“In Toronto, did you . . . were you . . .”
“Was I a prostitute? No. I only cleaned offices. I liked Canada. I was there for a year. That’s when Zoya came over. By then, I was eighteen and she was sixteen. They got a passport for her saying she was eighteen. We lived in the same apartment. We were happy. Then I received word that I was to come to America. I told them that I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with Zoya. But I owed them lots of money for my travel, for my apartment. They kept my passport. I had to do what they said.”
“How’d you cross the border?”
“In a canoe. First, I was delivered to Mikhail’s Canadian partners in Thunder Bay. Then the Canadians brought me to a cabin about ten miles north of the American border. From there, we carried a canoe into the woods and paddled across the border. We looked like any other tourists. When I arrived on the American side of the lake, I met Mikhail. He brought me to his cabin.”
“The cabin we’re going to now?”
Ana shuddered and wrapped her coat up around her neck. Her answer, a single word—“yes”—fell heavy from her lips, as if it carried the weight of years of regret.
“And the cleaning company, here in America?”
“That is how Mikhail hides everything. The girls are hired to clean. They go to a location. They perform the services requested, but the money came as a payment for cleaning services. The books are legitimate to anyone who doesn’t know the truth.”
“And no one ever slipped up? No one ever let it out that this cleaning company was a front for prostitution?”
“Mikhail’s clients are carefully chosen. You don’t come to Mikhail without a referral, and then he looks into your background. The clients must pass his inspection before he will permit his girls to go to them. Mikhail sells discretion, a very rare and expensive commodity for which he is greatly rewarded. His clients can be assured of the most beautiful women, but more importantly, they are assured their privacy. None of Mikhail’s girls have ever been arrested. Secrecy and loyalty—that is what Mikhail values above all else.”
“And Reece ensured that privacy?”
“Reece was important to everything. Reece kept Mikhail in the shadows. One time, a client was arrested for stealing prescription pills from his own pharmacy. He tried to cut a deal to keep his license and his job. He offered to hand Mikhail’s operation over to the police if they would turn a blind eye to his theft. Reece heard about this man and what he had offered the authorities. Reece took care of it while Mikhail waited at the cabin, ready at any moment to cross the border. The pharmacist was later determined to be a liar.”
“No one believed the pharmacist?”
“The pharmacist recanted, said he made the whole thing up. I suspect that the recantation saved the pharmacist’s wife from a terrible fate. That’s how Mikhail operated.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
Ana looked at me and shook her head, as if to warn me off a topic. “You must not confuse me with an innocent. I am not innocent—I have not been for a long time. I was innocent once, in Canada. Now I am . . . I am not sure what I am anymore.”
“You could have walked away. You didn’t have to go along with what they wanted you to do.”
I tried to soften my words so that they didn’t come across as condemning. I don’t think I succeeded on that score. Ana again turned her gaze to her window. The darkness outside and the dim lights from the dashboard gave her an eerie reflection against the glass. After a few minutes, she said, “I will tell you what I am. You will judge me, I know, but at least you will understand.”
CHAPTER 36
“I met Mikhail the day they brought me across the border,” Ana said. “He was waiting for me in a clearing of pine trees. He was so American, wearing his plaid shirt and bright smile. I thought he was more handsome than any actor I had ever seen. He spoke Belarussian, and he kissed my hand like I was something more than just a cleaning woman from Lida.
“As he led me through the woods, he told me about the trees, showing me the difference between the many pines. He told me about the forest fires that swept through and cleared everything out, and about mushrooms and lichen that survive the fires to grow the forest again. He was so smart and caring, and when he held my hand, I felt like I was in a dream.
“He brought me to a cabin in the middle of the woods, two or three kilometers from the lake. He called it a cabin, but it was nicer than any house I had ever lived in. I remember thinking that if I could live in such a house, I would never leave. My bedroom was in the basement. He said that I would be staying in that room until it was safe for him to bring me to Minneapolis. He told me that he was putting me down there for my protection; but the door locked from the outside, not the inside.”
“You were his prisoner?” I asked.
“I was his prisoner, yes, but I did not feel like a prisoner—not at first. He spent time with me in that room. He brought me food, fresh fruits, and wine. He would drink with me and tell me how beautiful I was. I had never felt so special. But he would also tell me that his friends from Canada had spent a great deal of money on me. He told me that he paid my debt to them, and that I now had a debt to pay to him. He would kiss me and tell me that he would help me, that I should trust him.
“It was wonderful at first, but as time went by, he changed. He would stop bringing me food—for days at a time. I could hear him walking on the floor above me, and I would scream to him, but he would not come down. Often he would wake me in the middle of the night and he would do things to keep me awake. He would not let me sleep. This went on for a long time. I did not understand why he was depriving me of food and sleep. But now I understand. He was changing the way I think, the way I saw who I was.”
“He was breaking you down,” I said.
“Yes. And when I thought I would go insane, he changed again. He became loving. He would come to me and hold me. He was protecting me, and I believed him.”
Ana sniffed and wiped tears from her cheeks.
“That’s when he started to make me do things . . . sexually.”
“He forced you?”
“Force? No, he did not force me, not in the way you might think. It’s hard for people to understand. He had become everything to me. I wanted to show him how much I loved him. When I did the things that pleased him, he showered me with love and attention. I felt like I was the most special person on the planet.”