by Monika Korra
I can’t be sure if anyone took notice of me or connected me in any way with the crime that had been committed. I had a hard enough time just managing to stay awake, let alone observing anyone else’s reaction to me. I sat in my seat, trying to stay mindful of my posture, but it was as if the floor were exerting some powerful tugging force on me. I felt as if I was watching a television show with the volume muted—I could see the professor’s mouth moving, but my brain couldn’t process any of the words. All nonessential functions had been terminated. I was in complete survival mode: Stay awake. Don’t walk into anything or anyone. Don’t operate heavy equipment or drive a car.
Within a few minutes of my first class starting, I felt that same sense of dislocation and disconnection I’d experienced the day before at Dr. Soutter’s office—suddenly I wasn’t sure if I was alive or dead. I intentionally locked eyes with a couple of students to test if they could see me. When they looked back at me, right in my eyes, I felt better. I was here. I was alive.
Bells tolling from the Fondren Science Building marked the end of class, and I felt like they were telling me to wake up—not just literally but figuratively. Not being able to engage in class felt like a big setback, like I’d run a couple of minutes below my personal best in the three thousand meters. I didn’t like setbacks. I couldn’t force myself to think clearly, and that frustrated me.
Kristine had another class immediately after our Sports Management course, so we agreed to meet at eleven fifteen at the Dedman Sports Center. We were going to work out together. As I walked along Airline Road, I was still feverish and exhausted. I knew that running had always been good therapy for me before. Even if I just went out and did a few miles at a seven- to eight-minute-per-mile pace, I would feel better just for having made the effort. Running usually provided me with a few moments of escape from what was troubling me. I sat in an isolated corner of the locker room half-awake, my mind wandering. I enjoyed the moments of solitude. At least being alone there, I didn’t have to put on my act. There was no one there I had to convince that I was fine. It seemed like only minutes later that a hand was on my shoulder.
“How is it going?” Kristine narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.
“I had no idea what he was talking about.”
Kristine shrugged.
“At least you were there. At least you got through it. That’s something.”
I didn’t respond. I’d never looked at just finishing something as much of an accomplishment.
As we stood at our lockers, my bag tumbled over. I could hear the click of my pills rattling around. I looked over my shoulder quickly, thinking that the sound was so loud that everyone was staring. There were just a few other women in the locker room, and none of them had turned my way. I knew that I needed to take my antiviral medication soon, but I didn’t want to do it in public. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was sick; I just wanted to appear as if everything were normal.
As we changed, Kristine and I talked about what we wanted to do.
Normally on a Monday I’d do some distance work, a minimum of ten kilometers at a relaxed pace. That usually meant leaving the confines of the track and the campus itself, either heading out into the nearby Highland Park neighborhood or driving out to White Rock Lake and the running path there. That also meant car traffic and pedestrians—people I was certain I could no longer trust.
“It’s a bit cold to go outside.” I felt lame saying that to another Norwegian woman, let alone someone who knew me as well as Kristine did.
“Treadmill?” Kristine stood up from lacing her shoe and smiled brightly.
“Sure.” I was grateful that she hadn’t called me on my transparent excuse.
For me, treadmills were a necessary evil. Running in place, staring at the same scene for minute after minute after minute, wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as being outdoors and engaging with or sometimes battling the elements. With the clock and other displays flashing in front of me, I would find myself focusing too much on elapsed times—how far I’d gone and how much farther I had to go.
But it felt safer, for now. Even with Kristine alongside me, I’d still be in my own bubble. The noise of the machines, the sounds of our footfalls, would make conversation more difficult. Nearly everyone else in the long line of various cardio machines was plugged into a headset. I didn’t use headphones much when I ran outdoors. On a treadmill, however, it was a needed distraction, another way to transport myself from that room and the effort that produced no tangible results.
I set my levels and stepped onto the track, then waited for it to pick up speed. I enjoyed the sensation of my feet moving and settled into the familiar rhythms of my arm swing and my gait. I was pleasantly surprised. This wasn’t going to be so bad. I watched the other students at work as I moved. We were all in an enormous room, the cardio machines lined up like cars in a parking lot, the weight-training equipment spread out to cover the rest of the space, ten thousand square feet, as the university proudly stated. I watched as between sets of squats, a group of guys laughed and slapped hands with one another. They seemed so at ease.
I glanced over at Kristine. She, too, seemed lost in thought. I wondered if she was thinking about me and what had happened, or where else her mind might be. Her face was composed, and I once again admired how effortless she made running look. It was as if she barely made contact with the treadmill, as if she were somehow suspended above it and her feet only made glancing contact with it.
After just a few minutes, my legs felt wooden, the hinges of my joints from ankles to hips stiff and unyielding. I’d resisted looking down at the display to that point, but I lost the struggle. Nine minutes. That should have been just a brief warm-up period, a time when my muscles began to heat up and become supple. My heart rate and my breathing were normal, but I just couldn’t seem to get loose. I was concentrating on every stride and became self-conscious about how I must look, thinking that I was one of those head-dropped, shoulders-thrusting inefficient plodders I’d sometimes see slogging along off campus. Then the light-headedness and vertigo took over. The last thing I wanted was to vomit all over the place.
I told myself that I had to keep going. I straightened my spine and tipped my chin up. I felt better for a few strides, but gradually I slumped again. Finally, at fifteen minutes, unwilling to hit the button to slow the pace, I stopped completely. I looked down at my legs, as if I could see beneath my skin and assess what was wrong. I understood something about how muscles functioned, and I decided that one of the six properties they had best explained what was affecting my muscles: irritability.
I stepped over to Kristine’s treadmill and looked up at her. We each took off our headphones.
“I’m done for the day.” I wiped at the sweat I’d produced all out of proportion to how much energy I’d spent. What was wrong with me? What had taken control of my body?
Kristine reached for the “stop” button on her machine.
“No, don’t. Keep going. I’m just going to stretch.” I inclined my head toward a series of yoga-type mats. Squares of sunlight lit the area and I thought it would be relaxing.
I spread out my towel and sat spraddle-legged on it. I bent my chest and head forward and felt a pleasant pull in my hips and lower back. I was sore and tight and wanted and needed a massage. The thought of having anyone touch me—when I still felt so unclean and anyone making contact with my body still stressed me—made that impossible. When I straightened, Kristine was seated next to me.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just a little sick. Keep going and I’ll wait for you here.”
“I don’t want you to sit here alone. There are more important things in life than a workout.”
This was a girl who lived and breathed running, who had been among the world’s elite, and here she was forgoing training just to stay with me. Muscles of steel, heart of gold.
“I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“Then I guess you don’
t know me as well as you think.” She smiled to take any sting out of her words. “Besides, there’s a reason some people call them junk miles.”
I’d heard that term before—miles that you put in at a low effort just for the sake of putting in the miles. They were as much for your brain as for your body and, depending on your point view, either good or useless for your body and your mind.
“Too much thinking,” I said.
“Not good sometimes.” Kristine lay on her back and brought her knees to her chest and then rotated her legs to each side.
In truth I was more ready mentally than I was physically to get back to running. So much of my identity was tied up in being a runner. I had defined myself as an athlete for so long that to feel detached from that identity was profoundly disturbing. People who haven’t competed at the level my teammates and I were at wouldn’t understand just how fully our school life and social lives were governed by our athletic lives. Yes, we were considered student-athletes, but in reality those two words were reversed. The school was paying my tuition, and only when I got there and spoke with other students did I realize just how much money it cost to attend SMU. The school had certain expectations in return. I had to choose my academic classes based on my sports practice schedule. I didn’t miss any classes by choice, but if we were out of town for a meet and the bus left at a time when I had a class, that meant I had to be on the bus and find someone whose notes I could share. When and what I ate was dictated by when and how far I would be running. Decisions about what time I went to bed, how long I was able to study each night, when I took time off to spend with friends, were all determined by my training schedule. It was like I had a full-time job.
I rose at 5:30 every morning so that I could leave by 6:10 to ride my bicycle to campus carrying the backpack I’d carefully arranged the night before. From 6:30 to 9 a.m. I’d practice, doing whatever workouts the coaches had devised. After practice I’d retreat to the locker room to shower, eat the breakfast I’d prepared the night before and brought with me, and by 10 a.m. get to my first class of the day. I’d take a break from classes by eating the lunch I’d brought along, and on those days when I had the time, I’d go to the library to read and study. By 3:15 I was back in the locker room in order to be on time for the second workout of the day at 3:30, which meant some variation in drills, weight lifting, and an easy thirty-minute run. At the end of practice, I’d hop on my bike and ride home, eating either a banana or a nutrition bar on the way. Evenings were for cooking, eating, studying, and getting to bed, not at 10:00, which I always tried for, but by at least 11:00. Repeat and repeat and repeat.
Now that I could barely run for fifteen minutes, I wondered how hard it would be not to have my teammates and friends around all the time to help lift my spirits, and to keep me from taking myself and my entire world too seriously.
My whole life was taken up with being a runner, and as great as it was to self-identify as someone who was disciplined, goal-oriented, and all the rest, I was frightened by the thought that I might have to give up the rest of it as well—the routine, the camaraderie, the sense of purpose and place and reason for being that had accumulated over time.
I was used to fighting against fatigue, distraction, temptation, and soreness to go on a run or do some other kind of workout. I used to get a great deal of satisfaction from going out in the worst of weather, when I was feeling my least capable or least motivated, and getting in a workout. The easy days were just that—easy. I had come to believe that it was the days of struggle that ultimately paid off and made the struggle worthwhile. But the medications, the lack of sleep, the nightmares—they were a different kind of obstacle. I felt as though my identity was shifting beneath my feet, and I felt powerless against the forces that were trying to reshape me.
Much of that had to do with confidence and control. I’d pushed my body through all kinds of walls before to find another burst of energy, to go longer and faster. As much as we might say a coach pushed us, in the end those achievements, those breakthroughs, were things we accomplished on our own. No one was literally pushing us. We were the ones in control; we still determined what all our boundaries were. After the rape, that loss of control, that feeling that someone else could step beyond my boundaries, push me to do things I didn’t want to do at all, altered my perceptions immeasurably.
I’d had to give up control of my life in those dark moments on that night. I hated that feeling, and those first few times I tried to run and couldn’t control my body, will it to do what I asked, I was seized by the possibility that I would never be able to regain control again. A crack had formed, and it seemed like that crack could lead to a larger and larger and more devastating fracture that might cause the whole world I’d built up to crumble. For the first time in a very, very long time, maybe for the first time ever, a dreaded thought took hold: What if effort didn’t matter? What if no matter how hard you worked or tried, or how meticulously you scheduled and planned, things beyond your control could happen and ruin everything you’d hoped for and dreamed and planned? What if I’d been fooling myself all along and being in control was really something freakish—something completely absurd, something I’d just imagined, something horrific and horrible and not helpful?
Kristine and I headed back into the locker room. As we got changed, I opened my backpack and pulled out a pair of warm-up pants and a hooded sweatshirt. A stack of books, my laptop, a second pair of running shoes, and a couple of magazines spilled out of it.
Kristine laughed. A joke among us had to do with how much I crammed into anything I carried. People always said that I brought a backpack larger than myself to class.
I tapped my head. “It’s more crowded up here.”
Kristine slid over on the bench and took my forearm. She tugged it and I sat down.
“Mine may not be as bad as yours. I can never really know what you went through, but it’s on my mind. It’s on all our minds. Sometimes I see those images in my head, but I chase them away.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“I’m not asking you to be sorry for me. I’m not even saying that I can understand what it is like for you. I just want you to give yourself a break. It’s okay if you’re not yourself right now. I’m amazed that you’re even up and around. I’d be hiding under the covers somewhere.”
“I hate being sick,” I said, hoping to turn the attention away from the attack to my illness.
“I know. It’s no fun.” Kristine stood and shrugged into her backpack. “Just give yourself a break. Take care of yourself, but let us help take care of you.”
I canceled my appointment with the therapist and spent the rest of that day in bed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t alone there. Each time I was about to drift to sleep, I’d see one of the men, the strained expression on his face as he raped me, a bead of his sweat dripping onto me. I tried to think of something else, the trip I’d taken to Tønsberg, Norway’s oldest city, to compete in a meet. I didn’t care really about seeing the cathedral, the ruins, or even the shops. But I did enjoy the view of the North Sea. I tried to imagine that scene again, feel the warmth of the sun on my face. We were there just after Midsummer, what we call Sankthansaften, and I could still see the outline of the bonfire that had roared as part of that celebration. I remembered that if you put flowers under your pillow that night, you would dream of your future husband.
I woke up to the sound of unfamiliar voices. I thrashed at the bedclothes that covered my head, struggling to get up, kicking my feet to come up with some escape route. I hurled the covers aside and sat there panting, waiting. A feather from my down comforter floated in front of me. I stared at the doorknob, willing it to stay still. My fever chill gripped me, and I pulled the top sheet and blanket back over me.
I heard Robin’s voice, and then I heard the front door close.
“Monika?”
I peeked out of the covers.
Thank God Robin stood in the bedroom doorway. With his hat pulled down, his eyes
were in shadow. I could tell immediately that something was wrong.
“What’s going on, Robin?” My voice was unsteady, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer to my question.
“Don’t panic. Everything is okay, but there were some journalists at the door.”
Journalists?
“I was in the other room and someone knocked. I opened the door and they were standing there. They had their cameras and recorders out, and they wanted to know if I knew the victim. I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about.” Robin’s voice was a strained and nearly strangled murmur. He was seething but trying to stay in control. He pulled his cap off and rubbed his forehead and smiled. “Don’t worry. I locked the door.”
Despite Robin’s assurances, I had to go to the door and check that it was locked again. Careful not to step in front of any windows, I closed all the curtains in the apartment. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I returned to the bedroom and found Robin sitting on my bed, his cap still in his hands as he inspected its bill.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “How could they be here?”
“It had to have been the police. There’s all kinds of rumors going around, but mostly just that I was kidnapped at gunpoint. Only you guys know the whole story.”
I flushed with anger at the irresponsibility of whoever leaked my information—which must have come from the police department—and with the media themselves for being so opportunistic that they blatantly disregarded my need for safety. The men had not been caught yet and they were armed. I didn’t want them to know I had spoken with the police; I didn’t want them tipped off that the police were looking for them, and I definitely didn’t want them to have any additional information about me. Now I was in hiding for two different reasons. I had never thought I’d have to protect myself from the people who were there to protect me.
