“Literally,” I murmured as I busied myself with filing again.
8
KATARINA
“Here, have some tea, it’s got lots of milk in it,” I told Mira, and set down the mug I’d had to spend half an hour begging for in the kitchen.
She wrapped her bony fingers around it and shivered. The back of her hand was bruised. I knew that bruise.
I picked up her hand, anger welling up inside me that couldn’t be contained.
“Was it Benedict? What’s he been giving you?”
She swallowed, her slender throat bobbing around the movement. She was so thin. It was a miracle the baby continued to grow when the rest of her was wasting away.
“I don’t know... He says it’ll make the birth easier. I’m scared,” she admitted.
I wrapped my hand around hers. “Of course you are, because you’re smart. But women have been having babies forever. You’ll be okay. They’ll take care of you here.” I was lying and we both knew it, but what else could I say?
She took a sip of tea and put it back down quickly.
“You feel sick?”
She nodded slowly.
“Did you sleep okay?”
She sighed. “I had therapy before... I couldn’t sleep well after.”
“What therapy?”
“With Father Pavol,” she confessed in a whisper.
The anger inside me turned red-hot. What was the bastard doing to a nine-months-pregnant sixteen-year-old?
I gripped her hand tightly.
“One day, he and Benedict, and Vargas, too, they will all get what they deserve. You believe in God, don’t you?” I looked down at the small gold crucifix around her neck.
She shrugged noncommittally.
“Yes, you do. I know you do.”
“If so, he doesn’t believe in me. I’m a fallen woman.”
“Don’t repeat those monsters’ words to me. I know you, the real you. You’re forgiven. You haven’t done anything wrong. Everything is going to be okay.” I said the words and believed all but the last.
“When we get out of here, we’ll raise the baby together in a house by the sea,” I told her. It was our ongoing story, one we had made up to make us feel better about the sorry state of our lives. I waited for Mira to continue.
With a sigh, she nodded. “And we’ll put our feet in the water every day, and make mekitsi and drink tea, and all of this will just be a bad memory. One day,” she finished like she always did.
I nodded. “One day.”
I woke to the sound of someone banging on my door. The metallic sound clanged around my head. It was early, before the usualwake-up time, which could only mean one thing. It was visiting day.
Twice a year, Father Vargas visited and brought along the head of the board of directors to tour the facility. Everyone was washed and dressed nicely. The more problematic people were drugged up and hidden away.
I could barely remember the last visit day, I’d been so drugged up.