No Forgiveness

by Helen Nickolson

  It was amazing how at her slight movements he instantly woke up and watched her intently. “You must be getting up to make me breakfast I take it. I can’t imagine that you would have anything else in mind, now would you? You’re probably hoping for a repeat of last night.” he goad-ed her.

  She felt disgusted and scared to see how he was lustfully staring at her naked body and merely said, “I can make you breakfast if that’s what you want.”

  “Yes, I want breakfast but I want something else before that,” he gloated as he reached for her. “I want to enjoy my property to the fullest.”

  She tried to resist but knew her efforts were use- less. Without further words he shoved her on her back and immediately entered her. He thrust into her repeatedly while she softly cried. She hurt so much but knew that begging him to consider her pain would only make him hurt her more. The more she cried, the more aggressive he became as if he took joy from her grief.

  “You know, you might as well start enjoying this and start giving me the appropriate responses that a wife owes her husband. You should start by taking my penis into your mouth and massaging this gift I have for you. I see you shaking your head, so I guess I need to show you how. This way you’ll know what I like and you can start the lovemaking by sucking me in the future.”

  Over and over he forced her to submit to him without any tenderness on his part. He only had tough words for her and a great desire to dominate. Blood was splattered throughout the sheets as if sprinkled generously from a healthy supply. Some of the blood was dry but it was obvious that not all of the blood had been distributed at the same time, indicating that the abuse had been sustained over an extended period. Giorgo had kept her in the bed for several days and only took breaks to eat or wash. He only laughed when she suggested that they leave the house for a short while, as if he understood very clearly that she would use the opportunity to escape.

  “Why would we leave our love nest? Everyone knows that newlyweds need time to adjust to each other and to enjoy each other in bed,” was his usual retort.

  He also started taunting her about paying her own way in the marriage. “You can’t expect me to feed and clothe you without any contribution from you. We need money and you need to bring in your share. The paltry sum that your mother gave for your dowry will not last us long.”

  Katerina couldn’t understand where he was headed with those types of comments. Her dowry was not rich but it had been decent—as decent as Ophelia’s and Ophelia had not mentioned that Michael was complaining about the size of the dowry. “Why are you saying these things?” she questioned. “Ophelia and I have equal dowries and Michael has not complained about this.”

  “Of course, Michael hasn’t complained,” he shouted angrily, obviously wanting to hit her. “Ophelia knows how to treat him well as her husband. She is a woman who understands how to treat a man. She doesn’t expect him to provide without giving him everything he wants.”

  But it quickly became clear where he was headed when he brought one of his old buddies to the house later that day and introduced him to Katerina. He had made her clean herself and the bed before he left and told her that she had better behave properly and entertain any guests he brought back with him. Upon his return, Giorgo casually explained to her that she would now have the opportunity to ensure that she would be paying for her portion of expenses. All she had to do would be to have sex with the friend and the friend would pay Giorgo handsomely.

  She was aghast! He had hurt her, assaulted her, insulted her in every way possible, and now expected her to become a whore. “No!” she shouted to him. “I am not a whore and I will not allow you to sell me. This is too much and I will make that very clear to your friend. I doubt there is a man who would pay for me knowing what I feel.” He caught that this was the wrong time to push and decided it would be best to leave well enough alone for now. He could always intimidate her later—especially if he punished her a little bit.

  While he was careful to in no way bruise her face, he took no care with her body. He used it fiercely in whatever way suited him. He was a savage, a brute, a misogynist and had no shame about it. Deep down, he took pride in what he saw as his manliness.

  By Thursday morning, only several days after her wed-ding, she knew that her body could no longer handle the mistreatment. Katerina felt terribly sick and tried to sit down. She would have loved a cup of tea but didn’t have the energy to boil water. She realized why she was feeling so sick and what was happening to her body when she looked at her legs. Blood was seeping out of her vagina in a steady stream and, suddenly, something besides blood landed on the floor—something more substantial. It had to be her baby.

  “He has killed the child that I promised to love and protect. That villain who is the devil’s spawn has destroyed innocence one more time. May he suffer! May he die in thirst! May he die with worms eating his heart! May he die with ants biting his penis! May he die! May he die!” she shrieked while she shook violently.

  She found a towel and tried to gather the formless shape that was an unrecognizable blob. Katerina clutched the towel to her breast, moaned, and let the tears fall. She vowed to dig a hole and bury her dead baby in a secret place that he would never find.

  Giorgo found her on the floor rocking back and forth with the towel. He saw the blood still oozing from her legs and the red towel and realized something serious had occurred. A flicker of fear went through his mind as he wondered if the local police might come after him, but he wasn’t afraid of the one local yokel who basically patrolled the fields. But, if not the police, perhaps neighbors would be outraged and come to Katerina’s defense. Everyone knew that she had no one to stand up for her and they might decide to act as a vigilante group.

  “How ridiculous that would be,” he said out loud. “I have done nothing wrong in my house and if my wife accuses me of anything, I will deny any of her allegations.”

  Katerina had heard him come in and only said, “You need to bring my mother and Yiayia here. If I keep bleeding like this I will die.” She didn’t ask him to bring his mother. The woman must have heard her screams on multiple occasions but hadn’t come to check on her even one time. He didn’t suggest bringing his mother either since he knew she didn’t care enough to be concerned.

  He left frowning and somewhat disconcerted and returned with Kyria Maria and Yiayia impatiently on his heels within the hour. Yiayia, having helped with many births realized instantly what had happened. “Let’s get her into bed and wash her,” she told Katerina’s mother. “We will need to cut strips of cloth to stem the bleeding and we will need the herbs I’ve brought. Hopefully, the herbs I will apply and the herbal drinks I’ll make will save her. She has miscarried and may not be able to become pregnant again. For now, we will do well if we can at least keep her alive.”

  Kyria Maria trembled as she looked at Katerina and fell to her knees with a keening sound as if already in mourning for her daughter. She clutched at her stomach and brought her head forward to the ground and wailed. The sounds were heart wrenching in their intensity and pain. They were the sounds of a mother feeling gutted with unspeakable loss and wanting to die.

  Yiayia, having no alternative than to take charge, slapped Kyria Maria to contain any further hysterics and said sternly, “Maria, get up and help me now! If you don’t, your daughter will be in her grave before you. Do as I say and we will save her.”

  Yiayia continued coldly as she looked directly at Giorgo, “You, you bastard, have apparently been the cause of this. You’re an arrogant donkey who doesn’t have the brains of a flea. May that big-headed penis that you are so fond of cause you to be afflicted with the plague in your groin and gonorrhea, syphilis, or chlamydia on itself, and may it fall off after you suffer. If I were you, I’d start praying that she lives. When people hear of this, you may not be so lucky.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was touch and go for a week whether Katerina would live or not. She moaned continuously and thrashed around
the bed. Sometimes she could be heard whimpering, “No, please don’t. Please, please don’t. I hurt so much. Mother help me. God help me.” She had a fever up to 104 degrees at times and the priest came to see her daily. Father Kosta was ready to give her the last rites as practiced by Greek Orthodox Christians, which included partaking in Confession, Holy Communion, and Holy Unction since she was close to death, but he held off when he felt her unconsciously shrinking from his touch. He knew the fever was consuming her, but he also sensed a struggle of the spirit pulling away from all that she had ever believed in.

  Father Kosta was there when she ranted bitterly at God, “You may be out there somewhere, but you haven’t been here for me. I have no faith in you. You are no longer my God! I have no God! You, like others, have betrayed me. Worse, you deserted me in my hours of need. You saw and did nothing to help me. You do not deserve to be called God!”

  He understood her anger and only held her hand while she raged. He could only hope that something positive would emerge from the hatred she now felt, and he prayed to God for empathy toward this poor, lost young woman who had gone through an inferno no one should ever experience. He prayed deeply after she knocked the chalice of bread and wine out of his hands when he tried to give her communion as part of the last rites. “Please, Father in heaven, forgive this poor child for her act. She has always been devoted to You and is now rejecting you out of pain. I know that she has always loved you and has tried to act with the same compassion You showed in sacrificing your Son. She truly does not know what she is saying right now.”

  Kyra Maria and Yiayia stayed by her side constantly, murmuring softly, singing lullabies as if to a child, and not leaving her alone for even a minute. They had developed a routine and adjusted their shifts whenever one of the two appeared overly tired. They washed her caringly, with as light of a touch as possible, and tended to her wounds carefully. Yiayia had brought the herbal medicine, the proper salve, the mountain tea, and her love. She made fresh tea as often as necessary and, supporting the limp body caressingly, made sure that Katerina would sip some of the brew on an hourly basis.

  The first day, Yiayia had cut away the vaginal hair as much as she could so that she could apply salve more easily to that area. She was trying to ward off any further infection and mixed the salve with herbs to make a concoction of extra-healing properties that she had learned from her own grandmother and mother. It deeply wounded her to look at that area and know how bad the injuries were, but the evidence was clearly there and she scathingly swore at Giorgo. She was only a local medicinal woman, but she had had enough experience with childbirth and physical trauma to see how extensive the damage was; the cuts, the ridges in the skin, the blue and black bruising, and the ugly swelling told it all.

  Yiayia hadn’t wanted to let Katerina’s mother help at first. She didn’t want the mother to see the story unmistakably evident on Katerina’s stomach and vaginal area. So, she did as much as she could to make Katerina presentable before accepting Kyria Maria’s help. And, she realized, she had done the right thing when she heard Kyria Maria gasp at the sight of her daughter’s injuries.

  “The devil himself couldn’t have done more,” Kyria Maria whispered in shock. “May he die for what he has done. No, forgive me God, but may he live and feel the same torture for what he has done. May the bastard be brought to his knees and face death with no compassion from anyone. I will not let him near her again and am willing to die to make sure he never again touches my child.”

  “Yes,” Yiayia agreed with a deep sadness. “He is a brutal man. We had heard terrible rumors about his family, and, from what I see here, they must have taught him this sadistic trade very comprehensively. May their stay in hell be eternal. His mother and father live downstairs and must have heard something, but they must not have been willing to intercede on Katerina’s behalf. Hopefully, they didn’t endorse or promote what happened here.”

  Disgusted with the marks they could see on Katerina’s body, the two women decided to gather Giorgo’s clothes and packed them in a box. They placed the box outside on the little porch and wrote, “Do not enter this sad and grief-stricken house. You are not welcome! Suffer, you bastard, suffer!”

  When Giorgo returned to the house after having had some ouzo with his buddies in the kafenio, he agilely went up the stairs to enter what he considered his bastion. He saw the box on the porch and read the note in shock. Anger started to rise in him from his toes and snaked to his head, and he could barely control himself. “Who do these two old women think they are? How dare they tell me what to do in my own domain? I am the master of this house and I have done nothing wrong,” he reassured himself.

  He stepped forward to open the door and found it locked. Fury consumed him in a flash and he kicked at the door, shouting, “This is my house and you will stay here only if I allow it. You two old bitches, open this door. Now!”

  Yiayia opened the door and stood there impassively. “You may not enter. You are not welcome and this is no longer your house even though it is legally in your name. You will need to change that as soon as possible. Morally, it is no longer yours and we can’t allow you to defile the space here any longer. We cannot allow you near Katerina since she is teetering between life and death and your presence may impact her enough to drive her over the cliff into oblivion.”

  He swore at her: “Old lady, do not tempt me to do you harm. You are in my way and I will do what I have the right to do. Move aside!”

  “If this is what you want, I will move aside for now, Yiayia muttered as she backed away from the doorway.

  He stepped into the room and realized that a figure was standing in front of Katerina’s bed. It was Kyria Maria and she held a pistol in her right hand that was pointed directly at him. He found it grimly humorous that she had the audacity to confront him with a pistol. He doubted that she barely knew how to load the gun. These two old women thought they were pretty tough.

  “I will die before I let you go any further,” she warned him. “You will stay out of this poor house and you will stay away from my Katerina. I will not hesitate to kill you now or later, and, if you think you can remove me from this matter by causing my death first, I will have written instructions to the villagers about how they need to follow up with you, and I will explicitly detail what they should do to you so that no one repeats your vile acts. You mongrel!”

  She continued: “You may not believe me and you may not be familiar with how well I can use this gun. Take one step further and I will demonstrate my expertise. Katerina does not have a father to protect her and her brothers are still children and cannot come to her rescue. But, take my warning now and leave quietly and immediately.”

  Of course, he didn’t believe her resolve to kill him if necessary or her expertise with a gun. He had only seen the motherly and nurturing side of her nature. Stupidly, he took that step forward, and before he actually put his foot down, she had aimed at and blown off his big right toe.

  He screamed in pain as she laughed: “Another move and I will take off your left toe. I’d like to make sure that your feet are a matching pair. Feel the pain and know what is in store for you.”

  He was in pain, but, with a quick spin, he was out the door and down the steps, clutching at the railing so as not to fall forehead. He saw the blood seeping through his shoe but was scared enough to not sense how badly it hurt. His goal was to get into his parents’ house as quickly as possible and have one of them tend to his wound.

  Yiayia and Kyria Maria clutched each other at the sign of his retreating back. They hugged tightly in relief and affection and snickered: “Katerina, if you were only awake enough to see how that obnoxiously mean buffoon reacted to a small threat. The coward! May he be damned forever and may all his toes fall off. Better yet, we’d like the pleasure of blowing them off slowly one by one!”

  Katerina merely moaned softly, but it seemed that she had comprehended, at some level, what had taken place. She would continue to battle the fev
er for about a week, but for these moments, an aura of peacefulness surrounded her.

  The fever was mighty and had Katerina burning through her skin, through the bed, through anything that touched her other than the cool cloths and the cool hands with which they tended her. She dreamt but had no idea what was taking place. Sometimes the dreams were nightmares but sometimes the dreams had a gentleness to them. She saw her father as if she were again a child and then a young teenager. The pride and love he felt for her shone through his eyes, and his touch on her was very sweet.

  “My Katerina, stay with your mother,” he gently murmured. “I love you and her and eventually we will all be together, but it’s not time for you to come now. I want you to live and to feel joy, and I want you to be there to comfort your mother as she will be there to comfort you. My child, I couldn’t help you, and I felt such grief because I could see what was happening. Please forgive me. If only I could have been there to protect and shield you from beasts like Giorgo, but I was taken too soon. I can’t tell you why God allows monstrosities like Giorgo to exist, but I still have faith. I know you have lost yours for now, but I also know that we have a merciful and forgiving God. I can’t be there physically to touch or comfort you, but feel my breath against your cheek and know how much love I feel. Do not die yet.”

  She felt his breath of love and made her decision. She would live but as a changed person.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The fever broke the following Thursday, one week after Katerina’s mother and Yiayia had arrived to tend to her. They had urged her to drink liquids as much as possible and to sleep. They sponged her through the sweating bouts she went through and covered her when they saw her shivering and trembling. They knew she was generally very weak and simply held her hands or massaged her forehead and temples to relieve the headaches she seemed be feeling. They recognized when she was hallucinating and they knew that she was confused. They heard her talking in her dreams and felt her convulsions when she was having a nightmare.