Katarina

by Alona Jarden

  "If you're so sure of that, why are you doubting your own words?"

  "I don’t doubt anything, I just..." I took a deep breath.

  "You're just not sure whether it's you or not." He used the opportunity to complete my sentence and was no less than accurate.

  I didn’t know how to explain the feeling that suddenly washed over me as he repeated that name and I started saying it to myself over and over again.

  Katarina, Katarina, Katarina...

  "Tell me, what did you see in your dream, Katarina?" His repeated question and the relaxation caused by all the deep breaths I took made me answer him without any inhibitions.

  "There was blood in it. There is always blood in it. Lots of blood."

  "This isn't the first time this image has appeared in your dreams, right?"

  "That’s true." Something in me wanted to stop answering so truthfully, but the way he approached me didn’t allow me to do so.

  "Can you tell me whose blood it is in your dream?"

  "No."

  "You don’t remember any more details?" he asked and a flash of that bleeding woman came back and startled me.

  I longed for the moment when I would be stripped of that blindfold. I wanted to be saved from the darkness to which I was condemned, where I feared I would keep seeing her lying in her own blood on the familiar kitchen floor without knowing why she wasn’t letting me go.

  "I see her. I see a few people, but I don’t know any of them."

  "Are you sure of that?"

  "I see their faces clearly, I’ve always seen them, but they are just my figments of my imagination."

  "Are they?"

  "Well, they're actors, from a movie or something."

  "Why do you think that?"

  "I know that for a fact. I’ve always known it. I’ve never met these people in my life."

  "You never answered my question, Katarina. Are you sure of that?"

  "Yes," I replied, astonished that the Spanish language was spilling out of me without any problem, and I rested my head on the wall behind me.

  It had been years since I’d suffered from those horrifying images and, even then, I only saw them when I felt distressed.

  In difficult times, periods of stress, nervousness, or apprehension, they’d disturbed my sleep. My father was the only one who could calm me down and make them disappear again. It had been ten years since the last time those puddles of blood woke me up in a cold sweat, but they were back and, if that wasn’t bad enough, my father wasn’t there to help me cope with them.

  "Do you want anything to drink?"

  "No."

  "Do you need to relieve yourself?"

  "No," I lied.

  "In that case, go back to sleep, Katarina," he sounded as though he were smiling. "I promise, tomorrow, everything will be clearer and more pleasant." I panicked when I realized he was walking away from me.

  "Will you stay with me for a while?"

  "Are you afraid to dream again?"

  "I'm not sure if..." It was hard for me to lie and tell him that I wasn’t.

  "I'm sorry, but I'll leave you alone for the rest of the night, Katarina. I know you don’t want me to, but I believe it's important that you see those images again."

  "Do you want me to have a hard time? Would you be happy to hear that my sleep is yet again interrupted by pictures of a beautiful woman lying on the kitchen floor, drenched in her own blood?"

  "Yes."

  "If so, I retract my apologies because your name does suit you." I turned my head away from him. "Have a good night, psycho."

  "Good night to you too, Katarina." I knew I was left there alone, after hearing the door closing behind him.

  I laid my head on the soft pillow and forced myself to remember the last time my sleep had been disturbed by that nightmare.

  "I'm here, Kate, everything is going to be all right. I'm here." I woke up, wrapped in my father's arms. I was about fourteen years old at the time and a heartbreak I experienced brought those damned pictures back.

  "Why, Dad? Why is this happening again?"

  "It's my fault, princess. I should have never let you see that horror movie when you were little.

  "But...but..." Those images, which were so tangible, flashed rapidly through my eyes again. "Why am I not over this, Dad? I've seen scary movies since then and they have not affected me like that one. I don’t want to see it anymore. Make it stop!"

  "It's not real, princess. Repeat after me, it was just a low budget horror movie."

  "It was just a low budget horror movie."

  "Exactly, Kate, these are not nightmares but scenes from a movie you were not supposed to see."

  "Yes, these are just scenes from a movie that I should never have seen," I repeated after him, "and it's all your fault." I got angry that he wasn’t a more responsible parent, knowing that he could have spared me all this sorrow.

  "Exactly," he giggled. "You always feel better after you blame me for the injustices of the world."

  "Well, it just so happens, this time, you're really to blame." I smiled while he held me in his arms. "What were you thinking, Dad?" I exhaled in frustration. "These are just scenes from a movie, a movie I wasn’t supposed to see," I said to myself, releasing a sigh of relief when I calmed down.

  Ten years had passed since that evening. For the past ten years, I hadn’t seen those puddles of blood that frightened me so. Since that night, I hadn't dared to bring myself into a heartbreak, nor did I dare divert right or left from my very constant daily routine.

  My father explained to me that as long as I adhered to a fixed and predictable lifestyle, those images from that movie I wasn’t supposed to see would not haunt my sleep again, but now... Now this psycho had come along and destroyed everything.

  I hated him.

  I was thirsty, hungry, my bladder was about to explode.

  I was afraid to close my eyes again and I simply hated him.

  "Psycho? Psycho are you there?" I whispered quietly, hoping he'd opened and closed the door just to make me think he'd gone out.

  I wanted to find out if he was actually sitting there, looking at me again, but he didn’t answer.

  "You didn’t really leave me alone, did you?" A chilling silence surrounded me. "Psycho? Are you sitting in a corner watching me?" I crossed my fingers, hoping he would answer, but there was no voice and no answer.

  I had no choice but to accept that I was left alone and started trembling with fear.

  Chapter 5

  Andrew

  I wanted to tell her I was there, but I forced my lips together and let the silence terrify her. I saw how frightened she was, I saw how she twisted and turned trying to free herself from the bondage. I saw how she finally cried herself to sleep, which was what I had been waiting for in all along.

  I sat cross-legged and stared at her, as I had done when we were kids. She had always been so focused on every task she did that my presence beside her would dissolve from her consciousness until I was left sitting, just as I sat in that cabin, cross-legged, watching her.

  Within seconds, the memory of that damn night came back and my eyes started to tear up.

  "Katarina," I tried to get her attention, when suddenly she got up in the middle of my sentence, took a drawing pad and a pencil. "Are you even listening to what I'm telling you?"

  "I'm sorry, Andrew, I just have to draw that spider you just told me about, or the memory of it will vanish."

  "Memories cannot be erased so quickly, silly."

  "One day, you'll regret calling me that." She waved the tip of the pencil she was holding in her little hand at me, blowing skillfully on its pointy edge. "Andrew, we both know that when I grow up, I'll be smarter than you."

  "You keep forgetting that when you grow up, I'll be grown up too."

  "So what? I'll keep on growing up."

  "And so will I, Katarina. I will always be older than you."

  "Only by three years."

  "Does that fact up
set you? Do you hate knowing that I'll always be older and wiser than you by three years?" I smiled, very pleased with myself.

  "Age has nothing to do with me being smarter than you, Andrew. Now be quiet." She waved her hand at me dismissively and disappeared into the drawing she started working on.

  "Katarina? Katarina?" I tried my luck a few more times before I just sat down in the darkest, abandoned corner of the room, cross-legged, and gazed at her in admiration.

  I don’t remember how old we were, but we were young children and I spent many hours of my childhood watching her in complete silence, as I had on the night that changed my life.

  She drew and drew until the commotion downstairs brought both of us out of the dream we were living in and into the worst nightmare we could ever imagine. One from which she almost never returned, but I found her.

  She was finally back.

  "I know you're here, psycho." Her grown-up voice was lightyears away from the innocent tone that had made my heart skip a beat as a child, yet her rude, arrogant style had not changed at all.

  "Good job, Katarina. You're very smart."

  "Smarter than you, that's for sure." She waved her finger at me and perhaps she didn’t consciously remember it yet, but Katarina was hidden not so deep inside her.

  "After many years of living in denial, I'm finally ready to admit that that's completely true," I smiled.

  "After many years?" She spoke in English and I didn’t fail to recognize her attempt to extract bits of information about my identity before I was ready to reveal it.

  "Do you know you can greet me with good morning already?" I tried to hint that the next day had begun.

  "Is that so? Is the most horrible night of my life over?"

  "Well, the most horrific night of your life is most definitely over, but we both know it didn’t occur yesterday, Katarina."

  "Psycho, listen to me. You have mistaken me for someone else. I'm not who you think I am, and the things you're trying to make me remember do not provoke anything in me."

  "If you'll let me, I'll show you otherwise, Katarina. If you would just please let me lead you step by step."

  "Wait just one minute," she sat up straight and squirmed in a restless position.

  "What now?" I smiled as she finally understood the hint I'd sent her.

  "It's tomorrow already. English, amigo! Speak English to me, remove the blindfold and, damn it, I need to use the restroom." She seemed to be very angry that her body had failed her and that she required any help on my side.

  "I made a promise and I intend to keep it, Katarina. We will soon transition to the English language you love so much." I stuck to my Spanish and breathed deeply in preparation for the language I assumed would help her recognize me. "But not before you try to remember what your mother tongue is."

  "I was adopted from an orphanage in Costa Rica, psycho. Didn’t you do enough research before you kidnapped me?"

  "It seems difficult for you to answer a question of this kind at the moment. Let me try another question. When did you learn to speak Spanish?"

  "I… I think that…" Her lips pursed as she thought of the answer, but suddenly, her bodily functions made me lose all the progress I'd made. "Nope. Sorry, can’t answer any questions right now." She began bouncing on the bed like a five years old. "I need to pee right this very fucking second, psycho!"

  To tell the truth, I regreted not having helped her to do so before we began the morning talk.

  I had waited to talk to her about her past for so many years and not once in my mind was her answer that she needed to pee.

  It seemed to me that she was so close to understanding that she was never adopted from an orphanage in Costa Rica and had never learned Spanish, but rather spoke it to her parents. However, nature demanded my attention and Katarina's bladder required help to empty.

  For the ten minutes that followed, I refused her repeated requests to untie her hands in order for her to pee on her own.

  "This is not up for debate, Katarina. You can either let me help you or pee yourself on the bed." I put a stop to any further discussion and, finally, she allowed me to accompany her to the restroom and back.

  "You're that scared of me trying to escape?" she murmured as I tightened the knot around her arms and to the headboard again.

  "Katarina," I chuckled with contempt, which I knew would irritate her. "These kind of rhetorical questions are not suitable for you to ask."

  "You rude, obnoxious bastard. How is me trying to escape a rhetorical question? Why? You don’t think I have the courage to try and make a run for it?"

  "You have nowhere to run to and, if you ask me, you also have no reason to try it." I hoped she would agree.

  "Except that you kidnapped me and it's only natural that I’d try to escape."

  "Do you still believe I'm the one that kidnapped you?" I exhaled in frustration. "That's really disappointing."

  "Like I give a shit, psycho. The jig is up," she said, emphasizing every word. "It's morning and you made a few promises. English and blindfold, psycho." I noticed that the curses she had for me were slowly diminishing.

  I took a deep breath before revealing further aspects of my plan to her. I’d known, sooner or later, the blindfold would have to come off so I could remind her who she was but, nevertheless, when the moment arrived, my heartbeat sped up and my head spun with excitement.

  I hoped that I had made enough of an impression on her that when she found out who I really was, she would agree to continue and cooperate with me, which led me to elaborate on my first condition.

  "Katarina, today we start a two-week process, at the end of which you and I will sit on the balcony and talk calmly about our lives."

  "You're delusional."

  "I will now give you the option to ask me three questions and, after that, I will ask you three questions." I ignored her attempt to regain some control over the situation. "I promise that I will answer you honestly, even if I believe that you're not going to like what I say."

  "Blah, blah, blah. All I've heard is blah, blah, blah. Now, please, take off this blindfold and start talking to me in English."

  "Katarina," I continued to ignore her. "Did you hear that I said after I answered your questions, you'll need to answer my questions?"

  "Yeah, yeah," she said dismissively. "Blindfold, English, let's go, right now!"

  "If, after your first answer, I feel that you are being honest and sincere, we will start talking in your beloved English. If you continue like so in your second answer, I will reveal my name to you and, after your third truthful answer, the blindfold will be taken off."

  "Why do you think your name is of any interest to me at all? I already know your name and it fits, psycho."

  "No arguments there," I laughed. "In fact, I have a feeling that even after you know who I am, you'll probably choose to keep calling me that," I chuckled, hoping that would be the case.

  "Let's get this over with, psycho." She sat up and leaned against the wall behind her. "Although, I must admit, you sound as far away from being mentally ill as possible, which makes you no less than simply dumb."

  "Thank you very much for that observation." She could not see the bow I took in her honor.

  "My first question is this," she cleared her throat and immediately went on, "I will assume that you are not really as psycho as it takes to kidnap someone and, if I'm not mistaken and you really don’t have any intention to harm me nor any dreams of getting a ransom for my release, then why the hell am I here?"

  "That’s a great question, Katarina. You're here because you forgot who you are and I couldn’t think of another way to remind you of the past except to keep you away from the present."

  "So we know each other from my past? Were we together in the orphanage?"

  "No," I laughed out loud at her naivety. "We were not together in an orphanage because you were never in an orphanage to begin with."

  "Well, I'm happy to hear that, because your answer only rein
forces the fact that you have kidnaped the wrong girl."

  "Why do you think so?"

  "Because I know for a fact that I was in an orphanage. I saw the certificates my father received when he adopted me, I saw the records stating I was a few months old at the time and, because I have clear and concrete memories from that time, I know for a fact that I am not the Katarina you are looking for."

  "Do you really have memories from the orphanage?" I suddenly realized that my work would be more complex than I thought.

  "Yes."

  "Memories from the advanced age of a few months old?" I presented the problematic nature of her claim and she remained silent for a few seconds.

  I was so happy I’d succeeded in undermining the memories her brilliant mind took for granted. All I needed was to crack the reality she believed in. Not much. Just enough to make her want to look inside and re-think everything with more mature and intelligent eyes.

  "Do you want us to go on to your third question or do you need to stop for a while, Katarina?" I asked in Spanish.

  "My last question relates to something I have been telling you since the beginning," she answered my wondering indirectly. "Tell me, psycho, did you take into account that you could be wrong? Did you leave room for the slight chance that I might not be Katarina?"

  "No," I answered emphatically.

  "God, you make me so angry," she growled at me. "Why are you so fucking sure of that?"

  "Because I made no mistake in identifying you."

  "Well, unfortunately for me, you're definitely a psycho, psycho."

  Funny how our conversations had hardly changed. I hadn’t seen her in over twenty years and, still, every word she spoke made me think things over and redesign the next sentence structure I would venture with in speaking to her.

  "It's my turn to ask you three questions. And remember, only honest answers will progress you to the stages you so long for." I smiled, pleased with my success, as showcased with the full cooperation she had given me.

  "No problem, go ahead, ask me your first question." This time, she remembered to speak in Spanish. In addition to that, she didn’t curse nor called me a psycho. I had hoped to reach that level of conversation with her before she discovered my identity and, having established it, I felt ready to reveal myself.