The color of the window bothered me. It was too dark. It was more than strange. I did not want to approach the window and take a closer look at it. I did not want to move for fear of making a noise – the floorboards could squeak under my feet.
Time passed, and the room did not get any brighter. A bare light bulb hung from the ceiling. Probably, I could turn the light on, but I was not going to do it. I was not going to do anything to bring the attention of whoever or whatever was behind that door.
It was a small-sized room, like those in many Soviet apartments, maybe 12 feet by 12 feet. It was spare and barren – it didn’t seem like anyone lived there permanently. The wall was covered in nondescript wallpaper – grayish, damaged, scratched and spotted in places. The cheap bed was pushed up against the wall – it was narrow, with a thin wooden headboard and footrest. In the dim light everything looked gray – the sheets, the pillows, the quilt – everything.
I watched the door.
Even in the gloom, I could see the contrast of the dark circle of the built-in lock below the handle. That door separated me from the rest of the world - the world that was now turned into something wrong and pointless, ridiculous and absurd. Totally unnatural, like the sudden death of a newborn child.
I did not want the door to open.
Still, I was thirsty and my bladder had awakened. I couldn’t hold it much longer. The state of the stress blunted the physiological needs of the body and kept them shut off for a while, but that had its limits, too. I was nauseated from hunger, I was thirsty, and I needed to use the bathroom – all at the same time.
I knew what I had to do. I had to stand up, step toward the door, and open it. But I couldn’t do it. I was too scared. The very idea of opening that door flooded my system with adrenaline. My heart started thumping in my chest, and the throbbing in my head seemed like it would crack my skull into pieces. I did not know what I would say when the door opened. And what if it didn’t open? Would I knock on it?
I couldn’t bear it much longer – I needed to go to the bathroom! What if the door never opened and I had to go right here in the room? No! Please! I could not bear the shame...
My bladder was now on the verge of explosion. I had to do something.
Ugh. Why was THIS making me get out of the room, and head into the unknown? Why should I leave my safe room just because of my bladder?
I had sat on the edge of the bed the whole time after I woke up trying to be motionless. Now I hesitantly stood up, and wrapped the weird pink robe around my body, like it could defend me from something. With a pounding heart I moved towards the door. My heartbeat was so loud that it seemed to fill the whole empty room. If a person existed on the other side of that door, he could probably hear my heart, too.
The room behind the door was silent. For a brief moment, I had a new fear – there would be no one there, the door would be locked, I would be stuck in this room, and I would die of a bladder rupture in a pool of my own urine. I pushed the handle down, and indeed the door was locked. But immediately I heard someone behind the door moving towards it. My heart sank into my toes. I felt like I might vomit, if only there were food in my stomach. A key turned in the lock. Each turn of it echoed like a hammer banging on the anvil of my brain.
The door opened.
The first thing I saw was an automatic rifle that hung across a man's chest, with the barrel pointing to the side and the gun’s strap around the man’s thick tree trunk neck. After a moment of shock, I saw the man himself. I could not guess at his age. He was tall, with deep-set eyes on either side of a huge thick beak of a nose. He had dark hair, bushy and unkempt, and his beard was rather short, disheveled, and stuck out in different directions – as if it was made of wire and glued onto his massive chin. His head seemed disproportionately large. His arm rested on the barrel of his rifle, which was strapped on so high, it was almost to his chin. The gun seemed so natural on him it was almost as if he was born with it attached.
I only had one single desire – to get to the bathroom. I couldn’t think about anything else. I was not even afraid of this man – I did not care. He held the door open with one hand. He looked at me without emotion. He was totally calm.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said.
The man said nothing. I knew he understood me, because he jerked his head to the side, indicating the way to the toilet. He took a step back and let me come out, then immediately positioned himself in front of me. So I followed him to the bathroom.
It took no more than five or six steps. First we passed through a bigger room, then down a narrow corridor. In the hallway there were two white painted doors, with dark dirty spots and scratches on them. The door to the left was the kitchen. The door to the right was down a tiny hallway. It was the exit, the way out of here. Although both doors were closed, I knew what lay behind them.
In fact, I knew the layout of such apartments by heart. It was the typical for the ones built during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras of the Soviet Union, and I had been in places like this many times. When I was a teenager, we lived in a small military town, and our apartment was exactly the same.
The man brought me to the bathroom and then stood right behind me. I opened the door and rushed into the long-awaited paradise. The tiny room closed me in, affording me a small sense of privacy. The toilet room was not the cleanest place in the world. It was tiny, maybe three or four feet across. The walls were painted dark green. There was nothing in it except the toilet – not even any toilet paper. The toilet itself was gross, disgusting, like a public toilet at a bus station. There was a dark circle of rust inside the bowl, and yellow spots of urine along the edges. This was a place for men – widely understood to behave like barnyard animals in the absence of women.
Fortunately for me, the toilet still had the seat attached, a small miracle in itself. The seat was still where it belonged, and it was raised. It was probably the same seat that had come with the apartment when it was new – the standard Soviet toilet seat made of yellowish-brownish cork – a very practical color because the dark hue makes it hard to tell how filthy the seat really is. I lowered the seat very fast, trying to minimize the amount of time my fingers spent touching it.
I immediately sat on top of it, and experienced the absolute bliss, the sweet blessed relief caused by the release of my bladder. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t showered in what felt like ages.
I felt so dirty.
The toilet room was separated from the bathroom proper, as in many of the old Soviet-era apartments. I wanted to wash my hands very badly. I wanted to wash my entire body. I pulled up my panties, flushed, and came out. My guard was leaning back against the wall like a statue. His epic bulk blocked the tiny hallway that led to the exit.
“Can I wash my hands?”
He nodded again, this time indicating the next door.
The bathroom was also painted dark green. It contained an old bathtub – someone had messily sealed the edges of it with concrete – a sink with bare pipes, and three strange vessels under it on the floor, probably to catch the water leaking from the bottom. A small rectangular piece of mirror on the wall completed the interior.
I opened the cold water tap and began to greedily drink from the stream, filling my body with life-giving moisture. I drank like someone who had just crawled across a blazing desert, a madwoman, desperate, dehydrated, and parched like the sun-baked ground. After I took in all I could, I brushed my teeth using my finger.
When I looked up, I saw a haggard face in the little piece of mirror. For a moment, I did not know the face as myself. It seemed like the face of an old person, or a witch. There were dark circles under the eyes. It might be smeared mascara from my long-ago night out in the restaurant, or it might be traces of dirt and dust, mingled with exhaustion. My once-shiny blonde hair had turned into a ratty bird's nest. My green eyes seemed to be the only bright spot on a gray and spotted face – those eyes were alert and aware.
I wanted very badly to t
ake a shower, but it felt so weird to be here. I quickly but thoroughly washed my face, then soaked my hair and combed it back with my hands. I washed my underwear and use it as a wet towel for my whole body. I enjoyed every second of this rapid (but luxurious) five minute act. Every day at home I would use gallons of hot water twice a day taking long showers, and I never really appreciated it. But this little cold panty sponge bath brought me joy in a dark place – amazing what a little bit of water will do.
I put my underwear back on, soaking wet. Even so, I felt much better. I felt clean. There was a towel hanging on the twisted heating pipe on the wall. It was a dirty, ratty towel, and I didn’t want to touch it.
When I opened the door, my guard was standing in the same position as before, against the wall. He saw me, he nodded his head again, directing me back to the dark room where I had awakened. That was it, then – I had to go back to the room. I was to be a prisoner inside there.
What if I just tried to run away? I knew the way out. Would he shoot me? I had no idea where I was or what was going on. Maybe I would be released soon.
Anyway, the front door was locked. I knew that much without even touching it. And the man with the gun seemed belligerent towards me. If I tried to run and I got stuck at a locked door, he seemed like the type to tie me up and chain me to the radiator. I had seen exactly that type of thing happen in the movies. I didn’t want to risk it happening to me. Better, now that I was awake, to take my time and think about what to do next.
We headed back toward the small and dark room.
We crossed through the bigger room again. It was much brighter than the one I was in. There was a red patterned rug on the wall and a red sofa against it. Also, there was an old small chest with a trifold mirror attached to it.
It took me just a few seconds to take in all the details of the room. The light and unpleasant color of the room’s wallpaper gave me the impression that this flat was an example of the apartments that were brand new and released to the public in the 1970s or 1980s. Those were not the glory days of Soviet construction.
I remembered from my childhood that as soon as many Soviet families (including ours) got a brand new and free apartment, they began to make major repairs and improvements to it. Certainly, Soviet people appreciated any properties that they got from the government for free, and it was their choice to make a repair or do an improvement. Some people preferred not to bother – like the people who owned this apartment, for example.
Heavy dark drapes hung across the windows, tightened at the edges. Despite this, daylight penetrated into the room. Outside, the world was going on as usual. The sun was shining. Somewhere, people were laughing, and children were playing.
Back inside "my" dark, tiny room, feeling better from having bathed and used the bathroom, I experienced a growing confidence that I would soon be released. I refused to accept what was happening – it was definitely a misunderstanding, a terrible mistake. The strange country, the guard with the big gun, the abduction – it was not the story of my life! I was a free person, an ordinary student. I had never hurt anyone. I just lived my life, enjoying it.
What happened? Why am I here?
I was confused, certainly. But now that I had come to my senses, I was also positive that this situation would not last long, that everything would be clarified, and I would be going home soon.
I was still bothered by that window – no sunlight passed through it – it made everything in the room seem dark and hostile. Finally, I decided – I would take a look and see what was wrong with it. I walked right up to it and experienced a real shock. The window was like something from a scene in a horror movie.
The glass was painted black. The paint was solid, caked on in several layers. And it was not painted on the inside – only the outside was painted, or maybe between the panes. A person on the inside, locked in this room, could not scratch the paint off.
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
What kind of torture room is this? Who paints the windows with black paint?
Along the edges of the glass, the paint was less thick and therefore let some sunlight go through. I began to study it in more detail, trying to see what was outside. The window was surrounded by an old wooden frame that had been painted white long before, and now the paint was peeling off almost everywhere. I could see dark spots of wood underneath.
I attempted to look through the thinner layer of paint, and through the tiny gaps between the painted brush strokes. It was impossible. I could only recognize that the day was sunny, but I couldn’t see anything outside the window – the slits were too small.
I needed to examine the window more closely. To do so, I would have to stand on the thick and wide windowsill. But I did not want to make any noise – I did not want the man to come in and restrain me. I didn’t even want to attract his attention.
Everything in this room was foreign to me. I did not want to grow accustomed to it, or somehow be attached to it or associated with it. I did not want to settle down in it. I did not want to become comfortable there.
Instead, I just sat on the edge of the bed and waited. I had to be ready for the time when I would be rescued. Soon, this would all be over and I would be heading back home. My mom would cook something delicious, as usual. I would forgive Sergey for the argument, and life would be back on track. I would never forget this misunderstanding, of course, but I would remember these few days as a nightmare, something horrible, but temporary, and which passed quickly, like a childhood fever.
I had to remain strong – I would not cry, I would not beg for mercy – I would just wait a day, or maybe two. My mom and Sergey would find a way to pull me out of here. I just had to wait, be patient, be strong, and stay ready to escape.
Soon, the apartment filled with men’s voices. Deep voices, laughing voices, menacing voices – all just on the other side of that locked door. It changed everything for me. I cringed with helpless fear and my heart pounded in my chest – adrenaline pumping through my body once again. Cautiously, I crept to the door and listened – I could not understand a single word they were saying. The voices brought back the painful memories of the darkness, the car, the monstrous people...
I was again in agonizing emotional pain. The foreign language of the men sounded like gibberish, a mad Babel – and I guessed that they were talking about me, saying the most terrifying things. I was not so much afraid that they come in and kill me instantly. That would not be the worst possibility. I was much more afraid to be tortured and abused. I was in panic. My heart was racing, I couldn’t breathe. I nearly gasped for air. This couldn’t be real! It wasn’t happening. I would not believe in it.
I found myself back on the bed. I wrapped the robe around my body, hugged my knees and sat there trying to think. What should I do? I did not know.
Should I break the window to get out and run? I couldn’t. I did not know what was going on behind it. I didn’t even know what floor I was on. What if I broke the window and I was on the fifth floor? Even if it was the first floor, I didn’t know where I was, or where I would run to.
The unknown was everywhere around me. And I was alone, all alone...
Time passed. Behind the gray door and the black window, life seemed to go on. I was completely cut off and isolated from the whole world.
Why?
On the other side of the door there were voices, and there was movement. The men were walking around, laughing out loud, and talking. A sudden sharp turn of the key in the lock made me cower in fear. I held my breath as the door opened. My room became lighter for just a few seconds. In the doorway, a man appeared and put something on the floor. He left quickly, locking the door again behind him. I didn’t have time to ask him anything – but probably I would not have spoken anyway – I was in a complete stupor.
Curiosity and wonderful smell made me creep to the door to see what was on the floor. He left a plate, with a large piece of pita bread. I recognized it right away. It was delicious homemade eastern b
read, which is baked in special ovens. At home, pita bread like that was sold in our local markets. Astrakhan is one of the most diverse cities in southern Russia. There are hundreds of different ethnic groups that inhabit it, with cultural influences ranging from Persian to Chinese.
Next to the bread, there was a glass milk bottle, filled with water or some other clear liquid. The bread had such a delightful smell, and my stomach cramped with hunger at the scent of it. I loved bread like that, even though I ate it very rarely.
As a child, before I was burdened by dieting to look good, I ate the bread by the ton, especially when it was hot – just out of the oven. I remember as a kid, my mother sent me to the store to buy a loaf of bread after school, almost every day. Sometimes I went together with friends from the block. We had to walk for twenty minutes to get to the store. The shop always had freshly baked bread in the evening. Each of us would buy one loaf of the still hot bread, and by the time we returned home, each of us would only have a quarter of it left. We would eat the hot and crisp delicious bread the whole walk back.
How great it was then – in carefree childhood!
Now, locked in the room, I was hungry, but was afraid to touch the food or drink the water. The water reminded me of how I had lost consciousness, and my dreary existence in a near-vegetable state. I suspected that the water or the bread might again be drugged or poisoned. I had to stay conscious and alert for when someone came to rescue me.
The day dragged on slowly.
The room grew darker, night pooling in the corners. On the other side of the door, the voices fell silent for a moment, then resumed again. Someone was talking loudly, very close to the door. My heart ached with fear at the sound of it. But nothing happened. I was forgotten in the damn room.
I was thirsty, but I would not touch water they had brought me. And I wanted to use the bathroom again.
My traitorous body had to shut down and hibernate! I did not want it to continue to demand the fulfillment of its physical needs. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to stay in the room until someone came to rescue me. I didn’t want to ask permission to go to the bathroom again. I’m not a prisoner! I felt humiliated, but my body would not cooperate with me – it wanted to drink, it wanted to eat, it had to go to the bathroom.
Girl, Taken - A True Story of Abduction, Captivity, and Survival Page 3
