Aperture on the East (18 page)

Irisa listened to all of
this in a drunken stupor, which she now realized was likely the
effect of sedatives Dmitry’s people had mixed in the sandwich or
the coffee. She saw the bruises on her arms and thought that they
had probably injected her with more sedatives repeatedly on the way
here. She was numbed in the beginning and couldn’t give much of a
fight, but when the plump woman tried to get her into the bathroom
in the corner of the room, she suddenly regained her strength and
tried to run. The bodyguards held her into the bathtub while the
plump woman scrubbed her down, dried her with towels, and forced
her into the skimpy red dress. Irisa was kicking and screaming,
with tears running down her cheeks, but the bodyguards took her to
the bed and tied her down.

Irisa could not tell if it
was day or night, because there were no windows. All she could
recall was that she was raped by one man after another. At first
she counted and tried to remember the faces, but she soon lost
track. The plump woman would come back with the bodyguards every so
often to clean her up and put her in a different dress, and then
tie her back up. They would force soup down her throat to keep her
alive, and then the same horror would repeat itself for what felt
like eternity.

Eventually, Irisa gave up
fighting. Dmitry removed her restraints and let her out of her
room. She was in some kind of a two-story building. She saw other
women, but none from the group she traveled with from her hometown.
They weren’t allowed to talk, so they just looked at one another
with the same despondent eyes. They were allowed to walk in the
yard around the building twice a day. When Irisa felt the warmth of
sunshine again she was moved to tears. The air was balmy, and the
sky was too pretty. She sobbed silently while surveying the
surroundings, trying to figure out where she was. She heard waves,
so she knew she was near a lake or an ocean, but that was all she
could figure out. She tried to go through the faces of her clients,
but they seemed to be from all over the world, speaking different
languages with all shades of skin colors. She couldn’t speak
anything but Russian, but she seemed to get only non-Russian
clients.

One day Dmitry determined
that she was ready to go to the nightclub in the city to attract
potential customers. A tracking device was placed under the skin of
her arm, and then she was put on a boat with a few other women,
under guard.

They arrived at a fishing
pier at night, and were transported to a nightclub after they were
given specific instructions. They were to be posted here and there
inside the club, and when they were approached by interested men,
the manager would broker a deal. They were to take the men out the
backdoor where a car would be waiting to take them to a nearby
apartment building. Afterward, the customers would put cash
payments in envelopes, leave them in a designated drawer, and go
from the apartment building to their desired destinations in
another car provided by the manager. The women would be transported
back to the nightclub to continue their work. Irisa was told not to
touch the money
;
someone else would collect it. At the end of the night, the
women would be brought back to the island, or at least an island
was where Irisa thought they were kept. Some of the customers,
Irisa noticed, would later come to the island directly, sometimes
with their friends.

Irisa was told that if she
were to try to escape the tracking device would give away her
location immediately. She would be caught and once again tied to
her bed for weeks until she would behave again. The device was also
some kind of a recorder so that everything Irisa said to another
person would be transmitted to Dmitry, and if she valued her life
she would not dare talk about her situation to anyone else, not
even to the other women held on the island.

She was allowed restroom
breaks while at the nightclub, however, and it was the only time
she could go without the constant monitoring by Dmitry’s gang. She
checked the restroom all over, and made sure that there was not a
single device that even remotely looked like a camera. She would
think about her son to give her strength to get through each
night.  Occasionally she would weep, thinking that she had
forgotten what her son looked like. Then she tried to remember the
last night she held her son in her arms, his restless warm body
curled up against hers. He even laughed during his sleep, as if
dreaming of something sweet. Irisa tried to remember the sound of
her baby laughing, but all she could hear was his crying
instead.

One night, an all-girl
band started playing live music to draw more customers to the
nightclub. Irisa couldn’t understand the lyrics, but the music gave
a feeling of doom and despair. Ironically the mournful melody was
uplifting for Irisa, as for the first time in so long there was an
indirect channel for her own dark emotions to be expressed, via the
songs of these teenagers. Even more surprising was that the band
leader spoke Russian, and seemed genuinely interested in Irisa’s
condition. Hers was the first friendly face that Irisa had
encountered since she left Russia.

Irisa didn’t know if she
could trust the band leader, who called herself Zoe. Irisa wondered
whether Dmitry would keep his words and release her at the end of
three years, if she did everything he told her to do. But one
night, she missed her son so much that she decided to take the risk
of communicating with Zoe. Zoe would bring her pen and paper, and
she would slowly write out her story. It might take several nights,
or weeks, but Zoe would know her story. Maybe Zoe could help her.
Zoe may look like a rebellious teenager, but she gave Irisa a sense
of kindness and trustworthiness.  If Irisa was caught, she
calculated, she might be killed, but that may not be so bad
compared to this living hell anyway. She had to do it. She had to
give one last fight.
 

“
Zoe, are you in here?”
said Tam as she walked into the restroom and found Zoe lost in deep
thoughts. Irisa was here earlier for a brief written conversation.
Zoe tucked a piece of paper into a pocket inside her corset
dress.

“
Hi, Tam, is it time to
go?”

Tam studied Zoe for a little bit and
said, “Zoe, you are looking awful secretive lately. What’s going
on?”

“
Nothing. Yurik is being a
jerk, that’s all,” said Zoe. That was not a lie.

“
Speaking of Yurik, your
mother is having a chat with him at the bar right now,” said
Tam.

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Your mother is having a
drink at the bar, and Yurik is just cracking jokes left and right.
You know what he does when there is a pretty woman in front of
him.”

Zoe felt a little angry, but it was
not because Yurik was flirting with her mother. She went out of the
restroom and found her mother laughing with abandon. A few empty
shot glasses were scattered on the counter in front of her. Yurik
was talking to her while drying a glass with a towel.

Zoe walked over to Ana and said very
loudly so that Yurik could hear, “Ma!”

Ana was startled, and turned to look
at Zoe. “Oh, Zoe,” said Ana with a broad smile. She tried to give
Zoe a hug, but Zoe backed away.

“
This is your ma?” said
Yurik, eyes widened. “Oh, I see the resemblance. You two could be
sisters. Ana, I see where Zoe got her pretty face from.”

“
What are you doing here?”
Zoe said angrily to Ana.

“
What does it look like? I
am having a good time,” said Ana, who appeared more than a little
tipsy.

“
Your drinks are on the
house. Zoe is my girlfriend,” said Yurik.

Ana looked back and forth at Zoe and
Yurik, and then said, “Really? Is that legal? Zoe is quite young,
and you look old enough to be her pa.”

Zoe grabbed Ana’s elbow and said, “You
need to go home now. You are drunk.”

“
Oh, I am not quite there
yet. Yurik is offering me free vodka. It doesn’t happen every day,
you know,” said Ana.

“
Let’s go!” Zoe pulled Ana
off the barstool with such force that Ana fell on the
floor.

“
I’m all right. Don’t help
me,” said Ana. Zoe helped her get up anyway. Ana saw a bruise on
Zoe’s arm, and then she lifted up Zoe’s dress to inspect Zoe’s
torso before Zoe could protest.

“
What are you doing?” Zoe
shook her mother off and covered herself up in a hurry.

“
Just as I thought,” said
Ana. She reached across the bar and grabbed Yurik’s shirt. “Are you
beating her?”

Yurik appeared astonished by the
abrupt change in Ana’s attitude. He took Ana’s hand off his shirt
and said, “Watch it, old lady.”

Ana held up an arm and was about to
punch Yurik in the face when a man came up and put both of his
hands on Ana’s arms to hold her back. Zoe was surprised when she
saw that it was McKenzie. An Eastern Asian woman, dressed like
Irisa, was standing next to him; she smiled and left the scene
after McKenzie whispered something in her ear.

“
Ana, are you all right?”
said McKenzie

“
Who are you?” said Ana
before she realized that the man was McKenzie. “Oh, Mr. Sydney,
Australia. How wonderful to see you. I was about to teach this
bastard a lesson. How dare he lay his hand on my daughter!” Ana
gave Yurik a menacing stare.

“
Ana, you can teach him a
lesson later,” said McKenzie. “Revenge is best served cold,
remember? Let’s not do it tonight. Will you let me take you
home?”

“
Not a chance,” said Zoe.
“You are not taking her anywhere.” She pushed McKenzie away from
Ana, who took a few steps back and almost fell again. Zoe caught
her this time.

McKenzie looked a little confused, but
said calmly, “I could take you both home.”

“
No way, you stay away
from us,” said Zoe. She shoved Ana toward the exit.

“
I’m not finished.” Ana
was still struggling to free herself from Zoe.

“
Where are you going Zoe?”
said Yurik loudly. “Are you coming home tonight?”

“
Go to hell!” Zoe yelled
as she dragged Ana out of the nightclub.

Zoe got Ana home in a taxi. Ana was
almost asleep when they got to the apartment building. Zoe managed
to keep Ana steady as they walked up the stairs to their
fourth-story home. Zoe rammed on the door, and Ivan came to let
them in. Their Vietnamese neighbor across the hall poked her head
out of her door to see what was going on just before they
disappeared behind theirs.

Ivan and Zoe helped Ana walk to the
bench in the living room and lie down on it. Ana mumbled a few
words before she closed her eyes and fell into slumber. Ivan and
Zoe both sat down on nearby chairs to catch their
breaths.

“
Is she drunk?” said
Ivan.

“
She’s an idiot,” said Zoe
with some anger in her voice.

“
What are we going to do?
She’s drinking again. What’s going to happen now? Who’s going to
take care of us?”

“
I don’t need anyone to
take care of me,” said Zoe. She looked at her brother, and felt a
little sorry for him. “We’ve got to get you some help,
though.”

“
How? Prababushka is dead.
She can’t help us,” said Ivan.

“
Of course not. Who’s
talking about Prababushka?”

“
What then? It’s going to
take her months if not years to get sober again. We are stuck in
Vietnam. You might be okay, but I can’t go anywhere without
her.”

“
Don’t be so upset yet,”
said Zoe. “Maybe she won’t get so bad this time. As long as she can
keep working at the restaurant you know you are fine. Worry about
it when she gets fired.”

“
She promised she was not
ever going to touch another drop of alcohol before we left Russia,”
said Ivan, starting to sound a little choked up.

Zoe went to her brother and held him
in her arms. “You know how she is. She won’t change. I’ll take care
of you.”

Ivan wiped his tears and said, “Well,
I’ll just get a job, too. I’m old enough to be my own
man.”

Zoe gave a slight chuckle and said,
“Who told you that?”

“
Mr. Nguyen. He’s the
counselor at the summer camp. I told him about Ma, how she totally
ignores me, and can barely take care of herself. He said I should
be strong, and be my own man.”

“
He’s right. You should
take charge of your life.”

“
Where can I work though?”
Ivan rubbed his head.

Zoe sat down in her chair again and
said, “Ivan, I’m in the middle of something. When it’s finished,
I’ll come back to be with you. You are too young to
work.”

“
I thought you don’t want
to be with us.”

“
I don’t want to be with
Ma. She’s beyond hope. But I can’t leave you when she’s like this,”
said Zoe. “God, she can be so irresponsible! She got us down here,
far away from our home, and then she just screwed us over again and
left us stranded here with nothing.” Zoe buried her face in her
hands.

“
I guess she tried,” said
Ivan.

“
Not hard enough,” said
Zoe.