Flaws: Vedmykiv

[9] On Top of the Thugs

EVER SINCE I can remember, I wanted a heroine sort of woman, an Amazon, a warrior priestess. An independent and strong soul, someone who kicks ass, including mine—especially mine. Someone whose compassion, love, and admiration for me would keep her close. Someone who wouldn't abandon me. I wanted a woman who could be as tough as a slap in the face followed by a kick in the groin and topped by a tender caress of the hand capable of healing my soul. I wanted a woman I could fall into. She had to have long hair.

I was infatuated with love. My friend was right. I was obsessed. Love meant withstanding anything, right? But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became to me that I was so afraid of being found defective that I had to seek the unattainable. I wanted to be loved for who I was, in spite of who that was. I wanted to be loved without conditions. Without giving anything back. But even when I was loved, that love was not enough. Just like in religion or politics, fundamentalists, extremists, and purists don't stand a chance. I had to learn to compromise, even if the person I had to compromise with was myself. Why was it so hard?

While I fainted, Oxana called Sasha, and he and a fellow police officer hauled me into a taxi and to a polyclinic on the other side of the town. The nearest hospital was in Donetsk, where the rebels could learn about me, the fastidious reporter who snooped around too much. Taking me to the hospital would have been dangerous. I was glad Oxana took charge.

I regained consciousness shortly after they stuffed me into a wheelchair that squeaked at every turn of its wheels until they stuffed me in a small room of yellowish tiles. Tiles that were as small and cold as the table on which they sat me. The two nurses ran around trying to see what had happened to the foreigner while, at the same time, caring for the patients who looked at me in a mix of discontent and astonishment. I spotted a teenage girl with a swollen neck next to her mother whose face was flat like a clothes iron. Next to them, a couple of indigent babushkas looked at me in disgruntlement. Two men slept. The doctor spoke to Sasha. They chattered in a way that seemed too laid back for me. Unconcerned, as if the man in charge of fixing me had all the time in the world. The nurses stopped running around soon after one placed a blanket on top of me. I looked back at the doctor. My life was in his hands. Was he plotting to let the journalist die? I tried to speak out, but I didn't have the strength. The doctor rested his hand on the tiled wall. They kept chatting. At least he had a white coat. I looked at Oxana. She was next to me, looking. Just looking into my eyes, into my face, into my soul, perhaps trying to understand me. She was calm. There was something new in her eyes as if she knew I would let her down. I wondered how I would have to ask for her forgiveness one day.

The doctor finally came to my table. I wanted to yell at him, curse at him, demand an explanation, and punish him for his disrespect in coming to my aid. Where was his common sense? His sense of duty? I wanted to tell him his country sucked and all the people in it were useless and should be invaded. I wanted to yell at him. I was glad their country was in trouble. But without wasting any more time, he grabbed a gauze pad and padded my wound. 

I only had a scratch.

***

On the lazy hour of a Saturday morning, a few days after the shameful Ilya incident, Oxana and I were in bed. She got up to get ready while I nursed a hangover. Apparently, after the attack, I had demanded to be taken to the hospital. They could have grabbed some band-aids from the school medical kit, but Oxana and Sasha fulfilled my demands to the doctor's astonishment and everybody else's disbelief. For the following days, I was quieter than usual, upset with them, but mostly ashamed. I knew I had made a big fuss out of a little cut. I must have said some nasty words in my hysteria. Hurtful words, they all had tacitly and gracefully decided to forget. I knew I had to let go of Ilya too, but why did she have to lie to me? Clearly, something had happened between the two of them. Most likely before I came into her life. Why lie, then? It's not like I wouldn't have been able to understand, would I? Maybe she knew me better than I knew myself.