Robert Knightly - The cold room

Father Manicki turned to me when I knocked on the open door. He raised a hand to slow me down, then instructed the children to wait outside. When they were safely gone, he closed the door behind them.

‘What do you mean, barging in here?’ he demanded. ‘I’m preparing to celebrate a mass.’

But I wasn’t about to be bluffed, not this time, not by the hawk’s nose, the square jaw, or the firm set of his mouth. At first glance, Father Stan might have passed for a bare-knuckle prize fighter, but there was something else in his blue eyes, a sense of regret that I knew I could exploit should the need arise.

‘I didn’t come here to accuse you,’ I said. ‘But I want you to tell me, right now, whether you recognized the girl in that photo. I want a confirmation or a denial.’

His jaw tightened momentarily — perhaps he wasn’t used to being challenged — but then he suddenly deflated, his gaze dropping to the carpet. ‘Try to understand,’ he said. ‘Those young women are virtual prisoners.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I’ve looked into the eyes of the men who escort them.’

When I didn’t argue the point, he continued. ‘And like all prisoners, if they attempt to run away.?.?. well, you know what happened to the girl you want to identify.’

‘No, I don’t, Father. I don’t know what happened to her. If I did, I wouldn’t be here asking for your help.’

‘But don’t you understand? Everything I learned about her life came to me through the confessional, so it’s just as I said when you first approached me. I can’t help you.’ He held up Plain Jane Doe’s photo. ‘In the Catholic Church, the seal of the confessional is absolute. I’m helpless here.’

The room was very spare, a plain chest of drawers, several ladder-back wooden chairs, a small table. Except for a large crucifix above the door, the walls were undecorated. Father Manicki turned his eyes to the crucifix at that moment, to a stylized Christ whose arms and legs were too long for his emaciated torso, who wore, in lieu of a crown of thorns, an actual crown, as if already risen. ‘This girl,’ he continued without turning around, ‘she’s beyond help. But the other girls are still at risk. You may think that you can ride to the rescue, perhaps arrest the men who watch over them. But even if you’re successful, it won’t help.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because in this country, when it comes to undocumented workers, the policy is don’t ask, don’t tell.’

‘You mean they’re okay as long as the INS doesn’t find out about them?’

‘Exactly. But if they should come to the attention of the INS, say as a consequence of your investigation, they’ll be deported.’ He hesitated for a moment before delivering the punch line. ‘Right into the hands of the gangsters who sent them here in the first place.’

It was Sister Kassia who filled in the blanks, her story essentially the same as that of INS Agent Capra. Most likely, the young women in question had contracted a debt which they were now obliged to work off. Most likely, they’d originally been promised wages high enough to settle the debt in a year or two, along with decent housing and an unfettered lifestyle. Most likely, their dreams had been of opulent boutiques and trendy nightclubs that didn’t open until one o’clock in the morning, of celebrities, of opportunities.

Bait and switch, a marketing strategy as old as marketing itself. Sister Kassia told me the girls might be working for any employer willing to hire illegals. They might be waiting on tables in Manhattan, or sewing garments in Elmhurst, or dusting furniture in Bayside.

‘Church, apparently, is the one solace allowed them,’ she said. ‘Or, perhaps, the one solace they refuse to live without.’

‘Either way, Sister, that provides you with a chance to reach them. Something I want you to do.’

‘A chance I intend to take.’

‘I don’t doubt that for a minute, but if you don’t mind my asking, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish?’

We were standing at the window, looking out over the churchyard. The congregation was already inside Blessed Virgin, the mass about to start, but the girls and their escort had yet to appear.

‘The first goal is to get them away from their keepers, to separate the slaves from the slave holders. And, yes, I’m willing to use the word slave. I use it because these kinds of debts are commonly bought and sold, because tomorrow morning they could wake up to find a new master in charge of their lives.’

‘And the second goal?’

‘The second is to put them in control, to settle them in a place where they’ll be safe, to find them jobs and to guide them through the bureaucratic maze.’

I recalled my conversation with INS Agent Dominick Capra. I’d asked him why these women didn’t just run away and he’d explained that the loans had been co-signed by relatives back home. If the workers defaulted, the relatives would have to pay.

‘What about the relatives?’ I asked. ‘The ones in the old country who co-signed for the debt.’

But Sister Kassia had been all over this topic. Once the women were settled into real jobs that paid real wages, they would send money home to those relatives. The point wasn’t to avoid the debt. The point was to avoid involuntary servitude.

The nun concluded with a direct appeal to my conscience. ‘These women were born with the same hopes and dreams as you and I,’ she declared, her tone firm and steady. ‘They have a right to their lives, a right we take for granted. Now you have it in your power to affect those lives directly. You’ve become responsible, whether you like it or not.’

The women came first, five of them in their Sunday best, the oldest in her mid-twenties, the youngest in her late teens. They wore simple cotton dresses, knee-length and brightly colored, and flat-heeled shoes with tiny white socks that barely covered their ankles. Make-up was held to a minimum, a hint of blush in the cheeks, a pale gloss across the lips, a touch of color in the brows.

Snap judgements, especially of strangers, are a hazard for cops. But as I searched their faces, I knew I wasn’t making any mistake about these women. There was nothing hard in their expressions, no element of cold calculation. They were not whores.

Pleased with this conclusion, I focused on the man who walked behind the women, the shepherd tending his flock. I watched him turn onto the path leading up to the church, then pass within twenty feet of where I stood. He seemed as ordinary, at first glance, as the women who preceded him. His face was noticeably thin, his cheeks hollow, his mouth squeezed between a strong nose and a cleft chin. Though he appeared no older than thirty-five, the top of his head was bald except for a dark fuzz at the very front which might have been better shaved. As he passed me, I watched his eyes criss-cross the landscape in little jumps. They never stopped moving and only the fact that I was standing well away from the window prevented my being discovered.

‘Tell me,’ I asked, ‘do you know their names?’

‘One of the girls is named Katrina. The man is named Aslan.’

‘Aslan? Is that a Polish name?’

‘No. In Turkish and Farsi, aslan means lion. I know because I became curious the first time I heard the name and ran a search on the Internet.’

‘You said they’re sometimes escorted by a second man. Can you describe him?’

‘Tall, middle-aged, heavy-set, with very narrow eyes. Really, you can’t mistake him.’

I stifled a burst of nearly infantile glee, then changed the subject. ‘Can I assume they drive to church, the girls and their minders, that they don’t take a bus?’

‘They come in a van.’