She is the biggest of the girls, freshly turned, the musky sweetness of larch still lingering. Pleasant smile, rosy cheeks. Her eyes are painted open, though there isn’t much to see inside the truck. But in the dim her imagination flies. There are others with her here in the truck. Maybe four. Or seven. A dozen seems impossible. At times she thinks she’s alone, until the truck jostles and there’s a whimper, and another voice, shhh.
Today’s ride is smooth. She pictures a highway–straight run, constant speed. Maybe the city this time, instead of another village or some remote outpost. She was promised a job in the city. A small shop, money to send back to her family. She wonders if the other girls were promised the city, too. In what small shops they were promised work, in what imagined flats they unrolled their dreams. And the girl drifts back into half-sleep, conjuring someplace fine, someplace where dreaming holds up the sky.
She dreams of a toymaker’s shop. There’s a fire in the hearth, but it’s not close enough to singe, nor angry enough to burn. Fruited pipe tobacco, treacle cakes, and ginger biscuits tickle the air. My little doll! The gold headband they give her is out of place with her simple dress, the bouquet of roses so abundant that she almost forgets her own hands, hidden behind the buds and blooms and thorny wood as if they’re vestigial appendages, little ghosts.
The truck hits a rut, and her mind slips. Shoved in the back of a cold closet, a dry, dusty attic where she’s susceptible to cracks, a damp cellar where mold and rot creep in. The kind of things you can’t repair.
Judging by the roughness of the roads, they’re back in the countryside. Light slits through a tear in the rooftop. Somewhere, there are cows grazing in green pastures. A rabbit slips and runs before standing stock-still, sensing a predator. The truck rumbles along. That flat, firm pressure across her belly reasserts, and something splits apart. She wraps the thin shawl closer, but cannot tell whether her shaking is from nerves or cold or the truck’s continued motion.
###
A shout from the truck cab–the word for There! There!—and the truck swerves and abruptly stops. Diesel fumes catch in her throat. Often, on these breaks, the men will gather outside, a thin flap of canvas separating them from the girls, and they’ll trade with other men: paper for cigarettes, paper for boggy whiskey. They’ll sit on their haunches smoking fat, round embers into the night.
###
A smile is currency.
###
Inside the truck, the girls hold their breath, quiet as driftwood.
###
That night, the biggest of the girls dreams of roses. She is shedding them, like a wintery coat, one, two, a whole bouquet, molting a crimson trail as she moves forward. Underneath, her hands cradled against the shock of icy air. Eight, nine, ten, her fingers snap to life. They search for the patient knife tucked into her skirt waistband, found while on her knees. The knife, fallen from the trouser pockets of a man who tasted of brine and mud.
She wakes to a little one’s muffled crying. Moving towards the sound, she finds the girl — this child!–and wraps her shawl as if to swaddle. This child, surely too young to work, to be a shopgirl? She holds the girl’s round face, smooths her hair, hair that stinks of stale cigarette smoke and whiskey and earth.
Later, the truck will stop, and the doors will open. Later, the doors will open, and she’ll glimpse first light. When the door opens, she’ll grip the knife. Matryoshka is full of surprises. She will gather the girls as one. She will carry all of the girls with her. She contains multitudes. When the light comes, she’ll find her hands.