A PAINFUL PROMISE

“Listen girl, it will be better for everyone if you just tell us the truth,” the man ordered. “You will tell us what we need to hear sooner or later. Sooner would be the smart choice.”
The man emphasized his statement by squeezing the girl’s wrist as he led her into a room with a bed. He was not an ally but there was no doubt, his words rang true.
“I told you. I don’t know anything,” she pleaded.
The man shook his head and grunted.
“Very well,” he said.
He nodded to another man who was waiting in the room.
“Think you can make her remember?”
The man, wearing a white smock, stared at the girl with disapproving eyes. He picked up a thin, wooden stick from a table and waved it in front of her.
“Do you really want to go through with this?” he asked. “In the end, you know this will all be in vain. You know that, don’t you?”
She bit her lip as he sliced the air with a quick swipe of the stick. The whistle it made sent a shiver up her spine.
“I gave her a chance to talk,” said the first man. “Stupid girl. You will be a lot smarter in a few minutes, though. Let’s do it and be done with it.”
With that, the man shoved her backwards onto the bed, which consisted of just the frame and a bare mattress. Before she understood what was happening, the two of them had bound her wrists in leather cuffs to the frame at the front of the bed.
They moved with such speed. It was clearly not the first time they’d done this.
Just minutes earlier, she’d been almost defiant with their questions. But, that had been an act. As she lay helpless, bound to a bed, the girl could no longer mask her fear.
“Please don’t,” she screamed through tears.
The man with the stick had already removed both of her sneakers and socks and glowered down.
“Tell us what we need to know,” he demanded angrily.
She knew the answer to their question. They knew it, too.
“I can’t … I mean, I don’t know anything. I swear.”
The men placed a wooden box under her calves, elevating her feet. As quickly as they had bound her hands, they secured her feet with leather cuffs around the ankles.
The girl watched as the man brought the stick back over his right shoulder. He bared his teeth as he swung it down. It landed on the soles of her feet.
The pain was like nothing she’d experienced. It jolted through her body like an electrical shock.
The second hit was like an extension of the first. She could feel her body jerk violently although she had no control. All of the air exploded from her lungs. She never knew this sort of pain was possible.
Through watery eyes, the man administering this torture had become just a blur. The wooden stick was no longer discernable. The sharp whistle as it sliced through the air was the only warning of the impending agony.
The hits came in rapid succession. Again. And again. All landed on the bottom of her feet, from the center to the heels.
It was hard to believe all of this was because of bread.
With her twin brother Yuri, she had been sent to town by their parents to purchase bread. Although she was older, by twelve minutes, and taller, Yuri was her protector.
In the poor Eastern European village, every girl needed someone to look after them. Girls were treated as property to be used by men. She was lucky. A lot of girls in the village had been taken advantage of by lustful men.
Not her. Yuri always saw to that. Anytime a boy tried to lift up her dress, he was there with flailing fists.
As they were returning home with the bread, two older boys approached. At first it was thought they wanted the bread, which had cost the rest of their father’s weekly wages.
When one of the boys tried to force his hand into her blouse, she realized what they were really after.
She kicked the boy in his upper thigh, which was not where she was aiming her foot. Yuri then launched himself on top of the boy and was soon at a one-against-two disadvantage.
She sat the bread on the ground and grabbed one of the boys by the back of his shirt and yanked him off her brother. The boy’s fist came so quickly, she didn’t even have a chance to throw up a hand in self-defense.
As she fell backward to the ground, she remembered the anger in Yuri’s eyes. He was like a wild animal, raging completely out of control. It happened so fast. He was on top of the boy with his hands around his neck.
By the time she’d recovered from the boy’s powerful punch to the side of my head, Yuri had choked him to death.
***
“Wake up!”
The man’s scream didn’t shake the girl from her unconscious state. But, the bucket of cold water did as they roused her for another round of torture.
She didn’t know how many hits were administered before she passed out. But, when the girl woke up, the throbbing in her feet was as gut-wrenching as ever.
“You don’t get off that easy, girl,” the man said. “Unless, of course, you want to tell us who killed that boy this morning.”
She shook her head.
“Very well,” he sneered.
She closed her eyes as the stick’s whistle pierced the air.
She’d heard older people in the village speak of the government’s torture methods and how they were worse than death. She never knew what that meant.
But, as she lay bound tightly to a bed, soaking wet from a combination of tears, sweat and water from a toilet in an adjacent bathroom, the girl wished for death. Prayed for it with each agonizing slash to her aching feet.
“It will end soon,” she thought to herself. “With this much pain, death can’t be too far behind.”
She was wrong, of course.
The man’s right arm must’ve been made of rubber because the strikes never weakened. His accuracy never wavered. Again. And again, the stick found its mark, some on the heels but mainly on the arches of her feet.
The electricity had turned to fire, burning intensely from her feet all the way up her legs.
“Oh dear God, why can’t I just die?” she thought to herself.
***
As the girl and her brother ran home after the fight, neither spoke. This was unusual because they talked to each other a lot. He wasn’t like the other boys in the village. Yuri was a thinker. A dreamer. When they were younger, their father came across an old, discarded television. It only worked for a few days but long enough to plant visions in their heads of leaving the village behind.
Military soldiers from England, Russia and even the United States were stationed in the war-torn country. Yuri and his sister had devised a plan to, perhaps, stow away in some of their vehicles and escape. Russia, Germany, they didn’t care where they ended up. They just wanted to get away.
“What do we do?” she asked frantically as they approached their tiny abode. The bread, still warm, was tucked under her arm.
Yuri’s brown eyes were wide and wild. She’d never seen him so afraid. He had good reason. The punishment for murder was death by hanging.
“Just take the bread inside,” he said. “Don’t tell Papa or Momma what happened. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Of course,” she responded. “But, what about you?”
Suddenly, the wildness left his eyes and he smiled.
“We always planned on running away,” he said. “No better time than now.”
In his voice was a resoluteness. It gave her strength and hope.
“I’m going with you,” she said.
“No, Nikola,” he said sternly, placing both hands on her shoulders. “You stay here. I’ll come back for you. I promise.”
They both knew that was a lie. If by some miracle Yuri did escape, there was no way he could ever come back. She also realized he had a better chance of getting away if he was alone. She would only slow him down. After all the times he protected her, letting him make a run for it on his own was the least she could do.
And, the sooner the better.
“I love you,” Nikola blurted.
“I know,” he said with a smile.
***
“Wake yourself up,” the man yelled as the water splashed onto her face. Some of it went up Nikola’s nose, causing her to flail her arms and legs as she gasped for air.
She looked at the foot of the bed and saw a blood stain on the mattress. She thought it was from the wooden stick until she felt something trickle down her arm.
The leather cuffs had dug into the girl’s ankles and wrists, opening up thin slivers.
The main with the stick sighed.
“We don’t want to do this,” he said, almost apologetically.
He took two steps to the side of the bed and leaned over.
“We know it was your brother,” he whispered. “The other boy already told us. Just confirm what everybody already knows and it’ll be over. You might as well do it, girl. This will not end until you do.”
The heat of the man’s voice seared her neck and the back of her ears. She turned her head in his direction but saw only a blur. The ceiling spun wonderfully as she felt herself drifting off again.
The feint whistle hummed in the distance.
The same pain that had so mercifully put Nikola to sleep was now waking her to more agony.
Finally, after two more buckets of water, the interrogator, sat on the bed.
“They can’t find your brother,” he said calmly. “He got away. They’ve given up looking for him.”
He leaned down and stared into the girl’s eyes.
“But, he’s the lucky one. You’re not leaving here without answering our question. We have all night.”
Exhausted, the pain had gone from electric to burning to the feeling of being eaten alive by millions of ants, gnawing at raw flesh. There was a numbness, too, although she didn’t know if that was physical or mental.
“He got away,” the man repeated in a suddenly kind voice. “You can tell us now. Nothing’s going to happen to him. He’s gone.”
As Nikola shook her head, the wooden stick hit its target, a fresh spot just between the heel and the arch of her foot that, somehow, had gone unscathed. Incredibly, the pain of that final blow was more severe than the others, which probably numbered close to sixty.
“Okay,” she gasped just as another whistle started. “Okay, I will tell you.”
The man nodded as his stick-wielding cohort exited the room. He returned shortly with two more men, cloaked in robes.
“Go ahead,” the man said. “Tell them who you saw kill the boy.”
She could see Yuri’s smile in her mind. She could hear his voice.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he had said.
A sharp slap on the girl’s cheek from the man in the robe shook her senses.
“Speak up, girl.”
“It was self-defense,” Nikola blurted out through tears. “They were fighting him first. He had no choice.”
She screamed as the men walked out of the room because she knew, at that moment, they had captured her brother. No one had to tell her. She just knew it.
If she could’ve sucked the words back down her throat she would have. The pain from the torture was pleasant compared to the ache in her heart.
Nikola’s brother was going to die and she was the person who told on him.
***
One of the shows Nikola and her brother watched on the television was filmed in the United States of America. The people were all beautiful with bright smiles. They seemed so happy. Yuri actually giggled at the thought of walking on a beach amongst all of those scantily clad blonde girls, whose chests bounced up and down as they ran.
Nikola playfully tried to cover his eyes with her hands as he watched the girls. He responded with child-like laughter. Although, it wasn’t child-like since they were both children.
Those times seemed a lifetime ago even though they were probably a little more than a year.
It was easy to remember the times they laughed. They didn’t come that often. Living in the middle of a war zone didn’t lend itself to much humor.
Lying in a hospital bed, Nikola forced herself to think of the happy times. The memories were all she had left since Yuri was to be executed in a matter of minutes.
The townsfolk said it was his sister’s testimony that got him convicted. How that testimony was acquired was inconsequential, The cold and bitter truth was, her brother was going to be hanged and her words were what tied the noose around his neck.
How could she have been so weak?
Nikola had not seen her parents since the authorities took her from the house for, what they deemed, questioning. They sent word to the hospital that they didn’t want to see her. She understood. For families in their country, sons were much more precious than daughters.
Momma and Papa were older and were counting on Yuri to work and earn money. That was something girls were not allowed to do. She was sure their love for him was more than just as a provider. But, it was another reason for them to turn their backs on her.
Being responsible for the death of her parents’ son was devastating. Being responsible for the death of her brother and best friend was more than heart-breaking. She could never forgive herself. Ever. Being disowned by her parents was what she deserved.
In fact, she deserved worse.
Although Nikola was no longer strapped onto a bed, she still had the same thoughts racing through her mind.
“With this much pain, death cannot be that far behind.”
***
The bottom of her feet had been beaten so severely, doctors said the nerve endings were damaged beyond repair. For the rest of her life, she’d be reminded of her tortured confession with every miserable step.
That wasn’t what was on her mind, though as they wheeled her into the town for Yuri’s execution. She didn’t ask to come but most of her decisions had been made for her since Yuri’s trial, which lasted less than four minutes.
There was only a smattering of townsfolk gathered. Executions in the village had become about as common as flies around a horse’s tail. Besides, Yuri was a good boy. No one wanted to see him hanged.
Across the street, she could see her Momma and Papa. Papa was still begging for his son’s life. Nikola was pretty sure her mother saw her out of the corner of her eye because she quickly turned her back.
The other boy who had been in the fight, the one who tried to touch her, was there, too. His face was emotionless. He somehow looked younger than he did two days before when he was pawing at her shirt.
Of the people who acknowledged Nikola’s presence, a few seemed sympathetic. The man who sold them the bread patted her on the top of her head. Another man squeezed her shoulder. For the most part, though, people looked at her as if she was the guiltiest person in the village.
It was no secret. Everyone knew how the authorities made her talk. Even if they didn’t, the evidence was sitting in a wheelchair in front of their very eyes. Yet, they cast their critical judgments as if they would’ve handled the situation better.
Nikola wanted to shift her anger toward them but couldn’t. Because they were right.
Her brother would’ve traded his life for hers. The thing was she would’ve done the same for him if that had been an option. If they had just said, “tell us or we’ll kill you.” It would have been the easiest decision of her life.
Her mother’s wail jolted her. She turned to see three men leading Yuri to the execution platform. Without thinking, Nikola tried to stand. It was as if her feet had been amputated. She had no feeling and collapsed to the ground.
“Yuri,” she screamed as she attempted to crawl across the street in his direction.
The nurse quickly pulled her back. With another man’s help, she picked the girl up and dumped her back in the chair.
As his father protested and his mother sobbed, Yuri never averted his eyes from his sister. The clergyman read from the Koran as they placed a noose over his head.
“Yuri,” she yelled. “I’m sorry. I love you, Yuri.”
As the nurse held both of her arms and penned her in the wheelchair, Yuri’s eyes locked onto his sister’s. For an instant, he looked upward before returning his gaze back to her. In his eyes were a serenity she’d never before seen. His lips curled slightly.
“I’ll come back for you,” he mouthed in her direction. “I promise.”
***
The hospital was cold. The people who worked in the hospital were even colder.
As uncomfortable as it was, Nikola was in no hurry to leave because she had no where to go. The doctors said they wouldn’t release her until she was able to walk on her own. Two days after her brother’s execution, she took her first steps since the torture.
There was pain if she put weight on her heels but the balls of her feet were relatively unscathed.
She did not receive a single visitor in those two days. If she had wondered if her parents’ anger would cool, that was her answer.
Nikola thought perhaps her mother would, at least, send her clothes. It wouldn’t have taken much effort. She only owned a couple blouses, two pairs of pants and two dresses. Shoes were less of a concern since her feet had swollen three sizes larger than normal. As it was, she only had the clothes she had been wearing the day of the fight and the flimsy, white hospital gown, which she was not allowed to keep.
Clothes never mattered that much to Nikola. They did to Yuri, though. He always smiled when she wore one of her dresses. He said she was the prettiest girl in the village when she wore a dress.
“The woman I marry,” he told her once, “will wear a different dress every day.”
Nikola always preferred pants. It was hard to run and jump and keep up with Yuri while wearing a dress.
Sometimes he would scowl when his sister emerged from the bedroom wearing trousers, a button-up shirt and brown boots or sneakers.
“You’re a girl,” he would say. “Why do you want to look like a boy?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course. In their village, pretty girls were often targets for sex-starved boys or frustrated old men. Actually, any girl walking around alone would find herself as a victim of some sort sooner or later.
She knew that would soon be her fate. Yuri had protected her for so long. Now, any boy or man who wanted could do anything he desired to her. For all she knew, they could’ve been waiting outside as soon as she left the hospital.
As she prepared to leave, Nikola put on her clothes, which hadn’t been washed. Even four days after the interrogation, the blouse was still damp. The hem of her trousers was stained with dried blood. She slid her feet into the plastic hospital slippers and ventured into an unfamiliar world - a world with no parents and no Yuri.
As the door closed behind her, she walked onto an empty street, which was unusual at midday. The silence was eerie as the sun pierced a bright, blue sky. Having grown up in a war zone, she knew immediately what was coming.
The door to the hospital had locked behind her. As she searched frantically for some sort of refuge, a loud whistle rang out in the distance. It grew louder. And louder.
An explosion shook the hospital and knocked her off her weary feet. As dust and debris flew, she looked down the street at a mass of burning rubble where the village grocery had stood seconds earlier. Moments later, another whistle screeched followed by an explosion.
Alarms blared. A man stumbled out of the grocery’s rubble engulfed in flames. He could’ve been the man who sold them the bread. She didn’t have time to investigate as debris - a mixture of hardened clay, shards of wood and probably human body parts - rained down from the sky.
She had to find cover.
Instinctively, Nikola ran in the direction of her parents’ house. It was all the way at the edge of our village. At first, she thought she might black out from the pain, which flashed through her feet like bolts of lightning. Two steps, maybe two-and-a-half - that’s how long it took her to learn to run on her toes.
As a building exploded behind, she made a head-first dive behind a small hut made of clay with a grass thatch roof. Yuri had told her once that even if a building like this was hit, at least a person wouldn’t be bombarded by wood and glass.
She crawled to the back of the hut away from the street. The explosions had subsided but the popping of gun fire crackled. The sound of boots stomping their way through the village permeated her mind. Her lungs burned from the smoke that filled the air. The stench of fresh death hovered like a dark cloud so thick she could see it and touch it.
Between the dust and the smoke and the debris, she found herself disoriented. In the distance was a house afire. Was it her parents’ house? She didn’t know which direction she was facing. Bullets ripped through the hut, spitting clumps of dried clay into her face. She dropped to her knees, made herself into a tiny ball and prayed.
“I’m ready to join you, Yuri. You promised you’d come back for me. Thank you for not making me wait.”
When Nikola opened her eyes, she was alarmed to see an expressionless face glaring down at her. A familiar face. It was the boy who started the fight when they bought the bread.
She looked into the boy’s eyes and saw nothing. Just a blank stare. He knelt down, grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. He dragged her behind him as he peeked around the corner of the hut.
Would this boy be her salvation? This was the same person who had cost her everything she loved. This was the person who held her life in his hand, the same hand that grabbed at her shirt?
Nikola pondered her choices. Allow herself to be rescued by someone she hated. Or, probably die. She thought of Yuri, eyes wild and wide, fighting to protect her.
The boy had her left hand. In her right hand was a brick. Where the brick came from, she had no idea. She just knew at that moment, she would rather die alone than live another second with this person.
With every ounce of strength she could muster, Nikola swung her right hand and the brick into the back of the boy’s head. The impact of the blow reverberated from her shoulder all the way to her finger tips. In the midst of gun fire and screams and explosions, she could hear clearly the thump of the brick impacting his skull and the thud when he fell face first to the ground.
For the first time in three days, she felt a sense of satisfaction. Nikola knew Yuri would’ve been pleased, perhaps even proud.
She stepped over the boy’s body and peeked around the corner. Body parts were strewn in the street - arms legs, torsos. The smell was almost unbearable. The smoke had an intensity and heat she’d never before felt. In the distance, she saw soldiers, some in jeeps, others on foot, weapons drawn, scanning the area.
“You really think we can do it, Yuri? You don’t think they would catch us?” she had asked hopefully.
He had shrugged and smiled, blue eyes flashing.
“It would be worth a try, don’t you think? Look around us, Nikola. What do we really have to lose?”
The building to her immediate right exploded into a ball of fire, jolting her backward. Through the fresh bullet holes in the wall, she peered through the hut. Almost all of the opposite wall was gone. Between the hut and the street were the smoldering remains of the former occupant.
Approaching in the background, the soldiers were creeping closer.
Yuri had tried to teach her which soldiers were their allies. She could never figure it out, though. All of the uniforms had patches and insignias that meant something different. Yuri had studied them but, to her, they all sort of blurred together.
Nikola had no idea if the armed soldiers were friends or enemies but Yuri’s words echoed in her head.
“What do we really have to lose?”
She leaned her back against the hut and took a few deep breaths. As she prepared to launch herself into the midst of gun fire and burning bodies, she was yanked to the ground from behind by the hair. The force of the fall knocked the air from her lungs. When she opened her eyes, Nikola was horrified to see the boy on top of her, fist clenched and aimed at her face.
He dropped his left knee on top of her right shoulder, penning her arm to the ground. She flailed weakly with her left arm but the punches made no impression on the much larger foe. She watched helplessly as his fist began its descent. She closed my eyes and braced for the blow.
Instead of a punch, it felt like a fallen tree had landed on her. She opened her eyes to darkness, her body penned to the ground. Suddenly, the boy’s body was lifted and thrown to the side like a bag of sand.
“Come on, girl.”
A dark-skinned soldier with a strong, confident face, reached down and grabbed her arm with one hand while he held a smoking rifle in the other. He lifted her up with one swift tug and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
The soldier ran swiftly through the smoke and haze and charred remains before dumping the girl on her back in the bed of some sort of military truck. The man yelled in English words she didn’t understand. She did know what he said next, though.
“Are you Yuri’s sister?”
Nicola nodded yes.
The soldier pointed at her head then pointed toward the bed of the truck. She laid her head down, closed her eyes and prayed she’d done as Yuri would’ve wanted. Some sort of cover was thrown over the truck. A few minutes later, the truck was moving. In what direction, she had no idea.
“Goodbye, Yuri,” she whispered. “I will come back for you. I promise.”