The Night Ferry (26 page)

A large ruddy-faced nun answers the door. Like the others she is creased and crumbling, trying to outlive the building. I am led down a corridor to Sister Vogel’s office, which contains a curious mixture of the old and the new. A cabinet with a glass-front ful of books is stained the same dark color as the mahogany desk. In the corner there is a fax machine and a photocopier. A heart-shaped box of candies sits on the mantel, alongside photographs that could be of her nieces and nephews. I wonder if Sister Vogel ever regrets her cal ing. God can be a barren husband.

She appears beside me. “You didn’t tel me you were a police officer.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

She doesn’t answer. “You sent more people for me to feed.”

“They don’t eat very much.”

She folds her arms. “Is this girl in trouble?”

“Yes.”

“Has she been abandoned?”

“Abused.”

Sorrow fil s every crease and wrinkle of her face. She notices the bruising on my cheek and reaches toward it sympathetical y. “Who did this to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. I must talk to Samira.”

She takes me to a room on the second floor which is stained with the same dark panels. Samira is at the window when the door opens. She’s wearing a long dress, buttoned down the middle, with a Peter Pan col ar. The light from the window paints an outline of her body inside it. Watching me careful y, she takes a seat on the sofa. Her pregnancy rests on her thighs.

Sister Vogel doesn’t stay. As the door closes, I glance around the room. On the wal there is a painting of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. Both are pictured beside a stream, where fruit hangs from trees and fat naked cherubs dance above the water.

Samira notices me looking at it. “Are you a Christian?”

“A Sikh.”

She nods, satisfied.

“Do you dislike Christians?”

“No. My father told me that Christians believe less than we believe. I don’t know if that is true. I am not a very good Muslim. I sometimes forget to pray.”

“How often are you supposed to pray?”

“Five times a day, but my father always said that three was enough.”

“Do you miss him, your father?”

“With every breath.”

Her copper-colored eyes are flecked with gold and uncertainty. I can’t imagine what they’ve seen in her short life. When I picture Afghanistan I see women draped in black like covered statues, mountains capped with snow, old caravan trails, unexploded mines, scorching deserts, terra-cotta houses, ancient monuments and one-eyed madmen.

I introduce myself properly this time and tel Samira how I found her. She looks away self-consciously when I mention the prostitute on Molensteeg. At the same time she holds her hand to her chest, pressing down. I see pain on her forehead.

“Are you OK?”

“Heartburn. Zala has gone to get medicine.” She glances at the door, already missing her friend.

“Where did you meet her?”

“At the orphanage.”

“You didn’t leave Afghanistan together.”

“No. We had to leave her behind.”

“How did she get here?”

“In the back of a truck and then by train.”

“By herself?”

Samira’s face softens. “Zala can always find a way to make herself understood.”

“Has she always been deaf?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“Her father fought with the mujahideen against the Taliban. When the Talibs took over they punished their enemies. Zala and her mother were imprisoned and tortured with acid and melted plastic. Her mother took eight days to die. By then Zala could not hear her screaming.”

The statement sucks the oxygen from the room and I feel myself struggling for breath. Samira looks toward the door again, waiting for Zala. Her fingers are splayed on her bel y as if reading the bumps and kicks. What must it feel like—to have something growing inside you? A life, an organism that takes what it needs without asking or sharing, stealing sleep, changing hormones, bending bones and squeezing organs. I have heard my friends and sisters-in-law complain of weak nails, molting hair, sore breasts and stretch marks. It is a sacrifice men could not make.

Samira is watching me. She has something she wants to ask.

“You said Mrs. Beaumont is dead.”

“Yes.”

“What wil happen now to her babies?”

“It is your decision.”

“Why?”

“They belong to you.”

“No!”

“They’re your babies.”

Her head pivots from side to side. She is adamant.

Standing suddenly, she rocks slightly and reaches out her hand, bracing it on the back of the sofa. Crossing the room, she stares out the window, hoping to see Zala.

I’m stil contemplating her denial. Does she love her unborn twins? Does she imagine a future for them? Or is she simply carrying them, counting down the days until the birth, when her job is done?

“When did you meet Mrs. Beaumont?”

“She came to Amsterdam. She bought me clothes. Yanus was there. I had to pretend I didn’t speak English but Mrs. Beaumont talked to me anyway. She gave me a piece of paper with your name. She said if I was ever in trouble I had to find you.”

“When was this?”

“In February I saw her the first time. She came to see me again in September.”

“Did she know you were having twins?”

She shrugs.

“Did she know why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did she know about the debt? Did she know you were
forced
to get pregnant?”

Her voice softens. “She thanked me. She said I was doing a good thing.”

“It is a crime to force someone to have a baby. She did a very
foolish
thing.”

Samira shrugs, unwil ing to be so harsh. “Sometimes friends do foolish things,” she says. “My father told me that true friends are like gold coins. Ships are wrecked by storms and lie for hundreds of years on the ocean floor. Worms destroy the wood. Iron corrodes. Silver turns black but gold doesn’t change in seawater. It loses none of its bril iance or color. It comes up the same as it went down. Friendship is the same. It survives shipwrecks and time.”

The swel ing in my chest suddenly hurts. How can someone so young be so wise?

“You must tel the police what happened.”

“They wil send me back.”

“These people have done very bad things. You owe them nothing.”

“Yanus wil find me. He wil never let me go.”

“The police can protect you.”

“I do not trust them.”

“Trust me.”

She shakes her head. She has no reason to believe me. Promises don’t fil stomachs or bring back dead brothers. She stil doesn’t know about Hassan. I can’t bring myself to tel her.

“Why did you leave Kabul?”

“Brother.”

“Your brother?”

“No. An Englishman. We cal ed him Brother.”

“Who is he?”

“A saint.”

Using her forefinger she traces the outline of a cross on her neck. I think of Donavon’s tattoo. Is it possible?

“This Englishman, was he a soldier?”

“He said he was on a mission from God.”

She describes how he visited the orphanage, bringing food and blankets. There were sixty children aged between two and sixteen, who slept in dormitories, huddling together in winter, surviving on scraps and charity.

When the Taliban were in control they took boys from the orphanage to fil their guns with bul ets and the girls were taken as wives. The orphans cheered when the Northern Al iance and the Americans liberated Kabul, but the new order proved to be little different. Soldiers came to the orphanage looking for girls. The first time Samira hid under blankets. The second time she crawled into the latrine. Another girl threw herself off the roof rather than be taken.

I’m amazed at how ambivalent she sounds. Fateful decisions, issues of life and death, are related with the matter-of-factness of a shopping list. I can’t tel if she’s inured to shock or overcome by it.

“Brother” paid off the soldiers with medicine and money. He told Samira that she should leave Afghanistan because it wasn’t safe. He said he would find her a job in London.

“What about Hassan?”

“Brother said he had to stay behind. I said I would not go without him.”

They were introduced to a trafficker cal ed Mahmoud, who arranged their passage. Zala had to stay behind because no country would accept a deaf girl, Mahmoud told them.

Hassan and Samira were taken overland to Pakistan by bus and smuggled south through Quetta and west into Iran until they reached Tabriz near the Turkish border. In the first week of spring they walked across the Ararat mountain range and almost succumbed to the freezing nights and the wolves.

On the Turkish side of the mountains, sheep farmers smuggled them between vil ages and arranged their passage to Istanbul in the back of a truck. For two months brother and sister worked in a sweatshop in the garment districts of Zeytinburnu, sewing sheepskin waistcoats.

The trafficking syndicate demanded more money to get them to England. The price had risen to ten thousand American dol ars. Samira wrote a letter to “Brother” but didn’t know where to send it. Final y they were moved. A fishing boat took them across the Aegean Sea to Italy where they caught a train to Rome with four other il egals. They were met at the station and taken to a house.

Two days later, they met Yanus. He took them to a bus depot and put them inside the luggage compartment of a tourist coach that traveled through Germany to the Netherlands. “Don’t move, don’t talk—otherwise you wil be found,” he told them. When the coach arrived at the Dutch border they were to claim asylum. He would find them.

“We are supposed to be going to England,” Samira said.

“England is for another day,” he replied.

The rest of the story matches what I’ve already learned from Lena Caspar.

Sister Vogel knocks softly on the door. She is carrying a tray of tea and biscuits. The delicate cups have chipped handles. I pour the tea through a broken strainer. Samira takes a biscuit and wraps it in a paper napkin, saving it for Zala.

“Have you ever heard the name Paul Donavon?”

She shakes her head.

“Who told you about the IVF clinic?”

“Yanus. He said we had to pay him for our passage from Kabul. He threatened to rape me. Hassan tried to stop him but Yanus cut him over and over. A hundred cuts.” She points to her chest. Noonan found evidence of these wounds on Hassan’s torso.

“What did Yanus want you to do?”

“To become a whore. He showed me what I would have to do—sleep with many men. Then he gave me a choice. He said a baby would pay off my debt. I could remain a virgin.” She says it almost defiantly. This is a truth that sustains Samira. I wonder if that’s why they chose a Muslim girl. She would have done almost anything to protect her virginity.

I stil don’t know how Cate became involved. Was it her idea or Donavon’s?

Spijker is waiting outside. I can’t delay this. Opening my satchel I take out the charcoal drawing, smoothing the corners.

Excitement lights Samira’s eyes from within. “Hassan! You’ve seen him!”

She waits. I shake my head. “Hassan is dead.”

Her head jerks up as though tied to a cord. The light in her eyes is replaced by anger. Disbelief. I tel her quickly, hoping it might spare her, but there is no painless way to do this. His journey. His crossing. His fight to stay alive.

She puts her hands over her ears.

“I’m sorry, Samira. He didn’t make it.”

“You’re lying! Hassan is in London.”

“I’m tel ing the truth.”

She rocks from side to side, her eyes closed and her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. The word she wants to say is no.

“Surely you must be wondering why you haven’t heard from him,” I say. “He should have cal ed by now or written to you. You sewed my name into his clothes. That’s how I found you.” I close the gap between us. “I have no reason to lie to you.”

She stiffens and pul s away, fixing me with a gaze of frightening intensity.

Spijker’s voice echoes from downstairs. He has grown tired of waiting.

“You must tel the police everything you have told me.”

She doesn’t answer. I don’t know if she understands.

Turning toward the window, she utters Zala’s name.

“Sister Vogel wil look after her.”

She shakes her head stubbornly, her eyes ful of imbecile hope.

“I wil find her. I’l look after her.”

For a moment something struggles inside her. Then her mind empties and she surrenders. Fighting fate is too difficult. She must save herself to fight whatever fate throws up.