He pulls his hands from hers, gets up and kicks me in the stomach, a sharp explosion of pain. ‘Don’t be a fool, woman, no child of mine would belong in a place like this.’

I curl tightly into a ball, wanting to roll under the bed.

‘She is somebody’s daughter too.’

He laughs. ‘Her father sold her like a dog. She is worth nothing to nobody.’

I sing the happy tune in my head Mama used to whistle as she baked the bread.

‘Maybe he had to.’

‘No, he knew she was meant to be a dirty whore like you,’ and he whacks her hard on her cheek again so she falls to the ground.

‘I wouldn’t want to have a daughter with you,’ he wheezes with checked laughter, ‘because she would have your dirt on her. If I give you a child it will be a boy,’ and he slams the door so hard the room shakes after he leaves.

We both lie on the ground, in silence, curved in on ourselves, until I say, ‘I thought you were married already.’

She pushes herself to sitting, propping her back against the bed frame. I sit, doubled over, holding my stomach.

‘It’s just something I tell the new girls to make them feel less afraid.’

She rubs my back.

‘Are you really going to marry that man?’

She rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling. ‘It’s that, or a pill. And he looks out for me, in a way. He loves me, in his way.’

I think about the shape and colour of a love like that. It’s nothing like the romantic love Maria and the girls speak of. It is darker and heavier than Papa’s for Mama, and has a black, purplish hue.

‘What about when we go to London?’ I ask.

‘There are others in London, like him.’

I wonder will it really be any better there.

‘I’ll take you to a place where there are beautiful rooms with soft carpets and big lights made from crystal hanging from the ceiling, where the men are rich and educated, where they will not want to hurt you so much as pleasure you. It will be easier than here, but you have a debt that has to be repaid, you understand?’

I wonder how much my debt will be by the time I am sold in London.

‘You’re a clever, beautiful girl, Nico, never forget that. It’s a pity your father is such a pig.’

I think of Papa grunting in the room where he and Mama sleep, and then I think of him tickling me and throwing me high into the air. ‘Look at the little monkey-girl,’ and my own squeals sound in my ears.

Magda closes her eyes, exhausted, and within minutes her chest is rising, falling, in an even, rhythmic beat. She can sleep; she has lived like this so long she can sleep.