That night the four girls cannot sleep. They were talking about leaving tomorrow morning to Nicosia and about Lanarca, the place where they must work.
"Lanarca? That was the city where that six Filipinas were murdered?" Luisa was worried.
"Forgot about the six Filipinas!" Carla told Luisa. "You only making yourself afraid of nothing!"
"Carla, being murdered is not nothing. When we are there in Lanarca we must be very careful." Luisa could not shake out the thoughts about the fallen six Filipinas rumored around the Filipino community.
"Forget about it! It will do no good to you! What I am worried, is that tomorrow we go, and we could not even say goodbye to Grace!" Carla said.
"It is so sudden, but maybe we could say goodbye to the groups of Nena." Thelma said.
"I am afraid of the Greek that will bring us to Lanarca. He looked like a criminal!" Luisa said.
"You have so many crazy things in your head!" Thelma was the one who answered Luisa.
"It is true and besides, I cannot help myself if it is the way I see it." Luisa reasoned out.
"Will all of you please try to rest? We will travel tomorrow early in the morning!" Carla said to the other girls. "We must wake up early, so that we can say goodbye to Nena and her group.
Early in the morning, the four girls were all in the kitchen by the table drinking coffee and having bread for early breakfast, when Nena and her group arrived from their work.
"You are all ready to travel to Lanarca?" Nena asked them.
"Yes, so sudden, we even have no chance to say goodbye to Grace." Carla answered Nena.
"Grace is lucky. Me and my group were talking about it. Dimitri is not rich but also is not poor, besides that he is a good person." Nena said.
"Yes, and we are happy for Grace. Although our first impression of Dimitri was not good, it turned out to be the opposite. "Thelma answered Nena.
"Next week, we are going too, our destination is Lebanon!" Nena told the girls that she and her group are going to Lebanon.
"Lebanon? How long already you stayed here in Cyprus?" Carla asked.
"One year and that is it. It is time that we must left Cyprus!" Nena said.
"You meant that after a year, we also must leave Cyprus and then go to Lebanon?" Luisa asked.
"It depends! I like it very much to go to Europe but we all in our group cannot afford it." Nena answered Luisa.
"What do you mean, by saying that you cannot afford?" Carla could not understand what Nena was talking.
"Going to Europe, you have to pay five thousand pounds. Flight ticket, visa and a kind of placement fee." Nena explained to the girls what she meant of saying they cannot afford. "While going to Lebanon, we only have to pay one thousand pounds, visa and boat fare."
"What placement fee? We already paid placement fee before leaving the Philippines." Thelma asked Nena.
Nena shrugged her shoulder. "The syndicate said it and we can do nothing!"
"Lebanon, just via a boat? Where is Lebanon? It is not Europe?" Luisa after a while asked.
"What I know is that Lebanon is near Israel and Syria. So it is the Middle East!" Lorna said.
"Middle East? Nena, why Lebanon? Is there no war?" Thelma asked Nena.
"They will not bring us in Lebanon if there is a war!" Jennifer one of the girls in Nena's group answered Thelma. "What I learned is that Lebanon, is Paris of the East! So I think it will be very okay there."
"Europe was the original itinerary of our group too, but as I said, we cannot afford so Lebanon it is!" Nena said.
"You all worked, and know already about the expenses in going to Europe, why you did not saved money?" Lorna asked the group of Nena.
"We learned it late. Our earnings went all to the Philippines after we take what allowance for foods and personal expenses." Minda one of the girls answered. "My parents desperately needed the money, to pay debts and for their foods and for the schools of my brothers and sisters. We, all of us in our group, have that problems!"
The four girls, Carla, Thelma, Luisa, and Lorna looked at each other. In their face you can read their thoughts. They were all the same. Their group and the group of Nena. Their problems were similar, and they saw the coming of a problem which concerned money and uncertainty.
"Good luck to you all!" Nena wished good luck to the four girls, and so her group too. In returned the four girls also wished good luck to them all.
Before Nena's group leave to enter their room, Thelma asked.
"Nena, wait. I want to ask you something!"
"Yes, what is it?" Nena replied.
"It is about the first time when we arrived. Your group seems afraid and hiding something, may we know why?" Thelma asked about the incident when the first arrived in the apartment.
"Well, today all of you are leaving already to Lanarca, I guess, we will tell it." Nena answered Thelma.
"In your room where you are staying, sometimes we seen a ghost!" Minda the other Filipina answered Thelma.
The four girls looked at each other.
"Ghost?" they simultaneously exclaimed in question.
"Yes, we always saw the ghost of a Filipina that committed suicide in that room!" Jennifer said.
WHILE in the car as they travelled to Lanarca, the four girls were quiet. How they digested in their mind about the tragic stories they heard, about Luz that they believed was not or did not returned to the Philippines, the rumored murder of the six Filipinas, the apparition of a ghost in the room they were staying for six months; the degrading of themselves in change of Cypriot Pounds, only them and God knew. They were the picture of innocence when they leave the Philippines, full of excitement for the adventure and full of hopes and dreams, but after just six months, the innocence had disappeared, although the dreams and hopes clung still as they have in themselves the characteristic known to Filipinos, resiliency.
LANARCA, March 1986
The life of the four girls in Lanarca was the same as in Nicosia. They worked at night in a club, danced two or three cultural dances then the rest as an entertainer, entertaining male customers, drinking with them alcoholic drink and gave or provided them pleasure in change of Cypriot Pounds. The four girls made an appointment with themselves. They must have the money so that their next destination will be Europe. As they said it to each other, by hook or by crook, our next destination must be Europe.
In Lanarca, they met and knew Filipinas, all cultural dancers but each of these girls knew it was just a comfort name for what really, they were, Prosty , a shortcut for the word prostitutes. Painful for these four girls and the others, the lived in two different worlds, projecting to the other side where they came from that they were working hard a descent work while, they were very much buried in mud.
"What if we eat one time in a Filipino restaurant?" Luisa asked the three girls, Thelma, Lorna, and Carla.
"It will cost us money! Remember we have to save money or Europe will be gone!" Carla answered Luisa.
"Just for once!" Luisa insisted. "The other girls said there's a Filipino restaurant here named Cebuana. We can try it!"
"Well, it could not cost us much if we do it for one time only!" Lorna seemed to agree with Luisa.
"I will ask Henry to invite us, and if he does agree then we don't spend money, he pays." Luisa said.
"Henry? You are always with Henry! Is Henry your boyfriend?" Carla asked Luisa.
"Well, he wanted me to be his girlfriend, so then he is my boyfriend!" Luisa replied to Carla.
"She also has a Nicolas!" Lorna added.
"The old man?" Thelma asked.
"My sugar Daddy!" Luisa laughingly said. And Carla did not like it. They were already almost four months in Lanarca, and if things will go smoothly, two more months and they will already travel to Europe, to Switzerland as what the syndicate told them.
"If I am not wrong, Luisa have five or more boyfriends!" Lorna said.
"They were not my boyfriends, they were just regulars, Henry is my boyfriend and also Nicolas!" Luisa answered Lorna.
"It's not right! You are playing with fire! You cannot have a relationship with two men at the same time! It foretells danger. What if something wrong will happen? Remember, we were living together, you forgot already about the six Filipinas? You are bringing danger to all of us!" Carla scolded Luisa. Luisa that totally change when they arrived in Lanarca. Luisa became very playful with men. For Luisa seemed everything was just a game.****to be continued****Remedios Dorio