Epiphany Jones (17 page)

I
wake to a dull sound.
Thump. Thump. Thump
. It’s pitch black and I can’t tell where it’s coming from. My body feels strange – like it’s moving. The sky from the porthole is now non-existent.
Thump. Thump. Thump
. I search for a light, but I immediately stumble to my right. Only the wall keeps me from falling over. I straighten, but now I’m stumbling to my left.
Thump. Thump. Thump
.

It’s not until there’s a quick flash of a sphere of light that I’m even sure I’m still in the cabin. I stumble to the porthole. Outside it’s as black as it is in the room. Then lightning flashes again and I see the rain is horizontal. The sea churns as if it’s flagellating itself in punishment for some watery sin.

Making my way back towards the bunk, I trip and land face down in the dark. It’s Epiphany’s body I’ve fallen over. Even when she’s unconscious she’s trying to kill me. I scoot against the wall below the sink, right next to Epiphany. Why get up when you’ll just fall down again?

And rocking on the floor in the darkness, I still hear it.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

As my eyes adjust I see that it’s Epiphany’s head that’s making the noise. It’s knocking against the wall.
Thump. Thump. Thump.

I place my hand on the back of her skull to steady it. There’s a soft lump the size of a tennis ball beneath her hair. And every time there’s a flash of lightning I see just how badly the attack left her.

Her arms are covered in dried blood and long, thick scratches.

Flash
.

A bruise on her calf isn’t even blue; it’s black like ink.

Flash
.

There are circular marks on her neck where Nico grabbed her throat.

Flash
.

The palm of her hand has a blister where skin has been scraped off, and her fingers are curled, as if she’s grasping an invisible hockey puck. Even her breath is rattling, like something inside got crushed.

Call it what you want: regret, Stockholm syndrome redux, but in the cabin in the dark I find I’ve taken Epiphany’s hand in mine. My thumb gently rubs back and forth across a long scab on her wrist. A fleck of the scab breaks and fresh blood dribbles to the surface. I wipe the blood, smearing it. The streak runs vertically across the long scab, forming a cross.

The look in her eyes before the attack – the hope she showed on the pier – I can’t recall the last time I had that look. Hope is the best feeling in the world. Hope is what gets you out of bed in the morning. It’s what gets you through your shitty job. It’s what makes you believe you can save your marriage or beat that disease. Hope isn’t the cure for your problems, but it’s something almost as good: it’s the belief – the blind faith – that you will overcome them.

And I look at the bloody cross I’ve made on Epiphany’s wrist and wonder how some people can believe so completely. How do they have that blind faith? What does it feel like to believe some big, ever-silent guy in the sky is lovingly watching over you? How can someone believe He’s giving them orders?

I run my thumb back over Epiphany’s bloody cross, smearing it. No. If He does exist, He’s an angry God. He’s distant and apathetic and doesn’t care about your pigeon-shit life.

And then I feel it in my back pocket, sitting here on the floor. It’s been there since the pier. In the dark I take the videotape out, and when lightning flashes I can see the label. A ghost’s handwriting reads, ‘
Work: Van Gogh, 1897. Donor: Mann
.’

Then through the porthole, lightning flashes again. Once and then twice. And then in the darkness of the cabin my heart skips a beat. I don’t know how long she’s been awake, but even in the darkness those
green eyes burn like emerald embers. And for the rest of my life I’ll know those eyes left me one heartbeat closer to death.

I shove the tape into my pocket with my pills, which rattle a bit as Epiphany struggles to sit up enough to lean her back against the wall. Her hair is all matted against her face. She’s a wreck. Beaten and scratched, red and swollen. But those damn green eyes could still slice right through you. And watching her green eyes watching me, I wonder how she’ll react to my betrayal on the pier. I wonder if she’s seen the tape.

‘Why did you change your mind?’ she says.

Her question catches me off guard so much that I blurt out the truth. ‘LaRouche told me you’re looking for your daughter,’ I say, my voice faltering. But the thing is, this is the first time I’ve realised that’s why. ‘I had a little sister and if I could have her back nothing would stop me either.’

Epiphany doesn’t reply, but even in the darkness I swear I see the glow of her green eyes flicker. And for a few minutes there’s a silence between us that I can’t endure. So I find my voice and I tell her how I found LaRouche murdered; how Nico tortured her into telling him where we were going – all in retaliation for the orphanage. I tell her about getting arrested and how Nico gave me no choice. I tell her how I crawled out of the water. I tell her how I murdered him.

‘Murdered,’ I say, my voice shuddering.

I wait for her to reply, but she remains silent.

I wish I could go inside her head, hear her thoughts. ‘How old is she?’ I say.

Epiphany, she takes a moment before answering. ‘Twelve now,’ she says and falls quiet again.

Epiphany and I – we’re no longer captor and captive, tormentor and tormented. It’s hard to see your devil as separate from you once you’ve learned of its pains. Her daughter is only three years older than Emma was when she died.

And then my heart sinks again. Your worst regrets will always be for the things that you can’t have anymore because
you
fucked them up.

Looking at Epiphany looking at me, I tremble. ‘I
killed
man,’ I tell her again, in case she doesn’t get that, for some people, killing someone is a big, horrible deal.

I say, ‘No more lies or half-truths.’

I say, ‘You haven’t told me anything about you. I don’t know why we’re here…’

I say, ‘You need to be honest with me. About everything.’

‘
Please
,’ I tremble.

And I don’t know if someone like Epiphany is capable of compassion, of mercy. Maybe it’s because of the pain in my eyes, or because she remembers how she felt the first time she took a life. Or maybe, maybe it’s that she’s like me, and after everything that’s happened she needs someone to talk to too. Whatever the reason, she finally answers my prayer. This is where I get the autobiography of Epiphany Jones.

She was born just outside of Moscow in a village whose name she can’t remember. The only image she holds in her head is of a young woman who was probably her mother. She sees this young mother screaming as her daughter is pulled inside a car. From the back seat, Epiphany looks through the car’s window and sees her mother being beaten by a man. The man gets in the car and they pull away, and the last image Epiphany has of her mother is her, lying on the ground, not moving. Epiphany thinks she is ten at the time.

For the next three weeks she is kept in a damp cellar somewhere in Moscow. There are adults who run the place. They feed her. They beat her. And when one of the men tells one of the women that he wants to break her, the woman stops him. ‘No. This one is a special order,’ she says. That night Epiphany wakes, chained on her cot, to the man rubbing himself at her bedside. His cum lands in gooey strands in her hair. If Epiphany remembers correctly, this is her birthday.

After a month, Epiphany is brought out of the cellar. She’s taken upstairs, where a large suitcase is open on the floor. She’s told to lie inside it. She’s zipped up, nice and tight, and carried out to a car where she’s put in the trunk. She’s certain she’ll never see light again.

It’s who knows how long, and Epiphany is taken out of the trunk.
She’s unzipped and the air has never smelled better nor has the sky ever looked so beautiful. She’s somewhere in Italy, she thinks. That day, money changes hands, and Epiphany is given to new people. That night, a large, blonde Russian lady holds Epiphany while a black man fucks her in the mouth. Epiphany is beaten on her stomach and back when she vomits over the man’s penis. During the beating, the woman tells the man, ‘Careful, avoid the face.’

After a week the blonde woman and the black man buy her an ice cream in a park. Then they walk until they come to a train station. They board the train like they’re all one big, happy family. On the train they give Epiphany a magazine and make her sit by the window. The magazine is in a language she doesn’t know, but she recognises movie stars in the photographs. After three hours on the train Epiphany has to pee so badly, but they don’t let her leave the seat. An hour later she wets herself.

The train arrives at some city where the air is warmer and the smell is salty. Epiphany asks if this is Spain. ‘No,’ they answer. The blonde woman and the black man part ways. Epiphany remembers the black man giving the Russian woman a large sum of money. She doesn’t know how much, but it’s more than she’s ever seen.

The black man takes Epiphany on to a big boat with the letters ‘PORTO’ written on the side. She sees other girls her age on the boat, but none of them are allowed to talk. She is kept in a storeroom below deck. The black man occasionally comes to her. He makes her hold his testicles while he masturbates. One day she refuses and he punches her in the stomach. He tells her this is nothing compared to what the other men on the boat would do to her. ‘They all think you’re the prettiest, but your purity is worth too much. This is the least you’ll do in return for me keeping them away.’ He places her hands on his testicles. They are hairy, like a stuffed animal she used to have.

Time on the boat seems endless. Then, one day, she’s brought above deck. They’re docked at a port and before them a large city stretches into the distance. Epiphany’s heard that the other girls have been herded into crates and moved onshore already. When she hears English she asks if they are in America. ‘Close,’ the black man says. ‘This is America,
Junior.’ He has an envelope full of cash. ‘You’re a special delivery,’ he tells her. ‘Stay quiet at customs.’

After the black man hands the envelope to the customs officer, they board a bus. The ride is long. Epiphany asks where they are going. ‘The other side of this damn country,’ the black man answers.

A day later the black man is shaking hands with a woman with red hair. She looks empty and broken. ‘This is the one,’ the black man says, pushing Epiphany towards the redhead. ‘She’s pure.’ The redhead admires Epiphany and then takes her into a bathroom and inspects her genitals. Outside again, she thanks the black man and tells him she’ll take the girl.

The first night Epiphany feels safer than she has in a long time. The redhead insists Epiphany calls her ‘Momma’. And indeed, this first night, Epiphany almost feels as safe with this woman as she did with her real mother. But over the next week Momma starts to change. She yells more. She begins to hit her. One week, a young blonde girl, hardly older than Epiphany, is brought into her room, followed by Momma and a man Epiphany has never seen before. The young girl is bent over and tied to a desk as the man drops his pants and has sex with her from behind. The girl, she screams like a dying animal.

Week after week, this happens again and again. Epiphany is never raped, but she’s forced to watch the rape of other girls. Sometimes she’s forced to kiss and touch other girls while a group of two or three men watch. Other times she is forced to rub men and let them cum on her. When she hesitates, even a little, she is beaten – always with Momma in the room; always with Momma saying, ‘Never in the face.’

This goes on day in and day out, until one week … one week something changes. One day, Epiphany remembers Momma calling a strange name and being upset when she doesn’t answer. That’s the day she realises she doesn’t know her name anymore – if she ever had one. But this week she remembers well for another reason. It’s the week she first hears her voices. In the beginning, she thinks the walls have gotten thinner, but then she hears the voices even when there are other people in the room. The other people, they can’t hear anything.

‘Only two today,’ the voices say one morning. And during that entire day Epiphany is only made to see two men. Sometimes the voices, they repeat nursery rhymes to her to help her go to sleep. Sometimes they tell her who is outside her door. Or they tell her to be careful that day. The voices, they speak in Russian.

One day Momma brings a girl of about fifteen to Epiphany’s room. A client follows. The client orders the older girl and Epiphany to make love while he masturbates. During it Epiphany hears her voices say, ‘You need to be strong now.’

Epiphany, she stops touching the other girl and sits up and, for the first time ever, she speaks back to her voices. ‘What’s about to happen?’

As she asks this, the client loses his weak erection. He becomes enraged. He screams that they don’t stop until he finishes. He begins hitting the older girl in the face. He just keeps pounding her and pounding her. And, the longer he pounds, the harder it is to recognise that what he is hitting
is
a girl’s face.

Epiphany is screaming so loudly, but she doesn’t realise it until Nico bursts into the room. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him and already she knows he is a very dangerous man. Nico, he grabs the client by his hair and swings his head against the wall. There’s a loud crack as the client’s skull hits the concrete and his body crumbles to the ground. Two Mexicans enter the room. Nico looks at the client and the girl, who barely has a face anymore, and orders the Mexicans to dump both of them in the river. That night Epiphany’s voices say, ‘They are moving you soon.’

Two days later Momma enters her room. Momma is holding a pretty pink dress with white stockings and shiny black shoes. She tells Epiphany that she must put these on. She must look her best.

Momma puts Epiphany in a car. Not in the trunk, or even the back seat. It’s a special day and Epiphany sits in the front between Momma and Nico while they drive to the expensive part of town. They stop in front of a hotel called the Royal Meridian. The lobby is what Epiphany imagines a king’s palace must look like. Nico presses the button for the thirty-seventh floor. Outside room 3702 a man answers the door.
He shakes hands with Nico and smiles at Momma. His face is pleased when he looks at Epiphany.