Chapter 8: Revelations

After the first day in the hospital with Rebeca, Clara called her mother every day to give her the latest news. She didn’t tell where she had found Rebeca or in what condition in order not to cause further despair. The only thing she told her mother was that Rebeca had been hurt and in a place unable to make contact, but that she would explain everything once back home. Clara knew that Rebeca would want her to say something like that. They knew each other better than anyone else and trusted each other to do the right thing to protect one another.

The truth was that Clara really knew nothing during the first two days in the hospital. Rebeca was very weak and was given a lot of sedatives so that she could rest and become stable, making it impossible for her to talk. On the third day, Rebeca appeared to be much better. Nevertheless, Clara did not pressure her to recount her ordeal, waiting for her sister to start the conversation.

As Rebeca became more lucid and aware of her surroundings, her first concern was about the other women and was happy that everyone was able to get out safely from the dungeon and also receiving medical treatment, as well as visits from family members. Even Roberto and Maria from Alô Brasil came to visit her when they saw the initial reports in the newspapers.

The hospital placed everyone in the same ward. Being together was the best medicine to overcome the psychological wounds. Family members from different places, as far away as Africa, came to placate the suffering of their daughters or sisters. Relatives were advised to allow each patient to tell her story how and when they were ready, and not make any prejudgments.

Rebeca cried when she clearly recognized Clara for the first time and cried even more when the women mentioned that it was her sister that freed everyone. They cried together until they had no more tears left to shed.

Little by little, Rebeca recounted her odyssey, many times jumping erratically from one episode to another without sequence, many times repeating an episode only to add an unforgotten but important detail. However, in the end, Clara was able to fit the pieces together and had a very good idea what had happened.

Rebeca’s research at the university was going well. Her mentor, a professor of literature, helped to put her on the right path so that she could conclude her academic studies with success before returning to Brazil.

On the day after Carnaval, Rebeca woke up with a tremendous headache and pain all over her body. She thought it was the beginning of the flu. It was one of the coldest winters on record and everyone was coming down with at least a cold. Maria at the Alô Brasil restaurant gave her an analgesic and the next day Rebeca felt like new.

However, a few days later, she experienced the same symptoms, only this time she remembered several bizarre sights from the previous night of men standing in the shadows around her. Their silhouettes were large, yet vague and uneven, and they seemed to be wearing clothes that one would not find in some everyday department store. Her hands, arms, chest and waist were tied to a structure similar to a cross. Roaming hands were holding her knees apart and she could hear different voices enthusiastically shouting out numbers in increments of a thousand.

On another occasion, she sensed being tied like an animal to be slaughtered, hanging from chains, her body being hoisted by overhead pulleys at an angle with her rear up in the air, exposing her most intimate parts. The shadowy forms were present again while someone rammed something thick and large into her, stretching and tearing her entrance, until she lost consciousness.

She woke up one morning and had a hard time trying to recall the grisly sounds of people chained, being whipped, crying. She couldn’t remember if or what she saw. However, the sounds themselves were enough to torment her. It seemed impossible that no one else heard the suffering cries.

By the end of February, she was weak, exhausted, and just wanted to stay in her room. She thought she was going to die. But then, the Russian woman brought breakfast to her room making her swear to secrecy. The woman also brought tea, biscuits and cookies, along with an analgesic for several nights.

One day, Rebeca woke up and didn’t know how long she had slept, or the time of day. She was in a dark, damp and chilly place, similar to previous occasions. The smell was nauseating; the darkness frightened her and kept her awake. She was completely naked, lying on a cot, covered with a course blanket that smelled like cat litter. Furthermore, one of her hands was chained to the wall.

She cried for help and heard feminine voices nearby, identifying themselves by their names. Some spoke languages that she didn’t understand, but within a short time discovered that everyone shared similar stories. Everyone had been a boarder of the pension where the prison henchman ran the dungeon at night and performed maintenance at the pension during the day.

Among the prisoners were university students and ambitious young women from small villages, pursuing promising futures. Most of them had given up their dreams and accepted their fate as sex slaves. No one knew where they were or how they got there. Some thought they had been drugged, but weren’t sure. They weren’t sure about anything if they were alive or for how long.

Their horrifying situation sounded similar to news reports coming from regions controlled by fanatic Islamists where young adolescent girls were being kidnapped, sold and sexually abused in the name of their god, Allah.

There were only eight cells in the dark dungeon. Rebeca was the newest addition. She took the place of another woman who had been there for more than two years and no one wanted her anymore. There were others whose fate was similar to hers who simply disappeared from one day to the next, being discarded like worn out tires. One of the women even commented that they were being substituted by “a young mare to keep the stables filled.”

There were two chambers, one at each end of the row of cells, where one or more men took a woman. Chains hung from pulleys attached to the ceiling. They could be arranged in such ways that a woman could be hung in several different positions. Along the walls, a variety of whips, canes, rackets, cuffs, ropes, tapes, branding irons, gags, blindfolds, and much more were on display ready to be used. There were also different kinds of equipment, including a bed, where the women were tied and subjected to the most vulgar and painful forms of sexual torture. These were rooms where the men could satisfy their perverse fantasies, at times applying punishments for stupid reasons, yet at the end the women were raped and sodomized anyway.