Thugs of God - Chapter 1
On her wedding day he found Sofia sprawled in the church bathroom, hugging the porcelain bowl to her, her hair sweaty and damp around her, grey rings of mascara smudged around her face.
You're a bad man, she said to Nikolai before she turned her head in the most delicate of moments and spewed a river of sour smelling vomit into the toilet.
He couldn't deny what she had called him and so he waited for her to be done before hauling her up by the elbow, his other hand firm on her wrist keeping her from clawing at him in little kitten scratches.
When he had walked in to the bathroom he had thought she was vomiting because of the baby but as he dragged her out of the bathroom, her head lolling dangerously on her neck he smelled the alcohol piercing the sour smell of her breath and he knew she was drunk.
He paused before he pushed open the doors to the nave, crossed himself, and then slapped her, not as hard as he would have hit a man, but hard enough that it would leave the impression of his hand across her face for a week afterwards, hard enough to make her fall, screaming to the floor. He waited until she had stopped her animal screaming to lean down and grab her jaw and pull her to him with casual violence so that he could snarl in her ear, If you hurt my child with your stupidness, I'll kill you.
Then he opened the church doors and strong-armed her through, pushed her to the pulpit where his equally drunk and equally bad friend and a priest were waiting as if they had heard nothing and watched as the woman who was carrying his child married the heir to the empire.
None of her people were there. Sofia had told herself this would happen, but still, as she looked around the church and saw nothing but two old men she hated and a third with the smell of cowardice pouring from his skin, she felt a stabbing in her body, where the baby was. The baby. The source of all her pain. She reached out unconsciously and bawled her hand into a fist and punched it into her. She was only aware of what she had done when Nikolai reached out and slapped her across the face again, a lighter touch that hurt all the more from the previous beating. The priest stuttered as she cried out and then continued. Somehow managed to look at her without seeing when Nikolai twisted her fingers near the breaking point so she would repeat the vows he uttered. The wedding was over before she knew it and then she was being led out of the church and into the back of a car. Kabanov, her now husband, drove despite the fact that he was as drunk as she was. Nikolai sat in the back seat, his hand light on her wrist so he could stop her if she tried to jump out of the car she supposed.
She closed her eyes and the tears were there before she could even tell herself not to think of home. Of her mother. Of her father. Because there was nothing these two men could do between them that they hadn't already done she screamed out her pain.
They ignored her.
She had been to the restaurant once before. Her father had driven her and then dragged her out by the hair, the beginning of a series of men who would push her around as if she were a loathsome thing. It was after hours and he had to pound on the door of the restaurant to get them to open it. It was raining outside, steamy and thick, and while her father had an umbrella he used to shelter himself, Sofia, who was pulling away with him with all her might, was soaked by the time they entered the restaurant. This was a moment that she ran over back and forth over and over in her mind. If only she had been more willing to hurt her father. If only she had bit or kicked him. If she had been able to choose herself over him, shed that last bit of love, she might have been able to run free into the night, to escape, to save herself. But she did none of these things and instead let herself be dragged down a flight of stairs and pushed into the centre of the private room where the men did their business, where she collapsed on the floor and her father stood over her body.
There had been Kabanov and Nikolai, though she hadn't known their names then, and Kabanov's father, an old, old man flanked by other old men. They looked up from their game of cards with mild interest when she was pushed in. She was a curio, a divertisement.
When her father, shaking, literally foaming at the mouth asked which one of them had done this too her, Kabanov's father laughed.
He got up from his chair and went to her wishing she could die there. He put his hand on her shoulder and it was this show of kindness, of not even kindness, this physical gesture from a man which was not intended to harm her, completely broke her. Her tears spilled before she could even make sense of the feeling.
Little girl, Kabanov's father said. He reached into his pocket and took out a handkerchief and began to gently but firmly dab at her face. Little girl, don't cry.
He looked up at her father, a smile on his face.
I am sure there has been some mistake.
In the face of Kabanov's father's calmness her own father turned apopletic with rage.
One of your men defiled my daughter, he said. The spit from his mouth freckled Kabanov's father's face and he wiped the spit and the smile from his face with the kerchief he had used to dry Sofia's tears.
Little girl, he said turning to her. Will you give me your hand?
And she did so.
Will you stand up?
With some effort, her thighs trembling with the effort of doing so, she managed to stand up.
Will you look at the men in this room and tell me if there are any of them who touched you in any way?
She did not want to look at them. She already knew he would be there. And when she raised her head and saw Nikolai, saw the way his eyes could not meet her she knew, she knew for the first time in months, that she hadn't imagined it.
No matter what she promised her parents everyone went out drinking. Everyone!