“I would be asking for trouble if we do not report a gunshot wound.” Charley looked alternatively at Marcos and at the woman until he eventually made a decision.
“To hell! In Vietnam I took care of bullet wounds in worse condition.”
“You never told me you were in the Vietnam War. What were you, a paramedic?”
“Among other things. Listen, go to Sam´s pharmacy and brings these things.” He leaned over the desk and wrote down a list of products in a paper. “While you go I´ll call Sam so he won´t make problems nor questions and give you everything I ask.”
Charley proceeded to disinfect the girl´s wounds again, applied a very strong local anesthetics and sutured with firm hand. Then he injected a large dose of antibiotics
“It is done. Five stitches at the entrance in the back and seven in the front. Now there is no longer risk of bleeding; she should still keep taking oral antibiotics for a week.”
“The girl woke up.” Charley said when entering the workshop. “The fever has gone down although it can still rise again.”
Both men entered Uncle Charlie´s bedroom where they had placed the young woman. She watched them entering with a hint of fear in her eyes.
“Do you speak English?” Asked the older man. She nodded affirmatively.
“What's your name?” Charley asked again.
The girl hesitated.
“Nubia.”
“Is that your name or your origin ?” Insisted the homeowner.
“I am called that way me because I belong to the Nubian people.”
“So I figured. But you have a given name.” Charley's comment was between a question and a statement.
“Alimah ... Alimah Koumi.” Replied the woman overcoming certain reservations.
“Where are you from Alimah ... or Nubia?” Marcos made his voice heard for the first time.
“ I was born in Sudan but lived in Ethiopia all my life.”
“Until when you lived in Ethiopia ?” Charley's voice was full of commiseration.
“Until ... a month or so ago. I lost track of time.”
With a rueful gesture Charley sat on the edge of the bed while Marcos kneeled at its side. Seeing the two men in a gentle and non-aggressive attitude for the first time in a long while, the eyes of the woman called Nubia filled with tears. In her broken English she began telling her sad story.
Chapter 2
The Nubians are an ethnic group of very old data that inhabit the south of present Egypt and a broad band in Sudan. In the old ages the Nubian warriors were famous as archers and fast riders.
The woman called Alimah, born within that ethnicity had migrated to Ethiopia as a child with her family, and had been educated in an Ethiopian Christian school, leaving aside her original Islamic creed.
Making a great effort to overcome the psychological pain produced by the memories, Alimah told the men who listened attentively a brief summary of her childhood at school, certainly the best time of her life, where as a pupil she was offered to work with the teachers, who were excited by her desire to learn. She was then in charge of the girls training in different disciplines and even teaching classes.
Nubia took breath and her beautiful face furrowed with a bitter gesture.
“Go on, dear girl.” Urged Charley.
The narrative was interrupted thereafter by tears produced by the painful and recent memories.
One morning a band of Eritreans kidnappers fell over the small village and the school, massacred the few men who tried to face them in order to defend the villagers, most of whom tried to escape through the steppe of sparse vegetation surrounding the village, being chased by the looters who managed to kill many of them. School teachers were also murdered and the students abducted, raped and herded like cattle forcing them to cross the border. The village was burned and the few cows property of the peasants taken with the aggressor group. What had been a small oasis of peace was literally wiped off the map.
The subsequent course of events was even worse, the girls were raped and beaten again, barely fed and their wounds were not healed. Several of them could not withstand the level of brutality that they were exposed to and killed themselves in various ways. Finally the survivors were conducted in small groups to be sold in different slave markets that still in the XXI century remain protected by corrupt officials who violate the mandates of the United Nations issued through UNODC and other agencies, and even by their own governments.
Finally, a contingent of twenty girls selected for their beauty was embarked in a port on the Red Sea on an old Greek merchant ship.
Nubia made a nonstop narration of their arrival in New York, their accommodation in a dirty overcrowded room and the moments immediately before the attack suffered by the traffickers at the hands of a suspected rival gang and finally their flight with Sanwarit. On reaching the point when her friend´s throat was slit before her eyes the young woman suffered a seizure and started frothing at the mouth.
“It was my fault!” Exclaimed Nubia in anguish. “I dragged her by the arm even though she did not want to follow me, and then Sanwarit ended up dead”.
Tears and exclamations were accompanied by shaking of her body that threatened to throw her out of bed. Marcos and Charley held her tightly to prevent the girl from harming herself in desperation. Finally the old man introduced a pill in her mouth and forced her to drink a glass of water.
“What have you given her?” Asked the young man.
“A very strong sedative. It will take effect in a few minutes. It is necessary to prevent her nervous system to collapse that can have even cardiac consequences despite her youth.”
“But when she wakes up her memories will come back as well as her guilt feelings.” Said somberly the boy, obviously distraught.
“ I hope not.” Replied the old man. “Don´t you think that what just happened is necessarily bad. The girl was carrying all this inside her and she needed to throw it out. She had to verbalize it.”
“How come a cabinetmaker knows all this?
“I've told you about my time in Vietnam. I have witnessed many scenes of traumatic stress, in some cases associated with feelings of guilt.” Charley made a moment of silence as he rose from the bed. “Now we must let her sleep.”
Chapter 3
The glass door of the vast office opened although nobody had knocked it before. Paddy O'Halloran knew that only one person would dare to do that so that when he looked up he was not surprised to see Laura Sandoval moving toward his desk.
“I told you to knock the door before entering.”
“I thought I have certain rights.” Replied the woman.
“Yes, but not the right to put us in evidence in front of all detectives. Turn around and look how they are whispering.”
“You worry too much.” She said with a feline voice as she was coming close to the sitting giant.
“You're a police sergeant and I´m a lieutenant and in addition your boss. We must keep up appearances.”
Laura rubbed her prominent rear on his plump hand and immediately pointed her finger to the invariable result.
“Look at you!” She said laughingly pointing at the instant erection produced by her action. “You´re not only predictable but instantly predictable.”
O'Halloran reined in his anger, that they both knew never lasted long. He slid back his chair and put his big hand under the woman´s skirt feeling immediately her hot flesh; his fingers slid irresistibly upward.
“Well, what you want?” He asked making a concession.
“You can play a little upwards yet.” She answered.
“Tell me what you want at once!”
“Have you turned off your cell phone?” The woman answered with another question.
“ The battery is empty, I forgot to charge it yesterday. How do you know it?”
“That unpleasant Egyptian friend of yours called me. What is his name?”
“Jemal? He is Eritrean, not Egyptian.” The Lieutenant changed his a
ttitude, certainly an sign that the news had disquieted him.
“Whatever. He wants to talk to you urgently. He actually demanded it with bad manners. I almost sent him to hell.”
“Never do such a thing.”
“I do not want him to call me on my cell phone. Who gave him my number?”
“I did, as back up for cases like this. He cannot call me through the precinct phone line, and your cell phone is safe. Sorry, it will not happen again.”
The woman resignedly said.
“Here. Call him with mine.”
“Jemal? Hello ... How are you? ... Yes, I'm sorry, the cell phone was dead ... I told you I do not want you to call me to my cell phone, much less to that of Sergeant Sandoval. What do you want?”
For a long period Jemal was talking in a loud voice so O'Halloran´s ruddy face turned bright red.
“How did one of your whores get away? ... Was it during the Yemenis attack? ... And how much does this woman know about your business? ... Are you crazy? ... Harlem is still shocked for the battle that you and your opponents had the other day. It has long since we've seen seven dead together in an incident, not counting the girl beheaded in an alley that surely is also your doing. You cannot go out and kill a loose slut in the streets just to give a warning to the other whores!” The lieutenant was yelling, what prompted Laura to touch his arm to call him to reality; as a result the man lowered the voice tone.
“Jemal, I have the deputy prosecutor and my boss on my shoulders demanding me to clarify the shooting you were involved ... What? ... I know that most of the dead were yours, but at this time you must stay completely still and not think about shooting a woman in the streets.”
No doubt the so-called Jemal was exploding on the other side of the line so O'Halloran pushed the phone away from his ear with a gesture of disgust.
“Are you asking me to use my men to look for a black woman in Harlem? Is it a joke?”
New explosion on the other side. As it became very long and intense the police officer decided to compromise.
“It's okay. Send me that picture of the woman to my own cell phone and give me time until tonight to give me a chance to recharge the battery.”
Then, turning to Laura he added.
“'This bastard requires us to use our men to detect the woman that escaped. Then I have to tell him her location and he says he will handle it.”
“Meaning they will kill her.”
“Likely.”
“That would make you an accomplice to a crime!”
“Jemal has enough material to denounce me and send me to prison for life.”
“So instead of your protector he has now become a danger.”
“Aye, but I cannot disengage from this situation.”
Outside O´Halloran´s office detectives Vince Caruso and Leroy Washington were following the alternatives of what was happening behind the closed door trying to guess the details by the gestures of their boss.
“Look Leroy! He pulled his hand off Sandoval´s ass, so it must be something serious.”
“Lewd Italian! Always thinking in buttocks.” Leroy was newly married and had a religious upbringing in a Baptist church with an African American membership.
“Sandoval has some black blood, which explains her butts.”
“You and women buttocks! Well, they say it is a fixation of the Italians. Look, O'Halloran is calling us.”
Indeed, the office door opened and the big Irishman looked out.
“Vince, Leroy, come to my office.”
Uncle Charley examined her wounds again; when Marcos entered the bedroom he told him and Nubia.
“This injury is evolving quite well, but there are some infected stitches. I agreed with a doctor here in Harlem to take Nubia to his consulting room to make a more professional healing.”
“I can´t go to a hospital.” Whispered the girl. “Do not take me there.”
“Don't worry, he is an old Army friend. I'll take you to his private practice at home. There he has everything he needs.”
Charley left the bedroom and Marcos remained in the doorway, unable to make his mind on whether to enter the room and stay with the girl alone or not. She looked him in the eyes causing him a passing blush.
“Come in. Do not stay there.”
“Well ... I did not know ...”
“What is that you do not know? Weren´t you who brought me here when I was abandoned and fainted in the alley?”
“Yes.”
“And who was the one who undressed me to cleanse and heal my wounds?”
“Well ... Charley and me.”
“'So you've seen me naked.”
The young man's eyes twinkled.
“Yes.”
“I hope you liked what you saw.”
By that time the young man's face was completely covered with blush.
“Come, sit on the bed.”
Once Marcos was seated the young woman stared into his eyes. Although Nubia was not fully aware of it, she could look into his interlocutor through his eyes and read his emotions, intentions and character. The woman stayed a while watching the man's eyes and finally smiled
“You're clean, transparent.” She said to his surprise.
“What are you? A psychic?”
“I actually don´t know. I only know what I see. It is as if I can read the soul of the people.”
“That makes you powerful.”
“I'd rather not have this power. What I see is often horrible.”
“You've seen a lot of evil in this world.”
“Yes indeed.”
Marcos perked up and slid down the bed approaching her; he then stretched out his arm to her neck and then touched a metal necklace with some small leather bags.
“What is this?”
“My talismans. I am always protected by them.”
“They have not protected you very well, especially considering everything you've been through in the last days.”
“Of course they have protected me! They have brought me with two good men who have cured me and care about me.”
The girl opened the bags and pulled out the contents of one of them. It was an old yellowed paper that was folded into eight parts. Nubia unfolded and handed it to Marcos. The man saw a number of unknown characters written on it.
“What language is this? What does it say?”
“These are old texts copied by Ethiopian monks of ancient Christians and Muslims rolls, healing writings of the Jewish Kabala, astrological texts, in short, everything that can protect and heal a person but also destroy or lock demons.”
The girl was still staring into the eyes of Marcos; the young man felt a strange and warm sensation coming over him and did not try to resist it.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I like getting lost in the green of your eyes. The effect of immensity brings me peace.”
“ Do you use your eyes as a means of control?”
“I believe in the power of the eyes to cause good or bad things. I also believe in their power to make the demons to leave a body.”
Charley coughed from the door. He had been watching for a while the irresistibly romantic scene and trying to interpret the whispers that came to him.
“Excuse me for interrupting you guys, but Doc Jim awaits us.”
“Who is Doc Jim?”
“The Army doctor friend of mine I told you about.”
The men left the room to allow Nubia to get dressed. The girl had made a second vital decision.
Inside her heart she had no doubt of her success.
The first decision was made when she lay alone, dirty and wounded in the alley. She would take revenge on the men who had subjected her to that extreme hardship. Nubia would take revenge for Sanwarit, for the other kidnapped girls now sunk in abominable brothels... and for herself.
Chapter 4
Marcos stared at the walls while he was sitting in the waiting room
of Doc Jim´s practice. He noticed with some surprise that Jim was truly a doctor as evidenced by the title exhibited in a frame, as well as numerous diplomas for courses taken in his specialty.
Uncle Charley had entered the attention room with Nubia, and the young man let his thoughts wander. He felt a sweet taste in his mouth and knew immediately that it was due to the moments spent in the girl´s company and their brief chat. The boy was struck by her beauty from the first moment he had raised her helpless body in the alley, notwithstanding how dirty and scruffy she was. Sporadic talks after that moment had exposed the young man to a certain magnetism and strength that emanated from her. Marcos did not know it yet but he was falling in love with the girl passing over ethnic differences, the enormous geographical and cultural gap of the societies where they had grown up, and their extreme differences in their biographies and the experiences they had gone through.
Marcos was lost in his own thought and was especially exploring his feelings and emotions so he did not realize that Nubia and Charley were leaving the consultation room. Only he reacted when he heard the voice of the latter calling him.
“Well boy, let's go home.”
Charley said goodbye to his old friend, another African American of approximately the same age and discretely paid his fees. The men shook in a tight embrace. On leaving Charley was visibly moved by having reencountered his comrade.
“I haven´t seen him in about five years. He looks quite older but his pulse is still strong. Who knows how he sees me.” The phrase was a kind of mix between a realistic reflection and a rhetorical question.
“Anyway, let´s go to the car, I parked it a block from here.”
“Laura. Kolski speaking. Tell Lieutenant O'Halloran I think I have seen the woman you are looking for. She is accompanied by two men, an old black guy and a white young man.” He then gave the location of his finding.
“Good. What do I do now? ... Okay, I´ll follow them until further notice ... no, no siren, of course.”
Charley drove his old Toyota into the garage where he usually parked it a few blocks from his home, an old local with a metal curtain fitted with a padlock.
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