delga | fic: hard liquor. [7/14] (spooks)

hard liquor. (spooks)
Fiona, Adam, Tja; het./fem.
vii. beating down the house

One minute there, next minute gone. This is all the same for Anouska. (Nothing changes, she thinks. Seasons pass, the world rotates and all remains the same). Some days are all right; she goes about her way, always moving, staying away from the east as much as she can. Other days are immeasurable, littered by her need and her want. She goes to Mexico, stays there for a while and then decides to go back to Europe.

She thinks not of Tja (but for her thoughts); speaks not of Tja (but for her words).

Yes, she thinks, nothing ever changes.

Saudi Arabia. (Post Jerusalem, pre-Berlin). Black hijabs, knotted sandals and heat as thick as fog. This, she comes to realise, is Tja’s natural element – sun, sand and miles of culture. They walk through a market, close together, heads bowed.

They see a woman thrown out of a building. They see a husband beat his wife. They see a mother try to defend her children from their father.

Anouska is outraged (Russian whores and Asian brides). She looks to Tja; challenges her: “Do something!” But Tja says nothing: shakes her head, takes Anouska’s hand and leads her away as quickly as she can.

(Anouska is bitter and angry. She has come home, she thinks, back to dirty old men and hapless women. She thinks, Tja knows this, Tja should understand this).

Her anger spoils the day and they return to the hotel early. Anouska wants answers, demands them, even.

Tja says nothing.

There is no turning back. This Fiona knows. (Make a point and stick it out). She can’t retract her words, can’t smooth things over. Can only forge ahead and hope it all works out. It’s time to ride out the wave.

She lifts the whiskey to her lips once more.

“Why don’t we help them?” Anouska rages.

“They don’t need our help,” Tja replies.

Adam snatches the bottle from her hand, pulling it back, out of reach.

Nebbish.

“What is this?”

“What do you see?”

“Dammit, Fiona, what the fuck is going on?”

She laughs. Leans across the table. puts her face directly in front of his. (Smiles provocatively). “What do you think is going on?” (Presses on her tone, pulls out the Slav in her blood). She tilts her head to once side. (Adam can smell the liquor on her breath, the perfume on her blouse). She brings her head forward, forcing contact. (God, he loves the feel of her skin, so soft against his own). “What would you like it to be?”

She drags her lips so slowly across his stubble; presses them to his own. Two blushing pilgrims¹. (Reaches beyond him, so carefully, so silently)—

Adam slams his hand down on hers, moves quickly. Pins her to the table. Leans over her; traps her still. Looks into her eyes. Stares.

(She squirms, was never good without the upper hand. Is tired and angry and fed up of being the little girl lost, the weak and pitiful wife. Fed up of being possessed. Fed up and hurt and grieving and pained and oh so very mad at nothing in particular).

“Who are you?”

Silence. Adam tightens his grip.

“I said, who are you?”

She bites her lips. (Her wrists are sore from his hold over her). Squirms again. (He holds them tighter). Begins to panic.

There is a discernible hiatus. Adam looks over her, sees her anew. This is a stranger, he thinks. This woman is someone else entirely. And yet there is recognition: “Please,” she hisses, “Please.” He should not do this, he knows. He should not succumb.

He cannot refuse.

(Some things never change).

She brings it up again (feels she must, feels it to be her duty). “Why didn’t we help them? No—” She does not yield the floor, “—explain it to me. In what way did those women deserve that? I thought you were better than that – I thought women were sacred.”

Tja snorts derision, takes another drag of her cigarette. “A chicken, moya malyshka², is not a bird.”

She remembers the cold, remembers matushka³ lying in bed. Remembers how she was ill and weak; how her brothers and sisters would career around for food that she did not have. She remembers her father, large and brutal, stinking of Stolichnaya and cheap cigars. (She remembers flinching as he undid the buckle of his belt, hurting as the strap came down on her mother – screaming in silence, hands over her ears whilst hiding in the corner, praying and begging for him to pass out).

(She remembers her mother dying, remembers screaming at her father: remembers hating herself as she let him beat her into submission).

She remembers making a choice. Remembers running away.

Adam kisses her: hard, forceful, still pressing down on her wrists. She growls, protests.

(But she still wants more).

“That’s not an answer!” She is fury and she is flame (she remembers—) “Those women are people too!”

Tja shrugs. Knocks ash out of the window.

(Why oh why oh why does she not see?)

She throws her hijab aside, snatches the cigarette from Tja’s fingers, throws it out of the window (to follow the ash on the way down).

“Don’t you see? They’re beating them!”

(Oh god he smells of sweetness and sin).

Tja is too fast for her. Takes her wrist, snaps it back, pushes her against the wall (a hand at her throat, her feet off the floor. Gospodi⁴, she thinks, I can’t breathe). Anouska grasps at her neck, tries to pry away from the fingers – the nails – pressing into the delicate skin.

“Do you think?” Tja’s eyes burn, “Do you think that they are weak? Because they submit? These are women of honour, women deserving of respect. They have given of themselves, detka, so that others may survive. Did you see the mother and her children? Yes, she bears scars but does her daughter? No. The daughter lives and learns. That daughter will survive.” (Please stop, thinks Anouska, please, let me down). “So what if they cover their faces? But for the sake of faith they cover their faces. They live servile, perhaps, but in the company of god. They are not weak, ptichka⁵, they are strong.” (Oh god, I can’t breathe, please, Tja, let me—)

Tja lets go.

Anouska falls to the floor (spluttering and gasping and aching for thought). She has nothing to say, could not say it if she wanted to.

“A chicken is not a bird,” says Tja, lighting up another cigarette, “and a woman is not a human being⁶.” She laughs. (This moment will stay with Anouska forever). “My mother say to me, I am nothing. I become nothing without her.” A long drag of smoke. (Anouska can feel the nicotine winding through Tja’s body as though it were her own). “They beat her, you know, for believing. God was my mother’s lover. I was just her whore child.”

(She laughs, so bitter-sweet).

(It’s like war, thinks Fiona, only the lines aren’t so clear).

Someone sets a match alight – the house is burning down. She bites his lip, draws blood; pushes up against him, rubbing and squirming until he doesn’t know his mind.

(They are a pantomime of lust; mascara tracks, bleeding lips, her legs gleaming under the dull kitchen light and vodka pooling on the floor tiles).

He releases her hands, claps her head – invades her mouth, his tongue hot and skilled. She clutches at him, scratching at his arms, his skull, his chest, desperate for contact (for validity and assurance). This has gone wrong, she thinks, someone else has rolled the dice (moved the shoe five steps forward and eight steps back) and yet she doesn’t care. She simply wants to feel, wants to be grounded again.

(It’s a grotesque tragedy of hate and heat and everything violent in between).

This isn’t quite what they meant by domestic abuse.

end. [7/14]

[1] Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare
[2] Russian, meaning ‘my little one’
[3] Russian, meaning one form of ‘mother’
[4] Russian, meaning god/Lord
[5] Russian, meaning little bird
[6] A Russian saying