Among humans, angels are those who are able to subdue their demons more times than they loose them.
Klara’s eyes darted sideways. A small serrated fruit knife, bread, butter and baker’s knife, and a meat cleaver hang on the aluminum rack. Directly set on the wall, opposite the window, sun rays gallantly fell and bounced off their polished steel and twinkling razor edges.
She stared long at them, as one might in a cutlery shop, bemused by their strange duality, the blend of beauty and lethality. Scarcely used in the last many months from since their marriage hit the rocks and such delicacies as necessitated this assortment, had become rare coming, each begged, or so it appeared, to be chosen.
The thought in her mind persisted, it had been the same thought for weeks now, except she had always just as quickly brushed it off, terrified at the pictures it conjured. For some reason today, she allowed it to linger a while longer, yielding to the unfolding plot of how easily she could end it all.
From the background, Nikolai’s words reverberated, bouncing off the walls of the living room to sting her ears here at the kitchen where she had come to make his lunch. She said nothing in reply to his mockeries, to his derision, it was the same always, she responded by keeping quiet. Today however she replied, except the conversation remained inside her head.
“Bitch hurry up, I want to eat,
“When was the last time you bought food?”
“Weakling,
“I am not weak!
“If I come there now,
‘Just try it!”
Klara’s head buzzed, something on her chest drummed. There was the invitation, she only needed to stretch her hand, and might have, if it wasn’t for the tap on her shoulder, that almost collapsed her heart.
“Hey!”
It was Ann.
“Sorry I frightened you,” Ann continued, quick to allay Klara’s obvious fright.
“Agh, yea - no, it’s nothing,” Klara stammered to recover speech, making all effort to suppress her quickened breath.
“Niki said I would find you here,” Ann said.
Klara was still recovering from the fright; at what point did Nikolai stop shouting? What time did Ann arrive?
‘Hey! Klara!” Ann called, moving closer, to hold her friend.
And Klara recovered, or so it seemed. “Arg, sorry, where are my manners. I haven’t even given you a welcome!” She now said, making an obvious attempt to appear cheerful as she hugged her best friend. “Thanks for coming,” she said. “How was the flight?’
“Perfect, just the weather, you know Moscow”.
A couple of courtesies passed, and shortly the tension cleared. The two best friends got down to cooking and an hour or so later, the meat steak was ready.
At first Nikolai kept pestering, demanding that she hurries with the food, but it was less obscenely as before, Ann’s presence was certainly responsible for that.
Shortly he stopped all together, by the time they left the kitchen to the living room with food ready to serve; Nikolai was snoring away, although he quickly awoke when he heard movement. Klara served and set his plate, as they each took their place at the table.
Nikolai who couldn’t wait for her to say Grace quickly took to his food. But he was too drunk, his hands fumbled to lift a beef slice from the plate to his mouth, and when he did, it ended on his bearded chin. Klara was grateful when he gave up on using the fork all together and resorted to his bare hands, albeit unwashed.
Her eyes kept sneaking at him, and at her best friend in embarrassment. But Ann pretended not to notice anything, and silently munched away.
As always, with only half his food eaten, Nikolai shortly left. He had been from, and now back to the bar. Next she would have to open for him the door at midnight, lucky if he didn’t pick a fight because she had delayed by a second.
From since Nikolai departed, it took some time of silence, before Klara broke in, “I am sorry to bother you,”
“Oh, c’mon pumpkin! Friends forever, remember?" Ann cut in, trying to bring some cheer. “And I needed some fresh air too, you know Moscow and the buzz. How are you dear?”
It was a question more out of formality. The previous night, Klara had called her in the middle of a fight, asking for help before the phone went black.
It was unlike Klara to do that. For the previous 6 months she had just about carried herself along, always saying when she asked how they were getting along, that she was fine, even when everything else suggested otherwise. Ann had jumped on the first plane, knowing it had to be serious this time.
And now looking at her, there was all the evidence she needed. The scars on her wrists, the bulge on her forehead, the blood spot on her left eye, the limp in her stride…
It was obvious last night had been worse. No wonder Klara had been forced to call for help this time, albeit hopelessly as they were separated by miles. But that she called was evidence if one needed, of her desperation that moment.
“He beat you again,” she finally gathered the strength to ask.
“Just a small scuffle,” Klara replied, but her evasive eyes suggested otherwise.
It would take a while before Ann would speak again, changing the topic a bit. Her eyes had wandered to the tapestry on the wall.
“You remember that day?” she said with a smile, pointing at the Graduation Photo. Klara who had topped their class, sat in the middle of the row, next to the Chancellor. And she stood on the next row, immediately behind her.
The mention obviously pulled a string. Klara couldn’t restrain a smile, for the first time. “It seems like eternity since,” she said. And eternity it seemed. So much had since happened. The photo evoked so much. And for the next few minutes, their talk wandered to small things, to a few memories, to the whereabouts of their other friends…
Ann knew a few who were struggling, and a few others who had gone on to make very successful careers for themselves, “It’s funny how the years have been,” she said. It was an observation that inspired another round of silence.
Fortunately Klara broke it, “things could have been different,” she said, “the dreams were different; the plans were of other things, other places.” Ann saw in that, Klara’s critique of her own life, and she couldn’t agree any more. But this was not time for regrets.
“There is nothing to regret. We can’t always know what the future has for us,” Ann comforted, but there was no denying the truth. It wasn’t supposed to come to this, especially for Klara.
A leading Cooperation had offered both of them jobs, but it was at about the same time that Nikolai came into Klara’s life, and she had to choose, to stay at Moscow and work, or to move with Nikolai to St Petersburg.
With love to contend with, the choice was relatively easier for Klara to make. “I will get another job there”, she said, to reassure Ann, “And don’t worry, I will visit always to make sure Madoch is taking good care of you!”
Well, the closest any of that had come was the reverse! Her own affair with Madoch would shortly end, and now, well, she was the one visiting. Funny how life had turned out for both of them, almost the same script, the only difference being she had not had the same patience with Madoch.
Miles apart, at first they communicated, but as time went by, those phone conversations reduced, and most times Klara didn’t answer her phone. After a while, she went incommunicado until a July day, she received a call. Klara had lost her first pregnancy, then would the two best friends re-unite again.
Was that when and why their marriage hit the rocks, or had it been so from since Klara went incommunicado? Ann couldn’t tell. But Klara would never be the same again. The smile disappeared, a bubbly young woman who should have been leading a multi-national cooperation would be confined to a fruitless and abusive marriage, out of which she would reject every chance of escape.
Ann had talked her, pestered her to quit, to walk away, and for six months, Klara had resisted, optimistic she would salvage her marriage, save the man she loved with undying passion, the only man she had ever known. And to that quest she had given everything, lost everything for. Why she was still clinging on to some hope, some faith, defeated Ann’s understanding.
But with everything she had observed today at the kitchen, the changes she could see, in her temperament, and that is not to speculate on the damage that would be, on the day the latent anger, frustration and regret inside her, would boil over.
This church girl, raised in a Christian family of virtue, who had her all life been taught to love, who had been raised to know patience and loyalty, and who until only not so long ago, could not even swat a fly, was near, if not already, at the tipping point. Ann didn’t miss the look in her eyes that time in the kitchen.
When she had come in, she had been greeted with shouts and exchanges between Nikolai who was in the living room, and Klara who had been in the kitchen. She could have sworn had she not got to the kitchen, Klara was reaching for one of the many knives.
Klara was at the edge. She just didn’t know it yet. And Ann wasn’t sure how to let her see it. With so many of her angels already slain, the sting of the demon, Ann could have sworn, was not far, it never is. I have to save her, she thought, I have to!
And this time, after long silence, she spoke matter-of-factly. “You don’t look good Klara. We need to talk about this, please.” She moved her chair closer.
The silence encouraged her to continue. And she said the same things she had always said. Klara needed a break. There was even a job opening in the company she worked for. She would help her get a job... see how it goes
“Walk away from this, Klara. Leave. Come with me. I have room in my house. I am still living alone. I have a job, we’ll be just fine,” she pleaded.
But Klara just shook her head, strongly at first, and then she seemed to labor. Ann thought if she tried harder, maybe this time, she would convince her to leave. Because shake her head as she did, the lack of conviction was apparent in the cloud of hopelessness that lined her eyes. Ann noticed she was staring at the wall, at the tapestry.
“If all become untrue. If others leave…
“That was the promise”, she finally spoke, "And now if I leave, then what?”
Ann was lost for words. She had felt strong when she finally walked out on Madoch, but she had to admit it was not without guilt of broken promises, and since then, occasional reminisces of what-might-have-been.
In its own way, the decision to walk away had changed her, and even now, she too didn’t know where her own life was headed, what kept her going, nonetheless, was the knowledge that she had a starting point again. May be that was what Klara too needed.
“I felt the same obligation to stay, to wait on Madoch,” she managed to piece a sentence; “I gave everything to save him”. There was almost a tinge of anger in those words, or was it regret?
Ann had to catch herself from a rant. Speaking about her own life was one gray area she was still struggling with, and Klara was hardy the person she needed to be telling this, not now.
She silently sighed, this time it was her eyes that evaded Klara’s. It was obvious the memory of her own experience with Madoch still held the power to hurt her.
What a stupid scenario, she thought. She was supposed to encourage Klara, to tell her it was fine to walk away, and here she was, unsettled by a mere memory.
The silence was fast turning awkward, when Klara spoke, “But you finally left. Do you regret?”
It took a while before Ann answered, and in that fleeting moment, a thousand memories passed.
“Sometimes I look back on the life that could have been,” she said, pausing as though to wad away a fleet of memories, “and sometimes I wish had stayed, I wish I had never given up on him, on us.”
As much as Ann didn’t like to speak about her own life, she was finding in it a certain release, it helped also that it was encouraging a conversation with Klara.
“Then what made you leave? I know you loved him.”
“I did. I still do,” she confessed, ‘I always will.”
Klara’s silence spurred her on, “But he pushed me too far. He took me to the edge. I had to let go.” After a pause that seemed to last forever, she finally concluded, taking Klara’s hand.
“You know why I left? Because I realized there are things,” she said, “That are worse than giving up on someone you love.”
Ann didn’t have to finish the sentence, the spark in Klara’s eyes that quickly withdrew, did. The insinuation was obvious, as Ann glanced at the kitchen knife on the table.
Ann was right, and Klara knew it. In her mind, she had already killed Nikolai a million times. She had waited until he went into deep sleep, tied his extremities to the bed stands and with the meat cleaver, dissected his organs;
She had chocked him with the pillow while he snored away after forcing his foul smelling body on her;
She had locked him in the house alone and with the last Jerican of petrol for their broken car in the garage, set it on fire, and watched his wriggling body burn away into dark ashes;
In her mind, she had rolled the hot iron on 100% heat grade, and steaming hot, stamped it on his face on those days when he belittled her while she pressed his clothes;
On someday like this, when he belittled her cooking, she had mixed his food with rat poison and enjoyed the sight of his intestines bust out of his belly...
She had poured on him sulfuric acid, and watched him dissolve into pieces, away, and out of her life; all of these and a million other murder scenarios...they now replayed inside Klara’s subconscious.
Something inside her loosened, it was the trigger her eyes dams needed. The blinking delayed them, but the ocean of tears, welled for over 6 months could not be contained this time, and broke over. She did not know how she fell into Ann’s embrace…
“I love him,” she sobbed, “I love him, Ann”.
Damn it, she did. Only for love could one persist the long Klara had, only for love could one contain the abuse she had suffered without reply. Only for love could one give up everything good for themselves. But that was exactly why she needed to leave. Everyone has an elastic limit.
If Nikolai wasn’t changing, and he didn’t look like he would any time soon, how long before she arrived at that point where the repercussions of a failed marriage would be fueled by regrets of wasted sacrifice, that place where lovers draw more satisfaction from hurting each other? Ann wondered.
But she didn’t say anything, there was nothing to say. Instead she pressed harder the embrace in silent understanding - You are an angel, she whispered to Klara's ears.
She didn’t realize her own eyes had wet.
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