Secret Skin Page 4

  Friday the 13th interrupted again.

  An unknown caller, but from my lofty position I now had three pips of signal strength.

  ‘Yasmin?’ I answered.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Wild guess,’ I said.

  ‘Why are you breathing so hard?’

  ‘Someone was just trying to gut me with a fish hook.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trying to kill me, someone was trying to kill me Yasmin.’

  ‘Oh. Why?’

  ‘He thought I was trying to steal his boyfriend,’ I said, catching my breath. ‘Forget about that. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. I thought you didn’t want to work with me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Look it’s okay, I’m disappointed but I understand. I would never force you to do anything you don’t want to do.’

  ‘But I do want to David.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I am just scared. Scared of what might happen to me if anyone found out.’

  I let out a long exaggerated sigh, buying some time. If I said the right things I still had a story.

  ‘Okay, so how about that trial run? I’ll pay you for your time, we talk and if you want to tell me things you can, if not, no problem. Worst case scenario: you walk away and take the night off. You get paid either way.’

  The line went quiet.

  ‘Yasmin? Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes,’ a pause, ‘and yes, let’s meet. If I don’t like your questions I will leave.’

  ‘I can’t ask for anything more. Thank you Yasmin. So how do we do this?’

  ‘I will send you a number, ask for me, say a time, a place and for how long and I will meet you there, okay?’

  ‘Sure, I’m looking forward to seeing you again.’

  She chuckled. ‘Good,’ she said.

  We both hung up.

  ‘You’re smiling. Things all square with your girlfriend then?’ Joe said.

  ‘They are,’ I said, ‘but she’s not my girlfriend, she a prostitute.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s a story, not what you’re thinking.’

  ‘There are worse things to be you know.’

  ‘No doubt,’ I said. ‘So that’s the captain then is it?’

  ‘Yup, he seems to really like you.’

  ‘Yeah right, poor bugger,’ I said looking at the captain and his desperate crew. They’d been left to die on that ship.

  ‘Who wouldn’t be crazy after 18 months out here?’ I asked Joe.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Why haven’t they just come ashore with you?’

  ‘No visa. Trust me it’s a different world when you don’t have a western passport. They’d be sent straight back on board.’

  I threw the hook into the sea and held up my now dented camera. ‘Can I take pictures then?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘You can keep the pen.’

  Chapter Four

  Photography wasn’t my specialty, but the pictures of the boat and the crew were the best I’d ever taken. Bleak washed out monotones of lonely men on deserted ships. Everyday people, people like us the shots said. It could just have easily been you. Perfect Sunday supplement material.

  Joe translated my interview questions for the two Filipinos, two young men tempted out of naval college by the promise of funded tuition and learning at sea. They found out too late that they would never qualify for anything, rarely be paid and then left to die.

  I asked Joe how this could be allowed to happen. He didn’t have an answer but he told me that his organization's work started 200 years ago in British coastal waters. It seemed our cultures weren’t so different after all.

  On the drive home I plugged in a new hands free kit I’d picked up and dialed the number Yasmin had given me.

  Someone answered and then a few seconds later said, ‘What?’

  ‘I’d like to book Yasmin.’

  The voice went quiet and I heard footsteps running.

  ‘Uh, please?’

  The labored voice came back on.

  ‘Not now, do you not know what is happening?’

  The man sounded breathless.

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘Are you in your car?’ he said, but before I could answer he added, ‘Turn on your radio,’ and hung up.

  I pulled onto Sheikh Zayed Road using the half built junction between Media City and Jumeirah Beach Residence. I’d cursed my decision to take this turning as the road was usually crammed with slow moving cars and their impatient drivers.

  It was totally empty.

  I flipped on the radio and scanned through the colorful content of stations tailored for Indian, Pakistani or Filipino audiences until an Arabic voice said in English, ‘If you don’t like it then go back to where you came from.’

  ‘What?’ roared a Home Counties voice.

  ‘We don’t want you here. Go home.’

  ‘That’s outrageous, you can’t say that man….’

  The familiar local versus foreigner debate, but I’d heard this broadcast before. I hit scan.

  My favorite DJ, Maria B came on, no music, just words.

  ‘…And to repeat there has been an earthquake in Iran. Five point nine on the Richter Scale, three people are dead and several thousand homes have been evacuated.’

  Iran wasn’t so far away but so what? I thought.

  ‘We felt the aftershock here at Babylon FM just a few minutes ago and we’ve been told that more aftershocks are on their way. Originally they told us nothing would happen and then, ladies and gentleman, the building began to shake.

  ‘But don’t worry our offices have now been safely evacuated. In fact I’m the only one left in our downtown Deira office and I’ll be staying right here with you, on the air, until this thing is over. So if you have any information on what’s happening out there then do call in. Remember there’s no switchboard, it’s just little old me, so you’ll have to be patient. That number again….’

  Scared, but playing it cool, she was staying in character as the unflustered professional. It would be a fantastic show for her demo reel – the earthquake broadcast – where only she manned the mic as everyone else ran from the building.

  And fair play to her. Maria B sounded like a buxom American rocker who’d been on the scene for far too long and drunk, smoked and snorted anything and everything available. But when I met her at a press launch for some random fashion magazine she turned out to be a tiny and immaculate Thai woman with a voice just too big for one person.

  She also played the best tunes. Whenever she could she’d avoid the yesteryear playlists and put on some obscure funked up soul or down tempo electronica. I had an unbelievable crush on her.

  Her husky after midnight voice came back on.

  ‘Okay, we just felt another small tremor. All the buildings in the immediate area have now been evacuated and everyone is just hanging around in the square below, looking up. It’s really kind of eerie. But hey, let’s look on the bright side, at least the roads are quiet.

  ‘Listeners, I’ll be right back with an official update on today’s Arabian SNAFU after this….’

  She cut to a Parisian lounge version of Staying Alive, tongue firmly in her cheek despite the situation. She didn’t let the joke linger and dropped in Honey Cone’s furious harmonies about religious hypocrites preaching piety and living lives that were anything but.

  The city’s DJs loved to play tunes from elsewhere that echoed the cultural contradictions found in Dubai. If they said anything more direct between tracks they’d be off the air.

  At the next junction I pulled into the car park of Ibn Battuta mall and climbed out. I left the air conditioning and radio running and set the camera up on the roof of the car. I framed a shot of new Dubai’s beachside towers and began dialing numbers on my phone. If those babies started moving I was in the perfect position for a sellable shot and my third story of the day.

  ‘Bryso
n,’ Martin answered, ‘tell me.’

  ‘You heard about the quake?’

  ‘Of course, where’ve you been? We haven’t felt a thing here.’

  ‘Me neither, I’m at the wrong end of the emirate, but if the marina skyline starts moving I’ve got your cover shot.’

  ‘Great, I’ll soon know if it does, we’re right beside it.’

  ‘Ah, well let’s hope not then hey.’

  ‘Speak soon,’ he said and hung up.

  Martin published monthly; I needed daily, high turnover. Something came back to me from the happy fug of the previous night. I dug a card out of my wallet.

  ‘City,’ the woman’s voice said.

  ‘Verity please.’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Verity, hi, it’s David Bryson. Do you remember we met last night?’

  ‘David, hi, of course I remember. What’s up?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a story that might interest you, sailors stranded off Dubai’s coastline for years at a time, left to die, well-shot documentary photos, Ghost ships on the gulf type of thing. Sex, death, violence and human interest, any use to you?’

  ‘Sure if the photos are good it’s an easy sell, can you send me samples?’

  ‘Of course, I’ll do that today. What about the earthquake, are you covering it?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Need any more hands on deck?’ I said chancing my arm.

  ‘No sorry David, our staff guys are already out on this, but if you get anything, you know, different, a scoop, a shot, we can certainly look at what you’ve got.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Listen, I have to go, something’s coming in. Send me ghost ships alright?’

  ‘Yup,’ I said, we hung up. No good byes, it’s not that sort of business.

  Maria B came back on.

  ‘The building is moving. The windows…the windows are literally swaying back and forth and I can see the towers on the other side of the square …they’re …oh my god!’

  She went quiet and an unholy growl came from the stereo, the sound of violent movement rattled through her microphone and shook my car. You could hear Maria suck in breaths to calm herself down as the rumbling peaked and then subsided.

  She spoke again, as cool and seductive as ever. ‘This is Babylon FM, I’m Maria B, and that was an aftershock ladies and gentleman. I hope your villas are still standing,’ she paused for effect, ‘We’ll be right back after this.’

  The piano breaks and sweet vocals of Badmarsh and Shri urging us to live life day by day kicked in. She was a pro alright. Even if the towers didn’t fall, even if it was all an outrageous act, you wanted to believe.

  I looked on at the half finished skyline and waited for the earth to move. Two hours later I went home to work on what I had rather than dream about what I didn’t.

  Chapter Five

  When I met Yasmin the following morning she had dark tint-free hair and wore black Capris with a loose white collarless shirt open at the neck. She looked happy and relaxed. Probably because I’d booked her out for the entire day, which meant she could spend at least one night not sleeping with strangers.

  My budget could only handle an hour here, an hour there, but it might take weeks to make her trust me otherwise and deadlines don’t wait.

  If asked I would have strenuously denied it, but the memory of our fleeting first kiss also made me want to see her again.

  We’d arranged to meet late morning for coffee at an art gallery that doubled as a café concealed within the traditional narrow lanes of Dubai’s historical section, Bastakiya.

  The maze of alleyways on the creek’s left bank hid hulking buildings and anonymous doors that led to cool inner courtyards just a few blocks back from the hotels, bars and streets of the Bur Dubai district where she plied her trade.

  Seated in the empty courtyard, shaded by palms and a roof top walkway, we gave a cursory glance to the art filled walls and sculptures surrounding us. When I pressed record on my digital recorder Yasmin began to talk.

  ‘I grew up in Lebanon, my parents were Iranian,’ she said. ‘They died soon after I came here.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Five or six years now,’ she waved her hand, ‘I’m not sure exactly. I didn’t see them. I haven’t been back since.’

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘I came because I believed I was going to work in a flower shop,’ she laughed and shook her head. ‘What a fool! When I arrived they were very angry with me. They told me I was not a proper Lebanese therefore I was worthless and that I would have to work extra hard to pay my debts.’

  ‘What debts?’

  ‘My flight here, visa and recruitment costs, my one flight home each year, which I’ve never had.’

  ‘Legally, if you are an employee they are supposed to pay for all of that.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but they don’t. When you arrive they tell you that you owe them and you have to work it off. But as a prostitute not as a flower girl.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have just walked out and gone to your embassy?’

  ‘Yes, only they bring you in on false papers, which they confiscate at the airport. If you try and leave or go to the police they arrest you for illegal entry and put you in jail. I know a few girls this has happened to. The prisons here are bad. Very bad. They are, how you say…devious, no?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed.

  ‘Even if they didn’t have the false papers the police are always involved. They will just beat you, use you, then send you right back. They all work together.’

  ‘Who do they send you back to?’

  ‘Our bosses.’

  ‘Your pimp?’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  ‘Who is he? Your boss. I presume it is a he?’

  ‘Yes, Faisal. He is usually nice,’ she took a deep breath, ‘but he can be brutal when he wants to be. He is well connected. So you have to be careful not to upset him. Girls that upset him…’ another defensive wave of the hand, ‘…they disappear.’

  ‘He kills them?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know. If they upset him we never hear of them again.’

  ‘Christ, so how is he brutal?’

  ‘My first night,’ she said, looking directly at me, challenging me to pay attention. ‘When I didn’t want to do what they said, before I understand what I know now…that I have no choices here, none at all. They took me to a room and raped me. Four of them. Over and over and over. They would take turns. Then do it again. They said I was “getting an education”. They did everything to me and told me that I would do all these things to make them the money that I owed them. Or I would be killed. My choice they said.

  ‘When they couldn’t do it anymore they used things on me. Then they hit me and kicked me and left me in the room. I was so scared David. The pain was terrible. I couldn’t use my legs. I was bleeding…from everywhere. Even my eyes…I never knew blood could come from your eyes.’ She turned away.

  ‘They never took me to a doctor. One of the other girls brought me some food and water and left me there until I healed.’

  Tears rolled down her cheeks at the memory. Her body shook as she sobbed quietly. The Indian waiter came over, concerned, his body language asking, is she alright?

  I thanked him and asked for some mint and apple tea – the first thing on the menu – anything to keep him occupied and allow Yasmin the time she needed to compose herself.

  She cried openly as soon as he left. Thankfully galleries are designed for opening nights. In the middle of the day we were its only customers.

  I waited awhile, with my hand on hers, uncertain what to do next. When I’d talked to some of the men who used prostitutes they casually warned against anything more than simply using them. ‘Don’t get into a conversation,’ they said, ‘they will have many sad tales to relate.’ Callous bastards.

  ‘I’m so sorry that happened to you,’ I said.

  The smiling waiter arrived with the tea and fussed o
ver Yasmin until she blushed. Embarrassed but flattered by the attention, she sipped on the sweet refreshing drink and smacked her lips together.

  ‘A simple pleasure,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. My list of questions seemed redundant after her revelations. ‘So can you ever leave?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope so. I have to pay back my debt first.’

  ‘How much is that?’

  ‘It was $5000 when I came here. Faisal told me it was down to $2,000 but I cause them trouble he says, so whenever it goes down he puts it back up. It does happen though. One girl left last month.’

  ‘But how much do you earn? I’m paying you $200 today, so surely in six years you must have paid it back?’

  ‘Oh yes, much more. Hundreds of thousands probably. At the weekends I make three maybe five hundred dollars a night.’

  ‘What?’ I spluttered, calculating in my head, ‘in a bad year…that’s…that’s over 30 to $50,000 not including any other nights.’

  ‘Have you told him this?’

  ‘Yes, but he tells me that it is the “magic of compound interest”. Like a credit card, it takes years to pay back. I showed him records once, of how much I was earning. He punched me and told me I was a fool. What if somebody found them? Interpol?’

  ‘I wish.’

  ‘Yes David, me too. But the police protect these men. They are all part of it.’

  ‘You mean the local CID?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Sometimes they are in uniform, sometimes plain clothes.’

  ‘Could be the secret police. Is Faisal local too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I wish there was more I could do.’

  ‘You could talk about something else.’

  ‘You know, there are slave owners in Africa to this day that will accept a lump sum for someone’s freedom. Can you do that here?’

  ‘Give Faisal his $2,000 you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To his friends he would sell me for very little. But for me? I don’t know. For me he would probably add interest for at least another two years worth of earnings, maybe $80,000,’ she said. ‘Why, do you have the money to buy my freedom David?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No,’ she sighed.