Chapter 43 A Woman’s Worth of Sorrow
A WOMAN’S WORTH OF SORROW
“Ren, is this really the best day for a drive? Look around?” Einar spread his arms to indicate the flurry of snowflakes descending on us from the murk of dismal skies.
He was a striking vision. His grey sweater made his eyes stand out, and snow collected in the waves of his hair and on his broad shoulders.
“You look so handsome in this weather,” I told him, batting my eyelashes up at him.
“You’re such a flirt,” he told me a little gruffly but with a twinkle in his eyes that gave away his pleasure at my praise. “But if you think you can distract me from my question that easily—”
“Don’t tell me that an Icelander is scared of driving through a bit of a snowfall.”
Pulling my shawl tighter around my shoulders, I set off from our cottage, closing the gate behind us with a clank. I dug my hands deep into the coat pockets and hunched my shoulders against the wind.
“I wouldn’t be scared if I were to drive,” Einar pointed out reasonably as he walked next to me, his own shoulders square and annoyingly at ease in the harsh elements.
“The roads are perfectly passable—”
“For now ...”
Not minding him, I continued slipping and skidding towards the silver Mazda. The tip of my nose was freezing, and my teeth were beginning to chatter. Turning away from Einar so that he couldn’t see my discomfort, I unlocked the car door at the driver’s side, yanking it open.
“Ren, stop.” He grabbed me by the arm, preventing me from getting in. “I don’t like this. Why is it so important to go help Dave today of all days?”
Dave, Kevin, Josh, and Amit were part of an initiative to restore the Corte hospital, as so far the only semi-functional one was in Bastia, which was both inconveniently far up north for most of Corsica’s inhabitants, but it was also much in Santini’s clutches for the comfort of others.
I told Einar that I had promised to help with the cleaning.
“Because it’s been weeks since I said I would, and I never got around to it ... It’s always one thing or another,” I explained rather lamely, watching as snow collected on the driver’s seat but not wanting to shut the car door as that could falsely signal resignation on my part.
“Ren, there’s no way I’m letting you drive in this,” Einar said firmly as if sensing my mounting resolve, the look in his eyes entirely discouraging of any further discussion to anyone even remotely willing to give up.
Which I was not.
My innards curled with irritation. Customarily, I revelled darkly in Einar’s domineering tendencies, enjoyed following his orders as much as disobeying them, because the control he asserted over me allowed us to live in a perpetual state of erotic foreplay.
Until a situation like this arose when I protested not because I fancied a spanking but because, for once, I cared about the outcome.
Knowing better than to fight openly, I looked up at him and pleaded in a quiet, demure voice, “Einar, please ...”
Already gathering the pluck, if needs be, to play my trump card: tears.
An agitated vein began throbbing in his temple, which was not a bad sign in the circumstances. I could already see his expression softening, the ice in his eyes dissolving, the hard lines around his mouth smoothening out.
“Fine,” he groaned at last. “Fine. But I’ll drive you.”
“What? But ...”
Looping an arm around my waist, he led me to the passenger’s side of the car and opened the door for me to get in as the cogs of my mind overheated in an effort to conjure up something that would change his mind. Flustered, I came up with nothing.
“Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you in the car,” Einar said from behind the wheel as he turned the key in the ignition, and the engine came to life with a complaining rumble. “I won’t get in the way of whatever it is you so urgently need to talk to Dave about.”
Feeling myself blush, I fastened my seatbelt as the car jerked forward.
“How did you ... uhm ...”
“Know you were lying through your teeth? Darling, the only thing you despise more than cleaning is hospitals.”
Looking away from the wipers dashing across the windshield, he raised his eyebrows at me with a look that was somehow both stern and kind at the same time.
“Are you very angry at me?” I held my hands in front of the vents spewing out plastic-smelling hot air, the ruby stone glinting on my ring finger. “I expect you’ll want an explanation?”
Leaving the pink train station behind, we drove through the forest, and the snowfall seemed lighter there, the wide tree branches like large umbrellas sheltering our vehicle from the worst.
“Not at all and no.” Einar surprised me with his reply as well as with the benevolent look in his eyes.
“You’ve never once given me a reason not to trust you, Ren.
So, whatever your motivations for lying to me were today, I see no reason to think that wilful deceit was one of them.
Wanting to talk to your best friend privately is hardly a crime against me. ”
He patted my knee, and I relaxed, exhaling a deep breath. His hand slid a little further up my thigh.
“That’s not to say I won’t have the pleasure of coming up with a light punishment for you later.
” The hand squeezed, and I almost winced, which he didn’t fail to notice, and he loosened his grasp immediately.
“If only as a gentle reminder,” he elaborated with nothing but reassurance in his tone, noting my hesitation.
“Can’t have you thinking that I’m growing neglectful in our marriage. ”
“I could never accuse you of that.” I lay my hand on his. “But how would you feel about letting me off the hook entirely this time?”
A troubled line creased his forehead, but he smiled at me warmly, if inquisitively, as he replied, “Aye, that works too, sweetheart. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you for driving me,” I said a little sheepishly.
It turned out to be very fortunate that Einar played the role of my chauffeur for the day.
Not because I wasn’t confident enough of a driver to manage the icy roads.
But because had I not wasted an hour and a half of his time getting me there, I may have turned around and driven back as soon as I set foot onto the hideous beige linoleum inside the perfunctorily rectangular white hospital building, whose windows had glowered at me as I had approached.
Like a multitude of emotionless eyes of a monstrous spider.
I didn’t even make it past the reception without dread crawling up my extremities like a myriad of flesh-eating ants.
Walking down the corridors at random, bile rose up my throat at the sight of the first waiting room, my stomach churning at the phantom smell of disinfectant that surely no longer hung in the air but that flooded my memory if not my olfactory canals nonetheless.
Most doors I came upon were locked, but upon opening the unfastened door to the first operating theatre I would see that day, I doubled over as a giant, iron fist closed around my ribs, crushing my lungs, forcing all air out of me, and not letting any in.
Heat building up inside my body like pressure, I jettisoned my coat and sweater, wrapping arms around myself, only to discover that I was drenched in cold sweat.
Of course, it had to be a theatre for minor gynaecology surgeries, the operating table equipped with lithotomy stirrups. I had endured six such surgeries, all as grotesque as dismally repetitive.
Walking into a windowless room full of people with surgical caps and masks.
Climbing onto the high table awkwardly. Lying on my back, my breasts untethered underneath the oversized gown, each lolling uncomfortably to the side.
Those strange, masked people touching me, smoothing my hair underneath my cap, fixing a doughnut-shaped pillow under my head.
Hoisting my legs onto the stirrups, voices urging me to scoot over until my bare backside hung over the edge of the table, the moisture of the crevice between my legs cooling down uncomfortably, the position both obscenely indecent and alarmingly vulnerable.
My head swam similarly to what it did back then when the cannula stuck in my elbow fizzled coldly with the first drops of anaesthesia entering my system.
I walked on.
Had I had the voice to do so, I could have called out for Dave.
But I didn’t, and so I just wandered aimlessly for what simultaneously felt like endless hours and swift minutes.
Until at last I found an open door from which light spilled out into the shadowy, chair-lined corridor, much like those that regularly served as the backdrop of my recurring nightmares.
As luck would have it, Dave was in an operating theatre as opposed to some relatively trigger-free staff breakout room.
At that, it was one for major surgeries.
Its operating table was flat and lacked stirrups but instead boasted arm rests that gave it a biblical, cross-like appearance.
I had only seen such a room once before, and even that was one time too many.
“Renny!” Dave looked up from scrubbing the stainless-steel sink in the corner. “What a nice surprise! What brings you here?”
Then, noting my appearance, he asked as the Cheshire grin evaporated from his round face, “Are you not feeling well? You look terrible.”
“Thanks,” I deadpanned.
Dropping the bundle of my coat and sweater onto a plastic chair, I walked over to the table, the macabre centrepiece of the room, illuminated sharply by surgical lights.
I ran my fingers along its surface, which was made of thick black rubber, firm and unpliable, the kind that would hurt like hell if used to swat someone with.
“Dave, did I ever tell you about my ... health issues?”