Page 36 of The Fighter
“I’m sorry, Erika. I don’t mean to judge you.”
“I would never cheat!”
“But then what happened? Were you already pregnant when you married Marcus?”
Erika’s hands flew to her chest. “I can’t believe they let you into the police school. You can’t even do simple math.”
I blinked my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Dina was a year older than Khan, so if I’d been pregnant when I married Marcus it would have been Dina who had a different dad, wouldn’t it?”
Feeling stupid, I moved in my seat. “Did she?”
“Nooo!” The way Erika’s voice rose spoke of her indignation. “I never cheated on my husband.”
“Then what happened?”
“It’s not what you think and it’s not something I wish to talk about.” Her brown eyes were guarded and her lips were forming a thin line.
“Ah, I see.”
“I don’t know what you think you see, but this conversation is making me very uncomfortable.” Erika’s tone was blameful.
“It would be logical to conclude that if you didn’t cheat, you slept with another man with Marcus’s blessing. That’s unusual for Nmen, isn’t it? Was Marcus unable to satisfy you? Is that why he allowed another man to sleep with you?”
Erika looked like she’d sucked on a lemon. “You’re out of your mind. This is the Northlands, Raven, not some twisted sex club in the Motherlands. We don’t jump from one bed partner to the other.” She was speaking fast and with anger. “To think that Marcus would have ever allowed that man to touch me is to taint his memory, and I won’t allow it.” Moving forward in her soft chair, Erika spoke with her lips quivering. “Raven.”
“Yes.”
She stared deep into my eyes. “What I’m about to tell you can never leave this room, do you understand?”
I said nothing, not wanting to explain to her how police work couldn’t be limited like that, but Erika took my silence as acceptance and began telling anyway.
“I was fifteen when I married Marcus, and five weeks before I turned sixteen we had Dina. The country celebrated the birth of a baby girl and when she was two months old Lord Wolf came to see her for himself.”
“Nikolai Wolf – you mean the ruler who Marcus killed?”
“Yes, but this was years before that and Marcus was still an artist. Lord Wolf was the one who had performed our wedding ceremony the previous year and he congratulated Marcus on his amazing fighting skills. We were honored to have such a fine guest and invited him and the two generals he had brought with him to stay for dinner.” Erika wet her lips and fiddled with the large collar of her sweater, her eyes became unfocused as if memories were playing in her mind. “I cooked for them while seeing to Dina, and the men stayed and drank wine and whiskey after dinner. Before they left Lord Wolf asked to see Dina one more time so I brought her in and held her in my arms for him to admire her.” She trailed off, her shoulders sagging and her face sad.
“And then what happened?” I asked to get her to continue.
Imitating a man’s voice, Erika spoke in a deep tone. “‘This baby girl will make a fine bride in fifteen years,’ When Wolf said that we smiled with pride. We even laughed when he told Marcus, ‘Make sure to get Erika pregnant again right away. We need more girls.’” In a soft movement, Erika shook her head and even though she was looking down, I saw her eyes filling with tears. “I can still remember the smirk on his face before he took another gulp of whiskey and said, ‘Maybe I can be of help.’ At first, I gasped and jerked back when his hand slid up my back leg to my behind. Nothing like that had ever happened to me and I wasn’t sure how to react. Marcus read the fear on my face and got up right away.”
My heart sank as I closed my eyes with a bad feeling where this story might go.
“The two generals held Marcus while Wolf pushed me down over the table.”
“But what about baby Dina?” I protested.
With her eyes still glazed over from haunting memories, Erika lifted her arms showing how she had held Dina. “I kept her safe in my arms, but I couldn’t protect myself from… from…him.” The moment she said it, the tears flooded, and her breathing became shallow as Erika’s face twisted in mental pain. “There was nothing either of us could do. Marcus screamed ‘No!’ over and over, but Wolf just laughed and raised up my skirts while telling us that he was doing us an honor and that we should be thanking him. I tried to hold in my tears for Dina’s sake because my baby wouldn’t stop crying. But it hurt so bad, like he was ripping me in two.”
I felt awful for having brought back these dark memories to Erika and wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to say anymore, but it was like she didn’t see me in the room anymore, so consumed was she with reliving her nightmare all those decades ago.
“I’ll never forget his deep panting behind me and the sound of his flesh meeting mine. It felt like endless hours of being sawed in two, and the smell of whiskey hanging in the air… I still can’t stand the smell of it. I couldn’t look at Marcus, couldn’t see his pride as a man being torn from him as Wolf kept grunting that Marcus needed to shut up and be grateful.” Again she imitated the dictator in a deep distorted voice: “‘Can’t you see that she’s enjoying it?’” Erika’s eyes lifted to mine and blinked a few times. “I wasn’t.”
“No, of course not. I’m so sorry, Erika. I thought Nmen were respectful of other men’s wives. How could he do this to you and walk away from it?”
Erika dried her eyes with the backs of her hands. “When Wolf was done, he stayed inside me telling me that he didn’t go through all that work to have me press out his semen. He just stood there, holding on to me, drinking more of his beer and talking about how no one tells the ruler no. It was sickening and there was no one to complain to. No justice for what had been done to me. That’s why that night as Marcus held me in his arms, he promised me that he would find a way to kill Wolf and make him regret touching me.”
