“How much for this one?” asked the American ' man, reaching out to tousle the hair of the three or fouryearold clinging to his mother's skirt. The boy pulled back quickly. The taller of the Romanian guides snapped a question, then cut the Romanian father off in mid babble.
“He says one hundred thousand lei and a Turbo,” said the tall guide, smirking.
“A Turbo?” said the American woman, blinking rapidly.
“Turbo automobile,” said the shorter and swarthier of the two guides. When he grinned, a gold tooth caught the light.
The American man pulled out a notebook calculator and tapped at it. “A hundred thousand lei would be about sixteen hundred and sixtysix dollars at the official exchange rate, honey,” he said to his wife. “Mmmm . . . but just about five hundred bucks at the black market rate. But the car . . . I don't know . . . “
The taller guide smirked. “No, no, no,” he said. “They all ask for hundred thousand lei. No pay. These Gypsies . . . see? Very greedy people. Gypsy baby is not worth hundred thousand lei. Their little childrens worth even less. We offer thirty thousand, tell them that if they say no, we go somewhere else.” He turned and tapped the Romanian father on the chest, none too gently. The little man twitched a smile and listened to the barked flow of Romanian.
Kate understood only a few wordsAmerica, dollars, fool, authorities.
The young American wife had moved to the doorway of the darkened bedroom and was trying to coax the twoyear-old girl out into the light. The husband was busy with his calculator; his forehead glistened with sweat under the bare bulb.
“Ahhh,” grinned the tall guide. “The little girl, very healthy, they agree to forty-five thousand lei. Can leave tonight. At once.”
The American woman closed her eyes and whispered, “Praise the Lord.” Her husband blinked and moistened his lips. The shorter of the two guides grinned at his colleague.'
“This is illegal,” said O'Rourke, stepping into the apartment.
The Americans jumped and looked sheepish. The guides scowled and stepped forward. The Gypsy husband looked at his wife, and both of their faces showed the pure panic of loss.
“It's illegal and it's unnecessary,” said the priest, standing between the guides and the American couple. “There are orphanages where you can carry out a legitimate adoption.”
“Cine sinteti dumneavoastra?” demanded the taller guide angrily. “Ce este aceasta?”
O'Rourke ignored him and spoke directly to the American wife. “None of these children are being put up for adoption or need to be adopted. The father and mother both work at the refinery. These two . . .” He gestured toward the guides with a dismissive wave of his left hand, as if too disgusted to look at them. “They're punks . . . informers . . . thugs. They chose this family because others in this same building have been intimidated into selling their children. Please consider what you're doing.”
“Well . . .” began the American man, licking his lips again and holding on to his calculator with both hands. “We didn't mean . . .”
His wife appeared to be on the verge of tears. “It's just so hard to get visas for the sick children,” she said. Her accent sounded like Oklahoma or Texas.
“Shut up!” shouted the taller of the guides. He was yelling at O'Rourke, not the couple. The guide took three fast steps forward and raised his fist as if he were going to hammer the priest into the floor.
Kate watched as O'Rourke turned slowly and then moved very quickly, catching the guide's raised arm at the wrist, and slowly lowering it. The guide shifted his left hand to grip O'Rourke's wrist, but his arm continued downward. She could see the Romanian's face growing redder as he struggled, could hear his heavy boots scraping the' floor as he shifted for better leverage, but the captured wrist continued descending until O'Rourke held the arm and stillclenched fist immobile at the man's side. The guide's face had gone from red to something approaching purple; his entire body was shaking from the strain of attempting to break free. The priest's face had never changed expression.
The smaller guide reached into his jacket and came out with a switchblade. The blade flicked out and he took a step forward.
The taller man snapped something even as the Romanian parents began shouting and the American wife began crying. O'Rourke released the first guide's wrist and Kate saw the big man gasp and flex his fingers. He snarled something else and his shorter companion put away the knife and herded the confused Americans out of the apartment, the procession brushing past Kate in the doorway as if she didn't exist. The children in the apartment were crying, as was the Gypsy woman. The father stood rubbing his stubbled cheek as if he had been slapped.
“Imi pare foarte rau,” O'Rourke said to the Gypsy couple, and Kate understood it as I'm very sorry. “Noupte buna,” he said, backing out of the apartment. Good night.
The door slammed and he looked at Kate standing there.
“Don't you want to catch the Americans?” she said. “Get them to ride back to Bucharest with us?”
“Why?”
“They'll just go somewhere else with those . . . those creeps. They'll end up stealing another child out of its bed.”
O'Rourke shook his head. “Not tonight, I don't think, This sort of messed up the rhythm of their evening. I'll call the Americans tomorrow at the Lido.”
Kate glanced at the dark stairwell. “Aren't you afraid that one or the other of those two thugs will be waiting for you?”
She had the sense that the priest could not stop the smile of pure pleasure at the thought. She watched as he rubbed the smile away. “I don't think so,” he said softly, with only a hint of regret audible. “They'll be too busy herding their pigeons home, trying to calm them and set up another buying spree. “
Kate shook her head and walked down the stairs with him, out of the building smelling of garlic and urine and hopelessness.
Despite her exhaustion, they talked more on the ride back to Bucharest. The Dacia was an accumulation of gear rumbles, mechanical moans, and spring creakings, the air whistled in even through closed windows, but they raised their voices and talked.
“I knew that most of the American couples ended up paying for healthy children,” said Kate. “I didn't know that the shopping trips were this cynical.”
O'Rourke nodded, his eyes still on the dark road. Pitesti was a receding wall of flame behind them. “You should see it when they take them to one of the poorer Gypsy villages,” he said softly. “It turns into an auction . . . a real riot.”
“Do they concentrate on Gypsies then?” Kate heard the thickness of pure tiredness in her own voice. She found herself longing for a cigarette even though she had not smoked since she was a teenager.
“Frequently. The people are poor enough, desperate enough, less willing to go to the authorities when bullied. “
Kate looked sideways at the sparse lights in a village a kilometer or two from the highway. Road flares flickered alongside the frequent vehicles broken down in the weeds alongside the road. She had counted at least one disabled truck or car every kilometer or two during the ride west. “Do these bornagain Americans ever adopt from the orphanages?”
“Occasionally,” said the priest. “But you know the difficulties. “
Kate nodded. “Half of the children are sick. Most of the rest are retarded or emotionally crippled. The American Embassy won't allow the sick ones a visa.” She laughed and was shocked by the harshness of the sound. “What a fuckup.”
“Yes,” said O'Rourke.
Suddenly Kate found herself telling the priest about the children she had been trying to help, the children who had died through lack of appropriate medical care, or lack of supplies, or lack of compassion and competence on the part of the Romanian hospital staff. She found herself telling him about the baby in the isolation ward in District Hospital One; the abandoned, nameless, helpless little boy who responded to transfusions but who soon began wasting away again from some immune disorder that Kate could not isolate or diagnose with the primitive equipment available to her here.