The RV door had a tiny window, and the girl stood on her toes long enough to confirm that Frankie and Victorino had moved away from the RV so no one could hear them. The woman was just lighting a marijuana cigarette, which suggested that she was in no hurry. Tula knew that it was marijuana because many people smoked mota in her village, even married women if they were suffering cramps during their periods. That’s what the women claimed, anyway, although the girl was dubious.
Tula thought about locking the door, then decided against it. Frankie had believed her lie about wanting to speak privately. It would only make her suspicious. So the girl hurried to the kitchenette to search for weapons.
Help yourself, and God will help you, Jehanne had written. Act, and God will act through you, she had counseled her knights.
Tula was looking in cupboards, opening drawers, hoping to find an ax or a large knife, or even a gun. Although she had never fired a weapon, the girl was willing to try. But could she kill another human being? Tula tried to imagine how it would feel, as the Maiden reminded her, These are our enemies. You must fight.
That was as true, and as real, as the revulsion Tula felt for the redheaded woman. Still… to sin against God by hurting another human being. It was a difficult decision to make.
But then Tula reminded herself that the Maiden had carried the equivalent of a gun-a sword she had found behind the altar of a church and carried into battle. Jehanne had told her inquisitors that her sword had never shed blood, yet she had also warned that she would lie to them, if necessary. And there were witnesses who swore the Maiden had used her sword to kill Englishmen, and also to punish prostitutes.
Tula pictured herself stabbing Frankie… then imagined the woman lying on the ground, dying, as the evil inside her bled out onto the sand.
If it meant saving herself and the man who had fought for her, the girl told herself that she would have to do it. Even so, she still wasn’t convinced she actually could.
Tula didn’t find an ax, or a gun, but the paring knife she had used earlier was in the sink, the blade bent but sharp. The girl wrapped a dishrag around the blade and hid the thing in her back pocket.
Squires’s wrists and ankles had been taped. She would need a knife to free the man-if she could invent an excuse to be alone with him. But why would Frankie or Victorino allow such a thing?
Thinking about it was discouraging, until the Maiden’s voice spoke again, telling the girl, God is with you. He will show you the way.
Cupping a candle in her hands, Tula trotted down the hall to the bedroom. There, a steel locker had been broken open-Victorino’s men had done it, she guessed-but there were only boxes of shotgun shells, no weapons.
Next, reluctantly, she checked the strange room with the bed and mirrors where there had been a video camera and a stack of obscene photos.
Victorino’s men had been there, too. The camera was gone. The photos were scattered across the floor, dozens of them. Tula tried not to look at them as she searched under the bed, then a tiny closet, but she didn’t want to step on the pictures, either-it was like walking on someone’s grave.
As she moved through the room, Tula winced at each new obscenity. The eyes of unknown women peered up at her, communicating a secret agony that was as apparent to Tula as the grotesque poses the women affected for the lens. They were young girls, some not much older than herself, each brown face forever trapped in a frozen silence from which Tula perceived screams of pain, of fear, of desperation.
Then, suddenly, the girl’s legs went out from under her, and she found herself sitting on the floor, weeping, holding the candle in one hand, a photo in the other.
From the photograph, despite the woman’s nakedness and despite her leering mask, a familiar face stared back at Tula. In disbelief, the girl turned away from the picture, then looked at it again, hoping to discover that she was wrong.
No… her eyes hadn’t tricked her. What Tula saw was a loving likeness of herself, the girl’s own first memories of home and kindness and safety.
It was her mother.
Still pinned to Tula’s shirt was the miniature doll that she had found earlier. The girl touched her fingers to the doll as she studied the photograph, her mind trying to ignore her mother’s shocking nakedness by focusing on the face she loved so much. Familiar odors came into the girl’s mind, then memories of her mother’s touch. Tula had been crying softly, but now she began to sob.
How had this happened?
Tula remembered the woman at the church in Immokalee saying her mother had gone to work for a man who made movies. But her mother never would have consented to something like this. Trade her dignity
… her very soul… for money? No, impossible. Even more impossible because, also in the photo, a man’s reflection was visible in a mirror-not his face but his naked anatomy.
Not since Tula’s father died had the girl witnessed anything more painful. In a way, this was even more traumatic because her mother had encouraged by example Tula’s devotion to God and the Church. Never had there been such a good and loving women-even the villagers said it was true. To Tula, she represented all that was godly and clean, a woman who had vowed to be forever faithful to her husband even though he had been dead for a year when Tula heard her make the promise.
It was beyond the girl’s ability to comprehend. Here, though, was the truth-an obscene infidelity that seemed to debase the children of all loving mothers and mocked Tula’s deepest convictions.
The Maiden came into Tula’s head, then, reminding her, Only God’s eyes know the truth. The truth is lasting but often hidden from us. Even though we see, we remain blind.
Jehanne had written those words centuries ago, but it was if they were intended to comfort Tula at this very moment. The words were true. This photograph represented only a moment in time. It proved nothing other than it had happened.
But why had it happened?
Her mother had been forced to participate in this profanity, Tula decided. In fear for her life, probably. It was the only explanation that made sense. Perhaps the naked man in the photo was holding a gun. Or the man behind the camera. Only minutes ago, Tula realized, she herself had made the decision to submit to sin if it meant saving herself or the life of Harris Squires.
Gradually, the girl felt her faith returning. Her mother had been the victim of threats and violence. The girl felt certain of it now. Her mother would confirm the truth of what had happened when Tula found her. Or… should she even mention the photo when they were finally face-to-face?
No, Tula decided. She would never speak of it. Not to her mother, not to her family, not to anyone. It would only add to the humiliation her mother had suffered. Her mother had given Tula life-like God. And like with God, Tula knew, she would never doubt her mother’s goodness again.
This photo… it felt so light and meaningless between the girl’s fingers now. Yet it was a final justification for the mission on which God had sent her-to rescue her family, to lead her people home from this terrible sinful land.
Then, as she held the photo, another realization came into the girl’s mind, but not as shocking. Her mother had been here, at the hunting camp. The photo had been taken in this very room. Tula confirmed it by comparing the background with the bedroom’s walls and the mirror hanging above the bed.
Harris Squires, she realized, hadn’t lied about knowing her mother. It had only sounded like a lie because the man honestly didn’t remember meeting her. Tula felt certain of it, just as she felt sure the giant would have remembered her mother if she had worked for him.
No… Harris hadn’t forced his mother to do this. He might have played a small role, he might even have been aware that it was happening-but only because he was under the spell of someone more powerful. Someone evil.