The Sacred Beasts

by Bev Jafek

  They were up in the attic for more than an hour. Only when they found the revolvers and rifles did they relax. “A German luger!” Ruth exclaimed. “This brings back my fondest memories of the Holocaust.” They fell into one another’s arms and laughed long and hard. “This is Life, eh?” Ruth finally said. “Raw enough for Pilar!”

  “You never think that you’re growing old in this house, that things are passing you by.”

  “No!”

  “But it’s happening with you!”

  Ruth kissed Monserrat and said, “There’s no one I’d rather defend a castle against the Mafia with, no one I‘d rather protect sex slaves with!”

  “That’s the spirit!” They laughed long and hard again. They could hardly stop laughing.

  “When this is over, we’re going to have the most magnificent sex of our lives!” Ruth said.

  “Oh, yes! That’s just what we’ll do!” Monserrat began loading one of the rifles.

  “Do you know how to shoot?”

  “Yes, Spain was a dangerous place for a long time after the Civil War. My father taught me when I was young. I was a pretty good shot, though I never wanted to kill anything.”

  “I carried a handgun when I camped alone in Patagonia. I never wanted to kill, either.”

  “If we have any time, later, these guns should be oiled.”

  Loud noises suddenly came from the living room. “They’ve come! Let’s bring some guns down but put them into another room. We don’t want to frighten those women!”

  When Ruth and Monserrat entered the living room, they were met by what appeared to be an alternate universe: a large group of Eastern European women wearing togas made roughly from bedspreads and drapes were coming out of the tunnels, led by two women in war paint with assault rifles. It’s a reverse Alice in Wonderland, Ruth thought, with all the marvels coming out, rather than going down, the rabbit hole. Pilar and Libre had not worn masks to disguise themselves. They had painted their faces, necks, breasts and arms in bright shades of red, orange, yellow, purple, green and blue in abstract shapes with black lines around each mass of color. Libre had shaved her Mohawk off and colored her head as well, and Pilar had moussed her hair into multi-colored radiating points. The effect was thrilling and horrifying while it completely disguised their features.

  Monserrat took one look, drew a deep breath and said, “Everyone please sit down. Does any one of these women speak Spanish fluently?” One woman came forward with a smile. “Please translate for me,” Monserrat said to her. “I want you all to know that you are now in a feminist house. We are going to see to your needs and arrange your return to your countries, perhaps as early as tomorrow. You will stay here comfortably until then. We have your passports back, and we will devise a plan to return you successfully to your homes. I hope you know that you are now safe, however strange the situation might appear to you.”

  The translator smiled broadly and raised a fist. She translated and then the other women smiled, cheered and raised their fists. “We assumed as much,” the Spanish speaker said, “since you sent your most fearsome aborigine warriors to rescue us. And what warriors they were! The man-dog in that house of corruption will be terrified for the rest of his rotten criminal life!” The women cheered again and Pilar and Libre, through their war paint, smiled and glistened like colorful exotic beasts coming out of a rainforest, caught suddenly in the first rays of unfettered sunlight.

  Monserrat then began arrangements for their dinner, showers, rooms and other immediate needs. Tamara had called two other women who often worked in Monserrat’s house. They were discussing how to get eighteen T-shirts, pairs of underwear, and shorts quickly for the women’s return. Ruth, after greeting the women, worked in another room, oiling, cleaning and loading the revolvers and rifles. This was finished quickly, and she then came back into the living room and stared at the scene in fascination. It’s as though the world is creating a new species, all the while a mass extinction is going on, Ruth thought.

  Tamara came to Monserrat and announced in dismay, “Another dozen or so women are now coming through the Civil War entrances!”

  Monserrat looked at her in astonishment. “Who can that be? Another liberation?”

  “Another stage of the revolution. I called Alex, too,” Pilar said with a grin. “She has such a good head for technology and any kind of planning. She was incredibly excited and said she would bring some professors of Eastern European languages, two medical doctors in case any of the women is sick or has become addicted, and some cinematographers. She wants to expand on the film. But look, it’s still Gay Pride Day and the night is young!” In fact, it was nearly two am, but everyone was too excited for fatigue. Pilar’s eyes and floridly colored face glowed even more in the room’s soft golden light, like a force that must always resist restraint. She and Libre clearly would not remove their war paint until dawn. They continued standing like totemic animal spirits protecting the house.

  Alex was suddenly in the room, breathless with excitement. She shouted in laughter when she saw the faces of Pilar and Libre. “Oh, great! That’s just great!” she said. She hugged them both. “What a thing to have done!” Very quickly, there were many new women’s faces in the room, radiant with intelligence and fascination. This may be the greatest night of all in Monserrat’s house, several of them thought. Sylvie was the last to enter. She was very excited, and her eyes traveled rapidly over the room, then rested on the faces of Pilar and Libre with passionate hunger. The painting has begun, Ruth thought; she looks as wild and primitive as our warriors. We have three aborigines here! Sylvie’s painting of Pilar’s face should be the cover of her book.

  After some cheers and war whoops, several groups separated into their administrative functions. Alex and the cinematographers came to Pilar and Libre; the professors began speaking to the women; the medical doctors began examining the women one-by-one and listening to the professors’ translations; Monserrat and Tamara continued to plan for and meet the women’s immediate needs. Every face in the room was radiant. At that moment, you would never know that it was all based on a terrible criminal violation of women, Ruth thought. Whatever trauma and fear the women might feel is beginning to heal in this atmosphere and probably would not in any other.

  Alex began interviewing Pilar and Libre immediately. Libre said a few words and quickly left, since she had, given the wildness of their appearances, taken the group almost directly to the house and needed to park the vans in another part of the city. Alex instantly formulated her plan. “I want to begin shooting you, Pilar, describing what you did and integrating your footage of it. Then, we’ll have the women tell their stories one-by-one, after the doctor has seen them, and we’ll do translations into other languages. The professors will help with that and I’ll pitch in, too. The film should close with a plea to governments worldwide to make a much stronger effort to combat human trafficking. I’ll do that with you. Spain has been ridiculously negligent and the U.S. puts far more effort into restricting illegal drugs, which is not as great a human tragedy, in my opinion. We can just say it straight out. Hey, Europe, here’s your dirty secret: abuse of women and children. We admire Europe’s culture, history and art; but, scratch the surface, and it’s this, it’s this, this! It’s what you’re seeing here!” Then Alex and the cinematographers began to fill their screens with a truly unique human face, and Pilar began to speak.

  “This brothel was extremely visible, you’d have to say. It was lit up by so many gaudy neon colors, it made me think of a Gay Pride Day flag. The land area was as big as an industrial park, and the building itself was like some awful kitsch chateau. On the inside walls were pornographic paintings, and it had some cute extra features, like a special room where disabled men in wheel chairs could be put in a strap and raised up to fuck some woman, who I assume had better not laugh. I first heard about this place from another gypsy. He said the international Mafia ran it with eighteen Eastern European women forced into prostitution. He’d been there
a few times and looked around, saw the barred rooms they kept the women in, knew when there were the fewest thugs defending the premises. I watched the place from the parking lot for two days, so I knew the traffic in and out myself. My lover, Libre and I, bought assault rifles from some men the gypsies know if you know who to ask, so I decided to liberate the place on Gay Pride Day. I’m proud to be gay, to be woman and even to be a gypsy. I came from good people. My mother was a great tocaor in Spain, and my father was a writer. I’m even more proud to have liberated this piece-of-shit brothel held by the international Mafia that you can more truthfully just call the global cesspool.

  “You, women who see me now, it was a whole lot easier than you’d ever think! There was a two-hour period in the afternoon when only the big crime boss’ son was there, and he had just a handgun. The real thugs come in later in the day, since they have to stay all night, when the customers, scum at the bottom of a urinal, are there. So, I had nothing more than this slick little pig to deal with. Oh, he was a lovely little thing; he had the most expensive black leather jacket I’ve ever seen, a hairdo as primped and styled as a TV news anchor’s, a smirk on his face and a tough-guy swagger. He was the boss’ son, the head of some little shit Spanish division of the Mafia. As soon as I looked that little pig in the eye, I knew he was an abject coward who would give me anything I asked for to save his useless ass. And so, he did—the women, the computers, the money in the safe, the women’s passports, everything. I didn’t want the money. It’s covered with shit like the men who paid it out. I tossed it all over his wretched body. When his ‘friends’ find him, I bet they take the money, and he doesn’t get anything back!

  “I filmed it all, so I’ve got proof of the location, two previous night’s worth of license plates on the scum that go there and the plates on even a few police cars, ‘officers’ who go there to unload their shit like the rest. When I was done, I hexed the place, another thing I learned as a gypsy. So, if you’re looking at me, maybe you think you’re seeing an Indian from some tribe in South America. No, I’m just a gypsy who grew up in Las Tres Mil Viviendas, and that means I grew up mad as hell. And, if you’re looking at me, it also means that this film will be all over the Internet and all over the world, that you’ll be hearing from the women we took out of that Spanish toilet, that all the stuff in the Mafia’s computers has also been released on the Internet—given to the CIA and Interpol first, since I don’t trust my own country with it—and that we’ve returned the women to their countries safely. You know what else you’re going to see? The crime boss’ son, who was such a coward and who I left chained and taped to his own overgrown safe . . . well, I filmed his naked ass for you, so you can also see just what he gave up papa’s ‘business empire’ to protect! It’s all coming up, friends, keep watching!”

  Pilar was silent and looked up at Alex, who was awed and forgot to say ‘cut.’ “Wow, Pilar. That’s good—no, it’s great! Now we’ll cut to the women. There are a few the doctor is done with.” She was silent and had clearly been overwhelmed by the implications of what they were doing. Then she looked up and said, “You bloody Indian, are you going to write about it? I hope you are, you bloody Indian, because if you won’t, I will!” They both started laughing and could hardly stop. Pilar’s eyes were tearing over and some of her war paint was coming off. Then, they hugged one another and snapped back to attention on the film. However ancient Pilar’s war paint might be, they both knew they were being summoned by the future. Sylvie was transfixed, as was Ruth, and any other woman watching the event that was unfolding.

  After several hours, the different working groups had results to show. They had determined that the women came from only three countries—Romania, Serbia, and Poland—and only one woman was an addict. They decided to keep her behind for treatment by one of the doctors and begin moving the other women after a single night’s sleep. After considering the possibilities, like putting the women in their country’s embassies or on air flights or trains, the group concluded that it was not safe for their names to appear in any databases. The most likely reprisal from the Mafia would be, given the degree to which corruption and bribery are embedded in Spanish culture, to pay off the police, the transportation lines, and any corporation or organization that might be called upon to assist or transport the women. The Mafia could then keep the women in the country, take them hostage again and, through coercion, find out the whereabouts of Pilar, Libre, the computers, and the film. The professors volunteered to drive the women to their homes, entering France as quickly as possible. They would claim that the women, who looked very young, were vacationing and considering work/study opportunities in Spain. There was hardly any close surveillance at the highway borders, little use of computers, and very likely great respect for the professors, who would never be suspected of transporting prostitutes. Five professors in five cars would start ferrying the women that afternoon, after everyone had a night’s sleep. Pilar and Libre would live in Monserrat’s house for an indefinite stay and always enter and leave through the Civil War entrances. The group was satisfied with this plan.

  The groups of women, working together, advanced quickly on this course of action. At four am Alex was exclaiming over the contents of the Mafia’s computers. By six am, she was running off CDs of the computers’ contents as well as copies of the rough film, which would be distributed to several women besides her for safekeeping and released over Youtube if anything happened to Pilar, Libre, or the prostitutes. Everyone present was sworn to silence concerning what had happened at Monserrat’s house that night.

  Alex then broached the subject she had been avoiding all night. “Pilar,” she said, “What you’ve done is really great and its importance goes way beyond the plans we’ve made tonight. I strongly urge you, in fact I beg you, to release the film on Youtube now, as well as getting the computer data out to the CIA and Interpol immediately, with Internet distribution later. We should not wait until something terrible happens to you. There’s no way I can exaggerate the importance of this film and the effect of directly releasing it to the whole world on the Internet. Anything could happen! It could bring down the government. It could strike a blow against human trafficking that’s unimaginable. You’d be the most famous woman in Spain. You could change the way gypsies are seen in one act. Hell, you might end up as Prime Minister of Spain! Please, please, don’t wait to release it. Do it now! You’ve done the hard part with your unimaginable courage. There’s no one else who would ever have thought of this. It’s so much more than a Gay Pride Day stunt. It’s . . . as close to human greatness as we get. Now, let go of it.”

  Pilar was silent for a long time, thinking. She looks like that bull coming out of the water in Doñana, Sylvie thought. The room was perfectly silent. “Alex speaks for us all,” said one of the professors. “You should give this to the whole world now. It’s badly needed, and it’s much too important to hide away,”

  At last Pilar spoke. “There is something you don’t know about your Pilar, something you would never suspect. Actually, I am not an exhibitionist. I never was, however I’ve seemed when I come here. I’m happy when I come here, so I say a lot. But, I am a more private person than you know. Really, I treasure my privacy. I would hate to be the most famous woman in Spain, I’m oblivious to money, and I hate status seeking even more. You, Alex, poor Alex! You want to be the most famous woman in Spain. It’s a crazy thing for an American woman to want but then, you come from that crazy country where everyone is an exhibitionist and violent on top of it. No, I did this just for the purpose I gave you, no more. I’m sorry to disappoint you. You can’t release the film now.”

  “I can only hope you will reconsider, that you are only tired now, Pilar. God, we’re all so tired! We’ve been up all night making history, and now you won’t let it happen.”

  “You’re already asleep and dreaming. I won’t change my mind. But, I see that you’ll ask me again, and it will not annoy me because I have great respect for you. It’s too bad
you can’t be the most famous woman in Spain. You’d be a lot better than those beauty contest cows. It’s too bad you can’t be the most famous woman in the world or the prime minister or the emperor, for that matter. You’d do a better job than the usual idiot who seizes the day.”

  Alex sighed deeply and let her head rest on her arms. She looked and sounded like a man who had done a very hard day’s work and then realized it had come to nothing. After a time, she raised her head and said, “OK, everyone. You heard Pilar. No one ever knows anything about this unless the Mafia hurts someone. This belongs exclusively to Pilar. It was her nerve and her . . . genius that made this happen. No one here would ever have had the nerve to do it. If you’re afraid you might get trigger-happy and release the film, give your CD right back to her. And let me be the first to give it back. I wish I was safe to hold it, but I’m not. I’ve done nothing all night but think that I could ultimately get Pilar to release it.” Alex handed the CD to Pilar.

  Monserrat quickly said, “Pilar, the film is safe here with me. I understand your feelings, and I respect them. I won’t release it.”

  At six-thirty am, they were all eating breakfast at Monserrat’s and feeling proud of a complex job well done, whatever happened to the film. So ends the most amazing night of my life, Alex thought. They are all safe, Monserrat thought. So many images, so many truths like harsh lights, torrents of brilliant red and black color, Sylvie thought. What a menagerie! Ruth thought.

  After breakfast, Ruth decided to approach Sylvie and assure herself that Sylvie would still regard her as a friend and feel welcome in the house. “Quite a trip to Spain!” she began.

  “Oh yes,” Sylvie said. “Let me count the ways. First we’re artist and scientist, working hard . . .”

  “Then we turn into gypsies, then authors . . .”

  “Meet our marriage mates and then, this . . . this . . .