Cold and Alone

 

A girl,

Little more than a skeleton in this fallen world, 

Balls herself up in a corner of this small room, 

Freezing, 

Sitting on this concrete, 

In this icy cage, 

An ‘Enemy of the State.’

 

Tears fall from her deep, damaged eyes;

It is incredible that she can still cry. 

She shivers.

She quivers.

She withers.

 

She has always been in pain.

They have all come, 

Again and again and again and again.

They have come

To her

To hurt her,

Their prisoner.

 

She knows why she is here;

This, too, is not her fault.

They do not know the real reason why she is here,

For she had to take the fall

To protect

Her little friend.

 

It is due to her

That her little friend will never know

What they did to her

In this place, 

Where she is so cold and alone.

 

It is better to be in the labor camp

Than to be in this punishment cell.

At least there,

There is some bread to eat, 

And some soup to drink,

And some water to quench your thirst.

Here,

There is barely anything.

The bit of bread and gruel 

Offer her little comfort.

She craves more.

This deprivation 

Has eliminated her palate. 

 

She thinks about what they did to her

Just before they threw her back,

Like a fish not worth keeping, 

In here

And left her

In this room

Of forsaken doom. 

 

She thinks about their relentlessness 

As she was violated

By so many of them,

How they came,

One, another, another,

Over and over and over, 

Again and again and again,

In a line endless to her,

How they thrust their body’s sword,

And other instruments of pain, 

Into those nonexistent spaces

Inside her.

She thinks about their cruelty

As she was beaten

To a half-dead pulp

By their fists and their sticks and their guns,

Until she was left a huddled mass,

Only of flesh and bone,

Outside, 

A bloody mess,

Inside, 

A broken soul.

She thinks about their hatred

As she was kicked 

By their heavy boots, 

As they took turns, 

Going in a circle, 

Around and around and around,

Harming the harmless,

Using her as a human ball.

She thinks about their  brutality 

As she was burned 

By their sizzling cigarettes,

How those flaming torches of wrath

Punctured her ravaged flesh,

How they turned her body 

Into a living ashtray,

A breathing trash heap.

She thinks about their mockery

As she was led

To what she believed was her death,

How they dragged her outside

Into the snow,

And ordered her to stand against the wall,

The wall of death,

For hours on end,

Until she fell down,

Until they were bored,

Until they laughed no more.

She thinks about their shouts

As they abused her,

Who they saw as a thing,

An enemy,

Far from grace.

She thinks about their smiles

As she was tortured,

How they were dripping with spit,

Which they shot at her through their fangs,

Like venom from a snake

She thinks about their words,

As they pounded them 

Into what they thought of as her thick, dumb skull,

That they were ‘teaching her a lesson.’

She thinks about their own wives and children,

What they would think if they knew.

She knows

That they do not see their husbands' transgressions as woes,

But rather,

As dues, 

Deserved for destroying an ‘Enemy of the State.”

 

Yet,

She is barely twelve.

What could she have done against the State,

Against Stalin?

How could she have been a threat,

A little girl, 

Who is a fish in others' net,

Who stumbles under the weight of ‘the norm,’

That quota her little friend so loathes?

 

She thinks about her little friend,

Then her ‘Gulag husband,` 

That vile man, 

Who claimed her as his.

 

She knows

How he hurt her so,

Over and over. 

She can not help her little friend anymore

Because she is gone.

He told her that she was what he wanted,

As long as she was there.

If she left,

Her little friend

Was his.

 

That thought pushes the teetering girl 

Off the edge of despair

Into that terrifying abyss of nothingness.

She flattens herself against this concrete

And sheds bitter tears into its depths.

It has known the sorrow of many

Before she occupied its space.

 

She cries,

And she prays,

Licking her salty tears off this filthy floor,

So that her swollen lips and her enlarged tongue might not thirst anymore.

 

She prays to the God that `Babushka` knew,

The one who said that He would make all things new.

She remembers how `Babushka` said that He was the God of good girls,

How if you were good,

No matter what they did,

He would welcome you with open arms,

And give into your hand no harm.

 

Now,

She weeps in earnest.

She does not yet know 

The God that ‘Babushka’ knew.

She feels that there is no room 

For Him

In this room 

Of forsaken doom.

She feels that she is too used

To ever be made new.

She does not feel good,

Only wretched.

 

He told her 

That no one would want her anymore

After what they knew,

If anyone had ever wanted her,

If anyone still wanted her,

If anyone would ever want her.

 

Once they knew,

They would discard her.

He told her 

That that was what she deserved.

 

She knows no better;

She has no choice but to believe his words,

Uttered in an icy tone,

Through clenched teeth,

As she lied prone

On that bed of planks,

Under his massive, unrelenting frame,

A bird,

Ripped from its nest,

Cast down,

Ground into the earth, 

Under the weight of that enormous tree 

That should have protected her-

A weakened girl 

From the strengthened world.

 

Then, 

In what feels like her final seconds,

She prays a hasty, broken prayer,

Begging for help here or to be taken there.

 

For a few hours,

She does not hear

Anyone or anything

In here.

 

Then,

In the deepest, darkest part of the night,

When free children are given into fright,

She hears a knock at this barred door.

 

She has somehow managed to fall asleep, 

There,

Lying on this concrete,

A frozen wretch,

Her horror bare.

Their rags are no more;

They made sure of that.

 

Someone else is outside this door now

For a reason she does not know.

She hears a key

Turn in this lock.

With fear,

She makes her mind block

Whatever is about to happen.

 

The sound of heavy boots

Echoes in this small room.

She trembles,

Surprised that she has any fear left,

Inside the frail frame of the skeleton

That is her broken body.

 

The uniformed visitor kneels in front of her,

Staring at what he can not comprehend.

The huddled human,

Whose every part is exposed to the world,

Whose countenance is turned down, 

Appears to be the same age as his oldest daughter and her friends.

He temporarily is driven into despair,

But he feels that there is a special reason why he is here and not there.

 

He takes something indescribable out of his coat pocket,

And sets it on this abominable floor.

With all her waning strength and total desperation,

She turns to him.

Her eyes are still down to the ground.

 

What is in front of her can not be.

A glass of water is there,

Seemingly free for the taking.

 

Her hands shoot out automatically to grab it.

However, 

His beat her to it.

Her heart sinks

As she thinks

That this is yet another game,

One they have already played 

Against her

Before.

 

Instead of taking it,

Drinking it  himself, 

Throwing it over her, 

Smashing it on top of her,

And then using it to cut her,

He brings it towards her cracked, broken, split, swollen lips.

In disbelief,

Her enlarged tongue laps it up eagerly.

He coaxes her

To go slower.

 

After the glass is empty,

He leaves,

But soon returns.

 

In his hand,

A bowl of broth awaits.

He sits by her again,

Feeding her spoonful by spoonful,

Like he did with his own children.

 

For the second time,

He leaves,

With this door locked behind.

Yet,

He appears again.

 

This time,

His hand contains a blanket.

He drapes it over the revived skeleton,

And tucks it under her in the creases

Between this floor and her.

 

When his hands touch her,

She shivers.

She quivers.

She starts to wither.

She tries to pull back.

Yet,

Because she is still afraid

Of this seemingly kind stranger,

She automatically tries to lie flat,

And finally makes herself still.

 

He tells her,

With tears in his eyes,

That he will not hurt her,

And will be back before sunrise

To take the blanket away,

Before the morning guard would have a say

In her life.

 

For the first time in a long time,

She is not so freezing and miserable that night.

She sleeps more peacefully,

And wonders if her guardian angel Will ever help her again.

 

In the next few days,

He comes into her squalid cell,

With more gifts for the girl,

Who was in a solitary hell.

 

Later,

Once out of ‘Isolation,’

She would find out what he had done.

 

In the course of his comings and goings,

She spoke about her little friend,

And what her ‘gulag husband’ had promised.

 

In a furious rage,

He went down to where the man labored.

There,

He took the man aside,

Far, far into the goldmine.

 

Later,

They all told her 

That her ‘Gulag husband’

Died in a work accident.

 

However,

Much later,

He alone told her the truth

Of her ‘gulag husband's’ true end.

 

He then enlightened her in another way,

By telling her that they were not all the same,

That not all their wives and children 

Hated the largely innocent.

 

Once they were safer than before,

He kept his name secret from her no more.

She learned his name-

Alexander-

And that he was her new best friend's father.

In return,

She told him her name;

No longer would she simply be called, ‘Little one,"

By one who knew no other name 

To give the little angel of a girl

The only light in such a dark world.

She would come to call him ‘Uncle Saasha,’

And would come to know him as more than simply her guardian angel,

But as a dear friend,

Who would always be there to help,

Who would be there until the bitter end.

 

Once she lived again under her parents' roof,

She would also learn the truth from them- 

That she was still wanted,

That she had always been wanted,

That she would always be wanted

By them

And would never be discarded.

 

She was further informed  by them

That what had happened to her,

That what they had done to her,

Was not something she deserved 

In any way.

She could never have deserved 

Such a horrible fate.

Rather,

There was no real reason for their hate.

 

They hated her 

And almost all the other prisoners 

Because hatred was the primary weapon of the state 

Against those like her ,

Against their ‘society’s misfits,’

Against those who were different,

Against those who did not toe the party line,

Against those who had their own minds

Against those who did nothing at all, 

Aside from living their life.

 

In a twist of bitter irony,

She would also be educated

In the ways of the Soviet union,

That very same society 

That thought of her as unwanted.

 

She would not be known as an ‘Enemy of the State,’

Or as a nameless inmate,

But rather,

As Marika Pavelevna,

a teenager,

And later an older lady,

Who would no longer be weary

For the rest of her many days.

 

She would also learn more about ‘Babushka's’ God,

Her own heavenly father,

A God, 

Who still wanted her,

Who had always wanted her,

Who would always want her,

Who would never discard her.

That,

To be loved,

To be cherished,

To be wanted,

Was what she truly deserved.

She would also learn from Him 

That no one,

Nothing,

Especially her,

Was ever too old or used.

To be made new

In His image..

 

Her heavenly father knew.

That she had done nothing wrong.

That all the others were to blame ,

And that they alone

Deserved all the shame..

 

She would learn and believe all these things,

And one day,

After many decades,

She would at last be free

Of that old society.

 

she would travel to the United States,

To The Land of the Free, 

And The Home of the Brave, 

A land where she would never again

Be seen as a threat

To any government.

 

Instead,

She was a normal lady,

Who cooked and cleaned and cared for children and little babies.

 

That was her life,

A life that was hers,

Not the life

Of a miserable prisoner

In a cold, solitary world,

But rather,

The life of a woman now free,

Filled with closeness and possibility.