“Your brother?”
“No. An Englishman. We called 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 fill their guns with bullets and the girls were taken as wives. The orphans cheered when the Northern Alliance 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 tell 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 called 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 villages 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 dollars. Samira wrote a letter to “Brother” but didn’t know where to send it. Finally they were moved. A fishing boat took them across the Aegean Sea to Italy where they caught a train to Rome with four other illegals. 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 will 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 still 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 tell 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 telling 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 called 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 pulls away, fixing me with a gaze of frightening intensity.
Spijker’s voice echoes from downstairs. He has grown tired of waiting.
“You must tell 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 will look after her.”
She shakes her head stubbornly, her eyes full of imbecile hope.
“I will find her. I’ll 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.
There is a pharmacy in the heart of de Walletjes, explains Sister Vogel. The pharmacist is a friend of hers. This is where she sent Zala. She was carrying a note.
Turning each corner I expect to see a flash of pink or her blue hijab coming toward me. I pass a greengrocer and catch the scent of oranges, which makes me think of Hassan. What will happen to Samira now? Who will look after her?
I turn into Oudekerksteeg. There is still no sign of Zala. A touch on my arm makes me turn. For a second I don’t recognize Hokke, who is wearing a woolen cap. With his light beard it makes him look like a North Sea fisherman.
“Hello, my friend.” He looks at me closely. “What have you done to yourself?” His finger traces the bruising on my cheek.
“I had a fight.”
“Did you win?”
“No.”
I look over his shoulder, scanning the square for Zala. My sense of urgency makes him turn his own head.
“Are you still looking for your Afghani girl?”
“No, a different one this time.”
