(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
e.e. cummings
I still remember the first day I donned my fitted suit.
After spending half a day being measured tediously by an old woman who smelled of stale cigarette smoke, it had taken me a week for the suit to be delivered to me, pressed and ironed and tailored to my exact measurements.
Truthfully, I spent more time looking at myself in the mirror than necessary, brushing every speck of dust and dirt off the inky black of my jacket, smoothing my hair back so not a single strand was falling loose from my ponytail, running the pads of my fingertips over my cleanly-shaven jaw to ensure I did not miss a single patch.
Being a Turk was all about appearances, though I would later learn that it was much more than that. However, in the beginning, I believed a clean appearance gave the impression of meticulousness. I wanted to be seen as someone who was methodical and cold, unwavering in the face of violence, willing to go to extreme lengths to prove my loyalty to the company, and to the man who had hand-picked me to join the elite little subdivision Shinra Incorporated relied on so much.
I wanted to be respected.
I quickly learned that no one else seemed to care as much about their appearance. All of my comrades wore the dark suits, of course, but buttons were always left undone, ties were left loosened around their necks, jewelry was not scorned, sleeves were rolled up, and some of my new coworkers did not seem to own an iron.
No one seemed to put as much effort as I did into making certain their hair would not get in the way, and they didn't seem to understand that we, as Turks, had a certain reputation to maintain.
Regarding reputations, something that struck me as odd was the way the men all liked to boast of their visits to a brothel called the Honeybee Inn, a place hidden below the plate that harbored prostitutes for the tired and weary workers who wanted to keep their own guilty pleasures a secret from colleagues above the plate.
I had heard of the place before from the mouth of my own superior, who did not frequent the place himself, but frequently bestowed exasperation upon those Turks who visited the brothel more than he deemed required.
When I inquired as to why there were no consequences to such a thing, Veld had given me an answer that I could not quite comprehend.
"Don't listen to what they say," Veld had told me gruffly. "Half of them just go to be held for a couple of hours, nothing more."
"But why?" I couldn't understand the logic behind paying money just to have a prostitute rest in bed with them.
"Give it a few years and you might understand."
There had been rumors that some of the women at the Honeybee Inn were underage, runaway teenagers from small towns with no future, seeking out the glory that could be found within Midgar. Because of these rumors, I tended to stay away from such a place, not wanting to unknowingly find myself in a situation that could not be excused.
Let another one of my colleagues take the fall for that, but I would not allow Veld to find me in such a compromising situation.
If I ever felt the queer urge to be held by someone, I certainly wasn't going to make the mistake of paying a woman lacking any sympathy for me to hold me. It sounded so detached and so far removed from reality, common ground that I would never share with my fellow Turks, just another wall between myself and these people who were supposed to, eventually, become something akin to my family.
So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when Veld assigned me to the case.
But let me elaborate as to why it didn't occur to me right away.
Even a few months into my new life with the Turks, having finally finished my excruciating training, I was still considered a rookie. The other Turks had, at least, two years of experience on me, and while they were consistently flitting in and out of Shinra Headquarters, I was left to watch them, in awe of their commitment and dedication, envious of the trust that Veld placed in them, and I was incredibly eager to follow in their footsteps.
Veld did take notice of my restlessness, I think. He was perceptive and keen, two traits that contributed to him being such a fine leader, and he was well aware of my desire to please and impress. I was never happy sitting around at Headquarters, waiting for a mission, resigned to doing clerical work, longing for a chance to prove I was just as capable as anyone else.
The problem was, I hadn't been having much success in the field mission I was being assigned.
Veld had sent me a few times to check-in on the vice president, Rufus Shinra himself, who was of an age with me, and whom I found to be waspish, spoiled, calculating, and reserved. I regretted that my presence rubbed him so wrongly. The vice president's feelings towards me certainly did not reflect well on me, and while I tried to remain positive and friendly towards the boy, it would take him many years to warm up to me.
I hadn't even been assigned a partner as of yet, and was typically left to trail after two Turks in an already established partnership, or I was forced to work alone on tedious matters that should have been left to low-level security guards. None of my other colleagues were really jumping at the chance to visit the vice president with me on off days, so I had little help in that realm, as well.
But I digress. I have said enough to, hopefully, make it apparent as to why I found it all so surprising when Veld placed a thick folder in front of me one day, telling me he would like to have me look into a missing persons report.
It sounded very tedious, in all honesty, and far below my pay grade. Missing persons reports were normally handled by Director Heidegger's military police, who were no more than bureaucrats with firearms.
They were shoot first and ask questions later.
While the Turks were get answers in any way possible and then shoot.
They were we'll get around to it.
The Turks were we'll do it now and we'll do it right.
The report I was given told me of two missing people.
One was of a sixteen-year-old girl, the daughter of a receptionist here at Headquarters. The mother claimed the girl went out with some friends two nights earlier and never returned home, nor could she be reached via phone.
The second was the fifteen-year-old niece of a safety engineer who worked on mako reactor three. According to her father, the girl had gone out to attend a festival in the city center with her friends and never made it home.
It occurred to me then that I had no idea how to begin a proper investigation. I had little to no leads, only the knowledge that they both had connections to Shinra in some way. However, I wasn't allowed to believe in coincidences. Thankfully, Veld had other plans for me.
"I take it you've visited the new shanty town below the plate? I believe they've started calling it Wall Market."
"No, sir," I answered truthfully.
That had taken Veld by surprise. To the best of my own knowledge, Turks were often dispatched to the seedy underbelly of Midgar whenever rumors of some budding crime syndicate made their way to HQ, or if their job required them to meet with some informant, but I never accompanied my colleagues on any of these jobs.
I had heard the stories, of course. This place they were calling 'Wall Market' was a place currently under construction and financed by someone I was unaware of, given the amount of business that took place down there. I had heard of the lechers, drunkards, addicts, criminals, and prostitutes. The other Turks claimed that there was something there to cater to even the strangest of tastes and fetishes, entertainment that could never be found above the plate.
Despite my curiosity in regards to such a dangerous place, part of me was slightly apprehensive, as well.
"There's a girl working in that brothel by the name of Noa. She claims to have information regarding the missing girls. I want you to go down there and see what she has to say."
"How should I approach her?"
"As a client," Veld had elaborated, but it didn't make me feel any better. Perhaps he understood my reservations, because he added, "I'm not telling you to fuck her, Tseng. I don't really care if you do, frankly. Just get the information one way or another."
"What should I do when I get the information?"
I remember how high Veld had raised his eyebrows, like I had asked the stupidest question in the world. "I'm going to be honest with you, Tseng," he said, "it's been forty-eight hours since the last girl went missing. If you happen to find her now, I doubt she'll be alive. Just get the information, humor the girl, and follow whatever dead-end leads she gives you, and we can break the news that we did all we can and close the case."
"Yes, sir." I was less than satisfied with that answer, and a little queasy at the prospect, but I was a good company boy and could not refuse my superior.
Word of my involvement with the case had spread quickly among my colleagues, and though I was pleased with the attention that I was finally garnering for myself as a rookie Turk, I was uncomfortable with the implication of their praises.
While they all clapped me on the back and made crude jokes about the fun I was in for that night, I couldn't help but wonder if I wasn't about to walk into some gruesome initiation rite.
I was partially fearful that my fellow Turks were all in on some big joke that I wasn't privy to, and the idea of being humiliated in front of them all was still weighing very heavily on my mind by the time I found myself outside Wall Market that night, the red light district of Midgar.
I fretted beforehand about possibly being targeted by racially-motivated criminals, but found that I blended into the crowd of pleasure-seekers quite easily. Many of them were people like myself, probably refugees that were unwelcome above the plate or lacked for money, setting up shop in a place where nothing was spurned or rejected. I could see the appeal in a place like this, untouched by Shinra's influence.
Wall Market was hardly a town upon my first viewing of it. Buildings were dark and made of wood and sheet metal, barely held together and crudely built, not at all up to code. Many other buildings were still only half-constructed, and the hard-packed dirt 'roads' were merely walkways lined with lanterns and litter, where people walked with their heads down or peered into frosted and shattered windows to see what they might find within each new building.
Grainy music, as if playing from ancient jukeboxes, floated through the air to make the place seem more alive. I could smell something being roasted, but was unable to put a name to it, and I did not want to imagine what sort of meat might be found this far down beneath the luxuries of the plate that served as Wall Market's gray and gloomy sky.
At the very back of Wall Market, nearer to the center pillar of Midgar, was a building far larger than any other, and much more expensive and professional-looking. It almost reminded me of something from home, from Wutai, decorated very traditionally and painted bright red and gold. The roof was still under construction at that point, and I could see little else of it without moving closer.
I did not fail to notice the lack of children in this part of the slums, but young men and women hung from upper windows of makeshift buildings to observe the streets and people-watch. I made my way through the labyrinth, feeling more and more as if I was walking right into the lion's den, sure that my colleagues would pop out at me at any moment, laughing in my face.
I was surprised to see, however, how much regular business could be found here. Street vendors were everywhere, people from all over the world selling food from their homelands, calling out in queer languages that I had never heard before, some rough and guttural while others were more melodious and airy. Other shops boasted fine weapons or were willing to trade scrap materials for anything their customers had to offer of interest or value.
Gambling was available in many forms for people who came here to throw away money. Dog fights between strays left for dead were frequent and popular apparently, as I spotted two or three animal corpses rotting and covered in flies, clearly dead from gruesome wounds taken pre-death, and some brave (or stupid) men even fought each other for the chance at seeing a modest pouch of prize money. One such fight was happening while I continued down the walkways, where a small audience of cheering men and women were surrounding a caged area of sorts, where the fighting men were shirtless, bleeding, bruised, and looked dead on their feet, swaying slightly when not throwing punches at each other.
Illegal pharmacies were open to anyone with money and a passing mention of some ache or pain. To those willing to barter goods like food or materials, drugs and medicinal herbs were sold in the shady alleyways, but it was risky and difficult to discern what you were buying, I was sure. The weeping sores on gaunt faces and hollow eyes of some of the people I passed led me to believe that addiction ran rampant down here where things were so easily accessible.
Of everything, the smell of the place was the least surprising. Mingling with the burnt smell that was the price of burning so much mako to keep Midgar alive, I distinctly remember the scent of hot garbage and sweat and other bodily fluids, cheap perfume and rot. I suppose people went nose blind to this place after a while, because I was the only one seemingly choked to tears by the thick air.
I had to stop to consider the world I had just walked into. For these people, this was their way of life, their way of surviving. For all of its faults and horrors, Wall Market was certainly a show of the human resiliency and their capability to create home and community anywhere, even in the shadow of a city that would prefer to forget they all existed.
The brothel I was seeking was off the beaten path, away from the noise of Wall Market, seemingly in its own little world. The buildings that surrounded it seemed to lean into the brothel's own center of gravity. I hesitated upon spotting it, taking note of the young boys and girls lingering just outside the entrance, looking hardly older than fourteen and starved. They were dressed in moldy clothes, holding out tin cups that rattled with a few coins, and I felt so sorry that I added to their collection, but received not even a single word of thanks or acknowledgement.
Though this building seemed nicer than most others. It was one story, but long, big enough to accommodate perhaps seventy people at a time. There were no windows at the front of the building, but through the half-opened door I could hear soft chatter coming from inside. It was incredibly foreboding, and I failed to see how such a place might seem alluring to even the most desperate customers.
I have to confess, I felt more than a little intimidated. This was a place I wanted to avoid, and after seeing the children at the door, I didn't particularly want to be associated with whatever went on within. I even felt a little foolish, wearing the most casual clothing I owned, which still probably made me seem too professional to be there, but upon stepping through the door, I realized I wasn't horribly out of place at all.
The interior was one large room lit by green light coming from several mako-powered lanterns. Several chairs were scattered about with no permanent arrangement, overlooked by the warped wooden desk at the far left of the room. There were no photographs hanging on the walls, nor were there any televisions or other romantic decor.
There was a single radio playing a station being broadcasted above the plate, so the sound faded in and out constantly, trying to catch the signal.
Truthfully, the place was both what I expected and not at all what I expected. To hear it from my colleagues, they described this place as reputable enough, but I wasn't sure if there were any other brothels around for its reputation to compete against.
All of the people waiting in the first room were relatively normal-looking men, wearing neat suits and clean shoes, while others walked around in silk button-downs. I admit, I had expected mostly men from the slums, from Wall Market, older men who were tired of their old wives and sought after younger women. I expected predators who looked like predators.
At the time, I had desperately wished I had thought to ask Veld about how old this girl was that I was to be meeting with. It wouldn't do for me to be seen following a child into the back, even if it was only to talk. I couldn't bear to think of what the other Turks would say. I wanted to believe they were all respectable, and I hoped none of them came down here to actively prey on the children, as well.
Thankfully, I saw no Turks in sight, so I stepped up to the makeshift counter and drummed my fingers nervously upon it.
A woman no older than thirty was running the desk, a seductive smile on her face as she looked me over. She was severely overweight and her teeth were beginning to turn brown, but she did not lack for spirit or charm, and the jewelry she wore was very handsome compared to the state of the building.
"Welcome. I haven't seen you around before. Is this your first time?" she asked me. Before I could answer, she continued. "If you'd like to follow me, I can show you what we have currently available. Do you have any preferences? Hair color? Skin color? We even have boys, if that's more your thing."
"Actually," I began, swallowing the lump in my throat and ignoring the painful tattoo of my heart against my chest, "I was hoping to meet with someone in particular."
"Oh? It'll cost you double to request one by name, I'm afraid."
I agreed to the cost, whatever it was. Veld had supplied me with money earlier that afternoon. I had never hired a sex worker before, so I was unsure if I was being cheated or if I was actually given a fair deal.
The woman didn't seem surprised or at all suspicious when I offered her the name of "Noa." Instead, she told her that I would have to wait for Noa's current session to end if I wanted her that day, so I took a seat in the mostly empty lobby and was forced to wait nearly thirty minutes, watching the clients come and go, feeling sicker by the minute.
I noticed that some had come with pre-scheduled appointments with specific boys and girls, while others followed the receptionist into the back to choose from their selection. Some of the clients were recognized as regulars by the woman at the desk, many of them only a few years older than I was, walking to the back by themselves like they owned the place.
When the woman finally called me back up to the desk by snapping her fingers to get my attention like a dog, I was finally brought to the next area of the brothel.
My skin was crawling when we emerged into another large room. There was hardly any furniture or decorations in this square area, and the walls were bare. A ladder was propped against one side of the room, surrounded by a few construction tools, but no one was doing any work.
There were two doors to my left, two doors to my right, a door straight ahead of me, and the door behind me. In the center of the room, a few men and women were chatting almost amiably, speaking in low voices to hide their conversation, but smiling all the while, as if talking about the weather. They didn't even look at me while I was led to the first door on the left side.
I was terrified. I knew I wasn't there to have sex with this girl, but I didn't want anyone to see me slide through the door and think I was going to have sex with her.
I don't know what I expected upon seeing Noa for the first time.
My first thought was relief, as she certainly wasn't twelve-years-old. I had a difficult time guessing her age, but I would have put her at eighteen or nineteen.
She was a pale girl with a downturned face and long nose. I have to admit that she was pretty for a slum girl, but I did feel she would be wholly unremarkable above the plate. Her hair was either a very light brown color or blonde (it was difficult to tell with the green tint to everything from the lighting), a tangled, limp, and sweaty mess that barely reached her shoulders.
Noa was wearing a silly little costume, iridescent wings strapped over her shoulders and lingerie that was black-and-yellow striped like a bumblebee. The fabric looked very cheap, and I wouldn't have been surprised to find out it was homemade. She was sitting at the end of the unmade bed, leaning back on her hands against the stained silk sheets, one leg crossed over the other.
I remember wondering if I should offer her food in exchange for information, because she looked quite skinny and malnourished, but not skinny in a prepubescent way. I decided against the idea, however, knowing that I was almost just as lean and the question could easily be turned back around on myself.
As soon as the door locked behind me, I felt my throat go dry. However, I was able to keep my expression composed.
"Sorry for the mess," she said, the first words she ever spoke to me, sounding sincere about her apology despite the clever expression she wore on her face. "Have you ever been here before?"
"No it's . . . it's my first time," I admitted sheepishly. Her cheeks were flushed, and I remember just feeling sorry for her.
That was the first time she smiled at me, truly. "Your first time here and you asked just for me?"
"Are you Noa?"
"Yes." Her laugh had been a soft and quiet sort of thing. "Do I meet your expectations?" And then she had gotten to her feet and held her arms out as if awaiting my inspection.
But I had no expectations of her, so I couldn't truthfully say that she met them. I did find it to be very difficult for me to move towards her, though. She looked too expectant of my behaviors, and that put an enormous amount of pressure on my shoulders.
"How old are you?"
She laughed again. I wondered if it was a question many clients asked. "I'm nineteen. How old are you?"
I didn't want to give her my exact age. I didn't want her to think my age was indicative of my experience, so I simply asked her, "How old do you think I am?"
"Oh, I'm no good with ages, you know." Noa put her hands on her hips and thought for a moment. "Twenty-five."
Twenty-five was older than I was, so I decided not to correct her. "Aren't you going to ask me what my name is?" I wanted to appear friendly, but there was a cheeky look to her as if this was all just a game.
"Okay," she said, and I still wonder why it did not occur to me that perhaps she preferred not to know her clients' names at all, to keep it a simple business transaction and nothing more. "What's your name?"
"Tseng," I told her, "of the Turks."
"You've got a pretty name, Tseng of the Turks," she teased, and it did help to put me more at ease with her. I had never been well-versed with women, but her genuine attempt at humor reminded me that she was just another human being underneath her honey bee costume. "Since it's your first time, Tseng of the Turks, I think maybe I should let you know that you won't get a company discount. In fact, we normally charge you Turks a little extra. I'm sure you can spare it, right?"
"I'll take care to pay the difference when I leave," I promised. I began to wonder why I even bothered to dress casually for this. I could have come down here in the dark uniform of the Turks without anyone batting an eye. "Forgive me. It was not my intention to fool anyone."
Noa laughed again, and I was struck with the feeling of being mocked, certain that my fellow Turks were going to burst through the door at any moment, laughing along with her, but they never did.
"I'm only teasing you, Tseng," she told me. "You better be careful down here in Wall Market, or someone might really cheat you."
"To be honest, I try not to spend much time down here at all."
"It's for the best. A pretty boy like you . . . don't tell me you came down here alone?"
I wanted to ask her if she looked so critically at her other clients as she did me. "I'm more than capable of fending off petty criminals, Noa."
The use of her name seemed to have sort of an effect on her. She raised her eyebrows at me, but looked more amused than anything. I found it almost endearing, like she was about to lightly scold me for something.
"Well . . . if you're really a Turk like you say, I guess I shouldn't worry."
Though I had been wracked with nerves only a short while ago, her casual tone only served to keep me relaxed. Perhaps it wouldn't be so difficult getting information out of her after all.
All of my short-lived confidence went through the non-existent window, however, when she furrowed her eyebrows together and pursed her lips.
"What?" I had to ask. I started to worry that I had done something to offend her.
She just scrunched her nose at me, a grin splitting across her face. There was a slight gap between her two front teeth, I had noticed, but it did not detract from the brightness of her smile.
"You just look so serious," she answered. I hadn't considered that she would actually mock me. I thought a Turk would command more respect than that. "Lighten up, would you, Tseng? You could at least pretend to look happy about what we're going to do."
Finally, conversation had reached the reason as to why I was there. "Actually, I came for something else you might be able to give me."
For the first time, I saw a flicker of panic in her eyes. She didn't shy away from me, but the amused smile had vanished from her face. "And what could that be?"
"I just want to talk. I have it on good authority that you have information regarding the two disappearances in Sector Seven."
"Two? In Sector Seven?" Noa asked, folding her arms over her chest. It felt almost ridiculous, arguing with a girl in a honey bee outfit. "There have been more than two, and not just in Sector Seven."
I was curious to know anything she had to offer, and I told her so. She seemed relieved that I had no intention of getting her back out of her clothes, so she changed into something a little more comfortable while my back was turned. She even poured us both a drink from a wooden cart pressed against the wall opposite.
It was a bitter sort of drink, and I was rather impressed with her ability to drink it so quickly. She claimed it was a local brew. It was hard on my throat, but I was not about to let myself be bested by a nineteen-year-old prostitute.
When I finally started to question her about the two girls from Sector Seven, she gave me an answer that was far from what I was expecting.
"I don't know anything about those girls," she scoffed, after hearing their names and their brief stories. "I've never heard of them before in my life, but I see how it is now. Shinra only cares when top-side girls go missing, yeah? I've been writing to Headquarters for weeks now, and not a single person has come to follow through on it."
I didn't know how to respond to that. I didn't want to admit that I had not heard anything about slum girls going missing, and I didn't want her to think I held no power within the company, but she was angry, and whatever flirtatious demeanor she had when I first entered the room was completely gone.
"How many girls have gone missing? And from where?" I already had a pen and a piece of paper out, but I could still tell that Noa was reluctant.
"What do you care?" This was a different girl than the one who had just been ready to have sex with me a few minutes ago. "It doesn't matter to you what happened to us slum girls, does it? We're all just gutter trash and whores to you, I'm sure."
"I never said that I didn't care, and I wouldn't call you that."
"Then why haven't you come down here before now? Thirty-six girls have gone missing over the last six months, and not a single disappearance has been followed up on."
I was astounded at the number she gave me. I remember thinking that she must have been lying, for thirty-six was an enormous amount of disappearances to be ignored by the governing company of Midgar. "You're telling me that thirty-eight girls are actually missing? Not just two?"
"I've been trying to tell Shinra that."
"Tell me of them," I said.
"You only have an hour with me, and we only have forty minutes left."
"Then talk quickly."
And she did. She had a list of their names, she said, but it was in her living quarters, so she disappeared for ten minutes or so, and just as I was about to assume she wasn't going to return, Noa re-entered the room with a list of handwritten names, thirty-six of them with the dates of their disappearances.
Some she knew personally, some worked at the brothel for a time, some were friends of other friends, some were people she never knew at all. When I asked how she knew about all these women, all she told me was, "You learn all kinds of things sharing a pillow with someone."
I heard her out without interruption, and when she finished, I held up her list. "May I keep this?"
"How do I know you're not going to destroy that? How do I know you're going to follow through? It's all I have of those girls."
I felt insulted by the assumption. "I am not going to ignore thirty-six missing slum women. Had I known about this earlier, I . . ." But why? Why hadn't I known about this earlier? Had Veld known? Had anyone known? "I will be back when I require more information, but it might be a few days."
"Some of these girls may not have a few days to wait, Tseng."
"I'll do what I can," I told her, and she sighed in a defeated way, but I felt as if she believed me. "I'll be back."