Eleven Days of Hell

by Yvonne Bornstein

  Oleg made sure I would know that whatever they wanted from me, I would comply. Before he left with Danny and most of the men, he came into our bedroom, a billiard cue in hand, followed by Sascha, Boris, and four of the women. Pointing to our suitcases with the stick, he motioned for Danny to open them all. Then, as we stood by watching defenselessly, the women began to reach in and help themselves to whatever items they desired, throwing what they didn’t want on the floor.

  We had already noticed that certain items had been looted from our luggage, but usually when we were not in the room. Nella and her stepmother, Rae, would try on my clothes they fancied and take them. Now, we had to suffer the indignity of watching our clothing, even our underwear, being stolen right before our eyes—including one of Danny’s more expensive suits and what was left of my more expensive underwear and pajamas. One woman simply carried out my Estee Lauder makeup as though from a fire sale.

  Fortunately, Danny was able to get away from this demented henhouse. I was not so lucky, remaining enmeshed in their company for hours, somehow trying to remain in their good graces even as I wanted the dogs to have them for lunch. More ominously, I noticed that one of the men had stayed behind apparently to watch me. As it happened, it was the worst of the lot, the greasy, sadistic Sascha—the one we had right away nicknamed the Snake. I could only hope he would stay out of my way.

  THE RUSSIAN BADA-BING

  As the convoy passed over bumpy, sometimes barely paved roads, Danny knew the destination on this trip was not Moscow. After about an hour, he saw out of the back seat window a sign reading, ‘To Kaluga.’ Kaluga! he thought. Was he really being taken to this city? It was just southwest of Moscow, famous to Russophiles for its prominent place in history as a fortress on the banks of the Oka River, Moscow’s gateway to the south and west, a mercantile and cultural centre. Kaluga’s geographical and political importance was such that during the Cold War it had been designated a ‘closed city,’ off limits to Westerners. Danny was excited by the thought of going in and a little nonplussed by the notion that a brigand like Oleg might have connections here.

  Indeed, the latter became clear as soon as they entered the city limits. Rather than being given a tour of the mosques and merchant centres along the Oka, the Tipor was taken through the dingy, dimly lit streets of what looked to be a tawdry ‘red light’ district lined with dilapidated storefronts, cheap bars, and fleabag hotels. Hookers in leather miniskirts and stiletto heels roamed from corner to corner.

  Pulling into an alleyway behind a fleabag called the ‘Russ Hotel,’ the men got out of their cars, and Oleg began to bang on a wooden door. When it opened, the group strode into a smoke-filled room of people sitting around small, circular tables hoisting glasses of vodka and beer. Voices were raised so they could be heard over loud rock music blaring from loudspeakers.

  Most of the occupants were middle-aged men similar in appearance to Oleg’s gang of misbegottens, whom they obviously knew well. When they entered, everybody took turns arising to shake their hands, put arms around their shoulders, or slap them on the back. Garrulous laughter reverberated through the room, which was connected to a gymnasium, a locker room, and a sauna. At some of the tables, mostly overweight Russian floozies in skimpy, far-too-tight outfits and with teased-out hair drank with the men, willingly offering themselves to pawing hands.

  In its cheerful perversity, the scene was a Russian-coloured version of the fictionalised hangout made famous by the Sopranos television show, the Bada-Bing bar, in which ‘goodfellas’ spent their downtime away from rival gangs’ guns and nagging wives, telling stories, falling-down drunk, and fornicating in back rooms. Here, Oleg—their Godfather, albeit a lower-case one by any standard—was properly respected and feared. He would sit at his own private table deciding to whom he would speak. If important business were afoot, he would move to a back office behind a closed door. Undoubtedly much time had been spent back there in discussion about the Weinstock kidnap plot. Tellingly, no one in the joint seemed to need an explanation of the tall, stocky Westerner’s identity.

  Today, though, Oleg kept all business talk at bay. He was there only to show off and impress his prize catch—Danny. The order went out: Cater to the Australian, show him a good time.

  Immediately, Danny was given a seat at a table cluttered with bottles of Moskovskaya vodka, brandy, Pepsi Cola, and mineral water. A young waiter in a dirty, white dinner jacket kept fresh bottles coming. It was yet another surreal experience for Danny, who had no idea why he was here or how he was supposed to act—or if a preening Oleg merely took him here to have him beaten up in front of his Mob buddies as a show of power.

  Danny sensed no hostile intentions. While some of the Mob slugs stared warily at him, others raised glasses to him and even invited him to join games of darts at a board on the back wall. Danny didn’t try to read Oleg’s mind. If he had no choice but to drink with the crowd, he would. There were worse ways to kill time. As time went on, he found himself, remarkably, arm wrestling with some of his own captors, including the smooth-talking but sinister suspected KGB derivatives, Kuzin and Robert. If only that rat Grigory Miasnikov was here, he thought. I’d slam his hand through this table!

  He ate from platters of boiled potatoes and veal Schnitzel. Then, to his utter amazement, he was invited to ‘take a steam.’ Stripping down in the locker room and covering his middle with a towel, he stood in a coterie of near-naked gangsters, who perused his black-and-blue bruises with a professional detachment not unlike body-shop workers checking dents on a car. They all then headed into the sauna, along with a young woman they called Sveta, to do with as they pleased.

  When Danny emerged from the bone-soothing heat waves, he was no less fearful about his survival. But, as Yvonne would note when he got back to the dacha late that evening, ‘You’re certainly in a good mood.’

  Yvonne could not say the same about herself. In fact, during the same time he was living high in Kaluga, she had been scarred forever, physically and mentally, in Noginsk.

  As soon as Danny had left, I was given no peace. Immediately, the old babushka ordered me first to clean and polish a large samovar urn, then to vacuum the entire upstairs floor. The latter made me feel ill since I was holding the metal pipe with which I had been beaten by Oleg.

  When I was done with that, one of the women handed me some rags and pointed to the bathroom. That was my next assignment. I got down on my knees, trying to scrape the muck from the filthy sink, toilet, and bathtub.

  But the chores didn’t stop there. Next, Oleg’s odoriferous daughter Nella, displaying more of her rudimentary English, carried a message from her gnarly grandmother for me to clean the windows. That ripped it for me. I didn’t care what might happen, but I would not do their windows; there must have been thirty of them in the house, and I was not their drudge. Boiling over, I told Nella to take a message downstairs. In effect, the message was: ‘Drop dead.’

  A few minutes later, having collapsed on my bed in a weary heap, I heard the sound of footsteps plodding up the stairs. Then, more sprightly than I’d yet seen her, the angry old hag burst into the room. In a red-faced rage, she threw a frightful tantrum. Unleashing a stream of undecipherable Russian that caused drool to run out of her mouth and down her chin, she went ballistic, yanking clothes out of my suitcases and littering the floor with them. She did the same with the bed linens, pulling them off the bed—even with me on them—in a rather amazing display of strength for someone of her age.

  I was terrified that this madwoman might tear me limb from limb. But, having blown off all her steam with this psychotic rant—and possibly having been cautioned by her son Oleg not to harm me—she seemed to have had enough of me and clambered out of the room, still shrieking. I just sat on the now-bare mattress, my knees pulled up under my chin, shaking as the daylight began to dissolve and the room became a shroud of darkness.

  I was frozen, statue-like, in that pose for what felt like an hour, until Marusia came in and turned on a
light. She was the only one in the house who was always kind to me, and I tried to explain to her in pidgin Russian about the babushka and the windows. I don’t know if she fully understood, but when she heard the word babushka, she suddenly spat on the floor. I could see in her eyes how much she detested the old crank.

  She motioned ‘come’ and took me downstairs to the kitchen, where she all but forced me to eat something. By now, I had lost so much weight that I looked skeletal, yet I could only hold down a few pieces of cold pasta. She left me alone to go tend to her kids, and I sat there forlornly, head in my hands, staring vacantly at the blackness outside the kitchen window, until after a few minutes, Nella came bouncing in, toting a boom box. She sat down next to me and began playing a tape of Whitney Houston. The song was ‘The Greatest Love of All,’ and when I heard the first few words, ‘I believe the children are our future …,’ I went all to pieces thinking that I might not see my children again.

  Nella, who apparently loved this song, asked me if I could translate the words into Russian for her. I went upstairs and got a little red book Danny and I had brought with us on the trip, Russian Made Simple, and for half an hour tried to find the right words and phrases in the book. Then, involuntarily, out of pure emotion, I started to sing along, half crying and half laughing at the absurdity that I would feel like singing at a moment like this—yet unable to stop because feeling the passion in it, feeling life as I had not for six days, made me feel good inside. Nella just sat staring at me, as if she thought I was daft, but when I broke out crying and moaning, ‘I just want to go home,’ over and over, I could see her eyes well up with tears. That’s when she decided she had better things to do and left, taking the boom box with her.

  I was feeling very melancholy. I looked at my watch. It was getting late, around 9pm. Most of the women and kids who had come to the house that morning were now gone, and the men still had not returned.

  Where was Danny? Where had they taken him? Should I be worried? Would they even tell me if they had killed him?

  Never had I felt so alone.

  Lost in introspection, nearly in a catatonic state, I looked up after a while and was startled when my eyes met those of the ogre-like Sascha. I had not even noticed that he had come in and pulled up a seat next to me at the table. Snapping out of my haze, I jumped in my seat. I got up and fled back upstairs.

  The Snake followed a few steps behind, but, to my relief, he veered off into the lounge and turned on the television. In the bedroom, I sat on the bed, consumed by the lingering image of those malevolent black eyes staring back at me. I kept my gaze trained on the cloth tacked to the archway of the door, hoping to God I wouldn’t see him again. Hearing the television, I figured he had found something else to stare at. Eventually, trying to relax, I slid back on the bed and propped my head against the pillow, flush against the wall. My eyes closed for a moment.

  Just then, the cloth flew open, and the Snake was in the doorway. He pulled something from behind his back. I squinted at it, and that mortifyingly familiar cold chill went through me when I recognised it as the antique ceremonial sword I had seen before, mounted on the living room wall. Waving it around like a clumsy Samurai, he approached the bed, with the same smirk he’d worn when he came in and whispered in my ear the first night, when he had subsequently come in and mounted me only to recede when I called out to his wife Masha.

  As I gasped and bolted upright, the razor-sharp tip of the blade was resting on my neck. I tried not to move, even to breathe or swallow, but then he drew the sword back and flung it onto the bed. At the same time, he pushed me flat, crosswise across the unmade mattress.

  It was a sickening déjà vu. I was in the same position as the last time. Again his dirty fingernails dug into my skin under my sweater. I thought of calling out to Masha again, but his other hand was over my mouth. He lifted it only to make a throat-slashing gesture and point to the sword, the cold shaft of which was pressing against my leg.

  As much as I had tried to extract the horrendous thought that I would at some point be raped in this hell house full of leering, reptilian men, it never really left my mind. It was just so logical under the circumstances—especially now with Danny and the other gangsters out of the house. Still, I refused to believe it would happen. There was logic in that, too. He was just trying to scare me; that’s what these people liked to do, psychologically torture you without carrying through one of their ugly scenarios. Besides, someone would have to be nearby—Masha, Marusia, even the babushka. My God, could this mangy creature be so sick that he would actually do this with his wife in the same house?

  He didn’t seem to care. He grabbed at my sweater, trying to pull it off, but I was lying on it so solidly it didn’t budge. Instead he lifted it up so that my stomach was exposed, then yanked my sweatpants and underwear down to my ankles. I could see his belt was undone, his zipper open. With one large hand, he pinned my wrists above my head.

  Please, God, I begged silently, let Oleg come back with Danny right now. Let this pig hear the gate, the door opening, any sound that would stop him. Please let this be the end of the game.

  Things were happening before my eyes in slow motion. My body and my thoughts were shutting down as they had when I was kidnapped. I couldn’t think or move. I was living every woman’s worst nightmare, in suspended animation and reality, somewhere between fact and denial.

  Instinctively, I tried to kick with my legs. Angered by this, he took his free hand and slapped me across the cheek. It cracked like a bullwhip, but I had willed my body into a hard shell, blotting out everything I could. He pried my legs apart. I knew what would happen next. I didn’t want to feel it.

  When it did, I stared blankly at the ceiling. Seconds passed like hours, though it probably took no longer than thirty seconds before he was off me, pulling up his pants. It was over. I felt absolutely numb inside. Maybe, I lied to myself, it wouldn’t count if I didn’t react; maybe the memory would fade. So I refused to move or divert my eyes from the ceiling. I wouldn’t look up at that grotesque face. No, he wouldn’t get that satisfaction. He hadn’t raped a woman; he had raped a cadaver, a block of stone. That would be his memory.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pick up the sword. If he had plunged it into me, I wouldn’t have felt it. But he didn’t. He merely walked out, apparently contented with himself. I was again alone. That was a comfort. I pulled up my pants. Reality was returning to my senses. I hurt. I was sick to my stomach. I had to get to the bathroom, to be sick, to wash him out of me.

  Unsteadily, I got myself to my feet and walked into the bathroom. Again, there was no water. Those goddamned pipes. So I walked down the stairs carrying a sponge to dip into the water-filled milk container I knew would be in the lower bathroom. It was around ten o’clock. The house was still, empty, deathly. Where was everybody? Where was that pig Sascha? Had he crawled into bed out of guilt to be with Masha and pretended nothing happened? Why wasn’t anyone watching me? Was it a slip-up or did they just assume they had me trained not to do anything stupid—such as getting out the door and disappearing into the night.

  If it was the latter, they were right. I was dependably trained. Not that they were taking any chances—the front door was bolted by so many locks it would have taken forever to get them all open. But they knew me, knew my thought processes, knew my love for Danny. The escape option would only be viable if he was there with me. Together, we may have made a brave and probably spectacularly stupid break for freedom if we saw an opening. But I could never have done that alone. At that moment, what I wanted above all else was to know he was safe. I had to see him brought back alive.

  I walked meekly to the big pot of water. I took off my pants and underwear and ran the wet sponge over my lower body, washing out the stench and the grime. Then I put my pants back on and found my way back upstairs.

  The house was oppressively hot, and my cheeks felt like they were burning, particularly the one Sascha had slapped. But my hands and feet wer
e ice cold. I was shivering. I thought I might be going through the first stage of shock. I also knew I had to snap out of it—or at least pretend to and strike a calm outward demeanor. If I didn’t, Danny would know something was terribly wrong, and I might blurt out what the Snake had done to me.

  And I couldn’t. For one thing, Danny would freak out. He would want to kill the Snake with his bare hands, and that would surely get us both killed. He would have to stay cool—we both would—to be focused on the next call to Ian.

  We couldn’t blow it now.

  Even if we got out of this alive, I still wouldn’t tell him. It would hurt him, more than it hurt me. Maybe someday I would. But not now, not tomorrow. Not for a lot of tomorrows.

  My heart soared when, at around midnight, the door finally opened, and Oleg and his toadies poured back in—with Danny looking oddly happy when he ambled into the bedroom. However, as if on cue, when the babushka heard the men enter, she emerged from her room, having evidently been just waiting for Oleg to get back so she could report to him my insolence about not cleaning the windows; she couldn’t wait to inform on me. I had been afraid that disobeying the old loon would have dire consequences, and within minutes, my fears were realised when Oleg walked into our bedroom, looking as enraged and sounding as deranged as had his mother. I winced and grabbed onto Danny’s arm. How much more abuse was I going to endure on this dreadful day?

  This time, though, I was spared—by the grace of the sympathetic Marusia, who was outside the room in the upstairs hallway with her husband, Boris, and came charging in pleading with Oleg to leave me be, whereupon he backed off and left, to the consternation of the babushka, who had clearly wanted to see me suffer for my audacity in challenging her authority.