Not for sale

The Offer

Saying good-bye to Stefan turned out to be harder than Nadia had imagined. At the tender age of six, Stefan could not comprehend why his mother had to leave.

“Mommy, are you mad at me?” he asked when she came into the room with her suitcase in hand. The words cut her like a knife.

“No, Mommy’s not abandoning you. She loves you,” she whispered through sobs. “I’ll make some money, and then I’ll be back home.” She moved hastily to the door before she fell apart completely.

Initially, Nadia did not seriously entertain Katrina’s offer to arrange a restaurant job for her in Italy. Nadia knew plenty of girls who had left Chisinau to work in the West. But she did not know how she could manage Stefan on her own in a foreign land. At least here in Moldova, her family could take care of him whenever she found the odd bit of work.

But she had a change of heart the day she failed to get Stefan enrolled in school. Nadia could not afford to pay the school’s enrollment fees or buy a school uniform. Her family could not help her. They had no savings; every penny went to put food on the table.

Following that depressing day at the school office, she sought out Katrina at the café. The two had met long ago in grammar school. Though they had never been the best of friends, they continued to bump into each other at the occasional party. When they last met, Katrina had mentioned that she had a connection in Italy who gave jobs to teenage girls. “Let me know if you are ever interested.”

She found Katrina exactly where she hoped, at the corner table of the café. Following a bit of small talk, Nadia moved the conversation to her agenda. “Hey, remember you told me about jobs in Italy? If they’re still available, I’m interested.”

“You bet,” said Katrina, pleased to help out her friend. “I just talked with my contacts, and a few more jobs just opened up. But they need to fill the positions really fast. Do you think you could be ready to travel a week from tomorrow?”

Now faced with the moment of truth, Nadia had to swallow hard. Could she bear to live apart from Stefan? Maybe she could make enough money in a year’s time to come back home with a bit of savings in her pocket. “OK, count me in,” she blurted out.

“Fabulous,” Katrina said, beaming. “We’ll have such a good time together in Italy.”

She told Nadia to arrive at her flat in eight days’ time with her bags packed, ready to travel.