‘Thank you for coming back,’ I reply.
He finishes his bowl and asks for a second helping. Gradually, the colour returns to his cheeks. When he’s finished eating, he lies back down and hugs the furs tightly around himself, but I can tell he’s not so cold anymore.
His gaze slides from my face to an empty spot behind me, then back to me again. He swallows.
‘You asked,’ he signs and moves his arm and the covers aside. A pattern stretches over his skin from the hollow of his throat down to his navel.
‘A knife?’
‘A ritual knife,’ he signs, reaches out and takes my wrist. His expression is calm. I shake my head no as he places my palm on his bare chest. I wait for something more to happen, but he just lies like this, fingers wrapped around my wrist, bare chest warm against my hand, heart rumbling against my calluses. My chattering mind grows calmer, seeing that this is all he wants and nothing more. The curtain of fear slides aside, just one small crack, and gently lets in Katvar and his undemanding gesture. Much like the morning sun shines through a frosted window, warming what’s inside.
The knife tattooed on his skin is an artwork of intricate black-on-white patterns. I trace my fingertips over its edges.
‘Why do you have this?’
He lets go of my wrist, but not my gaze when he signs slowly, some words a single gesture, some words elaborately signed letter by letter, ‘We call it the Taker. Every woman I know would have recoiled from the mere sight of it.’
I open my mouth and snap it shut. I’m not sure what to say.
‘I know you are scared of me and I can only guess why,’ he continues. ‘But I’m the last man you need to be afraid of. I would never touch you…intimately. Even if you asked me to.’
I cock my head.
‘I have bad blood,’ he explains. ‘I bear the Taker.’
‘I don’t understand.’ I’m growing angry and impatient and I have no clue why.
He lowers his gaze ‘My parents were brother and sister. My children will be defective if I have any. I’ll never be with a woman.’
I blink as a whole encyclopaedia rushes past my vision— books about history, biology, genetics, human nature, religion, warfare. Books Erik ordered me to read, memorise, and repeat before him. There were many stories of incest. ‘Is this why you are mute?’
He shakes his head no. ‘When I was a child, I was very ill. A virus, maybe. I lost my voice. Bad cough, high fever, days of unconsciousness. My mother believed I was dying, but I recovered. I’m not mute.’
‘You are not?’
‘I. Can. Speak.’ His voice comes as a shock to me. Utterly damaged, raspy, croaky, as if someone were running a rusty iron bar over a jagged rock.
‘Tiresome. Painful. Can’t speak more than a few words at a time,’ he signs.
My gaze slips from his speaking fingers down to my mute fingers. I lift my hand and let my palm rest against the Taker. It must have been cut with a tiny blade, and then some kind of dye or pigments rubbed into the wounds. A black rippling on a smooth, muscular and warm surface. Behind that, his heartbeat is regular and slow. ‘Is there a lot of inbreeding in your clan?’
He frowns. ‘No. I’m the only one. Every summer solstice we meet with other clans and…dance.’ There’s a blush rising to his cheeks.
‘Dance?’ I take my hand away as he pulls the furs up over his shoulder.
He nods once and adds, ‘They have sex. Women from one clan with men of the other. Summer solstice children are held in high esteem. We live in a small community and are careful to avoid inbreeding. Cousins aren’t allowed to choose one another. I’m marked, so women from other clans, women who don’t know me, avoid me, too.’
‘But if your parents—’
He cuts me off with a sharp slash of hand through air. ‘He returned from battle and was never the same. He raped my mother, then took a knife to his throat. My people are afraid of me.’
‘I’m not afraid of you.’ Not quite true, but…
He gives me a shy smile and pulls the furs higher up, covering the handle of the knife and his goose bumps. I tell him about the long tradition of inbreeding in Europe’s ancient royal families, and that his children will, most likely, be healthy. But he just shakes his head and signs, ‘I’ll not have children.’
‘But—’
‘I’ll not have children of my own,’ he repeats. ‘I was allowed to live only because, when I was born, I appeared healthy and strong.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘We are hunters, Micka. We live a semi-nomadic life. Babies with malformations, and the ones too weak or too small to survive are killed with the Taker within hours of their birth. The whole clan mourns when it needs to be done. We are not monsters. We simply do what keeps us alive. A child who consumes all his mother’s energy will get his siblings killed. A child who will never be able to walk, who can’t hunt and provide for his parents when they grow old, is a danger to himself, his family, and his friends — to everyone who chooses to take care of him. I’ll not have children of my own. I will not cause such suffering; not to my child and not to my woman. I would rather kill myself.’
He stares at me with his dark eyes, imploring me to understand and not judge. His silent language seems louder than any other.
Despite my revulsion over what he’s just said, my world seems to shift. Until now, I’ve believed I had to remain on the defensive. I’m a woman, he’s a man. I have to fend off, he has to attack.
‘I had a baby once. She was a healthy and strong girl. I held her for a short moment. She was taken away and murdered because she…’ My chest heaves and makes it hard for me to speak. ‘Because she was the wrong gender and sired by the wrong man.’
I lie down next to him and gaze up at the ceiling. The oil lamp makes the snow glitter. ‘Why is it called the Taker?’
He taps my shoulder; I forgot to look at him to see his answer.
‘It’s a sacred knife. It’s used only on newborns. Everyone who knows the inscriptions on the bone handle, the curved and pointed obsidian blade, is repulsed by the mere sight of it. That’s why it was tattooed on my chest when I came of age. So no woman would touch me. It helps.’
‘Don’t you want to be with a man?’
He shakes his head no.
‘You know,’ I begin. ‘I’d rather be unable to walk than unable to feel.’
‘You’d be a burden to your family if you were unable to walk,’ Katvar signs.
I laugh. ‘I have been able to walk since I was nine months old, and yet, I was a burden to my family until the day I left to become a Sequencer’s apprentice. Don’t you think there’s much more one can do besides hunting? Cooking, taking care of babies.’
‘You would still be a burden.’
‘So what? Life is not all happiness. It’s not easy and straightforward.’
‘You cannot raise a defective child. It will die from disease, from—’
‘Fuck, Katvar!’ I cry, scrape a handful of ice from the ceiling of our snow cave and throw it at him. ‘Defective! Really? That word makes a child sound like a commodity. The BSA soldiers are all physically extremely healthy and well trained killing machines. None of them sires defective children. There are girls and women who seek out BSA soldiers. They want to have babies with these prime specimens! Some women go there to get married to a man they’ve never met before, to clean his house, his clothes, to have his kids, to be treated like slaves. These women believe it’s heroic to give birth to the next martyr. They treat each other and their kids like shit, because their only future is death. They make life to destroy life. Can you imagine me raising a healthy and strong boy in a BSA camp? A boy who will one day die in a useless war? Or a healthy and strong girl who will one day be used as a fuck toy and reproduction vessel? Wouldn’t you call that defective — this whole fucked up situation? Wouldn’t it be a million times better to have a malformed child who is loved and has a place in this world, a future?’
I’m s
urprised by how angry I am. I’m all for boxing his chest to make him understand.
‘Don’t throw away the good things you have,’ I say softly, lean forward and place my fingers on the animal skin, just where his chest is. ‘I hope you’ll have a family of your own someday. The world is so of full of shit, Katvar. It needs more people like you.’
He cocks an eyebrow and an idea hits me: ‘Did you ever ask Javier to analyse your genome?’
‘My what?’
‘Your genome. It’s the sum of your genes plus some other stuff. Sequencers who analyse the dog lung tissue samples for tuberculosis bacteria sequence the genomes of these bacteria to learn about their antibiotic resistance genes. They can sequence your genome and tell you that you’re probably good to go. You know, as a dad.’
‘Never asked and never will.’ His fingers and hands form insecure words. I picture him in his yurt, head in hands, eyes shut. Everyone else is having fun at the summer solstice orgy, while Katvar is abandoned with his Taker knife and his father’s mark on his genome.
‘I’m sorry you have no one,’ I whisper.
Still shivering, he scowls at me. My gaze travels over his face, his constantly set chin, and comes to rest on his fierce mouth. I wish these lips would curl into a smile one day.
After a while, I tell him that we need to sleep. It’s been a long and tiring day and an even longer and more exhausting night.
Katvar curls one arm under his head and signs with the other hand, ‘I’m sorry they killed your child.’
I think of the tiny, fragile girl who looked so much like her father. With burning eyes, I sneak under his furs to warm him and tell him about my first husband.
Wives, submit to your own husbands...
Ephesians 5:22-24
He’s shaped like a bull, an albino bull. His neck is thick, his shoulders massive, upper arms the size of my thighs. He stands taller than the other men and his eyes are set in a perpetual squint. The pale blue of his irises shines through white lashes.
When he walks up to me and grabs my arm, I’m about to piss myself with fear. The man who’s now my husband pushes me to a hut. It must be his — like I, the domesticated animal.
What will I do? Pass out? Die? I want to die, I really do. My legs tremble and I can’t walk anymore.
Men roar and clap their hands in unison. They cheer him on, ‘Jeremiah! Jeremiah! Jeremiah!’ as if he needs courage to rape a sixteen year-old woman only a quarter of his own size. My knees buckle and he ignores it, simply pulls me by my arm over the threshold, then kicks the door shut.
I’m a marionette. He can pull me upright on my string-arms, fling me on the mattress where I land, a pile of rattling bones, chattering teeth, cramping muscles. From the corner of my eye I see him open his shirt.
My survival instincts kick in and I pounce. Bad idea. He grabs my wrists, twists my arm behind my back and presses me onto the bed. I scream. He brings his knees down on both sides of my ribcage, fumbles with my shirt and I scream louder. ‘No!’ and ‘Fuck off!’ and other stuff that forms like blips in my head and exits through my mouth, unremembered.
‘Yeah, baby! Scream louder!’ he cheers me on.
Panicking, I holler until my lungs feel raw.
He grunts ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ and the bed rocks and squeals until I realise that something’s off. I shut my mouth and try to think. That’s when he bends down and whispers into my ear, ‘Better you scream some more.’
‘Wha…’ stays stuck in my throat when he throws himself flat on top of me. Fuck, he’s heavy. I holler and kick and try to breathe. And still he grunts, but…
My clothes are still on my body. He still wears his pants. What the hell? I twist my neck to look at him and see a knife. Fuck, he doesn’t want to rape me, he wants to kill me! I kick and grunt and spit. The knife approaches, the tip is close to my eyes.
‘Scream,’ he whispers and I do him the favour. A lot.
Finally, the knife disappears, the weight disappears, and I’m free. I roll off the bed, scuttle to a far corner of the room, and see him push down his waistband and run the blade over his skin. A small cut at his thigh, just below the hip. He yanks the sheet off the mattress, spits in his hand and catches the droplets of blood.
Puzzled, I watch him mix blood and saliva in his palm, then rub it into the fabric, somewhere in the centre of the large white rectangle.
‘Scratch my face. Not the eyes. Just a cheek.’ He approaches and I scoot backwards. With a growl he pounces and my fist shoots out and hits him square on the nose. Blood trickles down his upper lip. One clean red stripe on white skin.
‘Next time you do it when I tell you,’ he says and pushes away from me.
My brain fires useless commands: Run! Stay! Scream! What the fuck?!
For the lack of a better idea, I keep my mouth shut.
He walks to the window, opens it and presents the bloodied sheet.
I hear shuffling, then cheers. He raises his fist, receives more cheers, a few shots are fired, then the window closes and he turns to look at me.
My back is pressed against the wall. I’m shaking so much, I feel like my limbs are about to come off.
He takes a step forward, sees me flinch. He lifts his hands and brings his massive body down on one knee. ‘Listen,’ he whispers. ‘If anyone finds out, I’m dead. You have my life in your hands now. And I, yours. As long as I’m your husband, no one will touch you.’
I blink up at him. The man is insane.
‘There are rules,’ he says. ‘We’ll repeat this.’ He waves at the bed. ‘Often. Every morning after, you hurt. If you can't make your show believable, I will rape you. Because I’m not ready to die. The Commander walks in and out of everyone's home. That means, you sleep on the floor, I sleep in the bed. When I say kneel, you kneel. When I tell you to get me something, you ask what and how much and then you go fetch it. Clear?’
I nod. I’m alive. But… ‘Why?’ I ask.
‘I will touch you when you want me.’
‘I’ll never want you.’
‘I know. Lie down now.’ He points to an old rug in a corner of the room. ‘Take off your clothes.’
I pull my arms tighter around myself. All my instincts scream, run.
‘The rules,’ he warns. So I stand and walk over to my rug.
‘I need them all.’ He waves an impatient hand.
I undress and throw my clothes at him, then pull a stinking blanket up to my chin to hide my nakedness.
He tears my shirt in half, rips at my waistband. The fabric crackles. My clothes are ruined.
Jeremiah opens the door and leaves.
I gnaw off my fingernails. I’m exhausted and fear chases my thoughts around in my skull. My mouth is parched, so I suck on the blanket to give myself something to do. When darkness falls, Jeremiah returns. He throws a stack of folded clothes on the bed.
‘Dress, put the new sheet on the mattress, I go fetch food. Tomorrow, all of this is your responsibility. The men think I ploughed you good. Told them you passed out.’ He shows me his teeth and is out the door in a heartbeat.
I get dressed and start making the bed. Jeremiah comes back in and puts a platter of meat and gruel on the table, a jug of water is set next to it. ‘Kitchen.’ He points and I fetch plates, knifes, forks, and cups.
We eat in silence. The sharp knife in my hand vibrates. He looks at it and whispers, ‘You owe me.’
‘I will not thank you.’
‘I know. Finish your food now. We’ll give the boys outside another show, then we sleep. I’m tired.’
‘From what?’ I spit.
He leans back and gazes at me for a long moment. ‘I wonder how you’d feel if I’d done what everyone expects of me.’
That shuts me up. I stand and clean off the table. ‘Where’s the wash water?’ I ask.
Abruptly, he walks up to me, bends down and pokes his finger in my face, ‘If any of the men heard you speak like this to me, your husband, I’d have to give you a black ey
e to save face. Watch your tongue, woman!’
Slowly, I look up at him. He’s more than a head taller than I. ‘And when they are not here, am I to speak to you as if I’m your slave?’
‘No. But you need to practise submission. Make it look real.’ He nods to a bucket. ‘I want my house shiny. I’m a married man now.’
Minsk is not what I imagined. I'd expected a skyline, some kind of sign of a once-sprawling city; not this void. Maybe we aren’t anywhere near Minsk. Maybe we got lost, though I doubt it. I wish I had checked this city via satellite, but I’d never planned on travelling this way, so never bothered to look.
Ahead of us, at some distance, two people sit on a red cart with a horse as broad as a ship tied between the shafts. The animal's coat is thick, and light-brown around its belly while the rest is almost black. I can't see if it's men or women on the cart until they stand and wave in greeting. Two men. Two rifles. I keep my weapons at the ready.
Katvar turns his head and signals to me to remain calm. The dogs, meanwhile, are super excited to meet strangers. Or maybe they just want to eat the horse. They bark and tug at the lines, yearning to go faster.
Katvar produces a loud oohf and the animals stop and lie down. We jam in the snow anchors, get off the sleds and approach the cart. The horse whips its tail and puffs two clouds.
‘State your names!’ the older of the two calls from the driver's seat.
‘Mickaela Capra and Katvar... What's your family name?’ I’m ashamed I never asked.
‘No family name,’ Katvar signs.
‘Is it you?’ the man asks.
‘I don't know who you mean. We are on the way to Minsk. We thought we might have passed it already. Would you mind telling us which way we need to go?’
‘This is Minsk. I'm Oleg, this is Dima.’ He points to the younger man, who wears a scarf wrapped around his head and on top of that, a broad-rimmed hat that's tied down over his ears with another scarf. His felt boots are enormous and I wonder how he can walk in them.
Ice: The Climate Fiction Saga Page 9