Becoming the Talbot Sisters

by Rachel Linden

  “When we met I think you were working on a concept.” He frowned, trying to remember the details.

  Charlie did not offer any help. She didn’t like to be reminded.

  “You were going to open a health clinic for women in one of the townships, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever get it going?”

  “No,” she said, looking away. “I never finished it, and then I had to leave.”

  “Pity. It sounded like a good idea.”

  He studied her face and she turned away, not wanting him to see how raw it still was, how much the failure still hurt her.

  “So how do you like Europe so far?” She motioned for him to set the box on a desk and pulled out the jumbo package of neon-colored condoms.

  “A bit tame after Africa,” he confessed with a shrug, “but it’s growing on me. Nice to be able to get a good French cheese and a pint of Belgian ale without paying an arm and a leg.”

  “Well, Doctor,” Charlie said, handing him another squishy banana and a condom in electric yellow. “How about taking the next session? Let’s up your excitement level a little.”

  Unfazed, he took the items from her. “Sure, I’ll take a crack at it.”

  Johan did an admirable job, seemingly unperturbed by the impromptu nature of his assignment or the room full of fifteen-year-old girls giggling behind their hands every time he talked about male anatomy.

  Charlie watched from the back of the room. She remembered this about him from before, the air of capable calm that surrounded him. Even in the midst of a frenzy—a medical emergency in one of the white tents, the frantic voices of a hundred people all clamoring to be heard—he moved purposefully and steadily, creating a bubble of stillness around him in the midst of chaos.

  It had been reassuring for those like Charlie who had been new volunteers to the medical camps, unprepared for the intensity of working with such large numbers of people in need. She had liked him and instinctively trusted his leadership. She felt the same way now, watching him at the front of the class. He seemed so familiar, an unexpected visitor from a period of her life she had once loved. She still felt the loss keenly, but seeing him reminded her of the many good times, so many years of good memories. Only the end had gone so very wrong.

  Charlie finished up with the last class of the day. Johan sat in the back with a cup of coffee and watched her. Strangely, she didn’t feel at all awkward in his presence. Halfway through the class, though, she began to feel queasy.

  “First you open the packet like this,” she said as Monica translated in rapid, lyrical Romanian. Everything sounded so dramatic and poetic in Romanian, a close cousin to Italian.

  “Then you slip the condom over the tip of the penis like this.” She struggled with the banana. It was so hot in the room. A bead of sweat rolled down her back and she swallowed, becoming acutely aware of both the squishy texture and the too-ripe smell of the banana. The sickly sweet, almost rotting smell was overpowering. Her stomach heaved and she swallowed hard again, forcing down bile. She had not eaten lunch, too busy to stop. That had been a mistake.

  Monica glanced at her questioningly as Charlie faltered, but Charlie rallied after a moment, determined to soldier on. “It’s important to make sure that the condom does not break,” she said loudly. Her stomach was definitely roiling. The room tilted a little and blurred.

  “Charlie?” Monica asked, giving her a worried glance. Charlie dropped the banana on the desk, vaguely aware of Johan getting to his feet and starting toward her from the back of the classroom, his face registering concern.

  “Sorry,” she said, then bent over and vomited into the wastebasket amid the horrified shrieks of twenty adolescent girls.

  In a moment Johan was there, bending over her, holding the wastebasket as she retched. She didn’t protest. She was shaking and too nauseated to care who was watching.

  Charlie glanced up to see Monica staring at her in shock. She waved a hand to her translator, urging her to continue the talk, and after a few stunned seconds Monica started in again, wrapping up the presentation alone. Charlie suspected that her impromptu performance had ruined the class’s attention span.

  “Not here,” she managed to say to Johan, and he obliged her, helping her down the aisle to the door, his arm strong around her waist, his other hand clutching the soiled wastebasket.

  In the slightly cooler and empty hallway, Charlie regained her bearings a little. Assuring Johan that she was fine and blaming the hot room and low blood sugar, she slipped into the empty bathroom and bent over the sink, leaning her head against the cold white tiles. Her stomach gave another heave, but there was nothing left to bring up. She splashed water on her face and then tried to remain still until the nausea passed.

  After a few minutes she pulled open the bathroom door to find both Duncan and Johan standing outside, wearing identical expressions of concern. She joined them in the hall, embarrassed by the attention. The wastebasket was nowhere to be seen.

  “Charlie, what happened? Are you feeling okay?” Duncan took her elbow. “You look a bit peaky.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, trying to brush off his concern. “I must have eaten something for breakfast that didn’t agree with me, and those rooms are hot as an oven.” She felt embarrassed, vulnerable somehow.

  Johan was watching her with a furrowed brow and an intent look. “How long have you been feeling this way?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer him directly, not wanting to say anything that could give her away. Ursula had been watching the staff like a hawk, making notations, holding the entire office hostage with the thought of the layoffs. Charlie had no intention of giving her fodder until it became unavoidable.

  “I’m fine. I probably just need to eat something and cool off,” she said, dodging his question and not making eye contact.

  “I’ve got some bananas,” Duncan offered.

  Charlie gave him a murderous look and bolted back into the bathroom just in time.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Serbian village on the Bulgarian border

  The high shriek of shearing metal woke Charlie, followed by the long skid of locked tires and then a sharp bang. She sat upright in the single, hard bed of the rented apartment, heart pounding. Through the sliver of open window came a draft of icy air and silence.

  Fumbling under the bed for her house shoes, a pair of Birkenstock clogs, she slipped them on, ears straining for any other noise. Had she imagined the terrible sound? No, in the room next to her she heard Monica stirring. Sliding from under the duvet, Charlie went to the window and pulled back the curtain, surveying the main road. It looked like dozens of other main streets in tiny villages across Serbia—a narrow strip of faded asphalt flanked on either side by clusters of stucco, red-tile-roofed houses and tidy yards with beds of straggly dormant roses and bare fruit trees. The village lay less than twenty kilometers from the Bulgarian border.

  The road was empty, the houses dark. She was probably the only person in the village sleeping with her windows open even a crack in January. Central Europeans had a deep abhorrence for drafts, which they believed could cause sickness. Maybe no one else had heard the noise. She hesitated for a moment, considering whether it was wise to venture out and investigate, but concern won out over caution. Someone might need help.

  Charlie grabbed her down coat and the flashlight she always carried with her when she traveled and threw open the door. Monica was already in the hall, pulling a wool coat over her pajamas.

  “Did you hear that?” Charlie asked. “It sounded like a crash.”

  Monica nodded, dark eyes alert. “I think it came from past the village.”

  Charlie switched on the flashlight. “Let’s go see.”

  Together they hurried out into the dark, sleeping town. They were staying in an apartment over a tiny convenience store near the edge of the village. A few houses down from the store the buildings ended abruptly next to a shallow creek, and beyond that,
flat black harvested fields stretched into the distance until they blended with the snowy, rolling forested hills.

  It was the last village on their two-week trip. They had finished the reproductive health education seminars in Romania and then crossed into Serbia, driving south to preview potential seminar locations for the following year. Duncan and Johan had parted ways with them after the final Romanian seminar, traveling by bus to southern Romania to meet with a new partner organization. Charlie and Monica planned to finish the trip through Serbia and then drive the Care Network van and materials back to Budapest in a few days.

  Charlie shivered in the night air; it was thin and piercingly cold and smelled of frost. All her senses were on high alert, her breath coming fast in her chest. The moon was bright in the clear sky, washing the road before them in a pale silver light. As they passed the last cluster of houses, she swept her flashlight over the narrow road, illuminating the cause of the sound. A small white transport truck had barreled through town and miscalculated the bridge, running into the stone wall. It lay half on its side against the wall, lolling crazily, one headlight shining into the gurgling creek below.

  Charlie broke into a trot. “This could be bad.” She ran toward the driver’s door, Monica right at her heels, and tugged it open. Inside, the driver lay against the steering wheel, unconscious but breathing, an ugly gash pouring blood from his forehead. Charlie laid a practiced hand against his neck, checking his pulse. “He’s ali—” she started when they both heard the same noise. A bumping and whimpering from the back of the truck.

  The two women looked at one another in alarm. “Animals?” Charlie guessed aloud.

  “Maybe,” Monica said, casting a nervous glance behind her. The bumping had become a rhythmic hammering sound, as though whatever was inside was trying desperately to force its way out.

  Charlie hurried around the back of the truck and unbolted the back door, swinging it open a crack and shining her light inside. The beam of her flashlight caught a glimmer of dark eyes. She swung the door wider, sweeping the light across the truck’s cargo. It was not animals. It was women.

  Sitting packed shoulder to shoulder, they flinched away from the flashlight’s beam, blinded by the glare. They were young, early twenties at most, bruised and disheveled from the crash.

  Monica swore softly in Romanian at the sight of their frightened faces. Charlie said nothing, stunned into silence. She stood motionless for a moment, staring at the faces before her. The young women stared back with wide eyes. Each sat with her hands in front of her, bound together with a long plastic zip tie.

  “Are you okay?” Monica called softly into the truck. She repeated the phrase in Romanian, Serbian, and Hungarian.

  The girls were beginning to stir as they recovered from the shock of the crash. One of them sitting near the door caught Charlie’s eye, a swarthy girl with short, dark hair. She wiped her hands across her mouth, leaving a smear of blood on her cheek. She stared at her bound hands in the dim light, then touched her split lip gingerly. Her eyes were wide with shock. No one answered the question.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Charlie asked her, trying to elicit some response. The girl nodded slowly, still not speaking.

  Monica glanced uneasily back down the road, hunching down into her coat. Nothing stirred. “Charlie, we don’t have much time. The men who own this truck will come looking for them,” she said. Her teeth were chattering, whether with cold or fear Charlie couldn’t tell.

  “Do we call the police?” Charlie asked, doing a quick head count. She thought there were six. In the dark it was difficult to be sure.

  Monica shook her head and laughed drily, a black sound. “The police are probably part of it. They will return the girls to those who are selling them. The police get bribes at the borders to let them cross, no questions asked. This truck is probably heading for Bulgaria.”

  “What do we do with them?” Charlie asked. “We can’t leave them here.” Her hands were shaking and she tucked them under her arms, trying to remain calm, trying to act like a professional. She glanced over her shoulder, but nothing moved along the road. She was sweating, although the temperature was in the low twenties. There was a sharp, metallic taste in her mouth—the taste of fear. She had not experienced it since that last, horrible night in Johannesburg. She pushed the unwelcome memory away. Not here, not now.

  “We have to get them out of here,” Monica said, her voice low and urgent. She stepped forward, speaking rapidly in Romanian. A second later one or two voices answered her, and the girls began to shift toward the open door.

  “I told them we will help them,” Monica murmured to Charlie. “We will take them to the apartment. I’ll go ahead to make sure no one sees them. You get them ready.” Not waiting for an answer, Monica slipped into the darkness, going back into the village the way they had come.

  Charlie paused, at a loss as to how to proceed. “Hey, can anyone speak English?” she called softly into the dark recesses of the truck.

  “Yes, a little,” said a shaken voice from the back.

  “Come up here and translate for me, please,” Charlie said. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  A girl scrambled awkwardly to the door of the truck. She was petite with auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail and heavy bangs that fell across her brow. She turned and the beam of the flashlight hit her face, illuminating chunky yellow plastic glasses. Charlie stared at her for a moment in stunned disbelief.

  “Kinga?” she gasped. The girl squinted against the glare of the flashlight, and Charlie dropped the beam, stepping toward her. Kinga flinched involuntarily, shrinking back from Charlie’s movements.

  “Hey, it’s me, Charlie, from the strudel shop.” Charlie held up the flashlight so Kinga could see her face.

  “Charlie?” Kinga met Charlie’s eyes. Tears began seeping from behind her glasses. She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Charlie said, reaching up and touching her arm. With Charlie’s assistance Kinga clambered from the truck, stumbling as she hit the ground, unable to right herself because of her bound hands. Charlie grabbed the girl’s elbow, steadying her. Kinga pulled away quickly from Charlie’s touch.

  “Are you hurt?” Charlie asked in a low voice.

  Kinga shook her head, pushing her glasses up her nose with her bound hands. “I’m okay.”

  “How many girls are in the truck?” Charlie asked, glancing over her shoulder back down the road.

  “Six.” The olive-skinned girl with the cut lip spoke for the first time. She swung her legs over the edge and joined Kinga and Charlie. “There are six of us. You know her?” she asked Kinga, jerking her head toward Charlie.

  Kinga nodded. “From Budapest. She’s a friend. She’ll help us.”

  “What’s your name?” Charlie asked.

  “Simona,” the girl replied. She touched her split lip again and winced. The blood was smeared on her chin.

  “Where are you all from?” Charlie peered into the truck.

  “Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary,” Simona replied, glancing around her warily. Her body was tensed. “I am from Bulgaria.”

  “Do any of the others speak English?” Charlie asked.

  Kinga shook her head. “I don’t think so. Only Simona and me.”

  “I don’t speak good English,” Simona said. “I speak good Bulgarian and Romanian.”

  “Okay, you and Kinga can help me translate then,” Charlie said. “Tell the others that my colleague Monica and I are going to help you.”

  She and the girls both froze as they heard a loud groan from the cab of the truck.

  Charlie swore softly. “Quickly, get the girls out of the truck and be quiet,” she instructed them. “Then wait for me.”

  Kinga nodded. She said something to Simona, who translated into Bulgarian and then Romanian, addressing the other women. Kinga followed with a Hungarian translation.

  Charlie flicked off the flashlight and slid quietly along
the side of the truck to the cab. Her heart was pounding a frantic staccato beat in her ears. She didn’t think, just acted. She didn’t know yet how she and Monica were going to help the women, but she knew that they could not afford to have the driver conscious or mobile.

  She approached the cab as quietly as she could, then peered around the side, her heart hammering in her ears. The driver was still slumped over the steering wheel, but he was stirring. Hands shaking, Charlie didn’t stop to think. She reached past him and gently turned the keys in the ignition. The headlights cut out instantly. In the near darkness she could hear the man’s ragged inhalations. He groaned, turning his head. Slowly, slowly she slid the keys from the ignition, holding her breath, willing him not to awaken. If he did, she didn’t know what she would do. He smelled of sausages and sweat, and she had to force herself not to gag.

  Keys in hand, she paused, unsure what to do next. Then she heard a ringtone blare from the floor of the cab. A cellphone lay next to the driver’s feet, flashing an incoming call with the beat of a European techno song. Frantic to stop the sound, she scrabbled for the phone, then dropped it on the pavement and ground it into the asphalt with her clog, stomping on it again and again until the music stopped and it broke into pieces. Breathing hard, she wiped her trembling hands on her pajama pants. She was sweating, although the air was bone-chillingly cold. Adrenaline was coursing through her veins, icy and electrifying, heightening every second, every sound and movement. She took a deep breath, willing herself to think, to calm down. The important thing was to buy the women time and get them somewhere safe.

  She waited for a long second, but the driver did not stir again. Flicking the flashlight on, Charlie looked around the interior of the cab for anything that might prove useful. In the beam of the flashlight she found a dozen or more long plastic zip ties scattered around the seat of the cab and a box cutter on the floor. She slid it out of the cab quickly and opened it, feeling better to have some small protection in her hand, though the thought of using it was absurd. She’d never been in a knife fight in her life.