“Purchase? Like a slave? But that is wrong.”
“It is.”
My stomach rolled. “What are these slaves for? And why a child?”
“Some men want little girls for acts that they should only desire from a woman.”
Sal asked, “Like cooking?”
“No,” my father answered with what sounded like a broken heart. “Sex.”
Sal hissed as he leaned away in a horrified cower. “Noooo.”
I thought of Isabella and her sunken eyes, and her scar. “They are cruel to the slaves.”
It wasn’t a question, but my father still replied, “Yes, son. Usually so.”
Now, Isabella was safe at home, but the thought that her child, if still alive, could be enduring such a travesty at that very moment, had my blood running cold. “You have witnessed this?”
“To enter that dark world, I have to pretend to be just as vile as others.”
I started shaking my head while grabbing my stomach. “You’ve never—”
He held up a hand, begging me to stop before he would get sick. “No. With Isabella, I had been claiming to be searching for a woman, for my certain preference. Not a child.”
“But now you will be looking for one.”
“Angelo, I will worry about these details. What I need from you is more information.”
“But I know nothing of this crime!”
“No, luckily not, but Isabella seems willing to trust… the Angel of the Night.”
I was not some angel, and Father knew this, but if Isabella was willing to talk to me, then for the sake of her daughter, a Giordano, the family I seemed to be already vowing to protect, I would do all I could.
Inconsolable, Isabella had refused to leave her bedroom, even to meet with me. So, Mrs. Rossi walked me to the home I believed to be a castle when I was younger. At the closed front door, she kissed my hand that she had been holding. “Angelo, patience. That is, sometimes, all that is needed.”
Even though this all felt so peculiar to a teenage—young man, I promised patience. Then,
with Mr. Giordano’s permission, she took me through the front door of the massive home I had never been inside, except for the kitchen and permitted areas.
I tried to keep my eyes down, to not invade, but it was impossible to not notice how impressive the foyer alone was. It was three stories tall and all open to make the sweeping staircase that much more extraordinary.
On the second floor, Mrs. Rossi led me to the right, passing several doors before knocking on one. When we received no answer, Sal’s mother exhaled, then entered anyway, attempting to sound as uplifting as possible with the room so dark and morbid feeling. “Isabella, I brought you a visitor.” It was the first time I had ever heard her speak English, spurring my curiosity as to why Isabella favored it.
Isabella’s bedroom was bigger than the whole house I lived in. All the walls were white with beautiful artwork, but none of this helped the sad woman lying in her bed, her back to us. She stared at the sheer white curtains, blowing due to the open bedroom windows.
Mrs. Rossi’s tender motherly ways lectured, “Isabella, this cold air will give you a chill.”
Isabella sounded half-dead, “It was cold where Scarlett and I were together. Let me suffer as she may be suffering.” As soon as she saw me walking around the end of her bed, tears broke free. “Angel, do you think I am of the worst to have lost my child?”
Mrs. Rossi, eyeing me as if speaking silent prayers for God to give me wisdom, backed out of the room.
“May I sit?” I pointed to a chair next to Isabella’s nightstand.
She nodded, wiping tears. “Do you?”
Thinking of what my father had just told me, I softly replied, “I don’t think you lost her, so no.”
Without the strength to lift her head from the pillow, she asked, “What do you think did happen?”
I sat back. “My mother… taught me it not polite to assume… anything. So, I was, eh, h-hoping, yes, hoping you could tell me.”
She stared at me with drained eyes that appeared to only have the barest shadow of life left. “Thank you for speaking to me in English.”
“Why do you p-prefer it?”
Her face reddened, but it wasn’t from a blush. It was more like she was forcing herself to speak what she wanted to keep hidden. “Because…” Her next words were whispered in a terror that would be only the beginning of all I was to learn about her past. “…it was what they forced me to speak.”
Quietly, I commented, “That would make me want Italian even more.”
“Not if the one who betrayed you speaks it.”
I was young and unaware of the betrayal she spoke of but smart enough to drop the subject. Isabella had her reasons, and that was enough for me. Besides, I had a job to do.
Father had told me that any details, even if they seemed small, counted. Locations, accents, scenery, clothing… all could possibly give him clues to where Scarlett might be. Even though Father was searching Australia—where he finally found Isabella—he didn’t believe that was where we might find Scarlett. So, I asked, “Was English the first language the man spoke.”
Curling under her blanket as if wanting to disappear, she shook her head.
“No? Okay, that is good. What other language did he speak?”
Shaking her head again, her eyes closed. “No. English, but not one man.” Her eyes opened, full of regret for a past she had no power to change. “They. Seven.”
Fighting to not appear as shocked as I was, I swallowed and calmly confirmed, “Seven men spoke English to you?”
“Yes.” Her eyes drifted down in shame.
Due to Father’s words, I assumed one of them had forced her into sex. And this Italian woman was possibly experiencing shame over the crime. “It is… i-important that you know… I would never see, eh, la vergogna,”—shame— “in anything you m-may have been, um, forced, to do.”
Her sight snapped back to mine.
It was a few moments before she asked, “How old are you, Angel?”
“I am almost, uh-how do you say, six teenager years?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen. Thank you.”
Such a sadness hung over her when she asked, “Have you ever had sex before?”
Too shy to speak of such a thing with a woman, I could feel my cheeks flame.
“No,” she answered for me. “When you finally are with a woman, be kind. Be gentle. We love good men. Not,” her jaw clicked as her eyes began to well again. “Not needless cruelty.”
“Was a man cruel to you?”
Now, her expression changed to pity, knowing I was in so far over my head talking with her. “Yes.” Then she added, “All of them were.”
I tried to stop my jaw from falling, but there was no stopping the disbelief that possessed me. If I was understanding her, seven men had forced sex upon her.
She apologized, “I am saying too much.”
“No.” I grabbed my chest. “I just can’t, eh, imagine what it was like to have so little control over your own body.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “That… That is exactly what it felt like. Complete loss of control.” She sighed into her pillow. “Maybe your innocence, your raw faithfulness to your best friend, is why I find it so easy talking with you.”