“The hell it won’t. Now you better—”
The man held up his hands. “I mean no offense, ma’am. I only mean you ask the wrong questions. And you ask the wrong people.”
Kate scrutinized the man. “Ok. Who would you ask? And what would you ask them?”
The man pushed off from the van and walked deeper into the village, past the nicer homes. On the outskirts, he knocked on the first door, and when a short woman answered, he spoke quickly, in a harsh tone, occasionally pointing at Kate. The scene made her cringe. She self-consciously pulled the lapels of her white coat together. She had agonized over her wardrobe as well, ultimately deciding that projecting a credible, clinical appearance was the order of the day. She could only imagine how she looked to the villagers, who were mostly dressed in clothes they had made themselves from scraps taken home from the sweatshops or the remains of partially-disintegrated hand-me-downs.
She realized the woman was gone, and Kate stepped forward to question the man, but he held up a hand as the woman returned to the door, pushing three children out to stand before them. They stared at their feet and stood still as statues. The translator walked from child-to-child, looking them up and down. Kate shifted her weight a bit, contemplating what to do. The children were healthy; none showed even the slightest signs of autism. At the last child, the man bent down and shouted again. The mother quickly said something, but he yelled at her, and she fell silent. The child nervously said three words. The translator said something, and the child repeated the words. Kate wondered if they were names? Possibly places?
The translator stood and began pointing and yelling at the woman again. She shook her head furiously, repeating a phrase over-and-over. After several minutes of the translator’s badgering, she looked down and began speaking in low tones. She pointed to another shack. The translator’s voice was soft for the first time, and the woman seemed relieved by his words. She herded the children back inside, almost cutting the last one in half as she quickly closed the door.
The scene at the second shack unfolded much like the first: the translator shouted and pointed, Kate stood awkwardly, and the nervous villager presented her four children then waited with worry in her eyes. This time, when the translator asked the child, he said five words, names Kate believed. The mother protested, but the translator ignored her, pressing the child. When he answered, the large man sprang up, pushed the children and their mother aside, and burst through the door. Kate was caught off guard, but when the mother and children followed into the home, she did as well.
The shack was a crowded, three room hovel. She almost tripped walking through it. At the rear of the home, she found the translator and woman arguing more vehemently than before. At their feet, a small child, a gaunt child, was tied to a wooden beam that held the roof up. He was gagged, but she could hear low rhythmic noises coming from his mouth as he rocked back-and-forth, hitting his head on the beam.
Kate grabbed the translator’s arm, “What is this? Tell me what’s going on here.”
The man looked from Kate back to the mother, seemingly caught between his master and a caged animal whose volume and hysterics seem to grow by the moment. Kate squeezed the man’s arm and jerked him toward her, and he began explaining. “She says it is not her fault. He is a disobedient child. He will not eat her food. He will not do as she says. He does not play with the children. She says he does not even answer his own name.”
They were all classic signs of autism, a severe case. Kate looked down at the child.
The man added “She insists it is not her fault. She says she has kept him longer than the others, but she can not—”
“What others?”
The translator conversed with the woman in a normal tone, then turned to Kate. “Beyond the village. There’s a place where they take the children who won’t respect their parents, the ones that disobey constantly, that won’t be a part of their family.”
“Take me there.”
The translator coaxed more information out of the woman, then pointed toward the door for them to leave. The woman called after them. The man turned to Kate. “She wants to know if we will take him.”
“Tell her yes, and to untie him and that we will return.”