The Winter Thief

15

Vera sat in the chair by the stove and considered what she could do to protect herself when Vahid returned to the room, as she was certain he would. After hitting her in the face, he had become gentlemanly, helping her to the chair, patting the blood on her chin with a handkerchief. He spent another half hour in the room with her, sitting so close that their shoulders were touching, saying little, and running his hands through her hair. Stunned and frightened, she didn’t move. Only when she saw him reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a knife did she start away.

He smiled at her, a smile that could have been mistaken as sweet if she hadn’t seen his eyes, hard black onyx that gave her reflection back. He took a handful of her hair and sliced it off at ear level. The knife was sharp, so she felt no more than a slight tug, but when he pulled his hand away, her head felt disembodied. She reached up involuntarily now, as then, and felt for the phantom weight of her missing locks.

She was no match for him physically, she thought, so when he came back she would have to outsmart him. He had seemed interested in her in some odd way. Perhaps she could use his attraction to convince him to bring her to another place, somewhere she could escape. A bedroom. She beat back thoughts of Gabriel. She had caused him enough grief. She would be the revolutionary wife he wanted and she was ready to make any sacrifice for the socialist cause. The words sounded hollow. The thought of being with a man besides Gabriel was monstrous.

She heard the key turn, but it wasn’t Vahid. Two men entered, both wearing polished black boots, black breeches, and tight-fitting jackets without insignia. They grabbed her arms and marched her out the door and down the corridor, thrusting her into a small room lit by a single lamp. It contained little more than a platform, a bucket, and a table on which were jumbled objects that she could not identify but that frightened her.

The men took off her coat, then pulled at her dress. Despite the pain still shooting through her head, she tried to remain calm. Afraid they would rip it and leave her nothing to wear, she unbuttoned the dress herself. When they pulled down her stockings, she fought blindly for a moment, then relented when she realized how insignificant and feeble her resistance was.

Vera woke up on the floor. Her back and legs were stiff, and her neck hurt. It was completely dark, a blackness so thick she felt for a moment that she couldn’t breathe. Her disorientation lasted a full minute until she fought down her panic and began to remember.

Gabriel, she thought, anguish like bile in her mouth. Gabriel must never know. The men had used only their hands, but she felt as violated and humiliated as if they had done the rest. Worse than the physical damage, her memory of her wedding night had been perverted. She would never be able to undress before her husband again, to lie with him and bear his touch without these men’s hands sliding alongside his. When she looked up at him, it would be their lust-glazed eyes and obscene lips she would see.

Then she leaned over and vomited. She reached up to wipe her mouth, but jerked back in pain when she touched her bruised face. Her tongue felt swollen in her parched mouth. Where was she? Her palms rested on a carpet. Was she back in the original room? She struggled to her feet and shuffled cautiously forward into the dark. They must have taken the lamp, or perhaps it had gone out. She had no sense of the passage of time.

She remembered the room in flashes of color. There had been a chair beside the stove. The stove. She focused her eyes in the dark and finally saw the faint glowing eye of the stove like a distant pulsing star. Using that to orient herself, she inched her way across the room, edging each foot forward gingerly, until her knee encountered the chair. Her slippers were lost, her feet cold. There had been a small table with water. She almost tipped over the carafe, but caught it in time and slaked her thirst, ignoring the pain of flexing her mouth. Worse things could happen. Worse things had happened to her comrades, worse things happened to peasants all the time. She was a soldier in the fight against injustice. For once the words struck a chord in her and didn’t just seem like a callow wish.

She shivered and blew at the embers through the slots of the stove. The fire swelled and shed enough light so she could see herself. Her dress and coat were unbuttoned, and her stockings sagged between her legs where they had been inexpertly drawn up. Once she had adjusted her stockings beneath her skirt and buttoned her coat, she felt calmer, as if she had gathered and smoothed her heart beneath her fingers and the circumstances of this room were now encompassed and controlled. Sitting in the circumference of the fire’s eye, Vera considered what she needed to do.