The Last Minute

64

Harp , Moldova

I follow Natalia from the market. Natalia is a petite girl and whenever I turned I could see the prominent heavy swell of her stomach. Pregnant. Natalia lumbers like pregnancy does not agree with her. She has no glow.

As Natalia reaches the edge of the market, I touch her elbow and the young woman turns. Recognizes me. And tries to smile, like smiling is a flexing of the face that she’s forgotten.

‘Do I know you?’ Natalia says.

‘You recruited my sister to be a prostitute for Vadim.’ I see no point here in wasting time. She looks like she might explode with baby at any moment.

Every word detonates against the fortress of Natalia’s smile. The woman’s lips waver for barely a moment and the smile stays firm as brick. ‘I have to go,’ Natalia whispers.

I close a hand around Natalia’s arm. I push the woman into a narrow alley between shuttered stores where For Rent signs hang in their windows like permanent fixtures. Broken glass from a beer bottle cracks under our shoes. I smell piss in the alley. Natalia tries to pull away but I am so much stronger. I ease Natalia up against the brick wall, where a graffiti artist has written unkind words about a rival football team.

‘Where did they take her?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know. Let me go.’

‘Tell me, or I’ll break your arm.’

‘But I’m pregnant.’ Natalia pales.

‘Irrelevant. A broken arm won’t hurt your baby. How does it work when Vadim gets the girls from here?’

Natalia doesn’t answer and so I yank the girl’s arm across my knee, begin to exert pressure on both sides. ‘Let me assure you, I mean business.’

‘But you’re a teacher.’ Now she remembers me.

‘Yes, and I’ll beat your ass with a ruler if you don’t tell me what I want to know.’

Natalia’s eyes widen. ‘He’ll kill Nelly if he knows you talked to me. Let me go, and walk away.’

My hands find the girl’s ring finger and twist it savagely. Natalia cries out.

‘You need to start taking this conversation seriously. How. Does. It. Work?’

Natalia gasps with pain. ‘Okay. Vadim takes them to Bucharest. They are taken to a safe house there. They are then taken to Istanbul by car. There’s another safe house. They stay there a while.’

‘Why?’

‘To… please don’t make me say it.’

‘Since you condemned my sister to it, you can say it.’

‘Break them in.’

‘Define.’

‘They give them heroin. They… assault them. For days, until they’re easier to manage.’

I made myself count to ten before I spoke. ‘And then what?’

‘They’re – sold. To houses. Some in Turkey. To Israel, Albania, Italy. The prettiest ones go to Dubai.’

‘Do you know where Nelly is?’

‘There’s nothing you can do for Nelly, except cooperate with them. They hold all the power.’

‘If I can do nothing, then there’s no harm in telling me.’

And then I see Natalia is not quite human any more. Natalia is not just flesh and blood but she is fear. She is ruled, shaped, made by fear. She is afraid of everything. This is what Vadim’s forge has made.

Good.

‘She… she is in Tel Aviv. I saw her there. I was there, too. Lucky Strike Parlor. Above a pizzeria. There are eight girls there. Most from Moldova or Romania.’

‘Is Vadim the pimp?’

‘No. Trafficker. He just gets the girls to where they have to be.’

‘There is a man with a blond mohawk. Who is he?’

‘His name is Zviman. He owns the brothel, he inherited them from his father. He owns a whole bunch of them, around Africa, the Middle East, in Russia. You don’t want to mess with him, he’s a cold bastard. He’ll kill Nelly and not blink.’

‘Thank you, Natalia. You are keeping the baby?’

The shift in tone rocks Natalia and she blinks. ‘Yes.’

‘They didn’t make you get rid of it?’

‘They let me come home.’ Now she glances at the floor.

‘Oh, how generous of them.’

Natalia tries to nod but even that simple motion seems beyond her.

‘How many girls did it cost to bring you home?’

She reacts as though I’ve slapped her. I wait. Finally she says: ‘Five.’

‘Including Nelly.’

Natalia can’t look at me; I look at the broken beer bottles on the pavement. ‘My mother got the replacements. She did it for me.’ Now Natalia raises her face.

Replacements. The word twists like a knife in my gut. I realize I have bitten the inside of my cheek and I can taste the copper tinge of my blood.

‘You’re just a schoolteacher. You can’t fight Vadim, he’s greased every palm he needs between here and Istanbul. And if you cross him Nelly is dead. Get girls to replace her and forget about them.’

‘I know your mother,’ I say. ‘I know where she lives, where she shops, where she likes to drink her wine.’

Natalia blinks, her vapid little mouth works in fright. ‘Leave mama alone, please. Please.’

‘You keep your mouth shut about our little talk. Or when I see Vadim next, I’ll tell him you told me everything. He will regret his kindness to you then.’

She starts to pull away and I can tell it’s not enough. She will warn Vadim. I grab her arm. ‘And. If you talk to Vadim? I will kill your mother. I will walk up to her on the street and I will shoot her in the head. It’s more of a kindness than what you and she did to my sister.’

Can you believe I said that, Sam? I said it. Me, the schoolteacher. And you know I meant it.

My voice convinces. Natalia is pale with terror. I let her go and she stumbles away from the alley. I check my watch. Today Ivan is going to practice using the knife with me. We work in an abandoned winery a few kilometers from the ragged edge of town. No one is around to hear the ping of the bullets I put into the targets.