“I’m not working at the moment, but before, I was a writer.”

“You were a journalist? For which paper?”

“No, no, I mean a novelist. And a university professor.”

“Ah, a storyteller, then! What do you say about me telling you a story that will make your hair stand on end. You write it down for me, and I’ll sign it.”

Mr. Joe turned around, laughing for the two goons, who burst out laughing in turn to imagine their boss as a writer. “You’ll have to sign it, ‘The Sphinx’!” suggested one.

“No!” cried the other. “‘Skullcrusher’ is stronger.”

Mr. Joe wiped the merriment off his face and was frowning again. The goons broke off their jokes and fell silent.

“Her value might not be within your means to pay, so I’ll leave it to you to propose a number.”

Mr. Joe’s words were ambiguous, as though laying a trap. Then I realized he was stalling before making a decision. He had never found himself in this kind of situation before, I was sure of it. None of his girls had ever escaped his grasp and fled with a customer. Yes, that was certainly what was going on. Mr. Joe was buying time as he looked for an appropriate price for giving up Shaygha and saving face. Then I realized that I was bargaining for a human being, and haggling with the buyer over the price! God! And they say that the time of slavery has passed, never to return. No! We’ve never had the freedom people claim we possess. For as long as we are the slaves of ourselves, the slaves of our families, the slaves of our feelings, the slaves of our impulses, the slaves of our society, the slaves of base and unjust life, the slaves of masters and the masters of slaves, we will subjugate and be subjugated because of skin color, because of geography, because of money, because of gender, because of status, because of weight, because of climate, because of shit, because of … we will enslave whosoever may be, howsoever we may, always and for all eternity.

Luqman suddenly appeared and slapped me on the nape of my neck. He stood behind me and whispered, “Enough of this prattling! Her life is now in your hands. Offer a price for her, and don’t go overboard. Start at five thousand, and we’ll take it from there.”

“Five thousand dollars!” I stammered.

Mr. Joe was inspecting the details of the room around him, frowning, guessing that I must be able to do much better than that. I thought about doubling the price, but Luqman whispered a rebuke at my back: “Be firm! Don’t raise the price one cent! Remind him that she is Nepalese, not Filipina, if you must.”