Kill the Silence

by Monika Korra

  In choosing to tell my story, I hope to shatter the silence that often follows attacks like the one I endured. The paralyzing feelings of guilt and shame that accompany being raped last far longer than the assault itself. Just as rapists often tell their victims to shut their mouths, society can do something similar to victims. I hope that by sharing my experiences I can help others who’ve been raped, as well as their family members, friends, mental health experts and counselors, gain a new and better perspective from someone who was there and is now here. The silence does not have to linger forever. I’m fortunate that I was able to utilize many of the skills and traits that I developed over the years as a competitive runner to aid my healing.

  I still have some ways to go, but I’m not that young woman who didn’t want to be here anymore. I am here, and I have a voice and I want to be heard.

  —

  FOR THOSE WHO have struggled with adversity, who have experienced things that they wish they could undo or leave behind, those who are haunted by their past, I am here to say that there is a way through. We will all face challenges in life, but we have to refuse to allow those feelings of fear, guilt, and shame to hold us back or to victimize us again. We can use those experiences, as horrible as they might have been, to make us stronger than we ever dreamed possible. I hope that in reading my story you’ll find some keys to unlocking your own strengths and abilities. You may not be a runner like I am, but you can begin to move more freely in your world and in your own way. You can find peace and take pleasure in simple acts. You can recover what was taken from you. Your life can be better than it ever was before, knowing that you have strength inside you to overcome any obstacle.

  I was victimized, but I refuse to be called a victim.

  I’ve been sad, but I won’t let anyone feel sorry for me anymore.

  I’ve been raped, but I will never let that define who I am.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Stillhetens Timer

  Stillhetens timer.

  Quiet hours.

  I sat on the couch wishing that the mandatory quiet time imposed in the dormitories during the week of final exams could be enforced in our apartment complex. Through the thin walls, the first notes of the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” thumped from my neighbor’s apartment and made my water bottle dance on the end table. I set aside my textbook for my Health Psychology class, shut my eyes, and pinched the bridge of my nose.

  My lids scratched across my eyes as I tried to blink my vision clear. I briefly wondered if our neighbors were suggesting that the lyrics to the song they were blasting were an example of limbic language, the topic I’d just been reviewing in my notes. I looked down at the page and saw that there was more fluorescent highlighting than plain text there. That was a sure sign that I was getting too tired, that my efforts weren’t producing good results. I was just about to complete my third semester in Dallas at SMU, and another sure sign of fatigue was when my rapidly and much improved English seemed to fail me and I spent too much time tearing through my English/Norwegian dictionary or Google. Before I could convince myself to buckle down and study for another few hours, my roommates Kristine and Viktoria came bouncing into the room. They danced around to the soundtrack our neighbors were providing, laughing as they pulled me out of my chair for an impromptu dance party. The studying-induced tension that had crabbed my neck and shoulders seemed to flow out of the ends of my fingers.

  When the song ended, I sank back onto the couch and reached for my book and highlighter. Kristine grabbed my wrist to keep me from retreating back to my studying, and we jumped around the room in time to Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance.”

  Kristine shouted the song’s title at me over and over, her Cheshire grin and sparkling eyes playfully admonishing me for not letting go of my work ethic completely. I tried to let go of the guilt I felt at not sticking with my books, and Kristine and I played a kind of game of tug-of-war as she pulled me back out onto our makeshift dance floor and I tried to drag her toward my security blanket of books and papers on the couch.

  The music ended abruptly and Kristine and Viktoria collapsed to the ground and lay on their backs beating their fists against the carpet in exasperation.

  “I didn’t want that song to ever end!” Viktoria said.

  Then they giggled and surrounded me, hugging pillows to their chests.

  “We have to get ready,” Kristine said. She held her watch out to me so I could read the display.

  I had agreed to go with them to a party, but my eyes involuntarily took in my study materials.

  “N-o-o-o-o!” they said in unison.

  “I k-n-o-o-o-w!” I teased back.

  “Then let’s g-o-o-o-o!” Viktoria said, ending the conversation.

  In the shower, I thought about how different that scene had been, how the year before I wouldn’t have been dancing, or if I was, I would have been dancing alone and completely self-consciously. When I first arrived on campus in Dallas, I’d had no idea how I was ever going to find my way to my classes, let alone how I’d manage in the city. I knew that coming to the U.S. was going to be difficult. I’d been thrilled when the coaches at SMU offered me a scholarship to run track and cross-country, but the transition to life in the U.S. hadn’t been easy.

  English was never my best or favorite subject, and in my first encounters with people here, I was puzzled by even the simplest interactions. The first time I went to a grocery store in the U.S., I was overwhelmed by the rows and rows of strange food items towering over me. As I wandered the aisles, looking for some familiar colors and shapes of packaging, I averted my eyes whenever another shopper glanced my way and smiled. Back home, we’d only do that if we saw someone we knew, but I didn’t know any of these people. Why were they regarding me as if we were acquaintances? When it was finally my turn to check out, the young woman behind the counter, a blonde with ringlets of curls and a teardrop tattoo beneath her right eye, smiled at me and said, “Hi there! How’reyoudoingtoday?” I understood the first part, but the second was a rush of sounds that had me wondering what it was I was expected to do next.

  “Hello,” I said, and immediately dug in my purse as if I wasn’t sure where my credit card had gone.

  As she scanned the items, I tentatively extended my hand to take them and watched nervously as she placed them in a bag. When she was done, she asked me, “Can I take these to your car for you?”

  I understood the words “take” and “car” and was puzzled for a second. Was she asking me to give her what I had just purchased?

  I shook my head and said, “No. I do this. Myself.” I wondered if there was something about me that made her feel that I needed help.

  The truth was that I did, but I wasn’t going to ask for it.

  I do this.

  Myself.

  Those words were my motto, and they guided my actions throughout my first days at SMU. I couldn’t explain to that woman that I didn’t have a car, but I walked home from that grocery store with my head held high. I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do. That sense of accomplishment didn’t last long. During those earliest days, I wasn’t just confused and bewildered; I was homesick. My mother and I talked nearly every day to combat that for the first few weeks, until she received the first phone bill.

  Luckily, we soon discovered Skype and could once again communicate freely.

  I had worried all semester that I had made a mistake by coming to the States. During the first week of school, I barely understood a word my professors said. I tried to take detailed notes, but my English wasn’t fluent to begin with, and now I was contending with strong Southern accents and dialects on top of it. How would I ever learn?

  Luckily, that part did get easier over time. I understood more and wrote down more—in fact, I wrote so much that I was copying down my professors’ lectures almost verbatim until a friend suggested that I ease up a little on the notes and trust my listening skills.

  Unlike most beginning college students, who indulge in the
ir freedom and party too much, I probably studied too much. I was lonely but was so focused on keeping my grades up for my scholarship that I spent all of my time either in training or studying, so I didn’t really notice how much time I was spending by myself.

  Academically I was on the right course, and I made the top five squad of the cross-country team, which meant that I got to compete in all the big races right from the start. But I kept to myself in the dorms and rarely went out with the other girls. It wasn’t until Kristine arrived in my second semester that things changed.

  Kristine Eikrem Engeset was one of the world’s elite middle-distance runners. She was someone I’d met in competitions in Norway and admired very much—all the young female runners looked up to Kristine. You couldn’t help but admire her for her beautiful hair, the toned legs, and her body of steel. Not only was she likely to make our Olympic track team, she was even a model for PUMA after she ran in the World Championships in 2007. She appeared on huge posters worldwide with the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest human being. I could only dream of attaining such notoriety and such an impressive record of success on the track.

  Before I moved to Dallas, I didn’t know Kristine well enough to call her a friend. I had heard they were trying to get her to SMU and was thrilled when she finally arrived for what was my second semester of freshman year.

  It turned out that we had a lot more in common than just being runners from the same country. I went from being thrilled to have her running alongside me at a competition to seeing her as a true friend. She made me look at the world differently; as famous as she was, she never took herself too seriously, and definitely never put on airs. We became such close friends because we shared many of the same values and dreams—marriage, children, making ourselves and the world a better place.

  In the fall, we moved into an apartment with Viktoria, a high jumper on the team who came from Estonia. I felt like my life in Dallas had really begun; it was great to have someone from home to talk to, to share the experiences of moving this far away and trying to fit in to a different culture. The three of us shared a common sense of discipline, but the two of them showed me that finding a balance in life was important. With their help, I opened up a bit more, and realized how much I missed getting to know different people and learning about their backgrounds and perspectives. Oddly, the less I obsessed about school and track, the happier I was and the better I was able to perform.

  As I got ready to go out with my roommates that night of our impromptu dance party, I felt grateful that I had them there to remind me to enjoy myself a little. Though I’d gotten into the shower a little after 9 p.m., three women in one apartment all trying to get ready at the same time means nothing is moving quickly. By 10:15, I was still sitting and waiting for Viktoria and Kristine to emerge. I had put on a dress and a pair of heels, feeling a bit naughty about going out, especially with the end of the semester so close. I liked that edgy feeling of stretching my boundaries a bit.

  At 10:30, we were finally ready to go. Viktoria took one more look at herself in the mirror near the door, applied her lipstick, and said, in her best American movie hero accent, “Let’s roll.”

  Of course, we couldn’t really “roll” without the aid of our friend George, who was waiting in his car to take us out. George was a good-hearted guy whom we had all come to think of as a kind of surrogate older brother. He met Kristine first, at a PUMA store where he worked. He noticed her tattoo and started a conversation. They connected as friends, and I could tell that he had a slight crush on Kristine. I mentioned that to her, but she shrugged it off. Kristine didn’t understand the power she had over men, and unlike some women who pretend to be that way, she truly was oblivious to the effect she had on males. But it was no surprise to any of us that George had volunteered to take us to the party and was going to stick around.

  I’d only known George for a couple of months, but I enjoyed his company. He helped me with my English, a lot of times with slang or odd expressions, and I loved how his eyes would grow wide and his bottom jaw drop a bit when I asked him about terms like “bromance,” “FOMO,” “schwa,” and a few others that I’d overhear or see in a text or an e-mail. Viktoria was in the front seat next to him, and she turned to look at me. “Who’s going to be there tonight, Monika?”

  “Kevin told me about it. I don’t really know who is going to be there. People from some of the other sports, I think.”

  “And who’s Kevin?” George used his exaggerated I’m-your-father-and-you-should-tell-me-everything voice.

  I rolled my eyes at Kristine, who grunted a laugh and continued texting someone.

  “He’s on the soccer team. We have Sports Management class together. Anything else you need to know?” I pretended to sound like an irritated teenager, but I wasn’t, and George smiled at me through the rearview mirror.

  I’ve always hated walking into parties, that feeling that every eye is on you, but when we got to Kevin’s place, the music was loud and people were either dancing or standing around talking busily to one another. We slipped in and, feeling bad for George, who stood there watching as Kristine waded through the bodies in the living room toward the sounds of laughter and cheers and disappeared into what must have been the kitchen, I remained there with him for a few minutes. We both stood there with that I’m-having-a-good-time fake grin plastered on our faces.

  We tried to talk, but with the music and the voices so loud, it was hard to hear. We made disjointed conversation about our plans for the upcoming holiday. We drifted toward the kitchen in pursuit of Kristine and Viktoria. They were both standing on one side of the kitchen table, Viktoria holding the Ping-Pong ball in her hand, squinting at the cups that sat at the other end of the table as targets. She released the ball and it hit the lip of one cup, bounced into the air, and found a home in another. The room erupted in cheers and groans, and Kristine and Viktoria engaged in an arms-to-the-ceiling victory dance and fist bumps.

  They saw George and me and waved us over. I was never much of a drinker, and one half cup of beer later, the sour vegetable taste still in my mouth, I excused myself from the game. The alcohol seemed to be working, as the dancers now far outnumbered the conversers, and a loose conglomeration of bodies moved around the living room. I was reminded of films I’d seen back in Norway of neurons firing and attaching and detaching in the brain, little flits of movement and flashes of light from cell phone cameras. I joined the group, losing my self-consciousness in movement.

  I was surprised, then, when George approached me to tell me that he was going to leave. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter after twelve.

  “I’ll be back,” he said, leaning in close. I could smell something on his breath, not alcohol, not tobacco or pot. His tongue was an odd reddish color and I realized he was sucking on a throat lozenge. I wondered if he was sick.

  “To get you guys,” he said, finally making himself heard.

  “If you’re sick you should just go to bed,” I protested. “You don’t have to come back just for us.”

  “I do,” he said. “I want to and you need me to.”

  We made plans for me to text him when we were ready to be picked up. Only then did I realize why he was so insistent. I’d had a similar conversation a few weeks earlier with my boyfriend.

  Robin lived just across the street from my apartment complex, and we’d spent a quiet night watching a movie. When I told him I was going to go home, he jumped up and started to work his feet into his shoes.

  “I’m coming with you. I want to make sure you get there okay.”

  Another female athlete who lived in the same complex as Kristine, Viktoria, and I had been raped a few days before. We were all shocked and saddened, and I knew it was important to be vigilant, but I didn’t want Robin to worry too much about me. I made some joke about my speed and the hundred or so meters from his door to mine. “If anyone tries to attack me, I’ll get away. Don’t worry.”

  Robin’s expression h
ardened into a frown.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him, “and I’m serious.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen to you.”

  I was touched by his kindness and concern. I was, in fact, crazy in love with this tennis-playing marvel from Sweden. In April of 2009, a friend had asked me to accompany her to a tennis match. Maybe it was the red bandanna that Robin wore to keep his long hair back; maybe it was the combination of grace and power that he exhibited as he covered the court and blew serves past his opponent, or the intensity of his expression on the court, so different from the warmth of his smile when we first met; but he caught my attention as soon as I saw him. His being from a Scandinavian country was a plus; the cultural familiarity was more than just one of those early-days-in-a-romance searches for things we had in common.

  That night, I kissed Robin good night and dashed home.

  A little after 2 a.m., I was ready to leave the party. I texted George asking if he could come get us. I let the inexhaustible Kristine and Viktoria know that our guardian angel was on his way. Then I collapsed onto a couch and waited for George’s phone call to let us know that he’d arrived.

  Sitting there, I thought about how fortunate I was to have found two soul mates at SMU. In Robin and Kristine, I’d come across two people who knew me nearly as well as anyone. Ida and I were very close, but with her back in Norway, and me here in the U.S., I felt really fortunate to have Kristine in my life. I didn’t doze off, but it seemed like only a second later that George phoned me. I told him we’d be right out.

  We opened the door to a gust of wind and cold. The three of us linked our arms and hands and made a short-skirted dash toward George’s car, all of us laughing and making it’s-really-cold-out-here sounds.

  “I can’t wait to get home and into my warm bed,” Kristine said.