by Eve Rabi
Suddenly, I find myself back in the kitchen, boiling water.
Leeanne walks in and yaks away. I nod but I hear nothing she’s saying.
I think that tidal wave of shock I suffered is slowly wearing off because my mind keeps wandering back to last night.
He made me believe I was safe with him. All his niceness, his protection, his caring, was just a show, a game. It was a case of charm-and-disarm. Charm, get her to lower her guard, then hurt, violate, take. I trusted him, and he let me down so badly. His behavior is that of a sociopath. How could I have missed the signs? Why was I so stupid to think I could trust a captor, an enemy?
Disappointment oozes through my soul, and for the first time since I arrived in Iraq, I feel utterly defeated. My eyes start to sting, so I quickly grab the kettle and pour the water into a mug.
Because of my trembling, a few drops of boiling water scald my hand. I gasp and stare at my injury.
“What?” Leeanne asks.
“I burned myself!”
Leeanne peers at my hand. “Megan, it’s a tiny burn. Stick it under some cold water.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “It’s not tiny. It’s … it’s huge.”
“What the …?”
The flood gates have burst opened, and tears tsunami down my face. “Leeanne, it … it shouldn’t happen to … to any woman. I may be a soldier … but … Leeanne … I’m still a woman, and I shouldn’t get … burned Leeanne, I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t ...”
“What the …?” Leeanne sticks her face in mine and scans my face, her confused look morphing into concern.
“How did it go so wrong, Leeanne? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Megan!” Leeanne places her hands on both my shoulders, an admixture of confusion and disbelief reigning in her eyes. When she spots the bruises on my arms, her eyes grow huge. “You’ve been … you didn’t!”
I nod several times.
“Oh, Jesus!” Her hands fly to her mouth.
I don’t bother to wipe away the tears, so they collect under my chin.
“Fazel … I knew he was a bastard,” she finally says. “I’d like to …”
I shake my head from side to side.
Just then, Reed appears at the doorway.
“Reed, Megan’s been raped!” Leeanne blurts before I can stop her.
After an awkward silence he mutters, “I’m sorry.”
I squeeze my eyes shut at his apology and turn my back on him. I didn’t expect him to apologize, so I’m a little confused that he is.
“You knew about it?” Leeanne asks. “Why didn’t you tell me? Megan needed help.”
“I’m sorry,” Reed mutters again. How can he possibly be “sorry” about something of such magnitude?
“Did you see the bruises?” Leeanne asks. “Shariff has to be told about this right away, you know. I hope they slice his dick off. Fucking asshole!”
Another uncomfortable silence.
Reed breaks it first. “Megan, can I talk to you?” His voice is humble. “Please?”
I shake my head from side to side. I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to hear anything he has to say, and I don’t want to even hear his voice.
“Please, Megan.”
“No!” I croak.
“Megan, please, I just …”
I shake my head.
Crestfallen, he turns and walks away.
Leeanne stands rooted to the spot, a look of shock on her face. When I see her furiously biting her nails, looking so scared and uncertain, I realize she too has been betrayed by him. Like me, she too believed in him and trusted him. As she chews on her nails, I see her visibly shrink in front of me, and I’m reminded that beneath that tough-chick exterior, she is a gentle soul who planned to dedicate her life to God.
In spite of my pain and despair, my instinct to shield and protect her is such that I reach out and hug her to me.
She stands stiff and unyielding in my embrace. “It’s okay, Leeanne. It’s okay.”
After a while, she shrugs me off her and reaches to touch my forehead. She removes her hand, nods and says, “Megan, listen … I want you to listen carefully – you’re coming down with something. I’ll tell them to give you the day off so you can rest. That’s all it is. Rest. You’re just tired, and your mind is playing tricks on you.”
How could she possibly think I imagined it?
For the second time in twenty-four hours, I feel let down by someone I cared about. Perhaps her denial is her coping mechanism right now, but it’s shrapnel to me.
Even though I say nothing, I guess my disappointment in her reaction is obvious, because her bottom lip trembles and her eyes brim with tears.
“I … I’ll get some aspirin,” she chokes and literally runs out of the kitchen.
Aspirin. Could Leeanne be right? Was I ill and sort of hallucinating? I look down at my wrists and see the angry welts. It was real. It happened. I was raped.
I lower myself onto a kitchen stool and sit with slumped shoulders.
Leeanne returns without aspirin. “Megan, come, I’m taking you to your room.”
With my head bent, I meekly follow her to my room where I crawl into bed and shut my red eyes.
Leeanne lies next to me and strokes my head. When I see the helplessness in her eyes, I reach up and hug her to me.
“It can’t be,” she mutters as tears cascade down her cheeks. “It just can’t.”
We cry together, and now that I’ve started crying, I can’t stop. I finally fall asleep with Leeanne next to me. In my sleep, I hear someone whimpering. It’s me.
When I wake up, he is sitting hunched in a chair looking at me.
That cattle prod again. I jerk my face away to look at the wall. Strangely enough, I’m not afraid of him ever raping me again, because I suspect that he may actually be sorry.
“Megan, I’m sorry,” he says in a humble voice.
“Please, just leave,” I say, trying my best to sound whole.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I want to apologize. Let me. Please?”
I shake my head from side to side.
“Let him,” Leeanne whispers.
I shake my head harder.
“Megan, that night … I wasn’t thinking, and so much was going on …”
“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Please … just don’t.”
He stares at me for a few seconds, then nods. “Anyway, I’m sorry … sorry for hurting you. I wish it didn’t happen. I messed up, big time. I really am sorry.” He turns and slowly shuffles out of the room.
***
I no longer leave my bed. I’ve stopped eating, I’ve stopped drinking. I’m not on a hunger strike or anything; I just don’t care to live anymore. Life is too hard, and I don’t have the energy to do this anymore. Compared to what I’ve been subjected to since my capture, death would be easier.
Leeanne is horrified at my desire to die and begs me to eat, but I don’t.
Bygone brings me food beautifully served on a tray. When he returns and finds it untouched, his brow furrows.
When the same thing happens at lunch and dinner, he gets really anxious and motions me to eat. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” I say.
The next day, I refuse to eat again, and this time, Bygone glares first at the uneaten food, then at me.
“Eat!” he orders.
I shake my head.
“Eat!” he repeats, trying desperately to summon a menacing disposition.
I shake my head again.
He turns on his heels and leaves the room. He returns with an AK-47 and points at me. “You eat now, or I kiiill you.”
When I still don’t eat, his eyes start to water and his bottom lip quivers. He drags himself out of my room, cradling his rifle, a look of helplessness on his craggy, old face. He returns with a book and gives it to me. It’s an Old Testament.
Guards and patients peep into my room to see if, well, I think it’s to see if I’m still al
ive.
“Eat, please, Megan, please!” Leeanne begs.
He enters. “Please eat,” he says.
Without a word, I turn my back on him.
Shariff visits sporting a worried look, but acting like he has the situation under control. Probably for the benefit of his men.
“My dear, why don’t you want to eat?” he asks in a fatherly voice. The head of the Iraqi militants is urging me to eat in a fatherly voice. Weird.
I say nothing. I’m very weak, and it’s an effort to talk. If only I could bring myself to utter the words, “I was raped by Him.”
“You have a family, a husband … they will want you to survive.”
This whole conversation is bizarre. A pep talk from my jailor? Wonder what would happen if I asked him to release me right now?
As if he is reading my mind, he says, “I wish I could release you now, but I can’t. But in time, you will be released, unharmed. Trust me.”
Omar, Shariff’s deputy, is not as patient. He stands above me, rifle in hand, and mouths off at me.
Shariff grabs Omar’s elbow and quickly takes him out of the room.
Leeanne enters my room looking stressed. “Megan, Reed sent me –”
“Leeanne, don’t mention his –”
“– to talk sense into you! I don’t know what to say, Megan. I know nothing I say is going to make you better, but … you have to live. You’ve come too far to give up. I too feel your disappointment. I mean, I too felt I could trust him, but honey, we have to move on – just manage our disappointment.”
I shake my head slowly.
“Promise you’ll eat? I don’t know what I’ll do if … if something happens to you. I rely on you so much cos you’re always so … so spirited and funny, and so fucking cocky and … and I get my strength from you and I –”
Someone calls out to her. “Back soon,” she says and hurries out of my room.
He enters my room again.
“Please leave,” I whisper.
“You have to eat,” he says in an anxious voice.
I ignore him.
“Megan, listen to me! You have to eat. Do you understand?”
Silence.
“I said I was sorry, and I’ll say it again.”
I shut my eyes and turn to face the wall, refusing to respond to his justification.
With an exasperated sigh, he storms out of my room.
Fifteen minutes later, he strides in with a determined look on his face, and a metal tray containing what looks like sterile … stuff. Next to that is a bowl of soup.
With a firmly set jaw, he bangs the tray on my bedside table, spilling some of the soup.
“Wha …?”
Slowly, ceremoniously, he opens a sterile bag and pops out a long, transparent, tube. Next, he uncovers a jar of white liquid and places it next to the tube.
“What the hell …?”
“A nasal tube,” he says. “You don’t eat, I shove it … I mean insert it down your nose, down your throat, and into your stomach so I can feed you.”
My eyes widen. “What?!”
“Don’t worry, it’s only painful initially, you know. You’ll feel like you’re drowning. Then it’s just a matter of discomfort for a while.”
“What?!”
“Actually, discomfort for as long as you have it in you, to be quite honest.” The fucker actually sounds apologetic. “But, I’ll try to be as gentle as possible.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Megan, I don’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice. It’s important that you live, so I’ll do what it takes.”
He drops the snaking tube on the tray, walks over to a chair, and lowers his bulk into it. With raised eyebrows, he looks at me.
I don’t know what to do. Many years ago, doctors suspected I had a gastric ulcer and they inserted a diagnostic tube down my nose. It was the worst medical treatment I have ever endured, and I never want to ever experience anything like that again.
“You must be nuts,” I hiss.
“Well?” he asks, ignoring my outburst. “Are you …?” He jerks his head towards the food.
“No, fuck off!” I snarl, trying to sound more confident than I’m feeling.
“Okay, let’s get this over with then!” He slaps his thigh and stands up so forcefully his chair flies back and crashes into a wall.
I almost jump with fright.
He strides purposefully towards me and towers over me.
“I’ll have to restrain your hands first, so that you don’t fight me when the pain becomes too much,” he says, and grabs one of my wrists.
I yank my hand away. “You probably never even did this before, you fucking quack. You might pierce one of my organs!”
He shrugs and grabs my wrist again. “Maybe, but it can’t be helped, right? Piercing your organs, damaging your esophagus …”
Is he fucking mad? Somehow, I don’t think he is kidding. I’ve experienced his strength, and I know what he’s capable of.
Hypnotized with fear, I watch him lift up the snaking tube with his free hand and bring it to my face.
“Tilt your head, please.”
“No! Leave me alone, you asshole!” But the tube is being shoved up my nose, and I feel like I’m drowning.
“No!” Using whatever little strength I have, I hit the tube out of his hands. “Wait!” I say frantically. “Just fucking wait!”
He looks at the tube lying on the floor. “Why did you do that? Now I have to start all over …”
“I said wait, you FUCKING MORON!”
“Will you eat then?”
No answer.
“Will you eat, Megan?”
I look at the tube in his hands. What choice have I? “I’ll … I’ll eat, you bastard!”
He nods and hands me the soup. “Do you want me to feed you?”
I glower silently at him before taking a spoonful. My throat is dry, and swallowing is painful, but I persist under his scrutiny.
Four spoonfuls later, I want to hurl. I look up at him. “I … I’ve had enough,” I murmur, bracing myself for another battle. “Please …”
To my surprise, he nods, removes the bowl from my hands, and leaves my room without another word.
Chapter Eleven
It’s been two weeks since the rape, and I’m eating again. The desire to kill myself has faded.
The desire to escape smolders.
The next time, I will succeed, I tell myself. Like a pole-vaulter – he knocks down the bar several times before he finally jumps it.
I will myself not to think about the rape, and sometimes a whole minute passes before I think of it. At times, my hands shake so much I have to clench my fists or fold my arms tightly across my chest to stop the shaking. Other times, I have to wrap my arms around myself and breathe deeply.
Earlier on, someone dropped a book and I jumped. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m smart enough to know that, but I’m not smart enough to know how to cope with it.
As for Him – I avoid Him, avoid looking at Him, avoid thinking of Him, avoid uttering His name. Wish he would strap on some dynamite and blow Himself up. Bastard deserves to die.
Luckily, he quietly exits the scene whenever I’m around.
I’m in the ward, filling in the order forms. I have to write down all the stuff we’re short on and place the orders in the order box.
Leeanne walks over to me, a look of concern in her eyes. “Megan, you okay?”
I look at her.
“Your hands, Megan …” She takes both my shaking hands in hers and grasps them firmly. Slowly, my shaking subsides. “I told you to call me when you are feeling stressed, honey.”
I nod, retrieve my hands, and tuck them under my armpits. I hurry into the kitchen where I can be alone. Leeanne’s always watching over me. He has now arranged for her to occupy the room next door, and the inter-leading door is now open. At night, when I’m having something like an anxiety attack where I pace for hours, the nun
and mother in her surfaces, and she lies with me and rocks me like a baby.
“It’s okay to cry, honey,” she says.
“It’s not.”
“Says who?”
“Soldiers don’t cry.”
Her stare is reproachful. “Megan, why do you wanna be this strong person when you’ve experienced the worst trauma a woman can suffer, huh?”
“I’m done with all my crying.”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “I don’t think so at all.”
***
Bitchface is still a megabitch. When I drop a tray in the ward, she rushes over and lets out a torrent of abuse at my clumsiness. I quickly kneel, and with trembling hands, gather the contents of my tray. While I’m down, she stands over me and makes a kicking motion at me. Each time she does that, I cringe, and she laughs. The men in the ward watch intently, grateful for the entertainment. My hands are shaking so much I can barely hold anything.
“Shaida!” Reed bellows. “Leave her alone.”
Shaida purses her lips and slowly backs away.
He walks over and helps me gather my stuff.
I don’t thank him.
When I look up, I encounter Bitchface’s cold stare. I know she will get back at me. It won’t be pleasant I know that too.
We sit in the garden during our break and Leeanne brushes my hair. “Tell me ‘bout your husband,” she says.
“Huh?”
“You never talk about him.”
I shrug. “He’s a great guy.”
“You love him? You love each other a lot, right?”
“Yeah, of course!”
At my snappish tone, she jerks to look at me. I know she’s trying to lift me out of my depression, and hopes that by talking about my loved ones, I will suddenly smile and laugh and revert back to my old self.
“We were trying for a baby,” I say in a soft voice. “Didn’t happen.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Failed IVF three times. I decided not to try again. Can’t handle the pain, the calendar marking, the injections, the disappointment ...”
“You poor thing.”
“Wasn’t meant to be, I guess. Maybe one day I’ll adopt.”