I’m on a train. Vera sits next to me. She stirs a cup of tea with a dented spoon. Moments before, we were at my house, saying good-bye to my family.
Mom cries. Dad looks pale and sick. My baby sister takes a nap on her mat on the floor.
Vera asks them if they are sure they want to do this. Dad says yes. He says I’m a good little girl, and will listen well. Mom cries louder.
Dad says he’s lost his job, and they don’t have enough to feed me. At least, this way, I’ll have a chance. Vera asks, “What about the baby?” Mom bawls and scoops her up.
“You can’t take her! I’m still breast feeding her!”
“She’s two years old,” Vera says. “She’d be fine.”
“No!”
Mom wails and runs into the other room with my baby sister.
Dad gets down on his knees and talks to me.
“Natalia, you will go with Vera. Do what she says, and she’ll take care of you.”
“I don’t want to go,” I say.
Dad’s eyes brim over and he stands.
Vera takes my hand and leads me outside.
I don’t cry.
I’m confused.
How long will I have to stay with this lady?
When can I come home?
Nobody tells me, and I’m afraid to ask.
The moment we are outside the building, Vera lets go of my hand and tells me to keep up, and that there will be no whining.
Vera takes me on a train.
She gives me tea, which makes me sleepy.
When I wake up, nothing looks the same.
The buildings are cement and gray, and not wood and brick, like at home.
We get off the train and walk. It smells bad. There is trash on the streets, everywhere. We go inside a building, there are matching tables and chairs. People sit and eat and drink tea.
Through the room with the tables, there is a swinging metal door with a little window. Inside that, is a big kitchen. There is a sink with water and soap, and an old rag for scrubbing.
I have to go to the bathroom.
Vera shows me where to get the dirty plates, and where to put them once I have scrubbed them. She shows me the giant dishwasher, and how to push the button, and how to take out the super hot plates and cups. She shows me where to stack the clean dishes.
Steam fills the kitchen and sticks to my skin.
An old man works at the ovens and stoves. He watches Vera talk to me out of the corner of his eye. I can tell because when I look at him he winks at me.
I feel a little better.
I don’t want to wash dishes.
I ask if I may use the bathroom, but Vera slaps me on the face and tells me never to speak.
Vera says if I break a dish I will have to pay her, so to be careful, but not to go too slowly.
Then she leaves.
It’s hot.
I’m still sleepy.
I’m hungry.
I have to pee.
There is a mountain of dirty dishes to my left.
I wash.
The urine runs down my leg and into the drain on the floor.
I sleep on a mat in the corner of the kitchen.
I’m allowed to eat leftovers from the plates.
The old man tries to be nice to me and gives me candy.
Vera sees me chewing and the old man never comes back.
A young man takes his place and never looks at me.
Never once.
When my clothes get too small, Vera gives me a new sack dress.
I wear it until it falls apart, then she gives me a new one.
Sometimes, she hands me a bucket of soapy water and a wash rag and tells me to clean myself.
My hands are so raw my fingers are cracked around the nails, which I bite off when they get too long. And they hurt, every minute.
I work there a long time.
I wonder when my parents will come get me.
They never said how long I was going to have to work here.
One day I bleed between my legs. I’m so surprised to see it run down the inside of my thighs, I drop and break a dish.
Vera grabs my arm and we walk a long way away.
She takes me to a building, signs some documents and stomps out the door.
A woman in a white dress called a nurse takes me to a long green hallway with silver double doors, hoses me off with cold water, and then makes me take a pill of some kind.
I sleep a long time and wake up strapped to a bed on wheels.
There’s a little hole in my belly button held together with a shiny clear strip.
The nurse comes back and tells me I won’t be able to have babies, and that they used lasers to remove all the hair in my arm pits, legs and private parts.
They sit me up on the table and I am supposed to watch all sorts of screens, showing me how I am to perform my new job.
It involves men.
There is a picture of a naked man, and how his private parts work.
It tells me if I don’t do my job well, they will sell me someplace else, and I will never see the sun again. That sounds terrible, but the idea of touching men all day and night makes me cry. I scream and cry and shout I won’t do it.
I want to go home!
Where’s Vera?
You can’t make me do this!
The nurse comes in and gives me a shot.
The room spins and I pass out.
When I wake up I am drowsy.
The room is foggy, and I can’t see well.
There is a man in the corner.
I am in a small room with a bed and a lamp hanging from the ceiling.
I’m naked.
The man is tall, with light brown skin.
He has a beak nose, and black circles under his eyes.
He takes off his pants and his penis is stiff and sticks out.
I want to scream and run away but my body won’t move.
I want to tell him no, but my mouth won’t work.
The room is so blurry.
I am half awake, but mostly asleep.
The man comes to me on the cot and opens my legs.
He shoves his fingers inside me and tastes his fingers.
It burns.
I try to sit up, but can’t.
The man is between my legs, he shoves in his penis and I open to my mouth to scream.
Nothing comes out.
He rams and rams.
It burns and hurts.
Make him stop!
Stop!
No words come.
He shakes a little, grunts, then backs away.
There is blood on his limp penis.
“Now, that’s what I’m talking about!” the man says.
My body won’t move, but I can still cry.
A nurse comes in and gives me a shot.
I pass out again.
The next few days it happens over and over.
The shot. The men.
I can barely move.
Eventually, the shots don’t make me so numb, in fact, I welcome them. Soon, I am able to move.
They strap my arms down.
I learn from the nurse that if I cooperate, I won’t get the shots at all.
I cooperate.
At least then, I can think, and see.
And move.
I stop fighting.
They take the straps off.
They give me my own compartment to sleep at night. There are other girls just like me. Some of them are nice. The Line counts us girls with a laser scanner every morning, and then assigns us appointment rooms.
I don’t think my parents are coming for me.
How could they? They don’t know where I am.
Did they ever know?
I think they abandoned me.
They gave me away, and look where I am.
This is their fault.
I never want to see them again.
Ever.
Why would they want me now anyways?
I perform my job ten times a day.
Seven days a week.
For four years.
You do the math.
