Class Trip

by Burns, Rachel

  The smoke filled my nostrils and everything went black.

  Chapter 10

  I woke up in bed. The room was very dark. I felt like crying. I could hardly move and everything was so sore.

  Did I get beaten again? I couldn't remember anything. Tata was sitting on a chair next to me but he was sleeping. I moved my hands to my stomach. If felt funny. Like the muscles were gone and just pudding remained.

  I wanted to throw up.

  I moved a little, wanting to see what I could move. Tata woke up. He looked at me like he was waiting for something. I hoped that he didn't want to –. I didn't feel up to it.

  “How are you feeling, Sandra?”

  “I don't know. Maybe a little hungry,” I said it like I was asking a question.

  He stood and reached out to me for a second, just slightly touching my arm for a second. “I'll hurry back.” He left then.

  Was he really going to get me food? Wasn't I here to wait on him? I felt confused.

  I tried to get up again. I wanted to go to the bathroom before he came back. I managed to sit up but the door opened and his mother came in again.

  “Where do you think you are going?” she asked in perfect German. She had been pretending not to understand me all along. She could have told me what she wanted from me, saving me a lot of slaps.

  My feelings were incredibly hurt. I hung my head and cried.

  Would that get me in trouble again?

  Probably but they were the kind of tears that I just couldn't hold back.

  “Sandra, do you have to go to the bathroom?” she asked me.

  I just nodded.

  She grabbed me around my middle and set me on my feet. “It's time to change the bandages anyway. Go slowly now.”

  I leaned on her and it was really hard to move ahead. She brought me into their tiny bathroom.

  She lifted my pajamas over my head and put it in the laundry. I was still holding on to her because I just couldn't stand on my own. She pulled my underwear down and I saw the blood, so much blood. I had lost the baby.

  But how? When did that happen? I couldn't remember anything along those lines.

  She sat me down on the toilet and I peed. I gasped at the pain of that.

  “You are doing really well. I just want to shower you off before you go back to bed.” With that she moved me into the shower. I was just a rag doll that had to move as she wanted me to.

  I leaned against the wall and she went about cleaning me up. Blood was running down my legs and into the drain. I was gagging again.

  “Look up and breathe slowly. You are doing really well, Sandra.” I didn't even know that she knew my name.

  She grabbed a huge pad from a pile of them that had never been there before. She put it in between my legs and grabbed a pair of underwear that I had never seen before and I lifted my foot so she could dress me again.

  “Why are you being nice to me?” I whispered to her.

  She paled and didn't answer me. She then grabbed a new pajama from a pile of them. I had a feeling that everything in here had been changed around just to take care of me. Why would they do that for a slave?

  I felt so confused.

  Once I was dressed she brought me back out to the living room.

  Tata was standing there waiting. He looked really bad, tired and pale. I must have hurt him more than I originally thought.

  “Hold her, I have to change the sheets again,” Maria said in German.

  I was so confused with everything. He slowly reached for me and held me in his arms. It was almost like he was afraid of me. He held me tight and looked in my eyes. I was just staring back at him.

  “I brought you something to eat. Will you eat it nice for me?” he asked after a while.

  I nodded.

  He looked at me so seriously. “You are such an angel.”

  “Don't angels have blond hair?”

  He smiled and said, “No, not all of them. Some have brown hair and they are too good to be true.”

  This was all taking on a dream like quality. “But I'm not good?” I protested.

  “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” He looked like he meant it.

  Had I died and my punishment was having to live with him forever? I wished this were all over with. I was crying again. I had to lean on him just like I had leaned on Maria.

  He called out to her and she answered him. I didn't understand what he said. I looked into his eyes trying to figure out what was going on.

  Maria came back out and he walked me back to bed. He sat me down slowly like I was breakable. His mother was telling him this and that and he was nodding. It almost sounded like she was scolding him.

  He moved his pillow over to my side and fluffed them up. He raised my feet and turned me so I was lying down in bed but still propped up on the pillows. I was panting like I had just finished jogging.

  He covered me up and moved his chair in close. He had a bowl of soup in his hands now and he was holding the spoon in my direction like he wanted to feed me.

  The spoon came closer. I opened up and he slowly slid the spoon in. His mother had something to say again and he was nodding. Was she giving him instructions on how to feed me? This didn't make any sense at all.

  Why would he take care of a slave? He could just let me die and choose a new girl.

  I felt so tired again. My eyes were closing and my head sank into the pillows. I moved a little so I was on my side.

  “No Sandra, not this time. You have to eat. I need you to get better.”

  “Why?” I asked him. This didn't make sense to me.

  He looked so surprised. His mother said something again. She was just standing by the door with the dirty sheets in her arms.

  “I'll wash them as soon as I can. I'm sorry,” I told her. My entire body pulled together. Would they hit me because I wasn't functioning like I should? I was shaking in fear of them.

  “Shh Sandra, it's okay. No one is going to hurt you. I decided that you are too young to work. First things first I need you to get better.”

  “Why? What happens then?” I was still crying and truly scared.

  “Then we can be happy together.”

  I cried all the more because of his words. He just looked at his mother unsure. She said something and left.

  He held another spoonful of soup out to me. I took it and five more but then I just couldn't anymore. He looked so disappointed. He set the bowl on the floor and moved so he was sitting behind me in bed. I was shaking in fear. What would come next?

  He grabbed my hand and talked softly to me. I couldn't understand what he was saying. I drifted off to sleep.

  Tata was always there when I woke up and he was always nice to me.

  He told me things that didn't really make sense for him to tell me. He talked about my mother, who was looking for me. The fact that she was going to the trouble seemed to surprise him.

  Tata promised me that she wouldn't find me. He said I was safe with him. He acted like I would be sad to be home with my mother again.

  Was there something wrong with him?

  More than I had thought?

  Tata was holding on to me and walking with me again. This was something his mother usually oversaw. She would scold him not to let me fall and that I needed to get my blood circulating. He agreed with whatever she wanted. He fed me and showered me or she did.

  There was an elephant in the room. And he was ignoring it and I was too afraid of him to ask him about it, the baby.

  When I was almost better he came in one day and pulled the chair from the corner close to me.

  I was lying in bed and just watching him.

  He was quiet, looking down at his hands and he would look up at me every once and a while like he wanted to say something but then realized that it wasn't any good.

  “Sandra, I love you very much and I am sorry for your loss. I don't know how you felt about the baby but you must have known.” He sighed before he continued, �
�If you ever think that you may be pregnant again I want you to come to me and tell me. If I'm not here, then I want you to tell my mother. Losing a baby is a terrible thing to have happen to you and everyone was being so mean to you.”

  He looked me in the eyes then. “I didn't marry you so I could starve you, or make you slave away in the house. You are relieved of all of your duties and you get meals three times every day. That was a bit of a misunderstanding. Everyone assumed – Never mind, we will all be watching that it doesn't happen again. I promised to take the best care of you and I will stay here a while and make sure that that is the case. How you were treated in my absence wasn't okay. It explained the stabbing. I deserved it even. I was punishing you because I wanted you to know your place and – I was upset because I had missed you so much and you didn't miss me. You were probably too tired and too hungry to think about anything else.” He covered his face with his hands. “I'm really sorry. I will make it up to you, angel.”

  I was too flabbergasted to answer him. The pain was clearly written on his face. He truly felt guilty. I looked away from him until he got up and left.

  I didn't know what to say. I blamed him for everything.

  He was right about that.

  The next morning he got me up and dressed, doing every little thing for me. He took me by my hand and brought me down to breakfast. Most of the girls were gone. A table of three I didn't know were left. I was somehow glad about that. I didn't want to see the girls from my school anymore either.

  Ten boys were still here. They sat away from the girls. The whispering began the second I walked in. I heard things like I thought she was dead as Tata sat me down at my spot.

  I looked at him and he pretended that he didn't hear them. Usually he would have gone over to them and beat on someone.

  He got me my breakfast and everyone watched that I was eating. One of his brothers was missing again. I knew that he was in France at a language school that had kids from all over the world who were there to learn French. Americans were among them. They brought in more money. I was surprised that he could speak it so well that he could teach there. It was one who had driven the bus.

  “Sandra, eat nice for your Tata,” Maria said and the others all nodded, even his brother who had beaten me. I looked down at my plate like I was surprised that it was there. This was all a bit much for me. Their hate had somehow been easier to take.

  “Eat as much as you can, angel. Then at lunch you can have more.” He was trying to remind me that I would get fed again today like he had promised.

  I ate what I could with everyone watching me chew. My teeth hurt. I was only used to soup and mashed potatoes with soup for sauce on it. That was what he had been lovingly spoon-feeding me in our room.

  I did my best and then we went out for a walk, just the two of us. I couldn't think of anything to ask him. He was being really quiet too.

  “How is your business doing?” I asked him. I wanted to talk to him. He was being so kind to me.

  He smirked at me. “Things are going very well. This kind of business always does well.”

  “Whose idea was it?” This is something I had been wondering about for a while now.

  “My father started it when the borders opened. Well even before that. That house used to belong to nobles but then Communism came and then it was a bordello. You got more money if the girl was from the west. That was how my mother came to be here. My father kidnapped her and then he fell in love with her. I don't think she ever loved him back, but he made her sleep with other men too. I would never do that to you.

  “The truth is that this is my family business, in third generation.” He looked at me then. He wanted to see how I would react.

  “If our baby had survived would you have expected him or her to be part of the business too?”

  “No. Next year we are all going to pull out and never return here again. Once each of us has enough we will quit. We are really close. We all want to quit before we are caught.”

  “Do you feel bad for the girls and boys that are sold?” I asked.

  “Not really.” He looked at me again and saw that I didn't like his answer. “Sandra, angel, you are comparing them all to you and you just can't. None were ever as nice as you are. Besides if we didn't do it someone else would. Our idea with the class trips even got copied. They were caught and at the moment the police think that they were responsible for kidnapping the ones we did too. I think we just have to do it three more times and then you and I are going to take off and live the good life.”

  “What is the good life?”

  “Just you wait and see. I have it all planned and I will be able to spoil you every day. You will have the best of everything just like you deserve.”

  “I don't need anything.”

  “Yes, you do, but I was thinking about things you don't need. Just for fun.”

  I didn't know what to think or what to imagine so I concentrated on the ground in front of me. I could hear something like a zapping noise off to my right. I pulled Tata that way so I could investigate. He let me.

  I saw a dog with his paw caught in an electrical fence. I let go of Tata's hand and grabbed onto the dog and pulled.

  “Sandra no, don't!”

  I could feel the shocks and I was gasping loudly but I pulled the dog out of the fence and shook the pain from my arms as I checked over the dog.

  Tata wrapped an arm around my waist and lifted me up off the ground. He sat down on a rock. Seconds later I was over his knees. He lifted up my dress and tugged down my underwear. He started in smacking really hard and lecturing me. Mostly he asked what I was thinking.

  “Do you know how close I came to losing you when you lost the baby? Way too close.” he answered himself. “If the doctor hadn't been there then you would have died and I would have been all alone without you. I can't live without you and I won't lose you over such nonsense. You can't put yourself in harms way.”

  He spanked me for a very long time and I was howling. I even heard his brother come to see what was wrong. Tata sent him away saying that this was between him and his wife.

  “Damn, I wish I had my cane. That was so stupid. You could have gotten killed. Do you realize that? Do you even think at all before you do something?”

  “Tata,” I sobbed. I reached back and spread my fingers wide, trying to protect the greatest amount of area.

  He grabbed my hand and went at me all the harder. Three minutes later I was limp and sniffling. Too tired to cry aloud anymore. He was still smacking on.

  “I love you so much and you may not do anything dangerous. Ever.” He pulled me to his chest and held me close. “What would I have done without you? You can't do that to me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Tata.” I held on to him tightly.

  “No more nonsense. Promise me that.”

  “I promise.” I was holding on to his shirt with my fists as I clung to him. I was sniffling my answers.

  He kissed me and rocked me. When I had calmed down enough to walk back we noticed a dog following us. I was leaning on Tata and he had his arms wrapped around me, holding me close “I think he is thankful. Do you know him?”

  “He is just one of the dogs. We have around ten of them here. They are here to bark like crazy if anyone gets too close to the fence. And not get caught in it,” he said to the dog.

  “I wish I knew his name.”

  “I'll find out for you, angel.” He smiled at me like he was very in love with me.

  “You aren't mad at me anymore?”

  “Of course not. But you did give me quite a shock.”

  “I think I was shocked foremost,” I teased him.

  I had to ask myself how I could be smiling at him so happily after the thrashing I had just received.

  The whole family was gathered together as we came in.

  We were still smiling and laughing because the dog wanted to follow us inside and Tata had to do a lot of hand waving and scatting noises to get rid of him.
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  The family all looked confused and they dispersed.

  Chapter 11

  After that I got to go for walks in the morning by myself. My dog, Wolf, would be waiting for me by the side of the house. Maria complained that I had ruined him. He no longer protected the fence but now the house and he checked everyone over who came and went. Maria would send me off for a walk if she knew that someone was due to come.

  I always returned home to Tata. We were getting along splendidly. He kissed me and pet me a lot but he stopped before having sex with me. He said he would wait for me to be all healed up. I figured that he was sleeping with the three girls.

  Not really sleeping with them. He slept with me every night but he had sex with them while someone taped it. I was glad that there were no such tapes of us together.

  I mentioned that once while we lay in bed cuddling. I was worried about hidden cameras. He got mad and told me that no man would ever see me naked except maybe a doctor and then either he or his mother would be present. He went off on a long speech about how I was just his and no other man would ever be allowed. At the end of his five-minute speech he asked if that was clear.

  “Yep, that's what I wanted to hear.” He cuddled with me even more and then he talked about the places in the world he wanted to take me to.

  “Tata, that's an awful lot of flying around. I am more the homebody type. I like to sleep in my own bed at the end of the day.” I patted the bed.

  “I'll see to that too, angel.” He hugged me close and I thought that he was building castles out of air, as the Germans said to something that wasn't likely.

  Tata said that Wolf loved me. He followed me around whenever he could. He howled when I went in. Maria often let me bring him into the kitchen and give him something special to eat.

  Tata was busy this morning again so I went out to play, as he called it, all by myself again. Wolf was waiting for me by the door. We walked and I talked to him about this and that. He seemed to be listening to me. It was starting to get colder but nothing close to what I was used to. Nonetheless Tata had insisted that I wear a sweater when I went out to play.