The $6,000 is gone

Nearly a year after his South African trip, every last bit of Hernani's $6,000 is gone. Daisy sells popsicles to pay the bills. Hernani sold his motorbike after sliding off the road one rainy night and running into the back of a truck. He now walks with a limp.

What is a kidney worth? Organ trafficking laws in key countries Timeline: Rise and fall of an organ-trafficking ring Expert Q&As: •  'It should be made legal' •  'The kidney is not a spare part' A spiritual perspective: Organ trafficking - another view

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Hernani continues to see Antonia. There is no dialogue between Hernani and Daisy, only the occasional monotone orders for her to get the phone, go shopping, mind the children. He will not hold 9-year-old Luiza's hand when they walk around the neighborhood together, and he cannot, or will not, pay for her to play organized soccer, even though she controls the ball better than half the boys during their games in the street.

Hernani's plight is common among kidney sellers. According to the study in India, organ selling actually increased poverty. Some 54 percent of sellers were extremely poor before losing a kidney. A year later, 74 percent were still in debt, and the average family income had declined by about 30 percent.

For Hernani, things could hardly get worse.

But they do.

On Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003, Hernani, like 40 million other Brazilians, is watching the nightly news on TV Globo. He's had a tough day. He's heard that the friend with the white VW, who was instrumental in convincing Hernani to sell his kidney, was arrested in a surprise raid that morning. No one knows why the Brazilian FBI would be after him.

Sitting on the couch that night with another friend, Hernani discovers why. Police in South Africa have broken up an international organ-trafficking ring, he hears the announcer say. Authorities have detained 11 people in the last 24 hours and expect to make more arrests. The words "organ trafficking" and "arrests" jump out at him, just like that day when he heard a man behind him say: "We pay people $6,000."

But this time he's full of dread.

"Man, you've got to get out of here," his friend warns.

One word that keeps coming into his head: "Why?" I have done nothing wrong, harmed no one. I crossed the world to give life to a dying man. I sold only what was mine. Why are they doing this? Why me? I am going to jail, Hernani thinks to himself. Within minutes, he has changed his clothes and slips out into the night. Soon he's banging on the metal door of a local hot-sheet hotel, where rooms are rented by the hour. The receptionist is surprised to see a single man looking for a room, but he accepts Hernani's credit card and hands him a key.

Afraid and agitated, Hernani lies on the grotty hotel bed staring at himself in the mirror overhead. He's not reviewing his decision to sell his kidney. He's not worrying about the police finding him. He's worrying about whether he has enough money in the bank to pay the hotel bill - about $7 per night.

* * *

As the investigation continues into 2004, Johan is still unsettled about his religious perspective on organ sales. As he drives home one night, he realizes he's had a change of heart from his first inclination to "do anything" to save himself or one of his family members, including buying a kidney. Knowing what he knows now, he'd try to figure out something legal. For instance, he, his brother, and his best friend all have O-negative blood. And they've got an understanding: If one of them ever needs blood - or maybe an organ - the others would step up. He knows people who have done so. A couple of years ago, a woman at his church donated her kidney to a fellow church member. "It was such a huge sacrifice," he thinks.

He realizes he's become pretty passionate about this stuff. But he still hasn't found biblical guidance.

That night at home he goes to his bedroom and picks up his Bible. He sits down on the bed and speaks into the silence. "Lord, there has to be something in this book of yours about this," he says.

He opens to a verse he hadn't considered before. Romans 12:1. He reads these words from Paul's letter: "Give your bodies a living sacrifice."

Paul may have meant something else when he wrote it, but to Johan it now feels important to donate his organs after death. "Jesus sacrificed himself for everyone - gave his whole body for all mankind." The least we can do, he thinks, is give part of our body to someone else in need. Finally he has what he's been looking for.

* * *

Today, 14 months after his surgery, Arie Pach, now 57 years old, is living a new life of freedom - sort of. His youngest son is getting married this summer, and Arie will be there under the wedding canopy.

But he's told he'll have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of his life. And he's photosensitive; he can't go out in the midday sun much and finds himself missing a day at the beach. He used to like to swim, but now, on doctors' orders, he has to beware of contracting an illness by going to public pools.

"I'm more philosophical and more resigned about my own fate," he says on a cool afternoon at home, where pastel flowers are in bloom in the tiny backyard garden. "There are so many things in life that could have been worse, but thank God I'm fine now," he says. And even though he has a new kidney from across the world, he's still searching for a better solution. "I haven't become religious," he says, "but I guess you could say I pray more, to ask for a refuah shlema - a full healing."

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