Knox captures an amazing shot of Maja, her knees to her chest. Yasmina wants to object, but is more concerned with Sonia.
“It is money. Steady money.”
“Were you approached directly?” Sonia asks.
Yasmina looks afraid.
“The other mothers at the community center,” Knox says, winning a fiery look from both women. “You heard from them.” Sonia does not want him speaking; Yasmina is rattled by his accuracy. Sonia is quick to translate the woman’s expression.
“We know about the community center.” Sonia lies beautifully, something that is not lost on Knox.
“You hear things.”
“At some point you must make contact, they must make contact.” If Sonia is excited by their progress, she doesn’t show it.
Yasmina corrects her. “The first day she is taken by a friend. After that, she knows the way and can go alone. Some of the mothers . . . if you follow your child . . . if you’re caught . . .” The protective glance toward her daughter finishes the thought.
“Schooling?”
“She is enrolled, of course. The excuse is illness. We do as much work here in the evenings as possible. I do not expect you to understand. I do not want your sympathy. My Maja is an important part of this household. She helps us all.”
The girl looks up from her tucked position proudly.
Sonia directs her attention to the girl. “You must know the names of some of the other girls.”
“Turtle.” Maja makes a fish with her thumb tucked into the fingers. “Bunny.” Thumb and pinky finger raised. She smiles awkwardly. “They call me”—she draws a finger across her lips—“Silence.”
“The other times your father came to school, did he take you to work?”
Yasmina strains to contain her alarm. She is no actor. “Answer.”
Maya’s silence draws her mother’s ire.
Yasmina turns to Sonia. “Which day was this?”
Smart enough to stay out of a fire she has herself started, Sonia bites her lip.
“Not my son,” says the woman by the window, mournfully. “Who was this man, precious?”
“Not the girl’s father,” Sonia says.
Yasmina spins in the vortex created by her mother-in-law, Sonia and her daughter. She seeks sanctuary in Knox, but then sees him working the camera in his lap and holds up her hand to block her face.
“Get out!” she says.
Sonia collects the fallen watercolor and smooths it open with calm hands. “It is these girls we must save,” she says, pointing to the leg iron. “These nameless girls.”
“He wasn’t her father,” Knox says. “Then who? A man from the shop?”
“She disobeyed,” Yasmina says, glowering at her child. “How could you do this to us? You know the rules!”
“By attending school,” Knox says.
Sonia does not appreciate his participation.
But Knox is on a roll. “They tried to pull her out of school and put her back to work.”
Yasmina sits down heavily, hands to her head. She’s talking to herself in a language Knox does not understand. She takes in each of them, including her mother-in-law, one by one.
“My husband is in jail. Two more years.” It’s all she says. It is meant as confession, justification and apology, all in one.
The old woman stares out the window as if this is an indictment of her. Her cigarette is burned down to the filter, still clasped between her fingers. Knox takes a lap shot of her.
“We ask that Maja take us close enough to the shop to point it out,” Sonia says.
“Never! They have eyes everywhere. You understand nothing. The mothers who have tried . . . How close do you think they ever came? Absurd.”
“We could show Maja a map,” Knox says. “Photographs.” He’s thinking of Google’s street view. The girl could lead them right to the door without ever leaving the room. “We can pay you three hundred euros.”
Yasmina gives the offer consideration.
Sonia is ready to castrate John Steele for his interference.
“How many weeks must Maja work to earn three hundred? Ten? Twenty? She could be in school instead.”
Maja sits forward expectantly, hanging on her mother’s decision like an inmate at a parole hearing.
“And what after that, daughter?” the older woman says, aimed again at Yasmina, who cringes at the appellation. “We must resist the sin of temptation.”
“I asked you to leave,” Yasmina says, unable to look at either Sonia or Knox.
“And I ask you what is best for your daughter?”
“Take your poison and go!”
“The girls in the leg irons . . . ask Maja what happens to the pretty ones when they reach the age. What if Maja fails to come home one night? What then? Where do you look? To whom do you turn?”
Yasmina’s face drains of color and her lips tremble as tears form. “Without her . . . we starve.”
Her words seem to echo in the room. A dog barks down the block. The sound of the old woman working her lighter sounds like a cat scratching at the door. She disappears behind a cloud.
Knox fires off another lap shot, wondering how much the cigarettes cost.
“I wish to see the photos.” Yasmina extends her hand to him.
But Sonia takes Knox’s camera from him and together she and Knox show the woman the half dozen shots he’s taken. It’s good work, if he does say so. No faces. A good deal of mood and texture.
The mother selects two for deletion, simply exercising her power to do so. Knox resents losing them.
As they are huddled around the camera, Yasmina says softly, “You do not understand. These people know where we live. They . . . the things they have done . . .”
“Have you seen these things, yourself, or heard about them?” the journalist asks.
“Please leave.” Yasmina once again avoids looking at Knox.
—
BACK ON THE STREET, John Steele and Sonia Pangarkar exhale at once.
“Damn!” Sonia says.
“We follow her,” says Knox. “I can follow her. She will never know.”
“And if you’re seen? It won’t be you who suffers, but she, a twelve-year-old girl. And her mother, and her grandmother. No, John.”
But I won’t be seen, he wants to say, but does not.
“You know what they would do to that poor girl?”
He does know, and by making the comment she pushes him to consider ramifications, which is not something that comes naturally to him. For whatever reason, he thinks of Tommy and how he owes him his daily call that often comes weekly. He thinks of Dulwich and Grace working behind his back to track the money embezzled from him. He thinks of bills he must pay and contracts he must honor. The reality of straddling two worlds comes crashing down on him out on a sidewalk in the Amsterdam suburbs where it’s impossible to tell one street from another.
“Damn,” he says, echoing her.
“We know more than we did,” she says.
“‘A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.’”
“You need not remind me.”
He’d parked the motorcycle around the block. He leads her there. She follows.
“Will you write something?” he asks.
“Not yet.”
“Should I e-mail you these?”
“It is a good idea.” She climbs onto the back of the motorcycle. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Now, or later?”
“You tell me.”
“Now, to the houseboat.”
“I am glad.”
“It doesn’t have to be Maja.” He revs the motor and toes the bike into gear.
“Schools in the U.S.,” he adds. “Visitors are required to check in at the school office. They must sign in. Pick up a name tag.”
“The same is true here.”