by Jeremy Welch
Sebastian thought of his parents, what had they wanted for him? Was their love boundless? As boundless as Rosie’s? Would his mother work as a prostitute to provide if his father had left? Yes, he thought she would.
“The love affair starts. Quietly at first. These towns, they’re conservative places, love affairs between teenagers and older men are frowned upon. But he has a car, not a tractor or a Trabant, he has money, lots of it. No one knows how but he does. He speaks of an uncle who started a business importing and exporting to the West, it’s vague but wealth is easily believed. He cares for her, she’s young, and this is her first love. He gives her presents – makeup, coloured jumpers – and buys her expensive drinks in the cafés. She feels great, she is getting on, not to the factories like her friends. She has a rich man that loves her. He may be older but he loves her or he wouldn’t give her all the presents, right?”
Sebastian thinks he knows where the story is going and in silence he listens, fearful for the young girl; he knows how she ends up. He is peering into a world he knows nothing about and wants even less to find out the details. But he needs to know, know how this young girl becomes a prostitute. He sees Irena, young, very young, pretty but frightened and broken. It’s made more personal, he’s involved in the story now.
“Word gets to the parents. They want to meet the lover, unsure of the suitability of an older lover for their teenage daughter. They know of him, everyone does, he’s the successful one in town, the rich one who goes on business to the cities on the TV and he has a penthouse apartment. The father thinks he might be the right sort. If he is he can get that for his daughter. They want it so much for her. They meet him. He is a good one, calls them Mr and Mrs, not their Christian names, drinks their tea and compliments the mother on her cake. He looks nervous meeting the parents but smiles at their daughter. He talks of the hard work involved in running his uncle’s business, but the rewards are there for those that work hard. The father nods, he knows hard work pays off in the end. He knows if he doesn’t work the family starve. He likes him, the new lover. Yes, he’s older but with age comes wisdom.”
In his head Sebastian can hear a voice screaming, “Beware, beware this man.”
“He helps chop the wood, not as well as the father. Well he couldn’t, could he? He works in business, his hands are soft, but he is willing. During the wood chopping he tells the father the business is expanding and his uncle needs a personal assistant. The PA will sort out the administration of the business. The daughter is perfectly suited as she speaks the local language and English too. You are a clever and loving father to have forced her to learn English at school, it shows parental love and wisdom. The father slaps him on the back and thanks him for his comments. The boyfriend is in, he’s now part of the family. Now his real work starts.”
Sebastian is now angry with everyone – the father, the mother, the daughter – and their stupidity. This cannot happen. He places a cigarette between his lips; they are trembling. He wants to shout, to warn them. The match flame gets blown out by the wind. In frustration he strikes four matches together to guarantee they don’t go out. He draws hard on the cigarette.
“I don’t want to hear anymore. I know what happens. Look, just take the phone and give it back to her.”
Rosie looks at him; she knows he has found the answer but she wants him to comprehend.
“Let me finish. You will let me finish, won’t you?”
Sebastian doesn’t move. He drags on the cigarette.
“The parents take the hardest decision of their lives. They push their daughter gently, push her towards the future they want so badly for her. The daughter is nervous but excited. Nervous at leaving her parents, she is only seventeen. She has never been abroad before but with their blessing it’s the right thing to do. She will send them money, come home often. Well it’s not far away, is it? It’s only two hours on a plane, that’s only 120 minutes. Her lover helps her apply for a passport, he is so very good to her. The visa is fixed. The day of departure is fixed but the lover can’t travel that day as he has business in another town close by. His uncle will meet her. It’s OK, she will really like the uncle and his wife, they are in their late fifties with no children. They will look after her as if she is the daughter they never had, he reassures the parents. The parents weep as the car draws away. The lover raises his hand out of the expensive car window. The daughter, excited, smiles at her parents. ‘I’ll call when I get there,’ she shouts. The crucifix necklace that her mother gave her before she got in the car glistens in the sun.”
“OK, Rosie. I’ve got it. I can’t see how this is helping to get the phone back to her.” Sebastian was now angry with Rosie who has taken him into the darkness.
She ignores him and continues her narrative as if he is not there, looking blankly to the distance. Sebastian wants to leave but can’t; his legs won’t move and he hasn’t told Rosie what Irena looks like. He wants Irena to get the phone; he really wants her to be reunited with the phone with the picture of her parents, the green hills and the blue sky.
“That’s not the end, Sebastian, that’s only the beginning of her journey. There is a change of plan at the airport, the uncle is on business in Tunis. She will be met by him there. The lover, he will follow in two days, just needs to tie up some business. But they will be together in two days, he promises. She trusts him, why not? He has organised the passport, the visa, bought her presents, her parents like him. He has never lied to her before, he has been nothing but kindness and he had taken her virginity. That means something between two people, something meaningful. The sign of ultimate seventeen-year-old trust of another.”
Rosie sips her tea, it’s cold now, she gently spits the liquid back into the cup.
“Of course the uncle’s not there but a cousin is. He drives her to an open-cast mining site. It’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s hot. He roughly conveys her to a Portakabin where men are playing cards. She fights the advances of the men, but each rape her in turn. It hurts. With each thrust she feels the crucifix bounce on her Adam’s apple. She wakes in a bed of soiled sheets. There are men heavy with the scent of perspiration, they are having sex with her. There are multiple languages, but all kindness absent. She wakes and just makes out a syringe with a bead of liquid from the needlepoint waiting to drop. Her feet are held down and the needle plunges into the flesh between her toes. She relaxes. ‘Don’t damage the goods’, she hears someone say. ‘She is moving on tonight.’
Sebastian’s toes contract in his shoes. He feels a pain between his big and second toe.
“What are they doing to her?”
“This is how they break them, Sebastian, this is how they break them. It’s a slow process but always achieves the aim. The rapes, then being prostituted out to the migrant workers in isolated, unpoliced places. To ensure the least resistance heroin is used. Always injected in an area that doesn’t damage the investment. Between the toes is best. No tramlines, no swollen veins. Think about it, when did you last look between your toes?”
He felt sick. His stomach contracting with the acid flowing into it. The acid of anger.
“Is this what happened to Irena?” he asked with concern.
“I don’t know, Sebastian. It’s a familiar enough story. The details are always different, the breaking of the human being the same, the conclusion the same.” It was obviously not the first time she had told this or a similar story; she sounded depressed at the telling, the familiarity of it all. “Now you see why they don’t have a separate compartment. They are in the compartment and it’s locked and it always will be. The forgotten ones can never get out, never.”
“Well surely the ones here, here in Amsterdam, can. I mean this is Europe not North Africa.” He knew it to be untrue.
“They are the same girls, Sebastian. Tunis, Amsterdam, Prague, the geography is irrelevant. Once broken they are sold to a new owner. The routes might be diffe
rent, the final destination different. But the ones trafficked via North Africa are easy to get into Europe. The girls are now stateless, their passports destroyed, lives destroyed. They are shipped across the Mediterranean by speedboat. The traffickers wait for the boatloads of economic migrants to leave the shores of North Africa. They know the patrol boats are too occupied with the overloaded boats to chase a high performance speedboat. Once in Europe they are delivered to the new owners across Europe and of course that includes Amsterdam.”
He knew it was futile but said it again.
“But once here they can still walk away. Go to the police.”
“Sebastian, they are owned. They are in debt, deeply in debt. The owners have spent a lot of money to buy them from the traffickers, depending on age and looks up to 100,000 euros. Work it out at fifty euros a client, that’s 2000, then they have to pay for the rent of the room, that’s another fifty euros a day. There is interest to be paid on top too. They all come with a known history, almost like a DHL parcel. The new owner will know where they come from, their family history. They threaten to tell their parents knowing that would destroy the family. In many cases the girls will never be welcomed back if the family find out what they were doing. That’s why they are known as the forgotten ones.”
“Oh God, I feel sick. It’s happening less than half a mile away from here.”
Rosie shrugged her shoulders. Yes it is, the shrug said, right here and right now.
“She is blond-haired, about five foot nine inches, slight build, about nineteen, pretty with blue eyes.” Sebastian blurted it out without thinking. “You must find her, Rosie, she needs the phone,” he pleaded.
For the first time since they had met she smiled gently and directly at him. He was so close to comprehending, so very close.
“I need more than that, Sebastian. There are many pretty blondes working in the red light district that age. Think, anything unusual about her?”
He shut his eyes and rocked trying to dislodge something from his memory that would help Rosie. His eyes opened wide. Excitedly he said, “A tattoo, a tattoo! It’s of a horse’s head and at the base of the neck it has wings.” His eyes cast down with disappointment. “You know, that’s probably not much help as I have seen a few girls with the same tattoo.”
Rosie pulled a pen from her coat pocket and drew on a napkin.
“That’s it, that’s what it looks like.” Sebastian was excited now; he had helped.
“You sure? You have to be sure,” she urged. “Take your time, but be sure.”
It was exactly the same as the tattoo he had seen in Irena’s armpit when she had been touting for business in her cell. He nodded.
“That’s it. Does it help?”
“I can find her. I can definitely find her. It’s the mark of a Kazakh gang. It’s the ownership branding.” She was sombre now, resolved.
“They brand them? I didn’t know they branded them too!”
“Sebastian, I will only ask you this once. When I find her will you meet her and give her the phone? Tell her how you got it.” She entreated him to say yes.
“Why?”
She thought before she spoke as if the words needed to be chosen carefully.
“Faith, Sebastian. The forgotten ones have no faith in anything, everything is lost to them. They must believe that there is some good somewhere, especially where men are concerned. Her traffickers will have all been men, her owners likewise and all her clients. What you did was something different to what she is used to. You intervened, got involved for her. You kept the phone, you wanted to give it back. If Irena is to continue to survive she must believe, believe that there is hope.”
He answered without hesitation.
“Yes.”
She smiled. He had comprehended the answer.
Chapter 13
1
It still hurt. The tattooed man with scenes of damnation on his biceps and celestial hope on his forearms had warned him. The tattoos were taut and the pictures defined, colourful and strangely beautiful almost like the images of an adult fantasy comic. Sebastian wouldn’t be around to see them sag and go inky green-blue with the lines no longer fine but blurred with age.
“It’s a gun, you’re going to feel a pain. It won’t last long then a warm sensation, almost a glowing heat. It will then be all over.” He raised the gun. It fired and he was true to his word: it hurt.
Lifting his finger to his ear lobe Sebastian felt the circular piece of metal and the butterfly clasp at the rear of his ear holding it tight in position.
“It looks good,” the tattooed man said as he held up a mirror so that Sebastian could see the gold earring positioned perfectly in the centre of his lobe. The man handed him a bottle of ear care solution and talked with the seriousness of a pharmacist as he instructed him on how to keep it clean and infection-free.
Sebastian had found the earring on the side of the bed where Zoe had slept. It was the only thing that had shone since her departure. He had rolled it between his forefinger and thumb and placed it on his bedside table next to his multi-stained book. Lifting his mobile he had typed a message to her.
“Zoe, I want to be with you, near you, part of you.” His finger had hovered over the send button. He recalled her last words and pressed save. The inability to speak to her and the desire to be with her had decided him on the piercing. It was the closest he was going to get to being with her until he had finished the book. Then they would be together, perhaps he would take it out then, but until then it stayed in situ. When he touched it he touched her.
Anneke had asked him about the earring on their now daily early morning meetings. Each morning, before Dasha had even risen for his ritual, he departed for the café. Just before he passed the cat in the window he braced his shoulders, growing two inches, and walked past without looking in the window. He couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder after passing. The cat static, watching, thinking and knowing; knowing all. Perhaps now they could be friends.
“Sebastian, I’m not sure being a resident on a static boat on a canal nowhere near the sea really entitles you to wear an earring. It’s a maritime tradition. In the past it was a sign that the sailor had crossed the equator,” she chuckled into the froth of her cappuccino.
Sebastian lifted his fingers to touch the earring. It was empowering knowing he loved her. He wanted to explain to Anneke why he had done it, his reasoning, a surrogate proximity to Zoe; the motivator to finish the book so he could be with her. They belonged to each other. But the knowledge was his alone.
“It’s hers, isn’t it?” It was phrased as a question, but she knew it as a fact.
He looked at her, slightly startled as if she had been reading his mind. He had taken to looking at Anneke in a more questioning way since Zoe had berated her. His allegiances were confused. Anneke had welcomed him, almost nurtured him. She had not known him before he arrived in Amsterdam, she had never asked anything of his past. She had accepted him and the only things she knew about him he himself had told her. That seemed to be enough for her. Zoe had disliked her for reasons he didn’t understand.
“How do you know?”
She let out a deep laugh and coughed into her coffee.
“Sebastian, if you could see the way you stroke it, no, caress it. It’s obvious.”
Sebastian didn’t know if she was laughing at him or being kindly sympathetic. He took it as a slight. Perhaps Zoe was right, there was something odd about her. Her face always hidden behind the fall of her hair. Too much makeup masking something. What was she hiding? His loyalty lay with Zoe and he wanted to repay the slight, inflict a small reprimand wound. He felt piqued.
“Well I don’t see you wearing anything of Umuntu’s.” He felt his cheek flush red. He knew he was being petulant.
Her hand cradling the cup paused halfway to her mouth. She looked at Sebastian. Placed the c
up back in its saucer. She smiled a smile of kind correction; it was obvious that this mistake had been made before.
“I’m flattered, really I am. Umuntu is as close to being a lover as one can be without being a lover. He knows everything there is to know about me, everything. But he is not my lover.” She looked pensive, not for the lack of Umuntu as a lover but for something seemingly lost.
Sebastian felt guilty for trying to hurt her. She had been only kindness and acceptance from their first meeting at the restaurant. He saw her every day. He had wronged her.
“That was unkind of me, thoughtless. I’m sorry.” His right foot applied pressure to his left under the table, hurting himself, waiting for the acceptance of his error.
“I know exactly how you feel, I know exactly why you have done it. Just beware it doesn’t create an illusion, act as a substitute for the real. You must never let that happen. There is only love, Sebastian, there really is nothing else, nothing. Do you believe me?”
“Which part? You know how I feel or there is only love?”
“Both,” she replied smiling forgiveness.
2
Sebastian boarded the metro at the Central Station. At each stop the crowd thinned out. Arriving at Bijlmer station it was clear to him that this was not part of the tourist route. Bijlmer was an area where the conventional routine of life was not dictated by time. By now in central Amsterdam the streets would be quiet as the working day was underway; here it was listlessly busy with people walking, in no hurry to be nowhere in particular. Not in the pleasant head-held-high and observant way of tourists but in the tracksuit, hood up, eyes cast down way of the unemployed. Killing the day off.