Stolen Souls

15

A WHITE TOYOTA VAN approached, its headlights flooding the shadows beneath the bridge. Galya flattened her shivering body against the pillar, concrete icy cold on her cheek.

The van slowed, the driver’s window lowered, showing the occupant’s moon face.

Galya stepped away from the pillar, letting the light find her. The driver smiled. He reached for the passenger door, opened it, turned back to her.

“Come on,” he said.

HE HAD COME to her in the afternoon. She had given him a glance as he entered the room, ushered in by Rasa, and turned her gaze downward.

Rasa spoke to him in English, saying, “Enjoy her. She is new. Never been touched.”

She closed the door, leaving him alone with Galya.

He lingered at the other end of the bedroom, his eyes like points of black oil on his round face, his coarse dark hair swept back from his forehead, a thick beard surrounding the red slit of his mouth. A pink scar carved a line from the center of his forehead to the outer edge of his right eyebrow. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, maybe forty. Galya examined him in the corner of her vision.

“Hello,” he said.

Galya tried to reply, but only managed a thick murmur in her throat.

“Can I sit down?” he asked.

Galya moved closer to the bed’s headboard. She felt his weight on the mattress. It rocked her like a boat on a sickly wave. She did not look at him, but she sensed his attention on her bare skin. Without thinking, she placed one forearm across her breasts, the other down between her thighs so her hand cupped her knee.

“My name’s Billy,” he said.

Galya did not respond.

“Am I really the first client?” he asked.

Galya swallowed, her lips tight together.

“So no one’s touched you yet?”

Galya studied the patterns on the faded wallpaper.

“Good,” he said. “Then it’s not too late.”

He kneeled on the floor, facing her, like a suitor asking for her hand in marriage.

“I can help you,” he said. His accent was soft and soupy, not hard and angular like the men who owned this flat. English, maybe, she couldn’t be sure.

Galya lifted her eyes to meet his. His gaze locked solid on hers, his expression firm and truthful.

“If you can get away from here,” he said, “I can help you.”

Galya went to speak, but closed her mouth when she realized she had no words for him.

“Please believe me,” he said. “I can help you. If you can get out of here, don’t tell anyone where you’re going, I can help you get back home. What’s your name?”

Galya shook her head.

“My name’s Billy Crawford,” he said. “I’m a pastor. A Baptist pastor, but I haven’t been placed with a church. Instead, I help girls like you, help you get away from this. Do you understand?”

He reached for Galya. She pulled away.

“It’s all right, I won’t hurt you,” he said, as if he were calming a trembling puppy. “Look.”

He held a fine silver chain before her eyes, a cross dangling from it.

“For you,” he said. “So Jesus will protect you.”

He went to place it over her head. She flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his hands. The cross settled in his lap. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I know you’re scared. I know you don’t want to be here. You don’t, do you?”

Galya wanted to shake her head, tell him no, she didn’t want to be here. Instead she turned her eyes away.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here to help you. I can help you get back home, away from these people.”

Away.

Such a big word. So big there were many ways to say it in Russian. Away, like she wanted to get away from Mama’s farm. Like she wanted to leave her village. To be free of the things that bound her there. To go to another place and have a life of her own.

Those notions seemed foolish now, but the word still weighed as heavy. She wanted to be away from here more than she had ever wanted anything before.

So when he reached again, she dipped her head, allowed him to place the chain around her neck. The cross lay cold on her skin. She touched it with her fingertip, felt the hard angles.

“Jesus will protect you,” he said. “He will protect you, and He will help you get away from these people. Do you understand me?”

Galya nodded once.

“Good.” A smile split his moon face. He took her hand and put a piece of paper in her palm, a string of numbers written on it in pencil, each digit impossibly neat. “When you get away from here, call me. Understand? Call me. I can save you.”

He stood and walked to the door, opened it, and left her alone in the room. Galya stared at the paper and the numbers printed on it. She lifted the cross from her breast, turned it in the light, brought it to her lips, kissed it.

Hard, quick footsteps approached from beyond the bedroom door. Galya bunched up the piece of paper and stuffed it beneath the pillow on the bed beside her. She lifted the chain over her head, ready to stash it with the phone number, but the door opened. Galya clenched her fist around the cross as Rasa entered and asked, “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Galya said.

“That’s right,” Rasa said as she approached the bed. “Nothing.”

“He just—”

Rasa’s open hand struck Galya’s cheek, the impact followed by heat, heat followed by pain. “Nothing. You didn’t do a thing for him.”

“He only wanted to talk,” Galya said as her throat tightened with tears. She held up the cross. “Look. He gave me this.”

Rasa’s hand lashed out again, leaving its stinging mark on Galya’s other cheek. “Men don’t want to talk,” she said. “Men want to fuck. You ungrateful little bitch, after everything I’ve done for you.”

Galya could hold the tears back no longer. “But he didn’t want—”

She cried out as Rasa grabbed a fistful of hair and hoisted her to her feet. “They only want to fuck. That’s all you’re here for.”

Rasa threw her against the chest of drawers, sending makeup and lotions spilling. The mirror teetered on its stand before tipping and crashing to the floor, shards scattering.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Rasa said, marching to the door. “Clean it up.”

Galya got to her knees as the door slammed shut. Pieces of broken mirror lay around her. She wept as she gathered them up and dropped them in the small bin that sat by the chest.

Maybe the kind man could save her. Maybe he couldn’t. It didn’t matter either way, not if she couldn’t get away from here, away from Rasa and the men she had sold Galya to. Soon another man would come, a man who wasn’t kind, and she would have to do things for him. Her stomach soured at the idea.

Galya reached for the largest piece of glass, long like a blade, and saw the cross and chain lying curled upon it.

“I’LL TAKE YOU to my house,” Billy Crawford said as he put the van in gear and moved off. “You’ll be safe there for now. Put your seatbelt on.”

Galya did as she was told. He noticed the deep red on her clothing and her hands.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

She stared straight ahead. “I killed a man.”

The seatbelt gripped her tight across her chest as he stood hard on the brake pedal. He unclasped his own belt and climbed out of the van. The headlights made his wide face glow white as he crossed in front of her and approached the passenger side. He yanked the door open.

“Get out,” he said.

Galya stared down at him.

“Out,” he said.

She undid the seatbelt and lowered herself to the ground.

“I can’t help you,” he said. “You have to go.”

“You said—”

“I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

Galya’s breast tightened with alarm. “You said you would help me.”

He paced, his gaze shooting in every direction. “If the police are looking for you, they’ll …”

His words trailed away, and he bit his knuckle.

Galya felt something crumble inside herself. This strange, kind man had given her hope. Would he now take it away, abandon her out here in this cold city? Her chest hitched as she fought tears.

He stopped pacing, ran his hands over his face. “Tell me what happened.”

“We have to go away from here,” Galya said.

He gripped her arms in his coarse-skinned fingers. “Tell me what happened.”

“A man came, a Lithuanian. He says he will break me, show me how to do it right. He holds me down on the bed. He hurts me. I push him off.”

She mimed the actions with her hands, shaping the words into English as she spoke.

“I have a broken glass from the mirror. When I broke it, I wrapped it in cloth from the bed so to make a knife. I told him let me go. He was angry. He was shouting. He tries to take the glass from me. I didn’t want to kill him. I just want to go home.”

He released her arms and backed away. “It’s too much risk,” he said, more to himself than to Galya. “I can’t, not this time.”

Galya tugged at his shirt. “Please, sir, you say you would help me if I go away from them.”

He brushed her hand away. “Not like this. The police will come for you. I can’t—”

A siren in the distance stopped him talking. His shoulders rose and fell, his breath misting in plumes between them.

“Calm down,” he said.

Galya knew he was not addressing her.

He turned a circle, looking all around him, until his eyes settled on the number plates on his van. He looked back to Galya.

She reached beneath the neckline of her bloodied sweatshirt and withdrew the pendant that clung to the chain around her neck.

“You gave me this,” she said, showing him the cross. “You say Jesus will protect me. He did. He showed me how to go away from that place.”

He closed his eyes, engaged in a silent communion with himself. His eyes opened, his breathing slowed, his decision made.

“All right,” he said. “Come with me.”