by Thordis Elva
He shakes his head in desperation. ‘I knew it was wrong, even though I was just an 18-year-old kid who’d only been with one woman before you. Hell, even my ten-year-old self would’ve known that that was wrong. I’ve searched my soul for years trying to find the answer to how I could betray you like that, Thordis,’ he says, and looks away. ‘That’s the least of what I owe you. But I haven’t found anything. I have no answers.’
‘You had no regard for me. It’s simple as that. You just … took what you wanted.’
He turns to face me. ‘Yes, that sounds right. I took what I wanted.’
‘That answers it for me, Tom. I don’t need to dig any deeper than that.’
Leaning over the sink in the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face. My body is exhausted, as if I just ran a marathon. When I come back out, Tom is huddled on the floor. I sit down on the bed. For a long while, neither of us says a word.
‘Two days later, when I was still limping, you dropped by my house to end our relationship. The rape tied me to a block of cement and the following rejection pushed me over the edge. I sank like a rock. The shame and confusion made me withdraw from my friends and family, who thought I was simply suffering my first heartache. My misconceptions about sexual violence and my childish ideas about relationships made it impossible for me to identify what you’d done to me as rape, despite my physical and emotional wounds. As weeks turned into months of senseless misery, I realized that I’d slit my wrists if I carried on this way. In an attempt to give voice to my feelings, I wrote a disgustingly violent poem and read it out loud in class. The only result of that was a good mark from my teacher. One night, when I had the knife to my wrist, I called the suicide line, but they told me they were closing and that I’d have to call back later. In a final attempt to get help, I tried to open up to my sociology teacher. When she realized what I was struggling to tell her, she promptly said that it was too much for her. She took me to her car, drove me to the office of a strange psychologist, and left me there. It did nothing but confirm my worst fear: that I was crazy. I couldn’t utter a word for the fifty-minute session until the psychologist announced that the time was up, but I’d still have to pay. I gave her all my pocket money, cried tears of hot shame on the bus, and cut myself to bloody shreds when I got home.’
Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I lean forward, covered in cold sweat. To this day, recounting the seventeenth year of my life still makes me feel sick.
After a long silence, he says: ‘I don’t understand how you can even stand being in the same room as me. Or how you can even look at me.’
I scoff. ‘Come on. I don’t find you repulsive. I’ve always held you in high regard.’ Which is why your violence towards me hurt even worse.
He shudders as if I just said something revolting. ‘I don’t want you to spare me any more. Can you show me your anger?’
My mind goes to the poem that overwhelmed me last night and a flurry of disheveled thoughts follow. Would it be right of me to share it with him? Doesn’t this hurt enough, anyway? And why the hell am I so scared?
‘My anger?’ I stammer. ‘I don’t know … I wrote this poem many years ago. It doesn’t reflect how I feel today, not by a long shot, but it expresses some of the things I wanted to say to you when I was at my lowest.’
He waits in silence.
Nervously, I prattle on. ‘It’s not a pleasant read. Brutal, you know, written by an angry teenager. Perhaps it’s not a good idea.’ Because deep down I’m petrified of you judging me for the hate I felt for you, after everything we’ve done to get to where we are now.
‘If you are able to show it to me I’d like to see it,’ he says, not breaking eye contact. ‘Will you show me?’
Suddenly, I realize that this is about trust. By sharing the poem with him, I’m trusting him with uncensored emotions nobody has been privy to before. That’s what makes this so difficult. And I want to face this fear head on, even though I’m trembling from head to toe. ‘I’ll read it out loud to you, but only once. I don’t want you to get a chance to memorize it so you can use it to feed future feelings of guilt. Once, and that’s it. Understood?’
He agrees with a nod.
My hands are shaking as I open the laptop and start to read:
Spread too thin, stretching my skin until breathing brings pain and patterns the wall behind me with veins like a flashlight against an open palm. Shit stains the sheets from a seeping crack in the back of my head. FIFTEEN MINUTES AWAY FROM LOSING MY MIND rendered down to mute meat at your feet. No one to confide in, talking makes it worse. I know this, you taught me: Trusting is perverse. I trusted you I trusted you I trusted you I trusted you I trusted you and this is what it left me with and now it’s all I have. ALL I HAVE LEFT. Just a blade on my skin to scrape off your sin. Need to stand still, need to stay low where nobody can touch me and no one needs to know. Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it GET OFF ME you’re crushing me with your weight. You wore protection I’d like to know WHAT PROTECTS A GIRL from being raped on the second date and what do they mean by safe sex when I’m hooked like live bait. I’m small and weak and I’m going to be sick THERE’S A MASSACRE TAKING PLACE between my legs. What went through your head as you hacked away at me and my tears made my temples sting and my scalp itch DID YOU FEEL LIKE A MAN? It wasn’t good enough when I gave it to you so you had to come back and steal it WAS THAT THE PLAN? Swollen shut, pounded numb, was it good, did you cum? An hour later and I’m no longer there. No more betrayal, no more despair. You’re shoveling away but I’m long gone. Dissolved like the snow you trample on.
Putting the laptop aside, I rub my wet cheeks with trembling fingers, unable to look at Tom. Suddenly, a strange memory comes back to me — a man I used to live with accidentally walking into an open cabinet door made of glass. Instead of breaking in the usual way, the tension in the glass plate made it explode into countless particles that came raining down all over the room. I was going to rush to his aid, but something in his face made me stop dead in my tracks. We locked eyes as the last shards fell to the floor. He looked down at his naked chest. All of a sudden, he started bleeding. Gaping in surprise, we both watched how his entire upper body started to glisten with blood from invisible cuts.
Shell-shocked.
Tom is curled up in a ball on the floor. I’m sitting on the bed, hugging my knees. Our razor-sharp past hangs in the air, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we both started to bleed.
‘Thank you,’ he whispers, pale and hollow. ‘Thank you for trusting me with that.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I whisper back.
‘I needed to hear that … what you felt,’ he breathes, staring at the carpeted floor. ‘You have Haflidi, now. You have Vidir. You found happiness, in spite of what I did to you.’ Tears trickle down his face again. ‘That’s why this story can have a happy ending, Thordis.’
Acting on an impulse, I gesture for him to come over to me. Clumsily, he climbs onto the bed. The hug is stiff but oh so tight.
He inhales deeply.
Suddenly, I make a remarkable discovery. ‘You hear that?’
‘What?’
Amazed, I look him in the eye. ‘The storm is over!’
The howling wind that has been the constant soundtrack to our time in Cape Town has quieted. On the other side of the window lies a peaceful city with glowing arteries that pulsate through the darkness.
He smiles faintly. ‘When I was a kid, I told myself I could control the weather with my feelings.’
‘And now you tell me!? We could’ve ended this storm days ago!’
The howling wind is replaced with stomach growls that eventually drive us out of the hotel room and back into the present. Under normal circumstances, I would want to part with Tom and digest the events of the day in private, but neither of us has anything to eat and the hunger pains are ruthless. Besides, it’s safer to have company whe
n looking for food after sunset in a strange city. We decide to keep it simple, taking the elevator to the famous rotating restaurant on the top floor of the Ritz. The place has an elegance that’s past its prime, with a stale smell of food and old-fashioned furnishings. The headwaiter is apologetic when he tells us that the kitchen closed at ten, a few minutes before, but offers to make us a reservation for lunch the following day. We look at each other and nod. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and celebrating it with a priceless view over Cape Town isn’t a bad idea. In return, we get the name of a nearby restaurant that should still be open at this hour.
‘I don’t have to regret reading that poem to you, do I?’ I ask when we’re sitting at a bistro around the corner.
‘No, not at all,’ he says, taking a swig from his pint. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘The purpose of our trip was to put out fires. Not so that I could hand you a brand new box of matches.’
He smiles. ‘You have the best metaphors. And I promise, nothing that’ll be said this week will be used to light new fires.’
We could use an effortless conversation, I think, glancing at Tom. Truth be told, we both look like we’ve been to hell and back.
‘Do you know the game Never Have I Ever?’ I ask him over the edge of my glass. When he doesn’t answer, I continue: ‘The way I learned it, you’re supposed to state something with the words ‘never have I ever’ and if one of the players has done it, they take a sip from their drink. The only downside to this game is that it often morphs into an excuse to trade sex stories, but it’s much more fun if people keep their minds out of the gutter.’
‘Yeah, I think I’ve played this game,’ he says. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Alright. Never have I ever …’ — my thoughts go to the little boy who is always on top of my mind — ‘… loved someone so deeply, it made me want to become a better person.’
I take a sip. Tom thinks about it and seems about to take a sip but is torn. ‘I’m not sure,’ he says, lowering his glass.
‘Alright. Your turn.’
‘Let’s see … Never have I ever performed a song I wrote in front of a big audience.’
‘I haven’t,’ I say, pushing my glass away only to gasp: ‘Wait a minute! I sang a song I wrote in front of fifty thousand people when I was a speaker at the Women’s Strike demonstration! Ha ha!’ I take a giddy sip, but Tom doesn’t. ‘OK buddy, here’s one for you to wet your lips. Never have I ever gotten a tattoo.’
He takes a large sip, and so do I. He looks surprised. ‘What, you have a tattoo?’
‘Don’t you remember? My best friend and I had them done in the summer of 2000 as a birthday present to one another.’
He squints. ‘Where is it?’
My mind goes to the tattoo on my lower back and I’m convinced that he’s bluffing. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘Oh. So it’s in your … nether regions?’
‘No. You really don’t remember?’ I ask him, baffled.
In all honesty, Tom’s forgetfulness about my tattoo shouldn’t come as a surprise. The only time he could’ve seen it was when he returned to Iceland in the summer of 2000 and I pushed him up against the wall in the laundry room. I wasn’t going for sex; I was going for power in a calculated, emotionally detached manner. My goal was to reclaim the control he’d stolen from me four years prior.
Recalling the bitterness that drove my actions makes me uneasy, and I shove it aside out of old habit, sinking the fork casually into my grilled sandwich. ‘No wonder you’ve forgotten about it. I guess you never saw me naked that summer. We were half clothed when we … you know, in the laundry room,’ I say, gesturing with my knife so I won’t have to finish the uncomfortable sentence.
‘Sure I did, when we had sex in the shower. And in the upstairs bed. And in the car,’ he replies calmly, and continues to eat, unaware that my jaw has dropped to the floor.
I can feel my cheeks turn blood red. Can it be true? I only have one patchy memory from the laundry room, which I’d written off as a rash, vengeful attempt to reclaim my physical autonomy. Apart from that, and the loss of my virginity, I have absolutely no memories of undressing in front of — not to mention having had sex with — the man sitting across the table from me. And yet, I don’t doubt that it’s true.
In panic, my mind starts to rummage through old experiences, tearing open cabinets, shaking drawers upside down, and throwing memories all around. Coming up with nothing, all I’m left with is humiliation. Having sex only to forget about it radically contradicts my self-image. Unless — of course — I didn’t see it as sex. My mind locates an old feeling and dusts it off. In the next second, it comes crashing down on me with overwhelming force and familiarity: Wanting to hurt Tom.
The discovery hits me like a tsunami.
That’s why I believe him, that’s why I accept every last forgotten time. Because I know, I can feel how I wanted to hurt Tom as deeply as he hurt me. And I knew what would cut the deepest. He taught me himself.
‘Are you OK?’ he wonders. I realize I’ve sat motionless without touching my food.
‘I seduced you that summer because I wanted to break your heart,’ I hear myself say.
He stops chewing, staring at me for a moment like he’s never seen me before. ‘Well, if that was your intention then yes, you succeeded.’
I look at him across the table, across the roles we’ve played, across the perpetrator/survivor distinctions, across the years and miles we had to travel for this very discovery to take place: I took the power back. That’s why tension ran so high in the Westman Islands that everything boiled over. My mind locates the pedestal I built for myself, holding a burning torch to it. I wasn’t above revenge.
My self-deception goes up in flames. I wasn’t above revenge.
My last inkling of doubt about forgiving Tom goes up in smoke. Revenge healed no wounds and left nothing behind. Nothing but a broken memory I’ve evidently shied away from for half of my life.
After years of therapy and studying the consequences of rape, I know full well how post-traumatic stress can warp one’s memory. Yet the blanks I’m drawing about the summer of 2000 are nothing short of alarming. My mind, which is normally like a proud manager in a giant, chaotic library, is reeling from the shock of having misplaced the memories from those weeks. Beneath the shock is something else: a knowledge that it did happen, nonetheless. My body confirms it with sporadic flashes of fingers, skin, and salt. I comfort myself with the notion that some things are forgotten for a very good reason. And some things are better kept in other people’s memories.
‘Tom?’
We’re sitting on the patio of the bar around the corner from the Ritz, completely worn out. It’s almost midnight and yet we’ve avoided breaking our connection, seeking strength in each other’s company to deal with the vulnerability that comes with having our chests cracked open. He looks up from a burning cigarette and straight into my eyes. ‘Yes?’
‘Tell me about the summer of 2000.’
He hesitates. ‘You want me to?’
‘Yes. I remember working in a clothing store downtown. It smelled of leather. Mom and Dad had just renovated the sunroom. I remember many things from that summer. But I have very little memory of what happened between you and me, apart from the Westman Islands, of course. After which you went straight back to Australia.’
‘I thought about it earlier, whether or not I should tell you more since you seem to have such a limited recollection of those weeks,’ he says. ‘But I decided not to. I don’t want to bring up anything that I could … use against you, somehow.’
Our eyes meet and this time, I’m the one to say: ‘I don’t want you to spare me.’
He nods. ‘Alright. I started preparing the trip to Iceland months before …’
By the sound of it, the story is going to be long and rich with detail. I listen intently, eager
to recover this lost information, but my focus is shattered when the aftershocks start hitting me, one by one. Words from our conversation in the hotel room flash through my head. I wish I could tell you why I did it … I raped you …
When the first aftershock hits me, Tom is describing how he saved up for the plane ticket to come to Iceland in 2000. I concentrate on his lips, forcing myself to focus on his mouth while the words I took what I wanted ring relentlessly in my head. When he describes how he boarded the plane to Iceland, another spasm shoots through my body. His story wafts away from me like the smoke from the cigarette between his fingers. Already dizzy, I sense the impending dissociation. Desperate to fight it off, I grab his cigarette and take an impulsive drag. The taste is disgusting, but the shock of sucking smoke into my lungs has the desired effect, landing me unmistakably in the present. Tom stares at me, perplexed.
‘I’m sorry, Tom,’ I cough, handing him back the cigarette. ‘Asking you to embark on this story tonight was a mistake. Mind if we do it tomorrow instead?’
‘Not at all,’ he answers. ‘It’s been a long day.’
I nod and get up on wobbly feet, leaving a full glass of wine on the table. Right now, I’ve had more than my fill of everything.
Tom walks me home, and we say our goodbyes under a lamppost in front of the Ritz lobby. Riding the elevator up to my room, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. An emotional eighteen-wheeler.
It’s almost one o’clock when I pull the cool linens over me. My phone beeps with a text from Vidir.
You’ve got mail. Sleep tight, my love.
His love spins me a silky cocoon. I’m a truly lucky girl. An exhausted, loved, and lucky girl who withstood the storm, and now falls asleep in the soft debris.
From Tom’s diary
Saturday
I didn’t know the name of the classical piece that was playing when we sat down, but I’m familiar with its grandeur and I know it’s lifted me before.