LITMIR.BIZ

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then touched her hair.

      “Ah, yes. He didn’t have a beard. Most of your men have beards.”

      Tin Tin filled her own bowl and took a seat on a log next to Sharakova. Tin Tin looked at Joaquin, caught his eye, and smiled. He grinned and took a bite of food.

      “What is this meat?” Autumn asked Liada.

      Liada said something and made a hand sign.

      Autumn shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

      “Tin Tin,” Liada said, then asked her a question.

      Tin Tin thought for a moment, then mooed like a cow. Everyone laughed.

      “Ah, we’re eating moo meat,” Autumn said. “It must be beef, or maybe ox. It’s very good.”

      “Too bad,” Kawalski said. “I thought maybe it was…” He made the sound of a horse whinny, then pawed the ground with his foot.

      Tin Tin and Liada laughed with the others.

      “I was thinking ‘woof woof,’” Zorba Spiros said.

      “Or maybe ‘meoooooow,’” Kady said.

      Kawalski almost choked on a bite of food, which drew even more laughter. Cateri, who rarely even smiled, laughed at Kawalski.

      Karina touched Liada’s cheek. “Why did they brand you?”

      Liada shook her head. “Not know what you say.”

      “Brand, why?” Karina touched her own cheek and lifted her shoulders.

      Tin Tin, sitting nearby, heard their conversation. She spoke to Liada, who asked Zorba Spiros in Greek about the question. He explained that Karina wanted to know how she got the mark on her face.

      “I did brand,” Liada said, touching the scar.

      “You?” Karina pointed to Liada. “You did this to yourself?”

      Liada nodded.

      Tin Tin came to sit beside Liada. “This is…um…” She touched her cheek where she had a brand identical to Liada’s, but on the opposite side of her face. “Can not say this word.” She made a motion of working with a hoe, then she stood and made a motion like hitting someone with a whip.

      “Slave?” Kawalski asked. “Is she trying to say ‘slave?’”

      “They can’t be slaves,” Karina said. “They have the run of the camp and do pretty much what they want.”

      Cateri, sitting in the dirt at the end of one of the logs, spoke to Tin Tin, who lifted her shoulders.

      “They’re trying to figure out how to tell us something,” Karina said.

      Joaquin stood and made the motion of hoeing the dirt, then of carrying a heavy load. He stopped to wipe his brow, then pretended to show fear of someone nearby. He grabbed his imaginary hoe and got back to work.

      “Slave,” Karina said, pointing to Joaquin.

      “Yes, slave,” Tin Tin said.

      “You and Liada are slaves?” Karina asked.

      Tin Tin shook her head. “I was slave to Sulobo…”

      “Kusbeyaw,” Liada said. “Sulobo, kusbeyaw.”

      “Tin Tin was a slave, and she was owned by Sulobo?” Joaquin asked.

      Tin Tin and Liada seemed to agree.

      “Yes,” Karina said. “And we all know what a kusbeyaw is.”

      “Yzebel,” Liada made a motion of taking coins from her purse and handing them to someone.

      “Yzebel bought Tin Tin.” Karina said. “Go on.”

      “Sulobo.”

      “Ah, Yzebel bought Tin Tin from Sulobo.”

      “Yes,” Liada said.

      “How old was Tin Tin?” Karina asked. “Was she a baby?” She pretended to rock a baby in her arms, then pointed at Tin Tin.

      “No,” Liada said and held out her hand at chest height.

      “Tin Tin was a young girl, and who is Yzebel?”

      Liada rocked a baby in her arms.

      “Yzebel is a baby?”

      “No. Liada is…um…”

      “Liada was a baby?”

      Liada shook her head.

      “I think Yzebel is Liada’s mother,” Joaquin said.

      “Oh, I see,” Karina said. “Yzebel rocked Liada as a baby. Yzebel is your mother.”

      Liada held up two fingers.

      “You have two mothers?”

      Liada held up one finger, then two. Pointing at the second finger, she said, “Yzebel.”

      “Yzebel is your second mother. And were you a baby when Yzebel bought Tin Tin from Sulobo?”

      “No.” Liada held out her hand at chest height.

      “You were a young girl when Yzebel bought Tin Tin?”

      “Yes. And we…” Liada hugged Tin Tin close, tilting her head to her.

      “You were like sisters?”

      Karina held up two fingers, wrapping one around the other. They both nodded.

      “Sulobo branded Tin Tin when he owned her?” Karina asked.

      “Yes,” Liada said. “And I think for me to be like my sister, Tin Tin Ban Sunia, so I do this.” Her hands told the story quite clearly.

      Karina sniffed and wiped her cheek. “I-I-can’t…”

      “Imagine?” Joaquin said.

      “I can’t imagine…”

      “A bond so strong, one would have herself branded because her sister was branded as a slave?” Joaquin said.

      Karina agreed.

      Silence reigned for a few minutes.

      “Something so powerful,” Kawalski said, “makes the simple routines of our lives seem trivial.”

      “Cateri,” Liada said, “is Sulobo slave.”

      “What?” Alexander asked.

      “Yes,” Tin Tin said.

      “Cateri,” Alexander said, “you are Sulobo’s slave?”

      Cateri said something to Liada, who spoke to her in their language. Cateri then loosened the drawstring at the collar of her tunic, and Liada pulled the back of the tunic down far enough for them to see the slave brand on her right shoulder blade.

      “Damn,” Kawalski said, “how could someone do that?”

      Karina touched the scar. “So cruel, but her brand is different.”

      “Yes,” Joaquin said. “Liada and Tin Tin have an arrow across the shaft of the pitchfork. Cateri’s brand has the pitchfork with the snake winding around the shaft, but not the arrow.”

      “Why is that?” Karina asked.

      “It’s a running brand,” Kawalski said. “In the old west, when a cow was sold, or stolen, they had to change the original brand to something different. They used a running brand to alter the old brand. That arrow on Tin Tin and Liada’s brand is a running brand, added to show they didn’t belong to the original owner.”

      “These women are treated like cattle,” Karina said. “Bought and sold as if they were animals.”

      “Sulobo,” Alexander said, “that son-of-a-bitch.”

      Cateri adjusted her collar and tightened the drawstring. She then turned to leave them.

      “Wait.” Alexander took her arm to stop her.

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