Natalia

2021

I wonder, how many people hold the hand of a person they loath? Perhaps people are not even aware that they don’t want to do anything with those they see every day. Those they call their girlfried or boyfriend. And later tie their lives with.

It was different with me. I knew I couldn’t stand the man I was seeing. It didn’t matter; I went on seeing him. The power of indoctrination is such, that you are not aware of your own self-destruction. You just do what those around you expect of you. Your jailers’ acceptance of you becomes the most important factor of your life. Becomes your only way of being. I never stood up to my jailers. Never conceived of it. Never thought it was possible. This was why I held Dmitry’s hand every day. I held it that day as well. When we were covering last meters to the person I wanted to be with.

Dmitry, the man who held my hand, was it. He was what was proper for me to do, what had to happen to me. He could hold my hand, could violate me when we were alone. Could claim my days and life. What I thought of it all, didn’t make a shred of difference. Nobody asked me if I actually liked Dmitry or wanted to be with him. He was a man. I was twenty five, old by Russian standards. I had to have a man, now! Had to tie myself to him. To bare his children and loose my name. Only then would my family and every one else leave me alone and consider my life and me complete.

Dmitry was so thick he wasn’t seeing anything. He didn’t notice I was trembling. That I could hardly wait to get rid of him and be with Natalia. Honestly! How could he not? It was obvious. Or is it the Mother nature I should be blaming? It must be advantageous for males of human species to be completely ignorant of others’ feelings. Who cares what a female wants or what she dreams of. It all comes down to reproduction. The point is, I, a female, have to end up pregnant. If a courting male cared about my well-being and happiness, he certainly wouldn’t be fathering his offsprings with me.

And so it was, I and Dmitry were approaching the fast food restaurant where I and Natalia set up a date. Dmitry wasn’t pleased: I was going to spend time with somebody other than him.

The way Natalia stood, the way she looked around and finally at me, drove it home. We were subversives. We were the wrong ones. We, women, dared to like each other. So we hid our affection. We greeted each other with exaggerated apathy and indifference. Only our eyes told the truth, if somebody cared to notice.

Dmitry finally left. He could say his “I will miss you” to me only so many times and could stare at me with his sad stare only for so long. He had to go; Natalia was right there, waiting for me by the entrance. He was blocking her from me with his wide shoulders in a leather jacket that I hated so much because it was a part of Dmitry. Still, I could see her and couldn’t help stealing a glance. Natalia was impatient. She watched us, thinking the very same thought I was. “Get away from her already!”

I have never been at the second floor of that building before. As it turned out, it was a food place, where mothers could be freed form their small children. The furniture was brightly colored, and toys lay scattered around.

Natalia was a mother. Her children were always with her, wherever she went. Outside her home, she was with them. At home, she was under her parents’ watch. By then, they suspected something was amiss with their daughter. Lately, Natalia had been fighting with her husband. She wanted to be left alone, to have no children or anyone else around her, at least for a few hours. She had female friends online and continued to see them despite the tension. By the time Natalia and I started seeing each other, she was being seriously harassed by her parents and husband. It was a war within the walls of their small apartment, where all six of them — Natalia, her parents, her husband, and their two children — lived.

We were sitting beside each other on a couch. Natalia’s children buzzed around us. We watched them, aware only of how close we were — inappropriately close, inattentive to the children’s commotion. I rested my arm along the back of the couch and brushed Natalia’s back with my fingers. She didn’t react; there were other mothers around who might notice. This was a place of propriety. We knew that if we made a move toward each other, if we exchanged that look that says too much, we would cross a line — draw stares, maybe even be thrown out.

We spoke about ourselves only when we were outside, where no one could overhear. Natalia said she appreciated my touch on her back. I wondered — did she really? Or was she saying what she thought I wanted to hear? She was mistaken. I expected nothing. I was only making sure I stayed alert. Being who we were — the wrong ones — one could never forget the danger, the danger everywhere around us. Honesty, any expression of feeling at all, was a luxury.

Seeing each other in public was torture for both of us. We walked a tightrope, knowing we couldn’t afford a mistake. We could never be ourselves, never smile at the sight of one another, never relax like those around us. Unlike the proper people, we were considered despicable. By choosing another woman, a woman becomes a pariah because she rejects a man. There can be no such arrangement in Russia. A man must always be in the picture — if one woman were to live as she wanted, others might follow.