Stolen Souls

52

GALYA FELT SHE was held in a hard embrace, arms like stone wrapped around her, as she lingered in the dim place between waking and dreaming. She journeyed to waking through a heavy fog, a light ahead that at first seemed friendly and welcoming, but became more harsh and painful the closer she drew to it.

The first firm slap to her cheek brought only confusion. The second brought anger, and she tried to raise her arms to defend herself, but found her wrists were pinned behind her.

She dragged her eyelids open, struggling to think through the rush of sensations that threatened to overpower her mind. The light sent a spike of pain straight to the center of her head. She blinked against it, again wanting to raise a hand to defend herself from it, again unable to do so.

A voice said something, somewhere.

“What? Where am I?” she asked in Russian.

The voice came again, but she couldn’t understand the words. Then she recognized them as English, and played them back, slowly grasping their meaning.

“You’re all right,” the voice had said. “Sit still, now.”

The owner of the voice moved into her vision, his moon face looming over her, lit from above by a single lightbulb. She remembered breaking a lightbulb, the tiny fragments raining down on her like brittle snow. Then she had been in the dark, alone and waiting. Waiting for the owner of the voice to come.

Come and do what?

Come and hurt her, she thought.

A little of the dark fog lifted and she smelled something warm and damp: steam from hot water. She turned her head as far as she could and saw him lift a large plastic bowl from a workbench. He brought it in front of her and placed it on the floor, at her feet.

She remembered him now—the sour milk smell, the calming words, the knowing in his eyes—and fear broke through the fog. Her body jerked with the realization, but she couldn’t move her limbs. She twisted around, tried to see what bound her wrists to the chair, could barely make out a tail of plastic: a cable tie. It cut into her flesh as she tried to pull her hand away.

“Don’t,” he said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

She began to speak in Russian, but corrected herself. “What are you doing?” she asked.

He smiled at her. “You’ll see. Don’t worry, it’s something nice.” As he walked behind her, she followed him with her eyes until the muscles of her neck protested. He took a small bottle and a sponge from the workbench.

“Please,” she said. “What are those?”

He smiled once more and lowered himself to his knees in front of her. The linoleum covering had been rolled back to reveal the concrete beneath. Galya saw rectangular shapes in its surface where it had been dug up and filled in again. And she knew what for.

“Back home, did you ever read the Bible?” he asked.

She understood the words, but could make no sense of the question. “Bible?”

“The Bible,” he said. “About Jesus.”

“Yes,” she said. “I go to church.”

“Then you know about Mary Magdelene?”

“Yes,” she said.

He took a pair of wire cutters from his pocket and she tried to recoil.

“It’s all right,” he said, his voice low and soft.

She felt a pressure at her ankle, heard a hard snipping noise, and her foot was free for a moment before his hard hand gripped it. Her leg tensed.

“Don’t struggle,” he said. “Relax.”

She let her leg go loose, allowed him to take her foot and bring it to his lap. He examined her sole, blowing on the torn skin, wincing with her as he touched it with his fingertips.

“And do you know about Mary Magdelene anointing His feet?” He picked at fragments of broken lightbulb as he spoke. “And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment.”

With his free hand, he poured a golden viscous fluid onto the sponge before dipping it into the steaming water. He worked the sponge between his fingers, forming a lather.

“And stood at his feet behind him weeping,” he continued, “and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”

He brought the sponge to her sole. The lather stung, and her leg jerked. He shushed and clucked.

“Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.”

He worked the sponge harder against her raw flesh, and she cried out, her voice ringing hollow in the cellar.

“You see, Jesus was humble,” he said. “Even though she was a whore and a sinner, He let her anoint His feet. And then, at the Last Supper, He washed his disciples’ feet. And Peter said, No, Lord, I won’t let you wash my feet. But Jesus did. Even though it was beneath Him, He did it anyway. So even though you’re a whore and a sinner, I will anoint your feet.”

He lowered her foot to rest in the water. She gritted her teeth as the scalding heat blotted out the pain of her tattered skin. He lifted the wire cutters from the floor and freed her other foot.

“And so you’ll be saved,” he said. “I will deliver you unto Him cleaned and anointed.”

He reached up and placed his fingers beneath her chin, his thumb against her lips. She tasted soap and hot water. The thumb moved across the opening of her mouth, burrowed between and in, until it met the hardness of her teeth.

“So clean,” he said. “I’ll make you so clean.”