Bought and Sold (Part 3 of 3)

by Stephens, Megan

  As incredible as it seems to me now, I didn’t suspect a thing. In fact, it wasn’t until the front door of the house was opened by a cheerful Albanian man Christoph introduced to us as Zamir that I felt the first prickle of doubt.

  Christoph didn’t come into the house with us. He left us on the doorstep, saying he would be back within an hour or so. Lexi and I followed Zamir into the living room, where two more men were sitting watching television and drinking whisky. I suddenly felt anxious and uneasy. But the men were pleasant and friendly, so we took the drinks they offered us and after we had all been chatting for a while, I began to relax.

  We were all laughing about something when Lexi stood up and said she needed to go to the toilet. One of the men picked up the remote and turned off the TV. ‘Tell her to sit down,’ he said, in a very different voice. When I glanced towards him, I saw that he was looking from one to the other of us with an expression of scornful disdain. In that split-second, I realised that I had made a terrible mistake. A voice in my head was shouting, ‘No! You idiot! What have you done?’ And my whole body began to shake.

  Lexi hadn’t understood what the man had said, but there was no mistaking the threat in his voice or the suddenly tense atmosphere in the room, and she began to cry.

  ‘You do know what’s happened, don’t you?’ the man asked me. ‘You understand what you and your friend will be doing? You belong to us now. We bought you off Christoph, for four thousand euros.’ He made a sideways movement with his head to indicate Lexi. ‘You’d better explain it to your friend.’

  Why was I shocked and hurt at the thought that Christoph had sold me to these men? What possible grounds did I have for believing that a man who treated me like an inanimate commodity actually cared about me and wanted to do something nice for me? The answer, in part, was that I was so desperate to have a friend, my mind had simply blocked out any information that didn’t support what I wanted to believe. I had felt guilty and ashamed every day for more than five years, but never as much as I did that day.

  You can adapt to almost any new normality, given time, and over the last few years my emotions and reactions had been damped down. But Lexi was used to a more rational, everyday sort of normality, and when I told her what the man had said, she started screaming and running round the room, flailing her arms, bumping into the furniture and sending all the whisky glasses crashing to the floor.

  When Zamir’s two friends stood up, I raised my arms instinctively to cover my face. But instead of lashing out at us with their fists, as I had expected them to do, one of the men said to Zamir, ‘We don’t want to do this. They’re going to get us into trouble.’ Then they walked out of the living room and a few seconds later we heard the front door open and close behind them.

  Lexi was still sobbing and shouting when Zamir walked out of the living room too, and I could hear him somewhere at the front of the house, talking rapidly and angrily on his phone. Realising that it would probably be our only opportunity, I snatched up Lexi’s backpack and thrust it into her hand, then pulled her with me out of the living room, across the hallway and into a room at the back of the house. I had only just managed to turn the key in the lock when Zamir started kicking the door and screaming threats at us. Lexi was screaming too and I was sobbing. But I knew that if we were going to stand any chance at all of getting out of the house, I had to force myself to think.

  There were only two ways into and out of the room we were locked in – through the door that was about to come crashing in on us, and through the window in the wall opposite it. For a few precious seconds, I fumbled with the catch on the window before managing to open it. Then I almost pushed Lexi out of it. As I was climbing out after her, looking over my shoulder and expecting to see Zamir burst into the room behind me, I almost missed my footing and fell. Then my feet touched the ground and we started running.

  I don’t know what people thought when they saw us, two girls running side by side through the city centre, crying and glancing behind them every few seconds like hunted animals. I didn’t have a destination in mind; I was simply following my instinct to get as far away from the house as possible. I thought, as I always did, that someone might be watching me. But we couldn’t keep running for ever. So when we rounded a corner and saw a policeman standing at the side of the road, I stopped, with my hand on Lexi’s arm, and tried to catch my breath.

  ‘Please help us,’ I said as soon as I could speak. As I tried to explain to the policeman what had happened, Lexi kept shouting, in English, ‘Help us! We’ve been kidnapped!’

  ‘You’re safe now,’ the policeman said when I eventually paused again for breath. ‘You had better come with me.’ So we followed him across the road into the lobby of a hotel, where he told us to wait while he went outside again to make a phone call.

  We sat down in some chairs in a corner of the lobby where we could see the entrance but wouldn’t be immediately visible to anyone coming into the hotel. And that’s when I suddenly realised that I had been there before. In fact, it was the hotel I had stayed in with Mum when she came to Athens to visit me. I would have been panic-stricken wherever we had been waiting, but one of the last places in the world I wanted to be at that moment was in a hotel that was owned by a friend of Christoph’s and where someone might recognise me. Turning slightly in my chair so that I had my back to the reception desk, I let my hair fall forward over my face. I was still trying to decide what to do, if anything, when I saw Christoph.

  He had just pushed open the door from the street and was scanning the lobby as if he was looking for someone. I shrank back into my seat and whispered to Lexi to put her head down. But it was too late. Christoph had already seen us and was walking towards us across the brown-tiled floor.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, smiling as he looked, first at Lexi, then at me. ‘I had no idea. I can’t believe what happened to you. I’m so angry with Zamir. Thank heavens you’re both safe. Please, come with me.’

  It took a moment for the fact to sink in that rather than being angry with us, he was smiling and apologising. And then it dawned on me that if Christoph knew what had happened to us, he must have been the person the policeman had phoned when he had gone outside – which meant that no one was coming to help us.

  Chapter 12

  Instead of taking us to the hotel I had been staying in, Christoph drove us to an apartment about an hour from the city. He kept saying how angry he was with the three Albanians and telling us we mustn’t worry anymore because he would take care of us.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said when we arrived at the apartment. ‘Don’t go out on your own.’ He looked at me without expression for a few seconds before adding, ‘I’ll be back in the morning with some money and to show you around the area. It’s a very interesting place. I think you’ll like it.’

  In fact, he didn’t come back the next day, or the day after that. I was now more convinced than ever that someone would always be watching me, and as Lexi and I were too frightened to leave the apartment, we had nothing to eat. Being hungry was an added stress for Lexi, but I had survived for longer on just tap water. Although we both had phones, neither of us had any credit, and after what had just happened, going to a police station wasn’t an option either.

  As the hours ticked by, Lexi became more frightened, and I found it increasingly difficult to think of anything even remotely reassuring to say to her. I didn’t tell her the truth about Christoph, partly because I knew it would make her panic even more, and partly because it would have meant having to tell her the truth about me too. Stuck in that apartment together, we already had enough problems without Lexi having to process the fact that I had lied to her about my wonderful life in Athens and was a prostitute, and I didn’t want to have to deal with the knowledge that she despised me.

  I knew there was nothing we could do that would change whatever was going to happen. And Lexi was too scared and confused to argue with me when I said we would just have to wait for Christoph to come back.
Ultimately, I was going to pay the price for running away and talking to the policeman. But I didn’t believe that Christoph would harm Lexi or even that he had any real intention of trafficking her and making her work as a prostitute. If I was wrong, I would be responsible for whatever happened to her.

  We had been in the apartment for three days by the time Christoph came back. He brought with him some clothes for me and some takeaway food, and he apologised, briefly, for having been away so long. Then he told me, coldly, ‘You made a very big mistake. Don’t ever think about running away again. You and your friend are going to have to earn your keep. So tonight you’ll be working in a bar.’

  When I told Lexi, she was upset and said she didn’t want to do it. And then Christoph suddenly broke into smiles and, in a voice that was now almost jovial, said, ‘Tell your friend there’s nothing to be worried about. All you have to do is talk to guys who come into the bar and encourage them to buy drinks. You’ll earn a percentage of all the money they spend.’ I really wanted it to be true and for everything to be all right, but I still felt like Judas when I repeated to Lexi what Christoph had said and she decided that it sounded like fun after all and she would do it.

  Christoph left us at the apartment to shower and change, then he came back in the evening to take us to the bar. The bar owner was friendly and after he had given us a brief explanation of the script we were to follow, Lexi and I sat at separate tables and waited.

  It was only a few minutes before a man approached Lexi and sat down opposite her. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he obviously spoke good English, because Lexi was laughing and they seemed to be getting on well.

  By the time Christoph picked us up late that night and dropped us back at the apartment, both Lexi and I had done good business for the bar. To Lexi, it had simply been like a game and she was pleased with the way the night had gone. For me, it had been a struggle as I tried to concentrate and listen to what the men were saying to me, because I knew that, at some point, I was going to tell Lexi the truth.

  I couldn’t pretend to myself any longer that everything would be all right, that Lexi would work in the bar for a few nights and then catch her flight back to England. I had wanted to believe that was what would happen, but in my heart I knew it wasn’t and that I had to try to help Lexi before it was too late.

  So in reply to her question about when we would get the money we had earned that evening, I told her we wouldn’t get any money, that Christoph wasn’t ‘my friend’, but someone who bought and sold girls and made them work as prostitutes, and that everything I had written in my message to her about my life in Greece had been a lie.

  She stared at me for what seemed like a long time before saying, very quietly, ‘I don’t understand.’ Then she burst into tears. ‘But what if that’s what he’s planning to make me do?’ She sounded frightened and child-like. ‘I can’t work in a brothel! And you can’t stay here either. Oh God, Meg, what are we going to do?’

  I was grateful that she didn’t turn on me and blame me for the appalling situation she was in – although she didn’t have to, because I already blamed myself.

  ‘I know!’ She started pulling things out of her backpack. ‘That first guy who came into the bar, the guy who stayed so long, he gave me his phone number and a top-up card for my phone. I really liked him, Meg. I think we can trust him.’

  ‘I don’t think we can trust anyone,’ I said. But I knew that if Lexi was going to have any chance at all of getting away, we were going to have to take the risk.

  The guy she phoned was an Albanian called Petros, and when she explained, briefly, what had happened and asked him to help us, he said, ‘I’ll come to the bar again tomorrow evening. When I get there, just do what I tell you and don’t ask any questions.’

  Neither of us slept much that night. I told Lexi a bit more about the life I had really been living. Then I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about the trap we might be walking into. Lexi was certain that Petros would help us – as certain as I would have been if I had asked Jak for help when I first met him in a bar five years earlier. My main anxiety, however, was based on my belief that Christoph saw everything. I didn’t really think I would ever escape.

  We stayed in the apartment throughout the next day, until Christoph came in the evening to take us to the bar. I’m surprised he didn’t suspect something was wrong. I had told Lexi several times during the day – until I could see she was starting to get fed up with me – that, whatever happened, we had to act normally and not do anything that might raise Christoph’s or anyone else’s suspicions. But I was acutely aware as we drove with him to the bar that our silences were tense and our chatter falsely cheerful.

  Within minutes of arriving at the bar, a man sat down at Lexi’s table. I could see she was trying at least to appear to be concentrating on what he was saying, but she kept inclining her head slightly so that it was obvious to anyone watching her that she was looking past him to the door that led out on to the street. I was trying to think of some way of attracting her attention so that I could warn her when the door opened and Petros walked into the bar.

  My heart had already been racing and now I gripped the edge of the table tightly with both hands. This was the moment when we would find out whether Petros really could be trusted or whether he had come back to the bar for the sole purpose of betraying us.

  Lexi was sitting at the table next to mine and as Petros passed between us, he said, quietly and without looking at either of us, ‘Don’t say anything; don’t ask me any questions. Just get up, follow me out of the bar and get into my car.’

  I had to force myself to do what he had said and not run out ahead of him into the night. It was the same feeling I’d had when I had shoplifted in England, a whole lifetime ago – when I had been certain that the eyes of every single person in the shop were focused on my back, every fibre of my body was telling me to run, and I was just waiting for the moment I knew would come when someone would shout ‘Stop!’ But no one did try to stop us that night in the bar. And what was even more amazing than that was the fact that Petros had kept his promise and come back for us.

  That night, Lexi and I stayed with Petros and his friend in their hotel room. Although the two men gave us their beds, I don’t think any of us slept very much. Christoph called my phone almost constantly and sent me texts saying, ‘I know where you are. I’m on my way to get you. You and your mum are in BIG trouble.’

  With every text, I became more convinced that he had some way of tracking my phone and that he really did know where I was. By the early hours of the morning I was a nervous wreck, but I had come to a decision. ‘I’ve got to leave,’ I told Lexi. ‘I think Christoph knows where I am and if he comes here, he’ll find you too. Even if I’m wrong and he doesn’t know that we’re here, he’ll go after my mum, and I can’t let him hurt her. I’ve got to go back to him.’

  ‘You can’t!’ Lexi began to cry. ‘Please, Meg, there must be some other way. You can’t go back to the life he’s been making you live. We’ll be all right. Petros and his friend will help us. I know we can trust them.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ I said. ‘But I know Christoph and I know the sort of people he works with. If I don’t go back to him, he will hurt my mum – or worse. I’m sure Petros will get you a flight home. I’ve got to go back.’

  It was the second time I had tried to imagine what it would be like to be on a flight back to England. The truth is that I couldn’t imagine it and I was afraid, in the same way, perhaps, that a wild animal that’s been kept in a cage for years would be afraid if you suddenly opened the door and gave it the chance to be free. I thought I had the life that, for some reason, I deserved and that what had happened to me was my fault. It was certainly my fault that Lexi was in Greece and in the position she was in. I didn’t want to have to blame myself for something terrible happening to my mum, too. So I hugged Lexi and made Petros promise again that he would take care of h
er. Then I left the hotel and started walking down a deserted road with my back to the rising sun.

  I kept walking along the same road until I was some distance from the hotel, not far from what looked a small farmhouse in the middle of dusty, stony fields, and then I phoned Christoph.

  He answered immediately. ‘Where are you?’ he asked, the cold quietness of his voice more intimidating than angry shouting would have been.

  I told him what I could see ahead of me and described various landmarks I had just passed.

  ‘Keep walking, and stay on the phone,’ he said.

  I must have gone almost another mile by the time he told me to sit down at the side of the road. And that’s when I knew he could see me.

  ‘Don’t hurt me, please,’ I whispered into the phone. ‘I’m sorry. Please.’

  When his car pulled up beside me, his icy control had given way to screaming fury and he shouted at me to get in. I was crying and shaking so much that I fumbled with the handle for what seemed like an eternity before I finally managed to open the door. As soon as I was inside the car, Christoph hit me across the head with a gun with such force that I thought I was going to pass out.

  ‘Where’s the girl?’ he shouted, striking me again with the gun and this time knocking me sideways so that the other side of my head smashed against the window. ‘Did you really think you could just walk away? Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I sobbed. ‘Really, I don’t know. She ran off with a man she met at the bar. I don’t know where they went. Honestly.’

  ‘I thought I could trust you.’ For a moment, I thought he was crying. It was if he had completely lost control, and suddenly I was more afraid of him than I had ever been. ‘Why did you run away from me?’ he demanded. ‘Wait and see what’s going to happen to you now! Did you not understand what I told you about your mother? I can get rid of someone just like that.’ He snapped his fingers in my face. ‘Give me your phone.’