I dabbed the wound dry, covered it with a stolen plaster, and pocketed the blessed razor blade. From then on, during that final break of the day, I would always find the time to visit the toilet, seal myself in a cubicle and let off a little blood. The relief I felt seemed the only way to I was able to become strong enough to meet Inessa, and walk her back to Bruna.
But throughout this time, Bruna continued to be a source of unexplained pain, and her bullying continued. One day, I was so angry and confused by her behaviour that I could not help but react.
I was eleven, perhaps a little younger. It was early morning, we were due to leave for school in about ten minutes, and I was almost ready. As usual, I was dressing with the door to my bedroom open so I could listen out for Inessa. Bruna was with her in the bathroom, which typically meant Inessa staying silent. But on this morning, something Inessa had done had particularly angered her. My sister started crying, and her crying was unrestrained, almost hysterical, and with panic rising in my chest I crept towards the bathroom.
‘Are you okay?’ I called.
‘Do not come in here, Yelena. Stay in your room!’ Bruna ordered.
‘Inessa, stop crying, it’s okay,’ I called. But this seemed to somehow make Inessa worse. I heard a smack, and then what sounded like my sister being thrown to the floor. ‘Inessa!’ I cried. Nearing the bathroom, I saw Bruna approaching my sister, who was curled up in a foetal position on the floor. Bruna had not yet heard me coming, but Inessa saw me and reached out. I thought for a second that Bruna was going to kick her, and in desperation I grabbed a cheap vase my father had bought, which was on the shelf just outside the bathroom, and hearing me behind her she froze. Slowly, Bruna turned around, and as she looked down on me she began to laugh. That leering laughter, so casually smothering Inessa’s crying, angered me so much. I clutched the vase to my chest. At that moment I did not know what to do with it – I think I was probably just threatening to break it. Bruna laughed. ‘What the hell are you doing, you stupid little girl?’ she said. ‘You’d better stop it, whatever it is. Because you are making life very difficult for you both.’
But I could see from the curl in her lips, and the glimmer in her eyes, that I had already done enough to warrant a harsher treatment than we had ever endured before. I had taken the first step, and I knew I had to see it through. Although I was a good few feet away from her, I raised the vase above my head. Suddenly her eyes widened. Bruna was finally taking me seriously.
‘Yelena. You will drop that now,’ she ordered, her voice ice cold. It dropped to almost a whisper. She smiled. ‘You know you’re too weak to do anything, so don’t even bother. You’re just like your mother. A pathetic little girl.’
I stepped nearer. I couldn’t bear her talking about my mother. She wasn’t fit to even mention her; let alone in our house, our home, when she was making little Inessa cry. I could feel my heart thundering so hard, and it scared me. It was as if my whole body was one big heart, pulsing so hard that I thought it could burst out of my frame at any second. I wanted her to see how wrong she was, how she had got us all wrong: Inessa, my mother, and me. I met her eyes, and saw fear. And that fear, to me, was a triumph. For the first time in my life I felt unhinged. I knew that were I to stop now, she would beat Inessa and me to within an inch of our lives, and our father noticing would not even be a concern.
With a cry I ran at her, and brought the vase down hard on her head. It shattered with a satisfying sound. Bruna let out a hollow roar, and clutched at her eyes. My sister cried out, and scrambled into the bathtub. I had no idea what to do. Bruna flailed around for a steady surface. There was blood everywhere. Desperately, I scrambled around for a shard of vase to threaten her with. Inessa cried out for me to stop. Bruna struggled to get to her feet, as I held the shard over her like a knife. Nodding, as if she now understood, she clutched her face and held out one hand. And then, that hand clenched into a fist and she made a sudden swipe for me, with a scream that seemed to shake the walls. Somehow I ducked under it, but in so doing I slipped over and fell closer to her. Bruna rose up to grab me, and I raised the shard, trembling in my little hand, above my head.
‘Yelena, you will live to regret what you just did,’ she said, and moved towards me. Inessa screamed, and in that moment I flung myself forward and stabbed her with the shard, just under her left eye. It just punctured the skin, before shattering painfully in my hand. Bruna screamed, recoiled, and fell back on the cistern. I grabbed Inessa, who was crying with all the force her body could muster. I struggled to lift her from the bathtub, as Bruna clambered to her feet. I managed to push Inessa out of the door as Bruna lost her footing for one blessed moment. We fled as fast as we could. I could hear her shouting as I forced open the front door, and we ran outside.
It was autumn, and already very cold, but there certainly wasn’t time to get our coats. I didn’t know where to go, two half-dressed school girls at half past eight in the morning. But even Inessa knew that we could not be near Bruna now.
On my insistence, we trailed around the wasteland just behind the railway track for the whole day. I knew Bruna would not find us there, and I had no idea what else to do. And yet despite this uncertainty I felt a vague sense of achievement. I knew that what Bruna had been doing to us had been wrong, but nevertheless I should never have hit her. As a child, I felt there was no justification for that and I was finished now, even with my father. I knew I could not go home to her, or to school, where she would inevitably find us. The only answer seemed to keep us hidden for as long as possible, at least until my father came home, knowing that she would not hurt us in his presence. I would have to try and hope that my father did not hate me for what I’d done. I had never told my father before what Bruna did to us, for fear of reprisal if I did. For that day of homelessness Inessa was too young to fully understand anything, and as her supervisor for the day I was useless, confused and wracked with guilt. We sat on discarded tires, under the oily leaves of the abandoned depot, and played games. It was hard to stay out of sight for the whole day, and I kept us moving around amongst those wet, spectral trees. I told her fairy tales until I saw men in suits make their way to their cars parked just beyond the trees. We were wracked with hunger, but I somehow made sure that my sister and I returned at precisely the normal time from school.
On our return, I was shocked to find an eerily calm household. I remember feeling in a daze; perhaps it was hunger mixed with pure terror. For years I had endured these terrible mornings in Bruna’s company without ever considering trying to escape.
We saw my father first. I didn’t know what to expect, but to my surprise he wasn’t angry. If he had worked out what had been going on, it must have been buried far too deep for him to yet reckon with it outwardly. He looked down on us as we entered, and his expression was unreadable. ‘Your mother has been very worried about you two,’ he said, strangely unable to look me in the eye. ‘She said that this morning she slipped in the bathroom and hurt herself and the two of you had not wanted to go to school until you knew she was alright, but she insisted. Is that right?’
He paused. He could see that we were not fully dressed. We were missing our coats, and didn’t have our bags with us. I can only see now how curious his reaction was, and what an odd family we had become. It was such a pathetic lie, and my eyes begged him to face up to the truth of the situation. At least that would make some sense.
I saw Bruna sat on a stool in the kitchen, an ice pack pressed against what looked like a newly bandaged face. I decided it was no use. ‘Yes,’ I said simply, and squeezed my sister’s hand.
‘I think it is too much for your mother… ’
‘Our stepmother,’ I said.
‘… to look after you by herself in the mornings. From now on I will speak to Uncle Leo about going in later, and I will take it in turns to help you both before school.’
I remember the huge sense of relief at realising I was not going to be scolded, that something had changed. In his own we
ak way, my father had to face up to what was going on. My sister jumped up in delight and my father looked down. I looked at Bruna, glowering at me from the kitchen, with a sense of triumph.
From then on, Bruna had to redraw the battle lines. She had to rethink how to get to us, as my father would see any bruises the following day when it was his turn to be with us in the morning. Though my father never truly addressed what had been going on during those awful mornings, he had, it seemed, finally seen enough to learn that he must intervene. He was too scared and mentally fragile to face up to the truth of the situation. Despite this, nothing had fundamentally changed.
Bruna started to approach us more cautiously, in a way I had assumed she was not capable of. I saw how subtle evil could be. There were times when she would make advances to my sister, enquiring about aspects of my sister’s life so that information could soon turn into power. I was slowly growing to be more of a physical presence, learning to be better at manipulating circumstances so that Bruna was never alone with her for long. My father came to understand the rules of this new, unspoken arrangement, and he reinforced it even if he did not have the resolve to face up to a life without her. Bruna was still there, and so I had to stay alert for the next problem that would arise. Yet even more so, I had my dancing, and I knew that if I were to neglect it, I would be trapped with her for a long time yet.
With love,
Yelena
Dear Noah,
For the first time, I was starting to possess some confidence. My father has to take some credit for this, as he was supporting my dancing. Since my mother’s death he had always struggled to find a way to care for us, but when he saw that I loved to dance, and that I was actually good at it, his loving and pragmatic side were able to combine. I think he also wanted to honour my mother’s memory by helping me to become the daughter she might have wanted.
The evening classes in ballet were not cheap, and he was determined that I be trained only by the best. Inessa and I were never allowed expensive toys or clothes, but when it came to employing ballet mistresses no expense was spared. These classes became my life, and by twelve I was en pointe. Over the next couple of years the classes formalised, and became the backbone to a strict routine. With great difficulty a special schedule was devised for me, whereby I could finish my academic work by three and after that devote the rest of the day to Classical Ballet. Our Uncle Leo, who became the only other man in our lives after his divorce, often commented on this. ‘Vasily, you make sure your daughter can dance like a butterfly,’ he said. ‘But if she developed a hole in the wing of her outfit you would be too tight to close it up.’
There were six or seven other local girls from more well-off families who were taught under a similar arrangement. I was conscious that I was by far the least refined of all of them, and yet I had to spend much of my time with them. They were bright and ambitious girls, and when I was short of equipment they would often lend me theirs. I remember once Iza saying to me, ‘Why doesn’t your father buy you a decent pencil case?’
‘Because he spent the money on pointe shoes,’ I said, and she looked at me with utter confusion. Why not both?
Though I felt slightly separate from these girls, this never became a problem thanks to Uncle Leo. He had gone to university in England, and he knew a lot about class and refinement. On the occasions I would be invited to these girls’ birthday parties in their grand homes, he would drill me on social protocol before I left. ‘They might have more pig tails than you, but never let them convince you that they have more brain cells,’ he always said. He knew that without my mother, we were not going to get any reassurance from elsewhere. My father certainly didn’t see the importance, but Uncle Leo would insist that social interaction was important.
Even if I was less refined, I was determined that no-one would think I was less talented. I made up for not having a silky ballet outfit through sheer hard work. I see now that I must have had some toughness of character to stick with my dancing so doggedly at that age. There was something else that had been placed in me, something I couldn’t quite define. I already knew that through ballet I would find salvation.
My focus on ballet became even greater when I got into a school that specialised in education for the arts. I was initially delighted – it got me out of the house a little more, which meant more time away from Bruna. But I sensed a change in Bruna’s demeanour regarding this development. She would have more power over Inessa again. Therefore, in a perverse way she would have more power over me the less I was around. My anticipation at having more time to dance was constantly shot through with fear at what this would mean for Inessa. Yet I couldn’t confide these fears to Inessa, for her own sake, as she was trying to keep me at a distance too. She was coping by staying after school and studying hard, and telling my father that she wanted to spend time at his work to learn about business. My father initially objected, saying that an office was no place for a woman, and so my sister had to find a way to be useful to him – which in her own, prodigious childlike way she soon was – running errands and posting letters. Leo at first found this office hand an amusing presence, but on the times he dismissed her he was suspicious at how vociferously she argued for her presence.
Soon, Bruna started to voice concerns that having a young daughter with him at work would distract my father from making money. I began to despair – whatever developments occurred, Bruna had a way of clawing back power. I felt guilty that I was not there to protect my sister, and yet another voice told me that she was better off without me around. I couldn’t get the night with the pillow out of my mind. On the occasions that I tried to bond with her, buying her makeup or something I thought she’d like, Inessa’s reluctant manner betrayed that she was unable to forget either.
Although Bruna would scold me when I was home, there was less opportunity for inflicting any real pain with me leaving early and coming home late, as well as entering competitions on the weekend. I wanted to do ballet full-time, the other children at school seemed happy just to be outside of the normal system and enjoying their school days, but even then I was incredibly serious about ballet. One salvation was that my private lessons continued, giving me the opportunity to practice on the weekend. Even if those classes were full of endless repetition and refinement, and even if they were often painful, they became like a kind of religion to me. Nevertheless, after a long week it alarmed me to see the state of my feet. My toes seemed to want to fuse together, and I constantly suffered from bunions and split nails. Uncle Leo would sometimes slip me a painkiller before a competition – but I was worried that I might be punished for taking drugs.
There were still very dark moments and for some reason my father remained unable to face up to Bruna and what she had clearly done to us in the past. I knew that Uncle Leo sometimes asked questions about her, but it seemed that even to him Bruna was off-limits with my father. I wondered if she had a hold on him in some other way. One day, when I had had to stay late at school, I came home to see that Inessa had a huge cut on her face. I asked me father what had happened to her, and without looking up from his desk, he quietly told me that she had just fallen over at school. Bruna bounded into his study, insisted that I start my homework and gave my father a thousand and one important jobs to do before I could make more of an issue of it. Although Inessa stayed quiet on the matter, I tried my best to make it clear that I would not tolerate these things happening. Over time, Inessa gradually became closer to my father; she knew that if she was at his side she could not be hurt. I on the other hand, did not find intimacy easy, even with my kindly Uncle Leo who I kept at a needlessly suspicious distance. I see now that the experiences of being alone with Bruna made me shy from company for many years.
The first person I began to get close to was my ballet tutor, Therese. She had only recently qualified from a French conservatoire, which impressed my father no end. Therese was a slim, pale young woman, with a resigned expression, her faintly blonde hair pinned up with a couple
of pencils. She did not spot any great potential in me – she retained that slight air of self-preservation not unusual in ballerinas – but to me she represented another world. She had been a dancer of some note in her teenage years, though why she had returned to Donetsk after training in Paris remained beyond me. But her sojourn away had been enough for her to now become, in my eyes, very cultured and worldly. I devoured every detail that I could about her. The photos of the Champs Élysées above her desk, the Vogue magazines she kept in her drawer, the sparse way she used makeup. To my surprise, I started to enjoy dancing with her, as well as merely craving it. I had never really enjoyed anything before, Noah, strange as that sounds. As a result, I found myself dancing every moment I was alone, though I was careful to keep up to date with my school studies – lest any failure gave Bruna an advantage over me. But somehow I managed this rewarding compromise. Therese and I became close; she was like an exotic older sister that I wanted to emulate. When it turned out that she smoked, I seriously considered starting myself.
I was delighted one evening when Therese invited me to join her for supper. By this point I was fifteen, and the outside world was beginning to seem in reach. I was starting to form my own identity, which unsurprisingly was largely based around her. Like my mother, Therese adored all things English, and unlike many Ukrainian girls she insisted on expensive makeup and wore her hair in a Western style. I tried to replicate her in every way. Just as you may have seen glam rock stars as otherworldly creatures from somewhere better, I saw Western women. Words like ‘London’ and ‘Paris’ were imbued with such exoticism to me.
Letters from Yelena Page 7