Kill the Silence

by Monika Korra

  As I often did when I flew, I marveled at how in a matter of hours, I could be in one world, living one life, and then be in another location, picking up that other life. Sure, there were ways in which the two lives overlapped, but I think on that trip I felt more acutely than ever before the difference between there and here. Watching that icon of a jet plane on the view screen, crossing over all that water, had me thinking about how I was in so many ways in transit.

  As I sat on that flight to London, I thought about how this homecoming might be different from the ones in the past. Even without the rape, it was always an interesting circumstance to return home after being away for a few months. In the past when I’d gone home, I experienced the strange sensation of living two lives—the one in Dallas and the one at home. I’d originally left Norway determined not to change from who I was there, to remain true to my upbringing and my culture. That wasn’t easy. America was a wonderful place, and I loved my life in Dallas, the relative ease and abundance it offered.

  I knew that my time at SMU was changing me, just as it would have anyone. I was experiencing new things, meeting new people, being exposed to new ideas. So, of course, I was changing. Now, though, on this trip home, I felt like the focus on how I was behaving, what I believed, and how I felt emotionally would be even more intense than usual. I was going to be with my family most of the time, and it was going to be more difficult to present to them the idealized version of Monika that I wanted them to see. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of letting them see the real me, who was struggling with staying focused, who was seemingly moving in and out of conversations and interactions with no control over the direction my thoughts were taking. It was that I didn’t recognize myself. I wasn’t the Little Monika that everyone had grown accustomed to knowing. I wasn’t the Monika Kørra who went away to America and was taking steps toward realizing her Olympic dreams. I was a new version of myself, one who was feeling both enormously grateful to be alive and still profoundly confused and angry, wondering why this had happened to me and what that said about larger questions of purpose and the remainder of my life.

  I had been profoundly changed by the rape, in ways that I didn’t yet understand, and I was struggling with the aftereffects. What was going to happen to me when I saw the people who cared about me the most and about whom I cared the deepest? At times, I felt like I was a little child whose identity resembled a tower of blocks. Every now and then, for no reason that I could identify, I’d knock that tower down. Either I was frustrated that it didn’t look exactly like I’d wanted it to look or how I remembered it had looked, or I was just so angry at what had happened that I lashed out at the tower for being another reminder of how my life had been altered by something completely out of my control.

  What was going to happen when I came face-to-face with my parents and my sister, people who would naturally and easily work their way through whatever crumbling defenses I’d built up? Would getting to know this new and struggling me be too painful for them and for me? How much was I going to have to hide from them? And what about those defenses? Was I strong enough to support them at all? How many times could I lap the track telling everyone each day that I was fine?

  I decided that I had to go with my strengths, revert back to the typical Monika, the one who was strong and in control. I wasn’t going to hide my feelings, but I also wasn’t going to release them all and make them the focus of my return. This was Christmas after all, and I was there to celebrate it with family and friends. This was to be a time to get back to normal. More than anything else, that was what I wanted.

  On the final leg home, from London to Norway, Kristine and I seemed to be the only ones awake. We sat in the darkness, not wanting to turn on our overhead lights. Something about being with so many sleeping strangers struck us as funny, and we had to fight a case of the giggles, holding our noses, snorting, tears running down our cheeks like a couple of little girls.

  “Wouldn’t it be funny,” Kristine said at one point, “if we could get up and switch everyone’s luggage?” She pointed at the overhead bin.

  “It would be better if we left the luggage where it is and switched the contents.”

  Kristine nodded her head slowly. “You’re right. That way the chaos would come when we weren’t here.”

  “I wouldn’t want anyone blocking the aisle and delaying getting off this thing.”

  A man a few rows ahead of us barked like a seal as he snored.

  We giggled again.

  After a few moments of silence Kristine turned serious. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’m glad that I met you and I’m glad that I was there that night and that we’re going through this together.”

  “I am, too.”

  “I think it all happened for a reason. From the start, I mean. Meeting. Living together.”

  I nodded.

  “Some things are out of your control, you know. That was what was so hard about having to release my grip on you that night.”

  “I know. I hated the idea that you thought you’d lost or had to give up. I know you did everything you could. There was nothing either of us could do. Sometimes fighting hard won’t work.”

  “What I’ve been thinking a lot about in races is that I can’t control people like I thought I could. That’s a wrong way to look at it. All I can do is control what I do. If someone goes into her kick earlier than I want to, I don’t have to respond right away. I have to run my race, respond when I’m ready to, when it makes the most sense for me.”

  Even though we were talking about racing, I knew that Kristine was also talking about healing from the rape. I knew on some level that I couldn’t control what those men had done to me. The only thing I could do was to take control of how I responded to it. I understood that intellectually, but I’d been so programmed for so long to keep up with where everyone else was that I knew running my own race at my own pace was going to be hard.

  A silence ensued, and I could sense that something else was on Kristine’s mind, that something was wrong. I asked her to tell me what was going on.

  “Monika, I’m scared.” Kristine took my hand. “I’m afraid of having to go back to Dallas without you.”

  I squeezed her hand and looked at her. I wanted to see that laughing, smiling face that I’d seen just a few minutes ago.

  “I’ll be back,” I said.

  “I mean, we’re supposed to be together there, right? That’s why we met. That’s what all this means?”

  “They’re not going to win. I can’t let that happen. I’ll be back.”

  As I said the words and Kristine smiled and nodded, a distant voice, like the murmured conversation of someone rows behind us, came to me. I’d be back, but who would that I be?

  As our plane approached Gardermoen airport, I reminded myself that I had so much to look forward to. I’d always loved Christmas, and this one was special for another reason. I was going to be able to see my best childhood friend, Ida, and her new baby. If anyone other than Anette knew me well and had been with me through various adolescent struggles and triumphs, it was Ida. Before the rape, I’d been so looking forward to going home to see her and her newborn son, Håkon, for the first time. I’d been thrilled when she asked me to be his godmother. I remembered how I’d thought of him the night of the attack. I thought that I’d never see him in person, that I was going to die, and now here I was, just a few hours away from actually touching and holding him.

  Along with seeing Ida, I was eager to see my other friends. A group of five of us had met through our local athletic club and competed with and against one another in track. We had our own rituals and traditions that weren’t related to Christmas, but they were important to me. Even though I was somewhat of an introvert when it came to public occasions, I was our little group’s social director. I was always the one who planned our get-togethers. That was true before I left for the United States, and it continued after I’d started attending SMU. I was trying to prove to everyon
e that I hadn’t changed, that I wasn’t forgetting the people who’d been there for me as friends before; I loved each of them and wanted them to be a part of my life forever. I imagined that seeing them now would be a way to connect with my previous self, and I was excited to get together.

  So it was with all these thoughts swirling around in my head, like the dust of snow on the ground outside the gate as the plane landed in Gardermoen, that I took a deep breath, smiled at Kristine, and rose on my tiptoes to tug at my carry-on bag. A nice man reached up to help me. I looked over at him and smiled. “Thanks,” I said, “but I’ve got it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Christmas

  After twenty hours on a plane, I was sure I didn’t look my best, so I stopped in a restroom to fix my hair and makeup. It was important to me to present myself well to my family—I didn’t want them to see me looking exhausted, even though that would have been perfectly natural for anyone after an international flight. Seeing them in the terminal, I felt as though I could forget everything that had happened in the last two weeks. My mother, my father, and Anette and I all half-walked and half-ran toward one another and then formed a cluster of intertwined arms, muffled words, and tears. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be surrounded by the familiar. Even hearing the airline announcements in Norwegian gave me some comfort. Despite my resolve to present a cheerful, worry-free Monika to them, it was okay to tear up—these were tears of relief and pleasure, after all. Anette’s dog, Enja, lightened the mood by squirming in her arms and trying to lick each of our faces in turn.

  They got to meet and give a quick hug to Kristine before she had to run off to catch her connecting flight to Ørsta. My mom put a little paper bag in her hand and gave her a big hug.

  “Gledelig Jul,” my mother said, wishing her a happy Christmas. I knew that my mother and father both wanted to say more to her, but that seemed enough at the time. I then held Kristine in an embrace for a moment. We separated and held each other’s gaze. Finally, neither of us able to put into words what we both knew we were feeling, we laughed. I watched her turn and go, and get swallowed up by the crowd in the terminal, thinking about how much I’d miss her calming influence.

  As we drove north on the E6, I sat in the car and felt cocooned in the warmth of the vehicle and my family’s presence. Near Jessheim, my mother put our traditional Christmas CD into the player. Though none of us needed a reminder, my mother said, as the first strains of “Driving Home for Christmas” made themselves known, “This is my favorite.”

  I felt much calmer bathed in all that familiarity and their conversation, and then I must have drifted off. Only when we exited the highway in Løten did I wake up, but it seemed to me that only an instant and not an hour had passed by.

  The first few hours at home passed quickly. I was tired from the flight and was happy just to sit and watch and listen as everyone else went about the business of getting a meal ready. Enja sat nearby, and I stroked her fur, smiling when she put her paw on my hand to guide it toward her favorite spot at the base of her throat.

  My mother asked me about Ida and her baby, and I told her how eager I was to see the two of them the next day. She also asked about other plans I had for the next month, focusing very much on the present and the future, I noted gratefully. I felt like my head was stuffed with cotton or as if it were a helium-filled balloon floating tethered above my body—sounds were muffled, my vision was in soft focus, and the lights in the house cast everything in a warm glow. I even found that I had a bit of an appetite and was able to eat a few bites of the salmon and vegetables my mother had prepared. I was grateful for Enja’s presence. My family and I engaged in a stuttering kind of conversation, punctuated by the sound of our silverware contacting our plates. Things picked up and evened out when Enja got under the table and tangled herself within our nest of legs, causing a pleasant commotion. More than anything, I think we were all tired, exhausted in different ways but all resulting from a central source. It was as if Enja served as a reminder of what was moving just beneath the surface, but at least the little dog was something we could all comment on without risk.

  After dinner, I helped with the dishes, Anette and I insisting that my mother take a break. Anette stood with one hip leaning against the counter while she dried the fish platter. I was looking down at my hands, how red they were from the water, yet I’d had no sense at all of how hot I’d let it run.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I nodded and showed her my hands. “An odd color.”

  “Your nails are bare.” She frowned and twisted her mouth to the side. “Maybe we can do them later. Mine are a mess, too.”

  Anette held up her hands and waggled her fingers.

  A feeling of dread was coming over me, and I think she sensed that something was up. I focused on the bangle bracelet she was wearing.

  “Remember this?” Anette said as she worked it off her wrist and held it out to me. I examined the Turkish eye; the blue-and-white stone resembled an eye. We’d each gotten one years before when we’d visited there with our parents.

  “For good luck. To ward off the evil eye.” I remembered the shopkeeper telling us that. I’d kept mine tucked away in my jewelry box.

  I shook my head, declining to try it on. “My hands are all soapy. It’s beautiful, though.”

  Later that night, I lay in bed, fearful of what terrors the night might bring. I hadn’t slept alone since the attack, and though being in my own room thousands of miles away from Dallas and those men was a good thing, they still roamed freely in my mind. I’d developed the habit of pulling the covers over my head, something I’d done briefly as a little girl, and the sound of my eyelashes brushing against the flannel was like a second hand ticking.

  I heard a tap on the door and then it swinging open. I pulled the sheet down, and in a wedge of light from the hallway, I saw Anette, a bundle of blankets and pillows cradled to her chest, moving toward me.

  “You always hog the covers, so I brought my own.”

  I scooted closer to the far edge of the bed, my nose prickling with the beginning of tears. I swallowed hard and said, “Just so long as you keep your cold feet off me, we’ll be okay.”

  I felt Anette settle in and then heard the sound of Enja’s paws on the carpet. I could picture her circling before I heard her settle and then sigh.

  “She’s a good friend for you,” I said.

  “It’s good to have a companion now that Jonas isn’t around.”

  I wished that Anette’s tone had been more wistful, but it was matter-of-fact, though I could see through the pretense and knew that she missed him.

  We talked for quite a while that night. It was as if the bed were our little sanctuary and we were floating on it surrounded on all sides by a sea that contained many creatures that might do me harm. They didn’t dare show themselves as long as the two of us were together. Our conversation drifted from topic to topic and in time I could hear Anette’s voice grow more faint, and her sentences became half-finished.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “You can let go.” I thought of Kristine letting go of my hand as I was dragged away.

  “There’s a little shop in Trondheim, just around the corner from my flat, and the woman there—”

  I waited, pleased beyond words that Anette had struggled so mightily to stay awake. When the sound of her voice was replaced by the sound of her steady breathing, I pulled my covers back over my head, thinking of good fortune and all the ways in which we try to ward off evil, and too often fail to do so, while counting the ticks of my lashes until morning.

  —

  IDA AND HER fiancé Glenn came over with their baby the following morning. It took my breath away to see Håkon’s face and to think about how he had played in my mind the night of my attack. Here was my reward. My godson would know me.

  I sat holding him in my arms, his tiny hand wrapped around my thumb.

  “You look so tired,” Ida said at one point.

 
“The travel…” I began to say more, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  Ida nodded and shifted in her chair. She narrowed her gaze at me and then sat back as if she’d reached some conclusion.

  She laughed and smiled. “You should complain. We haven’t slept a decent night since he was born. Thief of sleep we should have called him.”

  “You must be sleepwalking.”

  “Feels like it a bit, but when I’m really feeling like I just can’t take it and want to lie down and just forget about everything for a while, I hear him or see him do something that reminds me that it’s all worth it. You’ll see that yourself someday.”

  I knew that Ida was talking about more than just me eventually becoming a mother.

  “For now, knowing that someday I’ll feel that way will have to be enough.” I stood and walked over to the window and pointed out an icicle that glimmered in a brief flash of sunlight. The baby smiled, squinting into the bright light.

  I turned and Ida was there beside me. I handed her the baby.

  “Whatever you need,” she said, “I’ll be here.”

  —

  IN THE FIRST few days I was home, I could feel my family adjusting to me and it was easier to talk in the evenings, as if the day’s energy was waning and everyone was more settled, with less on our minds. So, over the course of the next few nights, I shared my experiences with them in a way I couldn’t have over the phone. They listened quietly and held me when I let them know that I’d said enough.

  The odd thing was that I told the story backward; that first conversation began with me talking about the days after, finishing papers for school, dealing with coming home. On subsequent nights, I’d talk about being at the police station, the hospital, and only later could I tell them about that night. For the first time that first evening, I also admitted that I was tired.