Read Online The Darkest Little Room by Patrick Holland - Free Book Online

bones of her back were like those of a small bird. In the amber light that came in from the street her skin glowed like some strange jewel.
    I lay down too. I had promised her a night of rest, but I did not sleep easily with her beside me.
    â€˜Tell me your story. How you came to be here.’
    â€˜That is something you cannot pay for.’
    â€˜I do not intend to pay for it.’
    She stared at me.
    â€˜Không biet … I hardly remember it.’
    â€˜Please try.’
    â€˜I told you I was from Thanh Hoa.’
    â€˜And from there you were taken–’
    She stared at me blankly.
    â€˜To China, no?’
    â€˜Yes. China.’
    â€˜You alone?’
    â€˜No. There were other girls.’ Thuy clicked her tongue. ‘Some were very young. Maybe twelve years old. We were taken to a house.’
    â€˜Who took you? How?’
    â€˜I was kidnapped. I have been kidnapped twice. Once by old women. Once by police.’
    â€˜That is hideous,’ I said.
    â€˜Yes. Police are hideous. I was glad when they sold me on.’
    â€˜Some police are good men.’
    â€˜I do not know them.’
    â€˜Could you name any of these men – the ones the women sold you to, or the police? Or the women themselves?’
    She laughed and stared out the window.
    â€˜It is too long ago. I can hardly remember.’
    â€˜A year and six months.’
    â€˜Ãung roi, gần hai năm … Yes, near two years.’ she said and turned to face me. ‘But a year can seem like forever. Many of the girls at Club 49 come from the north. From the Chinese border country. The girls are moved and sold by a gang that operates in the mountains of Sa Pa. That is all I know.’
    I reached for the notebook I kept with me always.
    â€˜Troi oi! … For God’s sake! Can’t you just do what the others do to me?’
    She does look like a whore, I thought. She talks like a whore. I looked at her petulant tinsel eyes. That cunning mouth. It hurt to realise she was a whore and not a saint. The dream had been beautiful. Yet what if it was I who had made her this way?
    The Thanh Hoa photograph fell out of the sleeves of my notebook. I looked at it and slipped it back in.
    â€˜There is one more thing I want to ask you?’
    â€˜Cái gì?’
    â€˜The girl I am looking for had a hairclip.’ I looked at the wall beneath the window, at the bag she had brought with her. ‘A jade butterfly clip that her grandmother gave her and she was never without it.’
    She stared at me and said nothing.
    â€˜Do you have it?’
    Her eyes fell.
    â€˜Even if I did … Many girls …’
    I got out of bed but she leapt and grabbed the bag.
    â€˜Open it.’
    â€˜There are private things I do not want you to see!’
    â€˜I have seen everything a girl might put in a bag like that a thousand times already. You don’t need to be embarrassed. Please open it.’
    She did. Earrings, a mascara pencil, a box of condoms, glitter … a green butterfly hairclip.
    She stood and stared at me in the street light that came in the window. She lowered her face. She lay down on my shoulder.
    I sighed and closed my eyes.
    â€˜Do you want to ask anything of me?’
    She shook her head.
    â€˜No. I know already.’
    We lay still and silent for an hour. I do not know if I slept.
    â€˜You’d better get dressed,’ she said.
    â€˜What? Let me sleep.’
    â€˜But I want you to buy me something to eat before I go.’
    â€˜Go where?’
    â€˜I have to work.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜How can you ask that?’
    â€˜Lie down. You’re staying with me. Mai mai … forever. Understand?’
    She nodded and smiled and stayed sitting up and watching me blink with drowsiness. I tried to stay as long as I might in that pleasant march that lies on the borders of waking and sleeping, letting the evil of the night fade, and all the while