Fifteen November 1970 #3
As I stiffened and prepared, if that is even the right word, for the nightmare to continue, I felt the cold steel slide under the centre of my bra, the dull end dug into the skin underneath, the tug of steel against cloth, a snap and a giving way, and then he was gone.
There was a lightness, his weight a bad memory on my chest, the imprint of his knees on my arms, where hours later bruises would form, large, round and ugly.
The cold air settled on my skin, exposed and charged with fear.
The sound of the river mixed with the sound of my own heart, and for a moment I couldn’t tell the two apart and I feared, or maybe wished, that I might be dead.
“Aliet.”
A whisper.
I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, cut short by a jagged pain in my side.
“John.” I started to cry.
“Shhhh.” He sat down on the ground beside me, and I felt him close my shirt.
“Where . . .”
“Gone. It’s okay.”
It had started to snow. Soft flakes landed on my face, but I didn’t move, I wanted to stay right there. I wanted to sink into the earth and let the snow cover me. I wanted to fall away, to let the earth do what she wanted with my miserable, broken body.
“Aliet?” I felt the earth move as John moved closer.
“No.” It was the only thing I could think to say.
“I’m just going to sit here until you are ready. You don’t have to do or say anything until you’re ready.”
John gently reached under my shoulders and lifted me up just enough to rest my head on his lap.
He laid his own jacket overtop of me. I could feel his body shiver, but he said nothing.
He sat quietly as I looked past him into the never-ending grey sky, as snowflakes landed on my eyelashes and melted, as a crow flew overhead, slow and deliberate.
He was waiting, I knew, waiting to see if I was going to get up or stay and become nutrients for his sleek black body.
I lay there, as the sound of the river replaced the sound of my own blood rushing through my body.
My body had become part of the cold, and I didn’t shiver.
They say before you freeze to death there is a calm, a warmth.
I stayed still, the feeling of John’s strong legs under my head and neck.
I reached up to touch my face and felt the split, the sticky blood.
I tried to sit up, and felt John’s hand on my back, gently pushing me forward until I was sitting.
He stood and came around to face me, sat back down on the ground and took my hands in his, and I let out a wail.
Not a sob, something more primal. His face was still, and he let me cry.
I cried until my eyes burned and I couldn’t catch my breath, until the tears had started to wash the blood from my face.
The sky was beginning to darken, and the snow was coming down harder when I tried to stand up.
The intensity of the pain made it hard to breathe and stand at the same time.
It was so bad that I couldn’t tell where the pain started and where it stopped, what hurt and what he’d left untouched.
John put his arms underneath mine and helped me to stand.
One arm hung limp, and each time it moved, even just a tiny bit, the pain radiated up my arm and into my head.
We climbed the gravel path, the same one I’d come down hours before. Minutes? Days, maybe? I held one arm in the other and John had his hands on my hips, keeping me steady. I looked up to see the smoke rising from Ben and Sally’s house, so close.
“Aliet,” my grandmother stammered when I walked in the house. “Aliet. What?” She couldn’t seem to find the words to ask, and I couldn’t find the words to answer.
Big Ben was sitting at the table, a cup of coffee steaming in front of him.
Kiju rushed to take me out of John’s hands.
“It was that bastard Kenneth,” John said through clenched teeth. “He had a knife.”
Ben got up so fast from his seat that the coffee tipped over and spilled. He stood over me, his face red with rage.
I fell into the chair as Kiju inspected my face. I winced when she touched the open wound.
“Hot water. On the stove. Wet a cloth and hand it to me,” she barked at John.
“Where is he now?” Ben’s voice was quiet, but there was something frightening underneath.
“I threw him in the river,” John said, so matter-of-fact that it seemed like something he did every day. “And I don’t regret it.”
“I’m going up to Reg’s place, have a little chat about Kenneth.” Big Ben grabbed his coat off the hook and ducked under the door jamb and out of sight. John turned to follow and then turned back to me, unsure of what to do.
“I’ll take care of her. You go and make sure Ben doesn’t do something he’ll regret,” Kiju said. John looked at me and I nodded, and he followed Ben out the door.
“I’ll be back to see you. I promise,” he said softly before he closed the door behind him.
Kiju led me to the chair by the fire where Sally usually sat.
The house was quiet. The children were still in school, and Sally was napping with the baby upstairs.
Kiju went to the kitchen to rinse the warm cloth.
I could see the red run clear in the sink.
She came back and continued to wipe the blood from my face.
“You need stitches and more than I can do justice to.”
My hair was wet from the snow and sweat. Kiju wiped it away from my face before putting on her jacket.
“Don’t you move, I’m going for the doctor.”
I slumped back into the chair as the door closed behind her.
Every part of my body came alive with pain.
I leaned my head against the back of the chair and focused on the snow outside the window as it transformed everything it landed on.
Dirty roads turned clean and trees made magic, glittering in the last of the daylight.
I waited, hypnotized by Mother Nature’s small act of kindness.
Focusing on the snow allowed my body to forget, if only for a moment, that I was broken. Just how broken would not become apparent to me for many years. Others could see it, Kiju even tried to fix it in her own gentle way, but denial can be strong.
The stairs creaked as Sally came down, baby in her arms, just as Kiju came in the door with the doctor.
“My god, Aliet. What happened?”
I saw Kiju give her a shake of the head, silencing her. The doctor came to sit beside me, inspecting the gash on my face as Kiju ushered Sally into the bathroom and closed the door. I could hear their soft voices and the sharp inhale as Sally discovered what had happened.
I received twelve stitches in almost a straight line up the side of my face.
I don’t think I cried; I don’t even think I flinched.
I was bruised, my skin black, blue, purple and yellow.
I possibly had broken ribs, definitely a sprained wrist. The doctor recommended rest, Aspirin, ice for the swelling, and time, to heal.
Sally and Kiju helped me up the stairs and put me in the bed Kiju and I had been sharing. The medication had taken the edge off the pain, and I suddenly felt exhausted. Kiju gently dabbed at the stitches with a warm cloth.
“Just need to keep them clean,” she whispered as I winced. “I’ll make a salve that will help with the healing.”
“He attacked me,” I said softly through my barely parted lips.
“I know Kenneth has had his troubles, but I can’t believe he would do something like this to you. Did you say something to him?”
I turned my head away from my grandmother. I started to cry. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t do anything. This isn’t my fault.”
“Oh goodness, Aliet, I’m not saying it’s your fault, it’s just that—”
“Just what, Kiju?” I tried to turn away from her, but the broken ribs wouldn’t let me. “Can you leave me alone, please?” I said, as I closed my eyes.
With Kiju’s words hanging in the stale air, I wondered if maybe Kenneth had been right about everything.
Maybe I did let people treat me differently.
I could feel Kiju’s eyes on me, even though mine were still closed.
I could hear her soft breathing in the silence.
And it’s hard to describe how I felt just then.
Disappointment is too soft, but anger too severe.
Sometimes there are just no words. This was one of those times.
Kiju was standing to leave when the door downstairs opened with such force that I could feel the vibration of it hitting the wall in my bed upstairs. There was commotion downstairs. I could hear Ben, Sally, the wail of a baby.
I tried to sit up, but the pain pushed me back into the mattress. There were feet on the stairs, more than one set. I heard Sally saying, “This is not a good idea, Ben.”
Kiju stepped away from the door as Ben burst in, one of his hands on the door handle and the other on the shirt collar of Kenneth.
“Explain yourself to her,” Ben boomed.
“I don’t want him here,” I said with as loud a voice as I could muster.
I could feel the wound on my face begin to bleed again.
The pain in my arm was astounding when I tried to lean on it, to push myself up and as far away from Kenneth as I could get.
His face was bloody and he was still wet from being thrown in the river.
“Explain yourself,” Ben repeated.
Sally pushed her way through the door. “Get him out of here, now!” She made her way over to the bed, a barrier between me and these men who wanted too much from me. “Out!”
I heard Kenneth whimper as Ben, still holding him by the collar, said furiously, his anger directed at Sally, “He needs to apologize.”
“You need to apologize for bringing him here. Now out!”
I’d never seen them say a cross word to one another. I’m sure they had their disagreements, but they had kept them to themselves. Sally’s hands were balled into tight fists as Ben turned and shoved Kenneth down the stairs. Kiju was still standing in the corner.
“Maybe we should have him apologize and explain himself,” she said to Sally.
“Am I the only one here with any goddamn sense? She does not want to see him right now. And she needs to rest.”