“Careful of what?” Ivanka was confused.
“Nothing… Everything.” Natalia was at a loss to say any more.
At night Natalia suffered through terrible dreams, waking in a sweat, seized with terror. The ones where they came for her weren’t the worst. It was the ones where they came for her family that made her not want to sleep at all. Sometimes it helped if she thought of Vitaly, longing to be held in his strong arms. She remembered the early days, when he first started coming by the house to drop off bouquets of hand-picked flowers on the steps. At first she didn’t know who they were from. Vitaly was just another farmer’s son who joked around with his friends and seemed to have no time for girls. It was her father who finally caught him in the act early one morning. It wasn’t much longer before Vitaly professed his love; his deep desire to dedicate his life to her happiness, as he put it. Natalia laughed at these words, but slowly his persistence wore her down. He was handsome, enough. He was funny, much of the time. She was actually surprised at how heartbroken she felt when he went away for his army service. And yet, equally surprised how easy it was to get used to his absence. Now he would be back in Drosti already and after everything she’d been through, Natalia yearned to be with him. Vitaly would protect her. He would know what to do. If only she could find a way home. She longed to call him, too, just to hear his voice. And yet… they hadn’t spoken in so long. She didn’t want to tell him she was trapped here. She couldn’t admit the truth about what these men had done to her. The shame of it was overwhelming, filling Natalia’s heart with despair. Would Vitaly still want her if he knew?
The balcony door opened a crack and Marina poked her head out. “You can come back in, he’s gone.”
Natalia stood from her chair and walked into the apartment. “You’re very kind to me, Marina.”
“You’d do the same for me.”
“We both know I can’t stay here forever.”
Marina answered with a look of sadness. They’d grown accustomed to each other. More than that, in Marina’s lonely life, this was a bond she seemed loathe to give up. “Maybe we should give it some more time. Give them time to forget about you.”
“They’ll never forget me. Never.”
“Of course they will. They have other things to worry about.”
“I need to be home.” Natalia laid a comforting hand on Marina’s shoulder.
“What?!” Marina laughed. “Don’t think I won’t be glad to get rid of you!”
Natalia smiled and grasped Marina in an embrace. “You know I’ll miss you, too.”
Natalia sat on a chair in the kitchen, long bunches of shiny brown hair falling to the floor around her as Marina went at her task with determination and a sharp pair of scissors. When it was all finished, Natalia rose and walked to the nearest mirror. This was the first time she’d had short hair since she was a child, butchered back then by her well-meaning mother. Now she ran her fingers through it in wonder.
“What do you think?” Marina asked.
“Not bad.” The cut was a bob, shoulder length with bangs straight across her forehead. “You have some talent.”
“I didn’t always work the streets. I used to actually get paid to do this.” Marina picked up a small box of hair coloring from the kitchen table. “Black, like the locals.” She mixed a packet of dye with another of developer. “You’ve never done this before?”
“No. Why would I?”
Marina shrugged. “I don’t know. There are boys in that village of yours aren’t there?”
“None who care what your hair color is.”
“I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me.”
In the bathroom Marina carefully applied the mixture while Natalia closed her eyes, losing herself to the touch of Marina’s fingers gently massaging her scalp. “Mmm…,” she murmured, thinking back again to her childhood when Ivanka brushed her hair on Sunday mornings. She’d be home soon, Natalia thought. So very soon.
When the dye was set, Natalia rinsed her hair and then used a towel and blow drier to finish the job. She combed it before the bathroom mirror while Marina looked over the reflection of this raven-haired beauty.
“A whole new you,” Marina said.
“Yes. A whole new me.”
“We’ll need a photo.” Marina tacked a sheet up to a wall and then positioned Natalia in front of it. “Would you like to smile?”
“No. Just take the photo,” Natalia answered.
Marina held up a digital camera and snapped three quick shots. “That ought to do it.”
When the envelope arrived a few weeks later, Marina handed it to Natalia straight away. “I think this is for you.”
Natalia carried it to the table. This was it. At last. Her ticket to freedom. She opened the seal and emptied the contents; one maroon-colored passport. Natalia picked it up and turned it over. “Russia?” she said. “But I’m not from Russia!”
“What did you expect?” Marina asked. “Russian, German or American. Those are the choices. I don’t think you’d pass for those other two.”
Natalia opened the document and looked inside at her photo, complete with short dark hair and a scowl on her face. The name read Alexandra Petrova, from St. Petersburg. Natalia flipped through the pages to find stamps from all over Europe. “This was somebody else’s?”
“It’s a passport, with your photo on it. That’s all that matters.”
“How much did this cost?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“I can’t have you pay for it.”
“I’m not paying with money anyway. He’s one of my clients. We worked out a deal.”
“Oh, Marina…”
“Relax.” Marina her fingers on Natalia’s cheek. “It’s what I do. Besides, we girls have to stick together. Sometimes it’s the only way to survive. Please, just take it.”
“Thank you.” Natalia rubbed the document between her fingers; the wages of sin.
In the dim grey of early dawn, Natalia crept out onto the balcony one last time. She’d already been awake for several hours, worrying about the day ahead. She needed something to calm her nerves. She picked up a packet of cigarettes from a small table, slid one out and placed it between her lips, then lifted a lighter and sparked the flint, coughing lightly as she inhaled her first breath of smoke in the cool morning air. She returned the lighter to the table and sat in her chair, wrapping herself in the blanket and leaning back to watch the city come to life. Her mind wandered to the girls she’d left behind. How many countless others were being held in this city, dreaming of home and families and freedom? She knew she was just another statistic in a cruelly indifferent world. The image Goran Zigic haunted her still. Would he come to Drosti for her? And for her family? The man’s pride was enough to suggest that he might. Surely he’d be girding for vengeance. Natalia had to get home to warn the others properly; to protect them as best she could before it was too late. She’d been hiding here at Marina’s for far too long already.
The balcony door slid open to reveal a tired and dazed-looking Marina, dressed in a silk robe. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
Natalia nodded her head.
“I’ll make some coffee.” Marina closed the balcony door behind her once again.
By the time Natalia’s cigarette was finished, Marina came back out with a steaming cup in each hand. “Here. Turkish coffee. Hopefully your last on Turkish soil.”
Natalia took one of the cups and blew across the top before trying a sip. The coffee was still too hot to drink, so she cradled the cup in her hands to warm them. Marina took a chair across the table. Neither said a word for the first few minutes, until Marina couldn’t resist one question. It was her last chance to ask. “What did it feel like, when you killed that man?”
Natalia turned her attention from her coffee. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking at all. I just did it.”
“But what about afterwards? Were you glad that you killed him? Did it make you feel better?”
> “No,” Natalia answered, but then considered her response. “Maybe. I would do it again.”
“Because you liked it?”
“Because it had to be done.” A nagging guilt clouded her mind whenever she thought about it, but the guilt was not over killing Dusan. The guilt was for not having done so sooner. “I was a coward.”
“It doesn’t sound that way.”
“You don’t understand. I did what they told me to do. I let them use fear to control me, but I could have killed him from the very beginning. I could have saved two lives. Sonia and her baby, both. Instead I cowered in terror until it was too late...”
“Don’t do this to yourself.” Marina shook her head. “You’re not responsible for what happened to your friend.”
“I could have prevented it.”
“No!” Marina demanded. “That’s the difference between you and those men. You have your humanity. You’re not a killer!”
“I am. First they made me a prostitute and then they made me a killer.”
Marina leaned forward and clasped Natalia’s right hand. “Sonia wouldn’t blame you for what happened. You must know that.”
Natalia was consumed by sadness. “It doesn’t matter. I will always feel the guilt, for the rest of my life.” The first rays of sunlight appeared on buildings across the street. A new day begun. “I’m sorry. You’re the only good thing to happen to me here. I just wish I could repay you.”
“Go home and be happy. That’s all I ask.”
Natalia managed a weak smile. “You are an angel, you know. The angel of Istanbul.”
“Please…” Marina laughed. “Come on, finish your coffee so we can get to the port on time.”
“Stop right here!” Natalia shouted to the cab driver. They were just across the street from the ferry terminal. In one hand Natalia held her passport, in the other her ferry ticket.
“I turn around?” The driver was confused.
“No! Right here.”
“Should I come in with you?” Marina asked as the car pulled to the side of the road.
Natalia shook her head. “I don’t want you involved any further. You’ve done enough for me.”
“Relax, it will be fine!” Marina tried to ease Natalia’s nerves, but she couldn’t hide her own concern.
“You know they might recognize me.”
“Only if they’re still looking, and I doubt anyone is looking. Nobody official, anyway.”
Marina was right. Most likely Zigic would have kept the whole thing quiet. It was the kind of problem he’d prefer to handle himself. But there was always that chance. She couldn’t rule out the possibility of fliers passed out to the immigration officials, with her old passport photo. Would a new haircut really fool them? Not if they were paying attention, but it was a risk she’d have to take.
“You get out here, yes?” The cabbie asked as other drivers laid on their horns behind him.
“I won’t forget you.” Natalia gave Marina a light kiss on the cheek.
Marina averted her eyes as her face went ashen.
“What?”
“I never do well with goodbyes.” Marina mustered a shaky smile.
Another taxi honked loudly. “Ladies, please!” pleaded the driver.
“Good luck.” Marina gave a hopeful nod.
Natalia opened the door and hopped quickly out of the cab. She rushed across the street through traffic, stopping only when she reached the sidewalk on the other side. She took one quick look back, but the taxi was already gone, blended in with the madness that was Istanbul. Natalia continued on her way with grim determination through the terminal doorway and down a corridor until she found a line of people waiting to go through a security checkpoint. Nobody paid her any attention as she got in the back of the line, the only one among them with no luggage.
When Natalia reached the front, her pulse rate increased. A hint of perspiration formed on her temples. They would notice, she thought. They would smell the fear on her. A dead giveaway. An immigration officer waited at a desk. When it was her turn, Natalia moved to face him, handing over her passport as she struggled to maintain the appearance of calm. He looked at her document blandly without a word. She would either be allowed through to the ferry or whisked off to prison. The man examined the pages, looking at the stamps and finally barking something she couldn’t understand. When he saw her blank expression, he switched to English. “You overstayed your visa!” he said.
Natalia’s eyes opened wide. “Yes,” she answered, unsure what else to say.
The man stamped Natalia’s passport anyway and slid it back with the haughty air of someone exercising the small bit of control he had over another human being. “Don’t let it happen again!” he said. “Or we won’t let you back in.”
“Thanks you.” Natalia carefully took her passport and tried to keep from running as she hurried onto the waiting boat.
Chapter Seventeen
As her bus rolled through the countryside, Natalia’s emotions dipped and soared with the hills. Finally she would be home with her family, yet what would she tell them? Even more pressing, how could she possibly break the news to Raisa? Natalia still hadn’t mentioned Sonia, even when she’d called home to tell her family she was coming. A deepening sense of dread pervaded her mood the closer she came to Drosti. In some ways it felt as though everything that had happened was somehow her fault. Natalia had dared to reach too high. She should have listened to her instincts and stayed where she belonged. That’s what the townspeople would say, in any case, whether it was true or not.
Entering the village, Natalia saw the familiar storefronts, homes and schools. There was the bakery and the butcher shop. Raisa’s restaurant looked exactly as it had, though it would never be the same. Nothing in the town itself had changed, but Natalia saw things differently. She was the one who had changed. Gone was her naiveté, replaced with a harsh and gritty knowledge of the darkness that lurked in the human soul. It was a knowledge that she would carry with her wherever she went, coloring her view of the world.
When the bus stopped, Natalia saw her family waiting. Her mother and her father, her sister, Olga and the children, all stood eagerly at the curb, craning their necks for a sight of their Natalia. She burst from the steps and flew into her mother’s open arms, squeezing Ivanka tightly around the neck. She felt her sister’s hand on her shoulder and saw the faint traces of a smile cross her father’s lips. Gone was her humiliation, her fear and her worry. Natalia was home. It was only after she released her grip from her mother that she saw Raisa standing quietly nearby. The moment she had dreaded was suddenly thrust upon her. Natalia made her way to Sonia’s mother trying to conjure words that might ease the pain, but finally broke into sobs.
Raisa’s hopeful look disintegrated and a dark cloud crossed her face. “What is it? Where is my daughter?!”
Natalia grasping Raisa’s hands in her own, gazing at her pleadingly.
“Where is Sonia?” Raisa continued. “Why hasn’t she come home?!”
“She won’t be coming home,” Natalia managed, the world swirling around her as she struggled to explain. “It was the baby.”
“What baby? Whose baby?” Raisa’s voice rose in desperation.
“The baby that she carried. She….”
“What?! Out with it!”
“I’m so sorry! Sonia… She’s passed to God.”
With this Raisa let cry the despairing, anguished wail of a mother who has lost her only child.
Chapter Eighteen
He was leaning over Natalia in the darkness, his face looming just above hers. Natalia sucked in her breath, frozen in terror. “You thought I would forget you?” Zigic hissed. He brought a cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag, the tip glowing bright red. She watched, too terrified to scream as he lowered the burning ember toward her cheek.
“No, please, no!” Natalia sat bolt upright. Zigic was gone. She swung her head from one side to the other and back. Her sister Rita slept peacefu
lly in the bed nearby. Moonlight shone through the window. It was a nightmare, nothing more. Natalia tried to calm her pounding heart. It had seemed so real that the odor of Zigic’s musk and sweat still lingered in her nostrils. Common sense told her that he would never come for her here, so far away. But common sense was not a reliable indicator. Goran Zigic didn’t operate on common sense.
When the morning sun filtered into the room, Natalia rose and dressed. She had breakfast with her family and then excused herself, taking her phone outside. She’d avoided calling Vitaly for weeks, first at Marina’s place and now in the days since she’d returned. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to him. She did, desperately. What kept her from doing so was fear. Natalia knew that she couldn’t lie to Vitaly. She’d have to tell him the truth, about everything, and that was going to be an exceptionally difficult conversation. The time, however, had come. She dialed his number and then waited while the phone rang. When he didn’t pick up, she sent him a text. Hi, Vitaly, I am back. This is my new phone number. Call me when you can. Later that day she sent another. When she hadn’t heard back by the afternoon, Natalia began to feel concerned. This was the man she was planning to marry. By the second day his silence wore on her, a cruelty she could not understand. It was pride alone that kept her from running to him in person. After three days even that was not enough. Natalia simply had to see him. She couldn’t take it anymore. With her father away in the Lada, Natalia rolled her old dirt bike out of the barn. She climbed on and used the foot-crank in an attempt to get the engine started. On the third try it coughed a few times and came to life. She revved the throttle, popped into first gear and took off toward the highway under a fading cobalt sky.
Light shone through the windows when Natalia pulled up to a stop outside Vitaly’s place. It was a farmhouse, freshly painted the color of green fields. Vitaly lived here with his father, along with a dog that she heard barking inside. She shut off her bike’s engine and waited until the front door opened. Vitaly poked his head outside. He nodded as though he’d expected her but instead of approaching, he stayed where he was in the doorway, holding the dog by the collar. He and Natalia stared at each other across this expanse that seemed to separate them, physically and emotionally. She lowered her kickstand and climbed from the bike. Her knees felt weak as she started forward, as though each step drew her closer to doom.
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