The Quest

Chapter 9

Natalia screamed again. Karamatsov pushed the bottle toward her. Inside herself, feelings of the guilt she held for betraying him by helping Rourke escape, the feelings for wanting to betray him and become Rourke’s lover, the half-conscious, half-subconscious desire to be punished for doing what she knew to be wrong—these fought with her rationality. And against the pain. She could feel the lip of the bottle. She screamed again, knowing that somehow Karamatsov had won against her. She lashed out with her right arm, the knife edge of her hand slashing across her husband’s Adam’s apple, the heel of her left hand soaring up. Her body was acting independently of her will now, she realized, as though once the decision to defend herself had been made, a floodgate of vengeance and brutality had washed open. The heel of her left hand caught the tip of Vladmir’s chin and hammered his head back.

Naked, she rolled to the floor, her husband fallen over the back of the couch.

He came at her, smiling, the belt in his hands, swinging it, but this time the side with the buckle.

She screamed at him, “Vladmir! Where are you?” And she realized the man she had virtually grown up with, married, loved, been faithful to except for one unconsummated indiscretion, was gone from her.

The brass belt buckle swung toward her and she dropped to the carpeted floor, sweeping her legs under his swing, against his legs, knocking him to the floor. The belt sailed from his hands as he fell. She threw herself on him, her knees hammering into his ribs and chest, her hand grasping for the tiny .38 Special revolver he carried, her right elbow jabbing into the side of his head as he fought to stop her.

She had the revolver. She cocked the hammer, the stubby muzzle less than an inch from his face, between his eyes. She didn’t recognize her own voice. “I’ll kill you if you move, bastard! Leave this house, leave me, leave us! I don’t know you anymore. So help me, I’ll shoot this thing between your eyes, and I’ll laugh!” Karamatsov stood up and she edged away from him. He threw up on the floor and stumbled toward the hall.

A long time after that, when he was gone, the door locked, she lowered her husband’s gun and dropped to her knees and cried.