I Am Hellen

I lit candles throughout the apartment so I could see if he did come out of a corner. They are good at prosecuting shadows. Then I pulled out a crate and sat there, centre of the room, wary to turn from the door. I must have sat there for hours, and I allowed to think back on the man I had tried so hard to forget.

1938

I'm in a white lace dress my mother had given me a week or so earlier for my 18th birthday. Its collar itches, and I'm convinced it makes my legs look like grasshopper's, but it's the latest fashion and I'm determined to wear it. It's a light April day and we are spending the summer in the southern resorts on the border with Italy. Mother and Stephanie are walking the gardens with the nice Swiss gentlemen, but I've stayed on the porch with my books as he talks too much about plants for my liking. The tall young man at the next table has light suede shoes and is lying stretched back over his chair with his legs kicked out. I'm impressed by his reckless relaxation at a place so vigorously run on manners. He catches me looking and grins, lighting a cigarette with one hand and watches me intently. I smile back and blush, returning to my book. I'm not used to the attention of men. I've been out in society for only a few months. I expect him to have left a minute or so later but I hear the chair opposite me being pulled back, and I am met with two deep grey eyes. He isn't handsome, his lips are too thin and he is as pale as a photograph, but he has a rebellious charm. We talk a little about who I am, if I have a beau. I tell him no. He is English.

I must have fallen asleep because when I wake up, it is very early morning. I turn back to the door but there is no sign anyone has entered. I wonder if I had dreamt the whole thing, but when I wash there are sharp bruises on my stomach and shoulders. I call the office using the phone on the landing as sick. I don't want him finding me walking home again. And my stomach is too sore to bend or kneel, I don't want questions.

He once pressed so hard I lost a baby.

I wash my hands again, trying to cleanse myself of his touch. As I do, I look up at my reflection in the mirror. Why had he let me go? I wonder, as I run my fingers through my hair. Was it to torment me further later? Or had he genuinely began to lose interest in me? Maybe the thrill of finding me was what he was truly chasing. I look carefully at my face. I realised I still looked the same as I had with him. When I first came to Berlin, I had dyed my hair blonde to throw off anyone following me, but as the months had passed I allowed it to go back to its usual dark, thick brown. My eyes were still round and mottled green, but now dark circles had closed in around them. There was no point changing how I looked now. He knew where I was. I could have kicked myself for being so careless.

1938

The Englishman is six years older than me, and is supposed to be getting engaged next winter, but he doesn't care. He says women were to play with, and marriage would soon be seen as a silly conquest. Monogamy didn't exist, only the illusion of it. He plays cards well and cleared my debts of two francs-which I would have gladly given him-for a kiss. He said he didn't want it now and would cash it in later. He did so in the rose gardens that evening, quite at surprise. Mother tried to turn my attentions to the old Swiss gentleman at supper but I would have none of it. The Englishman, Gabriel, was quite angry when I told him and said I should marry him instead, if anyone, as he understood the conventions of a proper marriage. I laughed and told him he was engaged, and I would rather marry the Swiss gentleman than commit bigamy. I meant it playfully but he stormed off. It is gossip he drinks quite a lot.

I spent the day changing the locks with hot wax and paper mache, using the paper from my old photographs and certificates as they were sturdier. I decided to sleep in the attic in case of any further intrusion. I told my land lady, the woman across the hall with the plush drapes, that a man had become obsessed with me at work and she was to reject him if he came to call. She questioned me a little but took it as the truth. I hoped she would not go against my requests, or tell him I lived here. When I got back to my flat, I opened my door to a shock.

A line of words, written in blue ink from my desk, was scrawled across the wallpaper above my bed.

No need to run, rabbit

* * * * *

He's here. I can smell his cologne. Like a frightened animal I turn suddenly, but he's behind the door and it slams in front of me. He doesn't speak, only grabs the lapels of my jacket and pulls me up to the bed, my body sobbing without my permission. He pushes me down on my shoulders and I lie there, not attempting to resist, knowing what will follow, I am limp like a doll as he undoes my buttons, slowly now, savouring the slow reveal of his prey's flesh. My body is cool, freshly clean unlike the whores I know service him, and he delights at the inhalation of soap from my skin, the musk of linen from my clothes.

He doesn't touch me, just undresses me, not saying a word. In his eyes I'm still eighteen, still clean, still pure. I am not ashamed at the visibility of my breasts, only vulnerable, and the fear paralyses me. This is a power game, a display of his control. My stockings fascinate him, and he rolls each down slowly, with a mock tenderness I know is just to intensify the horror of his abuse to come. When I am naked, corpse like on a slab beneath him, he forces me to look at him, pinching my jaw until my eyes meet his. He grabs my hips and with a single knee forces my legs apart, pushing into me with an urgency I had never seen. Ever muscle in me tells me to push him away, force him off my skin, each hair on his arms crowding mine with a curdling level of invasion.

He is still drunk, and the scent of alcohol on his breath sears my lungs and makes my head ache. He moves his hands down, pushing himself deeper, and I feel nothing but the pain of him, my body rejecting him at every pulse, the impossible level of claustrophobia from being entered. He is too strong, too built to hold me down. He pretends to be gentle, but he pinches my thighs and breasts, watching my skin ripple red beneath him with a peculiar level of fascination. Then he looks up with a half smile, his eyes hard, watching me to express my pain. He enjoys every level of his control. He moves faster within me, knowing I am worn raw with his lust, before slowing and pinching or dragging his nails even deeper than before.

Sometimes, rarely, it is about his pleasure. He turns and folds me like a doll in his arms, eyes closed or half closed, mouth open, jaw raised, enjoying me for spurts than leave me screaming in pain. He grabs my hair and pulls me back if I move away, forcing my legs open and squeezing and rubbing my body until I'm so sore I fight for him to move away. When I'm on my knees, it's the worst. I'm totally exposed to him, every inch of his anger and force pushing at his control, and I am unable to push myself away from him, or his brutality. I'm an animal now, and he talks to me as such. He tells me I enjoy it, that I love what he is doing, and I nod limply, knowing disagreement results in more.