Chapter 38
Riva sat with Addison on his balcony. Thick cloud blocked the moon and stars and she complained bitterly about the Church authorities.
When she’d spoken to them, they refused to countenance any issues of exploitation and took the stance that the problem was the immoral character of the women.
In their view women needed to be subjugated, kept docile and deferential, or the social fabric would fall apart.
At least that was the attitude of one religious leader she spoke to.
‘He didn’t actually say if you keep them ignorant then the evil within them will not rear up, but he might as well have done,’ she said.
Addison sighed. ‘Awful. In this day and age.’
‘Such damn prejudice,’ she continued. ‘Everyone knows what’s going on. Everyone. Yet nobody is prepared to deal with it. Nobody is prepared to help.’
‘Mark my words, the enquiry will also blame it on the women,’ Addison said, ‘rather than examining how British colonial rule and the presence of the military in such huge numbers has encouraged the exploitation.’
‘I don’t know what to do. They ignore Otto’s articles and I’ve talked to everyone I can think of. I’m wondering about holding a meeting.’
‘What kind of meeting?’
‘An open one, to point out the hypocrisy and start a petition to call for immediate action to ensure the safety of the girls.’
‘Be careful, Riva. I don’t want them to find you dead in an alleyway.’
At the beginning of 1933, despite Addison’s warning, Riva did go ahead with her meeting in a hall not far from Strait Street.
She paced the room feeling exposed, while at the same time she worried nobody would turn up.
In the end, a few church members trickled in with placards calling for an end to prostitution.
This wasn’t the angle or focus Riva had been hoping for but she eventually managed to persuade them to take a seat, saying everything would be addressed in due course.
She was pleased when a few girls came in and sat at the back, hair covered, and eyes fixed on the side door.
Riva’s own hair was fully red again now, the waves tumbling to her shoulders.
She’d long given up the pretence of having dark hair to protect her true identity.
When no one else appeared to be coming, Riva stepped forward and began to speak, passionately arguing for human rights and against the violation of those rights, and for an end to the exploitation of young women brought in from other countries.
She talked about her own experiences as a dancer, and without naming names, told them about Anya.
‘It’s time the authorities took this seriously,’ she said as she neared the end of her speech.
‘How much longer must we wait for action that actually makes a difference to these girls? Please sign the petition you see on that table over there and tell your friends I will hold another meeting at the same time next week. If we can achieve enough signatures, I’ll deliver it to the chief of police and the ministry will have to take notice of our demands for more safety controls. ’
She glanced at the main door and spotted a stream of men coming in. They stood at the back of the hall, feet wide apart, arms folded. Her heart raced as the atmosphere became heavy with unspoken threat. At first nothing happened, and she continued to speak. That was her mistake.
The heckling started as a whisper and carried on as a kind of low-key chanting with words she couldn’t quite make out but that had an ugly undertone. She couldn’t believe it when she realised it was coming from the women, the look on their faces completely blank. The women!
Didn’t they realise she was trying to help them?
Soon after that the girls hid their faces and sidled out of a side entrance, their job done. Riva was gripped by an immediate fear but carried on. ‘I don’t want to argue with you,’ she told the men, who laughed and blew raspberries.
‘Go back to where you came from, Frenchie,’ one of them shouted.
She stood her ground and went on trying to be heard above the growing noise of catcalls and whistles.
They’ll calm down, she told herself. But they weren’t there to calm down and the heckling continued until the voices became more aggressive, the stream of invective uglier.
Whore. Bitch. She saw their faces screwed up in anger as they chanted.
Whore. Bitch. Whore. Bitch. Although shaking inside she was determined not to let the vitriol stop her and raised a hand to plead for silence.
She noted a policeman standing with his arms crossed a little away from the other men. Would he step in?
He did not.
She glanced around her as the voices continued. Bitch. Whore. Slut. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
‘Frigid cow, I know what I’d do to her, boys,’ someone sneered, and they all laughed approvingly.
And now she glanced at the side door, realising she would have to cut and run before it became physically violent. She should have got out of there before all this.
Someone threw something at her. It missed but the church people at the front who had been sitting in shocked silence began shrieking and ducking their heads as pebbles began to whizz through the air.
‘Take it as a warning,’ someone shouted and laughed when one hit Riva on the cheek.
‘Next time, missy, it’ll be bullets.’
The men clapped each other on the back and finally left the room.
Shaken, Riva felt blood tricking from her cheek and abruptly ended the meeting. No one had listened. Not the religious women, not the girls, not the men. What had she expected?
Night came down thick and black as a taxi dropped her and she walked towards Addison’s place that evening.
Hearing something behind her, Otto’s words came back to her.
The island is beautiful but there is an undercurrent, and it flows through Strait Street.
But this was Mdina, not Valletta, and yet her skin still prickled uncomfortably.
She stopped dead, felt the fear in her bones.
Silence. Was there someone loitering in the shadows?
Lying in wait? The feeling of foreboding deepened as she glanced around.
Nothing. Whoever had been there was not visible.
She walked on and then she heard the rumble of an engine.
Just someone leaving Mdina then. Probably one of the locals.
Nothing sinister. She’d been imagining things.
At Addison’s she sat alone on his terrace while he went inside to fetch a second bottle of wine.
Her mind kept clicking back to the meeting with Lucas.
Subdued and disheartened, she felt the pull of the past. Not her life with Bobby.
Not that. But Paris where she was born. And where, nearly eight years ago, and with barely a backward glance she’d packed her bag and run away from home.
She thought of her sister Claudette, and how much she missed her, and she thought of her parents too; even though she had never fitted in or felt she belonged, she couldn’t completely erase the pull of home.
‘Do you have a never-ending supply?’ she said as Addison came back out with a bottle.
He laughed. ‘Something like that.’
She smiled.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘Why not take up Gerry’s idea of working in London—’
She began to interrupt him but he held up his hand. ‘Your apartment will still be here for holidays or if you change your mind about London and want to come back. I’d miss you, of course, but you’ve done all you can.’
‘Have I?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but think about what I’ve said. At least do that. I’m worried for your safety.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you for caring.’
‘Of course I care.’
‘I think I’ll turn in now if that’s all right. I’m dead on my feet.’
As she started to turn away, she glanced out into the darkness as a pair of headlights caught her eye.
The vehicle seemed to be approaching carefully, then it disappeared.
She went down to her apartment and forgot about it.
She didn’t even undress, just climbed into bed, flicked the switch and the room plunged into darkness.
She fell asleep instantly but awoke very soon after to the sound of thunderous knocking on her door.
She grabbed her robe and found Addison standing at her open door with a police officer.
‘What?’ she gasped.
‘It’s Otto. He’s been hurt.’
‘An accident?’
‘No. He was attacked. He’s asking for you.’
Otto remained in hospital for a week with broken ribs and concussion, unable to remember much of what had happened.
When he was allowed home, she visited him and spent time in the apartment.
‘Safety in numbers,’ she laughingly said to explain her presence to him, but she had already arranged for stronger locks to be installed on his apartment door.
‘You didn’t see who did this?’ she asked, hoping something might have come back.
‘No. It was too dark. More than one, I think.’
‘They say anything?’
‘Threatened me with worse. You too. That’s all I remember.’
‘You think Stanley Lucas was behind it?’
Otto shrugged.
A week later the enquiry was published. As Addison had predicted, its findings focused on the immorality of female foreigners and unfortunately that had fostered the growing feeling of xenophobia on the island.
It was not only clever but easy to prey on people’s semi-dormant fears.
Just beneath the surface lay so much hate; God help them if it ever found a way to erupt.
Women To Blame, screeched the headlines.
The enquiry’s solution was to denounce the corrupt girls and make them shoulder the blame, rather than confront the impact of British rule on Maltese society.
And the British military authorities focused on the threat of sexually transmitted diseases to their labour force, rather than exploring their own accountability.
No British girls exploited, screamed more headlines while non-British girls were ignored.
Any mention of white slavery was completely denied.
It did not exist. All the girls interviewed, barmaids and cabaret performers alike – and most of them foreign workers – had arrived in Malta willingly and none were involved in prostitution.
Anyone who read the report, or the newspapers, would reach the conclusion that there was no prostitution in Malta and no exploitation of women at all.
Riva sought an interview with a minister from the Treasury to complain.
Declined. She wrote to the minister who dealt with National Security and Law Enforcement.
Also declined. Not a single soul in charge of the Government of Malta either in Valletta or London was prepared to discuss the issue.
With Otto out of action, she wrote an article condemning the enquiry’s findings. No one would print it.
When she met Tommy-O for coffee, he shrugged his shoulders, bemoaned what was happening politically and warned Riva from going any further on the human trafficking issue.
‘It’s getting more dangerous, my girl. All that fuss, and prostitution has just become even more clandestine. The girls are kept in debt by the criminals who control them and dare not speak. Nothing changes.’
Riva sighed. ‘They’ll never give evidence?’
‘Threats from the traffickers make sure of that. And the agents with their offers of extortionate rooms, and the matrones who “loan” the girls jewellery and clothing. It keeps them trapped.’
‘So if the girls can’t speak out, what’s the solution?’
‘Legalise the industry. License the prostitutes and the brothels and move them out of Valletta.’
Riva thought he might have a point.
‘I really think you need to back off now,’ he added. ‘For your own safety.’
The enquiry was soon forgotten in the furore surrounding Malta reverting to full Crown Colony status, with power resting in the hands of the governor just as it had been way back in 1813.
There had been a grant of self-government in 1921 and during the decade following that British concession, Maltese politics had become more diverse and complicated.
Maltese nationalism had blossomed with many of its people working towards true independence sometime in the future.
Now this would put everything back by years and there was a great deal of anger.
On the day it was announced she passed Stanley Lucas in the street, and he smiled smugly. See. Girlie. There’s nothing you can do.
She knew there was nothing she could do about him, at least not at the moment.
And she accepted she needed to step back and get on with her life.
She might never find out what had happened to Anya and the others who had died or gone missing, but she would do what she could to help Otto improve conditions for the girls who were still there.
But then the enquiry, the Crown Colony status, and everything else slipped into the background because at the end of the decade, a different kind of trouble was brewing. The kind of trouble that nobody could believe was really going to happen again.