Page 10 of Girl in the Water

Phil drew her into his arms. “First things first. One saved is better than none saved.”

She nodded against his chest. She was the more impulsive one, the more emotional one, in the relationship. He tended to be the voice of reason. They complemented each other well. They made a strong couple. Under different circumstances, they might have had a strong marriage.

“I’m going to swim over tomorrow morning. And if the girl says she needs help, I’m going to bring her over with me right then.”

If the old witch, Mrs. Rosa, saw Carmen talking with the girls, she might not let them out again. Carmen had to be prepared to act at first contact.

She said a silent prayer for the skinny girl with the sad eyes. And then she said firmly, “Tomorrow morning.”

* * *

Daniela

Daniela woke at dawn to Senhora Rosa’s bony hand shaking her shoulder. The old woman’s fingernails were so sharp, they felt as if they’d cut through Daniela’s skin.

“Up,” Rosa snapped, her voice gravelly this early in the morning. She sounded like a gurgling caiman.

The house slept around them, the other girls still resting, each in her own tiny room that held little more than a bed.

The old woman dragged Daniela out of the house, then shoved her into a boat tied off the dock. For a startled, fearful moment, Daniela thought Rosa would take her to the cove with the piranhas, but instead, the old woman maneuvered the boat into the middle of the water, where the current ran fastest, and they went downriver.

They floated farther down the Içana than Daniela had ever been, past villages, past where the Içana poured into the much larger Rio Negro, far, far away from home, until they reached a sprawling town and Rosa angled the boat toward shore once again.

A sign in the harbor said they were welcome in Santana.

Daniela had never seen so many dwellings before, or buildings so large. In the giant harbor sat a ship so big, it could never go up the Içana to her village, not even in the middle where the river was the deepest.

Rosa led her to a house near the water, nearly as large as the one they’d come from, but instead of many girls, only a foreign man lived there, an American.

“This is Senhor Finch,” Rosa said.

Senhor Finch was almost as pale as the missionary but younger, and as tall but not nearly as round. He looked as strong as the loggers. He had boots and pants like the soldiers Daniela had once seen come up the river with the naval patrol. Except for his yellow hair, everything about him was drab, including his tan T-shirt. He had a big smile, and he had all his teeth, as white as cane sugar.

Rosa let go of Daniela’s arm. She pulled a plastic bag of little white pills from her pocket that she had every girl take to make sure they didn’t end up pregnant. She handed the bag to Daniela. “You will cook for him, clean for him, and do whatever he says. You will stay with him until he sends you back.”

Then Rosa took a large handful of money from the man and left.

The water rushed behind the house, almost as loud as the street noises. The smell of fish blew from the Rio Negro, nearly overpowered by the smell of sewer mixing with the smell of engine exhaust that drifted from the town. For a moment, the new, strange mixture made Daniela dizzy.

She tried to stand very straight as she waited to be told what to do, even while her stomach cramped with hunger.

Her missed breakfast was the least of her worries.

But Senhor Finch didn’t reach for her clothes, or for his own.

Daniela didn’t know what to make of him.

“Are you hungry?” he asked in a funny accent that sounded like the missionary’s. Then he showed her into the kitchen where he had piles of food: fruit, vegetables, riceandflour, even a gutted fish.

Her stomach growled. She wasn’t sure what she was allowed to touch. Rosa had said she was to cook. So she cautiously picked up a coconut.

The man smiled again.

Buoyed by relief, Daniela smiled back.

The house had a stove with a propane tank next to it like at Rosa’s, only bigger and newer.What luck that I know how to use it, Daniela thought. If she didn’t, the man would probably beat her.

She cooked quickly—fish withmandioca frita—then put the food on the table and went to sit on the floor in the corner. But the man told her to sit at the table with him. And he put food on two plates, giving her one, filling it completely.