Interlude
Tatiana: Anger and Weakness
I was so happy to see Olga up and around doing normal things like helping with Mama and the younger children that I was expecting things to turn around. I blame it on my naïveté, on my need for something good to finally happen.
Why there was a part of me that thought that she’d simply get over being raped, I don’t know. I’d never dealt with rape. I’d never been around women who’d been raped. It wasn’t something one discussed in polite company, or at all.
Who would want the shame? Who would want the pity? Who would want the guilt? Who would want to know that she could not protect herself? Who would want to know that they could not protect their daughter, sister, or wife?
Papa was reading to us—I don’t remember which book—and Mama sat under blankets with Ortipo in her lap, listening and rubbing at her temples only occasionally.
Mama leaned to whisper in my ear. “Tatiana, check on the tea please.”
I got up and crossed the yard to the kitchen. As I approached, I heard the whistling of a tea kettle through the door.
I stepped inside and found Olga standing by the stove, looking off into space. She might have been looking through the window, but I don’t think she was seeing anything.
The kettle’s whistle came to a stop. Still she stared, as if she wasn’t even there.
“Olga,” I said, coming up behind her slowly.
She must’ve not heard me.
The scent of heated metal rose from the kettle.
“Olga,” I said again, louder.
Startled, she turned her head. We both reached for the kettle at the same time, bumping fingers. I wrapped my hand around the towel knotted over the kettle’s handle and moved it off the heat.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Her voice was hollow. So were her eyes.
I sat her down at the small kitchen table used to chop vegetables. Someone had left a stack of clean bowls set in the middle. Mismatched napkins had been neatly folded atop them.
Olga played her fingernails into the grooves left by knives and hatchets as I took a pot from the rack hanging above and filled it with water. I didn’t want to wait for the kettle to cool down.
“Mama wants her tea,” I said as I set a half-full pot atop the stove.
I sat down across from her, grabbing at her fidgeting hands and wrapping them inside of mine. She’d bitten her fingernails to the quick, something she had never done before.
She lifted her gaze to mine. It was no longer hollow.
“I don’t care,” she said without blinking.
I think a moment passed. I’m not sure. It must have been the shock of hearing her say that, of the time it took me to realize that she’d said it.
Olga pulled out of my grip, pushed the chair back, and stood. “I don’t care.” Louder, more forceful.
“Shh,” I said rising. “Someone will hear.”
“I don’t care!” Olga pushed the chair over. Her hands were fists now, no longer uncertain, no longer seeking refuge in fidgeting.
Before I could stop her, she moved forward, swept the bowls off the table, sending them to the floor. The impact sent the shattered pieces across the floor.
The chair was next, thrust on its side and sliding to block the door. Her eyes were frantic, seeking. She knocked the pot with its water off the stove. It rolled away, trailing wetness in its wake.
“Olga! Stop! They’ll hear.”
The barrel in the corner got a kick. It was too heavy to move. She eyed the rolling pin perched on the bottom shelf of the wall behind me and moved toward it.
For a moment—a very brief one—I wanted to join her, help her smash every bowl and plate, every jar, every bottle. Instead, I grabbed her shoulders as she went past me, spun her around and pulled her to me.
At first, she resisted. Her whole body was tight with tension, but I was determined. Determined not to let her go. Determined to hold on to her. Determined to make sure that she didn’t do something that could not be hidden.
I squeezed harder, anchoring my fingers in her clothing until my fingers hurt.
I don’t know why she didn’t cry out or shout. Her mouth was open like she was going to, but no sound came from it.
Her face was an ugly shade of purple, the kind that comes from not breathing.
For a terrifying instant I didn’t know what to do. If she screamed, it would be over. It would bring someone and Papa would hear. He would want to know what happened. Why it had happened.
He would see. He would know. He would suspect.
So I squeezed harder. She spasmed in my grasp, gulping for air, swallowing it down. She must’ve been breathing because her lips weren’t turning blue. She just seemed unable to speak.
And then, between one blink of an eye and the next, the stiffness in her body melted away and she collapsed in my arms, like a rag doll that had been torn open, the buckwheat inside it spilling out in a torrent.
It was like that with Olga.
We sank to the floor, her chin resting on my shoulder, the wetness from her tears hot and sudden. I could feel her jaw working beside my check.
“Breathe,” I said, massaging her back. “Breathe.”
Her chest swelled against mine. She was shaking. It was her fingers digging into my back, my shoulder now.
The words, “Help me,” were the barest whisper, more felt than heard against my skin.
But I couldn’t. Not really.
Oh, I did take her back to our room, made our excuses to Mama and Papa, made up a story that someone had spilled water on the floor and she had slipped, knocking over the chair and the bowls.
I did all those things. I lied. Over and over again.
There was a part of me that watched Papa’s eyes with the vain hope that he would, just once, be more aware. He watched with eyes that did not see, heard with ears that did not hear.
I wanted to think of him as a good and great man, a strong man.
But he wasn’t. He wasn’t any of those things. A seed of doubt was planted that day, the doubt that he had ever been any of those things.
Yes, he loved us. Loved Mama to the point where he could not see her for what she had become. Loved us children as well.
But his daughter had been raped right under his nose. He hadn’t been able to protect her. He could not protect any of us. Not himself.
He was a good man but he was an ineffective man.
For a long time I don’t know who I was angrier with—him or myself. I had contributed to that blindness, even prayed for it to hold because I didn’t want him to know, because I cared more for him than for Olga.
God rarely intervenes to save us from our own folly . . . .or our parents’ folly.