the girl repeated back.

The woman never looked at them as she physically gathered up the child and nearly ran her back inside, whispering in her ear the whole while.

Martin and Jenny stood motionless in their confusion.

“Oksana,” he said to Jenny.

“That’s a pretty name, Martin.”

They walked to the outer gates by the street to call their group leader and wait for a taxi.

Martin watched Jenny as she sat on the curb, in a daze and with a slight grin. She was likely running through visions of Oksana in their home. Maybe playing in the back yard with a dog they didn’t yet have. All the while probably chanting to herself the child’s new last name.

But his emotions were in the present. He felt something different, strange and exhausted. Normally he was unaware of any emotions in the moment but in the span of ten minutes he had the largest sweeping feeling of love he could remember, followed by a quickening of intense fear and then anger. All in the span of ten minutes. In his heart he had suddenly become a dad, and his daughter had been stolen from him in a whirl of violent words. Worse, he had helplessly watched it all happen.

Each day they worked at the orphanage they searched for Oksana and asked the staff where she was. By the third day their translator closed them down.

“Mr. Martin. Please stop inquiring about child.”

“Why?” Martin asked.

“It is not appropriate. People much irritated, understand?”

“I’m much irritated. How can no one know where she is?”

“There are no answers. But no business is ours. No more, please. I go now for find afternoon schedule. Thank you.”

Knowing the director knew some English, Martin watched her schedule. If he caught her, like outside in transit to another building, he might get some information. He had quickly discovered that was the only way to access her.

On the last morning there he saw her heading from the administration building to where they kept the old school bus. A large woman in her late fifties with dyed yellow hair that punched out from her head-scarf. Always in conservative dress. From her attitude she probably wore the scarf on her head more for tradition than to keep her hair in place. There was enough hairspray on it already to harden a bowling ball.

He speed-walked quietly to overtake her midway in the courtyard.

“Madame, Director!”

“Yes?” She stopped and turned slowly toward him with wary eyes.

“Sorry to bother you. If I may, just a couple questions I can’t seem to get answered by the staff here.”

“Yes?”

“My wife and I met a little girl, maybe nine years old, named Oksana. We have not seen her since and this being our last day we would like to say good-bye to her. Also, can we know her status?

“Oksana Kholobayev. Her status?” she asked.

He caught his breath in sudden anticipation.

“Yes. Is she available for adoption?” he asked.

“I am sorry, no. Not possible. She has a Ukrainian guardian who will adopt her.”

“I don’t understand. She was here a few days ago,” Martin said.

“Oksana lives here and her teacher adopts her. Please, if you are interested in another child send me an email. I must go now. Thank you.”

Martin tipped his head, his mind spinning. “I’m sorry, I’m confused. If she has a guardian how does she live here?” Martin asked.

The director shook her head. “She not live here. Do you see her? No, she is with guardian. I must go.”

He didn’t like making anyone uncomfortable, especially not strangers, but he somehow felt no remorse with this woman. He tried to sum up the conversation as he walked slowly back to Jenny, stopping short to watch her playing with the children.

She looked so happy, so at home. How could God instil such a strong love for children into a woman who could not have children of her own? All week she talked about Oksana – at breakfast, on walks, taxi rides. She had fallen asleep to images of the child in her heart and in her home. When she talked of the girl, he listened, hiding his feelings, but she called him on it several times by simply telling him to stop worrying.

It would be best to interrupt her play, to take her aside for the news, rather than wait.

Jenny stiffened. “What did she say? Where is she?” Jenny asked.

“She has a guardian.”

“What is that? What does that mean?”

“She is not available.”

She sank as if suddenly swallowed into quicksand, eyes dulling and head dropping.

“But…”

“But what?” Jenny asked. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“That’s it. Something is not right. I don’t believe her,” Martin said.

“Why would the director lie?”

“I don’t know. But the girl was taken away the day we met her, probably the moment we met her.”

“Okay.”

He paced the playground trying to put the pieces together. Martin returned to Jenny with the same conclusion.

“It’s just…I think she is lying,” he said.

“What do we do? We leave in two days.”

A little boy with a nametag that said Victor came up to Martin. Oh yeah, the boy who could run at the wall of the building, run up it, and flip back around in the air.

“Hey, Spiderman. We’ll be right back in a minute. Go play.” Martin gently pressed the boy’s shoulder back in the direction of the play-group.

The boy stood firm. “I want say to you.”

“Okay, Victor. But real quick, okay,”

“No, take your time,” Jenny said, stroking his arm.

“I want say I know you love Oksana. She come back yesterday.”

“She was here?” Martin stepped closer. How could we have missed her?

“No, I say wrong. She back tomorrow.”

The thoughts and questions that flooded Martin’s mind were too complicated to ask the child even if the boy had known better English. Jenny’s shoulders had lifted and her smile reappeared, even though she knew they would leave too early in the morning to see the girl. And now this news lent more validity to his questions about the director.

It could be that Oksana was only coming to collect her things.

Or the boy could be mistaken. One look at the boys face threw that option out. Oksana’s disappearance was a major break to the boy’s routine understanding of his life there, obviously, and her coming back was important to him as well.

All their asking around about her had paid off. News of it had gotten around the orphanage and was clear to the children, the little inmates, that their friend might get adopted. The tension in his stomach eased a bit as the picture, the bigger plan expanded, Maybe this was God at work. Martin had seen it before – when all his efforts and failures seemed hopeless at the time, he would look back and see those moments as misplaced stones on a path to a victory.

But they were leaving for the States. How would he get more and better information, or communicate with Oksana? But he felt confident this would also happen as needed. Martin grew some confidence in his renewed hope, and the source of it. He held tight to this awareness. But he knew that he would likely loosen his grip on that faith before too long. He always did.

The last day in Mariupol had been set aside by the group as a free day. For some, this translated to sleeping in; others to shopping. They were leaving the hotel lobby when their group leader stopped them at the door.

“Martin, glad I caught you guys. You have been like the proverbial lost sheep this trip.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I didn’t know if you planned to spend the day at the orphanage. But in case, I am letting everyone know that we won’t have access today.”

“Why?”

“It’s scheduled as a free day for us so they plan their day around that as well. You know.”

“Not really. Why no ‘access’?”

“Mr. Johnson, you have made the relationship with the director difficult. To be honest, things are very tense right now. The director called me today and wants me to pass on her concerns to Chip in Kiev.”

“So this is about me?”

“Yes.”

“Then, you know, to be honest, you aren’t letting everyone know, are you?”

“Everyone has planned for a fun day. You guys should do that, too. Please.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Good. And don’t worry about this. The way I see it you are naturally very curious about adopting a child. It happens all the time. It’s nothing we can’t fix.”

“Okay.”

“I better get to the bus. Some of us are going to see the old part of town. Should get some great photos. Come along?”

“No, thanks.”

“Okay. Thanks again for understanding. See you guys tonight maybe.”

After the man left Jenny asked, “What now?”

Martin and Jenny decided to take the drive to Berdyansk and spend the day there. A tourist beach town, smaller and less industrial, it would offer a change of pace and scenery.

They needed it.

The trip took only an hour of their day each way. When they reached Berdyansk the driver took them to the heart of the city.

“Here now.” The driver reached back for his fare.

Martin reached for his wallet. “Any tourist recommendations?”

The man shrugged.

“What is a good restaurant?” Martin held the money back, waiting for a response.

The man’s gaze followed the bills. “Soba okay.”

“Thanks.” He handed over the fare and the cab drove off. “Friendly locals, right?”

A beautiful stone-tiled walkway led from the street to the beach. It rolled out wide through a large, endless courtyard lined with shop upon shop. And dotted with beautiful trees, park benches, and kiosks. Teenage and college girls manned the kiosks, working their summer at the beach. After stopping at a few kiosks, Martin realized all their items were the same. They obviously had the same distributor of drinks and tourist junk items. “I think one guy owns this whole walkway,” he said to Jenny.

“In this economy, I doubt the workers care as long as there is work.” Jenny turned from the kiosk to inspect a store window. “Look at that scarf. I’ll bet it is hand made.”

Jenny shopped in every store they passed. If they had been in an American mall, he would tell her where he would be waiting for her. But this section of town resembled America so much; his need for the comfort of home compelled him to continue.

She bought some memorabilia for themselves and a hand-crafted ceramic plate for her folks. When they reached the end of the court they stopped to walk around the looming statue of Vladimir Lenin. It was the exact same pose he had seen in Kiev and Mariupol. Was this yet another attempt in years past to encourage conformity?

Today it was no longer holy ground, but apparently a favorite spot for the local children because of the steps and ramps that led to the base of the monument. A boy on a skateboard swooshed between them, breaking their handhold. They stood there for some time to watch the teens break-dancing for money until the loud thumping music was too much to bear.

Jenny grabbed his hand and hurried them to the beach front because she had seen a wedding ceremony taking place under a large golden-domed gazebo that jutted out over the waters edge. There was an old iron railing inside the open-arched structure with hundreds of different padlocks strung on it. Jenny pressed into Martin’s side as they looked on. The young couple added a lock, clamping it to the railing.

“How wonderful. I wish we had deep traditions like that.”

She hugged Martin.

“Well, it’s definitely appropriate.”

Jenny elbowed Martin in the side and gave a mock disappointed look.

They followed steps down the beach wall and took off their shoes.

The steps flowed out to the long, narrow, overpopulated beach. Martin was hesitant at the sight of so many people and such little room to walk freely. He stopped and Jenny laughed at him.

“You’ll be fine.”

Though the sand felt like small gravel under his feet, and the water washed ashore in dark brown oily sheens and cigarette butts, she was a determined romantic. She led him forward as she scouted their way to the area where they could cut back up to the city street where the Soba was located.

Ten feet later, Jenny brought them to an impasse with a grossly overweight and uncommonly hairy man wearing a Speedo. Martin held in a laugh as she quickly gave way to let the man pass by. Unfortunately, looking ahead revealed that he was a clone of many such men, as far as the eye could see.

Jenny grabbed Martin’s hand and dragged him back up the steps to the street.

He laughed most of their way to the Soba.

They walked freely, innocently, up the steps to the Soba patio and sat down at the nearest table. Jenny set her satchel down in the empty seat between them. The young waitress brought them the menus and Martin struggled to translate the options for Jenny. “Excuse me. Speak English?”

“Little,” the girl giggled. “Nyet.”

“Very good. Really. You have big coffee?” Martin asked in Russian.

“Da. Americana coffee.”

“Perfect. We are Americans.” Martin was enjoying himself, happy for the practice.

“How big?”

The waitress sized an imaginary glass in her hands.

“Two, please. And pizza.”

His eyes followed her inside where he watched her chat with another waitress; he imagined it to be about them.

All through dinner, they laughed about nothing, smiling at one another often. They remarked on people walking past—local loners and couples, families from Moscow and Kiev.

The taxi drivers parked in a row in front of the Soba, waiting, drew his attention. One struck his memory. Ah, the nice man, Dima, who had taken them from the bus station. Martin watched him alone, focused on his every movement. With every slight movement, drag from a cigarette, random chatter with other taxi drivers, a sincere laugh—Dima stood out as a man who was who he was. Stone. Not a man one could twist around in their imaginations.

“Martin, are you okay?”

“Huh? Yeah. They should at least tell us where Oksana is. It’s not normal.”

“I know.” Jenny dropped her eyes to the tablecloth, pulling at it with her fingers.

“We’ll be home in two days,” Martin said.

“I know.”

“She’s coming with the check,” he said.

It was early morning, still dark, when Martin stepped outside his room to the balcony overlooking the hotel courtyard. The accommodations were equal to a roadside motel back home but with a newly dressed up exterior. This spot was routine for him after a week of sleepless nights. This morning Jenny was awake and came to join him. The scene was new to her. He had learned how the hotel made their money. They looked down to watch two women, each in high boots and mini-skirts and little else. They were laughing with their dates. Everyone with their own cigarette and beer. One of the prostitutes got up to walk inside. Martin, out of the habit of his morning ritual solitude, allowed his eyes to follow one of the women as she got up and walked inside.

“Really?” Jenny said.

“What? What are you doing up?”

“Yeah. What.” Jenny laughed and shook her head.

The prostitution was very open and without fear. This was accepted as part of life, how things were. He wondered what other aspects of life he culturally found unlawful or immoral.

Together they watched the dawn break over the sea behind the coastal rooftops.

“We meet everyone in the lobby in an hour. I’m going to pack.” Jenny said.

Jenny went inside and Martin walked downstairs, across the outdoor lobby and through the hotel front gate. He headed across the damaged blacktop street to the common espresso vending machine, popped in three hryvnia, and took his miniature plastic cup to the water’s edge.

He stole away there while Jenny packed. Salty sea air mixed with decades of asphalt-like air to make a very foreign amalgam of a natural and unnatural experience.

How could he find his way out of this box that he now felt himself in? Familial associations, creations, could not be conjured up from mere desire. No, his fatherly and parental feelings were too natural and real. It was as if Oksana was born to him the moment he saw her. Love at first sight. It would have been unbelievable to him had he not experienced it. He had to get his daughter out of here, but how?

He paced some, sat and watched the seagulls forage along the sand, and paced again. An image of Dima returned to him. Sincere and direct. There was integrity and a determined happiness about him. He remembered that he had managed to endure that man’s music because of the man.

“Dima. Dima, can you turn that down little, please.” Martin had said.

Without any visible annoyance, Dima turned down the marching music.

Martin saluted him.

“Da. Afghanistan. Special forces.”

“Your tattoo. Very nice.” Martin pointed to his arm.

“Czechoslovakia lion. I was in Afghanistan 4 months and problem with my papers. They shipped me to Czechoslovakia. Saved my life! I know it.”

Martin had smiled for a half mile. Something like that had happened to him as well.

Dima could be trusted to help him even if there was not much money in it. If Martin could only remember what he did with the man’s card, he could insist that he and Jennifer ride back to the station with Dima.

Martin was excited now that there seemed some step, some forward movement in this effort to … to what? Maybe adopt. Maybe save. Maybe simply get more information. It might not lead to anything, but deep down it was something he could never turn from. He made his way back to the hotel and pulled Jenny aside.

“I’ve got an idea. Well, sort of. We can’t leave yet.”

“What do you mean we’re not leaving?” Jenny asked.

“We will still make the train. But we need the three-hour ride with Dima. He might be able to help us.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“The taxi driver. He knows some English, remember? We are going to lay it out for him. Send him money maybe.”

“We don’t even know him, Martin.” Jenny dropped her shoulders.

“We know him as well as anyone here. It’s important, babe. I think he can do some work for us. I don’t know what, exactly. But…I’m sorry; I just have a gut feeling. Can you tell them downstairs we are going to sight-see longer and catch up with them in Tokmak?”

He could see Jenny was torn by the hope he had given her and by the change in plans. He knew her to be very resistant to change. He watched her adjust to this new thing and slowly walk out to see the others off. She stopped at the door, eyes darting around.

“Yesterday I picked up one of the other girls. She was seven years old,”

Martin nodded, waiting.

“She was stiff as a board. She was stiff because her body literally did not know how to respond to being held. She didn’t know to tuck into me. She had never been held as a baby, Martin. That’s why.” Tears trickled down her cheeks.

Martin touched her arm, her shoulder. “You okay?”

Jenny nodded, wiped her eyes, and moved into the hallway.

Martin searched their bags for the card Dima had given him. He finally found the card in his pant’s pocket and called. Dima would have to come quickly. As it rang, he dreaded the conversation he’d soon be having with Jenny. She needed to go home. He had to stay behind to find Oksana.

Chapter Four

Santa Barbara, California

Willard Jorgensen stepped out onto the expansive stone-slate patio that nearly hung over the high cliff range along the quiet Santa Barbara coast. Two of the illegals completed breakfast preparations and flower arranging, scurrying off as he approached. He moved to the ledge and sat next to the waiting hot coffee, bagel, and laptop. His house people had partially pulled down the canvas awning to protect him from the Santa Ana winds that were in season.

He loved early mornings and the rare view. He boasted often about the latter when he visited New York. The coastline faced south and, at a certain period of the year, the sun appeared to rise over the ocean even though it was the west coast. He stared out to the vast and incredible view, enthralled more by his sense of ownership than its aesthetic purposes. He securely signed in on the laptop, opened his files, and checked. His calendar popped up on the screen, highlighting one morning meeting, a video-conference, and a call to a little art gallery in Berdyansk, Ukraine.

Five black-and-tan, best-of-breed coon-dogs, shipped from Alabama, surrounded Willard. Added to their mix was one special Redbone Coonhound, his favorite. The dog came immediately to flop down at his feet. She was a coonhound like the one from his childhood, his only friend then and now. He considered it to be his one secret connection to his white-trash origins in the back-country of Perry County. No one would ever tie him to that Podunk upbringing as he had spent a great deal of money recreating a different history altogether. One of his women in the past had told him no one really cared that much, that it wasn’t as if he was running for office. For Willard it wasn’t shame that made him hide his past. It was about assertion … and very much about control. If there was a God who plighted him with those beginnings, then logically God was his adversary. Removing his past was the first step to moving forward. And survival against such an enemy as God required only one ethic—a complete devotion to self.

Willard shifted his schedule, moving the video conference to five minutes away. Upsetting their schedules would give him control. Being three hours behind New York was his unspoken yet never-ending excuse. On the way back into the house, he pointed a house person to the half-eaten bagel he had left behind on the glass patio breakfast table. The bagel followed him into his study, discretely appearing on a table in front of a 72-inch flat screen. Beside it sat another china cup filled with custom ground coffee and cream.

He fiddled with the remote-control. He had not wanted to take the time to learn how to use it but these meetings were too private to allow for any extra ears.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Will,” a man said, now partitioned on the screen.

“You’re not late.” Willard rolled his eyes.

“I know. Look, it’s kind of early for bad news. Just tell me what I lost.”

“I don’t lose money. And trust me, I treat your money like it’s my own. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I bought already,” Willard said.

There was a long silence while two others came on in frames on the screen.

Willard did not acknowledge them for a sufficient amount of time before beginning. “We have some additions to the collection. They will be available to us at the Berdyansk Art Festival. There is a great demand for these works in Dubai and Holland. Maybe new markets opening in a couple areas here.”

“Willard, this is good news then? How much?” a man asked.

Willard sipped of coffee. Should he hike up the cost? He set down the cup but continued to stare at as he talked.

“These are new pieces. Very new. This group has protection from our curator there and has been made paperless. You understand this takes a great deal more effort than the sixteen-year-old ones.”

“Willard, James here …”

“We can all see you, James,” Willard said.

“Ah. Here is the thing, this sounds fine but really more than at least I need to know. Dubai is good, so how much per unit?”

“These are quality works of art, James.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred bid to start. Have eight available.”

“I’ll take two. My people expect twenty percent, you know that. Expect a transfer by end of day.” James disappeared.

The other two men deliberated for too long and ended up haggling for the rest.

One man eventually got four but the fourth cost him $380,000. “For this price, I should at least know what the painting is called.”

“That would be called Oksana. Nine years old, the pick of the litter, so to speak. It will still bring you a good return.” Willard smiled. Always amusing to bring the client closer to his world. To watch a man scramble hastily after a wipe for his hands. Everyone preferred to be protected by distance, but he knew all the dirt.

“Too much, Willard, really.” The man grimaced. “We are done here. I have a meeting.” He disconnected.

Willard rose and walked out, leaving the room for the house people to clean behind him. They watched his movements at all times, hired to know when to clean, to fetch, to protect. He moved everywhere with trusted well-paid eyes on him. He would ride this morning and there would be those that rode on ahead on the trail in golf-carts, others at a great distance behind on lesser horses.

The Santa Anna winds had died down when Willard walked out his prized Arabian from the stable.

Mariupol, Ukraine

Dima, in town when he answered Martin’s call, showed up within minutes. They were in the taxi for half an hour before Martin found words that were necessary and maybe intelligible. They flew down a stretch of Ukrainian highway much like the city roads – except with even more bus-stops and less rules. Dima’s driving skills rivaled any stock-car driver Martin had seen on TV. Out the window, nearly mesmerizing, never-ending sunflower fields receded. The taxi did not pass them as much as move within their world.

Martin felt it was time to ask, the final grasp at hope. “Dima, you know Mariupol well, right?”

“Da. I live in Berdyansk but work both cities.”

“We met a girl there. At the orphanage.” He glanced at Jenny. “It is very odd there, very secretive.”

“Da. Same in Berdyansk. My friend was in that one. Same.”

“We think she is being held there wrongly. There is no evidence but something is not right. You understand?”

“Mr. Martin, I understand things. If I don’t, I ask. One day I understand many things I hope. You are an honest man I think. I tell you. Is girl pretty?”

Jenny tensed, squeezed his hand. Martin’s face involuntarily braced in anger at the implication.

“We think so, yes.”

“You want to adopt this girl? Be family?”

“Yes.”

“Then you see things as they are. You have eyes that see from your heart. That is where truth is, Mr. Martin. Things there are what they are.”

“What does that mean?”

“Business. It is business of children. Some good results and some very bad. Your girl, what is her name?”

“Oksana.”

“Nice. It means Praise to God. Oksana is pretty you say. She has likely no family. Her—how you say?—portion of life is known. She will make money for them.”

Jenny gasped.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Martin, but they hold some for business. You understand? I want to say different.”

“Is there any way you could help us, Dima? Or know someone?” Martin leaned forward, tightly clasping his hands together to concentrate his anxiety. It wasn’t working.

Dima was silent. He turned off the radio and thoughtful concentration drew a frown to his face. He lit another cigarette. “I know enough. Mr. Martin, give me all contact information. I drive a taxi since I left army. It is good job. And Mr. Martin, I know many people. No promise but some little hope.” Dima turned the music on, up louder than before. He sang deeply and with passion, hands returning to the steering wheel occasionally to keep it in check.

For the rest of the drive, Martin held Jenny close to him as she battled her emotions. As they neared the city, thick, black smoke rumbled up from tall industrial stacks. In some way the puffs of smoke soothed him, helping him to focus his thoughts and feelings.

This small hope was the start of something. And not his idea, not really.

Kiev, Ukraine

The train ride back to Kiev felt shorter. Too short. And very personal. Martin had bought the two bunks in a first-class compartment, but they shared only one, holding each other tightly while silence ruled over them for hours. Exhausted, Jenny finally relaxed into sleep.

Martin, though, tuned into every sound and bump of the journey. If sleep came, he would give in to it, but the thoughts swirling in his mind would probably keep it at bay. He squared a picture in his thoughts of what would play out soon.

He needed a translator. Needed more money, for sure. And a new cell phone card. Martin’s mind turned to the people thrust on him that week and he slipped out of the bed to grab his diary and a pen. He listed what seemed to be possible allies, starting with Dima, copying down the man’s cell phone number from the business card. The guy, Chip Stiles, and his speech. Their team leader seemed afraid of him—he could find a translator. And Jenny would need to prepare for an adoption, whatever that meant, back home.

Eventually Martin overwhelmed himself to sleep.

The morning light filled Kiev and the cabin window as the train shook its way into a final stop, working together to awaken the couple. They quickly oriented themselves, their things, and stepped off the train into the already busy station. Now better acclimated, led by understandable signs, Martin found a path around the crowded lobby and out of the station.

Among the multitude of taxis he managed to find one designated for the airport. They had little time to get there and he could only hope to pay a customary amount. He prepared himself to accept whatever came up this time. He would not haggle, just pay.

The ride was quiet, both of them looking out opposite windows while probably thinking the same thoughts, asking the same questions.

Sending Jenny home was a hard decision. A day of separation was more than they had ever been used to. But Jenny told him that there was much to do in paperwork, she had her mission. She surprised Martin with her agreement to return home. If everything was expedited, maybe they could be together again in a few weeks. Then return to adopt Oksana sometime after that. Sooner rather than later.

When they arrived, Martin almost smiled at only having to pay thirty hryvnia. “Wait for me. I’ll be back as soon as I take my wife in.” He grabbed her bag.

Jenny took it from him. “I’ll get it. I know where to go. Let’s say goodbye here.”

“No. You have forty-five minutes. We can spend some time together.”

“These are copies of what I got from searches at the Internet Café. Some emails are there from people I found. They have already done this. I think this will help us. I know where to start, anyhow.” She handed him a folder of papers.

“Oh. Okay.” He kissed the top of her head. “This will be quick, I promise. I’ll email you every day.”

She shook her head, looking at him with tears budding in her eyes. “You have to get back. Go back and find our daughter. I love you.” Jenny buried her head against his chest.

She moved away, avoiding his gaze. Jenny waved without looking. Inside the doorway, she turned. She showed a small smile and blew him a kiss in slow motion, personal, like an important secret.

Then she disappeared into a throng of frustrated people. Desperate and angry people.

To his surprise, the driver had waited for him. Martin climbed in and immediately realized he did not know where he was going. It was too late to get a train back to Mariupol.

“Excuse me. Please. Good hotel? By this, please.” Martin showed the driver a paper that had a title State Department on Adoption and Children’s Rights printed in Ukrainian.

“Da. No problem. Hotel Oselya.”

His broken Russian was good enough to make the hotel reservation. The new hotel had incredible security. His key-card gained him access onto the elevator. Once he reached his floor, the key-card let him out of that small lobby and into his hallway. That hallway led to another door to his actual hallway. Posted there, an attendant manned a station twenty-four hours a day.

The place began to appear to him as a kind of upscale prison. With such security measures, he could only hope the key-card would also allow him out of the building.

The room was as inviting as any he had experienced. He laid his duffle bag on the bed and walked to the table by the terrace window. Collapsing on the chair, he opened the manila folder with all the printed emails and read through them. Some were interesting or sad personal stories; others, laundry lists of paperwork details for adopting. Some cultural advice and photos. Many weren’t relevant, but captured his interest anyway.

Many came from lonely, homesick bloggers as they recounted their daily trials. A sense of counting down the days until they departed Ukraine pervaded them all, felt real to him. A kinship grew between himself and these strangers by their stories.

He glanced at the clock. Two hours reading emails? He shook his head. Back to business. He had needs, and these people were already helping him identify them. Two people in Kiev raved about their facilitator/translator, Alex. Done—he would ask Jenny to make contact with that person.

Martin needed a hotel when he got back to Mariupol but Dima had told him that an apartment was cheaper. He found a paper with a lead for that, a landlord named Elena. Something wasn’t right about their last hotel. Plus he had recently developed a strange feeling that he should be discrete, stay under the radar. This urge recharged his normal reclusive mode of being. If hiding was needed, he would be good at it, anyhow.

Almost every email mentioned the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sports, the SDA, including names of people met there. They would be open in the morning and provided their own translators. Actually, they insisted on their own translators. Back to their great need of jobs.

Martin found a beer in the mini-bar and stepped out on the balcony. The view at night included a building across the street, a bit of a view down around the corner, and a glimpse of the top of an old church, its gold dome lit up in the darkness. Yet the darkness impressed him even more. He pulled up a deck chair, and sat with his beer, wrapped in the black night folding around him like a blanket with holes.

In the morning, he had found that the taxi driver had done well by him. The hotel lobby attendant ran his finger across Martin’s map from the Oselya down a few blocks to the SDA building. The city blocks he walked could have been another town altogether, so much more European than the area of his first visit ten days earlier. He practiced his vocabulary on every sign he read along the way.

Martin found his way to the SDA and stood at the door by 7:00 AM. Standing in front of a locked door that had a sign saying it opened for operations at 10:00. Ukrainian scheduling.

Even the stores operated in odd, and often shorter, timeframes than he was used to. So many hours of production and sales lost. And for the government, more processing could be done than was done. He sighed.

He reminded himself to be patient, to calm down, to be happy that he had coffee. The giant two-hundred-fifty-year old St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church overshadowed the office from high on a hill. He meandered down an ancient cobble-stone street into a tourist haven called Andreevsky Descent. An English historical marker told its story. Taken over by the government in 1935 to house the State Anti-Religious museum, it reopened for services during WWII, but closed down again in 1961. The church then spent two decades as a Soviet government office space. Wow. Two decades of abandonment before its re-birth through the renovation that was now progressing.

Martin walked the church grounds, then back down many, many steps and took a seat by the doors of the SDA. Near to the bench where he sat was a comical bronze statue. Martin used his dictionary to translate the title, Chasing Two Hares at a Time. The tourist booklet he purchased at the hotel described it as the life-size reproduction of a scene from a locally famous Ukrainian film, a comedy. A scene of a man kneeling to take the hand of a woman holding a parasol.

A group of school children stopped and posed in funny ways with the life-size, metal characters. One little girl looked so much like Oksana. Except this girl had so much more life.

Which made him worry about both her and Jenny.

The doors finally opened and still he was not the first in. Martin worked to hold his ground as the forming throng pushed through into the lobby. Taking their actions as education, he pressed forward. Reaching the desk, he nearly shouted his needs precisely as he had practiced them. The receptionist was not impressed with his Russian at all and Martin suspected that she pretended to not understand him.

“Understand?” Martin asked.

Without looking up from her paperwork, she pointed him upstairs to an open waiting area.

It was already crowded. In the large hallway, people flooded in the front doors. German sounding people, several Italians, and another couple whose language he could not discern … every Western country seemed to have a representative. And everyone had a translator with them. Martin could tell this was big business for them. They were all dressed in suits and dresses, full of confidence as they coached their people in the process, in things to say.

Martin didn’t understand a word but he understood the activity. Visitors pounced on any office worker that passed by. And there were many workers, opening one door, closing another, over and over. It looked and sounded busy even if it wasn’t. Several Ukrainian private translators eyed him, jockeying to get to the first available open door.

He felt besieged, rolled his hands together as he chased after his thoughts. What little Russian he had learned slipped away. But, breathing deeply, no one there cared to listen anyhow. Hopelessness set into Martin as people talked and barged their way around him.

Then, like a strong breeze, a well-fed man in his sixties floated through the entrance and past the guard with out so much as a nod to him. He wore a very expensive tailored tweed coat and light color wool hat. His linen scarf draped about his lapels so imperfectly that it was perfect and his demeanour was almost jolly. Once he reached the top stairs where Martin was, the man grinned at him.

Martin felt suddenly exposed. Famous people must feel that way when they were being gawked at.

The gentleman opened his cell phone, spoke, and immediately a young worker came out of a side door. A very good-looking woman, who nodded as he talked, smiled, nodded again. Before returning to her door, she said to Martin, “One moment, please.”

“I believe things are in order, Martin.” The man spoke a perfect Oklahoma dialect.

Martin blinked, paralysed. What did the man do? How much would his service cost? Wait, he knows my name.

The man gave a fatherly, approving look and spirited himself back to the entrance.

Martin followed, but when he peered out at the street he could not find the man. The street itself, which should have been busy, was empty. Not a person, noise or car. A pure sense of abandonment.

As Martin turned back into the building, the young woman returned for him.

“Sir, the Inspector can see you now.”

Martin hung close behind her, slowing only briefly to catch the eye of the guard to glare at her.

The inner offices were set up much like a doctor’s office back home.

She ushered him into an older, but just as attractive, woman’s office. Smiling and pleasant, they seemed like busy, curious women who must let their hair down when the office door was closed. For now, he could see they were obviously serious as they pointed him to a chair.

“Madam Inspector would like to know of your inquiry.”

“Thank you for meeting with me. I came here to do some work in Mariupol, at an orphanage there. I have some concerns about a girl we met there.”

“What is her name?”

“Oksana. About nine years old. I have pictures.” Martin leaned across the desk, displaying cell phone images.

Both women moved close, smiling again.

“Oh, she is beautiful.”

“Da, da,” The younger one agreed.

“Madam asks what your concerns are.”

“She was there. Then after we were seen speaking with her, she disappeared. We are told that she has a legal guardian that takes her sometimes. A teacher there.”

The women spoke to each other, sometimes loud and emphatic. Other moments in hushed tones.

The young translator turned to him.

“This is not possible. Madam says that it is against the law for a teacher to gain guardianship of a child. And why would this child, Oksana, still reside in the orphanage?”

“Da,” Martin answered. He stared back at the woman and then to the Inspector until she nodded as if she understood what he inferred.

“Madam says it would be good if she could get the teacher’s name.”

“I can do that. I will find a way, no problem.”

“Madam says very good. And that it was very nice to meet you. We will inquire of the regional inspector of that oblast. She is not normally working this position and she’s filling in for her staff today. Please take her card and show this at the desk the next time you can visit. A Tuesday or Thursday morning.”

“Oblast?” he asked.

“Da. This is like your states in America. For your case, the Donetsk Oblast.”

Chapter Five

Santa Barbara, California

It was a perfect 78 degrees in Southern California when Willard’s car pulled to the front of his Montecito art gallery. The chauffeur opened his door and Willard stepped his Italian soles onto the sidewalk and toward the front door. As the door opened, he took off his hand-woven Montecristi Panama hat and passed it to his left hand. His hat made him feel the authority that was existentially his.

Early on he knew he would need a distinctive brand to mark himself and the hat had felt right. His projected presence turned from business to the kind and benevolent master. A role he loved to play on the stage. To be someone else, to manipulate the opinions of others. Smiling to the workers, nodding to the young women—the perfect gentleman. The buzz in the art world, reflected in many national articles, was that of a man who naturally balanced the greatest refinement with the utmost humility. He paused a bit at the new collection of contemporary Romanian art. He had begun promoting post-soviet as vogue. And he was making progress. The gallery was getting noticed like never before.

“Mr. Jorgensen,” the curator said.

“Yes?”

“The shipment from Belarus will be here in two weeks. I would like to use this room for it.”

“Fine. How is staging going?” he asked while moving closer to the painting before him.

“We have the newswires completed. And some of the best in L.A. coming for the review. They are fans of Eastern Europe.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“We might should go to the office, sir.” The curator answered in a grave tone.

“No time. Speak to me.”

“Mr. Jorgensen, our man in Kiev had some problems with his collection. It was stolen in Berdyansk.”

“I see. That was meant for Dubai, I think.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He is under your supervision. It will cost you or him. I suggest you have him replace that piece right now and repair our reputation.”

“I will. Certainly, this minute.” The man’s hands shook.

“Relax. He has probably already taken care of it. He needs to know that mistakes can cause exposure and risk for us. Also that it is unacceptable. Deadly, actually.” Willard gave a small laugh and sly smile, returned his hat to his head, and walked out of the gallery to catch his plane to New York.

Rain fell as Martin left the SDA building. He walked down the ancient street and marvelled again at the progress that had just been made. In a strange way, it felt as if he had been recruiting. Looking for team players to help him find his child. And, in a more bizarre way, he was enlisting help before he had entered the building. That man. When Martin had searched for him, it seemed outside that the whole world was empty. Now the wet streets and sidewalks were crowded, as they had been before.

And what was that man’s motivation? Well, it happened, even if I don’t understand it.

Within minutes he was in another taxi and on the way back to the train station. Mariupol again. But this time alone, completely alone. No one making plans of where to stay or eat. No schedule to follow. For a moment he missed his little mission team. They would soon be back home in their beds, waking up to their jobs. Back to their hot water, cable, automatic doors, and air conditioning.

“Can I ask a question, please?” the taxi driver asked.

“Of course.” Speaking with the drivers made him feel safer.

“The roads in America. Are they all smooth like glass?” the driver asked.

“Yes.”

“All?”

“All,” Martin answered.

“Amazing!”

Martin’s phone rang and Jenny’s name appeared.

“Excuse me,” Martin said to the driver.

She had landed at home and was already letting him know that she was also speaking with the SDA.

“I am working with a facilitator, Alex. He seems very professional and knows the laws. He is a translator, too. Two in one.”

“Yeah, I saw his name in your folder. Wow, and you’ve only been home a day.” Martin smiled while his eyes saddened at missing her. “Did you get a chance to check the international phone pr—”

“Oh, I almost forgot! I got the immigration forms we need online and have filled out half of them. You’ll need a medical exam. I also found some leads to move this along faster.”

“I’m in Ukraine. I’m not picturing our doctor’s office,” Martin said.

“I know. Sorry. Hopefully they will be quick. You may have to fly home for it, don’t know.”

“Honey, I only have a week of vacation left. I doubt I’ll make it home in time for work. I have to figure that out. Where is the money right now?”

“I’m taking care of that. Email me when you get to Mariupol. And find a Western Union, okay? Limit the long phone talks, baby. We need to cut where we can. I love you!” She hung up.

“Really?” Martin spoke to the disconnected phone.

Halfway to the train station, his phone rang again. Again he excused himself from his conversation with the driver.

“Mr. Johnson. I’m Alex Plachkov. Your wife and I spoke this morning about representing you to the SDA.”

“Yes. Hello, Alex. Thanks for calling so quickly. Time is important in this.”

“Mrs. Johnson is a very nice woman. She understands our law regarding the rights of children very well. I have some business, but I will need to meet with you. You will be going to Mariupol?”

“Yes.”

“We will need to go over some processes and papers. I will call you and we will meet. Will that be satisfactory?”

“Sure. Um, how much—I mean, for whatever it is you do, do I pay you then?”

“Oh no, Mr. Johnson, your wife has paid for expenses in the near future for this process so far.”

“You can call me Martin. Thanks.”

“My pleasure, Martin.” Alex hung up.

“Really?” Martin asked again.

The driver parked the car in front of the station, getting out before Martin to carry his backpack inside. Martin declined the help with one hand and offered a good tip with the other hand. The roads were teaching him much about how things worked.

“Do you pay taxes here?” Martin asked.

“Da.”

“Where does all the money go? It’s not going into the roads.”

The man shrugged his shoulders and then grabbed at the air with both hands and stuffed them in his pockets.

“I get it,” Martin said. He grabbed at the air with one hand and stuffed it into his pocket. “In America we force our government to provide good roads, water, power, all that. The rest they steal.”

The man smiled and nodded good-bye.

Martin glanced at his watch. They had barely made it to the train on time. He jogged to the train car and dropped his bag in the tight hallway, peering into his cabin before entering. He often felt the necessity of scouting before interacting; the hallways, street corners, faces of people. He hated that his trust had been so obliterated. So much of his life was unassuming by default and now most everything and everyone was suspect. A smile on a face, any face but Jenny’s, was a certain lie. Then Dima came to his mind and brought some balance.

The Steward came with coffee and left abruptly.

Martin sat on a sleeping rack and looked out at the passing urban landscape. Factory stacked upon factory, and some alive with industry, some not. And he knew them to be at twenty-five percent production since the Soviet days. What it must have looked like in its height, whenever those years were. He found the source of the soot-laden air he breathed everywhere he went. There was no Soviet compliment to the E.P.A. and the effects of forty years of non-stop work was powerful. It looked so much like the early industrial America he had studied in school. The state was a macro view of an early American company, with workers living in company homes and shopping at company stores.

Dilapidated apartment buildings surrounded each industrial plant. Extending off each property was a sea of large metal storage boxes, rusted and multicoloured. They were set in endless rows separated by slim muddy roads and contained the old mini-cars of the residents. The ones lucky to have one.

Back home Martin had worked missions in downtown Tulsa and Oklahoma City. But he knew them to be places to go to and then escape. There was no escape here. All was ghetto. The more urban scene though was clearly better than twenty years earlier. A worker was a worker wherever he lived. And there was only one economy everywhere in the world. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Could he be depressed and at the same time be aware of it?

A twelve-hour ride awaited and he was so hopped up on coffee and anxiety he wouldn’t sleep much of it. As the train reached full steam, he pictured jumping out and outrunning it. Instead, he pulled out his notebook and outlined his adventure to date, noting the SDA Senior Inspector, his facilitator, Alex, and the old stranger.

His cell rang again. It was Jenny.

“Hi Hon. Did I wake you?”

“I wish.”

“I was thinking last night that maybe Chip Stiles could be a help, you know.”

“I doubt it. He was supposed to get a bad report about us, remember,” Martin said.

“Still…”

“No. Let’s wait on that. He’s a fake.”

“You don’t know that. Alex said he had heard of him and that he is a very good man.”

“Let’s wait,” he said.

“Okay. Please email me once you are at your place. Do you remember where the Internet Café is?”

“I’ll ask. No problem. Love you.”

“Love you, too. Get some sleep,” she said.

“I will. Bye.”

He wrote down Chip Stiles and circled it several times slowly, thoughtfully. He missed Jenny so much and he had only just seen her off in the morning. He worked to put her out of his mind, contemplated sleep but knew that would not likely happen soon.

During his visit with the SDA authority, why did the woman seem concerned? And who was the man that came to his linguistic rescue? And more questions tired his eye-lids until they finally closed.

The gray early morning made enough of an impression on the cabin curtain to slowly wake Martin. He sat up and pressed his groggy head into his hands. Rubbing his eyes, he could see his bunk-mate was missing. He liked when strangers remained strangers, coming on and off at night. The man must have gotten off at an earlier stop.

This bit of rational inquiry helped him come into his mind for the new day, but coffee would help more. A knock at the door. Coffee? Martin rose to place his order.

But the door was no longer locked. Of course, the man left early. He opened the door. Instead of a waiter, there stood a thin, young, long-bearded priest with incense burning in a fancy bronze bowl.

Martin stepped back, pressing his temples. The priest smiled pleasantly and held the bowl out in front of him, speaking in Russian or Ukrainian.

The sound was the same to Martin. After a moment, from the man’s gestures, Martin understood that the priest wanted to bless his cabin.

For some reason, Martin wanted none of it. “Nyet, Spasibo.” He looked away and waved his hand dismissively.

The priest stood his ground though, looking perplexed.

What? He hadn’t been clear enough with the universal sign for “Go Away”? He checked himself. No thank you in Russian. He said it again, more sternly this time.

The two stood there, pleasant but unmovable.

Then the priest responded with more of his unintelligible language. Suddenly, the man’s sincere, if obstinate, nature resonated with Martin. Young and determined, this priest would bless his cabin. It wasn’t only about the money.

“You’re alright.”

The priest smiled and began a prayer, a kind of song. As he sang, he spread smoke here and there around the edges of the doorway. He completed a pattern and crossed himself before reaching in to set his hand gently on Martin’s shoulder. He closed his eyes to pray something silently.

Discomfort crawled down Martin’s arms.

The priest snapped his hand back. In the man’s eyes was something new. No longer pleasant, they were fearful, excited. The priest urgently motioned for a pen and paper.

Martin quickly found a blank page in his notebook and a pen.

The priest scribbled something down and handed the pen and paper back. He pointed upward with his free hand, smiling, before turning to leave.

Martin held the paper tightly and moved to the hallway window.

The priest jumped off the train and ran across the platform, holding his long black robe with one hand. He threw his funny hat into a basket, hopped on his bike, and sped away. He quickly disappeared into the village.

Martin worked to decipher the note, but couldn’t make out the cursive Cyrillic words. The train moved again. He went back to his cabin to sit, tired and distraught. He sat in silence for some time, mind void of anything in particular.

His cell rang.

“Hello, Mr. Martin.”

“Dima?”

“Da. I have a place for you to stay.”

“Oh. Thank you, Dima, but my wife had a guy find a flat there.”

“Nyet.”

“What?”

“Nyet. You stay where I have for you. It is best results.”

“Okay. Whatever you say. Dima, I have a note from a priest. Can you translate, please?”

“You going to church, Martin?”

“No. A strange little priest on the train. He blessed my cabin and then wrote this note. It says Хвала Богу. I think something and the word God.”

“Praise to God.”

“Interesting,” Martin said. He folded the paper more neatly than before. He pressed it into his wallet behind his driver’s license. He remembered that is what Dima once told him was the meaning for Oksana’s name.

Located outside the city of Berdyansk, the apartment complex was behind, but nearly coupled to, an abandoned warehouse which was attached to the silent empty factory. Martin scanned the area. Life of any kind would have difficulty existing there, yet people went in and out the doors. The courtyard took form with old tall trees planted haphazardly around the central rusty playground.

Dima parked the taxi on the grass area in front of the building. The sign next to the front door read “No. 5” in old worn green paint pressed into the concrete. They took the stairs to the 9th floor as the elevator was not functioning. Dima opened the apartment door and stepped back for Martin to enter.

It was one room with a bed and an old sofa in Persian patterns. There was also a small desk against the wall, where the window was, that held a hot-plate.

“Underwhelming,” Martin said.

“Don’t worry, Martin. This is only for sometimes.”

“What?”

“My good friend manages this place. You stay for free but only as needed.”

“I’m sorry, Dima. I’m confused.”

“Your friend, Alex? He can get you an apartment in Mariupol. I just want to show you this home in Berdyansk. This is between you and me to know, okay?”

“Okay.”

After leaving the complex, Martin formed many questions in his mind, but stopped himself from searching out answers. This event proved he was on a need-to-know basis with Dima. And probably would be most of the time.

It felt like being in the dark, a child who can’t handle knowing what was really going on. Whatever that process was, he wanted to be part of it. So much of every day seemed to unfold, mystery upon mystery. But this was Ukraine, and that is how everyone lived. It wasn’t personal.

Martin continued to read signs on the way to the restaurant to meet with Alex. Dima readily helped him with his vocabulary questions. This exercise helped him pass time, keeping his mind off the questions and emotions that wanted to take him over.

Dima dropped Martin off at the Soba restaurant.

“You have time to come in?” Martin asked.

“Nyet. Thank you for invitation. I am to give ride to my daughter from her work.”

“What is her name?”

“Katya.”

“Nice. Okay, see you in a bit.” Martin said.

“Bit?” Dima asked.

“Soon.”

“In a bit. Enjoy. Very good food.”

Martin passed through the entrance and instantly recognized Alex from the photo that Jenny had sent him. The man was tall, obvious even as he sat. Thin but fit. His blue eyes were large and set atop high cheekbones. He stood, greeting Martin.

As Martin neared, the man’s smile seemed more like a smirk. Since there was no context for it, the man must just be unfortunate in that way. Alex stood to shake Marin’s hand.

“Mr. Johnson. Hello. I am very pleased to meet you.”

“Hello,” Martin replied.

Martin was quickly put off with the man’s formality, mixed with his odd smile. The strength of the man’s grip meant either he had real work once, or worked out. The hands were soft, so worked out.

“Thanks for meeting in Berdyansk. Dima could only come this far today.”

Alex nodded his head in a starched bowing motion.

Martin sat down and they both studied their menus and each other.

“Do you need an assist with the menu, Martin?”

“No, thanks.”

The men ordered and continued together in silence.

Alex was sizing him up, only glancing here and there. He seemed to know himself, that he made people uncomfortable. The poor man could not help himself.

“I have done research on you situation with the child. I met with the director this morning. Wonderful woman. Honestly, from what I learned, the child is not adoptable. Well, that is, a teacher there loves the girl and will probably adopt her.”

Martin would have some work to do with this man Alex. He nodded, faking agreement to buy time. What was the best approach? Questions—every answer came in the form of a question in Ukraine. “Alex, did you meet with Oksana?”

“Nyet. She was in classes.”

“The director, did she seem upset?”

“Oh no, Martin. She is happy for anyone who wants to adopt. In fact, she gave me photos to give you of three other children. She says to please look at them. She is such a good person, I am sure.”

Martin looked at the photos, pausing each time to present an interested look. The man across the table worked for him, but a balance needed to be kept. Like with enemies.

It took a few moments for him to adjust to this new reality. “Can I keep these, Alex? I need to scan them and email them to Jenny.”

“Absolutely,” Alex said with his smile-smirk returning.

“Thank you. The teacher, did you meet her?”

“Da. Why?”

“How did you feel about her, after meeting her? She has a livable home?”

“Oh, of course, a very good woman. Mechova, Valentina Anatolyevna Mechova. She teaches English to 5th and 6th grade levels.”

“Please, let’s schedule to meet with the director tomorrow, okay?” Martin asked. He was all about business now.

“Absolutely. I will ask her to introduce you to these children.”

“No. Not right now, please. I need Jenny to see these.”

“Of course, Martin. What should I say we are meeting about?”

Martin leaned forward and deepened his voice. “Alex, a teacher has no legal right to be a guardian of a child. You must know that. I would like to inquire about that. Also, I will be meeting with Oksana.”

Alex’s demeanour changed radically. His eyes half-closed, concentrated as if taking aim. His body stiffened and he nodded slowly towards Martin. “Maybe. I will need to check with my friend in Kiev. He is a lawyer and very knowledgeable about the law of children’s rights. But I am certain this is not illegal and all is good.” Alex stood. “May we go? We can meet your landlord now, Martin. She is a very good woman.”

Martin got into the new taxi with Alex for the hour drive to Mariupol and wondered if the man had ever met anyone who was not a good person.

Mariupol, Ukraine

The complex was as Soviet as the rest, but included only four buildings. The buildings were an unusually short six stories high, but the neighbourhood was in the city and near to the beach tourist area. Martin was happy with it and looking forward to sleeping anywhere but a train or hotel.

Alex led them through the locked outer doors, up stairs, and into the second floor hallway. When they reached the door they could hear a heated exchange within. A woman opened the door a crack and snapped at Alex. Something too fast for Martin to understand. He noticed that Alex was unmoved; accepting of whatever the instruction was and disregarding the emotions behind it.

“Martin, let’s take a walk. Get to know your new neighbourhood.”

“Okay.”

Martin took in the history of the neighbourhood. Most of the houses were old, 1930–1950, with a smattering of new money here and there reflected in uglier, modern structures.

One building had a small store-front with beach equipment and toys in the window.

“Can we stop in here?”

“Of course, Martin.”

He was not showing up empty-handed at the orphanage in the morning. He took time at every stand, looking for something and he did not know what. It was one of the few times in his life where shopping was important, serious. He found it nestled behind a stack of children’s books. A doll that even looked like Oksana. It seemed to have quality and had a detailed linen dress.

The dollar was 8 to 1, so Martin was open to purchase anything at the asking price, along with more toys for other children, but Alex insisted on haggling with the woman and saving a dollar.

They made their way out of there carrying the loot in a plastic bag. This bag made Martin feel like a local. Everyone in town, in every town, walked and walked carrying their plastic bags. Were there special bags of status like how teenagers compared shoes?

They continued down the street to then cross over back to the complex. Martin slowed his pace as they passed tall black iron gates that guarded a large inner courtyard. The courtyard seemed unusually well kept, trimmed hedges, and flower gardens.

“Alex, that gate back there. The high gate to some compound. It had a red star.”

“Local communist party, Martin,” Alex answered. “You notice the architecture. Our customs, and language. All Russian. This is new thing for us to be Ukrainian and is funny to me. We are Russian.”

“So you do not consider yourself Ukrainian?”

“It is complicated, Martin.”

“It seems we have time.”

“Well, everything you see is Russian. We have been made Russian. But we are not. I am not. All is illusion. You understand?”

“Sure.” The entire country was an illusion.

“Those Topol trees are ours. The sunflower fields you saw on the ride in, ours. But everything else, even the ideas are not. I still can see us in the people, but I must look very hard.”

“Wow. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“One day we will return to Ukraine. I work in this system now, grew up in it. Make a living. But always I see with my heart. And one day none of this will be here, and our people will return to their own traditions, who they really are.”

“Really?” Martin asked. Who they really are?

“This is fact to me, Martin. There is even prophecy concerning this matter.”

“Interesting.”

“Have you heard of the Book of Veles?”

“No.”

“We are this. Nothing less or more; children of Perun, Dazhboh, Svaroh, and even Or.”

“You lost me there, Alex.”

“No matter, Martin.” Alex smiled. “I believe your apartment should be ready now.”

They entered the building and approached the apartment door. It felt as though Alex was barely aware of him. Yes, he was a client; they spoke together, walked together. But something was missing. Some important part of himself that Alex was blind to. In Alex’s presence, he was almost a non-person. Their relationship to this point was too simple, too complicated, to fully grasp.

Martin relaxed his shoulders. Each day, one at a time. Or maybe each moment, one at a time.

The landlady and a young man were collecting the last remaining boxes and a computer. She was a short woman with very large breasts, dark hair and eyes, and uncommon olive skin.

They had barely met and she told him, through Alex, how her father was big in the communist party.

“She says to you that he was a good man, Martin.”

“I am sure he was.”

“Also, that she is a woman of the book.”

“What is that?”

“The Bible, Martin.”

“Why is she telling me this, Alex?”

“You are staying in her home. It is a very personal situation, understand. Please tell her something of yourself.”

Alex translated that Martin was from the middle of America, married, here to adopt a child, and a Virgo. It seemed to Martin that he did not translate that he was a Virgo as he mentioned. He found this helpful, to know that Alex recognized humor even if he didn’t appreciate it.

He became aware from watching them that it was the landlord’s apartment and the man was a lover and odd loner who paid little rent. Martin learned through Alex that he was actually displacing them. She would be moving in with her daughter and the young man would find a couch somewhere, as young men did. The two were radically altering their lives in order for her to earn an extra $20 a day. He felt bad about it. It seemed so unnecessary to his experience.

“It is fine, Martin. Everyone does this in the summer, in the tourist season,” Alex said.

The landlady gave Martin a small sheet of notepaper.

“That has her phone numbers and instructions for the power when it is sure to go out. And instructions for caring for her prized air conditioner unit as well. I will copy in English for you, no problem,” Alex said.

Alex walked out of the apartment first to see the couple off. Martin held back to allow the landlord to exit first.

“Nyet, Nyet, Nyet!” She barked at Martin. Followed by some stream of Russian instructions.

Martin froze in place and looked outside the door to Alex for help.

Alex leaned his head back into the apartment “Martin, she says you must come out now.”

“I don’t understand.” Martin relied on this Russian phrase often.

“Martin, her Domovoi must exit last.”

Martin left the apartment quickly, but the landlady stayed inside, looking at something and talking to…nothing.

“Domovoi?”

“It is her house-spirit. He must be the last to leave. It does not seem to want to leave” Alex shrugged.

Finally the landlord exited the apartment and gave Martin the keys. She was visibly upset and chattering away down the echo chamber of the dank hallway.

Martin looked at Alex, questions clamouring in his mind.

Alex gave Martin his smile-smirk again. “It appears he gives her trouble over leaving every summer.”

Martin nodded, not knowing how to respond. “Thanks. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Da. Have a good stay, Martin. Please call me if there is anything you need.” Alex turned his tall frame and followed after the small couple who looked like his children in the shadows of the dank, dimly lit hallway.

Martin settled into his apartment. Put the clothes away, investigated the fridge and the diminutive washing machine. He checked all the locks again before letting himself relax.

Jenny called as he neared the edge of sleep.

“Hello? What are you doing?” she asked.

“Hey, you. Missing you.”

“Me, too.”

After some silence, he said, “I think I will see her in the morning.”

“Great. Take pictures. Don’t forget.”

“I will. Take pictures, I mean.”

Jenny moved to business quickly. She needed him to get a medical exam and then mail the records back to her. That would complete the paperwork to send to Ukraine. She had managed to expedite all the U.S. side work needed, including the FBI background checks for the both of them. They waived Martin’s presence by using his military fingerprints. The immigration papers were to be approved within a week via the influence of their Senator.

“What? I am thinking of all the names you called him in the election.”

“Yes, I know. Maybe there is one good Republican then,” Jenny said.

“I told you.” He laughed.

“Anyhow, here is the best news, honey. You know Anna? She was the friend of Katie, who was at the anniversary party last year? She adopted and had a great contact that had a contact in the government. So she had them check on the database status of Oksana. She was placed there five years ago. She is already available for adoption!”

The hope in her voice was contagious. “Well, that’s that then. I got a name for the teacher. In fact, I am supposed to bring that name back to Kiev for them to investigate the teacher’s guardianship. You could save me some time maybe and give your friend the name.”

“What is the name?”

“Valentina Mechova.” Martin then read off the name of the official he met in the SDA from the business card. “Jenny, only speak with her. No one else.”

“Okay.”

“That is very important.”

“Why?” she asked.

Martin struggled for an answer and not finding one, laughed at himself. “I don’t know.”

“I will. Goodnight. I’m so excited. Love you.”

“Tuck in your Domovoi.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Love you, too.”

Chapter Six

The apartment was much nicer than the one Dima had found for him in Berdyansk. But he did like that city more than Mariupol. Probably because the orphanage director was here and not in Berdyansk. But Oksana could be anywhere.

Berdyansk was a little more than an hour’s drive from Mariupol, depending on the driver, but in another Western Oblast, the state of Zaporizhia. The region was much considered where the Cossacks first originated. For Martin, their deep and famous heritage was completely lost on the contemporary scene. Especially when he walked the streets in the early morning, watching so many poorly dressed people in the ‘real’ town. Not the fantasy of the tourist streets.

He remembered having had stared at the crowds when driving through Berdyansk. You turned back the Mongols? The Nazis?

A third day of doing nothing. Each day the director found another reason they could not meet. And each new day, consistently, Alex appeared completely at peace with the matter. She was a very busy woman. A very important person and doing all she could possibly do, he would report.

Martin remarked some now about the man’s incredibly positive attitude towards the woman, bordering on worship. He did not push too much, though, knowing relationships were important to the man’s business.

This day Martin ordered his own taxi, mimicking what he had been hearing Alex say every time. He liked that Alex helped him in this way without knowing. His actual representation had not resulted in any progress. Martin was resolved; a surprise visit with his terrible Russian and little translation book would be better than nothing.

The taxi climbed the high, broken road, winding up the hill above the city. Traffic was such that the man was forced to drive at normal speeds, giving Martin a full and steady panoramic view of the city below. An ancient location and possibly once picturesque city that now rolled out one gray apartment building after another. The tall skinny birch trees, called Topol trees, reached high and lined streets flowing out and collecting together into the Azov Sea. And the purpose of everything there could be seen in the last of the horizon, the many tall, steel-loading arms of the Soviet-era shipyard. They reached the top of the hill and swung into the next elevation of town, the water disappearing behind them.

On the right, they passed another WWII memorial, eternal flames burning. Martin had once read how the war had cost the country so many lives, staggering even by the official records. Maybe the Communists wanted to remind everyone how they were on the same team. Even if it didn’t feel like it. Ever.

They made it safely to the last stop light before turning into another apartment neighborhood where the orphanage was located.

The driver pulled up to the corner. “10 hryvnia!”

He paid and walked onto the orphanage grounds. The outdoor layout of the campus had imprinted on his mind during his stay the week before. Indoors, however, they had been disallowed from many places, but he knew where the administration offices were. And he could reach them by slipping through the side entrance to the building. There was no security anywhere in sight, but before everyone had been alert to him when he had been expected. If he were stopped by someone … bumbling American. He could play that persona.

The side entrance allowed him into the main hall of classrooms, lined with giant old and drafty windows on one side, closed classroom doors on the other. He made his way quickly, but stopped at one of the many children’s paintings on display.

Oksana. She had painted a field of sunflowers that reached out and pulled the viewer in from far away. The right side of the painting was shadowed. Something brought darkness to the foreground, maybe an imagined shade tree. He hurried on to the offices, the picture lingering, attaching to him.

He found the director’s guard dog at her desk. “Hello! My name is Martin,” he said in perfect diction.

The elderly assistant had only one expression, anger, last he’d seen her. She stood, speaking sternly at him from behind the desk. She waved him back toward the exit.

He did not move. The door to the director’s office was open. Martin raced to the entrance, holding the door open as the assistant tried to close it. He was trying to be smooth, unassuming, but she made it impossible. He gave in to the intense drama these people seemed to insist upon.

The director stared at him. A police officer and two women were with her. One of the women looked familiar to him, the teacher who had taken Okasna from them. Hatred shot toward him from her contorted face.

The director scolded, wagging a finger at his face.

He pressed on into the room, walked up to her desk, grabbed a chair, and sat with them. “Hello,” he said to the officer, smiling.

The man nodded, looking calm as if in his own living room.

Martin took that as a cue and mimicked the policeman’s passivity. “Madam Director. Excuse me, please. Oksana, please.”

She barked at her assistant and sat down. Martin realized that he could understand more than half of what was being said. She continued in Russian with the others, apologizing for the American. They talked about him as if he was no longer there.

Oksana’s teacher stared at him with demonic intensity.

Alex barged in, out of breath, and looking like he had witnessed a murder. Martin had been in the room ten or fifteen minutes, so Alex must have paid his taxi double to speed, then he must have ran the length of the campus to get to the office.

Martin was a little impressed with how quickly Alex had entered into their conversations and emotions. Martin had nothing to lose. He was finally face to face with the director and even had the presence of mind to pray for a better outcome. And pray with confidence. A confidence as if God was right there with him.

The teacher got up to leave. Martin thought to follow her. Maybe she was going to Oksana. He was stopped by the feel of Alex’s grip on his arm.

“Martin, what were you thinking?”

“Just now? I was wondering if our azaleas in the front yard were in bloom.”

“Martin?”

“I’m sorry, Alex. It looks like we have our meeting. How goes it?”

“Martin, the director is speaking with this woman from Kiev about the girl, Oksana. She has been ordered to remove the teacher’s guardianship of the child. She thinks now that you have something to do with it. I explain that is impossible. But this is not easy. She is not going to have you arrested. That is good. Please wait outside and let us conclude.”

“Arrested? For what?”

“Because she can. Martin, you do not understand. Wait outside, please.”

“Oksana, please,” Martin said, looking at the director.

Alex grabbed Martin’s arm and pulled him to the door. He held his finger up at Martin, looking serious.

Alex returned back to the office for a close and quiet talk with the director. After some time he came back to Martin with a very different attitude.

“All is well, Martin. Let’s go now, please.”

For the first time, Martin was actually afraid of him.

The trip back to the apartment did not start well. Martin managed to get Alex to grunt a couple times. Alex and the driver seemed an odd but comfortable pair. There was something familiar in the way they interacted since getting into the taxi.

Had Alex used them in other adoptions? Alex ignored his questions, giving only an occasional grunt. They arrived at the apartment. Normally Alex got out of the taxi when Martin did. This time, he remained.

Fine. Let things end this way for the day and see what a new day might bring, what new information.

“Martin, do not do that again,” Alex warned.

“You mean try to meet with a director who is obviously avoiding us?”

“She was going to give you a pick of children. I do not understand your obsession with this child.” Alex climbed out of the taxi. He raised his hand behind him, signaling for the driver to wait.

“She was hidden from us. She was given illegal guardianship. The government took it away.”

“So?”

“Why? Why is it important for the girl to remain here, to not be adopted?”

“Martin, what does it matter? It is what is wanted. This director is a very important person. And she is tied to very important people.”

Martin’s mind cleared, bringing Alex into true focus. It was not a specific coldness in the man’s attitude and tone. The man seemed to be telling the full truth of himself. But it nagged at Martin. He felt the truth about Alex, but could not name it.

He prodded a bit, mined for some definition. “Alex, are people that interchangeable to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“This girl, that girl—whatever. This is what ‘they’ want, so be it. Is that how you operate?”

“Well. Yes. In a way, yes. These are orphans. I am not clear why you Westerners want them, actually. Some people want babies, I know. I work with many. But older orphans, I do not understand.”

“Why do you do this business then?”

“It is work, good work.”

“Yes, but you are a smart guy, educated guy. Why this?”

Alex squirmed. He brought out a cigarette and looked around. “These orphans are not the best. They burden my country. I am happy for you, Martin. People like you who come for them. One day, when this country returns to its roots and there is order, there will be no more orphans. You understand, Martin? We work to the same goal. Maybe different answers to our personal ‘why’ questions. But their motives do not impact either of us. Except you fixate on this one girl.”

“Thanks. I get that. When can I see Oksana?”

“It does not seem probable. Not now.”

“I thought you smoothed things over.”

“The girl is protected. Ultimate guardianship now sets on the director. You tell me how she will react to you now. She won’t even allow you on the grounds. We must move to another district and seek a child for you. No problem.”

“No, Alex. Let’s do this. You go by the numbers with this in terms of the paperwork. I was given a referral to meet the child back in Kiev. That is official right?”

“Well, yes, but …”

“Good. Then she must meet with me in a reasonable time. And I must get to talk with the child. Correct?”

“Yes, Martin. But again …”

“Then please continue to try to set that up. I will not lose it again. I promise.”

“Martin, I will do as you instruct. I am invested to a point. But if this becomes dangerous then you must listen to me and we go. That must be understood.”

“Dangerous?”

“It is already, Martin. Yes. Maybe you will listen to that. You are already watched. You will see a taxi with a man inside of it outside your flat. He will be there all day and take no rides.”

“Why?”

“Martin! I do not know why. I do not want to know why. It does not matter. I go now. Please, I will call you in two days with a report. And I will get papers from Notary and other necessary things specific to this orphan.”

“Oksana.”

“Yes, Martin.”

New York, USA

The art community in New York was a fortress. Even L.A. had to work hard to break in. Networking was not where Willard excelled. Most of his success came from direct bullying or side-blinding manipulation.

But he was learning. One thing he did know how to do was hire the right people for any specific task. Studying people, understanding them, was going to be the key to his future. His service picked him up at the airport and drove him to the Scope Pavilion. Though tired, he would not check into his hotel until the evening, never in the middle of the day.

The Scope was his most useful connection for presenting his Eastern European artists. They held festivals worldwide and in buyer locations for his other businesses. He found them large enough, inclusive enough, to hide him away and legitimize him at the same time. Recently two of his artists had begun to get some notice. He needed to support them while limiting their exposure.

Yet he wanted the spotlight. He deserved it. He entered this world to use it as a front, but art was now attempting to use him, draw him into a new sophistication and an elitist limelight.

He has found his latest artist in the Russian section of the pavilion room for New Works. He watched the artist, eyes wide, moving and talking from group to group, where ever a woman was. Probably excited at having money in his wallet for the first time in his life.

Willard smiled. Free-spirits could be purchased so easily, and in some cases, so completely. As benefactor, he liked to bring the more brooding, darker works out, to highlight the experimental works.

He liked even more when he could draw the inner-greed out of an artist. Everyone was greedy for something, and would sacrifice anything for whatever it was. He worked two angles—money and fame. And played to them through two vices—pride and envy.

A dark space in the corner of the lobby, a seat surrounded by large-leafed plants, caught Willard’s eye. He looked for such a dark opening in whatever place he entered. He excused himself from his own little group and walked away to the seat.

Soon he would fly to Ukraine. He planned to place his other star, Natasha, there, or at least her work.

These events often brought her to his thoughts like a sudden draft in a room. She was the window that was never fully closed.

Incompleteness of any kind was distasteful.

He had discovered Natasha, his latest and best artist, at a reception held at Craigcrook Castle for the Eastern European networking symposium in Edinburgh, Scotland. They discussed art history and UK relations in the Cold War. He had moved about the room with his new-found links between the UK and Eastern Europe. Ways in which these connections helped to develop new forms of art and working with artists and curators. Talking of how the older generation of émigré East European artists, such as Romanian Paul Neagu, shaped subsequent generations of artists in the UK. How should the informal networks of sociability which have existed between Eastern and Western Europe helped to re-write understandings of such art-historical concepts as influence and style, and such art-historical constructs as centre and margins.

And other such art world matters.

Willard wanted to bring this relational experience to America, to play catch-up. His interest and his money were much desired by his new friends. And his chosen artists, the women, would begin with him in personal exhibits in whatever city he discovered them. And they would end their evenings in his opulent hotel room.

But this one was different. She was Moldavian and was taking longer to work. He feared that she could have real talent. Especially in the way other curators courted her.

Willard had started getting serious about the art trade, desiring real fame. Traveling about the art industry had started out as his story, his excuse for roaming. But he quickly learned that he had to bring real knowledge and carry a certain air about him to be taken seriously. He hired the very best art historians to tutor him, flew worldwide to keep up with the latest trends. As a result, he could draw most any of the art back to their roots … in some cases, as far back as the primitive influences. This new world was no match for the depth of his insecurity and his determination to rise above it.

He found her alone in the corner of the atrium. Beautiful in the classic Slavic ways. Long, straight, black hair pointing down to her longer toned legs. Her cheekbones set high below large but not innocent eyes. He was taken with her more than any other mainly because at some level there was doubt. The question of whether she might not be attainable after all.

“Natasha, you look stunning.”

“Yes,” she replied and kissed him on the cheek.

“Are you enjoying Scotland? Comfortable?”

“Yes, Willard. Thank you for including my collection.”

“It was a fight to get you. But you know that.”

“How long will you be here?”

“Just dinner with you tonight and then off to Kiev.”

“Right, the festival. I’m not going to sleep with you, you understand.”

“You always say that. Anyhow, I have my eye on a real talent in Berdyansk. You may have a partner for the show in L.A.”

“Whatever. I am doing well in Germany. Maybe I will stay over here. I can be happy, you know.”

That was what was so different about her. She had unwittingly given herself away. She really was a spirit that rode the waves fate sent her way. There was a kind of contentment to her that made her fearless, even of him. She wasn’t ambitious enough for him to control her. He needed her for the L.A. show, and maybe the one in Dubai in the winter. That is where his buyers were and she had talent needed to draw a respectful crowd for cover.

But in Dubai he would sell her along with her paintings. She would not be so smug then, so content. She would come to know need, and survival would be her singular ambition. In a moment, he laid out her future. How the story would end would depend upon his mood that winter. And his mood would depend on how business was going, so he let his mind slip away from the conclusion of it. The plan was enough for now.

Maybe he would rescue her from the dungeon. Or maybe he would not. Either ending would provide the appropriate satisfaction of control and revenge.

He smiled.

She cocked her head a little as if taken aback, the smile being so out of step with their conversation.

But he could not stop the muscles in his face from contorting. She thought having sex with him was the ultimate degradation for her and satisfaction for him. She was playing with the left hand while clueless of what the right hand’s goal was.

Berdyansk, Ukraine

Sasha was watching TV when Dima came over. His house was newer and larger than most in the region and gated as all other homes. Guards would give him status, maybe to a level that was required to move up in rank. But he simply did not have the trust necessary to employee anyone permanently. Especially anyone walking around with guns while he slept. He preferred the electric fence and alarms. If someone, even a friend, came unannounced, it would be the last time they did that. Dima knew to call ahead.

Sasha switched the TV station to the frequency that showed the monitor running above the front gate. A button push on the remote opened the gate and allowed Dima to walk through. Another frequency showed Dima open the front door and walk through.

Sasha was once diagnosed with manic-depression. On this day he was up and glad for it as Dima mattered to him. Dima’s opinions were important. There were times Sasha even received life-saving advice from him.

“Hello, friend!” he said to Dima as he stepped into the entryway and stretched out his hand.

Dima smiled and shook his hand. It was a serious shake for business so he also gently grabbed Sasha’s upper arm.

Sasha took this as a gesture of seriousness. Business.

“Okay, then. Let’s talk.” They walked to the living room where Sasha poured vodka for them both.

“You are looking well.”

“Why wouldn’t I? What do you know that I do not?” Sasha laughed.

They sat awhile on the black leather couch watching a recorded soccer game. Both of them came together when possible for these games. He liked to treat Dima to finer restaurants sometimes, show him the good life. But Sasha had given up long ago on getting Dima into the business. Dima was a good man and Sasha protected that, depended on it. The man had become a kind of priest to him, a personal touchstone to something right with the world. He would not taint him but also would not be swayed by him. He could no longer afford it. To lose his edge would be death. The commitment he made to the Brotherhood was permanent.

“You know the man I am borrowing that apartment for?”

“I do not. But no matter.”

“Right. Well, I want to tell you something about this.”

“Of course.”

“He is American. He wants to adopt a child from the orphanage. This girl, I found they had her marked. They had a teacher take guardianship over her but he had it removed.”

“He has that kind of money?”

“No.”

“Then how?”

“I don’t know. But it was done. Kiev investigated so the director there had to pay a lot out. A lot to stay out of jail. She is very unhappy.”

“Hmm.”

“She hides the girl from him. We don’t know where. I think she is safe from their purposes, so that is only a problem for him. He does not understand things.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“He has a facilitator. His name is Alex. He is supposed to help him to adopt the child.”

“Okay.”

“Something is not right with him. I need to know more about him I think. And after this man, Alex, has all in order to adopt, we still need to know where the child is. The American is not aware that he will need to quickly leave the country.”

“Why do you care about this?”

“I don’t know.”

“So we have here a man who does not understand things helping another who does not understand things.” Sash laughed.

The two men finished the game and the bottle.

Sasha noted that this was only the second thing Dima had ever asked of him and he sensed it would become more complicated than it sounded. Not because Dima was holding anything back; it was not his way. But he was still, some small part of himself, a spiritual man. Dima grounded him to something like hope, a touch of freedom found through the iron bars that held his life. His only task was to find out more about a man. That was nothing. If the man needed to be killed, that was nothing as well.

“Dima, I must go. I am sorry I have little time today.”

“Da. Me, too. I need to pick up Katya.”

“Is she well? Is she thinking of nursing school still? You know it is paid for, Dima.”

“I know. But she has no direction right now.”

Sasha followed his friend outside and saw him off, then got into his own car and drove to his meeting.

Not the normal kind of meeting, but to the Berdyansk cemetery to meet with his sister on her birthday. Neither of them was ever certain of their actual birthdays, only what the government papers said. Since the government couldn’t be trusted, all he could know for certain was that he was born. This never bothered his sister but it did bother him. Every time it came to his mind, he went into an existential fit.

Sasha parked in front of the cemetery. He scanned headstones as he stepped, burdened, down the dirt and grassy paths of the yard. Some gravesites were better kept up than others. Families cared for their own people. Some did that well, providing small gated sitting gardens with wooden benches and flowers, low cut grass. The State did well by their Colonels and Generals, but no one else.

Deviating slightly from his path Sasha found a couple of old friends. Friends, to him, meant they would kill him only if ordered to. Anyone else would do it for money. And he knew where their graves were located as well. If time allowed, he would stop by and spit on them.

He sat on a bench in front of Lev Cushko, his headstone seven feet high and four feet wide. The man’s life-size color image glazed into the thick granite slate. It showed a thin man, strange for his status, standing in a suit in front of a white Jaguar Sedan. Smiling, as if a good man, holding a cigarette in one hand and ready to embrace anyone with the other hand.

Sasha grinned. Lev was never really so happy or inviting. But he was straight. He never killed for fun or money. Sasha liked and trusted him. The image on a gravestone could be anything someone wanted it to be. Who can know any man, really?

He made his way towards the back of the cemetery where the State placed all the unimportant people. Some with names, some nameless with low-budget markers. Either much hated people, or simply people with no family. Guilt poured over him as he approached his sister’s headstone. Why had he never taken care of her marker? He had more than enough money and time. He stood above her spot and let the memories come in slowly, lingering on this or that. But one in particular held his attention, moistening his eyes as it unfolded onto him.

She was only fifteen at the time. But in so many ways she was fifty if a day. In other ways, just a child. The orphanage made them both hard, yet she retained a bit of normalcy. Maybe, her being older, she had managed to hold onto some event before she was three years old. Before their family split apart.

He tightened his neck, his defensive reflex to unwanted sadness. She never told him even a little fragment of his own history. She said it was not important. They were orphans, born to it or coming to it. Either way, such was their lives. Adjust.

She always told him to adjust. She told him when to stand and when to run, and to know the difference. By fifteen she had imparted all the survival skills he ever needed. But for herself, she missed a step somewhere. She let herself get raped by one of their teachers. That marked her and she could no longer sell herself. Her life no longer on her terms as she had always demanded. The man started selling her instead. That lasted a year until she was released from the orphanage. Then another year until she took her last shot of heroin.

Did the man have a headstone? Years ago Sasha had searched him out. Once he found the man, Sasha struggled with what to do, what would satisfy.

Nothing bad enough ever came to him, nothing to equal the depth of his loss. One night, in deep depression mixed with Cognac, he broke into the man’s apartment, woke him, walked him out to the street, and shot him in the head. Sasha wasted no words on him. Over the years, in his mind, he had talked to the man too much. There was nothing more to say.

After some time Sasha looked for reports of the shooting. He checked city records and came up empty. He had killed the man himself and left him to be found in the open. But it was as if a street-cleaner had come by and brushed the man up with other garbage, his memory of no more interest to the city than cigarette butts on the sidewalk.

Which left no grave upon which to spit.

Sasha kneeled in the dirt and gravel in front of the concrete headstone. He bathed in the pain of their life, letting his soul remember the full expression of it. Of the beatings, the neglect, the total loss, and confusion.

He would make a fitting memorial for his sister. Within himself, he had overcome whatever it was that had resisted that notion for so long. It would be done. He walked back to his car with a sense of purpose he had not felt in a long time. No peace, but that foreign feeling might kill him anyhow.

He reached his car and called a trusted union man.

“Hello, friend.”

“Sasha!”

“Da. A favor, please.”

“Of course.”

“I need a watch on a man named Alex Plachkov. He works out of Kiev as a translator for Americans adopting children. I don’t know who does this sort of business.”

“No problem.”

“Just information. He is to be working for an American, but not trusted. Only information … for now.”

“Understand. Bye, Sasha.”

Chapter Seven

Mariupol, Ukraine

Oksana sat in the back of the classroom. The back of the room was best because she always knew what everyone was doing. Her teacher was telling the class about her latest boyfriend, where they went for the weekend, where they ate. And how handsome and sweet he was. His great discernment in spending his weekend with someone as wonderful as her. The teacher laughed at one of the girls who suggested that when she grew up she would marry such a man.

“You? Anya, you are not meant for such a life. You are an orphan, girl. You will never marry any man. Are you crying? Stupid girl.”

This teacher, as the others, treated Oksana well, though. Oksana was pretty and always knew to never say anything unless to entertain. But the limelight that had worked so well for her seemed to be turning against her. She turned her head to look out the giant windows, through the long lace drapes, out to the playground, watching a football game without really seeing it.

Since her other teacher, Miss Valentina, had taken guardianship, Oksana spent weekends at her home. A nightmare of a home. She got beat for the dumbest things. Placed a full day in a closet for asking for dessert. Each weekend got a little crazier than the previous one. She and three other girls were being dragged to mass three times a week now. The priest stared at her, ran his hands through her hair, each time they visited.

One day he might speak to her, or she might have to go behind the altar with him as the older girl had. The girl would never tell what happened back there, but it wasn’t good. The girl was changing, losing weight and turning pale.

Oksana felt herself changing as well. She learned to fake taking the pills they kept giving her, to look obedient. Sometimes she would act mindless to avoid suspicion. But these were things she could not teach her friend Anya no matter how hard she tried. Anya would submit and agree with the very worst of things told to her about herself. She memorized the religious readings she was forced to recite every day, yet another thing she could not help Anya with. The girl failed the recitations almost every time. It seemed Anya’s beatings bothered Oksana more than they did Anya. Were the pills doing something to her friend’s nerves?

Everything had changed after the Americans came. Oksana regretted ever telling Miss Valentina that she liked the American woman. Since then she had to read even more of the teacher’s religious books. Pretending to understand them got more difficult every day. She was so tired of it. What would happen if she stopped pretending obedience? What relaxation she might feel if she stopped trying to hold onto the ground, the only sure thing in her life. She was always on the ground and the ground always beneath her. Her trusted friend.

And the voice, the strong man that spoke to her only, telling her to hold on. Telling her that he would protect her. She knew her spirit-man from the beginning. In her early years people explained him away as an imaginary friend. For some reason, they could not see him.

He was her real teacher. He taught her how to survive. Because everyone lied to her, he schooled her in lying. He taught her to steal before others could steal from her. Her spirit-man kept her alert for all danger and gave her insight into who was weak and who was to be avoided.

She never had to plan a pretty future like the other girls. He would be with her always and each day would be as the next. An unspoken promise. But he didn’t like the Americans, especially the man. So she didn’t think on them much. Today she did, and then felt strangely guilty. But they were nice. What could it hurt to imagine them as parents? The class ended and they were free after a long day of not learning anything. She passed under the framed photos on the Wall of Honor, students who excel in academics or sports, and looked up to herself, the supposed academic. She could not stop herself from this. Like with the mirrors. She constantly returned to them in her room and the bathroom, looking at herself. I’m here, I’m real.

She caught up with two girlfriends who were talking about a new girl who came with a cell phone. Which path should they take to get to the cell phone? They would know tonight when they went to bed. The new girl would either be a friend, or simply lose her cell phone.

“What did you do, Oksana?” one of the girls asked.

Oksana stepped back. “What?”

“We heard that Miss Valentina hates you now. She’s no more your guardian. Maybe she will pick me now!”

“I hope so,” Oksana replied. Her emotions mixed over the news. She was exposed in new ways if this was true. But the thought of another insane weekend at that woman’s house was enough to give her courage. Courage she would need to sustain her through her sudden return to lowly status.

At least she had not made any intentional enemies.

Maybe church could stop now, too.

Maybe that man and his wife would come and adopt her. Why am I thinking like this? They have nothing to do with today. I need to pay attention. Things are changing.

Oksana fled the group and ran around to the back of the building. She went to her hidden spot in a patch of trees behind the unkempt garden area where large rusted metal trash piles of appliances had been placed decades before. She easily climbed the low, white-barked birch to where its branches mixed with the many tall Topol trees and crossed over. Her spot was nearly halfway up a Topol. She settled in there and took in the view of the sea.

So steady and calm so often, the Sea of Azov was shallow throughout and the surface reflected it. She wanted to reflect the sea. It never mattered if the day was cloudy or bright because the sea never changed.

In a way, she was experiencing her solitude more deeply than ever before. The sea air blew more freshly through her skin and hair. The strength of salty smells were more powerful, the seagulls heard individually, each one with their own distinct voice. She so desperately wanted to have her own voice and to borrow their wings if she could.

Dima parked outside Martin’s flat before he even called for him. He knew to be there as soon as Martin awoke. When this kind of certainty came over him without explanation he always went with it, knowing such things had saved his life before. He didn’t know the future, but when things were not right in the present God must be working, guiding matters to some conclusion.

He knew the cost of going his own way as when he thought his daughter was being kidnapped at the train station. Yet the results did not end badly. How much control did God really take hold of? Would the woman have been locked away in some palace room across the world? She would have been if Dima had been right.

But then there are such events happening all the time, women trapped all over the world. He personally met some when in Czechoslovakia. He shrugged off that memory. He didn’t participate with the others, but he didn’t stop them either. They were animals, yet fellow soldiers all the same.

He liked this time of morning and the time to think more clearly before the road took him over. He was taking Martin to meet with Alex in the next town. A courthouse he had not been to before. He thought then how his life was going much that way. Him waiting to see what to respond to next. It was not always that way and he planned to make a point to change it.

Martin was a start of that for him. The man had not caught on to the dangers around him. Maybe he thought he was untouchable, as is so American, but when people disappeared that was it. No matter who or from where. He had seen it many times. He would set his price high for Martin today to cover things, the extra gas, and extended time away from the city.

Martin fumbled with the outer locks of his building. It made him smile, the man’s awkwardness and cluelessness. He was a good man. Dima discerned such things. Martin was genuine, but even more than that, he possessed something rare. Something Dima once saw in an officer during the war. That quality someone has to possess themselves but can only see in another person because their own sins are always before them.

Mr. Martin, you are a good man. You do what is right. You do what has to be done. I hope you do not get killed.

Martin ambled to the car, adjusting his backpack.

Dima opened the door for him. “We have a long drive. I hope you will be comfortable.”

“Just don’t smoke.” Martin said and climbed in the taxi.

But I must. “It’s a long ride, Martin…”

“Just kidding, Dima. Can we stop and get some coffee?”

Dima smiled. “Absolutely. I know a place open this early, no problem.”

Dima liked this man more each time. He would be his translator at the courthouse, maybe for free. His man, Alex, was not available this early but had not told him why. This concerned Martin much, surely, this strained relationship between an employer and his employee. Alex was biting the hand that fed him for some reason.

Sasha would find answers. One way or another.

“So what are we doing, please?” Dima said, about ten minutes into the drive.

“I have to sign a letter of intent for the Oblast officials to investigate the director. The Kiev people removed the guardianship of Oksana, but I can no longer see the girl because of the director.”

“Martin!”

“Yes?” Martin shook awake at Dima’s tone.

“You can’t…how can you do that? You are a foreigner.”

“Oh, my wife found this guy that said Alex was wrong about this. A Kiev lawyer. He gave me the forms I am taking. I guess I really don’t know. But apparently these forms are golden.”

“Golden?”

“They are very good.”

“Okay. I see. So you have papers. But the director, Martin. She is no small person and she already hates you. You understand?”

“Yeah, she will not like this. But she has to reinstate the child for adoption status. She won’t do it, according to Alex.”

“No. I mean … Martin, she fights you for a reason. Now she fights you with more reason. She is a known friend to the mayor. She has many reasons, more than your one reason, in this fight of yours.”

“Dima, can I be clear with you?”

“Da, of course.”

“I believe in a way, such a deep way I can’t even express it in my language, that Oksana is my daughter and she is coming to America with me.”

Dima took this in, helpless against such logic. It was pure, like wisdom. His daughter. “I understand.” Dima smiled broadly. “We are friends, Martin.”

“Da, of course.”

Dima laughed and turned the music louder to celebrate. And to annoy Martin. He enjoyed annoying his friends.

Berdyansk, Ukraine

Alex did not like these meetings. This would require painful humility, the confession of a need. But the setting made him comfortable. His church met deep in the countryside outside Berdyansk. They had found a small clearing within thick woods that was neglected state property. The abandoned factory and apartments nearby were designated as off-limits. No one could officially take up residence or walk the woods owned nearby. But it also meant that no one would want to. Some for fear of arrest but others knowing that someone would be living there, probably someone dangerous. The government had not set foot on the property since 2001.

His priest met him there to listen and to give advice and prayers. The priest also brought a friend along with him, a kind of assistant. The friend’s name was never offered.

Alex straightened rocks into a large circle on the ground. The men gathered and piled broken branches in the center of the large circle of stones. Then the priest took a branch from the finished pile, straightened his tunic, and drug the stick through the dirt to five different points around the circle. He placed a new stone in each spot and set four new branches as posts there. He canvassed the wider area now muttering with hands raised to the sky. He walked to a large log nearby and motioned Alex to come and sit next to him.

“Thank you, Alex, for helping in the preparations,” the priest said.

“No, Worshipful Master, thank you for taking time with my problem.”

“Alex, are you a better man than me?”

“No, of course not! No.”

“Then just say ‘you’re welcome’. Simple.”

“Yes. I am very sorry.”

“No matter.” The priest laughed. “It seems I cannot stop teaching. Now, you have a problem? You are working to dispatch the undesirables, the children. You have chosen a good vocation, my friend.”

“Thank you. I work mostly in the West with the Roma orphanages, facilitating their adoptions. But I chose to work with a couple in the Southeast, Mariupol. Americans who want a child who is not available.”

“This is making little sense to me, I am afraid.”

“Forgive me, please. It is this; he wants to adopt a child who is legally adoptable now after something his wife did. But what he does not know is that they hide the girl with a local for a week. This local then is to put her back into the system and send official letters to remove her from the Kiev database and also remove her eligibility. So they are set hard to keep this child. And this man and his wife insist on having this one child.”

“Fighting over a little sea urchin? I am even more confused.”

“Me too, Master.”

The men sat in silence for some time while the priest drew symbols in the dirt with his small branch. He stood and paced with a bit of muttering again. “Alex, I see that you stand with both sides. You hold secrets of both from both. That will always cause tension, lad. I suggest a little good wine, knowing your stomach must be a bit of a mess. You could walk away from a foreigner and make the establishment happy. But you can’t or else you would, eh?”

Alex nodded defeated and sighed.

“And you do not even know why this is. Your job is to remove from the nation what it cannot bear. You make way for the future of the native nation and the ancients smile on you. You can’t replace this child with another because the man, as is so American, is obstinate.”

The man’s insight amazed Alex. He was humbled, but no more at ease with himself or his predicament.

“I will help you, lad. By Perun, the answer comes to me. Not of myself, lest I should foolishly boast. The child must normally go, of course. If by the American, fine. But the gods would have her to likely remain. The people that see to her care now act very strangely. They have some design specific for her. Find what that is, lean allegiance to that side. Test the gods in prayer. If their goals are with Perun, they are native, and the gods will make clear what they want from there.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“You’re welcome,” the priest replied. He smiled as if waiting for Alex to show he understood his ironic graciousness. “Now Alex, please try to come to the festival. You are a young man and many fit young Aryan girls will be here. You may find yourself a wife.”

“Da. I will try. Thank you.”

Alex returned through the woods to the factory and called for a taxi. He climbed the steps of the front of the factory to the large front doors and sat at the top step while he waited. Situated atop a hill, it gave him a vast view of his country. Rolling fields of sunflowers poured out before and around him. The broken asphalt spread out wide from the abandoned parking entrance, narrowed out a quarter of a mile until lost in the tall Topol trees. From the ashes of communism, someone once told him, would grow the return of the native land. But the native faith must grow first, push through like the network of weeds in the asphalt. Then the soil must be tilled.

Alex looked again to the sunflowers. He had a mission. The gods were grooming him for something special. Maybe even something great.

Jenny emailed Martin that the U.S. embassy had recommended they use their medical office in Kiev. But Martin insisted that his next trip to Kiev should be only to the airport. Jenny, through her many new connections, found a Russian translator in Donetsk who contacted the medical office in Kiev. They recommended an office in Berdyansk that would be acceptable to Kiev and American immigration for his medical exam.

Dima picked Martin up early in the morning and drove him to Berdyansk. They were making the drive so often between Berdyansk and Mariupol that Martin had begun to time him each trip. Dima didn’t outwardly acknowledge Martin’s activity, but he got a minute or two faster each time. As soon as he didn’t beat his records, Martin planned to let him know.

But it never happened. Maybe it never would. Dima made the drive in just under an hour.

“Your wife is interesting, very mindful,” Dima said.

“How do you mean?”

“She always seems to know what you need and where to get it. You need official papers here and there. I have seen more government buildings than when I was in the Army,” Dima said.

Martin smiled. “True.”

Dima got a call when he pulled up to the medical office. Listening, he held up a finger, letting Martin know he would be back in an hour, before he pulled away.

Martin entered the medical office imagining a lobby on the other side of the door, but only a staircase faced him. He walked to the next story.

Miserable people lined the hall, filling benches all along the wall, with others standing or sitting on the floor.

He took the papers Jenny had faxed him to the reception desk and glanced at the one written in English. The receptionist scanned the papers and disappeared somewhere into her labyrinth of filing cabinets. After she returned, a door opened down the hall and a nurse emerged with his papers in her hands motioning him to come to her.

The nurse was obviously tasked with giving the full physical for Martin. He insisted to go in without an interpreter, waving her away.

She grabbed at her smock to let him know he needed to take his clothes off. She got increasingly impatient at the slowness of his disrobing.

He stood in his boxers.

She glared at his underwear and shook her head.

He took off his boxers and stood there, completely naked in the cold cinderblock room, setting his mind at pretending to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

But this was made impossible by the constant stream of people coming in and out and interrupting the nurse. This included the receptionist, then an older man with a paper for her to sign. Each new person taking notice of him standing there.

The last intrusion came at the very worst time for him in the exam. Martin felt a draft and looked behind him. The last person had left the door open and others in the waiting room stared into the room. His only defense was to take offense, so he glared meanly back at them.

Their expressions did not change.

He had seen that kind of look before. Back home, when the mechanic slipped him midway into a line for a car inspection though others had serious engine problems, he remembered the look on their faces then. That look that was reminiscent of riots and mobs with pitchforks.

At least these people received some justice seeing him like that.

The nurse sat down at a little metal desk and entered her paperwork into the computer.

He hopped off the table, strode to the chair, and yanked up his clothes.

“Nyet!” She pointed him back to the cold table.

Martin angrily pointed at the door. “Please!”

She rolled her eyes, stood up, and closed the door. After checking his reflexes with her little hammer, she waved her cold hands up as instruction for him stand. She turned her head and coughed. He sighed and copied her.

The nurse went back to her little desk, typed some more, and looked over the top of her glasses to scold him now for still being naked, pointing him to his clothes.

His clothes back on him, Martin sighed in relief when she handed him the papers and ordered him to follow her to the front desk.

He looked at no one on the way out.

Once outside he checked his watch. Thirty minutes until Dima was due back. It seemed like hours had passed while being poked and prodded by the nurse.

Ukraine had taught him to like to walk, plus he needed to get as far from the medical office as he could. Martin spotted a bench surrounded by tall garden hedges at the corner two blocks away. He made his way to it quickly as if it was a kind of fort. A fortified hopeful place to rest from the madness. Martin pushed his thoughts into the direction of his past, his home. Jenny was all his mind could see. Their weekend at the lake.

He encouraged more thoughts of her, missed her as a daily activity now, as a respite from the never ending chess game he was playing. But he played without knowing the rules. Martin could never win or lose but the game continued on with the irritating irrational hope of winning.

His latest humiliation came back to him. The nurse seemed like an actress in a strange play meant to give him a concrete illustration of what he felt Ukraine had been doing to him every day.

Dima pulled his Volga in front of him. He stood and walked mechanically to the taxi and entered into it the same way.

“Your papers, I will have a courier take them to Kiev,” Dima said.

“That’s okay. I can fax them from the internet café in Mariupol.”

“Nyet. I call courier. He will meet us at the bus station.”

“Why would someone take a trip like that for my medical records?” Martin asked.

“Martin, these are important papers. Not just yours. It is his job to carry many files to Kiev.”

“Okay.”

“Your wife, I think she has no choice but to be mindful,” Dima said.

“Funny.”

Kiev, Ukraine

Chip Stiles sat in the gloomy, dim light surrounded by the warm brown and red colors of the Hotel Rus lobby. The restaurant service spilled into the lobby as the comfortable stately chairs were always filled with people. He was not clear on the full agenda for this meeting, but had gotten used to that when dealing with the government.

He had been on mission in-country for 18 years. Originally, he had come to Ukraine to help purchase the former soviet transmitter used to block Radio Free Europe broadcasting, the most powerful transmitter from the cold war. Now he was the director of the Alliance Children’s Foundation, the A.C.F.

The hotel was built in 1979 by the Soviets in preparation for the 1980 Olympics. After the declaration of independence of Ukraine in 1991, it was the “Rus” hotel, considered one of the best municipal hotels in Kiev.

He patiently passed the time sizing up the women in the lobby, nearly overcrowded now with prostitutes. Nearing midnight, mafia guys, the lower ranks being taxi drivers, moving their fingers, heads down into their little Nokia cell phones.

Not the best location late at night, but they had insisted. And they were politically connected enough that he had to bend. Despite the fact that he had a history in the hotel and did not want to run into the same woman again. Chip understood when luck was on his side, and when to stop for a time. It was important to keep his family intact, not just his image. He loved his family but needed something from time to time that only extreme sin provided.

Chip was about to order a beer when the two men walked up to his table. He recognized the Assistant Director of International Adoptions from the orphan aid seminar held in the city in every spring. Sergey. But the other man? And they looked nervous. Odd. He was always the nervous outsider, the American.

“Chip, thank you so much for meeting at this hour. I promise we will be brief,” Sergey said. Sergey sat down and waved the other man down.

“Not a problem,” Chip replied in Russian.

“This is my friend. He does great work in orphan advocacy in Zaporizhia.”

“Oh. We work with many orphanages in that region. What is your group’s name?” Chip asked.

“So here is the deal.” Sergey scraped his chair closer to the table. “We have a potential international incident. A couple from your country is pressing hard to adopt a child from the Mariupol orphanage. But the child does not want to be adopted. In fact she has a guardian.”

“What’s the problem? I suppose the law prohibits them,” Chip said.

“Yes. But they seem to have the local judge and further up in their pocket. Probably they are very wealthy people, you know. Anyhow, we know that they met this child working with your group at that orphanage a couple months ago. It is very important to many American families, or will be, that you speak with them and set things right.”

Set things right. “How do you mean?”

“Tell them to respect our laws. And direct them to the many other available orphans. I tell you this guardian so loves the child. Her heart is breaking and the child calls her Mother.”

“I see. Give me their name and I will talk to them.” What? Wait. “You said she was at the orphanage. It’s not the family-style home there. How can she be in the orphanage and have a guardian?”

Both men stiffened in their seats and Sergey focused on slowly turning his water glass around.

Why had he put them on the spot like that? He knew better. He understood well how to play along with lies.

Chip stopped a passing waiter and ordered a coffee, lessening the pressure he’d put on the men.

“I don’t know all the particulars, Chip,” Sergey said, “but everything, including your NGO’s current relations with the regional government, is in jeopardy. I know that all you have to do is reason with these people, redirect them, and all will return to normal.”

Chip let out a small intentional laugh. “Normal. Okay.”

The other man, the friend, broke into the conversation with heavily accented English. “You don’t know my work in the region, Mr. Stiles, because we are unseen.” A deep voice, calm and confident. “But we know your work there. It is good that you help the orphans and the director certainly thinks highly of you. And so do the children. Our people even received your praises from interviews with former orphans. One girl was so thankful for your life-skills center you established there when she was 15. I think her name is Nataliya.”

The name, the horrible name, made Chip realize who he was speaking with. Memories were like family, to be visited from time to time. Sometimes wonderful to have spent time with them and to have chosen how much time was spent. But when family came to one’s own home, things changed. One was no longer in control of the event or the schedule. Family arrived, and one dealt with it. Chip was visited, over-taken by an old but familiar and virile memory.

“This Nataliya liked you very much. She said that she was certain that you would marry her and take her to Kiev or America. Even that you promised such things when the two of you spent intimate times together. Times when she was only 15, you understand. So Chip, I think you know how serious this is now. All is well; I have assured the director that you will make a simple end to this matter. I have written their names here for you.” Sergey set a paper next to Chip’s plate.

Chip felt the room get hotter as his heart raced.

Both men stood, walked away, and disappeared into the sea of business in the lobby.

After a time, Chip’s heart slowed to a normal beat, the room felt cooler, and he began to breathe again. He didn’t know anything about this situation with these Americans, but at least it was an easy request.

He reminded himself why this was so serious for the men, the government. Their ultimate motives were U.N.I.C.E.F money and E.U. inclusion. That faction was obsessed with it and mostly in control after the last elections.

The ‘family-style’ homes he helped them create each had a husband and wife overseer team as guardians of 12 children. The work gave him great latitude with the government. The parts of it that happened to be in power anyhow.

The U.N. goal was for all countries to cease international adoptions, so they gave millions of dollars for progress of in-country foster care. His homes got these kids off the adoptable rolls under the guise of this ‘family’ arrangement. And for E.U. status, the great hope of many in Ukraine, they would need to get to a point where there were no international adoptions, showing that they can manage their own societal issues.

Chip walked out of the hotel in a daze, sat in the taxi, but made the driver wait while he repeatedly called his missions coordinator.

Finally the man answered.

“Hello? It’s Chip. Sorry, but this is important. Martin and Jenny Johnson from Oklahoma. They were part of a mission team in the Spring. In May, I think.”

“Okay. I probably met them. What about them?” the man asked.

“I need to speak with them. The earlier the better.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I really need to speak with them. If they’re eight hours behind us, they’re probably getting home from work now. Get me in touch, please. Conference me anytime tonight.” Chip hung up.

On the way home, he struggled, imagining what he could say. He had one demand, and no reasons to back it up. All his information would be coming from their perspective and he didn’t even know them.

Chapter Eight

Mariupol, Ukraine

Martin had spent another week alone, without any word of Oksana or her whereabouts. While waiting he worked through various scenarios of getting out to investigate on his own. All the plans started with the same step: leaving his apartment.

Alex had been right about the 24-hour watch on him and the taxi that never moved. But nearly everyone moved for money. He spent two days perfecting his Russian phrases before dialing the taxi company’s number printed on the watchman’s taxi.

“I am a doctor. I need a taxi now.” Martin gave the address around the corner from his apartment.

“We will have someone there soon.”

“Nyet. 200 extra Hryvnia to the taxi that gets here quickly.”

“Okay. Will you be outside?”

“I am with a patient. Have them wait if I am not out.”

Through the kitchens linen curtains Martin saw the tail-lights of the taxi move away. He figured he had maybe 20 minutes, maybe a little more, as he knew the drivers to simply park and wait for their passengers.

He had come to know the city nearly perfectly during the day but would take his map for this night venture. Martin stopped at his front door to respond to a sudden impulse. He had become a bit of a paranoid man in the past week and was taking time with ideas that seemed a bit off, any ideas not originating from himself. In this case … he walked back to the kitchen and took a towel to wrap the best knife, then pocketed it.

He wouldn’t need it. But something would not let him return it to the drawer. Once outside he slipped along the sidewalk, trees casting extra-dark shade for him in the moonlight. He was amazed at what he could do here when he was so aware, so tuned in. Birds at night, crickets, each moving car in the neighbourhood—he had an instant grasp at their locations. He heard conversations across many buildings even. Normally, he would be so much in his own head nothing would have been noticed.

He laughed. How much he depended on Jenny to get around. To not fall into the many manholes life presented in the physical world.

He found his way through the backstreets of town, avoiding any groupings of people and areas that looked like bars he remembered when he had been out and about in the daylight. The train tracks would lead him to the heart of town. It was livelier there. He found comfort in the bustle and lighted storefronts. The tourist area was always kept lit.

At the orphanage, during the first meeting when she showed the office off to the staff, the director mentioned dining at the Spartak Hotel restaurant on Friday evenings. Martin recognized the Spartak on an earlier drive through the city during the day. It was an architectural breath of fresh air. A 19th Century building of Italian design that reminded Martin there was a time, a century ago, when the results of the botched social experiment he was living through was not even an idea.

Once there he found a park bench to sit on across the street from the restaurant entrance. The bench was behind a low line of bushes and very discreet in the darkness. Cars, taxis, and walkers passed the restaurant. People dined, laughing and blowing smoke against the dim decorative festive strings of tiny white lights. Through the windows to the right of the restaurant, he watched gamblers. From the many round, green tables, it seemed poker was the main sport in the casino. This explained the number of cars parked along the street.

What was he doing there? His one crazy outburst on the woman may have already cost him the girl. And now he was a stalker, a man with a knife? He was scaring himself.

God, show me something. He thought to quickly run back to his flat. No, he would get a taxi, faster and safer. He could have a taxi let him out early in the back of the complex.

His cell phone rang. He answered it in a low tone.

“Martin Johnson?”

“Yes, I’m Martin.”

“Hello, Martin. My name is Chip Stiles. I am calling from Kiev. I believe we met when you were here.”

Martin fell silent, transfixed by movement across the street.

“I just finished talking with your wife, Jennifer, about the problems with the child you two want to adopt.”

“Oksana,” Martin said.

“Right. Well, I’m told you are up to speed on the guardianship and the legal issues. I am very upset this is not working for your family. We also want your child to have a forever family. But I want you to know we are doing more than praying for you. We have allotted funds to fly Jennifer here whenever it is convenient for moving along in the adoption process.”

“Why?” A woman walked up the stairs to the entrance, turned. Not her.

“We work with over 40 orphanages and will be completely at your disposal in search for another child for your family. One that is available and in desperate need of a good home, a Christian home like yours. Do you know when you might have time to get together?”

“Mr. Stiles, the legal problems we see is that the guardianship was illegal and frankly weird. She is still kept in the orphanage.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Martin replied.

“Well, in my experience—please call me Chip—in my experience, the laws can be very complicated over here. I understand that this guardianship is locked because this family will eventually adopt. So we really want to take this time to minister to your family and see what child God might provide for you. We are so excited for your heart for orphans.”

Martin felt for his pocket, checked his knife. “Yeah. I have a heart for Oksana. The guardianship was removed. It was a caretaker there in the orphanage who cannot adopt. The problem now is that they have hidden the child somewhere in this crappy town. We think they will extract her from the database. We serve papers on the director tomorrow. Maybe you could help with that, since you’re so anxious to help.”

“Well, Martin, we will want to find out more about this. If I can help in that as well, I will be happy to. But please let me know when you can come. Two weeks notice would help with the ticket price.”

“Thank you. I will do that.”

“Until then, are you working with a facilitator? I could touch base with them as we find ways to help you.”

“Yeah. His name is Alex Plachkov. I need to go, Chip.”

A new car pulled up to the front of the restaurant.

“Sure, I under—”

Martin hung up. The director came out of the passenger side of a large Mercedes. An older waiter greeted her formally and escorted her, almost robotically, to a table at the outer corner of the patio. She was met by the driver soon after and drinks were provided that were never ordered.

What am I doing here watching this witch eat?

He called Jenny to tell her to stop talking to the Chip guy.

“I don’t understand Chip’s interest. People adopt every day, why help us?”

Then he called Alex.

No answer.

Which must mean he had license to walk across to the restaurant and get a drink. The director wouldn’t even notice him; all caught up in herself there like that. And he could use a beer.

Martin was no sooner seated than a waiter came back to his table.

“We cannot serve you today, please.”

“What?” Martin sat back in his chair.

“Not tonight, sir. Go please. Thank you.”

Anger boiled within him. Maybe they could have talked a bit, sorted things out. Maybe she only wanted money and he could have promised that. But now she was going to withhold even a beer from him. Really? Martin remained seated and locked eyes with the director.

Her companion rose and moved across the floor towards him as the waiter quickly stepped to another table. “Madam knows who you are and why you are here.” The man’s English was so good it mixed pleasure with the hate filling Martin’s ears. “Leave now.”

“No.”

The man looked back to the director before sitting down across from Martin. He picked up a fork and watched it shine from every angle. “I have no idea who you are. But I know what to do with you. You are leaving for sure, but it is up to you to how that event will look. You are frustrating my evening but it is not a total loss. You have five seconds to leave. After that my food will be cold.”

Martin remembered Dima – Martin, she fights you for a reason. Now she fights you with more reason.

“I understand,” Martin said.

He did understand and quickly stood up and walked around the man without looking at him. His hand to the pocket containing his knife, he walked away and down the patio steps. Fear swelled up in his throat. He had known fear before, but never like this. He twisted the emotion back, hiding it since the director was watching him. But it overtook him again as he turned the corner. Martin walked faster than he had when coming out there.

But his speed was not enough protection. As he got deeper into the residential areas, the darker the city became. His acute awareness of the world returned, though, and he relaxed, seeing he had automatically sought the fastest route home. But the sound of footsteps following him persisted. He could have turned to see, but he already knew how far behind they were. Like a bat, his sight was of little use. He judged the distance by the vibrations.

The footsteps pace quickened. Separated into the pattern of two followers. His hand moved around his knife again and gripped it.

Dima! Martin remembered that Dima had said he would be working the Mariupol hotels this day. He quickly called his new friend. “Dima,” he whispered.

“Da?”

“Martin. In a fix.”

“Martin, what is fix?”

“I might kill someone. Or be killed. In minutes”

“Da. Where are you?”

“On a street. I just left the Spartak.” Martin looked in a window of the nearest building. “Looks like a bar. The sign says Radio.”

“Two blocks. Be there. Stop moving but keep talking.”

Martin obeyed. Shit.

The footsteps ceased.

Genius, Dima. The men may have been back there somewhere, but they made no move.

Dima pulled his taxi alongside.

Martin shed his fear as he got into the Volga, leaving it behind in the night air.

“Martin, please explain.”

“I’m an idiot.”

Dima laughed and lit a cigarette, offering one to him. He slowed.

Martin could see that Dima was really interested. He wanted information. “Okay. I gave some guy the slip at my flat. I wanted to see the director before I put her up on official charges tomorrow. That is where you are taking me, to the courthouse I told you about. I thought I could just make all this go easier by discussing things face-to-face.”

“Martin, you know, I met an American once that told me the story of the two steers. A young man wanted to race down a hill to get hold of a cow. The older one said, ‘No, instead we walk slowly down the hill and get all the cows.’ You know this story, Martin?”

“Yes, I know. I’m an idiot.”

“No. The man watching you is an idiot. You dined with his queen and he didn’t even know it.” Dima laughed again, his smile lingering. “We go to your new apartment, friend. You know, I set that up but I was not certain you would need it. You seemed such a smart man then.”

“Thanks. My stuff?”

“I’ll have a friend get for you. No problem. Tomorrow, we will pick up your friend, Alex. He does not need to know your new home.”

“Fine by me. I’ll be honest with you, Dima, I’d love to leave this country in the dust, but it’s like this—Oksana is already my daughter. I’ve never even had kids. Not sure I ever liked kids, you know.”

“God, Martin. You believe? A man of the Book, correct?”

“Da.”

“Then we have a good team in this, don’t we? But Martin, it is very important to me that you do something—please act like a man who wants to get out of Ukraine and not a man who wants to be buried here.”

Kiev, Ukraine

Two o’clock in the afternoon was the busiest time in Kiev with everyone shopping or walking in the park after extended lunches. Only recently had Chip Stiles come to appreciate it.

People in Kiev moved fast, both in work and play. For the employed, play was frantic, tinged by the fear that the good times might disappear without their having taken full advantage.

Today Chip strolled through the park, a bag of bird food in his pocket. Even after 20 years of residency and observing the transformations of the city, only the landscape had changed. The people were still learning to manage their freedoms.

He sat down against an aged tree near a statue of a Soviet author unknown to him. Wasn’t he trying to manage his sin in the same way? Maybe he could learn even more from these people in how to tighten his shackles and call it freedom. His marital indiscretions started with the orphanage girl years back. He thought he had gotten away from that, but now here it was again. And all the mistakes since paled against that original sin.

He was Evangelical, not Orthodox. In the beginning, he had come to turn the traditions of the people away from the established church and toward a personal relationship with God. He cringed at that memory, the youth and energy of a lofty goal. Now he was simply a tool, a task-boy, for the local mafia.

But at home he was Dad. A wife and three children still thought they were ‘on mission’ and that he hung the moon. He had said it a thousand times before, but when this ordeal was done, he would move back home. And yet … Kiev had become home.

But a fresh start was best, even if in an old place.

Pigeons painted the statue and plugged away at the nearby grass. Chip focused on them, trained his gaze away from the young professional women who were always out and about at this time. He needed to think, really think, how best and how fast he could conclude the matter of the Oklahoma people. The man’s wife failed to return his calls. He must come at this legally, so-to-speak, by assisting the orphanage director with removing the child from the database.

A woman in that ministry building could ensure that for him. He’d already scheduled a lunch with her, and had an appropriate gift in mind. If he accomplished that, the matter would be dead. He could make arrangements for America. But hope fell flat for some reason. He had become used to that as well.

His cell phone rang.

“Mr. Stiles?”

“Yes.”

“I am Alex, returning your call. How can I help you?”

“Ah. Thank you for getting back to me. I understand you are working for Martin Johnson. Are you in Kiev? Can we meet?”

“I am soon to leave for the South. Can you please come to the station?”

“Right now?”

“Yes, I depart in one hour.”

“Of course, in the V.I.P. lounge. I’ll buy.”

Chip had a worker from the A.C.F. pick him up and drive him to the station, but instructed him not to wait. Inside, he walked up grand marble stairs beneath giant, old chandeliers. Once at the top, he paused and soaked in the great mosaic wall depicting a magnificent, golden, Orthodox church. Something of its detail and grandeur pulled on him each time he passed through the station.

He headed past the masses lined up outside the vast public cafeteria and signed in at the V.I.P. room, paying for them both.

Alex had already been waiting for him just inside the door, he had passed him accidentally.

“Alex?”

Chip shook hands and gestured Alex to the far table. The waiter was already there, ready for their orders.

“Just coffee, thank you.”

“Borscht with crackers. A bottled water.” Alex spread the cloth napkin neatly on his lap.

“I know you are in a hurry, Alex. But I just want to understand the situation with Martin Johnson and his adoption.”

“It is simple. He wants a child that is not available. I meet him in 15 hours to submit official accusations against the director.”

“Will that allow him to adopt the child?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?”

“No.”

There is a chance. “Well, I did get a report that a teacher had her guardianship of the child removed. Apparently they are not supposed to do that. Teachers as guardians, I mean.”

“I suppose. Mr. Stiles, you know much. What can I add to you here?” Alex took up his spoon as the waiter placed his bowl.

“Sometimes the adoptions you work do not work out?”

“Da. Not often, but yes.”

“Okay. I need to be clear. This adoption needs to be one of those that don’t work out. That sounds bad, but it is better for everyone.”

“The director agrees with you, this I know. But I don’t know everyone. She is angry, I think. She likes her No to be No. What are you angry about?”

“Nothing. I only want what is best for Martin and his wife. They should find a child that is adoptable and continue their lives. I want you to help them in that as a personal friend. There is no need to add these problems to them.”

“I agree with you, Mr. Stiles. I am thinking I know this Martin better than you though. It is impossible for this adoption to go through. But some men choose hard over easy, you understand. I fear Martin insists on the hard path.”

“Why do you agree to work on a hopeless case?”

“He pays me until that time. He insists on that as well. Life unfolds. But when this concludes I will certainly find a child for him to take back to your country.” He nearly spat when saying child and your country.

Chip leaned back in his chair. The man was becoming strange. He was relieved at the man’s detachment at first but now he was inconsistent. He could only hope that Alex would keep their conversation private.

“So we wait?” Chip asked.

“I suppose. I do not like what I am about to do tomorrow. I will not be able to work in that region again for years.”

“Then why?”

“Life unfolds, no? It is legal proceedings, stupid, but in accordance with law. The result, I trust, will be to work quickly to get another referral to another orphanage for them.”

“I can provide that.”

“Fine. Then we will meet again. And thank you for the lunch. I must be off now.”

“Absolutely. You have put me at ease with this whole thing. Martin did well to hire you, Alex.”

“His wife found me.”

“Ah. Good-bye.”

After Alex left, a man from a nearby table left in a determined manner, as if to follow Alex.

Was the man part of the group that got him into this mess back at the Hotel Rus? Were they following him?

Chip ordered a second cup of coffee. The wall of windows looked down on the crazy confusion of tracks below.

Had he wasted a large part of his life there? No, the early days were purposeful. He did everything without knowing, or much caring, where the money would come from. He trusted he was where he was supposed to be and was encouraged by changed lives. By the many orphanages to which he brought smiles, clothes, toys, and even an eternal hope.

What had happened? Somewhere it turned. That one girl, his greatest sin? Before then, surely. But the organization he built was effective and vibrant. That had to be something. The A.C.F. was bigger than him. It was time to leave.

Comforted by the thought, he chose to walk home and maybe pray as in the old days.

The trip to Zaporizhia was interrupted by only two stops. One for coffee and another to wait in line for Dima to fill the taxi’s gas tanks. It was an incredibly hot ride without air conditioning and Dima was uniquely quiet.

What would it be like to live here, only here? The caustic air had become normal. He had seen pictures of the more European Western part of the country, and this did not resemble it. Martin’s Eastern experience was a Russian one through and through.

More and more there were things Martin could not explain in each new day. God seemed so far off in this place. No, Martin was thinking about him and that was not his general mode.

A month ago, he’d believed he was capable of anything. Now he was not so certain. He’d heard someone say, “Jesus is all you need when he is all you have.” With his back pressed against a wall, the awareness of his need was not far off. I’m delusional. I got nothing.

The petition to the courts was going to bring his contentious relationship with the director to an end. But could it get worse? He was hooking horns with stuff much bigger than he. Warnings had been mentioned to him in one form or another by many.

The scare of the night before finally had woken him up. She really was a connected director, wealthy in ways she should not be. Since when did running an orphanage bring money and power?

Why couldn’t he just give up, let it go? Martin pressed his head back, drawing more warm deadly air in from the open window. He should call Jenny before he committed this treacherous act. Remind her without saying it that the action could be fatal to the adoption. He glanced at his watch. Shouldn’t wake her.

Dima’s cell went off. That horrible ringtone. Martin strained to hear the Russian on both sides of the call.

Normal greetings and such. Then ‘Alexander’ and later ‘Stiles.’

Dima frowned.

Something was not going right.

As Dima lit another cigarette, he shouldered the phone while passing a large bus and coming within seconds of a head on collision. He moved the cigarette to the side of his mouth and spoke of Kiev and the director. More frowning. Dima hung up and looked over to Martin, a grim expression on his face.

Martin didn’t want to ask. “All well?”

“Nyet.”

“So? What do we do?”

“I’m thinking,” Dima replied.

“Okay.”

They continued into the city and got caught in traffic. Dima did not seem to know exactly how to get to the courthouse.

Martin checked his watch. They were cutting it close. “How’s that thinking going?”

“Alex is waiting for us at the courthouse. He is interesting. A zealot. Did you know that?”

“You mean religious? I know he is kind of nationalistic but I’ve never talked God with him.”

“It is the same with him. No matter. He meets with interesting people and has a business which you cause problems for.”

Martin rubbed his temples. These people are direct and indirect in all the wrong places “Okay.”

“Why does he still work with you? Not to offend, Martin, but you do not get along well. Understand?”

“Yes. I guess because I pay him. But I don’t know his mind. I like that. He’s a little odd.”

“Agreed, we don’t know his mind.” Dima parked the Volga. “We’re here. We made good time.”

Martin asked him for a cigarette. They got out and sat against the hood together. Martin looked above him to the large columns and tried to look through them and to the conclusion of the petition. He wondered how Jenny ever found a lawyer to help her in this. Someone good who could find a way for a foreigner to involve in affairs to this level. It seemed so unlikely. But so much did.

Alex waited in the main hall of the building. He looked unusually relaxed, not distressed to see Martin for once.

“Hello, Martin.” He held out some papers. “I’ve already started the business. Can you please sign these? The court clerk will validate it and put it in the queue. She has been gracious to place it at the top so this concludes very soon.”

“Okay. What happens next?” Martin asked.

“We’ll discuss shortly.”

Martin signed the papers and Alex took them to into the office two doors down. The two men found metal hallway chairs across from each other and waited quietly. While he sat, Martin listened to all the footsteps that ran about the hard-waxed floor, echoing over each other in the giant chasm hall. Alex soon returned and led Martin quickly out of the building. When they reached outside he took him aside, away from Dima.

“They will soon call the director up here to the courthouse. Madame will give an account of why the child was removed from the database. But even if they order her to place Oksana back in, the director will not approve the adoption.” Alex frowned and looked down. “I tried to tell you before.”

Dima sidled up to them and asked in English, “Excuse, Martin, was there problem?”

“This is nothing but futile to Alex.”

“I guess he knows his business. But hope knows more of the future than he does,” Dima said and smiled at Alex.

Alex sneered at Dima as to an insolent underling.

A gift to Martin in a time of need, figuring out Alex. He now understood the man at an elemental level. He did not like him and so all would soon be settled with their relationship, his need of him. Maybe he would not need him much beyond this petition. Or he could fire him and ask Jenny to find another.

“I will need to go to Mariupol. Can I give you a ride?” Alex asked.

“Why?”

“More documents to give to the notary.”

“Will you see the director?”

“That would be a good thing. To let her know we are only official and nothing personal. We want her to work with us if this turns well.”

“Dima and I have some business as well, my man. But I will catch up with you.”

“I will call on you at the apartment if I get some news,” Alex said.

“Sounds good. Thanks, Alex.” Martin shook hands with the man and turned, following Dima back to the taxi. The feel of Alex’s hand remained. It wasn’t that the man’s grip was hard or sweaty. But it left a lingering coldness that spread up his arm. He tried to shake it off, but the cold crept deeper. Martin got in the taxi and rubbed his arm on his leg for warmth. “What now?”

“We go now to your new apartment. I have some information about Alex I think you should know, okay?”

“Sure. I think I learned a lot just now. Was he creepy to you?”

“Da. Always.”

“What is his deal?”

“I explain. We drive now.”

When they reached Berdyansk, Dima told Martin that he was hungry and wanted to show him a pleasant part of his town. He drove them to a small beach-side shack, a low spot far from town where the shipping cranes were not visible. Martin learned that Dima indulged himself here with one purchased lunch out of every week. But Dima was gracious to allow Martin to buy their sandwiches and cokes. Martin bought an extra coffee for himself before Dima led them to his spot on the seawall where he immediately shared some of his bread with the seagulls.

“The wind is paused in this place. You like?”

“Very nice.”

“The birds are always here. And they always come to me. See how free they look. Like queens on a chessboard they come and go as they please, any direction. But I put bread out and within a moment they sacrifice all their freedom to me.”

“You are a bread tyrant, Dima.”

Dima laughed, nodding. “All are under a spell. All is witchcraft. And some witches are powerful. Alex is not, but Sasha tells me that Alex is a zealot for his sect.”

Martin worked to organize, prioritize the questions flooding his mind. There was something about this new turn in discussion that held out hope as never before. The wording Dima used was weird, but forcefully cut to Martin’s bones as a possible help. In the strangeness of the man’s words, something real and truthful wanted to break into Martin’s mind. He took a bite from his sandwich and waited. He determined to teach himself this art, waiting.

“You know, I still try to break from spells. The communists, all their statues and symbols remain everywhere waiting for their return. And the church grows now, but with the same lust for power. They have new statues and symbols. They are the power now. They tell me what I must do to fight off the demons. I sometimes fight against this stronghold over me and my country. But in the end I am nothing and must choose between demons. It is a simple exchange for protection. For Moscow, it was my labor. For the priest it is my money. I submit because the demons are real, Martin.”

“Would you call all that witchcraft … or brainwashing?”

“Da. You understand. My father had a friend that was a Jew. The Nazis built a concentration camp outside of his village. His friend told him they took men into one of the buildings to experiment on them. And after a week the men would come out on all fours, barking like dogs. You see, it does not matter if a witch turns a man magically into a dog. For the man, if he believes he is a dog, then he is a dog either way.”

“Makes sense.”

“But you, Martin, you do what you want in this thing with the girl. You barge ahead. Fight. Are all Americans free like you?”

“I’m not free. And in this, I don’t even know why I do what I do. Not really. Maybe I broke free from one spell to fall captive to another. In my country we are under a deeper spell of personal peace and affluence. And we are made to believe the delusion that freedom is real. We are kept in clean jail cells with pictures of vacations on the walls, comfortable furniture, flat-screen TVs. No whim ignored, no desire denied. Every door to every store opens automatically. Every indoor space, every car is 72 degrees no matter the weather outside. Ultimately, though, our witchcraft is the desire to believe there is no real spiritual world, no real world outside our own. And to want more stuff.”

Dima pressed his lips together, nodding. “Your Russian is very good.”

“I’ve just been here too long,” Martin replied.

“But reality comes, Martin. It is unavoidable. What then?”

“Our President tells us to go shopping. Everyone tells us to shop.”

“Shopping?”

“I guess it was an appropriate response to our immediate money problems. But the corruption is too far gone. We are at the place where we are eating our young now.”

“Da. And we are all slaves. But I prefer your master, Martin. I like one day my Katya be moved to your prison.” Dima laughed. “Sasha tells me there is an American called The Artist. He has much influence here. And it is he who directs opposition against you. If in your church you pray, pray against this devil.”

“How … why is another American my problem?”

“It is all I know. It has to be enough.”

Martin nodded, finishing his sandwich while looking over the Sea of Azov. The calm location, its beauty, brought Jenny to mind. He breathed in the passing breeze and waited for Dima’s cue to leave.

But Dima was not in a hurry. They sat in the long quiet, watching the birds return to their ways.

“This is life,” Dima said.

Chapter Nine

Kiev, Ukraine

Kiev airport was not very busy at night and less busy in the international terminal. Willard flew alone this time, so had to wait in line for luggage inspection instead of having someone make the normal cash payment for privacy prior to landing.

But this new shipment was so important, worth so much, that the circle of knowledge had to be tightened. Some were younger than the norm and others already trained, compliant. The ones in the know in Kiev were not aware of the exact time he would actually arrive, though they had a general idea.

Security ran his overnight bag through the 1980’s x-ray scanner and waved him through. He passed the taxi vendors that filled the main lobby and stepped out into the night with determination. Determination to walk to the cafe two blocks away he knew to be open at this hour. He would announce himself there.

Willard entered the café in a stately fashion, owning the little environment in that moment. From previous visits he was made to understand that acting was important to safety at night in Kiev. He took two seats at the counter, one for him and the other for the small duffle bag. He loved shopping and would hit the high end of the city to purchase anything he needed or wanted. This fed his sense of ownership of anywhere he went and kept him looking local whether in Milan or Moscow. And to stay current he trashed anything he had bought.

He ordered Americana coffee and sausage with obvious superior disdain for the peasantry before calling his local contact.

He was bothered to find it would take 15 minutes before his contact arrived. And the man was at the Penthouse Club but lied about it. Willard knew the voice of the D.J. in the background. It only made him smile though. He so loved lies.

The man walked in wearing a stupid looking hat, something like a French beret.

Willard glared at it as the man sat next to him.

The contact doffed his cap, revealing long, unkempt red hair.

“Why did they send you to me? You’re a screw-up.” Willard ordered two beers.

The man shrugged as though acknowledging the statement as truth. He took a long drink from his beer as though it might be his last before the execution. Willard noted some confidence, as if the man thought he might weather this.

“A stoic? Okay, lad. I’m guessing you found a replacement for the girl you lost, since the art show is in Berdyansk in three weeks. No problems?”

“No. Not really.”

“Son, I can’t waste time with you. Do I make a call or you going to tell me what ‘not really’ means?”

“Nothing. We are following a guy from Oklahoma. A nobody. He wants to purchase one of your pieces. His own people have turned on him, the A.C.F. here in Kiev. His own translator is locating another painting for him and will have him removed to Western Ukraine before the event. All is well.”

Willard took it in. Should he ask for more details? No, it was too close to the date to micro-manage. It was not an emergency and all he had to do was to trust his people. He figured that out early, the math of it, and it had worked in his favor for a decade. It wasn’t perfect, but in the long run, it was sufficient in its results. He finished his beer in silence before giving the man his verdict. “Okay. If this gets away from you, it will be very important that you let me know in time to do something.”

“Understood. You’re a businessman. Can we have authorization to do something if needed? That will reduce risk.”

“No. I may want to talk to this guy before that is required.”

“Understood.” The man nodded and walked out without even trying to pay for his beer. This impressed Willard. The man was intelligent and obviously moved measurably moment to moment. He would promote the man for being available and being willing to do whatever it took to deliver the packages. Willard smiled. The redhead’s boss should have met him here. Now he would make him pay for sending the young man instead. Win-win.

The evening was warm when Willard stepped outside the bar. He took a deep breath, taking in the acidic air pushed about by the movement of many cars. He loved what he called the art of destruction, in all its forms. At this hour, it was dangerous to walk to his hotel, but he loved the city so much, it was worth it. He liked the connection he felt to the noise, people, and lights. But it was the air mostly. New York City and Los Angeles never moved him in this way.

He might sell it all off and spend his last days here, a great benefactor of the post-soviet art scene. He would find and groom the local artists and writers, but not for cover of other funded endeavours. Instead he would concentrate on the arts and feel out the literary world. He knew the Ukrainian literary community to be in a kind of Rock-And-Roll phase. He had some thought to reach beyond the painters and into that. Willard could maybe extend that rawness back to the publishing houses in the West. There was such a need of it with America now in mid-swing back to their old stupid moral ways.

This picture of his future life could be merely a few deals away. After the Mariupol shipments were complete, he had one, or maybe two, last big deals. He was so close now and nearly euphoric in his private madness as he turned the block to his hotel.

The doorman approached him at the entrance of the hotel. “Mr. Jorgensen! So good to see you. We have prepared your room.”

“Da. I trust I have company.” He smiled slightly to his favorite doorman.

“Of course. And she is very pretty.”

Berdyansk, Ukraine

The new apartment was more like a closet in an abandoned warehouse, but Martin was intent on making it home. Dima had brought a plant for him, giving him something to tend to, something to do. Though he also had a novel in English, he was never much of a reader so stared his hours away out the window.

At least no one was stationed outside, checking on him. But there were some serious characters out in the courtyard. Over several days he could tell when it was the best time to venture out. He would often walk the compound just to be doing something. He assumed by now that he was unemployed back home. He had stopped having Jenny check in with his boss a month earlier.

But she kept the money coming somehow and that was enough. Jesus had said there was enough to deal with in his current day, no need to go about worrying about tomorrow. Martin had a choice to make, something he would normally ignore. But here, in this, he had to choose to believe the truth of that or fold up and go home.

Faith was so much easier when it was all one had.

Nearly no one was about, so he made his way down the many old concrete stairs and into the open air. The air was familiar to him now after over two months but still unpleasant when the sea breeze was strong.

He strolled along the walkways in the inner courtyard and almost felt calm. It had been a week since he was in touch with anyone. Something was supposed to break soon. Alex told him he would know something by today. He didn’t sound positive when they spoke, as usual, and seemed a little aggravated that Martin would not tell him where he was living.

Martin decided to trust only one person. Strangely, the secret he kept from Alex did not change their relationship at all. It was business.

Then it came on him again, the ache he had felt in Kiev. And he missed Jenny, missed home. Though each day made him more comfortable with his new world, her not being in it made it nearly impossible. He had taken such advantage of that, of her, he knew that now. He learned in this last week that it wasn’t the hard living, the bad roads, cold water, or power outages. It was missing her that broke him every day, every moment.

She could make anything bearable. When he returned home, he would be more attentive. But going home was only a proposition. It would not be a reality until he set foot in Kennedy Airport.

His cell phone rang.

“Alex will be calling you I think.”

“Hello, Dima.”

“Da. Hello, friend. Alex. He will bring bad news to you. The director, she pays the local inspector. She sends official paper to Kiev that Oksana cannot ever be adopted and removes her from the database.”

“No. This can’t be over.” Martin said.

“Nyet. I tell you what they do. These papers will be lost in Kiev. No worries. But whatever Alex speaks, just go with that, okay? It keeps him busy and makes people comfortable.”

“You are doing some amazing work. I have stopped asking why. But it’s like you have done this stuff before.”

“Nyet. I have a friend and he thinks many details. It is very hard for him to lose anything. I think because he lost something very big once.”

“I’m sorry, Dima. I’m confused.”

“No problem. My friend, he is Sasha, he will come see you tonight. I do not know what about. But maybe just to meet you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll call tomorrow. Remember, I am nothing. You work with Alex and say you will do whatever he wants.

“Okay.”

Martin faced into the wind, in deep longing, toward the West.

The government arbitrarily allowed for street-lights this night. And some were actually working, showing fuel-filled puddles throughout the parking lot below. Martin stared through the dingy third floor Soviet window pane, peering through the steady light drizzle down at the apartment courtyard. Prostitutes kicked a soccer ball around with the drug dealers. Damp coldness passed through the cheap, dirty glass and breathed chills across his face, then to his bones.

Expedient. The word hovered over his thoughts. Before coming to Ukraine, he assumed all states of existence were intended to get better, or at least knew a better day. But sometimes, and in some places—this place—everyone did what could be done.

The governmental powers and others in control did what they could to herd and rape. Those herded, survived. Expedient self-serving survival. Expectation and freedom were just annoying rumours carried in by westerly winds. But the soot from nearby petrochemical plants mixed with the evening rains to dampen any sense hope of escape, wherever hope might exist.

Martin finally saw his guy pull onto the south side of the make-shift soccer field. A new black Mercedes-Benz, the kind that appeared in this region mostly at dusk. Or could be midnight blue, he was not sure. The man came late enough that it would be dark by the time Martin reached the first floor.

The man stepped out of the car, dropped his cigarette, and stamped it out. The other criminals scattered, the gesture a kind of warning shot. Sasha.

The stained, broken cement steps seemed to move too fast under his feet as Martin descended. He was committed to this, all in. It could be suicide to get so deep, but he had run out of options as far back as the moment he saw Oksana. This was destined since that time. He needed to get inside the web undetected. Either this guy would turn things for him or the girl would end up in some apartment like this. Or worse.

Martin slowed his pace as he stepped out into the open night air, looking left and right as he crossed the lot. “Sasha?”

“Da.”

“Will you help?” He was practiced at that question to the point of exhaustion. Something he could not remember ever asking in his life before coming to Ukraine.

“Your Russian sucks,” Sasha replied. He lit another cigarette. “I know English.”

“Okay. You know the problem?”

“It stopped raining; maybe it is a sign, eh?”

Martin fell quiet and felt the idiot look spreading across his face. Small talk was hard enough when not in a state of desperation, but these guys added pain by mixing in existential junk. Their answers were often questions that held no answers.

“Look, Sasha. This is not my thing and you scare the hell out of me. This is not my world, not even my country. Is there a certain amount? I am running out but I can get more money soon.”

Sasha took a short walk away from Martin.

Would this be the end of the whole crazy venture? Maybe it was just a tactic. Feeling like some teenage boy on his first date, Martin searched out his every word and every variable of impression they could have created.

Sasha walked back more quickly to Martin than he had left him. “I think you keep your money. I looked into you, checked out the timeline Dima sent me. You have been watched for two weeks. We will transact trust.”

“What?”

“I came up, as you people say, in the Berdyansk orphanage. I will trust you with this so you can trust me. I planned to kill four people for 10 years because of what they did to my sister. I never did it and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t enough somehow. This is better. Do you understand?”

“It’s revenge?”

“You want this girl. I want her for you and for me. It never was those people, you know. They are no different than me.” He laughed sadly. “It’s the system. I have come to this. Not revenge, Martin. I am not a stupid man. Why I do this is not business either. I don’t know why I do this. Its importance is beyond my thinking. I must work with you in this. Understand?”

“I actually do.”

Sasha smiled and nodded. He offered Martin a cigarette. “Also, the girl is now being watched, she’s safe.”

“What?” Martin almost dropped his cigarette. “Where is she? Please.”

“She is back in the orphanage. The director is feeling very safe right now. You know, maybe I am stupid, because that feels so good to know. She was just a teacher in the Berdyansk orphanage when I was a kid. I didn’t like her then either. I know the director in Berdyansk, too. They are the same. They like to play the good witch. But there is no such thing, you understand?”

Martin nodded. Sasha was clearly mafia, but Martin could see why Dima liked him so much.

“Others watch you in the daylight. Buy the nine o’clock train to Tokmak Thursday. You will get on the bus back here and a friend will have you sit with her. The people who watch you, their car will have an accident.”

After Sasha drove away, the others didn’t come back out. They were always there at this hour, in the shadows, hiding except for the glow of their cigarettes.

Man, he had finally gotten street-credit and would leave in the morning. Martin returned to his flat, secured his door, and dropped onto the bed. He moved his knife from under his pillow to the nightstand. Before falling off to sleep, he realized Sasha was probably certain he had told him something, something to trust. But again Martin had no idea what the subtext of the conversation was except that one thing of doing without knowing.

And that Oksana was safe.

He slept soundly for the first time in over a month.

Mariupol, Ukraine

Oksana ran her hands together, picked at the nails, as she waited to see the director. Oksana had been made to live in a strange house outside the city for three weeks. The people were nicer than the teacher and her family had been. But it had been a long time in one place, and they had never talked to her.

In her world explanations were not given, and so she was not used to forming questions in her mind. That was another change in herself—the strange desire to know why. And even to concern herself with her own fate.

There was trouble around her now that she was back at the orphanage. None of the teachers would talk to her. Shunning was the norm, but she always knew why, what she was being punished for.

Maybe the director was going to tell her. Some fact with which Oksana could rebuild her world.

The old secretary glared at her and pointed to the door.

The director waved her to a chair without looking up from her papers. The phone rang, and the director gloated to a rival director in Berdyansk about a basketball game her kids had won.

After she hung up she walked to her windows, pulled the curtains, and returned to her desk. “Oksana, you are a problem.”

“Yes, madam.”

“I had to remove the guardianship from your teacher. She told me how bad you have been, so I retain guardianship. I was not going to let you go on the trip to America. But if you are good, do your schoolwork, I will still allow you to go with the other girls.”

“America?” The Americans. “When, madam?”

“In a few weeks. It is to visit with families and see a new place. Mostly the older girls, but you and your friend Anya will go as well.”

“Anya! We will be on an airplane?”

“Da. Well first you will take a fun boat trip from here to Berdyansk, then to Odessa. Then yes, a plane to America. You be good though, understand?”

“Oh yes. Thank you!”

“Return to class.”

Oksana nearly ran out of the office. She had no idea what all this would be like, but it meant that she would be leaving the school and that was everything. Not knowing where she would wake up had become a better prospect than always knowing.

And flying in an airplane, just like the birds. She spread her arms into wings, flapping and gliding through the hallways and back to her class. At the door to the classroom, she composed herself, put on her serious face, slipped in, and went to her desk. Her teacher still shunned her, as did her classmates.

All except Anya, who smiled from across the room. They would be tight after this. Maybe it would be like having a sister, family. Her head swam with thoughts of a big ship and the airplane. She had always wanted to be up there where the world must be so small. And birds—they looked so free and full of choices playing in the wind and darting from tree to tree.

After the class, Oksana filed in line with the others for dinner in the cafeteria. She held her bowl out to the top of the large pot as trained so that not one drop of whatever it was would spill. Then she took her piece of bread from the pile and made sure she sat next to Anya in her age grouped there.

“It’s so exciting!” Anya whispered.

“I know. Who else is going?”

“Katya, Masha, Svetlana, all the church girls,” Anya said.

“I asked Masha why we stopped going to church after it had been three times a day. I mean, I know why you stopped going. But we all stopped, and it wasn’t because we were bad. We did our prayers and read the books. One day I was even able to think about only God the full day like Miss Valentina wanted us to.”

Oksana scanned the room. “What did Masha say to you?”

“She pushed me down. Then I was too fast for her to do more, so it made her look stupid. But she got me later.” Anya rubbed the back of her head.

“I guess we are not supposed to talk about this. They are so full of secrets. I saw the priest visit Masha on a Saturday when everyone else was at camp. She was pretending to be sick.”

“You are smartest, Oksana. You don’t get your head smashed like me. Anyhow, we go to America!”

Oksana smiled at her friend. She liked Anya so much and protected her in ways the girl had never known. But she could not trust like her friend could. Why couldn’t she let go and go along with plans like Anya? She seemed content with any one moment, moment to moment, while Oksana worried. She learned early that she did not want her head smashed and was careful to avoid it ever happening again.

She cringed when she thought to the fight she had with that new boy two years before. He had cut in line in front of her. Everyone watched. She had let it pass but then he called her names. The whole class laughed and she went crazy. Blood everywhere. She had to do it but the thought if it never left her. She had to be smarter to avoid everything. And as much as depended on her she would get along. “Anya, when you are not with me you stay close to Svetlana.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Anya.”

“Okay.”

Kherson, Ukraine

The town of Kherson was small and visually mixed, with young families pushing strollers passing by a needy prostitute or vodka-smitten ex-con intent on arriving somewhere, probably for smokes. Martin leaned against the taxi after having run out of conversation with Dima. He could not wait any longer for Alex to return with the news and details of the girl’s history. He also urgently needed to go to the bathroom.

Martin nodded to Dima. “Be right back.” He mounted the cracked cement steps to the old, large entrance. Once inside the country courthouse, he was jarred by the stark contrast to the village outside. He became like a time-traveler suddenly transported into another era.

The main hall was much like the history room he had seen at the orphanage, but the people milling about made it feel more like a vibrant, functioning cult. The same red everywhere—carpeting the wooden floor and draping down the large windows. The usual photos and paintings of old Soviet officers and statesmen. The farther he walked while looking for a bathroom, the more impossible it became to find anything—an item, wallpaper, or any view—less than 40 years old.

Nearing the point of incontinence, he opened doors as he moved down the hallway, peeking in. In the fourth room, he found Alex speaking to a woman. The woman was giggling, twirling her hair, and making her selection from the chocolates provided by Alex.

Alex straightened from leaning on the desk. “Yes, Martin? We are almost concluded here. I know I told you that the director made this child officially unadoptable. She told me herself.” Alex walked slightly past Martin and leaned in. “But I asked for your benefit, Martin, and the records show the child in the database and adoptable. It makes no sense but I work with what is. So stunningly, I believe there is hope for this.”

“Really? Great.” Martin frowned due to his own imposition. “I need to…is there a restroom?”

Alex rose, translating, and led Martin to the outhouse around the back of the building.

The three were back in the taxi finally and were all quiet until they passed fully out of town. To speak would be to break the unspoken rule of silence.

As they headed west, Martin peered blankly out the rolled down backseat window. The tall Topol trees again lined every road and property line. He played a game as they drove, anticipating every swerve Dima would make to avoid the ever present potholes. Martin held tightly to the good news of Oksana’s availability. At the same time he could not shake the doubt, the other shoe that always seems to fall. The endless and beautiful sunflower fields balanced the reality of movement with stillness. This helped his melancholy along. For it to grow and deepen as black as the soil beneath the shabby road. Things change and stay the same all at once.

“What did you find out? Another delay?” Martin finally asked Alex.

“She is checking the records for us. Don’t be so forlorn, Martin. The girl’s mother is still in Kherson and has had six children so far on record. But no rights to them, they are with the State. One daughter actually lived with your girl for a time. The records show that your girl was put with a family, a good family, in Berdyansk for three weeks. But, well, she is back in the orphanage. That doesn’t matter, but we need now to see the sister, or half-sister. She must sign over that your girl be adopted. We go there now.”

“Oksana.”

“Yes?”

“My girl, Alex. Her name is Oksana.”

“Yes, Martin.”

The trip continued with Dima and Alex making occasional jokes in Russian linked to outbursts of laughter. Martin was amused as he knew Dima did not like Alex and only Dima was laughing. This was barely audible over the very Russian music that was always tragic, yet transformed into a disco beat. Disco with accordions. Probably the Polish influence streaming in from the history of the Western part of Ukraine.

Martin worked through how to lay out the news to Alex that he would be going to Tokmak. Mainly because he didn’t know what the purpose of the bus trip was. It wasn’t his country, his world, and he had to trust at least these few people. And these people he had come to know were truly and deeply Ukrainian.

But not in the perverse way that Alex seemed to be.

“Dima, Thursday I will need to go to Tokmak.”

“Da, Martin. What time.”

“Nine o’clock.”

Alex twisted around. “Martin, why do you need to go to Tokmak? That is out of jurisdiction, out of the Oblast.”

Time to change the subject and fish for more information from Alex. “I don’t know if the director knows her attempt to remove Oksana from the database failed.”

“Da?”

“So I see no reason why she should be immediately, if ever, told about Oksana’s status. I mean, we can work with the court records you provided and be able to adopt her in two weeks, correct?”

“Well yes. But a moment, please. I will think.”

“Okay.”

Alex stared out to the passing fields of sunflowers for a great deal of time, talking only to bum a smoke off Dima.

Martin sighed and shifted in his seat bothered by how the man always saw everything by the numbers—Martin, if this, then that. But if that, then this and then we will see, and so on.

“Martin, I know things seem well today. And my hope, it is for you. I will not inform the director as she will surely come to know anyhow. And she will respond. I see your pain in wanting Oksana. Please allow me to search a child for you to adopt. You have gone far enough to adopt any child at this point, no problem.”

Dima turned off the radio and glared at Martin as if to remind him of his instructions.

Martin submitted to the stare of his true advocate, friend. “Of course, Alex. Makes sense. And please, if possible, send photos to Jenny.”

“Yes, of course, Martin. You’re being very wise.”

Martin smiled back. His previous actions would certainly be perceived as being the responses of a thoughtless and crazy man. And yet Alex got credit for sticking with the project even after Martin’s antics.

But it also made the man suspect. What were his motives and who was crazier, really?

The rest of the ride was quiet. The men no longer chatted and the radio no longer played. Martin sat in silence watching the men in the front seats smoke together all the way to Kherson.

Alex had stopped asking Martin where he was now living. He only mentioned that the old land-lady had been taken care of. Her boyfriend had moved back in and all was back to normal there.

However, Dima knew information was coming down the pipeline regarding Chip Stiles and Alex. And now Martin knew the two men had something in common – finding him another child.

He couldn’t figure it out, so he allowed his thoughts to drift back to his last conversation with Jenny.

“What?” Jenny asked. “Spit it out!”

“Okay, the Chip guy, wants to help us find another kid.”

“I don’t want another child!”

“I know, I told him that. He says he will help us with Oksana. Well, that he will learn more about the problem, but he wants you to fly out here.”

She sighed. “We can’t afford that, not until we are ready.”

“He says he will pay for it.”

“Wow.” She paused and her tone of voice changed. “He really is great. Finally someone to help, someone with influence.”

“I don’t know.”

“What? Don’t you think we need the help?”

“It’s that he wants to help us pretty badly. It’s weird. A lot of people adopt over here and run into problems. How did we warrant so much interest? Free trip, personal tour of orphanages, strings pulled. Why?” He was not with her, but could still see her move from hopeless to hope…and now he was dropping her back down. He had to protect her though. The past five years of infertility were filled with hopes that had burned bright, then crashed.

He made sure Jenny was back on solid footing before telling her he had to go. It was unnecessary but helped reduce his guilt for separating from her for a time. She wanted him, needed him, to pray with her, but he couldn’t. He would sometime, but not then. He needed to figure this thing out and go at it right.

Looking back, he should have simply prayed with her, because he had yet to figure anything out.

They drew up to the Kherson state vocational school, a former factory now with worn soccer goals in the parking lot. The orphans there learned how to lay bricks, run different machinery, and were given certain expectations of self-provision.

Dima parked the Volga, and the men got out. Alex walked ahead of them to greet the local children’s inspector, school headmaster, and her assistant.

Martin recognized Oksana’s sister as she stepped out from behind the very wide headmaster. Her features so close to Oksana’s. She looked like a 1980’s American teenager, wearing black fishnet stockings, high heels, and an oversized, florescent green, cotton shirt. Since the shirt was all she wore, it was incredibly short. Her eyes were angry, hard to the point that he did not expect another look could ever be chiselled from her face.

He avoided her gaze as much as she did his. He was taking her sister away forever and that had to mean a lot. Yet another loss in her life. If Jenny were there, would she want to adopt her as well?

Alex excused himself to go inside and speak with the group privately.

Normally that would trouble Martin, but in this case he was relieved.

After about 20 minutes, Alex returned and brought him back into their circle. Once inside, Martin was struck by the size of all the classrooms. The orphanage had not taken time to renovate, and multiple separate classes were likely held in the same large factory rooms at the same time. The inspector offered him a fold-out chair. He sat down and listened to the Russian flow and echo throughout the room.

He imagined what a school day in the great room looked like. But he had learned enough now to know that these kids were not learning anything more than they had before they came here. The same administrators took in the tax money. And the kids were left to survive in nothing more than a different sort of orphanage.

Society was not accepting of them in general. The Soviet mindset had ingrained in the people that their lot in life was scientific, genetically determined. The government had early on discounted any social responsibility. And for 70 years the government was the culture. This understanding allowed Martin to play along with administrators about their love of children. Sure, there were some out there, some odd-ball ones, who did care. Same as the occasional determined orphan who would cut his way through the culture and eventually make a life for himself. And maybe even a family.

Martin didn’t know what had taken place, but the girl’s expression had only changed with the addition of tears. These people were obviously removed in distance and knowledge of the Mariupol director, but that did not make them on his side of the fight for Oksana. They were going through motions they had done before, intimidating a child to do their will.

Yet he stayed silent and let Alex do his thing. Martin’s stomach ached and he found a focal point across the room to calm himself. It was another Soviet red star on the wall.

They finally concluded their tactics and ended with success—the girl signed the papers. A young, poorly dressed young man, the typical kind of man, entered. The girl’s tears returned and she was ordered to leave. She ran to the boyfriend who took her into his arms.

The moment before they disappeared, the boy looked directly at Martin. The boy knew who the foreigner in the group was. And he knew who to hate.

Against his own nature, Martin looked away from the boy. The boy, then and there, was in the right. Martin was guilty as charged and accepted his punishment. He balanced his guilt knowing the boy likely imagined Martin’s intentions as evil.

After a moment Martin stood and followed them out to the courtyard. But they were not outside. He put his hands in his pockets and kicked about in the dirt. A soccer ball waited behind the nearest goal. He walked over, flipped it up on his right foot twice, then to the left and back. He bounced it on his knee twice before letting fall to the ground, where he stopped it with his right foot. He took a few paces behind the ball and then ran at it full, kicking it far and high. It sailed further than he had expected. Time slowed and he saw each hexagon shape in the patterned ball revolve slowly as the sphere shrunk away from him smaller and smaller. The dot dropped down like a quickly falling faraway star between a grove of Topol trees.

Martin stood there motionless, clear of mind, with unnamed emotions still churning. Feeling present within himself again, he turned his head to see the group standing by the taxi. All their eyes fixed on him.

He stared back at them. This is life.

Chapter Ten

Berdyansk, Ukraine

Sasha had forgotten to mention that the 9:00 train for Tokmak left from Berdyansk. Martin was thankful that Dima was up early enough and interested enough to figure out that the schedule did not make sense. He called Martin to be ready and sped to Mariupol to make the train on time. He also took this extra drive time to tell Martin of the connection that Alex had made with Chip Stiles in Kiev.

Sasha had not found out exactly what the two men had talked about but the connection was enough to keep Alex on the run after other children. But Martin disagreed with Dima about Alex. He still took Alex at his word that he would not inform the director about her plans being trumped in Kiev. Partly because Alex was so certain of the impending failure in adopting Oksana. Also because of the power of his own lies. Alex believed Martin would adopt another child.

His lies. A place he never wanted to go. He really cut away at his own personal ethics in this place, this hell. He could do it, and sort it out later like his uncle once said of Vietnam. Martin sunk a little, at the memory, knowing his uncle never did sort it out.

He bought first-class tickets again but only one bunk, not the whole cabin. It was a short ride of five hours and only one stop. He was taking a chance. Martin was so tired of complications that he did whatever he could to lower the risk of them. But money was getting tight and his passport was nearly expired. That could cost money to fix.

Jenny would have to handle it though. And she would.

Martin locked himself in his cabin, set out his bag, and rolled down his bedding. These trips were getting so familiar to him. He was getting used to the trouble of getting around in the country. He had recently begun to think of everything strategically and in terms of details. This only reminded him of how easy his life had been, the life that felt ages away, where he simply got in his car and went effortlessly anywhere for anything. Normally just the need to know when to get to the airport. In the quiet and slow transport of this morning train ride, he watched the cities with a different eye than the trip down.

Suddenly his heart expanded. He loved this country. Had he contracted a case of Stockholm Syndrome? He loved the people, but hated their needless struggles.

Most infuriating was that Dima would not know Martin’s world. Would never know what life could be.

He put that concern out of his mind when around Dima so he didn’t look sad while unable to explain it. Unable, anyhow, without offending him. Dima was a friend in ways he knew no one back home could be or ever would be. A best friend, Dima acted sacrificially in Martin’s best interests, as if he had known Martin for decades.

He had nearly fallen asleep when a knock sounded on the cabin door. Martin had purchased only one ticket, but the train had been moving for almost an hour. He waited to see if it would go away.

But the knock came again, and with yelling. Russian that he understood. The conductor woman added to the mix of voices that she had a key. The lock scraped.

All the warnings of him being in danger came flooding back to him as he grabbed the kitchen knife from his bag. No, this can’t be the way. He put it back and looked quickly to the window. It could not be opened and Ukraine swept by in the form of a dozen tall Topol trees at a time. There was no answer but to hope he could talk through whatever was coming. He remembered a Psalm without consciously recalling it, automatically prayed it, and waited.

The door unexpectedly opened slowly. Two men shadowed the conductor. She commanded that Martin show his ticket. The same ticket he had shown her when he first boarded.

The men shooed her away and she was obviously more than happy to go. The men entered the cabin. The taller of them pressed Martin’s shoulder and gestured for him to sit with his other hand. The other man, a redhead, shut the door in a polite way and the both of them sat across from Martin in a way that seemed too relaxed to him. As if they owned the train or the company that ran it.

The man with the long red hair finally spoke, “I’m American, Martin. This is my friend.”

“Okay. What is your name?”

“Martin, that is not important. I know it’s not fair that we know so much about you and you don’t know us. That is life, eh? Look, real simple. Berdyansk and Mariupol is kind of our area. And you are spending way too much time there. I have a friend who has a friend who said they can find a kid for you. Find him, her, whatever, in a less violent area of this country. That sound good to you?”

“Can you give me a moment?”

“Certainly.”

Martin prayed. Who were these men and why were they so interested in him?

Alex.

They did not draw a clear picture, but it was all he needed to know. He prayed some more. God, if you are there, help.

The men looked impatient. Actually the ugly, fat, short one looked upset, but not personally so. More annoyed, like he was hungry and Martin withheld his primal need.

“What do you want?” Martin asked.

“I told you. Go to another oblast. Simple. Then all is done.”

“Why?”

“No. Not why. Not anything. You say yes, we make sure you get what you want, some kid. You go home happy. We are done.”

“I mean why don’t you want me to adopt Oksana? What is this all about?”

“You’re stupid, huh. I am not your answer-man. I don’t want to know this girl’s name. I don’t know their names. I just move them.”

“What are you talking about?” Martin persisted.

“Okay, Stupid, this is how it goes. I’m not supposed to kill you unless I have to. And I will if I have to. Last time. Are you going to go to a different oblast?”

“It’s just not possible.” His insides hardened and Jenny filled his mind. She was nearly all he could see. “I have to take my daughter home.”

The men before him blurred, but before they disappeared altogether, something firmed in his core, like hope.

Another knock came at the door, startling him back to clear sight. He watched both men frown, one looking to his watch. The redhead yelled for the person to go away, but the door opened anyhow.

The narrow doorway filled with a large, older man dressed in a perfectly pressed conductor uniform. He made the uniform seem like a new General’s dress coat and slacks. He smiled pleasantly at Martin with eyes he instantly remembered but could not place. The man then looked to the other men, stepped back, and waved for them to exit the compartment.

Absolute terror filled their faces. They obeyed the gesture quickly, not even looking back to him in their haste.

The man took a moment to gaze at Martin a last time. He tipped his hat and carefully shut the door.

Martin stared across at where the men had sat. Playing back a little of what had occurred and was said, he determined he had been close to death. The picture of their fear was something he had not seen before in his life. It seemed so mixed with torment, almost torture.

A kind old man sent terror into their bones? He scanned the corridor for him. Too late. Just like the priest.

He did it again. Martin opened his notepad, but could not think of anything else but the event. He believed in what he read in the Bible, but miracles didn’t happen for him. An angel was one explanation for this old magician with the disappearing act. But Martin was not some ancient apostle. He was just a man, and unimportant even to himself. Thankfulness filled him for his life, but the old tension came on strong.

Someone had to be thanked. Someone had to get paid. He added some notes to his little book – Alex mixed with rough people, now an enemy – Sasha and Dima on my side – Old Angel more than interested – why Tokmak?

Martin’s body took in the sounds and vibrations of the train as it clicked and clacked and shook. He fell asleep, head in his folded arms.

His dreams were of home, of Jenny. Oksana was not there. Then he walked to his front porch to find her running up the steps to him in distress. She held a leash in her hand and raised it to him.

“Daddy, he got away, ran away! What do we do!”

“We search for him, sweetie. We find him and bring him home.”

Oksana smiled.

He wiped her tears and took her hand. Finding their dog was as sure to him as if he was already found.

The gallery in Berdyansk faced the Sea of Azov. In late summer and early autumn, the wind generally picked up. The gallery manager’s favorite time of year. In his youth he was a staunch Party Member and had studied art in St. Petersburg, called Leningrad then, and excelled until the tension. The tension that came to all artists of sound mind eventually.

He never imagined limits until his own disillusionment with the country’s state of affairs crept over him. His need for expression had him on the move, sometimes on the run, over the years. He moved as far as possible in the Empire, eventually landing in the little seaport of Berdyansk. He disappeared then, going underground by taking odd jobs of carving and painting for little money, his employers always taking the official lion’s share from the state contracts. He remained a nobody, barely ate, but always had paint available.

Everything changed in 1992. He found out he was not a genius, and came to terms with that fact in a very mature way. Turning himself into a businessman, he ensured he’d be around art for the rest of his days. He took great joy in promoting other’s works, keeping his critical eyes only on his business. Some joked that he was too considerate and did not have the requisite temper for greatness. He liked that. If a man was ever at peace with himself, it was him.

Two more weeks until his greatest event yet. The American art dealer and collector was showcasing talent from Hungary and Czechoslovakia in his little gallery. This meant the greatest exposure available to his local artists and friends. It could be their only chance at Western Europe, a small window of opportunity where their work might provide a living or even the hope of fame.

He took it as his job, his duty, to make the very most of the opportunity. After spending weeks drawing up designs for the show’s layout, he finally got to enjoy the actual staging. He cared little for money, except what was necessary, but he loved capitalism. If only because it was so contrary to his former life. The large Amstor supermarket, a concept brought from investors in Russia and Germany, taught him how to do it. By putting staples of milk, meats, eggs, beer, and bread in the very back of the store, people who came for their needs would have to pass through the Vanity Fair of other needless items twice. Somewhere in their visit they would spy a ‘want,’ which would turn into a perceived ‘need’ before they made it to the checkout.

He found the manipulation profound. The Hungarian artist would have her room in the back of the gallery.

Workers hung the final Hungarian pieces. They were excessively dark in tone. But, as a Russian, this also resonated with him in a way his newly found optimism was not strong enough to suppress. The woman, the artist, liked people in urban scenes, but with people at a distance. Every day overcast and with some hint of industry present. Maybe she was an environmentalist, currently in vogue there. The painting titles, when seen as a collection, revealed a strange pattern. They all had a different woman’s name somewhere in the title.

This theme continued even to the smallest work, beautifully framed. The scene was the view from a country porch overlooking a large muddy river. Trees lined the opposite bank to the very edge of the river. A child swam within the water, just beyond the shallow range. Clouds loomed over the canvas, giving the sense that she was actually drowning.

He took a deep breath and groaned. The piece was titled “Oksana.” Hopefully it would sell quickly and get out of his sight.

He stepped outside for a cigarette before the American collector arrived. Wealthy even by Western standards, and nearly famous, the man was one-sided, wanting and getting his way.

As long as he did not too severely adjust the design, there would be no problem.

The man, Jorgensen, surprised him by walking up to him as one of many customers peering into shops. He had pictured a more obvious show when he arrived, a big car, maybe assistants. But instead he was the man in a funny straw hat contrasted by a much humourless demeanour. The two shook hands before even speaking. This seemed to the gallery manager evidence that the man really did do things how he wanted and in what order he wanted.

The two men milled about the little shop in tense silence. Watching Jorgensen give nodding approval gave him great release. Jorgensen paused at the smallest of the collection. He slowly rubbed the edge of the ornate frame, softly grunted, and peered at the figure in the water.

Something about the dismal scene brought a smile. “Oh, she’s trouble, this one. Do you think she will drown?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t think she will. No. I think I shall rescue her. Maybe I will buy this painting and take her home with me.”

“I wish you would, please.”

“What?”

“Nothing sir. I believe you will have a great turnout here. I am told that Kiev and Odessa papers will be here for the story. Will this artist, Ms. Natasha, be here as well?”

“She will.” He shrugged. “Or she won’t.”

“Ah. Okay. I will see to the preparations. Will you be coming before the show?”

“I will. Or I won’t. But you can contact me at the Hotel Berdyansk.”

“Of course.”

“What?”

“Nothing, sir. I hope you have a very nice stay.”

Tokmak, Ukraine

The train had barely stopped when Martin hopped off and made his way through the Tokmak station to find a taxi to take him to the bus station. In the open, he was completely exposed to the world … and in a weird way to the heavens above. This was what it was like to be a fugitive, a wanted man. Except he was not actually running from anything. More towards something, someone, in particular.

How did any of this nonsense bear on what should have been a routine process of adoption? The three months on his passport expired a few days before, leaving him illegally in the country, and adding to his urgency and constant need of cover.

Jenny would call soon, telling him his status and the girl’s availability and timeline. But all expectations of time and schedules had been blown a long time back. His taxi ride to the bus station only made him suspicious.

Really? No gun in my face, no “off with you to the Foreign Legion?” Martin grabbed his pack and hurried out of the taxi and into the station. He purchased his ticket, again all too easily. Within minutes, he was on board mid-section, cramped between a very wide Babushka and her daughter, who were apparently not getting along well that day. A woman, and Sasha said I would know when I saw her.

Neither of his seatmates paid him any attention. He strained back, looking for a woman who made eye contact with him. It would be obvious since none had since he had been in Ukraine, no stranger.

Nothing. But a car stayed behind them after being passed by their slow bus. This became regular enough to make him certain it was likely his demons from the train. They wanted something he could not provide. He could pretend to, as he was prepared to do with Alex.

Why hadn’t he lied, played along? He was struck with sudden fear at having screwed up a basic instruction from Dima. It sounded so simple, but they tripped him up.

Why was Dima so involved, so helpful? Why were these men so intent—no, why was whoever they worked for—so bent on derailing him? Yes, he loved Oksana, had chosen her, but she was only one of hundreds of thousands of orphans.

He slumped forward in his seat drowning in his pity and the overwhelming feeling that he had come so far only to be more confused.

Then the bus swerved, then screeched to a halt. The driver quickly parked and left the bus.

Martin turned to see what was the matter, but the angle of the bus didn’t allow for it. Fellow passengers stared ahead as if still in motion towards their destinations. There was no interest in the event to be found among them.

What is it with you people? You’re not cattle!

“There was an accident,” the old woman next to him said.

“Oh?” Wow, a stranger spoke, even initiating the conversation.

“Da. We will be in Berdyansk in less than two hours. You help me with my bags when we get out, please.”

“Ma’am, excuse me, I will try but I will need to quickly switch a bus to Mariupol.”

“Nyet. Dima will pick you up.” This was the woman? Dima—she said it like speaking of their common relative, Uncle Dima. They didn’t speak beyond that, which was fine with Martin.

He reverted to his apartment coping skills of staring, emptying, and mixing images of childhood with his walks and talks with Jenny. And added the new thing of prayer. He wasn’t used to tuning into spiritual things, but now they had become more real to him. And in ways that made his many church years fade into a past of pretence and scheduled boredom.

He had taken it for granted, just as he had with Jenny. A hard week in the world of making money, getting things done, topped it off in a little bowl of religion where every face smiled at him. And when asked, everyone was “fine.” But the Bible—the crazy stuff of it he had picked up was the reality here. And here there was no hope were the words not true.

In this new environment, he coped in new ways. Or maybe he was simply coming out of a fantasy and into reality.

Dima was on time and nodded to his odd and elderly teammate before leading Martin to the taxi in the transfer.

Again the old Volga sparkled, the chrome striking him from each new angle of his approach to it. He did get sleep for once and this helped in his compliance to the new mode of travel. He still did not know what this day, as any of them, would bring on.

He climbed into the passenger seat without greeting Dima. Dima stared at him and he stared back.

“A man, two guys, on the train threatened to kill me.”

“Well you look fine to me, Martin.” Dima smiled.

They drove away from the station and Martin began to recount the event but stopped himself. Dima had made him smile and he would just go with that.

“Dima, I have a lot of questions but figure the asking is pointless. So I will stick with this new one – why are we in Berdyansk? And why are you tooling around town instead of going to Mariupol?”

“Tooling? I do not—”

“Driving around. Why are we still downtown?”

“Da. I have a friend who has a popular café. It is on the beach at the end of the boardwalk. If you do not mind much, please wait there. Also, my daughter, Katya, she works a kiosk outside of it. She gets you anything you need.”

“This is your town, isn’t it? You work in Mariupol sometimes?”

“Exactly. And in my town, I have heard of a V.I.P. what is staying at Hotel Berdyansk. One quick job for a friend and I promise, Martin, we are back to Mariupol, okay.”

“Of course. No problem. Your daughter? That will be nice.”

“Good.”

After Dima pulled away, Martin immediately ordered a beer. He planned to have two. Clear thinking had not produced anything, so what would it hurt. Jenny called right after he ordered.

“Six days, baby! The lawyer verified that she is in the database.”

“Uh, yeah, I know that. What is six days?”

“I know you didn’t want me to talk with Chip Stiles, but Judy’s friend who got back home from there last week said the A.C.F. had great lawyers.”

“I bet they do.” Martin thought back to the train. The picture chilled him.

“Yes. And so I made a quick call for information. He had that whole team there stop what they were doing and focus on us! Can you believe it?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Okay. Well, so he called today, I guess that is your tomorrow. He called and told me he verified Oksana is in the database—”

“You already said that.”

“Wait and listen a minute, will you?” She laughed. “His lawyer has a complete dossier packet prepared and everything pre-approved. They have the normal court date down to only needing a notarized signature from the regional judge. And he will get that on his way down to see you. Also, they have waived the ten-day waiting period. In six days, he wants to sit down with you, the director, local inspector, and orphanage doctor for final signatures. Then you leave with Oksana to Kiev for the completion of the passport, medicals and visa. That’s it!”

Martin stared at the waves before him as he took these words in. That’s it…that’s it? It had to be keeping up appearances. He had only recently gotten the sides figured out and Chip was on the wrong one. That meant that Chip had lied to Jenny, but that would have been a big lie. Or it was true and the plan called for some last piece to fail in the sit-down. Either way, there was little he could do and he so much wanted to sit down with the director and inspector. If all this was to blow up then he would get something out of it. Some form of revenge would present itself.

“Martin.”

“Yes. Sorry. Yes, sounds great, honey. Is this lawyer showing up soon or what?”

“He will call you. After he gets the judges signatures, probably.”

“Got to go, hon. My ride is here.” The pretence of being excited for her gnawed at him.

“Love you!”

“Love you, too.” Martin set down the cell phone and motioned the waitress to order another beer. He looked across the tourist court and saw the little kiosk with every drink and snack ever invented. How many local officials had to get a cut of it for the prime location?

He set ten Hryvnia on the table and cancelled his order. As he left the cover of the awning, he felt exposed in a way he had not before.

He was being watched.

Or he wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. Even the idea that he would be so concerned about it, couldn’t shake it, disgusted him. I haven’t done anything wrong!

He walked across the court to the kiosk. “Brevyet. Vui Dima Doch?” Martin asked. Was she Dima’s daughter?

“Da. Brevyet.”

“English?”

“Da. I mean yes, sir. You droog— … um, friend of Papa?”

“Yes. I’m waiting for him. He told me you worked here, Katya, so I wanted to say hello.”

“Hello,” Katya replied.

“May I buy a coke?” He held out some money.

She laughed and handed him the soda.

“A good man, your father.”

“Da. A little…uh, protective?”

“Everyone protects their fortune, right?”

Katya smiled and blushed.

Maybe such children made the fathers, not the other way around. But the children in the orphanage? No, something else was in place that made such things happen. In fact, nothing was in place tightly enough to glue a family together anymore. Nothing to make a man tow the line, not by law or by heart. He managed a smile just before the taxi horn honked.

Dima waved him over, smiling at Katya.

Martin said a quick goodbye, turned, and walked over to the taxi.

Once they were on their way, Dima turned up his music and began his manic driving ways towards the entrance to the town and the road back to Mariupol. Dima lit a cigarette and settled into what seemed to be intense thought. He remained that way through the highway and into the next small village.

After six days passed, would the mystical meeting take place? The magical reunion with Okasana, only to be swept away into a flight home?

But Dima slowed the Volga violently to a halt and then backed it around a corner. Leaning over his steering wheel, he peered down the street they were supposed to be traveling.

“Dima?”

“Da,” Dima replied. He looked at Martin as if suddenly becoming aware of his confusion. “We wait.”

“For what?”

“That black cat. See? He must cross first. Then we go.”

Martin slouched back in his seat and tossed his hands in the air. “Of course.”

The cat was a sadist. He seemed to have much to do on their side of the street. He walked back and forth, clawed at a nearby doorstep. Then back to the curb and sat as if waiting for a bus, killing time by licking his fur.

“Dima, why do you help me so much? I mean, I know you are a good man. Just … this is upsetting your normal life. I know it has to be.”

“I do a job. No problem.”

“Dima, come on.”

“I read my Bible, Martin. I didn’t use to, that is another thing. I am a man of the Book.”

“I do sometimes, too, but that does not answer this for me.”

“Okay.” Never taking his gaze off the cat, he lit another cigarette. Dima squeezed his eyes in concentration through several drags of his cigarette. “The Book speaks much of the Father, what He is like. I am many things. And only one do I take pride in, forgive me. I am a father. Many things in my life are answered in that. Why I work, work hard. Why I pray, yet not hard enough. Why I smile, in my heart.” Dima pounded his heart twice with closed fist. “No matter the muck I am in, Martin, no matter what you see, I am smiling. You understand?”

“A little bit.”

“My friend, Sasha, he had no father. He would be such a businessman here if things had been different. None of the union stuff. And like one bird knows his kind, I know deep that Sasha is a father. A father without children. He wanders about not knowing why. He looks for children who are not there. His days are wasted.”

“Thanks, Dima. In all this mess, those kinds of thoughts come to me sometimes.”

“Ah! Now you understand. I can’t help my old friend, but I help my new friend. You are a father, Martin.” He smiled broadly, grabbed and shook Martin’s shoulder strongly. “There he goes! Look!”

The cat rounded a corner and they were free to move along.

As they passed the cat, Dima whispered, “This is life.”

The impact of the words that had cut inside his very bones before made Martin come alive again. How much of his deepest self was hidden to him, but obvious to others?

He thought back to his talk with Katya at the kiosk. It was so Ukrainian, his response to her irritation at a perceived over-protective father. He thought maybe he was starting to understand these poetic people. Or was he being assimilated into them? I’m American. Maybe I have some Ukrainian blood in there somewhere.

Chapter Eleven

Dima returned to Berdyansk in the morning. Luckily a couple with child needed to leave Mariupol to visit family in Berdyansk. His expenses covered, he dropped them off at a seaside house, and continued on to the Soba restaurant to meet with Sasha. It was still warm enough to sit on patio, where Sasha waited for him, at the far end.

Dima shook his head and smiled. Sasha had always been uncomfortable around crowds. He sat down to the table.

“You must drink to this with me, Dima. But not too much, we have some work to do,” Sasha said. “These pictures you sent me. You’re very good. You should open a photo shop. I will help you.”

“Very funny.”

“Okay. This man I know. He has a very good restaurant in Donetsk. The Georgian cuisine is incredible. He fancies guns a bit. A lot really. The other man, interestingly, is a former Soviet Naval Commander. He now owns a shipping and marine service company. Really expanded quickly so he got some serious start-up capital from somewhere. He runs a full scope of shipping services in Berdyansk, Mariupol, Kherson, and Nikolayev ports.”

Dima waited.

Sasha looked out across the street to the water beyond. “I thought of that once. Joining the Navy. But I already had a criminal record which was a problem back then. Nowadays they sometimes give a kid the option to join instead. Maybe we would have crossed paths earlier in life, eh?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t care much for the Navy or their little boy uniforms.”

They both laughed, Dima picturing Sasha in uniform.

“No. But this interests me. I may look into this company for myself later. This man here, the one staying at the hotel. He is American and very rich. I know of the women who have stayed with him. I could not afford her if I had to pay. They’re the types that hold conversations. Anyhow, he is an art dealer. So, what do they all have in common, friend?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nothing at first. We begin thinking our art dealer wants to buy guns from his new friend, and ship somewhere through the sailor friend. But we know who moves guns here and the buyers are transparent because the port police get paid to look the other way. They don’t care who gets caught. So I have a photo to show you now, Mr. Photographer. Not as good, of course, but it was overcast three days ago and not the man’s profession. Though he is a much better taxi driver than you.”

“You are in a mood today, Sasha.”

“Just saying.” He held out the photo.

“Where is this? Not Mariupol.”

“Da. That is our restauranteur in Kiev with Chip Stiles. Mr. Stiles is an American religious leader who works with many orphanages. He has been seen recently speaking with your man’s facilitator, Alex. He works mission trips to the Mariupol orphanage. Stiles is being threatened to work to turn your man away from his orphan girl. I suppose they think late at night in a busy Hotel Rus is safe to be so loud. From the conversation, this is their second visit with him. I believe, from the time I am told of, this would be the last visit they have no matter how his little mission turns out.”

Dima took in most of what was said to him, but was thrown back in time to the event that nearly put him in jail and would have destroyed the only life he had managed to eek out. The other man in the photo, the nobody and unimportantly unmentionable, was the red-haired American. He began to make the connections so quickly that he jumped a little from his seat.

Sasha leaned forward. “Dima?”

“I know this one. I met him. They want this girl to sell.”

Sasha glanced around. “Maybe a touch quieter, okay. Yes, that is what we suspect. Look, this is happening in my backyard. Some questions from some very important people can come at me out of this. Mainly, why are we not making any money from this, taking it over, etc.”

Dima stared open-mouthed at Sasha in unbelief. “You would stamp your approval on this?”

“No! Of course not. I have my eye on that shipping business, but for an out. I can have an out, mostly, if I can generate such an ownership. A position like that would make me a friend again instead of family. You understand?”

“You want out?” Dima had never imagined that kind of ambition from Sasha. Or that his friend would ever take such an interest in his own well-being.

“Enough on that. It is better that there are no questions. So this has to be stopped or covered. I will let you know which is feasible. Either way though, you understand. There is much potential in all of this, Dima. I really do like your strange American friend. Don’t you?” Sasha leaned back slightly, a satisfied expression on his face.

“And we get the girl? For Martin.”

“Da. Get the girl.”

Kiev, Ukraine

Chip’s family was almost picturesque, surrounded by the red and orange autumn leaves as they fed the peacocks that foraged about the ground. Chip called the children over to read the placards in front of the lion’s cage.

“Watch the little ones, please. Mom and I are going for a little walk.” Martin said to his oldest daughter.

He stopped to buy a bag of sunflower seeds for them to share. He held her hand tenderly and pretended not to notice her perplexed stare, her constant checking of him.

As if a curtain rose at the second act of a play, he came awake to the trust he had destroyed in her. She put on a show of contentment for everyone, even him. That she stood with him was the worst of it. But he was thankful at this time when he was making new commitments.

“What’s wrong?”

“You ever miss home? I mean, want to move back?”

“Yes! Sorry. No, I mean, this ministry is so important. Your work is so important. And the kids, they only know here. All their friends are here.”

“Yes, but it’s time to go.”

They stopped to sit together at a bench that lent a partial view of the city and earshot of the children.

After some silence she slid her hand away from his. “Are you in trouble? Or the A.C.F., again?”

It was not a baseless accusation, though from anyone else it would have been a provocation. But not with her tone, her heart. How did a woman like her come to be with a man like him, and then also remain so long? It was as if Chip had been on an extended middle-age crisis and now sobered for the first time since turning thirty.

But she did remain.

He finally answered her. “Neither, really. No. I do have a bit of a web to get free from. But it will be on my terms.”

“What does that mean?”

“There is a couple that wants to adopt from Mariupol …”

“That awful director?”

“Yes. There is a lot of resistance. And I am being told to help them find another child,” Chip said.

“Told? Who tells you anything? You’ve help people adopt before.”

“A lot of people lately. I have to be involved, but it is tricky. Once I do the right thing here, then we go. We go home, okay?”

“What’s so hard about this?” Her eyes concentrated on his. “I am always for doing the right thing, you know that. I only want to know why this is such a big deal. Please.”

“The couple insists on this child and the director, for some reason, insists on not letting this girl go. That’s it, really. That’s the problem.”

“A girl? I know that director. You know what she said to me the last time I took a team down there. I didn’t budge, though. The girls got their clothes. You know that. I know a lot of things, Chip. I’ve worked more than you in the field. Maybe too much for us, I don’t know. But she is not to win at anything she sets out on. Understand?”

“I’ll do what I have to.”

“No. You do the right thing.”

“See. A lot of people tell me what to do now.” He took her hand and she allowed it. They would work through it and that meant everything then. They sat in extended quiet until she stopped frowning.

“Chip, that old man sitting over there feeding the pigeons. He’s been staring at you forever. There, in that old ugly plaid coat.”

Chip looked in the direction she was pointing and locked eyes with the man. The man’s piercing gaze and intense smile refused to release him. Not a maniacal smile he would see when feeding the homeless years ago. This was warm, an almost absolute manifestation of the word pleasant, resolute in a perfect smile.

Warmth that poured over him. What could he use to describe this feeling to his wife? Approval. This man, this stranger, showered him with approval from far off—far off from his world even.

It was real and undeniable. But he would not tell her of it. He had not earned that right. Chip would somehow pass that feeling of approval to her himself. He had stolen it from her, and he determined then to return it to her.

Martin made Dima stop three times on the way to Kiev for coffee. He had emailed Jenny earlier in the week for more money to cover the trip. It was not easy lying to her. He told her that it was faster than the train due to their schedule and the need of getting there quickly. But really he wanted to avoid trains for the worst of reasons.

Fear. Fear, this level of it, was a new battle for him and he was losing, at least for now. Jenny’s spirits were down anyways as she had researched and found passport extensions were extremely rare. For the first time, she did not encourage him.

He stepped up to the plate quickly, assuring her that Dima had a plan, but he’d had to hang up before she asked what the plan was.

As with much else, the plan was simply that Dima knew a guy.

They entered the city during high traffic which still caused Martin to spend half the road time with his eyes closed. They finally reached the turn onto Bereznyakіvska Street and parked across the street next to another taxi. A nicer and newer taxi.

“Wait, please,” Dima said. He walked over to the driver’s side of the other taxi. The driver wore a bright green sweatshirt and appeared to have a thing for hand jewelry. Dima stepped back as the man got out and walked across the street to the yellow stone building that held the OVIR immigration office. The final authority for extending visas.

Dima lit a cigarette and spent his time looking inside and outside the other man’s modern taxi, never coming back to the Volga.

The man returned, had a quick chat before getting in the taxi, and drove away, never once acknowledging Martin.

Dima waved Martin over and took out an empty envelope from inside his jacket. “The man is going to ask you to fill out forms. Please give me $500.”

Martin moved closer to Dima as both checked around the street like guard dogs as the money transferred hands.

Dima stuffed the money in the envelope and handed it to Martin. “Place it under one of the forms you return to him. He knows some English, no problem.”

Martin had often been told he was an obstinate man. He never gave credence to that coming from anyone but Jenny. But in this moment, as he walked across the street combating his fear, he hung his hat on every detractor who said it to him. Trusted that they were right.

The entrance opened directly into a long hallway lined with doors and benches. As usual, people from all over the world filled the benches. Martin stood dazed by the noise and competing languages, wary of the children running about.

Further down the left side of the hallway was a glass booth with an arm sticking out, waving him towards it. How did they know he’d entered?

Ah, a little, black-and-white TV monitor sat on the woman’s desk.

“Fill this out.” She slid the clipboard out the slot in the window so fast that Martin almost didn’t catch it. He walked the hall until he found a small spot on one of the benches next to a man in a turban.

Hurried steps came from the offices and passed him, making him look up from the forms. The fast-walking man went directly to the window argued with the woman behind the glass to the interest of most in the hall.

Through her little speaker, she called Martin’s name.

He stood, all the eyes on him, but he refused to look back at people on the benches.

The man walked at his Olympic pace towards Martin. “Come.” Martin followed him to his office where the man excused his young assistant, hers being the smaller desk in the office. He shut the door behind her and pointed for Martin to sit. “Have you completed the forms?”

“Not quite,” Martin answered. “But the most important part is ready.”

“Please sign them. I will fill them out. Passport, please.”

Martin handed him his passport.

“I make copy. Taking a moment only.”

The man left, returning quickly. He typed on the computer before looking to Martin, who set the clipboard on his desk. The man looked at the forms approvingly. “Very good. How much more time do you require?”

“I don’t know exactly. I am in the middle of a real mess and …”

“Da, 180 days, okay.”

“Sure,” Martin replied.

“Good. You have a ‘P’ status for 180 days. Religious work.”

“Religious work?”

“Please take paper one to the receiving desk. Keep paper two with passport all times. Please close the door. Thank you.” The man returned to his computer.

Like a sprinter, Martin dashed outside and crossed the street to the taxi.

From Dima’s expression, Martin’s gladness and relief was contagious. Dima hurried toward the driver’s seat.

Martin blocked him, standing over him outside the car door.

“What?” Dima asked.

“Can I drive?”

Dima grabbed the door handle. “Nyet.”

“Please, Dima?” He cocked his head and locked eyes.

“Not possible. No.”

“I need to drive. Come on.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Please, just let me drive.”

“Okay. Listen everything I say, Martin. Understand?”

“Da, da.”

Dima crawled over to the passenger side and Martin got in.

He didn’t know why he wanted this so badly until he got behind the steering wheel. Confidence. He had gotten a boost of it, but wanted more. More of it to help stave off the ever present fear that was sure to attack again.

He backed out into the street and headed towards the inner city, slowly at first, then picking up the pace.

A car pulled around and in front of him no more than a car length.

Martin came within inches of rear-ending it. Unfazed, he passed through the intersection and sped around his first car, the truck in the next lane now almost rear-ending him. Without waiting for Dima to tell him, he turned a corner back in the direction he remembered they had come.

“No!” Dima commanded, but it was too late.

On-coming traffic flowed toward them on the one-way street.

He looked for a side road but there was none and the cars coming at him were larger in view every second, and with no apparent interest in slowing down.

“Pull over,” Dima snapped.

“Where?”

“The walk-way,” Dima yelled. He grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it to the right in time to fit the taxi into a fortunate enough space between two parked cars. “Foot brakes! Foot brakes!” Dima barked.

Martin obeyed.

They ended up parked on the sidewalk inches from the window of an eat-in bakery, facing the patrons. Some of the people inside stared back at them while continuing to eat.

“Get out,” Dima said.

“Da, okay-okay. Fine.”

Country – outside Berdyansk, Ukraine

The smoky, rancid scent of the dying campfire invaded the canvas tent, gently waking Alex. He lay there, hung over, and cold from nakedness. Still coated in the sweat of the night’s activities. He had hoped they would end with the prayer meeting, but that was not the direction things went. Instead, that happened early and fast, and the night ended beyond his expectations.

He was beginning to remember where he was and how he came to be there. There was ritual dancing, the master chanting, and vodka. There were two events of the women jumping the sacrificial fire set outside the circle of rocks that walled the tall idols of Dazhdbog and Perun. The first time the women had jumped the fire, they were wearing clothes. Then later a woman took his hand and said her name was Lena.

He looked to the right to check. She was there and still beautiful. Alex quietly rolled out from his blanket and onto the ground. He slipped his pants back on and stepped out of the tent, covering his eyes to the morning with one hand and holding his terrible headache with the other.

He alone was awake. He passed the other tents on his side of the camp and felt drawn to Dazhdbog, though Perun was lifted higher on a mound. He walked to the idol and dropped to his knees and worshiped.

Alex peered the eight feet upward to see Dazhdbog looking down on him. In his confusion of energy and a numb mind this morning, Dazhdbog became his answer. He was of the Sun and enlightenment, what Alex needed. He mumbled prayers of praise and thanksgiving to his god. The odor of the nearby stone altar with the burnt remains of the goat gave to him the feeling of oneness with his god and nature. A moment and piece of redemption that was his alone.

“Give me wisdom, oh great Dazhbog, please,” he whispered.

Alex remained and emptied his mind now that his heart had been laid out. Then thoughts that came would not be his own. He could receive. His mind was darkness for a time before a window of mild color shown as a door opens from behind and reveals a room.

The child Oksana faded in while walking into the center of his vision. She wore the ancient dress and a beautiful flowered ring held up her hair, her whole being softened and illuminated with the new defuse light. The space filled with water from the bottom, and the sound of a pleasant brook echoed about.

She floated atop the newly formed lake, smiling. Then her expression turned into confusion as she floated away from him. Terror swept over her and screams of horror filled the chamber in his mind, lowering as she disappeared into the distance beyond the darkened horizon. And the light of the room instantly shut away back into the black from where it had come.

Alex came to, holding himself tightly. Chilled deeply inside, he frantically rubbed his arms to warm himself. He walked to the remains of the fire and sat, finding some relief. A short time later, he returned to his tent to find his things, careful not to wake the woman.

He stared at her sleeping form. Did he like her? Would he see her again? Did it matter?

He slipped away and hiked out of the woods toward the nearby abandoned factory. The walk cleared his mind over the ceremonies from the night before.

Something always nagged at him from his youth—his babushka and her religion would have labelled last night an orgy. She would have disowned him because she did not know true worship. She loved her God forced on her by her forefathers, denied her by the Communists. And only to die denying the nature that was around her and in her.

He passed through the factory and decided to take a longer walk towards the village before calling a taxi. Alex relived his vision, his gift from the gods, for clear interpretation.

Oksana’s Ukrainian clothes. She was deeply Ukrainian, and this probably meant that she was to remain so. Of the being carried away on the water, he did not understand. But her absolute terror evoked comfort. That didn’t make sense until he dwelt upon his own pain and torment. It was not pleasant, but it happened nonetheless.

This is life. She wouldn’t like what would happen to her, but it was meant to be and that was the only good. He settled it. She was to remain in Ukraine. And though her future was not going to be good— very bad actually—she would walk into her destiny as everyone must. He walked a little lighter now, a little more free.

The gods of his fathers had lifted the weight that had burdened him and returned him to mission. It was different work to keep a child here but he trusted for the wisdom in that as well. As he neared the village, he came to a bus stop booth and sat down to make his call.

“Director, please. This is Alex Plachkov. Thank you,” Alex said to the assistant.

“Da?”

“Madam Director, this is Alex. Yes, hello. I must tell you something concerning the status of the girl, Oksana.”

Chapter Twelve

Berdyansk, Ukraine

It was overcast the morning Martin had decided to jog again. He had cut down on his meals for a time in order to purchase new running shoes and sweats. The air was chilling now into his fourth month in Ukraine. According to Jenny, he should only have five days left before he could take Oksana home.

It had been nearly three months since he had even seen his wife. Fighting depression was not something he had ever had to do before. He didn’t have the tools for it. Coping had started with cigarettes, then beer, on to a little vodka, and finally the Bible. But he was back to where he started, staring at the wall across the room in his apartment.

Now jogging seemed to be doing the trick, but so did the idea of soon leaving. When he ran, it was like practice, training, for the real and final day he would run back to his life. As he ran this morning, passing out of the gate of the concrete apartment prison that was home, he thought more seriously about that life. What would it look like when he returned? His job long gone, Jenny working full time, and a daughter with more needs than he could imagine.

Turning onto the main road, he jogged south towards Berdyansk city limits. He had never done that before, but something felt right and he went with it. He might be seen by the wrong people and it didn’t help that he was the only one for hundreds of miles that jogged for recreation, but he had grown to like the farmland. Fields unfolded from his left and right in ways he recognized from back home.

Since even the main roads were cracked and broken, he watched his step. He still had not learned how to put the stares of motorists out of his view, and out of his mind. The roads were not as busy early in the mornings and that helped.

Today he desperately wanted to be his own man. No need of his new friends, no fear of the others. Nothing in the balance hinging on people he didn’t even know. Running meant they were behind him and his choices were all that determined each new step forward. He wouldn’t go into the city, just as far as the city welcome sign, but it felt like healthy rebellion anyhow.

The city’s main entry point was where the highway ended at a long-standing, tall guard shack left over and unmanned from the Soviet years. Martin stopped at the sign to rest before turning back. Traffic was picking up and he would need to make double-time to get back to the flat.

As he reached the gate to his complex, his body decided to walk the rest of the way in. A new car had parked in front of his building. A shiny foreign car.

Fear hit him. He jogged to a spot that seemed most out of view behind an overgrown patch of bushes under an empty billboard that decades before had been used for propaganda. He crouched, watching. But how long of a wait would it be? The occupant might be there for a drug deal or date with a prostitute. Or maybe it was only a duty-bound visit to someone’s babushka.

He gathered enough loose grass to make a padded seat. After almost an hour of feeling stupid, he finally saw them come out of the entrance. He did not know the large one, but seeing the redhead sent a chill through him that stiffened his whole body. Terrified down to the cellular level. As they got in their car, the red-haired man’s arm cast became apparent.

Martin’s mind shot back to the weird train ride to Tokmak and the accident on the way to Berdyansk. Sasha had tried to take care of them, but apparently only one man had been partially put out of commission.

And what of the angel? He must have allowed them to follow him, but why? Maybe he had passed them off to some angel of death who botched the job.

The men drove out of the gate and turned right, away from Berdyansk. If Martin had jogged his normal route, they would have seen him.

God saved him, showing such a personal level of interest and guidance in him Martin’s head spun. He could not remember any time in his life that he had experienced the presence of God in his life. But here, he’d felt it in so many ways: angels, thoughts, unusual friends. But maybe his need had never been so great either. It may have been that God was all over his whole life, but only here did he give Him credit for it. Here, when his survival was so clearly not of his own cunning.

Martin jogged up the steps to his flat. Completely trashed, the flat was covered with Martin’s belongings. Real anger had been expressed in the destruction. They knew what they looked for wasn’t there and had a fit about it, even breaking the window.

He turned to lock the door, but none of the locks functioned. He dragged his little desk over to the door and pressed it shut. Out the window, other residents gathered outside to view the site of the incident. Looking up from the broken shards of glass, pointing, and worrying.

Martin was more alone than when he had first set out on the run. He was not of them and this made them nervous. They could have it happen to every other apartment and not blink. But he could almost read their minds about the American, about the foreigner who must move. And who would tell him.

Martin grabbed his cell phone and sat on the bed, head in hands. He rubbed his temples and entered into his continual battle against fear. It had become such a part of life. He couldn’t call Jenny. He needed to talk to her but not in the state he was in. He would call Dima.

“Dima, I’ve got a problem.”

The events flowed out of Martin like a faucet. The end was supposed to be close but these things made it seem like it would either not end well or at least not end soon. He waited while he pictured Dima wondering why he ever got involved with him.

“Dima?”

“Yes, Martin. I’m thinking, please.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t have to move again. But I find something. Not a problem. The man with broken arm is known to me. Sasha has told me that he is unwelcome in Berdyansk, no problem. You say a lawyer is coming to conclude matters so nothing there. All looks well to me.”

“You aren’t looking at my apartment.”

“True. Is Alex in contact with your lawyer?”

“I don’t know. I’ve not heard from either of them.”

“Okay. I’ll be there shortly.”

Mariupol, Ukraine

Research into the shipping company validated Sasha’s suspicions. The company had contracts for cargo that pulled in even more money than he first imagined. Their illegal activities were pure greed, unnecessary from what Sasha could see—unless they were mandated by a local union in order for them to continue business. Either way, Sasha did not have the timeline of how long they had been doing their side-business in his Berdyansk without his knowledge. The union for the docks was a franchise operation out of Donetsk. Even his bosses would not want conflict with Donetsk, but they could take the franchise without a fight.

Sasha wanted to meet with his bosses first, request separation and protection, and then take over the shipping company. As long as he could present their black market work as a new operation, not as something that had slipped past him in Berdyansk, he would be in the clear. He could have a steady income flowing and they would expect only an occasional favor.

He had sold it well. He knew his people, knew underage girls or involuntary prostitutes would never be taken. He’d never understood why the Donetsk group went to that anyway, because the voluntary ones worked for cheap and would love travel. But there were no controls out of the country and the demand nowadays was for slaves. There is a line and Donetsk crossed it. He gained the support needed to draw the line again and justification to acquire Mariupol for his masters. And if it worked out properly it might even be bloodless. Good business only.

His car stopped at the guard shack of the shipping office and Sasha’s driver passed the clipboard for him to sign. They were a group of four and he signed for them.

The guard leaned in the window. “You are 20 minutes early, so you will wait outside the main office building.”

Though Sasha was there to give a message to the good Captain, he was more excited to tour the docks. He truly loved the sea, which was probably why he never left it. Sasha felt so connected to the intrusions in his life and he was not use to dealing so personally with his past.

He had never left the town of his orphanage that held the pain of his sister. He kept company with a good man and didn’t know why. And now he sensed a love within him for the very air of his birth. He was getting a greater sense of himself that was actually scaring him. Fear, another new thing.

A woman retrieved them and walked them through the inner hallways that wound throughout the converted military warehouse. They ended in a hallway where she opened a very large, heavy oak door.

The sea captain stood quickly and walked around his large desk to shake Sasha’s hand. He reached his hand out to the other men but his attempts failed. The Captain turned his smile into a forced position shortly before it died. He dropped his eyes and gestured them to the chairs in the room.

“What can I do for you?” he asked. “I’m sorry the tea is not warmed yet. It should be here shortly.”

Sasha chose to not respond, instead crossing his legs to posture comfort and tend to the condition of the cuffs of his suit pants.

The tea arrived, offering more time for him to generate discomfort in his host. The first cup was poured and offered to him which he rejected with his hand and then swept it in the direction of his companions behind him. The room remained silent until all the men were served and the woman left the room.

“You have a very good business,” Sasha said.

“Yes. I don’t mean to cut things short. But I run a good business and it is covered, you understand.”

“Yes. But I am not interested. I am still sitting here so I assume you have been informed as to who I am, correct?”

“Yes.”

“I am here because I choose to be. And your people who tell you so much about me know this, yes? See, I make my way as the waters part before me, you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I don’t want to take up your day as I expect the man who runs such a good business has much to do. Very simply, you need to tell your man that we love to see the ships coming and going in Berdyansk. It is the people who we are, no? You know when I was young I once wanted to be in the Navy, desperately really. But I became a businessman, so boring. But I find recently that the dream never really left me. A beautiful and busy shipyard like this makes a man feel young again. Do you ever get opportunity to ride the great ships?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing.”

“Well, I have been to sea most of my life so now it is business with me.”

“Sad. Maybe you should retire, maybe it is a sign.”

“You mention I should tell someone something.”

“Da, da. I will be at the Club Coral at 7:00 tonight. I am told it is very good with a near limitless wine list. Good day, Captain. I tell you, you make me want to salute.”

The men nodded to one another and Sasha made his way to the door. No one led them out of the building, so Sasha followed the growing intensity of the sea air, clanking sounding work, and his own anticipation. He exited the warehouse and strolled to the car, taking in the whole of the shipyard. He stopped at the car, reluctant to get in.

His men gawked at him.

“What?” he demanded.

The man nearest him leaned in to Sasha. “You’re smiling, Sasha.”

Berdyansk, Ukraine

It was a pleasant view Sunday morning from the patio of the Soba, waitresses smiling, tourists taking pictures and stopping and pointing, shoppers striding toward destinations. Willard’s eyes followed one young couple holding hands across the street.

How would Natasha paint this scene? Where would the death she found in everything be found? There you are. A damaged and graffiti-painted bench in the park across the street. An obvious and subtle truth among the fantasy. You little Soviet thorn of Amethyst. He had already finished his first coffee while waiting for the orphanage director to arrive. She had made some point to him of the trouble of traveling to Berdyansk from Mariupol. Willard assumed it was meant to underscore the importance of whatever it was that she wanted to meet about. He could not help but glare as she walked to his table.

She sat with confidence, as if comfortable in their setting.

“I mingle among the art and wave good-bye to the ship. That is all. I don’t speak to directors of garbage dumps,” Willard said to the director.

“It is not a dump.” Her eyes pierced and locked on his. “Anyhow, you are aware of the Americans that want to adopt a child from us?”

“Us? There is no us. Yes, I have heard something and it is to be no problem for you.”

“Well, it is a problem for me! I covered the child with a guardian; I suspect they removed it. I removed this child from the database; I now hear that they blocked it. I refused to have her re-instated, within her new guardian’s rights, and they managed to petition me to the Inspector General. I had to pay much for that and still reinstate the child. And now I understand that they have the court’s signatures pre-signed and the ten-day waiting period nullified.”

“Woman, I don’t understand a word you are saying to me.”

“In two days we will be short of inventory by one. There is nothing I can do about it. They have the law on their side despite my manipulations. So I am telling you that you will need to do something.”

“I see. As I told you, something is being done.”

“This makes me look very bad, very weak. And I am not!”

“Well, we are done. Thank you for the coffee,” Willard said.

“Da. One thing, Mr. Jorgensen,” she said in a lowered voice, “I don’t like any American, only American money. If you don’t fix this, it matters little to the price. Not to me or other parties. You get less, but the price does not move.”

With that the director moved up and away from the table.

A rare hot flush came over his face. Not the sort to feel anger, he rather savored that. It was more defensive in nature. As he watched her turn a corner out of sight, he remembered the last time. And the look then of that gun inches from his face. It was the same feeling.

Willard took some more time at his table to adjust back into his superiority over all things under his feet and before his eyes. Once he came back fully to himself, he walked down Lenin Street, across the seaside square, and to the seawall. Hands resting in his very expensive pockets, he made for a lone evening figure against the brisk waterborne wind and newly brightened sky.

His childhood home came forward as it did sometimes. And there he was working the wood piles harder than his older brothers only to get a beating for it. He despised poverty more than he could put into words, so he never tried to. His actions showed his hatred for being poor. It had become an obsessive art and he prided himself on knowing it. He was of a special elite class, the sociopaths who knew they were and just went with it as artful self-expression. This shipment was going to be his Mona Lisa.

Mariupol, Ukraine

Martin was free to take back his original apartment building, but a different flat owned by his old landlady. Dima had also told him that things had calmed down for him and that Sasha would still have people checking on him. Now that his Russian was getting better, he shopped more easily at the corner market. He had learned the workers’ names and even brought a smile to them when he mutilated their language. There was no English in the shop.

Today he stopped first at the little cell phone card shack built within the main market to make it seem official. The large woman always stole a few Hryvnia from him on top of the sale price. He learned to allow it. He lived there temporarily, so he shared the wealth while he had it.

The store was packed with everything from an American grocery store, but in miniature. Kids at the orphanage loved the sunflower seeds, so he stocked up. He would see Oksana soon, be her dad. He had stockpiled many things already for her, wanting to impress her as someone who now would provide. He moved to the counter, chose his sandwich meat, bread, and beer.

In Ukraine, beer was the social equivalent to Coke back home, many people walking about carrying their open containers while they shopped, lunched, or just because they were thirsty. And people liked their bottled water carbonated, which he could never get used to.

The woman behind the counter was pretty, about his age, wearing her normal blue smock and hair pulled up and back. She was all work, though sometimes she would make eye contact with Martin and give him a closed mouth smile. As his visits increased, he counted on seeing that smile. While he shopped she had left the counter to go to the back rooms, where she lived. She returned and passed him on her way out of the store. She was obviously dressed to go out and he barely recognized her. He was not altogether aware of his own shock until he saw that her new smile was mixed with embarrassment.

After she left, he made his purchase quickly and set out for his flat. Her presence remained with him the entire walk home. Martin realized and accepted that he had been flirting with her all along. He was sure that she was the only woman he had done that with.

The past months had strained his marriage. Jenny worried about his being alone so long. At first he caught this in her questions, then her tone, and of late the occasional crying and direct accusations when she was unable to contact him.

He had promised he would not let his phone cards expire. She needed to get hold of him at any moment, including any instant insecurity crept in. He understood.

He left the store and stopped briefly at the bank located on the first floor of his own apartment building. Martin needed to exchange the $4,000 dollars Jenny had wired to him for what he hoped were the final expenses.

On his way back into the apartment, he could not help but scope out the parking area and would often change which entrance he used. The security codes he used worked for both doors to the building. These changes in pattern seemed unnecessary but he was following instructions given to him by Dima. Sasha had also funded a request from Dima to keep several of his guys on a watch schedule. And it was working. He could not go anywhere alone except to the bank and store.

Martin let himself in and locked the door behind him, put away the meats and bread, and then opened a beer. It would be one of three tonight. He walked from the kitchenette into the living room and turned on the TV before sitting back into the hard little Asian-patterned couch that also worked as his bed. The five channels were playing the same five commercials. Crazy. It was Friday, the day two of the channels played bad American porn movies from the 80s with laundry detergent commercials between sex scenes.

His comfort level with living there in general was starting to concern him. He turned off the set and picked up a book, but quickly put that down as well. He paced as he drank, as he did in the evenings.

What would it be like in two days? To get Oksana, to go home? A small part of him was tethered in his new world now. When he thought of home, it was not fully home anymore but a little bit like future travel plans. He gave up trying to retain his hatred for Ukraine and his disdain of the suffering of general living. It was hopeless. This side of what he had experienced so far had brought him to accepting Ukraine as part his world. It had become more like a place where his remote cousins lived, united to the country in a familial way.

Was the parental tie to Oksana the cause of it? She barely knew him and he certainly did not really know her. But Dima called him a father. It’s as true as if … it’s just true. I didn’t even know my own dad, though. What am I doing?

On his third beer, he found he had been staring at the wall again. And probably going to have a fourth or he might just make a night of it. Ah, the cognac in the store. He took the milk jug full of water from underneath the air-conditioning unit before it overflowed, dumped the drainage into the bathtub, and returned it to its place.

He opened the curtains and slid the window up. The apartment building across the street, so close and expansive, blocked much of the view. The streetlights were few and dim.

Martin stared into the night, nothing entering or leaving his mind. As he stared, he became more acutely present to the sounds of the cars, footsteps, and voices about the street below. A conversation from the apartment balcony a few floors up, something about a disagreement over furniture. A short glimpse of a small light behind the city sidewalk tree. There and then gone. He waited and it was there again, gone.

How? He was perplexed how this little floating cigarette managed to draw so much fear from him. But it did.

He slammed the window closed, jerked the curtain in place, and walked to the far end of his room. He paced there before finally leaning back against the ugly, aged gold wallpaper and slid to the floor, sitting, chin hid behind his knees.

He was losing himself and he knew it while it was happening, making it all the worse. His once emptied mind filled with flash images of seeming randomness; Jenny raking leaves, Oksana playing tag, Jenny’s eyes lighting up over the child, the men in the train, the gentleman angel, Alex’s face, Alex again, then suddenly to the old man with the plaid blazer in the Kiev park. In his mind he heard him saying again, “Sometimes it is the ship that is the destination. You understand?”

Martin hugged his legs more tightly, and fought back tears as he whispered to himself in Russian, “No. No. I don’t!”

Sasha hoped to conclude the Mariupol business in a day. So far, he could picture himself at home in Berdyansk by midnight. Even in the evening, the air quality offended Sasha as he got out of the car parked on Prospect and Lenin Street in front the Club Coral. The coke from the Mariupol steel plants had been burning non-stop for generations and refuse flowed continually into the river and beyond. His main companion joked to the others that he was looking forward to going to the beach for a swim in the morning. The laughter betrayed a pride they had in the beaches of Berdyansk.

They entered the clatter and chatter of the restaurant, his men keeping an eye on the adjacent rooms. The club also ran a casino and night club. Once Sasha spotted his man, Vadim, waiting at the back table, he allowed his men to go to the club section. They would know the right time to check on him. He only brought the brightest and most attentive with him. But as young women walked about, one in every five feet of space, he did get a little concerned. “Check in,” he told the leader. “Don’t get too distracted.”

Sasha sat down.

The atmosphere turned into that of a cold and private cave. The restaurant was not officially owned by the man opposite him, but it was owned by him. Sasha had entered, by choice, into another man’s domain to tell him what to do.

Sasha fully understood the possibilities of trouble and had prepared. But there was new hope in him in general, so he tapped into that. Perhaps the man might be smarter than he appeared to be.

“Sasha, why are you bothering me?”

“Not my intent. Not at all,” Sasha replied.

“I am bothered. I don’t know you but I know of you, your boss. So I meet with you. But I think, here I mind my business. And my business is not your business. So why do I meet you?”

“I see. Can we drink?”

“Of course.” Vadim tipped his fingers to a waitress who appeared to be assigned to only him. She came quickly with the vodka and two glasses, and accepted with a smile Vadim’s hand rub down her leg.

The men saluted with their glasses.

“I like Mariupol very much,” Sasha said.

“It is ugly and smells. Berdyansk is much healthier.” Vadim smiled at the glass in his hand.

“True. Maybe that is why I like it so much.”

“Okay, what can I do to be a gracious host before you leave?”

“You are making a special shipment soon. Some hardware from Donetsk by truck to Odessa. Special cargo from here and some more in Berdyansk before off to Odessa.”

Vadim stiffened as he carefully set down his glass.

“Yes, I know. And you are right in that it is none of my business. But it is of interest to us, you understand.”

“Yes.”

“I am interested in a two things. That you never use my port again without my permission. And that you skip Berdyansk this time.”

“Impossible.”

“Really?”

“You ask too much.”

“I ask nothing.”

“I agree that we should inform you when we have work there. And we will, going forward and in a generous way. But this cargo is a done deal. Please accept some of the receipts.”

“No. You are welcome in my port anytime, just ask and we will talk. But this cargo, this kind of cargo, cannot leave my port. It is that simple.”

“It is not that simple. I do not agree with this cargo either, but I have no choice. My boss is an ass, you know that. But this is life,” Vadim said.

“I see. Okay. I will let you know something interesting.” Sasha took a quick sip from his glass.

“Yes?”

“You are tied with some fellows who chase around an American here, but in my town, also. He threatens your shipment, I understand. Let’s do this: you call them off. And then your ship gets a pass.”

“How do you know that? Never mind, you are reasonable. I am very impressed with that. Done.” Vadim poured another drink for them both.

Sasha did not acknowledge the compliment. Without having to worry about the American’s safety, he could concentrate on getting the American out of the country with his girl. And earn the prize of Dima’s smile.

Turning his glass, Sasha moved onto real business. “Your boss does not need to know about this, of course. My life-long friends work the docks in Berdyansk. And I like your shipyard captain’s business very much. But he is very old and should retire, or he should waste his last days pouring over some stupid manifest or ledger. I am sufficient to one day invest in that company. With your assistance we can work very smoothly, I think. Place a nice little feather in your cap to display to Donetsk, don’t you think?”

“I understand. And I agree.”

Sasha stood.

His lead man noticed and gathered the others from the bar and dance floor. Before he left, Sasha turned to Vadim. “This type of cargo will never be shipped again. Never. We have plenty of ways to earn money.”

Vadim smiled broadly.

Sasha’s future solidified in that smile. A normal business with maybe some protection transactions. Normal.

Three of his men came out of the disco and hurried to him, one opening the door. Sasha stopped and said, “Seriously, how do you young people listen to that loud crap?”

Chapter Thirteen

Alex called, wanting to stop by with the lawyer, mere hours before the meeting at the orphanage. Somehow Jenny had connected her lawyer with Alex, and soon, there they were at his door. Together.

He invited them in and stepped through the introductions as he walked them to his little kitchen table and sat them down. He turned back to the stove and tended to his eggs while starting the water for their tea.

The lawyer searched his satchel and pulled out a stack of papers.

“Mr. Johnson, I know we should have met sooner to discuss this but Alex has some concerns. I just wanted to knock those around a touch. If changes result then I can plan accordingly.”

“Knock those around? Touch? You speak very good English, it sounds kind of British.”

“Thank you. Thank you. I studied in Wales.”

“Interesting,” Martin said.

“I suppose. Now, Alex, can you explain, please?” The lawyer set his satchel on the table.

Alex leaned in on the table and met eyes with Martin. “Da. Martin, it is this. I told you it was impossible to move the hand of the director, even with petition. And to have her reverse her database decision. But you have done that.”

“I’ve done nothing, Alex. But I don’t understand the concern.”

“Well, yes, you have not done anything of yourself. But these things have happened. And that suggests to me that something illegal has occurred. He has shown me all the signatures. In one instance a judge signed documents without a hearing, which simply is not done. You understand?”

Martin took a bite of his eggs. “Not really, Alex. I’m sorry. The papers are there and legitimate, correct?”

The lawyer nodded as Martin set their filled teacups out and sat down with his coffee.

“Also, you gave me the impression that you were open to a different child. I have spent expense and time on that.”

“I am sorry about that, Alex. Well, not really.” Martin let a smile slip. “But I will compensate you for that and, if you give me the information, I will see about showing the children around when I get home. Jenny will find them homes, I am sure.”

Alex sighed, looking to his tea for a moment. “Martin, the director does not want this child to go with you. Don’t you think there is good reason for that? This child may become great trouble for you, maybe a behaviour problem. I know the director is upset thinking you had something to do with the removal of the guardianship, but she is a compassionate woman and surely had great plans for the child here in her own country. And as I told you before, she does not have to sign the release.”

“I did.”

“You did what?” Alex asked.

“I had the guardianship removed.”

Alex threw his hands up. “How? How can you do all these things?”

“I told you I have done nothing.”

“Then how?”

“I have a guardian angel,” Martin said.

That silenced Alex. Martin had imagined that it would be taken as a joke. But no, not Alex. Maybe a curiosity.

Alex turned pale. “I see. What is his name, may I ask?”

“Why?” Martin asked.

“They come by many names. And that can tell you much. If a good or bad angel, you see,” Alex said.

“We have not formally been introduced. He just shows up once in awhile. You know, it is true, but I assumed you would think it was absurd. I only mentioned it to amuse you two.”

“If it helps, I am amused,” the lawyer replied.

Alex leaned back in his seat, more relaxed. “If this angel withholds his name, that is likely not a good sign.”

“You’re serious?”

Alex nodded solemnly.

Martin turned his head slightly to privately roll his eyes. “Okay, would you like some more tea? Dima should be here soon. I guess he can take all of us.”

“No, thank you. I remember something I must do. Please, excuse me. I will meet you both on time. I promise.” Alex’s last words came as the door shut behind him, he left so suddenly.

Martin and the lawyer looked at each other.

“Odd fellow,” the lawyer said.

“You’re killing me with the British words.” Martin smiled, sincerely amused. His lawyer wasn’t half bad. “You work for Chip Stiles. How is that?”

“Very good. Very nice man, as you know.”

“Actually, I don’t know him at all. And I really don’t get why he is helping me. Why he got everything in order like this. You know, for me.”

“It was nothing really. You had already done everything. All he had to do is get the signatures. Alex is right, you know, it is interesting.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, I know. You said. Which spooked Alex.”

“But not you.”

“I’m not a religious man. But he certainly is. When I spoke to him on the phone yesterday, he was with a priest. I heard chanting, the Orthodox sort. Funny thing is that he does not wear a cross. I most expected that, actually. He wears a Perun signet ring, however. Most curious.”

“I think he mentioned that name to me once. What’s that about?”

“Old Ukrainian superstitions. They call the Old Faith or Old Ways. They lobby to be a national religion. The national religion is the goal. In the news quite a bit lately.”

“Okay.”

“But some Orthodox churches are very friendly to them. There is much in common with our church and the Old Ways. Maybe he was with that kind of priest yesterday. Are you of the book, Martin? Like Mr. Stiles?”

“Yes. More now than ever.”

“Well, your God, I understand, is older than old Perun. You will be fine.”

“What does that mean?” Martin asked.

“It appears to me that Alex does not support you. He will be at the meeting, but I would not expect support. I also imagine he is now on his way to meet his priest to do a little … um, how you say … hocus-pocus.”

“Witchcraft?”

“Yes. That’s it. Such things drain him, though. Did you see his face, the eyes? Terrible delusions.”

“Like guardian angels?”

“Well, no offense, but yes.”

Martin sat back in his chair. What he had experienced was not delusion. Unless it was so deep of one that he could not see it. Am I crazy? Has being here so long made that happen? No. Wait. No. It happened. And the jogging, that too.

These forces opposed something and came from somewhere. His mind flashed back to the little woman and her house-spirit, the Domovoi. She was so sincere.

The facts settled on him. These people were not superstitious or delusional. They were simply living their lives in the real world. The world that included near-tangible spiritual aspects. And these people functioned. They went to school, work, shopped, and paid the bills.

If Martin had seen a house spirit back home—really seen one—he would have been unable to function. Jenny would have institutionalized him.

In this whole mess, he never had a reason to continue or to expect success. Yet God made a way, moving people and events around like pawns. After all the times Martin was made to look foolish, it was they who were foolish in the end. His hopelessness had been wasted, for how utterly ridiculous was it to oppose God?

A car horn honked from the parking area.

“Dima is here. Off to America!” Martin exclaimed to his lawyer.

The lawyer rolled his eyes, and repacked the papers into his over-sized satchel.

Dima met them with a broad smile that held a new cigarette.

Martin jumped into the passenger seat and the lawyer got in the back, cradling his briefcase. Possibly, he’d leave this country within hours. Martin could not remember looking forward to anything more in his life.

Dima drove unusually carefully. Or he was not in too much of a hurry to get there.

“Dima?”

“Da. I go different way, okay.”

“Why?” Martin asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Very good. Thank you.”

The lawyer leaned his head in from the back seat. “Excuse me, I do not understand. That reason is insufficient. I am uncomfortable.”

“Welcome to my world,” Martin replied.

Dima’s serious, focused face cracked a small smile.

Kiev, Ukraine

The airport was calm on the weekday morning when the Stiles family checked in their bags. The younger children bounced around, excited to be going home to visit family. The teenagers sulked, but went along with it. Chip’s wife had been silent to him, packing, and taking care of everything that morning, and the few days before.

She had never been busier or more organized. Impressed at first, Chip soon realized she had always been so capable. He had not been around to see all that she had been to their work, their lives.

Instead of expressing his new found admiration verbally, he chose to dutifully carry out any task she asked for and try to anticipate in any way he could help. For once, this was not a marital political move on his part. He had been driven to prayer several times the past week, thankful he had any insight at all.

The family had an hour wait in the terminal before boarding time. Normally, he would have taken advantage of their connecting flights to Holland or Paris for a few days of sight-seeing, expenses paid. But this final journey home would be a straight shot because of his great desire to create the most distance between him and Ukraine as fast as possible.

He settled on a small act of penitence to make up for the decade of decadence. Chip settled the children in their seats with books, fixed an iPod for his eldest daughter, and then sat with his wife off to the side.

Her loneliness poured from the inside out as she stared through the rain-splattered, darkened windows in front of her.

“Won’t be long now,” he said.

She nodded and only moved to take his hand, holding it tightly before relaxing.

“I love you,” he said.

She didn’t reply but squeezed his hand again. That reassured him in ways his reasoning, all of it, seemed like wasted time. Waste of time for a wasted life.

“Honey, many changes seem like new chapters in a book to me. Each new child, each orphanage we added. School choices. Everything. But I feel now like we are opening a new book, you know?”

He couldn’t lie to her so he chose instead to squeeze her hand back. He simply was not in her depth to relate to her analogy, knowing he never committed opening the first book of their lives. In a way, it seemed to him that he had spent so many years reading a comic book hidden within the real book. Faking it. He had not been awake to his life for years. But she didn’t take her hand away and that relieved him.

“The kids are going to take to the change okay, eventually. And you will find something exciting to do.” She glanced over to the children. “Somewhere in me, hope has never left. I have asked for it to go, so I could rest. But eventually I found rest in the middle of it all.”

“It’s going to be different. I’m going to be different.”

She turned and searched his eyes. “You’ve never told me that before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be different. Be more of your old self, as you are doing. That’s enough.”

Chip nodded and studied the patterns of the floor tiles.

“What happened with that couple who was adopting?”

“They should be fine. Everything is in order. I pulled every string I had before leaving.”

“Are they the cause of these problems you’ve been having?”

“No. I am the cause of all my problems.” He lifted his head and turned to her without eye contact. “I was going to wait for a better time to tell you, but the A.C.F. is going to disown me very soon. It won’t be easy for me to find work at my age.”

“Chip …”

“We have some money. I can’t even tell you where it all is really supposed to have come from.”

“Give it all back.”

“Oh, it’s not that simple. I can’t. But the real problem is their … their reputation. It’s not the money. We will be okay for awhile. But they are going to answer for something I did years ago.”

“What?”

Chip doubled over, resting his elbows on his knees, hands rubbing his temples. He hid behind his fingers, a man waiting execution. Waiting for the end to come. He had no control anymore. This should not have come out here. Not in such a public place. He readied himself for the end. The gun to head. Time paused for him and he switched to a desire for it, for the end of it all. But how could he speak of such a thing with his wife.

“Chip. The rumor of that girl. It’s true?”

So that’s how. He was to pull the trigger himself. Well, I earned it. He would be the only dead man on the flight home. He nodded, and then stiffened, ready.

“I knew about that. Chip, I only wanted you back. I told myself that your lie was what kept us apart. But I’m furious with you.” She stood and tucked her purse under her arm. “We’re boarding.”

“They’re going to say she was 15.”

She picked up her bag before he could and snapped at her children to get in line, to not forget their things. She marched to the front of the line and straightened everyone in order.

A woman with evident money pushed ahead of her.

She exploded on the women in perfect Russian, sending her to the back of the line.

Chip stared after the cowed woman. What had he gotten himself into?

“Chip!”

Chip hurried over to her side.

Mariupol, Ukraine

The morning was the normal fall day, overcast and chilly. Only Martin was dressed appropriately. He had made a winter shopping day when it was clear to him that he was here for a long run.

Dima wore short-sleeves and the lawyer appeared happy in the same suit he probably wore most days.

A call came over Dima’s phone. He answered, but didn’t speak again. Soon after, he pulled the car to a stop in the middle of a vacant road between large, abandoned warehouses.

Martin looked for a black cat. Nothing.

A giant relief sculptured into the warehouse loomed on the left. A massive, maybe 20-foot, soldier’s face protruded from the side of the building’s main entrance. The helmet had a large, painted red star. Another WWII memorial and motivation to the workers in lieu of pay.

“Dima?”

Dima did not say anything, but gestured for the lawyer to remain where he was. His eyes pleaded with Martin to do the same. Dima got out of the Volga slowly and walked toward the trunk.

Another car pulled up as Dima closed the trunk. Out popped Sasha and the red-headed man with the cast. The man from the train, from his apartment.

Martin’s mind grappled for understanding the way a drowning man looks for floating wood. He trusted Dima, he reminded himself. He didn’t have a choice.

Sasha sat on the hood of his Mercedes, hands in black leather pockets.

Dima flailed his arms about more emphatically than Martin had ever seen.

Sasha dropped his head nodding in agreement. He dismissed the red-haired man, ordering him back to the car.

Two men emerged from the back seat and pulled the redhead in, then closed the doors.

Dima talked with Sasha awhile longer, movements calming.

The lawyer held his satchel tightly to him like a newborn baby, rocking it back and forth as he hummed.

Martin held out his hand. “It’s okay. I haven’t seen any guns.”

Sasha walked Dima to the car and let him into the driver seat before leaning in “Hello, Martin. I understand this is your big day. Congratulations.”

“Da. Thank you. What was that?”

“Oh. Nothing, really. That man did not get the memo, as we in business say. But it appears that he values his life more than money. We rejoice in this, eh, Dima.” Sasha patted the top of the taxi.

“I don’t know,” Dima answered.

“Now, Dima. I assure you he will not haunt you anymore. His own people have designs on him.”

“I told that man to leave before and here he is.”

“Dima, my word. Understand?”

“Da.”

The men said their goodbyes and the taxi continued on to the orphanage. The lawyer seemed more relaxed.

Martin studied Dima. Was he in a place to give answers? Apparently not. Martin bummed a cigarette from him instead.

Dima did his little ritual with the St. Augustine icon on his visor, kissing it. “Martin, this thing is big. That man, the one looking for you in the apartment. He watches you much. He has been here before to do work. Before your problem. And the man who is the chief is actually in Berdyansk now.”

“What is big about that?” Martin asked.

“No, Martin. I mean chief. As Sasha says to me, allied even in Kiev. He is man known as the Artist. I told you about him, remember. He invests in much work out of Odessa and Donetsk, the biggest kind.”

“So?”

“Okay. Sasha risks much in keeping their people away from you but says he has a plan. The Artist wants your daughter. Surely, that you understand.”

“No. What the hell? Why?”

“Martin, this man is very bad and he has an army here. Sasha can’t touch them. And because of Alex, the director knows much. And since the director knows much, so does the Artist. But Sasha says this man Stiles did everything right, and this lawyer has everything correct.”

“Of course I do,” the lawyer said.

“I thought this meeting was going to blow up because Stiles was against this,” Martin said.

“At first, yes. But something happened. This paperwork will get you your daughter. But it needs to be a really short meeting. And then I’m going to take you two a long ways before putting you on a train to Kiev.”

“Huh,” Martin said and turned to the lawyer in the back seat. “I gotta tell you. I was fixing to kick your ass. I pretty much woke up this morning looking forward to it. I thought that was all I had to look forward to.”

Dima looked surprised, then smiled approvingly at him and turned the music up a bit louder.

Chapter Fourteen

Mariupol, Ukraine

Traffic delays cost them time and they walked into the meeting fifteen minutes late. Originally, when Martin thought the meeting would be a sham, wasting their time would have been a pleasure. Getting as many digs that he could at this director would have been the goal, lending some semblance of revenge.

Now that his papers and lawyer were real, he reordered his thoughts and how he wanted to behave.

Desks had been moved to the center of the office into a longer T-shaped arrangement with the director at the top and the inspector at the other end. In the middle, on either side, was a spot for Alex and the doctor, who was already there, and Martin and the lawyer on the other side. This seemed appropriate to Martin that Alex was directly opposite him.

“Let’s begin then. Medical records.” The director waved her had at the doctor.

The doctor gave a lengthy report on the child’s condition. She was basically healthy.

The inspector rapidly read statements from her papers, mostly of Oksana’s history, only half of which Martin understood. He knew some of what he understood to be false; the teacher’s guardianship being removed voluntarily, and her unknown residence for nearly a month went unmentioned.

Alex scribbled notes even after the formalities had concluded.

“Madam, I have the papers for the final signatures.” The lawyer dug into his case.

“Wait,” the director snapped, “the child must approve of this first.”

Okay. This was the place where Martin expected the other boot would fall. Jenny warned him of this months before. She’d read many cases where the children were manipulated or even threatened to say they wanted to remain in the orphanage. Once the child did that, the prospective parents’ hands were tied. He had dismissed her, counted it among her needless worrying, but now it was a real possibility. In fact, it was a probable trump card.

Maybe that was why Stiles let everything go through, pushed it through. He and the director knew all they had to do was make the child, whose whole life had been in their control, say that she wanted to remain. That had to be it.

He berated himself for not being more belligerent to this point and prepared to make up for that in the end.

A teacher walked Oksana into the room. She and Martin connected instantly, her eyes showing surprise at first. The inspector and director caught this and transformed into the meekest grandmother types Martin had ever seen.

“Do you want to go with this strange man or stay here with your friends?” the director asked.

“I go.”

“You have met him here before in the summer, correct?” the inspector asked.

“Da.”

Apparently the women did not know he spoke some Russian, and talked freely with the child. “Did he hurt you?”

“Nyet.”

“Are you sure? You can tell us. You won’t get in trouble,” the director said.

“He did not,” Oksana answered.

“This is very important. I know you have heard what can happen. Sometimes the Americans use the children for body parts. And the government pays him so much money to adopt you. He loves money, not you. And you won’t be able to come back here ever again. And you know that you will be missed very much. So think about it. Are you sure that you want to go?” the inspector asked.

“You won’t get to go on the boat trip with your friends, either,” the director said.

“Da. I go with him.”

“Very well. Stupid girl,” the director said sweetly and with an angelic smile.

Martin was pierced through with pride and hope. His girl knew these people and could discern a lie from truth. He watched Oksana stiffen; brace herself bravely against the onslaught throughout. Boat trip?

Before the teacher led Oksana out of the room, the girl—his almost daughter—managed a smile at Martin which invigorated all his senses, renewed his spirit and obliterated his fears.

The lawyer walked the papers to either side of the room for the inspector and director to sign. The doctor’s papers were already complete.

The director looked seriously at the papers and then set them down, her pen with them. She leveled such a vicious gaze on Martin, he actually felt endangered.

A brief but deep cough from the outer room broke the tension. All heads turned to the open office door to see Sasha sitting on the waiting room couch, arms and legs sprawled out comfortably as if at home enjoying the game on TV. His gaze was fixed on the director and his expression clear.

Martin glanced back to the director.

Her eyes widened. She plucked the pen from the table and quickly signed the paper. Waving them out, she acted as one consumed with other matters on her desk.

Martin swung back to see the couch now empty.

Alex led the men outside and walked them toward Dima, who was smoking and on his cell phone.

“Alex? Where is Oksana?” Martin asked.

Alex ignored him and continued ahead faster down the hallway.

Martin and the lawyer nearly ran to catch up to him and his long legs. “Alex.”

“She requested to stay until tonight. Her friends have party and go away in evening to travel.”

Martin stepped in front of Alex. “No. No one asked me. I am her father, correct?”

“Yes,” the lawyer answered.

“Get Oksana, Alex. We have to go,” Martin said.

“Not possible. The director has already made plans for the party.”

Martin felt his whole body warm. Was Alex’s coldness making him feel that way? He searched for words while restraining his arms, but came up with nothing. The density of Alex’s presence was like a brick wall and Martin was without the tools to penetrate it. Impotence made him hotter still.

Dima came between them. “Alex, very carefully, please. The director is no longer guardian of this child. So what you say is actually what is impossible, no?”

“Nyet. The child insists. I suppose we could force her to come with us but that would be a scene I am sure. And an affront to the good director.”

“The good…? What the…?” Martin puffed his chest out.

Dima took his arm. “Martin, why don’t you take a short walk?”

Martin obeyed but stayed close enough to hear what he could.

Dima told Alex he knew he was not to be trusted. About the connection between Chip Stiles and the director.

Alex had spewed out how manipulated he’d felt by Stiles. First wanting Alex to work with him to remove the child, then Stiles changing his mind.

“I stand by the director. The gods have assured me that the child must stay.”

Alex went on to tell Dima that the child must stay. He was confident she would and that they were merely prolonging the inevitable. Then there was pure fast-paced babble. It was Russian but incomprehensible to Martin.

Alex chanted a strange string of words, and with some repetition. He was still chanting them as he fell, laid out on the asphalt where the force of Dima’s fist had placed him.

Alex still chanted; through blood that poured from his newly cut lip.

Dima waved to Martin angrily to return to the car and the three men got into the Volga. Dima yelled to Alex that they would be back at 8:00 and the director was to have Oksana ready.

“What happened there? Did everything fall apart, Dima?” Martin asked.

Dima did not answer but drove even faster and in the wrong direction.

“We were not supposed to leave without Oksana.” Martin wanted to twist the wheel from Dima’s grasp and go get his daughter.

They climbed a hill to the top of the city. Two golden domes appeared, then the rest of a church positioned to oversee the industrial wasteland of smog and grey that was Mariupol.

Dima slammed the brakes of the taxi in a spot reserved for a priest according to the sign. He jumped out of the Volga, leaving the door open. “I be back,” Dima shouted as he ran into the church.

The wait was longer than Martin anticipated. He found two cigarettes in the dash and seat and shared with the lawyer. They both got out and paced away from each other for some time before meeting together at the top of the drive. They stood at the edge of the hillside overlooking the city below.

The lawyer stubbed the cigarette on the sole of his shoe. “I submit the papers. They sign the papers. We go. That simple.”

“Yep,” Martin replied.

“All this, it is crazy. And the superstitious things. I am actually sad for these people.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man, Alex. He put a curse on Dima. That is why we are here, you know. He thinks he is in there removing a curse. All this for what does not exist,” the lawyer said.

“Oh. I can do that now.”

“Do what?”

“See without my eyes, old chap,” Martin replied. He put his hand on the shoulder of the small lawyer and smiled. One of his greatest allies, this lawyer, was there with him and he didn’t even know the man. Didn’t even want to know him. But making the lawyer more uncomfortable eased his own tension.

What Martin said was true and less frightening. The unseen was real. An odd confidence built in him.

As Dima stumbled from the church, the men turned together.

Martin felt compelled to say, “I think everything will work out. I’ll book a later flight.”

The Berdyansk gallery opened at 6:00 and everyone who attended had already dined out before the show. The champagne tables stationed in three places received many visits though. The lighting waned throughout the main room, drawing the eye and interest into the more lit show rooms, light streaming in from their large entrance ways. People mingled openly.

Willard was more excited than he had ever been. This event had come with some side drama around his little Oksana painting, but he understood the problem only in general. It was more of a distraction than he cared for. His man in Kiev would redeem himself and had surely resolved the little problem already.

In two hours the exhibit would close, and he would be in a car on his way to Zaporizhia to sleep. Then wake, finish the leg to Kiev, and receive the call that his art had arrived from Odessa. The cargo would be dispersed to Turkey, Holland, and Dubai. He would be home in Santa Barbara when the final confirmation, numbers wired to his bank account, came in. Beyond that, he would concentrate on Natasha. All this did not tax his mind as much as it simply passed through it.

Willard moved about the rooms, eavesdropping on impressions from the local upper-crust of their own artists. He had learned from them how best to present the works abroad. The locals made connections to themselves that only they could know, sometimes historic references to the Great War or peasantry. Or they would reflect on ideals that moved them, or once moved them when they were young.

He translated much of their senses to presentations of the works themselves. The deeper and more exotically he promoted the pieces, the more extended chatter resulted about them.

This business was never about how much money one had to support the arts. It was about how much one could afford to lose. With this exhibit behind him, he estimated only two more to do and he would be set.

People stopped him many times to congratulate him. Some to thank him for bringing their culture into the light and to the West. Others to just tell him what a great job he had done on the opening speech. He sipped from his glass, listening, and then frowned at his interpreter telling him to stop lying.

This amused them every time.

Thirty minutes into the show Willard’s phone rang. Only five people had his number and they were all business contacts. Willard excused himself and stepped out onto the darkened street for the nearest privacy and glanced at the name before answering. “Your man down here said he had it in hand, no?”

“Willard, the shipment has been compromised. It is unclear how right now. But one of the paintings does not look like it is going to make it.”

“You talking to the witch from the orphanage? She verify that?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?” Willard asked. Hopefully not his favorite.

“Oksana.”

Willard’s face twisted as he tightened his grip on the phone. “Okay. The old hag said she wants paid for the full cargo. I’ll be damned if I’m bending knee to her.”

“We will absorb that, Willard. It’s your show, but our responsibility. One we don’t take lightly. When we can see this better, it won’t happen again. Be assured,” the man on the other end said. He was apologetic in tone, but deadly sincere.

“Correct. The ship should be here soon from Mariupol. I will personally see the paintings here get loaded before it moves to Odessa. It’s yours from there. The Berdyansk director here has no issues. She will be our primary in future work.”

“Very good. Odessa people are ready with their load. No problem there, Mr. Jorgenson,” the man said.

Willard paced for a few moments in the back alley of the building. It had been some time since so much had gone wrong with one of his projects. He never liked coming home empty-handed after a long hunt. That was the feeling for him, the terrible onset of failure. He drew back to his past, a hunt he went on with his brothers. Extra exciting as a boy because they were on private property and out of season. But they never got anything that day.

On the way home he had seen the most beautiful bright red cardinal holding tight to a fir tree branch, its reflective feathers moving and changing in the wind and light. He shot it. It saved his day.

Willard pulled out his cell again to send a text message.

“Natasha. Make room for Dubai. All paid. Details soon. W.”

The sun hovered along the edge of the Sea of Azov where it met the evening sky. It was this beauty that gave pride of home to the ex-Soviet port town for generations. They had passed the view of it five minutes earlier on the way to Dima’s flat but the image was burned into Martin’s mind.

He had wasted a lot of time holed up in one apartment or another. He could have been more friendly, more of a tourist. He could have balanced his time better in many ways and been less depressed. But he also would have been killed. And he still didn’t know why.

Yes, there was resistance to his adoption from some very bad people. But it was never directly explained. Dima had alluded to the girls’ future probably leading to prostitution but that was expected. And he learned it was not considered a taboo as much as in America. An unfortunate vocation, but also a plain destiny. He could hear Dima saying, “This is life.”

Dima had called ahead to his wife and daughter in Berdyansk, asking them to prepare a meal to include Martin. Consequently, his wife needed them to make a stop at a market. Dima purchased a flower as well. Perhaps to compensate for the short notice he gave her regarding having a guest.

They made it to his complex, where Dima parked the Volga in a spot that could be seen out his apartment window. They walked into the apartment building and paused at the door while his wife verified that it was him through the peephole.

She was smiling broadly as they entered the apartment.

“Hello, Mr. Johnson. Very nice to know you,” she said in her best English.

His daughter, Katya, happily took their jackets from them and Martin noticed a change in Dima. He was at home here in a deeper way that reflected in his posture and his face reducing in tightness. He did not have to lead Martin into the living area because they were already in it.

Martin noticed enough to indicate it was also the family’s sleeping space. They had a kitchen, bathroom, and small all-purpose room. Martin winced a little knowing how hard and often this man worked. And how much time Dima had spent on him—had he kept up on paying what the man earned? Deserved? He had relied so much on Jenny for finances, but determined to cover Dima in a bonus of some kind before he left.

Dima’s wife came into the room with tea and crackers and Katya opened a foldout TV table on which for her to place it. The women hovered a few moments before returning to the kitchen.

“Dinner will be ready, soon,” she said.

Martin liked the tea, but didn’t love it. He had to smile as he drank from the ancient family cup at the fact that he had any opinion at all. Over the months Dima and Martin’s conversation would mix Russian with English, as either was as good or complicated for them as the other. Sometimes one would have the foresight to establish which they would choose for the day, but every day it would become a mixture.

“You go home soon, my friend,” Dima said.

“Da. I hope.”

“Faith, Martin. Your lawyer is on a train to Kiev. It is all but done.” Dima held his tea cup in the air in salute.

“Yes. Faith.”

“And the love of a father,” Dima saluted again.

The men were called into the kitchen. The aroma, color, and texture of everything which lay before him overcame Martin. The tablecloth was linen, probably old and family, and the centerpiece held the flower Dima had bought. His wife named the dishes for Martin as she served; Chicken Kiev, Holubtsi or Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, and Potato Varenyky or Potato Dumplings.

“I learned to make these as little girl, now Katya does it.”

“It all looks amazing. Thank you. And your English is very good.”

“Thank you. Eat all but remember there is after food, Blinki. Dmitry always forgets.”

Martin enjoyed that they didn’t talk very much. Eating seemed tied to reflection for them, though they saved discussion for dessert. During that time their days came out one to another. Dima was more sarcastic than Martin had known him to be. Katya was very serious about a belligerent customer at the kiosk. And Dima’s wife rapid-fired questions about America at him. What did they eat? Wear? Were the houses as big as she was told?

He had fun for the first time in months. He looked around more observantly and pictured this experience as maybe something in his future. He and Jenny and their teenage Oksana happily going on about nothing, inviting a friend over for a meal.

“Martin, it is time. You have your little duffle bag?” Dima asked.

“It’s in the Volga.”

“Let’s hope its still there.” He stood. “I will be late,” he told his wife.

“Thank you all again. It was very good,” Martin said.

“You’re welcome. And your Russian is good, too,” Dima’s wife replied.

When the two were in the taxi again, they set out on a silent ride to Mariupol, to the orphanage. The sky had darkened much earlier lately. Martin had gotten used to the limited city lighting, along with the cold water and power shortages. The beer was something he would not miss. It wasn’t bad beer—it was mostly missing the taste of relaxation that came with beer at home.

His heart held two worlds now. He never would have thought there was room for two, but it was the case. Though the new world might just be a pain he was holding onto it because it was all the feeling he had known for some time. He wouldn’t know for sure until he returned home.

They made it back to Mariupol in record time. The streets were barren, a soft rain dropping the day’s soot down upon it. As they closed in on the neighbourhood of the orphanage, unease gripped Martin. Shifting from one position to another, he fought the urge to ask for another cigarette. Finally he remembered he’d bought his own pack.

Dima parked as close to the entrance as he could. There were still cars there from the little going away party. The men got out and walked in continued silence to the entrance and through to the cafeteria. The room was mostly empty, only a janitor with broom sweeping up all the crumbs and spills.

Foolish fear took over Martin. He had made a mistake to hope. To hope in stupid lawyer papers. Or in a God and his guardian angel. He turned and ran toward the director’s office, Dima inches behind. They burst into the office.

The director sat behind her desk. Alex stood at the large curtains, looking out the window to the rain.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Oksana,” Martin demanded.

“Yes. She waited for you, but you were not here. I told her not to worry. She so wanted to go to see her little friend Anya off. She is on her way to the shipyard. You can collect her there,” the director rattled off in Russian.

Martin turned his head to Dima in his confusion.

“Shipyard, Martin. Ukainian form.” Dima answered.

Martin soothingly rubbed his hair and made eye contact with Alex, who had chosen a seat by the window, his demeanour like a paying customer at a dinner theatre.

“Okay. No choice. We go,” Dima said to Martin.

“Wait. Where are her friends going?” Martin asked.

“This is not your business,” replied the director.

“Martin, they go to Odessa to fly to America for a visit with host families,” Alex said.

“Shut up. Not your business either,” the director said.

“Really? By boat? Not by a train or van. That seems unusual,” Martin said.

“Martin, we must go,” Dima said.

Martin looked at his friend, his real friend, someone he had come to know. He knew something, was withholding something. His earliest conversations with Dima came back to his mind. Then you see things as they are. You have eyes that see from your heart. That is where truth is, Mr. Martin. But things there are always what they are. Oksana is pretty, you say. She will make money for them.

Martin walked directly to the director’s desk.

She was motionless, but that coldness meant nothing to him because she was nothing to him.

“They return?” Martin asked, his Russian taking hold.

The director leaned back and laughed.

“They return?” he asked again.

“They don’t even exist. Only Oksana exists. And you are her father. I am not responsible for whatever happens to her at the docks.”

The mixture of evil laughter and truth froze Martin. He had not been a parent for a full day and already lost his daughter. And maybe lost her for good.

“That is important, Madam Director. Do the children return?” Alex asked. He stood up from the window, as if to be ready for the answer.

“Shut up,” she replied.

“Martin! Now!” Dima shouted.

Dima grabbed Martin’s arm and ran him out of the room. He held his arm tightly until Martin’s resistance stopped. The men raced to the Volga and started for the port.

Chapter Fifteen

Everything was in order for the take-over of the shipping company. Sasha’s men had laid the groundwork with the leaders of the Donetsk franchise. Sasha was aware that the secret would only last so long, so they put in place a communication plan to execute at the right time, 30 minutes before the meeting. All the men on the docks, the taxi drivers, down to key protection managers and pimps—all would have only 30 minutes to get to the warehouse at the port to learn of their new masters.

Sasha had built as close to a friendship as possible with his master in Zaporizhia over 25 years and it seemed to be paying off. Over the past weeks he had created and perfected a business plan. His presentation had been relaxed and relational. The setting had been ideal, in his masters’ favorite room in the mansion. And the gift of vodka the best brand. They finished the bottle and shook hands. His former master would present the numbers to his equal in Donetsk in such a way that he would understand it as an investment, a partnership. The projected increase by connecting Berdyansk with Mariupol would be beneficial to both. There would be no war. And when asked, as he would be, if Sasha would be part of the deal, he would say no.

Sasha would be covered with full protection and pay for it like anyone else. He could be tapped for specific transport tasks as requested, but the cargo would have to be agreeable to him—that being the only requirement. The final words were the most important to him. Sasha kept coming back to them.

You were my best man, Sasha. Now you will be my best client. It was still slavery, but a kind he could live with.

The men made it to the Mariupol port with an hour to spare. Sasha had his men pull the car to a dark area far from the meeting spot to wait. They got out of the car but kept a tight parameter as they smoked and milled about the car. The night was without stars and drizzling, which distracted even the most bored observer.

Thankfully, it was a heavy shipping day so the workers that did see them took little notice. This was so big a day for him that in the excitement of it he had neglected to factor the time properly. Though sometimes being early was good.

Sasha lit a cigarette and reviewed his short speech in his mind. Simple and to the point. Either way, they would witness the good Captain leaving to enjoy a much earned retirement. He hoped the man would leave quietly, but he would leave no matter what. Then he would introduce them to their new leader, approved by Zaporizhia and Donetsk. Business as usual, the only change being that business would be booming. Then he would make a direct and clear instruction that he was not going to be part of their business. Simply a businessman who worked among them. Their new leader, Vadim, would then affirm the new relationship boundaries.

Sasha looked to his watch and worked to make himself relax. His senses were alerted to the sound of a car shortly before it entered his view at a distance. He broke the invisible tether to his car and walked 20 feet out to get a closer look, to check himself. But he had seen correctly.

The car was Dima’s Volga, now parked near one of the ships. The expulsion of the redheaded, nearly be-headed, American was to have put that problem to rest. Dima’s American friend was supposed to be on a train to Kiev with his little girl.

Sasha sent one of his men in black with instructions to slowly skirt along the dock’s edge. To listen in, and if needed, signal to Dima that he was here.

Martin and Dima hurried out of the taxi and ran to the white orphanage van parked under the dock’s light post. Martin swung the back doors open while Dima worked open the passenger side door. Nothing.

“There.” Dima pointed to a lone pair near a cargo ship.

They ran to them, slowing as they approached. Time stalled as Martin came onto the scene of the teacher, Valentina, and Oksana waving goodbye to the other children on the ship.

Their good-byes resounded as eternal echoes.

Martin faintly heard,“I’ll see you in America, Oksana girl!”

“Da! Stay out of trouble! Svetlana, take care of Anya!” Oksana cried out. She was wiping tears made invisible by the night mist.

A man came at them from the left and took Dima aside. Martin barely noticed, being in the middle of pure relief at finding Oksana. Yet what a terrible goodbye. The ship was actually pulling away.

He had his girl, but the ship was underway and he knew where it would end. By will, he moved the weight of his emotions to the reunion with his daughter. He walked to them, trying not to scare them.

All he could see was Oksana. The teacher, Valentina, had passed from his mind and all the bitterness along with it. Martin bent down to the girl’s level “Hi sweetie. Are you ready to go?”

“Da.”

“Let’s go home, okay?”

“Da,” Oksana replied. She took his offered hand.

Martin turned to walk her to Dima, thinking, Dima, taxi, train, plane, home. But he walked into an outstretched arm.

“Martin, I must walk down the dock to speak with someone. I will be right back. Wait in the car with your daughter.”

Martin got Oksana into the Volga to dry off. He looked, but could not make out the other people Dima was now speaking with.

“You need to stop that ship,” Dima demanded.

“Not possible, Dima,” Sasha replied, “I have a meeting in ten minutes.”

“You’re going to be the boss here, boss of that ship. Stop it.”

“I can’t. Dima, you and the American got your girl. It’s done. It’s good.”

“Stop it, Sasha. You know it isn’t.”

“Da. But I cannot stop it. I know it isn’t right. But the deal is done. I stop that, and it’s not just my company. It’ll be war.”

“Sasha.”

“No, Dima. It is suicide and more. You need to understand. Impossible.”

Dima looked directly into his friend, as deeply as he knew how. And he found Sasha there. The man of hard decisions and choices. A man from the very soil of suffering was speaking the truth. It was impossible. And the cost too high. It would be the domino that knocked down all the rest. Katya came to his mind and his dreams for her. Sasha was saving his life.

Sasha held both of Dima’s shoulders tightly and sadly.

“This is life,” Dima said.

Sasha nodded.

The lead crewman of the cargo ship yelped out his final order to the deckhands. They scrambled to pull the wet lines into their holds. He lit a cigarette and looked up to the high bridge wing to wave to the watchman. The watchman disappeared into the ship to report to the captain.

The crewman looked over to the portside rails at the seven young girls huddled together there for warmth. He heard their laughter and watched their silliness. He called over two men who had completed the cleanup and pointed to the girls. He finished his cigarette and flicked the butt to the sea before going through the hatch to check on the engine room.

The two men came to the girls and grabbed arms, pushing them forward like ducks in a row. One of them took the lead and the other behind the end of the newly formed line. The one behind screaming expletives and the one in front yelling directions. Once inside the ship the girls were led down three levels of staircases and then to the dry-storage locker, a steel cage where the food was kept and protected. The men pushed the girls into the room, closing the chain-linked cage door behind them, and then one grabbed the lock hanging on the door and clasped it tightly.

Anya was already sitting against the back wall, sobbing and wrapped up in Svetlana, inconsolable.

One of the men stayed behind to watch them through the cage.

“Shut up, bitch!” the man shouted, “or I’ll shut you up.”

He remained a while longer, staring, and smiling. His fingers slowly slithered through the cage door. His grey eyes focused more intently as his mind transformed his threat into actual intention.

The ride back to Berdyansk felt like a century to Martin. Every so often he caught Dima looking over at him. This made things even more difficult for Martin. Dima, his answer man, was hoping and pleading with him with every glance for something. A sentence or a word that would bring reason to the madness. Something redeeming to the hell they were a part of.

Were they a party to it? They knew, but could do nothing. Can we do nothing? Go to the police? No, everyone gets a cut. Martin thought back to a chess game he once played with his grandfather and the feeling of his first check-mate. But sometimes there was no way out, no escape. Sometimes good lost.

He had expected to lose Oksana. Do we always expect to lose? No. We pretend we are losing, but always imagine we will win in the end. That stupid, relentless hope. In truth, we can lose. But we only believe it when we do.

“We will see Anya in America?” Oksana asked.

The men remained silent. By Dima’s rigid expression Martin knew it was his job to answer.

“I hope so,” Martin replied.

“Will we, Papa?”

Martin sucked that word in and held it tightly. He had been parenting for an hour and already it was made clear to him that he was incapable. But the name was inescapable. Papa.

“Da.”

“Anya!” Oksana sat back into her seat, smiling.

Dima nodded.

It affirmed Martin, even if it was a sad nod. They pulled the Volga into the train station 15 minutes before boarding time. Dima parked among the other taxis at the front of the station and got out first. Martin placed an envelope with the bonus in his seat before getting out. Dima started to light a cigarette, but changed his mind and replaced the pack to his pocket.

The men stared at each other across the top of the taxi. What needed to be said was too big for words. The noise of the station spilled out into the parking lot and the men hung onto it like a lifeline.

“Are you coming to America with us, Mr. Dima?” Oksana asked. She had made her way around the front of the taxi.

Dima smiled, walked to her, and knelt down. He took her small hands into his and fought back tears. “Not right now, cutie. Maybe one day. But you don’t forget your old Ukraine, okay? And behave.”

Oksana smiled, hugged him, and ran back to Martin.

Martin looked at Dima again without words. There were still no words to be found between them.

“I’ll email you,” Martin said.

“Good. You better go.”

Martin bent down and straightened Oksana’s little backpack and took her hand again, leading her into the station. Yes, they needed to bond, but he was more consumed with her safety. He kept her tight to him in the long ticket line while mentally running over the immigration steps he would need to take in Kiev. She still needed medicals to take to the embassy to get her visa. And he would have to rent his own place for two nights before leaving.

He noticed that Oksana was getting irritable. Then he realized he didn’t know what to do for her. Jenny came to his mind, the need of her.

“Are you hot? You want to take your coat off?”

“Yes.”

He held her backpack as she climbed out of the new coat he had picked up one weekend. He had bought it, not even knowing why as it was warm then, and kept it stuffed in his duffle bag for two months. He placed the backpack on her and moved her forward in line with him. He was organizing his tickets and useful cell phone numbers for Kiev when he felt the tug on his coat.

“Papa.”

“Da?”

“Your English is good.”

Dima watched them disappear into the light of the station and got back into his car. He remained there for awhile, thinking over different events of the past few months. Some frightful or mundane, others unexplainable. But it had been a very long time since he had been confused. Confused in his emotions.

At his age, he knew his rut and how to stay in it. But this, this mixing of such joy with equal depth of pain, it was normally to a lesser degree and manageable.

But this, how to measure it? There was no way for him. God. And time.

He started the car and headed towards home, more out of habit than anything else, his mind still in shock. He had to get moving. And to let go of the ship, the girls, and their hopeless destiny. And to somehow shake his guilt of knowing, watching, and doing nothing.

They were a bunch of Katyas. Did I trade them for Katya? Donetsk would have sent someone to kill him and Sasha if they interfered. He let go with the most sorrowful crying, turning into pure wailing. Then hopeless sobbing. Then he was home.

He parked the car and slumped his way up to his flat. He shut the doors behind him, toed off his shoes, and put on his slippers. Dima turned each lock with a strange slowness and importance. He peered into the room and saw his wife and daughter were already asleep. He didn’t want to wake them or be with them, or be with anyone. He moved into the kitchen and dimmed the lights.

Dima took a glass from the pantry and then put it back. He went to the fridge and found a beer instead. Opening it, he moved to the little padded bench at the kitchen table. Sliding back into it, he drank and stared. And waited. He waited for the relief of sleep. He was nearly drifting off when he felt a hand on his forehead. His wife had slipped in and sat herself in the chair next to him.

“Tired man,” she whispered.

“Da.”

“American leave with his daughter okay?”

“Da.”

“Good.”

She looked out the window onto the different night-time activities of the adjacent apartments while she stroked his hair and forehead.

“Did you hear the news tonight?” she asked while still transfixed by the activity outside, “some crazy man, Alexander somebody, in Mariupol strangled the orphanage director there. She’s dead. Then he snuck on some ship on its way here to Berdyansk. He killed a man and forced them to kick some of the passengers off. They said the knife he used was strange. Like an ancient dagger, black handle with some kind of old religious symbol on it.”

She looked down to see her husband smiling while dropping off to sleep. She stayed a moment to watch him before going to the other room for a blanket. She returned to the kitchen to cover him and then she sat a moment to finish off his beer before going to bed.