Vinnytsia was closer to Kiev than Mircea thought – three hours later, Boris was shaking him awake and asking where he should drop him off. Mircea rubbed his eyes and squinted at the familiar bleak sight of Vinnytsia – man, did he hate that place. Clearing his throat, he directed Boris to the laundry.
Boris unloaded his luggage from the backseat, and gave Mircea a curt nod before getting back in the car. Mircea found himself waving idiotically as he drove off. “Have fun getting to Odessa!” he called to the departing taillights. The slow stupid cow was still working behind the counter. She greeted Mircea stiffly, saying they were expecting him yesterday. Mircea gave her a growl. “Shit happens,” he said in English, and it was amazing how universal swear words were. She ducked her head and handed over the ledger. Mircea fought back a groan as he looked over the figures. The money that was being laundered here was really not worth the effort. Mircea realised that selling his share wouldn’t bring in much. He could just up and leave, for all the profit the laundry would bring. He sighed and dropped the ledger back on the counter. “Call me a taxi,” he ordered wearily. For the first time in a long time, Mircea wanted to go home. Not that he held much affection for Moldova, but simply because it was a place where no one was expecting anything from him. He didn’t have to meet and greet anyone back in Chisinau, but that was because he was a nobody there. Just an orphan fighting to make ends meet, like everyone else. It was Mircea’s foreign connections that were his fortune: his EU passport, his talent for languages and his wits. He stayed in Chisinau because that was his home, where he grew up and what he was familiar with. When he was in Vinnytsia, he stayed in the apartment above the Nightclub the Syndicate ran. The club was noisy, even during the day, and the floor of the apartment vibrated from the bass line of the music below. Putting his suitcase down as he came in, he could see the bloodstains from where Piotr shot Ivan still hadn’t faded. “What a dump,” he said aloud. He brought his carryon bag to the bedroom, and he pulled out the half-empty bottle of duty free vodka. Half-heartedly he opened it and took a swig, knowing full well that a depressant wouldn’t help the depression this place brought on. He looked in the small kitchenette to see if there was anything to eat. There was some mouldy bread and a half-empty cereal box, neither of which was very appetising. “Guess it’s time for me to go and make nice,” he reckoned. He went back to the bedroom to get the duty free carton of cigarettes. He opened it and took on pack for himself, then headed down to the club with the rest. Oleg the waiter was there, taking inventory behind the bar. He looked up with dull interest as Mircea came in. He raised an eyebrow at the pack of cigarettes Mircea offered him. “Piotr won’t be in until this evening,” he informed him curtly, pocketing the cigarettes. Mircea hated being reminded that he wasn’t in charge. “How are things going?” Oleg gestured to the storeroom. “You can check the stock if you like. The ledgers are in the office, but that’s for the owners.” “I have a share in this place,” Mircea reminded him. Oleg didn’t say anything, but he couldn’t hide the smirk creeping across his face. So it was a 2% share…Mircea still had some right to know how the business was going. “So how is business these days? Still getting plenty of people through the doors?” Oleg shrugged. “The same as usual.” It was a stupid question, as the takings from the doors didn’t matter – like almost all the businesses the Syndicate owned, the club was a place to launder money, and a place to hold girls. Things in Vinnytsia didn’t interest Mircea really, but until he got the signal to focus on Belarus and Cyprus, he had to potter around here. “How’s your mouth?” Oleg asked. Mircea touched his jaw defensively. “Good,” he lied. Oleg seemed intent on calling out his vulnerabilities. “I really tied one on in Cyprus,” he told Oleg, trying to change the subject. He looked at him questioningly. “Got so trashed I missed the connecting flight,” Mircea said by way of explanation. Again Oleg shrugged. “Get me a drink,” Mircea ordered in annoyance. Oleg grabbed a shot glass and poured a measure of vodka into it. Mircea looked at the glass and reconsidered. “Any coffee?” he asked Oleg. “I’ll make some,” Oleg sighed, and went to the office, where they kept the coffee maker. While he was gone, Mircea turned and looked around the club. He didn’t often see it with the lights fully on – it was a dismal dingy spot for people who just wanted to get drunk or hook up with a girl. Looking around, he wondered what it was like to be the manager of a place like this, like Liev was back in Chernivtsi. You got to scam some money off the top, but the day to day running of an ugly joint like this had to be depressing. Plus you often had to deal with situations – how many battered girls did Liev have to dispose of? Things were probably better in his hotel in Kiev, but not by much. For the first time, Mircea wondered what his long-term plan was. He wanted to get out of Eastern Europe and live in London, but he wasn’t sure how he would do that, and if dealing with Belarus and Northern Cyprus would get him closer. The coffee was taking a while; he downed the vodka Oleg had poured him. He had taken the stronger painkillers he kept hidden in the toilet tank upstairs, so his face didn’t ache anymore. He wondered why Oleg had to watch over the coffee pot – surely someone had to stay behind the bar to make sure nothing went missing. I guess he trusts me, Mircea thought with a wry smile. But he was not the barman. Defiantly he leaned over and helped himself to more vodka, even though he really didn’t feel like getting drunk. Any missing drink will come out of Oleg’s pocket, he thought spitefully. Oleg poked his head out of the back office. “Do you take cream and sugar?” he called. “Both,” Mircea replied, even though he drank his coffee black. He just liked the idea of Oleg having to serve him. Dutifully, Oleg came out after a moment with a coffee cup and saucer. The coffee was suitably light brown with the added ingredients, although Oleg should have asked him how much sugar to add. Mircea took the cup and sipped; it was revoltingly sweet and milky, like a kid’s candy. “That’s awful coffee,” Mircea declared, but Oleg was looking at his clipboard again. “It’s the imported stuff,” he said defensively. “You should taste the crap in Cyprus,” Mircea laughed, trying to show off. “You can get Turkish coffee here, too,” Oleg reminded him, not at all impressed. He gestured to Mircea’s cup. “This is the Italian stuff. It’s supposed to be good.” Mircea didn’t really want to have a discussion about coffee, of all things. It was his turn to shrug now, and he continued sipping at the sweet stuff in the cup. He toyed with the idea of going upstairs and taking a nap, as he didn’t really add anything standing around. Just then, Piotr came in, with Dmitri, the bouncer, in tow. He made some sort of greeting signal to Oleg, then turned his sunglasses to Mircea. He pointed at him. “The office,” he directed, turning to go there. Mircea put down the coffee cup and grabbed the cigarettes, following Piotr. “There’s coffee there,” Oleg called as they went in. The bouncer took up his place by the door, while Piotr sat behind the desk. Mircea put the cigarettes on the blotter. “Duty free,” he said in a fawning voice. Piotr glanced down. “Where’s the rest of them?” “I’m sharing them round with the staff,” Mircea said lamely. Piotr swept the open carton off the desk with one quick hand movement. “I don’t believe this,” he snorted. “You come in late, you miss your connecting flight, and you bring crap like this? You’re not bringing goodies for the office like some secretary. You bring me decent stuff, better stuff than I can get in Heathrow Duty Free!” He pounded his fist on the desk for emphasis, making Mircea jump slightly. “So what’s the latest?” Piotr asked in a dangerous low voice. The latest? “Well, everything went well in Cyprus-“ “I’m not asking about Cyprus!” Piotr roared. “What is this crap of your boyfriend having you driven down from Kiev?” Boyfriend? “Liev’s an old business acquaintance-“ “I don’t care how you know that big pansy, I want to know why you backed out of your flight and spent the night with him in Kiev!” Piotr stood and leaned over the desk at Mircea. “Did you two have a date or something?” he sneered. “I was really hungover and I missed my flight –“Mircea began, but was interrupted by a stinging slap Piotr landed on his cheek. “You keep telling everyone that story, but it’s not true. You thought you could keep me waiting while you and your fairy boyfriend lived it up in Kiev?” Mircea had instinctively put a hand to his cheek, but didn’t want to show any sign that the slap had registered, so he dropped his hand. Telling everyone that story? He had only said it to Liev, Boris and Oleg. He recalled the signal Piotr had made to Oleg when he came in, and suddenly understood why Oleg had spent so long in the office. He was calling Piotr. Mircea felt cold chills as Piotr looked at him expectantly. “It’s true! I had too much to drink-“ Piotr slapped Mircea again, and motioned to the bouncer to come and take Mircea’s arms. “It’s true! I really was drunk, and Liev’s an old friend – I had no idea he’s-“ Mircea was pleading as Dmitri the bouncer gripped him tightly from behind. Piotr stopped slapping him like a woman, and hauled off and punched him hard in the gut. “You think you’re really something now, don’t you?” Piotr said menacingly. He had come out from behind the desk and was punching Mircea’s torso. “You’re the big man in Minsk, eh?” Piotr spat on Mircea’s shoes. “Minsk is nothing and nowhere. The Turkish part of Cyprus? Get real!” Again Piotr spat, and followed up with a sharp jab to Mircea’s chest this time. “Bringing me a lousy opened carton of cigarettes, after having your boyfriend drive you down!” “Boss, let me do it,” Dmitri said as Piotr rained blows down on Mircea. Piotr threw his hands up and drew back, letting the bouncer knee Mircea in the kidneys before he started working him over with his fists. Piotr kept talking as Dmitri pummelled Mircea. “What are these lies you’re telling now about a Russian father?” “I don’t know who my father was,” Mircea whined, gasping from the blows he was receiving. He tried to curl into a ball to protect himself. Piotr pulled Dmitiri back and bent over him. “So you want to be one of the big boys now, with a Russian mobster daddy? You don’t have one! I do!” Piotr roared into Mircea’s ear. “No you don’t!” Mircea shouted back, before he could stop himself. Dmitri stopped beating Mircea, and Piotr grabbed his collar, hoisting him up to eye level. “What was that?” he asked in that low dangerous voice. Mircea felt sick and terrified. He tried to look away, but Piotr forced him to look at him, at his silly dark glasses. “You’re not fooling anyone with those sunglasses,” Mircea heard himself saying in a weak voice. Surprised, Piotr eased up his grip. “What are you saying?” Mircea tried not to answer, but Piotr shook him roughly, and repeated the question. “Your eyes!” Mircea cried. “Your dark eyes…not Russian blue…” That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mircea wasn’t exactly sure what happened next, but it certainly was painful. He must have passed out at some point, because the next thing he was aware of was being flung over Dmitri’s shoulder and being carried away. “Just dump him in the alley,” he heard Piotr say. “Don’t waste any bullets on that Moldovan poof.” A door creaked open, and the ground rushed up to catch him. “I wouldn’t come back here,” the bouncer’s voice advised him from above. “Just go home to Moldova, if you know what’s good for you.” Mircea cried like a child for a bit, the pain in his body and head unbelievable. He wanted to just die, but figured Piotr wouldn’t let it end that easily. He’d have someone beat him into a pulp, him and his stupid big mouth. Snivelling, Mircea tried to get to his feet, but only managed to crawl. Millimetre by painful millimetre he dragged himself out of the alley. He collapsed by the street, into a mess of a lump. He tried to call for help, but cars sped by him as night was starting to fall. He lay on the pavement and wept, hoping someone, even the police, would come and take him away. After what seemed like hours, he heard a car stop. There was too much blood on his face and eyes for him to see properly anymore, so he just tried to blindly crawl to where he thought the car was. Two hands reached down and held him up; one hand tried to wipe away the blood and grime. “It’s him,” Mircea heard a familiar voice say. “Let’s get to a hospital!” Mircea was taken gently into a strong embrace, and then tenderly carried over to the car and put across the backseat. Someone sat down next to him, placing his head in their lap. “Let’s go, quickly,” that person said in their familiar voice. “Michael, it’s too dangerous!” another voice said. “Just drive!” the first voice ordered. Mircea felt the car start, and the inertia from its driving off pressed him into the person’s lap. A hand stroked his hair soothingly, shushing him. Michael, Mircea realised, just before he slipped into unconsciousness.
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I was getting ready to go to the gym when the phone rang. I figured it was Kate, as I had spoken with Cara at length already today. “Hey,” I sang into the phone, ready to hear Kate’s familiar voice. A different, somewhat recognisable voice spoke.
“May I speak to Lisa O’Toole?” I knew that accent; it was Tenneh calling. But why was she being so formal? “Speaking,” I said, automatically matching her tone. Was she mad at me now? “This is Hannah Dumbuya O’Keefe…I got your number from my sister.” I was so surprised I didn’t say anything. “I hope I haven’t interrupted anything.” Hannah was a lot more serious than her sister, who would have been chatting away to me after hello. Maybe it was because she didn’t know me, but maybe it was because Tenneh was the outgoing one in her family. “No, no, you haven’t,” I assured her. “How can I help you…I mean, it’s good to talk to you.” I didn’t want to be distant with her, speaking like I would to a client. “I’m calling because I’m sorry that you and your sister were so upset last night.” Oh, boy. She sounded so troubled! “It wasn’t your fault!” How would I explain the craziness of my family to her? “I’m hoping we can meet to talk? You and your sister, Tenneh and me?” I closed my eyes, wincing. How could I tell Hannah that my sister didn’t want to face her and her sister? “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but Cara doesn’t want to meet you…at least not yet.” “Oh.” I heard her take a deep breath. “I’m so sorry!” How long was I going to have to apologise for Cara’s behaviour, like she was a kid? But then, her story was not mine to tell. The whole situation was tying me in knots! “It’s complicated,” I managed finally. “Oh,” Hannah repeated. “Well, why don’t you meet with me and Tenneh? Today, if you have time?” “Oh, yes, I’m free today. I was going to go to the gym, but I’d much rather meet with you.” I realised I was babbling. “Look, there’s a lot going on with us. I hope we didn’t offend you, but my sister has some issues to deal with.” “I see. No, you did not offend me. We are just worried.” Hannah, worried about Cara and me? “Please don’t worry.” I knew what I was feeling was called white liberal guilt in magazines, but how could I not feel vaguely ashamed? I was freaking out because my adult sister had had an abortion, and here I was talking to women who had survived child sex slavery. I was tempted to call Cara and order her to go and meet Tenneh and Hannah, but I didn’t have the right to do that. And Cara would never listen to me if I did, anyway. “Where should we meet?” I asked Hannah, trying to keep a normal conversational flow going. I hoped she wouldn’t say the Beirut Café. I didn’t want to face Andy, after having made an idiot of myself. “How about my house?” She gave me the address. “Around three o’clock? We can have tea.” I agreed readily. I had time to go to the gym first, and try and work out some of my nerves on the treadmill. I wanted to kill Cara, but I quickly realised I wasn’t feeling apprehensive because of her. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting with Hannah because we would have to talk about her past. Rape is not an easy subject for women to talk about, as it’s a threat that’s always present, something we have to keep on our minds, whether we like it or not. I once took a training course for work, where they told us that confronting things was the way to resolve issues. Talking with Tenneh and Hannah would definitely be a way to dispel the ghost of their past from haunting all our interactions. Yes, you went through something horrible, but it does not define you as a person. After I hung up with Hannah, I reached for my gym bag. I had a lot of tension to work off! Hannah lived out in Lucan, in a place where all the houses look alike. Thank God for GPS, because I never would have found her place otherwise. I had called Kate before I went, and we prayed together for strength. I prayed again before I got out of the parked car. The manners my mother taught me compelled me to bring flowers when I visited someone’s house for the first time; I clutched them like I imagined a warrior would hold his sword as he entered into battle. I rang the bell of the pleasant semi-detached house Hannah lived in; Tenneh opened the door to me. “Lisa! Come in!” She hugged me, carefully avoiding the hand that was clutching the bouquet. She took the flowers and led me into the house. “Hannah’s upstairs bathing Johnny, my nephew. She’ll be down in a few minutes.” Nephew? I fought to keep my face neutral. Was this the baby she was pregnant with in Sierra Leone? I quickly calculated the timeline, realising that was over ten years ago, and you did not need to bathe a child close to his teen years like you would an infant. Johnny was obviously not the child she was carrying back in Sierra Leone. Tenneh had her back to me in the kitchen, pouring a mug of tea. She had read my mind, try as best I could to keep my thoughts to myself. “Johnny is her son with her husband, Miles,” Tenneh explained, handing me the cup of tea and filling a vase with water at the sink. “Miles is working today, on a special construction project but will be back by dinner time. For Saturdays, he gets paid double!” I was itching to ask if Hannah had other children, but I fought the impulse. I would ask her when she came down. I disgusted myself by wanting to know where the child from her teenage pregnancy was, but the curiosity burned in me. Again, Tenneh seemed to know what I was thinking, and she smiled gently at me. She didn’t say anything, and put my flowers into the vase. I sipped at the tea, which was red bush tea, not the strong black Irish tea we dump loads of milk in. I felt like I was drinking hot water, but didn’t say anything. I heard Hannah come in. She looked somewhat like her sister, but so very different at the same time. She had the same smile, which she beamed at me. “Welcome to my house! I’m so glad you could come!” She too gave me a warm hug, also avoiding the hand that was holding something like Tenneh had. “Come sit in the front room.” She motioned me towards the sitting room, but stayed in the kitchen. “Tenneh, you shouldn’t have given her red bush tea! The Irish don’t like that!” I heard a cupboard being opened as I went to the sitting room, blushing. Tenneh joined me, and we sat down on the sofa. “She’s making you Irish tea,” she giggled. “Sorry, we drink bush tea when we are together!” “It’s fine,” I lied. Tenneh shook her head and took the mug from me. “You don’t have to be polite. Miles doesn’t like bush tea either!” She brought the mug into the kitchen, where I overheard a brief snatch of conversation between the sisters; Hannah was scolding Tenneh. She came back out, laughing and shaking her head. “I have lived here for so long, but I still don’t understand you Irish and your tea customs!” She sank on to the sofa. “Hannah is making proper tea, as Miles would say, and getting biscuits and things. She has put Johnny down for a nap, even though she knows he will be up all night now!” The situation was familiar to me as an aunt; I too often would wonder why Trish and Muiread put their kids down for naps when they later complained to me about them being awake in the night. From my sisters I had learned that children need naps, even if it does disturb their night time pattern. Keeping them awake only caused tantrums and misery. “I also have a nephew named Johnny,” I told Tenneh. “He’s twelve now. How old is yours?” “He’ll be two in two months,” Tenneh answered. “The terrible twos,” I said conversationally. My mind was reeling with calculations. The child Hannah was carrying when they escaped captivity would be as old as my nephew Johnny; where was that child? Hannah came in, a few moments later, bearing a tray of teacups and biscuits. “I think those terrible twos have already started,” she said as Tenneh helped her lower the tray to the coffee table. “Johnny’s favourite word is already mine!” She sounded like she had experience with two-year-old children. “Do you have other children?” I asked, hoping my tone was light and casual. It wasn’t. She and Tenneh exchanged a glance. “No, Johnny is my first.” First? I concentrated on my teacup, not trusting my expression. Tenneh put her hand over mine. “It’s okay, Lisa. It’s nice of you to try and avoid the topic, but Johnny is my only nephew.” She looked at her sister, who nodded, pouring out the tea. Tenneh looked back at me. “Hannah aborted the baby she was carrying from her forced marriage.” I tried not to react with shock, but it was the second abortion I had learned about in a matter of days, and I couldn’t be relaxed and sophisticated about it. The fact that it happened to a teenage rape victim made me visibly shudder. I didn’t want to look at Hannah with pity, so I concentrated on her hands as she set out the teacups. “I am so sorry,” I whispered. She put the teapot down and reached out to me. I didn’t trust myself not to cry, so I clutched her hand and Tenneh’s hand and breathed deeply. Hannah squeezed my hand. “There was a French doctor at the Red Cross centre who was so upset about my situation,” Hannah began gravely. “I was pretty far along in the pregnancy, but this doctor performed a late term abortion.” Hannah looked at Tenneh, who was silently crying. “My sister and I fought about that, and we still argue about it now, but that doctor was merciful. I wanted to have a child that would be loved, and I would not have loved that baby. I would have cared for it as a mother, but in that child I would have always seen that man and what he did to me.” Tenneh covered her face with her hands as Hannah kept talking, and Hannah took my hand, the hand that Tenneh had let go. “I killed that baby, Lisa,” Hannah told me bluntly. “I let the doctor perform the abortion…he cried with me afterward. I would not have loved the baby we aborted, and every child should be loved. Tenneh tried to argue that I should give that baby to be adopted, but who would adopt that baby? A child whose father was a terrible man and whose mother abandoned him?” Hannah’s voice shook as she looked at her sister with narrowed eyes. “A child not even you would take?” There was something going on between the sisters. I didn’t understand what Hannah was saying, how she expected her thirteen year old sister to take in her niece or nephew. I looked from Hannah to Tenneh, who was sobbing silently, her hands pressed to her face. Hannah let go of my hands and sat beside Tenneh, taking her into her arms. She murmured something in their native language, and the two sisters embraced. After a moment, Tenneh pulled away, and wiped her eyes. She turned to me with a brave imitation of a smile. “My sister and I fight about this because I can never have a baby,” Tenneh explained in a tight voice. “I too got pregnant from my so called husband. This monster of a man liked to drink, and when he was drunk, he did terrible things. He made a bet with one of his horrible friends that my baby was a boy, but he didn’t want to wait until it was born to find out if he was right. He cut me open…I don’t know how I survived that, but my baby did not. My husband won his bet, though…it was a boy!” Tenneh told me the awful story in such a quiet way, as if she were describing something she had seen in a movie, a comedy or romance, not a horror movie. I clapped my hand over my mouth, to keep from screaming or vomiting, I don’t know. Hannah scolded her sister in their language, coming over to embrace me. I pulled away, not wanting to face her or Tenneh. I stood up, not sure if I wanted to run screaming from the room or just hope the ground would swallow me up. I felt so stupid and spoiled, whingeing over little things when I was in the presence of two women who had survived such unbelievable evil. I pulled at my hair, wanting to feel some pain as Tenneh’s and Hannah’s story sank in. “Why does God allow things like this to happen?” I asked, pulling hard on the hair at my temples. The kind of things Tenneh and Hannah had lived through shouldn’t even happen in a book. I pulled harder, and strands came out. Hannah stood beside me, and pushed my hands down. “I do not know,” she told me, keeping me from grabbing my hair again. “People do terrible things to each other, all the time. God loves us, and forgives us…we need to do the same.” I looked from her to Tenneh. “How can you love or forgive the men who did this to you?” I asked. “You couldn’t love that baby!” Hannah looked down, her eyes full of tears. “I do not want to live with hate,” she said quietly. “I did not want my child to live with the hate that created him.” She looked at me, then at Tenneh, tears flowing down her face. “I killed my baby, but with him I killed the hate. I could forgive that man then…and I hope that God can forgive me.” Tenneh jumped to her feet. “He does,” Tenneh said to her sister, coming over to hug her. “You have a beautiful child now, a baby made in love.” Hannah pulled back, looking at her sister. “And you, Tenneh? What do you have?” Hannah asked her sister, frowning gravely. “I have a beautiful nephew,” Tenneh replied with a big smile. She kissed her sister’s forehead. “I have told you many times I cannot judge you because I did not have the choice you did. I might have loved my baby, but probably I would have hated the sight of anything in him that would have reminded me of his father. You knew I was glad that he died…not the way it happened, but that he was spared that life. I understand how you felt when that French doctor helped you. Maybe if I could have a baby, I wouldn’t keep arguing with you. Please forgive me.” Hannah grasped Tenneh firmly to her. “Of course I forgive you!” She kissed Tenneh’s cheek. “You will have a baby. You will adopt one…a white baby!” They both laughed, and I joined in. “I will marry an African, and we will adopt a white baby!” Tenneh joked. She and Hannah screeched with mirth, but then she shook her head. “No, all joking aside…there are many orphaned African babies who need a home. When God gives me a husband, we will find a child from our home continent who needs a family.” She grinned mischievously. “Then maybe we will adopt a white baby!” There was laughter all around and they invited me to sit down again, and Hannah clucked that the tea had probably grown cold. “Cold tea is not the end of the world,” Tenneh reasoned. Hannah took the teapot out the kitchen anyway, and I could hear her programming the microwave. Tenneh took my hand, and asked me if I was all right. “I can’t tell you why Cara can’t meet with you…it’s not my story to tell,” I told her, patting the hand that held mine. After what I had just heard, Cara’s story seemed so silly to me. I didn’t agree with what she had done, but in the face of what Tenneh and Hannah went through, it didn’t seem like anything carry on about. I would be ashamed to look them in the eye, too, but they would forgive her. I sighed, thinking it over. “We Europeans must really annoy you,” I said to Tenneh. She looked surprised and drew back, as Hannah came in with the warmed up teapot. “What do you mean, Europeans must annoy us?” she asked for her sister. I helped her put the teapot down. The cups were full of cold tea, which Hannah began to gather up. She and Tenneh were still looking at me questioningly. I shrugged. “We think we’re so smart, that everyone has to come to us for a solution to their problems. We caused almost all of those problems…we invade other countries, we colonise and enslave you, and then we support dictatorships and supply everyone with arms. All the time we moan about our problems, and act like they’re so much more important than yours.” I stood up and took the teacups from Hannah, shaking my head. “We’re really annoying like that.” As I turned to go into the kitchen, Tenneh and Hannah surprised me by bursting into laughter. I turned back, confused. “Yes, you white people are annoying,” Hannah said, gasping for breath between peals of laughter. “But so is everyone! We all think our problems are so important!” “You think Africans don’t have stupid little problems as well?” Tenneh asked. “You should go to an African beauty salon, and listen to silly girls cry and complain because their hair won’t straighten out properly!” “Why do they want straight hair?” I asked, thinking of the African models I had seen in glossy magazines, who had closely cropped hair adorning their beautifully round majestic heads. Tenneh and Hannah screamed with laughter in response. Hannah took the teacups from me, trying to shush her sister. “You’ll wake Johnny!” she hissed, rushing to the kitchen sink. “You white girls have no idea!” Tenneh told me, shaking her finger at me. Hannah returned with empty cups. “An African woman’s greatest struggle is with her hair,” she said. “We go through war, famine, rape…but we want our hair to look good!” She sighed, and ran a hand over her straightened hair, grimacing. Tenneh poured me a new cup of tea. “Do you still think Europeans are the only ones with silly problems?” She winked at me, and I had to laugh. “So don’t you pull at your hair like that again!” Hannah admonished me. She clicked her tongue. “Why do we women punish our hair like this? I torture mine with chemicals and irons, and Lisa tries to pull hers from her head. Maybe the Muslims are right…we should just cover our heads and forget about it!” “Covering our hair gets too hot and heavy,” Tenneh declared, sipping at her tea. “Besides, I like variety. Sometimes I can wear a scarf, sometimes not. I don’t need a man telling me what to do with my head!” “I know plenty of unmarried Muslim women who cover their hair,” Hannah countered, offering me a biscuit. “It is not always a husband who forces a woman to wear a veil!” Tenneh made a face at her sister, like Cara would at me when she was losing an argument. “OK, so it’s her father or brother who does!” Hannah opened her mouth to contradict her, but Tenneh made another face. Hannah sighed resignedly, and turned to me. “Speaking of husbands…you know Andy, from the Beirut Café? You liked him…he has an unmarried brother…” I expected Tenneh to cackle with laughter again, but she put her cup down and smiled at me. “You should meet,” she said ominously. I said nothing, just biting into the biscuit Hannah had offered me. In the hospital, there was much whispered discussion of Mircea’s wounds and police involvement. The mention of police made a lot of people nervous; even the doctor who had a stack of x rays to go through blanched at the word. Having been both intermittently unconscious and the given pain medication made the world terribly foggy and unrecognisable to Mircea; he wasn’t sure which hospital Michael had taken him to. If it was the out of the way one, where the drunken head surgeon was, that would get back to Piotr straight away. If Piotr already thought he was gay, what would he think of a missionary bringing him in for emergency treatment? He tried to ask where he was, but the drugs and his swollen face made him incomprehensible.
Michael tried to calm him. “Take it easy. I’ll make sure you will be okay,” he promised in a whisper. The thought of Michael being nice to him, and understanding his concerns made Mircea groan. He was supposed to be the hard man, not a Church charity case. Again, he drifted off into unconsciousness, Michael clasping his hand. He awoke later in a public ward, Michael sleeping in a chair beside his bed. Mircea felt groggy, and his body felt like it was encased in cotton. An experimental feel revealed to his numbed fingers that his chest had been wrapped in bandages, which he assumed meant broken ribs. As he tried to open his mouth, he realised his jaw was bandaged as well. Michael was awaked by Mircea’s yelp of surprise. “It’s okay,” he told Mircea. “Don’t move too much. You’re safe.” He glanced around at the other beds in the ward, where other patients were mostly sleeping. Mircea figured it must be late at night, but wondered why Michael was allowed to be there. “I couldn’t get you a police guard; they want you to make a statement first,” Michael whispered to him. “I pushed the hospital to let me stay with you, so anyone who wants to finish you off will have to go through me to get to you.” Mircea moaned. Why was Michael doing this? Why couldn’t someone else have stopped, and just dropped him off in the emergency room? “You’re really in bad shape,” Michael informed him. “Your internal organs shouldn’t have to take such a beating, but it’s your mouth which is raising the most concerns. You have some really nasty swelling and misalignment going on there.” He stopped to pull Mircea’s hand away from his face. “I wondered why you broke Milla’s jaw,” He admitted. “I figured someone like you would give a girl a good beating to shut her up…break her arms and legs, maybe slash he pretty face up. But you went for her jaw…because evidently, you know how painful that is.” Mircea wished he could tell Michael to shut up. Don’t analyse me, you priest-kissing goody two shoes! Michael looked around the ward. “So much suffering going on here,” he commented. “I’m probably adding to yours by telling you that in a roundabout way, Milla saved your life tonight.” Michael paused to bring his chair over closer to the bed. “Someone at the club called to tell her you got your come-uppance,” he went on. Probably Oleg- he seems to love calling people on the phone to tell them about me! Michael snorted softly. “They didn’t know that Milla is in Germany. Her mobile phone is here, with her grandmother. Whoever called to gloat told Milla’s grandmother about you lying beaten in an alley. Milla’s grandmother is a good woman. She called the Church, to let us know someone needed help.” Mircea wanted to cringe, but his bandaged face didn’t allow too much movement of expression. He moaned again instead. Michael nodded at the sound. “I talked to Milla in Germany while you were sleeping. I imagine you’ll be happy to know she still hates you. She can’t talk, thanks to what you did, so she writes it down and someone who can read Russian tells me. She says she wishes her grandmother left you to die in that alley. She tried to convince me that it’s only because with you gone, there will be one less person to coerce young girls into prostitution, but we all know that doesn’t mean much.” Michael sighed. “I prayed for absolution for Milla, but I understand her anger.” He ran a finger along the bandage on Mircea’s face. “You can too, I’m sure.” Mircea twitched, trying to move away from Michael’s touch. Michael removed his finger, and sat back in the chair. “We’ll move you to Germany,” he told Mircea. “You’ll get better care there, and more importantly, you’ll be out of danger.” Mircea twitched again in exasperation. Why wouldn’t Michael simply go away? Germany? He grunted in frustration. Who would pay for this expensive treatment? “No one is forcing you to go, Mircea,” Michael told him, backing away from the bed, hands raised. He scoffed. “It’s not like you have a lot of other choices open to you, but I understand. You’re a proud man. You were once an important gangster, and you don’t want to see yourself as a charity case. But I have to ask you, what reality are you living in? You’ve done something to anger the people you worked for. They left you for dead, and given any opening, they will finish the job off. I’m offering you care and sanctuary. The choice is obvious to me: you can die in a ditch here somewhere, probably very painfully, or you can accept the help and care of the Church. The only thing you have to lose is your pride.” Tears pricked Mircea’s eyes. He felt like he did when the bouncer was holding his arms pinned and Piotr was pounding on him. He hated feeling helpless, but Michael was speaking the truth. Mircea did not have a lot of options open to him. Michael reached over and patted his arm soothingly. “Let me help you.” Mircea was glad his head was bandaged so he didn’t have to speak. No one had ever offered to help him before, not in his whole life. He never allowed himself to feel self-pity before, but the tears began to drip from the eyes he was squeezing shut. Michael offering a hand out to him touched a nerve in a closed off part of his brain. The memories he stamped down of being cold and hungry as a child, of being vulnerable and picked on in school for having good grades rushed forward, flooding his brain. He never had anyone to care for him; his grandmother hadn’t wanted to “coddle” him as he was growing up, lest he didn’t learn to toughen up. His mother didn’t really even notice him, unless it was to use him to get things. How often had she coaxed him to look helpless, so someone would take pity on him? And on the rare occasion someone had, his vulture of a mother snatched away whatever food or money he’d gotten. And when he grew too old for the cute beggar routine, the only people who reached out to him were only ever after what meagre possessions he had, slapping or punching him and then rifling through his ragged pockets. He learned how to fight back, but he also learned to never let his guard down. Michael pressed a tissue to Mircea’s eyes, and was gently shushing him. “It’s okay; no one can see,” Michael assured him in a whisper. He wiped the tears away, patting his arm again. “Let me help you, and get you out of this place. Let me do this.” Mircea had no idea why Michael was doing this. He felt humiliated and helpless, but Michael was not laughing at him, pressing his advantage. Mircea opened his eyes and saw Michael looking down at him with genuine concern. It wasn’t an expression he had encountered often in his life, but he recognised compassion when he saw it. With a jolt, Mircea realised that Michael was asking his permission to help him; stifling a sob, Mircea nodded. Michael took his hand, and Mircea felt like he had just caught a lifeline that had been thrown to him. “It will be all right now,” Michael promised, and Mircea swallowed his suspicions and believed him. When I left Hannah’s that evening, I went straight to Kate’s house. Normally, I would have rung her, but I was still reeling in shock from all Tenneh and Hannah had told me about their past. I do think it’s the height of rudeness to just turn up unannounced, but I was too numb from their revelations to remember my manners.
Don’t get me wrong; I’d had a fabulous evening at their house. I’d met Hannah’s Irish husband Miles, and their son Johnny was brought down to meet me after he’d had his nap. It was a wonderful family scene, with little Johnny being fussed over by his parents and aunt. He was a bright, lively child, a wonderful presence in Hannah’s life, which had been filled with such misery before. Little Johnny loved the attention, but it was obvious he wasn’t spoiled. His mother was very strict about his routine and behaviour; she insisted he call me “Miss Lisa”, and say goodbye to me when I left them to enjoy their family dinner. They welcomed me to stay and eat with them, but I needed to digest all I had learned. When I need to talk things through, I usually go to my family. But since I’d become a Christian, I found my friends from church could provide more help. If I told my mother or older sisters what I’d been told, they would cry with me over the miserable things that happened to Tenneh and Hannah. I didn’t want to cry; I needed someone to point out the hope Tenneh and Hannah felt and rejoice that evil had been overcome. Kate would understand what I was feeling, where I was coming from, and most importantly, where we are headed in this life. She was the person I needed to talk this over with. I parked outside her house and rushed to the door. I hoped she had finished eating; showing up unannounced and at dinner time was beyond rude, but I was desperate to talk to her. Her expression was confused and then worried when she opened the door to me. She must have figured it was an emergency that would bring me straight to her doorstep without calling first. “It’s not Cara,” I said, anticipating her question. “Can I come in? I’ve just come from Hannah’s.” She stepped aside, her face even more perplexed. “Hannah, Tenneh’s sister,” I explained, and her facial expression became one of illumination as she shut the door behind me. “Come in; I’m actually going out, but I have some time to talk.” She led me into the sitting room of the house she shared with a colleague. I sat down, not even bothering to take my jacket off. Kate had an idea of where talk of spending time with Tenneh and Hannah was going; she listened with a shocked face but was silent when I told her what all Hannah had revealed to me. When I was done, she stared at the floor. “So, not only was this poor girl a sex slave to some guerrilla warrior, she had an abortion at fifteen,” she concluded in a stiff voice. She had to sort through it all, like I had to. “This was after her poor sister had her baby cut out of her body,” I added. I felt like speaking the words would take away the horror of the reality; if I wasn’t afraid of saying it, the atrocity wouldn’t have a hold over me. “What’s Hannah’s phone number?” Kate asked suddenly. I pulled out my mobile and sent the number to Kate’s. She looked very authoritarian as she checked to make sure the number had arrived. Setting her mouth in a grim line, she fiddled with her mobile, obviously saving the number, and then hitting call. I squirmed - Kate looked too serious and scary to be calling Hannah – it looked like she was going to yell at her. “Hello, Cara?” she spoke into the phone. I gasped, realising she was calling my sister, not Hannah. She got up from the sofa and paced a little as she spoke. “It’s Kate. Stop the histrionics and call Hannah, Tenneh’s sister. Tell her you’re sorry for having run off like that.” There was a pause, and Kate stood still. I could imagine Cara was telling Kate off. Stern-faced, Kate was having none of that. She was in full disciplinarian mode, her accent suddenly having switched to her mother’s British one. “That poor woman had an abortion at fifteen to, to get rid of her rapist’s baby,” Kate interrupted told Cara in clipped tones, cutting off the protest Cara was making. “So whatever guilt you’re feeling is minor compared to what she went through. If there is one person who can relate to how you feel about having an abortion, it’s this woman. Call her!” Not even in my dreams could I imagine talking to my sister like that. I watched open-mouthed as Kate listened to Cara on her phone, nodding. “Well, don’t me, tell her. I’ll text you her number. Okay, bye.” She sighed as she handled her phone, obviously sending Cara Hannah’s number. She pressed her lips together as she put her phone in her pocket; I knew she did this when she was trying to keep from crying. I rose to hug her. “It’s okay. You should see how happy Hannah is now,” I told her. “I met her husband, and her little boy.” Kate’s eyes had tears in them, but she smiled. “She has a little boy?” “Johnny.” I pictured his chubby little face. “He’s lovely!” Kate looked happy about that, but then she thought of Tenneh. “But Tenneh! That poor woman!” I nodded. “I know, but she says she’ll adopt. She wants a husband first!” I remembered what Tenneh, Hannah and I had talked about and blushed. Kate wiped her eyes, and then raised her eyebrows at me. “What?” she asked. “Tenneh and Hannah want to play match-maker for me.” I brushed my fringe from my forehead in embarrassment. “Remember Andy, from the Beirut Café? They want to set me up with his brother, Tony.” Kate gave a short laugh. “Good for you! Do it!” I wanted to make excuses as to why it was a silly idea, but what did I have to lose? It had been ages since I’d been on a date. Sure, I made a fool of myself in front of Andy, but Tenneh assured me it was no big deal. If anything, it proved I was looking for a man like Andy, and who would fit that bill better than his brother? His single brother, as Tenneh was sure to stress. I remembered Kate was on her way out. I stole a glance at her outfit – it was a neat and proper pantsuit, not an outfit for a night of romance. “Off to have fun tonight?” I asked, hoping she would tell me she was going out on a date. “Aoife, Sarah and I are going to the theatre,” she told me. Aoife was her housemate, and Sarah was the head teacher at the school. “We’re going to see Pygmalion, as Sarah wants to do that play with transition year.” I thought about the play and Sugar and Spice campaign. “I like the way Eliza goes into business for herself in that one, taking over what Henry Higgins has taught her.” “The student becomes the master,” Kate mused. “And this was a woman in Victorian times! George Bernard Shaw was a bit of a feminist.” She smiled. “I guess it’s the right play, to encourage girls to take on a man’s world. I guess Mrs Warren’s Profession is more to that theme, but I think we should avoid the subject of Mrs Warren being a madam!” After having spent the afternoon with Tenneh and Hannah, I didn’t want to think about prostitution and exploitation. “I should go. You need to be off yourself!” I said to Kate. She nodded. “We’re having dinner first, a pre-theatre menu.” She rubbed my arm affectionately. “Thanks for coming by.” “I’ll call next time,” I promised. “Hopefully next time you won’t have heard any horror stories!” She looked sad, but then smiled at me. “Just remember how Tenneh and Hannah have overcome such cruelty. I’ve heard Tenneh say how she’s not a slave to hate, and I believe her. I’ve never seen anyone shine with joy like she does!” “She is truly amazing,” I agreed. “And she’s still so young!” In talking about her past, I concentrated on all she had survived, forgetting she was more than ten years younger than I was. She and Hannah were Cara’s age, which I found hard to believe. I guess Cara would always be a kid in my eyes. “So now they have the rest of their lives to be happy,” Kate said. “We should all be like that.” I nodded. You are not your past, I reminded myself. Let go of past hurts; don’t let them weigh you down! I sighed and headed for the door. “Call me when you’ve gone out with Tony,” Kate said as she opened the front door for me. “I really want Tenneh to find a husband, but it’s high time we did first!” She gave me a wink and a thumb’s up as I left; I looked up to the heavens and sighed. You hear that, Lord? It’s not just me asking now…! Getting Mircea out of Ukraine was a minor problem; his passports had been left with his clothes and other personal items back at the flat above the club. There was talk of contacting the Romanian embassy to get a temporary replacement one, but the doctors advised against his leaving the hospital.
“Can you guarantee his safety?” they had asked Michael in discussion of this. If the Syndicate was on the lookout for Mircea, surely the Romanian embassy in Kiev would be under surveillance. But just more practically, it would be effort enough to get Mircea on to a plane, and not have to house him in Kiev while travel documents were made. Fortunately, Mircea still had his wallet with his ID, even if the money he had in it had vanished. Michael pointed out that to travel within the EU, all Mircea needed was ID – getting out of Ukraine and into the EU was still a problem. Michael threw himself on the mercy of the Catholic charity he worked with and even the UN to get Mircea transported safely across the Romanian border. He told them that Mircea was practically a refugee, needing anonymity and security to get out of Ukraine. There was a lot of hemming and hawing, which Mircea was too heavily medicated to be a functional part of. Finally he ended up on a gurney in a van transporting farm supplies, with a written document from authorities in Germany vouching for him. Had Mircea been lucid, he could have told Michael the easiest way to resolve any border issues would just have been a few dollars in a discreet envelope. Michael was probably not the kind of guy who would go along with bribery, so it was best that Mircea hadn’t been able to say anything. Of the actual trip, Mircea had only blurry sensations, not memories. He was aware of Michael holding his hand, and hours spent in a moving vehicle, but not much else. The opiates Mircea could have supplied himself with would have made the journey a pleasant psychedelic trip; the Soviet era painkillers the hospital provided made it a seemingly eternal fever dream. He must have whimpered non-stop, as Michael was hoarse from having to soothe him when they finally reached the airport in Cluj. “We’re going to give you a sedative for the flight,” Michael explained in a raw whisper. The shot they gave him was more like the drugs Mircea liked – the flight to Munich was a seamless blissful blur. When he awoke hours later, it was in a private room in a clean luxurious German hospital. It was tempting to think he’d died and gone to heaven – only the dull aches in his body convinced him he was still on earth. He looked around the room, careful to avoid moving around too much, as there was a drip in his arm. After about ten minutes, an elderly nurse came in to check on the drip; she greeted him in German, saying something with satisfaction as she noticed the drip had finished. She disconnected it and took the needle out of his arm; she placed a cotton ball on the puncture and left the room, Mircea understanding the word for doctor in what she said before she left. Moments later the doctor the nurse had spoken of entered the room. He was impressively young, probably not much older than Mircea, although his closely cropped hair was thinning. He shined a penlight in Mircea’s eyes, and checked his vital signs. “Do you speak English?” he asked in that annoyingly good accent the Germans have in English. Mircea wanted to show off right back at him, but found his tongue felt heavy and dull. “You might not be fully comfortable to speak,” the doctor advised. “The sedative may not have fully worn off yet.” He poked his head out of the door and called for something in an authorative tone, but his voice cracked somewhat , a tell-tale sign of his youth. The nurse came back in the room with the apparatus to measure Mircea’s blood pressure; as she put the cuff around Mircea’s arm, the doctor spoke to her scoldingly, something she did not react to with more than an eye roll to Mircea. The doctor’s cheeks flushed helplessly at her insolence, and Mircea found himself smiling. He tried to give the doctor a sympathetic look, realising he must have looked just as ridiculous trying to swagger with power back in the day. He thought of Michael’s calm, composed demeanour – that guy exuded the authority of a lion, while he had shouted and roared and had probably seemed like nothing more than a tiny lapdog. Relax, he wanted to say to the doctor. We all know you’re in charge, but let the lady get on with her job. The doctor focused on Mircea, ignoring the nurse. “I’ve read through the translations of the notes on your condition from Ukraine,” he said. The nurse interrupted him, announcing Mircea’s blood pressure. The doctor fought to keep from yelling at her, Mircea could tell; it was what he would have done if a worker in the bar, café or laundry had cut in on one of his speeches. He thanked the nurse in clipped tones, handing her Mircea’s chart. She made a big show of producing a ball-point pen from her pocket, banging it soundly against her breastbone to click it open. “We’ll have you go in for a series of x rays,” the doctor continued to Mircea, pronouncing it ix-rays. “I’d like to see the extent of the damage to your body organs and more importantly, the state your mandible is in. I will of course refer you to a dental surgeon and orthopaedist; but I will oversee your case.” Mircea nodded, managing to say a weak danke. The nurse clucked approvingly at him, replacing Mircea’s chart with her annotations to the foot of his bed. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” the doctor asked eagerly, looking somewhat deflated when Mircea shook his head. The nurse tsked and said something in German that was probably everyone knows how to say danke, replacing the pen in her pocket. The doctor blushed again and ushered the nurse out of the room, brusquely throwing in a danke at the end. Mircea bit back the laughter that was bubbling up in him – medical treatment and a free comedy show! What a country! Going for x-rays in Germany was very different to getting them done in Ukraine – the equipment was modern and immaculate, even better than what he had experienced in London. In Ukraine or Moldova, Mircea worried about his virility, not trusting the ratty lead pads they placed over the body parts not being x-rayed. Mircea didn’t have such concerns here in Germany. He looked over to the glass office where the technician sat with the doctor. They were having a discussion as they were reviewing the x-rays, which confirmed that Mircea, and particularly his jaw, was in bad shape. “Things do not look good,” the doctor told Mircea matter-of-factly as the technician took the x-ray paraphernalia away. “Your mouth is very damaged, the worst I have seen without an external injury. We are also worried about your kidneys; the kidneys are naturally well-padded, but we see a lot of bruising. We’ll keep you under close observation, and bed rest for a few days, and then we’ll start on the oral problems.” Mircea remembered overhearing the nurses in Ukraine mentioning blood in his bedpan, which he knew was never a good sign. He wished Piotr had outright shot him – all that required for Ivan was a quick trip to the hospital to get the bullet removed, and then he was placed out of Piotr’s grasp. Getting shot was a lot more scary, but didn’t involve slow recovery from internal injuries. Bed rest? Visions of dialysis rose in Mircea’s mind; a neighbour of his grandmother’s had had kidney failure. He had gone along when they went to visit the grey-faced woman in the hospital, the huge old-fashioned machine by her bedside beeping away. She couldn’t have been older than his grandmother, but she looked ancient. She died shortly after the visit, cementing the idea of living well when young and healthy in Mircea’s teenage mind. There was a TV in his hospital room, but every show was in German. Mircea kept it on, to make noise and try to drown out his thoughts. That was the thing with sanctuary – it gave you a lot of time to think. Mircea didn’t want to ponder his situation, or worse, his future; as far as he was concerned, he didn’t have one. His days of being a lieutenant in the Syndicate were over, but really, what was he equipped to do in the real world? He hadn’t even gotten a Baccalaureate, as he went to a Colegii after Gymnasium. This allowed him to continue with higher education in Moldova, but didn’t give him suitable qualifications in other countries. All I wanted to do was make money, he thought bitterly. I didn’t have time for further education. He thought of buying a forged university degree, but realised he would have to forge legitimate work experience as well. I left school with no papers, and then got involved in criminal activities. I’ve painted myself into a corner. Michael came by in the afternoon to check in on him. Mircea greeted him in a feeble voice, switching off the TV. Michael acknowledged this with a small smile. “I spoke with your doctors,” he told Mircea. “You have a long road of recovery ahead of you, particularly with your mouth.” Mircea winced. “Is it going to cost a lot?” He had no money, and no way of earning any. Michael nodded, but waved a hand at him. “Don’t worry about this. It will be taken care of.” The realisation that he was a charity case was almost as painful as his jaw. He groaned, and wished Piotr had killed him. That gangster must have realised that letting Mircea live would be a slow and demeaning death – the best he could do was go back to Moldova and try to eke out a living somehow, dimming the memories of travel and being someone with cheap alcohol and drugs. “You’re going to have to lose your pride,” Michael counselled, seeing Mircea’s face twist with pain and humiliation. “It’s one of the seven deadly sins for a reason, but really, it’s all smoke and mirrors, a distraction from real issues. You need to stop worrying about having to rely on others for help, and start getting better.” Michael sat down in the visitor’s chair beside Mircea’s bed. “Did the doctors talk to you about your treatment? It’s complicated and going to take 4 to 6 weeks.” It probably was going to be painful too. Mircea tried a light-hearted chuckle, not wanting to moan pitifully at the thought of the long and arduous journey ahead. “Well, it’s not like I have to be anywhere!” he joked. Michael just gave Mircea a long look, not saying anything. Mircea sensed that Michael thought he wasn’t taking the situation seriously, and groaned. “Look, okay, I get it!” he said to Michael in exasperation. “I’m sick and have to let you take care of me. I’m grateful, really I am.” He wondered if he were supposed to do a penance or some sort of thing like that to show his gratitude. They probably will want me to sweep Church floors for the rest of my life! Michael kept staring at him, then got up out of the chair. “There’s something you should see,” he murmured, leaving the room. Mircea closed his eyes, wondering what Michael was going to bring in for him to see. Pictures of martyred saints? Photos of starving children in Africa? Copies of x-rays of my damaged jaw? He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling, thinking that letting the Church take care of him was not a simple matter of letting go of his pride, as Michael kept saying. He was going to show thankfulness, rejection of his old ways, and probably obedience. I wonder if I’ll have to become a priest? The door opened and Michael came in, not bringing pictures or x rays, but a person. A young woman who had to be coaxed into the room, her head hanging low. Her hair was a lank brown colour, which kept Mircea from recognising her initially. The last time he had seen her, she had been blonde. Milla. Mircea involuntarily sat upright, and Milla reacted to the sound by turning to leave the room. Michael caught her shoulders, speaking to her in a low, coaxing voice. The German missionary put an arm around the young girl’s shoulders, repeatedly assuring her everything was okay. Slowly, they moved forward, and Mircea sank back down on to his pillow, his heart beating rapidly. “I know neither of you is happy to see the other,” Michael said, taking Milla’s hand. “But Mircea, you need to see this.” Very gently, he tilted Milla’s head up. She whimpered, and he patted her shoulder calmingly. He asked her permission to do something in a whisper, and Milla squeezed her eyes shut, nodding. Praising her quietly, like you would a dog doing a trick, Michael slowly pulled her lips open, showing Michael the mess of metal and wires that was in her mouth. “This is what you need to expect,” he told Mircea, holding Milla steady. “They’re going to need to wire your jaw, exactly as they have done with Milla.” With a little moan, Milla closed her lips, tears falling from her eyes. Michael stroked her cheek, saying little comforting things to her. Milla opened her eyes and looked at Michael, who raised her hand to his lips to kiss it. “It’s not going to be exactly the same,” Michael said over his shoulder to Mircea, smoothing Milla’s hair back from her face. “You don’t need to have dentures put in, as you still have your teeth.” Remembering how Milla’s teeth clattered to the floor in a flood of blood made Mircea shudder. The sound of the bat slamming into her face echoed in his mind, and he whimpered like Milla. What had he done to this girl?! Why had he done it? To punish her for talking to the very man in the room with both of them? Mircea covered his eyes with his hands. “We should consult a psychiatrist about how you wanted her to feel the exact pain you do,” Michael said to Mircea. “Now the two of you will have the same treatment to recover from these wounds.” Mircea dropped his hands, and saw that Michael was holding Milla in an embrace. Seeing Mircea looking at her, Milla pulled away from Michael, turning to face Mircea, her lips mashed into an ugly pout. Michael swiftly pulled her back to him, away from Mircea. “We talked about this, and you said you wouldn’t,” he said to her scoldingly. Mircea realised she had been trying to spit at him. “Let her do it.” Mircea’s words hung in the air. Michael kept Milla pressed to his chest. He shook his head. “Haven’t you learned yet that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?” he asked Mircea disapprovingly. Milla made a noise, trying to say something. Michael looked into her face, nodding sadly. “I think she’s trying to say that seeing you like this doesn’t make her feel better.” He looked at Milla for conformation, and she nodded, her cheeks wet with tears. She gave Michael a pleading look, and he escorted her to the door, shutting it after she had fled the room. Mircea felt as if he had been run over by a truck. He lay back on the pillow, crying and gasping for breath. What he had done to Milla had haunted him, but seeing her up close was like having his head boiled in oil. The ugly truth of what he had done was raw and horrible, and the fact that he would have to undergo it himself now was agonising. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry,” he repeated hoarsely. He thought of his doctor, trying to order the nurse around. He hadn’t hit her, although Mircea could sense he wanted to. Mircea actually had - did everyone at the hospital know what he had done? Did they know how brutal he had been, trying to make himself feel important? He curled himself into a ball in the bed, pulling up the covers so he could hide his face. Quietly, Michael sat in the visitor’s chair beside his bed. He let Mircea cry himself out, then gently took his hand. “Let us pray,” he intoned, and started into the Lord’s prayer. |