Why can’t I see? Mirela Pavlenco woke up in utter darkness, her eyelids heavy, as if they’d been pressed down by a leaden weight. Struggling, she lifted them enough to make out her surroundings, but even then her vision blurred. She was lying on a bed in a room, but not the room in her residence hotel. It was painted a different color, and there was no window. The air reeked of something old and musty, and there was no lavender candle, like the one she lit each day to remind her of Mama’s garden.
She turned her head and saw a small nightstand with a drawer, and on it a spindly lamp shed a weak light throughout the room. She tried to reach over to make it brighter, but her left arm wouldn’t move. Neither would her right. Her brain, still groggy, finally registered that her arms couldn’t move because they were tied to the bed.
Mirela raised her head slightly and realized with a growing sense of alarm that her legs were spread and both feet were tied to the bed as well. She was held completely in bondage. Terror began to coil itself around her. Panic, a feral creature, stalked her.
She tried to stay calm, but couldn’t catch her breath and draw air past the knot in her throat. Tears began to trickle down her face. She called out in her native Romanian, “Someone—anyone! Help me, please!” There was no response, only the occasional rumble of what sounded like a train in the distance. She tried again, in the language she had only recently begun to learn. “Aiuto! Per favore!”
She tried to think of how to escape, but perversely, her thoughts kept returning to her childhood village of Bârsana. She could see her mother in their cottage garden, carefully tending her onions and her cucumbers, coddling her tomatoes, cutting sprigs of lavender to set in a little pot in the kitchen.
“Why do you want to go so far away, puiu?” her mother asked. “You are so young.”
“I’ve got to go,” Mirela told her with firm resolve. “There has to be something more out there for me, and I am going to find it!”
Now a hysterical laugh almost escaped her as she realized how gullible she had been. She’d assumed her clear skin, thick blond hair, and womanly figure would open doors for her.
“You are so beautiful, Mila,” the carpenter Simu Fidatof had told her on too many occasions to count. On last St. George’s Day, he had even worn the mask of Sangiorz and burst into her cottage, carrying a small bouquet of alpine pinks and fire lilies, laughing as he fondled her and stole a kiss. Her mother had laughed as well, crying out, “Who is this?” and offering him the traditional eggs and wine to leave them alone. But Mirela had known it was Simu by his big and clumsy hands. Though he was an honorable young man and smitten with her, she did not want to spend the rest of her life being groped by him.
It seemed like fate was smiling on her when, just after her seventeenth birthday, she’d heard about job openings in the city of Baia Mare. She had traveled there and listened to the man as he made his speech: “We are looking for strong girls who want a better life…girls to work in the hospitality industry…do you want to see what life is really like in Western Europe? We can make it happen.” She was old enough to make her own decisions, despite her mother’s concerns (“You are leaving me alone, little one.”). It wasn’t Mirela’s fault their father had left them so many years ago; why should she sacrifice her happiness just to keep her mother company? She made her decision and left three weeks later.
Now, lying here, she was filled with regret; how could she have been so stupid? At the time, it all seemed so safe. The company man had been clear and straightforward, with no funny business. He’d even given her a choice of country and she’d chosen Italy—known for its beautiful churches, just like those of Maramureș. Only Italy’s churches were of stone, not wood, and they were overwhelming. The company had paid for her train ticket, assuring her the hotel she worked for would cover her fees and living expenses until she earned enough to pay her own way. Strong, bright girls are in high demand, the company man had said; you will be promoted in no time at all.
The only thing that had seemed strange to her was the tattoo he’d insisted she have put on her hairline, just behind her right ear. He told her it was to help identify her until she learned to speak Italian. It seemed a small enough request. The design was of a very small golden tree, visited by a tiny blue butterfly. Even though she’d been scared of the needle, it turned out not to hurt very much, and it was a pretty little mark. In fact, she came to think of it as her own little secret, like wearing red silk panties beneath her maid’s uniform.
The door opened and in the dim light of the hallway beyond she saw an older woman with dark hair talking with a tall, white-haired man in a suit. He looked vaguely familiar, but Mirela couldn’t recall where she had seen him. The two of them glanced in at her and the woman nodded before entering the room and shutting the door. Mirela recognized her from the hotel. “Signora, please, you must help me!” The woman could speak some Romanian; they’d even talked a little on Mirela’s first day. She remembered the woman’s perfume. It smelled like roses.
“Do not worry, puiu,” the woman said soothingly. “No harm will come to you.”
Mirela winced at the endearment—“little chick.” It was the same one her mother used. How could this woman pretend to care about her when it was obvious she did not? “Why am I tied down like this? What happened to me?” Mirela tried but failed to keep the fear out of her voice.
The woman, brisk in her movements, brought a pan out from underneath the bed. She carefully cut off Mirela’s panties. “Come, you will use this now,” she said.
Mirela was mortified, but desperate to empty her bladder, she complied with the woman’s directions. Afterward the woman did not replace Mirela’s underwear. She merely tossed the cut garment into a nearby waste can as if she were straightening up a room.
“It won’t be long now,” the woman said, and left.
“Until what?” Mirela cried after her. “Until what?!”
Her mind finally beginning to clear, she began to piece together the events of the night before. She had gotten off work and felt good about the tips the hotel guests had left in their rooms that day. The entire floor had been taken over by a group of salesmen and throughout their stay they had flirted with her as she rolled her cart down the hallway. Many of them had left her five and ten euro bills—one had even left her a twenty euro bill and put a business card on top of it. On it he had written in Italian, “Call me.”
The tips had brightened Mirela’s day because she missed her friends in Milan, where she had worked until a week before. A transfer to Verona means you are being promoted, the letter read. You will work there for two weeks and then you will receive a new position. Mirela was proud to think she was being promoted after just four months. She imagined the extra money she would send to her mother, as if to say, “You had little faith in me, but look at me now.”
To celebrate the end of the work week, Mirela and her new friend Dobra had gone out for a drink and some dancing. Dobra was from Croatia; she was a big, buxom girl who loved to dance to the hip hop music that was so popular now. Mirela had agreed to accompany Dobra to banish her own loneliness, if only for an evening.
She remembered the dim smokiness of the bar…the loud, pounding rhythm of the music…and two young men who had come up to them as they sat with their drinks. The men looked respectable enough and the taller of the two asked Dobra to dance. The other one sat with Mirela and talked to her—or tried to, since he was Italian and couldn’t speak her native Romanian. They laughed as he tried to teach her the word “lovely” in Italian and she taught him “handsome” in her language. She remembered excusing herself to go to the restroom, and coming back to find him waiting for her. But after that there was nothing—no memories until she woke up in this place.
What had he done to her?
The door opened again. This time the white-haired man entered and closed the door behind him, locking it with a distinct click. As he approached the bed and was bathed by the light of the lamp, Mirela realized who he was.
“Signor Direttore,” she pleaded, “per favore. I have done nothing wrong.”
The man didn’t reply. He only looked at her and reached for the neckline of her dress. She instinctively tried to raise a hand to stop him, but could do nothing.
“How old are you?” he asked in Italian.
“Only seventeen,” she whispered. “Please.”
He nodded, as if she had given him the correct answer. “Perfetto.” He carefully peeled the neckline of her dress down to reveal her breasts, which were heaving now with anxiety and threatening to spill out of her bra. He calmly took a pocketknife from his trouser pocket and cut the bra apart.
“Signor, per favore,” she repeated, tears running down her cheeks. “Io sono vergine.”
“Che fortunato,” he murmured, before unzipping his perfectly tailored pants.
Sometime later, after the man had finally climbed off her, Mirela lay silently, too numb to react. The labored breathing, the grunting and moaning—all was quiet now. A memory floated by: Simu, pressing his large calloused hands against the front of her dress. She thought, now, that those hands would feel good and strong and safe. She thought of her mother and the garden and the lovely little sprigs of lavender. She thought of the wooden churches of her village and wondered where God had gone to. She barely noticed when the man pulled on his pants, leaned over and squeezed her breasts. She thought, how can someone so old be so strong? He did something strange before he left. He put his hands together as in prayer, bowed very slightly and said to her, “Sawasdee. Learn that and you will please them.” She didn’t know what he meant, but it did not matter now. Tired beyond measure, she closed her eyes and slept.