My Angel

by Tetiana Brooks

  “Raisa, all you need to do is just give me the phone number. I will not tell anyone that you have given it to me. I will just talk to her. You also have a daughter. I am sure you want her to be happy. All men are bastards, and there’s nothing more valuable in this case than women’s solidarity.”

  I had no idea where such thoughts arose from, maybe even not thoughts but just words. In my head I was smearing Raisa over the wall with my anger and it finally seemed that she read all of this in my eyes. She slowly took the offered pen and paper, and wrote a phone number down.

  I said to myself it better be the right phone number, or I’ll do to you exactly what you are thinking I will do to you.

  Some friend. Female solidarity. And to say nothing to your girlfriend, not a word. I would kill her. As soon as I was done with Marina.

  Chapter Three

  The phone number turned out to be correct.

  I’d noticed a long time ago that if I wanted something badly, I always got it. At first I thought it was just coincidence, but now, after everything that has happened, I know for certain: we create our own destiny. By ourselves—our thoughts, our decisions, our actions. And beyond that, there is something that I don’t fully understand yet, but I certainly know I have it. Whether it is some kind of force, or energy, well, call it whatever you like, but I know for sure—it is there. Now I have to figure out what exactly that is.

  I think that you would agree with me. But we’ll take that up again later.

  Now I was pretty surprised that the phone number was correct. So pretending to be an employee of the telephone company, who had to verify a list of subscribers, I made a call and with a casually businesslike tone said, “It’s the Subscriber Service Center of the ATS. Just verifying your subscription. Your last name?”

  “Shalimova.”

  “Address?”

  “Don’t you have it?” She spoke with a hesitant voice. I knew she would offer no resistance.

  “Look, I’m too busy to chit-chat, ‘cause I have to ring up more than two thousand numbers. We regularly update all the info of our subscribers. Would you be so kind as give me your address,” I continued to push.

  “Two Kononov Street, apartment number seven.”

  Done. I couldn’t force myself to continue. Oh! It took so much effort to fight with myself! And what for? It is a well-known fact: if a man wants to go, you will never make him stay. But why didn’t he leave? Why was he running back and forth? What made that woman better than me?

  I walked over to the mirror and saw a woman, nice in all respects. A slender, athletic figure. After all, I was a master of sport in artistic gymnastics in the past. Long, beautiful legs and full breasts, a cute face with expressive brown eyes and generous sexy lips. I always wore reasonable makeup, correctly emphasizing my femininity.

  I knew I was not a top fashion model, but each time I passed a company of men, I was sure to hear compliments in my wake. Once Aleksei’s boss said, “There exist very beautiful women. One glance, and you can’t stop feasting your eyes on her! And then, there is a type of woman, who seems not to be a beauty, but you want her and you want her now!”

  He was talking about me. Then why the heck was my dearest not satisfied? What must this Marina be like to make him barter me away, such a wonderful woman and the mother of his son? A Hollywood star or something?

  Then the pain, insult, and loneliness overwhelmed me so that I burst into miserable, bitter tears. Letting all the sorrow free, it dawned on me: there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Something had to be done.

  Again I thought of Ira Romanova, a wise woman. When we were young, twenty-two or something, she once said, “For me the most important thing is that, once home, my Sasha leaves everything behind and is all mine. And I don’t care what he does outside, without me; it’s his business as long as he is happy.” Clearly it was a self-sacrificing love that she had. Perhaps that was how it should be. I wondered how she was doing. I really hoped that everything was okay.

  I would finish this epic soap opera, see it to the end, save my family and for sure I would try to reach her at some point. We would laugh at all this later. But I couldn’t be like her. Jealousy was burning in me like fire, searing out all other thoughts. It deprived me of sleep and the ability to live normally.

  So I pulled myself together and approached the mirror. Make-up should be flawless, hair and clothes, a bit sexy. My husband was at work now, so she was alone at home. I wondered why she was at home. Why was she not at work? How did she manage to survive? He was probably giving her money.

  Yeah, I had to scrimp and save, working as hard as the Slave Isaura on the plantation from the Brazilian telenovela while she was sitting pretty at home and even more, was enjoying my man. Honestly, where was justice in this world?

  And they didn’t pay much at that laboratory. His wages for May were just paid, and it was August already. So, did it mean he was buying her flowers on my money?

  Well, honey, I’ll buy you flowers! From myself, personally, for your grave. Oh! Stop. That’s not right. But on the other hand why not? She could get flowers, and I could not?

  So, after piling up the agony I left the house, bought a bunch of red carnations, the most hideous flowers ever. Why did I do it? I couldn’t answer. For the grave, probably. Whose grave, I couldn’t say.

  I couldn’t remember exactly how I got to the right address. I knocked at the door.

  A thin, short, homely woman opened the door. Even her teeth looked like a mouse’s. I could knock those teeth out with one precise strike! How could he! For this gray mouse?

  A wave of malicious joy and confidence in my success washed over me. I put a foot between the door and the jamb and with an impudent smile put out my hand, filled with those hideous carnations.

  “Well, hello, Marina,” I said.

  The mouse’s silent question in her face started changing into blue fear. She tried to close the door, but my determination and my foot stopped her.

  “How will we talk? Either all the neighbors would hear, or in your apartment?” I asked. “I warn you, I’m going to speak very loudly. You see, I have a loud voice. Very loud.”

  I again turned on my all energy. Marina, with eyes full of horror, slowly opened the door and allowed me to enter. I continued to smile, and that probably comforted her enough for an expression of superiority to appear in her eyes. Or it seemed to me. In any case she said, “Aleksei told me you’re beautiful. So, you’re so beautiful, standing in front of me, in my house, and your husband prefers me to you. He doesn’t want to live with a prostitute, even a beautiful one.”

  She shouldn’t have said that. My right hand, still holding the bouquet of flowers, suddenly jerked, and bam! I punched that mouse right on the nose.

  Previously I had fought only in my childhood, with boys, defending my toys and my child’s dignity. There was no one to protect me; I had to do it myself. My mother wasn’t faithful to my father, who was twenty-five-years her senior. She cheated on him. But when she nabbed him with a rodent like this, she left me, a nine-month-old baby, with her mother—my grandmother. She went off to manage her own life, and somehow forgot about me. So, as you can see, I was on my own.

  If I remembered correctly, the last time I had punched anyone was when I was five-years-old.

  Now I was dealing one blow after another until a couple of teeth fell on the wooden floor. The sound of fallen teeth brought me to my senses.

  “Oh, the flowers look damaged. Well, never mind, they’ll be perfect for the grave.”

  Abruptly swinging right around I left the apartment. I went outside and threw those flowers down at my feet. I left, and they, broken, but still alive, were abandoned, lying on the pavement. I had the feeling that someone was looking at me and shaking their head with disapproval. I looked around, but saw no one.

  For the first time after a few months since I started suspecting Aleksei’s betrayal, I felt relieved, even happy.

  So that’s what it was, that m
ade me so happy: a sense of vengeance! The feeling of revenge!

  But I did not know that when you take revenge on someone, you had to dig two graves at the same time. One for yourself.

  In the meantime, jubilating, I tried to justify what I had done. She did not have to call me a prostitute. Who gave her that right? All I wanted was just a talk.

  I was trying to justify myself, although subconsciously I knew it would have ended like this anyway. I didn’t have any doubts, not even the smallest little thought of regret for what I had done. I did not even think what my precious hubby would say when he found out about everything.

  Chapter Four

  Aleksei’s reaction was beyond my comprehension. I was expecting a ruckus, packing his stuff ostentatiously, and slamming the door. I was even ready for him to fight back, strike me, for his offended beloved.

  But he said, “I understand. You were trying to protect your love and your family.”

  I couldn’t even get one word out, I was so shocked by this statement.

  “Yes, of course, you’ve crossed the line. Knocking two teeth out was too much. Those, however, were prostheses, but done in a very expensive clinic. She is going to file a charge against you.”

  I found my voice. “Well, she can try, if she wants the whole city to find out what I’ve slugged out her prostheses for. Anyway, let everyone know that she has a prosthesis instead of healthy teeth.” And then I started laughing. And then I began to cry.

  My hysterical laughter, mixed with sorrow and tears added fuel to the fire. But I didn’t know that then.

  Aleksei continued, “Marina said I had to give you a good thrashing, otherwise she would not stay with me. We were going to get married and move to Israel.”

  “Go ahead, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass. And this applies to both of the planned actions.”

  “You know I cannot. I’m afraid that if I beat you, I’ll kill you. I’m so much stronger than you. Though it didn’t give you pause, that you are stronger than Marina.”

  “Am I stronger?”

  I got up from the couch I was sitting on and approached the mirror. A cute, slim young woman looked from the other side. I flexed my arms, showing off my muscles. My arms were pretty skinny. I turned and looked at my profile over my shoulder. Then I dropped my arms.

  “Hmm. You’re probably right. I am stronger.”

  “But we have a son, and that’s the important thing right now. Count yourself fortunate. You have won back your happiness. I’ll stay with you.”

  That was benevolence uncharacteristic of him. He finally recollected that he had a son. In addition, Aleksei looked grief-stricken. And I suddenly realized that I didn’t want him to stay with me. I wanted him to leave. Forever.

  How could I get into bed with him, each time imagining that he had hugged and kissed this mouse? How would I continue to cook for him? How would I talk, look him in his eyes? How could I smile and pretend that nothing had happened? Instead, all I wanted was to feed him arsenic or cyanide.

  Subconsciously, I felt that something was wrong. There was something so not typical of my husband in this exchange. But for the sake of my son, I tried to ignore any warning signals, to avoid breaking through to the resentment, my desecrated pride, and my broken heart.

  There was no need, no desire to lie in the same bed with him. Whether he understood that I couldn’t, or did not want to, he didn’t make any attempt to get closer either. For me, life became almost unbearable, though now he came home on time. We politely talked to each other, but the atmosphere was extremely tense.

  I felt a strange, almost tangible sense of an aculeate mass inside of me, as though an entire hive of wasps were in my chest that manifested whenever Aleksei came home. I felt that something would happen. Something was going to happen. Something terrible. What could I do to prevent this terrible something from happening? How? These were the questions that tormented my life now.

  I had no one to ask.

  Chapter Five

  If you feel it’s wrong to do something, it’s better not to do it. Now, I know that because of our mentality to have everything in order, to be responsible and to organize our days, we have lost a very important quality: to listen to ourselves. For example, when we do not feel like eating, something in the body tells the brain, “I’m not hungry,” but we still sit down and swallow a bowl of borscht, a cutlet with potatoes, and something after for dessert, because it’s time for lunch. It’s just a must to eat when it’s lunchtime.

  I was not an exception. I didn’t know how to listen to myself. So when something in the morning was telling me, “Do not do anything today. Just spend the whole day in bed doing nothing,” I didn’t listen.

  Yesterday I promised Aleksei I would burn the garbage, and then he could take what was left to the waste dump. The Perestroika, the period of “restructuring” was in full spate, and such things as municipal services were not important in the big picture. So there was no trash service. Even those who were duty-bound to take care of such services did nothing. And how could they, when such global issues as “rebuilding” were being resolved, people were to think about the common goal of better tomorrows and deal with trash by themselves in their backyards.

  So people got fancy, getting rid of these wastes of civilization by using their imagination. I generally put the garbage in bags, and then burned those together with dry leaves. This time I planned to do the same.

  Life seemed to have finally become somewhat normal. Sure, with Aleksei we lived as in the American joke, “My wife and I sleep in different beds. I sleep in New York, she sleeps in Michigan.” We slept in different rooms. He went to work, came back home on time. We didn’t talk of what had happened. We avoided eye contact. Perhaps we shouldn’t have. Maybe, if I had looked deeply in his eyes, I would have seen something so terrifying that it would make me run as far away as possible.

  Regardless all the forebodings, I got down to managing the trash. Vova was at home on school holidays, so he was helping me.

  There was one more detail worth mentioning. A local priest from the village church was invited for lunch today. I met him in the courtyard of my neighbor, and wanted to ask for advice and God’s blessings. But somehow, instead of cooking a nice meal for my guest, I was working in the backyard, because I’d told Aleksei I would.

  This priest was the organizer of the demolition of Lenin’s monument which, as expected, used to bristle in the center of the village in front of the village council. Everyone knew that Lenin was against religion and the church. He wrote many articles and books on the struggle against the opium of the people. By his order, a considerable number of churches, many of which were works of art, were destroyed. Father Illarion followed in the footsteps of the Leader of the Proletariat, and was trying to destroy the very idea of Lenin and Lenin himself, embodied in the granite sculpture. So he was kind of a warrior for the bright future, keeping pace with the times, fighting for the implementation of the ideas of Perestroika.

  At those times the whole country eagerly took up the rebuilding idea: demolition of monuments, changing of street names, even names of entire cities. Big sums of money were spent on this, money that was taken from the salaries of teachers, doctors, and other workers.

  One morning the village Chervona Sloboda woke up and all the Communist monuments were gone. Every single one. It soon became clear whose work that was and Father Illarion was arrested as a political offender. He stayed in the bullpen for three days, and was very proud to add this to his political past. People reached out to him and consequently the prestige and well being of the Chervona Sloboda church quickly went up in the world and, consequently, Father Illarion’s career.

  It was August, two in the afternoon, and incredibly hot. Vova and I were both lightly dressed: shorts and T-shirts. I was happy because my son had voluntarily expressed a desire to help me, and I enthusiastically started my chore.

  Since all the problems with his father started, my son had taken his side.
When you are fifteen you don’t really understand what’s really going on. In addition, at this age boys are always closer to their fathers. I was so worried, I kept crying, arguing, and that was making everything even worse. Now I was quite happy that I had at least some sympathy and help from my son this afternoon.

  Emptying the contents of the bag on the ground, I set it on fire. In the bag there was a lot of paper, newspapers, pieces of old wallpaper. The rubbish flamed up quickly, and the heap was getting smaller right before my eyes. My son went for a second trash bag, and I took a rake and began pushing all the burning pieces back into the heap. There were a couple of bottles and cans. One bottle was filled with some liquid and closed by a cork. The label read, olive oil. Strange! Could I really have thrown a full bottle of oil in the garbage? I should take it out of the fire, or else, God forbid, it could explode.

  I walked over to get it out, and ba-bam!

  I wasn’t sure I had any thoughts of after that. All I knew was I just saw a huge ball of fire, and the fact that my legs were on fire. I tried to put it out with my hands, but it didn’t help. There was a weird chemical smell and it was incredibly hard to breathe. For some reason, I suddenly had a sore throat.

  Other than my throat, I didn’t feel any pain, surprisingly nothing at all. A thought came into my head: If it doesn’t hurt, maybe it’s just a dream.

  So there I was, quietly ready to accept that I was doomed to be burned alive. As though this were a funky dream I saw my son running towards me. He was saying something, but I could not understand a single word. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the house. We reached it quickly and then it came. Pain.

  It was unbearable, unrelenting! My son called the ambulance and then tried to help me, putting wet cloths on my feet, which had pieces of burnt skin all over them. I was moaning, too ashamed to cry. The ambulance took twenty minutes to arrive, when I was close to passing out. Unfortunately, I did not lose consciousness. I walked to the ambulance by myself. Then there was another torturous walk from the ambulance to the hospital staffroom, which was up the stairs on the second floor, and only there I was given a painkiller.