Читать книгу The Masterful Russian - Cordelia Gregory - Страница 6

Adalina Morelli shook her head and stood up from the long thin camp bed in the tent. She stared at the young woman sitting on the opposite bed dressed in a Burqa holding a small five-year-old girl who was crying in her arms. Next to her was a quiet thirteen-year-old girl with a black hijab around her head. There were tears locked in her dark brown eyes but she did not shed any of them. The young woman removed her arm from around the small child and put it around the teenager’s shoulders and squeezed them to give comfort.

Adalina put her hands on her hips feeling pity swell inside her for the two girls. No matter how many times she saw children and the people in the refugee camp suffering, she couldn’t become hard to it. She had tried to place her feeling of hopelessness at a distance but it always reared its head and threatened to interfere with her aid work. Now it was affecting her better judgment and penetrating the cold armour she had placed around herself to get the job done. What the undercover journalist was asking to be able to do was either an act of courage or perhaps on reflection, stupidity. Either way, Adalina couldn’t help but admire her bravery and determination. She genuinely wanted to help the woman succeed in her quest but the danger was immense. It could kill them both. The journalist needed to understand sacrifices had to be made so others could be saved.

She threw her hands up in the air in defeat when she looked at the faces of the girls and made every effort to harden her heart but it was getting harder and harder to do. She said to the young journalist, “You shouldn’t be here. I can’t protect you. If they find out who you really are, they will kill you. They don’t call this refugee camp ‘The Hole’ for nothing. All forms of low life exist here among the innocent. There is even talk about IS operatives in here. People get swallowed up and disappear. They won’t take kindly to a journalist living among them and reporting what they see. I shouldn’t be letting you do this but, damn it, I need people to know what is going on here.”

Adalina rubbed her tired face. The young woman stared back at her with sparkling green eyes but said nothing. The only communication she received in return was a nod. There was no moving her stubbornness and resolve to put her life at risk. She was going to stay in the camp to protect the two girls she had befriended and to get the story she wanted to tell the world about the refugees.

“You still have the number I gave you to contact me if you need anything?” Adalina checked trying to ease her fear for the woman. “Good. I could lose my job for this. Don’t use the toilets in the wash block. They are overflowing. Use the field. And for God’s sake don’t drink water from the tap here. I will get you some more bottled water. Yesterday the camp amenity workers were checking the outside taps and found traces of E-coli and Coliform present. If the men in this camp don’t get you, the water will.”

If anything happened to the journalist it would be on Adalina’s head as manager of the camp. It hadn’t been her idea to let her in but the aid team she worked with encouraged it. They needed all the help they could get in exposing the truth of what went on in the camp and Adalina’s hand had been forced. There had been too many deaths and this one could be avoided. She was turning her mind back to marching the woman out of the camp but those two girls kept staring at her pleading with her sympathy, her humanity. If the journalist left they would be unprotected as orphans. Their fate would be unknown. Adalina would never sleep at night again.

“I will check in on you in another couple of days. By then you might have all the time you needed to find the lead on all these missing women refugees your source spoke to you about. You have been in here a week already. I dare not risk any more than another couple of days. You have already been attacked. I don’t want your rape or death on my conscience. So many women in here live in fear of being attacked as it has happened so many times. I cannot guarantee your safety…”

“I understand,” the English journalist’s voice was calm and even when she spoke. “When this is over I need…”

Adalina thrust her hand up to halt her speech and nodded.

“I will help you get the girls out when you leave.” Adalina meant it. They wouldn’t survive if she didn’t. “Just be careful.”

Adalina turned and unzipped the tent. She didn’t look back. The sight of the two pitiful girls was too haunting an image to keep returning to. Outside she straightened her slightly bent form to stand next to her armed male companion, grimacing when a long black shape scuttled over her booted foot.

“The rats are running free in here,” her companion moaned. “I have been watching them.”

Adalina sighed feeling the overwhelming hopelessness of the situation. The situation was out of control and the camp overrun. They were drowning and something had to be done. A pungent smell of decaying sweat clung to the warm air amidst the burning of the small camp fires between the lines a thousand dirty white tents covered in wet washing vainly trying to dry in the damp humid atmosphere. A group of men were smoking and drinking lying around one of the fires on the camp beds they had dragged out from inside their tents. Adalina frowned.

“She still won’t leave?” her companion asked gesturing his head towards the tent.

Adalina shook her head. The man sighed and took another puff of his cigarette.

“On her own head be it then,” he said dropping the butt and stubbing it out with his foot.

They started to walk away, back to the safety of the outside world when they stopped dead in their tracks hearing the terror of a woman’s scream echoing loudly through the camp. It was accompanied by the wailing of children and the shouting of men. Horrified they both stared at each other and took off in the direction of the terrified howl of pain. Adalina called for security on her mobile.

After what seemed like an age they finally reached the source of the scream. A group of men and women were shouting for help and clearly distressed.

“They have taken my wife and our older daughter. They are taking the women. Help us, help us,” a man frantically shook Adalina’s arm.

Adalina’s eyes widened. This was what the journalist had requested her permission to investigate. The numerous disappearances of women in the camp who she believed were being trafficked into Europe and to the IS for slavery and brides

At the end of the row of tents she saw the young journalist standing quietly watching with her narrowed green eyes. She must have followed them. Strangely, Adalina felt comforted by her presence. Someone from the outside was finally seeing what was happening in these camps, in her camp. Europe and the rest of the world needed to know the horror they were dealing with and the appalling conditions the refugees were being forced to live in. She let out the angry tense breath she had been holding. The burden wouldn’t just be hers alone to bear anymore. The whole world would be forced to take responsibility for these people along with her and understand the action she had been forced to take to help as many people as she could.

She looked back at the English journalist knowing she would have heard every word. The young woman tilted her head in acknowledgement and stepped back into the shadows to continue her investigation.