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For a while, the silence of the flight is disturbed only by the sound of the engines and the clink of whiskey glasses being turned over every now and then. I allow myself to relax a little, closing my eyes and resting my head against the back of the chair.
“So, what do you plan to do with her?” Cesare asks.
I open my eyes to see him pointing his cigar at the sleeping woman. He exhales the smoke slowly, looking at me with a calculating look.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“She's young and pretty, maybe she can be used as bait for some work” he suggests.
“Perhaps.”
“Or acase chiuse[42], perhaps. I'm sure Tizziano would love to take it for a test drive. Prostitution is definitely the underboss's favorite business, if she's yours to do with as you please... There's always someone looking for young, beautiful women on the market.”
“I don't care what people are looking for, but what I can get from them” I say, getting up from the chair. “Now, if you will allow me, I need to take care of some matters.”
I get up and walk towards my private cabin on the plane. As I pass by the sleeping girl, I take a look at her face, her sun-tanned skin is dirty and stained in several parts. Her hair, as disheveled as it was earlier, has a few stray strands on her forehead, ears, and neck, but it's the expression on her face that, more than any of the day's events, intrigues me. She is peaceful.
Not resigned like when Gabriella opened the door to her house and came across me. Not even scared, like when she realized I ordered them to hold her sister. Now, she's just at peace, and I wonder if the reason is that she doesn't know what belonging to me means or, the extreme opposite, if it's just because she does.
CHAPTER 14
________
Gabriella Matos
I open my eyes to realize that everything really happened, it wasn't a nightmare. The clothes I chose when I left the house this morning are still on my body, the brooch Magda gave me is still hanging on my t-shirt, the sweat that clung to my skin as I walked through the streets of the city center has dried, but didn’t go anywhere, nor did its smell.
The one responsible for waking me up from my exhausted sleep, a twinge of pain in my lower abdomen, gives signs again and I blink, trying to get out of the fog that still shuffles my thoughts. Pee, I need to pee.
I need... I need so many things, but not being able to have any of them, not wanting to think about any of them, one especially, a small and thin one who is alone and probably terribly desperate right now, I slept.
It was a dreamless sleep, a sleep without wondering what my next step would be. A sleep without needing to have the answer to a million questions that until this morning, only I could answer. I want to get back to it as soon as possible. I look down the hallway, looking for someone, and it's easy to find. Behind me is a table flanked by two couches, four of the men who have been to my house are sitting there. Their boss, however, is nowhere to be seen, and that makes me feel relieved andapprehensive at the same time, although I don't understand that second feeling.
I don't even know his name and that man knows everything about me. He threw my darkest certainties across the room as if they were nothing more than insignificant facts, and I know nothing about him. I also don't know where I'm being taken. I think the language they speak to each other is Italian. Is it Italy we're going to?
I bite my lip, not knowing how to ask for what I need, not knowing if I can ask for what I need, but I don't think they want me to wet the fancy seats on this plane. I always thought my first time flying would be magical, I never considered the warning that every movie or book I read about magic gave me: magic always comes at a price.
I let out a long sigh and force myself to act when another pang, this time, stronger, bothers me. I really need to pee. I don't even know if they will understand me, the only one I've heard speak Portuguese among them is not here.
With my head turned back, I open my mouth to speak, but the man's overwhelming presence demands my attention at the same moment I hear a door open in front of me. I turn my neck, facing him, and my breath refuses to come out, no matter how much I know that exhaling is just as important as inhaling.
He no longer wears his jacket, but he still wears the same dark pants and vest as before, as well as the impeccable white shirt and lead-colored tie. His look at me is evaluative. The chill shaking my bones increases under his scrutiny.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I say, and he doesn't do more than raise an eyebrow. “Can I go to the bathroom?” I rearrange my needs, turning them into a request, the words he told me inmy home running through my veins like blood.Your life is mine to do with as I please.“I need to pee.” I feel the need to justify.
“Door on the left,” he answers in Portuguese with that accent that makes the words curl on his tongue.
I get up quickly and practically run to the bathroom, passing with the speed of an arrow the man who stole my life from me. The space is bigger than I would have imagined, everything on the plane is different than I would have imagined, actually.
The aircraft is too small, looking more like a toy than a real one. There is no row after row of seats, just a few soft armchairs that could be in a mattress store, they are so comfortable. There are some tables and sofas too, and doors. There are more doors than I ever imagined a plane would have. The bathroom isn't big, but it's as luxurious as everything else.
The relief I feel when I finally pee is immediate. I turn on the golden tap and I can't help thinking that the tall, round sink countertop reminds me of a countertop in a shopping mall, but much smaller, obviously. I wash my hands and when I lift my face to grab the towel and dry them, I come across the mirror and realize that I managed to do everything I did, inside that cabin, ignoring it, until now. I never thought I was a beautiful woman, but the reflection that stares back at me is beyond the absence of beauty, it is just pitiful, empty, just how I feel. I gather a few sheets of paper and moisten them before wiping them across my face, wiping away dirt stains before washing them with soap and water. I take new sheets from the support and these, I moisten them with water and a little liquid soap before taking them to my armpits, one, then the other, then rinsing them. I repeat the process on my neck, arms, and any areas I can reach without having to completely undress. I release my hair from the tight ponytail in which it was tied, comb the strands with my fingers and then tie them again, this time in a bun. It'slikely that when we reach our destination, I'll be thrown into some kind of basement or dungeon.
These are possibly my last hours of freedom and even though I can't make the slightest effort to care, I do my best to leave the bathroom as clean as possible under the current circumstances.
My eyes feel heavy as I curl back into the armchair, I let my eyelids close as I hug my own body, trying to ward off the cold. It's my last thought before I sleep.
***
