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My name is Natasha
Putkin. I must remember that. Names are what define us. They
tell us who we are and where we are from. Sometimes they
even tell us what must be done.
I am twenty-one years
old and was born in a small farming town in Siberia. All
that seems like a lifetime ago – like it happened to another
person, someone who looked like me and felt like me but was
not me. If I remember my name I can just about hold onto the
link between me and that girl.
It is dark and warm in
here. I never get cold, not like I used to back home. It is
always warm here, in this place. Warm. And safe.
He came into the room
earlier, walking around with big loud, staggering steps and
snuffling in the corners, probably looking for something. I
think he was drunk. He sat on the bed and started to sing –
an old ballad about fishermen lost at sea. The mattress
springs creaked above me like a choir of ill children. The
song went on for a long time. I think I nodded off for a
while – the sound of his snoring was horrible, a long
drawn-out snorting – and when I regained my senses he was
leaving. He did not disturb me, not this time. Perhaps he
thinks I have not been punished enough, and he will leave me
in here until I have learned my lesson
He is fat and ugly,
smelly like an old farm animal. He has a wife. Her name is
Hilda. I think she likes me – at least she puts up with my
presence in her house, letting me take care of things around
the place. And him, of course – she is more than happy to
let me take care of him, cleaning up after him and tending
to his demands. It means that she does not have to suffer
his attentions, his hot, wet mouth and the things he
whispers in your ear when he is on top of you, squirming and
squealing like a bleeding hog…
I am not sure how long I
have been in the box this time. Sometimes he lets me out
after a few hours, sometimes I am locked inside for days.
The longest time – after the last I asked to use the
telephone to ring my parents – he left me in here for over a
week. I had no food, no water. I was weak and only half
conscious when he finally let me out, and when he did Hilda
nursed me back to health. When I was back on my feet again
the telephone had been taken out.
Sometimes, when I am
cleaning the house, I stare out of the windows at the aching
blue sky and the quivering trees. I am afraid of so much
space; miles and miles of unfamiliar streets and homes, all
waiting beyond the thin sheet of glass. If I reach out,
touch the glass, I can almost feel the chaos out there
shivering through my fingertips like the vibrations through
a stereo speaker.
They have no children,
and whenever I ask Hilda if she ever wanted to start a
family her eyes go flat and dull, like old pennies at the
bottom of a well. She is much older than him and I suspect
that she is well past the age of breeding. Her skin is
wrinkled, like my mother’s, and her small hands shake all
the time that she is sober – which is not often. He brings
her drink every day, the bottles wrapped in rustling brown
paper.
I used to live and work
on the family farm. We raised pigs for slaughter. I killed
my first pig when I was ten years old. I had no brothers, so
was expected to work like a boy. At first I did not like the
blood, but soon realised that it was essential, a necessary
thing so that we might survive.
A memory:
White snow; cold air;
the squealing of the piglets. I stand in the barn, shivering
in the early morning chill. My father says: “I know it is
not easy, baba, but it is something that must be done.” I
watch him as he hangs the two big hogs and draws a thin
sharp blade across one of the exposed pink throats. Then it
is my turn. I drift away, attaining an inner focus to allow
me to kill the second pig. I do not see my hand holding the
knife, or the animal’s dirty death throes. I am somewhere
else: deep inside myself. A place I’d rather be.
Pigs are not human. It
is easy to watch a pig die.
I am thirsty. My lips
are dry, the skin is cracked. I flex my hands at my sides to
keep the circulation going, but they feel light and clumsy,
as if they do not really belong to me.
I stretch my muscles,
opening my legs until my knees meet the wood on either side.
I raise my arms so that my elbows rest on the floor, and
press my fists into the wooden lid. It is so dark that I
cannot see. I know there are air holes, but they let in no
light. He allows me a cushion for my head, but there are no
blankets – the heat builds up at night, and with blankets I
might suffocate.
He does not want me to
die. He only wants me to be sorry for what I did. It was
wrong of me to ask if I might go for a walk, just to the end
of the street and back, like last time. He will allow it
again only when he thinks I deserve it, and as long as I do
not ask.
I must work hard for my
privileges, just like I did back on the farm.
If I listen hard I can
hear the sound of traffic on the road into town. It is a
busy route and the house is almost on top of it. No-one has
noticed that I am here, even on those occasions when he lets
me of the house to stretch my legs in the garden. It is a
small garden, yet Hilda keeps it nice. There are roses and
other pretty flowers, and a high wall shielding us from the
road. I could scale that wall if I wanted – he does not
watch me when I am out there, he trusts me to come back
inside when he calls. I always come back inside. Out there
is too much that I do not know, but in here I know every
inch, every shadow.
Once I walked right up
to the wall, stared at the rough stones and the dark mortar
squeezed into the gaps. I imagined myself putting one hand
over the other and climbing the wall, then dropping down on
the other side. But the traffic sounds were too loud –
almost defeating. They invaded my ears and filled my head,
and I was gripped by a terror that was both larger than me
and yet smaller than my narrow box under the single bed.
If I did choose to climb
the wall and run into the road to wave down a passing car or
truck, I know that he would kill my family. I know this
because he has told me, many times. He knows where they
live, what they look like, and claims to know a man in my
home town who, if called upon, will slit my mother and
father’s throats like the pigs we sent to slaughter.
I have to believe him
when he tells me this. I have no choice. I have been here in
this house for seven years, since I was fifteen, when he
took me off the street and forced me into the back of his
car after paying my parents a lot of money (or so he says).
I know no other way of
life. The time I had before has been erased, like chalk
marks on a stone wall.
I do, however, have my
doubts about what he tells me. He claims to know many people
in many countries who are just like him – but this house is
old and falling apart. The furniture is moth-eaten, the
windows are dirty. There is no money. He never goes far, not
even to work. He is idle and slovenly, preferring to let his
wife work while he sits in his chair and scratches his
crotch, eating, always eating, like a fat pig.
I wish I had the courage
to question him, but I have lived under these conditions for
so long that anything else seems too large and frightening.
If I did leave him, where would I go? Who would I run to?
According to him, the neighbours would bring me back. He
says they all have their own little Natasha’s, trapped like
me in wooden boxes beneath similar beds in identical gloomy
bedrooms.
A memory:
The low-ceilinged rooms
of my mother and father’s house. The smell of old blood in
the large kitchen. Pots and pans. My mother’s wide forearms.
My father’s smile – a rare sight, but one that often
sustains me. Pork sizzling on the grill, its fatty odour
overpowering.
My body tenses whenever
I hear footsteps in the hall. Sometimes the door opens and
someone takes a few cautious steps inside, then pauses, as
if listening for the sound of my breathing. I suspect it is
Hilda, checking that I have not suffocated. If I die, she
will have to resume her role as his partner, and I know that
would be the worst thing in the world as far as she is
concerned. With me alive, she is left alone – I keep him
distracted so that she can sit and get drunk in another
room.
I hear her crying at
night. I am not sure why she weeps, but the sound is
dreadful, filled with a loss and regret that I cannot even
begin to understand…
I think I might have
fallen asleep again, just for a moment or two. Or perhaps I
retreated inside myself, to the place he cannot touch.
When I open my eyes he
is out there, on the other side of the box. He has probably
lifted the edge of the divan to access the box – there is a
door in the side where I roll in and out. I can sense his
fingers tracing the pattern of the grain. If I concentrate I
can hear him breathing. It is a horrible sound, like
ancient, faulty bellows trying to make a draft.
I fear that it might be
time to come out.
I hear the clasps open
and wait for the side of the box to swing down, letting in
the light. I am blinded for a few seconds, and unable to
move. My limbs have seized up. My jaw is locked tight.
I feel his chunky hands
upon me as he guides me out of the box, clutching at my
belly and breasts. I can smell whisky on his breath. The
sound of his hoggish moaning and grunting is loud in my
ears. The light is too much, I still cannot see beyond its
sharp barrier. The wooden flap claws at my back as he drags
me out and lifts me onto the bed, pawing at me with his
blunt fingers.
Then, unexpectedly, he
steps away, still grunting, and leaves me on my back on the
hard mattress. I wish I could see because I am sure that he
is weeping. His footsteps retreat, much lighter than they
should be, different from how they usually sound. The door
closes but he does not lock it. I stare at the door for a
long time, wondering if it will open again.
Timber creaks as he
leans against the other side of the door. I hear a voice,
low and strained, but it does not belong to him. It is a
woman’s voice, but empty, like a machine, and the noises it
makes are nowhere near words. I am frightened and confused.
Why has Hilda let me out of the box? This has never happened
before – she is not even allowed inside this room.
I lie still for a while,
waiting for my eyesight to adjust. Slowly, gradually, the
light returns my vision. I see the familiar bare room, the
splintered boards and grubby curtains. I rub my face with a
steady hand, turning so that I am supported on one elbow.
On the unpainted cabinet
that stands by the side of the bed, there rests a gun.
I stare at the gun,
wondering if this is a trick, a test. The sound of traffic
outside becomes louder, clearer, and for a moment I am
overcome by tastes and smells that I have never experienced
before. Tears soak my cheeks but I do not know why I am
crying.
I swing my legs off the
bed, sit facing the door, and pick up the gun. It is heavy.
The metal is still warm. It smells of freedom, and that
scares me more than anything else I can imagine.
Because he had no sons,
my father taught me to shoot and hunt at an early age. This
gun is nothing like the ancient Russian hunting rifle I am
used to, but I think I can work out how to use it. My finger
curls under the trigger guard. I am smiling. It feels
unnatural. I will need to learn how to smile all over again.
There is no sound now
beyond the closed door. I stand, holding the gun. Then I
open the door, slowly, expecting him to run at me and force
me to the floor, laughing. Dusty light spills across the
threshold, bathing my feet and the bottom of my shins.
I can now hear Hilda
crying in another room. The television is on, an American
game show. Traffic passes by outside, whispering a strange
message in my ear. As I step out into the hall, I catch
sight of him through the living room doorframe. All I see is
his thick pink arm resting on the side of a chair as he
snoozes in front of the game show. The faded blue tattoos.
Crumbs. The horrible little black hairs – like the thick,
spiny hairs on a pig’s back.
It is easy to watch a
pig die.
After what feels like
forever I take a small step forward, then a bigger one. The
floorboards do not make a sound. I feel like I am floating.
I have been here for seven years and the promise of freedom
is the most terrifying thing I can imagine. What will I do?
Where will I go? Who else will ever love me?
There are so many things
to consider, a buzzing swarm of thoughts threatens to
overwhelm me. But I must not forget who I am, where I am
from, or what has been done to me. I must never forget.
A memory:
My father says: “I know
it is not easy, baba, but it is something that must be
done.”
My name is Natasha
Putkin. I must remember that. Names are what define us. They
tell us who we are and where we are from. Sometimes they
even tell us what must be done. |
