by Julia Bell
I told myself that perhaps they needed waitresses right away and that was why everyone was in such a hurry. And anyway, it was a luxurious apartment and Pitor and Call-Me-Mama seemed kind and helpful. I was being paranoid I told myself as I brushed mascara over my eyelashes. This was the start of my new life and I was spoiling the moment by getting scared.
It took about ten minutes for Pitor to take my photo. He had to set up the lighting just right, he said. He told me to sit on the chair in the middle of the room, while he fussed around with a white sheet and a lamp. When he was done, my picture came up on the screen. I could see the way he had taken it was so the shadows fell across my face, emphasizing my cheekbones, making me look older.
‘And now you are Miss Leola Maldini.’ He fetched a piece of paper from his printer. On it was a page of a passport with my face on it, but it didn’t have my name on it and in the details of birth it said I was Italian.
‘I thought I was going to work in England?’
Pitor didn’t answer immediately. He fiddled with his computer and changed the colour of my face from pale to tanned. He moved the mouse and rubbed away the dark lines under my eyes, and made my lips sparkle and turned my eyes a bright white.
‘England, Italy, Germany – with this you can work anywhere you like in Europe.’
He printed the picture out again. Now I looked like a model, like a clean, healthy, improved version of myself.
‘Beautiful, huh?’ He leaned over my shoulder so I could feel his breath on my cheek. ‘A girl can go far,’ he said, ‘with a face like that.’
After that we had some supper, although we didn’t really eat together, like they said. Tommy and Pitor sat together with the laptop computer, working while they ate. I sat next to Katya on the sofa and ate in silence, staring at the TV.
I couldn’t eat much. I just stirred the pasta round my fork, tried to make it look smaller on the plate by piling it high. My stomach started to hurt after only a few mouthfuls, even though it tasted like heaven, because I was still trying to figure out a way of asking Tommy when we could go home, and when we did, how I would explain everything to Father.
Time seemed to drag on until eventually I stood up and said brightly, ‘Well, thank you very much for supper, but really I’ve got to go home now.’
Tommy and Pitor looked over at me and stared, then they both burst out laughing.
‘Hey, girl! Relax!’ Pitor said. ‘Here, have some vodka!’ He poured a shot into a plastic beaker and handed it to me. ‘Drink!’ he said. ‘To your new job!’
I lifted it to my lips and drank. The alcohol burned as it touched my lips, making me wince. I only liked vodka when it was cold and I was outside with Adik and our guts were on fire and we were laughing about stupid things and making ourselves woozy by running round and round in the snow like fireworks gone off in the wrong direction.
‘Sit down! Sit down!’ Tommy waved his hand at me. ‘We’re not going any place now!’
‘You will stay the night!’ Pitor said.
‘But I have to go home! My brother—’
‘SIT DOWN!’ Tommy yelled, making my heart jump. He got up and leaped across the room to stand in front of me. A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Stop moaning!’
‘But –’
‘NOW!’
I thought he was going to hit me. Tears sprang into my eyes.
Then Call-Me-Mama came bustling in between us. ‘Hey, hey,’ and she muttered something to Tommy which could have been ‘not yet’ or ‘not now’.
I sat back shakily on the sofa next to Katya. I wondered if she ever did anything except stare at the TV. She was still staring, even though Tommy was standing right in the way of the screen.
‘Look, sweetheart,’ Call-Me-Mama said, her face getting serious. ‘You want to get a job and go to work in England? You’re going to have to stay cool, like Katya here, OK?’
Stay cool? Every second I was in that flat was starting to feel like a horrible mistake. I looked at Katya, who acknowledged me by grunting.
‘Is it true? Are you going too?’
She bit her thumbnail and nodded.
‘Tonight you are staying here and tomorrow you go to Poland, and then to London. Just like Tommy explained,’ Call-Me-Mama said. ‘So everybody just needs to stay cool.’
I pressed my lips together and stared at the TV screen behind Tommy’s legs. Then I told myself I was being unfair and that it was kind of these people to help me out and organize everything for me. I was behaving like a kid, like Viktor when he wanted something he couldn’t have. I had to calm down and grow up. Viktor would be all right: Kolya would get bored of playing with him eventually and they’d take him back to Father. And I was going on an adventure; I was going to earn money and have a life. I could call and tell Father everything when I got there. I just kept focusing on the thought of me, with a platter held high above my head, weaving and twisting between tables of rich and beautiful diners like I was dancing; the best waitress in the whole world.
Katya and I slept in the same room on sagging bunk beds. Call-Me-Mama even gave us some towels and kissed us on both cheeks and told us we were lucky to be getting out of the country and how she wished she was young enough to come with us too. After she closed the door, I heard the soft click of a bolt sliding into place.
Katya didn’t seem to notice so I didn’t say anything. Maybe it was just a safety precaution, I told myself. People like Pitor and Call-Me-Mama had a lot of stuff. Perhaps they were afraid of burglars.
Katya turned her back to me and got undressed. She put on a thin nylon nightdress with bright cartoon teddy bears on it. Now we were alone together there were so many questions I wanted to ask her.
‘Where are you from?’
She shrugged. ‘Nowhere.’
‘Are you coming with me? To be a waitress?’
‘Yeah, right,’ she snorted.
‘To London?’ I folded my new clothes into a neat pile on the dresser. I pulled out my dirty old T-shirt and put it on to sleep in, self-conscious about the fact that it was torn and nearly worn to pieces. I would buy myself some new T-shirts when I got my first wages.
‘Top bunk is mine,’ Katya said, climbing up, the springs creaking as she shifted about making herself comfortable. ‘Turn the light out before you lie down.’ And she turned over to face the wall.
I lay under the thin covers, listening to her breathing. It didn’t sound like she could sleep either: she kept turning over and sighing really heavily.
I must have fallen asleep because for a second I didn’t know where I was. The room was so dark and there was no Viktor cuddling close to me under the blankets like a cat.
‘Shhhh.’ The hand pushed down on my mouth so hard I thought my neck was going to snap. I was too shocked to scream. All I could hear was heavy breathing and the squeak of the bedsprings as he lay on top of me. It was Pitor. His beard was scratchy against my cheek and he smelt of vodka and cigarettes. He whispered names in my ear, dirty names – whore, bitch, telka. I tried to struggle, but I couldn’t move. I wondered if Katya could hear, and why she didn’t make a noise, or start protesting. Between the two of us we could have fought him off.
Then he said in a loud whisper: ‘If you scream I will kill you and then I will kill your family.’ And then it really hurt and I bit his hand, hard, but he just kept pressing down until I thought I would pass out and in my head I shouted out for my mother and Viktor and my father, and in that second, suddenly, I understood everything.
When he was gone I lay in the bed too sore and shocked to move. I wanted to find Tommy and tell him that it wasn’t safe here, to take me home, now. But I knew the door was locked and I was too frightened to make a noise in case Pitor came back. Then I started to feel very bad about Viktor and Father and I thought that it had only happened as a punishment against me. Because I was a bad and neglectful daughter who badmouthed her dead mother and wouldn’t do what her father told her and take care of her brother like she was supposed
to.
‘Stop crying.’
Katya’s voice surprised me. She sounded wide awake. The bed grated as she turned over again. ‘Don’t think about it,’ she mumbled into the mattress.
But I couldn’t not think about it. When Call-Me-Mama came in a few hours later and got us out of bed, I wanted to tell her, but every time I tried to make the sentences in my head, I couldn’t get hold of the right words. Besides, I was ashamed. Ashamed that Katya had heard it, ashamed as if, by my stupidity, I had made him do it to me.
‘The car is ready now,’ Call-Me-Mamma said, giving us plastic bags with a few apples and a bottle of Coke. ‘Come on.’ She prodded me in the back when I tried to dawdle in the doorway.
When we got outside, Pitor was behind the wheel of a Volkswagen, the engine running, fumes from the exhaust making clouds in the cold early-morning air. There was no sign of Tommy, or of Tommy’s Land Rover.
‘Hey, sweetheart,’ Pitor said, winking at me. He waved his hand, showing my teeth marks on his palm. ‘Get in.’
‘Where’s Tommy?’
‘He had business to attend to. I’m taking you over the border.’
I couldn’t look at him, his smile made me feel sick. Over the border, further away from home than I had ever been in my life.
‘Um, its OK,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve changed—’ But Call-Me-Mama was behind me. She grabbed me round the waist and pushed me towards the car.
‘Get in,’ she growled. ‘Don’t be a troublemaker. Or you’ll get a reputation. And then you won’t get any work.’
Pitor opened the passenger door. ‘You can sit next to me,’ he smirked.
Pitor drove fast, with the heating on full so the air in the car was dry and stuffy. Katya fell asleep, lolling on the back seat, waking up every time Pitor took a sharp bend, because her skull would crack against the window.
She whined at him to slow down but he ignored her. Driving south, relentlessly, mile after mile along the bad, bumpy road. We hit a bunch of rainstorms, one after the other, the clouds bubbling up on the horizon thick and black, like smoke. As we drove through them rain came down in heavy sheets, as if some great babushka was rinsing out her backyard, slopping pails of water straight at us.
As the day wore on into evening, we joined a main road, where huge lorries thundered all around us, wheels throwing up spray and dirt. We passed forests and meadows and fields, and as the sun went down all I could see were the tail lights of the lorries, little glowing coals that showed us the way ahead.
We got to the border about midnight. Just before we got there, Pitor pulled over. He opened the glove compartment of the car and pulled out three passports, and then something which made my stomach clench: a gun.
‘See that?’ he said, nodding at his lap. ‘If you try anything I will shoot you. Understand?’
I nodded.
He laid the passports open on the dashboard and counted out some money, slipping a wad of notes into each one.
‘Just a little lubrication,’ he said, his gold tooth glinting.
As we got closer I could see a series of low huts clustered around a pair of red and white barriers. Men in military uniform were talking to the drivers, peering in through the windows of the cars with torches. The whole place was lit up with dazzling lights like the kind they have at night-time football matches on TV.
‘If you say anything. Either of you. I will shoot you.’
Katya snorted. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s not like I haven’t done this before.’
The guard had his collar turned up over his cheeks. He didn’t even say hello as he took the passports that Pitor handed to him out of the window. When they were returned the wads of money were gone.
‘Move along now, please,’ he said, waving us forward.
‘Ha!’ Pitor laughed softly to himself. ‘The miracle of money! Did you see that? Did you see how money talks?’
Money talks. I thought about that for a long time afterwards. All the way through the Ukraine and then into Moldova, at every checkpoint always the same routine. I wondered what would money really say if I could hear it talking. Would it tell the truth, or would it tell lies? Would it tell me what was going to happen to me when we got to our destination? Would it scream for help when we stopped for petrol in Romania? What would it say about all the greasy hands it passes through on its way to the tills of shops or the counters at the bank?
When I fell asleep I dreamed of notes floating around my head, swirling like leaves in a storm, but every time I tried I couldn’t catch one, even though they were flying past my face. And all the time I could hear the money chattering in my head; every single note talking all at once so I couldn’t make out the words. But as I listened the sound started to change and become like a rhythm and the rhythm became the constant pounding of an engine, drumming out a single word, more . . . more . . . more . . . more . . . more . . . So loud I thought it would make me deaf.
20
Hope
He told me to wait. So I am standing with my ear pressed to the door, listening. It’s evening now. The light around the plasterboard has faded to a pink glow from the sodium lights outside. I can hear the front door slamming downstairs – it makes the building shake every time it shuts, a heavy crash – and voices talking.
When Oksana comes back from her shift I will tell her and we’ll go together. The idea of leaving her here makes me feel sick and I’m not sure I can make it on my own anyway. I don’t know what to do about the Estonians, they’re too stoned to run away. They’ll be a liability. Perhaps it would be better to have the police come back and get them. I pace the room; Oksana will know what to do.
Then the front door slams again and there are voices talking, Fat Burger Man laughing and spitting. One voice gets closer, a shout at the bottom of the stairs, then footsteps coming closer.
The floorboards outside creak, there’s a key in the lock, then Latif is in the room.
He stares at me for a second and I can feel all the blood drain out of my face. My skin turns cold and grey and I’m sure he can see the shape of keys in my pocket.
‘It is a shame you will soon be going. I think my little cousin likes you,’ he says eventually. Then he laughs and shakes his head, and passes me a Burger King bag. ‘For you.’
He slams the door shut and locks it. I don’t dare move. Latif’s heavy feet on the stairs makes the mattress vibrate. I want to unlock the door right now and take my chances. See if I can’t sneak between their legs and grab Oksana and together we can slip out too quick for them to catch. It takes all my concentration to force myself to sit still. Fazil said to wait until later. I know that I’ve only got one chance and I can’t blow it.
Oksana comes back with Lulu and Ekaterina about midnight. The minute Latif and Babalan have locked us in again the Estonians fumble in their bags for their drug stuff. Ekaterina silently unfolds a square of foil, pressing it flat against her thigh.
Oksana lies on the bed next to me. Her face is weary and there is a dark bruise spreading on her stomach from this morning. I wonder why men think she is sexy; she is dirty and skinny and tired, not glossy and shiny like in the videos and magazines.
I glance over at the Estonians but they can’t see anything except their drugs.
‘Look,’ I whisper proudly, pulling one of the keys out of my pocket so she can see. Oksana stares. ‘For the door.’
For a moment her pupils grow huge. Then she flops down on to the bed and turns her head away from me. ‘Good luck then.’
‘Aren’t you coming with me?!’ I sit on the bed, shake her by the shoulder. ‘You can’t stay here.’
She shrugs. ‘What is the point? What is the point of Natasha trying to get out of here. Natasha can’t escape. This is all she deserves.’ And she sweeps her arm around the room.
‘Don’t say that!’ My voice rises. ‘It’s not your fault.’
It’s not hers and it’s not mine.
Lulu looks over at us. ‘Stop bitching,’ she says
. Except she pronounces it like ‘beeching’.
‘We’re not bitching.’ I say. ‘We’re—’
‘Talking about asking them for a bath,’ Oksana cuts in, pointing at the door.
Lulu shrugs and turns back to the thin line of powder in the foil.
‘Don’t tell them,’ Oksana hisses at me. ‘Don’t trust them. They are in with the Turkish; they get drugs here.’ She lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. ‘Wait for them to go to sleep.’ Then she turns away from me again.
I go back to my bed and watch her back, rising and falling as she breathes. No one in their right mind would choose to be here. I’m not leaving her behind, I’ll carry her if I have to.
Eventually, Lulu and Ekaterina climb under the sheets and appear to go sleep. Lulu sleeps with her mouth open, a white ball of spit collecting in the corner. I get up and turn off the lights. The darkness covers us like a thick blanket. It takes a while for my eyes to get adjusted but there is enough streetlamp light seeping round the window-board edges for me to be able to make out the shape of the beds, the whites of Oksana’s eyes, glinting. She is facing me now.
‘Oksana, please,’ I whisper. ‘You have to come with me. I can’t do this on my own.’
‘I have no papers. They arrest me, send me home. You go,’ she hisses.
I reach across the gap between our beds and grab her hand. ‘I won’t tell the police about you. I promise.’
‘No!’ Her voice gets louder. ‘No police!’
My heart skips. We can’t have this conversation now. ‘No. It’s OK. Shhhhh.’
In desperation I try one last time. ‘Oksana, come with me.’ I make her look at me. ‘Leave Natasha here and come with me. Please.’
‘You don’t know me!’ she says sharply.
And for a second I think she’s going to fight me. But then she squeezes my hand back. ‘Will you help me to find Totten-ham?’ she says more gently.