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  Natalia looked from girl to girl, sizing them up in turn. One was larger than the others and tall, with hair cascading down her shoulders in long blonde curls. She had full features and a resigned look on her face, as though she’d prefer to be anywhere else. Another was small and mousy, with dark hair and a thin nose. She seemed nervous, with wide eyes darting back and forth. The third girl was the prettiest of them all, with gleaming brown hair and makeup carefully applied to her cheeks, her lips, her eyes. She wore a camel’s hair jacket over jeans with brown leather shoes. Her head was tilted back, causing her to look down on everything around her with a hint of disdain. It was enough to give Natalia a quick pulse of insecurity. “Who are they?” she whispered, but Sonia simply furrowed her brow and shrugged.

  “Come, meet your traveling companions!” Svetlana motioned them over.

  “How many waitresses does this restaurant need?” Natalia asked Svetlana as they approached.

  “Victoria and Maria are to work as nannies, in Greece. And Helena won a modeling contest. She’s headed to Rome.” Svetlana placed a hand on the pretty girl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have mentioned that they would be joining us.”

  “It does seem odd,” said Natalia in return.

  “No, not odd at all. I work for a private employment agency, searching for bright, honest, hard-working girls like yourselves. You didn’t think I was taking you to Italy merely out of the goodness of my heart, did you?” Svetlana raised her eyebrows. “Just because I get a little something out of it doesn’t mean anything has changed.”

  Natalia felt a swell of apprehension. It had been there all along, lurking in the background, ever since she’d first met Svetlana. Something about the woman’s manner had always seemed insincere, as though she were sharing only just enough information to keep the girls in line and no more. This latest revelation certainly didn’t inspire further confidence. Why hadn’t she bothered to mention it before? And what else was she keeping from them?

  “It’s fine, Natalia, really.” Sonia tried to play the diplomat. Of course, she wanted to believe what she was told. Her fantasy depended on it. Natalia wasn’t so sure. She would keep an eye on Svetlana, whose saccharine smile didn’t reassure her. At the very least, this woman wasn’t here to do the girls any favors. That much was clear. Whatever the payoff, Svetlana was in this entirely for herself.

  “I’m Maria.” The mousy-looking girl gave them a quick wave.

  “Victoria,” said the tall one.

  Natalia turned to the pretty one. “And you’re Helena,” she said.

  “That’s right.” Helena gave a nod.

  “Come girls, we’ll have plenty of time to talk on board the ship,” said Svetlana.

  The five girls crowded into a windowless interior cabin, eying three sets of bunks. “This one’s mine.” Helena heaved her suitcase onto one of the bottom berths. The other girls followed suit, choosing beds of their own while Svetlana watched from the doorway.

  “How long will the trip take?” asked Maria.

  “Twenty-four hours. We arrive in Istanbul in the afternoon at 14:30 and then change to another ship for the next leg. I’m going to get some rest. If you girls need anything at all, please give a knock on my door. I’m right across the hall.”

  When Svetlana was gone, the girls stared at each other blankly, unsure what to do next. “Why don’t we go check out the ship?” said Victoria.

  “That’s a good idea,” said Sonia. “Maybe we’ll find some boys to talk to.”

  “Oh no, that’s the last thing I need,” said Helena with contempt.

  “What’s wrong, you have a boyfriend back home?” asked Sonia.

  “A fiancé,” Helena corrected her.

  “Lucky you,” said Sonia. “Is he handsome?”

  “Of course he is.”

  The girls left the cabin and made their way down the passageway, through a set of double doors and into the nearest lounge. Women cradled crying babies and the smell of unwashed bodies filled the air. A middle-aged man with uncombed dark hair and dirty clothing peered at the five attractive young women. Natalia met his gaze, staring him down until he turned and hobbled off, muttering to himself in a foreign tongue.

  “It was nice of Svetlana to book a cabin for us,” said Maria. “I’d hate to have to sleep out here.”

  “She’s a good woman,” Victoria agreed. “She reminds me of my grandmother.”

  The girls found space on a set of couches along one wall. Helena pulled out her phone. “They better have wifi on this tub, that’s all I have to say.” She scrolled through her settings.

  “I’ll bet you have to pay.” Victoria took out her own.

  “Damn it!” Helena’s response confirmed their suspicions. “Ten euros, are you kidding me?”

  “I think we’ll survive without it,” said Natalia.

  Maybe we can get Svetlana to pay.” Helena put her phone down. “

  “Doesn’t your fiancé worry about you going abroad?” Sonia asked Helena. “Maybe you will find another man, with more money.”

  Helena merely shrugged. The idea didn’t seem to faze her, as though she’d already considered it herself.

  “I hope I do,” Sonia added wistfully. “A rich Italian man.”

  “Have any of you been abroad before?” Victoria asked.

  “Not yet,” said Helena. “But it won’t be the last time.”

  Natalia’s attention turned toward two small children playing near their mother. A boy taunted his younger sister, waving a plastic straw in front of her face. Unperturbed, the girl gamely reached for it each time, smiling as her brother pulled it just out of reach. After the fourth time, she suddenly burst into tears, mouth open wide as she wailed at full volume. This elicited a smile from the brother and a scolding from the mother, who snatched the straw away. Reminded of her niece and nephews, Natalia felt a pang of emotion.

  “Kids can be such brats.” Sonia eyed the little boy, still looking smug over the commotion he’d caused.

  “Some of them,” said Natalia.

  “I suppose you’ll have your own slew of children. You and Vitaly with a house full of mouths to feed?”

  “You want kids, too, Sonia. I know you do.”

  “Someday,” Sonia acknowledged quietly. “When I’m ready. I just hope they’ll behave themselves.”

  “Good luck,” Natalia laughed. “Karma can be cruel.”

  “What?! I wasn’t a bad kid!” Sonia protested. “Maybe a little precocious…”

  The ship’s horn sounded as the ferry pulled away from the dock. “I want to see the view.” Natalia stood but none of the others made a move, so she walked on her own through a doorway and out onto the deck, leaning against the rail with the wind in her face. In the bow, she saw a small group of seamen pulling in the lines and coiling them carefully at their feet. The ship picked up speed as it moved into the harbor. Across the water, a row of giant metal cranes rose like some fantastic creatures from another world. To Natalia this was another world, and yet she knew it was only the beginning. Despite her misgivings, she couldn’t help but be excited.

  “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” came Sonia’s voice as she joined Natalia at the rail.

  Natalia nodded, watching the afternoon sun shimmer off the water.

  “Can you believe we’ve actually done it?” Sonia broke into a giddy smile. “We’ve really done it! We finally got out of that little shit-hole of a village, at last!”

  “It is hard to believe. I feel like my whole life is ahead of me.”

  “Don’t forget, I’m the one that dragged you out of there.”

  “I know you did.”

  “The rest of those people can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.” There was a bitterness in Sonia’s voice, her cheeks showing a hint of scarlet. “They’re small-minded people in a small-minded place. I hope I never go back!”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “Oh, I mean it! I never want to see any of those people eve
r again.”

  “What about your mother?” Natalia asked.

  Sonia grasped the rail so tightly that the knuckles on both hands turned white. She stared straight ahead. “My mother can come see me. In Italy.”

  Natalia sighed. “I hope you don’t expect me to stay there forever.”

  “You can do what you want.”

  They stood side-by-side looking over the water, Natalia confused and Sonia quietly fuming. “You got what you always wanted,” Natalia said. “Maybe you should relax and enjoy it.”

  “Yes. I got what I wanted.” Sonia dropped her head, a single tear rolling down the side of her cheek.

  “What is it?” Natalia asked. “What aren’t you telling me?” The first tear was followed by another, and then another until Sonia was heaving giant sobs, wracked by spasms of grief. Natalia tried to make sense of this sudden outburst but couldn’t manage. Sonia’s dreams were finally being realized. Was it simply too much for her? Natalia placed a hand on Sonia’s back. “Don’t worry, everything is going to be wonderful, just like you always imagined.”

  Sonia wiped one cheek, struggling to compose herself. “You think I’m just being emotional, is that it?”

  “Is there something else?”

  “I’m going to have a baby, Natalia.”

  The words hung in the air. Natalia stood up straight, mouth open wide, feeling as though the wind had been knocked clean out of her. “When? How???”

  Sonia’s cheeks turned a darker shade of red. “I don’t want to talk about that. I’m sorry.”

  “Ivan? Is it Ivan’s baby?”

  “Natalia, don’t ask me that question again!” Sonia was stern. “It’s going to be my little Italian baby, that’s all you need to know! That’s all anyone needs to know!”

  “But, you’ll be alone. Who is going to help you?”

  “You’re my family, Natalia, as much as anyone. I’ll have you.”

  Natalia was quiet, unwilling to let on how frightened this was. In her mind, she’d only committed to three months in Italy. Stay for the summer and then reevaluate in the fall. Now Sonia was expecting her to stay for the term of this child, and then to help raise it besides? This was a level of responsibility Natalia didn’t think she could handle, but what was the alternative? Abandon Sonia in her time of need? Natalia stared out across the sea, trying to resign herself to whatever future lay before them. “It’s going to be all right,” she said, and then repeated the words, speaking to herself as much as to Sonia. “It’s going to be all right.”

  Chapter Seven

  The waters were crowded with rusted freighters and aging oil tankers moving in either direction through a narrow straight. Natalia couldn’t keep from staring out the window. The shore looked so close it seemed that she could nearly reach out and touch it. Excusing herself from the others, she made her way up a set of stairs and forward, to a deck above the bridge. From here she could see everything.

  “The Bosporus,” said a man nearby. He was stocky, in a black leather coat with a large, rutted face that showed the marks of age and hard living. He eyed her curiously, cigarette between two fingers. “Asia on one side and Europe on the other,” he gestured.

  “I see.” Natalia gave him a quick once-over before turning away.

  “Not much farther,” added the man. “Forty minutes perhaps.”

  Natalia nodded in response, eyeing the olive-green, brush-covered hills, so different from the rolling fields of Drosti. An ancient stone fortress sat crumbling atop a hill on the Asian side, with a tiny seaside village tucked below. Red umbrellas provided shade for outdoor cafes along the water. Green, blue and yellow fishing boats bobbed at anchor before them. Atop a ridge on the European side, an enormous flag fluttered in the breeze; deep red with a single star and crescent moon. Natalia felt so very far from home.

  At one of the cafes, she spotted a young waitress in a black blouse and skirt, carrying coffee on a tray. “Soon, that will be me,” Natalia said to herself, watching as the waitress placed the coffee on the table of a single, lounging customer. She felt a guarded sense of optimism, though she still couldn’t fully shake her apprehensions. It was no wonder that Sonia seemed so desperate to get out of Drosti in the last few weeks. People would have started talking as soon as the baby began to show. Who was the father? Everyone would want to know that. Natalia wanted to know. Was it Ivan after all? They’d stopped seeing each other more than six months earlier, but who else was there? Natalia sighed. When Sonia was ready to talk about it, she’d talk about it. Until then there was no use in speculating.

  “This bridge connects two continents.” The man in black moved closer, pointing to a span strung across the water just ahead.

  Natalia glanced at him warily and then looked up to the bridge, where a stream of cars and trucks flowed across above them. Along the shoreline she saw enormous homes, unlike any she could have imagined before, each one several stories high with manicured gardens and their own private docks in front.

  “Must be nice, huh?” The man followed her eyes.

  “I don’t know. With all that room, I think I’d be lonely.”

  “Your first time in Istanbul?” he asked.

  “My first time anywhere, really.”

  “If you’d like, I could show you around…”

  “Oh, no, I am not staying. We’ll catch another boat from here.”

  “That is a pity,” said the man.

  “Yes, it looks like a wonderful place.”

  “Dolmabahce Palace.” The man pointed to a long, beautifully ornate building set along the water on the port side. “The sultans lived there. The Ottomans, you know. When this was an empire.”

  Natalia nodded, unable to hide her fascination. She pulled out her phone and snapped a quick photo. As they came upon the heart of the city she was struck by the sheer size of it, with buildings packed so tightly together and massive domed mosques rising from every hill and knoll, their pointed minarets reaching skyward.

  “There you are!” Sonia made her way up the stairway and across the deck to Natalia’s side. “Svetlana wants us to get ready!”

  Natalia recoiled, struck by Sonia’s bright red lips and the pink rouge on her cheeks. “Why did you put that makeup on?”

  “She wants us to make a good impression.”

  “On whom?” Natalia asked in confusion.

  “I don’t know. Immigration, maybe.”

  Natalia squinted and pursed her own lips, trying to find some logic in this.

  “Come on, we don’t have much time,” said Sonia. “The other girls are almost ready to go.”

  Natalia took one last look forward. She saw the deckhands in the bow readying the lines for arrival. “All right, I’m coming.” She turned to the man beside her. “It was nice talking to you.”

  “My pleasure, enjoy your travels,” he replied with a nod.

  Natalia followed Sonia across the deck and down the stairs, on toward the next leg of their journey.

  In the immigration hall, Svetlana guided the girls along like a mother duckling tending her chicks. The entire flock attracted plenty of attention from the other passengers, though the girls hardly noticed, so intent were they on trying to orient themselves in this unfamiliar environment. Svetlana herded them to the end of a long line leading to one in a row of glass-enclosed booths with the words Pasaport Kontrol printed across the top in large blue letters. Inside each booth was an immigration officer, scrutinizing the passengers’ documents in turn.

  Svetlana handed out the passports to each girl. On instinct, they gingerly flipped through the pages to look again at their photos. At the front of the line, an officer waved Svetlana forward with one hand. She brought the whole group to the desk in a pack, but the officer shook his head. “Her seferinde bir,” he said. Ignoring him, Svetlana produced her own passport and slid it through a hole in the glass. Natalia watched as the officer picked it up and looked inside, carefully palming a wad of hidden bills. He raised his head again and looked
in both directions before stamping the passport and sliding it back.

  “Come girls, passports, passports!” Svetlana cheerfully picked hers up.

  One by one the girls slid their own passports under the glass and the agent stamped them, hardly bothering to look at all. Finally, with a flick of the wrist, he motioned for the girls to go on through. They hustled past a pair of idle Turkish policemen, machine guns slung from their shoulders as they eyed the girls with nonchalance. Out on the street, pedestrians and peddlers jostled for position. Taxi drivers accosted them once again from all sides, shouting in Turkish, English and Russian.

  “Give me your passports girls!” Svetlana as they stood on the sidewalk in the midst of the maelstrom. One by one the girls handed over their documents.

  “I’d rather hold my own,” said Natalia.

  “I’m sorry, but I prefer to look after them, to be on the safe side,” Svetlana countered. “I wouldn’t want you to lose it.” Natalia hesitantly placed her passport in the older woman’s hand, even while she wondered why there’d been a payoff. Was something wrong? Again Natalia felt manipulated, but she had little time to ponder the reason.

  “Follow me!” Svetlana commanded, wheeling her suitcase down the street with the girls in tow. When they came to a large black van by the curb, Svetlana halted. Inside sat two burly men, one in a suit and the other a black leather jacket. One climbed out and opened the side door.

  “Where are we going?” asked Maria.

  “The next leg of our excursion,” said Svetlana. “Go ahead, climb in. Find room for the bags wherever you can.”

  The girls did as they were told, including an increasingly anxious Natalia. Any feeling of control was quickly evaporating.

  “What about the other boat?” Sonia asked Natalia under her breath. The van door slammed shut and a moment later they were off; five naive girls staring out the windows at a strange, exotic land.