Flashback - April 2013 - Meijing
It was early afternoon on Jia Kun’s first birthday. Sabriya, in a loose top and shorts, breastfed her daughter in the pretentious living room, which during the day served as a lounge for the staff and at night served as a reception parlor for customers. This afternoon, the 14- to 18-year-old working girls had abandoned their racy work attire and makeup for bathrobes, pajamas, or muumuus. They brought their little “Princess,” as Jia had been nicknamed, kind but meager birthday presents, wrapped in repurposed ribbons. The gifts included a used bright green rubber ball, a used red lipstick tube, a broken barrette, a lewd bracelet charm, a tarnished brooch, a used rouge palette and brush, and a ball of colorful string scavenged from the snags of dresses and negligees. The one-year-old Jia Kun, of course, had little use or interest in such things, particularly while she was locked onto her mother’s teat and doing her best to put on weight, something the gift bearers avoided for fear of a beating. However paltry the gifts, the mother graciously accepted each and promised to keep them until Princess was old enough to use them. Sabriya, however, now 20 years old, was determined that her child would never get the chance.
The time in the living room was amicably spent among the girls reading old magazines, chit-chatting, begging the cook for more food, and watching a Chinese soap opera on an old black-and-white TV, complete with propaganda posters of Chairman Deng Xiaoping in the background and communist themes unnaturally woven into the dialogue, which no girl in the room could understand or care about. What was on their mind was the degrading work they would be forced to undertake once the sun went down and tricks with tics, as some of the girls referred to their clients, came to spread their wealth and who knew what else.
But the languid afternoon was about to face a reckoning. A young Korean man, with pretensions to match his arrogance, marched into the room and stopped in front of Sabriya. “Boss wants to see you.”
“When I’m done feeding Jia.”
“No! Now! Leave the useless kid here.”
“Absolutely not. Tell Pig Head I’ll come when I’m ready.”
In an ominous tone, the man leaned in and fine-tuned his pitch. “You know what happens when his girls talk to him like that.”
“Hajoon, I’m not one of his girls.” But her words summoned contempt from the very women who had just graced her child with gifts, and she regretted her arrogance but only a little. “I’ll be there in a second.”
Hajoon stared at her with threatening disdain.
“TELL HIM,” Sabriya snapped, and returned his gaze with her own threat.
Hajoon took a sharp step back, turned, and walked out the way he came.
A minute later, Jia was still feeding, and Mom was content on the living room couch, her eyes closed, enjoying the mother-daughter moment.
Suddenly, Sabriya was yanked to her feet. Jia, who had fallen asleep while feeding, jerked awake and bellowed her dissent. Sabriya held on to the child with both arms and pulled away from her assailant. But he was much stronger and bigger.
“You’re going back to work tonight,” he seethed. “I’ve been patient long enough. I need the money, and the girls are starting to act like they have a life of their own because of you. Ain’t gonna happen.”
“Jia Kun needs to be fed. You know I can’t work.”
“You can work during the night and feed her during the day. She’s fat, and so are you. I can’t get as much money off your fat ass the way you are, so starting tonight, you’re on a diet, and you work for half pay, but you owe me just as much, so you’re going to have to work twice as hard to earn back what you’ve cheated me out of this past year.”
Sabriya tried to pull against the man’s towering strength. She looked about the room for help, but the other girls had wisely all left. She was on her own against their whoemaster or “Mister,” as he demanded to be called. The problem was, he didn’t just pretend he owned them; he did.
The malevolent slapped her hard across her face, drawing blood from her nose and lip. That wasn’t enough, however. He threw her on the floor while she struggled to hold and protect the little girl from hitting her head against the hardwood floor. But he wasn’t done. As soon as she hit the floor, the snake planted a swift boot into her abdomen, doubling her over and knocking out her breath. She couldn’t breathe; she started gasping, which only provoked Jia, who began to wail because crying wasn’t doing the job. The tyrant yanked Sabriya to her feet. “It’s time for the break room until you learn your lesson. Take the kid with you, but I don’t want to hear her crying during business hours, you got that, bitch?” The break room was where girls were taken for days or weeks at a time to physically and psychologically break their will through starvation, beatings, and finally drugs that completed the process by erasing their near-term memory, guaranteeing there would be no chance of describing their torture to authorities if they ever had the chance.
Gasping, Sabriya begged. “Do what you want, but don’t you dare put us in that waste closet; the baby will suffocate, and I can’t stand it.”
“Sounds like a great idea. You don’t deserve even a pallet bed.”
“Don’t you dare, you dimwit. If I ever get a chance, I swear I’ll kill you.”
“Fat chance of that. I own you.” The pernicious slaver laughed as he dragged helpless Sabriya, who held onto defenseless Jia Kun, into the damp waste closet, and dropped her and her baby on a wet mop next to a putrid bucket and trash bin.“I’ll send you a blanket. Keep that kid quiet, I don’t want to hear a thing tonight, or there will be more where this came from.” The brute slammed the door and barred it from the outside. After a moment, Sabriya felt sharp pains in her legs, realizing that being dragged across the rough wooden floor had implanted multiple wood splinters into her bare calves.
Jia continued to wail at the abuse. Sabriya looked around the room, which was dingy but not dark. Lifting her top, she pulled Jia to her unsuckled breast and within seconds her robust baby was gaining much-needed energy for what was to follow.
Minutes later, Sabriya heard the bar being removed from the door. Hajoon appeared with a blanket and laughed, “You whores never learn. Here, suck on this,” and he threw a threadbare and soiled blanket at her and her now mostly content suckling child, then closed and barred the door.
Sabriya made herself as comfortable as possible, and after Jia had fed and started to explore her mom’s face with sweet coos, Sabriya wrapped her in the blanket and held her close, hoping the babe would fall asleep again and stay asleep for what was to come. Drawing a deep breath, Sabriya closed her eyes and took a survey of her injuries, which stung but were not serious, which bled but would soon clot, and which bruised but would soon go numb. The lumps, however, would take weeks to heal. So far so good. She mentally mended her resolve and took comfort and even hope that the next step in her plan would be as successful as what had just happened, although it was far more dangerous.
In the dark hours of the morning, long after the brothel’s last customers had left, and as Jia slept, Sabrita willed herself to be fully alert. Time was now of the essence.
A year ago, when Jia Kun was born, Sabriya had decided she was not going back to work in the brothel. She had been spared some of the degradation because of her pregnancy, the distraught shape of her body afterwards (something she purposely extended), and her need to breastfeed the child. Escaping her imprisonment for good, however, would require careful, patient planning. Tonight, she would execute the final phase of that plan. But she would get only one chance, and it was a life-or-death gamble.
So far, her first foil had been successful—convincing her captor that being locked in the waste closet was a punishment next to death. For it was in the waste closet over the past year that she had diligently saved and hidden a great cache of money, and it was the waste closet itself that had access to several life-saving essentials. Unfortunately, the waste closet did not contain the one item she was convinced she needed, and that, to obtain it, she was willing to risk everything.
Under a low shelf was a broken wooden crate, and within the crate she had created a false bottom, beneath which she had hidden a baby’s body sling, and beneath the sling was a silk backpack with a cache of money she had saved, scrounged, and stolen. Taking out the backpack, she opened a secret zipper where she had been stuffing money earned from performing extras for customers. Securing the zipper, she slid over to the shelf where the cook normally stored extra fruit and roots; these she liberally stuffed into the backpack.
Next, she laid out Jai Kun on the floor and changed her diaper. She always put two diapers on her, so changing her in an awkward situation was simply a matter of removing the soiled one and tying her back up with the outer clean one. Jai Kun woke during her change and was a bit fussy, but Sabriya quickly put the child on a teat and let her eat her fill. While Jai Kun suckled, mother wrapped the soiled, smelly diaper on the floor and pushed it into a corner of the closet. After 15 minutes of feeding Jai Kun was again fast asleep. As soon as the babe was asleep, she donned the body sling and secured Jai Kun in it across her front.
Then it was time to be daring. At the end of the closet was a drawered cabinet. Usually, when something needed fixing in the house, a carpenter came with his own tools to make the repair. But here was a junk drawer that included forgotten but useful hand tools. She pulled the drawer open and pushed aside the small hand saw that she no longer needed. But the rusty pliers she would. She moved the cabinet aside to reveal a wall of vertical wooden slats. With the pliers, she pulled out a dozen nails she had loosened over the prior months and removed the slats one by one, putting them quietly aside. This revealed the outer boards of the house’s facade, each of which she had sawed through at the bottom. She was sure that looking at the house from outside would not reveal her stealth modification. It was time to leave. With the provisioning pack on her back, she picked up the sleeping Jia and slipped her into the sling across her front. Then, crouching next to the wall where the cabinet had been, she leaned back, bending the outer boards away from the house, creating a gap that allowed her to turn sideways and slip to the ground outside, carefully letting the boards return to their position without making a noise.
Not bad, so far. But what came next required courage. She had to go back into the house, but not through the front, where a guard was always posted. There were also community dogs about. By and large, the dogs were friendly, but if spooked in the middle of the night, there would be barking, a ruckus, and even an attack, which could bring the guard or thieves, unpredictable dangers. Creeping around the house, with a moon behind an overcast sky, but with plenty of light to reveal her presence if anyone looked, made her heart beat into her throat. Carefully, so as not to kick a can or break a stick, or fall into a hole, she skirted the house to the other side and the rear, where there was an isolated but narrow door. Would it make a noise when she opened it? Would it be locked? Would there be anyone inside? She looked in the window next to the door, but could see nothing because of the darkness. At least no one seemed to be in the room. She tried the door. The handle turned, but the door was bolted shut. What to do? She pictured the room’s interior, which she had been in many times. The door was near the window. Was the window ajar? She could not climb in the window with her backpack and baby sling, but maybe… The window was not locked. She slid it up a few inches, reached inside, and felt blindly for the latch bolt. She found the bolt and slid it open. But doing so made a loud CRACK as the metal parts slammed together. Holding her breath, she peered into the shadows around her. No movement, outside or in.
The door opened, and she stepped in. What she was looking for, she had seen many times lying on the desk where the boss could easily rub it. It was a magic amulet associated with the god Kasden, the source of power, wealth, vengeance, and everything else, virtuous and evil. She needed the amulet because of the promise that anyone who possessed or wore it would be protected and granted magical powers over others. But the amulet was not on the desk, and without it in hand, she shouldn’t be standing in the middle of this office. If found, she’d be shot instantly, and the bullet would go through her and Jia, who was slung across her chest. She rebuked herself for going this far and risking so much. Gingerly, she circled the office. The floorboards squeaked, which only aggravated her bowels and weakened her knees.
She scanned the room again. She stopped and stared into the shadows. Was that it? There, hanging on a peg next to the door to the inside hallway and partially hidden by a coat on an adjacent peg, was what appeared to be the amulet. She crept forward to get a better look, but something else caught her eye—a shiny silver handgun in a leather shoulder holster on a third peg next to the coat. She had never held a gun, and this one looked massive. A gun surely might be helpful, she thought. Dare she take it? She honestly had no idea how to use a firearm, except to point and pull the trigger. It had to be more complicated than that. Was it loaded? How would she check?
Suddenly, she heard a door open inside the house, and footsteps in the hallway approaching the door she stood before. Quick. Make a decision.
Carefully, but swiftly, she pulled the heavy gun from the holster and stuck it into her baby sling next to Jia, then she grabbed the leather loop through which the amulet was strung, looped it over her head, and tucked the embossed piece of tin into her top. At that instance, the door handle to the inside door, not two meters in front of her in the shadows, turned, and the door pushed slowly open away from her. She would not see who was behind the door until it was fully open, and whoever was behind it could not see her.
There was no hesitation now. She walked quickly, not quietly, to the exterior door through which she had entered, stood in its opening, turned toward the inner door, pulled the pistol from the sling that Jai Kun had kept warm, and pointed it at the person entering. The body of a large man appeared in the dark. She could not make out who it was, but she suddenly realized her body was silhouetted by the dim moonlight behind her. The man saw her, reacted, and instantly grabbed for a pistol tucked into his belt and pointed it at her. BAM!
The man fell to the floor and crawled into the dark hallway. But he had not fired his weapon; she had fired hers, and whether she hit him or not, she was not going to stick around to find out. Quickly, several things happened in succession: The gun she held recoiled and hit her in the forehead. Jai Kun started to cry, and the man yelled, “INTRUDER, OFFICE.” Sabriya ran out the door, the pistol waving wildly in her hand because it was so heavy. She ran hard, holding Jai Kun steady in her sling with one hand, and the heavy, now smoking pistol in the other. As she had planned, she exited the property through a cinderblock gate hidden behind a small grove of mango trees and turned left toward the alley. No sooner had she exited through the gate than she heard several men chasing her, but not seeing her leave, they knew not which way to turn.
