‘Hello again,’ the man said as I returned to the table with his drink. He was older than me, with green eyes, light brown hair and the same square jaw as my favourite actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I knew he wanted to talk but although I liked his looks, I didn’t feel up to speaking to him. Strange men made me very nervous and I kept my distance. I went back inside and started drying glasses. There were only a couple of hours to go before I finished work and went back to the room I shared with Mamma. She’d probably be out so I’d have it to myself.
After that day at the beach a year ago, I had changed completely. I never talked about it or saw the other girls when I got back because I didn’t want their parents to ask questions. But still I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and soon I stopped speaking. I avoided my parents and stayed silent for many weeks. A couple of months later I met Alina who told me Natasha had not been found after that day. I didn’t know if it was true or not but believed her when she said she’d spent a month in hospital after being raped by thirteen men. I felt so guilty. She was younger than me and I should have protected her.
Apart from Alina, only Yula knew what had happened. When the case came to court, I wasn’t called because I was so young and Yula went on my behalf—once again my parents knew nothing about it. The fifteen-year-old boy who raped me first was jailed for three years. The blond man got twelve years and the tall one three. But I didn’t really care. All I could think about was the sin I had committed as I stared at myself in the mirror. I hated what I saw. I was marked, dead inside and couldn’t feel anything anymore. School, my family, my friends—nothing mattered because I was empty. I just carried on living as I had before, going to school and coming home, but feeling nothing.
Six months later, my parents finally split up. We left Papa in the apartment, and Mamma and I moved to a dirty room furnished with a single bed, table and chair. I’d hoped we would become closer but, free of my father, Mamma went out most nights. The most I usually saw was a shadow getting into bed beside me, smelling of alcohol and cigarettes.
A few months after that, I stopped going to school. Our new home was on the other side of Simferopol and anyway I wasn’t interested anymore. My dreams of doing well in my exams and getting a good job meant nothing after that day at the beach. Mamma had tried to persuade me to go back but I wouldn’t change my mind and after a few weeks at home she’d told me I had to start paying my way.
‘If you’re not going to study then you need to make some money,’ she said. ‘You can’t keep eating my food and not paying anything. Now you’ll realise how hard life is.’
That is how I’d ended up working in the café where I stood now as the man got up and stared through the window. I put my head down and carried on drying the glass.
Whenever my mysterious friend returned to the café, I was always quiet and never responded to his attempts to break the ice. Nevertheless, a few weeks later, I left work one evening to find him standing outside holding a big bunch of flowers.
‘Hi,’ he said, offering them to me. ‘My name is Sergey. Would you like to go for a walk?’
I couldn’t help smiling—the flowers were beautiful and my stomach fluttered nervously to be so close to this handsome man.
‘Come on,’ he said, seeing that I was wavering. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Oxana,’ I said hesitantly.
‘Well, Oxana—I’d be very honoured if you’d walk a little way with me. Do you live far from here?’
Without thinking, I answered him and we began to stroll off together. Soon we were talking away and then we sat down in the park to chatter on together. Sergey was twenty-two, funny, and so good-looking he made me tremble. When we said goodbye, I was full of excitement, but I was also afraid. I’d been dead inside so long that I felt safer that way—did I really want to come back to life again and risk more pain? And surely Sergey would soon notice that I was worth nothing, that there was a sin inside me and then it would all be over. But he didn’t. Day after day, he came back and waited for me so that we could walk together, holding hands in the park as night fell. I felt warm inside when he smiled and I blossomed under his attention. Then, one night, he kissed me under a tree in the park—a soft delicious kiss that was everything I dreamed it would be.
‘Now you’re my girl, Oxana,’ said Sergey softly.
‘Yes,’ I replied, happier than I’d ever thought I could be again.
‘Is this what you want, Oxana?’ Sergey asked, his green eyes anxious.
I nodded. We were in the bedroom of a flat that belonged to a friend of his. It was early afternoon but the curtains were drawn against the daylight. I was wearing only my bra and pants.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘It’s what I want too, but you have to be sure.’ He came over and sat beside me on the bed and stroked my arm.
‘I am.’ I was. I had decided that I wanted to give myself to Sergey and belong to him completely. I had found the man I wanted to marry and whose children I wanted to bear. Why wait? Besides, there was always the horrible possibility that if I did not, he might leave me for someone who would, even though he told me how much he loved me. My great fear was that he would realise that I was not a virgin when he first made love to me, and that he would turn away from me in disgust.
He lay me down on the bed. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered and then he kissed me. A few moments later, I felt him pushing against me and then he moved inside me. It was not at all like the experience I had had with those men on the beach—this was gentle and sweet and did not hurt me, though I made a small whimper as he entered me.
‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed. ‘It’s only painful the first time, I promise.’
It was over very quickly and then he lay beside me dozing.
‘Do you still love me?’ I asked. He hadn’t noticed that I was not a virgin but I feared that he might lose interest now that he had had me.
‘Of course I do. Don’t worry. Didn’t I say that you’re my girl?’ And he fell asleep.
‘I love you too,’ I whispered, gazing at his face. I knew that I never wanted to leave his side. Three months later, we moved in together, into a rented room in an apartment block.
I didn’t tell my mother where I was going—she would not have cared anyway.
Sergey and I were very happy in our little room together, although I was the only one bringing in a wage from my job at the café. Sergey was looking for work but he hadn’t yet found anything. In the meantime he spent time with his friends and going about the city while I was at work, and in the evening we were together.
Then, in late 1991, I found out that I was pregnant.
‘Well, we’d better make the best of it, I suppose,’ Sergey said uncertainly when I told him the news. ‘Weren’t you being careful?’
I just looked at him. I was only fifteen and didn’t really know anything about the facts of life. There was no sex on television, no half-dressed women in adverts and no sex education at school. I’d heard older girls talking of course but didn’t understand and had trusted Sergey to know what we had to do. He was so much older than me.
‘Do you think…’ I hardly knew how to say the words. It wasn’t what I had dreamed of at all. ‘…do you think we should get married?’
He knew as well as I did that unless I was married I would be branded a slut and our child would have a miserable life, bullied at school and looked down on forever. Only a ring on my finger could prevent it.
‘Yes, I suppose we’d better,’ said Sergey with a smile, although he didn’t look as happy as I’d hoped he might at the prospect. ‘And I really will have to find a job—otherwise how am I going to support my wife and child?’ He smiled and kissed me, and I