The Trafficked

82

‘Where is the child?’

‘She doesn’t speak, Father. She hasn’t cried. She hasn’t smiled. She doesn’t want to talk about what happened to her. I am afraid for her. She has so much locked up in her young head.’

‘I know, I know, Mercy. Don’t you worry. I will give her to someone else to look after. You have enough on your plate, with this baby of yours about to pop and a toddler to look after.’

‘No, Father. Please. I can manage. I want her to stay here. She needs us so badly. I just wish she would open up.’

Father Finn thought how tired Mercy looked. The exertion of the day before was still on her face. She had run around a lot more than was right for a woman in her final trimester.

‘Where is she?’ he asked, glancing around.

‘Round the back, sitting on the steps. I asked her if she wanted to help in the garden but she hasn’t moved from that step in three hours.’

* * *

‘Maya?’ Father Finn sat down beside her.

She did not answer.

‘Come and walk with me.’

Father Finn offered her his hand. She took it and he led her past Mercy’s house and up the hill. It was the other side to the refuge. It looked out over the sea. He walked slowly. The heat and the lush vegetation were not a climate to walk fast in.

‘Maya, I knew your mother when she was a girl. A little bit older than you.’

Maya looked at him hard. Her little face was trying to make sense of everything he was saying.

‘I did. And do you know what I remember?’

She shook her head.

‘She had the brightest smile I had ever seen. When she smiled, you just had to smile too. That’s a great gift, Maya, no? But she didn’t always smile. When I found your mother she had had a terrible time, just like you have had. She was sad and angry and unhappy about what had happened to her and why it had happened. She didn’t understand. But, after a while she made friends here and she became happy, and do you know what I remember most about your mother?’

Maya shook her head. Her large brown eyes never wandered from his face.

‘Your mother was only here a short while but she was happy here. You know what she loved to do?’

Maya shook her head. Father Finn stopped to allow the child to rest a little.

‘She liked to walk to the top of this hill with me and talk. “One day”, she’d say, “I am going to graduate from high school and I will be a lawyer or a teacher.” She was very smart, your mother. She didn’t achieve that dream because something much more important came along that made her happier than she had ever been, happier than she could ever have thought. Do you know what that was, Maya?’

Maya gave a small puzzled shake of the head.

‘It was you! Your mother loved you more than anything in the world. She didn’t want to die, Maya. She wanted to live to see you do well in school, see you graduate, see you have children of your own, but sometimes life doesn’t let us have the things we want.

‘But the one thing that you can always hold inside is to know that your mother loved you more than the world. She loved you so much she gave her life for you. I know that you have seen awful things, Maya. In time you will remember your mummy smiling again, just like I do when I think of her. I am looking forward to seeing you smile, Maya.’

Maya wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.

‘You can stay here, Maya, live with Mercy and Ramon. They will be your family. Mercy will have the baby soon and you will have a new brother or sister who will need you. You belong here, Maya. Come. Let me show you something.’

They reached the top of the hill. There was a small cemetery, lawned and tended. Amongst the half a dozen graves there was a new plaque.

‘Come, Maya. I know you can read and write because your mummy told me how clever you were. Come read this for me.’

They stopped at a new grave, covered in flowers. Maya read the words on the makeshift cross, written in black pen.

Wednesday, devoted mother to Maya.

Died 11 April 2004 at the age of 21.

‘You can come here whenever you like, Maya.’

Maya looked back at the grave and let go of Father Finn’s hands as she went to touch the cross. She pulled out some of the flowers from the bouquet that was left there and she knotted two stems together and draped the flowers over the cross.

Then she took the Father’s hand and they started their descent back down the mountain.