Читать книгу Mummy, Come Home: The True Story of a Mother Kidnapped and Torn from Her Children - Oxana Kalemi - Страница 11

A couple of months later Sergey asked me to go out with him one night. As darkness fell we walked down a dirt road towards a stone house with a big metal door.

We walked inside and into a dirty room with an old sofa and bed in it. In the half light, I could see four men and two girls listening to music. They all seemed drunk.

Sergey immediately started chatting but I said nothing as I sat down. The girls looked as if they were going to pass out and soon one of the men had pulled them to their feet.

‘We’re going,’ he said and they left.

Soon Sergey got up as well.

‘I’ve got some business,’ he told me. ‘I won’t be long.’

Now I was alone with two men—one had dark hair and was tall and slim, while the other was shorter and a little fatter.

‘So how are you?’ the dark man asked. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No thanks,’ I told him. ‘I’ll have to leave soon.’

He walked over to the sofa and sat down next to me. ‘Come on, have one,’ he said in a sing-song voice.

‘No, thanks,’ I said as I felt his arm move around my shoulders. I pushed him away.

‘Just a friendly hug,’ he laughed as he stood up and walked over to the table where he sat down again and started rolling cannabis into a cigarette. I knew what it was because Sergey sometimes smoked it. The smell was horrible.

I looked about anxiously. Where was Sergey? He had been gone so long, was probably getting drunk somewhere. I’d had enough. I wanted to leave.

The fat man got off his chair as I stood up. ‘Where are you going?’ he cried.

‘Home.’

‘No, no. Don’t go.’

The dark man got up and walked towards me. ‘No, don’t,’ he said. ‘We’re just getting started.’

‘But I’ve got to,’ I replied and turned away. Suddenly an arm twisted around my throat from behind. ‘Let me go!’ I cried.

‘No,’ a voice said. ‘First we’re going to enjoy you. You’ll be okay. You’ll like it too.’

I knew instantly what he wanted. This couldn’t be happening—not with a baby inside me. ‘No,’ I screamed as I tried to break free. ‘Sergey will kill you. He’ll be back in a minute.’

‘No, he won’t,’ the voice behind me laughed. ‘He’s very busy.’

I struggled as the arm closed even tighter around my neck. It was so strong that I couldn’t breathe. Panic twisted inside as I was pulled towards the bed and pushed onto it before the dark man climbed on top of me—grabbing my hair and pushing his mouth onto mine as I screamed. Pictures of the beach flashed into my mind and the cold terror I had felt then filled me. ‘Please, please leave me alone,’ I pleaded as I started crying. ‘I’ll do anything.’

But the men didn’t listen as they tied my hands above my head and something silenced me. There is only so much a soul can take before it freezes into nothing and that is what happened to me that night. My mind went blank as the men forced their way into the furthest corners of my body and I turned to stone.

They laughed and smoked when they’d finished, and I pulled on my clothes before stumbling out of the house into the darkness.

Sergey was sitting waiting for me.

‘I need to talk to you,’ I whispered. I had to tell him what had happened, otherwise the men might talk and he’d think I’d wanted them. Then he would kill me. Tears ran down my face as we started walking.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Your friends…’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve been raped.’

Sergey stopped walking. ‘Really?’ he said slowly.

‘Yes. They made me do it. I swear. I couldn’t stop them.’

He looked at me. ‘I know what happened. Those men are my friends. Nobody raped you, so why are you lying?’

Confusion rushed up inside me. ‘But I’m not,’ I shouted. ‘They raped me while you were away.’

‘I was outside all the time, Oxana.’

‘Well, then you must have heard me screaming.’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Sergey, his voice like ice with a smile in it.

Suddenly my whole body went cold. He knew what had happened to me, had done nothing as he heard my screams.

‘Did you think I’d let you get away with having your dirty lovers do your dirty work?’ Sergey said softly. ‘Did you think I’d just forget what those Muslim fuckers did to me?’

I turned away. ‘I’m going,’ I sobbed. ‘To Mamma’s, the police, I don’t care if I have to live on the streets.’

‘Are you sure?’ Sergey called. ‘Your mother wouldn’t have you and I’ve got a lot of friends who’d want to fuck you so much that they’d find you wherever you ran. Besides, what will you tell the police? They’ll never believe you. Everyone knows you’re a whore.’

My head swam as we stood in the darkness. He was right. Who would believe me? What man would allow his own wife to be raped? Even Ira, who knew her brother’s thieving ways, would not think he could stoop this low.

I had two babies, and another on the way. There was no way I could ever escape him. All I could hope was that his thirst for revenge was slaked and now he would leave me alone.

‘Let’s go,’ Sergey said quietly.

I turned to follow him home.

I had been stupid to believe that Sergey had forgotten what Aziz’s men had done. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again, so now I watched Sergey and waited for what he would do next. I did nothing to provoke him, even when he came home drunk and pushed me out of bed, or slapped me without a word—he was just waiting to hurt me again and I knew it. It was as though he could no longer bear the sight of me and I felt my resilience in the face of his hatred begin to waver. Surely I must have deserved what had happened? Sergey was right. I was worth nothing.

Meanwhile his life was disintegrating. Sergey was becoming seriously addicted to drugs and one night I saw him in the kitchen with a friend. As he sat at the table, he put a band around his arm and flexed his hand while his friend injected him with a syringe. I watched him through the open door as he lay down in the half-light, his expression one of blissful oblivion.

So that was how he escaped this miserable existence, and how he condemned his family to hunger and poverty.

Sergey beat me regularly now, no matter how quiet and good I was. He’d wake up sweating and shaking and hit me, or I’d heat up his gruel too much and he’d beat me. We fought a lot about food because he often ate everything and left nothing for the children and me.

Bit by bit something inside me was breaking and I was becoming afraid of my own shadow. I believed Sergey when he screamed at me about how ugly, stupid and useless I was. Why else had my life turned out the way it had?

‘All you can do is get pregnant and now you’re fat as a cow again with another child,’ he’d shout. ‘You’re useless.’

Life became so painful that I turned into a robot and switched off my thoughts and feelings. Wake, eat, wash, clean, cook, feed, bathe…My life was about physical details, and I didn’t want to feel or see anything as I told myself again and again that what had happened was all just a movie.

‘There will be a happy ending,’ I’d whisper inside as I drew water up from the well with which to wash Sasha’s clothes. ‘This isn’t real, just make-believe, and Papa is watching over you.’

After one bad argument Sergey took a washing line and tied my hands and feet behind me before leaving me for several hours lying on the floor. Punching, strangling or slapping, he didn’t care what he did and it was almost as if I didn’t either. This was my punishment.

‘You’re like a dog,’ I’d tell myself. ‘When he wants to eat and no one feeds him he gets skinny and helpless. You’re just like him and Sergey is your master.’

I had two choices: either finish my life and leave my children, or wait for this one to end and a new one to begin. I just had to believe that the pain would end and love my children while I waited. They were the one good thing in my life—the only thing that could cut through my frozen heart—and, as Sasha lay sleeping beside me at night, my hands would stroke my round stomach. Whispering silently to the child inside me, I told it that one day we would be happy together.