Front Matter - Part 03

cheerfully and in good spirits. We were away from one another no more than one night and some hours during the day. Coming to see me I would watch him from afar. He would look angry and have an evil look in his eyes. He usually met me without saying a word. We would leave in silence and I would have no idea where we were going.

I begged him, sometimes for a long time, to tell me what had happened to him and why he was so angry. He refused to tell me, preferring to stay silent. We often walked for a long, long time in silence and, sometimes, when I lost my patience because of the long silence, I cried. He would still be silent. Then he would suddenly turn and walk away, leaving me completely in suspense as to what was wrong.

I would immediately, or the next day, go to his house in hopes of finding out how I’d wronged him or what sin I had committed against him to make him so angry. I even spent many hours searching my own mind, considering all the things I had done, words I had spoken and even thoughts I’d had, what would have made him angry.

But then, as usual, when I stopped inquiring his demeanor would change and his mood would return to normal as is if nothing else had happened in the meantime.

I couldn’t figure out if this was some sort of game or if he wanted to further subjugate me or even reduce my value…? I felt I was still too young and inexperienced to figure out what was really happening. In any case, I eventually accepted my new situation and stopped asking him to explain himself. I figured this way there would be less tension, less uncertainty and less silence between us.

Every day I became more and more aware that there was something not good in our relationship. It was not a healthy relationship. So I gave considerable thought as to how I could get out of it. This relationship had already lasted quite a long time. It had become part of my life so it was difficult to change. But at the same time it was difficult to keep the way it was.

When we had a crisis and were on the verge of separation, he would always find some reason to keep us going. Even though he was overbearing and infallible he would find something to tell me, to convince me, to continue our relationship. He would tell me that he loved me even more than before, to a point of torture and at the same time complain that I didn’t love him enough and with that he would try to explain his whole attitude towards me, sometimes even rudely.

When he was like that he also experienced internal struggles between his opinion of himself and his terrible desire to remain in the same kind of relationship with me. I didn’t believe, even for a single moment that he considered himself unworthy of my great love, which I should have in my heart for him.

The crisis usually lasted a long time but when it was over and we stopped fighting he would suddenly come up with something negative implying that it was pointlessness for me to attend college classes, and indirectly criticized the courses I was taking, implying that I wasn’t a good enough student and wouldn’t be able to finish my studies. But even though he didn’t say these things plainly and directly to me, they were hurtful. He would often talk to me, sometimes for a long time, about his ideal of how a housewife should be. That she should be intelligent, well-read but completely devoted to her family, family happiness and children. A woman in a working relationship, with a profession of her own, according to his ideas, was only a burden on a happy married life.

We argued for a long time about what a female spouse - intellectual, mother and so on should be. I didn’t agree with his opinions and wondered if it was another kind of game he was playing, dictated by his arrogance. However, I naively believed that I could convince him to change his opinion of what a wife should be and many of his other negative opinions about me. I figured I could do it not with just words but by showing him examples. Some things seemed to me were irrefutable truths about me and my life and I believed that, whether he wanted to or not, he had to acknowledge them.

Of all the things that pulled us apart, I still believed that there might be something, something that I didn’t completely understand, that

pulled me towards him, that wanted me to remain with him. It became my obsession.

Why was he seizing me so unavoidably? Why didn’t I find enough strength in me to fight back, to find a way out, an opening in that closed circle that kept squeezing me more and more? Was it my dullness that had overtaken me after everything that happened to me during my first steps in life and immediately after that great disappointment? In any case, I became aware that I was getting weaker and weaker in my search for a way out... maybe it was because of the too well-calculated and constructed system he was using on me...

Again there was a period when he was good to me during which he gave me some attention. He even came with me to the hairdresser to watch me get a haircut the way he liked it and to the clothing store to watch me model dresses. He would often surprise me with a gift. It was usually a book which he knew I wanted to read. I once again began to indulge in a mood which restored my hope that maybe we could find some kind of compromise in our relationship.

I was with him at his parents’ place almost every day. His mother kept inviting me for lunch.

We often went out together.

My parents didn’t know a single thing about all this. Deep down, subconsciously, I began to realize that I was undertaking big responsibilities on my own without consulting them and without seeking their consent. Later, as more things happened, I would realize that I had even less courage. Something was pulling me away and I couldn’t find the strength to resist it.

After going to his house every day and staying there for several hours, my visits became something completely ordinary.

One day when I went to his house to see him, I was surprised to find him in his pajamas still in bed. In a weak voice he immediately told me that he was sick and seemed a little angry as to why I had been gone for so long. I apologized and explained that I didn’t know he

was sick and, after taking my shoes off, sat down on the bed next to him. There was no one else in the house, which was rare because his mother was always at home.

Seeing him sick made me feel a bit more sentimental and, perhaps, for the first time since we’d been together I became more yielding to his caresses. Probably my age also made me more sensitive and ready to forgive him, quickly forgetting the rougher things in our relationship, even the insults, or maybe I was just suppressing them somewhere deep inside me. Then I would let my delusional self believe that all this, even the most drastic rudeness, was just a result of his love for me and his impatience to have me for life.

In any case, at some point in time I realized that something more was going on than was usual in our relationship. I knew that I should resist, that I mustn’t allow it, that it was a line that we must not cross, at least not yet until we were sure, absolutely sure that we would live our lives together. But despite that, I surrendered to everything that was happening, like a drowning man who no longer had the strength or desire to fight, surrendering to the merciless waves...

Even after it had already happened, I didn’t know it was “it”, I wasn’t sure that it was like that because until then it had only existed in my imagination. My mother had never talked to me about it. She probably thought a conversation like that with her little girl would be too serious.

At that moment, after what had happened, I became unsure about my future life. I became full of dullness and maybe disappointment. I didn’t know it would happen now. Everything that had happened was far from the dreams I had imagined, the perfection from the union with a loved one.

I wanted to leave right after. I was burdened by what had happened. I don’t know if I blamed him for that, or if he felt my disappointment but I remember very well what he said. He said:

“It only seems to you like it was nothing...”

At first I thought he was talking like that to comfort me and I was grateful for that, even though I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. I almost wanted to cry, and I certainly would have cried if I hadn’t been afraid of his mockery.

Then he tried hard to convince me that what I thought had happened hadn’t actually happened. Whether it was because of the tone of his voice, or because of the expression on his face, a terrible thought arose from my subconscious: “He deliberately wanted, just in case, to distance himself... Certainly for the sake of getting rid of some kind of guilt, or any sense of obligation.”

I was becoming disgusted. Maybe I would have dismissed that thought had he remained silent, or had he smiled and gently hugged me. No, he continued to insist, trying to convince me that I had imagined it all, even though I knew it had happened. And what was even more terrifying was that he knew, he knew that it had happened more surely than I did, as an undeniable fact, and he consciously tried to obscure it. Maybe even more than that, more horrible was the fact that he tried to cover it up like it had never happened.

I was more and more repulsed by him. It was a kind of internal resistance. I got the feeling that I would never forget or forgive his miserable behaviour towards me, especially at this very sensitive moment in my life, and in every girl’s life. Sitting there he looked like a total coward. At the same time, I felt like I had no desire to argue and defend the truth. I was even becoming indifferent to the reason for his hiding behind the false screen.

Full of bitterness and with some revolt I walked back to my house. I was disgusted by his attempts to cheer me up, to cover up everything that couldn’t be changed, not then, not now, not for the rest of my life. I knew that I had left all of him there, in that bed, in his house. I hadn’t taken, even the smallest part of him with me.

I was completely freed from the prejudices in terms of my womanhood. What had happened, at least for the moment, didn’t burden me nor did it bind me to him. Even more, the incident became an unpleasant act in my life... I didn’t find it in myself and didn’t have the slightest desire to go and look for him. He wasn’t

looking for me either. I assumed that he thought I would go looking for him, after what had happened. While under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have lasted two or three days without going back to his house but not now. Now I left my house, went to school, walked the streets just so that my parents wouldn’t notice that I was without him.

One day I heard him whistle. I quickly got ready and went out. He was furious. I wanted to tell him - by what logic should I be looking for him, and not him for me but I was afraid of a big fight. I didn’t invite him into the house because I knew he wouldn’t come. He hadn’t come to my house for several weeks, that is, after one of our conversations in which I naively told him that my mother and father didn’t like him and that they were against our relationship. And that was true.

From the mean expression on his face I knew he’d been insulted when I said that. He could hardly refrain from saying something harsh, insulting to my parents, and it was better that he didn’t. In any case, he stopped coming to our house and my parents knew why but did nothing to change the situation. I had the impression that it was more pleasant for them if he didn’t come because they really didn’t like him.

At the same time they were very careful not to impose their opinion on me, probably assuming that I had found something in that man that suited me. However, they didn’t hide their attitude towards him.

On the other hand it affected him terribly, especially his arrogance. He couldn’t understand how he, the doctor of tomorrow, with an attractive external appearance, with such high intelligence, at least that’s what he thought of himself, which he always emphasized, couldn’t become an object of admiration for the parents of a girl whose husband he might become. He believed that there could be no parents who wouldn’t want him as their son-in-law. That’s why he sought to find some reason, perhaps even a little thing, to belittle my parents and reduce their value.

I always tried to stop him from doing that because they really were parents who deserved to be respected and loved.

Their attitude towards him was a normal reaction; they wanted something more, something better from him for me. They were able to look at him and his actions more realistically than me. They wanted him to be mature and, in a certain sense, not so distant from me who was now caught in that vortex.

Whenever I explained to my father the problems, clashes and fights I’d had with him, in which he always found me in the wrong, my father always suggested that I immediately break off the relationship and leave him.

I would often even fall asleep with a firm resolve to do it, impatiently waiting for the next day. I once told everyone and myself that I had the will and was going to do it. And then when I found him and was preparing to do it, he somehow managed to squeeze the weapon out of my hands and beat me with it.

Constantly, in all our disputes, collisions, I, my life, my understandings, my habits, my upbringing, even my family were the object of his analysis, criticism and insults. He always managed to get out of the ring and, being too young and inexperienced, I was unable to drag him back. The very fact that I had to constantly defend all that myself, seemed to really call into question the quality of all those components from which I was made. As a result he made it impossible for me, even for a moment, to enter into what he himself was. Of course because of that I felt worthless and beaten.

This time, after I heard him whistle from the street I went out. I saw the rage on his face. I caught myself wanting to immediately start making excuses for not going to him because I’d expected him to come to me. I didn’t yell at him or cut him off like I’d planned or clearly tell him that it was only logical for him to come looking for me, especially right after what had happened. Moreover, not because of the “thing” itself but because of what he’d said about it, because of his attitude towards it. Then our fight would have been inevitable, harsher and more insulting words would have been said, and perhaps for some time he would have been tensely silent. Then he would still have to go through all that and go back to the old... giving kisses and caresses. I couldn’t bear this anymore and, in order to avoid the

whole thing, I was inclined to make even more sacrifices just like before. Even sometimes with a loss of dignity. Of course, that’s why I gave in, even this time. But he didn’t. His evil eyes avoided looking at me.

“You don’t deserve to be with me!” he said.

“You didn’t care if you saw me or not for three days. Is that how much you love me?”

“It doesn’t matter to me. But not because of love.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “The same could be said about you, why didn’t you come looking for me?”

“I was sick. You know that very well!” he replied in an even harsher tone of voice.

Sick? It sounded funny to me. At that moment a thought crossed my mind, “Had he been play acting the other day?”

I was silent.

“Well, that’s why I’m going home now,” he said sharply, turned and began to leave.

“Don’t you dare leave, you’ll regret it,” I wanted to yell at him. I stood there, with tears in my eyes. He didn’t care. I didn’t want him to leave like this. I wanted to run after him, touch him, maybe I would have done that had I not been afraid that he wouldn’t understand and that he would interpret my action as fear and feel I was becoming dependent on him. With bitterness I figured he would think that without hesitation.

I took slow aimless steps. Maybe this was another of his performances to show me his superiority in the new situation. But he’d lied bitterly to himself. In no way was he superior… I couldn’t see any. What happened from my point of view was of little importance to me, it didn’t change anything of how I felt about the

value of myself. If he thought differently it was only because of his delusion.

...Despite everything, I still went looking for him, defending my action to myself with the reason - that he, well, had still come to see me and thus had taken the first step. I felt that I should be taking the next step... And secondly, I felt guilty for not going to visit him again, especially since I knew he was sick. Consciously, I didn’t know why I’d done what I’d done but I did neglect the real reason that prevented me from going to see him in the first place, and that was his attitude towards me, in connection with the last “thing” that had happened.

When I caught up to him at his house, he had a different demeanor. He had a cheerful expression on his face, like we had parted in good company a while ago and that had left him in a good mood.

I, on the other hand, accepted the new variant and everything was fine. After asking me a few conventional questions, his mother left us alone.

As the days went by our relationship continued to be strained. I didn’t know that a close and intimate relationship with a man could be such a big burden for a young woman, or rather a girl. I encountered some strange resistance in my organism and a desire to stop it all... Unfortunately I didn’t. I allowed it to become what it had become and I let it stay that way. I would have done anything if I could have avoided his touches, which became foreign to my whole being... However, like everything else that was dragged by that vortex, I surrendered myself unaware of why, whether it was for his sake because of all that had lasted for months… I didn’t know. In no other situation in my life had I ever experienced such feelings for myself as I did then - I felt like I was an object, some separate mechanism that functioned outside of my being.

I avoided contact whenever possible, which in a way distanced him even more from me. He certainly felt it. Perhaps that was why in our future encounters he didn’t hesitate to emphasize my dependence on him, as something completely logical. He often boasted of his

dominance over me, implying that, according to his logic, men have been dominant over women from time immemorial.

I always had a hidden sneer for all that and a bitter realization that he hadn’t been sufficiently emancipated. Maybe it wasn’t even that, but an attempt to stabilize his place in our relationship and, to a great extent, he was relying on outdated ideas.

Aware that all this was insufficient and looking for new ways to achieve his goal, one day quite coolly, like talking about buying socks, he said:

“You think I’m so stupid, so you’re going to lie to me that I was the first, that day... that I was with you. You’d done “that” much earlier! The only thing left is to tell me with whom…!”

I struggled with the thought for a short while that he might be joking, though neither the object nor the tone of his words gave any indication that it was a joke. We were sitting on a bench in the park and I was afraid that he might repeat the words because, unfortunately, I realized that he meant them.

I desperately wanted to hit him, no, even more than that, to run away from him, as far as possible, like he was some terrible danger to me, to my life.

The thought was so devastating that I immediately became aware as to why he now felt the need to reveal the fact that “it” had happened, and not to deny it as usual.

It was another well thought out move in his game.

Everything seemed even more miserable because of my very natural attitude towards all those aspects of life... “So what? Even if I had done it before, with another man...” I wanted to yell at him even though it wasn’t true.

What hurt me more than anything was the accusations… the accusation of being dishonest when I wasn’t… Of lying when I wasn’t... It was too much... stepping on my chastity hurt...

The only thing I could do now was leave... I considered him unworthy and I had nothing to say to him... Not even insult him...

Realizing that he had crossed another line, behind which lay the danger of a breaking point, the very next day he took a big step and came over my house and rang the doorbell. In other words he broke his word that he would never again set foot in my parents’ house because they had insulted him.

I hesitated for a long time deciding whether to open the door or not. I still felt he was unworthy and I shouldn’t let him in. I then heard my mother open the door and him greeting her loudly and cheerfully.

Why had he come...? Why did he expect we would get back together when there were so many insurmountable things that keep us apart? And most importantly, he and I were aware of that. These were truly insurmountable obstacles. I couldn’t find the strength to go back to it all again. Why had he come...?

He came into my room. My mother didn’t, either because she was busy with her own stuff or she wanted to show him that her attitude towards him still remained the same.

We were silent. We were unable to form the words needed to speak.

He came closer to me and, without saying a word, began to stroke and kiss my hair. I was furious and wanted to shout at him. Why was he doing this, it made no sense, not after everything that had happened yesterday and before...? I sat motionless like I was sinking into another world and leaving this one. It was all happening automatically independent of me. I felt completely disconnected from him and his movements had nothing to do with me.

I couldn’t find the strength to reject his hand, to make it impossible for him to caress me. How dare he do this to me after he had insulted me yesterday so badly? I was also furious with myself, mostly because I was a coward... But at the same time I knew with

my whole being that I didn’t want him to touch me even once, not even a little bit.

Everything about him was disgusting to me. It seemed like I had landed on a torrent, a dirty torrent, a powerful torrent. It was powerful and dirty perhaps because of the stones and various debris rolling with it... I was a delicate butterfly, whose wings were soaked with water, unable to fly, unable to escape the vortex.

I didn’t know how my mother and father would have felt if they knew what was happening to me lately. But because I continued to allow him into my life they probably figured we were close but couldn’t understand why. But they had accepted that if he was good enough for me he was good enough for them, even though they weren’t satisfied with him. They took this path because they truly loved me and respected my wishes. But I kept my affairs to myself in an attempt to spare them from what they didn’t know.

Our relationship kept dragging on and on. If only someone, other than me, could end all the bullying I would be free of the strong torrent that dragged me and pressed on my soul. But, of course, since I was completely under his spell I was out there with him the very moment he called on me. I walked out like I was completely under his power, a slave, with absolutely no will of my own. I resembled a dog that wouldn’t for a moment resist its master; not even when he abused it, perhaps it believed there would be times in the future when its master would be more generous.

We were sinking deeper and deeper. The days were filled sometimes with sadness, and sometimes with the occasional enlightenment.

Leaving the office of the famous gynecologist, I couldn’t sort out the jumble of thoughts circulating my head. However, the truth was, as I found out a while ago, I would be a mother. That was clear deep down in my consciousness.

I wish I hadn’t gone to see him at our usual meeting place, where he was waiting impatiently for me to tell him what the doctor had said. I wanted to lie to him, mostly because of everything that had happened between us in these last few months. I knew I wouldn’t be

able to lie to him that’s why I immediately told him what the doctor had said as soon as I saw him. He frowned but the expression on his face didn’t truly reveal how he felt about the new situation. Or maybe I was unable to read it from him.

I wanted to tell him, yell at him, that all this didn’t oblige him for anything, it didn’t mean that he should, that he must marry me and that I wasn’t afraid of anything that was to come...

After he went home, I walked down the street with my head down. My new situation completely threw me off. It found me too young and unprepared. I felt no joy; it was all bitterness... which I couldn’t share with anyone, not even with him, which would have been helpful for me especially during these difficult moments.

A few days later when we were out in the park for a walk, he began his game again; a continuation of the last part of his plan.

“Don’t you think I know why you broke off relations with me? By God you just don’t like me. Even the stupidest person could understand that... and I hope I’m not that stupid. The only reason for doing this is because your parents wanted you to tear yourself away from me, like the person you chose didn’t give you anything. Strange, and you say you love me so much. You’re a child!” he said looking at me with pity.

“Tear myself away from him?” That wasn’t possible! He sounded absurd and on top of that he’d brought my parents into all of this, my loving parents. How could I explain this to him when he’d never belonged to such a wonderful world, which existed for the three of us – father, mother and I... Obviously, I understood that all this was foreign to him, like his parents were foreign to me. Even his remarks about my parents were foreign.

Was he talking about giving me material things? Did he think I thought he didn’t give me things? That was another stab that reached deep down in my consciousness. Did he really think that his interest in material things would make me a happy wife? Or did he want to marry me to gain material things? What was I, an object? That thought terrified me. After I thought that I wanted to end our

relationship, trample on it and erase everything that was between us... from the first moment we’d met.

“How do I make you understand that I am their only girl, the meaning of their life, and they only want the best for me…?” I replied.

“I just want to open your eyes. You are still too young and naive and don’t understand life. They are deceiving you…” he said.

No, I don’t want to accept that as a possibility... Say, I beg you to say, that it’s not true, that it isn’t so... I can’t live with a picture like that in my head... it’s unbearable...

It would have been a thousand times better if he’d had kept his mouth shut rathernthan say what he said.

“Stop it, stop it! What are you talking about, who are you talking about? Have you something mixed up in your head?! I don’t want you to say another word,” I cried.

The most terrible thing of all this was his ironic laugh. The tone of his laugh had the sound of a slave master.

“No! Stop lying to yourself! I could get over everything, everything, except this material thing, which you think is an integral part of me which has value that you can take. Are you sure this is the right moment to put this into practice?!” I added.

I was prepared to say to him that I was ready to reject him because he was miserable, I was disgusted with him and that I was ready to run away... But where could I run to, especially with the other thing that had happened...? To whom could I run? Was I going to run to my dear parents in this sorry state? Would this be the reward for everything they had done for me?

Another thought that ran through my mind was my unborn child. What should I do about that? Should I condemn that child, my child, which I’d bring into the world, to a joyless life...?

“You have no right,” I said very calmly. “My parents will never give me less than what they can. That’s what they have always done. But I think that that, that side, shouldn’t be at all important in our relationship.

“I’m not saying that it is that important,” he said, as always, with a ready answer, “but, my dear, you know that you cant live without it, without the material goods, they are an integral and necessary part of life.”

I went home hastily, consciously ending this bitter conversation...

Having sensed what was happening to me in those few days, my mother and father spoke to me several times, trying once again to make me aware of my delusion regarding the choice of my companion.

How could I now tell my mother and father the real reason why I had to maintain my relationship with him and, unfortunately, for the rest of my life?

However, the day would come when I would have to tell them everything, all the things about which I’d kept silent all this time; about the difficult days that had passed.

One day he and I started a nice conversation about our future plans in the garden of my parents’ house, which led to mention of specific things.

“Since all this will take place soon,” he said in a soft voice, “it’s high time to ask the question in front of our parents, that is, we will have to tell them our plans. My position and that of my mother is well known and clear. She doesn’t mind.”

“My parents too won’t mind,” I said decisively, “if I tell them it was my decision...”

However, I didn’t say it convincingly.

“It’s not about that,” he said a bit sharply, “they will have to agree.”

He then said, “I figure they will have to agree given the situation… They will have to accept my proposal on account of that other situation, with which they will be faced, about which they will have no choice.”

All this time I kept quiet.

“And another thing, it’s high time I knew what I was up against. Will your father be a little more generous?” he asked with a sarcastic tone of voice, with an evil tone of voice.

This was too much even for me. I realized he had gone too far. I suddenly erupted and everything that had been accumulating for more than a year was about to spill out... Without knowing where my strength and willpower had come from, I slowly, clearly and determinedly told him everything I thought of him, of his character, his understanding, his attitude towards me and our relationship.

I felt extraordinarily relieved. I was finally able to shed the entire hideous burden that I’d been carrying with me for those long months. I was finally ready to bear the consequences of this final breakup.

After I went inside my house and took off my shoes, suddenly before I had a chance to lock the door, I heard the outer door swing open violently and saw him stomp in all flabbergasted, furious and wide-eyed. He walked right past me into the house like his storming in had nothing to do with me. His rage and the cynical expression on his face shocked my mother and father.

After a few moments of silence, he assumed an imposing posture and threw back his head. While looking at my father, I heard him say:

“I came to tell you that until now you didn’t approve of your daughter’s relationship with me or the idea of us getting married. But now I (underlining the word “I”) don’t care for that. She is pregnant, I won’t deny it, it is my child.”

I looked at him with startled eyes. I couldn’t believe that he’d actually said all that to my parents. I couldn’t believe that he’d told them in such a terrible, terrible and evil way!

The words “He doesn’t want me, now he doesn’t want me and is leaving me in this state” kept ringing loudly in my ears... I heard them loud and clear how he said them and the way he said them.

And yes, I was looking... I was looking at that big ashtray on the table and, with a convulsive move of my hand, I reached for it. My father saw me and instinctively knew what I was going to do, so he grabbed it, tightly clamping his hand over it.

Then, with his fantastic coldness, he calmly said:

“Thank you very much for the information. The only thing I want to tell you is that I won’t be giving you my daughter, to live with you, not even if she gives birth to five children!”

“How wonderful, father, you, only you could have said this so elegantly in this fateful hour! Father, how I would love to hug and kiss you. Only you could…” I said when I was rudely interrupted by him.

“Good. So be it!” he said in his usual cynical tone of voice and left our house, just as furiously as he’d come in.

He only awkwardly turned twice to see if my father was still firmly holding on to the ashtray.

After the door slammed shut we were all relieved. It was like we had cleared up a tangled matter and now we were at peace. As for me, the only thing I needed do now was go to my room and avoid my father and mother’s gaze.

Almost two weeks later I went to the local university and canceled my courses. My parents had convinced me to go to the state capital to continue my studies. This way I would be far away from here… far away from my bitter memories...

I stood in the line for quite a long time. There were many students waiting in front of me. The queue was long because students were registering for their exams.

Suddenly I sensed but didn’t see him. He was standing close behind me. I tried to distract myself so that I could avoid him.

I told the clerk loudly, even with some defiance, that I was canceling my courses and moving to another school... I said where I was moving and to which faculty, I even mentioned which city... As I headed towards the counter to pick up my documents, I suddenly heard someone pass out and collapse next to me. It was him.

Students ran from all sides.

A thousand contradicting thoughts went through my mind, all forcing me to do something; remain proud and indifferent because of what he’d done to me, or do something else? What should I do...?

Where would I find the justification to push that mass of students away and lightly slap him on his terribly pale face while calling him by his name and waiting fearfully for him to regain consciousness…?

The eyes, his eyes – when they looked at me they seemed to be hiding regret... and even somewhere in their depth they hid something more, something beautiful.

Maybe it was just a figment of my imagination because I felt sorry for him passing out.

“I couldn’t stand it,” he whispered while trying to stand up, “even more so when I found out that you were really leaving... I can’t live without you... My mother has been crying constantly since this happened between us...”

I was so young, I still had romantic notions about life, about people, and was unable to separate the lies from the truth that were hidden deep somewhere inside a person.

Was this his last step in the fight, the fight he needed to win in his game…?

We walked slowly down the street. I was carrying my documents in my hands. He looked pathetic, lost and miserable which made me pity him.

“I don’t know why I treated you like that, I tortured you…” he said in a crying tone of voice. “It’s because I love you too much and I’m afraid of losing you.”

There was a paradox in his words which made them sound illogical, but at the very moment I had no desire and this wasn’t an opportune time to tell him what I thought and how I really felt.

For some reason I was always inclined to blur the truth and only attach importance to that which would keep the normal flow of movement, but this time I blurred everything except for the words “I love you”. I needed that so much now, it was necessary to heal my wounds, caused by what he’d done to me in the past.

“I have to go away,” I said in a quiet voice. “My father will accompany me. Everything has been arranged...”

Like he didn’t hear a thing I said, he continued:

“Perhaps the reason why I was so hostile to you was because your parents didn’t like me.”

“You are to blame for that; they were never unrealistic or unfair…” I wanted to say that to him but instead I said nothing. Instead I remembered how, again and again, he insulted and humiliated me and how much I’d cried because of that. I was even close to developing an inferiority complex because of his systematic humiliation and ridicule... And then... there was that terrible episode when he came over to my parent’s house for the last time...

“No, I have to go,” I said again in a loud harsh tone of voice, which startled and even intimidated me calling on that other weak, sentimental woman in me...

When I looked at him again he had an expression in his eyes that revealed that he was losing the game but wasn’t ready to surrender.

“You have to go, I understand,” he said. “I will somehow survive here... all alone, it doesn’t matter what happens to me...”

Then he was silent for a moment. After that, with a sickly, crying and strangled sounding voice, he said:

“You... you look after the child... our child, take care of it, I really don’t know what will happen to me...”

I felt like I could hardly hold back the tears in my eyes, then I felt them sliding down my face.

I was slowly being enveloped by darkness. Everything around me was getting snuffed out. I felt a great sadness come over me.

Walking almost mechanically we went inside a cafe, where we used to go often.

I sipped on a disgusting thick green liquor. He drank rakia, a lot more than usual. Maybe on purpose... Then he began to cry out loud... this was because of me... because of the child...

I was getting sick of it all, I felt terrible. I looked for a way out, to escape.

I didn’t want to be the object of attention for the other patrons in the bar so I grabbed his arm and pulled him outside.

We were on the street again. In the darkness which magically and insidiously concealed things.

I hated him and couldn’t stand him, even more so after he’d drunk all that rakia. I dragged him towards his house moving as quickly as possible. I was frantic and unable to endure the disgust I had for him because of the things he’d done to me. He’d persecuted and rejected

me and on top of that he’d gotten me pregnant. And now all this was somehow about him…

When we went inside his house his mother was sleeping.

I didn’t go back home to my house. I hoped my parents would understand and forgive me. That was the only thing I could do under the circumstances...

Before going to register I dropped by my parents. I was alone. I didn’t go there to invite them to participate... This was now something they couldn’t participate in... This was exclusively my problem.

My father had gone to work, which made things easier for me to deal only with one person.

My mother gave me a hug and, with a sad face and tears in her eyes, escorted me to the exit door. All that, with tears in her eyes and with what I was carrying in my soul, resembled a joyful wedding... However, I hoped, although it was hardly certain, that this joint step of ours would calm him down and, above all, help him fix his internal problems. And one more hope, regarding the child, which might contribute to a greater rapprochement between us...

He was graduating soon. We were both satisfied. I believed it would be a big turning point in his life. He would engage in serious responsibilities. His profession was filled with great responsibility.

A son was born to us. It was a kind of out of this world formal obligation.

We were sitting alone listening to the radio. Soft music was playing.

Our son was sleeping. Everything seemed calm and peaceful.

His mother wasn’t there, like many times over the past two months, she had gone to see an older man, whom she wanted to marry. She had divorced her husband, his father, several years ago.

The apartment we lived in, together with his mother, was small but had two rooms. If she chose to marry the old man there was a chance that we would be left without an apartment. If she brought that man to live with her, like she had mentioned before, we would be forced to move into my aunt’s apartment, which she was currently renting. Her tenants, however, were building their own apartment and were going to vacate hers. My aunt loved me very much and, since she had been lonely for many years after my uncle died, she would be really happy to have me by her side.

Perhaps my mother and father would agree to have us move in with them but I knew that it would be beyond their means to seek and find a common language with my husband. Not to mention him.

I moved away when I heard the so familiar coldness in his voice, which undeniably reflected the content of what he was saying:

“Everyone is wondering why I married you. Maybe I really should have thought about it some more... And that I could have done...”

The chill that emanated from his words pierced me all over. He was still the same person, the same one... not a bit had changed in him...

I kept my mouth shut. I couldn’t prevent what he’d already said and I didn’t want to give him a reason to say something more, more bitter, deeper, more calculated...

Despite my silence he continued:

“As you can see education wise you finished nothing and you never will, you will be the most ordinary housewife, a maid. I could have married a woman with an intellect equal to mine...”

Why did I keep silent? …Perhaps because there was really no point in entering into a dispute with someone who spoke such cheap, calculated words and evil thoughts.

“I was hoping that by marrying you I would achieve some kind of material well-being. Not even that... your father is a big miser, he didn’t give you much, not even as much as a poor parent would have

given... I told you that before... my dear... But who can prove anything to you. You always thought you were the smartest…”

I sat in the room in near darkness, lit only by a night lamp, and quietly cried. I didn’t want him to know that I was crying. I didn’t say a word because I knew if I did it would provoke more and even fiercer insults from him and I didn’t want that. And now that he was a doctor he believed that he was a “great man”.

Unfortunately my silence provoked him even more than if I’d said something. He was infuriated...

“So now you’re silent. That’s the only thing left for you to do. What could you possibly say about things that are indisputable truths? And still... you enrolled in college and took courses; with good intentions of course.” He said and laughed out loud with his ironic laugh.

I wanted to yell at him and tell him that it was his fault that I didn’t make much progress in college. Me, who never had problems learning, mastered even the most difficult subjects. I didn’t study because of all that torture he ‘d been inflicting on me for more than two years. Our child too had tied me to the house. I also had to cater to his mother after we moved in with her. She insisted, believing I was obligated, that I do everything for her. I wanted to say all these things to him but instead I kept silent. This was what he wanted and I was a perfect fit for him. As time passed I began to fear him.