The caravan of cars traveled for several hours across Romania before pulling up behind an old country house. Though Nadia could see the lights of a small village in the distance, she had no clue where they had stopped.
The drivers barked out orders to move swiftly into the house. They ushered the girls into a dimly lit room and locked the door behind them. Three young Romanian girls sitting on dingy sofas already inhabited the room. They stood up expectantly when the door opened, but dejectedly slid back down onto the chairs once they heard the click of the lock.
“Can you tell me where we are?” Nadia asked.
“I really couldn’t tell you,” replied a blue-eyed girl of exceptional beauty.
“How long have you been here?” Nadia charged on, hungry for information.
“Oh, I’d say two weeks,” the blue-eyed girl replied, “but to be honest, it’s hard to keep track.”
“Two weeks!” Nadia exclaimed. “Has anyone explained to you what’s going on?”
“They’re having trouble securing tourist visas for us,” the Romanian reported.
That’s the only explanation Nadia ever received about their incarceration. A man brought them simple meals twice a day but would not let them step outside the room.
“Why are you keeping us here?” Nadia yelled each time the man entered with the food tray. He invariably grunted that she should “shut up” and departed.
After seven days in confinement, a well-dressed man entered the room, trailed by three scary-looking goons. “Good news,” the elegant man announced. “We have your travel visas. So we’re off to Serbia!”
Almost as an afterthought, he said, “From there we’ll put you on a bus that will take you to Italy. Your new employers have secured apartments for you there, so you can start earning money right away.”
The rosy announcement lifted Nadia’s spirits for the first time since she had left Chisinau. The goons led the girls outside the house, where two white vans waited. The girls stepped up into the vans and immediately hit the road.
For the rest of the day the vans negotiated narrow mountain roads that cut across desolate wilderness. Late in the evening, the vans veered off the road into a sheltered cove of trees. The goons ordered the girls out of the vehicles.
The elegant man then shared a part of the travel plan that he had conveniently omitted that afternoon. “Girls, we have visas for you to work in Italy, but we failed in our attempts to obtain tourist visas for you to enter Serbia. So you are going to have to sneak across the border under the cover of darkness.”
The girls unleashed a cacophony of complaints and queries. The elegant man brusquely cut them off. “I’m sorry. It’s the only way we can get you to the bus that will transport you to Italy.”
Cars would be waiting for them on the other side of the border, he explained. The drivers would blink their lights three times every two minutes until they all arrived. He went on to warn that if captured going across the border, the girls would be thrown into prison, maybe for years. “And trust me,” he said, lowering his voice ominously, “you do not want to serve time in a Serbian prison.”
The men guided the girls for nearly half a mile until they reached a clearing. They rested until they could see lights flashing amid a line of trees on a ridge in the far distance.
“There, that’s it,” the elegant man said, pointing his finger. “Go now, and don’t stop running until you reach that ridge.
YOU ARE READING
Not for sale
Não FicçãoWhen Nadia needs a job desperately her "friend" offers her one working in a restaurant but her "friend" deceives her and then sells her.
